As Above, So Below Read online

  “I look forward to the picture,” said Jonghelinck, counting out the coins for Bruegel’s advance. He bowed and took his leave.

  Ortelius was still watching Williblad Cheroo, who was quite nearby, talking to the landscape artist Herri met de Dies. Williblad’s motions were like poetry, like music. It finally occurred to Ortelius that Fugger’s “cases and cabinets of medals and coins” provided a perfect excuse for him to continue talking with Williblad.

  “Excuse me now,” Ortelius murmured to Bruegel. “I have something more to discuss with Fugger’s secretary.”

  “About the cheap deal that fop gave me?” To Ortelius’s chagrin, Bruegel said this loud enough for Williblad to hear. Although Williblad didn’t turn his head, he stiffened a bit.

  “Don’t be a fool, Peter,” said Ortelius in a low tone. “You’ve done very well today. I have other business with Cheroo.” Williblad had parted with de Bles and was moving towards the stairs.

  Bruegel gave Ortelius a thoughtful look. “Go after him, then. I understand.”

  “Understand what?” demanded Hans Franckert, who’d just appeared.

  “Understand how fat and loud you are,” said Bruegel, dropping his worries and ill-humor. He held up and jingled his little silk purse, plump with new coins. “I’m off to buy some materials now, Hans. Come along and help me carry the oak panels home. A taste of the artist’s life for you.”

  “All right,” said Franckert, lowering himself onto a stool. “And then we’ll celebrate with a few beers. You can pay for once, Peter. But first let me catch my breath for a minute. See you later, Abraham.”

  Ortelius ran and caught up with Williblad Cheroo just as the beguiling half-American reached the street.

  “I understand that Mijnheer Fugger collects medals as well as paintings,” said Ortelius, managing to fall into step with the taller man.

  “He didn’t mean to, but he’s had to accept a number of such miscellaneous objects in lieu of payment for failed Habsburg loans,” said Williblad with a worldly grin. “The high nobles grow ever more unreliable.” His clerkish choice of words made an odd contrast with his exotic New World appearance.

  “Is it possible that Mijnheer Fugger might wish to dispose of some of his holdings?” asked Ortelius. “I collect and deal in medals myself. I would be ravished if you could show me the collection, Williblad.” Ravished? Did he sound like a horrible importuning sodomite?

  “I’m sorry, my good man,” said Williblad, looking straight at Ortelius for the first time. His smile was gone. “Your peasant friend Bruegel never introduced us. What’s your name?”

  “I’m Abraham Ortelius,” he gushed. “And my apologies for Bruegel. The artistic temperament. He’s overexcited today, what with getting his first commissions, and having that maidservant Anja move in with him last night. As for me, I deal in maps, antiques, medals, and coins. Primarily maps, but medals are a great passion of mine. What kinds of things does Mijnheer Fugger have?”

  “Dead things,” said Williblad, seeming to tire of the talk about business. “Tell me this, Abraham, do you have a good map of the Americas? I’d like to try and pick out the place where I was born. It’s in what you call Florida.”

  “I have an excellent map,” said Ortelius. “It incorporates Magellan’s findings as well as Columbus’s. If you like, you can come back to my house with me and I’ll show you the map. It has quite a prominent Florida.”

  Williblad glanced up towards the sun—or rather towards the brightest spot in the low, gray sky. A layer of clouds had blown in from the sea. “I don’t have time right now,” he said. “I’m on my way to meet a lady friend.”

  At the conscious level, Ortelius was relieved. It would be deadly folly to try and repeat his Italian escapades here in his hometown. But he was also disappointed.

  Williblad read Ortelius’s expression, or some of it. “You can come over to Fugger’s this afternoon around teatime,” he offered. “I can show you the medal collection and you can show me your map.”

  “Which of Fugger’s houses do you mean? The one where King Philip is staying?”

  “No, no, I mean his city house. It’s just a block from here. In the Steenhouwerstraat. Handy to the Stock Exchange.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Ortelius felt quite dizzy as he walked home. Though the clouds were low, his soul swooped up through the gray mists, up into the bright blue sky. His thoughts were turned to an old dream: to map Heaven. On the walls of the Schilderspand, all was modeling and fancy, but a map—a map was reality made small, the world in a portable size. What would it be like to fly up and up into the sky, to pass the moon and the planets, to burst though the star-hung sphere of the firmament and to land at the throne of God—to sit with God and to chart what He could see; to draw the map of Heaven? Sometimes Ortelius could almost see the map: logical, clean, orderly, with everything in the proper place. But today his meditation was distracted by the face of God, so close, so very much like Williblad’s.

  At home, Ortelius busied himself with the maps in his workroom. His sister was out for the day, so he was alone with his thoughts of Williblad. As the hours went by, his desire for Williblad became more and more clouded by the fear that he might do something rash.

  In the midafternoon there was a riotous pounding on his door. It was Bruegel and Franckert, drunk. Bruegel’s white shirt had a Britain-shaped beer stain upon it and his floppy hat was askew.

  “We got thrown out of the tavern,” wheezed Franckert, his large face squeezing tight in mirth. “I was trying to teach Peter how to light farts with a candle and somehow—”

  “He set the serving-girl’s dress on fire,” said Bruegel. “I had to pour beer on her to put it out.”

  “Who’s there, Abraham?” It was Ortelius’s mother’s fine, thin voice, calling down the stairs. Though Mother was bedridden, she still tried to run the household from her room on the upper floor.

  “It’s two of my friends,” said Ortelius. “Bruegel the painter and Franckert the trader.”

  “Show Franckert the great desk,” piped Ortelius’s mother. “A trader needs a desk with a lot of drawers in it.”

  “Show Franckert the great tun of beer,” whispered Franckert. “A trader needs several.”

  “You’ve no need of more beer,” said Ortelius, hoping Bruegel wouldn’t think him too prissy. “Here, let’s go where it’s private.” He led them into his study at the back of the house and closed the door. Books lined two of the walls and sat piled upon a long table with feet carved like a great beast’s claws. Beside the table, an elegant pair of globes rested upon matching wooden pedestals, each with six elaborately shaped legs. The globes were a creamy white with beige and brown markings; one of them mapped the earth, the other showed the heavens.

  Another wall was covered with paintings and miniatures from Ortelius’s collection, lit by windows filled with small round panes of greenish glass. Finely worked cabinets of small drawers held Ortelius’s collection of coins; and there were two glassed-in cases to show off his finest medals, seashells, and zoological curiosa. More than a study, this room was Ortelius’s museum. A small fire glowed in a deep fireplace with an embossed panel of iron at the rear to help hold the heat. As always, he felt safe and happy in here.

  “Would you two like some tea?” asked Ortelius.

  “I would,” said Bruegel, blearily rubbing his eyes and flopping down into a soft chair. “I’m quite fuddled.”

  “You’ve already had time to get your supplies and to get so drunk?” wondered Ortelius. “The two oak panels, the linen, the pigments?”

  “It’s easy to buy things when you have money,” said Bruegel deliberately. “The supplier’s not far from Cock’s in any case. How many pots did we drink, Hans?”

  “You had one more than me,” said Franckert, struggling to unwind himself from his tangled cloak. “But I had four more than you.” He staggered and fell down on an antique couch with such force that both legs at one end snapped.
r />   “Damn the man!” exclaimed Ortelius, but Franckert only settled himself the more, sprawling askew on the crushed couch like a large, powerful fish on a cutting board, staring up with his mouth agape.

  “I’m all in,” he sighed, and fell asleep.

  Ortelius noticed that Franckert’s codpiece was quite soaked with urine. “Lets move him onto the floor,” he said to Bruegel. He rolled the carpet aside, and he and Bruegel slid the great merchant off the smashed couch and onto the bare wood floor. Franckert protested, but didn’t open his eyes. And then he began to snore. Bruegel sat back down in his chair.

  “I’ll get the tea,” said Ortelius, and stepped into the kitchen to ask the maid to make up a strong pot. It was almost the time when he’d planned to go to Fugger’s house. He could leave Franckert sleeping on the floor, but what to do about Bruegel?

  Back in the study, Ortelius found Bruegel staring into the glass case next to his chair. “That’s a nice medallion,” said Bruegel, pointing to a large bronze disk, a low relief that memorialized the Dutch man of letters Erasmus. “I like the four-cornered hat.”

  “The medal is by Quentin Metsys,” said Ortelius, always ready to discuss his medals and his books. “I got it in Rotterdam at the same time I bought Erasmus’s In Praise of Folly. Have you ever read it? An ironic catalogue of the mad fancies we’re prey to.”

  “I’d like to see it,” said Bruegel. “Folly being an occupational interest of mine, you might say.” He glanced over, his pale gray eyes frank, and let out a weary chuckle. He no longer seemed so drunk as he had before.

  “I’ll lend you my copy,” said Ortelius, stepping across the room to find it. “Here it is.”

  Bruegel took the proffered volume of Erasmus and tucked the book into an inner pocket of his blue velvet coat. “Folly to piss away my time in taverns,” he said, gazing around the room. The green windows were dimming with the waning of the afternoon light. “I should be getting home to Anja, I suppose. There’s folly for you. God help me.”

  “I’ll be off on an errand myself in half an hour,” said Ortelius, not quite wanting to tell Bruegel where he was bound. “Ah, here comes Helena with our tea. Thank you, Helena. You can set it down here on the table. Don’t worry about the man on the floor, that’s Mijnheer Franckert, much the worse for drink.”

  Though Ortelius had hoped Helena might leave them without comment, he also knew this was too much to expect. Helena had come in from the countryside only last year, and she never missed a chance to milk excitement from the events of big city life.

  “He’s wet himself,” observed Helena. She was a round-faced young woman with curly brown hair. “Begging your pardon, Mijnheer Ortels, if you’re to entertain friends of such low caliber, how’s a girl like me to meet any prospects?” She moved the furniture a bit further from Franckert, then darted a grin at Bruegel.

  “It’s nice to see you, Mijnheer Bruegel,” said Helena. “Did I tell you that I know your friend Anja? She says you’re a wonderful man.” Helena was forever gossiping with the other maids about the city’s supply of unattached men.

  “That’s good to hear,” said Bruegel. “What village are you from?”

  Helena managed to stand there chattering for several minutes before Ortelius could get her to leave the room. She was clearly fascinated by the fact that Bruegel had taken up with a maid.

  “She loves love,” observed Bruegel after Helena left.

  “We all do,” said Ortelius. “Each in our own way.”

  They sipped tea in silence for a minute and Bruegel wandered back to the case of medallions.

  “Oh, look, you’ve got a medal of Diirer right next to your Erasmus!” he said, reading out the inscription. “ ’Albertus Durer Pinctor Germanicus.’ How long and wavy his hair is. I wonder if they’ll ever make a medal of me.” Bruegel slurped at his tea, then looked again into Ortelius’s eyes. “I’m uneasy, Abraham. My good fortune frightens me. What if I can’t really paint?”

  “We know that you can draw. And you did a fine grisaille on the wing of that Mechelen altarpiece. I’ve seen it. Drink down the tea and have another. And then I’m off.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Fugger’s city house,” said Ortelius after a moment’s hesitation. “It’s a block from the Schilderspand.”

  “I know where it is. But why are you going there now? My picture for Fugger’s not even begun.” Bruegel had a way of turning most conversations around to himself.

  “This isn’t about your picture. Williblad—Fugger’s secretary—he said I could come over and look at some medals for my collection.”

  “Let me come too,” said Bruegel unexpectedly. “I’m not ready to face Anja. And I’d like to see Fugger’s Bosch. Even if it is guarded by Williblad Cheroo.” There was more than a little venom in the way he said the name.

  “But—you quarreled with Williblad earlier,” said Ortelius. “I’m quite sure he heard you calling him a fop.”

  “I suppose you want to be alone with him?” said Bruegel. “He’s the older-man type you once mentioned longing for, isn’t he?”

  “You see through me,” admitted Ortelius. “But I’m all too aware that this isn’t Rome. I wouldn’t want to lose my head and—”

  “You undid the effects of my Anger at the Schilderspand,” said Bruegel, pouring himself a second cup of tea. “And now let my steadying presence guard you from Lust at Fugger’s. My head is clearing. If I could wash my face—”

  “Can you promise to be civil?” demanded Ortelius. “If so, I suppose I wouldn’t mind having you along.”

  “I’ll behave,” said Bruegel. “I’ll simply go and sit before the Bosch. It’s a triptych, says Floris. That’ll keep me out of your hair, you can depend upon it. But you’ll gain a bit of steadiness from knowing I’m nearby.”

  “Very well,” said Ortelius. It might even make him seem more interesting to Williblad if he arrived with his mad artist friend along. “You can wash in here.” He showed Bruegel a cabinet that held towels and a basin of water. Bruegel soaked his face and much of his hair, then thoroughly toweled himself off.

  “That gets the stink of the tavern off me. And a third cup of tea, yes. Are we off to Fugger’s now?”

  “Indeed,” said Ortelius, rolling up the map of the New World that he’d selected for Williblad. “You’re not afraid the Bosch will overwhelm you? I still remember how the Sistine Chapel affected de Vos.”

  “Afraid? I’ve known Master Bosch since I was a boy,” said Bruegel, adjusting his clothes. “He’s like a friend.”

  “He was ten years dead when we were born, Peter.”

  “Ah, but he was a student in the s’Hertogenbosch school like me.” Bruegel winked and wagged his finger. “He left his mark. He lingered. Yes, Abraham, in the attics of the school, I came across what must have been some of Master Bosch’s boyhood drawings on the walls. One thing led to another and the priests made me erase them. I got so angry I quit the school. But never mind. I’m talking too much.” He squared himself and felt around in his loose-hanging blue coat. “I’ve a good pen and a bottle of ink, but my paper got spoiled in the tavern. Can you give me a sheet of paper? I’ll want to copy some of the demons from the triptych. Demons now, Anja later.”

  “Here you go,” said Ortelius, handing him two sheets. “I’ll tell Helena to keep an eye on Franckert.” At the sound of his name Franckert muttered and shifted his position.

  “All fat men look alike,” said Bruegel, leaning down to adjust Franckert’s cloak so as to cover more of his bulk. “Perhaps Hans is the divine archetype for them all. It’s soothing to see his slumber, no? Like having a faithful hound curled upon the hearth. Sleep well, dear Hans.”

  It had started to snow again outside, and children were running around yelling. Bruegel had pretty much sobered up. He looked cheerful and animated; he opened his mouth wide to breathe in great draughts of the cold air, and stuck out his tongue to catch the flakes of snow. Ortelius was happy to be with his fr
iend, and happy to be on his way to see the medals and the enchanting Williblad.

  Fugger’s city house was even grander than the one he’d lent to King Philip. It had overhanging ledges with elaborately carved triangular buttresses; the windows were framed in brilliantly painted iron; and there was a huge open courtyard within.

  “I know this house well,” said Bruegel. “Master Coecke worked on this one too. See the frieze of the grapevines and centaurs halfway up the wall? I helped the Master paint that.”

  The doorman went to find Williblad Cheroo. Williblad appeared, wearing a fresh change of clothes—maroon velvet over a striped yellow shirt this time. Although he looked a bit surprised to see Bruegel, he greeted them with a polite offer of food and drink. Ortelius accepted, but Bruegel said he wanted nothing more than to be with Bosch. Bruegel also made a point of confiding that he tended to get hotheaded when he was uneasy, that he was sorry to have gotten angry at Williblad during their negotiation, and that all’s well that ends well. Williblad haughtily shrugged off the apology. Before Bruegel could flare up again, a servant took him off to visit the triptych.

  And then Ortelius was sitting at a table knee-to-knee with the beguiling Williblad Cheroo, snacking on pot cheese, pickled herring, and brown bread from the Fugger kitchen, the food washed down by a caraway-flavored gueuze lager. Displayed on a velvet cushion before them was a shiny medal, one of the prizes of the Fugger collection. And what a medal it was: one of a kind, cast in solid silver, hammered and stamped into exceptionally high relief with crests around its edge, a gift from the city of Nuremberg to the Emperor Charles. The medal had been designed by no less an artist than Albrecht Dürer. Its center held a sharply limned representation of the Emperor. Ortelius craved the medal exceedingly. For the moment he wanted it even more strongly than the naked flesh of Williblad.

  “And look at this one,” said Williblad with a refined snicker. The next medal was a bronze, depicting Danaë and the Shower of Gold. It showed the moment in which, according to the myth, Zeus impregnated Danaë. The image was frankly erotic, with Danaë lying on her back with her legs spread and her skirt pulled up in her hands. She was smiling, and above her was a cloud like a jellyfish, with droplets shooting out of it. “Do you like it?” asked Williblad.