As Above, So Below Read online

  “I trap them,” said old Bengt. “When they’re migrating, my boy and I tie some live pigeons to the ground for bait. We rig up bow nets over the pigeons, you know what they are? No? A bow net is like a tunnel with a bow of wood holding one end open. You have a cord tied to the bow, and you tug the cord to flop the net closed. Now, to make sure the falcons notice the pigeons, you tether a couple of sharp-eyed, noisy birds nearby. Shrikes or crows. We call them the council. When the falcons fly over, the council makes such a shriek that the falcons notice the pigeons. And when we hear the council, we know it’s almost time to pull the cord.”

  “These two are peregrines,” put in William, gesturing at the falcons resting on the men’s gloves. “A mated pair.”

  “One is smaller than the other,” observed Bruegel.

  “The tiercel,” said William. “Falconry’s word for the male. He’s a tiercel because he’s a third less in size. Like me compared to the Regent. Not that we’re mates, thank God.”

  “Margaret’s drunk every night, isn’t she?” said Bruegel. “And she hobbles. She must have gout.” He bobbed his head forward and backward, imitating the way the Regent moved when she walked.

  “A close observer,” said William with a chuckle. “Have you been painting her portrait, then?”

  “After a fashion,” said Bruegel. “In fact it’s done. You didn’t see it; it was the one facing the window.”

  They made their way through the gate in the city wall, with William offhandedly giving the captain of the guard his word not to let Bruegel flee. It was the first time in eight months that Bruegel had been outside the city walls. They crossed the moat and went out into the marshy fields, a group of seven including William, Bruegel, the two Bengts, Grauer, another of William’s guards, and a kennelman with a tan spaniel and a black-and-white pointer named Getrouw. Waf trotted along with the other dogs, stopping often to sniff at things, delighted to be in the fields.

  Bruegel was every bit as thrilled as Waf. It was a day of sun and clouds, the fresh air like perfume in Bruegel’s nose. A flock of tiny meadowlarks swooped up from the ground and perched in the green-budded branches of a chestnut tree. As the others walked on, Bruegel paused to stare up at the larks, rejoicing in the world’s beauty. You could spend a lifetime painting and never come close to the richness of God’s world—all around, all the time, free for any man or woman to see. He’d been cooped up for too long, inventing dream worlds from within a stiff, stupid castle. Now a cluster of brambles caught his eye, the bowed thorny canes eared with the tiniest of exquisite green leaves. What perfection in every detail. His heart swelled with such love for the Earth that he dropped to his knees and kissed the ground. Nobody noticed his actions. He rooted about in the dirt with his fingers for a minute, filled with a sense of pity for himself. How hard he’d been working, and for so long, with never a day in the country. In the distance he heard Waf barking. Tingling with pleasure at his body’s large motions, Bruegel ran across the fields to catch up.

  “How goes your courtship of Mayken Coecke,” the falconer’s son asked Bruegel as he fell back into step. He was a pale-faced lad with a shock of long, dirty hair. “I see her around Brussels. A swift little fish. She’s young for you.”

  “How do you know about me and Mayken?” asked Bruegel, uneasy to hear young Bengt Bots speak of her. The boy was very close to Mayken’s age.

  “Gossip’s the great pastime in any palace,” said the boy. “A maid told me that Mayken and her mother have come to visit you twice. She’s seventeen and you’re—”

  “Thirty-five,” said Bruegel. “Not so old. Next year when Mayken is eighteen—well, we’ll see. I’ve known her all her life, you know. I was her father’s apprentice. I carried her in my arms when I was your age.”

  “Painters have apprentices?” said Bengt. “I’d never thought about it. That’s the way one makes it a career?” Unlike his brown-skinned father, young Bengt was pale skinned. His hair was so fair as to be nearly white, and his eyes were the lightest possible shade of blue.

  “What did you think, then?” said Bruegel, puffing himself up a bit. “Painting’s a subtle craft, a kind of alchemy. We gather up bits of dirt and rock, grind them with egg and oil, saw down a tree for a plank to paint on, and the end result is a magic window into a timeless world.”

  “I like to draw,” said Bengt simply. “I wish I could draw as well as Mayken’s mother. The old Mayken.”

  “You’re certainly well-versed on the Maykens,” said Bruegel, feeling a bit miffed. He wondered if this pale stripling might be a rival. The similarity of Bengt’s age to Mayken’s played upon his persistent fear that the girl would think him too old.

  “They’ve come twice to Prince William’s palace about his wife’s new tapestries,” said young Bengt quite innocently. “The old Mayken is drawing the cartoons and the young Mayken is searching out threads of the right colors. I brought out the falcons for old Mayken to sketch.”

  “She draws well,” agreed Bruegel. To his relief, Bengt’s thoughts seemed not to be focused upon the girl. Even so, he felt a need to assert himself, to crow and to shake out his peacock tail. “But I draw better. You can visit my studio here if you like.”

  By now Mechelen was but a spiky gray blur on the horizon. Their view was filled by a bushy meadow and a great marsh in a bend of the river Dijle. This was more like it. City far, nature near. Again Bruegel hunkered down to touch the ground. Waf trotted over to lick his face. Waf understood.

  “As long as you’ve got him, tie him for now,” the older Bengt told Bruegel. “He might frighten the falcons when I take off the hoods.” Bruegel tethered Waf to a tree. From Waf’s point of view this was quite an injustice. His whines followed Bruegel as he walked off. Bruegel ran back once to reassure the dog, then went out into the meadow with the others.

  The Bengts took the hoods off their falcons. The blackish blue peregrines stared sternly, their eyes large and cold beneath their prominent brows. Their fiercely hooked yellow beaks had little black markings like mustaches. Their breasts and legs were dappled with fawn spots. Pale feathers covered their legs like comfortable pantaloons, but their feet were powerful weapons with long talons.

  The falconers unwrapped the jesses from their gloves and tossed the birds up into the air. The pair circled, feinting at each other and letting out a few metallic hek-ek-ek cries. The tiercel was playful, circling around the larger peregrine and getting her to chase him. Slowly they spiraled upwards with their tiny ankle bells ringing. The bells had slightly different tones, making a clear and plangent sound up in the pale blue sky.

  “Will they come back?” Bruegel wondered. He certainly knew that he wouldn’t come back if Granvelle were only to throw him free.

  “They’ll be high up there circling and waiting,” said young Bengt. “And once we flush some game they’ll drop like stones.”

  The kennelman loosed the pointer Getrouw, and after nosing around the field for a while, Getrouw froze into position by a particular thicket, one paw raised and her nose and tail stretched out. Meanwhile old Bengt Bots stared upwards, gauging the position of his peregrines relative to the wind. When everything seemed right, he made a gesture, and the kennelman sent the other dog, the spaniel, crashing into the thicket to flush the game.

  With a clatter of wings, half a dozen partridges shot out of the bushes. Bruegel shaded his eyes and peered upwards. The peregrines were already plummeting downwards, wings nearly closed, with the tiercel slightly behind. There was a thunk and a puff of feathers, and one of the partridges dropped to the ground. The falcons dug into the air with flexed wings, coming out of their dive. Old Bengt gave a sharp whistle, and he and young Bengt each produced a lure consisting of a dead pigeon at the end of a long cord. They swung the pigeons around their heads, and the falcons glided over, easily catching the lures. The falcons fed for a bit upon the pigeons’ breast meat, taking their pay, and then the falconers withdrew the lures and cast them back up into the sky. Meanwhile the spa
niel brought back the slain partridge.

  “Look it over,” William said, handing Bruegel the dead bird. “Not a mark on it.”

  “How does the falcon kill it?”

  “With this,” said old Bengt puffing out his chest and running his hand along a line down the center of his breast. “Paff! It must be like getting hit by a cannonball.”

  “And it doesn’t hurt the falcon?”

  “Not at all. Look, Getrouw’s at point again. Unleash the spaniel!”

  Again there was a whir of partridge wings and again the peregrines dropped from the sky. This time they each killed a bird, and old Bengt rewarded them by letting them crack open the dead lure-pigeons’ skulls to eat the brains.

  “That’s what they like best,” said young Bengt to Bruegel out of his father’s earshot. “Frankly I find falcons a bit disgusting.” He wiped a bright spot of pigeon blood from the back of his fine, pale hand. Clouds were blowing in from the east, covering the sun.

  Watching a few more cycles of the hunt, Bruegel began to get the queasy feeling he sometimes had—the feeling that everything stood for something else, that the world was God’s great painting, with each figure standing in for some quality or humor, as above so below. His first thought had been to see himself as the falcon and the partridges as paintings. But perhaps the falcons were Granvelle, and Bruegel a partridge. Or was young Mayken the partridge, and Bruegel the heartless predator from the clouds? It seemed particularly apt that a falcon struck its prey with its chest. To kill someone by striking her with your heart.

  It commenced to rain all of a sudden, and they lost sight of the peregrines in the low clouds. Bengt whistled them down, and he and his son slipped the hoods onto them, feeding them bits of pigeon breast all the while. William’s guards loaded some eight or nine dead partridges into a pouch.

  “Now for our heron,” said William. “We’ll work our way down to the river.”

  “Can I fetch Waf now?” asked Bruegel. It pained him to imagine his sole regular companion tethered in the rain.

  “It should be all right,” said old Bengt. “We’ll be flying the falcons right out of the hoods for this last flight, so they won’t have a chance to get spooked. And if your galumphing Waf flushes a heron for us, so much the better. You may have to lead him off when it’s time to lure my falcons back.”

  Waf was so happy to see Bruegel that he put his feet up onto Bruegel’s shoulders and barked into his ear. Waf ran off across the meadow in joyful leaps, catching up with the other dogs. The falconers raised their hooded birds high while Waf romped past. The three dogs disappeared into the rushes, prancing and barking. There was a huge splash, and Waf’s head appeared in the rain-pocked gray water of the river. He was swimming out towards a little sandbar. A minute later he was on it, hugely shaking. He disappeared into some rushes on the far side of the bar.

  “Ready?” said old Bengt, his hand poised over his falcon’s head.

  “Ready,” said young Bengt.

  And then a great blue form came gliding up from the river rushes, a male heron with a six-foot wingspan, Waf beneath him barking. The falconers unhooded their birds and threw them free. The heron saw the falcons coming, and dove down into the shallows of the river. The peregrines circled, but didn’t dare to attack the wise old bird, who stood cocking up his beak at them. Meanwhile the spaniel had flushed another male heron, not so large as the first one. This bird, less cunning, headed towards the men, and the falconers waved their arms to shoo him up into the sky. He disappeared into the low clouds and the falcons followed, crying hek-ek-ek.

  The falcons’ bells rang from the clouds, there was a hoarse screech, and the heron came dropping down like a fallen angel. He landed in a heap, with his neck folded back onto his body, not twenty paces from where Bruegel stood. The dying heron’s wings shuddered a few times. The falcons came gliding down like buzzards, and the Bengts drew them off with the lures.

  Grauer snapped the heron’s neck. “What a fine fowl, eh?” said William the Sly. “Almost like a coat of arms, the way he’s twisted round. They’re quite toothsome, properly roasted, and the liver’s a specific for gout. I’ll present him to Margaret and invite myself for dinner. She should be in her palace by now.”

  On the walk back, William fell into step with Bruegel.

  “Are you planning to draw any more of your lampoons?” asked William. “I’m entirely in favor of them. They give our people strength.”

  “No,” said Bruegel. “Granvelle would recognize my pen. He said that if there were a next time, I’d go to the dungeons, or hang, or take a dagger in the back. It’s bad enough to be exiled to Mechelen.”

  “You could flee right now, if you like,” said William, watching his reaction. “I certainly wouldn’t try to stop you.”

  He throws me into the air, thought Bruegel. Should I fly? But what kind of career could a fugitive hope to lead? Better to stay the course, to follow the path likeliest to end at the four-story brick studio in Brussels.

  “I’m hoping to get Granvelle’s permission to leave,” said Bruegel finally. “So that I can live in peace. Perhaps he’ll grant it tonight, after I hand over my two new pictures. Granvelle gets The Triumph of Death and Margaret gets the other one. I think she expects a court portrait.” That was another reason not to flee. Bruegel had to see Margaret’s reaction to the picture. He chuckled and began imitating Margaret’s graceless, flat-footed walk again.

  “What did you paint?” asked William.

  “You’ll see,” said Bruegel, the laughter tumbling out of him. “Margaret can’t say I’m not delivering full value. It’s a very fine work in the style of Bosch, perhaps not as good as The Triumph of Death, but in any case a masterpiece.”

  “This sounds most diverting,” said William. “All the more reason for me to be in the palace this evening. I’ll be your witness lest Margaret do something rash.”

  “She’s swallowed me, and if I pain her, let her shit me out,” said Bruegel, growing serious again. That was his real plan for freedom. To goad Margaret into sending him away. He’d been here eight months, had made three large paintings for almost no money, and in all fairness it was time for Granvelle to let him go. He and William walked in silence for a while.

  “I happened to mention you to my friend Filips de Hoorne the other day,” said William as they drew near the walls of Mechelen. “He spoke well of you. He said he knew you as a lad, and that it was his father who first recognized your talent.”

  “Graaf Filips de Hoorne!” said Bruegel. “Yes, I was a foundling at his family’s Ooievaarenest estate in the village of Brueghel.” Not for the first time, Bruegel silently wondered if Graaf Filips might be his natural half brother. It seemed unwise to mention this speculation to Prince William, no matter how easy were the Prince’s manners. Nobles had no sympathy for commoners who pretended to their estates. Were Bruegel to press a claim William’s companionability would disappear in a flash.

  “Graaf Filips’s father was exceedingly good to me,” continued Bruegel. “When my foster family threw me out, the old Graaf sent me for three years of schooling with the Brothers of the Common Life in s’Hertogenbosch. The same school that Mercator, Erasmus, and Hieronymus Bosch went to, I’ll have you know. I learned Latin and how to write.”

  “And did they teach you to draw?” asked William.

  “Yes and no,” said Bruegel. “The Brothers frowned upon drawing, particularly of the kind I like to do. So I used to crawl up to a certain high attic to practice; the Brothers were all too fat or old or lazy to get to it—or so I thought. The attic had a window and fine smooth plaster walls that were perfect for drawing upon. I wasn’t the first boy to have drawn on those walls, indeed it was the old drawings that gave me the idea of inscribing my own there. Some of the drawings were by Master Bosch, I’m sure of it. Quite wonderful. Demons and bagpipes and owls—the man loved to draw owls. And there was a great fish lying on its side with smaller fish falling out of its mouth. I later used that for
one of my first engravings. That attic was the best part of my schooling.”

  “Those Bosch drawings would be worth something now,” said William. “I have a triptych by him in my palace, you know. Do you think his drawings are still in that attic?”

  “I know they’re not,” said Bruegel. “The Brothers beat me till I erased them. One day there was a strapping young Brother who followed me up to the attic, and he didn’t like what he saw—I’d covered one whole wall with drawings of my own, including the Brothers as a pack of shitting monkeys. The Brother beat me and I had to whitewash over all the drawings, even the ones by Master Bosch, a terrible loss to cover the Master’s lines. I was so angry about it that I left the school. And this leads us back to the good old Graaf de Hoorne, for it was he who paid the fee for me to become Master Coecke’s apprentice in Antwerp. Did you tell Filips about my new Fall of the Rebel Angels?”

  “Um, that’s your painting in the Wonder Chamber—of the big pile of demons?” said William. Though he did have the ability to see a picture when it was in front of him, most of William’s waking thoughts were about politics. “I failed to mention it. But I told Filips about the lampoons. He said you should pay him a visit sometime. Say, look there, Margaret’s flag is flying from her palace. She’s arrived.”

  Margaret and her retinue had ridden their horses into the front hall of the palace to dismount. The gawky, sour-looking Margaret was just draining a tall stirrup cup of French wine. Margaret’s favorite lady-in-waiting, a fawning little woman named Giulia, was leaning against the Regent’s side, laughing merrily. Some grooms were leading the horses out, with Margaret’s interpreter, Gustav Meerman, calling out Margaret’s instructions in his mannered, high-pitched voice. He was wearing a foppish gold velvet suit with a great ruff collar. Meerman smiled and waved at Bruegel; over the months they’d become friends.

  William the Sly made an extravagant bow and had his second guard carry the heron forward.