As Above, So Below Page 33

  “And you’ll stay with us tonight?” said Ortelius.

  “I’d much prefer that to the lousy tavern,” said Mayken. “And you behave yourself, Williblad. We’ve all heard more than enough nonsense from you.”

  “Agreed,” said Williblad, his voice regaining its vigor. “Forgive me, one and all.”

  “All right, then,” said Bruegel. “Yes, we’ll stay with you, Abraham. Thank you.” They walked on.

  “Let me start afresh,” said Williblad presently. “What I do for Ortelius is that I help him with his trade. I have a way of seeing things that other men overlook. The tracker’s eye. This business with your pictures going to Antwerp, for instance, Peter. I wonder if Granvelle might be behind it? All the way from Rome?”

  “How so?” said Bruegel cautiously. Was Williblad preparing to beard him once again?

  “De Bruyne used to visit the Cardinal at his house in Brussels,” said Cheroo. “And I’ve heard Granvelle mention that the Austrian Habsburgs have a passion for your work. Indeed, the Dulle Griet made so powerful an impression upon them that they engaged Granvelle to send them copies of all your engravings. Mayhap our departed Cardinal has intrigued to get your works away from Jonghelinck and into the city’s hands, so that they can eventually pass to the Archduke. A grateful Antwerp’s gift to its imperial rulers, don’t you see?They’re all thieving bastards.”

  Though Bruegel was somewhat intrigued by Williblad’s theory, he didn’t answer. Certainly it was an interesting thought to imagine that people might be machinating to get control of Jonghelinck’s hoard of paintings by him. But he was too upset by the loss to want to probe the matter today. His stomach was greatly paining him.

  “Just be quiet,” Mayken told Williblad. “Don’t rub salt in Peter’s wound.”

  Ortelius’s new house had a larger study, with a magnificent array of glass cases holding his treasured coins. A big fire crackled in a hearth surmounted by a marble mantelpiece. Bruegel and Mayken sat with Ortelius and Bengt before the fire drinking tea and chatting, with Williblad lolling on the couch with a glass of clove gin. For now Williblad was absorbed in his drinking, staring off into space. Waf fell asleep with his head upon Cheroo’s feet. The dog seemed uncommonly attracted to him. Typical, thought Bruegel wryly. Anja, Mayken, and even Waf liked Cheroo.

  The firelight glinted off the coins in Ortelius’s cases, and on the wall hung his pair of Bruegel paintings: the Two Monkeys from Mechelen and a monochrome grisaille Bruegel had painted just before the Seasons. This was The Death of the Virgin, a detailed contemporary-looking image of Mary on her deathbed surrounded by the spirits of saints and martyrs from every period of history. A pious work, suited to Ortelius’s love for the Church’s finer traditions. Bruegel had expected to sell it to the Brussels Cathedral, in fact Mayken had arranged a commission, but upon seeing the work, the Bishop had rejected it as too strange. The image failed to be a composition that had been painted ten thousand times. Mayken raged to see her man’s work go for nothing, but it had done Bruegel good to paint it. He’d made a gift of it to Ortelius, who’d been quite melancholic over the death of his mother.

  “I love this painting so,” said Ortelius, gazing into it. “In this light, the huddled figures look almost alive. How sweet and humble you’ve made them. And your tones of gray, Peter, for you gray is a color.”

  “I was thinking of our suffering people when I painted it,” said Bruegel. “I’d just heard that three men back in my home village were burnt at the stake. Perhaps the Bishop sensed my sentiments, my unspoken questions about how our land can continue.”

  “Your Seasons are the answer,” said Ortelius. “A fine refreshment from these evil times. It’s an incalculable loss that Jonghelinck lets them slip through his fingers. You’ve caught the whole great world within those panels. A work never to be excelled.” Ortelius stared into the fire for a while, evidently going over the works in his mind. Nobody else spoke. After a time Ortelius looked at Bruegel with a wry smile. “This is like petitioning the Lord on the seventh day,” he said. “But I’m wondering what you’ll paint next?”

  “I think we can get some commissions from Prince William,” said Mayken.

  “It’s back into the anthill,” added Bruegel, feeling weary and bitter. “William delivered himself of a heartfelt warning that I not draw more lampoons, and then he turned around and asked me to paint him some Biblical scenes with anti-Spanish meanings. He’s primed to pay a handsome price, don’t you think, Mayken? His wife, Anna, has heard the same news that Williblad mentioned: that my work is known in the imperial court. Do you think they realize the Dulle Griet shows their cousin Margaret? Perhaps so, perhaps it makes them laugh. In any case, being known at court is the measure by which a petty noble like Princess Anna judges an artist’s worth. Perhaps I’ll take William’s next picture a bit further than I did my Suicide of Saul.” As rapidly as the cosmic harmony of the misappropriated Seasons was fading away for Bruegel, the desire to fight his oppressors was welling back up.

  “Why not a Slaughter of the Innocents?” said Cheroo, suddenly breaking his seeming stupor. “Do you realize that under Philip’s new dispensation they might execute sixty thousand citizens of the Low Lands this coming year?”

  “How do you invent a number like that?” demanded Bengt, who seemed still to be spoiling for a fight with Williblad. “What do you even imagine it means?”

  “I pay attention to your wretched native land’s affairs,” said Williblad tartly. “Viglius van Aytta was in Antwerp the other day, and he told the city council that the Inquisition plans to start ‘saving’ about two hundred men and women a day across the Low Lands. I learned to reckon at the University of Leuven, my rib-kicking little friend, and the way it works is that two hundred executions times three hundred days makes a schedule of some sixty thousands of executions for the year of your almighty Lord, 1566. A slaughter of the innocents, vaster and bloodier than King Herod with the babies.” Cheroo paused and shook his head. “It’s a filthy, bloody book, your Bible. Imagine if you will, my boys, a land with no God and no priests. I was raised in just such an earthly paradise. More’s the pity I had to leave it for Europe’s foul superstitions.”

  “You should go to bed, Williblad,” said Ortelius. “You’re much the worse for drink. Please, Bengt, don’t repeat anything he says.”

  “He speaks against the Bible and God?” said Bengt, his contempt for Williblad tinged with surprise. “I’ve never heard talk like that. Not even from the heretics at the stake.” He regarded Williblad with the expression of a boy teasing a mad dog. “No God, Williblad? Who, then, made the world?”

  “There is no God, and the world made itself,” said Cheroo, draining his glass and slouching back in his chair. “That’s why I like Peter’s Seasons so much. He shows people in landscapes without the burden of any religious flummery.”

  Bruegel was happy to hear a bit more praise, even from this source. With Jonghelinck’s celebration cut so sadly short, he hadn’t gotten nearly enough. But he didn’t quite agree with what Williblad was saying. “Religion’s in those panels, just the same,” said Bruegel. “Nature is God’s body.”

  “And men the lice upon her,” said Cheroo. “Why not leave us vermin out of your next picture entirely? Paint the land alone, and, once you’ve mastered that, paint a landscape with no land at all.”

  “How do you mean?” said Bruegel, smiling a little at Cheroo’s fantasy.

  “Paint something with no human name upon it. Paint a color or a shape or…something that’s not a picture of anything. When I was a boy, there was an elder of our tribe who’d pour out different-colored sands to make wonderful patterns. Sunbursts and stars and whorls and zigzags.” Cheroo’s voice trailed off and his head dropped back against the cushions. He closed his eyes and smiled, perhaps visualizing the designs he described.

  “Paint them yourself, you infidel,” said Bengt. “And good luck finding a patron for your shit smears.” But Cheroo didn’t answer. He’d
fallen asleep.

  “Williblad takes advantage of me because I admire him so,” said Ortelius. “He succumbs to dissipation.” He ran his hands across his face and returned to the topic they’d been talking about before Cheroo’s interruption. “It’s a dreadful thing about your paintings going into storage with the city, Peter.”

  “I’ll paint more,” said Bruegel shortly. This crowning day to his year of work had ended in disappointment and strife. A sudden spasm seized his stomach. He was going to vomit. Not wanting to make too big a mess, he bent over the ash scuttle by the side of the fire and heaved up what seemed like a very large amount of sour, coppery-tasting liquid. Looking watery eyed into the scuttle he could see that it was quite red. At first he thought the color was from Jonghelinck’s wine, but, no, he’d vomited blood.

  Thirteen

  The Beggars

  Antwerp, August 1566

  Ortelius woke well after sunup, naked in his bed with Williblad beside him, the two of them filmed with sweat. It was late August, the air in the bedroom very still and close. Williblad was asleep, a peaceful expression upon the beloved face that was so often twisted in anger or contempt. Williblad had returned from the taverns very late last night, drunk and in a stormy, lustful humor. It had been pleasant work to soothe him.

  The voices of Peter and Mayken floated up from the kitchen, where they were chatting with Helena. They’d arrived yesterday, come to Antwerp to deliver three new paintings to William of Orange, with the inevitable Waf at their heels. William had been in charge of Antwerp since April.

  Ortelius slipped quietly out of bed, sponged himself off at the basin, and pulled on a silk shirt and some linen knee breeches. It was shaping up to be another beastly hot day.

  “Do I hear Bruegel and Mayken?” It was Williblad, his reddened eyes wide open.

  “They arrived after you went out last night,” said Ortelius. “And we were all in bed before you returned. Do you remember how you woke me?” A smile stole across Ortelius’s lips.

  “I can’t fathom the fact that I gave up Mayken to become a sodomist,” said Williblad, his words as harsh as a slap in the face. He was unkind so much of the time. “I don’t think I’ll be staying with you much longer. Abraham.” He rubbed his hands against his temples, ruffling his silvered hair.

  Ortelius was used to this kind of thing from Williblad. Now he was supposed to beg and to say how much he needed Williblad. But today he didn’t feel like it. For the first time it crossed his mind that he could in fact let Williblad go. The thought frightened him. And so he tried to smooth things over. “Please, Williblad. You say that every morning.”

  “Last night I met a woman like myself,” said Williblad, staring abstractly at the wall. “Down by the docks. A fellow prostitute, also spawned by a Great Navigator. Well, not quite a prostitute, a laundress in a brothel. Niay Serrão from the Spice Islands. She says she came to Europe on Magellan’s ship, the same year I arrived on Ponce de Leon’s. She’s as weathered as I, but perhaps we could make a life together. A decent, non-Christian life.”

  This was considerably further than Williblad usually took his morning complaints. Had he really found a woman? Imagining a female in Williblad’s embrace made Ortelius quite ill with jealousy. “Have some elixir,” he said shortly. Ortelius kept a decanter of gin and cloves in his wardrobe. Usually a few drams were enough to dissipate Williblad’s morning melancholy.

  Rather than waiting for any further response from Williblad, Ortelius left his room and started down the hallway. Williblad’s mention of a “decent life” had set him to thinking. Was it truly a sin for Ortelius and Williblad to be living together? Williblad was far from being a prostitute, he was Ortelius’s partner. The philosopher Plato taught that, in the earliest days of creation, humans had been androgynous. Perhaps the division into male and female resulted only from the Original Sin; perhaps androgyny was the true, pre-Adamite “decency.”

  But all this was vain logic chopping. Ortelius was profoundly glad, as he was every morning, that his mother and sister weren’t here to see how he and Willi-blad lived. There’d be no use telling Mother about Plato. She was dead three years now, dear old thing, and his sister, Elisabeth, was married and living with her husband in London.

  Thinking of London sent his mind’s eye flying upwards to look down at the earth from a viewpoint where England and the Low Lands were both visible. Williblad’s unpleasant remarks had jarred him into a loose, speculative state of mind. As he descended the stairs he imagined a viewpoint that flew yet higher and he dreamed—not for the first or last time—of mapping Heaven.

  The new house’s kitchen was a fine big room with a black-and-white tiled floor. Bruegel and Mayken were sitting at a square, wooden table with the morning light shining in from the garden window. A blue-and-white china vase with pink peonies stood on the deep windowsill, a little view of Antwerp upon the side of the vase. How clean and pleasant it all was, how decent.

  “Hello, Abraham,” said Bruegel, who was eating a plate of curdled milk with honey. Bruegel’s face was lined; he’d begun to age. But he wore a smile. “Helena’s balancing my humors. And most skillfully too. Is it true, Helena, that you’ve married?”

  “I finally found the love of my life,” said curly-haired Helena, standing by the shiny copper stove they used for summer cooking. “I just knew the day would come. It was love at first sight.” She giggled deliriously.

  “Where does your Prince have his castle?” asked Bruegel.

  “My man Frans works for the merchant Gilles Hooftman, loading and unloading his ships, and running errands when all the ships are at sea. We have our own rooms at the warehouse. It really is like a castle, Mijnheer Bruegel. And I’m to be a mother soon as well.” She giggled again.

  “Congratulations,” said Bruegel.

  “To be sure,” said Helena, patting her belly. “Oh, I forgot to put some ground nutmeg on your curds, Mijnheer Bruegel. Here we are then.” She bent over his plate.

  “Excellent suggestion,” said Mayken. “Peter needs to eat better and to work less.” She herself was busy eating smoked herring and fried new potatoes, her cheeks smooth and rosy from her night’s sleep. “Good morning, Abraham. Where’s Williblad?” The expected question. Williblad had long since told Ortelius all about his past escapades with Bruegel’s wife.

  “Just rising, I believe. But I warn you, it’s not wise to speak with him too early in the day.” And that was an understatement. How serious had Williblad been about that woman he said he’d met?

  Waf appeared from under the table, wagging his shaggy white tail at the sight of Ortelius. Helena had already equipped the wolfhound with a beef bone, which he held clutched at a rakish angle in his jaws.

  “Helena says there’s to be a great hedge sermon today,” said Bruegel. “A Joachin Moded is preaching.”

  “Ah yes,” said Ortelius, pushing Waf aside and sitting down at the breakfast table. Helena had thoughtfully set out silver forks and some good china with blue roses on it. “Moded of Zwolle. One of the fieriest of the Swiss Calvinists. He started preaching yesterday, and he’s not done yet. I think half the city will go out to see him today. Ten thousand or more. These gatherings aren’t so solemn as one might suppose—they’ve become almost like fairs, wouldn’t you say, Helena? The enterprising Calvinists set up all manner of booths and games around the edges. It’s the kind of thing you might like to draw or paint, Peter. We should go out there for the day.”

  “It’s quite safe?” inquired Mayken. “With our William the Sly in charge of Antwerp, there’s no more fear of heresy trials?”

  “There hasn’t been an execution since the end of March,” said Ortelius, accepting a china cup of coffee from Helena. He prepared to launch into narration. Talking was a good way to keep your mind off your cares. “The Day of the Ill-Burnt. Perhaps you haven’t heard the full story. It was Easter Monday. The Sheriff and the ecclesiastics had prepared a baker’s dozen of convicted heretics to burn at the stake. It st
ruck me as numerically fitting for Eastertide, you know, thirteen heretics to match the thirteen of our Lord and His twelve Apostles. Pythagoras taught that the numbers are even more elemental than the humors, you know. In any case, Williblad and I went to see the grim affair. One stays abreast. The heretics all had shaved heads, and their heads were bloody on top. It seems our executioners have been learning new barbarities from the Spanish, who make a ritual of scraping the scalps of the condemned with broken glass to remove, they say, the chrism oil of baptism. A most unpleasant sight for an Easter Monday.”

  “In Brussels they’ve started using a square on the hill above our house for burnings,” said Bruegel. “Sometimes the wind catches the smoke and it blows right down into our windows. A smell like burnt hair and roast shit. It goes right down to my stomach.”

  “And to think men pretend to do this in Christ’s name,” said Ortelius with a shake of his head. “What savage folly. But, Peter, you haven’t told me enough about how it goes with this unhappy stomach. You put a terrible scare into me this winter when you vomited blood. Last night you said your symptoms have abated? Did you consult a physician?”

  “God forbid,” said Mayken. “We asked one doctor’s opinion and he prescribed salts of mercury! When every painter knows that mercury turns your blood to choler and bile. No, Peter’s been listening to his insides, and they tell told him to eat only sweet and phlegmatic food. Lots of milk. And he’s being more and more careful with his paints. He has Bengt brushing on most of the reds, whites, and yellows.”

  “Enough about my aching gut,” said Bruegel with a sour belch and a wave of his hand. “Tell us more about the Day of the Ill-Burnt.”

  “Thank you, Helena,” said Ortelius, as the maid set his breakfast before him: breakfast rolls with butter, a dish of fresh-picked cherries from his garden, and a single scrambled egg, the meat of the egg in a little mound beside the immaculate, blown-out shell. “Very well, then. On the Day of the Ill-Burnt, one of the condemned women was a thin girl like a peeled stick. She was the lover of a young monk, and the two of them had been found with a copy of Hendrik Niclaes’s book Terra Pacis, dreaming of Love and Peace. As the executioner tied the girl to the stake, she kept screaming that she was afraid of the flames, and her mother ran forward and gave the man a florin so that he’d perform the rude mercy of strangling her before lighting the faggots. But as the executioner turned back towards the girl, a cobblestone struck him square in the back of the skull. It laid him out cold as a cod. And then the stones began flying like potatoes at a drunk peasant harvest festival. Two of the executioners were killed, and the three others resigned their posts on the spot; in fact they helped the crowd cut free the heretics. And the thirteen condemned men and women disappeared down the alleyways like rabbits into the thickets.”