The Color of Vanity

Words by Justin Eells

Art by Ann van der Giessen

Since taking his first steps, Jehan wanted to run. First from his father, whose hands swelled and bile ran hot after long days at the loom, but Jehan had nowhere to run, so he stayed. Before Jehan’s father died, the renowned portraitist Gooris von Vendel took a liking to the man while painting his likeness for a merchant who’d commissioned several portraits of humble tradesmen for his country estate. The painter liked Jehan’s father so much, in fact, that he kept that portrait, which now hung in his backroom next to the closet door, and, after the weaver’s untimely death, Meneer Vendel took Jehan in as apprentice, making him a bedchamber of that same closet. Master Vendel was a stern master, sometimes cruel, but Jehan swallowed his desire to run, accepting his lot as better than vagrancy.

Master Vendel gave young Jehan three rules by which a worthy portraitist must abide:

“First, you must accentuate the subject’s virtues in order to flatter him, while preserving enough of his weakness to retain his manhood. As you see in the likeness of the good Tyco,” Master Vendel gestured to a portrait of a local friar on the studio wall, “I’ve given his chin a stronger demeanor, as to make him the picture of God’s soldier. But I have retained the ungodly droop of his cheeks to show him as still but a man. The mortality of his flesh shows not weakness, but conversely makes his godly aspects more noble.

“Second, you must transform your subject. Show him not as you see him, but as he wishes to see himself. If your subject is a viscount, clothe him in a viscount’s frock, but give him the frown of an earl.

“And third,” Master Vendel said, furrowing his wrinkled brow, “you must avoid purple.”

“Purple? But that’s—”

“The color of vanity! To show your subject as vain is to overshadow his valor.”

“But Master Vendel,” Jehan said, pointing to the portrait that was drying on the easel. “Your Baron Van der Borch wears a purple feather in his cap.”

Vendel raised a finger and raised his voice: “If you paint the likeness of a baron, you must use purple to show his nobility, and you must use it with prudence. But a baron commissions works only from the most masterful of painters. While you are under my tutelage, you are forbidden to use purple.”

* * *

It was in the spring of Jehan’s fifteenth year that he waited until old Master Vendel was asleep in his upstairs chambers and came into the studio to try his hand at a full portrait, bored as he was with the painting of ruffs and chains. It was the day after Cardinal Dover’s visit; the cardinal had traveled from Rome for Church business and commissioned a portrait. Jehan had assisted, as usual, with brushes and pigments. The whole while, Jehan’s eyes snuck glances at the cardinal, his prominent forehead, pointed chin, and eagle nose, the whole face carrying a suggestion of forward movement, which Jehan loved. He envied Master Vendel the privilege of painting such a face.

After Cardinal Dover left, Master Vendel told Jehan the cardinal was too holy a subject for Jehan’s hand, and that Vendel himself would have to add the embroideries to the cardinal’s sleeves. It angered Jehan to be cast aside so callously, so he decided to surprise Vendel with a show of his mastery, something the great painter would be unable to deny. That night, he worked on a wooden board, using the same pigments he had mixed for Master Vendel before Cardinal Dover’s visit, and, without looking at his master’s portrait of the cardinal, painted from the stern face so engrained in his memory.

When Master Vendel came down the stairs the next morning, he was silent for a moment, still under the spell of sleep, and then, when he looked up and his eyes locked on Jehan’s portrait leaning against the wall on a side table, his eyes narrowed and he turned toward his easel, where his own portrait still sat, as if he wasn’t sure if this new portrait was his own work or somebody else’s. Then his face became a sour sneer.

“If the cardinal’s man had seen that, I’d be obliged to beat you. Get it out of here, and don’t ever do that again.”

Jehan brought his portrait to the backroom, where Master Vendel seldom went, and propped it up on a table behind some candlesticks, where it remained.

* * *

One evening in the spring of Jehan’s sixteenth year, Master Vendel spoke to him before retiring to his quarters: “Tomorrow a man of great importance will call. He is known throughout the continent as a great patron of portraiture, and his patronage here could bring us great fortune. I do not know what will become of you, boy, but I must make an impression on this man, Lord Hertwig of Rendon. So you are to stay in your quarters tomorrow until he leaves.”

“But who will mix your pigments?”

“Boy, you will mix them before he arrives and then be unseen. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Master Vendel.”

So Jehan stayed in the backroom and sat at a table with his sketchbook imagining this Lord Hertwig, this great patron of the arts, sketching him in charcoal with a barrel chest and stately beard, a majestic cape sitting on broad shoulders. He sketched him again as an older man, leaning on an elegant cane, decades of wisdom weighing on his kinked form. He sketched Lord Hertwig as a warrior, and then as a philosopher, and a statesman, all while listening to the low rumble of voices, just able to hear the long drawl of Lord Hertwig, but not his words. It wasn’t until near evening when he heard the voice approaching, and a few distinct words, “your little place,” and the door opened, and there he was in his long, purple-velvet coat and matching cap, with a swollen gut and red face. The baron surveyed the backroom, the shelves and stacks of wood board, the bottles of oil and pigment powders, the brines and the basket of eggs that sat beside the back door. He scrunched his lips and nose, presumably at the astringent smell of egg-rot and ochre, and then he stopped, the same way Master Vendel had a year before, on Jehan’s likeness of Cardinal Dover.

“I know this man,” Lord Hertwig said in a stately tone, as if making an official proclamation. “A dear friend of my father. Gave me a rosary set when I was a boy. Who rendered this visage? It is so much like him I want to embrace it.”

Jehan opened his mouth to speak, but Master Vendel broke in: “It is but an exercise. It is a trifle.”

“Nonsense!” Lord Hertwig said. “This is Cardinal Dover in the flesh. When did he sit for this?”

“He did not,” Vendel said. “He sat for a portrait, and the boy copied it. As an exercise. The long, arduous road to mastery.”

“The boy?” Hertwig gasped, turning to lay eyes on Jehan. “How much for this portrait? Thirty gulden?”

“No, that’s too much, Your Lordship.”

“Forty then! Fifty?”

“Your Lordship, you may have it for nothing. It is worthless.”

“Very well then. Perhaps I’ll take the boy off your hands too,” Hertwig chuckled. “I will pay you a princely sum. For your own rendering of me, of course. I will return in a week’s time for my portrait. And for my dear cardinal.”

“Very well, Your Lordship.”

After the baron left, Master Vendel wrapped the cardinal portrait in cloth and took it with him up to his chambers. In the days preceding Lord Hertwig’s return, Vendel ordered Jehan to clean the front and back rooms and, on the day of His Lordship’s return, to bathe and dress in a green tunic and white breeches which seemed to have appeared overnight.

When Lord Hertwig entered, he chuckled. “I see you’ve dressed for the occasion. Is your master so eager to discard you, my boy?”

“Now, your Lordship,” Vendel said, “I do not believe my boy had ever met a baron before your visit a week ago, and he was rather embarrassed to have been caught in such slovenly garb.”

“Nonsense,” Hertwig said. “Boy, you will paint my likeness.”

“I … Your Lordship,” Jehan stammered, and made to fetch a pallet.

“Not here,” Hertwig said. “You will come with me to Chateau Geneve. Now, Meneer Vendel, what have we decided is our price?” Hertwig reached into his cape and pulled two large leather purses from his belt and threw them on the table. “Go ahead. Look inside.”

Vendel’s breath sputtered when he looked inside. Whatever was in those purses was enough for him to abandon whatever paternal duty he still felt and part with Jehan, who gathered up his sketches and meager effects, glanced at his father’s sallow portrait once more, walked out past Master Vendel, and followed Lord Hertwig to his carriage to start his new life as a baron’s portraitist at Rendon.

* * *

When Jehan first strode down the south corridor of Chateau Geneve, he was amazed by the tiny blue tiles that covered the floor and the elaborately stained windows, and by the abundance of Lord Hertwig, portraits covering every wall. Lord Hertwig on a horse with a warrior’s physique and a hunting bow; Lord Hertwig standing in a field of sheep; Lord Hertwig holding a silver goblet in the air. The baron seemed to have commissioned every painter on the continent, they were so abundant. Jehan’s gut hardened as he realized his portraits would be held up against all these others.

Miss Ana, the housekeeper, showed Jehan to his chambers in the east wing, adjacent to the servants’ quarters. He had a bedchamber, a small studio, and a closet full of supplies: boards, brushes, oils and pigments. “If you need anything more, we can send for it. Meals are served in the servants’ quarters, and you are welcome to join us. But His Lordship wants you to join him and Lady Cateline for dinner tonight.”

* * *

Ludwig Hertwig, Lord Baron of Rendon, wore a pink leather tunic with a purple lace collar to the dinner table, and billowing yellow pantaloons. On his head he wore a purple velvet cap with a pink ostrich feather, and his tumid face was already flush with drink. He sat at the head of the table, and a pale, plump lady sat to one side of him in a long white dress held tight by a green garter strung with black lace.

“My boy,” Hertwig said, gesturing to the chair across from the lady, “please join me and my lady Cateline.”

Jehan bowed slightly and took a seat, and Lord Hertwig picked up the big ceramic jug and poured some wine into a silver cup for him. “Tonight we drink,” Hertwig said, “and tomorrow we set our sights on heaven.”

“My lord,” Lady Cateline said, “will you be joining me in my chambers tonight?”

Lord Hertwig cleared his throat. “My lady. There is much to be done. I must review the books, and I still have to give the boy a tour of the grounds.”

Lady Cateline sucked her lips.

“My boy, tell us about your craft. Your portrait of the cardinal breathes with life. But he looks the same in that portrait as he did when I saw him last, nearly twenty years ago. Certainly he is older now.”

“Well, yes. He is older. But his face has a certain quality that lends itself to youth. An almost magical quality. It is a remarkable face. I could paint it all over again now if you desired.”

“That won’t be necessary. But I will have you paint my likeness, and I will have you imagine what my … magic qualities might be.”

A servant brought out a large steaming goose on a platter and set it before the baron, who tore off a leg. “Have at it, boy,” he said through a mouthful of meat. “You must eat!”

After dinner, a young maidservant with buttery hair and an angled face came to attend Lady Cateline. Jehan caught her eye for a moment and saw the slightest hint of a smile before she assisted the lady out of her chair.

* * *

One morning, while Lord Hertwig slept late, Jehan was sitting in the hall off the larder under a curious painting of Hertwig offering an armful of wheat to a gray-clad peasant, sketching the young maidservant’s high cheekbones, dour lip, and heavy eyelids. He was so entranced by this unfathomable face that he did not hear the footfalls and was jolted by the proximity of Miss Ana’s voice: “If His Lordship catches you, he’ll have you chased off the estate by a pack of dogs.”

“Oh,” Jehan said, turning his parchment down on the bench. “I did not realize His Lordship …”

“He’s no more interest in the girl than he does his own wife. And as such, he’s no interest in sketches of the girl. He’s hired you to paint his likeness, and here you are following the dictates of your little loins. I suggest you keep your eyes off Yolanda. She’s plenty to do already.”

* * *

Jehan’s first portrait of Hertwig was hung in the south corridor a fortnight later, depicting the baron holding a spear, dressed in white sport capris and a black tunic with wolfish eyes staring out of the canvas as if at a hunted beast. His Lordship was so pleased he told Jehan to take a day for revelry.

On that day, Jehan sat in the anteroom off the dining hall with his sketchbook, hoping to encounter Yolanda as she passed when Lady Cateline took her midday meal. He sat on a stool facing the doorway, sketching Yolanda’s face and the short outline of her body. He heard footsteps and a gasp and looked up.

“Yolanda,” he said.

“My god, I thought you were a ghost,” she said, her slight accent reminding him of the IJmeer’s gentle waves. “How are you not with His Lordship?”

“He gave me the day because he was so pleased with my likeness of him. Did you not see it? In the south corridor.”

“Oh, no, I never venture into the south corridor. No reason to. What are you drawing in here?”

“What, this? Just some doodles,” he said, showing her the sketchbook, which featured a charcoal rendition of Yolanda in a dress sweeping to one side in the wind.

“My,” she said. She seemed out of breath, as if the sketch had taken her aback.

“Do you like it?”

“You flatter me. It’s beautiful.” She had a sheen in her eyes.

“I’ll paint you on my next free day. I’ll paint you in a long, flowing dress.”

“No need for that. What would you do with such a thing? Can’t display it here. His Lordship would have your head on a pike.”

“Then perhaps it can be our little secret.”

“Yes, and this, too,” she said, gesturing to the sketch. “His Lordship wouldn’t like his portraitist sketching the servants.” Jehan loved the way she referred to him as “his portraitist,” and the way she enunciated that word.

“Well then,” he said, rising. “This is our little secret. I hope I can trust you.”

She smiled. “You can. You seem like a nice boy.”

“And you a nice lady. Let us seal our trust.”

She laughed. “Seal our trust?”

“With a kiss.”

She laughed more, as if he’d told an uproarious joke, and then looked both ways down the corridor and shrugged. “Very well.” She kissed beneath his eye, gave him another smile and departed down the corridor, laughing to herself.

* * *

Three moons later, Jehan stood before his easel in the veranda chamber, the lake’s autumn breeze carrying a soupy aroma of sycamore and lake-rot through the open veranda door. On a purple velvet couch, Lord Hertwig leaned his head on one hand, gripping a silver goblet with the other. Jehan was transforming the drunken slouch-about into a warrior. Yolanda had told him the secret, known by all the servants but alluded to only in closed rooms and hushed tones, of His Lordship’s cowardice as a wound to his pride. Lord Hertwig was seventeen when, at the Battle of Dornach alongside his father, he did not follow his father’s call to charge, and instead sat on his horse and watched his father’s troops dispatch Maximilian’s army. Remembering Master Vendel’s principle of painting the subject as he wishes to see himself, Jehan decided to paint him clad in the suit of armor that stood in the great hall beside the hearth and bore the Hertwig family’s coat of arms. The light of God in the painting illuminated the baron’s golden hair, and his eyes shone like clear springs under His divine light.

Jehan had been losing sleep of late over what would become of him. He sensed his welcome at Chateau Geneve would soon come to an end, having finished several portraits, and Lord Hertwig seemingly growing bored with him and his work. Jehan’s conversing was not to Hertwig’s standard, and he’d already finished four portraits of the baron. Now he was painting the fifth on a much larger board, something that would dominate a wall. He believed Hertwig would be overcome with feeling when he finally saw the painting, and he was wagering that it would be a feeling of joy, of pride, of love. If it were a rottener feeling, Jehan could be in danger—Lord Hertwig was brutish in his temper—but if he were taken with the painting, it might buy Jehan time, at least through winter. He longed to leave this place, to be away from this loathsome lord and his pustules and foul temper, away from the duty to flatter his pocked skin and listen to him stammer embellished stories of beasts he’d slain in his youth. But he didn’t want to leave in winter—or without Yolanda.

Yolanda had told Jehan stories of the artists who had lived at Chateau Geneve before. One young man, the one who’d painted the baron releasing a dove into the air, had been in his good graces until one night, after a bilious quarrel with Lady Cateline, Hertwig had the boy sent off into the forest, his arms bound up in chains. Another His Lordship sent fleeing on foot while Hertwig and some visiting friends shot arrows at him from the east tower. One summer day, he threw a banquet in the courtyard, invited the whole village, and served a stew that the cook swears contained the meat of a friend who’d turned enemy overnight.

Hertwig had not spoken a word since his cup had last been filled, which meant he would soon finish his cup and retire to the dining hall where he would dine with Lady Cateline and drink more wine. Jehan dabbed tiny gray flecks onto the eyes to make them shine brighter and added luster to a tuft of hair, until he saw motion and looked to see the baron sitting up, tilting his head to the ceiling, and upending his goblet.

“Boy, it is time.” It startled Jehan to hear the baron speak instead of his usual muttered farewell. “You have been working on this one for nearly a moon, and that is an unusual span of time. Our friend Cardinal Dover is coming to visit in a fortnight. I have not seen him in a great while, but it seems we may still be good friends. I believe he may be pope soon, if my liver speaks truth, and I believe he may decide to winter with us. We will hang this portrait in the great hall before he arrives.”

“But, my lord, is not the one of you in your tiger-skin tunic in the great hall?”

“I was never fond of that one, although my lady was quite taken with it. Besides, the boy who made it fell in the lake. So we’ll put yours there in its stead.”

He reached back and held his cup out until a manservant appeared and took it from him. Then he rose and exited the chamber, whistling some jarring tune. As the hideous whistling faded, Jehan again summoned the lofty face of Cardinal Dover to his mind and realized what he must do.

* * *

At dawn, a tap on the door. Then, the watery sound of Yolanda’s voice made Jehan’s gut leap. He’d been standing at the spare easel all night in his bedchamber, working furiously from his memory of the cardinal. He opened the door, glanced down the corridor, and pulled Yolanda into his arms. She laughed and brushed him off.

“I’m needed in my lady’s chambers. But I’m to tell you His Lordship will not be joining you in the veranda room today, as he is hunting.”

“Very well, I can paint as well without him there.”

Yolanda’s eyes were looking behind Jehan, at the easel facing the wall. “This one’s much smaller than the one in the veranda room, is it not?” she said.

Jehan’s chest fluttered. He hadn’t decided when he would tell Yolanda of his plan, but it seemed she’d decided for him. “Soon we will have our way out,” he said. “Cardinal Dover will be our ticket to Rome, and there we will no longer have to hide our love. We will be free.”

“What, my sprout?”

He took her hand and led her around the easel. There she stood and stared at the portrait for a moment before speaking: “What is this? Pope Julius?”

“No,” Jehan said. “Pope Dover.”

She tilted her head, thought for a moment, and gasped. “Jehan, I think this should not be seen.”

“I’ll show it to the cardinal. His Lordship said he’ll be pope soon.”

“His Lordship is a tedious man. He says many things, but you can’t go painting all his fantasies or it might bring trouble.”

“The cardinal will be pleased with it, and he’ll take us to Rome, just as His Lordship took me here.”

“I must to my lady’s chamber. Please don’t speak of this.”

He kissed Yolanda’s cheek, and she exited the chamber.

* * *

When Lord Hertwig’s swollen form appeared in the veranda room doorway one morning, a chill came over Jehan. Lady Cateline entered behind him, followed by some servants.

“It is time, boy,” Lord Hertwig said. “The good cardinal’s carriage was seen this morning on the mountain pass and will arrive before sundown, God willing. I’d like to have us drink wine under the gaze of my heroic new likeness. Let’s see it.”

Jehan obediently stepped aside, and the baron came around the easel to look while Lady Cateline watched him.

“You must view it from across the room to allow its full glory,” Jehan said.

The Lord stroked his beard. “You’ve taken liberties, boy.”

“I wanted to show you in your full, battle-worn glow, my lord. Mightiness and godliness in one vessel.”

“I never fought a battle.”

Lady Cateline emitted a high-pitched giggle.

“It is symbolic, Your Lordship. You carry the sword and shield for your people. See how God’s light reflects off the blade and glistens in your eyes. You are a warrior in the greatest battle of all, the battle against darkness, and you have led this village heroically. You are the sword and the armor that protects this fief.”

The Lord nodded, eyes narrowed. “Yes, hang it in the great hall,” he said, motioning to the two manservants standing beside his wife, who was covering her mouth, barely suppressing titters. The manservants lifted the painting and hauled it into the corridor.

“Boy, you are not to enter the west wing unless called for,” Hertwig said, and strutted off behind the servants.

* * *

Later that night, Yolanda came to his bedchamber to inquire, and the two of them sat on the bed, Pope Dover’s portrait staring at the wall beside them.

“He seemed less than taken with it,” Jehan said, “but ultimately accepted it.”

“He’s a sour man, still a boy at heart, but with a castle at his hands. He’ll be in the ground by forty.”

“What makes you so wise?”

“I served for Cesane in the north, and before that for Lord Merian. Both sour little men with little taste but for wine, fucking, and hunting. All ended the same. Seems I have a type.”

Jehan wondered how she could have served so many masters. He’d never asked her age, always assumed her to be close to his own, but she sometimes gave the impression of a secret part of her, years she’d lived but hid under her skin.

“Let’s go,” he said, taking her hand.

She snickered. “I can’t give you none tonight, sprout. I’ve need of beauty sleep.”

“No, I mean, let’s leave this place. You and me.”

She laughed, long and loud, like darts in Jehan’s flesh. “And where do you propose we go, young knight?”

He knew the remark was meant to belittle, but couldn’t help feeling somewhat enlarged by that word, “knight.”

“With the cardinal,” he said.

“Enough with this.”

“Just wait. Hear me out.” She sat there with a cocked brow as he lay out his plan. They’d wait until Lord Hertwig was gone on a hunt or a visit and he’d show the cardinal the portrait of Dover-as-Pope. Dover would so love the portrait that he would be taken with Jehan and invite him to accompany him to Rome, where he would paint Dover again, as cardinal, and later as Pope in much larger form. And perhaps others, too: nobles, cardinals, merchants. And with his many commissions he would pay for a proper Roman house and live there with Yolanda as his wife.

Yolanda gave him a sad smile. “Sprout, you’ve much to learn. That is not how one gets a house in Rome. You’re juggling swords.”

“I have to try. His Lordship has soured on me. I don’t want to be torn up by dogs or stuck with arrows.” Yolanda nodded. “I’ll be safe so long as the cardinal is here, no? I have until spring to make a better plan?”

Yolanda sighed. “I do not think the cardinal will stay.”

“But His Lordship said he was to winter here.”

“My lady confided in me today. His Lordship was in a foul mood last night. It seems the cardinal has inquired about a plot of land the elder Lord Hertwig is said to have promised to the Church. His Lordship seems not to have decided what to do on the matter and is continuing to entertain the cardinal until he decides. My lady told him he should just give the land, as it is not profitable to him anyway and would bestow grace on him in the eyes of God and Church. But Lord Hertwig the younger thinks only with his bile duct in matters of his father.”

“I will bring the portrait to the cardinal at the earliest convenience. In fact, I will do so tomorrow during the Lord’s evening ride.”

“What’ll you do about the servants?”

“We’ll have to distract them,” he said, giving Yolanda a serious look.

She brought her fingers to her chest. “You mean I will have to distract them?”

“You’ve only to go to the kitchen,” Jehan said, “and pull one leg out on the faulty shelf.” A clatter of ceramic on stone would follow, and the house servants would be drawn by the sound, followed by Miss Ana. Meanwhile, Yolanda would go to Lady Cateline’s chambers with a pastry and a cup of hot wine, which she often ordered in the evenings. Should the lady protest that she did not order one that night, Yolanda would say she is sorry, she must have been following her usual method unthinkingly, but perhaps the lady would like it anyway, to save Yolanda the trouble of explaining to Miss Ana why she has wasted a pastry and a cup of wine.

“Will I be so bold?”

“Lady Cateline is not so different from us. Her skin scars like yours and mine. She walks about the castle in a misery.”

“She hates you.”

“But what she hates more is life in this castle, married to a hideous man so in love with himself that he’s no room for her in his heart.”

“What makes you so sure, lad?” Yolanda said, rising from the bed. “The Lady confides in me as a friend because she has no other. Don’t go on explaining her plight to me. I know her better than her husband, and she knows me better than you, better than to think I might bring her a dram she didn’t call for.”

“Fine. So no hot wine. Perhaps the details can be brushed in later. But we must make it so. The cardinal is our passage to Rome, and once we are to Rome, we will be free.”

“And if the cardinal doesn’t like it?” she said, nodding to the painting.

“Then we go anyway! We leave in the night and pay a horseman to take us to Genoa. I’ll go to the count there, or perhaps some merchant, and request a humble patronage. From there, we work our way south, and I’ll paint all the merchants and lords along the way, and as my portraits appear on more great walls, my reputation will arrive in Rome before us, and we’ll take up residence in a great Roman house, perhaps even …”

“My dear sprout.”

“Fine. If the cardinal doesn’t like the painting, I’ll throw it in the lake and no harm will come to us.”

Yolanda smiled, but her eyes were full of sorrow.

“It won’t come to you,” Jehan said. “If the cardinal reports to His Lordship, his wrath will be mine alone. You’ll have no part. I’m dead if I stay here. You said yourself the Lord is a sadistic man.”

She sighed. “I’ll distract the servants while His Lordship is on his ride. But we’ll wait a few nights for his temper to lighten.”

* * *

Winds often gave Lord Hertwig a boisterous mood, and on the morning of, he took a quiver and bow, along with two flasks of wine, to hunt the ibexes that would be in a grazing frenzy before the rains started. The flasks suggested he may stay out late and visit the friar.

Yolanda did not need to break any dishes to distract the servants. The ones not busy in the kitchen were out gathering laundry from the line before the storm. The cardinal was with Lady Cateline in the dining hall over a midday meal when Jehan snuck into the cardinal’s apartment and leaned the portrait of Pope Dover on the settee in the cardinal’s small sitting room, and sat beside it, awaiting the cardinal’s return.

By the time Dover entered, the rain had started and Jehan’s heart had slowed to a steady pound. He was still nervous—the baron could return any moment, in any mood, and the servants might enter the cardinal’s chambers at any moment to sweep under the rug or change out the wash basin. But Dover entered alone, stood for a moment as though truly alone, and then, approaching the settee, perhaps to recline or simply to remove his boots, he stopped and let out a startled shudder at the sight of Jehan, who stood beside the settee, staring at the cardinal. Dover leaned toward Jehan and squinted, and then furrowed his brow.

“Boy, what is the meaning of this?”

“It is yours,” Jehan said, putting one hand on the back of the settee and gesturing to the portrait with the other. “You at your greatest.”

The cardinal squinted at the painting for only a moment, before turning back to Jehan and squinting again at his face. “Have we met before? You were Vendel’s man, were you not?”

Jehan swallowed and took a breath. “Yes.”

The cardinal nodded and then squinted at the portrait, leaning forward until he was close enough to smell the paint, at which point he shrunk back and nearly fell. “Boy, I’m afraid you’ve let your master’s ambition cloud your judgment.”

“No, Your Eminence. This was not at the behest of His Lordship. This is my gift to you.”

The cardinal shook his head. “You must burn this abomination at once and never speak of it again.”

Jehan leaned forward and opened his mouth, but the severity of the cardinal’s wrinkled frown cast him away, even as he realized, from the old man’s vacant stare, that the cardinal could not see him.

* * *

The portrait was heavier on the walk back through the corridors. A crack of thunder shook the walls and sweat gathered on Jehan’s temples as he carried the wood board under one arm, rushing past the corridor leading to Lady Cateline’s chambers, past the portrait of the baron reclining in a Roman toga, down the stairway into the main corridor, and past the kitchen. It was then that he heard the south door slam, followed by the baron’s wine-thick roar:

“Come now, my lady! Come, Sir Admiral Dover! Let us feast upon this ungodly beast I have slain!”

The baron would be coming down this corridor within moments on his way to the dining hall. Jehan looked around him and opened the nearest door, to a linen closet, and slipped the painting inside, Pope Dover’s unholy visage facing into a stack of folded towels. Thunder rolled overhead as he hurried down to the servants’ wing and nearly collided with Yolanda in the east corridor. He wanted to embrace her, but she gripped his arms tight and spoke firm:

“How went it? His Lordship seems to have stopped at the friar’s cottage. He is a storm that could turn at any moment.”

“The cardinal didn’t like it. I slipped it into the linen closet off the kitchen.”

Her face went pale. “We must retrieve it soon as we can. For now, stay in your chambers.” Yolanda pushed him down the corridor and hurried up the stairs.

* * *

In the morning, Jehan was sitting at the edge of the bed staring out the window at the gray forest when Yolanda opened the door without knocking. He didn’t move, didn’t even turn his head until she sat down next to him, and that’s when he saw, in her sunken eyes and stretched lower lip that she brought no hope.

“I must retrieve the portrait,” he said, if only to preserve his sweet unknowing for a moment longer.

She waited a moment, as if indulging him, and then said, “It’s gone.”

“How,” he stammered, “who …”

“I don’t know. Perhaps Miss Ana. We must now to His Lordship in the dining hall.”

Jehan nearly swallowed his tongue, and his lip quivered as he tried to find words. “Why?”

“His Lordship has summoned us. Come. Get dressed. We must go. We must hope.”

He dressed in his finest tunic and followed Yolanda up the stairs to the dining hall, where Lord Hertwig sat with Lady Cateline at his side. The baron’s wrinkled face and burning eyes suggested he’d been awake all night. On the table were a half-eaten platter of meat and several bottles.

“Oh,” Lady Cateline said with a bright lilt, “will they be joining us?”

Jehan snuck a glance at Yolanda and saw the color had drained from her cheeks.

“Sit, boy,” Lord Hertwig said. “And Miss Yolanda, please. Have some bread, some meat, some wine.”

“Where is Cardinal Dover?” Jehan said.

“His Eminence is visiting with the good friar for prayer. I’ll be hunting with him after court. Seems he was a bit jealous after seeing the devilish beast I slew yesterday. Now sit!”

Jehan and Yolanda took chairs beside each other, opposite Lady Cateline.

“This morning,” Lord Hertwig continued, “I am beset by the notion that my affairs are not in order. Six years married to my poor little flower,” he said, running two fingertips under the Lady’s chin, “has failed to produce an heir. I’ll need a proxy, for my lady has no suitable sister.” He let out a loud, demented cackle that echoed off the high ceiling.

“Boy, should you be invested today, could you sire a son, perhaps with this young lady beside you?”

Jehan glanced at Yolanda, whose eyes glimmered in the torchlight. She nodded.

“Yes,” Jehan said.

The baron put his hands together, and the Lady made a happy cooing sound.

“Boy,” the Lord said, leaning close enough that Jehan could smell his sour breath, “you are to accompany me to court today and hereafter so that I may show you the ropes. You’ll learn to chat with a cardinal, drink with a friar, and hear peasants air their tender little grievances. But first you will bring your lady along and we’ll set our arrangement. My lady will come along as witness.”

As the baron led them, stumbling down the corridor to the great hall, Jehan saw how truly drunk he was. When they arrived in the great hall, Friar Paul was there, his head resting on a table.

“I thought the cardinal was visiting—”

“His Eminence went out hunting, I’m afraid. Seems he could not wait for me. For that reason, I will have to end court early today. It would be a shame if the cardinal, untrained in the art of hunting, should fall on his own spear. Friar!” he said, shaking the man awake. “Join these two birds in matrimony.”

Friar Paul rose and stumbled up to Yolanda and Jehan, bleary-eyed and red-faced, wobbling on his feet, and through an arsenal of phlegm and vinegar breath pronounced them man and wife.

“Now,” the Lord said with a lascivious grin, “man and wife, you’ll have the afternoon to yourselves. But first, we must prepare to hold court. Accompany me to my study, precious friends. And thank you, dear friar. You may help yourself to one of the good bottles from the cellar.”

Lord Hertwig led Jehan and Yolanda to the study door, to one side of the baron’s dusty bench. When the door opened, Yolanda gasped, and Jehan saw it as he entered: the portrait of Pope Dover laid flat on Lord Hertwig’s desk. The baron turned toward them, a devilish smile stretching his whole wretched face.

“You have conspired to use the cardinal’s vanity against me,” Lord Hertwig said with surprising clarity, eyes fixed on Jehan. “You went into the west wing after I ordered you not to. You have accepted my good grace and made an ass of me. You could be hanged for this. You could be drawn and quartered. Burned alive. You will be gone from this place by sundown. That is all.”

The baron walked in a rapid line out the study door, through the great hall, and into the corridor. Jehan turned to Yolanda and embraced her, but she was stiff.

“It’s best we leave before midday,” he said. “Best to be gone before he knows it, or he may set a trap for us. Let’s head south for Italy. If we’re quick, we can be in Genoa before winter.”

Yolanda nodded, but looked under a spell. Jehan cursed Lord Hertwig under his breath as they departed for the servants’ wing.

* * *

Jehan put his two best tunics in a canvas sack, along with a few brushes and his battered sketchbook. He found Yolanda sitting on a chair in the mending room.

“We must leave now, love,” he said, “or he’ll throw a banquet with our corpses.”

She turned to him, her eyelids heavy. “I won’t be going,” she said.

“What do you mean? You’re my wife now.”

“She is not your wife,” Lady Ana’s harsh voice cut in from behind Jehan as she stepped into the doorway. “And nobody will stand as your witness. There is still much want of Yolanda’s service. I warned you, my boy, but you could not help yourself.”

“Yolanda, my love.”

“I’m not your love, sprout. I never loved you. You flattered me, sure, but now you’ve lost your place here and I still have mine. Now run to Italy and find yourself a rich merchant. Make a name for yourself, sprout.”

Jehan’s lip quivered, and he stared aghast at Yolanda’s simpering face. He turned and hurried back down the east corridor to his chambers, where he retrieved pigments and oil from the supply closet and mixed the blue with the yellow and the green with the black and white in the ceramic wash basin until he had a pool of the muddy gray of a peasant’s smock.

In the main corridor, the eyes of Lord Hertwig of Rendon stared down from the wall, eyes wide with judgment under a holy cross. Jehan reached up with his brush and put streaks of gray on the baron’s coat. Several paces down, Lord Hertwig’s visage looked up toward heaven as he reached into a basket of fish, surrounded by hungry vagabonds. Jehan soiled his white robe and blotted his eyes. He put streaks over Lord Hertwig’s purple silk cape, his alpine hat, his billowing knickers. He muddied the baron’s boots and obscured his false glowing face. By the time he neared the end of the corridor, he was simply smearing paint across the boards, coating it all in a humbler hue. Then he dropped the wash basin on the immaculate tiles, went out the south door and ran toward the forest as fast as his legs could carry him.

About the author

Justin Eells writes and teaches in Minnesota. His work has been published in Coffin Bell, Molotov Cocktail, Flash Fiction Magazine, and elsewhere. He tweets @rhymeswithbells.

About the illustrator

Ann van der Giessen is an author and artist living in Wales. Her work has appeared in several publications both online and in print. She is the author of four poetry books under the pseudonym Juliette van der Molen. You can connect with her via Twitter @ann_vdGiessen, Instagram @ann.vandergiessen or through her website at www.JulietteWrites.com.