There Are Seven Things That You Can Do When You Are Accused Of Murder:

A Life In The Year Of Caravaggio

by E.E. Rhodes

There are seven things that you can do when you are accused of murder. The first is to give yourself up and trust the court, knowing that it is stuffed full of the cronies of the so-called victim and that you will stand in the dock with their sneering faces leering at you from the benches. You, without enough florins for a decent lawyer, and everyone hoping only for some slight entertainment in a sweltering summer, when everyone who's anyone would like to see you fall both hard and fast. And if you give yourself up you will spend a year in some corner of a pauper’s prison while they wait to bring you to trial and there will be nothing and no one to bribe the jailer, or to bring small comforts, or even a little food, so you will probably starve. Or rot. Or both.

The second thing you can do is run away to sea, knowing that there are plenty of positions available to you behind the mast on the trade routes from Rome or Syracuse, on one of those narrow galleys with their triangular sails and their blistered silk pennants bearing the cross of the Knights of Malta. And that would be well except the design of the ships is such that they are built for speed and not for comfort, and they roll in even a skin-smooth sea. And the likelihood is that they will succeed in overrunning a corsair ship and you will find yourself hilt to hilt with a Barbary pirate with a glint of treasure in his eye and no interest in your fine painter’s fingers. And that you can expect only a swift end on a rusty blade, or death by sea-sickness as you lose your life beside your rotten lunch, or that you will miss your footing on this swift moving barque so that you slip overboard and drown, or worse, you are picked up before succumbing to the salt-spurned mercy of the sea and are chained below, as a galley-slave, to the oars.

The third thing that you can do is hide. First with some friends in Rome, along a narrow alley, and up some wooden stairs half rotted and festering. Where the fleas bite but there is comfort in shared affliction and you might even try a little work if you do not tip your hand to those you know are looking for you in the streets below. And if you get the nod that someone has dropped you in it for the indignantly small reward, then you might slip away over the terracotta tile-clattering roofs at night, with your single bag and a blanket tied with a cord in which you’ve wrapped your brushes and pigments. And then walk all the way south. Sleeping under hedges, occasionally making an exchange of a small sketch for some food or lodging. And still hide, for everywhere you could go you are under the eye of Rome and perhaps you have some friends in the south or Sicily who may welcome you if you can ever manage to get enough money together to buy a carriage ride or even a new pair of boots, because at the slow rate you’d go you would wear out your feet. And whoever thinks a hike is romantic has never had to do such a thing under great duress.

The fourth thing you might do is steal some money from a friend you know will forgive you eventually and, avoiding all this terrible hiding and idling around the peasant countryside, maybe head for a wealthy patron who lives under the King of Naples. He who is currently thumbing his nose at the Pope, so you may be temporarily safe as long as the terrible crime of which you are accused does not catch up with you directly, nor does it involve anyone who is related to your patron. And when you eventually reach that good lady she may give you commissions and a place to stay in the thick stew of autumn Neapolitan nights and you will be relieved and grateful until the news comes on your heels of who was involved in that disastrous duel and there are late night difficult conversations in torch-lit rooms to which you are not privy but which will mean you must go on the run again.

The fifth thing you can do is join a monastery, become a belted novice and then a monk. But not just any order, filleted with piety, but one with a reputation, and a nobility you do not quite possess, one that knows how to stand up to the Pope but is also in good standing with him, so that they might beg for your pardon and you might be allowed to settle somewhere quietly and profitably. And their quarters are for preference overseas, out from under the watchful eye of Rome, but where they will speak your language, and will know your name, and will welcome you into their lives, pleased that you have ventured across the sea. And they will both house and feed you and give you room and space and time to paint, and also some good commissions that will burnish both your name and theirs. For you have often fancied that a monastic life might have some appeal, an island fortress in the mind as well as in the sea. It might be a golden place, a heady mix of past and present bound in stone, crammed together on a bouldered outcrop, where Odysseus foundered on the rocks before you, and perhaps you will not be wrecked by this land. But instead you might be embraced within its silent walls and fertile fields and endless ridges of white-cropped lime. Though your every step will be fraught with the smell of rosemary crushed underfoot as you walk up into the heights and feel the heat beat down relentless on your tonsured head. Perhaps then you will know yourself as free before your narrow-eyed all-seeing God and under the blistering, illuminating sun.

The sixth thing you can do is make friends with the Grand Master of your order and paint him once, and then again, and yet again, this time with his favorite page, perhaps a cheeky lad who has a ready tongue and wit. Offer a great canvas for the new cathedral church, slapped in the middle of the honey-gold perfect city, all squared and gridded and rising from the sea like nothing you have ever seen before, magnificent and terrible, a Bastion of the faith. And know these are a people who hold this glory like a sword and shield, and who will use both to defend their land and name. And finding now a place called home you might put all your effort into your greatest work and, catching the eye of the Grand Master, not paint the face of Saint John the Baptist quite like your own, though that threat of a lopped off head still hangs over you, and is a hard reminder. And after consultation, the next thing that you paint might be a Saint Jerome, severe in red, which you only hope will please. And when the paintings are revealed in the haughty oratory of the church you could believe that home is not just a place, but somewhere that at last you fit. And there might be an uneasy, incensed peace. But for all your good work and careful friendship with the Knight you may find you have not left yourself behind and fight your way into another jail. And even if you escape from there, assisted by some unknown hand, you will be on the run again. And as you leave the island, with its lime shine lines that point to heaven in the gleam of day and net you in the deep of night, you could believe it was the best place you ever lived. And that nothing might ever be the same. Nor might you paint so well. Nor find kind friends like this. And though your purse weighs unexpectedly full and you are put safely ashore in Syracuse, the loss of this almost-dream of gold and green, set in a jeweled sea, and smelling of honey and citrus and the dark red wine the vines afford, will quietly drive you mad.

And maybe the seventh thing you might do if you have been accused of murder is decide instead to answer for it, though you may be fearful and reluctant and half a little crazed. And as you will still have your fine horse-haired brushes and pigment bags, you might believe that you can paint your way out of this corner. After all, as each rosy dawn follows every blanket-sweated turbulent night, you always have before.

About the author

E.E. Rhodes is an archaeologist who accidentally lives in the corner of a small castle in Worcestershire in England. She writes short prose and creative non-fiction. Her recent work may be read in a range of competition placings, anthologies and literary journals.

About the illustration

The illustration is David with the Head of Goliath by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, painting, ca. 1600. In the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. In the public domain.