Queen & Country (25 page)

‘Sir Andrew Wood reported that you were set upon, on your way to trial. The rebels confessed, and were hanged, I am told. It was thought they had left you for dead.'

‘I thought so myself,' answered Hew, with more than a hint of the truth, for there had been a moment, when he was pulled from his horse in the black of Dysart muir, when he had despaired that he would even see the sun, before he had known they were Andrew Wood's men; nor had it reassured him, when he understood.

‘Those are lawless parts. And Andrew Wood has fought well to have kept a hold on them. You were blessed,' Maitland said, ‘to escape with your life.'

‘Just so,' admitted Hew.

‘But what I cannot understand – you maun help me here – is how you got away from there. Without you were helped. With neither sound nor sight of you, for all the hue and cry. How came you then to London?'

‘My mother's kin had friends at Berwick, who helped me on my way,' said Hew. ‘You will excuse it, I am sure, if I do not name their names.'

‘Aye, but even so. It is a long walk to Berwick for a wanted man. A man who has no horse, no water or fresh clothes. A man who is weakened from his late imprisonment, and injured in an ambush – grievously injured, so we have been told, and doubtless is frail for want of food. Are we to suppose that such a man would walk to Berwick?'

‘Many have walked there, on the old pedlars' route, pilgrims and cadgers, old men and paupers with loads on their backs. Through
wind and hail, and with snow underfoot. Some of them died there, many did not,' answered Hew.

‘Do you mean to say you joined the dustifutes?' Maitland looked incredulous. But it was not impossible. If Hew had lain low in the woods and fields, had lived on the land on the late autumn fruits, till the cry had died down and his fresh wounds had healed, he could have joined the packmen winding their way home from the last of the late autumn markets, once the bright branches were withered to black. What man would have questioned him then?

Hew risked a wink at him. ‘What wad ye expect, of one who is a venturer?'

The secretary sniffed. ‘What, indeed? And when ye tell us your adventures, in the council chamber, we shall be transfixed. You should ken, sir, that I hold out no hope that you shall solve this case. The council has made a thorough inquisition of it. Nothing came to light.'

‘Perhaps,' suggested Hew, ‘it wants a fresh perspective.'

Maitland stared at him. ‘Do you find it merry, sir? Is that some sort of jest?'

‘No. Indeed no. Can you tell me,' Hew capitulated hurriedly, ‘is the king's painter at court?'

‘Why would he be here? You think that he is wanted, at the present time? While the country is in turmoil, and the king beset with grief? Perhaps you think he should be painted in his mourning clothes?'

‘Then can you tell me where I might find him?'

‘Find him out yourself. Is that not your charge? Are you not, indeed, a kenning kind of man? Were you not employed, to sniff the devil out?'

Hew took his cue and parted from him, leaving with a bow.

The next morning, he returned to George Heriot's shop. George was pleased to see him. ‘I had not expected you to come back so soon. I have from my father a pure lump of gold, from the Crawford mine, which I put with yours, and which will make for you the bonniest of rings.' He showed to Hew a piece of fair white gold, tried
upon the touchstone. ‘That is quite perfect,' Hew approved. ‘And I have the verse.' It had come to him the night before, as he lay in bed. He had borrowed pen and paper from the West Bow innkeeper, and had set it down. Now he produced it shyly, as though it were a cipher to be torn to shreds by Phelippes. Heriot merely glanced at it, to make sure of the script.
‘Nice
. The last line only, will fit on the ring, unless you want four parts,' he said.

‘That will do well enough,' answered Hew. ‘I have some questions for you. You said you had a market for
memento mori
rings. I suppose you cannot tell me who you sold them to?'

Heriot said, ‘On no account.'

Hew was not surprised. ‘And suppose I put the question to you, on the king's authority?' It was well, he thought, to keep this till the last. For the paper with the king's seal was as likely to tie up a tongue, as it was to loosen it, coming between friends.

‘The answer,' Heriot said, ‘would be just the same. If the king wants to ken, let him come here himself, and sit on my bench, and I will tell to him the same thing I will say to you. I will not gie away my clients' names. Why, sir, would you have me tell the world about your English rose?'

Hew owned, he would not. He trusted that the goldsmith kept his word of secrecy, common to his trade. Urquhart kept his secrets too, and did not fear the king, for goldsmiths had the power to keep him in their debt, and in their close economy, their interests chimed with his. This Heriot was a novice in his craft, but Hew had little doubt that he would soon be master of it.

‘Can you tell me this? Where could I go to buy a turning picture? One that plays upon perspective, like a prism in a glass?'

Geordie could not say. He was puzzled at the question, and Hew could believe that he had never come across the picture he described. ‘I never saw a thing like that. You might ask the king's painter perhaps. I can tell you where to find him.'

Hew had hoped he might. He paid him for the ring, not knowing, for the moment, when he would be back for it.

‘It will be ready in a week. If you have the time, to come and have a drink on it, I will tell you a grand tale, about your Largo gold. I had it fae my faither,' Heriot smiled.

‘I will hear it, and will drink with you, when you have the ring. For now, I must be gone,' Hew said. ‘The quicker to my business, the quicker to be done.'

The painter Adrian Vanson kept a house and shop close by the Netherbow, adjacent to the Canongate, where so many Flemish refugees had settled, and not far from the printer's shop, that once was Christian Hall's. Christian had left there to migrate to London. Hew had once looked out for her, wistful, at St Paul's, but had not found her there. In a little close, not far from the place where he had gone to school, the painter's house, without direction, would have proved impossible to find.

The door was opened by a woman in a loose linen kirtle, striped at the skirt in a pale shade of blue. She had straw coloured hair, pinned up in a cap, and a broad, plain face.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘What it is that you want?' in the clear and open manner of the Dutch.

‘I am looking for Adrian Vanson, the painter,' said Hew.

‘So. What do you want with him?'

‘I have come from the king, on business of the court.' He showed her the letter, with the royal signature. The woman barely blinked at it, remaining unimpressed. ‘So. You have come from the court. It is too much to hope, that you have brought the money with you that still is owed to us. Of course, you have not.'

‘Is there money owed to you?'

‘Of course. And of course, you have not come for that. Do not say, you will look into it.'

He bit back the promise shaping on his lips.

‘Other men have promised that they will look into it. If they kept to their word, they have not done more than to look.'

‘I am sorry for that,' answered Hew. ‘But on the king's command, I must speak with Master Vanson.'

The woman sighed. ‘So you have said. I am Susanna, his wife. You had better come in.'

He followed her into the house, a single chamber neat and clean with plain whitewashed walls. An iron pot bubbled on the hearth; Hew recognised the scent of Flemish beef or mutton, stewing in a broth of ale, deep and rich and black. The board was set for four with bowls and pewter spoons, a large loaf of bread and a pat of yellow butter, in a little dish of Flemish tin-glazed pottery. The windows were dressed with squares of white lace, and the shelves of the press were lined and trimmed with it. Onto one of the walls, where the light from the window fell, soft and aslant, the painter had nailed up a single small picture, of a woman's face. There was no doubt in Hew's mind that it was Susanna, in the bloom of youth.

‘His workshop is across the yard. You have come at an opportune time. Tell him, his dinner is here. When he is fixed at his work, he will not remember to eat.'

The house backed on a yard, in which there stood a kiln and rows of jars and pots, leading to a shed. Inside, the painter stood, grinding yellow pigment on a slab of stone. Stacked against the walls were rows of boards and canvases, and among them, several further studies of the painter's wife, the swell of her broad hips and breasts, tenderly captured in chalk. At the back of the room, in the best of the light, two prentices sat at their work.

Hew introduced himself, and unwrapped the painting from its paper case. The painter sighed. ‘Not that, again. As I told the council, I cannot help you here. I have no idea, where this thing is coming from.'

‘What about your boys?' asked Hew.

Vanson chuckled. ‘Them? You think that they are capable? Let me tell you, then. Come over here and see.'

Each had drawn an apple to be coloured in with paint, one from a painting pinned up on his board, and one from a pippin set out on a plate.

‘The one is a copy and the other from the life,' Vanson explained. ‘It is a test.' He did not say of what.

‘It will be apparent to you, they know nothing yet. This one, it is true has a modicum of skill,' he gestured to the pupil sitting on the right, who was filling in his apple with a vivid shade of green, ‘but he is a wastrel and an idle little sot. He would rather spend his time at the tavern with the wenches than do any work for me. The other one is diligent, and he says his prayers, but he is a dolt.' The boy on the left sat sucking on his paintbrush; he had muddled up his colours to a muddy shade of grey, and appeared uncertain how he should progress. The master painter sighed. ‘It seems it must be beyond hope, that diligence and skill should meet in the one boy. What am I to do? You shall be a burgess and a freeman, so they told me, if you take apprentices, and teach our boys to paint. This is what they send me. What hope do I have? Am I to beat them? What good does it do? The doltish one will be a dolt, whatever I will do, because he cannot help it. The wicked one will mend his ways but for a day or two, and will grow resentful and sly. Besides, I have my work to do. I do not have time to beat unruly boys.'

Hew expressed his sympathy. ‘How long have they been with you?'

‘The stupid one, a year. His sluggard friend, five months. But since the one is simple-minded, and the other evil-minded, they are no further forward than the first day that they came.'

Hew felt a little sorry for the young apprentices, who listened all the while, but with so still an air of ease and cheerfulness he saw they were not hurt by it. Their master's verbal railings, surer than his blows, rained down on them unheard; one did not understand, the other did not heed. They accepted with good grace the failings he assigned to them. Quite likely understanding, that it was not meant. ‘Wash off your palette, and begin again, with nothing but the green,' the master told the prentice who had muddled up his paints, with a patient kindness that laid bare his gentle heart.

The other boy leant back, turning on his stool. ‘What d'ye think of mine?'

‘Yours?' Vanson shook his head. ‘I will tell you what I think of it,
when you have redeemed yourself. When you have atoned for the thing that you have done. I will tell you what I think. And I will tell you now, that it will not be good.'

The young apprentice grinned at this, not at all abashed. It felt like the rehearsal of an old familiar comedy, played out to the gallery before a cheerful audience, to little great effect.

‘What has he done, then?' asked Hew.

‘Ask him, if you will. How many apples were there here this morning? He will not deny to you that there were two.'

Then for all the bluff, this boy was Vanson's favourite; he had taken both.

‘I was hungry,' said the boy, with a seraphic smile.

‘Hungry! Do we not feed you enough? You cannot conceive, sir, how these boys eat. They are like bird babies, with their open beaks. They feast at my table like the sons of kings. They turn up their noses at cabbage and pork fat. These must have manchet and meat.'

‘Your wife said to tell you your dinner was ready,' Hew was reminded at that. The prentices looked up. And they might be hungry, Hew supposed; if they kept to the hours that were common to prentices, their dinner was half an hour late.

‘We will not stop to eat while there is light to paint,' the painter asserted, deaf to the protests of the two apprentices. ‘This gentle man has brought you a lesson in perspective. Come, take a look.'

Hew showed the pleated picture, and observing their reactions, came to the conclusion that neither was as doltish or as idle as their master had pretended, and that neither had ever seen the work before. They examined it together, with a will and curiosity, working out in minutes how the thing was made.

‘Two pictures,' said one, ‘cut into strips, and mounted onto prisms cut out from blocks.'

‘Or else,' said the other, ‘the triangles are set in a turning frame, and the pictures painted with the sides turned flat.'

Either method, Vanson said, was sound.

‘Can we make one, too?'

‘Not till you have mastered the basics of perspective. Go now, to your dinners. Tell Mistress Susanna I will be there in a while.'

‘They are good boys,' he admitted as the young men clattered out. ‘Though it does no good to let them hear me say it. They will, in due course, make passable painters. But neither of them has the skill to make a piece like that.'

Hew did not doubt him. ‘Who has?'

‘In Scotland?' Vanson pursed his lips. ‘That I should not like to say. Any painter might, who had served his time, if it was a copy; but a thing of this kind had no beginning here. There is but one man in Scotland who can paint a portrait, sir, and you are looking at him. Be that as it may, I hope you will not think that a painting of mine could be so crude as that.'