Light of Her Own

by Callaghan, Carrie

“I’m grateful to you for taking a criminal off our streets,” he said, looking away toward the scaffold, where she wouldn’t look. She wanted to say more, but no words came. She should have expected this.

  Behind her, some paces away, Abraham moaned. Judith stared at Paulus for a moment longer then walked back to her brother. No one had noticed him, but the crowd was coming apart.

  “We have to leave,” Judith said. She held his elbow and eased him over the cobbled streets toward her house. Behind her, she could hear the executioner’s steps echo as he descended the scaffold.

  Chapter 29

  JULY

  MARIA SLEPT. SHE SLEPT, WOKE to parch her thirst, and slept again. She burned, and she shivered, while time flaked and crumbled around her, like the remnant of wood burnt in the hearth. She wasn’t sure where she was, on a mattress somewhere, and she thought she heard Judith’s voice. But that could have been her dreams. A cool hand against her forehead stilled her tossing body and froze her dreams for a pulsing moment before they resumed to race and whirl about her.

  Days passed, she realized later. And she had moved, somehow. Been moved.

  One night, finally, she awoke lucid. She tried to push herself upright, but her arm throbbed in protest, and she remembered a little of what had happened. She used her other arm and propped herself into a sitting position on the straw mattress. Her mattress and pile of blankets lay on a rough-hewn wood floor, and any windows in the room must have been covered by shutters, because her eyes could see nothing in the silky dark. But something about the smell of the place was reassuring, something earthy that promised comfort. A tangy smell, too, reminded her of home. Paint, she realized. She was neither hot nor cold, though her forehead was damp with sweat. She lay back down and, after straining to recognize anything in the creaks and scratches of the night, she fell asleep.

  She awoke in the morning, judging by the soft light and the bustle of noise from the street outside, below. She had thought the night before she lay in someone’s bedroom, but now she saw the close eaves of the roof and the planking of the walls. It was an attic loft.

  Someone walked up the stairs, and Maria gathered the blankets to her chin. Again, that smell, and her breathing slowed as the woman came into sight in the stairway. A servant, probably, in simple clothes with a discolored but clean apron over her brown skirts.

  “Well, that’s something. You’re awake,” the woman said.

  “Where am I?” Maria kept the blankets to her chin.

  “You don’t remember? Judith Leyster’s house and workshop.”

  Maria sighed and closed her eyes. Safe, finally. “Is Judith coming? To see me.”

  The servant regarded her. “I’m sure she is. But I don’t know when. Here’s some broth for you. Drink up. You’ll need it to get better.”

  She sat up, wincing when she moved her right arm. She did not have the courage to pull up her sleeve to look at the wound, but she was glad the arm was still there. She sipped the broth from the warm bowl, although it was difficult to do with one hand. She watched the servant, who had taken a seat on a footstool by the wall.

  “I’m Carolein,” the woman said. “I’ll help you as much as I can. I—we—want you to get better. But it is a busy house, you know.” Carolein stood, brushed her skirts with her hands, and turned away.

  Maria nodded. She was glad Judith had herself a busy house. Hopefully that meant her workshop was selling a lot of paintings. She sipped the broth, and the warm liquid spread its fingers down into her stomach. She wanted to see the paintings, to see what scenes Judith had turned her sharp eye toward. Or emotions, really—it was emotions Judith excelled at capturing. The ephemeral quality of a celebration, with death looming behind. Or the covetous glance of a friend.

  Maria put the bowl on the floor. She pulled up her sleeve and looked at the wound.

  “Carolein,” she called at the woman’s back. She walked back up the stairs and looked at Maria with eyebrows raised. “I’m sorry, but would you mind getting me some . . .” Maria tried to remember one of Sara’s basic salves. “Lard? And sweet clover too? Please. A lot of it.”

  Carolein regarded her, impassive at first, but then she nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I know you’re busy. I’d be very grateful.”

  Carolein nodded again and gave a soft smile. “I’m good at what I do, Maria. I heard about what happened to you, and I respect another woman who knows her purpose. I’ll help where I can.” She descended the stairs.

  Carolein’s words had seemed like praise, and yet Maria’s cheeks burned at the thought of Carolein knowing what had happened to her, how she had ended up so sick. She wondered if Judith knew.

  The salve required more than lard and clover, certainly, and Maria laid back on her straw mattress and tried to figure out what else Sara had included. Where was Sara now? Far from Haarlem, Maria was certain. Sara was not the sort of person to wait around for anyone. Maria both resented her and envied her for that. She shifted in her bed and grimaced at the pain. Below, the house creaked, and the fall of footsteps sounded on the wood. The house was filled with mysterious life.

  She dozed off again, and when she woke, her legs and hips ached from lying down for so long. She swung her legs off the mattress and, tentatively, pulled herself to her feet. She stood, keeping her hand on the wall for balance, and slowly straightened her back and arms. Her vision swam. Maria shuffled closer to the wall, and groped for it with her other hand. She closed her eyes and held still, hoping the fit would pass. The rising humors of her illness, most likely. She should open a window to let them waft away from her. She twisted her stiff, weak body toward the small window in the gable. Her bare feet protested the rough wooden planks as she covered the few steps as quickly as she could.

  She reached for the smudged glass and then looked outside. The sky was bright, but the pavement was dark with recent rain. She gasped and gripped the casement. Below, in the street, was her father, staring up at her.

  She gasped and pulled herself away from the window. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She took a breath and looked again.

  The man was still standing there, but he wasn’t her father. He had the same silver beard and square torso, but he was younger. He walked away, and she could see his gait had none of her father’s languor.

  Maria eased herself back to the floor. She was dressed in a nightgown, most likely Judith’s, and she picked at the rough cloth stretched across her knees. She had told her father she had succeeded, but really, her trip was another failure. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She knew her father would be worried about her, certainly. Probably worried enough to forgive her. But her shame pressed in upon her, not just at failing but for running away, and dark humiliation seeped into the raw, painful edges around her arm, heart, and breath. She would speak with Judith. Judith would know what to do, and how to present herself to her father. She knew she needed to go to her father. But a few more hours, or days even, would not make a difference to the man. Assuming they had not already told him.

  She must have dozed off, for after some time, she opened her eyes, and her neck ached. She had forgotten to open the window, she realized. She stood again, and the same fierce cloud accosted her vision. Slowly, she reached for the small window. With two weak pushes it swung open. Someone must have had it open recently, she realized with gratitude.

  She took a deep breath. The dank ocean salt wafted up to her, and she smiled. The smell of home.

  Below in the street shuffled a hunched figure clothed in a tunic with torn seams and breeches so threadbare one cuff hung, barely attached, above his ankle. The man was a beggar, but there was something, a tenderness in the way he held himself, that caught Maria’s attention. He limped slowly down the street along the edge, afraid of something, and held out his left palm. As he came nearer, Maria saw his right arm, clutched protectively at his chest, was missing below the forearm. He was a leper. The crowds mostly streamed past him
as if he were invisible, but every so often a woman with a basket or a man in a fine doublet would look closely, and then recoil.

  Then, two men walked down the street with more urgency than the rest. The leper shrank even more deeply into the shadowed edge of the lane, but they strode up to him. After a brief exchange, each man took one side of the leper and dragged him away, toward the center square. For a moment, Maria feared they were hauling him to the scaffold, but then she remembered the leper house. Before her travels with Sara, Maria had rarely seen a leper, and even on their journey, she had seen only handful, like the brother and sister begging along the side of the road on the way to Den Haag. All the lepers were locked up, for their own well-being and the safety of the towns. The arrangement gave the sick a place to stay, at the charity of each city’s leading residents. Yet there was the sharp fear on the faces of the children who had approached Sara’s wagon while camped outside a small village. The boy had whispered to Sara, who showed no fear of him, and gestured toward the village. Sara nodded, unwrapped the bandage around his sister’s ear to look at some rash or lesion, and gave the girl both a salve and a draught. She did not charge them, something Maria had otherwise never seen her do.

  “Some illnesses are too unfair to add the burden of payment,” Sara said when Maria had raised a questioning eyebrow. “What other malady comes with the curse of imprisonment?”

  “But they are taken care of.”

  Sara shook her head but did not argue. “Let me show you the recipe to that salve. I give it away, so you may as well help make it.”

  It was the only recipe Sara had shared with Maria during their time together. Now, Maria pressed her face to the glass but could see nothing more of the man who had been dragged away. She remembered that recipe though.

  By suppertime, Judith had still not come up to visit. Maria, with Carolein’s rough help, dressed herself and descended all the way to the main floor to join the household for supper. The two boys looked at her with wide eyes. Judith, already seated, smiled to see her.

  “Feeling better?”

  Maria scrutinized her friend, looking for some indication the younger woman had changed in their few months apart. Judith’s face still glowed with self-possession, and Maria smiled. “Yes, I suppose I am. It’s all still, well, strange though.”

  “Strange? I would have thought you’d be in pain.” Judith gestured for her to take a seat.

  “There’s pain, of course. It’s more like I haven’t collected all my pieces yet.”

  The older of the two boys opened his mouth, but then closed it and sat down next to her.

  “Are you missing a piece?” The youngest boy ducked his head under the table for a moment then raised himself back upright. His dusky blond hair was tousled from the inversion. “You have both legs. Are you missing something else?”

  Maria closed her eyes for a moment. “I don’t think so.”

  Carolein placed a platter of roasted carrots and parsnips on the table, and the sweet, rich smell drew their attention. They fell to eating, pulling hunks of bread and cutting slices from a wheel of soft white cheese. The bread was flimsy and stale, and Maria wondered if Judith noticed. They ate accompanied by the rhythm of their tearing and the clatter of passed dishes.

  When they finished, Maria slid her chair closer to Judith’s.

  “My father, has he—”

  “Davit, Hendrik. Go finish tidying the workshop, and then you’re free until bedtime.” Judith wiped her mouth with the back of her slim hand and watched as the boys skittered out of the kitchen. Carolein took her time moving the plates from the table over to the washbasin.

  “Your father doesn’t know you’re here,” Judith said. She kept her eyes to the table and ran a paint-stained fingernail along the grain of wood. “While you were sick, you seemed to worsen if someone mentioned him. When I first saw you in Den Haag, you recoiled from me, do you remember? You didn’t want to see me. Or didn’t want me to see you. It seemed like you wanted to disappear. I thought I should ask you first about your father.”

  “I’m glad. Thank you.” She watched Judith closely, but the other woman kept her gaze lowered.

  “Maria.” Judith closed her eyes for a long moment. “Your portrait. Why did you do that?”

  Maria tilted her head, cautious. “I did what I had to do.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “It was an offering.” The words felt bitter in her mouth. Her feelings seemed to turn to dust and crumble when she tried to explain.

  “No, that’s just it. Don’t you understand?” Judith looked up, her expression bright and angry. “That isn’t what we’re doing. Painting it isn’t some sort of transaction. Art and beauty are what fix everything that’s so ugly here.” She waved her hand around, at the small clean kitchen with two shining copper pans hanging from the wall. “Why would you destroy that?”

  “You don’t understand.” Maria wished she had the energy to explain herself, but her shoulders sagged with fatigue. If she could have, she would have argued that for Judith painting seemed nothing more than a method for transforming pigments into coins. But she had no spirit for a fight.

  Judith gripped the table and looked like she was going to argue, but she collapsed back into her chair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . . it’s been so much. You and then Abraham.” She shook her head. “What about your father, Maria? What should I say?”

  Maria put a hand to her mouth. “Abraham? Has he come back?”

  “He’s been injured.” Her voice was low, almost extinguished. “He’ll be fine. I think.”

  “What happened? I might be able to help.”

  Judith looked up at her.

  “I learned some healing. A little, I was only with Sara a few weeks. With the healer, I mean. But I was paying attention.”

  “His hand was branded, and he was flogged. His back is torn to bits.” Judith returned her gaze to the table and blinked back tears.

  Maria bit her lip, mostly to keep the questions from spilling out. “How long ago was this?”

  “Yesterday.”

  She didn’t know what to say, and the exhaustion was creeping up her back like a clawed demon.

  “I’m sure he’ll be all right, Judith,” she said finally. “The flogging will heal. Scars, of course. But he won’t get sick.” Maria wasn’t sure she was speaking the truth, but she wanted it to be true. She forced her arm across the table and squeezed Judith’s hand. She couldn’t bring herself to mention Abraham’s branded one.

  Judith pulled away and looked up. Her bright eyes were red and rimmed in tears.

  “You don’t understand. He’s a criminal. They read his name in the square, and now there’s a D on his hand in case anyone has any doubt. How am I going to sell paintings now? To those same people. Who will want to buy art from a family proved to be degenerate? Things are hard enough as it is. God dammit.” She slapped her palm on the table.

  “I . . . I’m sorry.” Maria tried to keep her words soft.

  Judith shook her head and stood from the table. “I know I sound selfish, but you don’t understand.” She cleared her throat. “We’ll see what happens. I’m going to talk to Jan Miense Molenaer tomorrow. On our journey—with you, I mean— he mentioned he might have some extra linseed oil. There was supposed to be a sale, but it hasn’t happened yet, I guess.”

  Maria opened her mouth to ask, but Judith spoke before she could.

  “I forgot that you missed all that. You can hardly find any oil now, and when you do, it’s nothing my coins can manage. But I’m sorry, I don’t mean to go on. You should go to bed.”

  “That’s strange.” Maria looked over at Carolein, who had her back to them as she scrubbed the dishes. She wondered how long Judith could afford to pay the servant’s wages. And now with herself and Abraham, two additional mouths to feed, the budget must be scraped down to threads. Maria’s limbs felt heavy, as if she could sense her weight upon Judith’s smal
l frame. There were too many people to support, it was obvious. And yet, Maria could not return to her father’s home. She couldn’t face his disapproval.

  “Judith, I have an idea. About how I can help, I mean.”

  Judith, standing in the doorway, shook her head. “You’re kind to worry. It’s just I don’t have room in the workshop for another full-fledged painter. But thank you.”

  “No, that’s not it. I’m thinking of the healing recipes I learned.”

  Judith gave a half smile. “I appreciate the offer. But I don’t see how that could make a difference.”

  “I have to do something, Judith. I know it’s a burden to have me here, but I can’t go back to my father now.”

  Judith took a small step forward, toward Maria, and then stopped. “Why can’t you? I’m not saying you should.”

  Maria pressed her lips together, and she looked again at Carolein in the back of the kitchen. Over the clang of the pots in the sink, the servant was unlikely to hear anything, but her presence still made Maria pause. “I failed him.” As she spoke, she blushed. She was lying, and she knew it. Yes, there was her shame, but there were more reasons to stay than that. Still, the truth lay too deep inside of her, and it would hurt too much to dig it up and expose her selfish vulnerabilities. How much, more than anything, she wanted to stay here. How she wanted to fix what had become strained between her and Judith.

  Judith nodded. She turned and left the room.

  Chapter 30

  JUDITH USED HER SLEEVE TO wipe away the sweat from her brow. The heat, so unusual, made it difficult even to breathe. She blinked, tried to focus, and checked her arithmetic in her ledger book. There was still not nearly enough money, and she had not found any linseed oil that she could afford. She’d heard nothing of a sale, either. She rested her head in her hands and closed her eyes. Upstairs, she could hear the muffled voices of the boys joking as they worked. That, at least, was a balm.

  She lifted her head. She needed to visit Jan Miense Molenaer. They had barely spoken since the afternoon he had seen her with Willem, and though each time she ran into him in the street or at an auction she wanted to clasp his hand and explain, she couldn’t. She had no explanation that did not lead to the black stain of Lachine’s death or her own foolishness. But this was business. She stood, went to the kitchen to splash some cool water on her face, and left the house. As she was shutting the door, she paused. She ran back inside, grabbed her pomander, and sniffed the cloves she had added two days earlier. Still fragrant. She attached the chain to her waistband and went back to the street.