When the King Comes Home

by Caroline Stevermer

  “I suppose he must have. It’s a good portrait, I think. More than the usual sort of official likeness. About the only thing Maspero didn’t do was find a way to turn lead into gold. Not that he didn’t try that too.”

  I stared reverently into the glass case. For me, the portrait of Julian IV held something even greater than the appeal of the donor panel in the Archangel Chapel. Miriamne Giuliana had known something of the king. But Maspero had known something greater than that, something that showed in every elegant, economical line. “He knew him. Maspero really knew him.”

  “Maspero knew everyone, I imagine.” Saskia pulled me away from the glass case. “Since I’ve made my point, I suppose it’s time we were getting back to work.”

  “Your point?” With great reluctance, I followed her out of the archive. “What point?”

  “There’s nothing like a good portrait medallion, is there?”

  “You’re right. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  I saw Maspero’s siege medal again as soon as I could persuade Madame Carriera to write me another letter of recommendation. I studied it. I sketched it. To the best of my ability, given the glass case, I measured it and recorded its dimensions exactly. After repeated pleas, the archivist opened the case and turned the medal over, standing guard while I sketched the obverse, which showed a view of the city of Aravis. That entire winter, I made a pest of myself over the siege medal. I longed to have made it myself, to have known the king as Maspero had. I yearned for the siege medal. And gradually, so gradually that even I cannot be sure when or how the idea originated, I became resolved to make a copy of the medal in bronze. This would be my siege medal, made for no reason but to please myself.

  My notion was no simple undertaking. To craft and cast a bronze medallion is very different from the charcoal drawing and oil painting that had been my former inclination. All my training had to be begun anew, and privily.

  Madame Carriera would not approve of my copying Maspero’s work. To copy her style was my duty as her apprentice. To copy other work for purposes of instruction was part of my education. To copy slavishly, merely to satisfy my wish for ownership, was a self-indulgent waste of time. More than that, it was an embarrassment, as I could never copy Maspero’s work adequately. There would always be something stiff and clumsy in it, something that was mine. Despite all that, I kept on with my study of Maspero’s medal.

  One spring day when I had been in Madame Carriera’s workshop nearly three years, I looked up from my notebook to see Ludovic Nallaneen standing beside the glass-topped case, his head cocked to watch me as I sketched.

  I was pleased to see him. “Hello, Ludo. Come to guard the palace treasures?”

  “Hello, Hail. Nice earrings. I came to ask you to take a walk with me.”

  With care, I put my notebook away. “How did you know I was here? Did Saskia tell you?”

  “Madame Carriera asked me to find out why you have become so studious that she needs to write a request to admit you to the palace archive twice a week.”

  I laughed. “She should ask me that.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Ludovic Nallaneen led the way out of the palace. I’d gone in on a gray morning. It was now late on a gloriously sunny afternoon. I felt vaguely cheated by this, though I couldn’t decide if it bothered me more to have missed the fine weather or to be distracted from my medal. “Why didn’t she ask me, then?”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t want to discourage serious study.”

  I considered the matter. Before I could think of a reply, Ludovic said, “No, I don’t think that’s too likely either. Why don’t you just tell me and the whole question will be settled.”

  I frowned at him. “Why should you ask?”

  “I’m a friend. I can be—unofficial. If Madame Carriera has to ask Saskia, Saskia will have to answer. It’s her duty. Madame Carriera doesn’t want to put anyone in that situation.”

  “What does she think I’m doing?” I demanded. “Plotting to steal something?”

  Ludovic cleared his throat. “Well, no. She doesn’t think that.”

  “And you do? How dare you?”

  “I don’t really think it either. But you were staring at it as if it were your one hope of heaven.”

  “It’s good, that’s all. It’s Gil Maspero’s masterpiece. I’m supposed to learn from the best, aren’t I?”

  “Madame Carriera is the best. You can learn far more from a living artist than you can from a gold coin, however old.” He held up his hand. “Now, calm down. No shouting at me until we’re back at the workshop. It’s bad breeding to argue in the street.”

  “I have no intention of arguing with you.” I swept along with all the speed dignity permitted me. I was particularly angry that there was nothing in what he’d said that I could disagree with, barring his reference to the siege medal as a mere gold coin, of course.

  Ludovic kept pace without effort. “Oh, good. Here’s the turning for the north ramparts. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to take the air with me?”

  “Quite sure, thank you.”

  “I see.” In silence, Ludovic accompanied me all the way to the Giltspur Street door. Plainly reluctant to go in, he asked only, “You are going to tell her, aren’t you?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Thank you for walking me home.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, and took his leave.

  Madame Carriera disapproved of my interest in Maspero’s siege medal, as I’d known she would. “It’s one thing to study an object and learn what you can,” she admitted. “But you’ve spent far too much time on this already. The palace archive is a wonderful place. Why focus on just one thing there?”

  “It interests me. I love it. And my time is my own. You can’t say I’ve been neglecting my duties.”

  “No, I can’t fault your work here.” Madame Carriera looked troubled. “It’s just that your enthusiasms are so—violent. And so ill chosen. Why Maspero? Why not Mantegna? Someone good.”

  “Maspero’s good.”

  “All right. I’ll yield that point. But emulating Maspero isn’t going to win you a career. His kind of symbolism is old-fashioned.”

  “Is the Mathias Bridge old-fashioned?”

  “You’re studying to be a painter, not an engineer. Though if you’re studying more of Maspero’s work than one portrait medallion, I’m relieved to hear it.”

  “I saw the ceiling fresco in the throne room,” I confessed. “The cleaners were in, and I pretended to be carrying buckets for them. It’s beautiful. It’s a trellis.”

  “I’ve seen it. Given the dimensions of the room, it’s a good solution.”

  “Would you really let me study more of Maspero’s work than just the medal?” I asked. “There’s the gisant at St. Barbara’s. I could study that.”

  “Oh, yes. Queen Andred’s tomb. Maspero did that?”

  “It was his last work. The only time he had ever tried a full-size sculpture in stone. It’s thirty leagues.” It was a bit farther than that, closer to one hundred miles than ninety. Most of the members of the Lidian royal house were buried in the Abbey of St. Istvan in Dalager, but Queen Andred had spent her widowhood among the Sisters of St. Barbara, and in death she refused to leave them. So fair was the queen’s tomb, it had become a shrine to rival that of St. Barbara herself. Of course, there was only a finger bone of St. Barbara to revere at her shrine, and unseen beneath Maspero’s masterwork lay an entire queen, so perhaps the devotion the queen inspired was understandable.

  “I’d forgotten that was his.” Madame Carriera looked sad. “The queen’s shrine attracted one pilgrim too many. Some Philistine has robbed the tomb. It was all they were talking about at the guild hall last time I was there.”

  “No! That’s sacrilege!”

  “More than that, it was folly. There couldn’t have been much buried with her. A few jewels, perhaps. I suppose they’d have done it for no more than the coins from her eyes. Barbarians. Clumsy barbarians
at that. They levered the lid off the tomb, and it shattered. I’m sorry it was Maspero’s work that was ruined.”

  “Shattered?” I gaped at Madame Carriera. Saskia and I had talked of traveling to St. Barbara’s as pilgrims ourselves someday. Thirty leagues was not too far for two healthy young women. We’d known Madame Carriera would refuse to give us time to make the journey, but we would both be members of the artists guild one day, free to make what pilgrimages we pleased.

  “Not shattered into dust. But certainly badly damaged,” said Madame Carriera. “I’ll ask for more details if you’re so interested.”

  “Yes. If you please.” I shook my head wearily. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I’m sorry you hadn’t heard. I suppose the miracle is that it lasted this long.”

  If the weather the year before had been too dry, the weather that year was too wet. The rains were heavier than anyone could remember. By the time the fields were dry enough to sow, we were weeks past the planting season. I was grateful that my family’s business was not as subject to the tyranny of the weather as most.

  For my own part, I hardly noticed the chilly dampness. Saskia knew someone who knew someone who had a casting furnace I could afford to hire. I modeled and remodeled my waxen copy of the siege medal, cast and recast it, smelted and resmelted the same few ounces of bronze, until my eyebrows were half singed from the heat.

  When I finally made a copy of Maspero’s medal that satisfied me, I rejoiced. It was a thing made to be held in the hand, to be cherished. To me, my medal never quite lost the heat of the furnace. Even as it nestled in my palm, it seemed to give back some of the fire of its creation, some of the warmth I’d felt as I labored to craft it. Before I even began the burnishing that would complete the medal, I showed it proudly to Saskia, to Piers, even to the man who owned the furnace.

  A few days after midsummer, when I was almost halfway between my eighteenth birthday and my nineteenth, Gabriel came back to Giltspur Street.

  He was there to help Piers with repairs to the ceiling of the garret room they had shared. In an attempt to fresco the ceiling, Piers had brought down much of the cracked old plaster. When the worst of the patching was done, the conversation turned from the design of Piers’s fresco—he insisted it should be Venus and Adonis, over all our protests and suggestions—to the works we had been concentrating upon that spring.

  “Saskia, you must be nearly finished,” said Gabriel. “Let me see.” With grave serenity, Saskia led the way to the studio, where her portrait of Madame Carriera held pride of place.

  “A shameless piece of self-promotion,” said Gabriel, “but rather good. Yes, rather good, my dear.”

  Saskia gave him her sweetest smile and said nothing.

  Piers showed us the Madonna and Child he was working on. Gabriel complimented it lavishly, as was only right, then turned to me. “And you, Madame Rosamer? What masterpiece from your hand?”

  My hand itched to slap his face, but I tried to be as benevolent in aspect as Saskia. “That would be premature. I’m not half finished with my apprenticeship yet. Time enough to decide on a subject for my masterpiece.”

  “Waiting for your craft to match your ambition?” Gabriel inquired solicitously. “Is that wise? I fear in your case, the latter will always outstrip the former. But I heard from the fellow at the bellows that you’ve been at the casting furnace lately, melting anything not fastened down. Won’t you show me what you’ve been working on?”

  “I don’t know what you mean. Do you get much gossip from fellows with bellows?” It was a feeble rejoinder, but it served my turn. Gabriel dropped the subject. Piers demanded we help tidy up after the plastering, and the rest of the rainy afternoon was spent in cleaning tools.

  Gabriel hadn’t forgotten the subject, however. He met me the next day, as I was out on an errand of Madame Carriera’s. I returned his greeting and allowed him to fall into step beside me. I was glad to walk slowly. My basket was heavy, for in addition to the pigments I had purchased for Madame Carriera at the apothecary shop, I had been to the market and spent a crown of my own on a bent bronze candlestick, which I planned to recast into several small pieces. Not medallions, anything but that. A cloak pin, a pair of shoe buckles, any simple small thing I could show Madame Carriera to account for my time if she too heard some gossip from the man who owned the furnace.

  The first thing Gabriel said after he’d bid me a good morning was, “You’ve copied the siege medal.”

  I stared at him. He looked as he always did, well groomed and cheerful. But for the only time since we’d known one another, he wasn’t patronizing me. There was nothing of mock jollity in his tone. He was speaking equal to equal.

  “I hear it’s good. I suppose you worked in lost wax because you didn’t have the wit to cast it as a die. That’s necessary to stamp out the coins, but I can help you with that.” The patronizing tone came back then, as he explained how much help he would be to me, making more copies of the siege medal. “You haven’t thought about the cost of the silver either, I can tell. It’s one thing to cast bronze, and quite another to cast the real thing.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked him finally.

  “Don’t try the ignorant act with me,” Gabriel snapped. “I know you too well to be fooled. Play it my way, or I’ll turn you in to the authorities.”

  “Play what?”

  “All right. Let’s go. You could’ve turned the medal over to me, and I’d have kept quiet. Since you insist, we’ll go tell the magistrate all about your hard work spent counterfeiting Julian dinars.”

  “What?” That brought me up short. “You’re mad.”

  “Am I really? I’m an established member of the guild you can only aspire to join. I have a workshop and more commissions than I and a studio full of apprentices can fill. The magistrate knows me well. He’ll listen to me.”

  “Listen to what?”

  “The truth about you, Madame Rosamer.”

  “Don’t call me that.” I stalked away.

  Gabriel matched my speed. “Why not? You love it. It’s the only time you’ll ever hear it, and you know it.”

  “You call me that to plague me, that’s all. I hate it.”

  “Liar. You know you’re never going to be in the guild. Madame Carriera took you on as a favor. You came here with your nose in the air and you looked down at all of us. Do you know how hard I had to work before she would even consent to let me try for an apprenticeship with her? I was better trained before I ever set foot in Giltspur Street than you’ll be on the last day you see it. You, with your little copies—you make me laugh. You’ve always made me laugh.”

  “I never looked down on anyone. You spent all your time thinking of ways to make things harder for me—you sneezed on my gold leaf!” My voice shook with indignation, and I bit back my words lest I shame myself with tears of rage.

  We had reached the mouth of Giltspur Street. Gabriel took my arm to stop my flight home. “Give me the medal. I won’t say another word about it. Give me the medal or I’ll report you. Do you know what the penalty for coining is? First they’ll slit your long nose, Madame Rosamer, and then they’ll hang you.”

  Here was no prank, no sand in my sinopia. Here was something I had never encountered in my life: hatred.

  “Think of the shame you’ll bring to Madame Carriera. Think of the pain you’ll cause her, the discredit to her workshop. Give me the medal.”

  His words burned in my ears as his grip on my wrist ground my bones together. I tried to free myself. “Why? What would you do with it?”

  “Why, I’d turn it in to the proper authorities. I’ll say I found it somewhere. There’ll be nothing to connect it with you.” I was looking him in the eyes and I saw the lie there, clear behind the pious words. Gabriel truly thought I intended to use my medal to fake Julian dinars. Once he had the medal, he would have a secret to hold over me always. He could threaten to reveal my supposed crime any time it suited him.

  As
I could see his lie, he could see my fear. The sight fed his hatred, and he went on telling me what my misdeeds would do to Madame Carriera’s reputation, to my family’s reputation. He let himself make every threat he could think of.

  Such words. It would not repay my effort to recollect them and set them down on the page. But the result served me better than it served him. Young, I was. Foolish, I was. Female, I am and have always proudly been. But even a brass farthing can buy trouble. Even a market basket can dent a head.

  He fell at my feet. I stared at him for what seemed like quite a long time, but it must have been a minute, no more. My blow had broken the skin at his temple and the blood came fast.

  My thoughts were clear. If I had hurt him very badly, he might die. Then I would be arrested for murder and put to death. If I had not hurt him badly enough, he might live. I would be arrested for counterfeiting and put to death. As desperately as I wanted to be a great artist and create all the things that I had in mind to make the moment my skill allowed, I wanted even more to live.

  Given time, and a good hot furnace, I might have destroyed the medal. The casting furnace was half the city away and I knew that by the time I’d fired it to the proper temperature, too much time would have passed. Gabriel would have been discovered. Charges lodged. An arrest made.

  My thoughts were clear. Yet my thoughts were not all that ruled me. I ran away. I put the pigments where Madame Carriera would find them, lest she come to chide me sooner than she must. I gathered up the siege medal, a few poor items besides, tied them in a scarf, and fled.

  SIX

  (In which I take a long walk.)

  It is one thing to plan to walk thirty leagues and quite another to do it. Saskia and I never planned to make our pilgrimage to St. Barbara’s unprepared. I had far more than thirty leagues ahead of me the day I ran away from Madame Carriera’s workshop.

  It was ninety leagues north to Neven from the city of Aravis. More than that, for I could not take the main road. Even if I had dared to brave the easiest route, where any pursuit would be sure to look for me first, my conscience kept me to the longer, ill-traveled river roads. The season’s woolpack would be in by now, and soon the raft would bring it downstream to market. If I missed them en route, my family would float serenely past me and try to sell our goods in a city where I was deemed either a murderer or a counterfeiter. I was determined to stay within sight of the river, to shout, to wave, to set something afire, anything to prevent that.