Danse Macabre: Close Encounters with the Reaper

by Nancy Kilpatrick

  Panic started to abate, replaced by curiosity. “My … services…”

  “Yes. A commission.”

  Hans blinked in surprise and drew himself up. “You want me to … work for you?”

  “I do. What you told your friend Erasmus earlier…”

  Hans went back in his memory, and he knew immediately — he knew how he’d damned himself.

  I could do better.

  “The old depictions of me, those ridiculous images of dancing and cavorting like some mad witch in the moonlight … they no longer please me. I consider you to be the finest artist of this age, and I want you to render me, as I am, every day. I want you to record me the way I truly am — not as some prancing fool, but as one who practices his trade with care and respect for the craft.”

  “Respect?” Hans gasped out, before he could stop himself. “You kill innocents—”

  “No. I merely perform the tasks assigned me. There are greater authorities above me, Hans. If you have complaints with choices, you’ll need to address those elsewhere. I only control the day-to-day practice, and I am not cruel, callous, or uncaring. I take pride in my work, as you do in yours.”

  Hans wanted to sneer. He wanted to stand and hurl epithets at this monster, call him a liar, a hypocrite, deluded, but…

  What if he’s right?

  “So how would you—?”

  “You will accompany me on some of my rounds. Neither of us will be visible to those I must take. You will observe, and record exactly what you see.”

  “And in return, you’ll keep me safe from plague? My family as well?”

  “Yes. And also…”

  Death ran his fleshless fingers into Hans’s leather satchel, and removed the small bundle of prayer book drawings. The sheets flew across the table, and Death leaned down to examine them closely. “These are lovely. They’re too good for Hermann, you know.”

  Hans did know. Hermann’s work was often slipshod, erasing the lovely details that made artwork live and breathe. “He’s the best in Basel—”

  “He’s not. Seek out Hans Lützelburger.”

  “I know the name, but he’s not in Basel.”

  Death turned to face him, and somehow he knew the smile was intentional this time. “He has only recently come here. He will be my other gift to you. Shall we begin tomorrow?”

  Holbein swallowed … and nodded.

  They began at a convent.

  They’d flown like wind through Basel’s crowded morning streets, and arrived unseen at Death’s destination. Holbein felt like a voyeur, trespassing into the intimate inner realm of the brides of Christ, but when one initiate walked through him, he wondered which of them was really the ghost.

  Death led him to a courtyard where the elderly abbess knelt in a small garden. Even from a distance, Holbein could hear her rattling breath, see her faltering limbs. She was halfway dead, but her will kept her clinging stubbornly to life.

  Death waited a few moments, then stepped forward and gently touched the old woman’s shoulder. She felt the tap, turned, and her mouth fell open in a silent shriek of protest. She tried to pull away, but Death clung to her habit’s white scapular and pulled her to her feet. Holbein watched, fascinated, as her body fell to the earth of the courtyard while her spirit was led off by determined Death. In one of the arched doorways leading out to the courtyard, a young nun saw the fallen body of her superior and began to shout.

  Holbein was too busy making preliminary sketches on a sheet of parchment to notice the grief that unfolded around him. He was surprised when he abruptly awoke, finding himself in his studio, alone, a half-finished sketch near his hands.

  Death proved to be courteous, allowing Holbein enough time to completely finish one drawing before he reappeared. Hans began to look forward to the visits, fascinated by his patron’s methods. He watched, invisible, as Death claimed a judge in the act of being bribed, a wealthy woman who felt the approach and dressed for the occasion, a peddler who tried in vain to flee to the next town, and a blind man who gratefully allowed himself to be led. He laughed when Death arrayed himself in the costume of a ragged peasant to claim a count; he allowed himself a measure of petty satisfaction when Death took a miser, and made the dead soul watch in helpless dismay as he also took money from a counting table. Each of these excursions ended with Holbein awakening in his studio, and intuiting that he was not yet permitted to see what came next for those called by Death.

  Hans continued working on his other commissions, but he found himself always returning to his Dance of Death. He added his own touches to the drawings: He included an hourglass in many of them; he did complete new drawings, depicting his friend leading Adam and Eve out of Paradise, since they’d become part of his dominion. He drew a coat-of-arms for Death, and even an alphabet. He gave Death a sense of humor, although with subtler satire than earlier artists had provided.

  He watched other citizens of his town die of plague. Not many — the sickness wasn’t rampaging again, as it had in the past — and although the recognition left him uneasy, he had come to trust Death and knew he was safe. He took each new drawing to Hans Lützelburger, whose skill as an engraver surpassed his reputation. Holbein suspected that, if his Dances of Death were admired by future generations, it might be partly because of the brilliance of the engraver.

  Then one day Death made him attend the taking of a child.

  The boy was barely more than an infant, about the age and size of Hans’s stepson Franz, his wife’s son from her first marriage, which had ended when she was widowed. It was a poor family, living in a ramshackle cottage without windows, a badly-thatched roof, and no fire but a cooking pit in the middle of the floor. Death showed no compassion nor consideration as he took the little one by a single tiny wrist, leading it away from the body slumped on the floor, while the gaunt mother and older sister sobbed in a grief that Holbein had never seen, a grief born of a lifetime of desperation and loss. Holbein followed Death out of the cottage, and his face was still wet when his eyes snapped open to the familiar surroundings of his studio.

  The beginnings of the drawing by his outstretched right hand repulsed him. But he didn’t crumple it up or fling it into the fire. Instead he completed it.

  He took it to Lützelburger, only to discover that the engraver had died in the week since Hans had last seen him. A terrible accident, involving a horse cart driven by a sot. The driver was in jail, and the engraver was dead.

  Death came to Holbein that night. Hans was pacing in his studio, anticipating the visit. Still, his patron’s first words surprised him: “I release you from our agreement, Hans. You have upheld your side of the bargain, and I’m very pleased with the work, which has re-inspired me.”

  “How could you take the child?”

  The skull-head was unreadable, incapable of expressing emotion. “I’ve told you, I’m not the final authority—”

  Hans cut him off, waving a hand in irritation. “Yes, yes, I know, I’ve heard all that. It’s God’s fault, is that it?”

  Death hesitated, and Hans wondered if he’d finally provoked something that wasn’t cold and rational. “Yes. Even I don’t pretend to understand His wisdom.”

  “But doesn’t it hurt you when it’s a child, a babe, and the parents—”

  “No, Hans, it does not.”

  Finally, Hans understood: He was dealing with a demi-god, a thing that was impossibly old and inhuman and with motives that nothing of flesh and blood could ever comprehend. And once again, he was frightened of Death.

  “I leave you now, Hans, at least until we must meet again. I am grateful for your skill, although I suspect it may make us both famous, and you must admit — you will owe part of that to me.”

  Hans stood, frozen, as Death vanished again. Then he collapsed into a chair and poured himself a glass of ale that he hoped
was big enough to make him as insensible as the drunkard who had killed Lützelburger.

  After that, Basel lost its charms, and in the autumn of 1526, Hans fled to England, where he’d heard artists were often highly paid. He left Elsbeth and the children in Basel, and over the next decade found fame in the court of Henry VIII, where he became the King’s Painter. He prospered to the point where he acquired a mistress and two new children. He still visited Elsbeth when he could, and made sure she and their children were well provided for.

  The plague returned to London in 1543. Hans heard the news from friends in the Royal Court. It was only a small outbreak, but his anxiety rose like a black sun.

  He was no longer protected.

  On a cold night when fog covered London like grave dirt, Hans was returning from an audience with the King, who was inquiring again about the painting he’d commissioned from Hans in 1541, the one to commemorate the unification of the barbers’ and surgeons’ guilds. The painting was large, but size wasn’t the issue; Holbein was, rather, simply bored by the subject. Of course he’d assured his royal employer that the work was progressing well, and would be completed soon.

  Hans tried to negotiate his way through the fog, lighted windows providing little illumination until he’d nearly walked into them. He knew he was lost, and in fact he’d been walking for several minutes without even finding a shop or street sign. An overhead lamp revealed an intersection. He turned—

  —and smelled plague.

  He froze, panic starting to rise from his chest. The stench was nearly gagging him, and he staggered back as if physically assaulted by it. Then, from somewhere in the shrouded center of the lane, he heard:

  “Hello, old friend.”

  No!

  The black shape took form before him, hard white surfaces glinting within ebony folds, and Hans could only stare, immobile, sure that his time had arrived at last.

  “You’ve come for me.”

  “Not yet, not that way. But I do come once again seeking your services. A new commission.”

  Hans felt exhausted at the mere idea. “We already showed you claiming victims from nearly forty different walks of life — what can be left?”

  “Exactly, Hans. I, too, have again grown weary of the limitations imposed on me. And that is why I want something different from you: I want you to create entirely new works. This time, you will not accompany me on my rounds, but will work from your imagination, placing me in fresh situations.”

  “You want me…” Hans struggled to find the words. “You want me to show you…”

  “The station of the victims won’t be important this time, but the method of passing will.”

  “New ways to die … is that what you’re saying?”

  Death’s jaws made a slight clacking sound as he nodded. “Precisely.”

  Hans shook his head. “No. It’s ghastly.”

  “Why? I’m asking you to entertain me, to renew and reinvigorate me. Surely that’s a more worthwhile goal for art than memorializing some pompous blowhard and a bunch of barbers?”

  “I…” Hans had no answer, because Death was right, and Hans knew that was why King Henry VIII Granting the Charter to the Barber-Surgeon’s Company had already gone on for two years. Over the last few years here in England, he’d become little more than a gifted technician, a highly paid and praised one, but not a true artist. And wasn’t Death the ultimate critic? If he could win the praise of this patron for original works, it would surely (ironically) be his life’s greatest achievement.

  “Yes.” The word escaped his mouth almost of its own volition.

  The reeking scent vanished instantly. “I’m delighted, my friend. I’ll visit with you next week to view your progress.”

  Hans wasn’t surprised to find the fog lifting by the time he’d reached the end of the lane.

  Death became Hans Holbein’s constant companion.

  Hans began to notice new things about people, and about the world around them. He saw the potential for fatality in everything. A ship on the Thames could lose its rigging and hurl a sailor into the river’s grimy depths. An urchin begging coins on a corner might be trod upon by a nobleman’s horse, or perhaps fall victim to a far more outlandish accident — a bottle dropped from high overhead, an errant fist thrown by a bar brawler, a rare venomous spider inadvertently imported from a tropical region.

  After his strolls, Hans returned to his studio and drew. For the first time in years, his work excited him. At the end of his first week, Death appeared by his side, and Hans wordlessly offered the initial piece: A man convulsing at a dinner table while a woman sat at the head, raising a glass in toast, having just successfully poisoned her husband; Death stood nearby bearing a tray, the attentive waiter.

  “Superb, Hans, superb,” Death muttered, stroking a bone-tip over the art, “but you can go further.”

  Hans could barely sleep that night, his mind aflame with lethal possibilities.

  When Death appeared next, Hans handed him two more works, and Death stood speechless for several seconds before whispering one word: “Astonishing.” The first of the drawings so praised showed a field of peasants in tattered rags torn apart by a wave of bullets from a giant gun mounted on a hill; Death held out strings of bullets to the mad gunner. The second new piece showed a man in a street being struck down by some sort of huge, horseless cart, a grotesque engine of destruction bellowing flame from its back.

  Over the following weeks, Hans thought of little else but stranger and more horrible scenes of death. He drew on larger sheets, with bolder strokes. He drew scenes of soldiers enveloped in peculiar vapors on a battlefield, their mouths agape in their final dying breath, while Death stood above them, dangling long scarves that might have kept them safe. He drew a line of rail-thin, bent patients, all plainly dying as a wealthy doctor turned his back to them and accepted money from Death instead. He showed a priest gesticulating wildly from a pulpit, causing his flock to turn on each other in violence while Death stood behind him wearing a white miter. He drew a man of science holding an open box from which emanated a blinding whiteness that caused all those below it to fling up arms in useless attempts to shield themselves, while Death stood behind the scientist jotting notes in a book.

  Death was ecstatic. He stared with empty sockets at each new drawing, lingering for minutes, stroking them lovingly. “Exquisite,” he might murmur, or, “brilliant.”

  Hans knew it was his finest work. After Death had rendered approval, each new piece went into a large wooden box that he’d had designed and specially made; the top was ornately carved and gilt with Death’s coat-of-arms from the first set of drawings. Hans had already completed the engravings on the first two drawings of this new set himself, having decided that no other could be entrusted to accurately cut the wood for his masterworks. Someday, when the engravings were completed and the books printed, the world would recognize his achievement as an engraver as well as an artist.

  One afternoon, as Hans returned from another visit to Henry’s court that had left him bored and annoyed and aching to return to what he considered his real work, he passed an inn and saw a ring of onlookers standing around outside, peering in anxiously. He spotted a man he knew in the crowd, an apprentice to a printer he sometimes dined with, and he asked the man what the commotion was about.

  “Lady murdered her husband,” the young apprentice said, nodding toward the building’s front windows.

  Hans found a gap in the crowd, bent down to peer in through a square of glass — and his breath caught at what he saw:

  Two pikemen were questioning a woman who sat at the head of a table, a glass resting before her. A few feet away was a dead man slumped across his plate, still clutching an empty goblet in one hand.

  It was an exact replica of the first new drawing Hans had given Death; the only element missing was De
ath himself, in the position of the waiter.

  Hans stumbled backward in shock, carelessly bumping into others who cursed or cautioned him. He barely noticed when the apprentice laid a guiding hand on his arm. “Take care, there, sir, you don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “Too late for that!” Hans said, before turning to flee.

  He staggered back to his studio, his thoughts racing past possibilities and deceptions: It’s a coincidence/Death put the image in my head and I didn’t even realize it/perhaps I’ve gained some fortune-teller’s ability…

  But only one explanation made sense: Death copied my drawing!

  When he reached his studio, he bolted the door and raced to the box of drawings. He tore open the decorated lid, and reached to the bottom of the stack of drawings to pluck out the first.

  A woman — no, that woman, who he’d just seen — poisoning a man. In that room. Even the glasses matched perfectly.

  He slammed the drawing down, his motion causing some of the others to flutter aside. There was a woman being raped while Death kept her hands tied; there, a field of soldiers blown apart by some explosive, while Death stood a short distance away, one arm still upraised from the deadly missile he’d just hurled.

  Hans leafed frantically through the drawings, realization growing like a cancer within him: He hadn’t created entertainment for Death. Death had never intended to accept these works as art to restore his own flagging spirit.

  No, this was an instructional guide. These were signposts pointing to the future. Hans Holbein the Younger had assembled a manual of coming murders. Death had lied to him when he’d told him he had no control over who he took and how; He was the final authority. He was God.

  Hans collapsed onto a work bench, his hands tearing at his beard, at his expensive collar. What have I done? Is it too late to undo it?

  He’d only finished a few of the woodcuts, and none had gone to the printer yet. He could simply burn them now, destroy them. Death had already seen them, true, had committed them to memory; but perhaps a memory as well-used as His was faulty, wouldn’t retain details.