‘He was more than just a gentleman; he was Don Antonio de Cantagallo, an officer in the household of the Archduke of Austria,’ the councillor says. ‘He had come from Antwerp to arrange the removal of that altarpiece.’ He looks at Bianca. ‘And your wife – she also saw nothing?’
‘I was at confession,’ Bianca says. ‘Ask Father Albani.’
In the tallow light, Nicholas has the chance to study the maid a little more closely. Her trembling has ceased, but she keeps turning in the direction of the little slaughterhouse, as though she fears the killer might come after her to finish his task. Her face has a haunted look about it. The eyes fill their sockets like those of an injured animal, wide, hurt and uncomprehending; the narrow cheekbones below seem about to push through the skin. Her dark hair looks as if it’s been hacked with a blunt knife. To Nicholas, it is a face that a painter had intended to be beautiful, but while his back was turned some unseen hand had mixed a terrible wash of pain and solemnity into the colours.
‘Well, we know you well enough,’ the councillor says, coming nearer and ramming his thick hands into his hips like an angry parent.
Bianca puts one defensive arm around the girl’s shoulders, pulling her closer.
‘You are the child who keeps frightening our citizens with what awaits them on the Day of Judgement,’ the burgher says, still speaking English, presumably for Nicholas’s benefit. ‘You’re the one who believes everything she sees in a painting. Did you come here to cause trouble for us with the Spanish, by defacing Master Hieronymus’s altarpiece?’
The maid’s darting gaze comes to rest on the burgher, as if she’s seeing him for the first time. To the surprise of both Nicholas and Bianca, she answers in English that is even less accented than the councillor’s. ‘I came to ask Father Vermeiren to burn it, before the Spanish take it to Antwerp and infect the souls of even more of God’s innocent lambs.’
‘How very public-spirited of you. What happened, then?’
‘The rebel – he burst in… pushed me aside…’ She covers her eyes with her hands as though trying to block out the image. ‘He lashed out with his knife at the Spaniard. When… when Father Vermeiren tried to help him, the man thrust the blade into his breast.’ Inspecting her blood-smeared palms as though seeing them for the first time, she adds softly, ‘I tried to hold him up. I swear it, on all that’s holy. But he was too heavy. I had to let him go–’ She turns her face from the spread fingers as though blaming them for the failure.
‘Describe this man.’
‘I cannot.’
‘You cannot, or you will not?’
‘I saw only his eyes. The rest of his face was covered by a cloth.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘I can’t recall.’
‘How convenient.’
Tears turn the blood left by her palms into watery smears of crimson. ‘It… it all happened so suddenly. I was frightened – terrified.’
‘The girl is clearly distraught, Meneer,’ Nicholas says. ‘Would it not be kinder to allow her some time to recover her composure? And somewhere more comfortable. Surely there is no cause to keep us here.’
The councillor is practised at turning down petitions and suits laid before the city assembly. He has a stock of gestures and expressions designed to garner sympathy, even while he disappoints. ‘Sadly, no,’ he says. ‘I cannot release you until our Spanish friends agree – not after His Imperial Highness the archduke loses one of his favourite officers to an assassin in our humble cathedral.’
The councillor gives the barest hint of a bow of regret. Placing the tallow light on the floor, he gestures to his companion to follow. Closing the iron grille behind him, he leaves Nicholas, Bianca and the maid to whatever thoughts they are brave enough to conjure from the surrounding darkness.
‘The Spanish will hang us all,’ the young woman says resignedly, when the echo of the closing door has been subsumed by the ancient stones of the cathedral. ‘We’ll never leave here alive. You must tell them I’m innocent. Perhaps they’ll listen to a physician.’
Trying to take her mind off her fear, Nicholas asks, ‘Where did you learn to speak our language, Mistress…?’
‘Maas. My name is Hella Maas,’ she says, drawing a bloodstained sleeve across her eyes even as she avoids his question. ‘And if I spoke only Dutch, I could warn only the Dutch.’
‘Warn them about what?’ Bianca asks. ‘Do you mean Spanish retribution for the assassination?’
‘I mean the day when we are all judged. The day we are condemned to everlasting torment.’
It is said in such a matter-of-fact tone that she could be speaking of market day rather than Judgement Day.
‘Oh, you mean the triptych,’ Nicholas says, rather more sceptically than he intended. ‘I admit it was troubling, compelling even. But it is just a painting.’
Hella says, ‘Do you not see now how dangerous it is, to have such things revealed? If you, a physician, can be drawn to such images, imagine what damage they might do to a soul that is less educated. That is why I have to warn the people of Den Bosch. Knowledge is not always a gift–’ She breaks off as they hear the sound of a key turning in a lock and the discordant, mournful cry of the iron gate opening.
‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, they have come to hang us, just as I said they would,’ Hella whispers.
A single figure emerges out of the shadows, a rushlight clasped in one hand. The flames cast demon’s claw-marks across his face. For a moment Nicholas wonders if the maid is right and the captain of the garrison has sent a priest to give the condemned the Viaticum.
But it is only Father Albani, come to tell Bianca that he has managed to convince the captain and the burghers that she and Nicholas are nothing but innocent passers-by, caught up in a wicked attack by a deranged Dutch rebel. Numerous people – from the Sisters lighting the candles in the cathedral, to worshippers approaching from the Markt square – all testify to a solitary man fleeing into a side-street. The Spanish are searching for him at this moment. So Nicholas and Bianca are free to go. So too is Hella Maas, although on the subject of the triptych it might be safer for everyone if she keeps her warnings to herself for a while. The Bishop of Antwerp will have enough on his mind, grieving for his murdered priest, without being troubled by an itinerant maid preaching the imminent arrival of the Last Judgement.
And Father Albani has a warning, too, for Nicholas and Bianca.
‘When the archduke hears of this,’ he says in that Lombardy accent that tugs at her memories of home, ‘he will send his people here to investigate further. I would not care to be a foreigner – an outsider – when they come, no matter how innocent. Or from what persecution you happen to be fleeing.’
In the Markt square the citizens of Den Bosch are gathering, attracted by the news. They come alone, in pairs, in little groups of friends and family, coalescing, separating, swirling like leaves carried on the surface of an eddying stream. Are the rumours true? Have the rebel provinces of the north sent an assassin to our peaceful town to commit murder? Is it true that Father Vermeiren lost his life wresting with the killer? Is there no abomination to which the heretic rebels of the north will not stoop? And now the Spanish have doubled the guard on the city’s gates. They will send inquisitors from Antwerp or Brussels. They will treat us like enemies instead of subjects.