CHAPTER TWO
Cleves
She is far too busy to attend to the artist. A queen’s territory is like the innards of a clock: intricate, each part relying on the other to work correctly. And the queen must be at its centre. So it is with Cnothan: her pile of correspondence is extensive.
The artist sighs.
She has another letter from Ezzonid:I am already at the docks, cousin, so there is no point in telling me to turn around. Your missives will not reach me. With a fair wind, I shall reach your little castle …
She bites her lip to keep from swearing. Any guest, even family from her homeland, is unwelcome. She does not need people scurrying around her castle peering into her business. She sets the letter aside, since it requires no reply, and casts her eyes over the next.
I have something of a cough at present, and have been forced to take to my bed. I find my mind wandering to the past as I lie here …
Lady Paston – her first and, for a long time, only vulnerability. She must give her response proper thought.
The artist sighs again.
Cleves pulls her glasses from her nose and leans back in her chair, observing the man who sits with charcoal-sooted fingers in the corner of the room.
“Is my pose not to your liking, Master Holbein?” she says.
The man smiles apologetically. “I simply cannot draw you flatteringly at such an angle, Your Majesty.”
“And what makes you think that I would concern myself with flattering angles?”
“Everyone prefers to show the best of themselves, do they not?”
She supposes she must give him credit for saying “everyone” rather than “every woman”, but then again the people of Avahuc do not concern themselves with gender, so perhaps it is merely cultural.
“I believe that actions, not appearances, show the best of a person.”
Master Holbein offers a little seated bow, and his canvas – a piece of blue-washed paper secured over a wooden board – dips with him, offering a tantalising glimpse of his sketch. “And the best of my action lies in the mastery of my art, Your Majesty.”
Cleves laughs. She puts her glasses down upon the pile of parchment – accounts, correspondence, pleas and offers. She studies Holbein more carefully.
“You know I have no desire for this portrait. My husband is the one who commissions you,” she says.
“This is true.” There is a frown line between his eyes which grows deeper as he speaks. He is stocky, clean-shaven, and the only mark of status he wears is a single gold chain around his neck. His skin is a warmer brown than hers.
“Correan aspa pir esperido,” she says, stumbling over the lisp of the accent.
Holbein gasps, then grins. “Her Majesty knows my language?”
“A very little,” she says.
What follows is a stream of words in Avahucian. She barely recognises two of them, and can no sooner guess at his meaning than she can guess at the notion of enjoying lovemaking with a man. She laughs again. “Stop, sir, I beg of you. Do you mean to humiliate me to my face?”
Holbein covers his eyes with one hand. This she finds curious too – is his over-gesticulation nature or performance? The former, she decides.
“My humble apologies,” he says. “My homesickness made me eager for conversation in my native tongue.”
“If you answered my question in your native tongue, I am none the wiser,” she says.
Holbein licks his lips. The question she asked him in his own language – “has my husband not commanded you to make me appear ugly?” – should make him nervous. He cannot very well admit to it if those were Henry’s instructions.
“I believe His Majesty wishes to circulate a variety of portraits of his queens for the pleasure and education of the people,” Holbein says.
Nobility and royals across the known world have always done as much. It is a way of offering a connection between subjects and their rulers. It cements status, for if one is deemed influential enough to have a portrait – and to have that portrait replicated in multiple great houses – then one must be influential indeed. Recognition is power.
