Artists like Master Holbein have amassed fortunes on their ability to take a likeness that flatters while reflecting the subject’s true features. She doubts that many of his patrons have ever requested that he make his subject less attractive.
“You take pride in your work,” she says.
“I do.” He hesitates, and she leaves him space to talk. Cleves has several talents, but one of her greatest lies in being able to put anyone at ease, no matter their rank. “There is a moment in the process where I know – aha, I have got them. Captured their essence. It might be a little fold in the chin, or a certain sharpness to the eye, or the texture of the skin. But once I have that, all else flows from there. The sensation when that happens … it is glorious, Your Majesty.”
Cleves leans forward, her elbows on the table. “And what if that is denied, or you never get that feeling?”
“Then I am very unhappy. I do not like those portraits to be seen.”
“But sometimes they must be. Sometimes I imagine your employer prefers the portrait that does not contain the … essence.”
Holbein juts his chin. “I have never permitted that to happen across my whole life.”
She sees the conflict in his eyes – he does not need to confirm his instructions from Henry. It is imperative to Elben’s king that Cleves be perceived as a joke, a failure, an abomination. Such humiliation is designed to keep Cleves in line, to remind those loyal to her that she can never be taken seriously as a ruler. A woman scorned can harbour no thoughts of rebellion or defiance.
Here, in Holbein, is a man who wishes to reflect the truth of her, but whose paymaster wishes him to tell a lie. Which shall it be? Integrity or survival? Cleves knows which she would choose, but Holbein is one of those rare humans who will stake all on integrity. There are more of them around of late. Queen Boleyn. Queen Seymour. Look where it led them – death and exile. Strange, poor creatures. She will never be one of them.
Her eyes land on the papers before her. The one on top is a report, in her master of horse’s scrawl, on the latest additions to her menagerie and their associated costs.
“Follow me, Master Holbein. I have a scheme that will make all parties contented,” she says.
She has never had a throne – the royals of Ezzonid have not settled for such things for nigh on twenty years – but she has her servants carry a sturdy wooden chair from the banqueting hall into her receiving chamber. The space is, like the rest of Cnothan, a mishmash to its core. She has adopted the Ezzonid manner of painting elaborate murals onto the ceilings. She looks up at skies of palest blue and pink, rimmed with clouds and fharah – the many-coloured, troublemaking birds that are a common sight in the wildernesses of her home country. But the floor is Elbenese terracotta, made by artisans in the neighbouring town of Cnorgleo from clay taken from the riverbanks of the Fietherford.
Holbein sets up his easel in the centre of the room, facing the chair. Cleves settles into the seat, plumping the cotton sleeves of her blouse and smoothing her burnt-ochre gown. She pats her hood, making sure that her hair is tucked beneath it properly. She does not usually wear hoods, the informal nature of her castle not demanding it, and her hair rarely cooperates when she attempts to cover it. She perches the glasses on her nose. She does not require them unless she is reading, but they will contribute to the look.
“This is excellent,” Holbein is muttering. “Straight on, so you are looking at me directly. No games. This might be it.”
“Not quite, sir,” she says, and gestures to Fergus, her master of horse. He is leaning against the door frame, watching the affair with his usual sardonic smile. He moves aside and ushers in an assortment of animals. A single hunting dragon, a handful of small pigs, two greyhounds, a horse and six or so ferrets.
“Come to me, friends,” Cleves says, patting the bottom of her skirts. Holbein watches, eyes wide, as one of the pigs and a few ferrets settle themselves in her lap. The horse nuzzles her shoulder from behind, and the rest gather around her on the floor.
“Where is Lelij?” she asks Fergus.
“Behind me. He’s shy today.”
From the doorway, a snout appears, sniffing the room. Cleves clicks her tongue several times and holds out her hand. A servant places a segment of orange onto her upturned palm. The snout sniffs again, and then a head follows, and then the whole creature. It is a lopsided, crooked-limbed beast, with a tongue so large it lolls out of its mouth. It lollops into the room and swipes the orange segment, before licking the remnants of juice from Cleves’s hand.
“Here, Lelij,” she says, gently drawing the creature by its collar to sit at her feet, displacing one of the greyhounds.
Holbein stares at it.
“What is such a beast?” he says, kneeling so that he is at the creature’s own level.
“Come now, Master Holbein, surely you have drawn many gargoyles in your time,” she says, raising an eyebrow. He looks between her and Lelij, and then both he and she begin to laugh.
“Oh, very good, Your Majesty,” he says, patting his chest. “Very good indeed.”
He begins to work, his fingers deftly swiping the charcoal this way and that, taking a brief likeness of her and her pets for reference. When he returns to his studio, he will work the sketch up into a full painting. Cleves will look like the foreigner she is, in her Ezzonid fashion, her glasses rendering her bookish. Her animals will make her an oddity, will conjure the smells of unwashed fur and moulting hair. Henry will be able to overlook the fact that Holbein has painted her as she truly appears – clear skin, eyes like flint, regal posture – because he will be able to point to the gargoyle, that ugliest of beasts, at her feet. And he and his friends will laugh and compare the two.I would rather marry the gargoyle, they will smirk. And in their ridicule, Cleves and Holbein will both be safe.
“Yes,” Holbein mutters, his fingers moving faster. “I have you, Your Majesty. I have you.”
CHAPTER THREE
Howard
The fabrics cover the gallery floor, turning the wood to shimmering pearl. Howard kneels beside them, runs her fingers over them one by one. Damask and velvet and fine lace woven from the tiny silkworms of Thawodest.
“This one is like a cloud,” Ursula Askew says. She rubs the velvet against her face, her eyes closed, her smile mischievous. Howard forces herself to laugh.
