Well, not some of the Jefferson portraits, perhaps. But those had been so closely tied to a public purpose that he'd felt tightly constrained.
He thought he probably still only had seven years left, himself, regardless of what happened. He'd died of gout, in that world that would have been. From what Anne had told him, there didn't seem to be any magical medical cure for that condition, not even for the up-timers. Only a dreary list of things he shouldn't eat, and a still drearier list of things he shouldn't do. It hardly seemed worth it, just to gain a few extra years. Sixty-three wasn't so bad, better than most.
He didn't care much, really. They would be seven productive years, perhaps the most productive of his life. And he always had the consolation—given to precious few men since Adam—of knowing that almost the last act of his life would be to impregnate a wife whom he would leave behind in comfort and good health.
Still, as weeks passed, he felt increasingly dissatisfied. He hadn't even dared show the painting to Helena. Somebody should see it, before his death.
Finally, he realized that there was one witness possible. Who better, really? And she could certainly be relied upon to hold the confidence, for a multitude of reasons.
So, in one of the many visits across the lines into Amsterdam—those had practically become a regular traffic, by then—he passed the word along. And, two days later, his witness arrived at his home.
He ushered her into the small room where he kept the painting tucked away in a closet. He'd chosen that room because, small and awkwardly designed as it was, it had the only closet in the house that was big enough. It was a very large painting.
After setting it up on an easel for viewing, he unwrapped the cloth that hid it. Then, waited while she studied his work.
By the time she was done, Rebecca Abrabanel's brown eyes were watery. "Oh, Pieter," she whispered. "It's magnificent. But it's so . . . wrong."
She turned the eyes to him, her gaze almost—not quite—an accusing one. "He is not a cruel man. I can assure you of that. Very kind and gentle, actually, most of the time."
So, Rubens knew he had succeeded.
"Of course not. I never imagined he was cruel." Finally satisfied, and in full, he gazed upon his work. "Nothing but grace can wreak such havoc and destruction, Rebecca. Nothing else can even come close. Had Lucifer understood that, we would never have needed for the Christ to be sent at all."
PART TWO
Frenzies bewilder, reveries perturb the mind
Chapter 11
The Tower of London
January 1634
"I think I'm going to tear my hair out," Melissa Mailey announced, to no one in particular. She was looking through one of the windows in St. Thomas' Tower that overlooked the Water Lane that separated it from the Inner Ward and the rest of the Tower of London. Glaring through it, more precisely.
Sitting next to each other on an ornate divan, not far away in the big central room of their quarters, Tom and Rita Simpson looked at each other. Then, back at Melissa.
Tom cleared his throat. "I think it's an attractive shade of gray, myself." His wife winced.
Melissa swiveled her head, bringing the glare onto Tom. "I am not that vain, thank you."
She was fudging a bit. Outside of being clean, well-groomed and reasonably well-dressed, in a schoolteacher's sort of way, one of the few things about her appearance that Melissa was sensitive about was her hair color. Perhaps it was because she was a natural dark-blonde who'd spent too many years being belligerent about blonde jokes. Whatever the reason, as she'd gotten into middle age she'd found herself dismayed by the gray creeping into her hair, where the wrinkles creeping into her face and the various little sags in her body hadn't bothered her in the least.
So, for years, she'd dyed her hair. Subtly, of course. Melissa Mailey would just as soon commit hara-kiri as become a peroxide blonde. In her lexicon of personal sins, being garish ranked just barely below being reactionary or bigoted.
Alas, while the seventeenth century had plenty of methods for coloring hair, "garish" pretty well defined the end result for any of them. So, since the Ring of Fire, Melissa had rationed the supply of up-time hair-coloring that existed in Grantville which suited her needs. But she'd only brought a small amount when they came to England on a diplomatic mission, the past summer. That had long since vanished in the months since they'd found themselves imprisoned in the Tower of London.
She looked back out the window. "I propose to tear my hair out not because of its coloring—which suits me well, enough, I assure you—but because of the activities and behavior of a certain Darryl McCarthy. One of your soldiers, let me remind you, Captain Simpson."