The Blood Royal(105)
‘It’s a frightening vision,’ Lily said. ‘Deliberately so. The princess told us all – do you remember – that no photographic equipment is allowed any longer in Russia. The country’s being laid waste, people are fleeing their homes or starving to death, massacres are going on, and what do the rest of us see of this? Nothing! The painting is an allegory. It’s a scream of protest, a warning, a cry to the world for assistance from whoever sees it. It shows the trackless wastes of the artist’s homeland but in the forefront there’s a deep, freshly dug grave. Reminiscent of a plague pit. It’s standing ready to receive its cargo of corpses. We know this from the crosses lining up in the background. Crosses made of human bones. Russian bones.’
‘Is that what you see, Wentworth? An allegory? Is that all?’
Lily looked at him in puzzlement. ‘Isn’t that enough? A foreshadowing of disaster for the Russian people? The death of a great empire?’
‘No. You haven’t looked closely enough. Look – we’ll finish up here and go back. We’ll pass a magnifying glass over the paintwork. And I’ll fill you in on our goddess. I called her the “Morrigan” after the Irish deity but I see I may have been poking about in the wrong pantheon.’
Joe talked on while Lily concentrated on her lamb and mint sauce. ‘She’s really Morana. In Russian and Slavic pagan religion, Morana was the goddess of death and winter. A beautiful girl with black hair and light skin but endowed also with wolf’s teeth and clawed hands. And she has form – she’s known to have killed her own husband, the god of fertility. She’s a dangerous goddess of darkness, frost and death.’
‘I begin to think you see one of these charmers around every corner, sir. Herr Freud might suppose you were frightened at an impressionable age by an odd-looking nursemaid!’
Joe reflected that Miss Jameson would never have dared to tease him so blatantly and wondered why he allowed it.
‘And is there any remedy against this recurrent nightmare?’ she wanted to know. ‘Or is Morana invincible?’
‘Apparently not. No. It’s her only useful attribute: she can be overcome – if only temporarily. She’s the spirit of winter, after all, and winter passes into spring. Even on the Russian steppes. Just to be quite certain they were rid of her, the country people used to make a straw puppet representing Morana and throw it into the river.’
Lily grunted. ‘And we know what that signifies. It’s just another way of celebrating the destruction of the matriarchal society and its replacement with a patriarchal one.’
Joe shot a warning glare across the table. ‘Stop right there. I must ask you, Wentworth, not to bend my ear with all that suffragist talk. You’re preaching to the converted. The Pankhurst ladies are good friends of my mother’s and therefore – of mine.’
‘Well, I’ve never heard of your Morana – I think you’re making her up – but it wouldn’t surprise me if she existed. She’s probably Celtic in origin like the Morrigan … similar names. Same root? All these stories come with a warning – women are nasty, dangerous creatures. Chuck ’em off the nearest bridge.’
The flippant comment provoked a dry response. ‘No use. They’d bob to the surface in that annoying way they have and float, then we medieval-minded men would have the bother of fishing them out and burning them. Look here, I think we can manage without pudding, don’t you? In all the excitement I forgot to warn you that we’re expected for tea at Cassandra’s. Better leave room for the tea cakes.’ He signalled to the waiter that he’d like his bill. ‘She’s got her two boys back home and I think she rather wants to introduce us to the new head of the family. We’ve just got time to go back to my office and take a proper look at that painting.’
‘I see a Russian landscape. Desolate place, miles from anywhere … probably Siberia. Summer time – there’s no snow. Thick forest,’ Lily offered in return to his challenge.
‘You’re not looking carefully enough. Stand closer.’ Joe put a hand on her shoulders and steered her towards the canvas. Surely this bright girl could see what he was seeing? ‘It’s all in the detail. It’s summer time, yes. Forest – yes. And I think the trees: birch, larch, pine … and the soggy terrain … would indicate a scene in the Ural mountains. But miles from anywhere? No. I think we can tie this spot down very precisely. In fact I can point it out to you on a map.’
He produced a map of Asia from a drawer of his desk and, after a moment’s search, found the place he was looking for. Lily’s eyes widened as she read off the name and she went back to stare at the painting.