‘Come this way, Seigneur, Madame. And mind your feet on the rungs.’
Leading Arnoud and Hanna up the ladder, Nella thinks of Agnes’ miniature hand back home. The loaf may not have turned any blacker in the cabinet, but outside that shrunken world a day has passed, another night of weather, another night of damp. Nella can hardly guess what she will find. What was once, is now no longer. Her heart starts thumping harder as she hears Arnoud wheezing up the rungs, Hanna’s neat step tapping the ladder behind him.
‘Here they are,’ she says, indicating the loaves when they reach the eaves.
‘I hadn’t expected there would be so much,’ says Arnoud.
‘Imagine it transformed to guilders.’ He raises his eyebrows and Nella winces inwardly at her own crass patter. Think of Marin, she tells herself. Be as affable as Johannes.
Hanna approaches the Surinam side and inhales sharply. ‘Rot?’ she asks.
‘Only on a few,’ says Nella. ‘The season has not been kind.’
Arnoud kneels down reverently, like a priest before an altar. ‘May I?’ he asks.
‘Please.’
Arnoud removes a loaf from the Surinam side, and also a loaf marked with the three crosses of Amsterdam. From his pocket he produces a sharp little knife, and with an expert flick he takes a solid shaving off each cone. Breaking them in two, he hands half to Hanna. As they put the Surinam sample on their tongues, their eyes meet.
What are they saying to each other, with no words? A conversation is certainly taking place. They do the same with the Amsterdam sample, dissolving in their mouths and communing in silence. Whatever its true purpose, marriage is certainly a funny thing, Nella thinks. Who would have paired elegant Hanna with a round puffert of a man like Arnoud Maakvrede? She wishes Johannes were here. A man of many languages, he would understand the traders’ silence. The image of him in that cell is too much, and Nella buries it, trying to focus on the sugar.
‘There are one thousand five hundred loaves here,’ she says. ‘Seven hundred and fifty were refined in Surinam. The rest have been refined here in the city. We are looking to sell them all.’
‘I thought Brandt traded from the east?’
‘He does. But a Surinam plantation had excess stock and wanted to keep it in the republic. We have other people coming to see it later today,’ she lies. ‘They are very keen.’
Hanna delicately wipes the corner of her mouth. ‘How much for the Amsterdam lot?’
Nella pretends to consider. ‘Thirty thousand,’ she says.
Hanna’s eyes widen in surprise. ‘Impossible,’ says Arnoud.
‘It is, I’m afraid,’ Hanna says. ‘We simply do not have that kind of money.’
‘Prosperous enough,’ murmurs Arnoud. ‘But not stupid.’
‘We are makers of cakes, not sellers of sugar,’ Hanna says, frowning at him. ‘There may be no guild in our way, but as pastry bakers we’re still subject to the whims of the burgomasters and their hatred of papist gingerbread idols.’
‘It is excellent sugar, as I’m sure you can tell. Its quality alone will guarantee it sells. The craving craze shows no sign of abating – marzipan, cakes, waffles,’ Nella says. She watches Arnoud as he thinks, staring at the cones rising to the roof. ‘Your reputation would certainly increase,’ she adds. ‘I can only imagine what other doors such sugar might open.’
Nella isn’t certain, but she thinks Hanna is hiding a smile. It is very unlikely they have thirty thousand guilders to spare, although you never know in this city. It is a preposterous sum – but what can she do? Marin said to name a high price, for Arnoud to feel he’s comfortably clambering down. They need their cut, Agnes needs hers. Nella begins to feel desperate.
‘We’ll give you nine thousand,’ Arnoud says.
‘I cannot let you take all this sugar for nine thousand.’
‘Very well. We will take a hundred Amsterdam loaves for nine hundred guilders and let you know how it sells. If we make a profit, we will come back for more.’
Nella tries to think quickly, as fast as Arnoud. He wants one cone for nine guilders, but she needs to be selling each one nearer to twenty. He came prepared, she thinks. ‘Too low, Seigneur. Three thousand five hundred,’ she says.
Arnoud laughs. ‘One thousand one hundred,’ he replies.
‘Two thousand.’
He twists his lip. ‘One thousand five.’
‘Very well, Seigneur Maakvrede. But I have two other interested parties coming to see it this afternoon. I can give you three days to make your decision on the rest, but if they offer higher then your chance is gone.’
‘Done,’ he replies, folding his arms, looking impressed. He seems happy; it is the first time she has seen him smile. ‘For a hundred loaves.’
Nella’s head spins. She’s not done as well as she hoped, but at least some of their stock is to be circulated – and in Amsterdam, where words are water, all it takes is one platter of delicious buns. She puts a Surinam loaf in a basket for Cornelia to experiment with drying them out.
Arnoud gives Nella one thousand five hundred guilders in crisp notes. It feels exhilarating to touch them – a sense of potential, a life raft made of paper. One thousand must go straight to Agnes and Meermans on the Prinsengracht, a sweetener to try and stop them testifying against Johannes. The other five hundred must bribe Jack Philips. They will have to think about saving anything for themselves later.
Hanna begins loading a basket with the loaves. ‘How is Cornelia?’ she asks.
She’s frightened, Nella wants to say. She’s tethering herself to her kitchen. She had left the maid in a frenzy, yanking open the tight globe of a savoy cabbage, shredding scallions and leeks. ‘She’s well, thank you, Madame Maakvrede.’
‘Some shrink, whilst others grow,’ Arnoud remarks, shaking his head at the mountain of cones.
Hanna squeezes Nella’s hand. ‘We will sell this sugar, and return,’ she says. ‘Of that I will make sure.’
Nella hurries home just as it starts to rain, feeling as if the guilder notes in her pocket are banners of small triumph. It’s a beginning, and Nella trusts Hanna Maakvrede. Whilst it will not be pleasant to pay a visit to Agnes and Frans Meermans on the Prinsengracht, performance is all. She will tuck her real self away as Marin does. There is a chance that the sight of some money might soften Frans Meermans’ oddly hardened heart, or waken Agnes’ long-dormant generous spirit. Can they really want Johannes dead? To desire another’s end – how much misery must you have stored inside yourself?
Entering the hallway and shaking off the raindrops, Nella hears the sound of Cornelia crying. Her quiet sobs quiver from the working kitchen. She drops the basket containing the blackened Surinam loaf and runs down the stairs, almost tripping over her own skirts.
Vegetable peelings are strewn across the floor, a mess of a meal of green and white ribbons.
‘What is it?’ Nella asks.
Cornelia points to the note upon the table. ‘Is it from her?’ Nella says, her spirit lifting. Finally, she thinks, the miniaturist has returned. She rushes to the paper. As she reads the words, a sharp slice of fear cuts her, Arnoud’s guilders and the excitement of the sugar evaporate to nothing.
‘My God,’ she cries. ‘Today?’
‘Yes,’ the maid replies. ‘Your Norwegian snoop didn’t predict this.’
Wild Beasts Must Be Tamed By Men
The trial chamber at the Stadhuis is a square room with high windows and a viewing gallery running round the top, something between a chapel and a sunken cell. There is no gold, no velvet, no sense of indulgence, just four walls of brilliant white, the furniture dark and plain. The rest of the Stadhuis is monumental, jaw-dropping. Arches soar to gilded cornicing, and wall maps carved from marble shimmer in the light – but in this room where the law is exercised, the atmosphere is sober. Nella and Cornelia take a seat up in the gallery and look down into the chamber.
The Schout, a man called Pieter Slabbaert, and six other men begin to file in
and take their seats for Johannes’ hearing. ‘They must be the members of the schepenbank,’ Nella whispers to Cornelia, who nods, barely able to stop shaking. The six men are of varying ages; some look better-off than others, but none of them are cloaked and ribboned like the judging Schout. Individuality is a black mark in this city, and Nella worries that in the face of Johannes’ charge, they will coagulate into a self-righteous mass, unified in loathing.
Nella can hardly look at Schout Slabbaert. The man bears more than a passing resemblance to a toad; a bulbous face, broad-mouthed and glassy eyed. The gallery around her is beginning to fill up with city spectators, among them several women and even a handful of children. Nella thinks she recognizes the little snitch Christoffel who brought the news of Johannes’ capture.
‘They shouldn’t bring tiddlers,’ Cornelia mutters. The presence of so many little fish makes her anxious, as if they’re here to watch the snagging of a whale.
On the left side of the gallery from where she and Cornelia are sitting, Nella spies Hanna and Arnoud Maakvrede. So they do know, Nella thinks, nodding to them, her heart heavy. Arnoud taps his nose at her, and she tries to derive comfort from this conspiratorial gesture. Has he always known? The possibility that Arnoud is more Amsterdammer than angel consoles her – until she wonders if, depending on the outcome of this trial, he will come back and angle for the remaining sugar at an even more reduced rate.
On the front row of the opposite side of the gallery, Agnes Meermans is bundled up in her furs. ‘What’s wrong with her face?’ whispers Cornelia. Agnes’ features are indeed even more pronounced than when Nella saw her at the Old Church in December. She seems ill, her cheekbones and eye-sockets too prominent as she looks down into the chamber, playing with something in her lap. Agnes suddenly grips the wooden rail in front of her, her fingernails bitten to the quick. Her once perfect headband is askew, the seed pearls round it tarnished; her clothes have a thrown-on appearance. She looks like a trapped animal, eyes roving the gallery, looking for something.
‘I’ll tell you what it is, Madame,’ Cornelia says. ‘Guilty conscience, that’s what.’
But Nella is not so sure. What is it that Agnes fiddles with like a little girl – what is that tiny thing she’s tucking in her cuff?
Behind his wife, Frans Meermans sits under his broad-brimmed hat. Nella wonders why they are not sitting together. His large, handsome face looks damp from the rainy morning outside, and he readjusts his jacket, pulling at it as if he’s too hot. Nella pats her pocket, still containing the guilders from Arnoud. She needs to persuade Meermans that money is coming, and lots of it. Let us bury this mess, Seigneur – let us say we were mistaken – surely you see Agnes is in no fit state to bear witness. Running through these arguments, Nella tries to catch his eye, but Meermans will not look in her direction, staring instead over his wife’s head towards the arena below.
There is a sharp collective breath around the chamber when Johannes is brought in. Nella clamps her hand to her mouth, but Cornelia cannot help but cry out. ‘Seigneur,’ she says. ‘My Seigneur!’
Johannes shakes off the guards’ support, but he can barely walk. The schepenbank watch him, their faces tense. Johannes has clearly been put on the rack, injuring him badly but not enough to endanger his life. He stoops to one side, his ankles with barely any strength to move, dragging one foot behind him like a limp rag. Johannes said he could see horizons through the brickwork, but how changed he looks in so few days. His cloak is frayed, and yet when he takes his seat, he sweeps it behind him like a cloth spun out of gold.
But in one way, the brutality of bolts and straps has not worked. The ungainly prisoner has clearly held on to his secrets – had he not, none of them would be here now in the trial chamber. Has he told them nothing? The purpose of this hearing will be to force out some performance through a verbal humiliation instead, and this time it will be witnessed by the citizens, a different kind of brutality. What was it Johannes said in his cell? The more people who take part in a ritual, the more justified it seems.
Nella pictures him at the silversmiths’ feast. The charm he had, such expertise and wit, the way he drew all people near. Where are those people now – why have only children and clerks come to see him fight?
‘He should be using a stick to walk,’ Cornelia whispers to her.
‘No, Cornelia. He wants us to understand their brutality.’
‘And test our pity too.’ Hanna Maakvrede has moved to sit with them, and takes Nella’s hand in hers. As the three women form a chain, Nella feels her heart might split. All this time, she’d thought Johannes had denied Marin the life she wanted, when really he’d tried to set her free. Johannes’ own heart is a powerful thing, but look where it has led him.
If only Marin could repay the favour right now, when it is most needed. It might be too late to persuade Jack to change his story or sate Frans’ wrath, and now the state is involved, what can stand up to the outraged machinery which has spied a possible sodomite in its midst? You cannot really touch my wealth, Johannes once said. It is in the air. But a baby is made of solid flesh. Lend us your soon-to-be child, Marin, lend us at least the charade of a normal marriage.
Picturing the miniature cradle, Marin’s tiny, swollen belly, the sugar loaf in Agnes’ hand and Jack’s unblemished doll, Nella curses the miniaturist for not alerting her to what needed to be done, to what could have been prevented. What use is a prophetess who doesn’t make clear the inevitable?
Hanna leans towards her. ‘We have already promised half the loaves we took this morning, Madame. Arnoud wants to load some to the Hague where he has family. I’m sure it won’t be long before we take some more – do bear that in mind when you see those other . . . interested parties.’
Nella tries to tamp down her embarrassment. She doesn’t mind bluffing with Arnoud. He almost seems to invite it, but with Hanna it feels dishonourable. ‘Do any of his customers know whose sugar it is?’ she asks.
At this, Hanna is the one to blush. ‘Arnoud is omitting to mention the source,’ she says. ‘But it’s excellent sugar, Madame. I think if it came from Beelzebub himself, my husband would still sell it.’
Hanna’s words still give Nella hope – but here, in the trial chamber, it feels as if Johannes’ plight has gained a momentum out of her control. The rain is falling heavier now, a quiet roar upon the roof.
‘Good people of Amsterdam, we are fortunate,’ Schout Slabbaert begins. His voice is deep and fluid, and rises up to where the normal folk are sitting on their hard wooden benches. Here is a man in the prime of his life, at the peak of his legislative power, holding citizens’ lives in the clam of his fist. He eats well, Nella supposes, sleeps deep. The horrors of the torture chambers below his feet are as distant to him as the isles of Molucca.
‘We have made a success of our city,’ Slabbaert says. The gallery ruffles with a prideful acknowledgement, and the schepenbank nod in agreement. ‘We’ve tamed our lands and seas; we feast on its bounty. You are all righteous people. You have not wasted yourselves in the surfeit of your good luck.
‘But . . .’ Slabbaert pauses, holding his finger aloft before pointing to Johannes. ‘Here is a man who grew complacent. A man who thought he was above his own family, above the city, the Church, the state. Above God.’ Slabbaert pauses again, letting silence engorge his rhetoric with power. ‘Johannes Brandt thinks he can buy anything. For him everything has a price. Even the conscience of a young man, whom he took for the pleasure of his body and tried to bribe for his silence.’
There is a ripple of excitement. Complacent, pleasure, body – these forbidden words give the people in the chamber a thrill. But Nella feels a fear unfurling, like one of Marin’s poison plants.
‘You cannot make such an accusation.’ Johannes’ voice is cracked and harsh. ‘The schepenbank have not made their decision and you cannot make it for them. Give them some credit, Seigneur. They are sensible men.’
A couple of the schepenbank glow with sel
f-importance. The rest eye Johannes with a mix of awe and disgust.
‘They are good counsel,’ says Slabbaert, ‘but I will be the one who has the final say. You deny the charge of sodomitic attack?’
Here are the words the gallery has been waiting for. It is almost as if they move through the spectators, daring their sinews to absorb them, to taste their rare transgression.
‘I do,’ Johannes says. He sticks out his crippled legs. ‘Despite your best efforts.’
‘Just simple answers, please,’ says Slabbaert, sorting through his papers. ‘On Sunday, the twenty-ninth day of December last year, at the warehouses on the Eastern Islands, Jack Philips of Bermondsey, London, says you attacked and sodomized him. On God’s day, he was battered and bruised until he could barely walk.’
The gallery explodes. ‘Quiet,’ shouts Slabbaert. ‘Be quiet in the chamber up there.’
‘It was not me,’ says Johannes, speaking over the clamour.
‘Witnesses will swear on the Holy Bible that they saw you.’
‘And how do they know me to identify me?’
‘You’re a familiar face, Seigneur Brandt. Now is not the time to pretend humility. You are powerful, a rich leader in example. You are often by the docks, the warehouses, the wharves. The act you committed—’
‘Allegedly committed—’
‘Goes against all that is good, all that is right. Your behaviour towards your family, your city, your country, is that of the Devil.’
Johannes looks up to the square of white sky through the high window. The schepenbank fidget in their small chairs. ‘My conscience is clear,’ he says quietly. ‘Everything you accuse me of is as false as your teeth.’
The children in the gallery titter.
‘Contempt of court as well as sodomy—’
‘I might as well be in contempt of court, Seigneur Slabbaert. What will you do? Drown me twice for pointing out your vanity?’
Slabbaert’s toad eyes bulb, his well-fed cheeks draw down with barely suppressed rage. Be careful, Johannes, Nella thinks.