Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(155)
“I do.” Matthew started rooting around in a box that contained my linen.
“Well, they won’t be in there,” I said, pointing out the obvious.
The vampire ground his teeth. “I’ve looked everywhere else.”
“I’ll find them.” I eyed his perfectly respectable black leggings. “Why red?”
“Because I am trying to catch the Holy Roman Emperor’s attention!” Matthew dove into another pile of my clothes.
Bloodred stockings would do more than capture a wandering eye, given that the man who proposed to wear them was a six-foot-three vampire, and most of his height was leg. Matthew’s commitment to the plan was unwavering, however. I focused my mind, asked for the hose to show themselves, and followed the red threads. The ability to keep track of people and objects was an unforeseen fringe benefit of being a weaver, and one I’d had several opportunities to use on the trip.
“Has my father’s messenger arrived?” Matthew contributed another petticoat to the snowy mountain growing between us and resumed digging.
“Yes. It’s over by the door—whatever it is.” I fished through contents of an overlooked chest: chain-mail gauntlets, a shield with a double-headed eagle on it, and an elaborately chased cup-and-stick gizmo. Triumphant, I brandished the long red tubes. “Found them!”
Matthew had forgotten the hosiery crisis. His father’s package now held his complete attention. I looked to see what had him so amazed.
“Is that . . . a Bosch?” I knew Hieronymus Bosch’s work because of his bizarre use of alchemical equipment and symbolism. He covered his panels with flying fish, insects, enormous household implements, and eroticized fruit. Long before psychedelic was stylish, Bosch saw the world in bright colors and unsettling combinations.
Like Matthew’s Holbeins at the Old Lodge, however, this work was unfamiliar. It was a triptych, assembled from three hinged wooden panels. Designed to sit on an altar, triptychs were kept closed except for special religious celebrations. In modern museums the exteriors were seldom on display. I wondered what other stunning images I’d been missing.
The artist had covered the outside panels with a velvety black pigment. A wizened tree shimmering in the moonlight spanned the two front panels. A tiny wolf crouched in its roots, and an owl perched in the upper branches. Both animals gazed at the viewer knowingly. A dozen other eyes shone out from the dark ground around the tree, disembodied and staring. Behind the dead oak, a stand of deceptively normal trees with pale trunks and iridescent green branches shed more light on the scene. Only when I took a closer look did I see the ears growing out of them, as though they were listening to the sounds of the night.
“What does it mean?” I asked, staring at Bosch’s work in wonder.
Matthew’s fingers fiddled with the fastenings on his doublet. “It’s an old Flemish proverb: ‘The forest has eyes, and the woods have ears; therefore I will see, be silent, and hear.’” The words perfectly captured the secretive life Matthew led and reminded me of Elizabeth’s current choice of motto.
The triptych’s interior showed three interrelated scenes: an image of the fallen angels, painted against the same velvety black background. At first glance they looked more like dragonflies with their shimmering double wings, but they had human bodies, with heads and legs that twisted in torment as the angels fell through the heavens. On the opposite panel, the dead rose for the Last Judgment in a scene far more gruesome than the frescoes at Sept-Tours. The gaping jaws of fish and wolves provided entrances to hell, sucking in the damned and consigning them to an eternity of pain and agony.
The center, however, showed a very different image of death: the resurrected Lazarus calmly climbing out of his coffin. With his long legs, dark hair, and serious expression, he looked rather like Matthew. All around the borders of the center panel, lifeless vines produced strange fruits and flowers. Some dripped blood. Others gave birth to people and animals. And no Jesus was in sight.
“Lazarus resembles you. No wonder you don’t want Rudolf to have it.” I handed Matthew his hose. “Bosch must have known you were a vampire, too.”
“Jeroen—or Hieronymus as you know him—saw something he shouldn’t have,” Matthew said darkly. “I didn’t know that Jeroen had witnessed me feeding until I saw the sketches he made of me with a warmblood. From that day on, he believed all creatures had a dual nature, part human and part animal.”
“And sometimes part vegetable,” I said, studying a naked woman with a strawberry for a head and cherries for hands running away from a pitchfork-wielding devil wearing a stork as a hat. Matthew made a soft sound of amusement. “Does Rudolf know you’re a vampire, as Elizabeth does and Bosch did?” I was increasingly concerned by the number of people who were in on the secret.
“Yes. The emperor knows I’m a member of the Congregation, too.” He twisted his bright red hose into a knot. “Thank you for finding these.”
“Tell me now if you have a habit of losing your car keys, because I’m not putting up with this kind of panic every morning when you get ready for work.” I slid my arms around his waist and rested my cheek on his heart. That slow, steady beat always calmed me.
“What are you going to do, divorce me?” Matthew returned the embrace, resting his head on mine so that we fit together perfectly.