Salisbury, March 1350
The last of the afternoon's sunlight left the floor of the studio and only a single bright beam lay on the windowsill. Though the room was chill, the window was wide open. Only the very wealthy could afford glass, and Hans needed the light.
The remnants of a meal lay on a trencher on the windowsill - boiled potatoes, rye bread and herring - poor fare, but it had been a hard winter and it would be a while yet before the spring vegetables were ready for harvest.
He laid down his pen and rubbed his eyes, disregarding the smudge of ink left by his fingers.
This commission was difficult - the portrait of a young wife who had died the month before in childbirth. Her wealthy older husband had originally ordered the painting as a diptych for the family chapel. The sudden death of the girl had been a surprise, but the husband had insisted that it be completed as a memorial after her death. Hans had seen her in life only once, a week before she died. He remembered a shy girl, overwhelmed with the burdens of a busy household and the prospect of her first baby. He had seen her again on her deathbed, and taken detailed descriptions from people who knew her. He had gone several times to look at the baby - a healthy child who seemed to be thriving with its wet nurse - but still found the dead girl's features and personality elusive.
This latest drawing had a nice delicacy of line, but he felt it too idealised, too much like an icon of the Madonna and too far from the plump Saxon blondness of the lost girl. It still seemed worth keeping though, along with the notes he had made on the back about the girl's family and environment, so, as he sometimes did with favourite drawings, he carefully wrote his name and the date in the bottom corner. Perhaps he could sell it to some less discriminating merchant.
He sighed - enough for today. The light was gone, his meal of some hours ago had been meagre and he was still hungry. He pounced the wet ink on the drawing and weighted it down with a river stone he kept for that purpose, before getting to his feet. He stretched, feeling the joints in his back pop from the prolonged position. The hairy terrier asleep under the table awoke, and got to his feet at the sight of his master. Hans stepped to the door, intent on going downstairs for his supper and some ale.
As Hans clumped down the narrow stairs, his wife's cat, a lanky black beast with a foul temper but a talent for mice, slipped into the studio. She smelt the remnants of the herring and was determined for her share.
She jumped onto the table, adroitly avoiding the terrier, and stretched out for the scraps of herring lying on the trencher. The terrier, affronted at the cat's intrusion, jumped up at the table. His barking and jumping served to chase the cat out the door, herring in mouth, but also knocked the river stone from its place weighting down the drawing.
As the terrier chased down the stairs after the cat, a light breeze came through the forgotten open window. It lifted the drawing, and it slipped off the table and out the window.
***
Hans had slept badly - the wind had howled around the chimney pots all night and kept him awake. He woke thinking that perhaps he could make a gift of the drawing to the bishop - he was a sentimental man and loved pretty drawings - perhaps Hans would win a commission for an altarpiece or an offertory.
He walked into his studio, stretching the stiffness out of his back and rubbing sleep from his eyes. He reached for the river stone on the table, only to find it out of its place and drawings scattered across the table and the floor. In the process of tidying the drawings he came across another preliminary sketch he had made of the girl at their first meeting. There was something in her shy smile, the way she looked down and to the right, that seemed to capture her still-unformed character. He pulled a fresh sheet of parchment from the box, selected a narrow piece of willow charcoal and began sketching, the drawing of the previous afternoon forgotten.
***
The evening wind was brisk, and it kept the heavy leaf of parchment aloft without difficulty. The page turned in the air, at one point skimming dangerously low along the surface of the canal and under a bridge, at another point flattening briefly against the brickwork of a chapel wall like a poster. However the wind continued to carry it - across the canal again, around the square, and through the open doorway of The hospital. As well as its charitable works the hospital was a major landowner in salisbury, and its administration was a full-time activity. As the breeze died inside the building, the drawing came to rest face down on the rush-strewn floor of the clerk's office near the entrance. A busy lay brother, arms full of papers, spied the handwritten notes on the back of the drawing. Thinking because of the parchment that it was a property deed or some other official paper, he scooped it up and tucked it into his bundle.
The sun was setting, and he knew the bell for Vespers was about to ring. He dropped the bundle on a table in the office and began hastily sorting through it. Rent receipts in one pile, deeds in another, letters in a third pile. He had not at any time turned over the paper and was unaware of the drawing on the other side. Thinking to sort it out in the morning, he slipped it into the pile of deeds and went to Vespers and his supper. Supper that evening was a stew of carp from the hospital's ponds and root vegetables from the winter's stock. Perhaps the fish had a parasite, or the stew had stood too long on the bench before service, but several of the the brothers and sisters of the hospital including the lay brother were taken ill during the night. In the rush and short-handedness of the next few days, the drawing was collected unnoticed into a bundle of property deeds, dated and filed away in a back shelf of the office.
