Free Mistress of Mourning by Karen Harper

wreath of pretty posies with a garland in my hand—none of the beautiful blooms were actually present in this room—with my hair flowing free down my back and my face turned slightly to the right. It felt strange to pose without a widow’s cover over my hair, as if I were a maiden or a bride again. With his magical oil paints, in place of the green gown I actually wore he had created a tight-sleeved gown of cloth of gold lined with ermine, the fur of royalty. By his talented hand I was not only a virgin again but also a queen! And more than that, for he told me that many who saw the portrait would think of the blessed Madonna.
    Christopher, however, was beginning to remind me of Her Majesty, in that he darted in and out of the room to study the results. I was hoping to be left alone with the man he called
Maestro
, so I could question him about painting or coloring wax. Finally, here was my chance, for Christopher had made a grand exit to oversee the packing of crates ofcandles to be sent to three places the Spanish princess was expected to stay on her journey toward London when she landed. With much ado, Christopher had twice announced the places to me and
Signor
Firenze: Dogmersfield in Hampshire, a royal manor in Berkshire, and Lambeth Palace across the Thames from London.
    As I sipped a glass of claret with the wiry, short artist, I said, “I wonder if you could give me some advice on either painting wax or coloring it with paints. I’ve been looking over my father’s notes for such. I have happy memories of watching him prepare herbal dyes and then writing down his concoctions for him, but it is hardly the season to be finding such things as the fresh leaves of alder, saffron, or betony that I would need.”
    “Ah,
si
, I have painted wax figures in my native Firenze. The ones we spoke of before that your father saw on his journey, all those life-size wax effigies wigged and painted standing close to ze altar at the church of Orsanmichele,
chiesa della santissima
, many of the great family of Cosimo de’ Medici. Almost all of ze figures are men,
signora
, ze important men who want to buy their way to heaven. The power of seeing that, dead men yet standing, I cannot tell you, but that is why your papa tell you that and you remember,
si
, because he so impressed by ze waxworks. Did you ever hear of Caesar’s stab wounds?”
    I stopped drinking the red claret. “Caesar’s stab wounds? In a painting, you mean?”
    “Painted on a waxen effigy, is true, is true! After he was assassinated in ze senate chamber in
Roma
, his friends hired a wax
artiste
like yourself—only a man, I wager—to makeCaesar’s exact form with all twenty-three bleeding wounds painted crimson. Put on display in ze public square, ze effigy create a riot with ze people. The
Romani
revolted and burned ze chamber where he was slain! Oh, ze power of art, of paint and wax!”
    “Yes, I know,” I said, trying to wipe the image of bloody wounds from my mind’s eye.
    “Oh, but you ask about painting and tinting wax,” he plunged on, his dark mustache bobbing with his words when he became excited. “
Signora
Varina, how you use paints to dye wax is leach out some oil from paint on parchment or cloth overnight, then mix the remnants with hot wax.”
    I nodded. If the bit of vermilion, larch, and oil Christopher had given me today didn’t work, I would try to buy some paint from this man. And if that was a lost cause, if I could only trust that Roberto Firenze would not talk too much and tell the queen’s secret, I would suggest to her that he paint her effigies. That is, if my work suited her. If I could create four children I had never seen, if everything I was trying to balance in secret, including my growing interest in Nick Sutton—if, if, if!—did not just all blow up in my face.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH
    “T hank the Lord, you are here,” John Barker said the moment I entered the shop where the two barber-surgeons were bent over, embalming