Free Tale of Elske by Jan Vermeer

not cloth, although when she touched it, it was as smooth as her skirt. This square showed a man’s head, smaller than a real man’s head. Although it was as flat as glass, it didn’t look flat. The man stared off, as if he saw something over Elske’s shoulder. But when she turned there was nothing to be seen.
    Var Jerrol paid no attention to her.
    Elske went to the blank square. Now a face filled it, dark-eyed, a girl’s face, with dark thick eyebrows over eyes of so dark a grey they reminded her of rainclouds, and wolf pelts. The girl had a short nose and her hair was worn Trastader fashion, under a scarf. Except for the color of her eyes, the girl looked a great deal like Tamara when she was thinking out the day’s work. The girl looked so much like her grandmother that Elske smiled.
    The face smiled back at her, as if it were alive, and happy to see her.
    She stepped back, and the girl stepped back. She reached a hand out, to touch the face, but the girl’s hand reached towards hers, until their fingertips touched. But all Elske felt was flat and cold.
    â€œElske,” the man spoke from behind her, and she whirled around. “It’s all right, it’s a beryl glass. Don’t be afraid.”
    â€œI’m not afraid,” Elske told him, and now Var Jerrol smiled at her, to say, “Of course. I’d forgotten.”
    â€œBut who is she? And where?” Elske asked, turning back to the beryl glass.
    â€œShe’s you. That’s you.” He rose to stand beside her, and she saw him appear also beside the girl. The girl’s face, her own, was not a broad Trastader face, although neither was it narow, like the Volkaric. “The back of the glass is painted silver, and that causes it to reflect what is before it, as the harbor on a windless day reflects the sky and masts, or the river water its banks. But come over to the window,” Var Jerrol said. “Let me see you by daylight. You don’t look strong enough to have smashed the Adel’s mouth.”
    â€œAnd nose,” Elske told him.
    â€œAnd nose.” He smiled again.
    She explained it to him. “I had a stone. Actually,” she added, for perfect openness, “I had two stones, from the street, because I smelled danger when they turned to follow us and I could hear what they said to one another. I needed to keep them from ruining Idelle.”
    â€œSo you do speak Souther. Yet you are Volkaric.”
    What did he know of her, Elske wondered, and why would he know anything about her? But she had decided to keep no secrets and by the time he finished asking her, he knew about her warrior father, dead in some distant battle, her Volkaric mother and Tamara, who let her live, and raised her. What he did not ask, he did not know. “Why did you leave?” he asked and “My grandmother sent me away,” she told him. He desired to know no more, but said then, “I am the eyes and ears of the Council. Do you know what that means?”
    â€œYou tell the Council the secrets you learn,” she guessed.
    â€œIn part,” he said. “Also, I hear their worries and their schemes, and I set my spies to gather information the Council needs, to settle their worries, to enact their schemes. I do not tell everything, Elske, just what they need to know. You will be safe in my house. If you are nursemaid to my daughters, and unseen, the misadventure will be forgotten.” Then, in a different voice, he asked, “You can read? As the posted notice claims?”
    â€œI know letters,” Elske answered.
    The Var rose and took down one of the leather boxes from his shelves. This turned out to be sheets of paper, sewn within a stiff leather cover—not a box at all. The cover was made so that it could be opened to display the pages one after another. She could see words on the open page and reached out a hand to touch them. The page was smooth, flat, and the letters lay