‘I – I – didn’t order it, Cornelia.’
‘Then who did?’ Cornelia looks aghast.
‘I was sent it – I asked for nothing but a lute, and—’
‘Then who is spying on us?’ The maid spins round the room, brandishing the doll like a shield.
‘The miniaturist isn’t a spy, Cornelia. She’s more than that—’
‘She? I thought all those notes were going to a craftsman?’
‘She’s a prophetess – look at Marin’s stomach! She sees our lives – she’s trying to help, to warn us—’
Cornelia pulls out doll after doll, pressing their bodies for more clues, dropping them one by one to the floor. ‘Warn us? Who is this woman, this somebody? What is this miniaturist?’ She grips her own doll in her fist, staring at it in horror. ‘Sweet Jesu, I’ve lived carefully, Madame, I’ve been obedient. But ever since this cabinet arrived, so many doors have opened that I’ve always managed to keep shut.’
‘But is that such a bad thing?’
Cornelia looks at her as if she’s mad. ‘The Seigneur is in prison, Otto’s gone and Madame Marin carries a secret shame with the man who is this household’s enemy! Our world has fallen apart – and this – miniaturist – has been watching all this time? How has she warned us, how has she helped?’
‘I’m sorry, Cornelia, I’m so sorry. Please don’t tell Marin. The miniaturist has the answers.’
‘She’s nothing but a snooper,’ Cornelia fumes. ‘No one pulls my strings but God above.’
‘But if we didn’t know about Marin, then how did she, Cornelia?’
‘We would have found out. We did find out. We didn’t need her to tell us.’
‘And look at this.’ Nella shows her Agnes’ blackened sugar loaf. ‘It was white when it first arrived.’
‘It’s soot from the fire.’
‘It doesn’t rub off. And Rezeki had a mark on her head, just where Jack killed her.’
Cornelia backs away from the cabinet. ‘Who is this witch?’ she hisses.
‘She isn’t a witch, Cornelia. She’s a woman from Norway.’
‘A Norwegian witch turned Amsterdam spy! How dare she send you these evil things—’
‘They’re not evil.’
Cornelia’s bile burns through Nella’s heart. She feels as if she is being dissected as much as her secret miniaturist, her one possession cut apart and its innards doled out.
‘I had nothing in this city, Cornelia. Nothing. And she took an interest. I don’t understand why she’s picked me, I don’t always understand the messages she sends, but I’m trying—’
‘What else does she know? What is she going to do?’
‘I don’t know. Please believe me – I asked her to stop, but she didn’t. It was like she understood my unhappiness, and carried on.’
Cornelia frowns. ‘But I tried to make it happy for you. I was here—’
‘I know you were. And all I’ve discovered is that she was apprenticed to a clockmaker in Bruges. I’ve written to him, but he is as silent as her.’ Nella can hear her voice pressing down into a sob, the hot tears threatening to break into her eyes. ‘But what was it that Pellicorne preached? There’s nothing hidden that will not be revealed.’
‘No woman can be an apprentice,’ Cornelia snaps. ‘No man is keen to train a woman. No guild except the seamstresses or stinking peat-carriers would have her. And what would be the point? Men are the makers of this world.’
‘She made minutes and seconds, Cornelia. She created time.’
‘If I wasn’t boiling your sturgeons, spicing your pies and cleaning your windows, I could have made time. I could have made evil puppets and spied on people—’
‘You do spy on people. In that way, you’re just like her.’
Hot and breathless, Cornelia purses her lips and shoves the doll of herself back in the cabinet. ‘I am nothing like her.’
Nella gathers up the motley cast of characters. ‘I shouldn’t lose my temper, Cornelia,’ she says in a small voice.
There is a pause. ‘Nor I, Madame. But my world has shifted too fast these last days. It’s broken up.’
‘I know, Cornelia. I know.’
Nella draws the curtains across the cabinet as a means to bring some momentary peace. In silent response, Cornelia draws the main curtains of the window, and the two girls stand in the muffled half-light.
‘I must see to Madame Marin,’ Cornelia says, turning her back resolutely on the cabinet.
Left alone, Nella imagines the miniaturist as a younger woman. Maybe Cornelia had a point – maybe no one would buy the miniaturist’s clocks, preferring those constructed by a man? She could never improve her skills, so she stopped trying to harness man’s artificial rhythms, and turned inwards. At what point did she choose these more intimate, irregular jumps of an interior life and why did she pick me? Nella rests her head on the side of the cabinet, the cooling wood touching her skin like a balm. In showing me my own story, she thinks, the miniaturist has become the author of it herself. How I wish I could have it back.
FOUR
January, 1687
Behold, ye are this day as the stars in the heaven for multitude . . .
How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your strife?
Deuteronomy 1:10–12
Spores
The first day of the year is a time for Amsterdammers to throw open their windows in a brave ritual of letting in the cold air, dislodging cobwebs and bad memories. Nella is dressed as a servant and Cornelia helps her mistress pull on her boots, draping Johannes’ warehouse key around her neck like a medal.
It is not yet Epiphany, the day of difference, but they have no time to waste. The maid looks as if she is expecting Lucifer himself and his goblins to come marching out, but has promised not to tell Marin about the secret hidden under the skirts of her doll, nor the blackened tip of Agnes’ loaf. ‘She needs peace,’ Nella said. ‘Think of the child.’
Nella draws the maid’s coarse coat to her neck. She tries to stand firm, but feels herself plummeting, further than she thinks possible, deep into the bog and marsh of the city, back to the times of mud and sea.
‘You shouldn’t go to the Eastern Islands alone,’ Cornelia says.
‘We have no choice. You need to stay here with Marin. I won’t be long.’
‘Take Dhana with you. She can be your guard.’
Nella walks out of the house and up the Herengracht, with Dhana trotting by her side, the key lying heavy on her chest. She wanted to see Johannes in the Stadhuis first – but in Amsterdam the guilder reigns and she must be sensible. She wonders what she’s going to find on the Eastern Islands. ‘Who else will do this, Marin?’ she had pleaded earlier this morning. ‘Johannes is in a cell. If Agnes and Frans decide to have no mercy, we might be able to bribe Jack to change his story at least.’
Marin had nodded her consent, hands on her stomach. Now her pregnancy has been acknowledged, her body seems to have grown larger. I’m a giant loaf, Nella’s mother had once said, when she was carrying Arabella. Now it seems that Marin is also waiting to prove herself, to see if her flesh is adequate. Marin and her too-tight knot; whatever did she mean?
‘I will visit Johannes afterwards, if they let me in,’ Nella had added. ‘Is there any message you would like me to send?’
Marin’s face appeared to seize up in grief. Dropping her hands to her sides, she moved away, staring towards the salon. ‘There is nothing I can say.’
‘Marin—’
‘Hope is dangerous, Petronella.’
‘It is better than nothing.’
The cold is bitter, sharp little knives on Nella’s face. Let it soon be spring, she thinks, and then wonders whether it is wise to wish this time away for Marin, for Johannes. By the time spring comes, their own republic could have crashed around their feet. Trying to shake away the gloom, she walks quickly, ten minutes or so east of the city. The miniaturist’s departure from the Kalverstraat tugs on her. Nella hasn’t given up hope – she still yearns on the streets for a flash of blonde hair, for a knock at the door and another delivery. But there has been only silence for so many days now. Although she had told Cornelia that the miniaturist was showing her the way, Nella feels alone, fumbling in the dark. She needs more mottoes, more miniatures, to understand what is to come and what has passed before. Come back, she thinks as she crosses one of several bridges towards the Eastern Islands. I cannot do this without you.
There is water everywhere she looks, lagoons still as glass, patched with murk like a foxed mirror when the weak sun moves behind cloud. Johannes’ favourite potatoes with their fluffiest flesh are served in a tavern near here. It is unsurprising that this is his preferred area; nearer the sea, fewer people. Plenty of places to hide.
The warehouses start to loom, brick buildings towering to the sky, far wider than the houses nestling together inside the ring of the city. The Islands feel empty this morning. Most people are probably still in bed, she supposes, sleeping off the excesses of bringing in New Year. Her father was never seen until the evening after sending off the old year, then he woke to say that nothing much had changed. Not so here, Nella thinks. Nothing is the same any more. She can hear her own footsteps, the light pant of Dhana’s breath as she hurries along.
Despite their peace, there is something concentrated about these separate pieces of land, for all things here have one purpose – the raw end of commerce, the storing of supplies, the repair of ships, the sustenance of sailors and captains alike. Following Marin’s directions, she finally reaches Johannes’ warehouse, six storeys high, a small black door at the front.
The lock is well oiled and the door opens easily. She readjusts Cornelia’s too-large skirt and apron. They had tried to decide what would be worse – a maid caught in her master’s storehouse, or his wife? Better a maid, they thought. Johannes Brandt’s reputation could do without the added news that Madame Petronella was snooping on the Islands. She imagines Frans and Agnes coming here, creeping round the back of the building.
‘Sit here, girl,’ she orders Dhana, trying to focus on the task in hand. She pats the whippet on the head. ‘And bark if anyone comes near.’ We should hire a guard dog permanently, she thinks. Now Jack has disappeared.