He was allowed to see the governor, and half an hour later I too was fetched and shown into the servants’ hall. Two tailors, a cobbler with several pairs of shoes, a tradesman with hats and stockings, and another with garments of all kinds were already there. Apparently I was to be clothed as quickly as possible. They took off only my tunic at first, together with the chains and the hair shirt, to enable the tailors to take measurements properly. Then a barber appeared, with his stinging lyes and sweet-smelling soaps. Just as he was about to exercise his arts on me, though, another order was issued: I was to don my tunic once more. This gave me a dreadful fright. However, things looked less ominous when a portrait painter turned up, laden with gear: minium and cinnabar for my eyelids, varnish, indigo and azure for my coral lips, orpiment, king’s yellow and massicot for my white teeth (currently bared with hunger), lamp-black, coal-black and burnt umber to highlight my blond locks, white lead for my baggy eyes, and masses of other pigments for my weather-stained tunic. Plus a fistful of brushes. He began work, peering narrowly at me, trying to catch a likeness, filling in the background, and cocking his head to one side to compare his work with the figure he was working on. He might change the eyes, or possibly the hair, swiftly alter a nostril – in short, add all the touches he hadn’t got right first time. Eventually he had a natural rendition of the way Simplicius had once looked. Only then was the barber allowed near me to wash my hair and spend perhaps an hour and a half cutting it in the latest style. There was plenty to come off. Afterwards he sat me in a tub and removed more than three years’ worth of grime from my starved and skinny frame. As soon as he’d finished, they brought me a white shirt (plus collar) together with trousers and a feathered hat. The trousers were of a particularly fine cut and heavily adorned with braid. My new outfit lacked only the jerkin, which the tailors were still working on. Meanwhile the cook brought a nourishing broth and the cellarer something to drink. So there sat Lord Simplicius like a young viscount at table, all dressed up and scoffing away, despite not knowing what the future held. There’d been no talk of a prisoner’s ‘final meal’, though, so I tucked into that excellent first one, finding it tastier and more welcome than I could ever describe. In fact, I can scarcely recall having ever, in my entire life, felt happier. The jerkin was now finished, so I put it on, and in my new outfit cut so awkward a figure that I might have been some sort of decorated maypole. This was because the tailors had deliberately made my clothes too big, expecting me soon to put on weight, which with grub like that seemed more than likely. My forest get-up, complete with chains and other accessories, was put on display in the arts and crafts cabinet with other rarities and antiques, the full-length portrait beside it.
After supper Lord Simplicius was put to bed – in an actual bed, something I’d never slept in before, either in dad’s house or at the hermitage. However, my belly rumbled and grumbled so loudly all night that I didn’t get a wink of sleep. Either it had yet to learn what was good for it, or it couldn’t get over its amazement at the fabulous new foods it had been served. I lay in one position after another until the welcome sun came up again (the room was cold), mulling over the curious events of the past few days and how the good Lord had so reliably helped me through and brought me to this excellent place.