Early on a cold but bright Saturday afternoon, Alphaios was in the scriptorium alone. The entire quire had been completed, and on his worktable, in full sun, lay Jeremiah's wink. If anything, this second painting was even more vibrant than the first. The whole of the quire had a kind of weight, a palpable presence in the room. Even when in its drawers, it possessed a magnetism they all felt.
Even so, a palette with dabs of paint waited at the edge of his table.
He heard the front door of the library open and close. Moments later, Inaki entered the scriptorium, still removing his scarf and coat. He greeted Alphaios happily, and began to talk about the cold wind outside. He stopped mid-sentence when he noticed the painting. He came to Alphaios and stood silently beside him for a long, reverent moment.
"It's truly remarkable. No one else alive could have done this. You have become Jeremiah—and added Alphaios as well."
"It's not finished, Inaki."
The archivist turned to search his friend's face. "Not finished? What do you mean? It's a wonderful painting. A masterpiece, and I don't use that word lightly. It'll be famous."
He stood motionless for a long minute. "I know it's good, Inaki, but do you remember that before the printing press, scribes and illuminators occasionally entered their own observations, their own comments into the works they were copying?"
"Of course. Often in error, sometimes deliberately. Why?"
"It isn't finished."
"I don't understand. It went to the commission, and they were nearly speechless. Cardinal Ricci will be thrilled. You've done remarkable work."
"It's not enough. The wink alone wasn't enough to compel Blanca to keep the book hidden. It's not provocative enough to enrage the inquisitors, especially against a powerful queen who was a devout Roman Catholic. It's not enough to drive the book underground twice. It had to be something more."
"What about all the other things we talked about, Alphaios? The feminine point of view, the breaks from artistic tradition, the audacity of Jeremiah, the fire at Leyre. Aren't you putting too much weight on this one picture?"
Alphaios reached into the slender drawer under his worktable and took out his finest brush. He dabbed it in the paint, and prepared to touch it to the parchment.
Inaki was alarmed now. "Alphaios, what are you doing? Put the brush down. Please. It's a magnificent painting. Don't! You'll ruin it!"
Despite Inaki's protests, Alphaios reached forward with the brush and delicately closed the right eye of the winged angel.
He spoke quietly. "If not for the angel's wink, the young woman's closed eye might be explained away as just another physical anomaly. Or just another sly but opaque trick by Jeremiah. When it's repeated on the face of the angel, Inaki, it's undeniably a wink between the girl and the heavenly host. Who can know who winked first? Was it the young woman or God's own angel?"
The archivist seemed to be in shock.
"Think of it, Inaki. Think of the sharpness of the journalist's protest. Talk about fallow ground for claims of heresy—this is no longer a simple suggestion of feigned submission to a pope. Instead, it suggests a joke, or worse, some kind of alliance between God's purest messenger and a young woman. Pope and king? Both of them are reduced to a sideshow, their pretense of power simply to be indulged? Or could it be a broadside against patriarchy? Queens commonly ruled countries, of course, but never has a woman been pope. Even a wraith of such thought would have been heresy."
Inaki seemed to have somewhat recovered and was now studying the painting with narrowed eyes, his lips pursed.
"Had it been known," Alphaios said, "such a painting could not have survived the Spanish Inquisition. Its owner and anyone else associated with it would pay an unbearable price, very likely thrown on the fires."
He took a half step back and looked at his work. "The angel is winking, too, Inaki. A joke? Or a pact between woman and angel? As for me, I'm going to get a cup of coffee. It's cold outside."
Inaki stood rooted to the floor, his eyes riveted to the painting.
Alphaios cleaned his brush and prepared to leave. He grinned at his disconcerted friend and let himself out of the scriptorium. He went to the lobby where the old coat awaited him. When a few moments later he left the library with it tight around him, he turned in the direction of the Green River Bar and Grill and grinned. Today he would be ready for Jess's gleeful repartee.
~*~*~