Callaghan - A Light of Her Own

Amberjack Publishing
1472 E. Iron Eagle Drive
Eagle, Idaho 83616
http://amberjackpublishing.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2018 by Carrie Callaghan
Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, in part or in whole, in any form whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication data
Title: A light of her own / by Carrie Callaghan.
Description: New York : Amberjack Publishing, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018017976 (print) | LCCN 2018019558 (ebook) | ISBN 9781944995911 (eBook) | ISBN 9781944995898 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781944995904 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Classification: LCC PS3603.A44188 (ebook) | LCC PS3603.A44188 L54 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018017976

Cover Design: David Provolo

To Patrick, my love.

J UDITH LEANED AGAINST THE SMALL window ledge and looked inside. The frigid twilight air seeped past her cloak into her many layers of tunics and her well-worn bodice, and the painted ledge below her numb fingertips had dulled to the gray of a low sky. Behind the glass, the inns golden light beckoned, and though it was not yet suppertime, already drinkers dressed in shades of brown sat at small tables. Her teeth chattered with cold and nerves. She scrutinized the scene for any telling detail, but she saw nothing unusual, to her disappointment.

She wished she could step out of the back garden, around the corner, and through the inn door, but entering would be too risky. Even though the inn was public, anyone who knew her would realize she wasnt visiting for the ale. Respectable women didnt socialize in taverns or inns. But an artist showing up the night of a clandestine auction? Someone might recognize her and report her to the Guild, whose leaders would delight in an excuse to ban her. No artist, particularly not an apprentice like herself, could sell outside approved Guild channels. She stamped her feet against the cold and watched.

Inside the inns common room, located at the back of the building, a trio of musicians played in the far corner. Judith anxiously tapped her finger against the windowsill along with the muffled beat, until the cold pinched her skin too deeply and she hugged her hands against herself.

Nothing suggested an auction was taking place, illegal or otherwise. No art, no passed canvases or wooden painting supports. Only pewter tankards and a few plates moved from hand to hand while bearded men gulped down ale or, less often, wine. A knot tightened in her stomach. The man with the misshapen nose had deceived her. For a moment Judith pressed her fingertipssmelling of linseed oil and ochreagainst her eyelids. If he had misled her, stolen her painting, he would cost her four months. Or longer. She was twenty-three and still a student.

She opened her eyes and watched as, along the side of the room, a thin man dressed in an azurite-colored doublet stood up from a bench. She didnt recognize him, but his distinctive clothing caught her attention. He seemed to be speaking, then bent down and straightened again, and as he did, he lifted a linen draping and revealed a painting beneath. Judith exhaled.

She wondered which artist had produced that credible painting of a shepherd strumming a lute. Earth tones, with flashes of soft green. Who else would need to resort to illegal auctions? Obviously not the city of Haarlems most prominent masters, like the brothers Frans and Dirck Hals. They sold under the St. Lukes Guild auspices. Maybe a mature apprentice like herself, someone on the cusp of recognition. She hoped the artist on display now was reputable, or close. If the other paintings fetched high prices, hers might as well. Twenty, even thirty guilders would be enough. She had never earned that much money before, not at one time. That is, assuming the auctioneer gave her a fair share.

The man with the canvas carried the painting to another table, where four card players frowned at their hands. Judith conjured up every detail of her own painting. Her woman holding a wineglass aloft had precisely the right tilt to her head. But the magenta wine glowing behind the etched glass had been tricky. Judith had struggled with the refracted light, and she had resolved her difficulties by moving the womans fingers to block the view a bit. She loved how paint granted her mobility, the power to reshape the world in the most beautiful way she could imagine, but she hoped none of these buyers would notice her correction. They were shopkeepers and petty merchants hoping to display a little luxury alongside their wares or in their once-bare visiting rooms. It wouldnt matter to the merchants if they were displaying Judiths paintings, those fragments of her soul, or some mediocre depiction of a rustic cottage along a winding road. Judith needed her own workshop soon, a chance to establish herself as a serious painter before the publics fascination with paintings as ornaments for their homes faded. So many young men had left Frans de Grebbers workshop to set out on their own, but Judith still lingered there in her apprenticeship. Even though she was just as good as them.

Her fogged breath clouded the glass, so she stepped back. She bit her lip and rubbed at her rough woolen sleeves to spark some warmth. The light revealed the paint still stuck to the back of her scrubbed hand, and doubt wound through her veins like a cool fog. She should have offered the coarse man a different work, like the picture of the two men at cards with the boy chasing a dog nearby. Three figures made the canvas far more valuable, and the subtle critique of gamesthe warning implied in the boys foolish playwould appeal to buyers. But the man made her wary. He had sidled up to her as she exited church one Sunday morning, both of them jostled by the crowd streaming from the echoing central cathedral. He offered no money up front, and he gave her a nearly illegible receipt, as if he had not expected her to be literate. Only after she delivered her painting did she realize he had let her assume when, and thus if, she would be paid. That night she cried silent tears into her threadbare blankets.

The first canvas the auctioneer displayed had disappeared in the rooms haze. Judith shifted. The setting sun turned the glass into a mirror for a moment, and she was irritated to see her small face and thin lips instead of the room. Judith knew she was no beauty. She moved again, trying to see past the reflection. At her height, she had to stand on her toes to see around the heads of the drinkers in the elevated room, and this was the only window. The auctioneer sat at a table with two older men, and their backs obscured his face, though his doublets unusual color gloweda reason for optimism. To wear clothes of that hue, the man must make money doing this. Maybe he had traveled to Haarlem from bustling Amsterdam, and certainly he would know how to extract a high price for her painting. She shifted again. Her toes were growing numb from cold inside her battered shoes.