Mumia Vera

Joanna only had a few pence left in her pitiful stash.

The rent in her tiny garret “studio” wasn’t due quite yet, but unless she sold another painting, the rent would be late. Again.

Tonight’s dinner would be thin, also again. She could afford some pig’s trotters, with some cheap vegetables. It would have to stretch, till she could get another commission lined up.

And, being a woman, that was always problematic.

Interesting, really, that it was almost more socially acceptable, to be the subject of the painting, than the one painting. She kept her clothes on, it was honest work, and yet, she was the one who got the comments about being an uppity woman, who didn’t know her place.

My place is behind a canvas, capturing what’s placed before me – what are you hiding, that you think I will also capture? For all the world to see?

She didn’t get a lot of commissions, though that insufferable group calling themselves The Brotherhood even complimented her work. Sometimes.

If it didn’t get in the way of their own juicy commissions.

Well, there were many wives of merchants that had a bit of extra money, and wanted nice things. One of those things was family portraiture, and if the man of the house wouldn’t sit still, then his wife and children would. The last commission wasn’t much in the way of money, but it meant much more in the way of placement. The wife of an over-eager wheelwright shouldn’t be that well-placed, but she had been quietly collecting other like-minded wives in an echo of a salon, and names were discussed while the doors were open to the solar. Using the solar as her impromptu studio allowed the gossip to funnel to her ears.

“I heard that the Guildmaster of the Glassworkers is losing his sight, and the Masters are angling for the job. Stephen is only an apprentice, but he could make Master to fill the opening! Alys, you would love that, four children, and another on the way!”

Would that Rossetti, or preferably his brother Rossetti, would pay the debt of nature, and open up a spot in their vaunted Brotherhood…

Joanna’s hand and eye worked no matter what her mind was thinking, and the painting was all the better for it.

She required the money up front. Too many would try to take possession before full payment was turned over, and she was too used to the shortchanging dance.

She had hopes. She had dreams. But for now, she needed something to add to the tiny pot of simmering water that passed for soup.

Luckily, half-rotten vegetables were very cheap, and she could cut out the bad parts. She had a window, and with it, its ancient right to light, but it looked out on a midden. The stable next door used it for mucking out, instead of coughing up the money to have it carted away. She could add to the pile, and no one would be the wiser, and the rats would eliminate the evidence.

The November wind actually held a chill, for once. London was usually blamed hot, so the window stayed shut. Maybe the smell would be quelled in the cold, and she could open it for a tiny waft of breeze.

She saw her door was open as she made her way up the stairs.

Oh, nooo…

The snoring brought her up short at the doorway.

Her good-for-nothing brother was asleep in her bed. Again. He must have outlived his welcome at whatever cranny he’d oozed himself into.

The soup was gone.

So was her box of art supplies, and the brand new canvases she’d just bought.

One beer jug was empty, and another waited her brother’s awakening.

She felt her tiny hopes die, shatter, and drop, in crumbling shards.

She’d have to wash her sheets now, to get rid of the lice...

And something snapped in her.

Joanna may have been thin, but she had some muscle. Sure, she’d mended her dresses twice now, she was so thin, but painting wasn’t the only work she did for a living. Mucking out that stable next door, for instance. And the stevedores didn’t care much that she was a woman, as long as she did the job. Sure, they tried to underpay her, and make propositions that would make a sailor blush, but she was as accurate with a sharp muck rake as she was with a paint brush. And a swift kick to the nether regions. The boys learned early to let her alone, and pay her almost as much as they did the others.

Her idiot brother had been doing this since they were children. He would eat her food, and complain that she ate too fast, and be rewarded – with more food. And their parents would punish her.

Something snapped.

Joanna saw crimson.

She dropped her prize foodstuffs to the side, blobs of Sage Green and Straw and Buff tumbling into the corner. She crossed to the window (two strides, it was a tiny garret), and flung open the sash. She’d always wanted to do that.

Unfortunately, the crisp London air wasn’t enough to quell the reek of the midden, but it would do.

Then she went through her brother’s pockets. It was her money, and by God’s gonads, and the throne they rest upon, she would get back her money!

That’s all he got for her entire kit? She’d had some Ultramarine in there, plus Burnt Umber! The real stuff!

She grabbed his limp form, and dragged him to the window.

Not even worth a still life painting, unless I wanted to use him as a study for something titled The Ugly Drunk!

He roused enough to sit up and take a swing at her when she’d gotten him to the open window, but that just gave her leverage.

Up, over… and out!

He made a quite satisfying yelp and squelch. And the midden pile was more than enough to cushion his fall.

Then she locked up behind her, and stomped down the stairs.

The tavern on the first floor was middling, and was supposed to be more secure than this. If only herself and the landlord had keys, how did her brother get in?

She jerked the tavern door wide.

Time stopped. People froze at the sight.

“Who let my loathsome brother into my room without my permission?”

The landlord, also conveniently the barkeep, blinked in confusion. “What? Keys are expensive, of course. You have one, and I have one, and that’s the list.”

“Either there is a third key, or your keys were used to let my brother into my garret, and he proceeded to rob me blind. If I don’t get my answers fast, t’will be a reckoning!”

“But, I… the keys are…” He groped at his belt, but there was no telltale jingling.

Joanna studied his children, who all came running at the noise. One wouldn’t look at her, or at her father.

Joanna pounced.

The girl shrieked, but being twelve, she should not have jingled as much as she did when she was shaken.

The keys fell to the floor from under her skirts.

Joanna plunked herself down on a bench, pulling the girl with her, and proceeded to thrash the tar out of her.

And the family let it happen. Between beseeching shrieks for mercy aimed at her father, the landlord rumbled, “She’s being kinder than I would, Mary. Had I got to thee before Joanna here, your hands t’would near be broken by now.” Amidst the cries, he glanced over at his wife, pulled out of the kitchen by the commotion. “And we must needs look to marrying her off, if she is up to this much mischief. Sooner, rather than later.”

The cook was displeased, but nodded, her lips in a firm line. She turned her back on her daughter, and went back to cooking.

Joanna finally dumped the crying girl on the floor, thoroughly disgusted. “And for my pains, free room and board for a month. I will come down at dinner and claim it, since this chit allowed my brother to eat all of mine.”

“Agreed. You can have Mary’s share, since she took it upon herself to play landlord. Which she knows is not allowed.”

Joanna dusted her hands. “And now, I must needs retrieve my painter’s kit from hock, if ‘tis still redeemable.”

*****

“You sold it? Already?”

The clerk flinched from the very angry woman in front of him. “I’m sorry!” he wailed. “You had ultramarine! Burnt Umber! Raw Umber! It was a steal!”

“Much more so than normal, considering the receipt I pulled out of my brother’s pocket. You gravely undercharged a thief, so now I’m going to take it out of your profit. You knew the kit wasn’t his, yet you bought and re-sold it. Therefore, hand over the money. All the profit.”

“You can’t do this to me!” wailed the clerk. “I’ll get beaten!”

“I’ve beaten the thief already, plus his accomplice. You would be considered an inciter, I believe. Shall we test that?”

“Ah! No! Here!” He shoved the money at her, and ran to the back room.

Joanna smiled.

*****

“Joanna, I know you can’t afford to replace everything your brother stole, so please stop caressing that tube of ultramarine as if it’s your lover.”

Joanne snorted in a most un-ladylike manner, but handed it back to Peter, the clerk at the store where she purchased her supplies.

“Thank you. You make people nervous, you do, when you have that look on your face.”

“Really.”

“Yes, which is why I shan’t tell you just who bought your kit. I have heard the rumors of your rumbles, and your successes. Husband those coins, I pray you, this month’s free room and board will vanish with the holidays.”

“Hmph. Spoilsport. Well, I need canvas. I can make my own paintbrushes, but I need bristles, and the sticks, and the glue. I even need cups. What do you suggest?”

“Firstly, use prepared boards, not canvas. Much cheaper. And use the less expensive paints for anon, till you raise the funds from a brace of sales or so. Then come back for your Umbers, and by then, I’ll save you a half-tube of Ultramarine. But here, try this instead. More popular than Indian Yellow.”

“Egyptian Brown?”

“’Tis a colour that sits square ‘tween Raw and Burnt Umber. It’s cheaper. For now, cheaper is good.”

Joanna grumbled, but knew Peter was correct. For now.

*****

The nightmares started immediately.

Rustling, scratching, skittering noises. She knew she didn’t have mice.

She had smiled sweetly, and switched bed clothing with Mary. Mary wailed about the further indignity, but Mary was also seen in the back of the courtyard later, scrubbing the lice-ridden bedding as if her life depended on it.

Otherwise, the locals were avoiding her.

As long as patrons didn’t likewise avoid her, she was fine with the solitude.

Her brother had also vanished. She drank the beer he’d left behind, but sparingly.

Her next commission was for one of the more unpleasant of the salon members, but one of the most ambitious. A pinch-faced woman, she’d married a man who much resembled a weasel, and went about trying to re-populate the Pewter Guild from scratch.

Well, a commission’s a commission. Joanna set up in the solar, with her new cups and paints and brushes.

Did she hear a low moan when she opened the Egyptian Brown? Well, no matter.

She was confident. She mixed, she sketched. And the paint flowed smoothly, and set up well.

So the children looked a touch more rat-faced than weasel-faced. She was sure that it was a trick of the light, not that the wife’s neighbor looked more like a rat than perhaps was healthy, for a suspicious husband.

But Joanna was paid, and it led to another ambitious commission, who wanted to keep up with the Tyler-Joneses, and their brood being immortalized in pigment affixed with egg tempera to a wooden board.

It gave her money.

But the nightmares persisted. She spent a tiny bit of money on lavender sachets, hoping she didn’t pick up anything from the fresher sheets she’d gotten from Mary.

And then she heard of the disasters, as the salon ladies whispered over their tea.

The rat-faced children were also having nightmares, as was their alleged father. He came home early from work one day – and caught his wife with the neighbor. They were thrown into the street.

The ambitious family was also in jeopardy, some scheme their husband was working on was falling apart, and the whole family might end up impoverished. They also claimed nightmares, and had their complaints over cups of tea in porcelain cups. Like there was a curse placed on them.

Joanna rubbed her head, but put her tubes of paint away. One flipped over, and she studied the label before fitting it into her box.

Egyptian Brown.

Mummy Brown.

*****

“Ow! Stop boxing my ears! It hurts!”

“You sold me crushed up mummy bodies, and you have the unmitigated gall to lecture me?”

“Ow! But I thought – Ow!”

“No, you did not think. So, sell me two tubes of new paint, Raw Umber, and Burnt Umber. Or I will drag you to Italy myself, and beat you to death with one of the bricks made from the clay of Umbria, and make a new paint, mixed with your blood!”

“I thought it would help!”

“What, giving me a paint that brought with it an ancient Egyptian mummy curse?”

“Yes! I mean, no! I meant…”

“Cease, curse you! Sell me my good paint, and Heaven forfend you try to ever do me another favor!”

*****

It was dark.

Charcoal hues mixed with French Grey, with some Dead Spaniard thrown in for effect.

Joanna was still in her garret, in the throes of a dream that she could not wake from.

Her kit glowed, and she knew why.

So she rose, and opened it.

Golden rays shot into the air, and formed glyphs she could not read. She crossed herself, knowing it was quite unlikely to assist.

But the glow wavered for a fraction. It gave her hope.

All she knew was merrie olde English…

She addressed the writing, bowing a little. “Greetings and salutations. I assume you are the mummy used for the pigment I own, and this is the curse associated with it?”

The lettering bowed.

“I do apologize for the indignity. I can imagine you’d be quite discomfited with the, er, experience. What would you like me to do? I can’t take you back to Egypt, and I know I shouldn’t use you, even if the curse deserves to spread. What can I do? I’m just a painter.”

The characters swirled, and some got bigger, while others faded. The pictograms become figures, and acted out a pantomime that Joanna could understand.

She let out the ghost of a laugh. She nodded.

“You have a deal.”

The figures vanished. Charcoal faded to Dark Slate, as the golden sun rose.

*****

Soon, Joanna was able to move away from her tiny garret to a slightly larger flat, in the artistic district. There, she could afford to host a starving artist or two, always women, in a safe place. Though The Brotherhood was soon disbanded, Joanna considered herself part of a Sisterhood, and intended to foster as much female talent as she could.

She was never rich, but she was never so poor that she would lose her room. Or her kit, which was really the only thing of value that she owned.

But she could afford whole tubes of ultramarine, now.

On occasion, a client would try to stiff her. Then she would purse her lips, and pick up the painting she’d labored on for so long, and take it back to her place. And there, when no one was looking, she would dig deep into her bag.

In the bottom was a little wooden box, in the shape of a mummy’s coffin, She’d carved it herself.

Inside was a little tube of paint, not used much.

But out it would come, and a few swooshes of Egyptian Brown would be added to the board, or canvas, or miniature.

The money would eventually be paid, though the fortunes of the recipient’s family would suddenly take a turn for the worse.

She did do an anonymous portrait for Mary, when she’d heard of that “worthy” getting married.

She never did one for her brother, though one of Circe’s pigs looked uncannily like her sibling, when an Odyssey-themed commission was requested.

But most times, the tube of brown paint sat quietly in its coffin, buried in her paint kit.