The second explanation was almost frightening. What if Dona Mencia hadn't discerned Rubens' purpose? What if her depictions of Maria Anna were simply those of an enthusiast?
Almost frightening. For Dona Mencia was indeed very astute. As astute and experienced as any elderly and widely traveled noblewoman in Europe. Her assessments of people were generally superb, in Ruben's experience.
In which case…
The continent of Europe actually possessed the closest thing that ever existed in the real world to the silly American notion of a "fairy tale princess"-and there was no chance at all that Rubens' patron Don Fernando could wake her from her sleep. In the real world, if not the up-time fables, the wards and barriers that guarded princesses were far denser and thicker and mightier than paltry magic. At bottom, entire armies stood in the way-real armies-not the spells of witches.
So it was. Rubens was not a man given to whimsy, outside of his art. He put all thoughts of Maria Anna aside. Her sister too, for that matter, since the barriers were the same.
"I think the best possibility is Anna de' Medici. Second best would be the Polish girl, the Vasa, although she's only fifteen. Failing her, the Lorraine."
None of the three were actually very good, in his opinion. The de' Medici was certainly the best, but the drawback was that her father was simply the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Her lineage was suitable, both in terms of blood and faith-but there would be little in the way of a powerful alliance to come with the marriage. The daughter of Henri de Lorraine was rumored to have an attachment to one of her cousins, which, if true, would be awkward at best. As for the Polish princess…
Again, Rubens suppressed a sigh. He suspected he'd be doing a lot of that, in the future, as he pursued this matter.
The one portrait he'd managed to obtain so far of the seven eligible princesses was a portrait of Anna Katharina Konstanze Vasa, half-sister and first cousin of the king of Poland. It was possible that the artist had botched the assignment by making her less attractive than she actually was-but it was not likely. As a rule, artists bent the stick as far as they could in the other direction, when doing portraits of any wealthy patrons, much less royalty.
So, she would be unattractive at best, and possibly downright ugly. She seemed to have inherited the Vasa beak of a nose in addition to the Habsburg lip. Worse still, from what Rubens could glean from the maddeningly spotty historical records of the up-timers, he thought she might have died at the age of thirty-two, in that other universe. That might have been due to an accident, of course, which could be avoided in this separate existence. But there was also the possibility of exceedingly bad health.
Maria Anna lived to the age of fifty-five, long past her child-bearing years, and might well have lived longer given up-time medical…
But that was pointless. "I'll do the best I can, Your Highness. Under the circumstances."
The prince nodded heavily. Then, his expression brightened. "And there's always that, we shouldn't forget. Since whatever other lessons brought by the Americans my family chooses to ignore, there is one that they simply can't."
"I'm not quite following you, Your Highness."
Don Fernando was actually grinning,. now, and quite cheerfully. "Circumstances. They change, you know. That is the one thing you can be absolutely sure and certain that circumstances will do."
Chapter 3
Femella minima
Vienna, Austria
Maria Anna stood patiently as Frau Stecher adjusted a pair of sleeves. Since sleeve adjustment involved the ability to move one's arms, she occasionally got to change position. Sometimes, she was even allowed to tickle the bare toes of her nephew Ferdinand, who was precociously propped up in a little padded chair, carefully watched by both his noble Aja and a more common nursemaid to make sure that the heir of Austria didn't topple over and harm himself.
"Frau Stecher." Dona Mencia entered the room. "Can you please go to the empress. There is a problem with the dress for this afternoon's audience and she is quite determined to wear this one and no other. It appears that the lining is not appropriately attached. This must have been done improperly when the dress was taken apart to be cleaned and then fastened back together. Her maids are with her. Take your seamstresses; it must be repaired and there isn't much time."
"Certainly. But, Susanna, you stay here and hold those sleeves in place." Frau Stecher curtsied and vanished with the remainder of her staff.
Maria Anna looked behind her. Then she looked down. The top of Susanna Allegretti's head barely reached above the archduchess's shoulder-not that the young seamstress was abnormally small. She was short and thin, but no court dwarf. Maria Anna, by contrast, was a stately, unusually well-grown, woman. Her dressmakers truly appreciated this. Gorgeous clothing displayed so much better on a statuesque form. Not to say, a buxom form. It was like the difference, for an artist, between the constraints of a miniature and the opportunities offered by a large canvas.
"This could take the whole time until Mama goes down to the audience. Are you really going to stand there holding sleeves up while they are gone?"
Susanna's eyes sparkled. "Not unless Your Highness truly wishes it. But, if not, we should set a spy in the corridor to tell us when they are coming back"
"Lena," Maria Anna said to the governess. "It's time for our baby to eat, anyway." She stopped, picked up Ferdinand the Most Recent, as her delighted brother called his son and heir, and gave his neck a bit of a nuzzle. "Mariana will be waiting for him."
The archduchess thought, with all due respect to the Blessed Virgin and Her mother Saint Anne, that it would be quite nice if the Habsburgs could more often name their daughters something more-distinctive-than Maria Anna. Or Anna Maria. Or Anna. Or Maria. It had been kind of Ferdinand's wife to retain the Spanish form of her name for written purposes but, spoken, they were still the same. It was confusing. At least, when someone referred to Cecelia Renata, there was only one of them in the family. This had been true with great-aunt Caterina Micaela, too. Surely, a little more imagination in the family nomenclature would do no harm.
But. "Please take him back to the nurseries. And send us a maid to stand behind a statue in the corridor and be our spy. I intend to sit down." Which she did, inviting Dona Mencia to do likewise.
Susanna, of course, remained standing.
"You come to us from Duchess Claudia, don't you?" the archduchess asked.
"Oh, yes," Susanna replied. She had grown up as a court servant, so was less disconcerted by this situation than she otherwise might have been. Still, she realized that nervousness was going to make her talk too much. Everyone, especially her mother, assured her that talking too much was one of her major failings. "I was born in Italy, before she married Duke Leopold. But we came to Tyrol with her and have been there ever since. Except, of course, that my mother sent me back to Ferrara when I was thirteen, for my training. I was at the court there for five years before I came back to Bozen, and was only there for a year when the Duchess was so kind as to send me here, to Vienna."
"So," Maria Anna asked, "do you have any acquaintance among the musicians that the duchess has also sent to us?"
"One of the lute players is my cousin; well, he's the son of my aunt's husband, by his first marriage. My stepsister's husband's younger brother is apprenticed to the music librarian. He isn't here, though; he stayed home. I know all the musicians, though. We make their costumes. And re-make them, alter them, fit them to newly hired musicians. It's a lot easier to make a costume smaller than it is to make it bigger."
"But the musicians are men. Don't the tailors have to do that?"