The De Wael house was warm when they returned from their walk with Floris, the scent of spiced wine and fresh bread still clinging to the air. Margriet swept into the hall with cheeks flushed, speaking of Floris as if he were Antwerp's brightest jewel.
'So gracious with the fishmongers! And when he spoke to the drapers, how their eyes lit! A man of presence, Katelijne — he fills every street as if it were his own.'
Jeroen smiled faintly, though the crease between his brows deepened. He bade the servants bank the fire, listening with half an ear as Margriet recounted every detail of Floris's attentions.
Katelijne hung back, loosening her cloak. Floris's words still echoed — his talk of alliances, of merchant feasts, of how she would shine at his side. He had spoken with certainty, as though her future were already written in his hand.
The front door opened with a gust of cold. Edwin entered, flushed from the street.
'You're late,' Jeroen said at once, his tone sharper than the winter wind. 'The ledgers for the grain shipments were to be balanced today. Are they finished?'
Edwin stiffened. 'Not yet, Father. I—'
'Not yet,' Jeroen cut across him. 'The Exchange does not wait on tardy boys. You will have them ready by morning.'
'Yes, sir,' Edwin murmured.
Margriet clucked her tongue. 'Always numbers and ink! At your age you should be out enjoying Carnival — with a young lady on your arm, perhaps. What use are ledgers to memory, when youth is fleeting?'
Edwin's face coloured, but he said nothing more. He slipped past, climbing the stair two at a time. Katelijne followed more slowly, her mother's voice still drifting up, extolling Floris as though he were Antwerp's salvation.
⸻
She found Edwin in his chamber, sleeves rolled, shoulders taut. The ledger lay open before him, columns neat but unfinished. His pen rested idle. Beside it, on rough paper, a charcoal sketch showed the curve of a cheek, the lift of an eyebrow, the hint of a body caught mid-turn.
'That is no tally,' Katelijne said softly.
Edwin started, hand moving to shield the sketch, but she had already seen. His flush deepened.
'A lesson,' he muttered. 'I practise when I can. But the invoices—' He gestured at the ledger. 'Father will notice.'
Katelijne stepped closer, the inked columns pulling at her eye. She knew the patterns; more than once she had steadied Edwin's accounts when duty had pulled him elsewhere.
'Give it here,' she said, reaching for the quill.
'No, Katelijne, you've enough—'
'I am quicker at it than you when your head is full of lines and brushes.' Her tone was light, but her hand was firm as she drew the ledger toward her. She dipped the quill and began to write, the numbers falling into place beneath her strokes.
Edwin watched, half-guilty, half-relieved. 'You shouldn't have to do this for me.'
'And yet I have before,' she murmured. 'If Father asks, it will be done, and he will not scold you for chasing what you love.'
Silence stretched, broken only by the scratch of the quill.
'You make it look easy,' Edwin said at last.
'It isn't but I enjoy the challenge,' she replied, keeping her eyes on the page. 'But easy or not, it is expected. That is the difference between us. You pursue what sets your heart alight. I… only shoulder what others place upon me.'
The words surprised her. She bent closer, hiding the ache in her chest.
Edwin leaned on the desk, expression softening. 'You think I do not see it? They speak of Floris as though he were already your husband, and of you as if you were already his prize. You deserve more than to be paraded in chains of pearls.'
Her throat tightened. 'What choice do I have?'
He hesitated, then drew the rough sheet nearer, pointing at the sketch. 'Choice is what we make. Here—' He tapped the charcoal lines. 'This is what I study at Master van der Goes's lessons. How a body moves, how joy can be caught in shadow and light. It is not the ledgers that teach me to see Antwerp — it is the brush. When I paint, the noise of the world falls away. I breathe easier. I feel—' He broke off, searching for words. '—as if I belong to myself, not only to Father's contracts.'
Katelijne's chest ached.
Edwin looked down, voice lower. 'Tonight I will go again, though Father forbids it. When I stand before the canvas, it feels as if there is still a place in the world where I am more than a son tallying ships. Will you cover for me, sister?'
Katelijne's lips parted. 'You would risk that?'
'I would risk more than that. Without painting, I am only half alive. Promise me you'll cover.'
Her hand brushed the ledger's margin, steady against the ink. 'Of course. You know I will.'
He gave a grateful nod, then bent again to his sketch. His eyes glowed with a light she had never seen at the counting table.
Katelijne watched him, envy sharp as a blade. He had found something that gave him breath and fire. And she—she had a rosary heavy in her lap and a future measured out in Floris's boasts.
⸻
Later, in her chamber, she sat at her small desk, the rosary Floris had given her resting in her palm. The beads glimmered like frozen drops of night, their pearls cold as ice.
She remembered his words that afternoon: "Antwerp will see what treasure I have won."
Treasure. Prize. Doll.
And before that, his talk of children — many children — and of his sisters becoming her constant companions, her "guides" into a higher station. He had spoken warmly, even gallantly, but with the certainty of a man laying claim. Her life mapped out in his voice: feasts, children, the Exchange, her arm looped into his at every gathering.
She imagined it now — standing at his side in one of his sisters' pearls, smiling as they smiled, never faltering, never stepping out of place. It was a future of polish and weight, of rules woven tighter than velvet brocade.
Her fingers closed around the rosary until the edges of the cross dug into her palm.
From the street outside came the faint swell of Carnival — pipes trilling, drums rolling, voices high with laughter.
Katelijne rose, restless, and drew the bolt across her door.
Alone, she let the rosary slip from her hand to the chest at her bedside. Then she caught her skirt in her fists and began to move.
A step, a turn, a twirl. At first clumsy, then freer, spinning until the walls blurred. Her breath came fast, her hair tugged loose, and she laughed — a sound she scarcely recognised as her own.
For one moment she was not Katelijne de Wael, merchant's daughter, promised bride. She was only a girl, dizzy with motion, alive.
She collapsed onto the bed, cheeks flushed, breathless. The laughter ebbed, but the spark remained.
One moment of joy. One taste of freedom.
She pressed her face into her pillow, heart hammering. I want more.
Joseph's smile flickered in her mind, warm and astonished. His words at the chapel — To be seen by you.
She sat upright, her breath sharp. Isabelle's dare, spoken in mockery, returned with sudden clarity: Bring her to the barn. Dress her as one of us. Let her dance unseen.
The thought should have horrified her. To don a player's rags, to step into their world — it was madness. Ruin.
And yet her body still tingled from the spin, her heart from the laughter.
She whispered into the dark, almost a vow.
'Yes. Just once.'
Katelijne rose from the bed, her pulse still racing. The house was hushed, her mother's prayers drifting faint through the walls, Margriet's laughter softened to a sigh in her chamber.
She lit a taper and took a scrap of paper from her desk. Her hand shook, but the words came swift, smudging with haste:
I will go. Tomorrow. After dusk. — K.
She folded it once, pressing it flat against her palm.
The kitchen door groaned faintly as she eased it open. Night air rushed in, sharp with river damp and the faint reek of tallow smoke drifting from the square. She drew her cloak tighter, heart thudding. If she were caught, if her father found her creeping out like a thief…
But then Edwin's face came to her — the charcoal lines, the unfinished ledger, his voice alight when he spoke of colour and brush. He risked their father's scorn, risked discovery, for the sake of something that stirred him to life. If he could dare so much for paint and canvas, could she not risk as much for one moment of freedom?
Perhaps to live a dream, you had to gamble something real.
She stepped into the lane. Carnival's music carried faintly from the Grote Markt — pipes trilling, drums beating steady, laughter spilling over roofs like smoke. A knot of children skittered past, chasing one another between puddles. Their shadows leapt against the walls, wild and free.
One boy — sharp-eyed, no older than ten — slowed when she beckoned. She pressed the folded scrap into his hand along with a coin.
'Take this to the inn by St. Andries,' she whispered. 'Ask for the player with the parrot. Give it to him and no other. Do you understand?'
The boy nodded, eyes gleaming, and darted off before she could think twice, vanishing into the dark with the note clutched tight.
Katelijne stood rooted to the cobbles, breath misting, heart hammering. The street lay empty now, quiet but for the distant revelry. There was no undoing it.
She had said yes.
She slipped back inside and barred the kitchen door. The rosary lay upstairs, heavy in its chest, but she no longer felt its weight.
Tomorrow, she thought, she would dance — and whatever followed, she would at least have chosen once for herself.