Master Pohrobek

by Val Votrin

part 1

The makers of playing cards gathered every evening in the tavern U Kraliku, just under the Prague Castle. The tavern owner, old Janacek, did not like things that usually accompanied card playing, all this violence and trick taking. But he was flattered that his dark, fumey den was liked by such high-minded creatures as artists. Secretly, Janacek considered himself a patron of the art.

On that cold November evening, the tavern was unusually empty. Only three painters dared to overcome sleet and freezing wind and were now sitting in a dark corner drinking beer and playing dice.

They were best friends: Juraj Pospisil, a tall, cheerful fellow who was known for his artistic depiction of moustaches; the stooped, grave Stepan Veverka whose long nose was constantly stained with paint; and stumpy, red-faced Boleslav Smid, a sculptor who was grudgingly recognised as a painter by old Janacek after Smid crafted an “Only for painters” sign, all in fanciful swirls and whirls, now hanging above the tavern’s entrance.

As usual, the conversation was around commissions and clients. Pospisil had just been commissioned by Count von Dietrichstein to paint a new deck of cards based on the motives from Parzival. The Count, a devotee of the chivalric romances, had already had two decks of playing cards designed in the vein of Morte d’Arthur and The Song of Roland. Both were carried out by Pospisil who spent a lot of time on them and was paid a generous commission. This time the Count wanted the paintings to be more vivid and colourful.

“The Count is a tasteful man,” said Pospisil, taking a gulp from his enormous mug. “Got loads of feelings for art. And he is not greedy at all, I must admit. Exacting, yes, but he pays and does this without delay.”

At these words, Smid darkened. Two months ago, he had been commissioned to sculpt a tomb effigy for a knight. The knight’s widow, a young, pretty woman, wanted her late husband to be depicted lying on his deathbed, wearing a suit of armour, a formidable warrior now recumbent, obeying the force of a much stronger foe with a light smile on his lips.

Smid had got down to work with a great zeal. He could already see the late knight’s statue: his eyes closed, his thin, noble face peaceful, his mighty body relaxed, his hands crossed on the long sword resting on his chest.

But, upon examining the sculpture, the widow was appalled. Her dear husband’s body turned out to be too bulky, the sword was too short, a wise smile on his lips turned into an ugly grin. Not a gallant knight but a peasant taking a nap on a hayloft! The widow left in fury without paying, and Smid was now thinking what to do with the hapless sculpture.

“They do not pay all too often,” said Veverka gravely, echoing Smid’s sorrowful thoughts.

Veverka knew this perhaps too well. He was a gifted artist, but his gift had a strange trait. The images he painted always turned out to be darker, as if the paints he used were too thick and he was just not bothered about thinning them. His clients complained that they struggled with discerning the darkish images on their cards. When the cards wore out a bit, the images on them would smear out and become blurred inkblots, with any details hardly visible. But Veverka continued painting in his manner. He was stubborn, perhaps too stubborn to have good, constant clients.

The three went on playing dice in silence, very much conscious of the fourth who was not with them. A true artist, a great talent recognised as such by all of them and also by a great variety of high-ranking clients, he was staying in his studio working hard on a deck of cards commissioned by someone whose name he preferred to keep secret.

“This is someone from the court,” asserted Pospisil. “Perhaps the Hofmeister himself. Or at least the Marshal. Those people like amusing their guests with a new card design when they sit around the table to play.”

“He must be bound by a very strict obligation if he cannot tell even his best friends about his commission!” said Pospisil.

* * *

The name of the man they were talking about was Jan Pohrobek. He was only 18, hence the youngest among them. He had never known his parents. He had been raised by his widowed aunt, who had recognised his artistic talent early and, when he turned eight, had bound him to a master painter for seven years.

Jan grew quickly through all apprenticeship levels and, at the end of his long training, upon studying all artistic techniques such as proportion and perspective, had shown to the guild his final piece of work as a demonstration of him successfully mastering his craft. That was a deck of cards painted in such delicate, exquisite manner that the guild, singularly amazed, had unanimously accepted him as a master, despite his young age, and allowed him to open his own workshop.

This formal recognition was another distinction that made Jan Pohrobek so different from his friends. None of them were able to complete their apprenticeship. Even Juraj Pospisil, with his art of moustache painting, could progress as much as to work as an independent card maker and had regular conflicts with the artists’ guild, which tried hard to prevent him from selling his services in Prague.

Upon the death of his aunt, Jan Pohrobek continued to live in her old, small house. She died just as he had finished his first commission, and he used part of his remuneration to give her a fancy funeral and put a marble tombstone on her grave.

He lived alone and did not accept apprentices, having turned the house into one large studio strewn with various sketches and outlines of playing cards: the seated kings, the knaves holding spears and musical instruments, outlandish, large-leaved plants, fierce lions and bears, all features of the Bohemian Pattern he had designed. Clients from all over Bohemia and the wider Holy Roman Empire flocked to him, and Jan Pohrobek met them at his studio, young, slender, unsmiling but very attentive and ready to deliver at a very short notice. His book of orders was full for the next two years.

But he was unhappy. The new card design he invented had quickly turned into his trademark, but Jan himself had grown tired as quickly of making the Bohemian cards. Yes, those cards had come into fashion; everyone craved getting a deck or two. Even the king’s mighty Hofmeister, George of Podebrady, had paid a visit to Jan one day with his entourage so that the old, crumbling house began to tumble down from the presence of numerous men of various rank, some of them in full armour. The Hofmeister wanted a deck of Bohemian cards, and at least half of his numerous entourage ordered the same decks, too.

Yet Jan was discontent. All those plants, and beasts, and spears, and the kings’ frowning faces he painted day and night had firmly ingrained in his mind; he just could not stop seeing them. He saw them in his dreams as well. He had become a master of the Bohemian Pattern.

One day — or was it a night? — Jan was working on another deck of Bohemian cards. He could not remember whom it was for, just another highly placed customer who had ordered it. Jan was depicting the card king’s moustache and a bitter thought came to him, “How vividly would Juraj shape this royal moustache! Just like the real one, long, curled. Beautiful moustache. And Veverka would depict the king’s face in his, Veverka’s, distinctive manner: a dark face twisted in anger.” Everybody would paint it better than he. Even Smid would do better with his blundering chisel.

Suddenly he realised that he was not alone in the room. He looked round and there was a shade of a man standing in the corner. Having recovered from the first fright, Jan looked closer. Despite his sudden appearance, the man did not look scary but rather clueless. He was a young man, probably of the same age as Jan, but dressed as a noble. Pale, slender, hawk-nosed, he stood in the corner, gazing around hauntedly.

“A painter. I am looking for a painter,” he muttered in German with thick Hungarian accent.

Jan took a step forward. “I am a painter, Your Grace,” he said with a bow. “You are in my workshop.”

The youth cast a bewildered look at him, his brow wrinkled in confusion. “In your workshop? How did I get here? Ah, I was looking for a painter...” He made several tottering steps.

“What kind of a painting do you need, Your Grace?” asked Jan.

“A painting?” said the youth. “Yes, a painting. I wanted to marry. A girl. Her name is Magdalena. I need a betrothal portrait.”

“I am afraid,” said Jan, “portraits are not something I specialise in. I make designs for playing cards.”

The youth looked around and his face lit up. “Playing cards!” he said. “I like cards. Yes, this is what I want. To hell with this Magdalena! I never liked her. My uncle wanted me to marry her. He is a terrible man, my uncle. Never hurries up in his atrocities, prefers a slow pace. Sits in his castle like a spider.” He went silent, wandering about the workshop.

“What is this?” he asked, finally, lifting one of the sketches. “Your cards?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“What a hideous face this king has. Just like someone I know. What is your name?”

“My name is Jan Pohrobek, Your Grace.”

The youth started and looked at him wide eyed. “Pohrobek? Posthumous? Why this name? Are you a posthumous child?”

“Yes, Your Grace. My father died when I was still in the womb.”

These words made the youth shudder. “How strange!” he said. “How utterly strange! I am a posthumous child too.”

He came closer to Jan, gazing at him intently. “And we are roughly the same age,” he said. “How strange. I could have been a painter, as well. I can draw well. How long will it take for you to paint me a deck of cards?”

Jan became flustered at these words. “If you permit, Your Grace,” he said, “I am fully booked for the next months. If not years.”

“I understand, I understand,” said the youth absently. “I can imagine how popular these cards of yours are. But I do not like them.”

He took a sketch and dropped it at once. “Rather crude,” he said as Jan stared at him, perplexed. “Your clients must have a crude taste, too. But you have a fine touch. I want you to create a new design for me. There will be a generous reward.”

“But, Your Grace...” said Jan.

“Never mind your other clients. How much do you they pay? I will pay more. I will pay whatever price you will ask.”

“A new design requires a lot of work,” said Jan. “The price will certainly be higher than usual when a copy of a ready-made design is made.”

“Whatever price,” repeated the youth loftily. “Consider it paid. Now to this idea of mine. There should be a set of 48 cards. Four suits, each depicting court functions at royal courts of Hungary, Bohemia, Germany and France. All ranks should be easily recognised. In fact, I want to use this set as a guide for some of my subordinates to familiarise them with the social ranks in different countries. The best way to learn is through play, isn’t it?”

Jan nodded, quickly taking notes.

“The court ranks are pretty much the same across the four countries,” the youth continued. “Of course there is a king and a queen. Then there is a Hofmeister. There are terrible people among them. For instance, my Hofmeister can’t wait to see me die. Filthy scumbag.”

“You have a Hofmeister, Your Grace?” Jan ventured to ask.

The youth looked at him as if Jan was out of his mind. “Of course I do!” he sniffed. “Now, there are differences. From the Marshal rank down, there are all those chaplains, stewards, falconers, butlers, trumpeters and heralds, only called differently at different courts. But, in essence, they are all the same — greedy, lying pieces of crap vying for higher positions. Each of them can choke his own mother for that. And all of them would stab me in the back without a thought’s moment.

“Ah, Jan! If you only knew how hard my life is. Crime, treachery, death in every corner. Nobody can be trusted. Believe me if I say that I have foiled another conspiracy just the other day? My chamberlain wanted to poison me! The man who had been beside me for three years! His hand trembled when he was pouring me wine and that was how I realised that something was wrong and made him drink this wine. And he died in horrible pain.”

“Oh dear,” uttered Jan. For a moment, he thought he was dreaming, so weird the youth’s speech was.

“I need to teach them,” the youth said while Jan was trying to shake himself free from the hallucination. “Need to give them a lesson as to how benevolent the governance can be. Indeed, if the court hierarchies were made uniform across the four allied countries, would not that do away with all the vile nesting at the courts? Would not that bring the earthly courts closer to the courts of heaven where the angelic orders serve the Lord in holy harmony? But alas, my subordinates are not interested in the Holy Writ. Instead, they take a vivid interest in card games. So here is my instrument of teaching. They will be playing cards while learning the earthly orders! Do you follow?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” said Jan.

“Good. Start at once. I will send in a paymaster who will take care of the payment.”

Jan began the work at once. Someone else’s idea had completely engulfed him, and very soon he began to think that it was entirely his own and that the strange youth he had met only agreed to the design concept proposed by him, Jan. It was late November.

Proceed to part 2...