The Black Sun Conspiracy

Chapter Forty

“This theft malarkey is a lot easier when the owner of the painting gives you a crate and bubble wrap to pack it up with.” Sam unrolled a strip of plastic sheeting and wrapped it around the wood panel.

“And calls for a taxi to get the goods to their drop-off point,” said Nina. “I’m fairly sure it’s not standard practice, but we can check with Purdue when we see him.”

Once the painting was safely padded and securely packed Sam and Nina took it and carried it down the wide, winding staircase. A black cab was waiting outside the front door, and Professor Lehmann guided and supervised as they loaded the crate and arranged themselves around it. Nina sat strapped into the rear-facing seat, holding their cargo upright and chatting away happily to the old man.

The taxi swung out onto Holborn and straight into heavy traffic. As the entire line of cars ground to a halt and the driver informed them that they might be stuck there for some time, Sam stole a glance at the meter. ‘I’m glad Professor Lehmann offered to pick up the tab for this one,’ he thought.

“You know the story behind the painting, I trust?” Professor Lehmann folded his hands on his walking cane.

“We don’t,” Sam admitted. “But if I were to guess, I’d assume that the one at the museum is a copy and that someone found it funny to swap them at some point.”

“Then you would be wrong, Mr. Cleave. It is understandable that you would make such an assumption, but in fact the painting that hangs in the National Gallery is an original. But this one, this is also an original. Both issued from the brushes of Jan van Eyck, neither is a forgery. Very few people know that he painted two similar but slightly different versions, both for different purposes. Equally, very few people know that the version we have here, the version of whose existence most people are not even aware, was intended to appear in Hitler’s Führermuseum.”

“His what?” Sam was at a loss.

“It was a project that never got anywhere,” Nina filled him in. “A plan for a museum in Linz in Austria. It was going to be filled with the treasures that had been stolen by the Nazis during the war. Considering that they’re supposed to have looted about twenty per cent of all the artwork in Europe, it could have been a hell of a collection. It was going to be divided into two sections — one for art that depicted or reflected the Aryan race and ideals, and the other for what they termed ‘degenerate’ art. The idea was to show the world what depravity the Nazis had saved them from.”

“And this piece was going to be part of the Aryan collection, presumably?”

“Yes,” said Professor Lehmann, patting the crate with an odd look on his face. Sam could not tell whether what he was seeing was remorse or some sort of nostalgia. “I never saw the plans for the museum myself, but I knew one or two people who claimed to have worked on them and told stories of the designs. A central hall, a giant circle with the Black Sun picked out in mosaic on the floor, each of its rays pointing in the direction of a sub-gallery… It would have been remarkable, and the existence of the Order of the Black Sun would finally have ceased to be a secret. The gallery would have laid out its history, tracing centuries of activity that had previously remained hidden. And this would have told the story of the Order’s brush with discovery in the fifteenth century.”

While they sat in the taxi, waiting for the traffic jam ahead of them to clear and the cars to start moving again, Lehmann began to tell the story of the painting’s origin and how close the Black Sun had come to being revealed. First he explained that to call it The Arnolfini Wedding was a misnomer, not only because it was not a wedding, but also because the man in the painting was not cloth merchant Giovanni Arnolfini, but another man altogether. The misidentification had taken place in 1516, and it had either stuck through chance or as part of a convenient cover.

The man’s true identity, according to Lehmann, was Raoul d’Anjou. He was descended from a bastard son of the French ruling dynasty, and had once led the Order, following on from Maria di Canossi. While Maria had been the first woman to take on the role, Raoul was the first to share it. His decision had caused great controversy within the Order and had very nearly prompted a schism, but his was a rulership based on fear. It was well known that he kept a number of hired killers on retainers, and his vicious reputation benefitted from the popular rumor that the entire Anjou family dealt with the Devil. When he insisted that he would lead jointly with his wife, very few dared oppose him. The ones who did either ended up dead, or swiftly backed down when they realized their danger.

Katrina van der Gueldre was the woman for whom Raoul d’Anjou was prepared to risk so much. Unlike him, she did not come from a powerful or wealthy family. Her origins were shrouded in mystery, but the received wisdom within the Order was that she had been an adventuress, born to an unnamed prostitute and an unknown father in Sint Oedenrode. By a combination of great determination, boldness and a string of increasingly wealthy and influential lovers, she had clawed her way up to become rich and influential in her own right.

An even more turbulent sea of rumors surrounded her than Raoul. When her own mother attempted to blackmail her, threatening to stir up scandal and humiliate the girl in front of her courtier lover, Katrina was reputed to have poisoned her slowly, agonizingly, over a period of several weeks. By the time she left the Dutch court in favor of the Flemish one, there was hardly a nobleman in the Netherlands who did not have some tale of horror to tell. Katrina van der Gueldre was a witch who seduced everyone from stable boys to kings. Katrina had stolen the newborn babies of women around the court and sacrificed them. Katrina had fled the court with a select handful of the crown jewels. If proof were needed that Raoul d’Anjou was in league with the Devil, his union with Katrina was more than sufficient.

“That’s all very interesting,” said Sam as the taxi lurched a little further forward. Aldwych was now in sight, The Strand tantalizingly close. “But what’s going on with the painting? Did heads of the Order usually have portraits done?”

“They did, in the same way that any wealthy person of the era might have done. What makes this unusual is that as far as we know, it is the only depiction of someone undergoing initiation as Renata. Certainly it is the only one where she is being initiated by the incumbent Renatus. This is her official introduction to the senior members of the Order.”

“So Jan van Eyck was a member?”

“Again, Mr. Cleave, a reasonable assumption — but an incorrect one. Jan van Eyck was not a member, or at least not in his heart. Van Eyck was a spy engaged to infiltrate the Order of the Black Sun. As you can see, he did a very good job. Very few people would ever have been trusted to carry out a commission like this.”

“Who was he spying for?” Nina asked.

“For his patron, Philip the Good,” Lehmann replied. “A very powerful man. Duke of Burgundy, Count of Flanders, founder of the Order of the Golden Fleece, a chivalric organization which also still exists to this day. Philip had heard of the existence of the Order of the Black Sun, but had yet to obtain solid proof of its existence. When he moved his court to Bruges he realized that there was something out of the ordinary, but whether it was a particularly powerful merchant cartel, a court faction with popular local support or something completely different, he could not tell. All he knew was that his word did not appear to be law in Bruges the way it had always been everywhere else. The city continued to do more or less as it pleased, with but scant regard to Philip’s wishes. He never met with direct opposition, but with a silent conspiracy of disobedience towards anything the burghers did not like. He moved on to Lille, but left behind van Eyck, who enjoyed his patronage. Van Eyck was ordered to learn whether the Order genuinely existed and to inform Philip of the identities of its members.”

The taxi crawled around the corner onto the bustling Strand. Sam barely noticed. He was intent on keeping up with this new information. “So how come he painted the same thing twice? Didn’t that seem a bit suspicious?”

“Perhaps at first, but both Raoul and Katrina knew that van Eyck was in Philip’s pay. They believed themselves to be using him as a spy against their Duke! So once he had finished the portrait that they wanted for themselves, the one that we have here, which would be a status symbol never seen outside the Order, they allowed him to make a copy to send to his employer. Van Eyck was a clever man. He argued that he was not allowed to take private commissions from burghers while he was still obliged to Philip, so in order to keep the Duke sweet, they must appear to present the painting to him. The copy that he created had one major difference — instead of the Black Sun appearing on the back wall, he painted a mirror showing the faces of the men in the room. To Raoul and Katrina, blissfully confident of the Order’s secrecy, this was nothing more than a demonstration of van Eyck’s capacity for trick perspective. But to Philip, it was a clear indicator that those men were involved in the Order. One by one, they perished at Philip’s command. He very nearly brought down the Order altogether — it’s my belief that he would have done, had Katrina not supplied him with valuable information that secured his victory in the Hook and Cod wars, bringing Holland under his control. The price of her intelligence was the Order’s safety guaranteed for her lifetime, and by the time her life ran out Philip had been dead for years and the Black Sun was safely forgotten once again. But now, here we are — enough chatter! It is time for me and my painting to part for some time.”

The taxi swung into the specially built cul-de-sac outside the Savoy Hotel and came to an abrupt halt. While Professor Lehmann paid the cab driver and greeted the hotel staff warmly, Sam and Nina wriggled the crate out onto the pavement. Within seconds a uniformed porter had appeared with a tall brass cart and was carefully transferring the Van Eyck onto it. Without waiting to hear their destination, he rolled it swiftly indoors and into the foyer, while Sam and Nina exchanged glances and followed Professor Lehmann.