Chapter Six
AMSTERDAM, 1613
Clara waited with Nico in the voorhuis of the house next door to their own. Even now, no one had been able to explain Leskens’s insistence they occupy but one house when all the others around the courtyard belonged to her. These comfortably furnished rooms and those beneath the studio were used exclusively to entertain patrons and stage shows, as they were doing that afternoon. The others were left for storage.
Leskens had instructed them to dress in their Sunday best, though Clara already knew her moss-green silk with russet slashed sleeves was not what she had in mind. Much too grand, of course. She could not deny finding Leskens’s look of scandalized horror entertaining.
Nico looked like a servant in his threadbare coat and darned stockings. ‘Osias likes
