As if sensing her sour mood, Crispijn catches her eye and smiles. ‘How was your journey?’

Anna swallows a forkful of herring. ‘Good, sir, thank you, although the roads are bad this time of year. They had to call in the icebreaker twice before we left, the frost spread so fast. It has a habit of creeping back just when you think the path is clear.’

He nods. ‘It’s worse at sea, not that I’ve been recently. Out there the pack ice makes it hard for the whalers to hunt. It crushes the ships and screens the beasts so they cannot be seen from the surface. Many sailors have already drowned this season, thanks to this brutal weather. I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky the cold is merely an inconvenience for us, not a matter of life and death.’

Anna drops her eyes to her plate, the mention of drowned sailors settling like a lead bar in her stomach.

‘My brother has been travelling around the country this past week securing commissions.’ Catharina levers a piece of fish onto her spotless plate, her knife gleaming in the wintry light. ‘I cannot be trusted to see to my own affairs. I am smart enough, it seems, to wield a paintbrush, but not smart enough to negotiate portrait commissions with worldly guildsmen. So Crispijn does it for me.’

‘Do you paint, too?’ Anna asks him.

Crispijn laughs, a pleasant, musical sound that lightens the atmosphere in the room and calms her nerves. Even Catharina smiles, as if she finds the idea of her brother daubing paint onto a canvas highly amusing. Anna can’t remember the last time she laughed like that, so careless and free. It must have been six months ago when she and Lijsbeth were preparing a water bath for some stained collars and a frog jumped out of the tub, startling them, causing Lijsbeth to flee the room. Her sister refused to return until the creature was gone. Shaking with laughter, Anna had scooped the tiny, soapy body up and carried it outside, its tiny heart beating erratically against her slippery palm.

‘Alas, no.’ Crispijn drags his knife through his food, dividing the scrambled mess of fish and breadcrumbs on his plate. ‘I have no artistic talent. Thankfully, Catharina has enough for us both. I inherited our father’s business sense. It comes in useful, at times. For example – ’ He sets down his knife and extracts a small leather journal from his pocket. ‘On my travels, I secured the following commissions, to be completed within the next three months: The wife of a silk merchant in Groen has recently given birth to her first child – a son. She would like you to paint the infant in a similar style to Anthony van Dyck’s portrait of the young Stadholder. Lady van der Helst of Delft wants another portrait with her parrots. She owns a good many parrots, so I think it best we travel to her estate or else we risk turning this house into a menagerie. Lastly, Jacob Huydecoper wants a painting he can display in his office. He felt the last one was not quite grand or impressive enough and has requested this one be… life-size. He’s willing to come to us. I told him I would draw up the contract and send him word when the roads were open again for easy travel.’