‘I’ll be nineteen next month.’ Anna’s thin face and long limbs have always lent the impression of youth, and weeks of skipping meals to pay for coal to heat their freezing room have not done her body any favours. The headaches were bad enough, but the sharp cramps in her abdomen were worse, a hot-poker pain, the first occurrence of which left her doubled over in the de Witts’ washroom. She’d mistaken the cramps for the return of her monthly bloods. Later, she’d touched her tongue to her gums and found the tissue spongy, the teeth slightly loose, as if sewn on by inferior thread. The cruel fact that she’s eaten better since Lijsbeth passed and there is only herself to feed is yet another source of guilt. Perhaps the curse she harbours inside her – the one that stole her father’s wits and her sister’s life – needs more nourishment in order to dilute its power. ‘Anyway,’ she goes on, ‘I’m not travelling there to be a kamermeid. I have a position as a lady’s companion.’

The mother sucks in her cheeks and purses her lips. She strikes the squalling baby hard on the back, as if she can drive out the child’s wind by force and, when the baby shrieks in shock, she comforts him, cutting off the need for further adult conversation.

Anna can tell the woman doesn’t believe her. She regrets saying anything and, at the same time, wishes she were brave enough to argue her case. It should be enough that she knows the truth, but the woman’s reaction causes her doubts to flare again.

What does she really know about her new mistress? The bookseller at the market had squinted thoughtfully when she asked him. ‘Catharina van Shurman? The artist? Of course, I know of her. I thought everyone had heard of the Learned Maid of Utrecht.’

He’d pulled some soiled pamphlets from a box, the topmost one showing a reproduction of a woman’s portrait, the face haughty, the mouth a thin line, eyes hard and unsmiling. Above the mouth were strong, high cheekbones framed by a shoulder-length hairstyle neither fashionable nor flattering. It was a face that did not seem very likeable and, in fact, the more time Anna had spent staring at it, the more convinced she’d grown that the person who had drawn it had borne some grudge against the sitter. The information below was complimentary enough, a scrolled plaque proclaiming: Star of the North, Catharina van Shurman. A paragon of Christian virtue, beloved by Almighty God. A Maid and A Scholar; One can be Both! See the likeness depicted here? May your kindness perfect what art has failed.

‘You can keep them,’ the bookseller had offered. ‘They’re barely worth a penning, stained as they are.’