Chapter Text
Prologue
(Eden, 4004 BC)
‘It’s not that I object to God’s games,’ Crawly had observed, as the cloudburst rolled over Eden and departed westwards. “I just think we’d all play better if we knew Her rules."
‘God does not play games, foul fiend!’ Aziraphale remonstrated, but Crawly had not stayed for a reply, plunging from from the wall in one vulturine swoop, then striding off barefoot across the steaming sand, wings dismissed into some arcane dimension.
Feeling that Heaven would be vexed if he didn’t get the last word in, Aziraphale had followed the demon’s footsteps over the dunes until they gave way to the swipes of a side-winding snake, and then he’d felt rotten about the whole business.
After a while, though, he wondered if Crawly’s reversion hadn’t been a failure to master a roughly-human form, but a statement of intent: ‘If God won’t tell us the rules, then maybe I’ll make some up — and I’ll be sure to sign my work, angel. Watch me.’
1. Mud and Coral
(Anatolia, 3340 BC)
Hundreds of years later, there are a lot of mythological snakes. Some are figures of cosmic grandeur, others are invoked against mice. If Aziraphale were less annoyed about all this, he might notice that whether high or low, many of these serpents will bow before a being that is unambiguously kind.
Far down the continent of Africa, Aziraphale finds The Rock that Whispers, a sandstone loop into which humans have carved a head, a tail, and a cross-hatching of scales. Did Crawly suggest the alteration? The angel finds nothing conclusive.
Travelling up the Nile, Aziraphale learns of the evil snake-god Apophis. Surely this is Crawly’s work — but the Egyptian god of Magic is also a snake, Neheb-Kau, who was naught but fire and smoke until Atum tamed him by running a finger along his spine. And both the Upper and Lower Kingdoms agree that the goddess of children is a giant cobra, the world’s most formidable nanny. Aziraphale is only the first in a long line of scholars to be flummoxed by the pantheons of Egypt.
Anatolia is the reputed home of the King of Snakes, a two-headed monster with the odd combination of a flirty personality, and an interest in plants. In spite of its title, the King is said to have a woman’s head at one end of its long body, and a serpent’s head at the other. But Aziraphale has seen a lot of strange god-aspects by now; a bicephalous ambisexual snake herbalist is not even in his Weirdest Top Twenty.
The angel treks to a remote valley to destroy King of Snakes, on orders direct from Heaven. It should be a simple task, for the creature is only an idol, fashioned from mud and hope. But when he reaches the sanctuary-cave, from which incense coils into the Anatolian twilight, Aziraphale is troubled by what he finds. True, the ‘King of Snakes’ is no more than pummelled clay, with oil-lamps for eyes and a spring of fresh water under its jaw. But it is stuck with thousands of scales, and every scale has been made by a pilgrim.
Many are carved wood. Some are beaten copper, or whittled from animal horn. Here and there is a scale of gold, for kings have not been ashamed to seek the serpent’s favour. In other spots, Aziraphale finds coral, the offering of sailors. But most of the scales are clay lozenges, many of them unfired, and each of these bears a human thumbprint.
The angel sends the pilgrims packing, then calls down Heavenly power. The earth trembles, rocks crack, the spring becomes a torrent, and the serpent’s eyes are extinguished with a hiss. Before long, the cave lies in ruins, and from it runs a river, sluicing what’s left of the Snake-King down the valley, gold and cedarwood scales jostled against the humbler ones.
Aziraphale should make sure these are mere offerings, and nothing along the lines of Hellish contracts, of which he’s heard rumours. He stoops to pick one up: red coral. A sailor’s prayer.
“One point to Heaven,” observes a voice dryly, a few feet behind him.
Aziraphale jumps as if stung. It’s undignified for an angel to look startled, and even less dignified to be discovered scrabbling in the muck for a keepsake (it is not a keepsake. He is doing research, for Heaven’s sake). But his Adversary (how on Earth did he get here? Was he here all the time?) doesn’t seem in the mood to mock.
The demon wears a short black tunic, and his hair is plaited in the local fashion.
“Crawly! Your lair is gone, foul fiend. There is nothing for you here.”
A shrug. “ ‘Sss your job, angel. No hard feelingsss.”
Aziraphale hides the coral scale in his palm. The edges feel sharp.
“That is…sporting of you.”
Crawly throws back his head and laughs. “Sssporting! ’S worth a dozen sanctuaries to hear that, angel. Like I told you, this is a game — and sometimes, when your lot and my lot aren’t watching, we can make up some rules. So here’s the deal. I’ll keep off Heaven’s turf, all the way from the Black Sea to the Red one, provided you don’t get smity if India turns into a wall-to-wall snakefest.”
The demon’s eyes are luminous in the twilight. Aziraphale thinks of the clay serpent with lamps for eyes — but what previously seemed touching and inventive, now seems deceptive and cheap. Miracle, mystery and authority are Heaven’s business; Hell must make do with tricks. The angel draws himself up to his full height.
“A deal! I do not make deals with the minions of Hell!”
“Right.” Crawly watches the newmade river tumble down the valley. “Fair enough. I have to warn you, though, there’s loads of snakes in India. Absolutely squirming.”
“I don’t doubt it. Now begone, demon!”
“Alright, alright, I’m begoing.” Aziraphale’s Adversary squints at the dimming horizon, checks the sky for the Evening Star, and gets his bearings. “Reckon I’ll strike out East-by-Northeast. Did I mention there are snakes in China? Plenty to work with there.”
“Enough! If I must thwart your wiles in China, I will do that too!”
Aziraphale mantles ethereal wings, invisible to mortal eyes, and takes one step forward in a way he fully intends to be intimidating. It seems to do the trick: Crawly takes one a step back, his jaw hanging slightly open, momentarily unable to speak. Then he recovers himself.
“Don’t threaten a demon with a good time. A proper, no-holds-barred thwarting? I’ll look forward to it!”
I was intimidating, Aziraphale tells himself later, I know I was. I radiated righteous indignation like anything. Sword or no, I could discorporate Crawly, and he knows it.
Because surely, just before striding off down the valley, the foul fiend hadn’t stuck out his tongue at him, and blown a forked raspberry.
2. A Shadow in Velathri
(Etruria, 750 BC)
“I’ll look forward to it!”
If he is honest with himself, these days Aziraphale looks forward to it too. When occasional centuries go by without running into his Adversary, he misses the clash of wits. Best not dwell on the fact that if this were a game, and they were scoring points, Crowley would be firmly in the lead.
In the years since the Flood, a plethora of faiths have sprouted in the Near East. Among these proto-religions is a Mystery that Aziraphale has taken to calling the Cult of the Snake-in-a-Basket. Its requirements are simple: you need a basket, a mild climate, and a cooperative snake. Snake-in-a-Basket-ism appears somewhere in Upper Egypt, and spreads its undemanding way North until it reaches the Mediterranean, whereupon it hops over the water and rebrands itself as a sub-cult of Bacchus.
One feature of Snake-in-a-Basket-ism is that the snakes are never truly prayed to, except (possibly) for inspiration or ingenuity. It is also known that the creatures are pleased by practical jokes and music — though in Aziraphale’s experience, snakes have questionable hearing and no notable sense of fun.
Well, almost all snakes.
Crowley, as he now insists on calling himself, is a devious opponent. After the best part of a thousand years, Aziraphale is bored with chasing up reports of sacred serpents, only to be greeted by yet another bog-standard reptile disturbed from its snooze. He knows that he’s been pranked, but surely, no-one can blame him for no longer checking every single basket.
The latest Crowley-shaped rumour hailed from Andhra Pradesh, where shapeshifting serpents are said take the form of sadhus, and give hit-and-miss advice to anyone daft enough to let them cross their doorstep. But Aziraphale is not flying all the way to the Indies to investigate hearsay. He is scouting kingdoms on the western side of what will one day become Italy for a place suitable for the foundation of an Empire, and has got as far as Velathri, a stronghold of the Etruscan League.
He doesn’t particularly expect to find any trace of Crowley in Velathri. Consistency and discipline are not Etruscan strengths: sometimes these people write left-to-right, and sometimes right-to-left, or up and down, or round in circles. Fonder of dinners and dancing than they are of conquest, these are not the martial souls Aziraphale seeks. These people want a kingdom, but not an Empire; when one does arise in the vicinity, it will subsume them.
The angel learns that being an easygoing people, the people of Velathri have preserved the tradition of venerating an entity that is sometimes, but not exclusively, a snake — and of course he asks to see it. He is merely being thorough, of course.
He has just ducked under the lintel of a tiny, ancient temple when he sees the shadow, bowing to greet him.
“Crowley?” he says uncertainly, but no-one answers, and when he enters the sanctuary alcove, he sees why: he was talking to the shadow of a statue, wavering in the light of an untrimmed lamp. But it is not the statue of a human being. It is a shapeshifter, frozen in bronze. Although the head is human, the rest of the figure is unnaturally elongated, as if pulled forcibly downwards. Its chest and sex are cloaked in feathers, making its gender impossible to tell, and where there should be legs, there are two columns of scales, each ending in the coils of a serpent. It is an astonishing thing. Beautiful, and slightly sinister, with facial proportions that are obviously Crowley’s.
Generations ago, an ancestor of these artists must have asked Crowley if they could make his portrait, first in wax, then in bronze. And he agreed. He actually agreed.
The figurine is four feet tall and so heavily patinated it is almost black — apart from the face, polished to a shine by a myriad hands, seeking to draw up luck from the Underworld. In spite of himself, Aziraphale runs his own hand over it (he is not doing it in the hope of sensing some vestige of Crowley, he is checking that his Adversary is not setting up genuine conduits of power from Below). But the Shadow of Velathri is no more than bronze, and a subtle invitation: reach out to me. Touch me. Keep me bright.
To an angel, the material world — even the highest forms of artistry — should have value only as a metaphor for the spiritual one. Why, then, does Aziraphale’s mind keep returning to the question of whether human artists could capture more than the tactile, sinuous aspects of Eve’s tempter? A softer aspect, perhaps? Or even an earlier one?
The prospect is as intriguing as it is unsettling to Aziraphale. He really should get back to his Empire-building, or Heaven will be cross with him.
3. Carved in the Anarchy
(The Welsh Marches, 1138 AD)
“Forsooth, and it’s my very favourite angel.”
Out of nowhere, a gory hand slaps Aziraphale on the back. He shudders as his jerkin sticks to War’s clotted palm, which she has neglected to wipe before greeting him. It’s not the hand he needed to feel on his shoulder on this muggy September morning, as he pays his last respects to Arnulf de Hesdin and the other unfortunates who attempted to defend Shrewsbury castle against Duke Stephen’s besiegers. Against the odds, de Hesdin had mustered a forlorn hope of ninety-three men, but at last they lost as they knew they were going to, and surrendered to save the town from wholesale pillage.
Today, they have been hanged in batches, to save on rope. Unlike Matilda, his cousin and rival, Duke Stephen is known for his thrift.
It’s 1138, the time of the Anarchy. The war between Matilda and Stephen has reached the point where no-one can remember who initially had the better claim to the English throne. Slaughter abounds.
“The perfect spot for a working holiday!” exclaims War. “You know all the best places.”
“I go where I’m told,” replies Aziraphale. “Been here long, have you?”
Despite Aziraphale’s best efforts to avoid running into War, the egregore of conflict remains dismayingly fond of him. Each time they meet, the angel tries his hardest not to think about a certain flaming sword that he’d — ahem — donated, so that the First Man could protect his spouse and unborn son. The boy so full of promise, who in spite of the minor handicap of being mortal would surely make things up with God so that everything could once again be marvellous. Cain had been a beautiful child. Lovely little toesy-wosies.
“Just a quick visit. But I reckon there’s another ten years in this dust-up.” War props her back against a gallows post and inhales, like a duchess in her arbour. “That’s the nice thing about civil wars — you only need to give them the odd poke, and boom! Massacres. You shall save alive nothing that breathes, as the Good Book saith. How’s the holy business?”
“Oh, not bad, not bad,” says Aziraphale lightly. “In hard times, people turn to faith. After King Henry’s son drowned — a dreadful business — the court became very devout. The Heavenly cause waxes mighty, and all that. Minsters and hospitals being founded all over the place.”
War yawns. “That’s no work for a soldier. C’mon, whet your whistle. You know I won’t tell.”
“I hope I’ve moved on from my military days.”
“Sweet thing, the milk-and-water life will pall, my mark words.” And she gives his back another sticky pat. “Look me up when it does, I love an avenging angel. All that crunchy wrath and smiting. Arrivederci!”
Aziraphale blesses what’s left of Shrewsbury, then makes his way back through the Welsh Marches on a mare who rides like a sackful of flails. He once knew this place as the Kingdom of Ergyng (for a certain value of ‘kingdom’; they run to the small side here). Later, the Normans had rechristened it Archenfield.
Adulterine castles, built in ugly haste by whatever warlord can hold the ground, have sprouted like mushrooms all over England. Castle-building is a growth industry, and stonemasons are making money hand over dusty fist; it’s an ill wind that blows no-one any good. In their spare time, a team of them are building a church in Archenfield, at a village called Kilpeck.
These aren’t the most skilled sculptors Aziraphale has ever met. There were artists in Rome who could sculpt likenesses that might be mistaken for living people. But what they lack in technical expertise, the masons of Kilpeck make up for in exuberance. The attempt to depict every animal in Creation, and not a few outside it. To these men, the leopard is as probable as the manticore, and as for green men, and dragons, and goggle-eyed monsters — well, the world’s a big place.
The word monster, Aziraphale recalls, was not physically perjorative. It comes from the Latin monstrum: an omen, a portent, a being that evokes both fear and wonder.
Apropos of nothing, he wonders how Crowley is doing. The last time he saw the demon, he agreed to an arrangement that in hindsight, seems a little rash. They’ve only swapped Tasks on three or four occasions since, and Crowley was right — no-one Above or Below seems to care. Nevertheless, it can’t do any harm to further the work of the Church. The demon once allowed the artisans of Velathri to depict him. It would surely be remiss if Aziraphale didn’t commission a project of his own.
Aziraphale knows exactly what’s needed: a serious, dedicated angel flying high above the Earth, bearing a Scroll of Wisdom, and far below him, a grovelling serpent. Surely not even Michael and Gabriel could object to that, and it will give the Arrangement some deniability. He writes down his instructions precisely and hands them to the foreman, along with enough silver to ensure enthusiastic compliance: two thirds cash down, and the remainder to be paid when the job is done.
Unfortunately, the stonemasons of Kilpeck are not quite as literate as they could be, and the next time Aziraphale manages a detour to check on his commission, he sees with dismay that the hewers of stone have got it the wrong way round.
Because the Angel taking hasty notes on a scroll is on the bottom band of figures, with the Serpent directly above him. It is not an excellent likeness of either of them (Aziraphale’s wings sprout, inexplicably, from just behind his neck, whilst Crowley is almost as short and stocky as a seal), but the mason somehow manages to get their expressions right: the angel looks worried, as if he fears someone might be after him, but the snake is cracking a cheery grin.
Too late for a refund, thinks the angel ruefully, and he pays the beaming foreman and, for good measure, fixes the man’s hernia.
The stone serpent laughs at him. At least it is very unlikely that Heaven, Hell, or a certain foul fiend will ever see it.
4. A Renaissance Rebuttal
(Rome, 1513 AD)
Deep within the Vatican, the Pope keeps two menageries in the apartments surrounding the Cortile del Belvedere. One consists of animals, and its prize exhibit is a dyspeptic Indian elephant named Hanno. The other consists of artists, scientists, and writers, and its prize exhibit — wild of beard, his hands stained by experimental pigments — is currently in argument with a man in the white cloak of a Carmelite friar. The pair of them are sitting side by side on the rim of the courtyard fountain, making short work of a warm piadina, and a bottle of Verdicchio left to cool in the churning water.
“And if you think my Latin’s rough — don’t be politic, I know it’s rough — just wait until you hear my Greek.” The bearded man chews a mouthful of bread angrily. “This place makes me feel like a peasant, or some sort of performing animal.”
Aziraphale pushes back the hood of his friar’s habit; his curls have been shorn almost to the scalp. Technically, he is in Rome on a mission to the Vatican library. It was merely by chance that he learned that Leonardo da Vinci was in residence. Invited by the Pope to create a masterpiece, he has instead spent months elaborating a new formula for varnish.
“Dear fellow,” says the angel, in respectable Italian, “I could, if you wished, provide lessons — ”
“Basta! Need I tell you to be more careful? The word among the Pope’s scholars is that you have the gift of tongues, by the way, but are too humble to admit it. At any rate, you’d do more than give lessons. If I wasn’t careful, I’d speak Latin like Julius Caesar.”
“Would that be bad?”
“Of course it would,” snaps the eccentric, fishing in the fountain for the bottle, which he’s hung by a string from the snout of a marble porpoise. He pours for them both. “How someone with your abilities can be so obtuse, I do not know. It would be bad, because I wouldn’t have earned it. There would be no mastery. What is the difference between craft and art? It is the struggle to improve. No matter how good you are, you know you can do better.”
“It seems a restless faith,” says Aziraphale, and sips his wine.
Leonardo da Vinci regards the supposed White Friar with too-observant eyes. Crowley’s warnings about this man were right. At some unspoken level, he always knows what he’s looking at, and doesn’t bother hiding it.
“It is the religion of artists, and it is kind and merciful. To know you’ve reached perfection —” Leonardo shudders. “What on Earth would one do? Only wait for death.”
This man has a God-given gift. More than one, in fact, and at times it lays heavy on him, the angel can see it. There is a human saying that it’s unnecessary to worry about perfection, because it’s impossible to reach, which is excellent advice for most people, but most people are not Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci.
You touch perfection with your fingertips, thinks the angel. You see beneath the skin of this world.
“I should not have asked you about the subject,” he says apologetically, “for any one of a number of reasons.”
“Of course you should! What good is a painter who never finishes a piece? But Signore, a portrait is more than a painting of a human face. I’m sure I could make a picture of our mutual acquaintance, but I am less convinced that it would be a good likeness.”
“You are a perceptive man,” says Aziraphale.
“You, also, are perceptive. And therefore, you know damned well that I have made a sketch of that card-sharping, red-haired bastard, and you are politely wondering why I have not already mentioned this and offered to sell it to you. It is, technically, a masterwork.” There was no boastfulness in Leonardo’s voice, only sadness.
“I won’t ask to see it if you don’t want to show it to me. But could I possibly ask the reason why?”
Da Vinci sighed. “I’d be cheating you. What you want — what you have described to me — is a picture of a soul, my friend. And who can depict a soul?”
“Perhaps your very good self?”
“Miserere mihi. Were I to attempt he task, I’d be at it forever. You must understand that I don’t work fast —”
“Not to blow my own trumpet, but I’m known for my patience.”
“The patience of a saint.” The artist smiles knowingly. “But in the time I take to produce a single painting, there’s a lad from Florence who can paint you five. The ideal craftsman, humble and energetic, and incidentally, terribly handsome, the girls and boys swoon over him together. In his picture, there would not be the sense of something missing —”
“— because, brilliant though Raphael may be, he is in no danger of glimpsing the invisible.” Aziraphale sighs. “I may be too demanding a client.”
“Not at all! In my not inexpert opinion, Signore, you are just too early. I believe that the sort of representation you seek may one day be possible, and because you are so patient, I believe you may be in a position to wait until it is.”
You see the brushstrokes of God, you poor man, and can’t help but compare them to your own. Never in this life will you find satisfaction.
Leonardo polishes off his wine. “In the meantime, Signore Fell, if you can’t find someone who’s up to it — find someone who’s not. A technical wizard of no visionary power. I say that without disparagement. If I were the same, I’d have finished more of my pictures, and the rest of my work wouldn’t suffer.”
“I wonder,” says Aziraphale. He will never see this absurd polymath again in this life, and is trying to find some parting words when he’s interrupted by a distant trumpeting. From around the corner comes a young priest, pushing a barrow of elephant turds. Despite the magnificence of the surrounding buildings, the Belvedere Courtyard is roughly cobbled, and the front wheel catches on a stone. The young priest stumbles, the barrow tips…
…and Aziraphale surreptitiously snaps his fingers, the barrow rights itself with a lurch, and the priest continues on his way. When he turns back to Leonardo, the man is grinning like a lunatic under his mad-genius beard.
“You can’t fool me, that was physically impossible — yet I saw it with my own eyes. The Miracle of the Elephant Shit. My very good friend, you’ve made my day.”
Aziraphale gets to his feet and puts up his white hood, the picture of innocence.
“Thank-you for taking the time to talk to me, Leo. Your artistic advice has been invaluable, and I’ll be sure to take it. And I entreat you, as a personal favour, do try to paint something or other for the poor Pope. I know he’d be ever so grateful.”
“I’ll do my best,” says the artist gruffly. “And you can do me a favour, too. Next time you run into a certain person, tell him to give back that sketch he won by cheating like a bastard at tarocchi. I don’t know what came over me to stake a sketch of mine — it’s not as if I didn’t have cash, and as far as he’s concerned she’s just some mercer’s wife from Florence. I just can’t get her smile right in oils. I’ve been tweaking the blasted thing for years.”
5. A Small Baroque Success
(Venice, 1698 AD)
The technical wizard turns out to be a young woman, the daughter of Venetian lacemakers. Her name is Rosalba Carriera, and despite being largely self-taught she is the leading miniaturist of her time, at the age of four-and-twenty.
Almost overnight, Carriera’s work has become desperately fashionable and she works with feverish intensity, peering through lenses at pictures an inch or so high, painting with eyelash brushes, and socking away money as fast as she can. She knows she’s probably storing up eyesight problems, but as she explains to the eccentric Englishman eager to commission a portrait from her, you could spend ten years at the lace-table, doing just as much damage to yourself, and earn a twentieth of what she can ask for her miniatures. Her family needs the cash.
“ — but despite the money you’re offering, Signore, I have never attempted what you have in mind, and I can’t guarantee the result. You must understand that a miniature requires as much observation as a full-size portrait. An imaginary sitter! I copy from life, and only from life.”
Rosalba has candid eyes and a down-to-earth manner. Her dark hair is tied up in a makeshift turban, to prevent it tumbling into her work. Her studio in Venice is stuffed into a turret four stories above the Rio Della Tetta; she rents it for the sake of the good light on its tiny balcony.
“My dear Signorina, it would not be an imaginary sitter. I may not look like much, but I have exceptional powers of description. Church work, ministering to the afflicted, and all that. No-one has seen the glories of Heaven, have they? But they exist. And I am told that when I describe them, people often see them.”
The artisan is unconvinced. “How on Earth do they know they are seeing what is so?”
“Hmmm. Actually, I’m not sure. Perhaps Heaven appears as it wishes to appear, to each separate imagination?”
Her eyes are sceptical. “Are you a priest, Signore? Or a philosopher?”
“ At the risk of seeming insufferable, might I confess to being both?”
At this point in a human conversation, Aziraphale would usually smile the sort of smile that Crowley has called him out for, claiming that it’s only one step up from snapping his fingers and overriding someone’s Free Will. When Aziraphale looks at his own smile in a mirror, there seems nothing specially commanding about it. But where Miss Carriera is concerned, he is fastidious. Like all God’s servants, the Angel of the Eastern Gate is capable of bestowing Divine Inspiration. A truly Inspired artist can become a conduit for Heavenly power, as bemused as everyone else as to where their masterpiece actually came from. But first, they must consent to it.
“When you look at me, Signorina Rosalba, what do you see? Be frank.”
The artist inspects him with a professional eye. “A scholar and an eccentric. A mind accustomed to solitude. Someone inexperienced in matters of the heart.”
“All perfectly true. And when I look at you, I see someone who would, perhaps, like to paint on a larger scale. Someone who knows that work of this type must be done in moderation, for the sake of one’s eyesight.” Aziraphale nods at a series of experimental pastels on the wall — Rosalba’s family and friends, all done with an incredible lightness of touch. The expressions sparkle like champagne.
Rosalba makes a wry face. “Fashion is craft and skill. Art is a higher world. It does not readily welcome artisans.”
“Art is not a higher world. It merely has costlier keys.”
“Do you truly believe that?”
“Signorina, I am not skilled at lying. Have you heard of the Academy of St. Luke?”
“In Rome? Of course. One of the most exclusive art schools in Europe. Very selective. Very expensive.”
“Would you like the chance to go there?”
“No painting of mine is worth that much! Unless — ” Rosalba narrows her eyes. She has heard of such arrangements, and suddenly the eccentric Englishman’s charm seems a little less charming. “My paintings are for sale, Signore, but I am not.”
“Oh, bother!” Aziraphale runs a distracted hand through his hair. “I am so terribly bad at this! Forgive me, dear lady. I am not offering overpayment for sordid purposes — nor a guaranteed place at St. Luke’s. I just happen to know that the Academy offers scholarships, and from what I’ve seen, you have every chance of winning one.”
“You truly think that?”
“Truly,” says the angel, and he means it. Recalling the words of da Vinci about the importance of earned mastery to a true artist, he will not even ensure Rosalba succeeds. Besides, he doubts she needs his help.
When Rosalba Carriera smiles, she has dimples. “Then I will accept your curious commission. Let us begin.”
Aziraphale smiles, and the snap of his fingers is too soft to hear. Sitting on the studio balcony, with the cries of watermen drifting up from the gondolas passing below, he begins to describe a human face.
Obviously, Heaven would not like what he is doing, but Crowley himself would — well, what would Crowley feel? Would it flatter the demon’s vanity — or appall him that Aziraphale, after carrying out Divine duties in lonely or dispiriting spots, sometimes has an almost painful desire to see his Adversary’s face?
Crowley must simply never find out, hence the value to Aziraphale of a miniature. The usual way of mounting such masterpieces is in an enamelled locket, a cane-head with a crystal window, or a silver snuffbox — but even before a fashionable artist has painted the picture, every one of these trinkets costs a fortune. For the first time in his life, Aziraphale has dipped a toe in the world of human commerce; it was a wrench to sell that psaltery back in London, but an informative experience nonetheless. Not only is bookselling a handy way for an angel to earn miracle-free pin money, but ‘fussy bibliophile’ is a persona that fits Aziraphale like a glove.
With his honestly-gotten gains, Aziraphale has already purchased a silver snuffbox in what is (for him) a fairly plain style, apart from one feature to which every silversmith gives a knowing wink: a secret panel, behind which to conceal a portrait.
Even with the benefit of Divine Inspiration, the portrait takes Rosalba two weeks to complete. There was a Renaissance fashion for depicting the sitter against flames, and in spite of her protestations that this is an ancient affectation, she can’t deny it has worked beautifully in this case.
The sitter is an enigma in terms of age, sex, character, and perhaps even species, with eyes so golden they could belong to a cat. They wear a high-collared black coat of a Spanish austerity, but their angular, sarcastic face is full of mischief, surrounded by red curls that make it hard to tell where hair ends, and the backdrop of flames begins. Below their right ear is a tattoo, compact and expressive as a Chinese character; perhaps they have travelled in the East. Neither old nor young, they radiate an air of having seen it all — but somehow, of not being tired of it all.
After finishing her work, Rosalba slides the tiny masterpiece under a lens for Aziraphale’s inspection. It glows with hidden detail.
“You were right, Signore, and I apologise for doubting you,” she says.” This is obviously a real person. Would it be rude to ask their name?”
Aziraphale feels that he must say something to this sweet-natured artist whose honest ambition is squeezed by by family ties. Surely Crowley wouldn’t mind using his human alias. The demon picked it out centuries ago, because it was common and wouldn’t date; almost every language that’s been in contact with Latin has some version of it.
“Antonio. Their name is Antonio, and as far as I know they are in the very pink of health.”
The miniaturist studies Crowley’s portrait with serious eyes.
“Ninetto. Ninetta. You be good to this person, Signore Fell. I think that they must care for you very much.”
Thou, God, see’st me, thinks Aziraphale guiltily, once he’s back in England, and Crowley’s sinfully extravagant miniature has been installed behind the secret panel of the snuffbox by a discreet silversmith near Lincoln’s Inn. But if She does, She’s not saying anything.
One day in about 1770, while the two of them have arranged to meet at a harpsichord recital to check in on the Arrangement, his Adversary notices the snuffbox and raises a sceptical eyebrow, and by way of explaining its presence, Aziraphale must actually partake of snuff. He didn’t know it was possible for the human body to sneeze so much.
Six quickfire miracles later, and Crowley is still ribbing him about it. Aziraphale is forced to claim tremendous interest in tobacciana…and keep it up for the next two centuries. By the time the End of the World rolls up, he’s amassed a small but choice collection of silver snuffboxes.
………………
(A. Z. Fell & Co., London, 2019 AD)
These are the times that try men’s souls, and also the souls of hard-pressed angels. Sergeant Shadwell has made an understandable (though inconvenient) error of attribution, but the world is getting ready to end itself, and for once, Aziraphale isn’t in the mood for niceties.
" — and deliver us frae evil — " intones Shadwell, in a growl he’s been practicing for a lifetime.
"Keep out of the circle, you stupid man!" yelps the angel, as the Witchfinder closes on him.
" — never to come again to vex — "
"Yes, yes, but please keep out of — "
In what is surely the stupidest discorporation in history, Aziraphale backs into his own powered-up sigil, and his body is painlessly sublimated. It’s not even a consolation that dying this way doesn’t hurt: it jolly well should.
The sigil’s power makes short work of the angel’s clothes, but deep in one of the pockets is a devotional object, fashioned from silver and imbued with Sacred love, but also with…Infernal love? The existence of such a thing is a contradiction. Should it be Assumed into Heaven, along with the angel? Should it be ejected into Hell, as a contaminant? The sigil is not clever but it knows the protocol on paradoxes: God is in favour of them. Paradoxes are to be left undisturbed.
And so the snuffbox hovers about four feet from the ground, rotating slowly, and is still there when Shadwell flees the shop, the candle falls over, and the place goes up in flames.
More to the point, it is still there when the bookshop is restored to existence, until someone who looks exactly like Aziraphale catches sight of it and plucks it from the air.
If Crowley wasn’t in Aziraphale’s corporation, he wouldn’t know the trick that gets the secret compartment to unlatch, but muscle memory comes to his assistance, and after more than three hundred years, the jig is up.
“Choose your faces wisely,” murmurs the demon, filling Aziraphale’s voice with wonder. “But just how long ago did you choose mine?”