The winter of 1636 held Amsterdam in a grip of iron and ice, but the city was burning with a fever. It was a sickness not of the body, but of the mind, a relentless contagion that spread through the cobblestone streets, the frozen canals, and the smoky taverns. They called it the windhandel—the wind trade. Men were trading houses, estates, and entire fleets of ships for the promise of a flower that had not yet bloomed.
Clara van den Berg sat in the freezing garret of her father’s townhouse, her breath pluming in the frigid air like ghostly smoke. The room, once a sanctuary of light and color, was stripped bare. The creditors had come at dawn, their heavy boots echoing on the wooden stairs, their voices loud and merciless. They had taken the heavy oak furniture, the silver candlesticks, and even her father’s collection of fine linen. All they had left was Clara, her father’s easel, and a debt of ten thousand guilders.
Her father, Master Johannes van den Berg, had been a celebrated botanical artist. He could capture the delicate venation of a leaf or the velvet blush of a petal with such precision that bees were said to land on his canvases. But Johannes was a dreamer, not a merchant. When the tulip madness swept the city, he had been lured into the taverns, trading his paintings for promissory notes, buying futures on bulbs he had never seen. Three days ago, his heart had given out, leaving Clara alone in a city that worshipped only gold and petals.
Clara rubbed her freezing hands together, her fingertips stained with the indigo and madder root pigments she used for her own paintings. She was twenty years old, with eyes the color of the stormy North Sea and a mind sharper than a diamond cutter’s blade. She refused to weep. Tears would not pay the creditors, nor would they keep the magistrates from tossing her into the Spinhuis, the city’s notorious workhouse for destitute women.
She walked over to her father’s drafting table. It was heavy, bolted to the floor, which was the only reason the bailiffs had not hauled it away. Clara ran her fingers along the scarred wood, her heart aching with a sudden, violent grief. As her fingers traced the familiar grooves, she felt a slight catch near the inkwell recess. She paused, frowning. Her father had always been a secretive man, fond of puzzles and hidden compartments.
Pressing her thumb firmly into the notch, she slid the wooden panel to the right. It yielded with a soft click, revealing a shallow hollow lined with faded red velvet. Inside rested a small wooden box, no larger than her palm, and a folded piece of heavy parchment.
Clara’s breath hitched. She unfolded the parchment first. It was a legal promissory note, heavily sealed with red wax, but it was not a record of debt. It was a certificate of ownership, signed by one of the most reputable growers in Haarlem.
One prime bulb of the Semper Augustus.
Clara dropped the paper as if it had burned her. The Semper Augustus. It was the emperor of tulips, a mythical flower with petals of pure, striking white, violently slashed with blood-red flames. A single bulb of such a flower could sell for six thousand guilders. Some had sold for ten. It was enough to buy a grand house on the Herengracht canal. It was enough to clear her father’s debts entirely.
With trembling hands, she reached into the velvet hollow and opened the small wooden box. There, nestled in dry sawdust, was the bulb. It looked entirely unremarkable—a brown, flaky, teardrop-shaped lump, no prettier than a common onion. Yet, in this small, dried husk lay her salvation.
“How did you get this, Papa?” she whispered to the empty room.
A heavy knock at the front door downstairs shattered the silence. Clara quickly shut the wooden box, stuffed it and the parchment into the deep pocket of her wool skirt, and hurried down the narrow, winding stairs.
Standing on the stoop, surrounded by the biting wind rolling off the canal, was Henrik Dircks. He was a wealthy speculator, a man whose vast girth was wrapped in rich black velvet and a collar of pristine white lace. His face was flushed, his eyes small and calculating like a rat assessing a block of cheese.
“Mistress Clara,” Henrik said, his voice a greasy purr. He did not wait for an invitation, pushing his way past her into the drafty hall. “My deepest condolences on the passing of your father. A tragedy. A true tragedy for the arts.”
“What do you want, Heer Dircks?” Clara asked, keeping her distance, her hand instinctively hovering over the pocket that held the bulb.
“Your father and I did a great deal of business together in the taverns,” Henrik said, slowly pacing the empty hallway, his cane tapping rhythmically against the floorboards. “He owed me a substantial sum. However, I am not an uncharitable man. I know he purchased a certain… item… from a grower in Haarlem shortly before his passing. A Semper Augustus. I have come to collect it in lieu of his debts.”
Clara’s heart hammered against her ribs, but her face remained a mask of polite confusion. “I know nothing of any bulb, Heer Dircks. As you can see, the bailiffs have already stripped the house. If my father possessed such a treasure, they have taken it.”
Henrik stopped, leaning heavily on his cane, his small eyes narrowing. “Do not play the fool with me, girl. The bailiffs are simpletons who wouldn’t know a Viceroy bulb from a turnip. Your father hid it. Give it to me, and I will consider his debt settled. Defy me, and I will personally see you thrown into the debtors’ prison to rot.”
“I cannot give you what I do not have,” Clara lied smoothly, meeting his gaze without flinching.
Henrik stared at her for a long, suffocating moment. Then, a slow, ugly smile spread across his face. “We shall see, little bird. The tulip market waits for no one. You have three days before I petition the magistrates for your arrest. I suggest you search this empty house of yours very carefully.”
He turned and lumbered out the door, leaving the scent of stale wine and expensive musk in his wake. Clara locked the heavy door behind him and sagged against it, her knees trembling. She had the bulb. She had three days. She had to enter the madness of the tulip taverns herself, sell the emperor of flowers, and secure her freedom before Henrik Dircks could tear it away.
