A young boy secretly observes an horrific scene: people being brought to the gallows by the henchmen of the Spanish Inquisition, cheered on by a mob of voracious onlookers. The young boy preserves the impression in a sketch that, years later, will form the basis of a world-famous painting: Magpie on the Gallows. At a still early age, the Dutch artist Pieter Bruegel aroused the suspicion and attention of the authorities, and was thrown into jail for paintings deemed to have ridiculed the Church. However, his genius was also recognised: Cardinal Granvelle, the influential governor appointed by Philip II of Spain, allows the young Bruegel to be educated as a painter in Pieter Coecke's atelier in Antwerp. From that time onwards, Pieter's life is in the hands of the cruel Church luminary, who remains in the background pulling all of the strings. A well-researched novel that transports the reader, with extraordinary vividness, into the midst of Pieter Bruegel's life and work and into the most turbulent and horrible chapter in Dutch history. A book that merits comparison with de Coster's Legends of Ulenspiegel.