By Clarimond Pevensey, Cultural Correspondent
It began, as so many Eyehasseen institutions do, with a scandal.
In the summer of Year 913, a ship called The Wind’s Account limped into Inverness Harbour under a false flag and a tattered sail. Among its cargo—hidden behind crates of salted herring and lamp oil—were dozens of looted paintings, icons, and reliquaries from across the war-torn eastern realms. Customs officers seized the ship and its contents, sparking what came to be known as The Great Provenance Affair, a scandal that reached into noble houses, merchant guilds, and the shadowy trade in cultural treasures.
The investigation might have faded into quiet embarrassment, but for one man: Sir Hollis Greystag, then a young clerk in the Office of Maritime Records. He was the first to recognize that among the seized items were works of immeasurable value—pieces thought lost forever in the fires of the Marelian Wars. Greystag’s quiet report to the Crown eventually led to the founding of what we now know as the Royal Museum of Art & Antiquities, the beating cultural heart of the Kingdom of Eyehasseen.
“We were, at first, merely trying to save what we could.”
That is how the museum’s first curator, Lady Agatha Wynmere, described those early days in her memoirs. “The paintings arrived reeking of tar and fish. We dried them by candlelight and prayed the varnish would hold.”
In a recent interview, Master Curator Dr. Elias Strathfirth, current head of the museum, reflected on those fragile beginnings.
“There was no grand plan,” said Dr. Strathfirth, standing beneath the soaring marble dome of the East Gallery. “The first exhibitions were held in the royal stables, for lack of any suitable space. Greystag would hang portraits between feed bins, Wynmere catalogued relics on the backs of horse stalls. But from that indignity grew our nation’s greatest cultural institution.”
It was Greystag himself who proposed transforming an abandoned fortress overlooking Inverness—the weather-scarred Fort Caelmoor—into a place “where the nation might gather its beauty against the assaults of time.” Renovations began in 917, using stone from the same quarry that supplied the Royal Palace. The museum opened its doors to the public in 922, with a crowd of nearly 5,000 citizens queued along the cobblestones of Kingsway Avenue.
The Masterpieces Within
Among the earliest acquisitions were three works that remain the pride of Eyehasseen art:
- “The Light at Elderfen” by the painter Ronan Vale (c. 870) — a haunting landscape of marsh and mist said to change hue with the seasons. It was rescued from smugglers in a nighttime raid along the Fenmark border, where it had been rolled inside a carpet to evade detection.
- “Portrait of the Unnamed Queen”, an unsigned masterpiece in tempera and gold, believed to depict either Queen Aveline II or a Marelian consort from the same era. X-ray analysis later revealed an underpainting: a second face, turned slightly away, with tears painted in silver leaf.
- “The Apotheosis of the Cartographer”, a massive triptych by Theon Darras, depicting the creation of the Eyehasseen map itself, with celestial figures drawing borders in starlight. The canvas measures twenty feet across, and legend says two apprentices went blind painting its constellations in powdered mercury.
A House Built on Danger
The museum’s serene marble halls hide a history as turbulent as any battlefield. During the Thornwold Uprisings of 951, a mob attempted to seize the collection, believing the paintings to be “symbols of decadence and oppression.” The staff barricaded themselves in the Great Hall for three days, surviving on water from the ornamental fountain.
Curator Wynmere’s great-grandson, Percival Wynmere, later wrote:
“When dawn broke on the third day, the rebels had gone. They left behind a broken door, three shattered statues, and the smell of smoke. Yet not one painting was lost. The art had endured. It always does.”
More recently, in 1002, a shipment of artifacts from Valenreach vanished en route to the museum. The convoy was found abandoned on the Northreach Road—horses tethered, drivers missing. The only clue: a scrap of parchment bearing the words “The Patrons have spoken.” No arrests were ever made.
Dr. Strathfirth declined to comment on rumors that a secret wing of the museum now houses items “too dangerous or controversial” for public display.
“Every culture has its shadows,” he said carefully. “Our duty is not to hide them, but to illuminate them—if and when the time is right.”
The Modern Museum
Today, the Royal Museum of Art & Antiquities houses more than 140,000 objects, from prehistoric Eyehasseen stone carvings to modern kinetic sculptures that hum and shimmer under glass. Visitors wander through echoing corridors, pausing before relics of vanished dynasties: the Crown of Northreach, recovered from a bog in 976; the Clock of the Infinite Noon, an impossible contraption that keeps perfect time yet has no visible mechanism; and the Letter of Saint Elowen, a fragment of illuminated parchment whose ink glows faintly in darkness.
In the Gallery of the Nations, curators have assembled treasures from Eyehasseen’s farthest colonies and trade partners: carved jade beasts from the Marelian coast, a tapestry woven from metallic thread by the artisans of Valenreach, and the fabled “Cup of Broken Stars,” whose surface appears to contain a reflection of the night sky regardless of the lighting.
Each piece tells a story—not merely of art, but of survival.
“Art has always been perilous,” noted Assistant Curator Mira Hollingworth, whose team oversees restoration. “Every pigment, every relic has passed through fire, flood, war, or greed. We are the latest custodians in a line of thousands. Sometimes I think the paintings watch us, waiting to see whether we will prove worthy of them.”
The Ghost in the West Wing
No account of the museum would be complete without mention of its most enduring legend: the Ghost of the West Wing.
Visitors claim to see a man in naval dress wandering the upper galleries after closing hours, his face pale as gesso. Many believe it to be Sir Hollis Greystag himself, doomed to pace eternally among the treasures he once saved. Guards insist they sometimes find fresh footprints near The Apotheosis of the Cartographer, though the marble there is cordoned off and never walked upon.
“I’ve seen it,” said Night Steward Jonas Elver, his voice low. “A tall figure, looking up at the stars in the painting. When I spoke, he turned—as if listening for the sea—and vanished.”
Dr. Strathfirth only smiles when asked. “If Greystag’s spirit walks these halls,” he said, “I hope he approves of the company we’ve kept.”
An Ongoing Legacy
The museum’s mission remains as it was in the decree that established it: “To preserve, exhibit, and celebrate the works of human hand and divine inspiration that mark the civilization of Eyehasseen.”
On the day of its centenary in 1022, King Edmund himself unveiled a new addition: the Hall of Lost Voices, dedicated to artists, builders, and artisans whose names were erased by history. Projected light recreates their imagined faces upon the walls as an invisible choir sings a melody reconstructed from fragments of a 9th-century hymn.
Standing in that hall, one feels the immensity of time—how art endures where nations and empires crumble.
“It began with theft,” said Dr. Strathfirth, gazing up at the spectral faces. “And it has become, I hope, an act of redemption.”
As dusk settles over Inverness, the marble steps of the museum gleam pale against the river. The doors close, the lamps are lit, and within the silence of those galleries—beneath the eyes of queens, cartographers, and long-dead saints—the kingdom’s soul quietly keeps watch.