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  “Now, if there is so much we do not know about those we call family or friends, how much more is there about the Nameless, who created all that there is, that we cannot know and will never know? . . .”

  Chorister Aknotyn went on to describe the magnificence of the Nameless and the unmitigated presumption of mere mortals to offer a name and think that they might know even a fraction of what the Nameless might know or understand. I’d heard similar homilies before, and I couldn’t say that I disagreed. The only thing I might have added, if only in my mind, was the question of whether the Nameless, with all that magnificence, would even have cared what I thought or did.

  While the walk from the Anomen D’Este to Brayer Lane and Master Caliostrus’s establishment, even by the winding Bakers’ Lane, was only half the distance I’d walked to get to Father’s, I didn’t even have to do that. Mother had Charlsyn go that way-and she slipped me two silvers as well, when Father wasn’t looking, just before I got out of the coach. So I wasn’t all that chilled by the time I reached my room.

  10

  755 A.L.

  A good portrait reveals what is seen; a great one also

  reveals what is not.

  I was halfway into the last sitting with Thelya on a far warmer and more pleasant Samedi morning-and the second one in Fevier-when I found myself looking at her eyes again. I’d been worried about them-not the shape or the shadows, but the color of the irises-for the last several sittings. The problem was simple. Her eyes were green, but I was limited to zinc blue-green and verdigris, and the zinc green wasn’t intense enough, and the verdigris was far too fugitive to be used for Thelya’s eyes, even if I used a touch of a clear varnish-glaze.

  What I really needed was imagers’ green, but only Master Caliostrus had that, along with the lapis blue, and they were so costly that I’d never see them, not as a journeyman, and certainly not so long as I worked in his studio. The most I’d ever seen were tiny dollops here and there. Still . . . I wouldn’t need all that much. I glanced toward the converted ancient armoire that held his pigments, then shook my head.

  If I could just have used the tiniest bit of that brilliant green, and then shaded the eyes from yellow-flecked zinc green to the brighter imagers’ green on the sides of the pupils-right there . . .

  I swallowed. I’d done it again. What I’d visualized, seen so clearly in my mind, had appeared on the canvas before me. That was a form of imaging. There was no doubt about it, but exactly what use was imaging that could only make small changes in oil paints on a canvas?

  I couldn’t help smiling as I studied the face on the canvas. That little change had made all the difference, bringing her eyes alive, and creating a subtle but clear linkage between all the elements of the portrait.

  I finished just before noon, after refining just the hint of an errant curl above her left ear. Then I set down the fine-tipped brush and stepped away from the easel.

  “Thank you, Thelya. We’re finished for now, and today was the last sitting. The portrait should be ready in a few days.”

  “It isn’t done now?” She bounced off the chair, holding Remsi so tightly that the cat gave a meow of protest.

  The governess raised an eyebrow. She never spoke when a gesture would do.

  “Some of the background isn’t finished, but I don’t need you to sit for that.”

  “Can I see?”

  “You can . . . if you really want to.”

  She stopped well short of the easel. “You’re saying that I shouldn’t.”

  That stopped me. For a pampered nine-year-old to catch that suggested more perception than I’d thought she had. After a moment, I said, “You certainly can, Mistress Thelya, but I’d rather that you be surprised when you see the fully completed portrait.”

  “Like presents at Year-Turn?”

  “Something like that.”

  She nodded. “I can wait.” Her words were more about her than about the portrait, and, for some reason, I thought about Chorister Aknotyn’s homily the week before, about thinking we understood people because we knew their names and had seen them often enough to believe that what we had seen was all that they were.

  “I’m sure you can.” I smiled. “It won’t be long. Thank you for being so good at the sittings.” I turned to the governess. “Thank you.”

  “The quiet was most restful.” Her lips did not quite smile.

  Once Thelya, her governess, and Remsi left, I spent a bit more time just looking at the canvas. I had a few things to finish along the edges, but it was a fine portrait, probably the best I had done.

  At that moment, Ostrius stepped into the studio, bringing with him a gust of cold air that suggested the past several days of comparatively mild weather were about to end. Almost as if to say that he didn’t have to follow his father’s rules about keeping the door closed in winter, he stood just inside the studio, holding the door open. “We need a little fresher air in here.”

  “Suit yourself,” I replied. “My sitting’s over.”

  He closed the door and walked toward my easel, where he stopped and glanced at the portrait. After a moment, he said, “Not bad. You almost got the skin perfect.”

  Much that he knew. I had gotten Thelya’s pale skin perfect. He would have added the faintest touch of earth brown and yellow to flatter her, but that would have left anyone with any discrimination who saw the portrait vaguely unsatisfied without knowing why. “That’s the way I saw it.”

  “You need to see them the way they see themselves, Rhenn. That’s what makes a portraiturist a master.”

  After all the years with Master Caliostrus, I was getting to hate the way Ostrius tried to sound like his father. Master Caliostrus might be demanding or picky, but most of the time he was looking to improve what I did-or at least make it more attractive to a patron. Ostrius was just using his father’s mannerisms to assert himself, and that trait had worsened since he’d been confirmed as a master, if a junior master. “It’s certainly what brings many of them golds.”

  “Golds last, Rhenn, if you have enough of them. Reputation is fickle, and skills vanish with age.”

  He was doubtless right, but the way he said the words was annoying. I forced a laugh. “You’re suggesting that we need to use our skills to amass golds before those skills fade.”

  “What else?” He walked to his pigment chest, unlocking it and putting several new brushes inside. Then he locked the chest again. “Don’t forget to bank the coals in the stove.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I’m sure you will.” Ostrius flashed an insincere smile as he left the studio.

  It wasn’t that long before Master Caliostrus appeared, while I was finishing the last touches on the rust-brown hangings at the left edge of the portrait.

  “Where did you get that green?” Master Caliostrus pointed to Thelya’s eyes.

  I knew I shouldn’t have left the eyes that way, but they were perfect. “Sir?”

  “That’s imagers’ green. Were you in my paints, Rhennthyl?”

  “No, sir. I thought about it, but that would have been wrong.” I gave him an embarrassed smile. What else could I say? “When I was cleaning the studio last Meredi . . . there was a little dollop of it on the edge of the side table, and it was hard, but I worked at it with oils over the past few days, and I managed to work in just a little bit . . . I thought . . . well, for her eyes, it seemed perfect.”

  “Hmmmph.” Caliostrus walked to the old converted armoire that held his pigments.

  That didn’t bother me-if he were honest-because I hadn’t touched his pigments. I wouldn’t have dared. I could hear him mumbling. “Not here . . . there . . . hmmmm.”

  After a time, he returned and scanned the portrait of Thelya D’Scheorzyl minutely, then nodded. “It is quite good. I would have softened her skin a touch, but you chose to render what you saw. That might be best for a child.” He smiled. “That way, if you do one later, you can soften it.” He paused. “You’ll pardon my concer
n about the eyes, but imagers’ green is almost as valuable as liquid silver. You must have worked very hard to stretch that small dollop.”

  “I did, sir. It would have been better if I could have used a touch in the corner of the cat’s pupils, but . . .” I shrugged helplessly. “I wouldn’t have tried so hard, but I kept looking at her eyes, and they needed to be more intense, and the zinc green, even with a glaze . . .”

  “You did what you could, Rhennthyl, and I’m certain Madame Scheorzyl will be pleased with the portrait.” Caliostrus paused. “I’m glad that you didn’t try to use verdigris. The effect would have faded in a few years, even with a glaze.”

  “I’d thought so, sir.”

  “Even without that little bit of imagers’ green, you could have heightened the effect with a little yellow ochre there . . . and there.” His stubby forefinger pointed.

  “I still could . . . and should, then, sir.”

  He nodded.

  “Thank you.”

  “I still have a few skills you haven’t picked up yet, Rhennthyl.”

  “More than a few, sir.”

  “You’ll be finished by Meredi, ready for framing?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His eyes did linger on the portrait for a time before he turned. “You’ll bank the coals?”

  “Once I’m done, yes, sir.”

  “Good.”

  I did take his suggestions about the ochre yellow, and it took almost a glass to get it right. By then I was ready to leave. I did have enough coppers to go to Lapinina, and who knew, there might even be a pretty face there.

  11

  755 A.L.

  Happiness cannot be pursued through art, nor art

  through happiness.

  The younger unmarried crafters and artisans got together in the Guild Hall the next to the last Samedi of every month, the twenty-eighth of the month. It wasn’t anything organized by the guilds, exactly, but they did let us use a corner of the hall without a charge, even for the two guards. There were musicians, and we’d pass a hat for them, and everyone usually had a good time-or at least a time away from the worries of the week.

  That Fevier Samedi, I was standing by the outer wall of the hall, talking with Rogaris and Dolemis, while we shared a bottle of Fystian, a white vintage perhaps a half step above plonk. Rogaris held the bottle, as always, no matter who had bought it-me, in this case.

  “. . . you think this Caenenan thing will lead to war?” Dolemis kept looking past us at Yvette, as she swirled past in the arms of someone I didn’t know. Yvette had been his girl for years-until she’d suggested formalizing the arrangement.

  “What Caenenan thing?” asked Rogaris, taking a swig of the Fystian.

  “The Caenenan envoy threatened that they’d kill any of our people who blasphemed their god or goddess or duality or whatever,” I said. “That was weeks ago.”

  “No . . . they did,” Dolemis explained. “It was in the newsheets this afternoon. Some clerk in the embassy in Caena burst out laughing at one of their religious processions, and their armites lopped off his head on the spot. The Council is debating the matter.”

  “Cut off his head for laughing?” asked Rogaris. “You can’t be serious.”

  “What do you expect from people who are arrogant enough to name their god?” I had more than a little scorn for people who thought a god cared whether they ate certain foods on certain days or who believed that people would be blessed or cursed or live forever or be tortured for eternity if they didn’t follow a set of rules laid down by some dead prophet or another. If there happened to be an all-powerful and almighty deity-and I had my doubts-he or she or it or whatever wasn’t about to care about who followed what dogma.

  “Everyone’s not like us,” Rogaris said. “Most of them are stupider, and that’s not giving us Solidarans much credit.”

  “You think the Council will send imagers?” asked Dolemis.

  How would I know that? I didn’t even know what an imager could really do in a war, except I knew no one much wanted a strong one against them-but there hadn’t ever been that many war imagers, not from what I’d read in the histories, not since Rex Regis, when his unknown imager had done strange things with walls. I had no idea if there were any at the Collegium Imago now. I supposed that wasn’t something anyone would want to reveal.

  “Rhenn! Come dance with me!” called Seliora. She had jet-black hair and eyes to match, and she wore a black jacket with crimson trim above a crimson skirt and black dancing boots. I’d heard that she worked as an upholsterer and embroiderer for one of the furniture crafters in the artisans’ area off Nordroad north of the Boulevard D’Este, but she’d never said, and I hadn’t asked. “You’ve talked long enough.”

  “If you would excuse me,” I said, “I’m being summoned by a pretty woman, and that doesn’t happen that often.”

  “It would if you’d let it,” quipped Rogaris.

  “You never said what you thought would happen in Caenen,” protested Dolemis.

  “We’ll send ships and troops, and people will fight and die, and they’ll still lop off heads, and then we’ll either kill enough of them that they’ll stop doing it, or they won’t, and then we’ll lose more troops until we quit and declare victory.” I called the last words over my shoulder as I hurried toward Seliora.

  “Declare victory about what?” Seliora asked as I slipped my arm around her waist and began to dance with her, ignoring the fact that the waltz seemed a bit fast to me.

  “The Caenenans . . . politics, again.” I really didn’t want to talk about it. I supposed I could be conscripted if the Council declared war, but they usually didn’t conscript journeymen artisans or crafters. Apprentices were often conscripted, as were journeymen without masters.

  “Dolemis always talks politics. Yvette said he even mumbled about them in his sleep.”

  “She actually listened?”

  “I think that was the trouble.”

  “Well, he can’t do anything about it, not unless he works and becomes a craftmaster, because the Council is elected from the guilds, the factors’ associations, and the High Holders, and you have to be a craftmaster to be eligible, and he never will be because he spends too much time talking about politics rather than crafting cabinets for Sasol,” I added with a laugh.

  For a time, I did not speak, just enjoyed dancing and holding Seliora. She wasn’t slender, but certainly not heavy, rather muscular. I enjoyed seeing her smile. Over the past year, we had talked and danced occasionally, and I knew she was interested in me . . . at least a little bit.

  When the musicians stopped, so did we, but she didn’t move away, and neither did I.

  She looked up at me. “Everyone says you think you’re too good to have a girl who might have actually lived within a few streets of the taudis or the Pharsis.”

  I had to laugh. “The first girl that I fell in love with was a Pharsi.”

  “How old were you? Five?” Seliora quipped back.

  “More like thirteen.”

  “And I suppose you threw her over for some factor’s twit?”

  “No. She threw me over for some factor’s twit, rather quickly. She married my younger brother almost two years ago. She said that when she saw him, it had to be.”

  Seliora looked hard at me. “Is that a joke?”

  “No. They’re expecting their first child this summer. They live in Kherseilles now.”

  The musicians began again, this time a fast variana, and Seliora took my hand. “Another dance.” Her words weren’t a request, but I was happy to comply, and she said nothing more as we moved to the beat of the music.

  When the musicians stopped, I was breathing a little faster than usual.

  “You shouldn’t let that spoil things,” she said. “You’re good-looking. Rogaris says your work is good enough that before all that long you’ll be a master artist with your own studio.”

  “At least three more years, and he’s being kind.”

  “Roga
ris?” Seliora laughed.

  She had a point, but I shook my head. “It’s not just that. I’m just beginning to get commissions, and they’re still not all that frequent. How could I support a wife or a family?”

  “Some women do make more than a few coins in honest work.” She smiled warmly.

  “I’m most certain you do.”

  “And being married doesn’t mean you have to have a family right away.”

  “That’s true.” I grinned at her. “Are you asking me to propose to you?”

  Seliora actually lowered her eyes, if only for a moment. “I am part Pharsi, if that helps. My grandmother was one. She came to L’Excelsis as a servant.”

  “If you take after her, I doubt she stayed one very long.”

  “No, she didn’t. She was the one who started the business.”

  “You . . . your family . . .?” I hadn’t realized that.

  “Papa and Aunt Aegina are the master crafters. They make the chairs and the settees. Mama and I choose the fabrics and do the additional embroidery designs.”

  I had wondered about the fact that Seliora was usually better dressed than the other young women, but I’d learned that some women spent every last copper on clothes.

  I inclined my head. “I’m-”

  “Please don’t tell anyone, especially Dolemis. He’s a terrible gossip.”

  The music resumed, another waltz, a slower one, and I turned to her. “I still would have asked for another dance.”

  She smiled. “I know. I do foretell more than I say.”

  We spent most of the evening dancing, and I did walk her and two of her friends home, even if it meant an even longer and colder walk back out the Boulevard D’Este to Master Caliostrus’s establishment. The entire way, I wondered what she had foretold that she hadn’t said.

  12