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 concern 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.