Would others do the same? What if the project became so famous that people insisted on seeing the picture? What if one of his sitters proved nimble enough to get a good look before Lalo could call the guard?
Lalo sighed again, drained his mug, and told the Hell-Hound currently on duty to bring the third subject in.
Lalo sat oh a low stool next to the table where he had laid out his painting things, waiting, like them, for the fourth of the Commissioners to arrive for his sitting. He supposed that he had been lucky to get in Arbalest and the royal relative yesterday-he glanced at the third picture with distaste. "Something oxis," the man's name was, but already he had trouble remembering. Not surprising-his portrait revealed a bovine complacence that avoided evil mainly through lack of energy.
And these are the pride of Ranke? thought Lalo. He found himself almost grateful to Coricidius. I would never have known-he grimaced at the painting again-I would have uprooted my family to seek my fortune in the capital, innocently certain it must be superior to Sanctuary. But there, the evil is only better disguised....
From the courtyard below he could hear the even tramp of bullhide sandals-the Prince's Guard was drilling again. These days, even the City garrison marched and polished their armor, but whether it was in hopes of being sent to the war or the opposite, he did not know. Nor, at this moment, did he care. He found it hard to believe that any new invader could make things any better, or worse, in Sanctuary.
Still, the incessant marching made him nervous, as if his former certainties were illusions, and just around the corner lay some new threat that he could not see. Restlessly he paced to the window, and was just turning back when the guard brought the fourth sitter in.
"My Lord Zanderei!" Lalo bowed to the man to whom he had spoken at the reception. "Please be seated-" he indicated the sitter's chair.
"I am sorry to have kept you waiting. Master Limner," the man said plaintively, settling himself. "I was detained at the warehouses. There seems to be some confusion regarding the grain supplies set aside for the war ..."
Lalo busied himself with his paints to hide a grin. He could well imagine that the web of bribes, kickbacks, substitutions and out-and-out shortchanging characteristic of business in Sanctuary would make "confusion" an understatement. Why had they sent such a clerkly little mouse to deal with the situation here? Glancing at him again, Lalo realized that Zanderei had one of the least remarkable faces he had ever seen.
I suppose it comes of a life-time of deference, he thought. The man displayed no individuality at all. But for the first time in this project Lalo found himself eager to set brush to canvas, knowing that once he did, no dissimulation could hide the truth of the man from him.
"Am I posed correctly? I can turn my head the other way if you like, or fold my hands ..."
"Yes, clasp your hands-your head is very well as it is. You must relax, sir, and think how near your business is to its conclusion..."Lalo poured thinner into the cup and dipped his brush.
"Yes," Zanderei echoed softly. "I am almost done. A week or less will show me if I have accomplished all I was sent to do. The conflict draws very close to us now." His thin lips curved in the faintest of smiles.
Lalo's eyes narrowed. He drew his brush through the light ochre and began.
A half hour went by, and an hour. Lalo worked steadily without really being conscious either of the passage of time or of what he was doing. Zanderei was light and shadow, color and texture and line-a problem in interpretation. The artist adjusted to the changing light and even gave his model permission to move from time to time without emerging from the trance which was his art and his spell.
Then, from the Hall of Justice below, the gong for the fourth watch began to toll. Zanderei got to his feet, grey robes shifting like shadow around him. Lalo, fighting his way back to awareness like a man awakening from sleep, saw that dusk was beginning to gather in the corners of the room.
"I am sorry. I must go now." Zanderei took a few steps forward, more smoothly than Lalo would have expected, considering how long the man had been sitting still.
"Oh, of course-forgive me for keeping you so long."
"Are you finished? Will you want me to come to you again?"
Lalo looked at the picture, wondering if he had captured the reality of this man. For a moment he did not understand what he saw. He glanced quickly at the other portraits, but they had not changed, and paint still glistened wetly where he had given a last touch to Zanderei's hair. But he had never been unable to recognize the model in one of his portraits before...
He saw a face like stone, like steel, a face with no life but in the eyes, and there only an ancient pain. And in the hands of this image, a bloodied knife was gripped fast.
Coricidius wanted to see these men's weaknesses-but I see death here!
And like the canvas, Lalo's face must have revealed the tumult in his soul, for now Zanderei was blurring towards him in a swordsman's swift rush that brought him past Lalo to comprehend the picture in one searching stare and still in the same motion to whirl and flick into the throat of the oncoming guardsman a knife that had been hidden in his sleeve.
"Sorcery!" exclaimed Zanderei, and then, more slowly, "Is that what I look like to you?"
Lalo jerked his appalled gaze from the ruby rivulet that was snaking its way from the throat of the guard across the floor. Now Zanderei stood with a predator's poise, and his face and the face in the picture were the same.
"Did they set you to trap me? Have my masters' plans been betrayed?" Softly he moved towards Lalo, who stood shaking his head and shivering. "Ah, of course-it was Coricidius, setting traps for everyone. I doubt that he expected to catch me!" he added more softly.
"Who are you? Why are you pretending to be a clerk?" Lalo stared at Zanderei, seeing something flicker behind the still eyes as if the mask he had penetrated only covered a veil that hid another truth deeper within.
"I am fate ... or I am nothing ... It all depends. My masters wish the Prince to do his part in the war, but it would not be well for him to do it too effectively. 'Watch him, but do not let him become a hero, Zanderei...' Until that happens, I will serve him." His voice ran smoothly as an undammed stream, but Lalo knew that what he was hearing doomed him more surely than what he had seen.
"You're going to kill the Prince ..." Lalo stepped backwards until he bumped into the table on which his paints lay.
"Perhaps-" Zanderei shrugged.
"You're going to kill me?"
The other man sighed, and from the other sleeve a second knife flickered into his hand. "Do I have a choice?" he said regretfully. "I am a professional. No one will deplore the work of the vandal who kills you and destroys the painting more than I. . .or perhaps it will have been you who suffered a revulsion of feeling and did it yourself-for I am sure that Coricidius forced you to this work. But one way or another, the painting must be destroyed-" Zanderei looked at the other portraits and for the first time amusement flickered in his eyes. "You are far too accurate!
"Reckon up your life, Master Limner-" he said more gently, "for once the painting is gone the painter must disappear as well."
Lalo swallowed, afraid that his churning stomach would deny him dignity even in his death. And what had his life been worth to anyone, after all? Zanderei took flint and steel from a pouch beneath his robe, and in a moment light flared in the dimness of the room. Then the assassin set a stained paint rag aflame and held it to the canvas.