Mistress Aeylana D’Weidyn twitched, then shifted her weight in the high-backed chair. After Aeylana’s first sitting, I’d accompanied Aeylana and her aunt back to their home—if a small chateau three times the size of my parents’ dwelling and grounds could be termed “home.” While at the Chateau Weidyn, I had not only made a sketch of the actual chair that would be in the portrait, but also made the acquaintance of Charbon—a rather oversized feline with sleepy yellow eyes and a deep black coat—and done several quick sketches of him as well, one with Aeylana holding him.
Aeylana Weidyn was anything but an ideal subject. Even at age eight, she was lanky, with big bones and hands, freckles and a fair skin, and fine orange-red hair that, despite the dark green hair band, had a tendency to fly in all directions. Her eyes were a warm brown that somehow clashed with everything, and her eyebrows were so light and fine that she looked to have none at all.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was thinking about Charbon. He will be in the portrait, will he not?”
“Yes, he will.” In fact, I actually had painted much of Charbon, as if he had been sitting erect and regal upon the edge of the seat of the chair beside Aeylana. “He is most handsome.”
I had some doubts about any cat being a possession, but did not have time to say anything because, at that very moment, Ostrius opened the studio door and marched over to my easel.
He did not even look in the direction of Aeylana Weidyn—or her aunt, who was accompanying her to the sittings. “Rhenn…did you finish compounding the deep brown?”
“No. There wasn’t time before the sitting.”
“When will you learn to finish things?” he snapped.
“I worked on it all morning,” I said quietly.
He didn’t. That was what he meant. “Your father expects me to do a sitting when the patron is here. I’ll get back to it once she leaves.”
“You’d better.” Without another word, he stalked off.
The aunt said nothing, but her eyes expressed more than any words she might have spoken as she watched Ostrius close the studio door with a firmness just short of slamming it.
“I don’t—” began Aeylana.
“That will be all, Aeylana,” the aunt said firmly.
“If you would please look at the easel, mistress,” I repeated.
She could. She just couldn’t keep doing it for long.
I looked at the left side of her head, just forward and above the ear. Her hair had been a problem, because it was too bright to be captured fairly by any of the earthen reds, and the madder red would fade, while vermilion would darken at the edges where it touched the skin tones. Calizarin red didn’t blend well with the naranje orange, unless mixed with at least a little of one of the ochres, but I’d worked in a tiny mixture of yellow and dull red ochre as a binder between the calizarin and the naranje. Even Master Caliostrus had nodded approval at that.
Had Ostrius been angry not just because I didn’t have the deep brown formulated when he wanted it, but because he realized I could do something with the pigments that he couldn’t?
I pushed that thought away. If I didn’t do well on the one portrait assignment I had, I wouldn’t get another any time soon. I concentrated on seeing Aeylana as she was, and on working on the hairline around her right ear.
By the time the glass chimed out from the nearest anomen tower, I thought I had that section right, and I smiled, both at Aeylana and her chaperone. “Two more sittings at most.”
“Good. It’s hard to sit still that long.”
“I can remember when I was your age,” I said with a smile.
That got me a giggle in return.
In moments, the two had gathered themselves together and departed for the carriage waiting below. In scarcely longer than that, Master Caliostrus had entered the studio, his brow knit in a frown.
“Ostrius said that you had not finished the deep brown formulation and that you were less than deferential…”
“Sir, I was most deferential. I started directly after breakfast, Master Caliostrus, and I took no breaks, until just before Mistress Aeylana D’Weidyn was due to arrive. You told me never to be late in dealing with a patron, and I could not have begun the compounding yesterday, sir, because the raw earth did not arrive until just before dinner last night.”
“Ah…yes…” Caliostrus paused. “You will get to it right away?”
“Good.” Almost as an afterthought, he glanced at the partial portrait, his eyes going to what I had painted of the cat. “You definitely have a talent for the cat. In time, if you work on that, along with other skills, it might prove…remunerative. Some of the wealthier older women in L’Excelsis do dote on…such companions.”
He stopped at the door and looked back. “Don’t be too long. Ostrius does need the brown.”
If Ostrius needed the brown so much, why wasn’t he down in the shed working on the formulation? Or, if he didn’t want to get dirty, he could have taught Stanus how to do it. But then, that was still dirty work and required patience, both of which Ostrius avoided whenever possible.
I never understood why so many people made a fuss about weddings. I certainly wondered that once again as I stood there in the garden courtyard of Remaya’s parents’ dwelling beside Rousel as we waited for Remaya to appear.
Weddings are merely an affirmation of what has already happened. They’re necessary for most people, as are the rings that symbolize them, because public affirmations strengthen private commitments, but by the time of the ceremony they’re usually foregone conclusions. If they’re not, there shouldn’t be a ceremony. After eight years of courting and unblemished affection, for Rousel and Remaya both the ceremony and the rings were more for everyone else than for them, but that is certainly the case for all too many ceremonies.
Ceremonies can also provide a different kind of closure. I hoped this one would, because I had been the one to find Remaya, and from me she had found Rousel. Likewise, after all the years of distrust of those of a Pharsi background, my parents had been forced to accept Remaya. How could they have not? She was beautiful and intelligent and loved Rousel, and her parents, while only tradespeople, were far from impoverished. It didn’t hurt that Rousel was following in Father’s footsteps as a wool factor, either.
“You have the ring?” Like all bridegrooms, Rousel wore a formal green waistcoat, trimmed in deep brown, with a matching green neck scarf.
“Right here.” I kept my voice low.
We stood in front of the left side of the arched canopy of flowers. Behind it, wearing green vestments, was Chorister Osyrahm. Behind us stood our family, Father and Mother on the right, then Culthyn and Khethila. Even with them, but to the right, were Remaya’s parents, and her older sister and two younger brothers.
A pair of viols began to play, indicating that Remaya had left the house and was approaching, but neither Rousel nor I looked back because we were not supposed to see her until she stood beside him. I did hear a few whispered comments from the small group of family and friends behind us, and all were about how beautiful she looked, but I knew that without looking. I’d known it far longer than Rousel, and with far less effect.
Before long, Remaya stepped up beside Rousel, and they exchanged glances and smiles. She wore a white gown, along with the bride’s sleeveless green vest, also trimmed in the same rich brown as Rousel’s.
Chorister Osyrahm smiled beatifically at both of them, then began to speak. “We are gathered here today in celebration of the decision of a man and a woman to join their lives as one. The name of a union between a man and a woman is not important, nor should anyone claim such, for the name should never overshadow the union itself. Rousel and Remaya have chosen each other as partners in life and in love, and we are here to witness the affirmation of that choice.”
He nodded for them to step forward under the canopy, then waited until they stood under the arch of flowers.
“In so much as the only true and meaningful commitments in life are made without deception and without reservation, and without a reliance on empty names and forms, do you, Rousel, affirm in full honesty that you commit your body, your spirit, and your free will to this woman, and that you will put no other before her, so long as you both shall live?”
“I do.”
Chorister Osyrahm then turned to Remaya and repeated the same charge and vows.
“I do.” Her voice was warm and husky.
“The rings, if you will.”
I handed the ring to Rousel.
After taking the simple gold bands, one from Rousel and one from Remaya, Osyrahm held them up so that all could see them before lowering them and addressing the couple. “These rings are a symbol of love, for gold cannot be changed, nor imaged into what it is not. In exchanging and accepting these rings, you have pledged that your love will be as unchanging as the gold of which they are made, that no tyranny of names substituting for substance shall ever cleave you apart, and that your love for each other will endure in times good and evil, through sickness and health, and in darkness and in light, so long as your spirits endure.” Then he returned the rings to them.
Remaya, in the Pharsi tradition, was the first to place her ring, easing it onto Rousel’s finger. Then he slipped his ring upon hers.
“From two have come one, and yet that unity shall enable each of you to live more joyfully, more fully, and more in harmony with that which was, is, and ever shall be.”
The chorister stepped back, and Rousel and Remaya kissed under the canopy of late-spring flowers.
Then they turned and faced family and friends. Remaya’s sister Semahla stepped forward and handed the small green wicker basket of flower petals to Rousel. He held it while she scooped out a handful and cast them forward and skyward. Then she took the basket, and he scattered his handful.
After that, they walked back toward the roofed section of the courtyard, and Semahla and I followed.
We had barely stepped into the shadows when Remaya turned back to me.
“Thank you so much, Rhenn.” Remaya’s smile was dazzling, but it always had been, even when I’d first seen her at the girls’ grammaire when she’d been twelve. “Without you, I would never have met Rousel, and never known this happiness, foretold as it was.”
Foretold. She’d said that when she had first laid eyes on Rousel. Those with the Pharsi blood have always been said to be able to see what will be before it comes to their eyes. “I’m so glad everything worked out for you two.” What else could I say? I managed a wide grin as I looked at Rousel. “You heard that, brother.”
He grinned back. “How could I forget?”
I loosened my own neck scarf, because the late-spring afternoon was warm, even in the shade, especially in the formal waistcoat and matching trousers. They were the finest I’d ever owned, and a gift from Rousel.
He’d been kind, and very matter-of-fact about it. When he’d given it to me, made-to-measure, he’d said, “I’m the one who wants you beside me. You’re an artist, and I can’t ask you to purchase a wedding suit. Besides, you can keep it for good occasions.”
I’d just leave it stored with my parents. I certainly wouldn’t need anything that fine for anything involving Master Caliostrus.
At that moment, everyone surged around Rousel and Remaya, and Semahla and I stepped back. I’d only met Semahla a handful of times, and she was certainly bright and pleasant, if more angular than her younger sister.
“The past few days must have been crowded,” I observed.
She laughed. “Hectic, but fun. Everyone likes Remaya. She’s always been the kind one.”
“I’m sure you are, as well.”
“It comes naturally to her. I have to try.”
I supposed I could have said the same about Rousel, except it would have been about charm. He could charm anyone, just by looking at them.
Serving girls appeared, carrying trays with goblets of sparkling grisio. I picked two goblets off a tray and offered one to Semahla.
“Thank you.” She inclined her head, then took a sip.
So did I. The coolness helped a dry throat.
“Rousel said you are a fine artist.”
“I am an artist. Some days I think I might someday become a master with a studio.”
“The portrait you did of Remaya is lovely. Everyone says so. Mother looks at it and wishes that Remaya would leave it with her.”
“Thank you.” I’d done the best I could. It had been my wedding gift to them. What else could I have given?
“Oh…Remaya needs me.” With that, Semahla slipped away.
That was for the best. I’d about run out of pleasantries, not that Remaya’s family weren’t good people. Her father was a spice broker, which placed him between a factor and a shop keeper, but meant he was still a tradesperson of sorts. Still, from the house, they certainly weren’t poor.
Rousel eased over to me. “How are you doing?”
“Fine. How about you?”
He grinned sheepishly. “I just wish the dinner and the toasts were all over.”
I could understand that. “You only have to do this once.”
“Twice. Once for me, and once for you. Maybe three times. Culthyn might want us.”
“You’re an optimist.”
“Now that you’ve made journeyman, you need to look around for someone,” Rousel said.
“I’m not ready for that. I only get my own commissions now and again.” I didn’t point out that I wasn’t a successful factor’s assistant, because both Father and Rousel would have noted that it had been my choice not to go into trade. But then, I would have made a botch of trade. “Besides, it will be almost another five years before I can even be considered as a master portraiturist. It might be years beyond that. The masters don’t easily approve other masters.”
“You can still look.”
I had looked, and she’d married Rousel. I just smiled. “We’ll see.”
“Rousel!” That was Remaya.
“You better go.”
“Don’t be too hard on me when you give your toast.”
“I won’t.” And I wouldn’t. We don’t choose where our hearts lead us.
6
754 A.L.
An artist must appeal to perception, not accuracy.
Contrary to poetry and populisms, Avryl is far from the cruelest month of the ten. Rather Feuillyt is, for it is in the month after harvest when everyone comes to understand that the bounty of nature and man could have been far greater than it was, no matter how much better the gathering of grain and golds happened to be than in previous years. So it was no surprise to me when Master Caliostrus appeared on the twentieth of that Feuillyt, to stand behind my shoulder and peer at the uncompleted likeness upon my easel. The twentieth of every month is a Vendrei, of course, whether the year is 754, as it was, or any other year.
“That’s not an acceptable portrait, Rhennthyl.”
Without Factor Masgayl being present, I’d been working on the detailing of his crimson and gold brocade vest, a vest that, for all its richness, had seen better days, not that the portrait would show that. “Sir?”
“You can’t do that with the eyes.”
“But that’s the way the factorius looks, exactly the way he appears.” Incautious as that statement was, coming as it did from a journeyman portraiture artist to his master, we both knew that the portrait was far more flattering than the reality of Masgayl Factorius, one of the more junior, yet least self-effacing, factors in the city.
“It is not the way he looks,” replied Master Caliostrus, “not to himself and not to those who patronize his establishment, and not to his family.”
The problem was not with my eyes, but with those of Master Caliostrus, for his had become a slave to his desires for influential patrons, rather than lenses of artistic impartiality.
“You do not paint a man with deep-set beady eyes, even if his eyes are as hard and as tiny as those of a shrewt,” Caliostrus went on. “That is, if you wish to remain a portraiture artist in L’Excelsis. Without satisfied patrons, even if you become a master, you will not remain long an artist. You will not become a master, because I certainly cannot support or lend my name to a portraiturist who is insensible to the self-images of his potential patrons.”
“Then, Master Caliostrus,” I replied, gently setting my brush on the edge of the oils tray, “how am I to comply with the dictates of the guild? What of the goal of artistic precision?”
“Artistic precision, my dear Rennthyl, is the goal of obtaining the precise image that will please the patron. You most certainly did so in pleasing Craftmaster Weidyn and young Mistress Weidyn. So far, you also seem to be pleasing Mistress Thelya D’Scheorzyl and her parents.”
I had been able to please Master Weidyn because the true visage of his daughter had been pleasant enough and because he could not have cared less how true the portrait had been so long as his wife and daughter were content. The same looked possible with Thelya, although I had barely begun that portrait. I certainly had no problem with Caliostrus’s logic, nor with his desires to increase the girth of his wallet. My difficulty lay elsewhere. “As artists, do we not have a duty, in some fashion, to present an accurate and precise view of what lies before us?”
Caliostrus laughed, as I knew he would. “The only people in all of Solidar who reckon the need for a precision that grates upon all sensibilities are the Imagers of L’Excelsis. In fact, they might be the only ones in all of Terahnar. That is because power allows impartiality.”
“So you’re saying, master, that if I want to be impartial, I should not be a portraiturist, but an imager?”
“You don’t even want to try to be an imager, Rhennthyl. Renegade imagers, if they do more than minor imaging, risk their lives, even if the imagers do not catch them. In the outlying districts, imagers are considered disciples of the Namer, and people believe they create hidden names of ruin and despair with each image that they make real. Most of those who try to become true imagers die young, entering Imagisle by the Bridge of Hopes and departing in a cart over the Bridge of Stones. Most who do survive spend the rest of their lives slaving for their masters, trying to create images and devices that never were and never could be—or dying slowly as they fabricate parts of machines for the armagers of the Council.”
How was that so different from what I did, handling the portraits for those of lesser affluence for Master Caliostrus, mixing pigments, and combining oils, powdering charcoal, and a thousand other mundane and mind-numbing tasks?
“All you young artists think that you, too, could be great….” Caliostrus let his words die away into silence before punctuating the silence with a snort. “Greatness isn’t what you think it is, Rhennthyl. Be content to be a portraiturist. And fix those eyes.” He turned away without another utterance.
My corner of the large studio was the one in the southwest—where the light was harshest and brightest and washed out everything. But it did have a single window, one that was open because the fall air was cool, but not cold, and, while I’d always loved the use of oils to create, I’d never much cared for the odors of the paint. Most artists didn’t seem to mind, I supposed, because they only created a visual image, not one that embodied touch and taste and scent, although the very best paintings could evoke a sense of that.
From the far corner, Ostrius said, “He’s right, you know, Rhenn. In the end, all that matters is reputation and golds.” Standing by his easel, he held a palette knife he had just wiped clean. “The test of a reputation is whether the artist’s golds last as long as he lives.”
That was easy enough for him to say, since, as his father’s eldest, he’d inherit the studio and the reputation, not that the stocky Ostrius was not a capable portraiturist, for he was, and he’d just made master, if tacitly under the understanding that he would remain within his father’s studio for the near future. He was also anything but artistically adventurous.
“That observation is discouraging, true as it may be,” I pointed out.
“It doesn’t make it less accurate.”
Thinking about what Master Caliostrus and his son had said, before I lifted the brush to get back to detailing the vest of Masgayl Factorius, I glanced out the second-level window. As with most artists, Master Caliostrus had placed his workrooms and studios on the second level, with the gallery and storerooms below, and the family quarters above. From the heights of Martradon, one could see Imagisle a good three milles to the west, a granite ship pointed upstream in the River Aluse, its masts the twin towers of the Collegium Imago. From that distance the three bridges looked as slender as hawsers mooring that ship to the city that surrounded it.
7
754 A.L.
The world and its parts are as they are; accuracy is a term man applies to his small creations.
At precisely one glass before noon on Lundi, Masgayl Factorius arrived at the second-floor door to Master Caliostrus’s studio. I had barely gotten there myself, after washing up, because I’d been working on grinding pigment stock in the shed in the rear courtyard, and the Belishan purple had been more than difficult to get off my fingers and from under my nails. I had to grind and mix the pigments—or those requiring greater care—not only for myself and Master Caliostrus, but also for Ostrius, who certainly couldn’t be bothered with such, and Stanus, who seemed unwilling to learn anything of any great difficulty.
My fingers were numb, of course, because Master Caliostrus didn’t believe in spending coppers on coal for heating wash water for apprentices or journeymen, at least not until the turn of winter. Yet a thorough washing was necessary, because the purple could pervade anything else I touched, and I didn’t want to spoil the portrait or one of the smaller studies I was working on to enter in the annual journeyman’s festival in Ianus, barely more than a month away.
“Good morning, honored factorius.” I held the studio door for him as he eased his bulk past me.
“Good day, such as it is.” He forced a smile. “Before we start, let me see what you have there, young Rhenn.”
I closed the heavy oak door and followed the heavyset factorius to the easel in my corner of the studio. He stood before the easel, then brushed back his thick and oily gray hair and nodded. I had widened the eye spacing just a touch, as well as lightened the skin beneath the eyes a shade or so. That would reduce their apparent beadiness.
“Not so flattering as one might wish, but accurate, and adequate. You do have an excellent touch on the vest, as well as the fabric of the chair—even if I did bring you a sample.” He turned and moved toward the far plainer chair in which he sat for me, taking off his silver-trimmed traveling cloak to reveal the vest and jacket matching those in the portrait. “But my daughter insisted that I be depicted in a chair identifiable as mine. Daughters are a man’s joy and trouble. Sons are merely trouble.”
“We do our best to be more than adequate, sir.”
Masgayl laughed, a sound comprised of a certain emptiness as well as amusement and rue. “You’re more than adequate, young Rhenn, and adequate is more than sufficient. Now that I am a factorius, it will not do that my foyer is without a portrait, but one by a proclaimed master would only declare my arrogance. No…modesty suits me far better, and I will get a good work from you at a lower cost than from your master, and you will gain in reputation as others see your work.” He settled into the chair.
I adjusted the easel. “You do not fear that they will say you have no interest in great art, sir?”
“What they say and how they will act are not the same. They will act on the prices of my goods, not upon my appreciation of art. Besides, art is no more than a craft, one that takes talent, there is little point in denying that, but a craft nonetheless…”
As I worked to get the squint in his eyes better, and catch the little crease that ran above the main one than extended from his left eye upward for just a fraction of a span, I found myself thinking about the factorius’s point that art was but a craft. Could everything be reduced to little more than a craft, a set of skills that those with talent and determination could master? My brush almost wavered, and I pushed away the thoughts. For the moment, the portrait came first.
I had but worked less than half a glass when the studio door opened and Master Caliostrus entered, carefully carrying a canvas. A chill breeze swept into the studio, and with the wind came Stanus, lugging the master’s traveling case with its paints, oils, solvents, and brushes. Caliostrus let Stanus pass, then set the canvas on the nearest empty easel before closing the door. He turned and inclined his head to the rope factor. “Greetings, factorius. I had heard that you now have a new device for twisting and braiding cable for deep-sea vessels.”
“I’ve had it for two years. The demand is so great I have just completed installing a second.”
“That must have been what I heard. People are talking.”
Masgayl snorted. “They always talk. Only imagers never talk. They don’t need to. And artists and portraiturists shouldn’t say much, but let their work speak for them.”
“We do try, honored factorius. When you are finished with today’s sitting, would you like to see the work I am doing for the daughter of Imager Heisbyl?”
“I am certain it shows an excellently attractive woman. Whether or not it resembles the lady might well be another question.”
I almost missed a brush stroke at those words.
“All my work resembles those whom I portray, most honored Masgayl.”
“Oh…I’m quite assured that it does, perhaps on their best days in the best possible light.” The factorius offered an ironic laugh. “Your journeyman does you credit, Caliostrus.”
After what Masgayl had just said, I wasn’t certain that I wanted that credit, but I said nothing and switched my concentration to the drape and the play of the light on the right lower sleeve of the factor’s bastognan-brown jacket. There was something there. I could see it…
Then, it was there on the canvas, just as I had visualized it, but I wasn’t aware that I’d actually painted it. Still, the brushstrokes were there, if a touch more precise than usual, more the way I wished they were than they sometimes were.
“He has talent and promise, honored factorius, and, if he continues to listen,” Caliostrus added with a touch of asperity, “he might even have more commissions such as yours.”
That was a not-so-veiled reference to Masgayl’s beady eyes, and I attempted to work on the smaller left section of the sleeve, trying to get the fall of the light and the creases just right.
“He might indeed,” agreed the factorius politely. “Is that the portrait you mentioned, the one you put on the easel?”
“It is indeed. It is as of the moment most incomplete,” Caliostrus said before lifting the canvas and carrying to where Masgayl could see it.
“Ah, yes,” nodded the rope factor, “a most flattering image, but one certainly recognizable as the younger Mistress Heisbyl.”
“I’m glad that you find it so.” Caliostrus’s words were strained.
“Don’t mind me, master portraiturist. I’m cynical about far too much in life. I’d rather make cables for ships, but I also provide rope for the gaolers in at the Poignard Prison. We all have aspects of what we do that we could do without.”
Master Caliostrus retreated with the portrait. Once he had placed it on his working easel, he motioned for Stanus to leave and then followed, inclining his head to the factor just before he opened the studio door. “Until later, honored factorius.”
“Until later.”
Once the door closed, I went back to working on the area around the factor’s eyes. Caliostrus had been right about one thing—the eyes were central to showing a true likeness.
When Masgayl finally rose at the end of the glass, he stretched, then began to don his cloak, which even he might need against a wind that was more indicative of the winter gusts of Ianus than reminiscent of the pleasant harvest breezes of Erntyn.
“Young Rhenn, you are most unusual for a portraiturist, even for a journeyman.” Masgayl smiled courteously, but for the first time, I could sense a ferocity behind the smile. “The advantage of commerce is that one can be accurate and prosper. Doing so is far more…difficult…when one’s craft depends on pleasing the perceptions of those who pay. Before long, you will doubtless have to choose between accuracy and perception…if you have not already done so.”
“Sir.” I just inclined my head politely. There was little I could or should have said, not given my position.
He smiled again, as if he had made a jest, then turned and left the studio. For a moment, I just stood with the chill wind of the coming winter gusting past me.
Copyright © 2010 by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
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