An Artist's Eye (Dica Series Book 5)

by Clive S. Johnson

  At first his words only seemed to dissolve in the air, but then Prescinda sighed. “I’m sorry, Nephril. I shouldn’t have bitten everyone’s head off but I did mean what I said. I have made up my mind, so you can all stop making things worse by worrying over me.”

  She sat back down beside Geran and tried to smile up at Nephril. “I know you mean well. You all do. And yes,” she finally answered, attempting to lift her voice, “a ride there would be appreciated.”

  ***

  Prescinda and Falmeard watched the wealcan weave its way back towards Blisteraising Farm, Nephril clearly still far from being its master. When it soon slipped from sight, they stared up at the dome of the college, at the effigy of Leiyatel.

  “I wonder if the steward’s here,” Prescinda said.

  “Well, if he is, I’ve strict instructions to keep you well out of his way, at least until Nephril gets back with Geran. Then we’ll see.”

  Prescinda’s face dropped. “We will indeed, I’ve no doubt,” and she trod her way up the steps and in through the entrance.

  “How about a nice cup of tea, eh, Prescinda?” Falmeard suggested as they came into the stairwell’s great hall.

  “Tea? Err, yes. That would be nice, Falmeard. Thanks.” She lingered before the murals, their colours a little muted in the light that now seeped in through the great window from an overcast sky.

  Falmeard paused on the first flight, realising she’d hung back. “You going to be all right, Big Sis?”

  She smiled, her first easy one of the day. “I’ll be fine, Falmeard. You go on ahead. I just want to check on something I’ve been thinking about. I won’t be more than a few minutes.”

  How long she’d been standing there she couldn’t have said, but when a voice came from close by it startled her.

  “Mistress Prescinda if I’m not mistaken?”

  She turned.

  “It is you. I thought I recognised those full and flowing locks,” but his eyes roamed somewhat lower. “How are you keeping, my dear?”

  “Oh, err ... Steward Melkin?”

  “I’m sorry. Did I startle you? I should’ve realised you’d be miles away. I have heard, you know.”

  “Heard?”

  “About your interest,” and he nodded towards the walls. “I’m told you’ve become something of an expert where the old murals are concerned.” He lifted his brows, waiting.

  “Ah,” she at last said. “Yes, they’ve fascinated me since I first saw them, enough to spend a good year returning here on and off.”

  “And have you discovered anything of interest yet? You must’ve learnt a few things by now, surely?” and he gazed up at the rich depiction filling the walls.

  Prescinda swallowed hard. “Well, Steward Melkin...”

  “Just Melkin, if you would.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I never like standing on ceremony, my dear. Just call me Melkin, eh? Much more ... friendly don’t you think?”

  She nodded, not realising the effect her bemused, slightly open mouth had had.

  “Well,” the steward said, breezily, after having dragged his gaze away, “perhaps we can get together sometime, eh? Just the two of us.”

  “Together?”

  “And you can lay it all bare before me. How’s that sound?”

  “What?”

  “The things you’ve discovered. Hmm? Within the mural?”

  “Ah, yes, of course. Yes. I’d ... I’d like that.”

  For a moment, an unpleasant grin seeped across the steward’s face, his eyes narrowing at a thought Prescinda preferred not to know. But then he nodded, curtly, turned and hailed Falmeard, who she now saw slowly making his way down the steps towards them.

  “And Master Falmeard too. Well, the place is starting to look more lived-in. And how are you, my good man? Well I hope?”

  Prescinda watched their brief exchange. She was still staring after the steward when Falmeard came beside her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, once Melkin was out of earshot, “I shouldn’t have left you on your own. It’s a good job I began worrying where you’d got to.”

  “It’s all right, Falmeard,” she quietly told him. “I reckon it’s been to the good. At least I now know how to get close enough to him when the time comes.”

  Her eyes drifted back to the sumptuous walls. “And I’ve now seen the garden path up which I’ll eventually have to lead him.”

  62 To See a Turtledove

  The small phial now sat on the table between them. Nephril carefully wiped his hands on the cloth he’d removed it from, folding it neatly before him when done.

  “You’re going to have to be very careful with that stuff,” Geran told Prescinda as she sat back in her chair, distancing herself. “The old man never let anyone else near it, not even Grog.” She looked across at Falmeard.

  “It’s safe enough like that,” he assured her, “as long as you don’t get it in your mouth. Well, and as long as you wash it off your hands pretty quickly if you get it on them.”

  Prescinda felt queasy at the thought.

  “One drop be sufficient,” Nephril said. “And tea hides its taste well enough, provided thou make it strong.” He stared at her more closely. “The cork is long so thou art less likely to stain thy hands with it, and it withdraws quite easily to avoid any spills.”

  They all watched her, waiting a reply.

  She looked at each in turn, her eyes steady, her mouth firm, but finally only stared back at the phial.

  “I will leave it in mine kitchen, through there,” Nephril said, nodding towards its door. “In a small open pot on the middle shelf, beside the tea caddy.”

  She nodded, slowly.

  “Only use the blue mug, mind. Only that one. Keep the white for thyself, so there be no chance of a mix-up.”

  Again, she slowly nodded.

  Nephril rose, gingerly picked up the phial and removed it to its hiding place. “Come and look,” he called back from the kitchen.

  As though in a dream, Prescinda stood and joined him, where she surveyed the lethal instruments.

  “We will be in mine bedchamber next door,” he told her, only slowly drawing her eyes to his. “We will be near enough, never fear, mine dear,” and he smiled, although it left his eyes quite cold. Even the hand he briefly placed upon her cheek felt chilled.

  Perhaps it were for the better, she thought, that they get it over with so quickly. If only she could have managed one good night’s sleep, but it seemed it wasn’t to be. Nephril had heard that the steward would be away to Yuhlm in the morning, and worried he’d not return for a while. She understood the haste but it didn’t help.

  So soon, she kept thinking, so very soon.

  She felt Nephril squeeze her arm, heard him say something reassuring, but then found herself alone, staring at the blue mug. Geran rescued her as she came in and wrapped her arms about Prescinda.

  “Come on, Sis,” she soothed, brushing Prescinda’s hair back from her face. “Remember what we discussed last night, eh, Petal,” but even Geran’s smile never quite reached her eyes.

  The onset of activity seemed to make Prescinda’s world more real; Nephril’s departure to the steward’s office, Geran helping her on with her jacket, Falmeard generally fussing ineffectually. Before Prescinda knew it, she was again standing alone in the entrance hall before its great mural, although she saw nothing of what her eyes now gazed upon.

  This time, though, she heard his footsteps, smelt the breath of rum and tobacco that marked his eventual approach.

  “Good afternoon, Melkin,” she heard herself say. “I’m glad you could find the time.”

  “Lord Nephril mentioned you’d something interesting to show me,” he said, and stood beside her, following her gaze.

  She smiled and turned to face him, her head tilted so she looked up through her long, dark lashes. “I’ve a whole world to show you.”

  “Indeed? So the old Royal College mural does hold some secrets, eh?” and he gave a shor
t laugh. “I’ve often thought I’d try and fathom it out but never seemed to find the time.”

  “Not a royal college, Melkin. No. This place is far older than that, built long before the High Dicans decided they ought to have a royal line.”

  Melkin regarded her closely.

  “This was Dica’s very first building. Did you know that? This hall itself holds all you’d ever want to know about the realm, and in particular all about Leiyatel and her ancient purpose.”

  She could feel the steward’s attention narrow on her words, could almost taste the thirst she knew lay within him. He waited, though, watching her lips.

  Prescinda cast out her arm then swept it around the hall. “Do you see all these strange figures, all the odd shapes embedded in the great spread of roots around us?”

  “Yes,” he finally said, “I’ve often wondered if they meant anything.”

  “They do, Melkin, they certainly do. I’m surprised you haven’t already recognised them for what they are.” She stepped forward and ran her hand over the mural, almost caressing the bright colours within their earthy setting.

  “Sinuous serpents here,” she said, “and intersecting spheres over there. And what’s this?” she asked, pointing. “What’re all these lines and squares and blossoming circles, eh?”

  Melkin creased his brow and leant nearer the wall, traced out some of the shapes as Prescinda had done, but said nothing.

  “Do you not see some of your own mechanicking in there, Melkin? Even I know of the snaca, the serpent symbol of light. See? There, and over there.” She turned to him and saw surprise and wonder quickly fill his face.

  “The soil in which Leiyatel grows is the loam of mechanicking. That’s what this mural says. The ways of the engers. Don’t you see? It’s what gave form and substance to Leiyatel.”

  When he just stared at her, Prescinda grabbed his arm. “Come on, let me show you more,” and pulled him towards the stairs. “There,” she said as they climbed, “there, where the ground gives way to grass and fields, to hills and forests, there within the frieze above us. That’s the realm as seen from the castle, the original view of where no-one was ever meant to go, and intimations of those places always beyond seeing. Where no-one could ever go.”

  By now they’d reached the second floor landing, the frieze, along which Melkin now stared, only just above their heads. “What do you mean, where no-one could ever go?”

  “See over there,” she pointed towards the south wall. “Do you recognise anything? Even from word of mouth?”

  His eyes widened. “The canal,” and he hardly breathed. “Just as Breadgrinder described it. But how?”

  “And there?” she said, pointing to the east. “Do you not see Eastern Walk? And there, further around, the ring of towers?”

  “The dead city,” he marvelled.

  “What isn’t there, though, Melkin? What’s not within this original view? What’s not depicted around this ancient frieze? I’ll tell you. No Dican activity, that’s what. None at all. No Vale of Plenty estates, no ships a-sailing upon the salty sea, nothing at all without the castle walls,” and she stared into Melkin’s now even wider eyes.

  “Dica’s fortifications were to keep its inhabitants within, Melkin, not to fend off attack from without. Everything of importance could then be kept safe beneath Leiyatel’s protective canopy,” and she raised her arm, pointing higher up the walls. “Come on,” she again urged, racing ahead up the next flight of steps.

  Finally, they came to the uppermost landing, the great dome arching away immediately above their heads, Leiyatel’s crown of branches and leaves feathered at last into sky-blue pigment.

  Here the light was better, flooding in from a high gallery around the apex of the dome. It lit a golden circle at the very centre, the grey light of morn here burnished to an image of its solar source.

  “We’re now above Leiyatel, Melkin. Do you see? Above her guarding canopy. We’re beneath a clear, blue sky in which blazes the single source of all Dica’s power - the sun and only the sun.”

  Melkin lifted his glinting gaze, sweeping it up the great dome’s pastel tint of sky to where the upper gallery encircled that very sun’s image. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to its centre.

  Prescinda smiled. “That, my esteemed steward, is the very meaning of Dica, what gives it its whole purpose and reason.”

  “What is it, though? It’s too small for me to see from here.”

  “In which case follow me and I’ll take you closer,” whereupon she opened a small, inconspicuous door. It swung a portion of Leiyatel’s canopy out to reveal a steep flight of narrow, stone steps. Out of the corner of his eye, as Melkin dipped his head to follow her in, the great West Window gave a last glimpse of the real realm of Dica without.

  The steps quickly lifted them into the dark and dusty, arch- and beam-laden void between the two skins of the dome. The outer rose steeply, opening a gap between itself and the gentler rise of the inner, up whose curved upper surface another flight of steps carried them yet higher.

  Prescinda’s sprightlier form quickly got ahead of Melkin’s more rotund frame, soon bringing her alone onto a circular balcony. Daylight flooded in and bathed both herself and the golden sun, now only a few yards above her head and around which she slowly walked as she stared up in thought.

  When she came back to where she’d started, Melkin had by now huffed and puffed his way up and stood unsteadily beside her. He removed a handkerchief and mopped his brow, pressing it to his lips as his gaze slowly drifted up.

  He peered hard at the sun’s depiction, at what could now clearly be seen peering back from its centre.

  “I don’t understand, Mistress. What does it mean?”

  “It means everything,” and the words, “Der Ege af Dragana,” fell from her mouth, but thoughts, like landed herrings, also slipped into place in her mind.

  “The eye of...” Melkin wrestled from his rusty memory, “Eye of the...”

  “Of the Artist, Melkin. The eye of the artist.”

  “But...”

  “The eye that sees beauty in form and function, that sees it in structure and shape, and pattern and poise. The artist’s eye that shaped Dica so long, long ago; that laid out its streets, that raised its monuments and buildings, that bounded it so very well within its walls.”

  From the centre of the shining sun, that very artist’s eye stared down and held Melkin’s own. It drew him to lean against the balcony’s balustrade.

  “You see,” Prescinda continued, “it’s the artist’s eye that beholds beauty, that knows joy and love, and can lift a heart at the sight of a woodland’s rich autumn spread. It’s the artist who brings order from chaos, Melkin, who can embody the infinite in a snowflake’s moment of thaw, there upon the cheek of a child.”

  Melkin darted a look at her, a dark shadow deep behind his stare. “But it’s the mechanicking that makes it all possible,” he countered.

  “That makes anything possible, Melkin, irrespective of worth, for better or worse, for perpetuity or for extinction. It cares little either way, your mechanicking, which I’m sure one of you knows all too well.”

  The dark shadow in his eyes flinched.

  She pointed at the marble floor in the great hall, so far below. “That’s what the artist’s eye stares down upon and so resolutely denies.”

  Melkin’s gaze followed, looked down through Leiyatel’s canopy, past the frieze’s verdant views to sink into the root-entangled earth below. There, glaring up from the floor of the hall, a vermillion serpent’s head hugely stared back. Its mouth gaped crimson-wide beneath its burning eyes, their amber slits striking menace from within their gaze.

  The steward leaned further out, over the balustrade rail, enthralled by the roiling mass of seething, molten rock that flared and spat from deep within the serpent’s throat. Smoke and flames and glittering sparks all billowed from its belly, seeming real enough to choke the air by its belch of fire and brimstone.

&
nbsp; “It’s impossible,” Melkin breathed. “It can’t be. We were only standing there a short while ago.” Now he looked startled, leaned out further and peered down harder at what he alone seemed to see.

  “Ganan nioere ta der aedre,” he whispered to himself as he trembled. “Down to the stream. Down to the earth’s own molten core.”

  “Where chaos reigns,” Prescinda hissed as she bent and grabbed his legs and swept them high, towards the golden sun above, tipping him neatly over the rail.

  Finally, she cried after his falling form, “What life denies, my good steward, in beholding beauty in this world,” at which she stepped back and turned to where he’d only just been standing.

  “And by it,” she now levelled at the dark shadow of a figure standing there, “life instead maintains order in all the worlds, the very order you so despise.”

  Although it had no eyes, nor nose, nor mouth, Prescinda saw surprise upon its black silhouette of a face, a surprise it slowly turned towards her. Hanging limply at its sides, the sooty fingers and thumbs of its hands this time held nothing between their futile grasps.

  A hum seemed to fill the air, seemed to freeze her breath, and a voice whispered across her mind - a woman’s voice. The words, though, meant nothing - garbled in Prescinda’s ears.

  The dark shadow of a figure plainly understood for it shivered. A short-lived dread it seemed for the figure soon grew grey. Its dissolving form revealed the flight of a turtledove behind, long captured in pigment upon the dome’s overarching sky.

  Of paint upon plaster upon high-wrought stone, indeed, all products of the mechanicking arts. Imbued, however, with meaning and beauty lent of the artist’s eye, for the long contentment of all souls held within its knowing gaze.

  63 A Smile and a Glimpse

  By the time Prescinda had reached the floor of the hall, a small group of people stood in a circle, staring down at something. There was Nephril, and Falmeard too, along with a couple of faces she didn’t recognise. Only when she pushed through did she find Geran, kneeling beside Melkin’s body.