"But Papa-"
"I said No-can't you understand?" Lalo shouted, hating himself as Alfi gasped and was still. He extricated himself from behind the table and started for the door, then stopped short, trembling. He couldn't leave-he had promised Gilla-he couldn't leave the child in the house alone! Damn Gilla, anyway! Lalo brought his hands to his eyes, trying to rub the ache behind them away.
There was a small sniff behind him. He heard the faint clicking as Alfi began, very carefully, to put the chalks into their wooden box again.
"I'm sorry, tadpole-" Lalo said at last. "It's not your fault. I still love you Papa's just very tired."
No-it wasn't Alfi's fault.... Lalo moved stiffly to the window and opened the weathered shutters, gazing out over the scrambled rooftops of the town. You would think that a man who had feasted with the gods would be different, maybe have a kind of shining about him for all to see- especially a man who could not only paint a person's soul, but could breathe life into his imaginings. But nothing had changed for him. Nothing at all.
Lalo looked down at his hands, broad-palmed, rather stubby in the fingers, with paint ingrained in the calluses and under the nails. Those had been the hands of a god, for a little while, but here he was, with Sanctuary going to hell around him at more than its usual speed, and there was nothing he could do.
He flinched as something buzzed past his ear, and saw the colored flies he had created spiral downward toward the richer feeding-grounds of the refuse heap in the alleyway. For a moment he wondered wryly if they would breed true, and if anyone in Sanctuary would notice the winged jewels hatching from their garbage; then a shift in the wind brought him the smell.
He choked, banged closed the shutters, and stood leaning against them, covering his face with his hands. In the country of the gods, every breeze bore a different perfume. The robes of the immortals were dyed with liquid jewels; they shone in a lambent light. And he, Lalo the Limner, had feasted there, and his brush had brought life to a thousand transcendent fantasies.
He stood, shaken by longing for the velvet meadows and aquamarine skies. Tears welled from beneath shut eyelids, and his ears, entranced with the memory of birds whose song surpassed all earthly melodies, did not hear the long silence behind him, the stifled, triumphant giggle of the child, or the heavy tread on the stairs outside.
"Alfi! You get down from there right now!"
Dreams shattering around him, Lalo jerked back to face the room, blinking as dizzied vision tried to sort the image of an angry goddess from the massive figure that glared at him from the doorway. But even as Lalo's sight cleared, Gilla was charging across the room to snatch the child from the shelf over the stove.
Wedemir, a dark head barely visible above piled parcels and bulging baskets, stumbled after her into the room, looking for somewhere to set his burdens down.
"Want to make it pretty!" Alfi's voice came muffled from Gilla's ample bosom. He squirmed in her arms and pointed. "See?"
Three pairs of eyes followed his pointing finger toward the ceiling above the stove, where the soot was now smudged with swirls of blue and green.
"Yes, dear," said Gilla evenly, "but it's all dark up there, and the colors won't show up very well. And you know that you are not to meddle with your father's colors-you certainly know better than to climb on the stove! Well?" Her voice rose. "Answer me!"
A small, smudged face turned to her, lower lip trembling, dark eyes falling before her narrowed gaze. "Yes, Mama...."
"Well, then-perhaps this will help you to remember from now on!" Gilla set the child down and smacked his bottom hard. Alfi whimpered once and then stood silently, rubbing his abused rear while the slow tears welled from his eyes.
"Now, you go lie down on your bed and stay there until Vanda brings your sister Latilla home." She gripped his small shoulder, propelled him into the children's room, and shut the door behind him with a bang that shook the floor.
Wedemir slowly set his last basket on the kitchen table, watching his mother with an apprehension that belied the broad shoulders and sturdily muscled arms he had gotten working the caravans.
Lalo's own gaze went back to his wife, and his stomach knotted as he recognized Sabellia the Sharp-Tongued in full incarnation standing there.
"Perhaps that will keep him earthbound another time," said Gilla, settling her fists on her broad hips and glaring at Lalo. "I wish I could fan your arse as well! What were you thinking of?" Her voice rose as she warmed to her subject. "When you said you'd look after the baby, I thought I could trust you to watch him! You know what they are at that age! There are live coals in that stove would you have noticed when Alfi started screaming? Lalo the Limner- Lalo the Lack-Wit they should call you! Pah!"
Wedemir eased silently backward toward the chair in the comer, but Lalo could not return his commiserating smile. His tight lips quivered with words that twenty-seven years with this woman had taught him not to say; and it was true that... his vivid imagination limned a vision of his small son writhing in flames. But he had only looked out the window for a moment! In another minute he would have seen and pulled the child down!
"The gods know I've been patient," raged Gilla, "scrimping and striving to keep this family together while the Ran-kans or the Bey sin, or hell knows who, came marching through the town. The least you could do-"
"In the name of Ils, woman-let be!" Lalo found his voice at last. "We've a roof above us, and whose earnings paid-"
"Does that give you the right to burn it down again?" she interrupted him. "Not to mention that if we don't pay the taxes we will not have it long, though Shalpa knows to whom we'll be paying them this year. What have you painted lately. Limner?"
"By the gods!" Lalo's fingers twitched impotently. "I have painted-" a_scarlet Sikkintair that soared through azure skies, a bird with eyes of fire and crystal wings-his throat closed on the words. He had not told her-he would show her the rainbow-hued flies he had drawn for Alfi, and then she would know. He had the powers of a god-what right had she to speak to him this way? Lalo looked wildly about him, then remembered that he had opened the shutters and the insects had flown away.
"I saved your life, and this is all the thanks you have for me?" Gilla shouted. "You'd burn the last babe I will ever bear?"
"Saved my life?" Abruptly the end of his vision replayed in memory-he had been painting a goddess who had wrenched him away from heaven, a goddess who had Gilla's face! "Then it was you who brought me back to this dung-heap, and you want me to thank you?" Now he was shrieking as loudly as she. "Wretched woman, do you know what you have done? Look at you, standing there like a tub of lard! Why should I want to return, when Eshi herself was my handmaiden?"
For one astounding moment struck speechless, Gilla stared at him. Then she snatched and threw a wooden spoon from the pot on the stove. "No, don't thank me, for I'm sorry I did it now!" A colander followed the spoon. She reached for the copper kettle and Lalo ducked as Wedemir got to his feet, protesting.
"You've a goddess to sleep with? Worm! Then go to her-we'll do fine without you here!" Gilla exclaimed.
The copper pot hurtled toward Lalo like a sunwheel, struck, and clattered to the floor. He straightened, holding his arm.
"I will go-" He fought his voice steady. "I should have left long ago. I could have been the greatest artist in the Empire if you hadn't tied me here-I still could-by the Thousand Eyes of Ils you do not know what I can do!" he went on. Gilla was gasping, her work-roughened hands clenching and unclenching as she looked for something else to throw. "When you hear of me again you'll know who I really am, and you'll regret what you said this day!"
Lalo drew himself up stiffly. Gilla watched him with a face like stone and something he could not trouble to interpret in her eyes. A whisper of memory told him that if he let go of his anger he would see the truth of her as he had before. He swatted the thought away. The anger burned in his belly, a furnace of power. He had not felt like this since he outwitted the assassin Zanderei.
<
br /> Silent, he stalked to the door, belted on his pouch, and flung across his shoulder the short cape that hung there.
"Papa-what do you think you're doing?" Wedemir found his voice at last. "It's almost sunset. The curfew will close the streets soon. You can't go out there!"
"Can't I? You'll see what I can do!" Lalo opened the door.
"Turd, slime-dauber, betrayer!" shouted Gilla. "If you leave now, don't think you'll find a welcome home here!"
Lalo did not answer, but as he hurried down the creaking staircase the last thing he heard was the bone-shaking thud as the cast-iron pot hit the closing door.
A rat-patter of feet behind him sent fear sparking along every nerve to clash painfully with the dull anger that had fueled Lalo's swift stride. Fool! the lessons of a lifetime dinned in his memory- Your back is your betrayer. Watch it! Alert is alive!
In the old days, everyone knew Lalo was not worth robbing, but in the current confusion, running footsteps could mean anyone. Frantically Lalo tried to remember if this block belonged to the PFLS or Nisibisi death squads; to the returning Stepsons or the 3rd Commando; or to Jubal's renascent hordes; or maybe it was to someone else he hadn't heard of yet.
His little dagger glinted in his hand-not much use against anyone with training, but enough perhaps to discourage a man looking for easy pickings before the daylight was gone.
"Papa-it's me!" The shadow behind him came to a halt a safe man's length away. Lalo blinked and recognized Wedemir, flushed a little from his run, but breathing easily.
The lad's in good shape, Lalo thought with a fugitive pride, then unclenched tense muscles from his defensive crouch and jammed the knife back into its sheath.
"If your mother sent you, you might as well go home again."
Wedemir shook his head. "I can't. She cursed me too, when I said I was coming after you. Where were you going, anyway?"
Lalo stared at him, taken aback by his unconcern. Didn't the boy understand? He and Gilla had quarreled finally. His future loomed before him like a splendid, lightning-laden cloud.
"Go back, Wedemir-" he repeated. "I'm on my way to the Vulgar Unicorn."
Wedemir laughed, white teeth bright against his bronzed skin. "Papa, I've spent two years with the caravans, remember? Do you think I haven't seen the inside of a tavern before?"
"Not one like the Unicorn...." Lalo said darkly.
"Then it's time you completed my education-" the boy said cheerfully. "If you're tougher than I am, then knock me down. If not, surely two will walk safer than one through this part of town!"
A new kind of anger tickled Lalo's belly as he stared at his son, noting the balanced stance, the measuring eyes. He's grown up, he thought bitterly, remembering the last time he had thrashed the boy-it didn't seem so long ago. Wedemir is a man. But gods! Did I ever have such innocent eyes? Aman, and a strong one... .Even when Lalo had been that age he had not been much of a fighter, and now-the taste of the knowledge that his son could beat him was like bile.
"Very well," Lalo said at last, "but don't blame me if it's more than you bargained for." He turned to move on, then stopped again. "And for Shalpa's sake, take that grin off your face before we go inside!"
Lalo tipped back his tankard, let the last sour wine flow smoothly down his throat, then banged it on the table to call for more. It had been a long time since he had come to get drunk here at the Vulgar Unicorn-a long time since he had gotten drunk anywhere, he realized. Maybe the wine would taste better if he had some more.
Wedemir raised one eyebrow briefly and took another rationed sip of ale, then set his own tankard back down. "Well, I haven't seen anything to shock me so far...."
Lalo swallowed a surge of resentment at the boy's self-discipline. He's probably despising me... .As the oldest, Wedemir must have known what was happening in the days when Lalo was trying to drink his troubles away and Gilla took in washing to keep the family alive. And during the recent years of prosperity the boy had been away with the caravans. Small wonder if he thought his father was a sot!
He doesn't understand- Lalo held out his tankard to the skinny serving girl. He doesn't know what I've been through....
He let the cool, tart liquor ease the ache in his throat and sat back with a sigh. Wedemir was right about the Unicorn, anyway. Lalo had never known such a quiet evening here. The age-polished wooden slats of the booth creaked to his weight as he relaxed against them, looking around the big room, trying to understand the altered atmosphere.
The familiar reek of sweat and sour ale brought back memories; oil lamps set shadows scurrying among the sooty beams overhead and beneath the sturdy tables. Empty tables, mostly, even now, when night had fallen and the place should have been as thick with patrons as a Bazaar cur is with fleas. Not that it was entirely deserted. He recognized the pale, scarred boy they called Zip in one of the booths on the other side of the room, sitting with three others, a little younger and darker than he was, without his protective veil of cynicism to shield their eyes.
As Lalo watched. Zip pounded the table with his fist, then began to draw some kind of diagram in spilled beer. The artist let his gaze unfocus, saw through the masks of flesh a mix of fear and fanaticism that made him recoil. No, he thought, perhaps I had better not use that particular talent here. There were some souls whose truth he did not want to see.
He forced himself to keep scanning the room. In one comer a man and woman were drinking together, the scars of old fights marking their faces, and of old passions clouding their eyes. They looked like some of Jubal's folk, and he wondered if they were serving their old master again. Beyond them he saw three men whose tattered gear could not disguise some remnants of soldierly bearing mutineers from the northern wars or mercenaries too dissolute even for the 3rd Commando? Lalo did not want to know.
He took a deep breath and coughed convulsively. That was it; his new senses were at work despitr his will, and his nostrils flared with the smell of death and the stink of sorcery. He remembered a rumor he had heard-the tavern-master One Thumb was somehow mixed up with the Ni-sibisi witch, Roxane. Perhaps he should gather up Wedemir and get out of here....
But as he started to stand up, his head spun dizzily and he knew that he was in no condition to survive the streets of Sanctuary at this hour. Wedemir would laugh at him, and besides, he had nowhere else to go! Lalo sat back, sighed, and began to drink again.
It was two, or perhaps three tankards later that Lalo's blurring gaze fixed on a familiar dark head and the angular shape of a harpcase humping up the bright cloak its owner wore. He blinked, adjusted his focus, and grinned.
"Cappen Varra!" He gestured broadly toward the bench across from him. "I thought you'd left town!"
"So did I-" the harper answered wryly. "The weather's been too chancy for sailing, so I hooked up with a caravan to Ranke. I was hoping to find someone going from there to Carronne." He shrugged the harpcase from his shoulder and set it carefully on the bench, then squeezed into the booth beside Wedemir.
"To Ranke!" the boy exclaimed. "You're lucky to be alive!"
"My son Wedemir-" Lalo gestured. "He's been working Ran Alleyn's string."
Cappen looked at him with new respect, then went on, "I suppose I am lucky-I got there just after they did the old Emperor in. There's a new man-Theron, they call him-in charge there now, and they say your life's not worth a whore's promise if you're in the Imperial line. So I thought, 'There's Prince Kittycat sitting safe in Sanctuary-things might just be picking up down there!'"
Lalo started to laugh,-choked on his wine, and coughed until Wedemir thumped him on the back and he could breathe again.
"You don't have to tell me-" said Cappen Varra ruefully. "But surely there's something to be made from the situation here. Those Beysin women now-do you suppose there's some way I..."
"Don't even think about it, Cappen." Lalo shook his head. "At least not the way you usually do! They might like your music, but it's worth your life to even look as if you were offering an
ything more!"
The harper gave him a speculative look. "I've heard that, but really..."
"Really-" Wedemir said seriously. "My sister works for one of their royal ladies, and she says it's all true."
"Oh well!" Cappen saluted them with his tankard. "There's nothing wrong with their gold!" He drank, then glanced at Lalo with a smile. "When I left, you were the toast of the court. I hardly expected to see you here...."
Lalo grimaced, wondering if his vision were going or it was just that the lamps were burning down. "It's the Beysa's court now, and there's no work for me." He saw Cappen's face stiffening into a polite, sympathetic smile, and shook his head. "But it doesn't matter-I can do other things now... things even Enas Yorl would like to know." He reached for his tankard.
Cappen Varra looked at Wedemir. "What's he talking about?"
The boy shook his head. "I don't know. Mother said he'd stopped drinking, but they had a fight and he started talking strange and stormed out. I thought I'd better follow and make sure-" He shrugged in embarrassment.
Lalo raised his eyes from the hypnotically swirling reflections in his tankard and fixed his son with a bitter gaze. "And make sure the old man didn't drown himself? I thought so. But you're wrong, both of you, if you think this is drunken wandering. Even your mother doesn't know-" Lalo stopped. He had come here determined to prove his power, but the wine was sapping his will. Did it really matter? Did anything really matter now?
His wavering gaze fixed on a figure that seemed to have precipitated from the shadows near the door, lean, sullen-browed, with a dark cloak hiding whatever else he wore. Lalo recognized the face he had seen on Shalpa at the table of the gods and thought. That Hanse, he's another one the gods have played with, and look at the sour face he's wearing now. For all the good it's done either of us, to hell with the gods!
"Look here. Papa," said Wedemir, "I'm getting tired of all these dark hints and frowns. Either explain what you're talking about or shut up."
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