Imager

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  When the musicians stopped, so did we, but she didn’t move away, and neither did I.

  She looked up at me. “Everyone says you think you’re too good to have a girl who might have actually lived within a few streets of the taudis or the Pharsis.”

  I had to laugh. “The first girl that I fell in love with was a Pharsi.”

  “How old were you? Five?” Seliora quipped back.

  “More like thirteen.”

  “And I suppose you threw her over for some factor’s twit?”

  “No. She threw me over for some factor’s twit, rather quickly. She married my younger brother almost two years ago. She said that when she saw him, it had to be.”

  Seliora looked hard at me. “Is that a joke?”

  “No. They’re expecting their first child this summer. They live in Kherseilles now.”

  The musicians began again, this time a fast variana, and Seliora took my hand. “Another dance.” Her words weren’t a request, but I was happy to comply, and she said nothing more as we moved to the beat of the music.

  When the musicians stopped, I was breathing a little faster than usual.

  “You shouldn’t let that spoil things,” she said. “You’re good-looking. Rogaris says your work is good enough that before all that long you’ll be a master artist with your own studio.”

  “At least three more years, and he’s being kind.”

  “Rogaris?” Seliora laughed.

  She had a point, but I shook my head. “It’s not just that. I’m just beginning to get commissions, and they’re still not all that frequent. How could I support a wife or a family?”

  “Some women do make more than a few coins in honest work.” She smiled warmly.

  “I’m most certain you do.”

  “And being married doesn’t mean you have to have a family right away.”

  “That’s true.” I grinned at her. “Are you asking me to propose to you?”

  Seliora actually lowered her eyes, if only for a moment. “I am part Pharsi, if that helps. My grandmother was one. She came to L’Excelsis as a servant.”

  “If you take after her, I doubt she stayed one very long.”

  “No, she didn’t. She was the one who started the business.”

  “You … your family …?” I hadn’t realized that.

  “Papa and Aunt Aegina are the master crafters. They make the chairs and the settees. Mama and I choose the fabrics and do the additional embroidery designs.”

  I had wondered about the fact that Seliora was usually better dressed than the other young women, but I’d learned that some women spent every last copper on clothes.

  I inclined my head. “I’m—”

  “Please don’t tell anyone, especially Dolemis. He’s a terrible gossip.”

  The music resumed, another waltz, a slower one, and I turned to her. “I still would have asked for another dance.”

  She smiled. “I know. I do foretell more than I say.”

  We spent most of the evening dancing, and I did walk her and two of her friends home, even if it meant an even longer and colder walk back out the Boulevard D’Este to Master Caliostrus’s establishment. The entire way, I wondered what she had foretold that she hadn’t said.

  12

  755 A.L.

  Flattery is almost always perceived as either accurate or justified.

  On Jeudi afternoon, I was in the work shed powdering red ochre, using the ancient mortar and pestle that looked as though they had been in Master Caliostrus’s family for generations. Despite the sunlight outside, a chill breeze seeped through the bare plank walls. Powdering hard red ochre was sweaty work. The chill made it even less pleasant, especially if I crushed it and twisted the pestle too hard, because then some of the powder seeped into the air and then stuck to my sweat. Later, it got cold and itchy, and scratching just made it worse.

  I consoled myself that the situation was only temporary because Stanus had finally run off, after throwing a bucket of hot ivory-black scraps at Ostrius. The scraps had burned holes in Ostrius’s shirt and given him several welts on his neck, but it would have been worse had not Ostrius been wearing a leather working vest. If the civic patrollers caught poor Stanus, he’d spend at least a year in the mines, but, in the interim, assuming that Master Caliostrus could find and accept another apprentice, everyone expected me to do all the apprentice chores as well as my own, not to mention painting whatever commissions might come my way, not that I had any at the moment.

  Still … the Scheorzyl portrait had turned out well, and I’d even gotten a half-gold bonus. I had to wonder how much extra the Scheorzyls had paid Caliostrus. But my name was getting around—at least to families with daughters who liked cats.

  Everyone in the household was edgy that morning. As I’d left the table after breakfast, Madame Caliostrus had murmured something to her husband that had sounded like “your worthless brother skulking around here again.” I’d known Caliostrus had a brother, and I’d even seen him a few times over the years—and smelled him, reeking of plonk so cheap that not even the poorest apprentice would have drunk it. That morning, Caliostrus had snapped back, but I hadn’t heard what he’d said. I’d just wanted to get away before Ostrius made another comment about my lack of foresight, especially since it was really his shortsightedness, not that he’d ever admit it.

  I checked the powder. Still too coarse, but getting closer to what was necessary to mix with the oil and wax that were melting over the small iron mixing stove in the corner. I went back to grinding, wishing that Stanus were still around, or that Caliostrus would get another apprentice so that I didn’t have to do everything.

  The shed door opened, and a gust of wind swirled ochre powder up around me, and I began to sneeze.

  Ostrius stood there, glowering at me. “How long will it be before you can mix up the pigment?”

  After I could stop sneezing, I just looked at him, noticing that he’d replaced the dressing covering the burn on his neck.

  “Answer me. When will we have red ochre pigment?”

  “Not until tomorrow. I won’t have enough powder until later today, and then it will have to be blended and cooled …”

  “You should have gotten to this earlier.” He glared at me. “We’re both waiting for the pigment.”

  “No one told me until this morning.” I didn’t point out that talking to him slowed me down—or that he’d been the one to use all the red ochre pigment for his portrait of High Chorister Thalyt and that he hadn’t bothered to tell anyone that there hadn’t been more than a palette knife’s worth of it remaining.

  “You should have known.”

  What could I say that wouldn’t make him even angrier? Especially since Ostrius had never been the type to listen to reason or consider himself the cause of anything. He’d been the cause of the problem with his attitude and his mistreatment of Stanus, not that he’d ever been pleasant to me, either, but I had the advantage of having parents who had some position, unlike poor Stanus, whose father was dead and whose mother was a seamstress.

  With a last glare at me, he stalked off, leaving the work shed door open. Of course, the wind gusted again and blew some of the finer powder I’d just ground right out of the pestle and up around me. I began to sneeze more, and by the time I got the door closed, I’d probably lost half a cup’s worth of ground ochre powder. At that moment, I would have liked to strap Ostrius to a worktable and then slowly pour fine ochre powder down his throat and nostrils until he choked to death.

  I recovered some of the powder from the bench top beside the mortar, and then went back to work. But I kept having to stop and sneeze. There was no help for it. I needed to brush the fine grit and powder off me and wash my hands and face, or I’d never get much done.

  After carefully and quickly opening and closing the shed door behind me, I walked toward the service pump house in the corner, past the low wall that separated the garden from the more mundane and less attractive working areas of Master Caliostrus�
��s establishment.

  Despite the chill and the wind, Shienna was pruning the bare-branched grape vines—even the leaves were used, mainly for the dolmades her mother made and which one enjoyed the first several times they were served, but which became less than entrancing by the onset of spring. Some of the less perfect leaves were used with copper plates for making verdigris, but that green pigment was used only for quick treatments, because it was so fugitive if exposed for long to bright light.

  Shienna was a sweet girl, unlike her elder brother, but to say that she was plain would have been an exaggeration that not even an imager could have transformed into truth.

  Still, she was sweet, and I did smile. “Mistress Shienna, how lovely your cheeks today, like the paleness of a fresh white peach …”

  “They’re wind-chapped and red, but you’re always so dear, Rhenn. I don’t believe a word, but the kindness is appreciated.”

  “And your hair shimmers with a lustre beyond that of the greater moon in the fullness of harvest.” I have never held myself to be bound by the dictates of foolish consistency, particularly when dealing with young women—except, strangely, for Seliora—since most so often professed what they esteemed in a man, and then bedded his exact opposite, while refusing the man who embodied what they said they professed.

  Inconsistency I did not condemn, nor even foolishness, but the hypocrisy of professing an ideal, whatever it might be, and defending it verbally and vociferously, while secretly betraying it by behavior, I generally found disgusting. Unless such betrayal was accomplished with such wit and grace that it might be termed admirable, and then it was what one might call polished evil.

  “Rhenn!” Ostrius called from one of the studio windows overlooking the rear courtyard. “You are not grinding or powdering when you are jawing!”

  I looked up and smiled politely. “I can’t powder when I’m sneezing because someone opened the door and blew powder all over me.”

  Caliostrus appeared in the window beside his son. “No excuses, now, Rennthyl!”

  “Yes, sir.” I managed not to grimace or grit my teeth, but I would have liked to submerge both of them in powered ochre.

  “Don’t mind Father,” Shienna murmured. “He likes to shout because it proves he can.”

  “He is the master portraiturist,” I replied.

  “Well, just don’t stand there!” Caliostrus shouted down.

  I kept my lips together and resumed my progress toward the service pump house, imagining both Caliostrus and his worthless elder son being consumed by an explosion of paraffin from a container heated too hot on the studio stove because Ostrius was too lazy to check it … flaming wax everywhere, and fire washing over them …

  Whhoosshh!

  I turned to see flames exploding through the open window where Caliostrus had been a moment before.

  For a moment, I just stood there, frozen.

  Crumpp! Some sort of explosion, a small one, shook the upper level. As fragments of glass and some tile fragments pattered on the pavement, my mouth dropped open. The entire second floor of the building—the studio level—had become a mass of flame, and the flames were rising higher.

  “Mother! Marcyl!” screamed Shienna.

  I ran toward the outside steps and sprinted up them, trying to ignore the heat radiating past me as I scrambled upward past the second level up to the family quarters.

  Olavya stumbled out of the upper doorway. “Father!”

  “Where’s your mother?” I demanded.

  “Inside … Marcyl’s sick.”

  I only took two steps into the kitchen area before I almost ran into Almaya, who was half-pulling, half-dragging Marcyl. I just grabbed him from her and staggered back outside and down the steps. I could feel and smell my hair being crisped as I hurried down past the second level. I could also smell another sickeningly sweet smell, and I could barely keep from retching as I carried Marcyl into the far corner of the courtyard, where I set him down.

  Somewhere in the distance I could hear the fire bells ringing. I knew that nothing would stop the conflagration already raging through the building. Then … I did retch.

  13

  755 A.L.

  Images create their own memories.

  The fire brigade arrived, but all that they and we could do was to pump water over the rest of the courtyard to keep the fire from spreading. The fire consumed everything so quickly that, well before sunset, only the blackened stone walls stood, the bare remnants of what had once been Master Caliostrus’s studio, dwelling, gallery, and apprentice and journeyman quarters. Madame Caliostrus had lost her husband and eldest son, all the paintings, and possibly all the coins in the strongbox. Compared to them, I’d lost nearly nothing—my clothing, what brushes and paints were mine, and close to two golds in coin.

  I’d thought about paraffin exploding all over Ostrius and consuming him in fire … but … how could I have imaged that? All I’d ever done in the way of imaging were tiny things like changing the position of a few brushstrokes of oil on a canvas. It didn’t seem possible that I’d done that. How could I have done it? Paraffin and wax could explode into fire if not watched closely—and Ostrius was seldom as careful as he should have been. Yet … there had been the lamp I’d found burning on the dressing chest. But what about that second explosion? What had been up in the studio that could have exploded so quickly?

  In the twilight, colder than usual for early Maris, the water on the courtyard stones was beginning to freeze in corners that had been shaded, and I had to step carefully as I approached Madame Caliostrus. Her face was more lined than I recalled, and her eyes were focused somewhere else.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She shook herself. “You did what you could. I don’t know if I could have gotten Marcyl out without your help.” She paused. “What will you do? There’s nothing … nothing here.”

  “I can live with my parents for a little while. Perhaps I can find another portraiture master. Or …” I didn’t know what else I might do, because I’d have to start over as a journeyman with someone else—if they’d even have me. But I didn’t really want to go into the wool trade. I’d end up working for Rousel, because he was better at it. That just would have been too much. “What about you?” I had to ask.

  “My sister … she can help. They have space.” Tears began to well in the corners of her eyes. “Caliostrus … Ostrius … how could it have happened? Caliostrus was so careful.”

  I didn’t want to point out that Ostrius wasn’t, not because her son had been careful, because he seldom was, but because … had it really been his doing? I had a hard time believing that a wishful, if hateful, mental image of mine had created a fire and then an explosion, but I also had an equally difficult time thinking paraffin could explode so violently and quickly without Master Caliostrus noticing something before it happened.

  “I don’t know. I was down in the shed grinding ochre, and I had been almost all day.”

  In the end, I said good-bye and slipped away, walking through the cold twilight, shivering as I did, because my warm coat had also gone up in smoke. Spots on the back of my neck offered hot and painful twinges.

  My ears and fingers and nose were numb by the time I used the knocker at my parents’ house. Even the burns on my neck were numb.

  Nellica opened the door. “Young sir.” She looked askance at me. “Ah … were you … there is a dinner.”

  “Just tell my parents that I’m here because of unexpected circumstances … very unexpected.” I didn’t ask to come in. I was too cold to ask. I just stepped into the front foyer.

  “Yes, sir.” She eased back toward the dining chamber, where I could hear laughter.

  Almost immediately, Father bustled out, and I could sense his glare even before I could see it. Mother trailed him, her brows knit in worry.

  “Rhennthyl! What are you doing here?” demanded Father. “Did Master Caliostrus throw you out? I told you—”

  “Chenkyr … let him speak. He
’s shivering, and he’s not even wearing a jacket. And his clothes are covered in soot.”

  I hadn’t even really noticed that. “There was a fire. I was in the courtyard grinding and powdering pigments. There was an explosion and the entire second level—that was the studio level—exploded in flames. Master Caliostrus and Ostrius died in the fire or the explosion. The whole building was destroyed, the studio, the quarters, the family spaces. I helped the family escape the flames, and tried to assist the fire brigade.” I shrugged. “I have what you see.”

  Father, for once, was taken aback enough that he was silent for a moment. “I see.”

  “If you would not mind my sleeping somewhere here …”

  “Culthyn has your old room. You knew that,” Mother said quickly, “but the chambers where Rousel and Remaya stayed are available. They’re a bit musty … because we weren’t expecting them until the first week in Avryl. Rousel doesn’t want to leave her alone while she is expecting, and he has to come back to work out the rest of the year’s shipments.”

  “Musty is fine,” I said. Anything was fine at the moment.

  She turned to Father. “You take care of the guests. I’ll be with you shortly.”

  “Ah … yes.” He nodded to me. “I’m glad to see you’re all right. We’ll talk later.”

  Mother waited a moment, until Father had closed the door off the hallway into the dining chamber. “Are you all right?” She looked intently at me.

  “As right as I can be.” Considering that I might have imaged the explosion that killed my master and his son, considering I’d lost everything I had personally—except for the clothes on my back and a wedding suit—and considering that I had no idea whether I could find a place with another master artist … or what I might do, given the fact that, if I had imaged the explosion, what I had done was effectively murder, as well as an offense against the Collegium Imago.