by Glenda Larke
She frowned, wondering if she’d misunderstood the word.
“Don’t you do that in the Quartern?” he asked. “Use waterpainting to heal illnesses, at least those sicknesses that respond to it?”
She was confused. “No,” she said. “Would your mother teach me?”
“Are you daft? No one would allow you near a grain of paint-powder. Mind you, you could ask her. She is like me,” he added obscurely. “Not a Verdigris.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Jet, Hue, Father, my grandfather—they are Verdigris to the bone. My mother is a Lustre. Jade Lustre, before she married. My name may be Verdigris, but I take after the Lustre side. They’re granite to our glass.”
Granite is hard, glass transparent and clear… Glass breaks so easily…
What is he trying to tell me?
He asked, “If you don’t heal illnesses, what do you do with your waterpainting in the Quartern?”
“Stormshift,” she said. “What else when water is scarce?”
“Ah. Here we stormshift, too. We move the storms away when they bring too much rain or wind or snow.”
She shook her head, indicating her wonder at the idea. “Are you a waterpainter too?”
“No. I am an ordinary waterlord. I’m not sure what you’d call it.”
“Stormlord, I suppose. We have stormlords and rainlords, and then reeves. Reeves are the folk with lesser abilities. Why not go to the Quartern?” she asked. “See for yourself. There, you would not be just the youngest son. You’d be rich, if that’s what you want. Powerful, if power is what you seek. Revered, if you want respect.” She took a guess at his dreams. “There you could be a Lustre, not a Verdigris.”
He turned abruptly away from her and went to join his brother. Sighing, she wondered if she’d made a mistake. He might not have murdered Feroze, but he was one of the men who had killed the Alabasters at the barracks… She pushed the thought away and continued to stand at the edge of the pass, studying the valley, imprinting the detail forever on her waterpainter’s memory. Her purpose was important; if she was to escape from the edifice she could see below, she needed to know every inch of the building, its surroundings, and the way out of the valley.
If only I could get hold of my own paints…
She thought she’d identified the saddlebag they were in, but the knowledge had not been much help. Jet carried it on his mount and slept with his head on it at night. Although the guards were friendlier than they had been at first, their vigilance had not decreased to the point of allowing her anywhere near Jet’s belongings.
When the light was gone, she returned to the bivac in the pass. It was bitterly cold and her breath clouded on the air.
“I know what ye were doing,” Rubric said in her ear when she came close to the fire to warm up. This time he chose to speak Quartern, perhaps because he didn’t want the guards to understand.
“Looking at the scenery?” she suggested.
“No, remembering. So ye can escape. And if ye’re not, ye should be. I wonder how long we have before the painting that was to be taking ye home will pull ye apart instead.”
“Perhaps it’ll just pull your house down around your ears to set me free.”
He stared at her.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of that.”
He still didn’t speak.
“You haven’t, have you? Are you all so… ignorant?”
“We know waterpainting can have unexpected results, but ye exaggerate.”
“I was imprisoned once before. In Scarcleft, to be exact, by the highlord, the city’s ruler. So someone painted a picture of me free. The magic worked. I wasn’t pulled in two; it pulled down the house instead—a very large house, like your manor houses. In fact more than one house was damaged. With an earthquake. People died.”
He looked shocked.
She was merciless. “You have no idea who painted the picture of my return to the Quartern, so you have no idea how powerful they are. But I think it would be wise not to imprison me, or try to kill me.”
And I wish that was true…
“I think ye’re bluffing,” he said.
“Do you? We’ll find out, won’t we?” She smiled, trying to rattle him.
Jet glared at them from across the room, as he always did when anyone spoke to her more than was necessary.
Rubric laughed and walked away. She wasn’t sure whether he was laughing at her or just annoying his brother. She’d decided there was little affection between the two, and a great deal of something else less pleasant. Rivalry? Hatred? Bitterness? Jealousy? No, something different. Something she couldn’t put her finger on. Jet appeared contemptuous of his younger sibling, poking fun because he wasn’t as tall or broad-shouldered as the rest of the family. She’d noticed that the guards, perhaps following his lead, sometimes sniggered about Rubric behind his back.
Nice family, these Verdigris. On a par with the Kermes. She decided she now loathed the expression Quartern people used about inherited traits: Hide your blood and it still speaks. Pellets and nonsense—she might share Verdigris blood, but she was withering sure she shared nothing else.
Later that evening, after walking outside to visit the privy, Mauve trailing a discreet distance behind her, Terelle overheard the two brothers talking. They were standing deep in the shadows a little way from the bivac. She caught only snatches of the wind-borne conversation.
“I hope… in order to learn more,” Jet said, “so that we can control her better.”
Rubric gave a low, mocking laugh. His reply was slightly more audible. “Of course! What else? She’s a sand grubber. You can’t think I… surely? Or do you… interested… because she’s a woman who doesn’t yet know what I am, perhaps?”
She had no idea what he meant.
Jet urged his mount to a gallop as soon as they hit the flat road on the valley bottom, and most of the guards followed, whooping and shouting. Mauve had already left them at a crossroads to head home herself. Rubric and two of the older guards continued at a more sedate pace. He made no move to speed up; in fact he dropped back to ride at a walk beside Terelle.
“They haven’t seen their families in a while,” he explained. “Jet is passionate about his wife, Azure. Funny that. He usually gets his thrills from hurting others; around her he’s a spring lamb.”
“Lamb?” Her Khromatian had improved enormously, but that was a word she didn’t know.
“Baby sheep.”
She snorted. “I find that hard to believe.”
“So, tonight you begin your imprisonment.”
“I have been imprisoned before. I’ll survive.”
“You think you’ll escape, don’t you? You puzzle me, Terelle. Why are you so calm about this? You know my father and brothers want you dead, and I’m quite sure my grandfather will concur, when he hears. What chance have you got?”
“If it worries you, then help me escape. Come with me. Imagine the adventure, Rubric!”
“No one has painted me into safety,” he said.
She stared at him. “They’d kill you for helping me?”
“For attempting to leave Khromatis. Possibly. No one ever leaves, so I don’t really know. Your mother was the last to go.” His voice was thick with bitterness. “If I was to leave, it might be the last straw for my father.”
“What did you do that he could hate you so much?”
“Not be the person he wanted.” He shrugged, as if it meant nothing.
Then I will paint you there, she thought with her own layer of bitterness. As soon as I have my colours again, I’ll paint you all there. You Verdigris killed Feroze and all those young men, strangers who never hurt you. They never hurt any of you. You would have killed me, if you could. Sandblast you all—you will serve us in the Quartern.
But even as she thought the words, she wondered if she could do it. She had suffered so much herself from the compulsion of waterpainting. You are weak, she thought. But deep i
nside, she was not ashamed of that. Besides, of what use would an unwilling stormlord be?
Then, as she thought it through, it occurred to her how much danger she could be in—for the rest of her life. People in Khromatis knew what she looked like now. If one of them was a waterpainter, they could paint her dead. As far as she knew she had not yet met one, but she soon would: Bice’s wife, Jade Lustre Verdigris.
She went cold all over. How could she escape if all this woman had to do was waterpaint her back in captivity? Come to think of it, why didn’t Bice just ask his wife to picture him as the Pinnacle to ensure his succession? No, wait, that could mean his father’s sudden death.
“Why so thoughtful?” Rubric asked.
“How many waterpainters does Khromatis have? And how many other kinds of waterlords?”
“Waterlords, I’ve no idea. Never thought about it. Waterlord families tend to intermarry in order to keep the power within those families.”
“It’s the same in the Quartern.”
“Water sensitives never seem to have very large families. Is it the same in the Quartern?”
“Yes. I’ve wondered why not.”
“Not sure. It just doesn’t happen. Perhaps that’s just as well; God’s way of not spreading the power outside the main families. It would be too difficult to control. Too easy to kill others. Or to force them to do things. Waterpainters are the most dangerous of all, of course, because not only is it possible to kill someone anonymously and destroy the proof you did so, but it is so easy for there to be backlash from a painting.”
“Like an earthquake. And people dying. Yes, I know.”
He ignored her sarcasm. “There are only five families that reliably produce waterpainters—the Kermes and the Lustres are two of them. I doubt that there are more than fifteen waterpainters alive at the moment.” He looked across at her. “Quite enough to keep Khromatis safe if anyone was to attack us, if that’s why you’re asking. Did your Cloudmaster send you to spy?”
She snorted her scorn at that idea.
Just then they turned off the road to ride through a gateway. A gravelled track, raked smooth, led onwards through trees. Surreptitiously, she dropped her last mirror pieces.
“We’ve just entered our property,” Rubric said. “Welcome to Verdigris Manor.”
“You want me to say thank you?”
She glanced at him and caught the sardonic curve of his lips. “We have a great many rules for waterpainters, of course. I suppose it’s similar in the Quartern.”
“What are yours?” she asked.
“Well, all waterpainters have to be…” He paused. “I suppose you would say ‘registered.’ Registered with a central guild, after testing shows they possess certain artistic talents. That’s a start. If anyone isn’t registered, it is against the law to teach them to shuffle up. If a guild member was rash enough to do that, they would have their hands cut off. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it happening though.”
“We don’t have enough waterpainters in the Quartern to have a guild,” Terelle said blandly. “Go on.”
“Then you have to pass a test after training. And the test includes knowing all the rules about usage. You are not permitted to kill or maim or coerce by means of waterpainting. Anyone pictured in your painting must give their consent, or you must obtain the guild’s permission, or their parents’ consent in the case of children. Things like that.”
“And no one breaks the law?”
“Now? Not often. History, alas, is rife with waterpainting wars and usurpers and political murders.”
“We don’t have fifteen waterpainters,” she said. “Imprison me, and thousands of people will die in the Quartern because I’m not there to bring the water. And you could find a very powerful stormlord on your doorstep in a terrible rage. You might point that out to your grandfather if you get the chance. The present Cloudmaster is one of the most powerful we’ve ever had.” Apart from the slight problem he has with salty water. “But he doesn’t particularly want to spend all his days stormshifting. And what if he should die? We have a lot of rainlords as well, of course. They’re usually trained in warfare, among other things.” She tried to make it sound vaguely like a threat, while still accounting for the need the Quartern had for Khromatian waterlords, but had an idea she was digging herself a hole with the contradictions.
She ploughed on, “Because you have so many rules, you’ve forgotten just how dangerous waterpainting is.”
“We have the rules because we know how dangerous it is.”
“Rubric, I’m not panicked about being imprisoned. I’ll get home one way or another, and anyone who tries to stop me might end up dead.”
He appeared to be pondering this while they rode on, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She couldn’t help remembering what he’d said to Jet. She doesn’t know what I am.
They scared her, those words.
When they emerged from the woods, it was to see fields cleanly sundered from the trees by a stream and, beyond that, the manor house, a stone building surrounded by lavish gardens.
I’ll never get used to this, she thought. The extravagance of growth, the abundance. They really have no idea of what we face in the Quartern. No wonder they don’t care.
“Rubric, what can I do to change what your family is doing to me?”
She expected him to laugh at the naïvety of the question, but instead he paused, then said, “I don’t know. It’s pointless to ask to see the Pinnacle. You’ve met my father and brothers. They’re made in the same mould as my grandfather. None of them will ever trust your motives, and my grandfather will never let you see his face for fear of what you might do. Because you could paint him dead, at some future time.”
“I don’t want him dead! Why the withering spit would I want him dead? I don’t give a salted damn about being the Pinnacle. And I don’t have any paints anyway, and I’m weeping sure your mother won’t lend me any.”
“Terelle, by your own admission, someone painted you apparently safe back in the Scarpen. Sooner or later, the magic is going to start working to get you there. You’re going to be very sick. My father doesn’t doubt you’ll die. True, you’ve made me wonder just who will emerge victorious. Us, with our imprisonment of you, or the magic to get you home. If we win, you sicken and die. If the painter back in the Quartern was very powerful, then you’ll escape.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
“I think my father is a fool. He’d have done better to trust you. Instead he has threatened his home and his family. He is small-minded enough to pour scorn on the skills of the Quartern. He thinks you’re all as weak as crickets in winter.”
Instinct prompted her to silence.
Another long pause. Then, “I didn’t kill any of those Alabasters. I was supposed to take their water. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t use my power. I stood there and felt waves and waves of sickness hit me until I thought I was drowning. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Now I do—it was the strength of the power in your painting. Those Alabaster guards were necessary to get the two Scarpermen safe back to Alabaster, so their lives were spared. I know how powerful you are.”
There was something wrong with that assessment, she knew, but right then she didn’t want to think about it. She said, “I’d talk to your father again, if I were you. I don’t want anyone to die this time, just to free me.” She swallowed. “Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night, after a dream. It’s always the same dream, only it wasn’t a dream the first time. It was real. A child, dead in his mother’s arms because part of a falling house crushed him.”
“Talk to my mother,” he said, troubled. Then added, “She doesn’t speak your tongue, but your Khromatian is really good now. Your waterpainter’s memory, I suppose.” He gave her one of his horrid mocking grins as he urged his mount ahead at a trot, pulling hers behind. The conversation was at an end.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Khromatis
Low Plate
au Pale
Verdigris Manor
When Terelle entered the manor with Rubric, Jet was standing talking to a middle-aged woman in the large main entrance hall. A small boy clung to his boots and an older girl had a grip on his plaid scarf, while another woman had hooked her arm through his.
“My mother,” Rubric murmured in Terelle’s ear, “and that’s Jet’s wife, Azure, and their two children.”
Pleasant domesticity was not what she had come to expect of Jet. When she felt her lip begin to curl in cynicism, she hastily turned her attention to Lord Jade. Tall, dark-skinned and beautiful, she resembled Rubric the most of all her sons. Rubric went straight to her and kissed her hand and then her cheek. Her smile was pure pleasure as she murmured a greeting Terelle didn’t catch. Then she turned to Terelle and the smile dropped away.
As Jet said nothing, Rubric introduced his mother and sister-in-law.
“Jet tells me you are Sienna Verdigris’ daughter, and a waterpainter,” Jade said, her tone flat. “I’d have bid you welcome, had not Jet told me we’re to imprison you here. I dislike the idea of Verdigris Manor becoming a jail to one of our own family, even if your party did attack my husband, even if you came to assert your right to be Pinnacle.”
Hunting for the right words to say, Terelle ended up merely blurting out, “That is a terrible lie.”
Lord Jade raised an eyebrow. “You are very bold.” Her tone was coldly furious. She lifted her hand to show a letter she held. “I have my husband’s account, right here.”
“He’s a murderer and a liar,” she answered, equally cold. She was so furious she couldn’t think, and her Khromatian deserted her. Turning to Rubric, she spoke in her own tongue. “Are you going to lie too? Are you going to say that poor Feroze attacked first? That those Alabasters killed by your men—”
“Say no more,” he said, cutting her off. “No more, Terelle.” He looked at his mother then and said, in Khromatian, “My mother knows the truth.”
She thought he meant his mother would believe her husband, but Lord Jade went deathly pale at his words.
Something in Terelle snapped. All the anger and grief she’d shut within her since Feroze’s death erupted from that dark place, overwhelming her. Somehow she dredged up the Khromatian words to say, “I don’t want to be a Verdigris. I’m Terelle Grey. I don’t want to be the Pinnacle. Why would I? This is not my land. And the Verdigris family are murderers. My Alabaster friend Feroze went to your husband to ask him to come and talk to me. And Bice killed him.”