by P. N. Elrod
“So, Mister Savile Row, what do you want with a lowly artist like me?”
“You have no idea what I have here, do you?” He seemed affronted, shocked that so far his sideshow temptations hadn’t lured her into his scheme.
She gave an offhand shrug. “Starbucks? If I’m lucky.” She pointed at the crimson-colored pouch. “But I don’t think they’ve figured out how to pour liquid coffee into a little satchel like you’ve got there. Caffeine-laced scones would work, though.”
“Didn’t bring any with me from England, I’m afraid,” he replied, the edges of his thin lips turning up slightly. So did the edges of his crisp accent, just enough to betray impatience. An indication that despite all his heady promises, he considered her simply a means to an end. A trifling, pesky insect that he couldn’t quite be bothered to squash.
“Then I’ve got it.” She leaned against the door frame, propping her wire-rimmed glasses atop her head. “And I know, it’s a really genius leap on my part, but . . . you’re a puzzle collector.”
His too-thin smile expanded and he moved closer, the movement as languid as his graceful way of speaking. Lifting his fingertips, he swung his velvet pouch closer and closer to her eyes, the motion counting off time itself like a cosmic metronome.
His voice was husky low as he said, “I’ve brought you what every poor Artistry Union member craves.”
Her gaze flicked back and forth, tracking the bag’s motion; her throat tightened compulsively. Sanity demanded that she break the spell; temptation dragged her deeper beneath the undertow of the man’s magic.
She swallowed again, trying to blink. “I’m not . . . that poor.”
Back and forth, heavy. Filled. Weighty. “Not that rich, either, Anna.” A hint of Middle Eastern colored his pronunciation of her name. A touch of it; one red drop of paint falling into clean white. A total alteration to the purity of the hue.
He moved right up against her, the heat of his body radiant. “But not rich enough for what you’ve been chasing, either. Not for what I can provide freely. Abundantly.” He leaned two inches closer, lowering his melodic voice. “You can almost touch him, can’t you, Anna.”
She reached a shaking hand, ready to seize hold of the velvet satchel, but it swung right out of her grasp, vanishing. She searched the ground, his hands, but saw nothing. Desperation swamped her in a heartbeat. “I want it,” she admitted in a rush, almost ashamed, but not quite. “Yes, you’re right. I need it. Very much.”
His white teeth flashed in a sudden broad smile, a rich contrast to his moody skin. Beautiful. He was absolutely stunning, just like that bag of his.
“Hold out your hand, Anna,” he murmured, and she didn’t bother to wonder—just as she hadn’t earlier—how he knew her name. Or why he felt he could pronounce it with that bedroom voice and feline gaze. Then again, he’d come to her workshop, received her application. That had to be the reason he seemed so familiar with so many details about her, didn’t it?
She complied, extending a palm with almost childlike obedience. At once, her hand was filled, the heavy sack even weightier than she’d imagined.
She laughed, staring at the satchel in pure wonder. “This can’t be. Nobody’s had access to this stuff for years.” Despite her demurral, she could feel the solid, burning strength of the metal slipping inside the velvet, the way it coiled and moved like a living thing. A snake hissing its twin temptations of beauty and knowledge. She shifted the bag, yearning to feel the substance of it, her fingertips already painting, swirling, designing . . . even though she wasn’t at her easel yet.
“Those with enough money have always held it in their hands.” He took hold of her palm and very deliberately ladled the heavy pouch’s contents into her palm. The slithering, living gold came more alive the moment it made contact with her skin.
“Feel it. This is only a small quantity. I can provide this and more, as much of it as you require. As much as you’d ever dream of wielding with your brush or tasting with your artist’s tongue.”
She allowed the substance to coil about her palm, loop about her wrist, to twine between her fingers.
“It recognizes what you are, Anna. The artistry of your hands cries out to it; see how it responds to you, how it yearns to be touched.”
“This isn’t real.” She turned her hand, watching the way hundreds of unexpected hues and subtleties gleamed in the midday light. “I must be dreaming now. That’s what this is. Just another one of my whacked-out nightmares.”
“Are you afraid?” He seemed genuinely affronted, stepping through her doorway and into the dark interior of her studio. When had he taken position just inside the frame?
“I don’t believe it.” She reached her free left hand and drew her eyeglasses down onto the bridge of her nose, studying the substance more closely.
“Living gold. That’s what all the legends call it,” she observed, watching the thick substance band about each of her fingers, forming swirling rings.
“You are holding that very thing.”
“They also say that Templar-grade, liquid gold can drive the artist mad. Did you know that, too?”
He walked all the way into her parquet-floored hallway, studying the intricate paintings she’d applied across her floor. “Lovely,” he observed, staring down his nose at the patterns. But he didn’t answer her question.
“Or maybe you just think a little madness is good for the artist’s soul?” She followed him inside, closing the door with her bare foot. “That we should be inspired.”
“No, you are incorrect.” He turned and looked at her, seeming very somber. “I am aware of the insanity side effect, yes. And no, I do not think any artist should suffer thusly.”
She stared at her hand, only then aware that she’d begun petting the gold with an absent gesture as they spoke. “Then why offer it to me? I didn’t mention what I needed in my application to the union.”
He cocked his head. “Application?”
“Yeah, you obviously got hold of my patronage app, right? I mean, that’s why you’re here. How else would you know my name?” She bobbed her head impatiently; every bit of conversation pulled her away from studying her new possession.
“I do not know of any application.”
Her heartbeat quickened, and in reaction, the gold shimmied right up her forearm, escaping inside her shirtsleeve. “Then . . . why are you here? Who sent you?”
“The one you seek.” He gave a full bow this time, lingering in the position. “I serve him, as you do.” Finally he rose to his full form, smoothing a hand over the front of his suit.
“Look,” she said, peeling the gold from around her upper arm and clumping it into her fist. “I’m a free agent. That’s how it’s always been; that’s why applying for a patron was a big thing. I don’t serve anybody.”
“No?” He lifted a significant eyebrow. “You have made no pledges?”
Three failed tries. Three broken promises. Yeah, she’d been serving him for months now, allowing him to winnow his way into her dreams and paintings and thoughts.
“So tell me one thing. Why are you willing to trust me with something so precious?” She cradled the gold in both palms, walking toward him. She’d just give it back and forget the man who stalked her mind’s dark alleys.
Except the stranger’s answer changed everything. Altered the odds, tilted the gaming table.
“Simple,” he answered, British accent melting into something far more ancient and foreign. “I want to free him, too.”
As soon as Claude left, a heavy wave of exhaustion overcame her, the kind that had your eyelids closing no matter how determined you were to continue working. Anna left the studio area of her apartment, dragging herself toward the bedroom, already half-asleep before she collapsed onto the bed.
She had never been one to nap.
Her mother always said she was born with an extra helping of energy, wired with enough stamina to dedicate herself to her many artistic passions. Although puzzle
making was the greatest of those, she also created stained glass by commission, dabbled in weaving and intricate crochet, and piddled away her spare time by tiling mosaics.
As she rolled onto her side, the somnolent sound of the noise machine nailed her into sleep, the dream already reaching out to claim her.
It was different this time; she realized that at once, even as she remained fully cognizant that she was dreaming. Previously, the knight had been in scenes straight from some tapestry or medieval book of hours. Not now. She was cocooned in darkness, and she heard him breathing somewhere in that black space.
“Where are you?” she cried out, not that she expected an answer. The knight never spoke aloud, although he was very expressive with his eyes and gestures. His silence seemed a prison of its own, almost as if words were forbidden to him. “I can’t see anything.”
Heavy, labored breathing answered her, and extending both hands, she felt around herself tentatively. The slick, damp surface of stones met her fingertips. They were slimy, wet, and cool to the touch, and she began shaking. Her knight was in danger. He had to be; otherwise, they’d be in another downy meadow or flowery field, azure sky expanding overhead.
The rattle of heavy chains split the darkness, a rumbling moan following in the wake of the sound. She moved forward, feeling about her as if she were in some hellish version of blindman’s bluff.
“I’m coming. I’ll find you,” she tried to reassure him, only to hear another soulful moan.
Her right foot hit chilling iron, and she dropped to her haunches. Feeling the links of chain, she could tell they were encrusted from years of use. She felt her way toward him, using the iron as a guide.
His hot breath hit her face, a panting heat of desperation as he clasped her shoulders. Without being able to see his eyes or read his expression, she didn’t understand what he was clearly begging of her.
“Tell me,” she urged, reaching toward him. She felt a sweat-slicked chest, smelled the heavy odor of captivity all over his skin. “I don’t know what you need!”
I am not allowed . . . to speak.
“You just did. Now.”
Inside . . . you. Only. By . . . my will.
“Then do it again.”
Grimy fingers felt her face, her jaw, her mouth, more desperate and aggressive than he’d been in any of the previous dreams. She mirrored the gesture, trying to absorb him, to comprehend what he needed. “Tell . . . me,” she whispered, feeling the heat of her own tears as they rolled down her face.
Freedom. Life.
He released her, shoving her backward, and for a dim, black moment she would have sworn she heard the rustle of fur. The click of nails upon decaying stone.
But then there was only piercing light and the drone of her noise machine.
Claude insisted on overseeing every moment of her work as she handcrafted the costly puzzle he’d commissioned, and although it should have made her nervous to have him seated just beyond the penumbra of light, studying her with his shrewd gray blue eyes, she found his presence oddly soothing. The illogic of that effect, how counterintuitive it was to his physical demeanor and shady behavior, didn’t even bother her.
Her new patron revealed few secrets as to his own provenance, and she was fine with that fact, but not with how closemouthed he remained about her knight. With the painting nearly complete, she grew frustrated with his lack of communication.
“Look, Claude, I need to know who he is,” she said, studying the scene on her easel. It was an image of a dazzling, armored knight battling a lion—just as he had requested. It was also a radically different painting from the one she’d created on her three previous attempts to free the warrior.
Claude had been very detailed in his specifications for the puzzle’s image. From the man’s golden hair—to be applied with the Templar bullion—to his height and weaponry, to the other knights watching his display of gallant bravery. Even in his description of the open Bible that a monklike figure held, standing off to the far left side of the display. His insistence upon twin deer appearing in the far background only made her laugh. Talk about medieval stereotypes; Claude produced them in spades.
“What are the deer really doing?” she asked at one point, but he merely inclined his head.
“They are part of our scene, Anna. Would you deny them entry?”
As long as nobody in the painting sat in a deer stand, her southern girl soul was fine with including the creatures. So she worked at the canvas day after day, compliant as she fulfilled each of her money man’s specifications.
Now, all that remained to finish the painting was to apply the Templar gold to her knight’s armor, and if the gleam of his radiant hair was any indication, he would be truly breathtaking once she finalized the piece.
“He is magnificent,” Claude murmured, his accented declaration filled with wonder. Admiration.
And something much darker that caused her to turn and face him.
“Not what you expected?” she asked, sliding her wire frames atop her head.
Claude’s gray blue eyes were fixed on the knight, widening, then narrowing. “He is . . . alive. Is he not?”
“In some world. I guess.” She folded both arms across her chest, not caring that they were covered in paint and that she’d get her smock even dirtier. “Who is he? Like I said, it’s time you told me what I’m involved in here.”
Claude kept his eyes locked on the representation. “You will have your answers, Anna. Keep working,” he answered, exactly as he had from the beginning.
“His name. That’s fair,” she insisted, tossing her dark ponytail over her left shoulder. “With all he’s put me through? Totally fair.”
Claude stepped back out from beneath the lights, reclaiming his place in the shadows. “In due time. First, you must finish. It is time to apply the gold.”
There was a rustling sound from his seat at her work desk, the brush of velvet against rough hardness, and suddenly she was holding the satchel. He’d kept it from her except for that one hour when he’d instructed her to use gold for the knight’s hair.
“Yes,” Claude whispered in her ear, brushing up uncomfortably close behind her. “It is definitely time. You want him.”
She’d never really thought about the mysterious man that way, not until that moment. A challenge? Yes, he’d been that. A puzzle within an ever-expanding enigma? That, too. She made her trade and living by creating mysteries, even unsolvable ones. No wonder she’d been drawn by the temptation of freeing her knight.
But she’d never actually desired the nameless knight. Until Claude murmured the suggestion, lured her into the web like the spider he was turning out to be.
“I . . . no,” she said firmly, even though she’d begun shaking inside. “I just want to know who the heck he is. I need that.”
“You need to touch him. I’ve sensed it from the beginning.” Then Claude laughed, drawing fingertips along the exposed flesh of her forearms, pressing behind her. “I’m quite aware of the dreams, remember.”
“I’ve never wanted him in my dreams,” she insisted, swatting his hands away from her body.
“Are you so sure, Anna? You must recognize his physical allure by now.” He remained behind her, heatedly close, threatening.
They’d passed the point of safety on that very first day, and she’d felt his iron control ever since—but been unable to fight it. Yes, she desired the knight, but it took Claude to bring that fact to life. Now that he’d uttered it, the need and craving speared through her center just as it had for Templar gold itself.
“I . . . I shouldn’t. Not him.” She tried to sidestep out of Claude’s easy grasp, needed to break free, but he shadowed her from behind, clasping her shoulders and mooring her to that spot.
“Yes, you should. It is decreed.”
She squirmed in his liquid hold. “Decreed? By who? Shit, Claude, you’re getting too spooky even for me now.”
“Do you think he chose you by accident? For this t
ask of yours? A knight’s duty?”
She shook her head. “I really . . . don’t know.”
“When did the dreams begin?”
She didn’t even have to think about that question. The date lived inside of her, solid as concrete. “A few days before Christmas.”
“Ah, and so many months later, they continue. They heighten. His call upon you increases . . . which is why I came now. He spoke to you first on the winter solstice, Anna. And he must be freed—the puzzle must be completed—by just before midnight tomorrow. The summer solstice. It will be another eight hundred years of captivity if you do not succeed.”
“Is that how long he’s been—”
“Midnight. Tomorrow, Anna,” he answered, and turned toward the studio door. “I will return long before.”
“What? You’re leaving?” She extended the velvet bag in her palm, feeling the gold’s shifting, vibrating weight within. Already the precious metal was responding to her, reacting. “I have to paint his armor. You’ve been totally specific about everything until now.”
Claude paused at her door, a paper thin smile forming on his lips. “You will work his freedom by your own hand,” he replied quietly, and with yet another almost bow, he turned to leave.
“What is your name?” Anna asked the knight on the canvas. She stood staring at the painting, wishing that he were as alive as he’d sometimes been in her night visions.
Silence reverberated throughout her studio, only the hum of the air conditioner filling the void.
“If only you could answer me,” she whispered, stepping closer to the painting. She lifted tentative fingertips and touched the brush of blond hair that swept across his shoulders. “For some reason, your name is very important to me. But even Claude won’t give up your secret.”
Closing her eyes, she touched the hard metallic paint, lightly teasing her fingers over the raised surface. She imagined what it would be like to stroke the man’s flaxen hair if he were real; wondered if it would be soft or coarse.