what should have been the relatively warmer kitchen area.
Had every fire in the place gone out overnight? Had the spit-boys
frozen on their bed-shelf? As he turned his head in their direction,
his glance caught at the window. Snow was piled up against the first
hand’s breadth of it. He moved closer and looked out at the courtyard,
but it was all one expanse of unbroken snow. Indeed, where the
courtyard should have stepped down to the roadway the snow was even,
concealing any depression where the road should have been. No-one moved
outside. Nor were there any tracks in the expanse of snow-covered court
to suggest that anyone had tried to come in from one of the outer holds.
Just what I needed,’ lantine said, totally depressed by what he saw. I
could be trapped here for weeks!” Paying for room and board.
If only the kids hadn’t come down with measles . . . If only he
hadn’t already freshened up the murals – – How would he survive? Would
he have anything left of his original fee – that had seemed so generous
by the time he could leave this miserable Hold?
Later that morning, when half-frozen people had begun to cope with the
effects of the blizzard, he struck another bargain with the Holder Lord
and Lady: and very carefully did he word it. Two full-sized portraits,
each a square metre on sky broom wood to be supplied by Lord Chalkin, one
of Lady Nadona and one of Lord Chalkin, head and shoulders in Gather
dress, with all materials and equipment to make additional pigments
supplied by the Hold; maintenance for himself and quarters on an upper
floor, with morning and evening fuel for a fire on the hearth.
He completed Lady Nadona’s portrait without too much difficulty she
would sit still, loved nothing better than to have a valid excuse for
doing nothing. Half-way through the sitting, though, she wanted to
change her costume, believing the red did not flatter her complexion as
well as the blue.
It didn’t, but he talked her out of changing and subtly altered her
naturally florid complexion to a kinder blush, and darkened the colour
of her pale eyes so that they seemed to dominate her face. By then,
he’d heard enough of the supposed resemblance between herself and Luccha
so that he improved on it, giving her a more youthful appearance.
When she wanted to change the collar of her dress, he improvised one he
remembered seeing in an Ancient’s portrait – a lacy froth which hid much
of the loose skin of her neck. Not that he had painted that in, but the
lace softened the whole look of her.
He had not been so lucky with Chalkin. The man was psychologically
unable to sit still – tapping his fingers, swinging one leg as he
crossed and uncrossed them, twitching his shoulders or his face, making
it basically impossible to obtain a set pose.
lantine was nearly desperate now to finish and leave this dreadful place
before another snowstorm. The young portraitist wondered if Chalkin’s
delays, and the short periods in which he would deign to sit, were yet
another ploy to delay him – and rake back some of the original fee.
Though Chalkin had even invited him to come into the gaming rooms – the
warmest and most elegant rooms in the Hold – lantine had managed to
excuse himself somehow or other.
Do sit still, Lord Chalkin, I’m working on your eyes and I cannot if
you keep moving them about in your face,’ lantine said, rather more
sharply than he had ever addressed the Lord Holder before.
I beg your pardon,’ said Chalkin, jerking his shoulders about angrily.
Lord Chalkin, unless you wish to be portrayed with your eyes crossed,
sit still for five minutes! I beg of you.” Something of Iantine’s
frustration must have come across because Chalkin not only sat still, he
glared at the portraitist.
And for longer than five minutes.
Working as fast as he could, Iantine completed the delicate work on the
eyes. He had subtly widened them in the man’s face and cleared up the
oedemic pouches which sagged below them. He had made the jowly face