to choose his models from those among the poor who were still uncorrupted.
“My lord, that one was done from imagination,” he said truthfully, for the Ilsig
King had been inspired by his memories of fleeing through the Maze just ahead of
local bullies when he was a boy. He did not tell them that he had got the Hell
Hound Quag to boast of his feats on campaign while he posed for the figure of
the Rankan Emperor.
One of the eunuch pages scurried towards them and Coricidius bent to hear his
message. Released from his gaze, Lalo stepped backward with a sigh.
“You are too sensitive, Master Limner,” Zan-derei said softly. “You must learn
to accept what each day brings. In these times, ideals are an expensive luxury.”
“Do you want a portrait too?” Lalo asked bitterly.
“Oh, I would not be worth the trouble-” Zan-derei smiled. “Besides, I know how I
appear to the world.”
Cymbals crashed, and as Lalo’s startled pulse began to slow he realized that the
other end of the room was flaring with the colored silks of the dancing girls.
He should have expected it, having watched them rehearse almost every afternoon
while he worked on the paintings here.
Such a commotion, he thought, for a few strangers who will make notes on
Sanctuary as most artists make portraits-recording only the surface of reality
and then will be gone.
Happily abandoning their conversations, the Commissioners let the purple-clad
pages usher them to couches below the dais on which the Prince was already
enthroned. The dancers, chosen from among the more talented of Kadakithis’