He came to a halt a few feet back and glared. Thod was trying to hide behind Sinura.
"I have to pose for you, slug."
Benard shook his head. "It isn't needed, lord. I know what you look like. The statue will be you exactly, twice life-size, as your honored father decreed. You will dominate the Pantheon. The extra marble is being cut, but it can't arrive before spring." He saw some of the stress melt from Cutrath's tendons and sinews.
"I'll be gone from here two days from now."
"I know what you look like. I'll remember."
"You don't know what all of me looks like," the Werist said with menace.
Benard resisted the temptation to say he would call in Hiddi as a consultant. "My lord is a true servant of his god. I am faithful to holy Anziel. I will carve your image as perfectly as I know how. Like this." He gestured at Her statue.
Cutrath looked surprised. "That's Hiddi!"
"I saw her that night we ... we ... that night."
"That's very good," Cutrath admitted.
Benard was glad he had dropped his maul earlier, for that remark might have caused him to drop it on his toes now. "Thank you!"
"But you haven't seen all of me."
"I'll be generous."
Cutrath thought that over, too. "Very well," he said, and turned and walked away.
Benard stooped to retrieve his tools.
Thod's worshipful grin had appeared from around Sinura's half-shaped hips. "Really generous?"
"In perfect proportion," Benard said sternly. "Anything else would not be art."
Rumble... said his belly.
He cursed and wiped an arm over his streaming face. The sun was murderous. "Fetch me some ... No, wait. I'll get it myself. Come and round off this corner for me." He scratched an outline. "That much. And that." He handed over chisel and maul, feeling his hands quivering from the work—time for a rest. As he headed across to the well, a beaming Thod prepared to build muscles.
Four priests in variegated robes emerged from the Pantheon, causing Benard to mutter under his breath again, but they turned and went off toward the river instead of coming to badger him as he had feared. Priests were pests, always wanting to inspect and criticize and bring guests to admire. So was hunger. And sleep. Anything that came between a man and his art was a pest.
He pulled up the rope, drank about half the bucket's contents, and tipped the rest over his head. As he started back to the future Anziel, a carrying chair emerged from the nearest alley. This time he swore aloud, something anatomical about pigs.
The chair was enclosed by a canopy and gauzy curtains so he could not see the occupant, but only a woman's conveyance would be so brightly gilded and enameled. The armed guard trotting ahead of it was a Florengian, as were its bearers, two brawny, deep-chested men. The guard was younger than they, slender and nimble-looking, wearing a sword on his back. All three were well turned out, with kilts of good quality, hair and beards neatly trimmed, although at the moment they were as breathless as if they had run all the way from the Edge, dusty and streaked with sweat from their exertions. The bearers set down the chair close to the statue of Mayn.
However annoying the interruption, Benard must be gracious. Women whose husbands could afford such a retinue were sources of future commissions. He wished he had not left the front of his shed undraped, showing all its intestinal clutter.
"Your mistress works you hard," he said in his rusty Florengian.
"I do not speak that language."
Only now Benard noticed the seal thong around the swordsman's wrist. His ears were not cropped, as the bearers' were. By the Twelve, artists were supposed to see!
"I beg your pardon, master swordsman. I assumed you were a prisoner of war."
The man smiled graciously. "A natural mistake, master. I am a freeborn citizen of Podarvik, two menzils from here. My parents still live there."
"There is cool water in the well. I am Master Artist Celebre, if you would be so kind as to present me."
"That's not needed," said a woman's voice. A hand glittering with seven or eight jeweled rings emerged from the drape.
Benard bent to kiss it. Then he recognized the perfection of its line and texture, the scent of her skin. He jumped back, startled. "Hiddi!"
"Who else?" She threw back the drape. "Go water the team, Nerio. I'm quite safe with this fellow."
The swordsman bowed and trotted off, gesturing for the slaves to accompany him. Hiddi favored Benard with a smile to slay armies.
"Master Benard! We meet again." She was enthroned in her chair, draped in a sort of pink spiderweb that did not reach her knees. Ropes of garnets, coral, and amber encircled her slender neck, her wrists bore a dozen bangles of gold, silver, and jade; jewels sparkled in her hair, in her ears; a tiara of pearls adorned the flaxen pillow of her hair. She was enjoying Benard's amazement.
Part of that was despair, though. How could he ever hope to match such perfection? What marble could equal the translucency of her skin?
She favored holy Anziel with a glance of twin sapphires. "You made that? How clever! Is that an owl?"
"It does not do justice to the original," Benard said warily. Having recalled that he had a gold arm ring buried under his sleeping mat, he had worked out why the Nymph had come calling. It was surprising that she had not caught wind of his windfall long ago, since Horold's donation had been so public. Benard was no longer a penniless artist, but that situation could be rectified.
"I am 'stremely impressed." Hiddi managed to look bashful. "It was terrible of me not to at once recognize your name that night you ... Thod! Go and play by yourself for a while. We grown-ups are talking!"
Thod had been listening with ears like winnowing fans and eyes not much smaller. He knew her! Whatever would little Thilia say if she heard that? At Hiddi's snarl, he turned an impossible shade of scarlet and shot a horrified glance at his master.
"Off with you!" Benard said, and Thod vanished in a spray of marble chips. "You know my apprentice?"
"I know them all. But as I was saying," Hiddi continued, obviously trying to make her voice sound less like a refugee's from a pig farm and more like a high priestess's, "I shouldn't have overlooked the name of the greatest artist in Kosord. As a collector of beautiful things myself, I am very honored to know you, Master Artist Benard." She flaunted her kohl-darkened lashes.
She was a child dressed up, robbing her mother's jewel box to play at being a queen or great lady. She was also unnecessary. Whether Nymphs were purely benevolent as they claimed or vicious gold diggers as their reputation labeled them, Benard needed no such distraction interrupting his work just now ... except maybe a quick glance at her feet. On the night they met, he had not taken adequate notice of her feet. Understandably. He could invent feet, but they would look wrong, at least to his over-critical eye.
"The lady is gracious to praise my art."
"That, too." She smiled coquettishly. Her face, her body, were delectable, incredible, but her flirting was clumsy and lame.
Puzzled, Benard said, "What can I do for you, mistress?"
The Nymph's sigh strained the muslin over those flawless breasts. "I still have to show you how thankful I am to you for rescuing me from those Werists." Earnest.
He bowed. "Say no more. It was my pleasure."
"I would be willing to show my gratefulness." Sickly coyness.
"I really am very busy today, Hiddi. I would appreciate a quick glance at your ankles, though."
"Just ankles?" Flirtatious.
"And feet."
"You should be more ambitious. Come back to my house with me and I'll show you all the pretty arty things I have, mm?" Imploring.
The prettiest of all were in plain view through her wrap. The lashes could not possibly be real—they were probably made of feathers and glue—but the rest of her was all genuine, every delicious morsel. Other appetites stirred. He could feel his resolution melting like snow in high summer. Rumble!