“Simple, you mean.” The mischievous smile appeared. “I don’t want a portrait that shows me in something I’d never wear.”
“I could still paint it that way,” I said teasingly.
She raised her eyebrows.
“But I’d better not.” I laughed. “I thought we’d take the scenic walk to my studio, around Imagisle, so that you could see more of it.”
“I’d like that.”
I took her arm, and we turned northward and began to follow the stone-paved path on the east side of the isle that paralleled the river, if some five yards back from the granite river wall.
“That’s the administration building, and those are the quarters for primes and seconds. I had a room on the second level there.” I pointed.
“It looks rather severe,” Seliora replied, “although it’s pleasant enough with the oaks beginning to turn. I imagine it’s more austere in full winter.” She paused. “There aren’t that many trees this old left in L’Excelsis.”
“Some date back to the founding of the Collegium.”
We walked farther north, past the small docks that held two modest training steamboats, on one of which I’d done my first public imaging, although I couldn’t distinguish which of the two it might have been.
To our left was an expanse of grass, surrounded by the ancient oaks, and farther west were the armory and the building holding the various workshops. Before long, we reached the houses for the married imagers. The larger dwellings fronted the river on both the east and west sides of the isle, but all were of two stories, and of solid granite with tile roofs, and with garden courtyards behind them and stone lanes flanked with grass and hedges between. While the exteriors were similar, from the window hangings, flower boxes, and various small touches, the sizes varied somewhat, and it was clear that those who lived there had very differing tastes. I wondered which might belong to Master Dichartyn.
“That’s where the imagers with families live. The larger dwellings are mostly for the senior masters, but they’re not nearly so grand as NordEste Design,” I said with a smile.
“They have a great deal more privacy, Rhenn.”
“I can see that, and there are a few that are spacious.”
Seliora stopped. So did I. She looked at me. “They’re built so that imagers can live safely with their families, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Could an imager . . .” She didn’t finish the thought.
“It’s rare, but I once lit a lamp in my sleep. I was dreaming, but thought I was awake.”
She nodded thoughtfully.
North of the houses was the park with the open grassy spaces for play and walking and, of course, the hedge maze. I would have liked to have played in one of those as a boy. Most of the time I’d walked there, I hadn’t seen many people, but perhaps because it was a Samedi afternoon, there were at least half a dozen families there. Four or five children were running through the head-high boxwood maze, occasionally shrieking and having a wonderful time.
We reached the northern tip of the isle, where there were several shaded benches with a view of the gray waters of the River Aluse. Seated on one of those in the middle were Shannyr and his new bride. I couldn’t remember her name. Although I hadn’t seen her before, he’d told me about her. He’d also been more than friendly at the time of my difficulties with Johanyr, one of the few seconds who had been truly supportive.
“Shannyr?”
He turned, then rose. “Master Rhennthyl.”
His wife stood almost immediately as well. She was slender, but with a round face and pale green eyes washed out somewhat by the dark blue woolen coat. She grasped his hand.
“I haven’t ever had the honor of meeting your wife.” I smiled, looking at her. “I have heard him speak most flatteringly about you.”
She flushed ever so slightly as Shannyr said quickly, “Ciermya, this is Master Rhennthyl.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, sir.” She smiled, a trace apprehensively, I thought.
“And I you. This is Seliora,” I said.
Seliora offered a warm smile, then said, “I’m glad to meet you. All I’ve seen here are men.”
“This is the first time she’s really seen Imagisle,” I added. “How are you finding it, Ciermya?”
“I like it very much, sir. Our quarters are lovely, and it’s a short walk to work . . . so long as I keep working, leastwise.”
“You do . . . drafting, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She’s outstanding at it,” added Shannyr proudly.
“I’m sure she is.” I could tell Ciermya was not exactly at ease, so I smiled again. “We won’t keep you, but I did want to meet you after all Shannyr said. He won’t tell you, but I appreciate all that he did to help me.”
“I just did-”
“You did more than anyone else then, and I won’t forget it.” I could tell he was embarrassed, but I wasn’t about to let him minimize his actions.
As we began to walk along the west side of the isle, I looked to Seliora.
Her eyes met mine, and she nodded.
“What was that supposed to mean?”
“He’s older than you, a good five years or more, but he respects you. She fears you.”
“Am I so fearsome? I didn’t do all that well at the Council, and now I’m pounding the stone pavement of L’Excelsis with patrollers.”
“You did very well at the Chateau. It could be that you did too well.”
I almost missed a step as the combination of her words and what Master Rholyn had said earlier struck me. Did Master Dichartyn-or Maitre Poincaryt-worry that my inability to conceal my imaging might unsettle the Council? Or had I been removed as a purported disciplinary action to show the Council that the Collegium did not approve of “accidents” occurring to foreign envoys, regardless of provocation?
“Frig . . .” I barely murmured the words. It made far too much sense.
Seliora stopped, still looking at me.
“I just realized something. I’m going to have to be far more circumspect than I’ve been before. Master Rholyn hinted at that earlier today, but what you said made me think about it in a different way.”
“How so?”
“What I did at the Chateau was too much a reminder to the Council of how powerful an imager can be, and the Collegium does not want that.”
“Wasn’t it acceptable, in protecting them?”
“I’m sure it was. Once, or very occasionally.”
She nodded again.
I pointed across the river to the west where the gleaming white walls of the Council Chateau, sitting on its hill, almost sparkled in the fall afternoon light. “We do have a good view of the Chateau.”
South of the park was the armory, set almost next to the gray stone river walls on the west side of the isle. The massive gray-walled building with the workrooms was next.
“What’s that?”
“That’s where we’re headed. My studio is a small converted workroom, on the northeast corner-right there.” I pointed.
“Do they all have outside doors?”
“Most of them, and they’re all lead-lined, with leaded glass windows, and leaden sheets in the center of the doors.”
“That’s not true of the houses, is it?” She frowned.
“Just one sleeping chamber, I’m told.” I led the way to the studio, where I opened the door and gestured for her to enter.
Once Seliora was inside, as I closed the door, she glanced around the studio, her eyes alighting on the sheets of paper that held the various design sketches that I’d worked on earlier. “Can I see?”
“Be my guest. I wasn’t happy with any of them, and I decided that I needed to have you here to do a decent design.”
Then she looked to the uncompleted portrait of Master Rholyn. “I saw your study at the Guild Hall, but this is the first portrait I’ve seen.”
“It needs more work.”
“It will be good, better than he deserves.”
“How do you know that?”
“There’s a cruelty there. I can see it, even now. You paint what you see and feel, Rhenn. Isn’t that so?”
Cruelty? I studied what I’d portrayed so far. Perhaps there was a hint of that. Certainly, there was a hardness to the set of his eyes that combined with the strong jaw and the too-full lips to create an image of . . . what, I still wasn’t sure. When I finished the hair and forehead, and the one side of the neck, I’d know more.