“How did you come by this, Henge? Did an elf sell it to you?”
The dwarf shook head. “Never saw an elf. But this is the second of yours I’ve been asked to frame. Yer work has come in demand. I was framing this one for a woman who says she bought it in a pawn shop in Palanthas, last year in the spring.”
Usha felt a pang of sorrow to think that Elonaral’s lot had grown worse.
“From the sounds of things, she paid a lot more than she rightly should have.”
With considerable delicacy for one of his blunt-spoken kindred, the dwarf did not say at what amount he’d have valued the picture. If he had been able to see what Elonaral had seen, the wonder of paint and magic Usha had created, he would have thought the woman had gotten it for a bargain.
“But her, she didn’t like the frame and came to me to have a new one. I thought a frame wouldn’t do. It belongs sitting on an easel. Having the taste of a gully dwarf, she didn’t agree. Being a man with good sense, I bought it from her.”
Usha gave him a hard look.
He scuffed the toe of his boot and said, “Nah, nah, mistress, don’t you be thinking I cheated her. Yer paintings are worth having, and worth being properly paid for.”
A shadow fell across the table, and Usha turned expecting to see Madoc. In the long, golden light of a day growing old, she saw Loren Halgard.
“Mistress Usha, what a fine thing to see you here.” Loren inclined his head, a gesture like a small, courtly bow, and when he looked up his eyes met hers. It was as though he held her by the hand. Usha wanted to look away, and she refused to do that. She’d seem like nothing more than a confused, silly chit if she did.
“This’ll be him then,” Henge said. “The one yer waitin’ on,”
Loren’s lips crooked in a smile, as though he were pleased to have someone think Usha had been waiting for him. She composed her face into an expression that made it very clear she hadn’t been. That didn’t seem to trouble him.
“I’ve been several times to Lorelia’s house,” he said. “Yes, I’ll admit it, hoping to see you there. But I’ve had no luck. And, look! I find you here.”
Henge cleared his throat, a rumbling sound like the earth thinking about sending boulders down a hill. “Should I keep an eye out for him? The one yer waitin’ for?”
“No,” Usha said. “No, thank you. I’ll see him.”
A customer called from the other side of the booth and Henge left, muttering about how the one Usha was waiting for might find himself out of luck if he didn’t step up quickly. To her annoyance, Usha’s cheeks grew warm and rosy.
“I’ve been working,” she said to Loren, hoping to distract him from the blush. When that sounded too blunt, she added. “On the portrait of your nephews. It’s progressed to the point where the work goes on in my studio now.”
“Well, that’s good news. Lorelia will be pleased.”
And from there, Usha thought, this conversation can go nowhere. Relieved, she turned away, putting back the easel and painting Henge had set down too close to the end of his table. Loren stepped closer and saw “Silver Flight.”
“That’s lovely.” And the wonder in his voice, a note akin to awe, spoke for his sincerity. “Do you know who painted it?”
Usha drew breath to answer but, absorbed in the painting, Loren didn’t notice.
“It’s like the water is moving, just like I can see it.” He cocked his head as though listening. “And actually hear it.”
The words touched her, for not everyone could see the magic in her work. Not everyone was meant to. It pleased her that Loren felt the magic she had made for the exile in Palanthas.
Even as she thought so, Loren shook his head. “No. It’s a trick of the light.”
He lifted the picture carefully by the edges. To Usha’s amusement he turned his head one way and then the other. He set the painting on Henge’s little easel, stepped back and squinted, then looked at her, his glance keen, as though he suspected a hoax.
“It’s a masterful illusion, I’ll say that. Like those portraits you see where the person’s eyes seem to follow you around the room.”
Usha smiled at his puzzlement as he lifted the picture again and held it at arm’s length, looking for the trick. He frowned, suspecting chicanery.
“I’m sorry,” Usha said, “but I did try to tell you. I am the artist, and I assure you, there is no trickery involved. Somewhere that river truly exists. The breeze does blow ...” He touched the image of the running river very carefully, and Usha laughed. “And the water certainly flows. Just not here, or in this place.”
“It’s a real place?”
She pursed her lips, thinking. “Yes, and no. I painted the picture according to the memories of an elf who hadn’t seen his home in many years. The place is as real as any place in his memory.”
Looking utterly confused now Loren said, “But it exists. Somewhere.”
Usha nodded. “That’s right.”
“How?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s magic.”
Around them the sounds of the market seemed to fade, the cries of sellers and the shouts of children receding. The sun slipped down the sky. A little breeze drifted from the river, ruffling Usha’s hair. She tucked escaping strands back into the twilight-colored silk scarf she wore today. When she dropped her hand from her brow, Loren caught it, gently.
Usha stood perfectly still, barely breathing in the moment when she should reclaim her hand and offer protest. She did neither, and when the moment passed, she breathed again, a soft sigh.
“Who are you, Usha, that you make such pretty fantasies?”
Without her will, Usha’s fingers closed around his. Past all the questions he could ask, he’d asked the one that had no easy answer. On most days, it had no answer at all for the woman who did not seem to age much past lovely youth, whose eyes shone mysteriously golden as no one else’s eyes had in all the world before; no answer for the woman who had never known the truth of her own history, not even the names of her parents.
Before she could deflect the question, a rough, familiar voce says, “Lady Usha’s paintings aren’t fantasies or whimsy, sir.”
Loren turned, annoyed by the raggedly dressed young man glowering darkly at him. “Be off, fellow. The lady—”
“—is a friend of his,” Usha said as she reclaimed her hand. “Madoc, it’s good to see you.”
Madoc’s expression did not lighten. Loren’s grew darker.
“Madoc Diviner is a friend of yours, Usha?” Loren glanced at Madoc, then dismissed him with a humorless chuckle. “The mage known for having allegiance to no one and nothing is a friend of yours?”
Indeed a friend, and one who’s face had grown lean, whose cheeks were unshaven but not bearded, and showed pale through the stubble.
“An old friend,” Usha assured Loren. Her voice held the suggestion of an edge that could grow keener. “I came here to meet him.”
Madoc’s smile became a sudden, cocky grin. Usha gave him a narrow glance and the grin faded, at least by a degree or two.
With a grace Usha appreciated, Loren bowed over her hand, told her he had enjoyed talking with her, and even managed a nod to Madoc before he took his leave.
Watching him walk through the crowded market, Madoc snorted. “Gods, Usha, I do owe you an apology for being late. How’d you get stuck talking to an old stick like Loren Halgard? Did he bore you silly while you were waiting?”
He said nothing of what he’d seen, Usha’s hand in Loren’s, but she didn’t doubt that keen-eyed Madoc, known for knowing, had marked it.
Usha’s narrow glance grew narrower, but her laughter was amused.
Across the market, tall and dark, the crop-haired knight pushed away from the wall beside the river gate. Usha felt his eyes meet hers then look away.