No, it had not been honour that kept him honest, thought Lalo bitterly, but fear of bringing shame to Gilla and the children, and a rapidly deteriorating belief in his own artistic destiny.
He struggled up on one elbow, for the moment too dispirited to stand. Gilla sniffed in exasperation, laid down the child and stalked to the other end of the single room in the tenement which served as kitchen and chamber for the family, and, too rarely, as the painter's studio.
The three-legged stool groaned as Gilla sat down, set a small sack on the table, and began with ostentatious precision to shell peas into a bowl. Late afternoon sunlight shafted through the shutters, lending an illusory splendour to the tarnished brocade against which his models used to pose, and leaving in obscurity the baskets of soiled clothing which the wives of the rich and respectable (terms which were, in Sanctuary, roughly synonymous) had graciously given to Gilla to wash.
Once, Lalo would have rejoiced in the play of light and shadow, or at least reflected ironically on the relationship between illusion and reality. But he was too familiar with the poverty the shadows hid - the sordid truth behind all his fantasies. The only place he now saw visions was at the bottom of a jug of wine.
He got up stiffly, brushing ineffectually at the blue paint smeared across the old stains on his tunic. He knew that he should clean up the pigments spilling across the floor, but why try to save paint when no one wanted his pictures?
By now the regulars would be drifting into the Vulgar Unicom. No one would care about his clothing there.
Gilla looked up as he started towards the door, and the light restored her greying hair to its former gold, but she did not speak. Once, she would have run to kiss her husband good-bye, or railed at him to keep him home. Only, as Lalo stumbled down the stairs, he heard behind him the vicious splatter of peas hitting the cracked glaze of the bowl.
Lalo shook his head and took another sip of wine, carefully, because the tankard was almost empty now. 'She used to be beautiful...' he said sadly. 'Would you believe that she was like Eshi, bringing spring back into the world?' He peered muzzily through the shadows of the Vulgar Unicorn at Cappen Varra, trying to superimpose on the minstrel's saturnine features the dimly remembered image of the golden-haired maiden he had courted almost twenty years ago.
But he could only remember the scorn in Gilla's grey eyes as she had glared down at him that afternoon. She was right. He was despicable - wine had bloated his belly as his ginger hair had thinned, and the promises he had once made her were as empty as his purse.
Cappen Varra tipped back his dark head and laughed. Lalo caught the gleam of his white teeth in the guttering lamplight, a flicker of silver from the amulet at his throat, the elegant shape of his head against the chiaroscuro of the Inn. Dim figures beyond him turned at the sound, then returned to the even murkier business that had brought them there.
'Far be it from me to argue with a fellow-artist -' said Cappen Varra, 'but your wife reminds me of a rhinoceros! Remember when you got paid for decorating Master Regli's foyer, and we went to the Green Grape to celebrate? I saw her when she came after you... Now I know why you do your serious drinking here!'
The minstrel was still laughing. Suddenly angry, Lalo glared at him.
'Can you afford to mock me? You are still young. You think it doesn't matter if you tailor your songs to the taste of these fleas in the armpit of the Empire, because you still carry the real poetry in your heart, along with the faces of the beautiful women you wrote it for! Once already you have pawned your harp for bread. When you are my age, will you sell it for the price of a drink, and sit weeping because the dreams still live in your heart but you have no words to describe them anymore?'
Lalo reached blindly for his tankard, drained it, set it down on the scarred table. Cappen Varra was drinking too, the laughter for a moment gone from his blue eyes.
'Lalo - you are no fit companion for a drinking man!' said the minstrel at last. 'I will end up as sodden as you are if I stay here!' He rose, slinging his harp case over his shoulder, adjusting the drape of his cloak to a jauntier flare. 'The Esmeralda's back in port from Ilsig and points north - I'm off to hear what news she brings. Good evening. Master Limner - I wish you joy of your philosophy ...'
Lalo remained where he was. He supposed he should go too, but where? If he went home he would only have to face Gilla again. Idly he began to draw on the table, his paint-stained forefinger daubing from a little pool of spilt wine. But his memory had sought the past, when he and Gilla were painfully saving the gold pieces that would deliver them from Sanctuary. He remembered how they had planned what they would do with the wealth sure to come once the lords of Ranke recognized his talent, the images of transcendent beauty he had dreamed of creating when he no longer had to worry about tomorrow's bread. But instead, they had had their first child.
He looked down, and realized that his finger had been clumsily outlining the pure profile of the girl Gilla had been so long ago. His fist smashed down on the table, obscuring the lines in a splatter of wine, and he groaned and hid his face in his hands.
'Your cup is empty ...' The deep voice made a silence around them.
Lalo sighed and looked up. 'So is my purse.'
Broad shoulders blocked the light of the hanging lamp, but as the newcomer turned to shrug off his cloak his eyes glowed red, like those of a wolf surprised by a peasant's torch at night. Beyond him, Lalo saw the tapster's boy slithering among the crowded tables towards the new customer.
'You're the fellow who did the sign outside, aren't you?' said the man. 'I'm getting transferred, and a picture for my girl to remember me by would be worth the price of a drink to me...'
'Yes. Of course,' answered Lalo. The tapster's boy stopped by their table, and his companion ordered a jug of cheap red wine. The limner reached into his pouch for his roll of drawing paper, weighted it with the tankard to keep it from curling up again. The stopper of his ink bottle had dried stuck, and Lalo swore as he struggled to open it. He picked up his pen.
Swiftly he sketched his first impression of the man's hulking shoulders and tightly curled hair. Then he looked up again. The features blurred and Lalo blinked, wondering if he had already had too much wine. But the hollow in his belly cried out for more, and the tapster's boy was already returning, ducking beneath a thrown knife and detouring around the resulting struggle without spilling a drop.
'Turn towards the lamp - if I'm to draw you I must have some light!' muttered Lalo. The man's eyes burned at him from beneath arched brows. The limner shivered, forced himself to focus on the shape of the head and noted how the lank hair receded across the prominent bones of the skull.
Lalo looked down at his drawing. What trick of the light had made him think the fellow's hair curled? He cross-hatched over the first outline to merge it into a shadowy background and began to sketch the profile again. He felt those glowing eyes burning him. His hand jerked and he looked up quickly.
The nose was misshapen now, as if some drunken potter had pressed too hard into the clay. Lalo stared at his model and threw down his pen. The face before him bore no resemblance to the one he had drawn!
'Go away!' he said hoarsely. 'I can't do what you ask of me -1 can't do anything anymore ...' He began to shake his head and could not stop.