'Did the interview go well, dear?' asked Gilla brightly. 'I've heard that the Lady Rosanda is most gracious. You're quite favoured by the ladies today - see, here's Mistress Zorra come to call on you...'
Lalo winced at the edge in her voice, then forgot her as she moved and the caller came towards him. He received in quick succession an impression of a trim figure, a complexion that glowed like the roses of Eshi, copper-bright hair and a pair of dazzling eyes.
He swallowed. The last time he had seen Mistress Zorra was when she had accompanied her father to collect their rent, which was three months overdue. He tried to remember whether they had paid last month's rent on time.
'Oh, Master Lalo - you've no need to look so apprehensive!' Zorra blushed prettily. 'You should know that your credit is good with us after so many years ...'
After so much gossip about my new prosperity, you mean! he thought, but her smile was infectious, and after all she was not responsible for the stinginess of her sire. He grinned back at her, thinking that she was like a breath of spring in this summer-parched street. Like a nymph ...
'Perhaps you can help me to maintain my credit, mistress!' he replied. 'Would you like to be one of my models for the paintings in Molin Torchholder's Hall?'
How delightful it was to be the dispenser of largesse, thought Lalo as he watched Zorra dance away down the street. She had been painfully eager to break all previous engagements so that she could come to him the next day.
Was that how Enas Yorl felt when he gave me my desire? he wondered, and wondered also (but only for a moment) why, in doing so, the sorcerer had laughed.
'But why can't I pose for you in Molin Torchholder's house?' Zorra pouted, glanced at Lalo to see if he was watching her take off her petticoat, and let the garment slip to the floor.
'If my patrons could detach their walls and sent them here for decoration, I doubt they would let even me in the door...' replied Lalo abstractedly, transferring paint from paintpots to palette in the precise order he always used. 'Besides, I'll need to make several studies from each model before I decide on the final design...'
Morning sunlight shone cheerfully on the clean-swept floor, cleared now of strangers' laundry, gleamed on Lalo's palette knife and glowed through the petals of the flowers he had given to Zorra to hold.
'That's right -' he said, draping a wisp of gauze around her hips and adjusting the angle of her arms. 'Hold the flowers as if you were offering them to the Goddess.' She twitched as he touched her, but his awareness of her flesh was already giving way to his perception other body as a form in space. 'Generally I would do only a quick sketch or two,' he explained, 'but this must be complete enough to give Lord Molin an idea of what the finished work will be like, so I'm using colour ...'
He stepped back, seeing the picture as he had visualized it-the fresh beauty of the girl in the sunlight with her bright hair flowing down her back and her arms filled with bright flowers. He picked up his brush and took a deep breath, focusing on what he saw.
His awareness of the murmur of conversation at the other end of the room, where Gilla and their middle daughter were preparing the noon meal, faded. He did not turn when one of his sons came in, was shushed by his mother and sent outdoors. The sounds slid past him as his mind stilled, as the tensions of the past days slipped away.
Now he was himself at last, serenely confident that his hand would obey his eye, that both would reflect the perceptions of his soul. And he knew that not the commissions, but this confidence in himself, was the true gift of Enas Yorl. Lalo dipped his brush in the paint and began to work.
The bar of light had moved halfway across the floor when Zorra abruptly straightened and let her flowers fall to the floor.
'This had better be worth it!' she complained. 'My back hurts, and my arms are falling off.' She flexed her shoulders and bent back and forth to ease the strain.
Lalo blinked, trying to orient himself. 'No, not yet - it's not finished -' he began, but Zorra was already moving towards him.
'What do you mean, I can't look? It's my picture, isn't it?' She stopped short, staring. Lalo's eyes followed her gaze back to the picture, and appalled, he let the brush slip from his hand.
The face that looked at him from the easel had eyes narrowed with cupidity, lips drawn back in a predatory grin. The red hair flamed like a fox's brush, and somehow the rounded limbs had been distorted so that she looked as if she were about to spring. Lalo shuddered, looking from the girl to the picture and back again.
'You whoreson maggoty bastard, what have you done to me?' She rounded on him furiously, then turned back to the picture, snatched up his palette knife, and began to stab at the canvas. 'That's not me! That's hateful! You hate women, don't you? You hate my father, too, but just you wait! You'll be living with the Downwinders by the time he gets through with you!'
The floor shook as Gilla charged towards them. Lalo staggered back as she thrust between him and the half-naked girl, squeezed Zorra's wrist until the little knife clattered to the floor.
'Get dressed, you hussy! I'll have no such language where my children can hear!' snapped Gilla, ignoring the fact that they heard far worse every time they went into the Bazaar.
'And you too, you bloated sow!' Zorra pulled away, began to struggle into her clothes. 'You're too gross for even Amoli to hire -I hope you end on the streets where you belong!' The door slammed behind her and they heard her clatter down the rickety stairs.
'I hope she breaks her neck. Her father still hasn't fixed those stairs,' said Gilla calmly.
Lalo bent stiffly to pick up his palette knife. 'She's right...' He took a step towards the mutilated picture. 'Damn him ...' he whispered. 'He tricked me - he knew that this would happen. May all the gods damn Enas Yorl!'
Gilla looked at the picture and began to laugh. 'No ... really,' she gasped, 'it's an excellent likeness. You only saw her pretty face. I know what she's been up to. Her fiance killed himself when she threw him over for that gorilla from the Prince's guard. The vixen is out for all she can get, which the picture makes abundantly clear. No wonder she hated it!'
Lalo slumped. 'But I've been betrayed ...'
'No. You got what you asked for, poor love. You have painted that wretched girl's soul!'
Lalo leaned on the splintery railing of the abandoned wharf, staring with unfocused eyes into the golden dazzle cast upon the waters by the setting sun as if by wishing hard enough he could become one with that beauty and forget his despair. I have only to climb over this flimsy barrier and let myself/all... He imagined the feel of the bitter waters closing over him, and the blessed release from pain.
Then he looked down, and shuddered, not entirely because of the cooling wind. The murky waters were littered with obscene gobbets that had once been part of living things - offal flushed down the gutters from the shambles of Sanctuary to the sea. Lalo's gorge rose at the thought of that water touching him. He turned away, sank down with his back against the wall of a shanty the fishermen sometimes used.
Like everything else I see, he thought, whatever seems fairest is sure to be most foul within!
A ship moved majestically across the harbour, passed the lighthouse and disappeared around the point. Lalo had thought of shipping out on such a vessel, but he was too unskilled for a sailor, too frail for a common hand. Even the solace of the taverns was denied to him. In the Green Grape they would congratulate him on the success that was impossible now, while the clients at the Vulgar Unicorn would try to rob him, and beat him senseless when they discovered his poverty. How could he ever explain, even to Cappen Varra, what had happened to him?