The Aphrodisia House accepted only the most beautiful. Darios's flushed face showed Lato what it was like to look at them simply as a man. No wonder the lad had found his exorcism hard going. But the limner saw them with other eyes. As he began to work, outer awareness fell away.
Not many had spirits as beautiful as Valira's, but in several he found depths of faith and fortitude that would have astonished their customers. He saw on their souls the scars of neglect and cruelty and despair. In many he found jealousy or greed. In almost all of them he saw fcar.
"Afraid?" Myrtis laughed bitterly when the last girl had gone. "Of course they fear. Age, illness, poverty-all they have is their beauty. Every one of them fears what will happen when it is gone. The attention their lovers pay them is their reassurance. But you should look again, Lalo-that's not all your pictures show."
Blinking, he focused on the shaded backgrounds with which he had surrounded his sketches, and realized that they were more than random lines. It was not only the portraits that showed fear-the fears themselves were pictured on the page. He shook his head in pity, understanding now what had made the faces that way.
"There are your hauntings, Madam Myrtis," said Darios.
"Destroy them!" she exclaimed.
"I cannot-" said Lalo. "They are not my fears. But perhaps I can change them." A sweep with the eraser and a few deft strokes transformed a demon to a godling, emaciated old age to serenity. Another change took the lines of discontent from a pretty mouth, put hope back into sullen eyes. The sketches had been simple. Altering them into something the girls would be flattered to hang in their bedchambers did not take long.
"Let us see if this improves the atmosphere-" He handed the pictures to Myrtis.
"But that's not what you saw!" objected Darios.
"No, but when Madam Myrtis gives these sketches to her girls, perhaps this is what they will see-and believe-and believing, make it so," answered Lalo, remembering what Molin Torchholder had asked him to do. "I only wish I knew what it was that suddenly gave their fears such power!"
"My lady Kurrekai is one of the great ones that attend the Beysa herself"-the palace maid laughed at her soldier-"with a serpent for a neckpiece an* all. She has a different headdress for every day of the week, an' she's generous. What do I need with presents from you?"
"Even this one?" growled Ottar. He pulled something from his pouch and offered it shyly. The girl exclaimed as the wrapping fell away and the sun glittered on the silver ball. "Pretty, huh? Does your lady have one o' these? You come out with me and I'll be generous too!"
The girl gave him a calculating glance. Ottar wasn't bad-looking, really. He pressed a wet kiss into the palm of her hand and she felt a warm glow.
"Tonight, then?"
She nodded, laughing, and dropping the silver ball into the pocket of her apron, skipped away. She had scarcely turned the comer before her swain was forgotten. The silver glittered so charmingly. She could hardly keep from pulling it out to fondle, even when she was working.
That night she dreamed of riding in a gilded litter borne by matched slaves, while a whole troop of barbarian warriors who looked like Ottar marched behind. But the litter turned into a darkened alley. She screamed as it was set down roughly, but no one heard. And then hard hands were pulling her out into the street, tearing at her clothing. Hard bodies thrust against hers.
The next morning, she was clumsy as she served breakfast for her Beysib lady, who was on duty with her mistress that day. As she started to pass a basket of oranges, she tripped, and the silver ball fell out of her apron and rolled across the floor.
"How lovely!" said the Beysa, and held out her hand.
Lalo laid in the undercoat of color for the background with long, smooth strokes of his brush. He knew that Molin Torchholder was watching him, but he continued to paint tranquilly. It was mindless labor, but the durability of the final product might depend on the care he took now. At least there was no way the priest could quarrel with him about this part of the job. The air was beginning to heat as the day wore onward, but it was still reasonably comfortable beneath the awning's dappled shade. He painted quickly.
"You're not stupid, and I know you don't lack imagination," said Molin Torchholder suddenly. "I don't understand how you remain so calm."
The brush splattered paint across white space, and Lalo reached for a rag. He finished wiping the color away, then turned to stare at his patron, his own self-mockery deepening as he realized that Torchholder had not even noticed his clumsiness.
"Other people wear me out with their pleas for place and position, or their accusations against those to whom I've given them. Other people wear themselves out suspecting each other of exotic forms of treason. But not you, Lalo . . - why?"
Lalo washed out his paintbrush, considering the question. "Perhaps because I want different things?"
"Ah-" The priest nodded. He did not look as if he had slept well. "And what are your ambitions. Master Limner?"
"To feed my family ... to paint the truth ... to stay alive ..." Lalo said slowly. "That's seemed ambition enough, these past few years."
Molin Torchholder answered with a snort of laughter,
"I envy you. The palace was a madhouse this morning ... a madhouse. Two people came to tell me that someone had bribed the workmen to leave weaknesses in my walls. One thought it was agents of the old Emperor. The other was sure that it was the new one, setting things up so that he can attack Sanctuary. Vashanka's rod! If Theron showed up right now I'd hand him the keys!"
Lalo suppressed a smile. In the Aphrodisia House they had demon lovers. In the palace it stood to reason that they would have nightmares about intrigue,
"Somebody else said that the prince had been poisoned, and just as I was escaping from him, one of the astrologers came running up with some tale that a piece of the Nisibisi Power Globe had been found! No truth to it, of course. I checked. But that one had me remembering when staying alive was almost ambition enough for me!"
Lalo dropped his brush.
I'm calm. he told himself. I'm calm. Torchholder just said so. But the priest's words reminded him uncomfortably of what Gilla had said. He straightened slowly and found that the priest was staring at him.
"Now why, I wonder, should that news trouble you?"
"No one wants those days to come again." Lalo dipped his brush in the paint and carefully stroked along a borderline. "Some of the girls at the Aphrodisia House were having bad dreams too. I drew pictures of them, changed the pictures a little, and the trouble seems to be going away. I'm sure there's no connection, though."
"Of course not." Molin Torchholder rose to his feet and stood looking over Lalo's shoulder. "But you didn't do badly, Master Limner. You learned a lot in those days. You want to paint the truth, you say. But we both know that you already can. I keep wondering when you're going to do something with that power."
And with that parting shot he moved onward, leaving Lalo staring unseeing at the wall.
The dead man gets to his feet grinning, his skin still-the color of a fish's belly from the beynit venom in his veins.
"You betrayed me!" The Seysa takes a step backward, aware of the muscular grip of her serpent around her upper arm as its head darts forward defensively. "I killed you!"
"Yes ... yes." The creature grins. "And how many more? You killed your own people, Beysaf Their blood cries out for revenge!"
"But it was my duty!" Dimly she remembers that this has happened to her before. She must deny it, but it has never been so real! "And for you above all to betray me ... I let you love me, Tovek-you were a Burek man!"
"The killing went on too long ..."He comes towards her with outstretched hands and the beynit hisses angrily.
"I stopped it," she cries. "House Burek fled the Empire. Why are you haunting me? We live now in another land!"