Imager

At precisely one glass before noon on Lundi, Masgayl Factorius arrived at the second-floor door to Master Caliostrus’s studio. I had barely gotten there myself, after washing up, because I’d been working on grinding pigment stock in the shed in the rear courtyard, and the Belishan purple had been more than difficult to get off my fingers and from under my nails. I had to grind and mix the pigments-or those requiring greater care-not only for myself and Master Caliostrus, but also for Ostrius, who certainly couldn’t be bothered with such, and Stanus, who seemed unwilling to learn anything of any great difficulty.

My fingers were numb, of course, because Master Caliostrus didn’t believe in spending coppers on coal for heating wash water for apprentices or journeymen, at least not until the turn of winter. Yet a thorough washing was necessary, because the purple could pervade anything else I touched, and I didn’t want to spoil the portrait or one of the smaller studies I was working on to enter in the annual journeyman’s festival in Ianus, barely more than a month away.

“Good morning, honored factorius.” I held the studio door for him as he eased his bulk past me.

“Good day, such as it is.” He forced a smile. “Before we start, let me see what you have there, young Rhenn.”

I closed the heavy oak door and followed the heavyset factorius to the easel in my corner of the studio. He stood before the easel, then brushed back his thick and oily gray hair and nodded. I had widened the eye spacing just a touch, as well as lightened the skin beneath the eyes a shade or so. That would reduce their apparent beadiness.

“Not so flattering as one might wish, but accurate, and adequate. You do have an excellent touch on the vest, as well as the fabric of the chair-even if I did bring you a sample.” He turned and moved toward the far plainer chair in which he sat for me, taking off his silver-trimmed traveling cloak to reveal the vest and jacket matching those in the portrait. “But my daughter insisted that I be depicted in a chair identifiable as mine. Daughters are a man’s joy and trouble. Sons are merely trouble.”

“We do our best to be more than adequate, sir.”

Masgayl laughed, a sound comprised of a certain emptiness as well as amusement and rue. “You’re more than adequate, young Rhenn, and adequate is more than sufficient. Now that I am a factorius, it will not do that my foyer is without a portrait, but one by a proclaimed master would only declare my arrogance. No . . . modesty suits me far better, and I will get a good work from you at a lower cost than from your master, and you will gain in reputation as others see your work.” He settled into the chair.

I adjusted the easel. “You do not fear that they will say you have no interest in great art, sir?”

“What they say and how they will act are not the same. They will act on the prices of my goods, not upon my appreciation of art. Besides, art is no more than a craft, one that takes talent, there is little point in denying that, but a craft nonetheless . . .”

As I worked to get the squint in his eyes better, and catch the little crease that ran above the main one than extended from his left eye upward for just a fraction of a span, I found myself thinking about the factorius’s point that art was but a craft. Could everything be reduced to little more than a craft, a set of skills that those with talent and determination could master? My brush almost wavered, and I pushed away the thoughts. For the moment, the portrait came first.

I had but worked less than half a glass when the studio door opened and Master Caliostrus entered, carefully carrying a canvas. A chill breeze swept into the studio, and with the wind came Stanus, lugging the master’s traveling case with its paints, oils, solvents, and brushes. Caliostrus let Stanus pass, then set the canvas on the nearest empty easel before closing the door. He turned and inclined his head to the rope factor. “Greetings, factorius. I had heard that you now have a new device for twisting and braiding cable for deep-sea vessels.”

“I’ve had it for two years. The demand is so great I have just completed installing a second.”

“That must have been what I heard. People are talking.”

Masgayl snorted. “They always talk. Only imagers never talk. They don’t need to. And artists and portraiturists shouldn’t say much, but let their work speak for them.”

“We do try, honored factorius. When you are finished with today’s sitting, would you like to see the work I am doing for the daughter of Imager Heisbyl?”

“I am certain it shows an excellently attractive woman. Whether or not it resembles the lady might well be another question.”

I almost missed a brush stroke at those words.

“All my work resembles those whom I portray, most honored Masgayl.”

“Oh . . . I’m quite assured that it does, perhaps on their best days in the best possible light.” The factorius offered an ironic laugh. “Your journeyman does you credit, Caliostrus.”

After what Masgayl had just said, I wasn’t certain that I wanted that credit, but I said nothing and switched my concentration to the drape and the play of the light on the right lower sleeve of the factor’s bastognan-brown jacket. There was something there. I could see it . . .

Then, it was there on the canvas, just as I had visualized it, but I wasn’t aware that I’d actually painted it. Still, the brushstrokes were there, if a touch more precise than usual, more the way I wished they were than they sometimes were.

“He has talent and promise, honored factorius, and, if he continues to listen,” Caliostrus added with a touch of asperity, “he might even have more commissions such as yours.”

That was a not-so-veiled reference to Masgayl’s beady eyes, and I attempted to work on the smaller left section of the sleeve, trying to get the fall of the light and the creases just right.

“He might indeed,” agreed the factorius politely. “Is that the portrait you mentioned, the one you put on the easel?”

“It is indeed. It is as of the moment most incomplete,” Caliostrus said before lifting the canvas and carrying to where Masgayl could see it.

“Ah, yes,” nodded the rope factor, “a most flattering image, but one certainly recognizable as the younger Mistress Heisbyl.”

“I’m glad that you find it so.” Caliostrus’s words were strained.

“Don’t mind me, master portraiturist. I’m cynical about far too much in life. I’d rather make cables for ships, but I also provide rope for the gaolers in at the Poignard Prison. We all have aspects of what we do that we could do without.”

Master Caliostrus retreated with the portrait. Once he had placed it on his working easel, he motioned for Stanus to leave and then followed, inclining his head to the factor just before he opened the studio door. “Until later, honored factorius.”

“Until later.”

Once the door closed, I went back to working on the area around the factor’s eyes. Caliostrus had been right about one thing-the eyes were central to showing a true likeness.

When Masgayl finally rose at the end of the glass, he stretched, then began to don his cloak, which even he might need against a wind that was more indicative of the winter gusts of Ianus than reminiscent of the pleasant harvest breezes of Erntyn.

“Young Rhenn, you are most unusual for a portraiturist, even for a journeyman.” Masgayl smiled courteously, but for the first time, I could sense a ferocity behind the smile. “The advantage of commerce is that one can be accurate and prosper. Doing so is far more . . . difficult . . . when one’s craft depends on pleasing the perceptions of those who pay. Before long, you will doubtless have to choose between accuracy and perception . . . if you have not already done so.”

“Sir.” I just inclined my head politely. There was little I could or should have said, not given my position.

He smiled again, as if he had made a jest, then turned and left the studio. For a moment, I just stood with the chill wind of the coming winter gusting past me.