OfArtAndLifeEderyn Smith was not used to being watched. But he owed these Montengrans a lot – his whole future, in truth – and so the watchers stayed unchallenged, if also frequently ignored. Mostly they seemed content to speak a few words to him and then hang about, talking to each other and watching him. Just like men watching a visitor in the king’s mead-hall at home, he thought, when he was feeling generous about it all. Comparisons to various animals occurred to him when he was not. The faint pressure of their attention against his mind’s shields was sometimes unsettling. At least after three hands of days he was beginning to understand their talk a little better, both the babble they’d told him was the language here, and the language of Amber, which they called “Thari.” Daniel Poole, the young man he’d been told might go to Amber with him, said that all they really wanted of him was that he let himself be looked at and talked to. “And keep the help they give?” Ederyn had laboriously asked in Thari. “Remember,” Daniel had said. “Remember the help we give to you.” And he’d smiled. “It may be that you can help us, one day. Or it may not. It is a gamble.” That was a word Ederyn had learned already; they had dice, and oblongs of thick paper called cards, here. “I will,” Ederyn had said, and then learned the correct way to say ‘I remember’ in Thari. At least he had things to look at while the Montenegrans talked to each other, like the paintings here in the Duke’s big house (‘palace’). The large one in this room of gold-and-green cloth window coverings (‘curtains’) intrigued him particularly. It was a view of the main city of Montengro, as seen from the water – a view he’d seen himself in reality. The picture was not exactly like the reality, but it was far more like it than anything ever done in Norwend. It looked as if there was light gleaming off the bay. He’d asked about the paintings when he’d first seen them, and been told about what they showed. At least he thought so, since the man who’d answered his halting question spoke too fast and used too many unfamiliar words. Today, he stood with his nose almost against the painting, then stood back again, marveling at how the mass of colors, and even the little ridges in the paint, worked together to make a comprehensible picture. There were complicated things going on with this, he could even see a few of them, but unlike the painting itself, the techniques refused to come into focus. One of the men, a youngish one (he had stopped trying to remember every one of them, as they didn’t seem to expect him to), was watching him alertly. “You like it, your highness?” he said in slowed-down Montenegran. “Yes,” Ederyn replied. And with the larger number of words he now knew, added, “I want to know how to make.” The man nodded, obviously having guessed this. “My sister knows how to make paintings,” he said. “Would you like to meet her?” “Yes, I would,” he said immediately. Meeting young women here carried baggage he’d quickly recognized even without knowing the language, but in this case he didn’t care. Even the suppressed flicker of triumph in the man’s eyes didn’t shake the improvement in his mood. Competition was a normal thing back home, as well. It was several days, however, before Jan ten Heide brought his sister Mina to the duke’s big house. They were invited, it transpired, to yet another ‘afternoon tea’ held in Ederyn’s honor by one of the Duke’s oldest kinswomen: another group of young women paired with older relatives, female and male, come to meet the barely-willing foreign prince. Mina, introduced, was a quiet brunette, probably eighteen or nineteen years old and wearing a flattering rose-colored gown in what Ederyn had learned to recognize as the very latest style. “The artist!” he said delightedly, having learned some more relevant words from Daniel. “Yes, your highness,” she said, flushing a little as the attention of the half-dozen others fastened on her, and one of the girls murmured something to another in an uncomplimentary tone. “Good!” he said, and when the rest had been introduced, made sure he sat beside her. They talked haltingly in Montenegran, because she knew next to no Thari, and he unrepentantly refused to talk to anyone else. Mina tried to explain things about painting with the limited number of words that he knew, but at trying to explain the concept of ‘sketching’ finally said, “It would be easier to show you.” Out of the small bag she carried with her, she drew a sheaf of paper sewn together down the left side. “The sketch,” she said, looking through the pages, “it catches – holds? shows? – the shape of what is to be painted.” She showed him a page with a group of penciled lines on it. “It is what?” he said in some perplexity. “It’s a cat,” she said with dismay, and someone tittered. “See, here are the ears, and the curve of its back …” “Oh!” he said, finally seeing it, and nearly pulled the booklet out of her hands. In fact, only her fierce resistance prevented it, which embarrassed them both. He let go and muttered an apology, and asked to see another sketch. Through half a dozen pages, she had to point out key features of the sketches – the trunk of a tree, a woman’s chin – while the other attendees drank tea and gave up trying to attract his attention. Finally Mina said, hesitantly, “I don’t understand why it is so hard for you to see the pictures.” Ederyn shrugged. “I never saw ‘sketches’ before today,” he said. “But you make them.” She looked unconvinced, but turned to a blank page in her booklet, carefully folding over the previous page. “I’ll draw one for you,” she said, fishing a stick out of her bag. The stick proved to have a piece of soft lead at one end, which she held over the page for a moment, thinking. Then she moved it swiftly over the paper, drawing what Ederyn eventually recognized as one of the spring flowers currently adorning this place, a ‘tulip.’ He touched the page. “How,” he said, and stumbled over tenses again. “How to learn this?” “Practice,” she said promptly. “Making many drawings. Looking at drawings made by others. That is how to learn it. And …” She looked at him. “Not everyone can see the shapes and put them on paper.” “Shapes?” She pursed her lips and turned over another page. “This is a shape,” she said, drawing an oval, and naming it. Below it she drew a narrow rectangle, naming it as well. Then, with a series of additional lines, faint and strong, she turned the two shapes into a rough sketch of a head and shoulders. “I see,” he murmured. “You follow the shapes, but first you must see them.” “Exactly. With practice, it’s not always necessary to put down the shapes – the tulip was easy, it is a simple thing. This head is more complex.” She kept adding details as she talked, and he watched it turn into a recognizable portrait of her brother. To keep his fingers from twitching, Ederyn pressed them against his knees. “How should I start this practicing?” She looked at him doubtfully. “It would be best to start with a teacher,” she said. “I’m sure the Duke could find one for you …” On Ederyn’s other side, her brother Jan cleared his throat, and gave her a meaningful look. She stared back with teeth clenched, then said, “I am not a teacher, you see. It would serve you poorly, your highness, for me to try to teach you.” The siblings glared at each other out of superficially calm faces. Ederyn smiled a little, suddenly liking the girl for herself rather than just for her mysterious skills. “You also paint, yes?” he said to her. “I would like to see that, Miss ten Heide.” The brother took a startled breath and relaxed. “I’m sure that can be arranged, your highness,” he murmured. Mina looked astonished and worried, but gamely said, “I’d be honored, your highness.” “I thank you,” Ederyn said, and drew breath to ask for another sketch – and caught the elderly hostess giving him a look that could have pierced any shield or helm he could think of. She was, he already knew, as strong-willed a woman as ever graced the king’s mead-hall in Drengrheim, and she was clearly not happy with his behavior today. So he sighed, and let the conversation with Mina pause so that the others present could take some of his time and attention. It was another six days before a messenger brought him an invitation to the ten Heide house for, as the man put it, “a tour of Miss Mina’s studio and dinner with the family.” And if another meal with strangers was the price he had to pay for Mina’s kindness, he was willing – though he was more polite about it in speaking to the messenger. His first lesson with what they called a ‘drawing master’ had been just the day before. So the following afternoon he rode in a ‘carriage’ to a house that was smaller than the Duke’s, but still immense by his standards. A blur of introductions later, he and Mina and several others entered a wide-windowed room toward the back of the house. It was so neat that it was hard to believe anyone had been working in it, although a partially-completed painting stood on a stand near the windows. Mina, wearing a blue dress that was, he thought, as new as the one from last week, paused uneasily in the midst of the room. “I have some finished paintings if you’d like to see them, your highness,” she said awkwardly. Someone, it seemed, had been tutoring her intensively in Thari. “That will do,” he said, using a simple phrase that seemed to have a lot of uses. “Here, then,” she said, going toward a number of canvases leaning against the far wall. Her relatives, he noticed, seated themselves on chairs near the doorway, pretending not to watch them. Mina nervously started shifting pictures around, turning them toward the light so he could see them. He asked a few questions about what the paintings showed, trying to follow her explanations, but finally her obvious anxiety made him ask, “What’s wrong, Miss ten Heide?” She froze, staring at an amateurish canvas depicting a bowl of fruit. “They’re all out of order,” she said in a low voice. “I used to work in a corner of my room and store things in the attic, and now I have a studio. Because of you. The servants moved everything … this should be at the back, I was fourteen when I painted it. It’s awful.” “You said practice is important,” he reminded her. She turned to look up at him. “That’s true,” she said. “But one has one’s pride.” He smiled. “I understand.” She stared back for a moment, then pasted on a strained smile of her own and returned to the subject of art. “A painting like this is called a ‘still life,’” she said, gesturing slightly with the bowl of fruit. “It should look pleasing, the way the shapes are arranged, and also as real as possible.” He nodded, and listened attentively as she showed him other types of paintings, ‘landscapes’ and ‘portraits,’ and helped her rearrange the canvases so that her newer work was toward the front. During all this she relaxed perceptibly, he was pleased to see. “I know little about this art,” he said at last, as they stood looking at her work in progress, “but I think your paintings are as well made as what I see in the Duke’s palace. And better than some.” Mina flushed. “It’s kind of you to say so, your highness,” she said. “May I watch you paint?” he asked. “In this dress?” she squeaked. “That means ‘no’?” She laughed, looked toward her relatives again, and shrugged. “I’ll blame you if I get paint on it.” “That seems fair,” he said gravely, but his eyes smiled. Unfortunately, while she was looking for a ‘smock,’ a servant arrived with the news that dinner was about to be served. “Another time, then,” Ederyn said, “I hope?” “Of course, your highness,” one of the relatives said delightedly. The dinner passed by with careful, repetitive small talk, like any other, and then it was another week before his schedule could include a visit the ten Heide family and their resident artist. Mina was wearing yet another new dress, which she covered up carefully with a muslin ‘smock’ for the painting demonstration. Once again, several of her kin sat on chairs near the doorway, giving the two of them an appearance of having the room to themselves. The painting on the ‘easel’ was different from the week before, and in a less complete state. “This,” she said breathlessly, “is a commission.” She glanced at him and added, “Someone asked me to paint it, and will pay me for the work.” He nodded with full comprehension. “That is good luck.” “It isn’t luck!” she whispered fiercely, keeping her face turned toward the painting. “It’s *you!*” Ederyn nodded again. “It is luck,” he repeated. “After I leave, you will have work.” She pretended to examine a couple of paintbrushes. “If I’m good enough.” “I think you are. And I think you will be better.” She sighed and glanced over at her relatives. “They don’t understand, you know,” she said. “They don’t believe you just want to know about art.” “I’m glad that *you* understand,” he said. She began fussing with paints. “I live for art,” she said. “They don’t understand that, either.” “It is hard to be different, I know.” She stared up at him for a long moment. “I believe you do,” she said. “But how?” “To explain, I would have to tell you very much about Norwend and myself,” he said. “And I would like to see you paint.” “Right.” She looked at her painting, her attention obviously divided. “You’re really very kind,” she murmured. “I could bear to be married to you, I think.” Ederyn laughed, a startling crack of sound. Mina flushed, then managed an embarrassed titter herself, while he brought his amusement under control. “It is a compliment, I think,” he said, even as another chuckle or two threatened to escape. “Really,” he added, since Mina seemed to be wishing to disappear through the floor. “Well,” she said, busying herself with her paints again, “you see, you’re going to Amber to take your place there, yes? Then you’ll need a wife, and heirs … it would be a wonderful thing for my family. So, they hope.” “I understand,” he said after a moment. “They see what they want to see. But what I know is - I am older than your grandfather, Mina,” he said. She finally looked at him again and said, “That’s hard to believe.” He nodded, old sorrow pulling at the young lines of his face. “It was for me, also.” She took in a breath and let it out slowly, watching him. “I can’t imagine it,” she said. “But I see it was hard to live, Ederyn. I’m sorry.” “You are also very kind,” he said. “I thank you for that.” “The world needs more kindness,” she said, and turned back to her painting. “All right,” she said. “If I can remember what I was going to do ...” She did remember, after a few minutes of explaining what she had already done. The painting skill was two things, he came to understand. First was the imagining of what the picture would show, the ideas and the shapes and the ‘composition.’ Second was the knowing how to use the paint to get the image that was wanted, that certain arrangements of line and color would convince the eye that it saw a building, and flowers, and clouds in the sky. Looked at separately, the elements were hardly convincing at all, but if it was done right, it worked. In its way it was just like drawing, but with different tools. “The art I am used to,” he said finally, “is not trying to look real.” “Some of ours is like that,” she responded. “This lace on my dress is pretty, but it doesn’t look like anything but pleasing shapes, or like flowers, but not like real flowers.” “Yes, we have art that makes us think of things, like horses, but look only a little like them.” Eventually the time of good light – she explained how important it was to be able to see the colors properly – was over, and he showed her what the drawing master had been teaching him. “You do have the eye,” she said, turning over the pages of his new sketchbook. “I make things,” he explained. “I see them in my thinking, and then make them in steel or silver or gold.” “It is different, but like,” she agreed. “A beeldhouwer – a person who makes statues, things out of stone – also must know how to draw. And how to think of what he wants to make. Just like a painter.” “I am learning,” Ederyn said firmly. “May I watch you paint again?” “If you wish, of course,” she said. By the time he was able to arrange a third visit, he had learned that quite a few other girls also knew how to draw, and even to paint ‘water colors,’ but none were as dedicated as Mina. More importantly, he felt, though he could not have described exactly how, a distinct lessening of the pressure of the girls’ hopes. A few of them asked after Mina, and he finally realized that they thought he had settled on her, or perhaps that they had no chance against her. The change was a relief, though it also made the luncheons, teas, and dinners even more dull. On that third visit, Mina was working on making the bridge in her picture look like real, sun-warmed stone. “I talked to Jan yesterday, your highness,” she murmured, so that he had to lean closer to hear her – while still being careful to stay out of her light. “He thinks that if the family thinks that it is worth trying, I might go to Amber. And him as well.” “Umm,” he said, not sure of what to think of her smile. “It means a chance!” she said, her face alight. “A chance to be something besides the ten Heides’ strange daughter or their clever younger son. A chance to make our fortunes. Do you see?” He couldn’t help but give a sigh of relief. “But I can’t lie to them,” he said gently. Both her words and her brush hesitated. “You don’t have to,” she said after a moment. “Just go on being polite. No one has asked you directly about your plans, have they?” “No,” he admitted. “They are sure that you will not make choices, real choices, before you have been to Amber. So, only a fool would ask for one. That is what Jan says.” Apparently Jan had been saying a great deal. “He may be correct,” Ederyn said thoughtfully. “So ... I will do this for you, because you are my friend. And you will call me ‘Ederyn’ and I will call you ‘Mina.’” She turned to look directly at him. “But ... isn’t that something like a lie?” He smiled. “No. In Norwend we do not use all of these ‘master’ and ‘miss’ words. Titles. I am tired of them. And the ‘highness’ one sounds silly to me. It makes me think I should be standing on a chair.” Mina giggled, then pressed a hand to her lips. “Now I’ll think of that every time I hear it!” “Are we agreed then?” “Yes,” she said, trying not to laugh again. “Ederyn.” The way their chaperones near the door reacted when they said their good-byes suggested that this bit of misdirection might have some of the effect they wanted. Daniel’s questioning of him about it, the next time they spoke, confirmed that. “I don’t like all these titles,” Ederyn explained. “You know that. And Mina is my friend. I am learning a lot about painting from her, and she is not trying all the wide eyes and pretending affection, which I am also tired of.” “I’m not sure it’s all pretending,” Daniel said. “You’re a handsome man, you know.” Ederyn sighed and stared moodily into the fireplace. “I can’t help it if they break their hearts over me.” “I didn’t say you could,” Daniel replied mildly. “You might want to be careful of the ten Heides, though. They have a reputation for cleverness.” “Huh. That, I have already guessed,” Ederyn replied, smiling a little. The last weeks of his stay were less dull than the beginning, with his drawing lessons and observing Mina paint. He also was given opportunity to see other artists paint, and had to admit to himself that a balding old man at work was intrinsically less charming than a young woman. He thought for some time about a parting gift for Mina; something not too large or expensive, and that might suit her. In the end he crafted something in gold, using the heat from his fireplace and a few improvised tools. It was a pendant shaped like the artist’s palette she often used, and was a little bigger around than a walnut, with small chips of colored gemstones around the edges to represent paint. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered when he gave it to her, at their last meeting in her studio. “You made it, didn’t you?” He nodded. “No news about plans to travel?” “No,” she said, then shrugged, making a visible effort to appear philosophical. “It will happen, or not. And I still have a better situation than before. Now,” she said briskly, “here is my gift to you.” It was, he saw, a crate of the type she used to ship paintings, one of the medium-sized ones. “There is a picture in it?” he inquired. “Yes, but it’s a surprise,” she said. “I want you to open it when you’re in Amber. I think it is the best I have made. So far. I haven’t let you see it,” she added shyly. “For the surprise.” “It’s not a portrait of me, is it?” he asked uneasily. “Or you?” “No, no, it’s a historical,” she said, referring to one of the popular themes of re-creating scenes from Montenegran history. “All right,” he surrendered. “It will be something to look forward to, whatever happens when I reach Amber.” “It will be well,” she said, laying a reassuring hand on his arm. “You are a good man, Ederyn, and they have to see that.” She really was terribly young, he thought, and produced a smile for her. He left on a sunny day, standing at the back of the ship to watch the land recede, wishing with all his heart that he could walk or ride instead of sailing. It only occurred to him later that the crowd on the dock, which included Mina, could have misinterpreted his expression. Which was well enough, he supposed. Backlinks |
