Children of Earth and Sky (51 page)

What he was seeing in his mind's eye now was the object he'd touched in that forest in Sauradia, crawling through a glade.

He'd touched it, then set it down again. Skandir, after, had been visibly relieved to hear he'd put it back. And now it was as if he were seeing that artifact again, in the palace complex, underground, beneath torches in iron brackets, looking at long-ago mosaics on the floor.

He didn't understand at all, but there was a sense of
something
not natural down here. Not necessarily to be feared, though he was very much afraid of what was happening. No, the sensation he had, as he'd had in the glade, was of age, loss, a span of time.

Well, yes, he thought, trying to gain control of himself: this tunnel
was
old, it would have been built by an emperor long ago. He didn't know where it would lead; they'd said another door, so probably one of the other palaces.

He didn't seem to have a choice. He started walking.

He heard his footsteps, his breathing. It wasn't dark, there were torches all the way along the walls as the tunnel bent one way and then the other. The floor mosaics were chipped in many places, he saw, tesserae scattered. There were patterns, flowers, small birds at a small fountain. The object in the glade had been a bird, he thought. He stepped on mosaic pieces as he went.

At one point, for no reason he could understand, Pero felt a wave of sorrow pass through him. An old sorrow, not about himself or anyone here now, alive now, in the world. He stopped and looked around but saw nothing at all. He walked on and the sensation receded as he went.

He wondered what had happened here through the centuries, who had gone back and forth. Remarkable, that it was as well-preserved as it was. The torches flickered, the air was good. He kept walking as the tunnel bent and twisted sinuously (he had no idea why it wasn't straight), and it wasn't long before he saw the
other door that had been promised and came up to it.

He looked back the way he had come. In what had to be an effect of the light, Pero thought he saw something that hadn't been there before, a flame on the floor of the tunnel at the last bend—low-burning, blue-green—and somehow it seemed to be moving. Moving and then gone, begotten of nothing he could see. He shook his head. He turned and, after a hesitation, knocked on the second door.

“
Welcome!
” said Prince Cemal, standing behind the attendant who opened the door. There were others behind Cemal, there were lights.

He was handsomely clad, the prince, in a heavy robe of the colour they called porphyry here. The colour of emperors once.

“I am so very pleased,” he said, smiling, “that you have decided to join me.”

—

HE'D HAVE THOUGHT
that having armed men burst into his room would be the most frightening thing that happened tonight. It wasn't, in the event.

Pero followed the older son of the khalif, the one expected to be Gurçu's heir, along a corridor and then another. He expected to go upstairs again in this other palace. They did not. They came to a room on this underground level, lit by many lamps. It would have been a storeroom once, he guessed. Nothing was stored here now.

He saw an easel, paints and brushes, mixing bowls, cloths on a table, and a medium-sized wooden surface prepared for paint, already on the easel.

“Your paints have been mixed to instructions in a book from one of your western artists,” said the prince. “The one my father read. Cennaro is the name, I believe? I am hopeful they will prove adequate.”

Pero looked at him. The prince was undeniably handsome.
Broad-shouldered, tall (not as tall as the father), a full head of dark hair under a black velvet hat. He had the khalif's prominent nose and a neatly trimmed beard. He wore a floral scent, strong in the room.

“Adequate to what purpose?” Pero asked. He struggled to remain calm. “Why have you brought me here in this way, my lord?”

The prince smiled. He had good, even teeth. He gestured. “Surely it is obvious, Signore Villani?”

“I'm afraid it is not, my lord. Perhaps it is fatigue. I was awakened by armed men in my room.”

The smile faded. “They were instructed to bring you with courtesy.”

“They did not.”

“Would you like them killed?” the prince asked gravely.

Pero stared at him. That could happen, he realized. He could say yes, and it was possible the men waiting by the other door would die. It chilled him. And with that, he felt anger stirring, as it had before the Council of Twelve (as it had not with the khalif).

“No,” he said. “I would like to know why they were sent. Why I am here. My lord.” There was such a need to be careful, he thought. He was too far from home.

The prince smiled again. He smoothed his gorgeous robe. He said, “To paint another portrait, of course. We will do this each night. I trust the room will serve?”

Well, you did ask
, Pero Villani thought. It was, as the prince had implied, obvious that he was here to paint.

He said, carefully, “A portrait of you, my lord?”

The smile deepened. “Not quite,” said Prince Cemal.

—

IT WAS NOT
a situation in which he had a choice, discretion to decline. Signore Villani would have, the prince murmured after explaining the task ahead,
such
a long road home after finishing his portrait of the glorious khalif, might he live and reign forever.

There were so many dangers for a traveller. Better, surely, to
ensure protection for that journey while in the palace complex, brought—much more courteously henceforth—from his room to this one each night.

He is going to have me killed
, Pero thought, listening to what was wanted of him.
Either way, I am not going to survive this.

If he declined, he was being warned he'd meet a regrettable end somewhere in Sauradia, or even before he reached that wilderness. But if he did as requested, he'd be the infidel who
knew
what had been done, and such men surely could not live.

He agreed to paint, to work here by night as best he could. He was an artist, it was what he was here to do, what his life was about. And perhaps Jad would guide him, guard him.

A portrait of you?
he had asked the prince.

Only partially so. He was to paint this man in this room, show him standing by a window that would have to be imagined (he had done that before, they all did that). Show him wearing this robe that signified power and royalty by its colour.

But he was to render the face of the subject as Prince Beyet, the younger brother, not Cemal.

He would see the younger prince tomorrow, he was told: there was to be an archery display in the afternoon. This plan, Pero thought, looking at the easel and wood and the tools and paint beside them, had not been casually conceived.

The older son was reputed clever, Marin Djivo had said, the younger one more reckless. Perhaps less trusted because of that. Nothing had ever been announced from the throne, but it was widely believed Cemal was to succeed his father. After which, in a long tradition, Beyet would be strangled by guards.

So why do this?
Pero wanted to ask.

In fact, he did ask it. Anger, again.

“It is shared about that you are the heir, my lord prince. Why do you need to—?”

He stopped at a gesture: swift, decisive, a hand across the throat
as if to cut it. A gesture from a prince who didn't look at all gracious just then. A face, in fact, that one might paint as a figure in a battle scene, killing an enemy before him.

He lowered his head. “Forgive me,” he said.

He looked up. Cemal gestured again—towards the easel and the paints. There were sketchbooks and charcoal, as well. And a basket of eggs. Someone had indeed read Cennaro,
The Handbook of the Art of Painting
. It was impossibly strange.

They began.

—

IT WAS THE
robe that mattered as much as anything. Any artist, steeped in the meaning of symbols, had to know that. The colour, the implication of the colour. And then the features he would impose upon what he did here.

He was being used to destroy someone, Pero understood. It wasn't difficult to grasp. You didn't need to be a courtier, a diplomat, subtle as to eastern ways.

He worked steadily for some time. Three guards and a servant remained in the room. He was offered wine. He accepted. There was no rule of silence here. He told the prince how he needed him to position himself.

It would be a standing pose, more easily done. A profile, also easier, quicker. They had taken some care with what he'd been provided. Someone knew what might be required, had made a point of knowing.

With a charcoal stick he outlined a window to place behind Cemal. Behind Beyet, he corrected himself. He would put ships out there, he thought: water seen beyond the palace. The sea the khalif ruled from here, a prince in porphyry standing before it.

He wasn't tired now but he felt as if he wanted to be sick. There was death hovering, in every stroke he made with charcoal and then brush. He worked. What else was he to do?

“Enough, I think,” Cemal said at length, speaking graciously
again. “We meet in this room tomorrow night for the same purpose.”

The prince had been patient. Taking the poses requested as Pero decided what he needed, remaining motionless in the one chosen, except when he drank his wine. And then he was good at resuming the position he'd held. You could call him an ideal subject. Better than Mara Citrani, who had liked to distract Pero while he worked, for amusement, and then to do other things because it pleased her to do so.

Cemal smiled again. “I need hardly say you will not speak of this, Signore Villani?” His expression was that of one worldly man speaking to another. You could paint that expression, too, Pero thought.

He shook his head. To whom would he speak of it and not die?

“There is,” said Cemal, “one more thing. Though I trust you will see it as a reward, not a burden.” He hesitated, as if unsure how much to say, then went on. “It is too soon for anyone to know of this room.”
Until there is a face on that painting
, Pero thought. “But it may be that you will be seen crossing the grounds at night. Those men with you are retainers attached to my brother's household, not mine.”

So they had been bought, Pero thought. He had not yet seen Prince Beyet, had no thoughts about him at all—except that the man was being prepared for destruction, and Pero was part of it.

Cemal's smile was beginning to disturb him. It came so easily. The prince said, “It is necessary, for the moment, to have a story as to why the Jaddite artist is abroad at night, in the event you
are
seen. Stories after dark often involve desire, have you not found this to be so?”

Pero saw one of the guards smile.

The prince said, “It will be put about that someone is rewarding you for your service to the khalif. Later, there will emerge a different tale.”

This had been, Pero was realizing again, carefully thought
through. “So your brother is to be offering me a woman?” Anger in him. Again.
Be cautious
, he told himself. Again.

“Nothing so specific yet. But surely you agree it is better for you to be able to tell the truth, should my father ask about your nights?”

Pero closed his eyes. He tried to imagine that conversation.

Cemal went on, “A reward, and a truth you can tell the khalif—in that place where no one else is even allowed to speak.”

“And if he asks who is rewarding me?”

“He will not. But if that happens of course you will tell the truth. Of course you will. And then, Signore Villani, you will be safe on the long way home.”

Hardly
, Pero thought. He kept his face expressionless. “So, there is a woman coming here for me?”

“Here?” The prince looked around at the bright, underground storage room. “No, no. No one comes here at all and—I need hardly tell you—my brother has not offered you any of his women.”

“No,” said Pero. “He hasn't.”

“I have,” smiled Cemal.

He turned to the guards. “Take him back to the tunnel. Do so with courtesy. The ones on the other side will lead him to his quarters—afterwards.” He smiled again. “One of you go back through with him. Advise them to be helpful. He is likely to be fatigued, after. What Jaddite man will have encountered the palace women of Asharias?”

His guards laughed then, knowingly.

—

A BLACK ROOM.
He was blind in it. No windows, although they were not underground now. He had gone through the tunnel again and once more he'd felt that strange, sharp sorrow (he would feel it every time he passed through). He didn't see the small, moving fire (he would again, other times).

A man had walked with him as commanded, and the others had been waiting when he knocked, as they'd said they would be. They
didn't take him to his quarters. They led him up wide stairs in this first palace which was—he now understood—Cemal's, as the other one where he'd painted underground was Beyet's.

He'd understood by then that the younger prince's people over that way were not to learn what was being done in the middle of the night. Or, rather, only those who had been bought could know.

Blackness here, but one could be aware in darkness—intensely aware—of scent, and Pero knew there was a woman in this room, waiting for him.

More than one, he realized.

Desire touched him against his will, as cool fingers did. There was a bed to which he was led by whispers he could not understand, because they were speaking Osmanli. Although, when certain sounds are heard in the dark, close to your ear, and fingers and mouths are touching you, and those same fingers begin to address themselves to your clothes, it is any language and every language that men and women know.