The Gates of Sleep (3 page)

The unenlightened might think that posing as an artist’s
model was easy, because “all” one had to do was sit, stand, or
recline in one position.
The unenlightened ought to try it some time,
she thought. It took the same sort of simultaneous concentration and relaxation
that magic did—concentration, to make sure that there wasn’t a bit
of movement, and relaxation, to ensure that muscles didn’t lock up. If
the pose was a standing one, then it wasn’t long before feet and legs
were aching; if sitting or reclining, it was a certainty that
some
part of the body would fall asleep, with the resulting
pins—and—needles agony when the model was allowed to move.

Then there was the boredom—well, perhaps
boredom
wasn’t quite the right word. The model had to have something to occupy
her mind while her body was frozen in one position; it was rare that Marina
ever got to take a pose that allowed her to either read or nap. She generally
used the time to go over the basic exercises of magic that Uncle Thomas taught
her, or to go over some more mundane lesson or other.

Oh, modeling was work, all right. She understood that
artists who didn’t have complacent relatives paid well for models to
pose, and in her opinion, every penny was earned.

She’d been here all morning posing, because Uncle had
got a mania about the early light; enough was enough. She was hungry, it was
time for luncheon, and it wasn’t fair to make her work from dawn to dark.
How could anyone waste such a beautiful autumn day inside the stone walls of
this farmhouse? “Uncle Sebastian,” she called. “The model’s
arm is falling off.”

A whiff of oil paints came to her as Sebastian looked up
from his canvas. “It isn’t, I assure you,” he retorted.

She didn’t pout; it wasn’t in her nature to
pout. But she did protest. “Well,
feels
as though it’s
falling off!”

Sebastian heaved a theatrical sigh. “The modern
generation has no stamina,” he complained, disordering his graying
chestnut locks with the same hand that held his brush, and leaving streaks of
gold all through it. “Why, when your aunt was your age, she could hold a
pose for six and seven hours at a time, and never a complaint out of her.”

Taking that as permission to break her pose, Marina leaned
the oriflamme, the battle banner of medieval France, against the wall, and put
her sword down on the floor. “When my aunt was my age, you posed her as a
reclining odalisque, or fainting on the couch, or leaning languidly in a
window,” she retorted. “You never once posed her as Joan of Arc. Or
Britannia, in a heavy helmet and breastplate. Or Morgan Le Fay, with a snake
and a dagger.”

“Trivial details,” Sebastian said with a
dismissive gesture. “Inconsequential.”

“Not to my arm.” Marina shook both of her arms
vigorously, grateful that Sebastian had not inflicted the heavy breastplate and
helmet on her. Of course, that would have made the current painting look rather
more like that one of Britannia that he had recently finished than Sebastian
would have preferred.

And since the Britannia painting was owned by a business
rival of the gentleman who had commissioned this one, it wouldn’t do to
make one a copy of the other.

This one, which was to be significantly larger than “Britannia
Awakes” as well as significantly different, was going to be very
profitable for Uncle Sebastian. And since the rival who had commissioned “Saint
Jeanne” was a profound Francophobe…

Men, Marina had long since concluded, could be remarkably
silly. On the other hand, when the
first
man caught wind of this there
might be another commission for a new painting, perhaps a companion to “Britannia
Awakes,” which would be very nice for the household indeed. And
then—another commission from the second gentleman? This could be amusing
as well as profitable!

The second gentleman, however, had made some interesting
assumptions, perhaps based upon the considerable amount of arm and shoulder,
ankle and calf that Britannia had displayed. He had made it quite clear to
Uncle Sebastian that he wanted the same model for
his
painting, but he
had also thrown out plenty of hints that he wanted the model as well, perhaps
presuming that his rival had also included that as part of the commission.

Marina wasn’t supposed to know that. Uncle Sebastian
hadn’t known she was anywhere near the house when the client came to
call. In fact, she’d been gathering eggs and had heard voices in Uncle
Sebastian’s studio, and the Sylphs had told her that one was a stranger.
It had been quite funny—she was listening from outside the
window—until Uncle Sebastian, with a cold remark that the gentleman
couldn’t possibly be referring to his dear
niece,
had
interrupted the train of increasingly less subtle hints about Sebastian’s
“lovely model.” Fortunately, Sebastian hadn’t lost his
temper. Uncle Sebastian in a temper was apt to damage things.

Marina reached for the ribbon holding her hair in a tail
behind her back and pulled it loose, shaking out her heavy sable mane. Saint
Joan was not noted for her luxuriant locks, so Uncle had scraped all of her
hair back tightly so that he could see the shape of her skull. Tightly enough
that the roots of her hair hurt, in fact, though she wasn’t apt to complain.
When he got to the hair for the painting, he’d construct a boyish bob
over the skull shape. In that respect, the pose for Britannia had been a little
more comfortable; at least she hadn’t had to pull her hair back so
tightly that her scalp ached. “When are you going to get a commission
that
doesn’t
involve me holding something out at the end of my
arm?” she asked.

Her uncle busied himself with cleaning his palette,
scraping it bare, wiping it with linseed oil. Clearly,
he
had been
quite ready to stop as well, but he would never admit that. “Would you
rather another painting of dancing Muses?” he asked.

Recalling the painting that her uncle had done for an
exhibition last spring that involved nine contorted poses for her, and had
driven them both to quarrels and tantrums, she shook her head. “Not
unless someone offers you ten thousand pounds for it—in advance.”
She turned pleading eyes on him. “But don’t you think that just
once
you might manage a painting of—oh—Juliet in the tomb of the
Capulets? Surely that’s fashionably morbid enough for you!”

He snatched up a cushion and flung it at her; she caught it
deftly, laughing at him.

“Minx!” he said, mockingly. “Lazy, too!
Very well, failing any other commissions, the next painting will be
Shakespearian, and I’ll have you as Kate the Shrew!”

“So long as it’s Kate the Shrew sitting down
and reading, I’ve no objection,” she retorted, dropped the cushion
on the window seat, and skipped out the door. This was an old-fashioned place
where, at least on the ground floor, one room led into the next; she passed
through her aunt’s workroom, then the room that held Margherita’s
tapestry loom, then the library, then the dining room, before reaching the
stairs.

Her own room was at the top of the farmhouse, above the
kitchen and under the attics, with a splendid view of the apple orchard beyond
the farmyard wall. There was a handsome little rooster atop the wall—an
English bantam; Aunt Margherita was very fond of bantams and thought highly of
their intelligence. They didn’t actually have a farm as such, for the
land belonging to the house was farmed by a neighbor. When they’d taken
the place, Uncle had pointed out that as artists they made very poor farmers;
it would be better for them to do what they were good at and let the owner rent
the land to someone else. But they did have the pond, the barn, a little
pasturage, the orchard and some farm animals—bantam chickens, some geese
and ducks, a couple of sheep to keep the grass around the farmhouse tidy. They
had two ponies and two carts, because Uncle Sebastian was always taking one off
on a painting expedition just when Aunt Margherita wanted it for shopping, or
Uncle Thomas for
his
business. They also had an old, old horse, a
once-famous jumper who probably didn’t have many more years in him, that
they kept in gentle retirement for the local master of the hunt. Marina rode
him now and again, but never at more than an amble. He would look at fences
with a peculiar and penetrating gaze, as if meditating on the follies of his youth—then
snort, and amble further along in search of a gate that Marina could open for
him.

There were wild swans on the pond as well, who would claim
their share of bread and grain with the usual imperiousness of such creatures.
And Uncle Thomas raised doves; he had done so since he was a boy. They weren’t
the brightest of birds, but they were beautiful creatures, sweet and gentle
fantails that came to anyone’s hands, tame and placid, for feeding. The
same couldn’t be said of the swans, which regarded Aunt Margherita as a
king would regard the lowliest serf, and the grain and bread she scattered for
them as no less than their just tribute. Only for Marina did they unbend, their
natures partaking of equal parts of air and water and so amenable to
her
touch, if not to that of an Earth Master.

She changed out of her fustian tunic with the painted
fleur-de-lis and knitted coif, the heavy knitted jumper whose drape was meant
to suggest chain mail for Uncle Sebastian’s benefit. Off came the knitted
hose and the suede boots. She pulled on a petticoat and a loose gown of Aunt
Margherita’s design and make, shoved her feet into her old slippers, and
ran back down the tiny staircase, which ended at the entryway dividing the
kitchen from the dining room and parlor. The door into the yard stood
invitingly open, a single hen peering inside with interest, and she gave the
sundrenched expanse outside a long look of regret before joining her aunt in
the kitchen.

Floored with slate, with white plastered walls and black
beams, the kitchen was the most modern room of the house. The huge fireplace
remained largely unused, except on winter nights when the family gathered here
instead of in the parlor. Iron pot-hooks and a Tudor spit were entirely
ornamental now, but Aunt Margherita would not have them taken out; she said
they were part of the soul of the house.

The huge, modern iron range that Margherita had insisted on
having—much admired by all the local farmers’ wives—didn’t
even use the old chimney. It stood in splendid isolation on the external wall
opposite the hearth, which made the kitchen wonderfully warm on those cold days
when there was a fire in both. Beneath the window that overlooked the yard was
Margherita’s other improvement, a fine sink with its own well and pump,
so that no one had to go out into the yard to bring in water. For the rest, a
huge table dominated the room, with a couple of tall stools and two long
benches beneath it. Three comfortable chairs stood beside the cold hearth, a
dresser that was surely Georgian displayed copper pots and china, and various
cupboards and other kitchen furniture were ranged along the walls.

Margherita was working culinary magic at that huge, scarred
table. Quite literally.

The gentle ambers and golds of Earth Magic energies glowed
everywhere that Marina looked—on the bread dough in a bowl in a warm
corner was a cantrip to ensure its proper rising, another was on the pot of
soup at the back of the cast-iron range to keep it from burning. A
pest-banishing spell turned flying insects away from the open windows and
doors, and prevented crawling ones from setting foot on wall, floor, or
ceiling. Another kept the mice and rats at bay, and was not visible except
where it ran across the threshold.

Tiny cantrips kept the milk and cream, in covered pitchers
standing in basins of cold water, from souring; more kept the cheese in the
pantry from molding, weevils out of the flour, the eggs sound and sweet. They
weren’t strong magics, and if (for instance) Margherita were to be so
careless as to leave the milk for too
very
long beyond a day or so, it
would sour anyway. Common sense was a major component of Margherita’s
magic.

On the back of the range stood the basin of what would be
clotted cream by teatime, simmering beside the soup pot. Clotted cream required
careful tending, and the only magic involved was something to remind her aunt
to keep a careful eye on the basin.

Occasionally there was another Element at work in the
kitchen; when a very steady temperature was required—such as beneath that
basin of cream—Uncle Sebastian persuaded a Salamander to take charge of
the fires in the stove. Uncle Sebastian was passionately fond of his food, and
to his mind it was a small enough contribution on his part for so great a gain.
The meals that their cook and general housekeeper Sarah made were good; solid
cottager fare. But the contributions that Margherita concocted transformed
cooking to another art form. Earth Masters were like that, according to what
Uncle Thomas said; they often practiced as much magic in the kitchen as out of
it.

Of all of the wonderful food that his spouse produced,
Uncle Sebastian most adored the uniquely Devon cream tea—scones, clotted
cream, and jam. Margherita made her very own clotted cream, which not all Devon
or Cornish ladies did—a great many relied on the dairies to make it for
them. The shallow pan of heavy cream simmering in its water-bath would
certainly make Uncle Sebastian happy when he saw it.

“Shall I make the scones, Aunt?” Marina asked
after a stir of the soup pot and a peek at the cream. Her aunt smiled
seraphically over her shoulder. She was a beautiful woman, the brown of her
hair still as rich as it had been when she was Marina’s age, her figure
only a little plumper (if her husband’s paintings from that time were any
guide), her large brown eyes serene. The only reason her husband wasn’t
using
her
as his model instead of Marina was that she had her own
artistic work, and wasn’t minded to give it over just to pose for her
spouse, however beloved he was. Posing was Marina’s contribution to the
family welfare, since she was nowhere near the kind of artist that her aunt and
uncles were.