Dragon Rose (2 page)

We had one true painter in town, a man called Lindell—he used no other name—who had come to us after a stint in Lystare, the capital city of our kingdom of Farendon. Apparently Lindell had made the mistake of painting an unflattering portrait of the Duke of Tralion, and had to make himself scarce. Why Lindell escaped to Lirinsholme, and not some other better-situated location, he would not say, although I suppose the town had the advantage of remoteness. At any rate, it was he who showed me how to mix the pigments he had brought with him from the capital, and how to stretch a canvas, and how to work the heavy paints with a palette knife as well as a brush.
 

All this was done in brief stolen bursts, for of course that sort of painting was not considered proper for a young lady. I’d heard that accomplished young women of noble families lately had been allowed to create pencil sketches and watercolors, but even those would have earned me some sidelong looks here in Lirinsholme, had anyone else known of my obsession. Lindell tutored me in those techniques as well, and I enjoyed using them, but there was something about the strength and nuances of the oils that spoke to me. I knew better than to broach the subject at home, for even if my mother would have allowed such a thing…which I very much doubted…we could not have managed the cost of the supplies.

At any rate, I knew there would be no time for watercolors when I got home. It would be back to my father’s workshop, and yet another in a long series of trailing vines painted on the edge of a plate, or scrolled ribbon shapes winding themselves around the neck of a pitcher.
 

Lilianth and I chatted a bit more, finished our purchases, and went our respective ways. I guessed her afternoon would be more enjoyable than mine, since fittings for her wedding gown were to commence as soon as she returned home. I, on the other hand, had to get back to the seemingly endless dish set that Elder Macon had ordered.

Ah, well, at least it helped to put food on our table.

My mother was ominously silent on the subject of Liat Marenson for the next few days, which meant she had to be plotting something. What, I wasn’t quite sure, as the days when daughters were dragged kicking and screaming to the altar were mercifully behind us—unless one counted the unfortunate few who ended up as the Dragon’s Bride. But I had the impression that she was planning something, using that sharp mind of hers to try to convince me that marrying the portly merchant was the only right thing to do.

Whatever her plan exactly was, I never discovered it. Disaster struck before then.

I did know that she had invited him for dinner, at which revelation I groaned inwardly but kept my silence. But still, with both my parents present and my three sisters to act as something of a buffer, I thought I could survive the evening without too much trouble. It seemed a poor use of the household’s resources, when I had no intention of accepting Master Marenson’s suit, but so be it.

That afternoon she had me dress far sooner than was strictly necessary, and I protested, for I had a mind to finish up the rest of Elder Macon’s dish set. Only a few pieces remained.

“Oh, tut,” my mother said, pulling the full sleeve of my chemise out slightly so it puffed between the shoulder of my gown and the lace-on sleeves that went with it. “Just wear one of your aprons, and be careful. And make sure you put everything away by half-past five, for Master Marenson is due to arrive at six.”

I nodded, only listening with half an ear. It wouldn’t be the first time I had painted in one of my better gowns. I knew her careful fussing with my sleeves was wasted effort, however, since I’d take off the lace-on bits and roll up my chemise sleeves to give myself adequate room to work. No use in mentioning it, though. I’d just have to readjust as best I could when the fated hour drew near.

My father was not in his workroom when I descended the stairs and took up my normal spot at the table by the window. I needed the light for my work, while he claimed that much of what he did was purely by feel. That I could believe, for many times I had seen him bending over his potter’s wheel, grey-streaked dark hair falling into his face, his eyes shut as his hands found the shapes hidden within the fluid clay.
 

Where he had gone, I didn’t know. What I did know was that the more bustle my mother created in the house—and there was much bustling in advance of Master Marenson’s visit—the more reason my father found to go elsewhere. He liked to gather his own clay, from secret spots only he knew along the banks of the River Theer, and it seemed he discovered a pressing need for fresh supplies whenever things got too chaotic at home.
 

So I took little note of his absence, save for a wistful desire to be out with the wind and the sky instead of cooped up in the workshop, which always seemed stuffy and over-warm. And since we were at the peak of the summer’s heat, it seemed sultrier than ever. I grimly rolled up my sleeves and pulled a set of bone hairpins from my pocket, fixing my hair in a messy knot at the back of my head and no doubt ruining the careful curls that had been achieved by means of sleeping with my hair up in rags the night before.
 

The pieces awaiting paint before their final firing sat on a shelf next to my worktable. I picked up a bowl, sat down with my back to the door so I wouldn’t block any of the light, and got to work.

The challenge for me, as always, was not to faithfully reproduce the pattern of ivy and forget-me-nots that Elder Macon had prescribed for his new dishes, but rather to keep that pattern consistent from piece to piece. I would much rather have altered each one, not hugely, but enough to give the dinnerware some interesting visual variation. But variation was not what the Elder wanted, so instead I made myself concentrate on churning out uniform leaf after uniform leaf, consistent flower after consistent flower.
 

When I worked, I paid very little attention to what was going on around me. My father sometimes joked that I wouldn’t even notice if the house caught fire, if I happened to have a paintbrush in my hand at the time. I’m not sure how true that really was, but I did tend to let the world close down to only me, the brush, and the surface I was painting, whether it was a piece of stoneware or a leaf of paper.

So I vaguely half-heard a door somewhere slamming, and feet rushing across the wooden floors, but since no one came in to see me, I paid those sounds very little mind. The light coming in the window also did little to inform me of the passage of time, as at that season of the year, full dark didn’t set in until very late. Six o’clock in the evening was just as bright as three, or four, or five.

It wasn’t until I heard Master Marenson’s shocked tones exclaiming, “My lady Rhianne!” that I realized something was amiss.

I started and dropped my paintbrush—luckily not on the plate that was my current project, but on the stained wooden tabletop. Then I realized his was the absolutely last voice I should be hearing in my father’s workshop.

Although at the moment I wished I could simply flee out the back door, I knew that escape was not feasible. So I slipped off the stool and turned, one hand going up to pull the pins out of the hasty knot at the back of my head.

By some miracle, my voice sounded almost calm. “Master Marenson. Is it six o’clock already?”

His face had flushed an unbecoming dark red, doubly unattractive, as it clashed horribly with the maroon doublet of heavy linen he wore. “Past six, Miss Rhianne, and no one to greet me at the door but a scullery maid and some chit not old enough to leave the schoolroom, let alone allow visitors into her house!”

By “chit” I assumed he meant my youngest sister Darlynne, who had just turned eleven at midsummer. Where everyone else was, I had no idea. “My apologies, Master Marenson. I’m sure this can all be explained. Perhaps there was some emergency that called my mother and other sisters out of the house.”

His eyes, small already, seemed to almost disappear as he scowled down at me from the top step. “And what ‘emergency’ is it, Miss Rhianne, that has you engaged in such an unseemly enterprise?”

For the first time I realized I stood there in a paint-stained apron, my current occupation abundantly clear, not just through those telltale paint spatters, but also from the stoneware ranged around my spot at the worktable. Oh, dear.

Although there was no way to deny what I had been doing, I thought perhaps if I made light of it, or even ignored it, he would do the same. Essaying a smile, I reached up to untie the apron from the back of my neck and then discarded it on my abandoned stool. At least my gown seemed to have escaped relatively unscathed.

“Why don’t we go up to the sitting room?” I suggested. “I’m sure there is an explanation for my parents’ absence—they were so very much looking forward to dining with you—but in the meantime I can have Janney bring you some porter or a glass of wine while we wait.”

For a second or two I thought he might actually acquiesce. But then I saw him straighten and cast a jaundiced eye around my father’s workroom.
 

“If you think, Miss Rhianne, that I am going to accept hospitality from those who have purposely lied to me, then you have quite an incorrect idea of my character.”

“I hardly know you, Master Marenson, and therefore I feel I am not qualified to have yet formed any idea of your character.”

His face reddened further. “Impertinence! I count myself glad that I discovered this now, before it was too late!”

“Discovered my impertinence?” I asked innocently.

“Discovered that you are engaged in trade, young woman—that you are doing your father’s work for him, as no properly brought-up young lady should.”

“And so the ‘proper’ thing to do would have been to let our livelihood dwindle along with my father’s eyesight?”

“The proper thing is to be truthful, Miss Rhianne. Your father is selling work that is not his.”

My mother would have known to guard her tongue, to find the soft tone of voice that might placate an angry man. But I had not her skills, and I found I enjoyed giving in to the anger that flared in me at this preposterous man’s misplaced indignation.
 

“What difference does it make?” I snapped. “If the work is good, and our patrons are satisfied, who should care whether it was my father’s hand or mine that painted those flowers, those leaves? Are they any less pleasing to look at because they came from a woman and not a man?”

“A very great difference,” Liat Marenson said, and his fleshy lips thinned a little. “A very great difference.” With a kind of vindictive satisfaction he added, “And you may find that I am not the only one who feels this way.”

With that he replaced his velvet cap on his thinning hair and stalked out.
 

After he had gone, I realized my hands were shaking. Not so much because I had been discovered, but because of Master Marenson’s not-so-subtle threat to reveal my family’s secret to the rest of the town. Such a revelation could ruin us.

More pressing, however, was the mystery of my parents’ absence. What could have possibly happened to prevent them from being at home for such an important guest?

I found out soon enough. My father had gone to gather clay, as I had guessed. What I hadn’t guessed was that he would suffer a heart spasm while hauling the heavy barrow of clay homeward.

Luckily, a cowherd found him sprawled across the path and had taken him to his cottage, only a quarter-mile away. Word came to the house, and my mother and two of my sisters had left immediately. It would take something of that magnitude for my mother to forget Liat Marenson and her plans for him, and in summoning the doctor and waiting through the examination that followed, she had quite lost track of the time.

It was falling dark by the time she returned, looking drawn and preoccupied and not at all her usual poised self. She reassured me that Father was fine, but that he shouldn’t be moved for at least a day or so more.
 

“And what of Master Marenson?” she asked, casting a worried glance around the dining room, where the unused table settings still awaited a guest who would never use them. Darlynne and Janney and I had cleaned up the uneaten food and stored it in the larder several hours past.

The truth would only upset my mother further, and besides, I had no idea whether Liat Marenson actually planned to make good on his threats. “I made our apologies,” I said. “He understood that some emergency must have occurred, and so returned home.” Well, that was at least half true.

She nodded and, after making a quick inspection of the kitchens, told me that it was time for bed. I wasn’t about to argue; the day felt as if it had dragged on quite long enough.

Perhaps I wouldn’t have been so eager to sleep if I had known what awaited me on the morrow.

They began to appear at as early an hour as was considered halfway civil—Elder Macon, the Widow Mallin, everyone who had placed an order with my father in the last few months. My mother met them at the door and tried to explain that Barne Menyon was very ill and not even at home. They cared little for that. They only wanted their money back.

Somehow she got rid of them and came to see me where I sat in the schoolroom, looking down at the street from my second-story window. The plumes on the Widow Mallin’s hat bobbed indignantly as she strode away, and I thought the sight reminded me of nothing more than an outraged barnyard fowl.

“What happened, Rhianne?” my mother asked, standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. The shadows under her eyes seemed very pronounced in the bright sunlight streaming through the windows.
 

“I fear Master Marenson discovered me painting the last of Elder Macon’s dish set yesterday afternoon.”

“And you waited until now to tell me?”

“You had more pressing things to worry about yesterday evening.”

She was silent, mouth tight as she contemplated my words. I knew she wouldn’t explode—not my mother—but that didn’t mean she couldn’t say some very cutting things when pressed. Perhaps she would tell me that I should have made up some plausible lie, or that I should have noticed the passage of time and been safely out of the workroom long before Liat Marenson appeared on our doorstep.