Dust and Light (3 page)

I would not lie. Yet neither would I excuse my delay by blaming Gilles, even if his uncle weren’t sitting in front of me.

Guilian de Albin glared down his long straight nose at me. He himself looked like a sculpted idealization of a pureblood—that nose, the raven hair pulled back severely from a noble brow, a thick-muscled body—and he fulfilled every expectation of such a figure. The Albins were not only the wealthiest, but one of the most powerful, and definitely the most traditional, of families. I’d once heard Albin reprimand a fellow curator for allowing the man’s own daughter to address him in public.

And
Pons
, of all people. She knew the worst of me. Her black eyes, so like the pits of olives, had been pinned to my back every day for nigh on five years. Why was she here?

“Sit, Lucian.” Pluvius, the white-bearded Master of Archives, the robust historian who directed my work, motioned me to a stool in the center of the room facing the U-shaped table. His sober expression told me nothing. Pluvius could dither like a nursemaid and bellow like a guard commander, all in the same hour over the same incident.

Natural apprehension at sudden formal meetings warred with rising hopes. Rumor said my commissioned portraits of the six Registry curators had won high favor. While following the formal style of previous official portraits, I had distinguished each with a more naturalistic background. Every instinct in me said the paintings marked a major step forward in my skills. They were pleasing in balance and form, and the likenesses excellent as well as true.

Though the portraits were not yet hung, Pluvius had quietly set me to preparations for a portrait of my grandsire and hinted a second senior commission might be involved. I’d been working late on preliminary sketches every night for a tenday, reaching deep into power and memory and grief to touch the truth of a man I had known better than any other living person. Without question, the sketches were the best work I’d ever done.

Curator Albin inclined his head in my direction. “Your family’s loss these three months since was a blow to all pureblood society.”

Body and spirit grew rigid. His cool reference shuttered excitement and rising hopes as spilled ink blots a sketch.

“The Remeni have been elite for generations. And the Massoni were already so few. Both bloodlines nearly wiped out in a single night. Dreadful, tragic . . .”

Dreadful? Tragic?
The words were entirely, grotesquely insufficient. A sudden overload of work had kept me in the city that night, but I could see it all, as clearly as any image my art could produce. The cool late-summer night in the rolling hills outside Pontia, moonlight bathing our beauteous vineyards, still healthy amid the land’s failure. Music and laughter bursting from the great hall of our family estate, as my grandsire, mother, father, brothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins celebrate my youngest brother’s first contract. Someone—my father? One of my uncles?—would have queried the first hint of smoke that was not candles or hearth fires. And celebration had transformed to panicked horror as they realized the hall was ablaze and the doors barricaded.

Rampaging Harrowers had drowned my family’s dying screams with their nonsensical chants about purity, repentance, and corrupt magic, or so the local magistrate had reported. Gleefully, I’d thought. The leering ordinary had worn a telltale of Harrower orange inside his jupon. Madmen were everywhere these days.

“. . . and of course, it has left you in a difficult position—only six-
and-twenty, lacking four years until you can be named Head of Family, yet serving a contract that expires in the spring. You will need a negotiator. Second Registrar Pons-Laterus”—he motioned to the woman beside him—“has graciously taken on that commission.”

My chest near caved. My worst imagining come true.

In the past months I had pursued every remote family connection, hoping to enlist a competent advocate before the Registry appointed a random official to negotiate my next contract. But the war and the dreadful weather had made the great families wary of entanglements. And now, of all of them, the Registry had given me Pons.
Goddess Mother . . .

The Second Registrar, a hard, sour woman as gray and blockish as the Tower itself, had served as Registry investigator for the city of Montesard during my years at the university, the years when my indiscretion had brought disgrace upon my family and altered my future.

I exhaled smoothly.
Do not let them see. Albin will think you an undisciplined child, as Pons does already
.

“I am honored by this most generous gesture,” I said, bowing in Pons’s direction even as my gut churned. “But perhaps . . . Master Pluvius once offered . . .”

“It is entirely inappropriate for your current master to negotiate your next contract,” snapped Albin, who’d had the final say on every pureblood contract for twenty years. “He cannot be objective.”

Yet one could say the same about any Registry-selected negotiator. Pons would be strictly honest, no doubt, but she made no secret of her despite. She believed family influence had unduly mitigated the consequences of my
unseemly involvement with ordinaries
in Montesard.

“But I’m sure the Second Registrar’s duties demand her undivided attention,” I said. “As my contract does not expire until almost midyear, I’ve other avenues—”

“Alas, not so,” said Albin. “All next year’s contract expirations for Registry positions have been advanced. The stipends already paid will not be reclaimed for the unfulfilled months—an expensive sacrifice on our part. But our attention must be directed toward the new king, affirming our traditional cooperation and prerogatives. Your contract expires at midnight tonight.”

Tonight!
I could scarce choke out the necessary response. “Yes, of course,
domé
, that sounds wise.”

Negotiations without preparation . . . altogether
un
wise. I needed to study my current contract, gather comparisons from other portraitists, convince the Registry to cede a more appropriate income for my skill level and perhaps shorter hours. Tutelage for Juli came dear and I needed to be available to chaperone her lessons. Then, too, this was likely my last chance to shape my future.

The gods had gifted me in exceptional ways, both with power for magic and with a family that indulged and nurtured my particular talents. My grandsire—our Head of Family—had even been willing to challenge Registry tradition for me, and in a moment’s lapse of discipline I had thrown it all away. I would forever grieve for my grandsire. My determination to cleanse the stain I’d brought to his name had rested in the hope of more serious, substantial service than anniversary portraiture.

“I suppose Curator Pons and I must finalize a proposal right away and set a contract meeting for this evening,” I said. One did not display emotions, especially such private ones, outside the family.

Curator Albin crossed his arms and sat back in his chair, waiting.

Master Pluvius studied the table in front of his folded hands.

Pons planted her forearms on the table and leaned forward. Plain silver rings gleamed from her thick fingers as she tapped a sheaf of documents. “In truth, Remeni, the Registry has made no offer for your service. As we’ve no time to solicit other offers, I’ve gathered together what open bids for portraitists we have already. Perhaps one of these will suit.”

No offer . . .
My mind stuttered and reeled. Of course the Registry wanted me back. My work here had been exemplary. A senior commission while in my first contract. The promise of another with my grandfather’s portrait. Never a reprimand. My every moment since my disgrace had been given to improving both my art and the self-discipline my role in life demanded—to becoming a man worthy of the Remeni name. Master Pluvius had long said I could wrestle out details that made my subjects near step out of the canvas, allowing Registry investigators to identify any pureblood inerrantly.

“I don’t understand.” My voice—properly calm and detached—might have belonged to someone else. “Have I somehow failed in my work or my deportment? Master Pluvius?”

“Certainly not, lad. It’s just . . . unique circumstances. These unsettled times.”

“First Curator Gramphier knows of this?” To invoke my personal connection with the highest-ranking official of the Registry galled, but Gramphier had been my grandsire’s longtime colleague. He had encouraged my Registry contract as a way for me to demonstrate my worth.

Pons settled back in her chair, her face impassive save for the touch of scorn on her thin lips. “Naturally Gramphier knows. But if you wish to let your contract lapse as we solicit new offers for your service, we can halt this right now. You could contact me when your intellect is functioning at some useful level.”

Bitter truth quenched my protests. My service
must
be sold. Juli and I had no other income. Our Ardran vineyards had frozen two winters running; who knew if they would ever come back? And, along with every person in the world we loved, our family’s treasury had been lost in the Harrower raid. We were nearing the end of the funds my father had provided for my maintenance in Palinur. Juli had brought my last stipend on a visit to the royal city. My work had prevented me from escorting her home in time for our brother’s celebration, else we would have burned alongside the rest of them. I needed a contract, and the curators knew it.

“No, no,
Doma
Pons. Certainly I’ll hear these bids.”

Pons read through each application in her stack.

A Karish abbot sought
a pureblood artist to travel alongside, illustrating prayer cards to enlighten unlettered villagers
.

A customs official on the eastern borders needed
charts of goods carried through the border station for taxing purposes
.

“Your skills at reflecting the inner person would suit this Trimori mine,” she said, tossing out an age-yellowed parchment. “The governor wishes to ferret out troublemakers from felons sent to labor in the pits.”

“A traveling position is out of the question,” I said, “as are those in remote or military outposts. My sister is a maiden of fifteen without other family. I must see to her education.”

And the stipends these offered were pitiful. None would support a pureblood household, much less allow me to accumulate the wherewithal to rebuild our family. These bids had gathered dust in the Registry vaults because they were insults.

Swelling anger threatened my composure. Pureblood sorcerers held the power of magic, the greatest gift of the gods to a troubled world, and they sacrificed a great deal to preserve, nurture, and share that gift. Not even
Karish monks lived with more study, rules, and restrictions. Purebloods bound themselves and their grown children into strict service on the assurance that they would be provided the means to maintain the dignity of our calling and to withstand such travails as war and famine.

“Well, then . . .” Frowning, Pons thumbed through the stack and pulled out a yellowed page. “I see only one that might suit. One Bastien de Caton offers a position here in Palinur. He requires
line drawings for purposes of identification
. Compensation left to negotiation. But it is only a one-year contract. Do you wish to interview the master?”

I leapt at the offer before an angry outburst could disgrace me further.

“No need to interview him.” Identification portraits were exactly what I was doing already. And only a year’s contract. In the interim I could find a better advocate and search more thoroughly. “Palinur suits best. If I’m required to live in, I’ll at least be able to look in on my sister. As long as the contract meets Registry standards.”

Registry contracts were quite strict about personal security, respectful address, comfortable accommodation and sustenance, and permissible penalties for unsatisfactory work. My age left me no standing to disapprove contract terms—only the Registry and the Head of Family, or, in my case, Pons, had a say. But even Pons would not undermine pureblood prerogatives with a poor contract.

“I shall negotiate the best terms possible, given the unsettled times,” said Pons. She dipped a pen and scratched a few notes on the page. “I shall stipulate that you will live in your own home, though this Bastien will, no doubt, insist on appropriate hours. I foresee no difficulties.”

“Come here, Lucian,” said Master Pluvius. Before I could think, I was signing my name where his finger pointed. Curator Albin snatched the paper from under my hand and applied his seal to the bottom. As if the terms were already settled.

Pons rose briskly, her formidable bulk blocking the gray light from the casements behind her. “We shall provide the usual escort party to deliver you to your new master tomorrow . . . if all goes well in the negotiation, of course.”

“Yes, certainly. My gratitude for your consideration,
Doma
Pons,
Domé
Albin, Master Pluvius.”

The three curators had already reached the doorway as the necessary politenesses stumbled from my tongue. I felt as if I had been trampled by wild horses.

“Go home, Lucian. Whatever you’re working on will have to be finished by someone else.” Master Pluvius lingered in the doorway. “I’m sorry about all this. Be sure I shall give you good recommendations.”

“I appreciate that, master.”

Yet why would I expect differently? The Registry required every pureblood to sit for a portrait each year until age twelve, every two years until age thirty, and every ten years thereafter. Each small artwork was magically linked to its subject, and our signatures irrevocably bound the artist and the work. The accuracy imposed by our bent ensured that no ordinary could pass for a pureblood, and no pureblood could pass for another. Gilles and I could scarce keep up with the load. How could they not renew my contract?

“Master, why—?” The doorway was empty.

If this Bastien de Caton was a person of influence, his request would never have been left unfulfilled long enough to gather dust. If he represented a town, a market fair, a temple, or another institution, the offer would have borne that name as well as his. And
Caton.
The man took his name not from a noble seat or reputable family but from some nearby settlement or crossroads so insignificant the name scarce shifted the dust of recollection. He was
no one
.