The Crimson Shard (4 page)

“And to dress like them, too, by the look of things,” Sunni muttered.

“This has to be a setup. I bet they’re just pretending for the tourists,” Blaise whispered to her, disappointed, but not wanting any of the boys to be offended. He said to Throgmorton, “This is an amazing place. It seems really authentic. Can we look around?”

“Yes, of course. Please observe the boys’ skills and craftsmanship at your leisure.” Throgmorton gestured to Livia, who held her skirts away from the charcoal dust and wet paint smears as she made her way to his side, surveying the room with a placid smile.

“And we’re still in Starling House?” Blaise asked uncertainly.

Livia chided him with a teasing air. “I told you — we are!”

“Okay.” Blaise moved toward the easel closest to him, where a boy of about his age was working, illuminated by a cluster of candles in a fixture on the wall. He was painting a horse. It was an exact copy of another painting in a gold frame propped up nearby.

Sunni shadowed Blaise. “I still don’t get it,” she whispered. “This room shouldn’t exist. You can’t just stick a room in between two others!”

“I know. I don’t see how it’s possible,” Blaise answered in a low voice, becoming transfixed by the boy’s confident hand.
He’s really painting that horse.

“And that door — how did it just materialize out of paint?”

At Sunni’s words, the boy glanced up at them with a small crease of worry between his eyebrows.

“No idea.” Blaise glanced back at the door they had just come through, which was now completely closed. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen a painting come to life, but he was mystified at seeing another one here.

“It was a real door, for a few minutes anyway,” whispered Sunni. “But now it’s a painting again.”

“I don’t get it either.” Amazed by the boy’s painting abilities, Blaise said in a loud voice, “That is an awesome copy. I can’t draw horses to save my life.”

The boy smiled but kept his eyes on his work.

“You shall learn to, Blaise,” called Livia, the dancing candlelight giving her hair and silk dress a golden sheen. “And you shall paint my portrait as well.”

“It stinks in here,” Sunni said, interrupting Blaise’s brief vision of Livia in a big fancy picture frame.

“Oil paints,” said Blaise. “They smell.”

He squeezed in between some tables, where two younger boys were copying landscape drawings. “Hello. I’m Blaise. How old are you? Twelve, thirteen? I couldn’t draw like that when I was your age.”

The boys shrugged and smiled shyly.

“Thirteen,” said one. His quill pen fell into his lap and a black ink patch bloomed on his breeches.

“Sorry —” Blaise started.

The boy just shook his head, picked up the quill, and started up where he had left off. Blaise noticed that his baggy breeches were covered with stains and rips.
Must be his work clothes.
He glanced behind him. Sunni was standing near a window, peering down at the street, an incredulous look spreading over her face.

Throgmorton addressed the eldest-looking boy. “Toby, where is the Master?”

“He is gone to the colorman’s shop for paints, sir,” the boy answered.

“I see. When did he leave?”

“Some time ago, sir.” Toby didn’t meet his eye. “The Master said he wouldn’t be long, because Jacob needs vermilion to finish.”

Throgmorton strode over to a boy with wavy blond hair, who was sketching out a new drawing. Next to him was a nearly completed copy of a landscape painting.

“Ah, Jacob, admirable work.” Throgmorton peered at the copy and then at the splotches of pigment on Jacob’s wooden palette. “Wait a moment. Here is a pearl of vermilion hiding amongst the other reds! Surely that is enough to finish this painting.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get on and finish it, Jacob.” He pointed up at a proverb painted on the wall that said
Procrastination is the thief of time,
his shadow looming large behind him. All the boys shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

Jacob dropped his charcoal stick and, with a quaking hand, picked up a fine paintbrush.

Sunni murmured into Blaise’s ear, “You’ve got to see something. Come to the window. Now.”

Heavy footsteps could suddenly be heard coming upstairs. The climber hummed as he went, then let out a belch.

Blaise gave Sunni a searching look and turned toward the windows, but just as they were about to move, Throgmorton said, “At last. The Master has returned.”

The sound of the Master’s panting reached their ears before he came into view. When at last he careened through the door, nearly tripping over the hem of Livia’s dress, he was propelled by a gigantic sneeze.

“My word, Starling,” said Throgmorton acidly, “you make a splendid entrance.”

The man gave a perfunctory bow to Livia, pulling a three-cornered hat from his head. He deposited a leather satchel on the floor with a thud.

“And your esteemed daughter, sir, makes a charming obstacle,” he replied, though nothing about the look he gave Livia suggested he found her charming.

Livia’s smile held, but her nostrils flared as if something offensive had wafted by. “Good day, Mr. Starling,” she said.

Blaise’s bewilderment grew.
Starling?
If this was an actor impersonating Jeremiah Starling, the organizers of the workshop reconstruction had scraped the bottom of the barrel. The man had sneezed something horrible over his cravat. Dark flecks dotted his chin as well, and, most disgustingly, one clung to the tip of his nose.

“Good day, madam. Another parcel from your dressmaker awaits you downstairs. Or was it from the cobbler?” The man shrugged. “You receive so many parcels.”

“Sir,” said Livia without looking at him, “you seem to have ejected your tobacco. . . .”

Starling gave two almighty snorts and fished a dirty handkerchief from his pocket. After a quick dust over his chin and nose, he batted stray shreds of tobacco off his cravat and smiled.

“Father,” said Livia. “May I go downstairs and see to my parcels?”

“Of course, my dear.”

“And I shall order tea for us.” She beamed over her shoulder at Blaise and hurried away.

“We have guests, Starling,” said Throgmorton. “Two young art lovers, Miss Sunniva and Master Blaise.”

Starling raised his eyebrows at the sight of them and, like the boys, seemed taken aback by Sunni’s dress.

“And this,” Throgmorton went on, “is the Academy’s tutor, Jeremiah Starling, master draftsman and painter.”

Sunni’s and Blaise’s mouths hung open at this information.

Jeremiah bowed low and shot a barbed glance at the guide. “Visitors of a most singular variety. How extremely unexpected.”

“There was no time to inform you,” Throgmorton replied.

“Excuse me, sir,” Blaise managed to speak. “I thought this was visiting time. You said we had to come now.”

“That is correct. But remember, Blaise, you arrived without an appointment, and we were not expecting anyone else today.” Throgmorton extinguished a dying candle with his thumb and forefinger. “We very seldom invite visitors for, as I told you, the Academy is exclusive.”

“Wait,” Sunni said. “You’re an actor, right? Impersonating Jeremiah Starling?”

It was Jeremiah’s turn to gape. “I am no actor, miss, nor impersonator!”

“B-but Jeremiah Starling is . . .” Sunni stammered. “Well, he’s dead.”

“Egad. I may be many things, but dead is not one of them.” Jeremiah glared at Throgmorton. “You should inform your guests more accurately, sir.”

“Mr. Starling is as alive as I am,” Throgmorton said. “As you can see.”

This has to be some sort of performance for us,
Blaise thought.
Jeremiah can’t be alive. He died in 1791. Throgmorton said so.

“You appear to be disappointed. Perhaps you would have preferred to meet my corpse.” With a snort, Jeremiah shoved a stool aside. “See to my satchel, Toby. The bladders are fit to burst.”

Toby unbuckled the satchel and carefully pulled out two full pigs’ bladders. On a corner table, he punctured one and moved it over a selection of glass vials and small bags, squeezing a dollop of thick bloodred liquid into each.

“Have no concern,” said Jeremiah, observing Sunni and Blaise’s shocked expressions with amusement. “’Tis but vermilion pigment, freshly mixed for me at the colorman’s shop. The other bladder will piss blue paint. Toby is decanting the colors into jars and small bladders tied up with string.”

Throgmorton looked displeased. “I believed you mixed your own colors, Starling, to ensure their quality.”

“I have little time for that, sir,” said Jeremiah. “The boys and I are kept mightily busy with our work and need much paint. Besides, the colorman does an admirable job — as fine as I would do myself, if not better.”

“I will confer with you about the purchase of pigments later, sir.” Throgmorton turned to Blaise. “Please show Mr. Starling your drawings. I am sure he will have much to say about them.”

Still half watching Toby empty the second bladder, Blaise found his sketch of Livia.

Jeremiah nodded at it curtly. “A passable likeness of your esteemed daughter, sir.”

Jeremiah Starling,
a dead guy,
was insisting he was alive, carrying around pigs’ bladders of paint, and commenting on his sketchbook. And Throgmorton had brought them to a room so well hidden that Blaise had lost his bearings. Plus, a bunch of teenage boys were acting as if they’d never seen a girl’s legs before.

Throgmorton pulled the sketchbook away from Jeremiah and leafed to a page toward the front. “What is your opinion of this?”

When Blaise saw which drawing the guide was interested in, another worry tightened his chest. It was a sketch he had done last winter, when he, Sunni, and her stepbrother, Dean, had been transported into an enchanted Renaissance painting made by artist-magician Fausto Corvo. Blaise had made scores of drawings of the fantastical worlds inside the painting. But because he had sworn to protect its secrets, he had avoided sharing the sketches with anyone but Sunni, Dean, and their art teacher, Mr. Bell, the only adult who knew what they had been through.

“Those aren’t very good,” said Blaise, and reached for the sketchbook. But Throgmorton was quicker and held it back.

Jeremiah wrested the sketchbook away from him. “On the contrary, they are impressive.”

“Blaise.” Sunni was at his side and he could hear a warning in her voice. She was always scolding him for carrying the sketches around. If she had her way, that particular sketchbook would be under lock and key. A little voice inside him wondered whether she was right after all, but he nudged his elbow against hers for reassurance. By the look on her face, he realized the sketchbook wasn’t the only thing upsetting her.

“I have seen this drawing before,” said Jeremiah. “Or one very like it.”

“I copied it,” said Blaise.

Jeremiah let out a grunt of approval. “And the name of the artist who made the original?”

Blaise could barely say the name out loud. Even that somehow felt like a betrayal. “Fausto Corvo.”

“That is it! Corvo.” Jeremiah slapped his knee. “From Venice, was he not? Now, Venice, there’s a city. Magnificent, I am told. I cannot place the accent in your speech, Blaise. Are you from the West Country perchance? Bristol?”

“America,” said Blaise.

A hoarse whisper circulated around the room.

“The Colonies.” Jeremiah leaned forward. “Egad, you are a well-traveled young man.”

“Quite,” said Throgmorton, tapping the sketchbook with his forefinger. “Now, Blaise, tell us about these other sketches.”

Alarm spread through him again. Throgmorton seemed very eager to know about the drawings he had done of Arcadia, the land inside Corvo’s magical painting.

“Those?” Blaise wracked his brain for an explanation that wasn’t an out-and-out lie. “Just doodles.”

“Doodles?” Jeremiah laughed. “What, pray tell, is a doodle?”

Blaise wondered how long he would have to keep up this game. It was getting annoying — and worrying.

“A little sketch of nothing important. Shapes . . . faces . . . funny animals. Your hand just sort of draws what it likes.” He caught several of the boys half grinning at one another, as if they knew just what he meant.

“Ah. Such as . . .” Jeremiah thrust a quill pen into some brown ink and lazily drew a dog prancing on its hind legs, wearing a plumed hat. “This?”

“Um, yes. And no. That’s way too good for a doodle.”

Throgmorton scooped up the book and held out another page of sketches. “Of all things, your hand
chose
to draw a chariot and these strange beasts?”

Blaise answered warily, “Yes.” There was no way he would tell them he’d seen those things painted on a palace wall in Arcadia.

“Do you know what any of them are?”

“That’s Apollo in his chariot. And that’s a phoenix and a python. . . .” Sunni broke in, her voice tremulous. “We learned about Greek and Roman mythology at school.”

“Ah!” Jeremiah turned to her. “By your speech, miss, I would reckon you to be from the north —” he began, but was cut off by Throgmorton.

“I think, sir, that it is now time for a lesson. Miss Sunniva and Master Blaise shall join in.”

Yet again, a rush of whispers buzzed among the boys.

“Gentlemen?” Throgmorton whirled around and looked at them one by one. “Have you some opinion you would like to share with us?”

“No, sir,” said Toby.

“The boys have no opinions, Mr. Throgmorton, except upon the best use of quills, paintbrushes, and pigments,” said Jeremiah, with a sharp sniff. “Robert, Samuel, shift those tables and make room.” He fished two threadbare shirts off a peg and handed them to Sunni and Blaise. “It pains me that I have nothing better to offer you, miss, but we are unused to ladies in the workshop, as you see.”

Sunni pulled one greasy sleeve over her bare arm and tried not to grimace. The shirt had not touched soap in a long time, if ever.

Starling hung up his coat and rolled up his sleeves. “Toby, your assistance with the pot, if you please.”

The pair crouched down to the hearth and hoisted the bubbling casserole onto some bricks scattered on the floor nearby. Throgmorton dusted off an empty seat and sat down to watch.