It was deadly boring.
The pose looked easy, but it wasn't, not really. After a while, I began to ache with immobility. The leg slung over the arm of the chair grew numb, and I yearned to lower the damned grapes. But every time I twitched a muscle, Erytheia made a disapproving sound deep in her throat.
So I held still and thought about Joscelin maintaining his vigil on the Longest Night. I thought about how I had offered my misery and vanity as penance to Blessed Elua, and the sense of mystery that had touched me.
Since then, I had been remiss.
Here in Tiberium, caught between scholarship and intrigue, I hadn't even prayed for guidance; not to Elua, not to any of his Companions. Nor had I offered honor to the gods of the place—the gods of Tiberium, stolen from ancient Hellas. And so, there in my chair, I offered up silent prayers.
"No, no, no!" Erytheia scolded me, breaking the long silence. "Not a rapt look, no!"
I grinned at her. "How is a god supposed to look?"
She clicked her tongue at me. "Iacchos! Drunk, drunk on wine and love and madness, but tender with it… not soft, but like a leopard with his prey. Think of something." She gestured with her charcoal. "Think of a woman you want."
Without warning, Phèdre's face surfaced in my mind. A thrill of horrified desire ran through me. I thrust the thought away with urgency, and tried to think of someone else, anyone else. Claudia Fulvia. No, there was madness there, but there was nothing tender about it. And surely there was no love. I wasn't even sure there was liking.
I thought about Sidonie.
After our parting, I had done my best to push her out of my thoughts, and what I had accomplished on my own, Claudia Fulvia had completed. But I thought about her now. The way she had stood, fearless, as I clutched her shoulders. Her dark Cruithne eyes set in a D'Angeline face. The spark of unfulfilled passion between us. On the surface, she was all cool composure, but there was somewhat wilder and deeper beneath it. Somewhat I longed to taste.
Do you forget that Kusheline blood flows in the veins of House L'Envers?
Oh, I had forgotten. But I remembered it then, and now.
"Better," Erytheia said. "Much better."
And so I lolled in my chair and thought about Sidonie and forgot the passage of time, until Silvio went to answer a knock at the door, and Claudia Fulvia entered. She glanced at me and her generous lips curved in a smile, and I stopped thinking about Sidonie altogether.
"Well!" Claudia said brightly. "Let's see what we have here."
My body creaked with protest as I stood, and my numb right leg nearly buckled under me. I put down the grapes, wrapped the purple cloth around my waist, and went to peer over Claudia's shoulder as she contemplated the rough sketch. Erytheia waited, her face filled with confident pride.
It is a strange thing, to see oneself captured in charcoal. The pose was everything Erytheia wanted, lounging and indolent. And yet there was tension in it, too. In a few bold lines, she had captured an expression at odds with the seeming ease of my body.
"Such a smolder!" Claudia murmured, stroking the whitewashed board and nearly smudging the charcoal. Erytheia bit back a protest. "Were you thinking of me, darling?"
I smiled at her. "Mayhap."
"Oh, mayhap." She arched one brow. "I'll have to make sure of it." She turned to Erytheia. "Yes, I'm pleased. Let's proceed. And the other matter… ?"
"Ah, yes." The artist raised her voice. "Silvio! Come, I want you accompany me to the apothecary. He promised a shipment of lapis would arrive this day." She reached for an hourglass on a stand near her easel, which she used to track her models' time, and turned it upside down. "We will return anon."
Claudia inclined her head. "My thanks, Lady Erytheia."
I waited until they had gone to ask. "Is she one of you?"
"One of us?" Claudia put on a bemused tone. "What do you mean?"
"The Unseen Guild," I said.
"Mayhap," she teased. "Now why don't you go sit in your chair? I want to be certain I know exactly what you're thinking about when I look at this painting."
"Claudia." I caught her arms. "No. I'm tired of games."
"Will you threaten me?" She looked amused. "Dear boy, the game goes on whether you like it or not. And if you want to learn to play it, for now, you'll do it on my terms."
"And if I don't?" I asked.
Her nails raked my bare chest. I could feel heat coming off her in waves, smell the scent of her arousal. Her fox-brown eyes were bright and sure. "Oh, but you do."
An answering ardor swelled in me, mindless and compelling. I took a sharp breath. "And what price do you offer, Claudia? Will you tell me about a dead man near the docks? Or another outside my insula?"
She pressed her body against mine, one reaching lower to cup and caress me. The blood pounded in my veins. "I might tell you all manner of things if you swear allegiance to the Guild, Imriel," she breathed. "But first, there's the matter of your training."
Fettered by desire and half hating her for it, I succumbed.
It was as raw and primal as it had been the first time. Claudia led me to the chair and bade me sit, and I watched as she undressed, the glory of her body emerging from folds of shimmering silk. The late, lazy sunlight filling the atelier made her flesh gleam. I stopped thinking as she knelt astride me, the tips of her breasts brushing my lips. I let myself get lost as she lowered herself onto me, rising and falling, the slow, steady churn toward rapture.
And then again, on a tumbled pallet where the artist napped; only this time, faster and more urgent, flesh sliding on sweat-slickened flesh. I wanted to punish her, I wanted to plow her like the earth, I wanted to fill her until she begged me to stop.
But there was no end to her, only more and more and more, and I kept going until I could go no further, the force of my climax pressing down on me like a vast hand. With a shudder, I spent myself in her.
"I told you so," she whispered in my ear.
I rolled onto my back and propped myself on one elbow, glancing around to make sure there were no weapons close at hand, then allowed myself to collapse on the pallet. "It's not the same thing."
"Oh, but it is." Claudia plucked idly at my hair, where the vine wreath was tangled. "Right now, the game and I are one, Imriel."
"And you call this training?" I asked.
She laughed and covered my eyes with one hand. "How many items are on Erytheia's worktable and what are they?"
"Six stone jars of pigment," I said. "A marble mortar-bowl and a pestle. A corked clay flask, probably oil. A pot of glue. A small hand-mill. A rolled leather bundle, probably brushes. Oh, and a bowl of eggs."
"You forgot Silvio's work-apron." Claudia removed her hand. "He took it off before he left and laid it on the table." She smiled at me. "Shall I have you walk through the atelier blindfolded?"
I held her gaze. "How did you know?"
"Oh." She shrugged. "We assumed." Glancing at the dwindling hourglass, she rose from the pallet and began to dress. After a moment, I followed suit, moving slowly. "I don't know your foster-mother, Imriel, but by all accounts, Anafiel Delaunay de Montrève trained her well. The things she accomplished, all on her own, are quite remarkable." She paused. "Actually, they would be quite remarkable with the Guild's aid."
"You don't know the half of it," I murmured.
"Yes, I know, and it's quite frustrating." Hunting up a hand-mirror, Claudia tended to her disheveled hair. "The point is, based on what we do know, Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève is a woman of fierce loyalties. Since she adopted you as her son, it was safe to assume that she would train you in every skill at her disposal." She thought for a moment. "Well, perhaps not every skill. Or did she?"
"No!" I yanked ineptly at my breeches.
"Well, she's not really your mother." Claudia glanced at me, while I struggled with my tangled breeches and cursed. "What's that from?" she asked in a different tone, touching the Kereyit rune branded on my left flank. "I didn't notice it by candlelight."
I flinched away from her touch and got my breeches up. "Nothing. It's old."
"It looks like…" She frowned. "I'm sorry. Is it a slave-brand?"
"Something like it," I said briefly.
"I don't recognize the mark," she said.
"It's Tatar, Kereyit Tatar," I said. "The man who did it was named Jagun. He's dead." I smiled grimly. "What's the matter, doesn't the Unseen Guild have its tentacles amid the Tatar tribes?"
"No," Claudia said frankly. "We don't. There are a number of places where the Guild has no presence, Imriel. It's just that there are a great many others where it does. Especially here in Tiberium."
I dragged my shirt over my head. "So what is it you want from me, Claudia? What is it I'm supposed to be learning from you other than this?" I gestured at the pallet.
"Oh, you're already learning." Her smile returned. "How to deal with confusion and the shock of betrayal. How to keep your wits about you when you don't know who to trust. How gauge risks, the merits of secrecy, the price of loyalty. Am I telling the truth? Does the Unseen Guild exist, or is it mad fancy? If it exists, who are its members? Erytheia? Silvio? Master Piero? Deccus? Lucius? After all, I might have lied to you. What of your friend Eamonn, your fellow students? Answering these questions is your training, Imriel."
I paused. "Canis."
"Canis?" Claudia laughed. "A dog?"
"The Cynic." I narrowed my eyes at her. If she was lying, she did it well; very well. "My resident philosopher-beggar."
"Canis." She shrugged. "All right, yes, perhaps. I might not even know myself. As I said before, I'm merely a journeyman. If you hadn't befriended Lucius, I would not have been selected for this assignment. The Guild operates in secrecy, and those of us in the lower echelons seldom grasp the whole of its intent."
"Who does?" I asked; but before she could reply, the door opened to admit Erytheia and her apprentice, along with Claudia's manservant, who had been loitering patiently on the stoop while his mistress took her pleasure. Although I was fully dressed save for my boots, I felt caught out and exposed.
By contrast, Claudia was the picture of composure. She thanked Erytheia and gave her a purse with the initial payment for the commission. "I added extra for the soiled linens," she added calmly, and I felt myself flush to the roots of my hair.
Erytheia merely nodded and turned to address me. "Come tomorrow," she said. "Not so early." Fishing in the purse Claudia had given her, she drew out a silver denarius and handed it to me. "Silvio will show you home."
The coin burned in my hand, and I wished I hadn't taken it. Blowing me a kiss, Claudia departed. Silvio watched with an ironic glint in his eye as I put on my boots and buckled on my sword-belt. I supposed I deserved it, having asked him with such contempt if he was a procurer. It didn't feel as though I was being paid for modeling.
It felt, very much, as though I'd sold my services to Claudia Fulvia.
"I don't need an escort," I said to Silvio. "'Tis nowhere near sundown."
"The lady's orders, young sir." He grinned, showing a set of rotting teeth. "She pays well for what she wants."
And so I suffered myself to be escorted, reminding myself that it was all part of the game that I was caught up in whether I liked it or not; and at any rate, Gilot would be pleased. Silvio trotted along at my side, taking three paces to every two of mine, his head bobbing at my shoulder. I asked him why he apprenticed with Erytheia, and he shot me a look of unutterable disdain.
"You saw her paintings, D'Angeline. Her colors…" His face softened and he kissed his fingertips. "Good enough to eat."
"What about Lady Claudia?" I asked.
His eyes went wide and mocking. "You're asking me! She's rich, sir. She does what she likes." He shrugged. "Right now, that's you. She pays for silence. I don't mind. My mistress doesn't mind."
"I'd think she might," I said. "She's pride in her work."
"Why?" His gaze turned curious. "You're a good subject. You sat well for her. A face like that…" He shook his head. "It's wasted on the likes of you."
"My thanks," I said wryly.
"No offense, young sir." Silvio sucked his teeth. "Beauty ought to lift people up, don't you think? Only it doesn't, all too often. At least not in the flesh. Captured in paint, rendered in marble… Ah, that's another matter, isn't it?"
"Is it?" I mused.
"Well, I think so!" Silvio stated.
Outside the insula gate, I tried to give him Claudia's coin, but he refused it, saying he was already compensated. If he was play-acting at being naught more than a proud painter's apprentice, I thought, he was a champion of dissembling. I lingered in the street and watched him trot away, sucking his rotting teeth, his head filled with color and beauty.
"Canis!" I rapped on the lid of his barrel.
There was a scrambling sound within, and then his head poked out. His matted brown hair was sticking every which way and his eyes were sleepy. "Yes, Imriel?"
I hunkered down in front of the barrel, holding out the coin. "For you."