just begun, and although the surviving pieces of Rannit’s thousand-year art history were still safely tucked away somewhere in a deep, secret Regency subbasement, the neighborhood itself was lousy with galleries and art sellers of every description.
We clopped along. I tried to recall what little I’d ever known about art-it was once taught, here and there, before the War brought such frivolity to a halt-and decided I remembered only two things.
One was that bad old King Throfold had outlawed the depiction of bare-chested ladies in 1276. The other was that the worth of such paintings had tripled or quadrupled immediately thereafter, which resulted in a veritable flood of bare-chested ladies in paintings for two centuries thereafter.
I was never much of a student, but for some reason that stuck with me.
I grinned and wondered for the thousandth time if that hadn’t been King Throfold’s idea all along and then the cab pulled onto Cannon and I had arrived.
I tipped the cabbie and set foot along the cheery galleries and elegant cafes that lined the shaded streets.
I took in a few window-fronts as I walked. It seems art doesn’t keep banker’s hours, something I hadn’t considered when I set out, and every gallery I passed was most unapologetically locked up tight.
But the windows were open, and the sun was out, so I could see what passed for art in Rannit these days well enough.
I wasn’t impressed. Like old Throfold, I preferred my art to be pleasant to look at. What I saw, in window after window, was the War.
Heroic soldiers faced down slavering Trolls. Banners waved majestically in smoke-choked winds. The fires that ringed every battle only served to illuminate the fierce patriotic resolve that lined each soldier’s face with courage.
I was there, people. It wasn’t courage that kept us fighting. It was the simple lack of any other choice.
I fell into a damned march cadence without realizing it, and into a deep scowl when I did. Window after window revealed paintings of battles, sculptures of upraised swords, and tattered old regimental flags encased in glass and the like.
I did come to one conclusion. No veterans ever shopped these places.
They’d just not have the stomach for it.
I was about to hail a cab and head for Eddie’s when I came upon a door propped open with a brick and a pair of workmen carefully easing a blanket-clad canvas into the place. Being an inquisitive fellow, I fell into step right behind them and became the day’s first patron at Moorland Galleries, Established 1998.
“Where does this one go?” asked the nearest workman, of me.
“With the others, please,” I replied. No need in prompting a fusillade of questions at this hour of the day, after all.
They grunted and made their way through a rear door, and I took a moment to browse.
General Stark on horseback, sword uplifted. The Battle of Three Gates, ringed by fire. The Charge at Impriss, wind blowing the majestic banners the wrong bloody way. And then something unexpected-the Fall of Right Lamb.
I was gritting my teeth and thinking inartistic thoughts when someone softly cleared his throat right beside me.
“One of my personal favorites,” said a voice from below my shoulder. “It’s a Kelson, as I’m sure you know. Only Kelson can do twilight with such foreboding, don’t you think?”
I nodded. To me, it looked like someone had painted the awful thing using only three shades of dark bloody red and then blotted it liberally with lamp oil before leaving it out in the rain.
“Kelson is a master of subtle twilights,” I said, sensing mention of lamp oil or rain might offend my new friend’s delicate sensibilities. “Are you perhaps the proprietor?”
Laughter, mild and polite. “Goodness, no, sir. I am Steven, the manager. I wake before noon, you see.”
I chuckled and turned, and we shook hands. It wasn’t his fault the War was staring me back in the face from all sides.
“My name is Markhat.” Steven was a short skinny man, pale and bookish, but he had a scar running all the way from the crown of his bald spot to his shoulder, and I had a feeling he didn’t like these fine works of high art any better than I did. “You’ve got some interesting pieces here.”
“Thank you, sir. Is there an artist you’re interested in? We have quite a range of styles and techniques.”
I nodded, tried to tear my eyes off the Fall of Right Lamb. I’d been there. I’d seen it. Hell, I’d nearly died there, half a dozen times in that awful last night.
“Actually, I’m wondering if you know of a Lady Erlorne Werewilk,” The faces fleeing the Trolls in the painting before me at once became familiar-there was Otter, there was Walking Paul, there was the Sarge, flailing away at Troll heads with his crossbow when the bolts ran out. “I hear her House has produced some interesting pieces of late.”
Steven who rose before noon looked suddenly and furtively about.
“I know something of her,” he replied, his voice a terse whisper. “The name is not known to me,” he then said, in a much louder voice tinged with disdain.
I nodded knowingly, and a pair of jerks made their way to my palm, and then quickly into his.
He motioned for me to follow, and I ambled away in his wake, happy to be rid of the Kelson and its unsubtle remembrances.
“Here we have a pair of remarkable Galways,” he said, in a loud stage voice. “She’s not exactly embraced by the bosom of Rannit’s art community,” he added, in a soft whisper. “She refuses to depict anything involving the War. That doesn’t follow in line with the galleries, or even the Regent’s Council of Art. Makes her a pariah, truth be told.”
“So is she able to sell anything?” I asked, whispering.
“Sir, one of her artists could smear manure on a soiled bed sheet and sell it for twice anything here. The galleries claim they don’t want her, but the truth is it’s Lady Werewilk who doesn’t need the galleries. One vet to another.”
I grinned, and another jerk appeared and just as quickly disappeared.
“I find his use of perspective somewhat disturbing,” I barked.
Steven made commiserating noises. We moved on, circling the gallery, and while Steven prattled on about this use of color or that sense of scale and perspective, I mused on more worldly matters.
Lady Werewilk’s House might lack political power or even the kind of wealth that might make the Hill crowd nervous, but she had certainly caused an uproar in Mount Cloud. And if her crowd was selling their paintings like deep-fried money, that had to be putting a crimp in the coffers of every gallery on the street.
Lady Werewilk hadn’t ever alluded to any such thing, and probably had never considered it. I doubted she thought of the money itself as anything but a way to keep track of whose art was lining the most walls.
We’d come full circle, and I found myself standing before the Kelson that depicted Right Lamb. I inquired about the price just to be polite.
Eight hundred and ninety-five crowns. That was an easy fifteen years of work for most of Rannit.
“None of that is right, you know,” I said, not caring who might hear. “There weren’t any mounted lancers left, by dusk. And even if there had been, no one ever convinced a horse to charge a line of Trolls at night.”
“Indeed, sir,” said Steven, with a small disgusted sniff.
But he pointed as he spoke. Bottom left of the painting, a tiny hillock, one burned oak tree atop it.
“I’m sorry you are not interested, sir.” he said. His eyes were grim. One Tree, they called it. Only six men out of two hundred left that hill alive.
“Maybe another day,” I said, and then I got out of there.
I guess I’ll never understand art.
I ambled around Mount Cloud for another hour, and actually caught two more art shops open. I was shown out of both at the mere mention of Lady Werewilk’s name, the last time accompanied by a rather snippy “we deal in art at this establishment, sir, not amateur dabblings, good day.”
Which only confirmed everything early-rising Steven had said. Lady Werewilk may or may not be making art history, but she was making enemies.
