Chapters Two and Three
Deuce
On I walked through that blighted but beatiful place Bain inhabited
until I found him. He was sitting in a huge room, more like a gallery,
filled along both walls with mirrors. Strange that he would garb his
castle so, but the devil sees what he wants to.
The room was so loaded with gilt that any self-respecting French
royalty would have been ashamed. The floors were parquet, a beautiful
intricate pattern of orchids, of all things. The gallery had been a place
of such beauty, but it had an air of neglect and guilt about it. The dust
hung heavy in the still air. There was not a stick of furniture in that
place but an easel. Bain stood at the easel, his back to me.
Piles and piles of papers laid scattered on the floor, and he stood
at the easel working on another which probably would join its fellows in
repose on the parquet. He drew slowly, hardly moving at all.
I walked three quarters of the rooms's length and stood a bit behind
him. He didn't turn; he didn't hear my footsteps, for I make no sound, but
he spoke to me.
"Comest at last? I have waited many a long year for thy presence,and
now thou art here. Why?"
"Oh, my sweet Lord," and I saw him shiver, "I am here, as I was
called."
He didn't turn; he continued sketching what looked to me like the
Hagia Sophia. Bain's pencil stained hands moved over the soft paper in a
caress of graphite. He went on like that for a few minutes as the silence
hung on. Suddenly his pencil snapped and dropped on the floor.
As he bent to retrieve it, I stepped closer to him. He had been
crying silently since before I walked in to his studio. I wiped the tears
off his cheek and he only looked right through me, right into my eyes, if
he could have seen them. "Tisn't so easy to erase thy mark, mine Liege,
as't that. Thou art still blind to what matters most. When thou seest me,
so shall you know. Art a motley fool, my Liege."
I padded over to one of the mirrors on the wall overlooking the
gardens. It was a beautiful day outside in the gardens. The sunlight
glistened over the fountain, catching drops of water in their arc from top
to bottom and back again. The lawns were a verdant green, the hedges
neatly clipped, and the flowers were lush. Things were alive out there, in
stark contrast to the atmospehere around Bain. In this room the air hung
heavy dull and dead.
Bain stood in front of the easel, his back stiff and straight, not
moving. His hands hung limply at his sides, and I doubt he really even saw
the canvas. I walked away from the mirror and over to the door to the
garden. I was almost at the door when I heard him speak. His voice was a
cracked whisper so low he could have been only talking to himself. Maybe
he was; I don't think he noticed my leaving.
"Seest thou the mark upon me? None but my own kind are able. I am
marked, and so is all that is mine. It is a mark I bear forever. I wander
these halls and never see the end. I am locked in this maze and can never
go. I am cursed. Help me, Harlequin. Help me."
I stood where I was at the door, looked back at him, and jumped into
the garden. It was nicer out here. I always liked the sunlight. I walked
over across the gravel paths to the prisms and the rainbows colours they
were throwing on the grass.
As I stood in the coloured light I looked at my costume. The prisms
turned my costume to motley. Red, yellow, blue, black, and more. Powerful
colours, all. Pale as the devil, black as moonlight, blue as driven snow,
yellow as sorrow, red as knowledge, green as lust.
Trio
I stood in that garden, looking at nothing, for a long while. A
strange puzzle how so lush a garden could be so barren at the same time. I
got out my pennywhistle, and picked out a tune, calling for a way. No, all
ways here were not the King's ways. I was on my way. All must come down my
way, eventually. The trick was how to do it.
I walked back to the castle and jumped up onto a nearby balcony.
Brushing aside a gauzy curtain and pushing the door open, I steped through
into a chamber. It was austere, compared to the rest of the castle, and
not happy. The rest of the place was a living thing, and this was just
dead. It was a tormented place. Dark, the few furnishings were
inconspicious, and the place was littered with books and reams of
drawings. The wallpaper was sketches, but if I looked carefully, or cared
to, I knew I would see wood underneath.
There was an easel in the corner. On the otherwise unpainted canvas
was the portrait of a child, her dreaming blue eyes staring off into some
distance. Yes, I too knew a woman lovely in her bones. But on her visage
was a hint of his mark. And furious attempts to paint over it, as if the
painter had no control over his creation. Perhaps he hadn't.
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