by Andre Norton
He went; she followed, wondering. When they had reached the booth of a busy dealer in old manuscripts, Painted Face stopped. “Now,” he said, drawing an egg from his robe. “Take care not to act startled.”
Startled? Over an egg? Maeve frowned, and Painted Face held the egg to Maeve’s ear. She jumped back.
The egg was singing.
“Careful,” said Painted Face. “Do not attract attention to us.
“What is this?” hissed Maeve. “Are you a priest, one who can sing things into existence?”
Painted Face only grinned. It made her skin crawl.
“Keep your magic eggs. I will go to the poulterer’s for eggs that carry no blessing—or curse.” She turned to go.
“Perhaps,” said Painted Face, “what I have heard concerning the master Maeve is not true after all.”
Maeve stopped, as he must have known she would.
“Perhaps the rumormongers are wrong, or I have heard amiss. Perhaps Master Maeve is not merely riding out her reputation as a great portrait painter. Perhaps she has her talent still. Perhaps at this fair she will have many new patrons.”
Maeve looked over at the busy manuscript dealer. Her feet seemed rooted. She spied one familiar-looking youth with a telltale slouch. Well, it was no surprise that the wretched Gahr would be at the fair, no doubt now making some other master’s life miserable.
When Gahr left she moved numbly to the table, picking up a small scroll. She unrolled it, staring at the illuminations. Whoever did them had been very skilled. She became aware that the dealer spoke to her. “No,” she mumbled. “No, thank you. I was only admiring it.”
Painted Face was at her shoulder, patient.
Maeve replaced the scroll. The past had been sweet. Skill, talent, whatever one called it, lay dead. Well, she didn’t have to use the eggs. Just have them. Just take them, to make Painted Face leave her alone. Once she had been at the pinnacle. When Piellao died, it had all seemed to evaporate, and she’d been powerless to stop it.
Maeve said at last, “How many eggs have you?”
Painted Face smiled and took her money.
The eggs lay in Maeve’s basket, cushioned by a silk cloth the scarlet color of precious heartworthy. She heard Tuilla busily setting up. She listened to the bustle for a moment, then lifted the eggs to her ear and heard their strange harmony, at once eerie and seductive. Cloudblue snorted softly in postfeeding contentment.
These eggs will provide what you lack, he had said. None will be able to resist your portraiture now.
Maeve knew now who Painted Face was. Always a master of disguise. The son nearby. How could he be any other than Gohnd?
“Master Maeve?” Amazing how clean and well fed Tuilla looked now. She would be an industrious apprentice, perhaps one day even a fine artist. “We have a prospective patron.”
With an effort, Maeve shook off her dismal thoughts and strode to the front of the setup.
The young lord awaiting her could have been Piellao’s shadow. She smiled despite herself. And remembered that first fair, long ago, meeting Piellao much like this. Oh, yes—the same dark eyes and hair, the same cocked, quizzical brow. A face she could have painted in her sleep. Once upon a time, long ago.
He spoke first. “Ah, Maeve the master painter. I have been admiring several of your display pieces. Your charming little apprentice has been telling me that it is difficult to keep enough display pieces on hand, as your work is so very much sought after.”
Maeve glanced quickly at Tuilla, who was suddenly very busy with some panels at the back of the tent.
“Thus I feel fortunate to have discovered you so early in the course of the fair. I wonder if your schedule is still free enough to render a portrait of Lord Vaten Staunce?”
Maeve played along. “Why, that would all depend on who this Lord Vaten Staunce is.” He was no taller than she, and scarcely broader in his finery.
“Oh, you are looking at him,” he said in mock innocence. “Have I neglected to introduce myself properly? For shame. Now I have entirely lost face, and you will have to paint me out of pity.”
“When I paint you,” said Maeve, “it will have nothing to do with pity.” She decided quickly. “I will arrange my schedule to suit you, Lord Staunce. Tell me when it is convenient to sit to me.”
He sparkled. “It is convenient at this very moment.”
Maeve smiled. “As you can see, the light is fading, and I prefer not to work by candle or torch. Would tomorrow suit you just as well?”
“These technicalities are entirely beyond me! Lighting conditions, you say?” His smile was mesmerizing. “Well, in these matters I defer to your judgment. You are, after all, the master. I will arrive early tomorrow and will be quite content to sit for days if necessary. I bid you farewell, but only for the shortest of times.”
Maeve watched his splendidly attired back disappear in the crowd and sighed. Gradually she realized a bit to eat would come in useful at the moment. “Tuilla,” she said suddenly, “fetch us some dinner, will you?” She handed a few coins to the girl and retreated into the growing dark of her tent.
Alone except for Cloudblue and the eggs. Those cursed eggs. She should have gone at once to the poulterer.
Maeve bent forward and plucked an egg from the flaming silk, bringing it to her ear. The strange singing. Could they be, somehow, vestiges from the Three Lordly Ones? Or stolen from the great singing priests?
She should turn them in. Fling them to the ground. (Could they sing her skill back into being?)
Maeve turned to a small portrait, painted from memory, the only one remaining of Piellao. It showed him full face, in the bloom of health, before he had wasted away. That signature cocked brow. It was the one portrait she would never part with. It was how she would pose Lord Staunce.
She placed the egg carefully back on the silk. They looked like mere eggs, ordinary. From any distance at all, the song was silent.
She would destroy them. But first this one commission.
When Tuilla returned, Maeve took her meat pie and wandered the crowds alone.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Tuilla. “Unlike most of her contemporaries, the master portrait painter Maeve works in a spontaneous manner. You’ll note that she uses no preliminary sketches, but rather works directly with brush and much diluted egg tempera from the first measure.”
Maeve smiled, not pausing in her work. The crowd was getting big, and Tuilla had learned well. She was a natural. Lord Staunce was arch and amused in his posing seat, eyes twinkling at her.
This morning she had broken three of the eggs, holding them well away in distaste, separating the yolks into a small glazed bowl. It had taken a moment or two to locate the basket of eggs. Mockingly she thought her inner self had deliberately misplaced it. Or maybe Tuilla had simply moved it, in the night.
“Master Maeve is the fastest contemporary portrait painter due to her unusual techniques. You will note her use of the sea sponge, cloth, reed, and fingers, as well as the more conventional brush, to achieve the finished portrait.”
Tuilla makes it sound as if I’m invincible, thought Maeve. And today it was true. Her fingers were winged. They went right for the gold, flying over the panel, bringing out the likeness of Staunce as if by magic. (Magic. Yes.) It was a cloudy-bright day, one that cast no false and glaring shadows, her favorite light in which to work.
“I think I could grow to like all this sitting about.” Lord Staunce sat close enough to be able to converse. “If your rendering of me even approaches the works I have seen, I am sure my entire family will grow to like all this sitting about.”
“Are your family here at the fair?”
“Only my elder uncle, and he is so lean and ill favored that you will not wish to paint him, I am sure.” Staunce , laughed.
Maeve said, “It is not mere beauty which inspires the portrait. Only when the artist has captured the essence of her sitter’s being can a portrait be called successful.”
“I w
as only teasing. My uncle is a fine man.”
“And for such teasing, you well deserved my lecture,” she said, deftly applying touches of heartworthy to the young lord’s costume. She forced her thoughts from the singing eggs.
And she went into the artist’s trance, from which she carried on light conversations, checked proportions, mixed and applied pigments, all from another, mystical space in her mind. When she came to her full senses she was staring at the finished portrait of Lord Vaten Staunce, and the sun was only beginning its final bow toward the horizon.
She blinked. It was clearly the best thing she had ever done. She spoke, rather flatly. “Lord Staunce, it is finished now, if you wish to inspect it.”
Only then did the shooting pains in her back and shoulders make themselves known, the product of long hours in one position. “Carefully,” she said. “The paint film will be tender for months to come, although it is dry to the touch at once. Do not handle it.”
“Oh,” breathed Lord Vaten Staunce. “Oh!”
Maeve sat exhausted, limp. Yet a thrill hummed along her aching bones. It was back. She had it again. The eggs had given it to her.
Lord Staunce turned to her. “You shall immortalize my family indeed! And in addition to your fee, you must have something extra. You shall come to my quarters and pick something. Or choose anything you wish from the goods at the fair.”
So like Piellao. “I am humbly grateful, Lord Staunce.” She pulled her crackling shoulders back. “But if it please you, let me come tomorrow. I am a little weary just now, and—”
“But of course, how thoughtless of me. This superhuman effort. You must rest. And this was a lightning-quick rendering, even for you. By all means call on me tomorrow. My people will look for you. Give your hands a rest, but let me have one of them, for a moment, before I take my leave.”
Again she watched him go off. And Tuilla set to work cleaning her brushes, paint cups, sponges. With a groan, Maeve flopped onto her cot and stared at the tent ceiling.
She must have dozed off. Tuilla tapped her gently in the dark. “Excuse me, master. What shall I fetch you to eat?”
“Oh.” She sighed. “Anything at all. Take some coins, and take some time as well. See a bit of the fair if you like. You have done well today.”
Tuilla skipped away. Maeve closed her eyes again and eased back into the cot.
“Well, look who it is, laid out like the dead.”
Maeve jumped up to face Gahr and Gohnd.
She collected herself. “What more do you want from me? You already have my gold for those filthy bewitched stolen eggs. You have been happy to know that after I dismissed your son, work and power have dwindled. And that I owe to you, I think.”
“Oh,” said Gohnd, “you owe me more than you know. Poor Lord Piellao. He went so fast.” The painted face glistened with glee.
Maeve went numb. “You?” she said dumbly. “Why? How?”
“Why”—Gahr grinned—“is ‘cause you liked him, and you was so stupid to get rid of me. How is ‘cause you was also so stupid to make all the images of him that we used to—”
“Enough.” Gohnd cut him off.
A good portrait captures the essence of the sitter. . . . “And now?” said Maeve dully. “And now?”
“And now the same will happen to your new favorite, for you used the eggs I sold you in the making of it. And the
song of my eggs, with your imagery, binds your sitter to me for as long as I care to hold him. I will not say whether I cast a spell on the eggs or found them or took what did not belong to me.”
“Then why tell me this? Why not sit back and enjoy my bewilderment and suffering?”
“Because you will be prosperous, for my eggs have helped you to make a great portrait. All the nobles and great merchants and captains will seek you. And you will use my eggs, and give me gold—and their souls.”
“And if you is so stupid to refuse,” said Gahr, “we denounces you to the fair-court, and you will be nothing.” This seemed to please him greatly. He giggled and spat.
“Tomorrow you will be busy,” said Gohnd. “We will see you then.” They left her tent, and she sank back on the cot.
She stared at the tent opening, seeing nothing. Slowly she drew her artist’s knife, ran her thumb over the point, stopped. Took it in her right hand, poised, felt the weight of it, pushed it gently against her left wrist.
Crimson drops oozed from the tiny wound, no more than a pinprick. Maeve held her breath, gripped the knife knuckle white, swept it back to slash.
And stood trembling, and dropped the knife. No. That would not stop them. Nothing she did to herself would stop them. She caught a jagged, rough half sob, fell to her knees to retrieve the knife, closed it, and walked out of the tent like a ghost.
She brushed past milling people, turned, and bumped gently from here to there in the torchlight. She went her tortuous path with no purpose and no destination. Now and then someone called to her. She could no more answer than she could stop her feet from moving.
She caught sight of Gahr and Gohnd, and they seemed to move toward her, pushing through the swarms of people. She went stumbling and collided with Marus, the fair-ward.
“Well, master painter,” he said, steadying her. “Have you been in your cups tonight?” He smiled down at her.
She gripped his forearms, looking past him at the two figures moving closer with each stride. “No,” she said softly. She took a breath and looked up into his steady hazel eyes. “Bring me before the fair-court,” she said.
“You did what?” The magistrate glared at her.
“I knowingly used enchanted eggs to mix with my pigments, hoping they would boost my abilities, and used the resulting egg tempera to render a portrait of Lord Vaten Staunce. He who sold me the eggs is the wizard Gohnd.” Maeve felt light-headed and serene.
“She lies,” said Gohnd evenly. “She pleaded with me to cast a spell to bolster her fading talents. When I refused, she threatened to harm me. Why, you can see how much larger than I she is. She put her artist’s knife to my throat. It’s small, I grant, and legal, but the throat! I had no choice but to lie, and sell her some harmless eggs, which I told her were enchanted.”
“He came to me earlier,” countered Maeve, “and told me that by using his eggs I had subjugated my sitter’s soul to him. That he could cause Lord Staunce’s death as long ago he caused that of Lord Piellao. That I must do as he told me.”
“She lies,” insisted Gohnd.
The magistrate scowled from Gohnd to Maeve. “It is a great temptation to cast you both out. But we must see the eggs. Some, go and fetch these eggs from the portrait painter’s tent.”
“No!” Gohnd flung himself away but was caught on every side by sturdy fair-wards. By the time he had been subdued, a runner had returned with the eggs and Tuilla. She looked a bit wide-eyed, but not frightened. Maeve hurt for her. She was a fast study, a good apprentice. She must be provided for.
“Let me listen to the singing eggs.” The magistrate held one to his ear, frowned, and did so with all the eggs. He rose, slowly, threateningly.
“These eggs make no noise.”
Gohnd looked a little strange. “I said as much,” he cried, brightening.
Maeve’s mouth opened. And then a small voice piped up. “May I address the court, please?” Tuilla!
The magistrate hesitated, then gave assent.
“Those are not the eggs Master Maeve bought.” When the hubbub abated, she went on. “Last night when my master was out enjoying the fair, I heard something at the back of our tent. I ran in to see a little beast, its mouth full of dripping egg.
“It was not at all afraid of me, and easy to capture. I took it to the poulterer’s and traded it for fresh hen’s eggs, not wanting to anger the master with my incompetence.” Then Tuilla slowly reached into her pocket. “One egg remained untouched. Here, Your Honor, you take it, for if it is as you say, and the eggs are enchanted, I want nothing to do with them.”
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The magistrate put Tuilla’s egg to his ear. With an astonished look, he snatched it away again. “These eggs indeed sing! This is unlawful magic!” He drew himself up again.
“If it please Your Honor,” began Tuilla, “I can see clearly now that Master Maeve was setting a trap for this dishonest wizard Gohnd. She told me nothing, however, and I am sorry if I ruined her plan.”
“You have not ruined anything,” said Maeve. She was wise enough to press her advantage. “The outcome will be the same.”
The rest passed in a blur. Maeve rested a hand on the child’s shoulder while sentence was carried out against the wizard, and she dismissed with a stern warning to leave such matters to the officials from now on. Maeve suspected that Marus’s favorable words had much to do with this.
It was near dawn when they walked into the open air. Maeve stretched against the coolness. It would be good to sleep with the knowledge that her portrait of Lord Staunce had come from ordinary eggs. And from her own ability, which had lived dormant all the while.
But first things first. “Tuilla, take me to where you traded the beast.”
It did not take long. The poulterer rose with his hens, and Maeve was glad they did not have to wake him.
“There.” Tuilla pointed.
And there it was indeed. The same bright-eyed little beast who had stolen her eggs on the road to Ithkar Fair.
She picked it up, and it chirped at her. She gave Tuilla coins to pay for it, along with a good supply of eggs for both of them.
Maeve hugged the little beast to her. Its wet black nose explored her neck, and she laughed. It started a kind of high musical purring, in which Maeve thought she heard a hint of the exotic egg song, now rendered harmless. “You sly thing,” she told it as its whiskers tickled her lips. “I will call you Piellao. You and Tuilla and myself. We will make quite a team.”
“Come,” she said to Tuilla. “Back to our tent. It is already tomorrow, and I have a notion it will be a busy day.”
