Here There Be Dragonnes (87 page)

I hadn't realized how tired I was: we were on a road, pointing in the right direction, but we had no food and no shelter: I didn't feel I could go a step further. Growch nuzzled my knee sympathetically, but it was Traveler who called to be let out of his cage.

"I'll fly a little way and see what I can see. . . ."

He was back in ten minutes, to report a hamlet some two miles ahead. I don't know how we made it but we did, just before dark. We had to knock them up, the food was poor, the shelter minimal, but at that stage we couldn't be choosers. We ate, we slept, and the next day we did the same. On the second day we were on our way again, wending from hamlet to hamlet. The weather remained dry, the village folk were hospitable, the food adequate, but I was worried at how far east we were veering, although there was no alternative except the occasional track. Even Traveler, who was a definite bonus, could see no alternative way, fly as high as he could.

The countryside was changing, too. It was becoming more rocky and the road more undulating, and we passed through scrub and pine as the land gradually rose. On either side mountains rose in sympathy, at first blue and distant, then nearer and sharper each day, till we could clearly see the tall escarpments, the towering crags, the black holes of faraway caves, the skirts of pine that clothed their waists. Above our heads we could hear the complaint of flocks of crows and sometimes see the mighty soar of eagles, their great wings fingering the winds we could not feel.

Understandably Traveler became wary of flying too far with so many predators about, but one day he came winging back to report a "town of sorts" off to our left. Three or four flights away, he said, but a pigeon's flight was variable, relying as it did day by day on weather conditions: wind, rain, cloud, sun and the type of flight needed to suit each variation.

"Can we reach it before nightfall?"

"Up the hill, down the hill, round the next hill, turn east, twisting road between high escarpments, down to the valley . . . Yes."

"And what's it like, this town?" A town meant proper shelter, a full replenishment of our stores, mending of shoes, a warm wash—everything we had sorely needed for the past two weeks.

"Difficult to say. Never seen anything like it. Lots of tents, few buildings. Many people and animals. No castle, no church. Big road leading on to the south."

And that is what decided me. This was the road we needed, and if it meant going through the "town" Traveler had described, then that was the way we had to go, although many times during that long day I cursed the pigeon's directions. Birds fly, they don't walk, and their "up" and "down" meant little to them, but a hell of a lot to those on foot. The narrow path we followed that crawled and looped what seemed a million miles towards the valley floor nearly finished us all off: it was so frustrating being able to see our goal one moment, and then having to turn away from it. That, plus the falling rocks, the blocked paths we had to climb around, the streams that poured on our heads or meandered across the track . . .

I had already lit the lantern and fixed it to Mistral's crupper by the time we reached the valley floor. Ahead was a short walk through well-trodden scrub to the perimeter of the "town," marked by a regular series of posts set into the ground, a very shallow artificial moat and a couple of temporary bridges. Beyond we could see a score of small stone buildings, a mass of tents, a half-ruined amphitheater and a slender temple, the broken columns throwing exquisite shadows in the moonlight. Obviously once this had been the site of an earlier civilization. And now?

We were stopped at the nearest bridge. Not by a soldier, but by a fussy little civilian with a mass of papers in his hand, a quill behind his ear and an ink pot in his pocket. His very officiousness calmed any fears I might have had, and before long I was trying not to smile at his earnestness. Here was normalcy: no shrinking houses, ghosts or wicked ladies.

"What have we here, then? There are only two weeks left, you know: you're late!" He consulted his lists. "Do you know just how many models we have had this year? Nearly two hundred! And of course now accommodation is at a premium. . . . Do you have a sponsor? No? Still, there is always Mordecai, the Jew, or Bartholomew. . . . I believe they are both short this year. Now, how many are there of you? A man, a lady and a horse . . . And what's this? A pig? and do I see a dog? Well, I don't think I've seen a pig, this year, but of course dogs are two a farthing. You have a pigeon? And a tortoise? Now that is a novelty! This might make all the difference. Quite a call for exotic creatures like that, especially for breviaries. Haven't by any chance got a coney or a hedge-pig, I suppose? Pity; both in short supply this year. Seven of you, then: lucky number, seven . . . Come far? Now, that will be nine of copper: two each for the humans, one for the animals."

I was completely confused. "Models," "sponsors," a tortoise to make all the difference? Instead of the expected normalcy, this place sounded like a madhouse. But the word "models" gave me a clue: perhaps this place contained artists who wanted various creatures to draw and paint, human and animal?

"How many artists here this year?" I asked diffidently, to make sure I was on the right track.

"Artists? A few more than last year . . ." So now I was right. "Now, let's have your names. . . ." He took them down.

"What—what are the rates?"

"Depends on your sponsor. You haven't been before? No, well if you follow me I will try and find someone to take you on."

He led us across the wooden bridge to a squalid huddle of temporary huts, a line of tethered horses, mules and donkeys. Small cooking fires burned in the deepening gloom and people scurried back and forth carrying washing, water, pots and pans, babes in arms.

"This is the poorer end," said our guide, wrinkling his nose. "Not organized at all, this lot . . . Farther in are the stores, stables, cooking and washing areas. Plus of course the hiring place, market and artists supplies . . . Stay here: I won't be long." And off he strode with a purposeful air, papers flapping.

"What
have
you got us into this time, Summer?" said poor Gill.

He might well ask!

Our guide, Master Fettiplace, returned, and led us a few hundred yards to a row of orderly tents. "Let me introduce you to Master Bumbo—" a small, bustling, bald-headed man, with a snub nose red from wine and a potbelly to match. "He is willing to take you on, providing terms can be agreed."

"No reason why not!" cried our new sponsor. He beamed at us all, but the smile did not reach a pair of small, black, calculating eyes. He would drive a hard bargain but we had no option. He had a large black mole on his left cheek, from which sprouted three bristly hairs: this should not have made him any less likable, but somehow it did.

"Come along, come along, all of you!" said Master Bumbo. "Let's get you settled in. You'll be hungry and tired, I have no doubt. . . . Er, you did say you had a tortoise . . . ?"

I sized up Master Bumbo, and decided it would be a battle. But we needed the money. . . .

"Of course," I said. "A trained one. As are the horse, the pigeon, the pig and the dog. Very expensive animals. They will do exactly as I say: stand, sit, walk, fly, or be perfectly still. But they only obey me. We do not come cheap, my brother and I. . . ."

"Of course, of course! My commission is small, very small—and in return you will have bountiful accommodation, free, and one good meal a day. And of course your fees for posing . . ." He walked along the row of tents, disappeared into one; there was the sound of an altercation and a moment or two later a tawdry female came flying out, followed by half a dozen cushions, a blanket and various pots and pans. Master Bumbo returned with an ingratiating smile and a bruised lip. "As soon as you like . . ." The tent smelled like a whorehouse, and showed signs of the hasty eviction of its former occupant: underwear, pots of perfume, a torn night dress. I handed these gravely to our sponsor.

"You mentioned a meal. . . . I think we will take today's now. And if I may accompany you to the cooking lines, I believe we shall have better service when we need it. Precooked meals, or will they cook our own?"

"Er . . . Either. They are not cheap, but who is these days?"

I decided to build our own fire. Hanging our lantern on a hook, I saw there was rush matting on the floor and a few rather tatty cushions. We had our own bedding, so that was all right. "Is there a bathhouse?"

"Over there." He pointed. "Again, not cheap . . ."

Right. We would pay for hot water once, and I would wash the clothes, myself; there must be a stream nearby.

He tried again. "Fodder for the animals a hundred yards to your right—"

"Not cheap," I said gravely.

"Er . . . No. Your horse can join the lines down—"

"My horse," I said, "stays here, behind the tent. She's trained, remember?"

And so the first small victory was mine, but it didn't remain that way for long. Every day it swung first one way then the other, as first Master Bumbo then I gained advantage. Of course he tried to cheat us, and I retorted by snatching the odd freelance for any of us I could.

The "town" was as I had suspected: a winter retreat for artists where they could paint, draw or sketch in peace with everything provided—from the latest tube or pot of Italian Brown to the row of whores' tents behind the temple. They had all the scenery they needed—a river, mountains, forests, romantic ruins—and all the models imaginable; black, white, brown; tall, short, wide, thin; dwarfs and giants, men, women and children; the beautiful, the ugly and those in between. They had animals of all shapes and sizes (but ours was the only tortoise), the flowers of the field carefully painted on wood and cut out to be placed where they wished and all the impedimenta of indoor life—pots, pans, candlesticks, stools, chairs, tables, hangings, goblets, knives etc. There were costumes and armor, swords and spears, in fact everything an artist could need. At a price.

Why in this hidden valley? I had thought we were miles from anywhere, but in fact the road Traveler had seen led straight to an important crossroads, and was only ten miles from the nearest town. The whole venture was run by an Italian, who had another such project in his own country, held in the autumn. Signor Cavalotti, whose brainchild this was, believed that exchanges of ideas and techniques were essential to the development of art; indeed, I was told there had been significant advances in perspective and the mixing of paints in the ten years the two "towns" had existed.

Well, Signer Cavalotti may have had high ideals and thought he was a philanthropist, but the consortium who ran this caper was very far from being either. Everything was very highly priced, but those who came off worst were probably the models like us. It went like this: the artist paid the model, who then relinquished some seventy percent to the sponsor; he in turn paid ten percent for food, five percent to pitch the tents, and then perhaps twenty percent to the consortium for the privilege of sponsorship. Probably the artists spent more than everyone else—space, canvas, paints, props, costumes, models, food, accommodation—but then they had the money to start with.

Most of them were sponsored by rich families or the church—I counted at least a dozen altar pieces and triptychs in various stages of completion—and many had private means. There was a handful of students and apprentices, but most of these were under the patronage of the artists themselves. Useful to be able to take credit for the important bits and have an unpaid lackey to fill in the background!

Master Bumbo had very little idea how to promote his models—he had ten others besides ourselves—but in spite of his laziness, incompetence and avariciousness Gill's good looks provided us with two St. Sebastians and a disciple; I got two crowd scenes, very background, and Basher was fully occupied with two young monks composing a bestiary and an artist creating a series of panels on popular legends. One artist was interested exclusively in birds and their plumage and anatomy and was very pleased with the (private) sittings with Traveler.

And what of the Wimperling in all this? All in all, he earned more than the rest of us put together. Master Bimbo gave up on him after the first day: he was, after all, a rather ugly pig—but I had better ideas. A German artist who had used poor Mistral in an allegory for famine recommended a Dutchman who was looking for "odd" creatures, and I saw why when I peeped round the corner of his screened off area. He was painting the pains of Hell on a large canvas, and very frightening they were, too. Fires, flames, smoke; imps, demons, devils, trolls, dragons: all delighting in torturing, beheading, raping and disemboweling the hapless sinners who cascaded down from the top of the canvas in a never-ending stream. And everywhere there was an inch or so of space capered creatures from a wildly demented imagination, gleefully cheering on the destruction.

These creatures could never have existed: birds with fish heads, lizards with horses' hooves, cats with six arms and two heads, mouths with thin spindly legs, spiders with human faces, torsos with heads in their stomachs, a pair of legs with wings—It was this last that gave me the idea. Withdrawing quietly before the artist noticed me, I returned later with a fully briefed Wimperling.

The artist was a thoroughly unpleasant little man, hunched and smelly, so much I had already heard, but I wasn't prepared for the brusque way he dismissed me before I had opened my mouth.

"Unless you've got an extra pair of tits or balls I don't want to know: bugger off!"

But I wasn't going to be thrown out just like that. Instead I dared his wrath and looked critically at the lizard-like thing with wings he was trying to draw.

"You've got the wings wrong," I said. "They should be more leathery and the tips less scooped. . . ."

"What? What do you mean? How do you know anything about Wyrm-wings?"

"Look," I said, and the Wimperling carefully extended one wing. "And if it's claws and hooves you are after, just look at these. . . ." The pig lifted one hoof. "And as for fangs—" Obligingly the Wimperling bared his teeth. I hadn't realized just how sharp they were till now. The pig folded himself away again. "What do you say?"