SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) (24 page)

“
That’s a shame,” was Jack’s elusive reply. “Such a lovely little thing, but you’re knowing and sharp.”

Michael
’s smile faded, and he felt oddly hurt by the man’s words. “Don’t be mad at Harly. It isn’t his fault. This was the best he could do.”

“
You leave ‘im alone, Jack.” Irini swept up and trailed her arm around the man’s shoulders. “Ain’t no reason to pester the boy. He’s doin’ ‘is best.”

Jack
smiled up at the woman as if they were old friends. “In Mirthia, it would never be allowed. Someone would hang for what you’re all doing to this poor child.”

Michael
didn’t believe it and almost sneered at the man’s words. To his surprise, however, Irini only shook her head, tsking.

“
Don’t I know it, Jack. But ‘e’s stuck ‘ere, idn’t he? Poor thing.” She leaned in to whisper. “They went and branded ‘im.”

Jack
straightened, his shock crackling across Michael’s senses, and he turned with narrowed eyes. “I do apologize to you, lad. I’d no idea.”

Irini gave
Michael a wink and moved on to a more likely target. Michael, too, turned to walk away, but Jack caught his arm.

“
Wait. I am sorry. Truly.”

Michael
shrugged. “You didn’t know.”

Slapping his hands onto his thighs with a decisive thwack,
Jack gave a nod. “Sit with me for a bit. Help me play a few hands. I’ll give you a clink for your trouble, and we can talk.”

Retreating a step,
Michael gave the man a wary, sidelong look. “Why? You don’t like boys.”

“
I suppose no one ever just talks to you,” the man muttered half to himself.

Lifting his chin,
Michael hesitated for a moment as he weighed the situation. “All right. I’ve just had a bit of trouble, after all. I could use a break.”

Jack
told him all about Mirthia that night, and one hour stretched into many. The man won several hands, took a few measured losses, and ended up richer than the rest by morning. So did Michael who Jack insisted should earn a percentage of each hand for being a help.

He wanted to refuse
—all he’d done was sit at Jack’s side and observe the game—but he’d long ago lost the pride that allowed him to make such gestures.
What a silly waste of his money,
Michael thought. But it had been very kind.

The next time
Jack came back to the Red Boar, he’d brought Michael a small, leather-bound book entitled
Mirthia: A Traveler’s Guide
by H. L. Pinhearn.

“
I’m not allowed to travel, Jack.” Michael pushed the book back toward the man, wanting to be rid of something that held such an impossible hope in its very title.

“
You’re allowed to dream, aren’t you?”

Now, with the news of Sirra Avram,
Jack had given him yet another gift.
I can’t figure taxes for this one,
he thought.
It’s beyond pricing.
He felt a little guilty, still.
But I’ll get over it.

He left early that night,
not wanting to spoil his mood, and awoke almost early—well before midday—to see the sun sparkling over the city.

His fourth reason to be happy should correctly have been counted as his first or second, but he
’d forgotten it for too long during his endless, miserable sojourn through the streets of Fensgate. His pencils and notebook from Whiltierna were long-gone, left behind when he’d been tossed from JhaPel, but then he’d discovered chalk and pavement and rare sunny days in the park.

Smiling at the gift of a bright, clear day just after the gift of seeing
Jack and learning of Avram’s demise, he threw on his grubby, off-duty clothes, picked up his pack, and, with Cyra following him, left for Carillon Park.

Hours later, he
’d gone through all the chalk he’d brought with him, having thoroughly enjoyed every moment of transforming paving stones into artworks until the next rains washed them clean.

Michael
had been finished with his last chalk drawing for several minutes, but Jon, one of the many young artists who frequented the park, too, on fine days—“to paint from life,” they all claimed—begged him again to hold his pose for just a few more tics.

“
Jon, I have to go!” Michael exclaimed after the fourth such stay was requested. He’d been half-lying on his side, an elbow propping him up over the sidewalk where he’d been working. Apparently, this pose had struck Jon as “most naturalistic.” His friend was no help, adding his nagging to Jon’s.

“
You cannot move, Michael,” Dann said, bossy as usual. “You owe it to Art Herself to assist Jon in his quest. He wants to create something fine enough for the Royal Review next moon.”

“
Come pose for me tomorrow.” Jon’s charcoal-stained hands moved quickly as he sketched as fast as he could.

Michael
smiled. “You couldn’t possibly afford me.”

A coin pinged into the upturned hat
Michael was using for donations, and he called his thanks after the retreating girl who turned back and gave him a shy wave.

Jon snorted and was about to say something teasing,
Michael guessed, when a third man approached, someone who could afford Michael. He’d overheard their conversation and exclaimed, “Goddess, Jon. Don’t you know who he is?”

In spite of his Red Boar armband, it
was unlikely they did recognize him, chalk-stained and lowly-dressed as he usually was for his park outings. Sighing at the loss of his anonymity, Michael waited for the newcomer to have his fun.

“
Well, he’s Michael.” Jon seemed confused. “He’s here at least once a quarter-moon, isn’t he?”

But Dann saw it, and
Michael could tell just when the connection was made.

“
No!” He turned toward the newcomer, shock blooming on his face. “That’s him? Wil, tell me you’re having us on!
He’s
your ‘Prince of Sorrows?’”

Wil
—who was now a firmly-established artist, thanks to the painting in question—threw back his head and laughed. “I can’t believe you didn’t see it! It isn’t as if his face is common.”

H
ighborn and wealthy and determined to be famous, Wil—better known as Lord Wilem Severn—had hired Michael after seeing him at the Red Boar. Instead of sex, the young man had wanted Michael to pose for him. And he’d been willing to pay a very respectable per-hour rate for the honor.

At first,
Michael had demurred, but Harly had encouraged him to accept, explaining that this was employment he was legally allowed to accept since it took advantage of the same loophole which made prostitution virtually the only other thing it was legal for him to do: If it could be assumed that an artist wanted him for his individual looks, then it could also be assumed that he was not taking away employment from a righteous, law-abiding citizen, and, therefore, it was allowed.

Though he was already well
-known in some circles, Wil’s painting had made Michael famous throughout Camarat and had brought him to the attention of some of the most powerful people in the kingdom – the target group of firstborns, in fact, which Harly had been hoping to attract. He’d even been the favorite of Prince Leovar himself for several quarter-moons.
Though that ended badly,
Michael thought, rueful.

If he could have made a living from modeling alone, he would gladly have done so.
In spite of the very bad first impression of the breed he’d had from Robyn Vaznel, he liked this set of young artists. They were all so earnest about their work and most of them completely oblivious to Michael’s own profession. Aside from Wil, most couldn’t afford the Red Boar, and, while female streeters modeled for their paintings and sometimes warmed their beds, the idea that Michael was one of that number never seemed to occur to them.

But his artistic
acquaintances were mostly impoverished themselves, though in a genteel fashion, and too few to keep him properly employed even if he did start accepting their offers.

“
It’s been an honor to sketch you.” Jon stood up quickly as if embarrassed to have imposed.

Michael
began to climb to his feet, only to find Dann’s hand under his elbow, helping him. The man’s mind was full of ideas and dreams and random wisps of things, but he, too, was only interested in Michael’s skills as a model.
Refreshing.

“
Thanks.” Michael eased himself free of the touch as soon as he could without seeming rude, covering any awkwardness by concentrating on arranging the strap of his pack just so. “I hope the sketch helps,” he added to Jon. “I’d pose for you for less if I could, but...” He shrugged. “I have to earn clink.”

“
You look different with your hair back,” Jon said, a bit randomly, until Michael understood what he meant.

Wil
smiled at the boy. “Indeed. He wouldn’t be SanClare Black without all that beautiful hair.”

Michael
rolled his eyes at this use of the nickname the man had settled on him during the modeling sessions, and he hoped fervently that Jon and Dann would not pick up the habit.

But aloud he agreed,
“Oh, yes,” and gave Wil a quick wink as he yanked the tie from the end of his braid and ran his other hand through his hair, loosening it in one, well-practiced move. The affect worked as well in the middle of the park as it did in more private circumstances. Both Jon and Dann looked thunderstruck.

“
Shize,” Jon breathed. “I see it now.”

Michael
smiled, gave a small, ironic bow, and walked away.

Cyra met him a few lengths down the path.
She liked to come out hunting in the park on the days Michael went there to draw. Both of them enjoyed the escape from their everyday lives.

It was still early enough in the day that
Michael didn’t need to be to the Red Boar for a few hours. The bridge back to Fensgate was up, letting a steamer ship go through, and he passed the waiting time by buying a cup of coffee and trading a few coppers for some odd bits of fish from a young woman who had pulled close to shore to get out of the steamer’s way.

He sat down under a tree and sipped his
coffee and fed the fish to Cyra who devoured all of it greedily. He scratched her ears, listening to the simple, picture-thoughts of his little friend.

He never would have believed his life could be so close to good after all that had happened.
Though still a heretic and a whore, in the moons since Lorel Burk’s attack had brought him clarity, he had managed to create a bit of a life for himself between those two absolutes, all the while working to escape them forever.

The steamer was disappearing around a far bend in the river by the time the bridge was passable once more.
Wiping his hands on the grass to be rid of any fishiness, Michael stood up again and continued across it.

Traffic was dire,
carriages and carts and trams all backed-up due to the bridge’s delay, and he kept rerouting himself to get around impassable snarls. By the time he cleared the mess, he’d ended up on the sidewalk opposite the docks. And opposite the enormous archway where the witch-burning pyre stood. It looked freshly-blackened and litter left behind by the vanished crowd still blew around the open area.
Probably what half the traffic was from...someone died here today.

He
’d been by the pyre since that first time and since he’d been branded himself, but it always surprised him when he encountered it, the feelings he’d first experienced welling up each time, full-strength.

Someone knocked into him, sending him staggering a step, almost into the street.
He caught himself and turned to glare at the clumsy person, only to see a pack of laundresses heading home from a shift all staring at his brand with expressions of fear and disgust.

He resisted the urge to clap his right hand over the left to hide
the brand  but instead deliberately brushed at his jacket where one of the women bumped him, making a show of being the wounded party. The nearest woman’s eyes flicked up, saw his face and then took in his Red Boar armband. At that, her expression went blank, and she turned and shooed her friends on their way.

“
That was a close one,” Michael commented to Cyra. He pretended a calm he didn’t feel. The women had seemed ready to start something with him.
More bullies looking for someone to kick around, and it might as well be the little heretic. Thank Vail for the Red Boar.

Cyra brushed up far more gently against his boot and wandered off as if trying to lead him home. Michael, feeling shaky and almost
hysterical with relief that nothing had happened to turn that awkward encounter into something worse, followed.

By the time he reached the Red Boar,
Michael managed to put the incident out of his mind. His rented room lay only a short distance from the inn, and his spirits lifted at the prospect of home.