Purple Painting No.2, Part Two
5th Saun 720 in Volta, Rharne.
Yrmellyn, influenced by her spark, had decided to go out and paint. On the way out from the tavern, she stopped for a chat with the hard-working maid Janey. Among other things, she spoke about painting a portrait if Janay, someday. Then, she stepped out through the door...
It had been hot at the end of Ymiden and now in Saun, it was even hotter. The merciless wall of heat made Yrmellyn stop in her tracks the moment she stepped out from the inn. The light of the two suns was blinding and the street was empty. People didn’t go outdoors if they could avoid it, except for visiting outdoor gardens of inns and taverns. There, they could sit in the shadow of sun-sails and trees.
She hadn’t spent Saun in Rharne for arcs. The last arc, 719, she and Ha’zel had stayed in the wilderness. The shadow of high trees and their many baths in Lake Lovalus had made it a pleasant time. Here in Volta, on the coast, the breeze from the sea was a bliss. Still, the heat and the blazing light stunned her. Her thoughts seemed to have vaporized and left her mind blank.
A low creaking sound told her that somebody opened the door to the inn behind her.
“Miss ...? Should you be outdoors? Where are you headed?”
“Headed ...”
She had no idea where she was headed. The spark, hungry for art, had urged her to go out and paint, create, paint, create ... such was the nature of the domain magic spark that had merged with her, obsessed with creation, forever hungering to ... work wonders!
It wanted something of her, tried to shape her in directions unknown to her, while she, in turn, tried to control it and shape it in directions she could live with ... The boundaries between them were getting blurrier and blurrier as the arcs passed by. The slow merger of human and spark into the begin named mage progressed ...
Did other mages experience this too? She had no idea. Yrmellyn never spoke about the magic, not even at the rare occasions when she caught the frequency of another mage. She carried the magic in solitary silence. Never would she put words on it or share it with others.
“I think you should come back indoors. Come, I will get you a glass of water.” It was the copper-haired tavern maid, Janey, the one Yrmellyn had spoken a few bits earlier. The girl had cut their chat short and continued scrubbing the floor. But, now she had come after Yrmellyn instead, for some reason Yrmellyn wasn’t able to even guess at.
“It struck me...” said Janey as she put her arm under Yrmellyn’s and pulled at it a little bit. “It struck me that you don’t wear a hat and I wasn’t sure if you had remembered to bring water with you. Do you have a water skin with you, or...”
“No ... I ... forgot.”
At this point, it looked like the air was moving. A flash of whiter light cut through the sunlight. It was one of the minor éclairs that occurred in Volta sometimes. Yrmellyn had heard tales about the town’s weather phenomena all her life. But, it wasn’t until now, when she had stayed in Volta long enough, she had seen how prevalent they were.
She was only beginning to understand how much it affected the town and the people who there. They lived in a field of constant higher tension, you could say. Flashes of lightning, major ones or small éclairs, were present all the time, as a threat but also as a possibility. The Jack Hector said the flashes could take alchemy to amazing heights. Was that true or was he bragging? Yrmellyn had still to see it happen. But she could feel the special tension of Volta in her body. It felt like the city was charging her with energy and turning her volatile. Whims of art and magic seemed to strike her like lightning these trials.
“Come in and drink some water.”
It sounded like an order despite that it was the tavern maid Janey speaking. Yrmellyn found herself following that order without questioning it. She returned into the inn and sat down on a chair Janey pulled out and told her to sit on. The maid was soon back with a glass of water and a pitcher with more. The water was lukewarm due to the hot weather, but Yrmellyn drank it anyway. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was. She poured herself another glass and drank this too.
“If you were serious when you spoke about making a painting of me, go ahead.” Janey was scrubbing the floor again and as she was looking down at the tiles Yrmellyn couldn’t see her face. She saw only a woman in typical tavern maid attire and the pile of copper-red locks on her head. Now, Yrmellyn had a closer look at Janey due to the invitation to paint. She noticed that the neckline of the maid's blouse was quite generous. She guessed that it might be part of the entertainment the inn provided.
It felt like she ought to take Janey up on the offer. Yrmellyn put up her easel and arranged the canvas on it. She pulled out her painting tools and colours from the backpack and put them on the table. There were brushes of different dimensions, pigments and oils, palette and palette knife, turpentine, rags and all the other things a painter needs when they are working.
“If you turn your face to the floor the painting will not show it,” Yrmellyn told the maid.
“That’s fine by me, miss Cole. I've got to do the work, you see.”
“Yrmellyn. Didn’t I tell you to use my weird first name or else call me Cole? I forgot...”
“Eh ...well, Ellyn, if you don’t mind. Ellen, Aileen, Elaine, Elinah, Melina, Molly, Mayleen ... there’s a lot easy to pronounce names that resemble your name. What did your parents think? To be honest I suspect that they must have been drunk or tried to pretend that they were of higher social standing!”
It was obvious that the maid had never received an education in good manners. She spoke her mind. But, she managed to say this in a good-humoured and jesting tone. Yrmellyn, grown up in Dust Quarter, was familiar with the somewhat brutal dark humour of the poor. She didn’t take offence. Instead, she laughed. What Janey said was only what many others had thought (and sometimes said).
“I believe they were drunk and social pretenders alike,” she answered in the same jesting tone.
Auntie Vilda Colmardine, an alcoholic and baby farmer with performer ambitions, came to Yrmellyn’s mind. She had never before realized that it might be Vilda who had named her. In hindsight, it seemed probable. The children who had passed through the “orphanage” on their way to their early demise had always been nameless. Yrmellyn had been the only child with a name and the sole survivor. As a child, she had fantasized that Vilda was her secret mother. But, all her adult life she had hoped that it wasn’t the sad truth. It felt better to imagine that she had been left by somebody who had believed that they “orphanage” really was an orphanage. Somebody who had paid so much for her staying there that Vilda had kept her alive to make sure that there always would be money to pay the booze. It could explain Yrmellyn’s odd name as well. Then again, this name...
She forced herself to leave that sidetrack and return her straying attention to the task at hand. “Sorry. I got a bit distracted there. But, I’m beginning to paint now Janey. Keep scrubbing! ”
Janey laughed so hard that she almost dropped the scrubbing brush. “You are one crazy painter, aren’t you? Making a picture of me, scrubbing the floor in The Leaking Dinghy.” But she picked up the brush and kept scrubbing. She had to do it regardless of Yrmellyn’s unnecessary directions.
The atmosphere had turned friendly and relaxed. Yrmellyn kept painting. The portrait of Janey at The Leaking Dinghy (that was the name of the inn) grew on the canvas with the speed and high skill Yrmellyn possessed these days. She had painted all kinds of motifs during her career as a painter but few of them had been of prominent people. They interested her not ... mostly not. It had been of interest to paint the portrait of the old thunder priestess Aileen Clare a couple of arcs ago. It had been a commission for the cathedral. Yes. But, the wealthy and powerful were often looking for a high degree of embellishment. Yrmellyn took no interest in delivering it. Well-groomed people in exclusive garments asking for portraits that made them look “perfect”? It was like forging portraits of dolls. She didn’t do it.
Which is why we stay in The Leaking Dinghy. But, now when Ha’zel manages my economy it seems like he makes sure that I save up some of the money I earn. I can’t think of money ... I’m an artist ... I think of art, not of gold!
“You aren’t going to earn much money on that painting if you ask me.” Janey sounded sure of that. “You may get a few coppers for it, but hardly any gold.”
“My art use to sell well these days, Janey. And some people like what I do. I’m sure I’ll find a customer for it sooner or later.”
“You wish. But, it’s sort of fun that you want to paint a picture of me, scrubbing the floor, like that is something to save for the future. Who would care to own a portrait of me though? No one! ”
Time passed. Yrmellyn worked on. Janey’ red hair was a main part of the painting. It made a beautiful contrast to all the purple Yrmellyn used for the background. She also used other colours and mixes of colours.
The sunlight outdoors shone in through the small windows, golden and dampened. It made the quite obscure room look dreamlike and more lavish than it was. Bottles of glass and goblets of polished pewter reflected and refracted the light. The mutation Yrmellyn lived with, the enriched impressions came into play. As the light and the many-coloured reflections streamed through her mind they stirred up sounds and feelings. It made the painter’s already vivid imagination soar. “Oh, it feels like being on board a ship, a wooden tall ship with the wind in the sails, heading to faraway exotic harbours!”
Janey stopped scrubbing. For a moment Yrmellyn was on the verge to tell her to continue. But then, everything went so light that she couldn’t continue painting. New tavern guests were entering the room. They were a boisterous group of people, calling for service, food and drink. Janey wiped off her hands on a towel and went to do her job. She took their orders and hurried away to the kitchen.
The door had fallen shut and Yrmellyn could finish the painting based on memory. She found it best to do it that way. The lion’s share of the picture was already done. Small details and minor polish remained. She continued working until everything was like she wanted it to be. She had been so focused on painting that she hadn’t noticed that she had gained an audience. A male voice woke her up from her immersion in the work: “Janey, is it? Can’t see her face but with that red hair, it can’t be anybody else. Rather much ... purple though.”
Yrmellyn turned on the chair and looked at him. He appeared to be like the others in the group, a sailor, or something more judging from the cutlass at his belt. “I’ll buy it. Nine copper. What do you say?”
Yrmellyn, not interested in money was on the verge of accepting the offer and close a deal. But Janey had returned and heard the bid. “No copper. It's worth ten gold,” the maid said. “And I want half of the money for being the motif.“
Yrmellyn concluded that Janey had after all identified somebody who would want to own a portrait of her. She didn’t know why or ask any questions. She only leaned back and left the negotiation to Janey. The maid turned out to drive a hard bargain. In the end, the painting sold for eight gold, due to "too much purple". Then, the man pulled out a purse and tossed the gold coins on the table like it was nothing to him. “You are ruining me, Janey,” he said in a light tone that implied that he joked.
Janey didn’t seem one bit affected. “Show off.” She smiled, took her share of the gold and left.
Yrmellyn pocketed her coins and began cleaning her things. The buyer sauntered back to the boisterous group. He would get the portrait later when it was dry. Janey would take care of it until then.
It had been hot at the end of Ymiden and now in Saun, it was even hotter. The merciless wall of heat made Yrmellyn stop in her tracks the moment she stepped out from the inn. The light of the two suns was blinding and the street was empty. People didn’t go outdoors if they could avoid it, except for visiting outdoor gardens of inns and taverns. There, they could sit in the shadow of sun-sails and trees.
She hadn’t spent Saun in Rharne for arcs. The last arc, 719, she and Ha’zel had stayed in the wilderness. The shadow of high trees and their many baths in Lake Lovalus had made it a pleasant time. Here in Volta, on the coast, the breeze from the sea was a bliss. Still, the heat and the blazing light stunned her. Her thoughts seemed to have vaporized and left her mind blank.
A low creaking sound told her that somebody opened the door to the inn behind her.
“Miss ...? Should you be outdoors? Where are you headed?”
“Headed ...”
She had no idea where she was headed. The spark, hungry for art, had urged her to go out and paint, create, paint, create ... such was the nature of the domain magic spark that had merged with her, obsessed with creation, forever hungering to ... work wonders!
It wanted something of her, tried to shape her in directions unknown to her, while she, in turn, tried to control it and shape it in directions she could live with ... The boundaries between them were getting blurrier and blurrier as the arcs passed by. The slow merger of human and spark into the begin named mage progressed ...
Did other mages experience this too? She had no idea. Yrmellyn never spoke about the magic, not even at the rare occasions when she caught the frequency of another mage. She carried the magic in solitary silence. Never would she put words on it or share it with others.
“I think you should come back indoors. Come, I will get you a glass of water.” It was the copper-haired tavern maid, Janey, the one Yrmellyn had spoken a few bits earlier. The girl had cut their chat short and continued scrubbing the floor. But, now she had come after Yrmellyn instead, for some reason Yrmellyn wasn’t able to even guess at.
“It struck me...” said Janey as she put her arm under Yrmellyn’s and pulled at it a little bit. “It struck me that you don’t wear a hat and I wasn’t sure if you had remembered to bring water with you. Do you have a water skin with you, or...”
“No ... I ... forgot.”
At this point, it looked like the air was moving. A flash of whiter light cut through the sunlight. It was one of the minor éclairs that occurred in Volta sometimes. Yrmellyn had heard tales about the town’s weather phenomena all her life. But, it wasn’t until now, when she had stayed in Volta long enough, she had seen how prevalent they were.
She was only beginning to understand how much it affected the town and the people who there. They lived in a field of constant higher tension, you could say. Flashes of lightning, major ones or small éclairs, were present all the time, as a threat but also as a possibility. The Jack Hector said the flashes could take alchemy to amazing heights. Was that true or was he bragging? Yrmellyn had still to see it happen. But she could feel the special tension of Volta in her body. It felt like the city was charging her with energy and turning her volatile. Whims of art and magic seemed to strike her like lightning these trials.
“Come in and drink some water.”
It sounded like an order despite that it was the tavern maid Janey speaking. Yrmellyn found herself following that order without questioning it. She returned into the inn and sat down on a chair Janey pulled out and told her to sit on. The maid was soon back with a glass of water and a pitcher with more. The water was lukewarm due to the hot weather, but Yrmellyn drank it anyway. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was. She poured herself another glass and drank this too.
“If you were serious when you spoke about making a painting of me, go ahead.” Janey was scrubbing the floor again and as she was looking down at the tiles Yrmellyn couldn’t see her face. She saw only a woman in typical tavern maid attire and the pile of copper-red locks on her head. Now, Yrmellyn had a closer look at Janey due to the invitation to paint. She noticed that the neckline of the maid's blouse was quite generous. She guessed that it might be part of the entertainment the inn provided.
It felt like she ought to take Janey up on the offer. Yrmellyn put up her easel and arranged the canvas on it. She pulled out her painting tools and colours from the backpack and put them on the table. There were brushes of different dimensions, pigments and oils, palette and palette knife, turpentine, rags and all the other things a painter needs when they are working.
“If you turn your face to the floor the painting will not show it,” Yrmellyn told the maid.
“That’s fine by me, miss Cole. I've got to do the work, you see.”
“Yrmellyn. Didn’t I tell you to use my weird first name or else call me Cole? I forgot...”
“Eh ...well, Ellyn, if you don’t mind. Ellen, Aileen, Elaine, Elinah, Melina, Molly, Mayleen ... there’s a lot easy to pronounce names that resemble your name. What did your parents think? To be honest I suspect that they must have been drunk or tried to pretend that they were of higher social standing!”
It was obvious that the maid had never received an education in good manners. She spoke her mind. But, she managed to say this in a good-humoured and jesting tone. Yrmellyn, grown up in Dust Quarter, was familiar with the somewhat brutal dark humour of the poor. She didn’t take offence. Instead, she laughed. What Janey said was only what many others had thought (and sometimes said).
“I believe they were drunk and social pretenders alike,” she answered in the same jesting tone.
Auntie Vilda Colmardine, an alcoholic and baby farmer with performer ambitions, came to Yrmellyn’s mind. She had never before realized that it might be Vilda who had named her. In hindsight, it seemed probable. The children who had passed through the “orphanage” on their way to their early demise had always been nameless. Yrmellyn had been the only child with a name and the sole survivor. As a child, she had fantasized that Vilda was her secret mother. But, all her adult life she had hoped that it wasn’t the sad truth. It felt better to imagine that she had been left by somebody who had believed that they “orphanage” really was an orphanage. Somebody who had paid so much for her staying there that Vilda had kept her alive to make sure that there always would be money to pay the booze. It could explain Yrmellyn’s odd name as well. Then again, this name...
She forced herself to leave that sidetrack and return her straying attention to the task at hand. “Sorry. I got a bit distracted there. But, I’m beginning to paint now Janey. Keep scrubbing! ”
Janey laughed so hard that she almost dropped the scrubbing brush. “You are one crazy painter, aren’t you? Making a picture of me, scrubbing the floor in The Leaking Dinghy.” But she picked up the brush and kept scrubbing. She had to do it regardless of Yrmellyn’s unnecessary directions.
The atmosphere had turned friendly and relaxed. Yrmellyn kept painting. The portrait of Janey at The Leaking Dinghy (that was the name of the inn) grew on the canvas with the speed and high skill Yrmellyn possessed these days. She had painted all kinds of motifs during her career as a painter but few of them had been of prominent people. They interested her not ... mostly not. It had been of interest to paint the portrait of the old thunder priestess Aileen Clare a couple of arcs ago. It had been a commission for the cathedral. Yes. But, the wealthy and powerful were often looking for a high degree of embellishment. Yrmellyn took no interest in delivering it. Well-groomed people in exclusive garments asking for portraits that made them look “perfect”? It was like forging portraits of dolls. She didn’t do it.
Which is why we stay in The Leaking Dinghy. But, now when Ha’zel manages my economy it seems like he makes sure that I save up some of the money I earn. I can’t think of money ... I’m an artist ... I think of art, not of gold!
“You aren’t going to earn much money on that painting if you ask me.” Janey sounded sure of that. “You may get a few coppers for it, but hardly any gold.”
“My art use to sell well these days, Janey. And some people like what I do. I’m sure I’ll find a customer for it sooner or later.”
“You wish. But, it’s sort of fun that you want to paint a picture of me, scrubbing the floor, like that is something to save for the future. Who would care to own a portrait of me though? No one! ”
Time passed. Yrmellyn worked on. Janey’ red hair was a main part of the painting. It made a beautiful contrast to all the purple Yrmellyn used for the background. She also used other colours and mixes of colours.
The sunlight outdoors shone in through the small windows, golden and dampened. It made the quite obscure room look dreamlike and more lavish than it was. Bottles of glass and goblets of polished pewter reflected and refracted the light. The mutation Yrmellyn lived with, the enriched impressions came into play. As the light and the many-coloured reflections streamed through her mind they stirred up sounds and feelings. It made the painter’s already vivid imagination soar. “Oh, it feels like being on board a ship, a wooden tall ship with the wind in the sails, heading to faraway exotic harbours!”
Janey stopped scrubbing. For a moment Yrmellyn was on the verge to tell her to continue. But then, everything went so light that she couldn’t continue painting. New tavern guests were entering the room. They were a boisterous group of people, calling for service, food and drink. Janey wiped off her hands on a towel and went to do her job. She took their orders and hurried away to the kitchen.
The door had fallen shut and Yrmellyn could finish the painting based on memory. She found it best to do it that way. The lion’s share of the picture was already done. Small details and minor polish remained. She continued working until everything was like she wanted it to be. She had been so focused on painting that she hadn’t noticed that she had gained an audience. A male voice woke her up from her immersion in the work: “Janey, is it? Can’t see her face but with that red hair, it can’t be anybody else. Rather much ... purple though.”
Yrmellyn turned on the chair and looked at him. He appeared to be like the others in the group, a sailor, or something more judging from the cutlass at his belt. “I’ll buy it. Nine copper. What do you say?”
Yrmellyn, not interested in money was on the verge of accepting the offer and close a deal. But Janey had returned and heard the bid. “No copper. It's worth ten gold,” the maid said. “And I want half of the money for being the motif.“
Yrmellyn concluded that Janey had after all identified somebody who would want to own a portrait of her. She didn’t know why or ask any questions. She only leaned back and left the negotiation to Janey. The maid turned out to drive a hard bargain. In the end, the painting sold for eight gold, due to "too much purple". Then, the man pulled out a purse and tossed the gold coins on the table like it was nothing to him. “You are ruining me, Janey,” he said in a light tone that implied that he joked.
Janey didn’t seem one bit affected. “Show off.” She smiled, took her share of the gold and left.
Yrmellyn pocketed her coins and began cleaning her things. The buyer sauntered back to the boisterous group. He would get the portrait later when it was dry. Janey would take care of it until then.
