The Deepest Blue(71)

He considered that. It was clever. And doable. Portraits were within his skill set, even with a broken wrist. It would be easier than carving. “I’ll have hours alone with them if they pose for me. But how can I possibly convince them to tell me where the queen’s family is?” It wasn’t as if it would come up in casual conversation. Often portrait conversations became deep, as the person unfolded more of their personal and emotional life than they intended. But still, he doubted they’d include a confession of kidnapping the queen’s family. That seemed beyond the normal range of even the most intimate conversation.

“They’ll be parched after posing for you for so long,” Garnah said. “You’ll give them a drink. It will . . . include an extra flavor that will relax them. You’ll be able to ask them whatever you want after they drink it.”

“There’s such a ‘flavor’?” Kelo had heard about people who could create potions and powders that could confuse the mind and warp the body. He hadn’t expected to find one so close to the queen. “Are you a poison-maker?”

“I know a few herbs,” Garnah said with a smile. “You just do your art, ease their thirst, and ask the question. A simple task.”

“Won’t they remember what they told me?” Kelo said.

“You let me worry about that. Will you help your queen? And by doing so, help your wife?”

The choice was clear. He didn’t even have to consider what would happen if he refused. He didn’t want to refuse. “Of course, Lady Garnah. When can I begin?”

Garnah kept smiling, all her many laugh lines crinkling, yet it wasn’t a joyful expression. It was, he thought, the kind of smile you’d find on a skeleton, as if the laughter was at something you couldn’t comprehend. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He wondered what he had gotten himself into, but like Mayara when she dived, he didn’t second-guess his decision. “Today.”

KELO CHOSE CHARCOALS TO SKETCH WITH. HE LAID THEM OUT IN front of him and tested each pencil until he found one that smeared nicely across the parchment. Lucky the spirits broke my left wrist, not my right, he thought. And then felt absurd for thinking that any of this was “lucky.” He was merely trying to make the best of a bad situation—and trying not to feel so terribly out of his depth.

“You know, it doesn’t matter what the portraits look like,” Lady Garnah said. She’d come with him to prepare her “flavored” drink. Once it was ready, she’d remove herself from the room, and it would be up to Kelo to placate the lord or lady, create a portrait, and coax information out of them. While Kelo prepared, Garnah was laying out an array of salt-laden snacks that she’d said would encourage the models to sample the beverages.

“It matters to me,” Kelo said.

“It shouldn’t. You should reexamine your priorities.”

“If the portraits are bad, then no one will want them done. And then this will fail. Unless you think we’ll be lucky and the very first model will be the one with the information we need?”

Garnah added to a pitcher a pinch of powder from a vial she’d kept in one of the many pockets of her dress. It sparkled as it dissolved. Kelo was trying not think about what else was in the other pockets. He’d heard stories about poison-makers—none of them turned out well. “Have it your way. I’m happy to hear it’s not just about your ‘artistic integrity.’”

“That’s important too,” Kelo said. “If I betray my art, I betray my soul.”

“You really spew a lot of bullshit for one so handsome.”

He bristled, but he pushed down the feeling and said, “Someone like you wouldn’t understand about integrity.” He tried not to wince visibly at his own words. He’d never thought of himself as someone who would say anything that pretentious, but Garnah was exquisitely unsettling. It made him want to prove he was different.

“There is no one like me,” Garnah said with a tinkling laugh. “But there are plenty like you. Earnest young men and women who think they’ll never compromise their ideals because they’ve never been in a situation where they’ve had to. The queen was like that. My son was like you too. So above everyone. Until it was time to make the difficult choices. And then . . . he made me proud.”

“Just because you’re jaded and bitter—”

“There isn’t a shred of jaded bitterness in me. I am sunshine and delight. Especially now that we have a purpose. Are you ready?”

He’d positioned his stool and the model’s stool so that the angle of light from the window would be perfect. He had his easel and all his supplies. He had his own water to drink from, so he wouldn’t be expected to share with the model. And he was nervous.

Terrified, he admitted. So much rode on this.

A knock sounded on the door.

“I will be on the other side of that door,” Garnah said, pointing to a smaller door that led to a closet full of various instruments. He’d been positioned in one of the palace’s music rooms. “If anything goes wrong, simply shout for me.”

That was not reassuring. “What do you expect to go wrong?”

“Occasionally people have an adverse effect to the ‘flavor.’”

That was alarming and sounded like something that should have been mentioned sooner. “What kind of ‘adverse effect’?” But Lady Garnah had already swept through the door and closed it behind her with a click.