"Michelle West - The Augustine Painters" - читать интересную книгу автора (West Michelle)

She was sixteen years of age.

Sixteen, that is, by best guess. The Master Painters of Augustine were renowned for the acuity of their
observations. She had come to him, as all apprentice Painters did, from the halls of foundlings, in this
case theWesterfield foundlings.Westerfield was not impoverished; it had produced, for the benefit of the
Painters, some several Masters of great repute, and those Masters, grudging but mindful, paid their
respects in cold, hard bars of gold. She had delivered them herself, when the Master was too busy to run
such errandsтАФwhich was pretty much always.

No one knew what drove a Master Painter to seek apprentices, although Camille had learned, over the
years, not to ask. She was not the only apprentice in the House ofGi-avanno . Nor was she the oldest.
But of those he had selected, her handsтАФafter the first of many trialsтАФremained steadiest.

Or so he told theWesterfield woman who was in charge of the foundlings. The truth was darker and
much more complicated than that.

"Camille!"

She jumped and set the brush aside, but he had seen the expression on her face.

His own grew grim and severe. His smiles were reserved for his paintings, and occasionally for hers.

"You are thinking about Felix."

Felix, the oldest of the apprentice Painters, the jolliest, the loudest, and in Camille's decided opinion, the
most talented.

At eighteen, he had seemed so much older than she, so much more confident of his place and his future.
She could see him that way, if she struggled. She could remember that boy.

"Camille," he said gently, "I understand. But we have no time for indulgence, not even when it is earned.
This painting must be complete."

Better to nod than argue; Camille nodded.

His expressionshifted, a subtle movement of lip and eye. "Camille, the armies have crossed the border.
Do you understand?"

She did. But she knew that he had told Felix these same words, and Felix wasтАж gone.

He read the accusation in her mute features. "You've wasted the sunlight, just as I said. I won't waste the
crownage on more light for careless girls. Go on, then. Go to your rooms."

She bowed to him, and when she rose, she fumbled with the knotted bow of her apron. It was dense
with oil, with charcoal, with the silver lines of lead; her own.

When she had first gained it, it had been perfect, blank as new canvas. He did not allow her to clean it;
instead, he designated its place upon the wall, as if it were another work of art, an abstract, something
that was uniquely hers.