Chapter 4

We had some money, so that got us started; we planted seeds – when I say ‘we’, I mean I did. Emelda found she had a backache, and Ida was definitely not into manual work. But we would need more money before our food started. The artists were always interested in new models. Ida was not in the market – nude royalty might fetch high prices but it did rather over-expose where she was (we laughed at that little double meaning). Emelda looked at us both and said “No.”

But she was in a difficult position. She was indentured, which is one step above serf, which is only half a step above slave. If she was ordered, she wouldn’t have a lot of choice. Indentured servants had to work for their mistress or master for ten years; then they received a nice certificate, and a bonus if the owner was a good one. They were usually sold or supplied to finance a debt repayment, this was the case with Emelda. Serfs just lived on the estate they were born to. They were theoretically free, but they could not leave. Slaves were ... well slaves. No rights. There weren’t many now, it had become rather unprincipled to keep slaves; though a few factoriums in the South used them as cheaper labour for making products. It was hard to argue the case – you didn’t pay wages, so they must be cheaper – but economists had shown that slaves were not a good economy because, having no money, they did not buy; and having no wages, they had nothing to lose so no incentive to work hard. I was free, always had been; always would be until I died, which with a vengeful queen after me could be sooner rather than later.

Emelda suggested that I could gain some income as a model too. I was less keen on that. “I thought you might be. Alright for me to strip off and show my tits and bum to strangers and be painted and ogled by all sorts in some big posh house; but you’re less keen on getting your tackle out for Mrs Kendal to paint eh?” Mrs Kendal was the best of the women painters, there were three, and two potters. There were a lot more men, but I had the impression that the women were all dedicated whereas many of the men saw it as an easy way not to have to work. Mrs Kendal had been married, but had run away from her husband when he said that art was not appropriate; she was genuinely ‘married’ to her art. At least five of the men were married and had families and had run off ‘to find their muse’. That sounded like an excuse, but maybe I was giving Mrs Kendal the benefit of a doubt I would not give to a man.

We rubbed along, surviving. Emelda did do some posing, and yes, so did I. “That’ll be an embarrassment when I’m a famous poet.” I said. Mrs Kendal enhanced my genitals, I’m pleased to say.

“Give us a poem then, bard.” Emelda said.

“Emelda was a pretty young thing,

With tits as perky as melons,

As a bit of a stunt

People painted her cunt

But her face stayed as sour as old lemons.”

“Ha ha, very funny. And not true on two counts.”

“The tits aren’t perky?”

“You are cheeky and rude. I have not got a face like a lemon, and no-one has painted my lala. I don’t use words like you do.”

“Your mistress does.”

“She’s a lady, they’re allowed to.”

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“I think I like Emelda.” I said to Anemone.

“No, you lust after her, there is a difference. She isn’t for you. But I know you will not believe that. Boys and girls never do when their loins are on fire.” She was right about that. But she was also right about Emelda, I could tell. I liked her and I did lust after her, but I knew I did not love her nor ever would. Did that matter if I could get inside her? Maybe she’d be happy to have some recreation. “Well, you might regret it. Take it carefully and slow. By the way, have you seen Hendrik’s Triptych? I think it rather good.”

I walked over to view it. The right panel was Celandine looking as sexy as ever, the detail of the pubic hair was amazing; the left was Anemone, dressed the same as Celandine. In other words stark naked. I had to admit, she had something. The revelation was the centre panel. Yew was lying on her back, legs a little open; she looked elegant and relaxed and somehow rather noble. She looked like she was in private and unseen and yet we were not voyeurs, we were a mirror in her room. I saw the old woman in a new light. I had to admit, the artist had captured something I’d missed in the real person, yet when I saw Yew again, I could see it. The painting said ‘here I am, naked and unafraid. I am proud and wise and noble, accept it.’ When I looked at the woman again, I saw that. She had always been clever, but I hadn’t seen the wisdom and the beauty that experience engrains into a person. I didn’t tell Hendrik all this, I just said “I saw the Triptych, it’s very good. How much?”

“Are, my friend. It is yours. The sisters said that they would help me with my business if I would paint this for a friend of theirs. That friend, they told me after it was finished, is you.” They had commissioned it before I got back. How had they known I would make it? Or was it all just luck? If I hadn’t made it back, maybe they would have said it was for someone else?

I had no idea what that meant, though I knew it meant something. Why would they give me such a painting? I knew enough to know that there had to be meaning.

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When I took it back to our hovel – that’s what Princess Ida called it – Emelda said “Oh, I bet that will give you a hard willie all the time. You fancy that Celandine. I’ve seen you watching her. You going to wank off to the picture every night?”

“‘Melda, your language is becoming very crude, I think you’ve been with these artists too much. By the way, are we posing for Madam Clintock this afternoon?”

“I suppose, I don’t know why she bothers, her scultures never look like people.”

Madame Clintock was a sculptor – she said to call her a sculptress was to downgrade her to second class because she was a woman – who produced large stone images that looked nothing like their subject. She tried, she said, to get to the core, the essence, of a person. I don’t know if she managed it, but there was a power in her sculptures; I just didn’t understand why, if the finished result was large curves and holes, we had to be naked. The last time we had posed together, the sight of Emelda had made me embarrassingly erect for ten minutes, until the artist poured cold water over it. Madame Clintock said she would just chop it off it that happened; I hope she was joking. She was a member of the nobility, but not interested in being part of an elite band of lazy posh people. She joked that she’d rather be a member of an elite band of lazy paupers, but actually she was very hard working. This piece was to be put up in Sangetta town centre; they had commissioned it as a way of showing how arty and cultured they were. It would be entitled ‘The Lovers’.

It took eighteen sittings, and that paid for a lot of celery soup. The secret was what else went into the celery soup, it was always tasty, I never asked.

The arrival of the dragon was a bit of a shock to these peace loving, drugged up (some of them, some of the time) layabouts. Don’t get the impression I don’t like art or artists, but I know what I like.

It arrived early one morning, The thump of four feet landing in the road outside was heard by many people. It sniffed and began to move through the settlement.

The artists did what any self-respecting artist did when a massive half ton monster of scales, claws and teeth, with the ability to blast inflammable gases at people (it is a myth that they breath fire, they breath noxious, inflammable gasses in blasts. If you happen to be smoking, well, you go up in flames. If you have a fire in your house, the same. Otherwise, you might just choke to death on the poisonous gases). As I say, the artists did what you might expect, they drew, painted and sculpted the creature. Looking out from the houses, they started their studies. They didn’t come out, they weren’t stupid.

People have theories. It is the nature of people. Most people don’t get close enough, and if they do, they don’t live to tell the tale. Dragons have four legs, fact. Dragons have wings, fact. So dragons have six limbs, they must be huge insects, false. The wings are actually pairs of skin wings, two on either side. So dragons have eight limbs, they must be crustaceans, false. Don’t get hung up on the wings and legs. Look at the legs, look at the skeleton, you can’t see it? Precisely. It isn’t a shell. It has an internal skeleton. Look again: teeth, not a beak like an insect that opens left and right not up and down. And they are real teeth, not rasping growths on its jaws. Of course if you are that close then you’ve probably discovered the puncture ability and are screaming as an arm is ripped off. Look again. Four, Six, or Eight limbs? Yes! The wings are supported by bony growths from the legs, and the skin wings overlap and hold together by nodes on the skin, modified scales, Only four limbs. Watch it fly, the legs open and close to bring the wings up and down. Truly a bizarre creature, wholly unlikely; like a two legged, two armed, beast with a head so big at birth it is in danger of killing the mother. Wholly unlikely, but here we are.