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The Augustine Painters
Michelle West
Michelle West is the author of a number of novels, including The Sacred Huntduology and The Broken
Crown, The Uncrowned King, The Shining Court, and Sea of Sorrows, the first four novels of The Sun
Sword series, all available fromDAW Books. She reviews books for the online column First Contacts,
and less frequently for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Other short fiction by her appears in
Knight Fantastic, Familiars, Assassin Fantastic, and Villains Victorious.
THE canvas, stretched andrestretched , primed andreprimed , moved into the light of the open bay
windows, and then moved again, and again, as the light's slant grew distant, lay waiting.
Beside it, on a three-legged table, the palette, and beside that, paint, oils, rags, and most of all the
brushes, cleaned and cleaned again over years of use, the sediment of old masterpieces still visible at the
edges where hair met metal and disappeared beneath it.
"Are you going to start, Camille?"
His tone was rough and impatient, the tone of an Augustine Master Painter. She was so familiar withit,
he might have chosen not to speak at all. But he had spoken, and speech demanded words in return.Or
action.
She offered words."Yes,Giavanno ."
"Good. You should start soon; you know that the light is fading."
"I can work in the dark."
"You can work," he said gruffly, "in the light. But we're not made of money. Use the sun."
Not made of it, no, but not lacking. She wisely said nothing; his lecture on the virtues of thrift was one of
his favorites, and if allowed, he would go on at length, while she, captive audience, was forced to
acknowledge his wisdom.
She had prepared water and oil, solvents for the brushes; had already blended the base colors into those
muted and suitable for portraiture. But she hesitated, her hand hovering over the slender wooden handles,
her critical eye upon the canvas.
"I'm not sure it's ready," she said at last, letting her hand drift toward her side. It rose again as he
glowered, smoothing wild strands of hair curled by the humidity in the high summer of the city
ofAugustine .
 
He stood, his glower deepening, the familiar cracks of skin around his eyes a warning. She ducked her
head, although he sat in a rickety chair half a wide, wide room away.Old habits, foundling habits.
It irritated him.
"You are hardly a child," he barked, "to be remonstrated with a simple slap."
She lifted her head, straightening the line of her shoulder, her cheeks pink.
"I'm not asking you to paint the battle of the gates of Augustine; I'm asking you to paint a picture of a
tired, old man."
She shook her head, which was as much of a lie as she dared; such a task would be beyond most of the
apprentices of the Augustine Painters.
And especially this one.
"Camille. Look at me."
Obedient, she raised her head.
"In a week's time," he told her, the gruffness in his voice gentling, "You will be asked to Paint the battle
of the gates of Augustine."
"P-pardon?"
He did not return to the confines of his favorite chair; instead, he paced a half circle in front of it. The
floorboards in the apprentices' studio were worn with just such pacing; it was part of the ceremony of his
art. But the floorboards in the west tower studio had obviously seen little use; they retained no memory of
his circular passage.
"You heard me."
"But—"
He rolled his eyes. "We will all be asked to Paint that battle. Have you paid attention to nothing that's
happened beyond these walls in the last five years?"
Camille lifted a brush as her Master spoke. It was an old brush, its handle of bone, thin and hollow. Her
Master had cast it aside because the strands of hair were bent in such a way that they could not longer
produce a clean line—but although he had cavalierly ordered her to burn it, for the brushes of the Master
Painters were never merely discarded, she had kept it for her own.
It amused him. He did not understand that these muddied lines fascinated her; that she could use those
stray hairs, avoiding the bulk of the brush itself, to paint the thinnest of lines, the evocation of color. Her
art and his were not the same.
"Yes, sir."The battle at the gates."But that means…"
All impatience left his face; she liked it better than the gravity that settled there in its place. "Yes. He is
 
coming. And if the Augustine Painters are not up to their task…"
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 errands—which 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 hands—after the first of many trials—remained 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 was… 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.
 
She found its place, the fourth peg on the student wall, and put it there.
Turned just a shade too quickly to see that her Master was inspecting it, his face softening into lines that
suggested age.Impossible, thathe could look old, his hair so dark, his beard unblemished by anything
other than flecks of paint, of chalk, of the tools of his trade.
Will you court madness in order to learn this art?
The halls of theWesterfield foundlings were cold and bare. There were paintings along wide, windowed
walls in the wing that the dignitaries visited, their signaturesall the accolade that the orphanage required
when it, thrice a year, sought money from its patrons. But those paintings were seldom seen by the boys
and the girls who lived behind the closed doors of the foundling halls, in their tiny rooms, with windows
so high and so small they servedbest as perches for the pigeons that resided beneath the gables and the
overhang of the shingled roofs.
Each of the small rooms had four beds, one stacked upon the other and placed against the wall; each of
these had two sets of dressers, and a basin for water. There were tin jugs for water as well, and part of
the early morning routine—after the rigorous bathing and combing and starching of clothing—was
fetching that water from the West Southwest Well.
Camille loved that early morning trudge. She hated rain, for when it rained, the overflow barrels
provided what the orphans required, and that task was sharply curtailed.
But when it did not, she would yoke herself to the buckets that dangled when empty, and she would be
allowed out the back door with strict instructions not to dawdle and not to talk to strangers.
But what, after all, was a stranger? A person she didn't know.
And on the road, in the early morning, there were no people she didn't know. The farmers in the
Southwest market made stalls out of the backs of their wagons near the well, for the well was the heart of
all morning commerce. Everyone needed water. Everyone needed food. She learned their names, and
they—those who were not above speaking with a gangly orphan girl—learned hers.
Oakley was the man she loved best, with his shock of red hair and his black, black beard. His eyes
were great, wide things, open as if in perpetual surprise; he had all his teeth, and showed them frequently
when he opened his mouth to emit his great, whooping laugh. He had big hands, and when he had
finished setting up his stall, he would slide them under her arms and send her flying in a mad, mad spin
above his shoulders, her feet dangling over the radishes and the beetroots, the cabbages, the dirty heavy
sacks of potatoes and carrots.
It was for Oakley that she drew her first picture. While the other children were experimenting with
circles and squares, with lines, with colors and shapes, she was playing with the long rods of charcoal.
She liked it; some of it was hard, and some so soft you could just draw it away, as if it were melting into
paper and leaving its essence behind.
But the picture was not what she had thought it would be; she had tried to draw his smiling face, and she
had ended up, instead, with something leaner and more frightening.And more complicated, as well. His
whole body was in the picture, shaded in gray and black, and he held his hat over his chest, while at his
 
side, a man she had never seen before—and so, she thought, she had invented—was laugh-ing. It was
not a kind laugh. Camille had heard enough cruel laughter to know it, even deprived of sound.
In his hands were papers, curling in the wind; the words were smudged and dark; she could not read
them. There was also a woman in the picture, thick as an old tree, bent,her hands in her face. There was
a boy just older than Camille, and two much younger.
She did not like the picture, and because she did not like it, she hid it when the teacher walked past. The
Sisters of theWesterfield Hall emphasized grace and beauty in all things.
"If you are lucky, you may prove worthy of the Master Painters in the city ofAugustine . Do you
understand what that means? But they are interested in the creation of things of beauty; they are looking
for children who strive for perfection. Is that understood?"
Well understood.
And Camille's rough sketch would be beneath the notice of even the Sisters.
It rained the next day, and so the day after she was kept in, but on the third day, she was sent to the
well, same as always.
On impulse, she took the picture from its hiding place and shoved it down the front of her apron dress,
and then she scurried out into the sunlight like a frightened mouse.
Oakley was there, at the market. He smiled as he caught sight of her, and then frowned as she drew
close enough that he could see her face.
"What's wrong with my lass?" he asked, frowning, his voice a deep bass. "Have they been mistreating
you at the foundling hall? It won't do, girl, if they have. 'Fess up."
She shook her head. She loved it, most days, when he talked to her as if—as if he was kin, as if he was
family. Had always wanted to ask him if she could come and live on his farm, for any farm that he owned
must be a wonderful place, and she was used to hard work.
But she knew that he would say no; if he'd wanted her, he'd have asked, and the foundling hall would
have been happy to see her go; they were always happy to find placements for the children left, year after
year, on the grand, flat stretch of their steps.
"Then where's my smile,Cammy ? What's clipped the wings of my flying girl?"
She shook her head again, holding back.
And then, although she could not, years later, say why, she reached into the folds of starched cloth and
dragged out her picture, her folded, bent picture, charcoal smudged at the unintentional creases she had
put there. She held it carefully; charcoal on her smock was not to be forgiven by the severe mistress of
the hall in which she lived.
"What's that, there?"
"It's a… picture. I drew a picture."
 

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