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festival—the only venue where an artist could exhibit or sell out of his discipline—although it would be next year’s festival, since the final judging on this year’s submissions would be later in the evening.
    Not more than a quarter of a glass had passed, just after I’d finished cleaning the fine-tipped brush that was my own, when Master Caliostrus entered the studio. “Don’t forget to bank the stove before you leave. I’ll not be using the studio this afternoon. Nor will Ostrius.”
    Of course, the most honored heir and junior master wouldn’t be working on a Samedi afternoon. “I’ll take care of it, sir.”
    “When will you finish the Mistress Scheorzyl portrait, Rhennthyl?”
    “Two more sittings and then a few days of fine work after that, Master Caliostrus. She’ll be here on Mardi and next Samedi.”
    “I suppose the delay can’t be helped.”
    “Her parents have limited the sittings to once a week, and no more than a glass a time.”
    He extended a thin cloth bag. “Factor Masgayl finally paid for the portrait, and here’s your share, Rhennthyl. Go out and celebrate.”
    I eased the coins from the bag—eight silvers. I just looked at Caliostrus.
    “Half of the fee goes to the master outright. You know that. Then there are the costs for the framing and canvas, not to mention the pigments and oils. There was that one brush you forgot to clean, and replacing it was two silvers.”
    “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” All I could do was nod and agree. Masgayl Factorius had paid five golds for the portrait I’d done, and out of that I’d gotten eight silvers. Not only that, but I knew he’d paid Caliostrus on Lundi, and Caliostrus had waited almost a week to pay me. Charging me for the brush was mostly fair. Mostly. I’d mislaid it when Caliostrus had dragged me away from cleaning for some chore he’d thought important and I couldn’t even recall. And it had been an old brush. It seemed to me that after painting portraits for close to three years, while still doing almost all the chores for the studio, I ought to be receiving more than one part in five of the commission, especially since I received nothing else except room, board, and training.
    Both Factor Masgayl and Factor Scheorzyl had come seeking my work, not that of Master Caliostrus. Yet . . . even though I did my best to save my coins, I certainly did not have enough to open my own studio—and that did not include the ten golds necessary for the bond to be posted with the Artists’ Guild, not to mention Master Caliostrus’s recommendation and the concurrence of the Portraiture Guild.
    “Don’t forget the stove, Rhennthyl,” Caliostrus added before he left, climbing the steps up to the family quarters.
    After finishing my cleanup and washing up, later on Samedi afternoon I made my way down toward the Festival Hall, walking out Brayer Lane to North Middle and then southwest on the Midroad.
    I stopped at Lapinina. I did deserve a bit of a treat. It was little more than a tiny bistro, tucked between a coppersmith’s on one side and a cooper’s on the other, on the southeast side of Guild Square, between Midroad and Sudroad, just a little place with three windows and a half score of tiny tables. But they knew me.
    A trace of rime ice clung to the outer doorframe, but when I opened the door and stepped inside, careful to close it quickly, the warmth and smells of cooking—garlic, baked bread, roasted fowl—enfolded me. All the tables were taken. They usually were.
    “Rhenn! Over here!” At the smallest of the tables, squeezed in beside the brick casement separating two windows, sat Rogaris. No one else had such an elegant black spade beard, especially not another journeyman artist, but I supposed that came from working in the studio of Jacquerl, one of the most esteemed of portraiturists in L’Excelsis.
    The table where Rogaris sat was so small that on the side across from him was only a stool. It was empty, and I eased onto it.