Dark Horse by Marilyn Todd Page B

something was missing in this sumptuous room.
    And that something, unfortunately, was Bulis.
    The pitiful remains that had once been a laughing, living apprentice had been laid on a wooden bier and garlanded with laurel earlier in the day, but the steward hadn't been sure what to do with it. Place it in the atrium, as though the boy was a guest or a family member? Or leave him in the servants' quarters, as though he were a common slave? Until Leo returned, poor Bulis had been stuck in the woodshed in a spiritual no-man's-land. But Leo was home now, and clearly a decision had been made. Bulis might well have been caught up in Leo's vendetta and paid the ultimate sacrifice. But when it came to social status, the young apprentice didn't make the grade.
    While Saunio lectured her on drama and fusion, movement and light, Claudia observed the grey hue of his face, his hollow, red-rimmed eyes, the waxy, stippled texture his skin had taken on during the course of the day. Unmistakably, the physical manifestations of grief. But Saunio was a professional through to the marrow. One of his beautiful young apprentices had met an agonizing end, but Bulis's death would not alter the agenda.
    'Schedules cannot mourn,' he'd pronounced, refusing his crew so much as one hour off. 'Timetables cannot grieve and neither can we until the contract is finished.'
    Grief and shock, he added, tolerated no margins of error, it was business as usual on the frescoes. So, with Saunio standing over them, the labourers laboured to ensure the plaster was
    mixed to the exact level of dampness required to take a brush. The apprentices ground pigments to the exact mix of colour. An exact amount of outline was drawn for the artists to fill in.
    '. . . the future,' he was saying, 'lies in illusionistic art, my lovely. Art is truth and truth is art, but therein the question lies. What constitutes truth?'
    'What indeed.'
    'Take the meander in the banqueting hall. At first glance, it looks like a maze, but follow any of the lines with your eye - any one of them, Claudia - and you realize it is nothing but illusion. Misinformation. Created by shadows and spaces and geometrical trickery.'
    His hollow gaze fixed itself on the pool, where he stared through the sparkling water to the green veined marble which lined it. So deep was his gaze, that he might have been staring straight into Hades itself.
    'If the eye can be led, so can the mind,' he said slowly. 'For we can all be made to believe things which are not there.'
    It was probably the light from the oil lamps flickering on the water, but Saunio's reflection made him appear even more squat and reptilian than usual tonight. Almost an allegory of depravity to fit the rumours.
    'Illusion,' he said. 'That is the path for the artist to follow.'
    'Wrong.' With a jerk of her thumb, Claudia indicated the exit. 'That is the path for the artist to follow. Goodbye.'
    Shamshi was waiting, hands folded, outside the entrance to the dining hall. He was no longer wearing his baggy green trousers, but an ankle-length kaftan with a deep and richly embroidered hem. The brilliant artificial lights glinted off the thick hoops in his ears.
    'Claudia.'
    'Well, if it isn't Uncle Happy, the kiddies' pet.'
    His mouth stretched a fraction sideways, the closest it came to a smile. 'Dear child, I need to speak with you,' he began, but at that point, Nikias turned the corner.
    'Imparting your latest prediction?' he asked, and Claudia wondered whether she'd caught a flash of mischief in his eyes, or whether it was a trick of the flickering lamplight.
    'I tried to tell her, Nik,' Shamshi said, his sibilant voice treacly with smugness. 'Earlier this afternoon, I tried to tell Claudia what I'd read in the entrails of my goat.'
    The portrait painter grimaced. 'Stick to books, old man. Not so messy.' To Claudia, he said, 'Coming?'
    'We will join you in a minute,' Shamshi said, indicating in no uncertain terms that the