The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier Page B

looked as if he had been winded by a blow. Finally, I thought, he sees. For an artist he is not very attentive.
Aliénor knew that he finally understood — she had chosen to let him see. She does that sometimes. Now she pulled her hand from his and bowed her head.
‘Come, Aliénor,’ Christine said with a fierce look at Nicolas, ‘or we'll be late.’ She went out through the same door Jacques Le Bœuf had.
‘Mass,’ Aliénor reminded me, before running out to join her mother.
‘Mass?’Nicolasrepeated. He glanced up at the sun coming through the window. ‘It's too early for Sext, isn't it?’
‘It's a special Mass for weavers at Notre Dame du Sablon,’ I said. ‘A church not far from here.’
‘They have their own Mass?’
‘Three times a week. It is a powerful guild.’
After a moment he said, ‘How long has she been like that?’
I shrugged. ‘All her life. That's why it is so easy not to notice. It is natural for her.’
‘How does she —’ Nicolas waved at the Adoration of the Magi tapestry, which was draped over the loom it had been woven on.
‘Her fingers are very skilled and sensitive. Sometimes I think her eyes must be on her fingers. She can tell the difference between blue and red wool because she says the dyes feel different. And she hears things that we don't. She told me once that each person has a different footstep. I can't hear it, but she can always tell who is coming, if she has heard them before. She will know your footstep now.’
‘Is she still a girl?’
I frowned. ‘Don't know what you mean.’ Suddenly I did not want to talk about her.
Nicolas smiled. ‘You do know what I mean. You've thought about it.’
‘Leave her be,’ I said sharply. ‘Touch her and her father will tear you apart, Paris artist or not.’
‘I have plenty whenever I like. It's you I was thinking of. Though I expect the girls like you well enough, with those long lashes of yours. Girls love eyes like that.’
I said nothing, but reached for my bag and pulled out paper and charcoal.
Nicolas laughed. ‘I can see that I will have to tell you both about the unicorn's horn.’
‘Not now. We need to start work. They can't begin the weaving until we've painted one of the cartoons.’ I gritted my teeth as I said ‘we’.
‘Ah, yes, the painting. Luckily I have my own brushes with me. I wouldn't trust a Brussels brush — if I painted my unicorn with one it would probably look like a horse!’
I knelt by the paintings — it kept me from kicking him. ‘Have you ever drawn or painted cartoons?’
Nicolas stopped smirking. He doesn't like to be reminded of what he does not know.
‘Tapestries are very different from paintings,’ I said. ‘Artists who haven't worked on them don't understand this. They think that whatever they paint can simply be made bigger and woven just as they have made it. But looking at a tapestry is not like looking at a painting. A painting is usually smaller so that you can see everything at once. You don't stand up close, but a step or two back, as if it is a priest or a teacher. With a tapestry you stand close as you would to a friend. You see only a part of it, and not necessarily the most important part. So no thing should stand out more than the rest, but fit together into a pattern that your eye takes pleasure in no matter where it rests. These paintings don't have that pattern in them. The millefleur background will help, but we will still have to change them.’
‘How?’ Nicolas said.
‘Add things. More figures, for a start. The Lady should at least be attended by a lady-in-waiting, n'est-ce pas ? Someone to hold carnations for her as she weaves them in Smell, or to work the bellows of her organ in Sound, or to hold out a bowl of something for her to feed to the parakeet in Taste. You have a servant holding the jewellery casket in À Mon Seul Désir. Why not in the others?’
‘In a seduction a lady should be alone.’
‘Ladies-in-waiting must have witnessed