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To his great a
It was not the quality of the light, which he actually very much favored, which vexed him, but that it signified the end of his time with his statue; he now had to go carve ugliness down at the site. Fortunately, that work required no thought or careful effort.
As he draw-filed the curve of the man's shoulder muscle, there was a knock at the door. "Richard?"
It was Victor. Richard sighed; he had to stop.
Richard pulled the red cloth tied around his neck down away from his nose and mouth, where it kept him from breathing all the marble dust. It was a little trick Victor had told him about, used by the marble carvers from his homeland of Cavatura.
"Be right there." -
Richard stepped down off the ledge made by the base, where he had carved out the legs at midcalf. He stretched his back, realizing how much it hurt from hunching over, and from lack of sleep. He retrieved the canvas tarp and shook the dust from it.
Just before he flung the cover over the statue, he got the full view of the figures. The floor, shelves, and tools were covered in a fine layer of marble dust. But against the black walls, the marble stood out in the glory of light from above.
Richard threw the tarp over the incomplete figures and then opened the door.
"You look a ghost," Victor a
Richard brushed himself off. "I forgot the time."
"Did you see in the shop last night?"
"The shop? No, what?"
Victor's grin returned, wider this time. "Priska had the bronze dial delivered yesterday. Ishaq brought it. Come see."
Around the other side of the blacksmith's shop, in the stock room, the bronze sat in a number of pieces. It was too big for Priska to cast as one piece, so he had made several that Victor would join and mount. The pedestal for the partial ring that would be the dial plane was massive. Knowing it was for a statue Richard was carving, Priska had done a job to be proud o?
"It's beautiful," Richard said.
"Isn't it, though? I've seen him do fine work before, but this time Priska has outdone himself."
Victor squatted and ran his fingers over the strange symbols filled in with black. "Priska said that at one time, long ago, his home city of Altur'Rang had freedom, but, like so many others, lost it. As a tribute to that time, he cast it with symbols in his native tongue. Brother Neal saw it, and was pleased because he thought it a tribute to the emperor, who is also from Altur'Rang."
Richard sighed. "Priska has a tongue as smooth as his castings."
"Would you have some lardo with me?" Victor asked as he stood.
The sun was already well up. Richard stretched his neck and peered down at the site.
"I'd best not. I need to get to work." Richard squatted down and lifted one end of the pedestal. "First, though, let me show you where this goes."
Victor grabbed the other end and together they lugged the bronze casting around the shop. When Richard opened the double doors, Victor saw the statue for the first time, even if it was covered in a tarp that revealed only the round bulges that were the two heads. Even so, Victor's eyes feasted. It was apparent in those eyes how his vivid imagination was filling in some of it with his fondest hopes.
"Your statue is going well?" Victor nudged Richard with an elbow.
"Beauty?"
Richard was overcome with a blissful smile. "Ali, Victor, you will see for yourself soon enough. The dedication is only a couple weeks off. I will be ready. It will be something to bring a song to our hearts. . before they kill me, anyway."
Victor dismissed such talk with a flourish of his hand. "I am hoping that when they see such beauty again, and at their palace, they will approve."
Richard held out no such illusion. He remembered then, and reached into a pocket to pull out a piece of paper. He handed it to the blacksmith.
"I didn't want Priska to cast words on the back of the dial because I didn't want the wrong people to see them. I would ask you to engrave these words on the back surface-about the same height as the symbols on the front."
Victor took the paper and unfolded it. His grin melted away. He looked up at Richard with an open look of surprise.
"This is treason."
Richard shrugged. "They can only kill me once."
"They can torture you a long time before they kill you. They have very unpleasant ways to kill people, too, Richard. Have you ever seen a man buried in the sky while he was still alive, bleeding from a thousand cuts, his arms bound, so that the vultures could feast on his living flesh?"
"The Order binds my arms, now, Victor. As I work down there, as I see the death around me, I am bleeding from a thousand cuts. The vultures of the Order are already feasting on my flesh." With grim resolve, Richard held Victor's gaze. "Will you do it?"
Victor glanced down at the paper again. He took a deep breath and then let it slowly out as he studied the paper in his hand. "Treason though these words be, I like them. I will do it."
Richard clapped him on the side of the shoulder and gave him a confident smile. "Good man. Now, look here, where the pedestal is to be attached."
Richard lifted the tarp enough to uncover the base. "I've carved you a flat face tilted at the proper angle. I didn't know where the holes in the casting would be, so I left it for you to drill the holes and fill them with lead for the pins. Once you attach the pedestal, then I can calculate the angle of the hole I'll need to drill for the gnomon."
Victor nodded. "The gnomon pole will be ready soon. I will make you a drill bit the proper size for it."
"Good. And a round rasp to do final fitting in the hole?"
"You will have it," Victor said as they both stood. He waved his hand toward the covered statue. "You trust me not to peek while you are off carving your ugly work?"
Richard chuckled. "Victor, I know you want more than anything to see the nobility of this statue when it is finally finished. You would not spoil that experience for yourself for anything."
Victor let out his rolling belly laugh. "I guess you are right. Come after your work, and we will have lardo and talk of beauty in stone and the way the world once was."
Richard hardly heard Victor. He was staring at what he knew so well.
Even though it was covered from his eyes, it was not hidden from his soul.
He was ready to begin the process of polishing. To make flesh in stone.
-]--
Her head bent, her scarf protecting her from the chill winter wind, Nicci hurried down the narrow alleyway. A man coming the other way bumped against her shoulder, not because he was rushing, but because he simply didn't seem to care where he was going. Nicci threw a fiery scowl at his empty eyes. Her fierce look fell away down a bottomless well of indifference.
She clutched her sack of sunflower seeds closer to her stomach as she moved on through the muddy alleyway. She stayed close to the rough wooden walls of the buildings so she wouldn't be jostled by the people going the other way. People bundled against the current cold snap moved through the alleyway toward the street beyond, looking for rooms, for food, for clothes, for jobs. She could see men beyond the alley sitting on the ground, leaning against buildings on the far side of the street, watching without seeing as wagons rumbled down the roads, taking supplies out to the site of the emperor's palace.
Nicci wanted to get to the bread shop. She had been told they might have butter today. She wanted to get butter for Richard's bread. He would be home for di