His determination to win her over resulted in Talon sitting quietly, biting his tongue to keep from laughing, as Demetrius tutored Rondar in how properly to pay court. Talon knew himself to be no expert in such things, and judged that the girl had a great deal more to say in these matters than the boy, but his experience with Lela and Meggie at least had made him a little more comfortable around girls than Rondar and Demetrius. Around all girls, that is, except Alysandra.
His initial attraction to her had been supplemented by his reaction to Gabrielle’s warning. He now found her both appealing and daunting in the extreme. There was a sense of danger about her, and he wondered if it was of his own imagining, or if there was something truly risky in having any contact with her.
He decided that the best answer was avoidance, and when a situation arose which threw them together he was polite but distant. He also found as many excuses as possible to keep away from her until he puzzled out how he felt about all this.
Nakor and Magnus provided new things for him to do all the time, and one afternoon he found himself undertaking the strangest task so far. Nakor had taken him to the top of a hillock, upon which sat a stunted birch tree, nearly dead from some pest, with gnarled branches and few leaves. Nakor had handed Talon a large piece of parchment stretched over a wooden frame, then a fire-hardened stick with a charcoal point. “Draw that tree,” he said, walking away without waiting to hear Talon’s questions or remarks.
Talon looked at the tree for a long time. Then he walked around it twice and stared for nearly half an hour at the blank parchment.
Then he noticed a curve below one branch, where a shadow formed a shape like a fish. He tried to draw that.
Three hours later he looked at his drawing, then up at the tree. Frustration rose up in him and he threw the parchment down. He lay back and looked up at the clouds racing overhead, letting his mind wander. Large white clouds formed shapes and in those shapes he saw faces, animals, a castle wall.
His mind drifted away, and before long he realized he had dozed off. He was not sure how long he had slept for—only a few minutes, he judged—but suddenly he understood something. He sat up and looked at his parchment; then the tree, and frantically began another drawing, to the left of the original sketch. This time he stopped looking for details and just tried to capture the sense of the tree, the lines and shadows his hunter’s eye had revealed. The details weren’t important, he realized: rather, it was the overall sense of the object that mattered.
Just as he was completing the drawing, Nakor returned and peered over his shoulder. “Have you finished?”
“Yes,” said Talon.
Nakor looked at the two trees. “You did this one first?” He pointed to the one on the right.
“Yes.”
“This one is better,” he said, indicating the drawing on the left.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I just stopped trying to do everything.”
“That’s not bad,” said Nakor, handing back the drawing. “You have a good eye. Now you must learn how to record what is important and not what is unnecessary. Tomorrow you will start to learn to paint.’’
“Paint?”
“Yes,” said Nakor. Turning back toward the estate, he said, “Come along.’’
Talon fell in alongside his instructor and wondered what Nakor meant by “learn to paint.’’
Maceus scowled as he watched Talon. The man had appeared as if by magic outside Nakor’s quarters the day after Talon had sketched the tree. He was a Quegan, with an upturned nose, a fussy little mustache, and a penchant for clucking his tongue while he reviewed Talon’s work. He had been teaching the young man about painting for a month now, working from dawn to dusk.
Talon was a quick study. Maceus proclaimed him without gifts and lacking grace, but grudgingly admitted he had some basic skill and a good eye.
Nakor would come in and observe from time to time as Talon struggled to master the concepts of light, shape, texture, and color. Talon also learned to mix his colors and oils to create what he needed and to prepare wooden boards or stretched canvas to take the paint.
Talon used every skill he had learned in every other discipline he had been taught, for as much as anything he had ever tried to master, painting caused him seemingly unending frustration. Nothing ever looked the way he had imagined it would when he started. Maceus had started him off painting simple things—four pieces of fruit upon a table, a single leather gauntlet, a sword and shield; but even these objects seemed determined to escape his efforts.
Talon studied and applied himself, failing more often than not, but slowly he began to understand how to approach the task of rendering.
One morning he arose and after finishing his duties in the kitchen—painting made him long for the relatively simple joy of cooking—he found himself looking at his latest attempt, a painting of a porcelain pitcher and bowl. Off-white in color and with a decorative scroll of blue knotwork along the rim of the bowl and around the middle of the pitcher, the items required a subtle approach.
Maceus appeared as if sensing he had finished, and Talon stood aside. Maceus looked down his nose at the painting and said nothing for a moment. Then he pronounced: “This is acceptable.”