"I didn't know." Carina looked down at her hands then met Dumarest's eyes again. "Was I so obvious?"
"No." He changed the subject. "What brought you to Shard?"
"I told you-a mistake. I was on Zanthus and two ships stood on the field. I flipped a coin and the odds were against me. Luck, too-I chose the wrong one. Well, thank God I've money to get away from here. And you?"
Dumarest was in trouble unless he found his stolen possessions. Shard had no industry, no easy source of natural wealth. He had been lucky but to live for weeks in the hills required gear and supplies he no longer had. Without money he was stranded and to be stranded was often to starve.
He said, "I'll make out."
"I'm sure you will." Her fingers were deft as she touched his wound. "And maybe you'll learn to duck next time."
"I'll try."
"You do that No! Wait!" Her fingers held him down as he made to rise. Strong fingers which quested over his skull, the lines of his jaw, lingering on the bones of cheeks and eyebrows. He thought of a surgeon searching for fractures or a sculptor molding a mass of yielding clay. "I'd like to paint you," she said. "Will you sit for me?" She sensed his hesitation. "I'll pay," she added. "It won't be much but I'll pay."
Across the room the man who had cried out rose to sit upright on the edge of the table. He was sweating, his face drawn, haggard. Against the cage of his ribs a broad swath of transparent dressing glistened over the neatly sutured wound.
Looking at him Dumarest said, "Have you treated anyone today for multiple lacerations? A man, middle-aged, skin torn on the face, back and shoulders."
"No."
"Has anyone else?"
"I've been on duty since dawn." Her fingers fell from his cheek as she stepped back from where he sat. "We've had a woman with a cut lip, a man with two broken fingers, three kids with burns and scalds, a girl who'd swallowed poison. A quiet day. Maybe the infirmary treated the man you're looking for."
"Could you find out?"
For a moment she stared at him then, without comment, left the room. From an annex he heard the blurring of a phone, her voice, a silence, her voice again. Returning, she shook her head. "No."
"Thanks. I owe you a favor."
"You can repay." She loosened the fastening of her smock. "You can take me home."
Chapter Two
Home was a studio set high under peaked eaves, a place bright with windows admitting light which shone on the flaking walls and bare wood on the floor-a loft which held a wide bed, a cabinet, tables, chairs, an easel at which stood the woman and a chair on which Dumarest sat.
It faced the foothills, the tangle of brush now a darker green because of the shifting light, a mass now ominous, menacing, with its hints of lurking dangers. An impression heightened by the dying sun, resting low on the horizon in a sea of umber and orange, russet and burnished copper. An angry sun dying with the speed with which it was born and soon to plunge the world into night.
"Earl! You moved!" Her tone was harsh with genuine anger. "How can I capture your mood unless you hold still?"
A rebuke she had won the right to give and he froze again, eyes searching the brush. Jarl could be lying among the brambles, torn, bleeding, waiting for death. Or he could have found a hole in which to hide until it was safe to return to the town. That safety would come after dark when he would scuttle into a room somewhere to be tended by those with common interests.
But Kelly would be unharmed.
"Earl!"
"Sorry." The pose was awkward and he had held it for too long. "Can I stretch?"
"Later."
She was a martinet but she knew her trade. Her fingers moved with deft grace and her face was lost in the abstract world of a creative artist. A trick of the light turned a pane of the window in to a mirror and he watched the tilt and movement of her head, the helmet of burnished hair which framed the strong-boned face. She had changed and now wore a smock which hung loosely from her shoulders, bound at the waist with a scaled belt. A smear of paint on her cheek robbed her of years and she looked somehow young and full of childish enthusiasm.
The illusion was born of mirrors and light and he looked away to search again the brush, the approaches to the town. In the far distance something moved and he tensed, narrowing his eyes, but it was only a scavenger snouting the dirt. He had sat to long and would soon need to be going.
"Now?"
"Now." she said reluctantly. "Come and tell me what you think."
He paused before answering, studying what he saw. The clothing was correct; gray tunic and pants with high boots, the hilt of his knife riding above the right. The background was the same; the foothills beyond the window, the brush, the dying light painting the sky. But the man she had depicted seemed a stranger. The face was a mask fashioned of hate and hurt and a cold determination. A blend swamped by a ruthless savagery which gave him the air of a crouching beast of prey.
"Is that how you see me?"
"That's what I think you are." she corrected. "Not on the surface but way down deep where it matters. A basic animal fighting to survive in the best way it can. The only real difference between you and the rest of us is that you are good at it. Annoyed?"
"No."
"Good." She seemed relieved. "Some men can't stand to see themselves reflected in a true mirror. They strut and pretend to be what they know they are not. Fools who never realize how they display their stupidity."
"Human," Said Dumarest. "Human enough not to like their faults and do their best to forget them." He looked again at the painting. "how long did it take you to learn how to do this?"
"To catch the inner moods? Three years. That's how long I studied at the Brenarch University on Drago. That was before I decided to take up medicine and after I realized I would never be a dancer."
"Drago-your home world?"
"No. I was born on Mevdon. Do you really have sympathy for posturing fools?"
"I try to understand them." He shook his head as he met her eyes. "You work with the monks, Carina-have they taught you nothing?"
"I help the monks," she said. "I can't stand to be bored. But that doesn't mean I believe all they teach. To be tolerant, yes, and to be gentle and kind and have the imagination to be considerate. But I am an artist and to me there is no beauty in dirt and decay, no glory in failure. And, as a doctor, I find nothing but disgust in disease and ignorance."
"A doctor?"
"Five years at the Hamed Foundation on Hyslop. They use hypno-tuition and cellular-experience therapy. I got my degree but I don't claim to be other than mediocre."
He said, dryly, "You must have started young."
"Too damned young!" The bitterness of her reaction surprised him. "I don't know what kind of a childhood you had, Earl, but mine just didn't exist. My father was a genius and wanted me to be the same. So he force-fed me and damned near drove me insane. If he hadn't got himself killed he would have succeeded."
"Your mother?"
"Died at my birth-or so I was told. Sometimes I think I came from a vat. The truth could be that he hired a genetic mate to carry his child and later hired nurses. Anyway, he's dead now. One day I'll go back and dance on his grave."
Dumarest said, "Have you ever been painted by someone as skilled as yourself?"
"No. Why? I-" She broke off, understanding. "The mirror of truth-am I that bad?"