MASTER AND APPRENTICE

Back to Iziz and the doings of young Lord Sanjay Rash. It seems he may have found what he was looking for. At least the best he could hope for at this stage in the game. Someone who understands. ~ DK

…

Sanjay did his best approximation of the painting he remembered that used to hang in the Rupingwood home. He wondered if it could have possibly been sold after Shara's father's death in the confusion of settling the man's property. Not that Sanjay liked to think of that time, the funeral, the last time he had held her hand…

But no the picture of she and her mother was one of Shara's most treasured items. She had hoped to hang it in a nursery some day. Maybe she'd been able to do that by now. Of course she would have taken it with her when she left him forever.

How Sanjay now wished that he could remember the name of the artist who had painted that likeness. The artist had, he knew, attended the beast riders' summer fete several years running. Perhaps Sanjay could enter that information into his search.

He uploaded his own drawing and his search parameters into his netlink and then tried to sift through the results. Most of it was useless, until he came to the painting of a young fair haired girl with a dalgos. The girl was about thirteen or fourteen, younger than Shara had been when she started making the fruit deliveries to the Rash Estate. But there was something about it. It had to be Shara!

The artist's name was not immediately available to Sanjay's great frustration and he had to do a little digging to find out that the man called himself Balthazar and he was rumored to still spend his summers in the jungles of Iziz. He claimed that he liked the, eh-hem scenery.

Sanjay viewed some of the artist's posted works. There was a similar piece to the one of Shara and her mother and more of the dark haired woman who he was almost sure must be Hadassa Cornel Rupingwood. In one she looked quite young and rather scantily clad. Shara had said her mother posed for an artist. The others might have been done from memory but were still an incredible likeness.

This was sure to be an instructor who wouldn't mind if his student was focused on one and only one subject. That is if he would consent to being a teacher at all. There was nothing in his holo profile that suggested he had ever taken an apprentice. Wasn't that the greatest form of flattery, though, that Sanjay would want to learn his technique? He would make this Balthazar see.

Sanjay hastily composed an introduction letter. He made sure to mention how long he had appreciated the master's work. That he had already, on his own, attempted to study the forms and strokes that were used in the paintings he had access to. He explained to Balthazar how his father, on his deathbed, had professed the wish to have his son seek out a teacher to nurture his skill and how none of the instructors he had thus far employed were up to the task. Then he, in an off hand manner of course, mentioned that he knew the girl who had appeared in one of his favorite of the artist's works. He wondered if Balthazar had ever wondered what had happened to the daughter of the fruit seller and the dalgos rider.

Then before he could second guess himself he sent the letter and steeled himself to wait for a reply. If he didn't hear back in… say, two weeks? He would send a follow up letter. He would increase the amount that he was willing to pay for the instruction.

Meanwhile his mother did discover that the funds that were allocated for the last teacher had not gone out of the account recently. "Have you given up on your silly sketches, Sanjay?"

"No, Mother," He sighed. "That so called teacher couldn't teach me the difference between a square and a triangle. I am looking into the possibility of employing another. His style is more compatible with my own."

She looked at him disappointedly but she let the matter slide. "Speaking of compatibility, there is a young lady I would like you to entertain one evening next week. You don't have any… No. What am I thinking of? Of course you don't have any plans. Dinner I think would be in order. And maybe…" She flipped through her calendar of events. "There is a symphony concert at the opera house that would be acceptable."

"Yes, Mother," he droned having stopped paying attention after she mentioned dinner. He would go as she wished and… What was this? There was already an answer to his letter! He scanned over it and smiled, the first real smile he'd had in ages. "I'm sorry mother what did you say was the date of that concert?" He asked.

She repeated the plans.

"No, I'm sorry, Mother. That won't work for me. We'll have to postpone the event. My new instructor will be here at the end of this week and we will need the time to set up his residence and studio. I simply can not meet with the young lady that evening."

"Well I suppose that would be alright, if you feel it's necessary. Who is this instructor you've found?" Sanda asked.

"I have long been an admirer of his work and he has the time open in his schedule now to leave his other engagements and give me his complete attention." Before she could answer he continued. "I really am quite lucky to have found and employed this particular artist, Mother. He is a master of the style I have been trying with some success to perfect. I know of no other teacher who could be more helpful in my instruction."

Something in his voice must have convinced her or maybe her particular cocktail of medications that day had made her agreeable to his suggestion. Whatever the reason for his good fortune, Sanjay didn't question it.

On the appointed day he found himself standing on the steps of the municipal building where he had rented the studio space for his lessons with Balthazar to begin. He was nervous now that it came to it, to meet the only other being in the galaxy who had managed to capture the likeness of his one and only muse.

Finally he summed up the courage to enter the building and mount the steps to the appointed room. The comforting smell of oils and pigments met him. This wouldn't be so bad. He had nothing to worry about.

And then suddenly he was faced with a dark little man brandishing a paintbrush at him like a sword. "You're late, boy."

"I'm sorry?" Sanjay was half worried and half put out. He was the one paying for the time and the venu. However the very last thing he wanted to do was to offend the master artist.

"Our agreement stated that we should begin your instruction nearly one standard hour ago. I must know that you plan to take our meetings seriously."

Sanjay waffled for a minute before he hit on the best possible answer: "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"No it will not." The man gestured to two easels set up side by side with his paintbrush and Sanjay hurried over to the one with the blank canvas. "You may call me Balthazar, and in this room you are no Lord. You are no serpent. You are an artist."

Sanjay nodded, still trying to smooth over the initial misstep. "Yes, of course. I'd like to thank you for -."

Balthazar waved the paintbrush and he fell silent immediately.

"Talk is cheap," the master artist announced. "I need to know what you already know, and what you still have to learn."

"Yes, of course. Well, I've tried to imitate the -."

"Not by telling!" The master crossed the studio and knocked on an adjoining door. A few seconds later a woman about Sanjay's age walked out, wearing a bathrobe, and made her way to a platform in the center of the room.

"Show me." Balthazar handed him a pencil.

Sanjay studied the model who had shed her bathrobe and taken her pose on the platform. She was slim and tall, with blue eyes and bright red, northern-girl hair. Except for the the hair, she was a dead ringer for Shara.

He smiled. He was finally under the tutelage of someone who truly understood what he was trying to accomplish. With another look at the model, he took the pencil from Balthazar and got to work.

…

After a few lessons the instructor was becoming used to his student's penchant for jabbering on and on as he worked. It seemed that the poor boy had been forced to remain quiet about his favorite subject for far too long and now when given free reign to express himself, the verbalization along with the artistic outlet were a balm for his psyche.

"It was my father who encouraged me to find an teacher. He had seen some of my sketches and I think he saw a bit of talent there." The strokes that came from Sanjay's brush as he spoke were electrified with the same passion as his words. "After his death it was so difficult to convince my mother that I needed this. And then it was so frustrating trying to find someone who understood what I'm trying to accomplish. Well, I very nearly gave up on the whole idea."

At this statement Balthazar caught Sanjay's wrist in mid stroke. "What do we say to giving up on our dreams?"

Taken off guard, the apprentice stuttered, "I… I don't know."

"Not today." The master nodded decisively.

"It wasn't just my father's death though." Sanjay stepped away from his easel and began pacing. "When I lost my wife, I lost everything. She was my muse. She was…"

Balthazar didn't allow him to continue. "Yes, when I was young I also lost my muse. Not that I ever had the fortune to have her as my wife. She died in the great plague that took so many of the beast riders."

"She was the dark haired woman from your early works, the one you painted with the fair haired little girl?"

"Yes." Balthazar gazed at something far in the distance and then cleared his throat before he continued. "You said in your letter that you knew the child?"

Sanjay swallowed hard. "She was my wife."

He should have known. It made perfect sense, why the young man would have sought out him specifically. "I always wondered what might have become of the girl. My condolences. May I ask how she died?"

"Oh she's not dead." The younger man gave a humorless laugh. "She... left me and… married another. They've just announced that they are expecting their second child."

"Ah." Balthazar nodded. "Now that I do understand. When my Hadassa married her dalgos rider it broke my heart in two."

"How did you do it? How did you manage to go on? She married another man and you lost her forever, but still when you paint her she's so ... alive! It feels like she'll come off the canvas and speak." Sanjay begged to know the answer.

His teacher smiled defiantly. "Because that is the duty of the artist! We preserve what is lost to others. We keep them with us, forever!" He made sure Sanjay was listening closely. "Nothing is lost to an artist. Not time, not our muses, nothing."

"But how?" Sanjay clung to his every word.

"Picture your wife." Balthazar instructed, gesturing toward the easel. "Not just her face, but all of her. How she smiled, how the sun shone on her hair, how she moved her hands when she spoke to you. Then use the techniques I've taught you, and put it on the canvas. Do that, and we will work from there."

...

Who could that be knocking on the door of his studio at this Dxun of an hour? The shades were drawn to block out the harsh light of day after a long night of following his muse he had thought he might sleep the day away. He wondered as he dragged himself off the chair in which he had been sleeping, if perhaps his model from the previous evening had left something behind or if she had a jealous lover who wished to discuss the nature of her relationship to the artist.

Nothing had happened between them, of course. Not that she wasn't a perfectly lovely creature. The fact was that no matter how beautiful she might be, she was not Hadassa Cornel.

Balthazar had been fixated on the fruit merchant's daughter for months now. Even before the Fete. He had thought that finally capturing her on canvas would quell the burning desire he felt for her but it seemed to only intensify the flames.

She was, in his estimation, the perfection of the female form. His single attempt of paying tribute to the contours and textures of her body, was simply not enough. He had spent many days since sitting in a quiet corner of Malagan Market watching her go about her family's business at the fruit stall, sketching.

The knock sounded on the door once again.

"Hold your dalgos. I'm coming." He called. What he found when he opened the door left him speechless.

"Can I come in?" It was the girl herself, in living color. Well, her formal dress was pure white but her face was blotchy and her eyes red from crying. Maybe not the picture of unblemished beauty he had just been imagining but he did have to keep his mind from wandering to the exact shade of pigment he would need to recreate the effect.

"I… uh… of course." He stuttered, stepping back out of the way for her to enter.

She hurried in with agitated energy and he looked out at the street from which she had come, shielding his eyes from the glare of noonday sun. No one seemed to be following her.

He shut the door and turned to watch her pacing and wringing her hands. She was really in his studio apartment. She wasn't some sort of dream. "My dear, why… what brings you…"

"I ran away from my wedding." She told him. "I couldn't go through with it. I just saw all of those children who expected me to be their mother?" She looked at him questioningly as if he might have the answer.

Balthazar shrugged helplessly. He hadn't even known she was engaged or who the lucky man might be and why children would be involved. He had thought maybe she and the beast rider, Kason Rupingwood…

"He said he didn't mind me having one of my own. And I suppose he would be a good father. The others looked like they were well cared for…"

"Wait." His brain must be sleep addled. He studied her again with his artist's eye. There was a roundness to her waist that hadn't been there when he'd painted her at the Fete. A glow to her skin that couldn't be explained by tears or exertion. "You're pregnant. And your groom is… not the father."

"You should know." She said softly. "You practically introduced us." Her hand went self-consciously to her belly.

Balthazar had the flitting thought of how he'd love to do a study of the way her body changed over the course of the child's development. He shook his head. This wasn't the time to ask. The poor girl was distraught. "Rupingwood… Rupingwood is the father."

She nodded. "I didn't know where else to go. My parents didn't even want me to tell him about the baby. They said there's no way he would settle down and … and be here for us."

Well that was debatable. He was a traveling trick rider. In all honesty he might have left girls in this same situation all over the mid rim. But Balthazar wasn't about to tell her that. "You have contacted him… against your parents will?"

"I left him a message but there was no way I could get a reply without my parents finding out."

"You're in love with him." It wasn't a question. It was obvious. As much as Balthazar might wish to ask her to accept him as an alternative, he knew that she would never agree. The way she ran from her parents' solution made that perfectly clear.

With a deep sigh, she carefully moved a few of his sketches out of the way so she could find a place to sit on the edge of his bed.

The apartment was a mess. It was ridiculous to think that she might want to stay here. There was definitely no room for the child to come.

"Then you'll contact him again from here." Balthazar said levelly. He began searching around for his comm unit. It had to be around here somewhere. "And then you can stay until you hear back from him or until he comes to get you." And if he doesn't want you…

"Thank you, Balthazar." The tears she had been holding back till now burst forth. She continued with a sob. "I don't know how I'll ever repay you."

He laid his hand on the comm unit but he had to compose himself before he turned to hand it over to her. "You do know his ID?"

"Y-yes." She took the device with shaking hands. "I have it memorized."

But before she could even enter it in there was another knock at the door. "I'll get that." Balthazar left her to her comm and went to see who could possibly be his second surprise guest of the morning.

A young boy, probably no more than 12 but he had already hit his first growth spurt and could look Balthazar in the eye, spoke with a creak in his voice. "Is my cousin Hadassa here?" He tried to look past the artist into the studio.

The girl stepped forward. "Grigori. Did Mother and Father send…"

"No." A deeper voice spoke up. "I made him tell me where he thought you might have gone."

"Kason!" Hadassa bolted past the other two, out of the apartment and into his arms.

The rider looked her over and then kissed her. "I thought I had lost you. I came as soon as I got the message. A baby?"

She nodded hesitantly. "You… you're not upset?"

"How could I be upset? We're going to be a family. If that's still what you want. That Flint or…" he looked over her shoulder toward the artist, his jaw tightening. "I'm not too late, am I?"

"No!" Balthazar assured him hurriedly.

And Hadassa agreed. "I'd only just arrived here but Balthazar said I could stay until I could contact you."

Kason swallowed back his jealousy. "Thank you." He nodded to the other man.

"It was my pleasure." Balthazar watched them go, speaking about how they would tell her parents and about their baby on the way. They were happy. She was happy. That's how he would always remember her and how he would paint her.

...

Maybe it was those memories that inspired Balthazar to choose the next model for he and his student to immortalize on canvas.

"You are four months into your pregnancy, isn't that correct?" He asked her while she took her pose on the platform and he and Sanjay prepared their palettes for the exercise.

She shrugged. "That's what the med droid tells me."

Sanjay was a little more nervous about this lesson than he had been in the previous weeks. "And the… father doesn't mind that you're here doing… this?"

"A few extra credits to help pay for the bundle of joy?" She laughed. "He's all for it." Then she looked more seriously at the man who had hired her. "You do want me to come back when I get bigger right? That was what we agreed too."

"Yes." Balthazar smiled. "And you'll receive the same compensation every time you return. Now if you could please hold the pose?" He gestured with his paint brush.

She nodded and then was still.

As was his practice while panting, Sanjay began running off at the mouth. His teacher shrugged and only half listened while he started his own sketch.

"Shara and I wanted a child. Now she has a little boy with her… new husband. And she's pregnant with her second." He paused for a moment studying the model. "I never was able to picture what she might look like pregnant."

"Pay attention to the way our friend…" Balthazar motioned toward the model trying not to let Sanjay delve too deeply into his obsession. "...exhibits her…" He was trying to describe it delicately without using the term 'weight.' "... condition over her whole body not just in the region of her abdomen. And the way she glows." He smiled graciously.

Sanjay nodded but he couldn't refrain from speaking for long. "If only I could see what Shara looks like now. In some ways I wished for her to stay exactly as she was and never change. Though I suppose with painting I can immortalize her as she was, while still imagining the way carrying a child would transform her."

"That is exactly the lesson I am attempting to teach you, boy." Balthazar rolled his eyes and gave the model an apologetic shrug.

"Well yes." Sanjay went on. "I can't tell you how glad I am to have found an instructor who understands how important it is, how I… need to capture her image and hold her like that forever. But… wouldn't it have been wonderful to paint her with her child like the painting you did of Hadassa and Shara together?"

There was silence. Only the scratching of Balthazar's own pencil could be heard and the master looked up to see that all was still well.

Sanjay had a beatific expression on his face.

"Boy, what is the matter?"

He turned to face his master. "You could go up there and paint her! I can't go. She doesn't want to see me but you've painted her before! She knows you! She would want to talk to you about her mother! You could do sketches or take holo stills of what she looks like now and bring them back here and we could both paint her!"

Balthazar tried to shrug off the idea even though it was intriguing, the thought of doing a companion piece of the daughter and grandchild. "How in the galaxy would I know it was her and her child in the whole north?"

Sanjay was not to be discouraged. "The ship she took the child on for his first voyage was called the Polaris. If they aren't at the Hold they'll most likely be on that ship."

"You want me to follow the north star to the child and his mother?" Balthazar asked incredulously trying not to show how very interested he was in the scheme.

"Go and find her and paint her." Sanjay pleaded, their current project all but forgotten. "and then come back and tell me about them so that I might paint them too!"

…

Well if that didn't just give away why we named him Balthazar I don't know what would. And right in the middle of Advent. It's fun to dig a little further into the history of Shara's parents from a different point of view.