* * * * * * * *
So the days and weeks sped by: the cold, grey winter became a cold, grey spring in which no flowers bloomed. At the University, a new artist was installed as chair of the art department. He was a sculptor and produced bone white figures of men bound hand and foot to the backs of strong horses; some figures were the size of a cat, while others were the size of an elephant. When asked what they signified, he said, “Nothing. Nothing at all. Whatever you like.” This greatly pleased the art critics and the young artist was hailed far and wide as the genius of a new age.
The new artist was also an accomplished painter, and in a spontaneous sycophantic gesture, he painted the Mayor’s portrait. University students and faculty were delighted. They assured each other that the artist had captured the very twinkle in the Mayor’s eye. The Mayor himself was mightily pleased and talked about replacing the old portrait in City Hall with this new one. However, the old portrait, though it generated mixed reviews, was three times the size of the new one, so he contented himself with leaving the new painting on display in the University dining hall beside the portraits of ancient and venerable provosts. He became a regular guest at the High Table where he enjoyed a heightened popularity, and where he could glance, surreptitiously, at his own likeness.
The General had no time for such collegial pursuits, however edifying dinner with the Provost might be, for he was busily engaged in escalating the war abroad. Working under the old premise that war is good for business, he proceeded to antagonize his enemies on their own shores in a multi-fronted effort to boost the economy. Unfortunately, he failed to consider the current predicament in the countryside, both at home and abroad. According to the farmers, the land was failing to thrive: crops would not grow, cows gave little milk, chickens would not lay, and there was every indication of immanent famine. This was as true on the General’s shores, as in the far countries he harried. All parties concerned were beginning to suspect there would be no spoils of war, yet they laboured on, loathe to be the first man to lay down his hand and forfeit the game.
Under these conditions, the cold grey spring wore on into a cold grey summer. There was always food at The Tower despite severe shortages everywhere else. City folk who didn’t mind plain bread gathered in the Great Room for a midday meal, an evening meal, or both. Customers paid what they could or bartered some practical service for their food; Tom and Hyla never asked for more. Each evening after dark, Tom and Grissle served soup out the back door to a dwindling populace. Dark rumours circulated: starvation, plague, and mass graves outside the city walls. Yet it wasn’t just criminals and the poorest of the poor who were disappearing: farmers stopped coming to market because they had nothing to sell; all able-bodied men and women who dared apply to City Hall for food vouchers were conscripted for army duty. Whole families vanished. There had, of late, been few children in the city; now there were almost none, save the young occupants of The Tower. The Great Room at the inn still saw its regular customers, but there were many faces missing.
In the middle of this bleak summer, Thaddaeus produced one last painting.
In the foreground, the King greeted his children, Minn and Edward. He was dressed in traveling clothes as if he’d just returned from a long journey, and his face was alight with a peculiar radiance. Behind the children stood the other inmates of The Tower: Tom and Hyla, Emmie, Grissle, Bill, Abner, and Thaddaeus. Behind them stood a young soldier and a man in a shabby black overcoat; a girl with wild golden hair stood between them and there was paint on her hands. The whole crowd stood on a high place overlooking the city. In the background, on the distant shore of the sea, a great dragon pursued two men: one bore unmistakeable aquiline features; the other man was indistinct, but he may have been the mayor.
Oh dear, Hyla thought when she saw the painting. Why couldn’t he just paint something simple? Flowers perhaps. She missed seeing flowers. She glanced out the studio windows to the grey polluted sky and the roofs covered with the light frost of early morning. Frost in July, she thought, a thing that should never be. I’m young, but already I’ve lived too long. What will become of Emmie?
“Well,” Tom said. “We’ve had Beneath, Above, Behind, Before, Within and Beside. This must be To Win.”
“I know that,” Hyla snapped. “Win what?”
Tom looked at his wife and saw that she looked pinched and tired. This unnatural cold is getting to her, he thought. Then aloud he said, “The country. To win.”
“This is a dangerous picture. We can’t hang it in the Great Room.”
“Well of course not,” Tom said. “For one thing, Winnie would pitch a fit.”
“Winnie?” Hyla said, not sure she followed Tom’s train of thought. “What are you talking about? What’s she got to do with it?”
“Well,” he said, “she ain’t in it, is she?”
The next day Thaddaeus cleaned his brushes and began to pack away all his painting gear, closing up paints and putting them in boxes, then folding up empty easels and rolling up unused canvases.
“What are you doing?” Grissle said at last. “Are you finished painting?”
“Yes,” Thaddaeus replied.
“For good?” Grissle said, her eyes wide with alarm.
“Yes,” Thaddaeus said. He took the last painting—gingerly because it was still wet—and stuck it on a nail in the wall opposite Edward’s bed. He wiped his hands on a rag, took off his painting smock and draped it over a stack of folded easels.
“There,” he said. “We wait now.”
“For what?” Grissle said.
“Restore, of course.”