The atmosphere here has become downright oppressive. Every sermon an exhortation to new heights of artistic frenzy, every structured art period a litany of productivity, our free time our own in name only, if we do not spend it creating art then Mother Superior Honoria asks—always nicely, she is not Brother… well, she is not mean—but she inquires as to whether inspiration has run dry, whether we need to roam the island in a search for subjects or perhaps contemplate the canvases of those who have come before for ideas.
“Don’t just spend time conceptualizing and sketching out still lifes!” Brother Pitch declared, pale skin red with choler. “You should be painting, molding, at the very least laying the foundation for what you are creating! We’ve moved beyond the still lifes. Each of you has turned in a number of sketches, each of which could be a promising work. I expect you to turn each of those sketches into promising works. Even you, Slate, have shown some promise if only you could elevate those sketches beyond mere black and white!” This is ridiculous. The college had the money to pay for food for the season, they’ve already tied our grades to a curve of productivity as well as skill, you’d think they could lighten up a little bit. Marble stole a glance at Vaterin, and noted with a little bit of satisfaction that she was, at least, working at the normal pace for a human and not giving in to the temptation to sacrifice her life for some imagined quota. And that is fortunate, because if we do not equal each other in production, the rest of us fail. And if we fail, we are dismissed in disgrace. Or at least those of us on scholarships. I’ve sold a piece or three each year, and I’ve gotten good grades thus far, but I am not the only scholarship student and even I’m worried about the number of works produced. Oil painting takes time.
“Lime! Are you still working without your angel? The bloodgold has been paid for that, you had best make use of it! I will consult with Father Sauer about whether he has sat for your portrait recently.” Leave her alone! Even Father Sauer said it wasn’t her fault that the dragon threw a tantrum, nobody had noticed the clause in the College’s contract with her. He might be trying to goad her on, did he overhear what she can do through her angel? Is he seriously encouraging her to shave years off her life just to support his position? Should I talk to the Mother Superior that he is becoming outright abusive?
“And you, Clay! Stop ciphering on paper and get to molding your namesake! All the rest of you! If you need direction raise your hand, don’t wait for me to circle around! It is urgent that you produce as many good works as possible, before the expo!” Ah, the urgency. The need for funds. I hope they remembered to tell the noblewomen coming to bring more contracts good until the remission. I suppose they could draw up new ones, but not all nobles know what they even hold. I suppose that’s what they rely upon retinues for.
“And if you’re working in charcoal, Slate, then I guess do whatever it is you do that you pass off as art!” Of course he loves to—Marble’s train of thought was interrupted by the scraping of a stool. She wondered briefly if it was her own, it was often her role to interpose herself between Pitch and Writing. But no, it was—Vaterin?!
“Brother Pitch!” Vaterin proclaimed in a clear, resonant voice. She’s used to making herself heard with the wealthy. It’s given her a quite attractive air of authority, when she remembers to exert it. “You have ridden Slate, and ridden Slate, and now you’re riding all of us except Slate—”
“The equality of this should come as a relief the—” Brother Pitch began.
”—I was not finished!” Holy Savior she’s livid, but she’s keeping it on a tight reign! “You have instead relegated Slate to a position of insignificance, deriding their ability to even attempt a work which might please a patron at the expo. This, after riding them, riding them, riding them,” she’s a very compelling speaker. “And I cannot be alone in this room in wondering why. Why, when you have turned your wrath upon all of us, you reserve base invective for Slate, reduce them to the role of a burden while all of us are treated to the exhortations to do better. Explain, Brother Sauer, or I for one will not sit here a minute longer and produce art for your expo.” Holy sarx. That’s putting a lot on the line. Then again, she could always go to the dormitory or the individual study rooms, but to even say that! This expo is her one chance to attract a patron and escape a future she abhors. She’s being so disrespectful, but Brother Pitch has been a bit heavy-handed lately. I was prepared to ask him to back off Writing but to demand he account for himself…!
“You forget yourself, lay student Vaterin Lime. You are not in charge here. I will not spare the verbal rod and risk a straying flock. Take your seat and get back to your work.”
“Work? Work you say? Work, at the College of the Art of the Divine. Work, at a school upheld by those devoted to the One God. Work you say? I will not have it!”
“You may have status where you come from, but here you are a student, and a student of only so much promise at that—” ouch.
But Vaterin held her head high and did not flinch when she interrupted. “I am not alone in finding your intolerance intolerable! Marble! Cl—Felspar! Sand and Granite! Are you with me?! Will we find another to yoke ourselves to if this injustice is not righted?!”
The students she named stood from their works, Marble herself included. This must be madness. Because while this puts everything on the line, opposing both the College hierarchy and the ordained of the Wholist Church, it feels right. It is a kind of group insanity. “I will not stand for it! I will return home, and paint pastures and sheep!” Marble declared.
Following her pattern, Felspar spoke next. “I will not stand for it! I can work clay with my boyfriend, both of us are skilled earth mages. I will not learn from a tyrant!”The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Coral Sand spoke next. “I will not stand for it! Watercolors may be a hobby instead of a vocation in my future. But I will not learn from a tyrant!”
Soon, every student was standing in defiance, aside from Writing Slate who still sat on their stool, seemingly stunned at this outpouring of support. To be fair, it is stunning. Marble stole a glance at Vaterin, but she stood stock still and seemed uncertain what to do with her mob now that she had raised it and Brother Pitch had not folded. Fortunately, she is not acting alone. Marble raised her voice again, “What, then, is your issue with Writing, Brother Pitch? Or do you plan to teach with no students?”
“Slate is lazy,” Brother Pitch replied after a long pause. “They shade in black and white rather than color, in a medium which rarely fetches as good of prices as color paintings. You would think that they could work faster, freed from the strictures of tone, and yet they draw no more quickly. We need this expo to succeed and I cannot afford to waste time tutoring underachievers if I want this College to survive.” So he’s worried about his job.
“Lazy? You accuse Writing of laziness when they have labored under your unkind hand for this long? Wouldn’t it be easier to go somewhere else, to throw up their hands in disgust at your treatment of them?”
Vaterin found her voice at last. “Have you even asked them, why they work in charcoal? You introduced all the students, you introduced their mediums, but you never asked why they work in their mediums, and with Slate you never bothered to learn! You know that Felspar works off ciphering from Paxite texts, why does Slate work in charcoal?”
Felspar spoke up next. “The student you have maligned as lazy captures shadow and light masterfully, and is color blind. They told me this, while expressing appreciation of my sculpture, that it was something where they did not feel the lack of their vision. What do you have to say to that?! A student who aspires to be an artist despite a distinct handicap and you deride them as lazy!”
Finally, Writing themselves spoke, rising from their stool. “I work so hard. I can’t tell the difference in color between the blossom and the leaf, and yet I try to portray both in their beauty. I am cursed with colorblindness and yet I try my best. What would you have me do? Is there some sorcery I don’t know? Is there some spirit I could bind? If there is, then rather than tearing me down just tell me and I will work that variety of magic!” This last they addressed directly to Brother Pitch with a desperate and desolate shrug of their entire body.
Brother Pitch seemed taken aback. Or so I assume, from his lack of immediate response. Say, now there’s an idea… “Felspar! Teach Writing to work in clay, if price is the object of Brother Pitch’s concern! Let Brother Pitch invoke the Power of Beatrice and remember that it is not the gold that makes his vocation, but the faith sustained by the gold. The One God does not desert His people.”
“I could certainly teach Writing,” Felspar replied. “If I had extra time. I have my own grades to worry about. But if Brother Pitch were to get me freed from chore details, along with Writing, we could use the extra time to pursue a less ‘lazy’ art form, even if it is one that sells by the pound,” he flashed a grin at Marble, who felt a mischievous smile spread across her own face.
Brother Pitch looked around the room, at the entire student body aligned against him. He bowed his head and with his right hand made the God-Star over his heart. “Perhaps… I was fast to judge. I had not considered the motivation of pupil Slate, and allowed… I should pray to the Power of Gold and those who covet it, for my heart was not in the right place.” Not often you see a member of the clergy admit their error to a member of the laity. “I will speak to the Mother Superior about releasing the two of you from chore detail to pursue a supplementary art course.”
“You’ll have to forgive us if we don’t trust your intentions,” Vaterin drawled. “Allow Felspar and Slate to attend your meeting with the Mother Superior.”
“You do not dictate terms to me, pupil Lime. I have admitted a minor fault, with one student, but I am still the teacher here.”
She has clearly done as I advised and taken to praying to the Powers of Courage and Daring. “You are a teacher only so long as you have students. You have been ill-humored since the storm, and all we are demanding is justice for one student and not a revision of your entire curriculum of desperate urgency. I think it is fair to say that ‘your’ students are with me that we will see to it that Slate is treated decently.”
Brother Pitch still had his hand over his heart in the sign of the God-Star, and bowed his head, closing his eyes and murmuring to himself. I wonder what he’s praying. If he’s actually praying to the Power of Beatrice I will be immensely impressed with myself. Marble stepped sideways over to Vaterin. “You should have spoken up earlier. We make quite the team, we’ve got Brother Vitriol praying in the midst of a class session,” Marble murmured.
“I just got it started. You provided the refrain that the whole class echoed,” Vaterin demurred. “I think I used up my daily dose of courage. We paid our tithes gladly, respect for the clergy was instilled into me from an early age.”
“What about respect for the nobility?”
Vaterin stroked her chin, “Nobility I was taught to respect as holding power, not authority.” Oh, so she’s drawn to my title for the power? Marble quirked a smile. No, she’s drawn to me, because I’m an excellent artist and a charismatic woman. “What? You’re smiling.”
“Just thinking of how remarkable this term has been. I’ve made friends with a merchant woman, with the oddball who studies foreign faith, and now brought a clergyman to heel. There are noblewomen who would ruin a favored client for that privilege.” Probably not the healthiest thing for my soul to feel pride at that, but what can you do? Brother Pitch has been a thorn in the collective side of the student body since the storm, and maybe now is learning there are limits to his authority.
“Friends? We’re just friends now?”
“So I made more-than-friends with a merchant woman. One who esteems me for my painting more than my title.” Vaterin cracked a grin and scratched the back of her head sheepishly. I’m so glad she not only tendered a sincere apology but learned the lesson the apology represented.
Finally, the Brother looked up and let his hand drop to his side. “Very well. And don’t think I didn’t hear all of you whispering. I will allow Slate and Clay to be present at my meeting with the Mother Superior, to be sure I give them a fair hearing and testimony as to why they should be freed from chore details. Of course, that will mean a greater portion of work for the rest of you.” Brother Pitch looked about, clearly listening for murmurs of discontent, but instead the students were looking to one another and shrugging. Two people do not carry that much weight out of an entire student body, and we’re already free from the duty of watering and tending the crops.
The only ones who might even think to complain are the new students… and, well, the newest student clearly has no complaints. With a smile, Marble laced her fingers through Vaterin’s. Vaterin turned her head, glanced down at Marble’s hand, and brought it up to her lips. “We should get back to our paintings, Marble. While Brother Pitch was unpleasant about it, we do have a grindstone to keep our nose to.” Marble laughed, but nodded assent and went back to her canvas, even as Brother Pitch led Felspar and Writing from the room. There’s no time like the present, obviously, to get a discussion out of the way.