AN :
Next goal for another extra chapter is 400 power stones.
In the Game of Stones, you either win or you wait. The more Power Stones you offer, the faster the chapters come.
...
( Pella Biccade POV )
Pella Biccade watched as the men went about their work, her gaze fixed on the mountainside as all else in the world faded away.
Her hazel eyes reflected the vibrant reds of the stone, glistening in the morning light, the deep ochre hues of the wooden rails, the slick grey-black of the whale skins being dragged off of the chains… reverently her brush daubed another touch of paint on the canvas, mindful of the shade that splashed over the Lion's mouth in the early morning sunlight.
Carefully she worked the brush along a ridge, then plunged, as if she was walking it herself. Gently she daubed a different brush to capture a passing cloud.
Pella was in heaven. Or the Heavens, perhaps, if the Gods of the Westerosi now held her soul. She didn't especially care which Gods got her in the end, as long as they did not interrupt her work.
Feverishly she painted the scene, every detail, every vibrant feeling flowing from her mind to her hand. A moment of rhapsody an hour long.
When she finished, panting and exhausted, despite not having left her seat, she looked at the painting and grinned. It was good work, some of her best at least for such a short session, and she couldn't stop smiling as she took it inside to dry.
Pella checked the angle of the sun and realized with a sudden shock she was late, scrambling about she tore off her apron and checked over her blue dress to make sure no paint splatters were visible, then pulled a clean apron right back on over it and hurried out of her room. Rushing down the hallway past Nolo, who was tuning his harp, she hurried down three flights of stairs (so many stairs) and down the long corridors of the Rock, arriving at the door to the workshop some few minutes later.
"Ah! Pella, come in!" Her Patron's voice greeted her as she stepped inside. "Come tell me what you think about this one."
Callum Lannister stood before a canvas with a grid drawn across it, one of dozens that sat to one side of the room. Each covered some aspect of the enormous statue that the boy wanted to build, a marvel to rival the Titan of Braavos.
And she was to be its sculptor.
Pella was thrilled every time she thought of it. A wonder of the world to be crafted by her fingers.
"Let me see, let me see" She rushed to the golden-haired child's side, looking over the design, as she had many others. Pella was obsessed. This had to be perfect, had to be wondrous. For a thousand years men and women from across the world might look at the work of her hand and remember her name. Every inch had to be correct.
That was why, though the bronze foundry was ready, though the Ironworkers had already begun to spit out their cast iron columns for her skeleton, Pella hadn't yet settled on a final design.
"This is… alright, but the spear is still too thick." She said quietly, looking at it. "It needs to be narrower, sleeker still."
"It needs to be maintainable." Callum Lannister threw back. "Men must be able to climb up and fix the arc lamps at the top of it, to replace the filaments, and it must be wide enough to fit a gear shaft so the whole array can spin."
"It's too fat- we should just put a torch in her other hand."
"That won't be as stable, we couldn't anchor it to the ground."
Pella grinned even as she argued back and forth with Callum Lannister, her juvenile patron. They could do this for hours over every little detail, and had been doing it for days now, exhaustively. Every tweak in the statue's pose. Every thread of golden hair on her head. She argued every day with Callum Lannister, trying to find her perfect artistic vision, and every day he argued back, taking no offense at her words, but fighting her on practicality, in cost, and on what his father would accept. (Her initial idea to have the statue be bare-breasted had sadly been thrown out on those grounds)
She loved every moment of it. Coming to Westeros had been the best decision in her life.
The life of an artist in Pentos was one of boredom and near starvation. Miserly patrons cared for little more than matching the passing trends and fads amongst their fellow magisters. Not one of them cared for art for the beauty of it, only that they could use it to lord over their friends at parties. A rising star and a pioneer of artistic vision one day could see his life, his works, and his scant payment tossed to the garbage pile the next. It was the sort of world where life was a gamble and one that nearly every artist lost.
Thus it was that when agents of the Prince of Dorne had come looking for artisans, sculptors, and painters Pella had leaped onto that gamble also. The demand to convert to the faith of the seven had not put her off, as it did others. What had the Gods of Pentos ever done for her that she should be loyal? And across the sea, she had found something far better than any Magister in Pentos. She had found a patron who was himself an artist.
Oh at first she hadn't been so eager to work for a child, but a steady retainer of one gold dragon a month, backed by House Lannister's coin? That was enough to sway her on the subject. Everyone knew that House Lannister was richer than anyone, that their Lord Tywin ate lead and shat gold. Besides, at the very least the faithful boy who had hired her and overseen her conversion was far preferable to some fat-fingered rich old lout who would fondle her while she painted, leaving greasy smears on her skin. She has worked for enough of that sort before.
No, if anything the girly boy was positively chaste, though that might be due to his youth. He did not even bother the, admittedly much prettier, seamstress from Lys.
It was actually somewhat believable when that old High Priest had gone on about the boy being blessed by the Westerosi gods (or God, as she had learned. Seven Gods in one? The Westrons were strange folk.) Hoisted up in the air and proclaimed to be blessed in the midst of that gorgeous, if somewhat small, temple, it was a remarkably striking sight. Pella should know, she'd painted it four times since then.
But the true wonder happened when they arrived back in Casterly Rock. That was when the boy had revealed himself to be an artist. She had seen it in his eyes, first when he bottled lightning. Those emerald orbs reflected the same joy of creation that blazed in Pella's heart. Soon enough it became clear to her that he was an artist just like her.
One who painted with money and men and the thundering of Smith's hammers. She saw as he ordered the raising of the new academy that was being built in Lannisport, she watched as he built himself new tools just to survey the mountainside for his great lift, and she spoke to him every day as they worked together on the design of the statue of his mother.
Yes, Pella had done the most wondrous thing. She had found a patron who was also an artist, one just as passionate for his creation as she was, and one who was willing to use the truly enormous wealth of his family to make it happen.
"Wait… I think we're thinking about this wrong." Callum brought her back to reality as he stared at the canvas, talking. "What if instead of having the maintainer access it from the inside of the spear like this…" he scratched out the design that he had been drawing and started sketching next to it.
"We only widen the top large enough for the mechanism to be accessed and maintained from inside. Like a cup around the light housing… then we can just…" he scratched a few marks into the side of the spear. "Run a ladder up to it from the arm. It's still large enough to run the wiring and the drive shaft through the… no, no it needs to be internal." Callum grumbled, rubbing out the drawing he'd just made.
"I forgot, the weather here in winter is too bad to have men crawling along the outside. It would be like being on the topmast of a ship during a storm, only 30 times higher up."
Pella nodded wisely. She'd been told of how dreadful Westerosi winters could be when she was a girl, though as she understood they were much, much worse in the North part of the continent than they would be here. Either way, she wasn't looking forward to them. "Maybe a torch mounted at the head of the spear then? It could thicken above her hand."
"Wouldn't that be more of a staff then? Hmm… Maybe if she leaned on it with both hands like…" he drew out a stick figure.
"No, no, that would miss that she's bringing light to the World." Pella shook her head, drawing out her own design.
=======================
If you'd like to support my work, or get early access to chapters before public release you can join my P atreon
Link to join my p treon :
[email protected]/moonlight10