Chapter 10 #3
“The Consummation of Empire, Thomas Cole,” the Gallerist said.
“He’s better known for inspiring the whole Hudson River School of American landscape painting, all those sweeping vistas of mountains in the Catskills, but he does like his allegorical narrative works as well.
This is third in the ‘Course of Empire’ series—it traces a civilization from an unsettled wilderness to a village to a great empire, and then its violent fall and eventual decay.
I recommend you don’t go shopping in the next painting for a safe haven; that’s the one where the empire burns down.
” The Gallerist looked over their glasses at Sarah.
“You’re sure you want this one? Quite a change from Victorian London. ”
“I’m sure,” Sarah said firmly. “Ty would never in a thousand years look for me there.”
“Can I come too?” I blurted as the Gallerist took her by the hand and began drawing her toward the frame. “Not to stay, just to look while you take her through . . . I wouldn’t mind a peek at ancient Rome.”
“Just for a few minutes,” the Gallerist warned, taking my hand in their free one. “Don’t fall under an elephant—” And we stepped through a swirl of colors into ancient Rome.
If a book world felt more vivid, more gripping, more crackling with possibility than the real world, then the world inside a painting was in every way brighter.
The colors punched me right between the eyes so I nearly reeled: the sapphire sparkle of the harbor, the vivid pinks and golds of the sails on the many-oared barges, the jewel-like green of laurel wreaths and palm branches, the pristine marble gleam of all those columns and temples and statues .
. . I tilted my head back to take in the arch of a vast dome, then the parade with its majestic elephants and caparisoned horses (caparisoned!
Another word coming off my Rarely Used list).
And not just the colors, but the smells.
The smell of paint underlying the mud-and-water tang of the harbor, the spice of incense rising up from a thousand temples, the scent of sweat and perfume and beer as an entire city went mad with celebration.
A man in a toga pushed past me, cheering lustily as the elephants lumbered past, followed by the godlike regally cloaked figure (emperor?
victorious general?) with his handsome bearded profile that looked just like it belonged on a coin.
The woman on the dais (empress? queen?) watched him with a cool shield of a face over her imperial purple stola, and I wondered if there was a story there, if Thomas Cole had painted one into this scene or if the story developed beyond the scope of the painting just as stories in book worlds continued on past the point of the author’s The End.
“What’s the occasion here?” I called out to the nearest throng of cheering women in colorful tunics, like a bouquet of bright wildflowers.
“Emperor Hadrian’s returned at last from the eastern provinces,” one of them shouted back, looking tipsy and ecstatic, and I realized she wasn’t speaking English at all.
Latin? Regardless of what it was, I was perfectly able to follow along.
Apparently the Astral Gallery had accelerated linguistic osmosis too.
“Our emperor, back in the Eternal City at last!”
“His wife doesn’t look so happy to see him,” one of the other women snickered, sounding even tipsier—these ladies had clearly passed an amphora or two of wine around before all the festivities started.
“Is any woman when her husband’s been away for months? Empress Sabina’s no different!” They shrieked with laughter and kept pressing on toward the bridge, where a column of horses now pranced and trotted and tossed their heads in the descending showers of rose petals.
“Right.” Sarah was looking around with a businesslike expression, and with a start I saw that the Astral Gallery had provided her with a costume change.
Gone was the late-Victorian twill dress and the cameo pinned at her throat, replaced by a rust-red linen tunic and flat leather sandals and a string of Roman glass beads.
I looked down at myself to see that I was still wearing Beau’s blue moiré, which like the Gallerist’s gabardine raincoat somehow attracted no stares in this crowd, but if we didn’t look the part here, Sarah already did.
She blended right in as though she’d been painted here.
“I can get lost in a citywide party of thousands,” she went on briskly, looking inside what had been her beaded Victorian handbag and was now a drawstring leather pouch—I could see that the wad of British pound notes inside had been replaced with a rattle of coins.
“Be careful,” the Gallerist warned. “A world like this one has its sharp edges.” At their nod, I saw the rows of slaves stumbling along behind the triumphant emperor, chained and terrified; heard the roar of what sounded like wild beasts in the nearby arena, probably locked in combat against spear-jabbing gladiators; saw sacrificial blood spilling crimson across the steps of the huge Doric temple.
The dark ribbon of fear and violence running underneath all this gaudy imperial splendor.
“You sure you want to stay here?” I asked Sarah.
“It might be the Consummation of Empire, but something tells me it’s not the consummation of peace and equality.
” Another roar from the arena, and I wondered if a lion had just been slaughtered, or maybe had done the slaughtering.
This place was starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth.
“Art doesn’t exist to make you feel good,” the Gallerist said as though reading my mind. “Art exists to make you think. Great art, now—it will often make you uncomfortable.”
“Are you going to tell me to sit with that feeling?” Now that I was looking for it, I couldn’t stop seeing the darker sides to the thousand different stories being told in this glittering spectacle all around me—the two boys tussling by a fountain over a toy barge, their tussle getting mean; the big Praetorian Guard almost out of sight behind the empress’s throne who was staring at the parading emperor with a loathing so palpable it practically shimmered in the air like heat from a forge.
“I should explore what it makes me feel?”
“You’ll feel it whether you explore it or not,” said the Gallerist. “That’s the other thing great art does.”
“Well, you two sit and feel things,” Sarah said, sounding brisk again. “I’m off to hide in the crowd.”
“If you’re sure.” The Gallerist frowned, looking down at their tablet, which had just lit up with a notification. “I’ve had a message from the Librarian; she’s brought two more Patrons back to the Library for hiding, and now she’s gotten more warning cards.”
“More?” I blinked, disquieted. Even if she’d had to fend off a coalition of pissed-off slavers two hundred years ago, why hadn’t the safeguards put in place since then worked better? What was happening here that the threats just kept coming?
“Whatever it is, I’m glad of it,” Sarah said. “Makes it less likely Tyler can find me if there’s a whole flock of us being moved around and muddying up the waters.” And she disappeared into the throng of joyous Roman citizens without a backward glance.
“Goodbye and good luck to you too,” I muttered, not able to stop from thinking that Sarah was being just a little heartless here. Scared, I reminded myself, she’s just scared—but then a flash of blue caught my eye and I just stared.
A woman in a blue tunic, drifting along in the crowd oblivious to the parade or the delirious celebration all around her. A woman in blue, reading a scroll as she walked.
No, I thought. No, I was not seeing my mother here.
Why would my mother ever show up in a Thomas Cole painting?
I doubted she even knew who Thomas Cole was, any more than I did before hearing the Gallerist’s little lecture.
She wasn’t here; it was my imagination. But my feet jerked me in the same direction anyway, after that mesmerizing spot of blue. Just a single step.
“Alix?” the Gallerist called, sounding distracted. “I think we must go back; there will be more Patrons to place.”
I took a deep breath, willing myself not to go charging stupidly into the crowd again like I’d done in Conan Doyle’s London.
I’d fall under an elephant this time rather than into an opium den, and then the Librarian really would yank my Page status.
My mother wasn’t here. She wasn’t. I was just imagining things.
“Yes, let’s go,” I called, searching despite myself for one last glimpse of the woman in blue. Gone. “I’m ready.”