Patronage Belongs to the Underdogs
Her mind had gone blank.
Rin suddenly realized her hand had stopped moving. The tip of her brush was trembling—one slip and she might have ruined The Sorrow of Martego, which was all but finished.
And yet all she could do was stare, dazed, at the canvas, at the painting, at the firmly shut door of her studio.
Because some part of her half-hoped that the man might open that door and walk in.
...What on earth am I even thinking right now?
Could she be in love with him? Had she truly fallen for him at first sight?
Rin turned her feelings over and examined them until, at last, she reached a conclusion: what she felt for him was not love. After all, he was a man she had only known for a single week, glimpsed for a mere moment each day. Falling in love in that span of time made no sense at all.
This was something else. Or rather—
I'm lonely.
Ever since she had opened her studio here, Rin had been alone every single day. Aside from the moneylenders who dropped by now and then like those thugs, she had next to no visitors at all—natural, then, that she'd be by herself.
She had somehow managed to scrape by thanks to the location, which was poor enough that the rent was laughably cheap. She'd also had the money she'd taken with her when she left home.
Through all that time, Rin had been alone, and she hadn't found it especially hard. If anything, she'd considered it a blessing—the quiet let her pour herself entirely into her painting.
But after so very, very long, that conversation with the man—someone who actually possessed an eye for art. That trivial little chitchat.
It reminded her that being alone like this was not serenity. It was solitude.
"...Right. Back to how things used to be."
No one would visit. No one to talk to.
She would paint whatever commissions came in, pay off that damned debt, and that was all.
A life spent alone. A life without words. A life without even someone to share a bottle of wine with.
She was already more than used to it. So it would be fine.
Having decided as much, Rin forced her eyes away from the door and focused everything on The Sorrow of Martego.
It was like any other day of painting.
"Hey there! Careful with that!"
"The sugarcane harvest came in short this season, so we brought back plenty of this too. Pay up more for it."
"We set sail!"
Squawk. Squawk.
Seagulls cried overhead, and a wind thick with the smell of salt swept past. An endless expanse of blue sea stretched out before her, crowded with the people who filled it.
The only port in this city—and the largest in all the eastern lands.
Rin was standing there, in a place she hadn't set foot in once since the day she first arrived in this city.
"........"
Just a quick look. That's all. She would only confirm what he was doing right now, whether something had happened to him, and then go straight home. That was the whole plan.
Once she did, surely the pointless distractions that kept surfacing while she painted would vanish. With that thought, Rin wove her way through the crowd.
Perhaps because it was a port where countless ships came and went, the place was packed with burly, rough-edged men. Shouting matches—and the occasional fistfight—were a common sight.
Rin frowned slightly. Without meaning to, she thought how poorly a place like this suited that man, with his refined eye for art and his polished manners.
He would far rather sit and talk about paintings than linger somewhere like this.
Drifting along on that vague thought, Rin soon spotted the person she was looking for.
"...Pardon me."
"Hm? What can I do for you, miss?"
"Are you the inspector of this port?"
"I am."
The middle-aged man, sporting a splendid mustache, answered while stroking its tips. A man in a tidy uniform at the port, document folder in one hand, with a stern, meticulous air—surely the inspector.
"I have something I'd like to ask."
"Of me?"
"I'm looking for someone... rather, a sailor."
"My inspection's just wrapped up, so I can spare you a moment or two. Describe his appearance and any distinguishing features."
"Blond hair, brown skin from the sun. People called him 'young master.'"
"...Is that all?"
"...Yes."
"Well—surely you at least know his name."
"His name is—"
His name was—unknown to her.
Hearing it confirmed by another person's words stung anew, and for a moment Rin's words caught in her throat.
Because she realized that despite all the talk of him being her customer, her drinking companion and whatnot, she had never once asked the man his name.
Well, of course. Who would keep coming back to see someone who couldn't even be bothered to learn their name?
"I... don't know his name."
"Hmm. Blond, sun-browned skin. Oi, Jordan!"
"What is it, Inspector?"
"You ever hear of a sailor who's blond with brown skin? Goes by 'young master,' apparently."
"Inspector, are you mocking me with this ignorant lout? Where in this port would you find someone whose skin hasn't been burned? By that logic, I'd qualify too!"
"You're no young master, and your hair isn't blond—it's the color of old straw."
"Bah, damn it all. Anyway, that's not enough to go on. If he's called 'young master,' he's likely a shipowner's son or the heir of some merchant house—and pick out the blond ones with tanned skin from that lot, and... you'd still have quite a few candidates."
Blond hair was common, and anyone who worked ships had sun-browned skin. It was as good as saying she knew practically nothing about the man.
But Rin couldn't give up. It didn't matter if she never met him face-to-face. She only needed to know whether he had truly given up and left—or whether something else had kept him away. That alone would set her mind at ease. So she believed.
"He kept a rather insolent woman as his bodyguard, and lately he's been too busy to come around much."
"Hm? Ah-ha! So that's the fellow, is it, miss? Inspector, we simply must look into this properly."
"The tender feelings of such a lovely young lady are worth every effort. Though—a woman for a bodyguard? A female mercenary, is it? Can't be a temple knight, not like my second son."
"No, and it's not tender feelings, either."
"Then what is the man to you, miss?"
".........Just a customer. And someone to talk to. That's all."
"Inspector, I'd say our young lady here has fallen rather hopelessly."
"So I was thinking. And if the fellow's half the philanderer he sounds like, we ought to find him quickly—for the peace of the city, if nothing else. Adjutant! Are you there?"
"Inspector? What seems to be the problem?"
"Blond, brown skin, called 'young master,' keeps an insolent woman for a bodyguard. Even you, with your fingers in every corner of this port, must know someone who fits?"
"Hmm........."
The adjutant, who had come rushing over at the inspector's call, seemed to mull it over for a moment.
Then his eyes went wide with sudden recognition—only for his expression to stiffen slightly as he glanced nervously between the inspector and Rin.
"Th-there is one fellow I remember, but..."
"Really? That's my adjutant for you. So then, where's the scoundrel who slighted this woman? Our young lady here says she won't be satisfied until she gives him a good kick in the rear."
"Inspector."
"A joke, miss, merely a joke. In any case, if it's that rascal, the adjutant can show you right to—"
"H-he departed."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Yes?"
"That fellow was never planning to stay in this city long in the first place, so... he left yesterday, I believe. I'm certain of it."
"Ahem. I see."
The inspector's gaze drifted to Rin's face, and she couldn't even bring herself to ask what misunderstanding they had arrived at.
Because there was, after all, only one thought in her head right now.
If only.
If only she had come to the port yesterday, or the day before.
If only, like every day that week, she had abandoned the notion that he would be the one to come to her first.
Then things might have been different.
"...Thank you for your help. I'll be going now."
"Er—take care, miss."
She had no memory of the walk back to her studio. Before she knew it, she wasn't at the port at all—she was sitting in front of a canvas in her workroom.
Not The Sorrow of Martego, which needed only its final touches.
The painting she had torn to shreds—drunk, furious, at the end of her rope.
"...I'm annoyed."
The painting she had made for that man.
The art supplies he had brought her.
The assortment of food he had carried in.
And the fine wine he had given her as a gift.
And so, before she had even noticed, her workroom had filled up with the evidence of his patronage.
"Annoyed... I'm annoyed."
Rin painted in the midst of her solitude—something she had once mistaken for quiet.
One day passed. Then two.
And at last, the day arrived.
"........"
The day she was to deliver The Sorrow of Martego to the nobleman who had commissioned it.
The day she could finally pay off the debt those thugs kept hounding her for.
Even on that day, no one came to her studio.
Rin wrapped the fully dried painting with meticulous care, carried it out, and left. It was her first time outside since the trip to the port, two days prior.
Her client was a certain baron, a vassal of the lord who governed this city. He had wanted a painting for the villa he'd built there, and had asked that it reference classical literature, if possible, so as to lend him an air of refinement.
What she had settled on was The Sorrow of Martego. With the fee from this commission alone, she could pay down a good chunk of her debt and not worry about living expenses for a while. She might even afford a new easel and better supplies.
So it should have been, without question, a good day.
"........."
So why did every step feel so unbearably heavy?
The baron's villa she approached on those leaden feet was—
"Hurry up! Move it, now!"
"Get the decorations right! I don't want a single thing looking off!"
"Check with the cooks! The ingredients had better be top-shelf, no exceptions!"
"...?"
It was rather—no, considerably—chaotic.
As she hesitated at the villa's front gate, watching what looked like preparations for some grand welcoming ceremony, a man who appeared to be the butler came stumbling out, breathless.
"The painter, yes?"
"That's me."
"In, quickly! We got word that an honored guest is arriving unexpectedly, and the whole villa's in an uproar. You asked where the painting was to hang, didn't you? It's the same spot as agreed—put it up and be on your way!"
"Um, about my payment—"
"You'll be paid the moment the baron inspects it. Now, hurry!"
The butler truly did seem pressed for time; with nothing but those words, he darted off to some other crisis. The other servants were scurrying about in a mad scramble as well.
Rin walked quietly through the commotion until she reached the villa's banquet hall.
A portly man who could only be the baron greeted her, his face positively glowing.
"Oho! At last, you've come!"
"Baron, I've painted it exactly as commissioned. The piece depicts the final scene of the classical novel The Sorrow of Martego, and its protagonist, Martego, is—"
"None of that! Just hang it over there. It'll do fine enough for a painting that's only going up for a short while!"
"........"
Ignoring the baron's words, Rin unwrapped the painting.
"...Hm? Just a moment, painter."
"Is something the matter?"
"The matter? Oh, there's a matter all right!"
The baron stopped her just as she was raising the painting toward the wall, and his voice rose in fury.
That painting—The Sorrow of Martego—
"You're telling me this is what you daubed and brought back calling it a painting!?"
Because in the baron's eyes,
the proportions of the human figure were an absolute mess.