Chapter 36 - The Maiden and the Cursed Painter

His intuition had not failed him. The painter said,

"Come see, Alexios, my masterpiece! There is so little to be done. Come see how I see you."

Curious, Lex rose from his chair, dragging his shackle, and pulled the veil off his head, going to the painter's side. His surprise was huge when he finally saw the cause of his ten months of captivity.

Accustomed as he was to oriental art forms and Hellenism, and also to orthodox pictography, Lex saw for the first time the technique of oil painting, the most modern expression of Western art. Out of boredom, he had even helped prepare the pigments by grinding gems and minerals for the painter, but he had not yet seen his portrait as a young, resplendent, innocent madonna, bathed in heavenly light and surrounded by little angels that reminded him of chubby Cupids.

"Ohhh!" Was ecstatic, even forgetting it was a portrait of himself.

The painter laughed, delighted and vain, letting a hand sneak around Lex back, bringing the 'Greek boy' close to him.

A shiver of revulsion ran through his body.

Lex discreetly disentangled himself, but when he actually tried to put a distance between them, the redhead wrapped his arms around the boy's waist, turning Lex to him with eyes full of lust. The youngster, disgusted, shook his head, denying permission, but the painter just got angry at the refusal.

He tried to use force to make Lex sit on his lap, but the Greek was slippery and nimble, and in moments it became a silent fight, where the smallest tried to escape the largest. Lex kicked the stool where Jan de Bruges placed his painting material next to the easel, thinking that this would distract him enough to move away. But the lustful satyr had only one purpose in mind, and he put his full weight on Lex's small body, turning him face down. Lex, more than desperate, was possessed by deep hatred against the vile man who wanted to **** him.

More hatred made him hear the rattle of the chain at his ankle. Lex hated the painter and his scent of onions, hated the oily smell of paints, hated the carpets in that room and the smell of frankincense impregnated on everything.

He felt the fabric at his waist tear with the hard pull the man applied on it, and the cold air touching the rarely exposed skin of his buttocks. One more tug, a sore squeeze on his soft flesh, and the pervert moved his body a little, clearly pushing his own clothes away urgently.

Then the shock,

"But you, you are not…"

It was enough time for Lex to reach out and grab one of the paintbrushes, and push down hard between Jan's metacarpals, on his hand resting on the floor near the maiden's face. She heard the flesh tearing and the wood crack with a sharp sound, and only stopped pushing when she felt the contact of the object in her hands with the floor, crossing and breaking on the other side.

The scream of pain.

The long, desperate howl of pain.

Who was this damn bastard to dare screaming in pain?

Lex also shouted, in fury, loud and animallike, turning and releasing all her anger in one more blow, which hit the red-haired man's throat. Blue eyes wide with shock, and the strange sound of blood and air pouring through the hole where the rest of a brush was stuck in.

It was all very fast. She covered the nakedness of her inner parts and walked away, still looking at the damn painter who was silent, knowing that if he screamed, he would possibly die.

"I curse you… Your life will be long, for the hounds guarding hell won't let you in. You will beg for relief and rest, but your life thread will not be cut ... Perverted hypocrite, your name will be forgotten; your enemies, exalted," she muttered word for word deliberately, looking intently at Jan de Bruges.

Then she remembered the painting, and rose again, ignoring the horrible wheezing the man was making, now lying on his side on the floor, agonizing in pain.

Lex took an ink pot and opened it, ready to throw it at the madonna and erase it forever, when the door opened and the room was invaded by the palazzo's security, followed by Rinaldo.

It was the palazzo's owner who held her wrist and took the ink, punching her in the face which made Lex fall near the bed, bleeding.

She cried at the shock of what had happened, not at the pain in her face.

They took the painting and Jan away, and locked the maiden again.

The other day, Rinaldo entered the room, finding Lex in bed, despondent and dispirited.

"So, you deplorable thing, are you a girl, in the end?" he waved a poorly written note that read the word 'woman' scrawled in charcoal at her face. It was surely the filth painter who had denounced her with his left hand. Lex just turned her face, and said,

"Your ploy loses nothing. I'm still a monster and a demon, this painting is horrendous and smells of blood, heresy and sin."

The crazy courtier laughed, delighted,

"Yes! Yes! I will still have fun and profit from my little Paradise serpent. He can't talk! He cannot speak anymore! And there are those who would pay fortunes for a night with you, no matter what is under your nightgown…"

Lex felt a freak and pitied herself after Rinaldo's ironic words, and just lay in bed, caring no more. She had no desire for anything anymore.

Lex had no idea how much time had passed, only that there was a time when the old deaf woman helped her bathe, eat, and even gave her a rosary, which the woman kept pulling in her hand.

Rinaldo would sometimes brag about how the madonna, though not finished, was the reason of covet and gossip in the halls of Venice. He also informed her that the price of her first night was already more than a thousand ducats, and it would be soon.

But that didn't even matter to her anymore.

That night she dreamed of her brother Michalis, the firstborn. He, as always, fierce and dignified, the lion of Dallassenos family, was beside her bed, accompanied by two other figures. Somehow the world was under divine judgment outside her alcove, but there, Lex was protected by her eldest brother.

She woke up from her restless sleep, smelling smoke and hearing screams and cries, pandemonium and sounds of clashing metal. Her door slammed open, but the dim candlelight did not allow her to see clearly behind the curtain of her bed.

She knelt on the bed and asked,

"Who's there?"

The answer was,

"He who came to kill you."