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