The Golden Key (142 page)

“What are you suggesting?” Amazingly, his anger transformed into coldness, not into heat.

“I am suggesting, Don Rohario, that your father is not the son of Arrigo but rather the chi’patro child of a Grijalva limner.”

Edoard would have struck him, at this point. But Rohario had a sick feeling that striking this old man would only—in some twisted fashion—fuel his fire. To imagine the name of his beloved grandmother Mechella—everyone had loved her!—being dragged through the mud when she was not even alive to speak on her own behalf!

Eiha! It made his stomach turn! It was all he could do not to spit at the old man. But he must stay calm. “The Grijalvas have lived under an Edict of Protection for hundreds of years. We have helped
them as they have helped us. I see nothing suspicious in this.” Others had, three hundred years ago. Some of the great baronial families had died out in the intervening years. Others no longer enjoyed intimacy with the Grand Dukes. What did the Grijalvas possess that they had stayed for so many generations the favorites of their do’Verrada rulers?

“Any woman,” continued Azéma, as if he had not heard Rohario’s reply, “scorned by her husband and publically ridiculed by his Mistress, might find solace in the arms of a handsome young man who is constantly at her side. And there was such a young man in her household. His name was Cabral Grijalva.”

Zio Cabral
?

“You have no proof,” said Rohario quietly, all the while wishing he had a sword and could run the merditto do’chiros through the heart. But what if Azéma had already spread these vile accusations elsewhere?

“I have no proof,” agreed Azéma with that same repulsive smile. “But I don’t need proof. I need only cast doubt, Don Rohario. I need only make people wonder, and you can be sure I have already begun to ask questions where others may hear me. Soon these questions will come to the notice of the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta. Once the Ecclesia is involved, proof will be in the hands of the Matra ei Filho. I suppose they will ask Renayo to swear the truth of his parentage on their rings. A small thing to ask, don’t you agree?”

A small thing to ask, indeed. If the accusations that Azéma was making were false. Rohario felt his heart like a cold stone. Why else bother to make such accusations, knowing that a simple pledge on the steps of the Cathedral Imagos Brilliantos could put any doubts to rest, if he did not have good reason to believe that the accusations were true?

  EIGHTY-FOUR  

What
is in plain sight is best hidden. Or so Eleyna discovered when she realized the only way to copy the portrait of Saavedra Grijalva was to do it openly as an exercise supervised by the Lord Limner.

Lord Limner Sario.
Strange to be supervised by a man who was named after the master who had painted this great masterwork. Finding an oak panel had been the hardest part, because of its great size. Providential, indeed, that Sario had already prepared such a panel with boiled linseed oil, for what purpose she dared not ask. But he gave it to her cheerfully enough. The panel took a thin layer of lean oil paint perfectly.

She sketched
The First Mistress
many times, and each time Sario corrected her drawing with a line, a shadow, a subtle change. His copied sketch of the portrait was perfect, so perfect she could almost believe it was the same hand. At last, when she felt confident, she took an unused soft rag and wiped the surface of the panel entirely clean.

Now she was ready to paint. For thirty-two days she did nothing but paint, eat, sleep. At times Beatriz attended her, for Eleyna had told Beatriz the whole story, but Beatriz had other duties—and Eleyna did not want Sario to grow suspicious. Once every third or fourth day she spoke to Agustin at dawn through his tiny painting.

It was impossible, of course, to copy the portrait perfectly. She could study it minutely but never know exactly what combination of colors, of underpainting, of tone and glaze, shadow and highlight, he had used to create
exactly
the effect of Saavedra’s face caught in the mirror. Or the subtle depredations flame had wrought onto the honeycombed candle, cold now, burned down to the last hour. Or the rich ash-rose velvet of her gown, each swagged pearl highlighted with a glint.

Who are you
? Saavedra asked, or so Eleyna imagined she would ask, if she were truly alive in the painting and able to see out into the living world through the reflection in the mirror.

“I am Eleyna Grijalva,” she whispered, embarrassed to speak out loud, yet there was no one to hear. The long hall was forlorn in its emptiness. Trapped, terrified, alone, and forgotten, Saavedra
would surely be grateful for any least reassurance. Even if this was only in her mind, Eleyna felt compelled to speak.

Are you painting me free
?

“No, alas, I cannot do so for I am a woman and not Gifted. But be assured I would if I could. Be assured I am doing this to help you.”

I, too, am a painter.

Sisters, then, Eleyna thought. Of the same blood, though separated by centuries. “Why did Sario imprison you?”

Because he loves me, such as he can love anything beyond the vision that drives him.

So Eleyna’s mind wandered, painting imagined conversations with a woman in a portrait. Was Sario the only one who was a little insane? Sometimes she doubted herself and her own mind. Still, she worked.

What is in plain sight is best hidden.

“Magniffico. I could almost believe I had painted it myself.”

“Master Sario! You startled me.” Eleyna touched her lips, as if afraid he had caught incriminating words on them.

But Sario noticed only the two paintings. “I am pleased with your progress, Eleyna. This would indeed fool all but a superbly trained eye. You have amply repaid my belief in your talent.”

“Grazzo. It is an honor to work with you.”

“Yes,” he agreed. He no longer made any pretense about being a humble younger member of the Viehos Fratos. He reminded her of Andonio Grijalva, who had been Lord Limner before Andreo. A man of austere habits and an iron hand, Andonio had ruled Palasso Grijalva, his brothers, and all the young students with utter confidence in his own superiority. Or so at least he had seemed to the ten-year-old Eleyna who had been brought to his attention and then made the mistake of disagreeing with him.

But Sario was different. A monster, truly, for she no longer doubted that he had murdered Andreo or that he ruthlessly controlled Renayo through the portrait. But she could not begrudge him his arrogance. Not about art.

“Why does she hold a golden key?” she asked.

“Because she is Gifted, though she would never admit it.” His lips were set in a grim line. So astonished was she by this answer that she gaped at him. Women were not Gifted! Preoccupied, he went on. “Tomorrow, when you are finished, you will come to my atelierro. We must finish your portrait.”

Finish her portrait? Made slave or free—

He looked suddenly annoyed, reading her expression. “If you
are not my partisan, Eleyna, then you are my enemy.” He spun and walked away down the Galerria, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor.

She watched him go, then wrenched her gaze away. She must not think of him so often. Eiha! Where was Rohario now? Was he well? Was he thriving? To have his bright energy invest the Galerria would be a mercy. Everyone had become as quiet as Alazais. It was like living in a palasso of ghosts.

She looked down the Galerria. Was this not a palasso of ghosts, of dead do’Verradas, their brides and barons, their favorites and enemies, their Mistresses and favored Limners, all displayed so their influence, their haunting, could never be forgotten or ignored? If Saavedra were alive and could be rescued, what stories would she tell?

Almost finished
, Sario had said, and indeed that was true. There remained a few details: the golden key, the particular shine on Saavedra’s fingernails…

And there, suddenly, she saw it. The oscurra. Tiny letters and symbols cunningly woven into the highlights that gave shine to her nails. Once seen there she saw them everywhere, a pattern spreading out. In light, in shadow, in flame, in darkness, in the folds of her skirts, in the coils of her hair, in the border of the table, in the woodgrain of the door. Oscurra, everywhere, framed by a border that was no obvious border but rather the limits of the chamber. Even the door was spelled, bound with carven symbols she could not read, that she wished desperately she
could
read.

“I’ve seen that door before,” she whispered, but it was a faint memory from when she was a child, exploring forgotten corridors.

Behind the door he imprisoned me. Can you open the door
?

Oscurra, patterns marking the magic of the Grijalva Limners. A door, waiting to be opened. She finally truly believed.

With a new sense of urgency, she put the final details onto the painting. It was almost dark when she finished, and she was too tired, far too tired, to do anything but go back to her room and sleep.

  EIGHTY-FIVE  

The
Viehos Fratos gathered in the ancient chamber known as the Crechetta, buried in the oldest section of Palasso Grijalva. Its whitewashed walls gleamed in the light of candles held in old-fashioned iron stands at each corner of the room. It was cool and damp. The Limners stood—what few of them were left—and waited. A single easel rested in the center of the room, a shrouded painting upon it.

Giaberto blew out all the candles until only one remained lit. Shadows twisted in eerie patterns across the room. Young Damiano, looking grim, brought out a lancet and heated it in the candle flame. He walked to each of the assembled Limners—nine now, besides Agustin, only nine—and took blood from them. The warm blade bit into Agustin’s arm and he stifled a yelp of pain. He was frightened, but he dared not show it.

Damiano brought the vial of fresh blood to old Zosio, who with his arthritic hands could no longer paint but could still mix colors. As Zosio prepared the paletto with tincture of blood, Giaberto unveiled the painting. Agustin gasped, although he had known what it must be: Sario’s
Peintraddo Chieva.

“Chieva do’Sangua,” said Giaberto. “We will all feel pain, for we have blended our power in order to discipline one of our own who has violated the faith of the Chieva do’Orro. No man may wear the Golden Key who uses it for his own sake—” Here he bent his harsh gaze on Agustin, reminding the boy how angry the Viehos Fratos had been when they found out about Agustin’s experiment. And yet that experiment had borne fruit, had it not? “What we do, we do for the sake of the Grijalvas and Tira Virte.”