The Golden Key (148 page)

Indeed, the Luza do’Orro. Woman or no, Eleyna was as much a Limner as any.

Crisply, Saavedra said, “I suggest Eleyna go to him, but she must carry a note. From me, in my handwriting, which he—
my
Sario—knows. And if it is indeed that Sario, he will come to me.” She looked at the young woman, his estuda, knowing how painful her next command would be. “When he is gone, Eleyna must destroy all of his paintings in the manner Giaberto has described. All. And once Sario comes to me, here in this Atelierro, we all of us must deal with him. Viehos Fratos. I. As perhaps only I can.” No pain in it, now. Only ruthless necessity.
As he taught me.
“I will require paints. I will require this floor scrubbed clean.”

Giaberto stirred uneasily. “What do you mean to do?”

Saavedra smoothed both slim hands down the heavy folds of her skirt. “Sario is brilliant, but he made two disastrous mistakes born of his certainty that no one could see what lay before him—or her.” She drew breath to tell them. “First, he proved to me that I, too, am Gifted … and he painted the
Folio
that was also
Kita’ab
into the room. There I read secrets—
recipes
—of powerful Tza’ab magic.” She nodded once. “I promise you, Nommo Chieva do’Orro, that I will trap my cousin so he can harm no one again.”

They no longer questioned, she saw; acknowledgement, acceptance, was begun. A young Limner brought paper and chalk, set both upon the table.

Cabral’s voice, quiet and calm. “There is one more thing before we act so precipitously. A thing that you, the Viehos Fratos, must know, and that all the Grijalvas will come to know.” He glanced briefly at Eleyna. “As you have no doubt heard, the Provisional Assembly has finished drafting its Constitussion. In two days they will meet in the Cathedral Imagos Brilliantos, at the feet of the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta, and the assembly will present this document to the Grand Duke.” He looked at each of them, including Saavedra. “And on that day I believe an eloquent man of
good birth will stand and proclaim in the Blessed Names of Matra ei Filho that Grand Duke Renayo is a bastard. A chi’patro Grijalva, in fact. Not a do’Verrada at all.”

It shook her profoundly, even as it shook them, though the reasons were different. For them, their Duke was threatened; for her, the taint of Tza’ab blood running in the flesh of a man believed to be do’Verrada was all too immediate. Once again her hands closed over skirt folds to clasp the slight swelling that betokened her own chi’ patro do’Verrada.

“Surely,” she said, “your Duke Renayo may have this man exiled or imprisoned for such insolence.”

Cabral smiled sadly. “And what if such insolence is true?”

Giaberto snorted. “Lies! These Libertistas have no shame. There is no more contemptible slur they may find, en verro—they will stoop as low as they must. Cabral, how can you believe anyone could accept this?”

“If the accuser, this eloquent man of good birth, is the cousin of Baron do’Brendizia? If he demands that Grand Duke Renayo swear on the sacred rings of the Premio Sancto and Premia Sancta that he and his heirs are truly do’Verrada?” Cabral shook his head slightly. “What if he cannot swear it, for fear of his soul? Who dares lie before the Matra ei Filho?”

Giaberto’s face flushed an unbecoming deep red. “Do you mean to suggest, Cabral, that you
believe
Renayo do’Verrada is not Arrigo’s son?”

It was beyond Saavedra, until Eleyna leaned close and whispered explanation: Arrigo was the current Grand Duke’s father.

Giaberto’s laughter was wild. “Even if it were true, for some impossible reason, can you imagine what it would do to Tira Virte? To reveal that the man who is Grand Duke is
not
a do’Verrada?” He shook his head. “Arrigo’s first son died without issue. His daughter married that nobleman from Diettro Mareia, and her children are foreigners.”

In her head, Saavedra used the old term so familiar to her:
estranjiero.

Giaberto went on. “Arrigo’s sister, Lizia, has only two surviving grandchildren, both of her son Maldonno: the young Countess do’Dregez, who is named after Lizia, and her brother, the future Count do’Casteya.”

“En verro,” Cabral agreed quietly.

“We are already perilously close to riot with these Libertista agitators, Cabral. What would happen to the Grijalvas? Without the Ducal Protection issued and upheld by the do’Verradas, where
would
we
be?” Giaberto shook his head angrily, clearly frustrated. “I think you are a revolutionary, Cabral. And agitator. Why else would you take up the case of a discontented madman?”

Cabral’s calm disintegrated. “Cabessa bisila, ‘Berto! So that we may be prepared with a reply! Precisely so we may protect Tira Virte, the do’Verradas, and ourselves. We must warn Renayo.”

Giaberto flung up his hands in disgust. “Grand Duke Renayo a bastard? Impossible! And if it
were
true, what filho do’canna is supposed to be his father?”

Cabral shut his hand over his silver Chieva and gripped it tightly. “I will thank you, ‘Berto, not to speak of my mother in such a fashion.”

Silence. Even Saavedra understood the implication.
It is truth: a do’Verrada does not rule Tira Virte.

Eleyna went pale and murmured a man’s name. Saavédra did not know it, any more than she had known Arrigo’s name.
So much now I neither know nor understand.
The world had shifted under her feet, robbing her of foundation. And yet from the ruins of her life something new must be built. Not merely for her own sake.

Into the thunderous silence left by the cessation of the shock, she spoke of something infinitely personal. “What became of Alejandro?” she asked. “He, too, was a Duke—a do’Verrada Duke, with no hint of bastardy or chi’patro in his flesh. What became of him?”

Eiha, but it hurt: the knowledge, the acceptance. Never to see him again, save for portraits; never to touch, to embrace. Never to speak to him, only
of
him, and to strangers.

Estranjieros.

Cabral’s voice was gentle. He understood her grief. “He reigned many years. He married—”

“The Pracanzan.” She knew it. She and Alejandro had spoken of the woman, and she had cried into his fine velurro doublet.

“En verro. Though he married later than his conselhos desired. Because, the tale goes, of the great grief he suffered when his beloved left him.” Silenced then by the living embodiment of that loss, and the truth of its departure, Cabral halted awkwardly.

They came at last, the tears, nurtured as much by the compassion in his voice as by her own pain. But he knew, did Cabral; by his own confession, he knew as well as she the sorrow in loving one forbidden.

He went on gently as she wiped tears away. “With Sario Grijalva as Lord Limner, Alejandro ruled Tira Virte with a generous and
even hand for many years. He is beloved as one of our great Dukes.”

She smiled. “He became, then, what he feared he could never be.” And recalled so clearly how she had assuaged that fear.

Silence still. They waited for her, stunned by her.
Fearing
her. She saw it in their faces, in their postures. She had seen that regard before, those postures, in men and women who looked at Sario.

Save for Cabral, and Eleyna. Who understood for utterly different reasons why they need not fear her at all.

I will have them all respect me. I am as they are: Gifted. But I am not Sario.
Again she cradled the swelling deep beneath velurro folds.
Alejandro, amoro meyo, I swear to you by the love we swore to one another that this child will have what is due by right of birth and blood.

She gazed upon them all, recalling their shock when Cabral confessed the truth: Tira Virte’s Duke was of bastard blood. Drew a breath. It was time. Far past time, because of Sario.

“I do carry a child,” she said. “Alejandro’s child. Grijalva. Chi’patro. But also do’Verrada. What will become of
him
?”

  EIGHTY-NINE  

Of
course she returned to him. She came humbly and begged his forgiveness.

The Courtfolk in the Palasso had celebrated Mirraflores Eve with a ball. He had not attended. He was furious. Furious! Let them dance while the mob crouched waiting outside the gates, with their hulking beast’s patience born of long days of boredom and the knowledge that their trap—their Constitussion—was soon to be sprung. Let them dance while his heart raged within.

It galled.
She
and the boy, one unGifted, one untrained. How had they discovered this means to speak through Blooded paintings? How much more could he have done had
he
thought of it! Had he killed Il-Adib too soon? Had there been more the old Tza’ab man meant to teach him?

He had sat the entire night, long after the lamps and torches were extinguished, in his private chamber, and stared sightlessly at his canvasses. Surely he had done enough—and yet it was
never
enough.

He was Lord Limner now—again!—as he had intended all along. Grand Duke Renayo was his to command. Through Princess Alazais, Renayo would rule Ghillas or even annex Ghillas as a new province as Alejandro—with Sario’s aid—had annexed Joharra. If these Libertistas proved too dangerous, he would simply murder some as he had murdered the last male heir to Casteya, allowing Tira Virte’s first Clemenzo to wed the last daughter of the house of Casteya and thus bring it into Tira Virte’s orbit as well. The title of Duke had not been worthy enough for the first Benetto, so he—as Riobaro—had through a series of Blooded
Treaties
arranged the marriage to the della Marei heiress, whose political ties and colossal wealth had enabled Benetto to declare himself Grand Duke. If he—as Sario—wished, Renayo could now style himself with a grander title. Prince. King. For all these years and years he had served the do’Verradas and Tira Virte. Just as he had been taught to do.

But why? What did it matter, any of it? What was the point of being Lord Limner? What did he care who ruled, or if these Libertistas had their Constitusion?

His estuda had left him! What was the point in life if not to pass on his great knowledge? If not to be acknowledged as the greatest Grijalva painter who had ever lived?

It had been so fine a joke for so long, his own private jeer at all the moronnos who thought themselves such experts about art and never recognized that all those pictures had been painted by one hand. But amusement had long since palled. He felt an intense compulsion to unlock the Galerria this very night, to change all those false attributions.
Sario Grijalva
on this painting,
Sario Grijalva
on that,
Sario Grijalva
on all the finest pieces.

And he could do it. He could steal inside the Galerria and sign the truth on each and every one of
his
compositions. The truth, at long last.

To stand before them all, to acknowledge that all these works were his and more besides, to watch their eyes as they realized how much they owed to him and him alone. Where would the do’Verradas be without his skills? How many thousand Tira Virteian youths would be dead in battle if not for his cunning that had kept war at bay? Which of the great merchant houses would still be struggling in anonymous squalor in tiny villages had he not made their country an economic power? Who among the scented bravos swaggering their titled wealth through the Court would be sweating in their own barley fields, no better than peasants, if Sario Grijalva had not done what he had done?

But no one would understand. All the beauty, all the achievement, all the benefits of his long, long life.…

No one
could
understand. Except an estuda, properly trained.
She
must remain faithful to him, just as Saavedra always had.

Nothing else mattered. Nothing.

The night passed with agonizing slowness.

But in the end, in the morning, at the midday bells on Mirraflores Day, she returned. Of course she returned. “Master Sario,” she said, head bowed modestly. “I beg your pardon. I have come back.”

“Of course. Adezo! You have finished, I presume, the copy of the portrait of Saavedra? We will go at once to the Galerria and examine it. Then we shall decide which painting you are to begin next.”