The Golden Key (70 page)

The boy mulled this over. Then: “There was a smell about both icons. Not oil paint or wood, but something else.”

Dioniso smiled, very pleased. “You have a good nose. It was vervain, the scent of Enchantment, rubbed into the wood back and front before I even made up my paletto.”

Again he was quiet. At length, and very humbly, he said, “This is much more complicated than I ever suspected.”

“But you
have
suspected. It’s a poor excuse for a Grijalva who doesn’t guess much of the truth before Confirmattio.”

“How much truth
is
there?”

“More truth, and more power, and more magic, than any of us ever suspect.”

Awed, Rafeyo breathed, “We Grijalvas are more powerful than anybody in the world!”

He’d been expecting this—indeed, had led the boy to it. All young Limners said the same thing after their first glimpse of magic’s reality. Over the years Dioniso had learned that the answer always given them was true. He said it to Rafeyo now, wearing his most solemn face.

“We use that power in service to the do’Verradas, who protected the chi’patros when we would have been cast out. They saved our lives when a populace crazed with terror of Nerro Lingua would have murdered every last one of us.”

“But if we wanted to, we could be—”

“No,” he said severely. “Never.” Pushing aside the memory of Raimon and Il-Adib and the night hours when he himself had not only thought this thing but plotted its accomplishment—before he’d learned otherwise.

“But why?” cried Rafeyo.

“We are of Tza’ab blood. The chi’patros had less standing than the lowliest camponesso on the poorest farm in Tira Virte. That blood can never be cleansed from us, according to the Ecclesia.”

“You don’t
believe
that, do you?”

“Of course not! But others do, and if we ever tried to take power, we’d perish. Even a hundred Viehos Fratos painting a thousand paintings could not influence all the people who would oppose us.
So we use the power we are given, and do not reach for power that can never be ours.”

“But—”

“We are a part of Tira Virte, but we are always apart from it.”

Rafeyo bit both lips, then burst out, “All because of the Ecclesia’s self-righteous—”

“All because it would be foolish even to try.” During his stints as a moualimo within Palasso Grijalva, he’d drilled that into his young charges. Not only was it smart politics, and simple fact, but he dreaded that one day some Neosso Irrado would ignore even more rules than he himself had done, and thereby bring the Grijalvas down with a fatal crash.

To Rafeyo he continued, “And consider the Grand Duke, who has direct power over all Tira Virte. Even with an army of conselhos, he must squint over account books to make sure he’s not being cheated. His home is filled with scheming Courtfolk on whom he must keep constant watch. He must worry about keeping wealth and power—and extending both if possible. He marries as he is told to, and lives a life circumscribed by the most rigid compordotta.”

He stopped, hiding a smile, for Rafeyo was imagining himself Grand Duke of Tira Virte. By the expression on his face, he was shackled to a gigantic ledger with twenty knife-wielding barons at his back—and one of the della Marei grotesques as his wife.

Rafeyo’s eyes were huge with horror. “But—I’d never get to
paint!
”

“Not often.”

“It’s
much
better to be us!”

“I’ve always though so,” Dioniso said dryly. “A Grijalva Limner is honored
above
all the nobility by the Grand Duke. The family takes care of the money, and whatever you need is provided. Palasso Grijalva is a haven occupied only by us. You may marry whom you choose—or not marry at all, as you choose. Our compordotta is not the degenerated mockery it has become in society, all elaborate manners and mannerisms to hide vulgarity and licentiousness, but retains its truest form: a sense of honor. As for power … “ He smiled. “We are free to do what our blood commands us to do.
Paint.
”

“Which is the greatest power of all,” Rafeyo said. “But—doesn’t it bother you that you had to paint what Don Arrigo told you to?”

“It’s part of the service we owe. You’ll come to understand this, and cherish the opportunities it gives you. Although I was
ordered
to paint the icons, and there were certain requirements for each, the creation was mine. This is the joy of what we do, Rafeyo—to impose our own vision and talent and Gift onto a set form, to make a masterwork of the lowliest
Birth
or
Marriage.
”

Rafeyo left soon thereafter, with much to think about. Dioniso finished off the tea, lay back in a bunk that mercifully had settled to a mild cradle-rocking, and fell asleep smiling.

  FORTY  

The
new year of 1263 arrived with due celebrations from which Mechella was grateful to be excused. Through the winter she was so ill and listless that Arrigo feared for the child. Eminent physicians arrived, clucked like gossiping chickens, opined that nothing ailed her but a difficult pregnancy or perhaps the weather—and presented their bills.

As spring neared, the bigger Mechella got, the better she felt—and she was so big that twins were indeed rumored. Her energy was such that she volunteered to oversee the planning of the children’s celebrations for Astraventa: her favorite holiday.

Mechella’s first contribution to the religious and social life of Tira Virte—beyond rare appearances since her marriage—was to add a Ghillasian touch. Rather than simply hand out little mirrors with which to “catch” falling stars during Astraventa, children would hunt for the mirrors on the Palasso grounds. Her steward nodded enthusiasm in her presence and groaned once he left her, for not just special mirrors but repairs to the gardens would be charged to her privy purse.

The innovation was a great success. By the last sunset glow on the day of the festival, while parents were served cider and star-shaped cakes indoors, hundreds of little boys and girls scampered laughing amid the flowers and shrubbery to seek hundreds of little wooden-handled mirrors decorated with ribbons. Prizes clutched in grubby fists, they ran to the courtyard fountain where Mechella tied the ribbons to hundreds of little wrists. Sweets were distributed as they waited in wriggling anticipation for the “starry wind.”

Night fell; the yearly shower of sparks across the sky began, and all the mirrors turned skyward to catch a bright speck of light. The Palasso walls reverberated with joyous shrieks of success. Parents emerged from indoors to collect offspring giddy with too many sweets and the thrill of having captured a star. Mechella stood at the top of the steps, smiling as the good people of Meya Suerta bowed their respects and thanks.

Then she saw a little girl shuffle past, crying, her mother attempting in vain to soothe her. Mechella descended the steps and
knelt, awkward in her bulk, and took the sticky hand that held the mirror.

“What’s the matter, mennina?”

“Din’t catch’un,” the child sobbed. The mother, dumbstruck by Mechella’s notice, tried to pull her daughter away. Mechella shook her head, smiling.

“Maybe you blinked,” she told the girl, “and didn’t see it. Let’s try to find your star.” She tilted the mirror this way and that to search, her free hand deftly unpicking a tiny Tza’ab glass bead from her spangled gown.

The child peered earnestly into the mirror, frowning, “Issin’ there,” she whimpered.

“Maybe if we turn it this way—oh! Here it is!” And she pretended to pluck the faceted glass bead from the girl’s hair. “No wonder you didn’t see it!”

“Mama! Mama! My star!”

“You know what I think?” Mechella placed it in the child’s palm. “It got lonely for the dark night sky where it used to live, and saw all your pretty black curls, and decided that’s where it wanted to be—not caught in any old mirror.”

Clutching the “star,” the girl hurtled off to show her friends. Mechella pushed herself to her feet, breathing hard, and smiled as the young mother whispered, “Grazzo millio, Dona.” She dipped a curtsy before hurrying after her daughter.

With children and parents gone, it was time for the formal ball. Elsewhere in Tira Virte, more than dancing would mark the festival. Astraventa celebrated procreation, the starry wind symbolizing the gift of life. Soon there would be many weddings, for on this one night even unmarried couples were licensed to “seek falling stars” in every glade and glen, and a child born of Astraventa was a great blessing. Mechella’s brother Enrei had once told her the festival was nothing but an excuse for illicit lovemaking. But Mechella preferred to believe the pretty folklore: stars found shelter in women’s wombs that night, and babies born of Astraventa had very special souls.

Whatever might occur after the ball for the Courtfolk, the holiday’s more rustic aspects were nowhere in evidence at Palasso Verrada that evening. Scores of elegant nobles wore so many crystals and brilliants and sequins and diamonds on their black clothes in imitation of the night sky that it seemed all the constellations had descended to earth to dance.

Mechella, who loved to dance, was mortified by her heavy-footedness. She intended to spend the evening sitting on a sofa until
midnight, when fireworks would send stars upward into the sky, returning what the night had given. But Arrigo insisted she take the floor at his side. She was positive she looked absurd; when she told him so, he only laughed. And as he whirled her carefully across the ballroom, she suddenly discovered she felt light as a feather. So she danced with him, and with his father, and several of the more important noblemen, and the commander of the Shagarra Regiment. At length, pleasantly tired, she settled on her chosen sofa to recover her breath. Arrigo, having done his duty by the other ladies, brought her a cool drink and leaned down to whisper in her ear.

“See Dirada do’Palenssia’s diamonds? Fakes.”

“No!” she exclaimed, scandalized.

“I swear it. And I further swear that the Countess do’Brazzina’s breath could fell a horse. Worst of all was Baron do’Esquita’s sister. She trod on my feet four times. Clumsy as you are, dolcha, at least
you
didn’t break my poor toes!”

She dissolved into giggles. “Arrigo! You are a
shocking
gossip!”

“Oh, but I saved the best for last. You’ve noted, I’m sure, Zandara do’Najerra’s spectacular figure? Well, she owes her waistline to iron corseting and her impressive bustline to cotton padding!”

“Eiha, you could hardly avoid noticing
that.
She pushed it against your chest every chance she got!”

“Mechella!” he scolded, mimicking her tone, and joined her in laughter.

A murmur ran through the crowd just then. From the corner of her eye Mechella saw the conductor lift his baton with frantic haste and urge his musicians to a loud and lively tune. Couples resumed the dance floor, but necks craned as they strove to observe something happening near the ballroom doors.

Amid the shifting dancers Mechella glimpsed a tall, distinguished man escorting a slender woman toward Cossimio and Gizella. The man’s somber black coat was spangled across the shoulders with brilliants, as if he’d been caught outside in the star-fall. The woman positively glittered, her stars in the form of a diamond necklace. White-fire gems, indubitably real, dripped across bare neck and shoulders all the way to swelling breasts that owed nothing to dressmaker’s artifice. Neither did her trim waist require breathless lacing. High-piled black hair was unadorned except by candlelight; rose-red lips wore a faint smile made challenging by the arch of her brows. Dark eyes ignored everyone in favor of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, as was proper—but somehow
Mechella knew the woman had taken due note of every face in the room. Including hers.

She looked up at Arrigo, intending to ask the woman’s name. But then she knew. It was in his eyes—startled, admiring, angry, briefly lit with desire. Mechella felt the sting of tears. How
could
he allow that woman back at Court? But when he glanced down at her, and she saw him grope for words—he who was always swift and supple of speech—his anguish melted her heart. It wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t known. Her hurt became fury at the Grijalva’s arrogant presumption and sheer bad manners.