The Golden Key

by Melanie Rawn

“’Vedra—”

  “—let him not suffer what they have done to him—”

  “’Vedra—”

  “—Blessed Mother, Holy Son, let him know peace and no pain—”

  “Oh, ‘Vedra stop it! You sound like a sancta, speaking no word but that it has to do with the Matra ei Filho!”

  She unclamped one hand, lifted trembling fingertips to lips, to heart. “—grant him release—”

  “I’m going to leave you here!”

  Saavedra looked at him. He had never seen such an expression in her eyes: she was sickened, frightened, confused, but also angry. “Go, then,” she said thickly. “Go, Neosso Irrado, and look again inside your head to see what they did to Tomaz. Is it so easy a thing to wipe out of your mind?”

  It was not. But he did not have her softness, her weakness; he was male. He could bear it. He had seen what any male would see, were he Gifted; when the time came—if the time came—for another Chieva do’Sangua, he well could be one of the Viehos Fratos in the Crechetta instead of an outsider hiding in a closet.

  I don’t want to wipe it out of my mind. I want to see it again. It was, after all, the only way he could understand it, could study what was done, so he would know how. It was a hunger, knowing how. “Magic,” Sario murmured. “That was magic, ‘Vedra!”

  With a muffled sound of disgust, Saavedra turned away. She tossed wet hair back from her face, tugged her tunic back into some semblance of proper shape, and looked around the zocalo. “Bells,” she murmured, brightening. “Birthing bells … the Duchess has had her baby!”

  It mattered not at all to Sario, who cared little about such things as ducal babies. Except— “Merditto! The Duke will have that filho do’canna Zaragosa Serrano paint the Birth … Matra Dolcha, but that graffiti-crafter will inflict yet another mediocre painting upon the Galerria, and Grijalvas far more gifted than he will have to paint all the copies!”

  Color flared in her cheeks. “Well, when you are Lord Limner, you can make certain the Galerria boasts only your masterworks, eh?”

  She meant it as derision, as repayment for his impatience; he had annoyed her yet again. But he did not take it as such. “I will be Lord Limner. And I will paint masterworks. And the Serranos will be reduced to copying my work.”

  “Oh, Sario—”

  “I will.” The bells, pealing again, nearly drowned out his words. “Zaragosa Serrano had best count his days, Saavedra. They will be mine soon enough.”

  Alejandro Baltran Edoard Alessio do’Verrada, in the transitory and negligent space of time between the dawn and noon, was transmogrified from only child to older brother. This time he was old enough to comprehend the change and what it wrought; before, twice before, he had been too young to know anything but that his mother shut herself away and cried, and his father, who ordinarily spent much time with his son, went away from both son and wife, away from the city entirely, to Caza Varra, a private ducal retreat.

  It could yet happen again, of course; no newborn was assured of life except he or she be properly blessed by the Matra ei Filho. If found lacking in grace, the blessing was denied and the child died. It was after all not fit to be a citizen of Tira Virte if the Matra ei Filho denied that blessing, so the death therefore was a gift.

  Or so the sanctos and sanctas claimed, echoing the words of their superiors. The Premia Sancta and Premio Sancto did not always agree—or so snippets of gossip said—but in this they were united: stillborn children or infants who died were not worth mourning.

  So his mother the Duchess had locked herself away so no one but her ladies might know she cried, and his father departed the city. And he was left to fend for himself in Palasso Verrada.

  Today he fended for himself not because of a baby’s death, but because of its birth; today he was superfluous. And so he occupied himself by contemplation of his state in the world, and curiosity about such things as what exactly happened when a baby died. Two younger sisters had died; were entombed in the undercroft with other do’Verradas … and yet supposedly they had been denied the blessing of the Matra ei Filho because they did die; so it did not follow that children denied the blessing should be put into family tombs with carved marble effigies marking their brief presences in the world.

  It made no sense to Alejandro. What happened when adults died? Surely they had been blessed throughout their lives, or they would have died as children; and when they died as adults they were mourned, sometimes extravagantly so. But had the Matra ei Filho, for some unknown but naturally exalted reason, withdrawn the blessing bestowed at birth? Was that why adults died?

  No one in the Palasso seemed moved to explain it to him. The servants grew flustered, red of face, and fled. Those of higher rank, whom he accosted as he found them, even departing the garde-robes, were no more able to explain it; or were unwilling to, because many of them told him—politely, of course—that perhaps he might take his questions to his nurse.

  But his nurse was with the new baby, and he was denied entry into the private quarters where his mother and new sister resided. And so eventually he wandered into the kitchens, where the cooks were preparing a First-Day Feast—Premia Dia, as she was a girl-baby—in honor of the new ducal daughter. He was given a bowl and spoon to lick, then banished, kindly, to a corner, where he would be allowed to play duke in the cooks’ duchy—but only from a distance.

  And so it was that the boy who would one day rule them all was told for the first time in his life that he was different; that life was divided; that some in the world were more favored than others; that he and those of his house were better than everyone else in the entire duchy.

  Because, they explained, that was the way the world was.

  The cooks, turnspits, and potboys seemed only too willing to discuss with him what death was, and what life was, and how the Matra ei Filho, blessed be Their Holy Names, differentiated between children born to do’Verradas and peasants, the camponessos; between the nobility and the merchants; certainly between pure-born Tira Virteians and half-breed Tza’ab chi’patros; between the holy sanctas and sanctos and the Premia Sancta and Premio Sancto, and even the lowliest initiatas and initiatos, but newly admitted to orders, who were nonetheless, because they served the Matra ei Filho, better than everyone else.

  Except for the do’Verradas, naturally, who were more blessed than anyone … although that summing up spawned a heated discussion between meat-cook and baker over who was truly more important in the eyes of the Matra ei Filho: His Grace the Duke, who gave order to the duchy, or their Honored Eminences the Premia Sancta and Premio Sancto, who gave order to the Holy Ecclesia, which claimed primacy over all the myriad smaller Sanctias and shrines scattered throughout the city and the duchy.

  Bored by philosophical semantics, however badly phrased in vulgar gutter slang, Alejandro climbed off his stool, gravely set the licked bowl and spoon on the seat, then went out of the kitchens altogether.

  This day had brought two births, then: his sister’s, as yet unnamed; and his understanding that power accompanied his family’s name. His name.

  He was Alejandro Baltran Edoard Alessio do’Verrada. One day everyone in Tira Virte, possibly even the Premio Sancto and Premia Sancta, would do what he asked—or told—them to do. He would have as his responsibility, by the grace of his birth and the blessings of the Mother and Son, the shaping of the world.

  Alejandro giggled. One day he could cause to have changed anything he wished—even a thing so inconsequential as the color and flavor of his favorite candy.

  Which today was chocolate so dark as to be very nearly black.

  Outside, Ecclesia and Sanctia bells pealed a welcome to the new little do’Verrada. Inside, the ten-year-old Heir grappled with the newfound realization that he was not and never could be like anyone else.

  In the netherworld between dark and dawn, Saavedra did not sleep. She lay awake from the moment she went to bed in her tiny student’s cell, knotted of limbs and belly as she coiled upon herself in an attempt t
o ward her body against fear, against comprehension, against the lurid colors of what she had seen slashed like smeared paint across the paletto of her inner eye.

  Tomaz.

  Chieva do’Sangua.

  And Sario, blissfully fascinated.

  Neosso Irrado, Sario had called Tomaz. Had called himself. And it was true; she had known Tomaz as an angry young man, too old to be called boy, too young to be called master. Gifted, and thus gifted beyond many, even other Grijalvas, Tomaz was frequently given to dramatic displays of artistic temperament, to complaining unceasingly about certain traditions of the family. And to a vast and abiding impatience to share his Luza do’Orro with the world inside the Palasso Grijalva so that one day he might step outside of it into the light of Tira Virteian approbation for a talent far surpassing that of jumped-up Serranos, or of any others who called themselves painters.

  Just like Sario.

  Given to so much, Tomaz Grijalva. And now—given to Chieva do’Sangua.

  She was at that moment—had been since witnessing the truth of rumor, the sacred discipline of the damned—sickened by what she was: Grijalva. Subject to its joys, its truths, its talents, its gifts— and its Gifteds. And now undone by the same truths, the deeper, hidden truths of what power of talent was, and the Gift.

  No woman bore it. No woman was permitted certain knowledge. No woman was admitted to the private dealings of Gifted males, the Viehos Fratos. She had resented it; now she blessed it. They were blind, all the other Grijalva women, asked only to bear children. Denied the Gift, they wielded no power beyond that of the household. Claimed no magic. Knew no truth.

  Innocence, she had felt prior to this day, was a quality much exaggerated, robbing women of equality. And yet now, this moment, because of this day, she would never be innocent again.

  Saavedra twisted in summer bed linens. They were soaked beneath her, as was her nightshirt. Her eyes were gritty with exhaustion, but she could not sleep. And so she got up and went to the window overlooking one of the small starlit inner courtyards of the Palasso Grijalva, to the table before it, hosting ewer and basin. It was meant for washing; Saavedra poured water into the basin, cupped it in both hands, lifted, and drank. Then poured the remaining water over her chin and neck and down the front of her nightshirt, so that it stuck to budding breasts, the slight curve of her belly, the indentation where Matra, in the womb, had set holy lips to unborn flesh; to the tops of her thighs.

  She was twelve years old. In a handful of years she would be married, bearing children. Until then, she would not sleep again without seeing what was done to Tomaz Grijalva, Neosso Irrado.

  “Blessed Mother and Son,” she murmured, “let Sario be not so angry as Tomaz.”

  Let him be not so foolish.

  Sario put on dark tunic and baggy trousers, soft felted slippers, and went out from his tiny estudo’s cell into the corridors. He took with him candle, flint, and striker, but did not light it; he tucked all into his voluminous tunic pocket—accustomed to chalks, bits of dried resin, pigment powders—and made his way all the way back to the narrow corridor so close to the Crechetta. He slipped behind the painted curtain, into the chamber beyond; climbed and descended stairs, reached at last the narrow lath-and-plaster door. There he paused, lighted the candle, and put his hand upon the latch.

  It was in him to know if they knew, any of them, that he and Saavedra had discovered the odd little closet. If the residue of her sickness remained, noisome as it might be, they were safe; if someone had cleaned it away, they were discovered. And no doubt a search would be instituted, no matter how subtle, to discover who had been in the hidden closet over the Crechetta during Chieva do’Sangua.

  He was himself prepared to clean up Saavedra’s mess, though he ought to make her do it. But he would not; he took responsibility for urging her to accompany him, though he had not expected such a weak stomach. It was a task he set himself, to learn if they knew, and if they did not he would make certain they never did.

  Sario lifted the latch and opened the door. The candlelight, even from a poor stub of lumpy, pungent wax and smoking wick, filled the entrance and fled like vermin up the twenty-eight stairs, pausing only at the edge of the slant-ceilinged closet itself.

  Movement. Sario froze. They know—they’ve found out—

  Again movement, coupled with a voice made raw by screaming, thickened by crying. “Who is that? Is someone there?” A scrabbling from above. “I beg you, aid me … O Blessed Mother, aid me—”

  Sario gulped breath. Matra Dolcha, are we found out? No, surely not; would he be asked for aid if so? Unless it be a trap— His hand trembled, and the flame nearly went out. He steadied it with effort, groping one-handed for the latch. If we are found out … And then into attenuated illumination at the top of the stairs scrabbled a body, which huddled itself precariously on the sharp-angled cusp of the tiny closet floor and the narrow staircase.

  Sario, startled for the first time in his life into abject and utter silence, stared gape-mouthed at the man.

  “Have you come to help me?” The man braced himself against the walls with racked, bone-fevered hands, knuckles swelling flesh obscenely, lumps and calluses disfiguring what had been agile fingers, disciplined fingers, now wrenched awry until what the man used to steady himself was little more than warped, misshapen claws. Gold glinted briefly in the rich folds of costly fabric; he had been a vain man, once, who catered to self-adornment. “Are you there?”

  The candle spilled light into all but the most distant of the corners. And yet the man asked if Sario were there.

  I am … but he said nothing, could say nothing at all, not yet; merely swallowed heavily, painfully, and gazed in sickened fascination upon the opaque milky substance that filled the man’s eyes.

  The body was young, the flesh, the bones, the hair, the features. He was in all ways, in all things, Tomaz Grijalva, fine-boned and blazingly talented, Gifted and gifted. But Neosso Irrado.

  And duly disciplined.

  Realization was absolute: This is what it was for. The direst punishment that could be visited upon a Gifted Grijalva: discipline of the damned. As indeed this man was damned.

  Sario’s voice echoed softly in the confines of flame-washed imprisonment. “You will never paint again.”

  Tomaz spasmed. “Who is that? Who is there? What do you want? Have you come to gloat? Is this a part of the punishment?” Startled from balance, he scrabbled for purchase with ruined hands. “Who are you, cabessa merditto?”

  Sario laughed. He could not help himself. “Neosso Irrado, Tomaz … just like you.” And then an irrational comprehension crashed into his mind and bounded unchecked onto his tongue like an untrained, ill-mannered hound. “But wiser than you …” He hiccuped with brief laughter. “… because me they will never catch!”

  “Filho do’canna—who is that?”

  Fascination overrode shocked horror now. They had denied him so much, the moualimos who saw youth in place of talent; who recognized the talent and tried to contain it, to turn it, to make him distrust it in the name of their traditions, their control. What crouched before him now, begging help for blinded eyes and ruined hands, was the fault of his teachers, of the Master Limners, of the Viehos Fratos who ruled without imagination, without the wit to acknowledge his gifts.

  They are afraid of me … they will do to me what they have done to Tomaz. Fear. Why else was there justification to destroy another’s talent? Tomaz’s Luza do’Orro remained in his brilliant if undisciplined mind, but the means to share it with the world was forever denied.

  Discipline of the damned. Profanation incarnate of what the Grijalvas worshiped, a far more exacting deity than the Blessed Mother and Her Son.

  The Gift. The Golden Key—Chieva do’Orro. And its use.

  Sario drew in a careful breath. A cruel, unrelenting focus replaced shock with an unnamed lust far more powerful than that of his youthfully pretentious loins. “How was it done, Tomaz? Yes, I saw them do it—I saw them
paint the afflictions into the Peintraddo Chieva, and thus they were visited upon you!—but how was it made to affect you? How was the magic worked?”

  The body collapsed upon itself. “Filho do’canna,” Tomaz sobbed brokenly. “They have sent you to bait me!”

  “Oh, no …” Sario closed and latched the door behind him. “En verro—it is truth, I promise: no one has sent me. I came to learn a thing, and I have learned more.” The candle flame guttered, but Tomaz did not, could not, mark it. “I am Gifted, Tomaz, as are— were—you, but I want to know how such things are done. I need to know—they will claim me too young, a mennino moronno, but I have a hunger in me!” Matra Dolcha, the hunger! “I need to know now, so I may be prepared.” So what has happened to you will not happen to me.

  Silence. Then Tomaz blurted, “Do’nado. I can tell you nothing.”

  No, not nothing, not denial—not from one who knew the secrets, the truths. “Why not? Do you bear them loyalty, after what the Viehos Fratos have done to you?”

  Tomaz’s unsteady breathing was loud in the staircase. “You are not to know until you have achieved Confirmattio.”

  “It begins with the Peintraddo Chieva,” Sario said intently. “Doesn’t it? A self-portrait, perfect in every way … and it was their Gifts which brought these afflictions upon you, Tomaz! What loyalty is owed?”

  Silence, save for breathing. And then, hollowly, “They will not grant me release. Much as I have no wish to live as this, they will not release me.”

  “Neosso Irrado,” Sario said very softly, “share with me your truths.”

  Tomaz laughed wildly. “You see what truths can gain you!”

  Sario chewed his lip, then revealed his personal truth that only Saavedra knew. “I have read in the Folio.”

  “So? We all read in the Folio!”

  “I have read ahead.”

  “How?” Tomaz accused now. “It isn’t permitted.”

  “What you did was not permitted. You did it anyway. That’s why you’re here.”