The Golden Key

by Melanie Rawn

It startled Tomaz into a nearly coherent shout. “When they come, I will tell them you were here!”

  Sario wished to hiss him into silence as he had with Saavedra. Instead, he relied on a truth even Tomaz could not deny. “We live so short a time, we Grijalvas … our days are as weeks to others. Yesterday, you had fifteen or twenty years left before the bone-fever twisted your hands, before the milk-blindness robbed you of vision … but now you have none. No years at all.” He paused. “Tell me, Tomaz, and I will do whatever you ask.”

  “Mercy. That is what I ask. That you would release me from this horror to the Matra’s sweet mercy.” Tomaz’s face, painted into a chiaroscuro of light and shadow by Sario’s candle flame, was overpainted now by a torturous knowledge and helpless grief into grotesque caricaturro of the handsome young man he had been but hours before. “Yes, I will tell you—and then you must kill me!”

  Sario’s need for a comprehension of his own talent and gifts did not lead him to a knowledge of how to undertake such a thing as that. The thought and its conception stunned him. “You said—you said ‘release ‘… not ‘kill’!”

  Tomaz’s desperate laughter cracked. “Are you so young, then? So very young, that death is unknown to you?”

  Stung, Sario retorted swiftly. “I know death! The Summer Fever took both my mother and my father three seasons ago!”

  “And so they have had you since, the moualimos? Eiha, then I cry your pardon.” Tomaz sighed. “It begins as it always begins, for Gifted Grijalvas, even for you, one day: with the Peintraddo Chieva. And so it ends as well. Destroy it, mennino moronno, my fellow Neosso Irrado, and you grant me my release.”

  “En verro?”

  Tomaz barked a brief, bitter laugh. “En verro. By my very soul.”

  Matra Dolcha!—here, then, was the first of the real truths, the incandescent Luza do’Orro of the Grijalva Gift.

  Sario’s hungry inhalation hissed. “Tell me!”

  THREE

  “So,” the woman said, “will you leave me now? Set me aside?”

  The man smiled. “Never.”

  “You have a son. You have a daughter.”

  “Having legitimate children does not predispose me to set aside a woman who brings me contentment, even if the relationship is not properly sanctioned by the Ecclesia.” Beside her, in the massive, draperied bed—her bed, his bed; one and the same for two years—he stretched prodigiously. “Matra Dolcha!—but this pleases me! She is healthy, they say, and like to thrive; this time the Matra ei Filho have blessed us.”

  “‘Us?”’

  His spine felt younger already, though it cracked alarmingly. “Tira Virte. Me. The Duchess. And you, viva meya; if I am blessed, you are blessed.”

  Silence. She lay curled beside him, feet intertwined with his own, but she was not much given to silence; if she held it, she was not pleased.

  He levered himself up on one elbow. Her back was to him; he could see the long curve of her delicate spine lying so shallowly beneath smooth young flesh. So young—so much younger than I. With gentle fingers he traced the line of the spine from neck to waist, counting idly: —premo—duo—treo— “What is it? Have I not put your fears to rest?”

  An elegant shrug of a single pearlescent shoulder, once dusted with costly scented Ghillasian powder, now drying after their exertions. The bed linens drooped; she was modest only in a curtain of rich brown hair, and the fall of silk across her hips.

  “Viva meya, what is it? Do you require further proof of my affection? My devotion?” He sighed, letting his hand fall away. “Have I not presented you with the deed to this manor? You are a wealthy woman, suitably honored … and your future is secured. What more could you want?”

  She shifted now, turning to face him. Tendrils of hair, seduced by the dampness of recent lovemaking, coiled against her hairline. “Security for my family.”

  He laughed, then silenced his mirth as he saw she was serious. “Your brother is Lord Limner at Palasso Verrada. Others of your family inhabit Court. You inhabit my bed more often than the Duchess. What more security is there, Gitanna?”

  Her lush mouth, blushed by his attentions, was eloquent, though what it issued was not—quite—a plea. “There is one small thing, Baltran …”

  He could not help but touch her again, to claim the flesh of her breast as his and only his, cradled against his palm. “Name it, then.”

  “Revoke the Ducal Protection of the Grijalvas.”

  He stilled.

  “Is it so much, Baltran? They traffic in dark magic … they plot to replace my family in all things of importance—”

  “Gitanna—”

  “—and no doubt they would as soon replace me with one of their chi’patro women—”

  “Gitanna.”

  “—and if they are not stopped, they will destroy you, Baltran, you and your family—and claim the duchy for themselves!”

  He withdrew from her warmth, her wheedling, her woman’s warfare. Without assistance he could not dress completely—and the servants were under strict orders not to enter the bedchamber— so he donned his clothing unassisted: hosen; loose summer-weight lawn shirt, crimped cuffs and collar untied; soft, thin-soled leather shoes, studded with polished brass at toes and heels. He did not attempt the doublet with its formal and convoluted intricacies.

  “Baltran!”

  He turned to her, clasping the massive, ornate bedpost with a long-fingered hand as he leaned forward. On the forefinger glinted the ducal ring, bloody red in a shaft of midday sunlight slanting through shutters left ajar.

  “For this, I will not blame you, Gitanna … not entirely. They seek to use you in this, when I refuse to listen to their pleas otherwise; eiha, I suppose I cannot blame them for that—they believe what they believe—but I will not lie abed with the same political pettiness that chokes the Court. Recall what is between us, viva meya, and that it has nothing to do with politics or Grijalvas.”

  She was very pale, luminously so. “But it was politics that brought us together! There, at Court—my brother brought me there for you, Baltran—”

  “Or for any wealthy, influential man who might be seduced by your redoubtable charms; it happened to be his Duke.” The hand, partially obscured by pleated cuff, tightened upon the bedpost. “You know nothing of what you request, Gitanna. You know nothing of Grijalvas.”

  “I know they are riddled with baseborn bastards, Baltran! And can even you name how many of them now have Tza’ab blood in their veins? Can even you swear they do not answer that blood, and plot revenge upon Tira Virte for their defeat at Rio Sanguo?”

  “They are Grijalvas,” he said steadily, “all of them. Their unfortunate ancestors—who, I remind you, had no choice in their circumstances!—were accepted as such by the Duchess Jesminia herself, may the Matra ei Filho bless her gracious name—” fingertips to lips, to heart, “—and no one in the do’Verrada family shall ever neglect to serve her wishes in this.”

  “That was more than one hundred years ago!” Gitanna cried. “She is long dead, Baltran—and surely she would admit that the blood of her own family is more important than the blood of either Grijalvas or Tza’ab bandits!”

  “Grijalva blood, spilled in that battle—that is why it became known as the River of Blood, Gitanna, there was so much!—is one of the reasons the do’Verradas rule today,” he said quietly. “You forget yourself, Gitanna. You forget your history.”

  “I know my history, Baltran!” She sat upright now, bed linens wrenched up to modestly cover what a scant hour before had given him so much pleasure. “Oh, yes, bless the name of the gracious Duchess Jesminia who took in those defiled Grijalva women and welcomed their half-breed bastards—but look also at what it has brought us! They live now as serpents in the very bosom of Tira Virte, in Meya Suerta itself. If the Tza’ab chose to attack, they would have confederates right here, Baltran!”

  “The Tza’ab as a unified enemy were destroyed utterly at Rio Sanguo,” he said patiently; it was not a new a
rgument, though never had it issued from her lips. “Additionally, without a holy man to lead them—what remains of them—they will never again attempt to take back the lands that now are ours.”

  “But they did lay waste to the borderlands, Baltran, for nearly one hundred years! The Diviner’s death did not break their hearts; it made them desperate to redeem that death. That’s why the Empress fielded so many against us decades later. And there could be yet another Tza’ab chieftain who styles himself a second Diviner.”

  “Skirmishes, Gitanna; and when there are rich lands to be won there will always be skirmishes, even as Pracanza attempts to carve away our lands. But those of Tza’ab Rih will never be the threat they once were. There is no heart, despite the mouth that wails so eloquently of loss and endless demands for reparation.”

  “But—”

  “Trust me in this, Gitanna … Verro Grijalva himself destroyed the Kita’ab before he died. Without the Diviner and their holy book, there is no guidance, no unifying plan. And even a pretender who claims the Diviner’s name cannot hope to reassemble the Riders of the Golden Wind and lead a Tza’ab army without the Kita’ab.” He shook his head. “They are broken as a force, I promise you … those born of Tza’ab Rih are fallen, the Diviner killed, his Riders shattered. They are all of them merely bandits again—an occasional nuisance, no more. They are no threat to Tira Virte.”

  “But the Grijalvas know things!”

  He laughed, in good humor again despite her desperation. “So do you, viva meya. So do you! And so long as you do—and how to use those ‘things’—you shall please me well!” He held up his doublet. “Now, come dress me as hastily as you undressed me; it is time I returned to the Palasso.”

  Her mouth formed a mutinous line even as she climbed out of bed to help him into his doublet. “You are wrong, Baltran. You dismiss our concerns too lightly.”

  “As I have told your brother, given proof of your beliefs I will indeed move to prevent what you fear. But the Grijalvas themselves were broken by the Nerro Lingua, Gitanna, even as the Tza’ab were broken by battle … too few are born now, and too many die before their time. Their blood—their bandit-bred Tza’ab blood, Gitanna!—is too weak. So is their seed.”

  She tended his doublet with experienced, efficient fingers, tucking here, straightening there, braiding and lacing and knotting and looping. “It requires only one, Baltran. One man of magic, bent on destroying you.”

  He smiled as she tied the collar of his billowy lawn shirt, his cuffs, then smoothed the doublet over it. “And who would that be, Gitanna? Have you a candidate?”

  She shook her head. “You make too light of it, Baltran.”

  “Because they have neither the grounds nor the means to do what you fear. They have their own code of honor, Gitanna—and that is precisely why Verro Grijalva gave his life to save my greatgrandfather Renayo. They serve. They do not rule. Had they wanted to, they might have won Tira Virte by acclamation after Verro’s actions against the Tza’ab, but it was us they acclaimed: Do’Verrada. Not Grijalva.”

  Her mouth was a thin line, flattening the lush curves that so attracted him. “He died, Baltran. Who can say what might have become of him?”

  “He was hailed a hero, never a Duke. Even while he lived.”

  She looked him square in the eye. “Once you do’Verradas were no better than Grijalvas. Warlords, Baltran, no more—though clever enough and strong enough to take and keep. But look at you now. You rule absolutely. All of Tira Virte worships the do’Verradas—after the Matra ei Filho, of course, and the Ecclesia—but who is to say the Grijalvas do not long for the same thing?”

  “Eiha, woman, you weary me with this! I will tell you again: they are a small family severely weakened by the plague. Many of their women cannot conceive children, many of their men cannot sire any. They may never regain their numbers, nor even their physical strength. And they are, as you say, riddled with Tza’ab blood, which is considered a taint by the Ecclesia and many of the citizens—the Tza’ab are infidels, after all, condemned in the eyes of the Mother and Her Son.” He shook his head. “Do you really believe Tira Virte would accept a Grijalva as Duke?”

  The exasperated protest did not even slow her. “It is fortunate for you Verro Grijalva did die, Baltran. You do not know what he might have planned had he survived.”

  Patiently he said, “It was in Alesso’s name our people fought, and then in Renayo’s when we consolidated the duchy. Never in Verro Grijalva’s.” More pointedly, he added, “And never in the name of any Serrano.”

  She had the grace to color. “No,” she murmured, “we inspire nothing, we Serranos—”

  “Except do’Verrada lust.” He smiled, forgiving her. “Viva meya, I thank you for your concern, but you would do better to trust in me than in your ambitious family.”

  “If we are ambitious, it is to retain our place—not to throw down the do’Verradas from theirs and fill it with Grijalvas.”

  “Matra Dolcha, Gitanna, I cry you let it be done, this argument. Bassda! I weary of it.”

  Though naked, she was clad in certainty. “Let none of them come to Court, Baltran. Ever.”

  He sighed deeply, not troubling to hide exasperation. “As long as I live, your brother is Lord Limner. Other than art, the Grijalvas have no avenue by which to join the Court. And when I die, it shall be my son’s decree who succeeds to the position.”

  “He is a boy, Baltran.”

  “Just so, Gitanna … and unless I expire of overindulgence in your bed—far better that way, I think, than of a poisoned Tza’ab dart as Verro Grijalva did!—Alejandro will not be making any appointments until well after his majority.” He tugged at the crimson-embroidered cuffs of his shirt beneath stiff doublet sleeves. “And now it is time I paid my respects to the Duchess. Today we formally name our daughter before the Ecclesia.” He bent slightly, planted a kiss on her brow, and was gone.

  Saavedra, much exercised and out of sorts, found Sario at last in the family galerria within Palasso Grijalva. In the ten days since they had witnessed Chieva do’Sangua each had avoided the other, as if afraid to be reminded of what they witnessed. But now she sought him out; they had been too close for too long to remain apart, and the secret too great to keep to oneself alone. It must be shared with him—had to be shared with him—who knew what she had seen.

  The Galerria Grijalva was not as the Galerria Verrada. It was much smaller, less grand, and distinctly private; no one entered without permission, and permission was never granted save to Grijalvas, who had no need of it.

  “Sario—” He was a slender nonentity in the distant dimness at the far end of the chamber, standing very still before one of the older paintings in the galerria. The long whitewashed chamber was empty save for themselves—and countless paintings of long-dead people—but she lowered her voice nonetheless. The determined whisper carried straight to him. It was an innocuous question; let them hear, if there were any near enough. “Sario, why were you not in drawing class this morning?”

  He turned his head away from the painting then and looked at her. Shocked, she saw that he had lost significant weight; his face was very thin, and the shadows of the chamber, lit by its whitewash and little else, created angled contours she had never seen before. He was of the age when boys grew overnight, all awkward of limbs and voice and movements, but this was not growth. This was something far more serious.

  “Sario!” She hastened the length of the gallery to his side. “Are you ill?”

  He turned back to the painting, hitching a thin shoulder. “No!” A long pause; the set of his mouth was bitter, too bitter for a boy. “Why do we have nothing but copies here?”

  “Copies?” Full of other thoughts, the question at first meant nothing. But the answer took no effort. “The originals are in the Galerria Verrada, of course. Or in private palassos.”

  What filled the galerria were carefully cataloged copies, placed in meticulous arrangement intended to best flatter the paintings, th
eir colors, their composition. Gilt frames, wooden frames, canvas and wood and paper, patinaed and illuminated by natural light permitted entrance by strategically-placed windows and the angle of intricate shutters, as well as precisely-plotted placements of iron candle-stands, closely attended by quiet-colored clay jugs of water and sand, in case of fire.

  “But we painted them,” Sario said. “We did. Grijalvas.” He looked at her again. “They rob us of our heritage.”

  He leaves me behind so often. … “Who does?”

  “The do’Verradas. Serranos. The rich folk of the city.” The hollows beneath the angle of his cheekbones were dark as a dusting of soot, limning brittle bones as sharp as his tone. “They commission the great works from graffiti-crafters like Zaragosa Serrano, strip us of what we once were—and ask us to paint copies of our own works!”

  Saavedra followed his line of vision and looked at the painting. It was a huge canvas, framed in a heavy, ornately-carved wooden frame: Death of Verro Grijalva. He was depicted as a miraculously attractive and unbloodied hero dying in the arms of his beloved Duke Renayo—blessed be his memory—with whom, the stories claimed, Verro Grijalva had been friends since childhood. The slackness in Verro’s handsome face confirmed his death, but it was not that which transfixed the eyes. It was the grief in Renayo’s face, the expression of deep sorrow, of a great and terrible anger—and of fear.

  “A copy,” Sario declared bitterly. “The original hangs in Palasso Verrada.”

  Saavedra studied the painting. The play of light and shadow intrigued her; chiaroscuro was difficult to paint properly, but this artist had been a master. Piedro Grijalva; only a Grijalva, grieving as much for his kinsman Verro as for Renayo do’Verrada, could properly capture the intense emotions of the moment.

  “Tza’ab,” she murmured, for in the background, in the upper right corner, was a lone man, dusky-faced as if burned permanently dark by the desert sun, yet remarkably pale of eye. Magnificently mounted upon a gape-mouthed black horse, he wore dramatic robes of brilliant green, all aglitter with brass and glass, and in one hand clutched a brass-bound carved wooden tube through which had flown the poisoned dart that took Verro’s life.