The Golden Key

by Melanie Rawn

  Quietly he asked, “Is that what you fear? That I want the duchy for myself?”

  Raimon’s expression was stark. “There was a time when it might have been ours,” he said softly. “When others were poised to hail a Grijalva as savior, and thus our present—and our future—would have been significantly different. But Verro Grijalva died, Sario. He took a Tza’ab dart meant for Renayo do’Verrada, and died in his Duke’s arms.”

  “And thus sealed our role as servants forever,” Sario said bitterly.

  After a moment, Raimon shook his head. “You are the most gifted—and Gifted—Grijalva I have ever known. And the most dangerous.”

  It stung. Far more deeply and painfully than expected. “You fear me, too?”

  “The very thing that drives you to such ambitions in your work, that is your personal Luza do’Orro, could overtake and transform you, Sario. Ambition, to be effective, to be useful, must be controlled and directed. Or it is nothing more than base, selfish lust.”

  “Power,” Sario answered baldly, stripping away from it the civilized speech and cutting to the bone.

  Raimon met the challenge without prevarication. “Yes. Naked, infinite power, as you would have it be. But that day on the battlefield a Grijalva’s death determined the role Grijalvas would play in life, in the ordering of a new realm—and it is not as rulers.”

  Sario laughed softly, though it was lacking in humor. “Had Verro let Renayo do’Verrada die, we would be Dukes instead of limners!”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But he made that choice.”

  “Not for me.”

  “But it was, Sario. He made it for us all—and then the Tza’ab made it certain.”

  Sario knew; they all knew. “By stealing Grijalva women and getting bastards upon them.”

  “Chi’patros,” Raimon said quietly. “Our ancestors.”

  “Despised and hated by the others, especially the Ecclesia!”

  “It was basest infamy, what the Tza’ab did to those women, but it became our infamy as well. The Tza’ab were the enemy, Unbelievers—and they dishonored our family, bred a taint into our blood … which in turn was reviled by others who were untainted.” Raimon adroitly redraped the Peintraddo with its brocade cloth, hiding the blemished image of a young boy whose talent was manifest, if not the blazing of ambition. “The Ecclesia has made it clear they consider us unclean because of the infidel taint. It is one of the reasons they hate us. But there is more, you see. We are different from them, and difference is feared.”

  “They are sanctified fools!”

  “Some of them, yes. Others believe sincerely. But so long as the Ecclesia claims us tainted, the people will believe it as well.” He paused a moment, as if seeking self-control, then continued. “But there is something else, Sario. The strength of a ruling family lies in its potency, in its life span. We are weak in both.”

  “Once we were strong in both.”

  “And the Matra ei Filho spurned that strength.” Raimon shook his head. “The Nerro Lingua was punishment, Sario … we overstepped. Grew too bold. And thus we were humbled.”

  “Tell me,” Sario said acidly, unable to stop himself, “did the Mother and Her infant Son actually say so?”

  Raimon did not answer with anger or equal hostility, but with a serenity Sario found infinitely galling. “A true Limner understands and embraces divine metaphor, even as it is visited upon him.”

  “But—”

  “Bassda!” Curtly banishing equanimity, Raimon stepped forward smoothly until he stood very close to Sario. “Do you count me a fool? A cabessa bisila? It is your freedom to do so, of course—I will not stay you from the privacy of your thoughts … but do not believe for one instant that you are alone in ambition, in the Luza do’Orro that demands release.”

  “Then why—”

  Raimon abruptly and without habitual decorum tore back from his left wrist the doublet sleeve and cuff of his shirt. “I have worn your shoes, Sario! I have even worn your name: Neosso Irrado!”

  As he was meant to, Sario looked upon the bared forearm. Across the inside of the wrist where the flesh was most tender, an age-silvered weal was deeply scored.

  “The Lesser Discipline,” Raimon said curtly. “The men who ordered it done are dead, of course; they were on the cusp at the time. I can tell you only what they told me: that divisiveness and disruption does not serve the family and shall not be tolerated.”

  Sario wet dry lips. “And so they quenched the fire in you.”

  “Did they? Have you studied my paintings of late?” Raimon’s features were stark as bleached canvas. “Not ‘quenched,’ Sario— redirected. And I have come to believe that if I can be of some small service to my family—my poor, denuded family—that it is in all ways enough for me.”

  “I don’t want ‘enough,”’ Sario said. “I want more.”

  Raimon’s smile was bittersweet. “Then I don’t fear you, Sario … I fear for you.” He cut off an answer with an inclination of the head. “Your pardon, grazzo—but I have other duties.” And abruptly he was gone, opening and closing the door in equal silence.

  Stiff as a spitting cat, Sario waited, trembling, letting the tension and anger bleed off. And then he walked to the draped easel and flung back the cloth, baring the self-portrait that bore traces of his essence, but not all that was required of a Gifted male Grijalva granted membership among the elite.

  Power. But not enough.

  Sario nodded at the self-portrait. He was safe. He would always be safe. No matter what they demanded of him. No matter how frightened they were.

  He smiled at his image. “Verro Grijalva was a fool.”

  Gitanna Serrano stared fixedly into the priceless mirror, a gift of the Duke after their first Astraventa, the Tira Virteian celebration of the month called the “starry wind” when the stars fell out of the sky and were trapped within mirrors carried by celebrants. This was not the actual mirror used in the ritual—it was too large, too elaborate, and much too costly—but a remembrance gift, something to mark the first night they shared a bed.

  But that was so many nights ago, so many Astraventas. Gitanna inspected every inch of her face with a hard, relentless scrutiny equal to a man weighing his enemy. And in a way it was her enemy, that which looked out of the painted glass, for it reflected time.

  The delightfully fresh, vibrant young woman who had come to Court, who was seduced during Astraventa, was indisputably gone, vanquished by the battles no less dangerous for all the weapons were words, the campaigns political intrigue. Winter, summer; supply trains were not an issue, nor the harvest, nor the location of water and grazing, suitable terrain. Only advancing age, and retreating beauty.

  The battle, she feared, was lost, the war nearly ended. Seven years he had come to her, seven years since that first night when he had given her signal honor by keeping her as his mistress, but seven years tacked on to a woman’s youth made the woman old.

  Gitanna grimaced. A man merely grew older. A woman grew old.

  There was no gray in her hair. Pomades and lotions kept her skin soft, denied Tira Virte’s summer sun, despite humidity, the power to ravage her. She had taken pains to bear no children, and so her waist remained slender and supple, her hips unsprung, her breasts firm. But there was no denying that she was not as she had been.

  She closed her eyes a moment. Quietude took her; she heard the faint drone of bees near her unlatched shutters, the distant barking of a dog, and, rising from the courtyard, the muted laughter of a woman. She sat utterly still, moving only to breathe—and felt the faint trembling of her eyelids, defiant to her intent.

  The latch rattled.

  Gitanna smiled her relief. He has not dismissed me yet.

  The door opened, and again the latch rattled as the bolt was shot, sealing the chamber against intrusion. Eyes yet closed, she gave herself over to smell, to sound: the rustle of fine clothing as he moved, the faint acrid tang of physical exertion mixed with the scent of horse. And the s
ound of awed exhalation as he saw her bared breasts reflected in the mirror.

  “Matra Dolcha,” he whispered, as if in supplication.

  Her eyes sprang open. It took all of her strength not to swing around, not to twist her body, not to stare in bitter astonishment.

  So. It had come. No time, after all

  Alejandro smiled. It was his father’s smile, though its undeniable charm was without intent, without calculation. He had learned neither yet, and simply was—himself.

  A nervous himself. No more the boy, but not quite a man. Tall, and daily growing taller; broadening through the shoulders, though they lacked the mass of maturity; wide-palmed hands skilled at such things as the sword, the knife, the reins—but unskilled in this.

  He drew in an unsteady breath. “He said—it is for you to do.”

  After a moment she rose. Exquisite lace dripped from powdered, scented shoulders. She slid it off with an imperceptible shrug, let it drift like weightless snow to the carpet-strewn floor, where his clothes would soon lie also.

  “Yes,” she said.

  The father had made her a woman. Let her make the son a man.

  TEN

  Saavedra asked four people before she received the answer to her question: in the Galerria. And so she went there and found him utterly lost to reality, intently studying a cluster of paintings hanging in a shadowed corner.

  He was rapt within his own mind, arms folded hard against his chest as if he held in his heart or held out fear. The angles of his face were sharp as glass, underpainted by an edge of bone that threatened to burst taut flesh; his black scowl was augmented by the forbidding tension in his mouth.

  “So,” she said, “I came to see if you would partner me to the festival. But if you are in that mood …”

  She waited. Nothing. He did not rise to her gibe.

  “Sario.” She looked at the cluster of paintings: none of them large, none of them older than perhaps a month or two. She could smell the resin, the binders, the astringency of the ingredients. “Not yours,” she said.

  “Raimon’s.”

  “Raimon’s?” Saavedra looked more intently at the paintings. “But—why?”

  “I was invited to,” he said icily. “He had a point to make.”

  After a moment she ventured it. “And did he?”

  He glanced at her briefly, annoyed, still scowling. “Did he what?”

  “Make his point.”

  Something blazed up in dark eyes, engulfing them; was extinguished with effort. “He did.”

  “And?”

  His tone blistered her. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  It shocked her. Then her anger, slow to kindle but every bit as warm as his, flared. “Oh, I see—we are merditto alba today, are we? Too grand for a mere woman? One of the Viehos Fratos, Gifted, Confirmed, so much better than I! Regretto—forgive my intrusion … I will purify your air by taking myself from it!”

  “Wait!” He caught her arm as she swung to stalk away. “Saavedra—wait! I’m sorry—nazha irrada, ‘Vedra.”

  “I am angry,” she answered, “and I will be if I wish to be; you are not the only one with claim to the emotion.” She glared and snatched her arm away. “Matra Dolcha, Sario, I am not to be treated that way, not as you treat the others. We know too much of one another, share too many secrets. Take out your frustration and impatience on someone else!”

  “But you were here,” he said logically. “And—you asked.”

  “Eiha, I asked! It was a natural thing to do.” She glanced again at the paintings. “What is so important about Aguo Raimon’s most recent paintings?”

  “Seminno; he has been elevated. And I accused him of losing his Luza do’Orro,” Sario said. “I was angry—”

  “You are always angry, Sario.”

  “—and said some things I shouldn’t.”

  “If you told him he had lost his Light, yes!” She gestured. “You have only to look at these paintings to see he has not.”

  “You can see it. His fire. His—Light.”

  “Of course I can.” She could see everybody’s Light.

  “Then what do you see?”

  “In his paintings?” She considered, examining them briefly. “It would require study.”

  “No, no …” Urgency broke through. “’Vedra, what do you see just—just looking at them? Talent? His Gift?”

  “A gift,” she clarified promptly, certain of her knowledge. “He is not as good as you.”

  Sario colored deeply. “As—Raimon?”

  “Sario, I have told you. You are the best. Of all.”

  “‘Of all,”’ he echoed blankly.

  “All,” she repeated. “You deserve what you most desire: to be Lord Limner at Palasso Verrada.”

  The flush faded. He was white, chalky white, his eyes huge and black. “Why do you believe in me so? What have I done to deserve such loyalty?”

  “You haven’t done anything. You’re just—you.” Saavedra shrugged. “I don’t know, Sario. But there’s a fire in you. Or perhaps it’s that your Luza do’Orro is too bright to ignore.” She smiled self-consciously. “You are everything they say of you, you know, Neosso Irrado … but it doesn’t matter to me. I see what also is there. What is underneath.”

  “Underneath?”

  “The paint,” she elaborated. “The layer upon layer of carefully tempered paint, made to be thick, and heavy, and impatiently slopped on with a paletto knife, so all the delicacy and detail is lost and only the dullness remains.” She shrugged. “A mask, like fresco plaster, behind which you hide.”

  He was perversely fascinated by what she had begun. “But if I am hiding behind it, if I have layered on the paint like fresco plaster, how can you see what lies beneath?”

  She found herself answering plainly, without prevarication or hesitation. “Surely a moth must feel the heat, yet still flies to the flame.”

  Sario whispered it: “And is burned to death.”

  “Sometimes,” she agreed readily. “But all of them know the Light.”

  He blinked. He was lost within his mind, wholly apart from her. And then came plunging back. “Would you?” he asked.

  “Would I what?”

  “Burn to death in the flame?”

  “Never,” Saavedra answered, quick and hard and certain, and saw the flare of recognition and comprehension in his eyes.

  “You have helped me before,” he said.

  “Helped you, yes. Before—and again, no doubt!”

  He did not acknowledge her attempt at irony. “You burned Tomaz’s Peintraddo.”

  No humor in him at all. He seemed to want something of her, a promise made, an oath sworn, some sign of commitment greater than she had offered before, or believed was necessary.

  Abruptly she said, “You ask too much.”

  He recoiled. She had shocked him deeply.

  I didn’t mean it like that. “I can’t know what I would do,” she explained, trying to soften the blatancy of her declaration. “Until the time, until the moment …” Saavedra looked at Seminno Raimon’s paintings, automatically marking color, technique, composition; he was a master, of course. “We put ourselves into our work, Sario, a little piece of ourselves each time. You can see Raimon in there, if you look for it.” She gestured, indicating with a sweep of her hand the shadowed collection. “But I wonder, is there enough? Do we use too much of ourselves—” Saavedra stopped short. She had spoken figuratively, not literally, the way an artist uses imagery, but now a door unlocked itself and opened before her, swinging wide from out of the darkness. “Is that—is that why we die?”

  Sario understood instantly. His mouth opened, worked, shaped words, but no sound issued forth.

  “No one knows,” Saavedra said intently, picking her way carefully as what had been idly said blossomed into speculation, into extrapolation. “They blame the Nerro Lingua … but what if it’s more? What if it’s something else?” She looked again at Raimon’s work, feeling hollow and light in
side—and close, all of a sudden, far too close to a flame whose heat she could not feel. “Sario, what if a man paints too much … and uses himself up?”

  “Then—then—” His voice was hoarse. He saw it as she did, acknowledged the brutal suspicion no matter how preposterous the theory sounded, and did not insult her by refuting the possibility. “If that is true, and we didn’t paint…”

  “Would we live a normal life?” A chill walked her spine, slowly and deliberately, setting the hairs on her flesh to rising. “We all of us paint, Sario—every Grijalva born. But only the Gifted die so very young.”

  He was frightened. She had frightened him. “All Grijalvas die young!”

  “Not all of us. Not women. Not men who lack the Gift.” She turned to stare at him, at the golden key hanging from its chain. “None die so soon as the Viehos Fratos, who bind their images with—themselves.”

  With spittle, she knew; and sweat. She recalled how damage done to his Peintraddo manifested in his flesh, but only to a minor degree, as if what was damaged was not fully empowered. He had implied it, had begged her to burn him with candlewax so the manifested damage would look legitimate. So there must be other things, ingredients he undoubtedly had not told her. She knew more than most, too much; he had shared with her what his world was like, now that he had left behind the trappings of their mutual childhood.

  But he knew more. Unequivocably. “Matra—” he whispered, “—Nommo Matra ei Filho …”

  Now she was frightened. “If you stopped—”

  “I can’t!”

  “If you were to stop painting—”

  “I can’t!”

  “If you were never to paint again—”

  “I would sooner die than never paint again!”

  Saavedra shivered. He knew more than she, but he did not deny what she feared was true.

  “I will stop,” she said hollowly. “Women do—we learn, we paint, and we stop. We bear children. I am not meant to paint—and I will stop, and I will live longer …”