by Melanie Rawn
A deep voice muttered, “Only the Mother has such power as this.”
“Or a Grijalva wielding dark magic.” It was Rivvas Serrano.
Alejandro thrust himself to his feet. “Bassda,” he said sharply, sensing disaster. Saavedra had told him he had a fine grasp of command … eiha, perhaps he might borrow his father’s if he yet lacked his own. “You are here in my presence, by my request, in my service—you will not speak again unless I give you leave.”
Shocked faces. Startled eyes. Mouths frozen in mid-word. But not a man spoke. He had not given leave.
“Grazzo.” Alejandro resumed his seat with deliberation, keeping relief from his tone. He could not help but see the thoughtful reassessment in Edoard do’Najerra’s expression. Emboldened, he turned again crisply to Sario Grijalva. “You can do this?”
“Restore your father to life? No. I have no such power, nor does any man.” That was for Rivvas Serrano’s benefit. “But regain his body? Yes. I can do this.”
A growl arose from the mass of men. Rivvas shoved his way through the others so that he came to the forefront, staring furiously at the young man who had replaced his kinsman. “What have we said of the Grijalvas, Your Grace, but that they have recourse to such magics? He admits it—here before us all he admits it!” He flung a glance of loathing at Grijalva, then appealed to his Duke. “Your Grace, my own kinsman, Zaragosa Serrano, tried to present evidence to your late father—”
“There was none,” Alejandro interrupted. “I heard of it, of course—who hasn’t?” He shrugged, pleased that now they listened at least to part of what he said before erupting again. “Everyone knows Zaragosa was convinced the Grijalvas dabble in dark magic—”
“And so they do!” Rivvas thrust a hand in the new Lord Limner’s direction. “He has admitted so, Your Grace.”
Alejandro shifted his gaze to Sario Grijalva. ‘Vedra claims he is clever … clever enough to evade this trap? Or am I stripped of my first appointment? Which would damage him far more than simple inexperience already had. That much he knew of Court; he had to establish control, to establish his own way even with ruthless arrogance, before he lost them utterly. Tautly he repeated, “You can do this?”
“I can, Your Grace.” Grijalva was unperturbed by the tense ripple of hostility. “It is a simple matter, you see—”
“Simple matter!” Rivvas shouted. “To conjure up a body?”
“To paint it present?” Estevan do’Saenza now took his lead from Serrano, stirring further concern. “Your Grace, surely you must see—”
“A simple thing.” Grijalva’s still voice undermined their bluster. A slim, dark hand brought into sight two sheets of folded parchment; Alejandro could not help marking the length of slender fingers, the trained, graceful motions of a man accustomed to precise physical control. “You see—it is here already. The body.” Grijalva smiled faintly at Alejandro, who found himself smiling back without intending to. “What need is there of magic, dark or otherwise, where there are wagons to carry the dead?”
Silence. Even breathing was stilled as each man heard and comprehended what Grijalva suggested.
“Wagon?” someone murmured in stunned disbelief.
“A message accompanied the body.” Into the tense expectancy, Sario Grijalva offered the papers to his Duke. “As I came to the door—” A nod of the head indicated it, “—I was given this for you. A message, I was told, explaining how Duke Baltran came to be killed—”
“Murder!” Rivvas cried, attempting to regain the moment.
“Assassination!” shouted do’Saenza, attempting to assist him.
“Perhaps so.” Grijalva was unruffled; Alejandro envied him his composure. “Perhaps not. And perhaps the Duke should read the message to know; it is addressed to him, and I was told it explained all.” He extended the folded sheets, inclining his head.
“Matra ei Filho—” Deliberation banished, Alejandro stood in a rush and grabbed the parchment from Grijalva’s hand. He hesitated only an instant, then broke the wax and tore the papers open.
Disappointment extinguished hope. But I can’t— He looked at them all, loath to admit yet another failure. Instead he appealed to his personal secretary, who had been his father’s. Because of that link, the steadiness in Martain’s eyes, Alejandro managed to recapture his father’s tone of command. “Read these, grazzo.”
Martain accepted and examined the papers. “Regretto, Your Grace—the language of the first is unknown to me … and the other is ruined.”
“The language of the first is not unknown to me.” Grijalva again. This time the disbelief was less explosive, the conselhos more restrained, but the murmurs that ran through the chamber were in no wise mitigated.
Alejandro handed the parchments back. “What do they say?”
Grijalva accepted the letters, groomed creases from them, scanned them quickly. “Yes,” he murmured, “I know it. The language of Tza’ab Rih.”
Edoard do’Najerra took a single long stride forward and tore the letter from Grijalva’s hand. “Tza’ab Rih!” Clearly it was unbelievable, and as unacceptable. “No one reads that language. It is the enemy’s tongue—”
“And the enemy has sent back your dead Duke.” Sario Grijalva cast an apologetic glance at Alejandro. “It seems he went hunting near the border of Tza’ab Rih on the way to Pracanza, and met with an accident—”
“Treachery.” The word was forced between Marchalo do’Najerra’s clamped teeth. “Baltran was murdered. We know this. And now the Tza’ab admit it?”
“The Duke was not murdered.” Quietly Grijalva recaptured the much-abused letters. “The accident was the kind any horseman might encounter. Duke Baltran, you see, was thrown from his mount.” He shrugged. “Upon landing, his neck was broken.”
“Lies. It was assassination.”
“Was it?” Alejandro deflected do’Najerra’s startled glare by looking instead at Grijalva. “Is that what it says?”
“And also that there were witnesses.”
“The Tza’ab,” do’Najerra stated flatly.
“Tira Virteians,” Grijalva corrected. “The Duke’s party accompanied him.”
“Then why are they not here?” Alejandro asked before anyone else could; and someone would. “Why are we not brought word from those who were with my father?”
Grijalva gestured. “Duty, Your Grace—and yet more tragedy. The Duke’s party accompanied him to propose a betrothal between you and the Pracanzan Princess—that duty they carried out.”
Alejandro nearly gaped. “They went on to Pracanza?”
“Most of them. What it says, Your Grace, is that your father died moments after being thrown from his horse, but had time enough to command them to complete the embassy to Pracanza. That the interests of Tira Virte were best served by making the peace with Pracanza and binding it with the marriage.” He shrugged elegantly. “Apparently the rumor of assassination was no more than that, Your Grace.”
“Rumor!” Alejandro sat down abruptly. “Rumor …” He looked now at do’Najerra. “You would have me go to war on the basis of rumor?”
The flesh of his heavy face deepened in hue. “Would you have me fail my poor Baltran on the word of a Tza’ab?”
“It apparently was not meant to be merely the word of a Tza’ab,” Sario said. “Two of the Duke’s party accompanied the body with the aid of the Tza’ab, to see it safely back to Meya Suerta. But the party was attacked by border bandits. Some of the Tza’ab were killed outright, as was our own Dio Ormendo. Antoneyo Barza was wounded and died later on the way, but not before he wrote a note.” He held up a smeared and tattered paper. “Unfortunately the paper became damp and the ink ran, but it is Antoneyo Barza’s signature and seal… I must assume the Tza’ab brought this note to confirm their own.”
“Trickery,” do’Najerra rasped. “I don’t accept my poor Baltran died in a fall from his horse. And it is too convenient that Barza’s letter is ruined!”
“I can question the Tza’
ab who escorted the wagon, if you wish,” the young Lord Limner said, “but the bodies are here as well. Why not let the late Duke and Antoneyo Barza tell us the truth?”
Incensed, Marchalo do’Najerra challenged instantly. “And can you read a body as well as you read Tza’ab?”
Sario Grijalva did not look away from the furious, powerful man. “To paint the living,” he answered quietly, “one must study the dead.”
Saavedra’s new room was not a room at all, but a set of rooms: three altogether. It startled her first that so much could be given to one person, secondly that they would give such to her. A small bedchamber, a fractionally larger sitting room, and an airy, many-windowed chamber that opened onto a north-facing balcony overlooking the central courtyard with its gurgling marble fountain.
“Lord Limner’s quarters,” she murmured, drifting from one room to the other and to the other, astounded and delighted by so much light and spaciousness. “There, I think, for the worktable, and the easel should stand there—” And she broke off into guilty laughter, that she should so easily settle into such luxury.
So much to do … there was her trunk to unpack so that clothing might be freshened, personal things to set out, and of course the vast array of the requirements of her work: canvas, stretched and unstretched; papers; boards; stoppered pots of ground pigments; boxes of brushes, knives, tools; rattling jars full of amber and gum acacia; sealed bottles of poppy oil, linseed, glue, inks; baskets crammed with favorite charcoals, chalks, dip pens … so much to find a place for— “—and so much room in which to place it!”
The door behind her banged open; a high-pitched curse accompanied it. She turned swiftly, startled, and grinned to see one of her many cousins trying to get through the door as arms overflowed with canvas, stretchers, boards.
“Here … Ignaddio, wait!” He did not. Things began to fall. “Ignaddio!” Hastily she caught and rescued that which also threatened to depart his arms, then bent to gather up what had already fallen. “’Naddi, you should never try to carry it all. Bring smaller loads.”
He stretched his chin to secure a heap of tattered canvas. “Takes longer. Where do you wish this to go?”
“In there.” Gathering fallen papers, Saavedra angled her head toward the balcony chamber, now her atelierro. “Through there, ‘Naddi—follow the sunlight.”
As bidden, he followed. His voice was muffled by what he carried as well as the wall between them. “So—have they decided you are Gifted, to give you such quarters?”
Saavedra sighed. He knew. They all knew. “Eiha, would I tell you?” She sorted papers—sketches she wished to consider transferring to canvas or wood one day—and rose, careful of edges and corners. “If it were true, you would never believe it.”
“No?” He remained in the room, out of sight. She heard the sounds of clinking bottles, a rattle of something else. “It would be foolish to deny it—our blood is closer than most, and I hope myself to be a Lord Limner …” His voice grew louder, clearer; he paused now in the open doorway, a slender and yet ill-defined boy, unkempt dark curls flopping down into hazel eyes. “But why should you be so blessed, eh? Duke’s mistress and Limner?” He grinned, danced around her outstretched, jabbing foot, slipped past her and through the sitting room to the door giving way to the corridor. “And what would they call you?—surely not Lord Limner! Eiha, no, you had better look to your bed-skill, ‘Vedra, if you wish to keep the Duke—what does he know of painting?”
He was gone, giggling, clattering down the flight of stairs to fetch more of her things, but Saavedra answered anyway. “He knows I am good.” She reconsidered. “He says he knows I am good—but perhaps that is only kindness.” She supposed it might hurt, but she was too happy for pain. “’Naddi …” She raised her voice, though undoubtedly he would not hear; or would choose not to. “You had best mind your tongue as well as your lessons—or they will name you Neosso Irrado.”
“And why not?” He was back, arms full of cloth-draped paintings. “The last one so named became Lord Limner!” His grin was quick, even as he struggled with stiff, painted canvas. “Shall I—”
“Ignaddio!” Saavedra was horrified. “Matra Dolcha, that you should stack them up like so much cordwood … ‘Naddi, how could you?” She caught up and carefully lifted the draped painting on the top of the stack. “You know better, cabessa bisila!” She turned back the cloth with care. “Set out the others on the bed— separately!—so we may see if there is damage. ‘Naddi, why?”
Now he sulked; at thirteen, he offended easily. “They smelled dry to me.”
“What would you know of that?” Saavedra set the rescued painting against the wall and knelt to study it for damage. “Cabessa bisila,” she muttered. “A potential Limner would never do such a thing.” And then she frowned. “This isn’t mine. ‘Naddi—”
“It’s mine.” Stiff apprehension, and burgeoning hope.
“But—” Still kneeling, she twisted to look at him. Saw the pallor of his cheeks, the teeth worrying at bottom lip, the clenching of his hands in the soiled, tattered tunic. “Why?”
It burst out of him. “Because you are good, ‘Vedra—everybody says!”
It was unexpected, and unexpectedly gratifying. She laughed breathily. “So, everybody says?”
“The moualimos. Some of the estudos.” He twisted his mobile mouth. “Am I good, ‘Vedra?”
“Eiha, of course you—” Saavedra halted. What he wanted to hear was not necessarily the truth, but what she offered ought to be. It was why he asked. “’Cordo. Shall we critique it together?”
“Matra Dolcha, no” He reconsidered. “I mean—I think …” He stared hard at the floor, tunic hem stretched taut nearly to tearing. “I am afraid. Study it, grazzo—but tell me later what you think.”
“’Cordo.” She knew that fear. With care she redraped the canvas. “But you need only have asked … there was no need to risk the paintings merely to gain an opinion.”
Relieved that she would do as he wished, he paid little attention to her. Already he freed the stretched canvases on the bed of their protective wrappings. “This one is unharmed—I was careful!— and this one … filho do’canna!”
“’Naddi! Recall your compordotta, grazzo. If you truly wish to be a Limner—”
“What is this?” His voice was raw with excitement. “When did you paint this, ‘Vedra?”
“Until I see it, how can I know?” She shook dust from her skirts, walked to the bed. “That one—” She checked, shocked into silence.
Ignaddio’s fascinated gaze moved from the painting to her face. “I didn’t know you were so good, ‘Vedra!”
It gusted sharply from her lungs. “But—that’s horrible—”
Ignaddio nodded vigorously. “That’s what is good about it!”
“No, no—” Stricken, Saavedra gestured the comment away. “Where did you find this? It isn’t mine.”
He shrugged narrow shoulders, staring again at the painting in unrestrained delight. “In the workroom.”
“Which workroom?”
“The one where we put all the paintings packed to be shipped somewhere else.” He was uninterested; such shipments were routine in a family of artists who painted so many copies. “I like how you have painted the hands so crippled, ‘Vedra—and the lines of pain in his face—”
“’Naddi!” She wanted to protest that the grotesqueness of the painting was not due such flattery, and yet she had to admit the artist’s talent was more than talent. It was sheer genius.
“Who is it?” Ignaddio asked. “And why would he wish himself painted so?” Young he was, but already he understood that vanity often superseded truth.
“I don’t know who it—” But she did. Abruptly, she did. “Filho do’canna.”She collapsed to her knees even as ‘Naddi laughed in gleeful delight to hear her swear. “Oh Matra, Blessed Matra—”
“Who is it, ‘Vedra?”
She kissed fingertips, pressed them to her breast. “Nommo do’Matr
a ei Filho, let him not do this … let him never do this—”
“Who is it? Who has done what? Who shouldn’t do this?”
The series of questions posed in a child’s unbroken treble at last breached her horror. A trembling hand—her own?—reached out to tug at cloth, to cover the painting. “’Naddi—”
“Who painted it, ‘Vedra?”
“No.” Now the hand settled on his shoulder, clasped tightly. “No, ‘Naddi … no importada.” She stood up unsteadily, guided him toward the open door. “Go, now. You have helped enough today … go and play, if you wish.”
He balked. “But I want to know—”
“No.” You don’t. No one should know. “Go on, ‘Naddi.”
“But—”
“Do’nado,” she said firmly. “It was nothing at all, Ignaddio— just a poor jest painted by a moronno luna.”
“But—”
She pushed him out, shut the door, leaned against it. A final plaintive question came from beyond the wood; when she ignored it long enough, Ignaddio went away.
Trembling, Saavedra straightened. Pushed herself from the door. Went to the bed. Tore away the cloth to display the ruined hands and tortured features of Zaragosa Serrano.
She had seen the painting before, in Sario’s atelierro. She recalled questioning him about the border, the affectation that now was in everything he painted.
He put this where I was sure to see it. He wanted me to see it. He wanted me to know. Her belly cramped. Saavedra turned her back on the painting, slid down to the floor, scraped her spine against the bed. I have always been his confidante, always understood him, his need to express his Gift. And now he shows me this.
She sat there staring blindly, collapsed upon hard stone flags … aware of fear, of tears, of nausea—and an understanding at last of Sario’s terrible Luza do’Orro.
TWENTY-TWO
He spent himself as a man does who has not lain with a woman in too long: with a quick-struck and scouring immediacy that left him drained, not sated; that left him limp in body and spirit as wet linen. The woman beneath did not protest; she laughed softly, breathily, murmuring of a sword whose temper is tamed by a properly-fitted sheath … and he let her have it, let her flatter herself, let her believe she had kindled and quenched his best.