by Melanie Rawn
“Couldn’t what, ninio? And what concern is it of yours what I can or cannot do, or what I may or may not wish to do?”
“Do’nado,” Ignaddio whispered.
“Indeed, do’nado. Adezo, go. Send Diega to me. Then take yourself elsewhere, or I shall never even once examine your portfolio.”
And as he had never even once suggested he ever would, the implied threat had the desired effect. Ignaddio departed.
Saavedra stepped beneath the arched, vine-draped entrance leading from a small walled garden into the central courtyard and stopped short. Alejandro stood but yards beyond her, gazing fixedly into the fountain and wholly oblivious to her approach, the sound of her footsteps obscured by the gargle and spray of cascading water. His was a pure, clean profile of such striking clarity she realized all at once she must paint him again, and very soon. Too often portraiture was of a full-face pose, or perhaps three-quarters profile—she wanted the profile itself, as if it bedecked a coin: the high brow partially obscured by unruly hair, still wavy in adulthood; the clean bridge of the nose, as yet unblemished by weapons practice or a misplaced wrestler’s hold; the chiseled hollow between nostrils and upper lip; and a mouth she knew intimately enough that she blushed to think of it. The chin beneath was pronounced enough to establish a hint of stubbornness, but also of character; and it was far better to have more chin, she thought, than less.
She moved toward him. Her shoes crunched now on gravel and he turned, banishing the profile entirely, but Saavedra did not care. There were esthetics she appreciated in any of his postures, in the lifting of a brow, the quirking of his mouth, the quick snapping gesture of a thick wrist and broad hand in dismissal of a point of argument he found abruptly insignificant, even if it be his own.
Not in the least inhibited by the notoriously flawed grin, he bestowed it upon her freely, then caught both of her hands as she joined him at the fountain. Spray bathed his face, now hers; it mingled as they kissed. But within moments his expression altered from tender to serious, and she knew he had not come out of simple desire for her company.
Saavedra tugged him down beside her as she perched upon the curving bench surrounding the lowest basin, disregarding wind-drifted spray. “Tell me.”
He made no attempt to prevaricate. “Caza Varra,” he said simply. “I must go there.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know it.”
He scraped a bootheel against a stone flag, digging at an edge as if he would pry it up. “It’s one of the country estates. My father took us there during summers when he could get away.” He sighed, plainly ill at ease, digging more vigorously. “My mother is there now. She has retired from Court, from all public life.”
Saavedra laughed, clamping a hand on one of his knees to prevent him from excavating further. “A loving and dutiful son should go see his mother, no? Lest she make her displeasure known!”
“Eiha, yes, I suppose there is that.” He caught the hand, clasped it, lifted it to his mouth, kissed it gently. “Forgive me, carrida … I beg you, forgive me—but I must go to my mother to discuss an impending betrothal.”
It stabbed only distantly, as if she had formed calluses in preparation for this moment. “Yours.”
“Mine.”
When she could manage it without clamping down hard enough to score his flesh with nails, she squeezed his hand. “Eiha, we knew this would come. He went there for this purpose, your poor father.” Courtesy forbade her adding that he had also taken her painting of his son, which now resided in the court of Pracanza’s king.
“But not so soon!”
“Not so soon,” she echoed. “No. But it has come now, and we must make the best of it.” And then false courage evaporated, along with the brisk tone. “Bassda! I am no conselho trained to diplomacy and evasion. Let me say what I feel, Alejandro … that I am angry and frightened and jealous and hurt and confused and bitter and posessive and I want to cry, all at once!” She drew in a painful breath. “But that gains me nothing beyond a splotched face, red eyes, and a swollen nose—and then you would never wish to look at me again and you would look only at your Pracanzan beauty—” She broke off. “Is she beautiful?”
Clearly disconcerted, he made no answer immediately.
“Merditto,” she muttered. “She would be. Matra Dolcha, what else? The daughter of a king, a dowry rich beyond imagining, trade potential that can only aid Tira Virte, fertility, I am certain—likely she will be fecund as a rabbit!—your mother will undoubtedly adore her, and she is beautiful!” She looked at him through a glaze of tears. “And now I am crying anyway because I can’t help myself, and you’ll go away the sooner!”
“Meya dolcha ‘Vedra …” And he did as she both wanted and expected: embraced her, held her close, comforted her fears as only he could, with warmth and nearness and words that made no sense nor needed to, so long as he said them.
“Regretto,” she said into his shoulder when she could speak again. “I meant never to do this. I despise women who do this.”
“But I love this one, and she may spoil as many of my doublets as she wishes.”
“It’s weak.”
“It’s many things, all of them painful and none of them weak. And I also am all of the things you claimed to be in that lengthy, uncompromising, and unceasing string of words you consider epithets so vile I flinch to hear them.”
She managed a choked laugh. “Do you want to cry?”
“At this moment you are crying enough for two. I’ll wait.”
This time the laughter was easier. “Until when?”
“When my mother adjusts the fit of my meticulously tailored clothing, smooths back freshly-brushed hair that is already in place, cups my jaw and tells me what a fine mennino I have turned out to be after all—en verro, the very image of my father!”
“You are. Both of those things.”
“I am the image of Alejandro do’Verrada, whomever he may be. One day I may even know myself.”
She smiled, but it died. “When shall you go?”
Alejandro sighed. His heel sought the flag again and began to dig. “This afternoon. A rider was sent out. Caza Varra isn’t far, and she expects me tonight.”
Saavedra sat up. “Then you had best go.” Without success she tried to smooth the tear-stained, creased velurro of his doublet. “And change before you leave, or she will know some woman has been crying into your fine clothing.”
“I expect she may do it herself, once she knows I mean to marry.”
“Then suggest to her—stop digging, Alejandro, or you’ll have all the stones up!—suggest to her she use your other shoulder. I am an arrtia, no?—symmetry is important.”
He embraced her again, laughing softly into her curls as he gathered her close. “Meya dolcha amora, don’t fear I will forget you, or cast you off—if for no other reason than you tend your stonelayer’s work so well! I promised you the Marria do’Fantome, and you shall have it. When I am back, I will take the proper steps.”
“When you are back from announcing to your mother you mean to marry the Pracanzan girl? Don’t be a moronno, Alejandro, there is no time for that now.” She made a placating gesture. “Later, perhaps.”
It did not suit. “But it must be done before she arrives! Merditto, ‘Vedra—can you imagine the outrage if I entered into a shadow marriage after I married her in the Ecclesia?”
“Before is better?” She shook her head. “Alejandro, I know you meant it when you said it, and I bless and honor you for it … but perhaps you should reconsider, in view of what has happened. Then no one imagined your father would die … you are Duke now, and things are complicated.”
“I meant what I said, ‘Vedra.”
“I release you from it.”
Something that wasn’t humor glittered briefly in his eyes. “I will make the arrangements today before I leave for Caza Varra.”
“You can’t!”
“No? I am Duke. I can do what I wish precisely when I wish to do it.” He rose then, kissed h
er soundly, turned to depart.
“Alejandro?”
She heard the scrape of gritty tile beneath his boots as he swung back. “Yes?”
In bewildered curiosity, “What are you going to do?”
“Take the first steps toward having the Marria do’Fantome legitimized.”
“How?”
“By having it painted by the Lord Limner.”
She surged to her feet. “Alejandro—no!” But as he registered baffled surprise at her vehemence, she realized she could not explain. What existed between her and Sario was so intangible as to be impossible to define. Not love, not true and passionate love such as she and Alejandro shared, of the heart and soul and body, but of the spirit, of that which shaped their talent, their gifts. No man who does not share it can ever understand. And so she shook her head. “Do’nado,” she said. “Go and do as you will.”
It was enough. He inclined his head, kissed fingertips, touched them briefly to his heart, then opened and extended his hand to indicate the blessing included her as well.
“Matra,” she murmured as he went from her, crunching across gravel. “Matra Dolcha, let me be wrong … but I can see nothing of this but an ending. No man, newly married, should cleave to his mistress.”
And no mistress, loving that man, could give him up freely.
TWENTY-NINE
Alejandro pounded up the stairs after gesturing away the young man who appeared to direct him; he thought by now all of them should realize he at least knew his way to Saavedra’s quarters, if little else within the sprawling Palasso Grijalva. At the top of the stairs he went straight to the door that opened into the sitting room, passed through it to the atelierro, and found Sario Grijalva standing at an unshuttered window staring out into the courtyard.
The Limner turned even as Alejandro stopped short at the easel, examining the uncompleted painting. His focused determination bled away into awe as he gazed at the painting. “Matra Dolcha! I was not expecting this.”
“No?” Grijalva’s expressive face was pinched and pale; the flat line of his mouth was severe, as if he feared to speak lest he spit. “Well, I am not satisfied with it. I shall begin again.”
“Again! But why? This is glorious!”
“It is a mere daub. It does not please me.” Grijalva left the window and moved to the easel, sweeping a cloth over the image. “I shall begin again.”
The swift appraisal and dismissive declaration set Alejandro back. “But surely if I am pleased—”
“Grazzo, Your Grace, but this is what I have trained for all my life, no? Permit me the chance to admit it is not my best work … I would never interfere with the ordering of your duchy.”
All his intentions came back redoubled. “But I want you to,” Alejandro said on a rush. “Is it possible?”
Grijalva blinked, clearly astonished. It was the first time Alejandro had ever seen him so. “You want me to—interfere?”
“Can you do that?”
The mixture of expressions crossing Grijalva’s face followed one after another so instantaneously that Alejandro could not begin to name them all. And then he settled on one: sublime self-confidence. “Have they set you to this, Your Grace? Out of fear for you, for Tira Virte?”
“Has who set me to this?”
“The conselhos. Perhaps Marchalo do’Najerra, Conselho Serrano, Conselho do’Saenza …” Dark eyes were limpid. “They have made common cause, no? To mistrust and undermine me?”
The laugh was startled out of Alejandro in a quick, choked blurt. “But this is your opportunity to undermine them.”
White-faced, Grijalva turned away abruptly, returned to the unshuttered window, and stared out again. The line of his shoulders was rigidly set, his neck unbending, every minute inflection of his posture cried out his need for careful voyaging, for a discernment of what truths lay beneath the too-obvious surface.
This is none of it going as I expected … Sighing, Alejandro went to the chair behind the table and hooked it close with one booted foot, then dropped into it backward, spread thighs embracing the chairback. He folded his forearms across the rim where velurro was brass-tacked to wood and rested his chin upon them. Choosing his words with care, and their inflection, he said merely, “You will serve me in this.”
Grijalva’s brittle posture grew more inflexible yet.
“You will,” Alejandro said, finding it easier now to be as firm of spirit as tone. “I wish to find a way to make certain no man among the conselhos may undo what I desire done, and that is to make certain Saavedra Grijalva remains my mistress for as long as we wish it ourselves.” He paused, studying the soiled folds of shirt that hung from the stiff line of Grijalva’s shoulders. “I am to marry the Princess of Pracanza, and I would honor Saavedra and her family as much as I am able.”
At last Grijalva moved. He swung around as if he held a sword, as if he expected attack. His eyes were alive in his face, burning with an intensity Alejandro found disturbing. “You would honor us?”
That annoyed. “I have said so.”
“Then make certain no one in all of Tira Virte may harm us!”
Annoyance diffused into puzzlement. Alejandro frowned. “You have the Ducal Protection.”
“And it is worthless, Your Grace.” Grijalva’s smile now was neither pleasant nor sublime, even if he did recall the required honorific. “You know the Premia Sancta poisons the Ecclesia. One never knows when she may convince the Premio Sancto to join her.”
Alejandro gestured sharply, dismissively. “That is over now. I declared it so.”
“For that you are honored and blessed, Your Grace—” Perfunctory courtesy, no more. “—but do you see how it is with us? At this moment we Grijalvas have reclaimed two of the primary positions any of us may hold, by your will and grace, but there remain others who would see us thrown down from there; would, given leave, have us broken entirely.”
Offended by the blithe dismissal of the power of his word, Alejandro sat stiffly upright in the chair. “That will not happen.”
“Your Grace …” The expressive face with its blade-straight Tza’ab nose now was troubled. “Your Grace, there are ways men have of making certain they get their desire even if ordered not to.”
“Then aid me in this, Grijalva! I have no intention of seeing you thrown down from your position, or Saavedra sent from me; nor do I wish to see your family broken. Find me a way in which no man may cause this to happen, be he Edoard do’Najerra, Rivvas Serrano, or Estevan do’Saenza.” He paused reflectively. “Though, en verro, neither of the latter two are of such stature that they might accomplish it. The Marchalo might, but he is content enough at the moment to let you die in twenty years—it is a detached way of defeating the enemy.” He sighed, chewed briefly at a cracked thumbnail. “Though I cannot promise it might remain that way.”
“You are Duke,” Grijalva said, as if he tested. “Your word is law.”
Merditto, is he blind? He removed his thumb. “My word is the word of a young, untried, admittedly frightened Duke who would sooner have his father alive again and in this role than be in it himself. And they know that. They prey and play upon it.” Alejandro sighed again, deeply, and rested his forehead against the rim of the chairback, letting tacks bite into flesh. Muffled by stuffed velurro, he said, “I am Duke, you are Lord Limner. We need one another, although few understand that.” He lifted his face again. “Therefore I ask you to aid me in this, that we may, between us, protect your family.”
Grijalva turned back to the window. He blocked much of the light; Alejandro could see little but silhouette. “There is perhaps a way, Alejandro.”
He barely marked the familiarity. “En verro?”
Grijalva nodded. “If each mistress were to come from my family …”
“Each? You mean—forever?”
The words came more quickly now, with crisp declaration. “Let it be agreed that Palasso Grijalva and only Palasso Grijalva will supply the Duke with his mistress. A confirmed mis
tress—the one to whom he offers Marria do’Fantome.” Grijalva turned sharply, gesturing further illustration. “That need not bind a man to only one woman, Your Grace—you and your Heir and his Heir and all the Heirs to come after may entertain whatever women you choose to—but only one woman, one Grijalva woman, would ever hold the rank.” He spread slim, eloquent hands. “One wife, sanctified by the Ecclesia; and one mistress, ‘sanctified’ and confirmed by Marria do’Fantome.”
“That gains me Saavedra,” Alejandro said. “What does it gain you?”
“Not me,” Grijalva said. “Do’nado—beyond the knowledge that my family’s future is secured.”
“And that is enough for you?”
Grijalva laughed softly. “I am Lord Limner. It is all I ever desired in this life … but my responsibility is to my family—” His pause was very slight. “—and of course to my Duke, for Grijalva Lord Limners, as much as the tragic Verro himself, have always served do’Verradas.”
Alejandro considered it. He played out as many ramifications as he could conjure in his mind, knowing very well how others would react.
He smiled, taking fire. “Twist their tails,” he murmured, seeing it, and the smile kindled to grin, to laughter, “eiha, how it would twist their tails!”
“And would go far to establishing your own rule,” Grijalva added. “You are not your father, may the Matra bless his name—” Briefly he kissed fingers, pressed them to breast. “—and it is time they accepted it.”
Alejandro thrust himself up from the chair. “Done!” He nodded vigorously, grinned; the world was whole again, bursting with promise. “Paint it, Lord Limner. Document this edict. Confirm this position. And when I am returned from Caza Varra, I will have it known to all the conselhos, all the Courtfolk—even to Serranos!— I mean to offer Saavedra Grijalva the Marria do’Fantome.”
Sario Grijalva’s expression was strange. “That,” he said, “is more than Gitanna Serrano ever had.”
“Or the Premia Sancta?” Alejandro laughed, then said: “Pluvio en laggo.” He shrugged. “We make a new lake, you and I, with fresh rain besides.” Alejandro shoved the chair back toward the table. “I must go. Tend to this, Grijalva, and you shall have my permanent protection in all things. For as long as you live.”