The Golden Key

by Melanie Rawn

  And he said nothing.

  “Filho do’canna,” she said at last, when nearly out of breath. “It should have been you in the Galerria. Should have been you who plunged his Chieva into his Peintraddo!”

  “But why?” he asked. “If it’s my death you want, that would not have accomplished it. That is not my Peintraddo.”

  The audacity of it astonished her. “No, that’s true … I have it!”

  “Do you?” He barely shook his head. “If you would be certain, go to it and destroy it. And then come back and vilify me more.”

  Shock upon shock. “Then it was a copy—a second copy—”

  He was white around the mouth. “I am particularly gifted at making copies. It was all we were permitted to do for so many years.”

  “Sario … Sario—he’s dead!”

  He frowned abruptly. “Regretto—I am not being properly sorrowful, no? Not giving him proper honor—such shocking compordotta …”

  And then she saw the grief in his eyes, in the unnatural immobility of his posture. How he held himself so stiffly, with such absolute rigidity that she did not know how he might ever move again.

  “Did you know?” she asked. “Did you ever once believe he would do such a thing?”

  “I believed in myself,” he said softly, “as he required me to do.” His face was harrowed. “Eiha, ‘Vedra—he must have known. And I suppose I did also … and yet did nothing to prevent it.”

  “They must have meant to destroy his Peintraddo.”

  “No—not destroy it. Destroy him—Chieva do’Sangua.” He took up and clenched into a fist a paletto knife. “And so another sacrifice is made.”

  “For you.” She wanted to spit. “So much, in your name.”

  “My Gift,” he murmured. “For my Luza do’Orro.” He looked at her then, stared at her. Extended his hand. “’Vedra, grazzo—can you offer me no comfort?”

  “In this? Why should I? It was yours to do or undo, Sario—you chose to do it.”

  He shivered once, enough to set the paletto knife to spasming in his hand.

  She bared her teeth. “I want you to suffer.”

  “I do.”

  “Suffer more.”

  “Eiha, ‘Vedra—Blessed Mother, Gracious Mother—” He shut his eyes, lifted the paletto knife into the air. “And so my Gift fails me, and I can’t bring him back—can’t paint him back … it isn’t possible.”

  She feared then he might harm himself, might use the paletto knife on himself. And for all her anger, she could not deny his own measure of grief. He had never lied to her.

  “Sario—Sario, grazzo …” She moved to him, put out her hand. “Give me the paletto knife—”

  He whipped out his free hand, trapped her wrist in it, wrenched it over so the palm was exposed. And brought the knife down in an abrupt, slashing move that opened the flesh of her fingers.

  “You’re Gifted,” he hissed. “Remember how Raimon burned a painting that had only a portion of the ingredients? This is the same, only this time it’s you who will manifest the damage. So I can prove even to you what you are.”

  Saavedra was abruptly freed as he twisted away, reached toward the easel, the painting upon it. She staggered back, stumbled into a chair, over it, upset it, fell. Skirts were crumpled around her knees as she braced herself against the floor, one hand sliding in blood.

  “Matra—” she gasped. “Matra ei Filho—”

  Blood, her blood, splattered across the painting with a snap of his wrist, flung across the image of herself. She saw the spatters, saw the drips, saw how it marred the image, blended with the colors. “What are you doing?”

  “I have said from the beginning you are different,” he declared. “Nommo Matra ei Filho, but you are like no other. I cannot say what has caused it anymore than I can say what has caused me—was it our parents? The spark that kindled conception? Something in the blood?”

  “I’m just a woman.”

  Sario laughed. “Perhaps that is it. Perhaps that you are a woman, and claim the Gift as I do—”

  “I can’t!”

  “—combined with the blood, the talent, the heritage—”

  “I’m not what you think I am!”

  “—because the bodies are different … whatever it is that makes us male as opposed to female—”

  “I’m not like you!”

  “Attend me,” he said sharply, and scratched blood and paint away with a ruthless thumbnail.

  Saavedra cried out. Her shoulder burned.

  Sario spun on her. “Look at it. Look at it, Saavedra.”

  It burned and burned.

  “Not at the painting,” he hissed, “at your shoulder!” And before she could move, could make an effort to escape, he was on her. Hands scrabbled at the neckline of her gown, tugged it away, exposed the shoulder. “There,” he said. “Look, look at it—and tell me again you aren’t Gifted!”

  A scrape. A peeling back of a layer of flesh so that blood stippled fluid. As if a man’s thumbnail had gouged into flesh, as his had gouged into blood and paint.

  The wail escaped her, brief and broken.

  “Admit it,” he said. “Nommo Matra ei Filho, nommo Chieva do’Orro—to which you are entitled—admit it!”

  “I carry a child,” she said on a rush of expelled breath. “I carry a child—it can’t be! I can’t be!”

  “In this there are no rules,” he said. “How can anyone simply decide a woman who is Gifted may not also be fertile?”

  “I can’t be!”

  “You are … as I have always known, you are.”

  “Alejandro—”

  “Gone—whining to his mother, no doubt. It is for you and I to sort out, ‘Vedra. As it should be … as it has always been.”

  He was too close to her. She scrabbled awkwardly on the floor, aware of blood on the hardwood as she pulled herself away from him. “Let me go … Sario, let me go.”

  He laughed. “I don’t hold you here. Grazzo, go. Go and think upon the truth.”

  She struck out then, smashed the palm of her unbloodied hand across his cheek and set nails, so he would bleed as well.

  He made no attempt to stop the blood, to explore the gouges. He sat before her, crouched as a supplicant, and grinned. “You are. Like me.”

  “Monster,” she whispered, and saw the kindling of anger in his eyes.

  “Gifted,” he said. “No more, no less. And other. Different. What I have learned from Il-Adib and the Kita’ab.”

  “Bassda,” she gasped. “Bassda, I will hear no more of this.” She pulled herself away, caught at the chair, levered herself up to one knee, one foot. “Whatever you may be, I am not like you. In no way. I will never be like you …” It was hard to move, so hard; she felt ill and old and cold and weak. “—not like you—am not, will never be—”

  He moved then, startling her anew. This time when he caught her shoulder it was not to pull away her sleeve, but to trap her, to push her back awkwardly against the wall. And he came down upon her, held her there, employing unanticipated, tensile strength to keep her.

  “This once,” he said against her mouth. “I don’t love you, ‘Vedra—not in that way … but we are the same, we are bound, we are linked, we share the Luza do’Orro—”

  She twisted, tried to wrench her head awry, but his mouth came down regardless, touching first the perspiration across the top of her lip—and it was wholly without love, without passion or desire that he kissed her; was nothing more than obsession, posession, the enmity and rage of a man who has relied on a ruthless determination and alien compordotta to make himself into something more. Something other. No matter what it cost.

  Even Raimon’s life. Even her innocence.

  And then he released her. Fell back, laughing, barely flinching as she spat first into his face, then again onto the floor.

  “Grazzo,” he said. “Grazzo meya, nommo Matra ei Filho.”

  Shaking, nearly unable to remain upright, Saavedra pulled herself to
her feet and made her way to the door. She caught the jamb there, clinging as hair tumbled into her face, as a torn and forgotten sleeve bared the telltale mark of a thumbnail that had never touched flesh, only paint.

  “You are” he said.

  She ran. From him. From herself.

  Sario frowned. She had not had the presence of mind to close the door, and what he planned required secrecy. He got up, aware of aches, of bruises to be, of the sting of her outrage across his cheek. Blood. It was not his he needed, but hers. And she had supplied it.

  He went to the door and closed it, set the latch. More than a lock was needed, but he would tend that. For the moment there were other more pressing matters, needs to be attended.

  Quickly he gathered the glass vials, pried away the wax sealant, removed the cork stopper. He took a clean absorbent cloth and patted his lips, drying them of perspiration; then shredded the cloth and tucked threads into a vial. Then he took up paletto knife, cleaned it, knelt on the floor. With meticulous care he set the second vial against the hardwood and used the knife to coax spittle into it. When it was full he stoppered it, turned to a third. Blood next: two and one half vials, no more; he dared not scrape up wood, which would pollute the ingredients.

  The vials he placed into the copper bowl. He then retrieved the clay pot Diega had brought him, placed it upon the table next to the bowl.

  Urine. Blood. Saliva. Sweat. Not all, but enough.

  Sario sighed, dabbed a cuff against the bloodied scratches, then stopped short.

  A careful search divulged what he hoped for: a snarl of hair trapped in the filigree of his Chieva. Three strands, four, coiled into ringlets.

  He worked swiftly and with absolute concentration, trimming a lock of his own hair, trimming hers, then binding the commingled human hair with that of sable onto a slender wooden handle. He sealed the bristles, made the brush; wet it with his own saliva, then uncapped the smallest jar. Smiling, he carried brush and jar to the door, and knelt. With swift economy he painted gilt-hued oscurra around the latch, so no one might open it.

  When that was completed he returned the jar to the table, washed the new-made brush in solvents, dried it, then removed the blood-spattered, scratched painting from the easel and set it aside.

  “Now,” he murmured. “Adezo.” He stood before the oak panel, examined its readiness by eye, by touch. Then took up an unused soft rag and wiped the surface entirely clean.

  Alla prima. Begun and finished in one session.

  He had no more time. Time was always his enemy.

  THIRTY-ONE

  In her chambers, Saavedra stripped and washed, paying particular attention to her face, to the places he had touched her, to the scrape on her shoulder. She did not wish to touch that, but it was no more than it appeared. She found it both distressing and illuminating.

  This is what they do. This is how they commit Chieva do’Sangua. Only they painted, repainted, an image out of health and youth into decrepitude and age, from a proud, promising boy into an aging man afflicted with bone-fever twisting his hands, with milk-fever blinding his eyes.

  Her hands were whole, her eyes. She was in all ways the same, save for the scrape upon her shoulder—and knowledge.

  Trembling she put on fresh shift, fresh gown, spread bandaged hand across her abdomen. He knew. Sario knew. She had told him. Even Alejandro knew nothing, nor anyone else save perhaps the women who washed her linen; it was improper compordotta to announce an impending birth until four months had passed, for as sterility afflicted males, so did early miscarriage afflict females. Reaching four months did not assure certainty of birth or survival of the infant, but there was more safety in it, and so the custom had become a ritual.

  The mirror gave her truth: hollow about the eyes, taut around the mouth, pale of flesh, but whole. Nothing showed of her knowledge. Swiftly she tied back ringlets, then went to find Ignaddio and share prayers for dead Raimon in the Grijalva shrine.

  Sario worked swiftly, with certainty, murmuring lingua oscurra, giving way from the knowledge of what had occured to what must; employing precisely what Alejandro had commanded him to employ, but of his own will, his own doing, his own Gift and Light. The original plan was disregarded, as was the original if incomplete portrait; he worked now completely separated from anything he had done before, making this wholly fresh, wholly new, unlike anything he or anyone else had done before him.

  A woman, standing in the middle foreground, behind a table but not obscured, as if poised to move away from it. The table itself, in near foreground, was only partially visible, its image carried off the bottom of the panel, extended to the left and carried off again; movement was imperative, and the suggestion of it. Thus a man looking at the painting saw mostly the edge of the table, not its surface, and that edge carved into interlocking patterns, a border, leading the eye. On the table lay books, vellum pages, a lighted lantern; an earthenware bowl of fruit; silver pitcher. And a closed Folio, its aged leather binding set with gold and gemstones.

  Behind the woman, in the background, windows, the high and arched embrasures cut deeply into thick walls, all honey-hued curves and shadowed, deeper hollows, with shutters folded back. Beyond the windows, through the arches, the sky beyond, fading from twilight to evening, from the colors of sunset to the tones of night, rich and dark and encompassing. On one deep sill a new candle, tall, fat, honeycombed, twelve hours delineated by gilt-painted, incised rings. Its light but a blur, painting a warm patina over the honey-hued, clay-smoothed surface of the wall.

  On the other sill, also behind her, a mirror set upon a small easel, silvered glass framed in gilt and pearls. A memory-mirror, a luck-mirror, gifted to a lover in celebration of Astraventa, when the stars fell from the sky.

  To the extreme right, nearest the edge of the panel, a door, iron-studded, iron-bound, consuming the foreground. Shut. Latched. But not locked. Not barred.

  And the woman: behind table, before windows, illuminated by candle, by lantern, caught between light and shadow. One hand, a long-fingered, slender hand, barely touched the gem-set leather binding of the Folio, as if she intended to open it; yet the poised posture suggested interruption, a startled expectation that made the Folio after all unimportant, forgotten.

  The other hand, equally long-fingered, equally eloquent, was dropped to brush her abdomen, as if to cup it, to ward it. She faced the viewer and yet turned away also, caught between stillness and movement. Her head was uplifted, in motion, turning from viewer to door. The fine bones of the face illuminated by lantern light, by an inner, joyous light of anticipation, as if she knew a man was at the door, a lover, the father of her unborn child. All the fine bones, all, knit of chiaroscuro, hollows and shadows and lines and relief, tilted, turning, limned by love: hers for him, his for her, and none of it Sario’s.

  He paused in his muttering, his painting. Caught breath. Went on.

  The sheen of pale bare flesh above the low, straight line of her gown, an ash-rose gown; the stippled scumble of flame-illumined velurro, laced taut against breasts, against ribs, against abdomen; the still-slender abdomen as yet unbloated by pregnancy; the low, straight, slash of neckline, high enough in bodice only to hide swollen nipples, reaching from side-seam to side-seam so that the sleeves, ruched and quilted to stand above shoulders, were laced onto the merest strip of fabric rising from the bodice.

  The deep bell of the skirts, fold upon fold of heavy velvet, vertically fretted by light, by shadow. Divided by the table, begun again beneath it, what could be seen of it. And the tumbled mass of ringlets, swept back from her face to expose it save for one or two fallen strands, fallen coils before the ear, another dangling to bare shoulder—and yet another near an eye, begging for readjustment by a lover’s tender touch.

  Swiftly, so swiftly; there was so little time.

  Color, tone upon tone, warm, cool, light, dark, mixed to form the whole. He tempered upon his muller, adding oil as necessary, wine as needed. Applied black pigment to the marble so
it would not taint fresh color … rubbed it clean, took up the brush, began again to paint.

  Detail to nose, to just-parting lips, to gray and brilliant eyes; even to lashes, to the hollows of her ears, the clean vertical line of neck from uplifted jaw to the first downs wept curve into horizontal shoulder. The blush of light, here; the deeper stillness of shadow, there.

  Saavedra: posed, poised, caught. Waiting for Alejandro.

  Ignaddio’s cell was as hers had been, bereft of that save what came with it, and what he put into it: himself, imagination, inspiration. A narrow cot, strung with rope; a chest for clothing; a table near the window, with ewer and basin. And the clutter of his craft.

  Saavedra paused in the doorway. He had left it open, as if wanting to hear the first footstep of her approach; but if he did, if he marked her approach at all, or her presence, she could not say. He sat upon the bed, shoulders bowed, head tilted downward.

  “’Naddi,” she said, and he turned. She saw then he had been drawing: a sheet of wood-heavy paper upon a board, a piece of charcoal, smudged face and filthy hands. He set them aside as he saw her. “Eiha, no—don’t stop. If you wish to draw, do so—I can return another time.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

  She wondered if she had been so long, first with Sario, later in her chambers removing the taint of him. “Regretto,” she said. “Shall we go now?”

  He stood up, shaking out of eyes a lock of fallen hair. “What will they do with him?”

  She thought he meant Sario, then realized he meant Il Sanguo. “Give him passage,” she answered, knowing it was not what he asked, and yet she had no answer. She had never known a Grijalva to take his own life by any means; had not known save for Sario what was done at all for a Sanguo who died.

  Raimon had not died. Raimon had perverted what was forbidden by the Ecclesia, unknown within the family.

  “Shall we go now?” she repeated, “We’ll talk to the Blessed Mother, ask intercession, pray for the peace of his soul.”