by Melanie Rawn
“Such cynicism! What else?”
“They don’t often come to such expensive places. Their clothes are nice enough, but she’s not wearing any jewels and he’s not comfortable—like he’s afraid he’ll spill something that won’t wash out. I think they might be celebrating something—their first anniversary?”
“Not bad,” Zevierin complimented.
“But not correct either,” Dioniso said. “It’s not their first anniversary, she’s not wearing her bridal coronet. That’s traditional here. By his expression, they’ve just found out she’s going to have a baby.”
Cabral snorted. “You’re right. There’s no mistaking that stupid grin.”
“Just like Don Arrigo,” Rafeyo muttered.
“You judge your do’Verradas harshly,” Zevierin observed. “Tazia had her twelve years with him. It’s time he married and fathered a Grand Duke.”
“But he did have that same stupid look on his face,” the boy insisted, and the other three exchanged glances acknowledging that wine had had its usual effect on the very young.
“Cabral is quite correct, it’s common to expectant fathers,” Dioniso said. “As if they’d accomplished a major miracle by getting a woman with child! Now, if it was you, or me, or Zevierin, it would be remarkable!”
Rafeyo giggled; Cabral smiled, not minding that he was not Confirmattio; Zevierin’s expression turned wooden before he glanced away.
Dioniso continued, “So they’re not rich enough to be regulars here, they’re deeply in love, and she’s pregnant. How would you paint them?”
Before Rafeyo could reply, the young man picked up the hitherto ignored account tally—and blanched.
“Uh-oh,” Cabral murmured. “He can’t pay the bill.”
The young man visibly gathered his courage and summoned the wine steward. There followed the sort of dispute rarely if ever seen in so elegant an establishment. Though conducted in rapid-fire Diettro Mareian, the Grijalvas were able to gather the gist of it. The bottle ordered was not the excruciatingly costly vintage listed on the tally. The wine steward showed the label; the young man looked slightly ill.
“The steward’s mistake, of course,” Cabral remarked. “Look at his face. It’s a common enough ploy to increase the cost of the meal, though this waiter must be inexperienced, to choose this couple.”
“So?” Rafeyo asked, owl-eyed.
“So,” Cabral finished, “somebody has to pay for the wine, and if not this boy, then the waiter. And he’s obviously not impressed by young love.”
“The gamba player is,” Zevierin said.
“They’re talking too fast. I can’t get more than six words in ten,” Rafeyo complained.
Cabral obligingly translated. “The gamba player tells the wine steward to own up to the error. Refusal. He offers his own tips to cover the wine—which our young friend is too proud to accept. And now here comes our host to investigate.”
The lovely young wife was crimson with impending tears; her equally humiliated husband was grimly determined as he explained their circumstances to the innkeeper. Cabral continued his commentary.
“We were right. They’ve saved for this night since they married, to celebrate their first baby. The wine steward again denies any mistake. He’s lying.” Cabral blinked suddenly. “Matra Dolcha, sixty-eight mareias for a bottle of wine? That’s more than their whole dinner cost! What do you think, Dioniso?”
“I think I am a very lucky man.” He groped in his pockets, then swore. “Merditto! My pencil case is in my other coat. Cabral? Zevierin?”
Rafeyo dug a hand into a pocket and came up with a small sketchpad and two bits of charcoal. “Will this do? Are we going to pay their bill?”
“In a manner of speaking. Eiha, I haven’t had this pleasure in quite some years. Cabral, clear the table.”
Zevierin rose. “The needlework pillows hint at an embroidery frame or two upstairs, I’ll go ask.”
“Good,” Dioniso said absently, glancing around the room with a critical, evaluating eye.
“But what are you doing?” Rafeyo asked plaintively.
“Shh,” said Cabral, eager eyes fixed on the charcoal stub in Dioniso’s fingers. “Watch.”
“Watch what?”
“Shh!”
Dioniso swept away the last of the crumbs, pursed his lips, then nodded to himself and began to wield the charcoal with sure strokes. Tables, chairs, ceiling beams, polished lustrossos, arched kitchen doorway—all took shape with breathtaking speed. He even incorporated the stains on the cloth into the composition. A splash of red wine became the flowers on the serving bar; a spot of sauce turned into the pewter platter hung on the far wall.
People were drawn in just as quickly, their characters portrayed as accurately as the knots in the planks of the floor. The innkeeper, his wife, the gamba player; the haughty woman in the Tza’ab turban, a boisterous family of six at the corner table; couples shyly courting and couples long married; a group of wealthy merchants enjoying an evening away from their wives (their expensive mistresses were diplomatically drawn in at another table). And, of course, the young couple in all the joy of their expectations. The wine steward was conspicuous in his absence. Cabral began to chuckle and ended laughing aloud with Rafeyo and Zevierin, who had returned with an embroidery frame.
“Bassda!” Dioniso snarled in mock fury, grinned all over his face. “How’s a man supposed to work in all this racket?”
The Grijalvas were making the only noise. Everyone’s neck craned to see what the Limner was up to. Those near enough to witness the miraculous transformation of a white tablecloth into a work of art whispered of its progress to others farther away.
At last Dioniso stood back. He surveyed his work for some moments, added a line here, a smudge there, and signed it. He whisked the cloth from the table in a swirl and held it up for inspection. Patrons exclaimed on recognizing themselves, and applause soon followed. Lively, evocative, in a minimum of strokes Dioniso had captured the room and those in it as only a Grijalva master could.
Cabral bowed to the innkeeper. “I trust this will cover everything?” he asked, and Zevierin groaned at the pun.
Befuddled with bliss at having a genuine Grijalva of his very own, drawn in his very restaurant on his very tablecloth—and perfectly aware that it was worth twice the cost of a whole case of the disputed wine—the innkeeper babbled incoherent thanks. He then ordered the wine steward to bring a bottle of the vintage in question to the Grijalva table.
Zevierin held the embroidery frame up to the cloth. It encircled less than a quarter of the drawing. “A bedframe might work,” he complained. “Did you have to draw everybody, Dioniso?”
“Dioniso?” The innkeeper squinted at the signature. “This other name is—”
“Yes, I know.” Handing the cloth over, Dioniso crossed to the young couple. The husband stammered, trying to protest; the wife, beyond speech, caught Dioniso’s hand in both her own, liquid brown eyes eloquent of her gratitude. Smiling down at her, the Limner said, “You’ve done me a great service tonight, one I wish to repay.”
He freed his fingers and plucked a clean napkin from a nearby table. Spreading the linen out, he sketched a charcoal portrait of the startled pair as they had looked for most of the evening: gazing raptly at each other, giddy with joy.
“Will you do me the honor of accepting this?” he asked when he finished. “I regret I won’t be in Diettro Mareia when your baby is born, for surely the child of such handsome parents would be a marvel to paint. Please allow me to give you this small token of my hopes for your continued happiness and a fine, healthy son.”
Zevierin snatched up the napkin. “Now, this fits!” He stretched it over the inner circle of wood, eased the outer circle into place, tightened the brass screw, and gave it into the girl’s trembling hands. “And it’s signed ‘Dioniso Grijalva,’ which means it’s a personal gift. You really can’t refuse, you know,” he ended merrily. “He’d die of shame if you rejected him!”<
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The young husband recovered himself and with dignity said, “Master Dioniso, if the child is indeed a boy, he’ll bear your name. We are in your debt.”
“No, you aren’t,” Cabral told him. “That’s just the point.” To the room at large he explained, “You’ve just witnessed the continuation of a Grijalva tradition. One night in 1123, Lord Limner Riobaro was dining in a restaurant nearly as fine as this. It turned out that some young students near him were given someone else’s roast by mistake—” He cast a speaking look at the mortified wine steward. “—and couldn’t pay for it. Rather than insulting the students by paying in coin, Riobaro drew a picture on a tablecloth and presented it to the innkeeper. It still adorns the wall there in Castello Joharra.”
“Castello Granidia,” said Dioniso, who ought to know.
“Ah,” said Cabral, with a bow. “In any case, ever since, any of us lucky enough to see a similar situation pays tribute to the great Lord Limner by doing as he did, and signing his name to the picture.”
Dioniso bowed to the blushing girl. “So you see, it’s both a privilege and an honor for me to draw this picture. I thank you for the opportunity. En verro, I am in your debt.”
Later, when they were weaving their way through the streets back to the Ressidensa, Rafeyo proved himself a very sentimental drunk. “That was beautiful,” he kept saying, leaning on Zevierin’s shoulder. “Jus’ beautiful.”
“We know,” Cabral said patiently. “You’ve told us. Several times.”
“It was,” the boy insisted. “Even looked like R’baro’s work!”
“By custom,” Dioniso said, “we try to use his style.”
Rafeyo nodded owlishly. “Jus ‘like ‘im.”
“Damned close,” Cabral agreed. “Maybe the shadows weren’t quite Riobaro, but the signature was perfect.”
The man who had once been Riobaro arched a brow.
Rafeyo came to his defense. “Was jus ‘like Ri-o-bar—ohhh!”
Zevierin spun the boy away from him and held him at arm’s length, but too late. Selections from a seven-course dinner and a great deal of wine and homebrew ended up on Zevierin’s brand-new boots. “Merditto!”
Dioniso and Cabral laughed as Rafeyo collapsed into Zevierin’s arms and slowly slid down his length to the cobblestones. Refusing to ruin their own clothes by helping to pick him up, let alone carry him, they laughed harder when the young Limner hoisted the boy across one shoulder like a sack of rags for the paper mill—and the completely unconscious Rafeyo continued his disgraceful performance down Zevierin’s back all six blocks to the Ressidensa.
Dioniso reflected with regret that he must remember caution in drinking; Rafeyo obviously couldn’t hold his liquor worth a damn.
THIRTY-NINE
When Principia Rosilan showed up for weekly worship in the gigantic Ecclesialla della Corrasson Sangua wearing a Tza’ab turban, Arrigo suspected he was in trouble. He was sure of it when Principio Felisso commented on how delightfully it suited her.
She tossed her head to set the golden tassel dancing flirtatiously. “I suppose fashions in Tira Virte have long since embraced and discarded Tza’ab follies. But it’s all new to those of us in Diettro Mareia.”
Meaning, of course, that there was a growing demand for all Tza’ab goods, and Tira Virte’s monopoly on trade in them was resented. In the Ecclesialla, the day’s Recitassion reinforced the message. A sancto with a deeply sonorous voice read the tale of the farmer who, owning the only bull in the area, charged exorbitant fees for the animal’s services. On the night of Fuega Vesperra, the spring celebration of conception, the greedy farmer dreamed of a cow weeping in despair for lack of a calf. Claiming that the gentle brown eyes were exactly those of the Mother in the village Sanctia’s icon, the chastened farmer thereafter sent his bull to service the local cows free of charge.
It was a standard Recitassion for news of an important pregnancy—the royal bull fulfilling his duty to the nation by siring the next generation—and could have been interpreted as a salute to Arrigo and Mechella. But the farmer’s monopoly on the bull and the staggering sums he charged before his change of heart were more to Felisso’s point. Arrigo sat, and listened, and fulminated.
Just in case he hadn’t understood, dinner that evening was served by all nine ugly little della Mareis, just as a Tza’ab host’s offspring served honored guests. They wore matching suits of black-and-red striped Tza’ab cloth and the long pointed toes of their Tza’ab slippers were decorated with tiny silver Tza’ab bells. Yet as unsubtle as the display was, the term “Tza’ab” was never mentioned.
Arrigo returned late to his chamber, head still clanging with all those irksome little bells, and summoned Dioniso.
“Paint the icon,” he ordered. “I don’t give a damn how it’s done. Get a lock of his hair yourself—and one from the Principia, too. Stick pins in them to get their blood if you like! I want that icon painted now, Limner.”
Dioniso bowed to the Heir’s impatience. The next morning Rafeyo got “lost” near the Principio’s bathroom. That afternoon Zevierin presented a flagon of perfume (distilled by Cabral’s sister Leilias) to the Principia’s personal maid, with whom he had been purposefully dallying these several days. That evening in Dioniso’s chamber, Rafeyo produced a vial of the princely urine and Zevierin handed over twenty long strands from the princessly hairbrush.
On the fifteenth and final day of Arrigo’s visit—with goodwill blooming like roses and the words “Tza’ab” and “trade” still un-mentioned in the same sentence—Arrigo said his farewells and presented his cousins with two icons.
The first was for Rosilan, a dainty glory of soft colors and tender brushwork depicting the smiling Mother in the first days of Her pregnancy, surrounded by nine children. (There was no resemblance to any of the nine ugly little della Mareias; that would have been heretical as well as an aesthetic disaster.) In a sunny outdoor scene, set in an orchard with pines in the background, the Mother sat on spring grass with a wreath of blue-flowering rosemary crowning Her brow. In Her lap was a basket of plums, symbolizing the coming fruition of Her womb. Her smile was directed at the one little boy who held a plum in his hand, signifying that the Child to be born was male.
The icon painted for Felisso was altogether different. The youthful Son was presented as a scholar dressed in plain dark robes, seated at a desk in a candlelit Sanctia cell. His head was slightly bent over a book, but His gaze lifted to look the viewer straight in the eye. His expression clearly said, “You are there only because I am looking at you”—an uncanny trick of the Limner’s art. On the desk were two white vases filled with flowers, and a ripe red apple. Outside the ivy-twined window behind Him, a landscape washed in moonlight showed a line of white poplar trees and a glimpse of forbidding desert sands beyond. The contrast of golden candleglow and silvery moonlight alone made the icon a masterpiece. But there was greater significance to the painting, as Dioniso readily explained to the Principio—who nearly sucked the white off his teeth in admiration.
“Your Highness, inside the Sanctia, faithfully guarded by ivy at the window, is the steady light of civilization. Outside, the arid night of ignorance is lighted only by the inconstant moon. The poplars and the desert beyond represent time—though cruel and inexorable outside the Sanctia, it cannot touch the Son or His Truths, as symbolized by the Apple of Knowledge.”
Dioniso did not say that these symbols had other meanings and that bound into both icons were other significances.
Felisso declared he would have the icon placed in his bedchamber, where every morning on waking he would see it and recall the duty of a civilized prince to keep time and ignorance from blighting his people. Arrigo smiled, Dioniso bowed, and the Tira Virteians took their leave—after the Principio extracted Arrigo’s promise that next time he would bring his fascinating wife.
“I wish we’d brought her this time,” Zevierin said as they were taken to the port by carriage. “All she’d have to do is wear anything that
wasn’t Tza’ab, set an instant fashion, and—” He winced as their conveyance, nowhere near as well-sprung as the gilded vehicle Arrigo rode in ahead of them, jounced over a crater in the road. “—the whole problem would be solved.”
“Women do have their uses,” Rafeyo said airily, a boy’s attempt at casual sophistication that made his three companions hide smiles.
The lack of a formal treaty bothered Cabral, and he said as much while they unpacked Dioniso’s gear in the Embajadorro’s private cabin. A stiff afternoon wind was blowing, and although seas were rather high, the ship’s master was confident they would outrun the coming storm. They were less than an hour underway and already the prow dug strongly into massive waves, the pitch and roll making every movement problematical. But young muscles and total imperviousness to seasickness kept the three younger Grijalvas upright. Dioniso, however, sprawled on his bunk, eyes squeezed shut in silent misery.
“Cossimio won’t be pleased,” said Zevierin in response to Cabral’s worries. “He expects a grand Treaty canvas to hand in Galerria Verrada.”
Rafeyo gave a snort. “The result is the same as if there were a treaty. No more illegal trade with the Tza’ab.”
“But no painting,” Cabral reminded him. “And therefore no public record.”
“I’ll tell you another thing he won’t like,” said Zevierin, folding a few clean shirts into a drawer. “Diettro Mareia has not one but two beautiful new Grijalva icons. Cossimio’s very possessive about us, you know.”
Dioniso rolled over—not quite voluntarily—and opened his eyes. “Happily, Arrigo will have to explain it to him, not I. Go away and let me suffer in peace. Go on, out!”
Cabral grinned and placed a basin on the floor in easy reach.
An hour later, Rafeyo crept into the darkened cabin with a pitcher in one hand and a candle under glass in the other. The light pained Dioniso’s eyes.
“I brought you something hot to drink,” the boy whispered. “They say it’ll calm your stomach.”
He considered telling Rafeyo to go away. But, as he’d hoped, a bond was forming now that would serve him well in future, and here was another chance to foster it. The same was true of Arrigo; when Mequel retired or died and Rafeyo was of an age to become Lord Limner, Arrigo would remember that the Grijalva he’d liked and trusted—and who’d told him so many interesting things—had liked and trusted Rafeyo.