The Golden Key

by Melanie Rawn

  No. Her own life, her own place, her own power. Corasson was her beginning. She owned it, loved it, had made it her true home. It was Arrigo’s tragedy that he preferred to live a lie with that woman rather than a true life with her.

  She remembered the tall, handsome, charming young man she had first loved. Fifteen, she’d been: lanky and clumsy and adoring. She could see herself and him as clearly as if a Limner’s brush had painted them both and the portrait was right before her. And when he’d returned to the Palaisso Millia Luminnai, and kissed her in the moonlit garden—she could see that, too, from the sparkle of his epalettos to the coronet of a Princess of Ghillas that bound her hair. At Caterrine, at Palasso Verrada, at village fairs and guildhalls and ceremonies in the Cathedral Imagos Brilliantos; so many images of herself and him.

  And none of them real.

  Only one painted picture existed of the two of them together: a blond girl in a white bridal gown, a dark man in a green Shagarra uniform, newly handfast and full of confidence that they would be happy.

  Who knew but what they might have been. She had fallen in love with Arrigo twice, once when she met him and once when she married him. Now she wondered why. And if he had ever loved her at all. It seemed stunningly appropriate that she had ordered Dioniso to paint her into the Marriage before Arrigo had even arrived in Ghillas; hers had been the heart-whole commitment, hers the eagerness to make a marriage. Now that marriage was no more than paint and perhaps a few stray fibers from a brush on canvas. Not even a Grijalva Limner could bring to life the seeming when there was no substance.

  It hurt. She could not pretend it didn’t. Something in her whispered that if only he would send that woman far away and make amends, she would forgive all and try once more to be happy.

  But whatever he might do or say, she didn’t think she could fall in love with him again. Not again.

  “Your Grace,” Otonna finally managed, “how can she be kept away? She comes with him and with her husband. To turn her away would be to insult them all.”

  “I don’t know yet. Leave me now, I have to think.”

  “Three days it will be before she arrives like the Nerro Lingua—”

  “I know that! Don’t you think I know that? There must be some way to keep her out!” Hearing her voice rise, she took several calming breaths. “Go, Otonna. I need to think.”

  Arrigo and his party were delayed several days at a Sanctia when Garlo do’Alva’s middle son announced with staggering suddenness that he intended to dedicate his life to the Ecclesia.

  Verradio, eighteen and legally able to make his own decisions, gave his worldly goods to his two brothers and his servants, donned the coarse brown robe of a noviciato, and refused to leave his cell no matter what his father threatened. Horrified and furious, Garlo tried everything short of forcible entry and kidnap, refraining only because Tazia pleaded Verradio’s cause.

  Arrigo, observing all this with a mixture of amusement and amazement, was confounded by Tazia’s eloquence in the young man’s defense. As a second wife who would never bear a child of Garlo’s blood and whose own son had no claim on the do’Alva fortunes, she could have no personal interest in Verradio’s relinquishing his inheritance. The resident sancto, though grudging as all Ecclesials were to credit a Grijalva with any finer feelings, approved her championship of the young man.

  What Tazia could have told Arrigo—and didn’t—was that Verradio had presented her with a simple choice: support him against his father’s wrath, or see draft copies of her letters to Arrigo published in every city, town, village, and hamlet in Tira Virte.

  The night before he announced his entry into Ecclesial life he invited her to a private conference in the Sanctia’s shabby little herb garden and showed her a damning sample. It was a page of lascivious praise for Arrigo’s most personal attributes, much crossed-out and reworked until the effect of uncontrived passion was perfected.

  “The Qal Venommo in Granidia will be nothing to this. Arrigo and my father will recognize your handwriting, even if they deny publicly that you wrote it. What will Arrigo think when he finds you must practice your ‘spontaneous’ love letters?”

  Tazia sat down very hard on a stone bench, the garden spinning around her.

  Verradio grinned. “None of you care what Mechella thinks—en verro, nor do I—but the people adore her. If this and its little friends are published. …” Verradio tucked the page into his tunic. “You really ought to burn such things. You never know who might come across them in the trash—accidentally, of course.”

  “Merditto!” Tazia spat. “Prodding through the garbage like a chiros!”

  “You’d know about offal, wouldn’t you, Tazia? Your every footstep stirs up more of it, your every breath is poisoned.”

  “I know you hate me,” she said dismissively. “But how can you do this to your father?”

  “I don’t just hate you. I loathe you. I despise you. I curse the day my father wed you—and I curse him for shaming the do’Alva name by taking a whore to wife. I hope to cleanse myself of such feelings here in the bosom of the Sanctia, without your daily presence to remind me of how deeply I abhor the very sound of your name.”

  She rose, paced the broken stones of the walk, wrung her hands together. “If I take your part in this, Garlo will never forgive me!”

  “Probably not.” Verradio laughed. “But think how much good you’ll do yourself and your family with the Ecclesia!”

  Garlo allowed his second son to enter the Sanctia. He had no choice, but acted as if he did. His other sons, Zandor and Diegan, pretended solemnity as they rode out the gates, but secretly rejoiced in their brother’s triumph—and envied him his escape. Tazia kept her mouth shut and her eyes downcast, lest she give way to fury. Rafeyo, in whom his mother had confided, added Garlo and Verradio to his list of persons to be dealt with once he was Lord Limner. Arrigo thought the whole incident absurd, but in deference to everyone’s feelings kept his opinion to himself. They had lost four days on the journey to Corasson, and he was eager to arrive—eager to compel Mechella and Cossimio and Gizella and all the rest to accept Tazia into the family as Lissina had been accepted long ago.

  One day’s ride from Corasson they were met by a courier sent to inform them that the whole family was in mourning. Word had come to Mechella only yesterday that her father was dead. Arrigo immediately galloped off with a few guards, wanting to reach Corasson as swiftly as possible. Garlo and Tazia were left to decide for themselves whether or not they wished to intrude on the family’s grief. Arrigo didn’t phrase it that way, of course, but it was clear that on this journey to Castello Alva, the Countess would not have the pleasure of forcing Mechella to receive her. Just as clear was Arrigo’s disappointment that his little ploy to bring his Mistress to his wife’s official notice had failed.

  Tazia was furious with Verradio for tricking her, and furious with Garlo for behaving as if she did not exist, and furious above all with Mechella’s moronno father for dying. Eiha, this chance had been lost, but a time was fast approaching when Mechella would count for nothing in Tira Virte. The people could adore her all they liked. What mattered was that Arrigo adored Tazia. She resigned herself to circumstances and resolved to use these weeks to work her way back into Garlo’s good graces. Damn Verradio—and damn King Enrei!

  Garlo composed a formal letter of condolence over his and Tazia’s signatures, delivered by his eldest son Zandor and, at Tazia’s insistence, Rafeyo. The reply that eventually reached Castello Alva was addressed to the Count alone, written and signed by Leilias Grijalva “for Dona Mechella.” The slight was deliberate—Garlo was an important man, distantly related to the do’Verradas—and he knew precisely whom to thank for the insult and why. Tazia returned to the sodden summer heat of Meya Suerta soon thereafter, alone.

  Relations between Arrigo and Mechella were even worse. She refused to see him when he arrived. She refused to see him the next day. At last he ordered Otonna to unlock the door and stand aside.
She did, eyes narrowed, saying, “You’ll recall it later that I warned you.”

  Alone with his wife in her bedchamber, Arrigo took a few steps toward the velurro sofa where she sat hunched and miserable. Lissina had told him she’d been weeping for days. She looked it. Her golden hair was snarled and unwashed; as she looked up at him, he saw that her blue eyes were swollen with tears.

  Gently, with compassion for her grief—for he’d liked Enrei and one day his own father would die—he said, “I’m so sorry about your father. I share your sorrow. He was a good man.”

  “Don’t speak to me in cliches,” she whispered. “Don’t speak to me at all.”

  “’Chella—”

  Her voice was barely audible, as if grief had crushed the breath from her. “How dare you talk of my father? You promised him you would make his daughter happy.”

  “Mechella, you’re overwrought. This is a terrible loss, I know.”

  “You betrayed him, you betrayed me. How could you even think of bringing that woman here?”

  Arrigo took a few steps toward her. “Carrida, let me hold you.”

  “Aren’t there beds enough in Meya Suerta? Or did you want the thrill of mounting your whore in your wife’s own house?”

  Leashing his temper, he said, “The pain of your loss is very great, but I can’t allow you to speak that way about the Countess do’Alva.”

  “What you can or cannot allow has no meaning in my house. Get out.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m your husband.”

  “No.” She rose slowly, shaking hands fisted in wrinkled black skirts. Her lips curled back from her teeth and she said, “No, you’re only the man I married, who got children on me.”

  “Mechella, I came to console you.”

  “You came because not to come would show the world what you truly are!” Anger gave her breath and bearing. She flung her hair back over her shoulder and glared. “Get out, Arrigo. Don’t ever come to Corasson again—unless you want everyone to see you turned away at the door!”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Try it, and find out!”

  Arrigo tried once more. “You’re too upset now to make sense. I’ll come back when—”

  “If you come back, I’ll have my Shagarrans throw you out!”

  He laughed. “I’m their captain, Mechella!”

  “And I’m the one they love and serve!”

  His temper slipped its chain. “And this love no doubt includes servicing you in bed!”

  She neither flinched nor gasped; she laughed at him. “Grazzo for the suggestion! Any three of them would be more use to me sound asleep than you ever were wide awake!”

  Arrigo crossed the room in three long strides, reaching for her.

  “Touch me and I’ll scream,” she hissed.

  Calling on every scrap of self-control that had ever kept private turmoil from public exhibition, he said, “I recall a night not long ago when you begged me to hold you. I tell you now, Mechella, I’d rather lie down in a trough of Plague-ridden vomit.”

  “Get out!”

  “Gladly.” He pivoted on one heel and strode to the door. With his hand on the crystal knob, he turned to look at her one last time. “I never loved you, Mechella. I married you only because my father commanded it. I bedded you wishing you were Tazia. And when my father is dead and I am Grand Duke of Tira Virte, only one door at Palasso Verrada will open to you: the door to the sewers. Dolcho nocto, Mechella—ei dolcha viva en Corasson, for you’ll live the rest of your days here alone.”

  “In a hovel, rather than with you! But not alone, Arrigo—not alone, I assure you!”

  “En verro?” He smiled. “And what will all your adoring people think, when their Dolcha ‘Chellita acts the whore?”

  FIFTY

  Cossimio and Gizella took the children back to Palasso Verrada a few days later. Lissina lingered just long enough for Zevierin to complete her Will—still a secret from everyone but him and Leilias and Cabral and Mechella—then took her leave with much cautionary advice to her kinswoman about protecting Mechella’s health in this time of her grief.

  “They mourn differently in Ghillas,” Lissina said on the front steps, drawing on her gloves as the carriage rolled toward her. “King Enrei will have a state funeral and all his Court will be in mourning for a full half-year. Mechella will grieve long after that, of course, but it’s worst for her right now. And we allow only a few days of private sorrow here in Tira Virte, so people will say she’s overindulgent if she shuts herself away at Corasson, but I suppose that can’t be helped.”

  Leilias nodded politely, wondering what Lissina could know about grief. In her soft brown eyes was compassion for Mechella’s pain, but at well past seventy, her face had fewer lines than Lord Limner Mequel’s. Hers was not a face meant for suffering; recalling the outlines of her life, Leilias decided that suffering had recognized this and passed her by.

  But a moment later she was thoroughly ashamed of herself as Lissina gave a quiet sigh and murmured, “I remember when my Reycarro died … six days later I had to attend a ball for the King of Taglis, when I could barely lift my head from my pillow. …” She swallowed hard and shook her scarcely grayed head. “Eiha, that’s a long time ago. You must see to Mechella’s welfare, Leilias. Write to me and I’ll come at once if you think I can be of any help.”

  Later, Zevierin sat beside Leilias in Mechella’s private salon, listening to the silence. At length, he said, “It’s not just the death of her father she’s mourning.”

  “One minute she weeps like a child, and the next like a woman whose heart has broken. It’s over, Zevi. For Mechella and Arrigo, there’s no hope.”

  He reached for her hand, holding it to his heart. “I feel so guilty. For us, it’s only begun.”

  “I know. It’s terrible to be so happy when she’s—I’ve been trying to find the right time to tell her about us. To give her something she can be glad of for a little while. She’s trying to get used to losing her father and her husband while I’m try to get used to having everything.”

  “Are you certain you want me?” he murmured. “I still can’t believe it—when you came to my room the night before we heard about King Enrei, I—”

  “Don’t babble, Zevi,” she scolded fondly. “I’m certain that I’ve always wanted to be able to love someone. I’m just not certain why it should be you!”

  “Be serious,” he urged. “I need to know, Leilias. In twenty years I’ll be forty-five, and old.”

  “So? In twenty years I may be a grandmother.” Wrapping her arms around his waist, she leaned against him and teased, “Does the thought of making love to a grandmother horrify you?”

  A few breathless minutes later, he sternly forbade himself her lips long enough to ask. “Are you certain about children?”

  She laughed low in her throat. “I thought you’d topple like a pine tree when I told you I want babies. What do you think, am I too old for a Confirmattio?”

  “Leilias,” he warned.

  She made a face. “Oh, very well. Serious. The difference is that it’s not the Viehos Fratos ordering me to have children, it’s my choice. But only if you’ll be their father.”

  “In heart and in spirit and even in blood, I’ll never think of your children as anything but mine,” he vowed.

  “I’ll pick somebody kind and clever and talented, somebody who looks like you.” She nuzzled his cheek. “Mechella told me when we were in Dregez that one day I’d understand about wanting to be a mother. She didn’t know that for me, it came because I want so much for you to be a father.”

  “I wish—”

  “No, don’t.” She stopped his words with a finger on his lips. “You can’t, you’re a Limner. Maybe our sons will be, too. But let’s wish for the things we know we can have—things like being happy for the rest of our lives.”

  “A certainty,” he said, tightening his embrace. “We’re going to be completely, wildly happy.”

  Leilias l
aughed. “Insanely happy!”

  “Nauseatingly, by the sound of it,” Cabral remarked from the doorway. “Do shut up, both of you, before I lose my breakfast. Zevi, unhand my sister. Leilias, try to stop pawing him for a moment. Mechella wants us. Otonna said she asked if everyone was finally gone, then said she’d meet us in the rose garden.”

  They waited for her in the morning sunshine, the first crisp breeze of autumn rustling the oaks. Green lawns spread to rose-covered walls, laced by beds of white and yellow roses at their fullest bloom. The fragrance was exquisite—and so was Mechella as she glided across the grass. Her simple gray silk dress was of the drop-waisted Pracanzan fashion, her bright hair in a single braid over her left shoulder. Days ago she had told Otonna to throw out every single stitch of clothing that held even a hint of the deep do’Verrada sapphire blue.

  They rose from their chairs to greet her. She sat down below a trellis festooned with white roses, folded her hands in her lap, and addressed them as formally as if they were conselhos in conference.

  “I apologize for interrupting your morning. I’ve come to some decisions that I wish to share with you. First, my father’s funeral took place mere days after his death, so there was never any question of my going to Aute-Ghillas to attend. But I will be going to my brother’s coronation after the half-year of mourning is completed. Grand Duke Cossimio has agreed to my request. I will be his sole representative and will go alone—that is, with a large escort of my Shagarrans but without Don Arrigo or the children. I expect that a few Grijalvas will accompany me as well, but that can be arranged at a later date.”

  She paused for breath, and smoothed her skirts over her knees. “Secondly, except for state occasions when my presence is required, I will no longer live at Palasso Verrada. My children will stay here with me until such time as they’re old enough to take their places at Court. The Grand Duke allows this—though he thinks my withdrawal to be temporary. He and the Grand Duchess are welcome at any time to Corasson, of course—and the Countess do’Casteya and the Baroness do’Dregez. But if Don Arrigo attempts to enter, my Shagarrans have orders to remove him.”