by Melanie Rawn
Cabral did not reply for a long while, but he gestured with one hand and old Davo got up obediently and retreated into the shop. Here, in the peaceful Grijalva compound, the executions seemed very far away, as indeed they were: They had taken place on the opposite side of town, as far as possible from Palasso Verrada. Here, at Palasso Grijalva, was like another world, one not torn by the press of bodies, by the angry whispers and exhalation of fear and hatred, by the awful jerk and sway of the executed men dangling from the noose. Here was quiet sun and a street slumbering in siesta. A cart piled high with lemons and limes trundled past. Two children rolled hoops at the intersection. From down the arched tunnel that led into the main courtyard, Eleyna heard the faint singing and laughter of the serving girls, washing clothes in the stable trough: “My beloved awaits me at the fountain.”
“Leilias spoke freely with you,” said Cabral at last, folding his hands neatly in his lap.
“You know she did! Grandmother believed in my gift!”
“As do I, mennina.”
Eleyna shut her eyes on sudden tears, bowed her head, and laid it on his hands. His skin bore calluses and lesions, the legacy of his years of grinding harsh pigments and tempering them into paints. “Now that Grandmother is dead, you are the only one who believes in me.”
He stroked her hair gently. “The Itinerarrio, Sario, has been looking at your paintings. He is one of the Gifted, and he admires your work.”
She looked up, aware her cheeks were warm. “I haven’t met him yet. Since the Iluminarres riot, Mother has kept me in the matron’s courtyard, painting portraits of those awful lapdogs the court ladies keep. Matra ei Filho, now Grand Duchess Johannah wants a portrait done of her greyhounds. She saw the miniature I did of Countess do’Casteya’s pugs, and she wants me to do another of hers, only with the greyhounds in a pastoral scene, by a farmhouse. It makes me sick! Look at these! Look!” She pulled away from him and flipped through the pages of her sketchpad. “Children dressed in rags. Men who could barely walk for hunger, all come to the hanging—but for what? People spoke of Ghillas. There was a terrible rumor going around that seven days after the bread riots the common folk in Aute-Ghillas burned the palace there and put the king to the sword. Is it true?”
The rumor did not appear to surprise him. “How could I hope for such news to be true? Everyone knows that we Grijalvas serve the Grand Duke. If the Grand Duke is attacked by people who believe such rumors, then so will we be attacked.”
“That’s true, I suppose. Like a disease, jumping from one city to the next. It still wasn’t right to hang those men like that, though.”
“You had a customer in looking at your Battle of Rio Sanguo.”
“You’re trying to distract me. Nicollo told me I ought to burn it. But it isn’t a disgrace, though he may think it one.” She tilted her head to one side, catching a sudden fusillade of faint gunfire, a harsh melody borne on the breeze. “Matra!”
Cabral got up from the bench and took a few nimble steps down to the avenue, staring along the empty street. His hair was as pale as the zinc white they used in painting the coldest, purest whites, but he walked with the vigor of a man of forty. Almost eighty he might be, but he was stronger than Gifted painters half his age. Had he ever regretted his health, or wished he could trade it for the Gift? She never had the courage to ask.
Now he merely shook his head. “Nothing. Go into the hall, Eleynita. I’ll take care of things here.” He clucked reprovingly. “These are hard days.”
She kissed him on the cheek and hurried inside, her mood entirely changed. Who had come to look at her painting? Would it be bought? Perhaps chosen for display at Galerria Verrada?
“No!” Eleyna recognized Agustin’s voice. A moment later the boy came pelting out of the arcaded walkway that led to the gardens. He saw Eleyna and veered toward her. “I won’t go through the Confirmattio,” he muttered, hiding behind her. “It’s so degrading.”
“Agustin!”
“There are other ways to know. Why do I have to be tested, except so they can do to me what was done to them? I won’t do it!”
She sighed. There they came, their voices like the mutter of the crowd at the hangings: an uncle, three male cousins, and her mother. She braced herself.
Dionisa strode forward first, sweeping her old-fashioned bustled skirt past a tight turn where the arcade emptied into the courtyard. She advanced on her daughter and son with the confidence of a woman who has achieved the ultimate authority: mother to a Gifted son. She fixed her glare on Eleyna. “It isn’t enough that you act in this way, is it? You must infect him as well. Go at once to your chamber. I will speak with you later.”
“I won’t go,” said Eleyna softly.
“He’s as loyal as a dog to her,” muttered her uncle, Giaberto.
Agustin huddled closer behind her. Although he was now taller than she was, although he was now fifteen, he could only sustain short spurts of defiance. His artist’s soul was like a fine piece of porcelain: admire it, handle it gently, and it will transform a room with its beauty; drop it and it will shatter. Eleyna was not so delicate. As Dionisa ever reminded her, wishing her son had been born with fiery resolve and her daughter with the more demure sensibility.
“This is Conselho business,” objected Nicollo. “You may go, Eleyna.”
“Then Agustin will go with me. Come, Agustin.” But she trembled as she said it and not just with anger. It was not wise to push Viehos Fratos too far. They had powers that others did not. She had learned that the hard way, five years ago.
“I have had enough of this!” Nicollo was furious.
“Let her go,” said Dionisa, “and take the boy, for now. It is only a formality, after all. He has shown his skills already.” Always they shrouded the Gift in secrecy, even when speaking among themselves. “We will discuss what to do next.”
At moments like these, Eleyna admired her mother for the way Dionisa imposed her will upon her male relatives. Agustin was a rare thing; there had been few boys in this last generation who had passed the Confirmattio—she had heard Leilias comment on it many times. Leilias had borne two Gifted sons herself, but no other Grijalva woman since had given birth to more than one. Dionisa knew the worth of what she had; the Viehos Fratos knew that she knew, and knew also that she would not sit back and let them take the boy without her guiding the hand that wielded the paintbrush.
Eleyna did not trust her mother. But having said she was going, she could hardly object now. She took Agustin by the hand and together they crossed through the great ballroom, into the south courtyard, and from there along an arcade smothered in oleander into the tiled courtyard around which the private suites were clustered.
Though it was cool, Agustin was sweating. He dipped a hand in the fountain, brushed his fingers along the cool tile, and wiped his brow. Their sister Beatriz came into the courtyard through the door that led into the library, and she crossed toward them.
“They don’t need to test me,” Augustin continued as Beatriz stopped beside him and gently brushed a stray curl out of his eyes, “if they already know that—” He broke off when their cousin Yberra came in from the arcade. Yberra came from that line of the family which had lost the ability to produce Gifted sons. Andreo was the last. Yberra might suspect there were secrets among the Viehos Fratos, but she remained ignorant of the Grijalvas’ true power.
“The hem of your gown is dirty,” said Agustin to Beatriz, changing the subject quickly. “You’ve tried to brush the dirt from your gown, where you were kneeling.”
“Beatriz!” Yberra pressed a hand to her bosom—and there was a lot of bosom there—and looked horrified. “You haven’t been gardening with the servants again, have you? I thought you were reading. Eiha! I’ve heard news.” This last word spoken dramatically. “I overheard Andreo telling Mama you ought to marry Fransisso.”
Eleyna shuddered.
“Of course I will do what my parents ask of me,” said Beatriz calmly.
“Of
course you will,” said Yberra sweetly, shooting a stinging and triumphant glance toward Eleyna.
“I’m so sorry we must go now, Yberra.” Eleyna grabbed Agustin’s elbow and hauled him away.
Beatriz hurried after them. “Eleyna!” she said in a whisper as they climbed the stairs, first one flight to the corner, then turning to go up again, until they reached the third landing. Here Eleyna opened the door that led into the suite of rooms belonging to their mother and her first cousins—doomed by the fall of their aunt Tazia, whom none of them had even liked, to be relegated to the least desirable corner of the compound.
But they were handsome enough rooms, Eleyna reflected as they walked along the corridor. Large windows looked down over the courtyard, giving way to a whitewashed wall bordered by azulejos, the blue and white rosette tiles trimmed with green that were the symbol of Palasso Grijalva. So handsome that Dionisa had made no effort to throw Yberra’s sonless mother out of her better-placed rooms. Instead she had beautified her own, as if announcing her refusal to be stained by Tazia’s bad name.
They walked into the safety of the parlor. Eleyna tossed her sketchpad and her shawl onto a couch.
“You needn’t antagonize Yberra,” said Beatriz.
Eleyna shot her a glance but said nothing. Beatriz was so kind that it was impossible to be angry with her.
“I’m going back to the studio,” said Agustin. “Davo says he’s got a new batch of dye from the madders, and we’re going to blend rose madder for watercolors.”
“Don’t do anything foolish,” said Eleyna.
“Davo won’t let him,” said Beatriz.
Agustin’s fine mouth quivered into a smile. He was a boy made homely by years of delicate health. That he had survived the Summer Fever two years ago was a miracle granted by the Mother. His robust twin siblings had not been so lucky.
“I won’t,” he promised. He kissed his sisters and walked distractedly away into the hall. Eleyna wandered out to the balcony that overlooked the street. Beatriz followed her. They leaned on the wrought iron railing that was twined into the shapes of keys: ornate door keys, skeleton keys, tiny jewel-lock keys making a lacework at the corners.
Eleyna contemplated the broad avenida. “Look how few people are out. It’s too quiet, and not just because it’s siesta.” She heard no more musketfire.
“Mother will scheme until Agustin is named as the next Lord Limner,” said Beatriz gently, a soft reminder. Indeed, she appeared the gentlest of creatures in her lavender morning dress, white lace gloves held in one hand, black lace shawl draped becomingly over her dark hair.
Eleyna’s lace shawl was tangled at her shoulders, and now she fussed with it self-consciously, although Beatriz was the last person who would berate her for carelessness. “Agustin isn’t strong enough to be Lord Limner. He’ll refuse it.”
“Can he refuse Mother?”
“He can refuse her once. I can refuse for him, in his name, after that.”
“You can’t be his strength forever, Eleyna.”
Love and desperate anger made her voice shake. “Can’t I? I won’t marry again, and I’ll probably outlive him. He needs to be protected.”
A crash came from the parlor, followed by a curse. Beatriz started and hurried back into the parlor.
“Where is she?” demanded a male voice. “Where is that ungrateful daughter of mine?”
“Now, Patro,” began Beatriz in her soft voice.
Eleyna swept back through the curtains that screened off the balcony, stopping to close the glass doors behind her, carefully, latching them. “I am here, Patro.” She turned to face him.
Revirdin had lost his cane, perhaps on the edge of the carpet, and knocked over a slender side table, breaking a Zhinna vase. Now Beatriz settled him in a chair while he glared at Eleyna as if his mishap with the table was her fault. The carriage accident that had ruined him for painting had not improved his temper, and it had only gotten worse in the last seven years as his daughter’s gifts flowered.
“Do I hear that you continue to refuse the young Heir?” he demanded. “Eiha! When I think how long we argued with Andreo and the Viehos Fratos to let you be brought forward as the candidate, once it was known the Heir wished for a Grijalva Mistress. No, no, they said, you would prove intractable. But even I thought you would do your duty to your family. And if not that, then be swayed by the many presents he will shower on you. It is even likely he will give you land and a manor house—that’s traditional. Many a Grijalva Mistress has married into the nobility after her lover is wed. Have I raised a fool?”
“I don’t want presents! I don’t want a noble husband!”
“No more of that, filha! Your mother is coming. Give me my walking stick, Beatriz.”
She already had it in her hand. Now she gave it to her father, and Revirdin Grijalva rested the ebony cane across his legs, clutching it with his left—now his only—hand. His right arm ended just below the elbow. A black ribbon tied off his jacket sleeve so that it would not flap or get in his way when he moved about. He also had refused a move to rooms on the ground floor, where he would not have the painful climb up three flights of steps. Now he rose in courtesy, as was expected of a man greeting a woman, although the gesture caused him to grimace even when he was expecting the pain.
Dionisa entered alone, having shed her escort of Limner brother and cousins and in-laws. “Sit down, Revirdin.” She kissed her husband on the cheek, coolly, and nodded to Beatriz, who promptly helped her father resume his seat. Dionisa turned her steely gaze on Eleyna. There were, as usual, no pleasantries. “You will be Don Edoard’s Mistress. You are good for nothing else.”
“I can paint.”
“You are barren.”
“I won’t do it!”
“Don Edoard has seen you and wants you, though Matra help him when he is subject to your temper.”
Revirdin snorted. “My mother always said that Arrigo, bless his departed soul, was in thrall to Tazia’s spiteful tongue.”
Dionisa spared her husband a glance, but no more than that, before she rapped the table hard with her knuckles for emphasis. “It is decided, Eleyna. We will no longer indulge you. I have already spoken to Giaberto. He wanted Lord Limner Andreo’s position; he’s as good as Andreo. But of course the Grand Duke would not allow him to become Lord Limner because he is Tazia’s nephew. It didn’t matter that her sisters repudiated her. Eiha! What’s past is past. Now Don Edoard has seen you and wants you. Everyone says the young man is headstrong, spoiled, and a bit stupid. You can have anything, all the power—”
“And be like Grandzia Tazia, whose sisters repudiated her?”
Dionisa’s expression turned from imperious anger to a mask of rage. “Beatriz, leave the room.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Eleyna did not try to call her sister back. She did not want to subject Beatriz to the diatribe she could see was coming.
But Dionisa’s voice did not rise. She spoke in a devestatingly normal tone. “We have received a private message from the Grand Duke that you are to be escorted to Chasseriallo in three days’ time. Know this: Giaberto and I are determined that if you will not agree to Edoard of your own will, then you will agree despite your will.”
Eleyna’s heart pounded in her ears as the full horror of her mother’s calm statement swept over her. Fear and anger choked the words in her throat. It grew so quiet in the parlor that when her father coughed, it sounded as sharp as the crack of a musket.
Eleyna had to bite down on her lower lip to stop herself from trembling. “You would do to me again what you did to me with Felippo?” She almost sobbed aloud. “How could you?”
“We will do what we must. A portrait is already half-finished—not Giaberto’s finest work, by any means, but sufficient to the task. In three days the Grand Duke will send servants to escort you to Chasseriallo. In what state of mind you go is your own choice. I will expect your answer tomorrow. If you agree and give me your word on your Grandmother Leilias’
honor, you are free to go untouched. Adezo. Go to your room. Your father and I have matters to discuss.”
Struck dumb with helpless fury, Eleyna could barely muster enough composure to walk out of the room. When she came to the bedchamber she shared with Beatriz, she collapsed on the bed, burying her face in the coverlet.
How could they? How could they?
Five years ago … Matra Dolcha! If they were willing to do it then, why not now? She had been sixteen, defiant, stubborn, determined to make her mark as a Grijalva—by painting, the art that flowed through her bloodlines. She had endured the Confirmattio—twice!—did not conceive although all of the boys involved later proved to be unGifted. Because of that and because she refused to obey her mother’s strictures about a Grijalva woman’s duty, her parents agreed to marry her to Felippo Grijalva.
At sixty, Felippo had already buried two wives, who had between them produced a Gifted son as well as five other children. Most importantly, he had fulfilled his duty as a competent but uninspired copyist for his more illustrious Gifted relatives, painting un-spelled copies of the spelled Treaties that were sent to foreign courts as binding records of these agreements. Chiefly, he had assisted in the delicate undertaking that led to the betrothal of Mairie de Ghillas to Renayo II rather than to her Ghillasian cousin, Ivo IV, who had stolen the Ghillasian throne out from under Renayo’s nose.
So the Conselhos, in their wisdom, had rewarded Felippo with a handsome and very young bride, one he had chosen himself.
The bride had refused.
The tears came fast now. Eleyna pressed her knuckles into her eyes, unwilling to relive the humiliation.
But she could not help remembering the day of his funeral, sitting in the widow’s chair beside his deathbed, one hand clasped to her bosom with genuine grief … only to find the besotted girl’s infatuation with which she regarded her elderly husband fading away, dissipating, as she stared at his face in the repose of death. Mourners filed past while she struggled to make sense of her thoughts.
Matra Dolcha! He repelled her! Old, lecherous, with the scabrous skin that came of handling paints for many years … yet she had doted on him, petted him, flattered him. Now the emotion slipped off her like water. She hadn’t liked him at all. She had refused him. She had refused her parents, her relatives, utterly refused.