by Melanie Rawn
Beatriz was unrepentant. “If what Grandmother said is true, then he will have to know the secrets of the Limners sooner or later.”
“But—”
“But? He obviously knows and suspects nothing. You can tell it from his face.”
“I’m not sure he’s intelligent enough to understand—”
“Eleyna! He speaks sensibly enough about gardening and estate management.”
“Is that what you spent the afternoon discussing?”
The door opened and Edoard entered. “I beg your pardon,” he said lightly. “My brother has a headache and had to retire.”
“I’m not feeling well either,” said Mara, rising. “Beatriz, will you escort me to my room? I need an arm to lean on.”
Beatriz touched Eleyna on the hand, fleetingly, but the brush of her fingers comforted. The ploy was so transparent, and yet … there was no reason to put off the inevitable. They left. Eleyna stood, one hand resting on her sketchpad, and smiled nervously at Edoard.
“Sit, carrida meya.” He prowled the room. She had a sudden idea he also was nervous.
“I’ll draw you,” she said.
He smiled and sat in a plain oak chair. Its simplicity set off his golden evening coat and silver waistcoat. The pale watercolor wallpaper was a fitting backdrop for his brown hair and dark eyes. But he could no more sit still than could a toddler, or his hounds. Yet while he sat there, he could not be close to her here. Why had she ever agreed to this? The evening’s likely progression unfolded in her mind: conversation, a glass of madiera, intimacy, lovemaking. She burned with embarrassment. He fidgeted.
“I am reminded of the family portrait we had done some years ago, before the fever, for of course that was when poor departed Mama was still alive and little Mechellita and Alessio, and my poor brother Benetto who was quite stricken with fever. He’s never been right in the mind since. It’s true that Grandmother Mechella would not abide her sons having a Grijalva Mistress. I should not have mentioned it in front of your sister, she is very young and innocent—”
Matra Dolcha! What would Edoard think if he ever learned about the Confirmattio, which Beatriz had, by her own admission, enjoyed immensely, or about Beatriz’s infant son who was at this hour asleep in the crechetta in Palasso Grijalva?
“—but now that Grandmama is dead I saw no reason not to ask Patro if I might restore the Marria do’Fantome.” Here he paused, waiting for her answer. For her invitation.
“Arrigo’s mistress Tazia was my great-aunt.” She bent her head over the sketchpad. The far corner of the parlor took on immense interest. Her thoughts in tumult, she concentrated on rendering the corner in exquisite detail, its simple table and vase and single burning oil lamp set against the pale striped wallpaper.
She felt him stand. Her face flushed with heat. If only she could concentrate enough, she could somehow banish him from the room, as if, not existing in her thoughts, he thereby could not exist beside her.
But she was no Gifted Limner.
He stopped beside her and, ever so lightly, rested a hand on her shoulder.
Agustin.
Agustin was a Gifted Limner.
“I thought you were drawing me,” he said.
“It is for my brother Agustin,” she said wildly. They called her unGifted because she was a woman, and yet she knew in her soul that she had been granted the gift of art and that it was her duty to Matra ei Filho to make the world come to life in her paintings. This moment, now, would never have happened to her had she been, like her brother, a Limner.
“He is just learning to paint,” she went on, not knowing what words would come next, not wanting to insult Edoard, “and I promised him I would make sketches so he could see other houses, other places. His health isn’t very good, you see, and he almost never leaves our Palasso, so this is my way of giving a gift to him. …” She trailed off.
“I will call Bernadin and have this perfect sketch sent immediately to Meya Suerta.”
“It isn’t necessary—”
“Of course it is not necessary, but since I can do it, why should I not? You must write a note to your brother. I will ring for Bernadin. No, no, you must write. I will keep silence. What is his name?”
She took out paper, uncapped her pen, and blotted the ink. She hardly knew what to write. “Agustin. He is just fifteen.”
“Ah, he is the same age as my sister Timarra. She is a sweet girl, very quiet. My father scares her. Not that he means to, but he has strong views and, alas, Timarra has none. She would be perfectly content to sew in the garden and will make a dutiful wife when it comes time for her to marry, although knowing Patro, he will send her to farthest Vethia where she will be perfectly miserable and cold. But forgive me.” Bernadin came in. “You will wish to send your letter. You are finished? Bernadin, have this delivered to Palasso Grijalva. Yes, send a messenger along now. He may wait for a reply if the boy wishes to send one. Agustin Grijalva, that is right.”
When Bernadin had left, Eleyna said, voice caught on a tremor, “Thank you, Don Edoard. You are very kind.”
He turned at that instant, and his face wore a mocking expression which vanished as soon as he spoke. “Am I? I think I am rather selfish.”
She flushed. He approached her cautiously. She was afraid to look away. Stopping beside her chair, he extended a hand. Obediently she took it, and he lifted her to stand close beside him. With his other hand he brushed a stray curl of hair back from her face. “Are all Grijalva women as lovely as you and your sister?”
She smiled but could think of nothing to say. If she spoke, she would betray her fear. Matra! What had she to be afraid of? This was nothing new for her.
He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the mouth. She struggled to relax into him, but her free hand clenched tight and her whole body stiffened.
After a moment he pulled away from her and dropped her hand. The barest smile was caught on his lips, lingering there, but she could not interpret it.
He took a step, circling her to look down at her sketchpad. “I can’t imagine how it is that you make these lines on the page to create pictures. It is as if I am seeing through your eyes, no? Rohario has told me many times I have no ‘eye’ for art, whatever that means, and what Patro says … eiha! It is not worth boring you with what Patro says. He is not fond of his children—”
“Surely not!”
“We disappoint him.”
She forced herself to swallow. It was the only way to get herself to breathe. These confessions made her wildly uncomfortable.
“Benetto is an idiot—I mean it not to castigate the poor boy, it is not his fault—and Timarra cannot bring herself to utter two words together and she is not even a pretty girl, which is a terrible thing for her since Grandmother Mechella and our own dear departed Mama were both beauties. Rohario—eiha!” He flung a hand up in exasperation. “Rohario. So Patro has married a new wife and hopes to sire more suitable children.”
At her exclamation, he lifted a hand. Edoard was not precisely smart, but he was, she was coming to see, not precisely stupid either. “Do not worry for me, corasson. My claim to the throne of Ghillas is fully as legitimate as King Ivo’s, more legitimate, some would say. Patro wishes to marry me off to Ivo’s daughter—what is her name? I just saw a fine sketch of her the other day, it was brought back by one of your cousins or at least J assume you are all cousins of one sort or another.”
He smiled at her. It was the same smile he offered Mara, or Beatriz. Or his hounds.
Eleyna had a sudden revelation: this endless talking was Edoard’s way of putting other people at their ease with him, or himself at his ease, she could not tell which or even if his monologues served both purposes.
“I am not as clever as you, corasson. You can create such beauty and I … I can only enjoy my hounds and admire beautiful women.”
He rested a hand on her arm, still smiling, and she tried, oh she tried mightily, but she could not help herself. He was too close.
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br /> “It is too soon,” he said as he released her, turning away. But not before she saw his smile fade.
“It is not you. Forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive. Bernadin will show you to your chamber.”
Flushed, humiliated, she fled the room without gathering up her things.
SIXTY-FIVE
Sario left Palasso Grijalva one month after arriving, ostensibly to resume his career as an Itinerarrio. He rode north until midday, stopping at a village coach house where he had been deliberately generous with his money one month ago so as to assure himself a cordial reception when he returned. There he stabled his horse and arranged to get passage on a wagon back into Meya Suerta the next day. There he hired a new horse and rode north until evening to Arguena, a town sitting athwart a crossroads.
At the Inn of the Blue Rose he found the Ghillasian servants he had left behind, a girl who had done sewing for Queen Iriene and her cousins, two brothers who had served in the Ghillasian palace guard. He had won them over with favors and tips and won them free of the general massacre of the palace’s inhabitants. Now they waited for him.
The innkeeper directed him to the stables, where the brothers paid for their keep by working as stablehands.
“You have news?” asked the elder brother eagerly.
“It is possible.” Sario assumed an air of deep gravity. “I must go alone. The agents I spoke with fear for their lives if it is discovered they had anything to do with saving the life of a member of the royal family.”
“Why has it taken so long?” demanded the younger brother. “They have no devotion to our king.” He spit into the straw. “They only waited for a good ransom offer.”
“We shall see. In the meantime, wait for me here. In ten days you will know by the ringing of the bells that the Feast of Imago, the Vision of Life, has come. I shall return after that time. Give these coins to your cousin. Let her purchase good cloth and sew a few gowns. I doubt not that if the lady does live, she has nothing left her. After such an ordeal you must not be surprised to find her much changed in spirit.”
The two soldiers knelt a moment, hands over their hearts, then rose and took the money.
In the morning Sario was content as he rode north. After a few miles he veered south in a loop that took him safely around Arguena and back by midday to the village coach house, where he returned the horse and took the wagon back to Meya Suerta. He arrived in his atelierro above the wine shop at twilight.
Too restless to sleep, he lit lanterns and set them on the table, hung them from the rafters, and worked long into the night, grinding and mixing paints, making brushes. As he grew tired, his pulse began to pound in his head like the beat of a distant drum. He grew too warm and, taking off his jacket and waistcoat, worked only in his shirtsleeves; after a time he removed his boots as well, and through the soles of his feet his pulse and the slow creak and settling of the old house merged and became one. Under his breath he murmured words untangled from the illuminations that decorated his Folio, the pages taken so very long ago from Il-Adib.
His pigments he mixed with poppy oil, blending in a bit of beeswax and amber that had been dissolved in hot oil. To his white paints he added the dust of bones and the powder gleaned from dried skin, to his yellows the gleam of golden hair. Finger- and toenails he ground to powder and blended with his ultramarine and cerulean blue. With the vestiges of a linen shift, worn down until it was as fine as sand, he gave texture to his viridian and green earth. The other parts of body hair he added to his siennas and umbers, the yellow earth and browns. To vermillion, blood; and blood diluted by lavender oil he used to mix his rose madder. Into his lamp black he blended all of the remains, just enough to flavor it.
He prepared the board, a panel of oak as tall as he was, and covered it with a gray ground blended with essence of myrtle, for the Dead, and iris, for Magical Energy.
Perhaps the sun rose outside. Perhaps it set. His shutters remained closed and he could not tell. That time passed at all he noted only because the man who ran the wine shop brought food and ale twice a day to the door of the attic and took away anything that was left there.
By now he was too flushed even for a shirt. He stripped. The warm air of the atelierro woke his skin, like the touch of a lover, although he had not had a lover since he had taken this Sario’s body. To do so would somehow profane his love for Saavedra.
His fingers sought out a lancet. He held it in a candleflame until the metal gained a faint nimbus. Holding it up, away from the candle, he watched lines of heat evaporate from the edged metal. He lowered it to his arm.
The blade lay sharp and hot against his skin. The sensation aroused him. He cut.
As the blood flowed down his skin his whole body tingled. Long ago he had felt this way, touching a woman, caressing her, penetrating her. Now only the art, only the painting, the exaltation of a spell, the knowledge of what was to follow as he prepared his body, his paints, the very air of the room laden with incense … his breathing tightened, and he only just caught his seed in a glass vial. Losing some of his blood onto the floor, but there was more blood; he took what he needed and clamped a hand down over the cut. The stinging faded, as it always did. The pain was nothing against the promise of power.
He laughed, and laughing brought tears. The fragrance of herbs brought with it memory of taste, and so he prepared himself with blood and seed, tears and saliva. With these essences he blended his own self into the paint.
It was time to begin the spell. On the table he set out candles and an incense burner, a shrine for the Matra ei Filho. On either side he laid the many sketches he had done of his subject. He now took the Folio out of the locked chest and positioned it carefully in the center of the table. He opened it to the correct spell slowly, letting each page slide through his fingers, feeling the grain of the vellum and the fine curves of the letters, each one a spark against his skin.
As Arriano he had become lazy, drifting from one foreign court to the next, letting the chatter of rich merchants and the blandishments of pale northern beauties caress him into a soporific lull that had lasted years. Perhaps he had needed a rest after the disaster with Rafeyo. Perhaps he was just getting tired.
No! Never that. It was time to wake up. It had been too long since he had painted a masterpiece. And this was truly to be a masterpiece, a spell he had pondered for years but had not attempted.
Thou shalt not, for it is abomination.
So was it written into the Folio, blazing letters on a white ground. What did he care about the commandments of a god to whom he did not belong? He was a Master. The Master. There was no one else like him, nor would there ever be, ever. For was he not the Chosen One?
He lit candles and incense. In a low voice, he spoke the words taught him so many many years, centuries, ago. “Chieva do’Orro. Open my eyes to your secrets. Blood and hands possess the power of change.” He pitched his voice up a key, sharp, piercing the quiet air swamped in the scent of oil and herbs. “Matra ei Filho, grant this power against death and for life.”
He opened his case of oils and dabbed a finger in his oil of sorcerer’s violet, touching the oil to his tongue, savoring it, touching it to his naked chest, to his belly, to his penis, to his thighs. With a graphite pencil he sketched the figure onto the ground, putting the most detail into palms, lips, and eyes. With his fingers he rubbed a thin priming into place over the drawing.
He began to chant the words written in the Folio. The syllables came readily to his lips. As he spoke them, his awareness stretched and altered so that he slipped away from himself, deeper into his limner’s mind yet out toward the painting beyond, as if he could pour himself out through his hands, through the brush.
He began to paint.
The figure took shape before him, first shaded on over the drawing, then coming to life in layers of color, light tones at first, followed by richer, deeper glazes and coloring. It was to be all one continuous piece. He must not stop for longer tha
n it took to drink a few swallows of ale, to eat a few bites of bread, to sip at coffee or touch one or another oil to his lips to give himself strength, to light new candles. To stop was to condemn the painting to dry into the stillness of death. Yet he must paint with the perfection of a finished piece which would normally have had time to dry after the underpainting was complete.
None of that now. He painted with the words of foreign sorcerers, the Al-Fansihirro, on his lips. He saw her standing before him in his mind’s eye, imagined her youthful body beneath the light, fashionable gowns she wore. This vision passed from his eye to his hands, and she flowered and took form.
Into the shadows and lines of her skin he began the skein of symbols that would bind the painting over into truth. Her hands rested gently against her hips, palms out; her feet stood firmly on oaken floorboards. Her skin took on a rose hue, and her lips shone with caught breath. Her eyes were as fine a blue as he had ever seen—more perfect, perhaps, than her eyes had truly been, but was it not the duty of an artist to recover the heart of his subject, not just the outer seeming?
Far away he heard bells ringing. A crack of light shone through the shutters, sunset or sunrise. Once he had known which direction the window faced, but it was no longer important.
He bound her shadowed places with the tiny script and symbols of the oscurra-. With a brush made of a single coarse hair he painted the oscurra into the lines on her palms, wove them into the delicate puckering of her lips, and with their substance patterned the fine blue flecking of the irises of her eyes.
Echoes of bells rang in his ears. He stepped back, almost staggering. A wave of exhaustion swept through him, as it always did; so much blood he used, so much of his potency, to create. He dabbed a finger in oil of myrtle and traced the sign for heart on her chest, invisible to the eye. His brush dropped from fingers suddenly nerveless. The chamber whirled once around him, but he caught himself. Groping at the table, he found the bowl of cloves. He chewed on one, steadied himself with deep breaths, touched the Folio though he did not need to read its final words.