by Melanie Rawn
Rohario could barely think, he was consumed by such delirious happiness. Eleyna did not want Edoard.
But why in heaven should Eleyna then turn around and want him instead? Edoard was by far the more eligible and attractive. “Moronno,” he whispered to himself.
“—and they will expect you to produce Gifted sons,” Eleyna was saying. “They will not let you marry as you please or live outside the Palasso, even with your manor house and the protection of Don Edoard.”
“I had more than one conversation on the subject with Grandmother before she died, while you were thinking of nothing but your art and then your husband.” Beatriz sounded unnervingly pragmatic. “Only men are Gifted, but it is the Grijalva women who produce Gifted sons, no matter who the father is. The man’s seed must not matter. Grandmother had two Gifted sons, neither of them by Grijalva men. So I can have Gifted sons without marrying a Grijalva. It is like the pea plants Grandmother grew. Some were tall, some short. Some had red blossoms, some white. Some had wrinkled peas, some unwrinkled. There must be a way to know what caused each plant to become one or the other. Just as we can trace the lineage of Gifted Grijalva males through their mothers and mother’s mothers.”
Eleyna laughed, a refreshing sound. “You and Grandmother and those boring pea plants. That’s what comes of too much gardening!”
“Ah!” said Beatriz in an altered tone. “Here is Edoard.”
Edoard! An instant later, Rohario heard his brother speak.
“Corasson meya.”
There was a moment of awkward silence. Rohario stood and edged toward the door,
“Eleyna, I appear before you with some embarrassment. I hope you will forgive me. Your sister assures me—”
“No, grazzo, Don Edoard. I am very happy for you and Beatriz. We will all come to see that it is for the best.”
“Most generous. Now, Bellissimia, I have sent a letter to Patro asking him to prepare the Dia Fuega ball for us, at Penitenssia, in Palasso Verrada. But in the meanwhile, I have sent messengers to my particular friends, only some twelve or fifteen of the young men and women who are my companions at Court, to join us here at Chasseriallo in seven days’ time. We will amuse ourselves with dances and games and hunting and strolls in the garden and music, whatever you most wish. If you do not wish, I will send messengers and tell them not to come—”
“Not at all, Edoard! I want nothing more than to amuse myself! You cannot imagine the dreary life I have led up until now. But— eiha, Edoard. Have I the right dresses to appear before your friends?”
“En verro! You must have more dresses. More jewels! I shall send to Meya Suerta and have a dressmaker conveyed here—only the best. I will ask Lizia. She inherited the do’Dregez fortune, as you might know. We are the same age and cousins twice removed, and she can recommend a fine dressmaker, for Lizia is the woman who sets the fashions, and together the two of you can do everything as you wish to make you the most beautiful woman in Tira Virte. You will like Lizia.”
But will Lizia like Beatriz? Lizia do’Dregez was the granddaughter of Arrigo Ill’s elder sister Lizia, and every bit as formidable a force in Meya Suerta as her redoubtable grandmother had been. Lizia would see Beatriz as an opportunity, not a threat. Once Lizia made it clear that Beatriz was acceptable, no one would snub the new Grijalva Mistress. Perhaps Edoard was smarter than Rohario gave him credit for.
“We must have a horse for you as well,” Edoard continued, “a placid gelding, I think, since you have not ridden very much. Come, we will go this instant and consult the groom.”
“Edoard, you promised we would speak with the gardener about planting a new herb garden.”
Thus engaged, they left the room. Their chatter receded down the hallway.
In the hush left by their leaving, he heard a soft sound coming from the parlor. Eleyna Grijalva was weeping.
SIXTY-SEVEN
Long dead? Can this be true? Surely only three days have passed. And yet the boy whom I see in the mirror has become a man, and the clothing they wear now, all the people I see passing by when I look in the mirror, all is so strange to me.
Could he truly hear me? Did he know I spoke of Alejandro when he said those words, “long dead?”
It cannot be true. Even Sario could not be so cruel.
Matra Dolcha, let it not be for nothing that I have read Sario’s Folio and struggled to find a way out of this prison though he left me nothing, no paints, no brushes. Let Alejandro’s child be born and come to know his father. Let it not be for nothing, I beg you with all my heart.
All for nothing.
She had thrown away her chance to have children—however small that chance might have been—for nothing. The suggestion spell painted on her had died with Felippo, but this one would not die until she herself did, and then it would no longer matter. Groping, she found a handkerchief and dried her eyes. She had not minded very much being painted barren when she thought there was a purpose in it. Now, still young, she was like a tree that has been pruned back so far it will never bear fruit.
And yet. It left her free to paint. She was of no use to them now.
She rifled through her sketches and drew out the three letters Agustin had sent her, fingering the fine marbled paper, itself a reminder of the manufactury that had brought the Grijalvas their first fortune. What amazing magic these simple pieces of parchment revealed! Agustin wrote with a graceful, if boyish, hand.
Dearest Eleynita,
Uncle Giaberto says we can spy through paintings and carefully rendered studies of chambers and halls into the palassos of other countries. That is why the Itinerarrios and Embajadorros are sent to foreign courts. So when you sent me the drawing of the corner of the parlor in Chasseriallo—so precise! so exact in every detail!—I thought, if not only that, spying through paintings, could I not also redraw the scene in the same exact detail, at the same time of day, with the same lighting, only add this letter to you, and have it be there? Please send word by a messenger if you receive this, for then we will know it is true.
Your devoted brother, Agustin.
Please remember to burn this letter.
She had found the letter in the corner of the parlor seven days ago, in the evening, after a dinner made agonizing by her embarrassment and Edoard’s puzzled but formal politeness. In fact, Edoard had found the letter, and she—with an instinct for danger—had snatched it out of his hand before he could read it. But perhaps Beatriz was right: perhaps Edoard deserved to know about the Grijalva Limners and their magic. Knowledge hoarded was knowledge that could be terribly misused.
Eleyna opened the second letter, sniffing back the last of her tears.
Dearest Eleynita
It is true! It works! I received your letter and sketch of the dining room by messenger today, and Mother tried to grab it out of my hands, but I thought of what you would say to her and I did say it, and I was amazed she did not scold me, but she did not! Perhaps it will not be so bad being a Limner, even though I must paint all day and there is no time to roll hoops with the little ones and I am always tired. But please don’t worry about me. It is so amazing, I only wish you could study here with me. I would give you my Gift if I could, since you deserve it more than I do. I know you don’t care so much about having children, but I cry at night thinking I’ll never have any of my own. I hope Beatriz and the twins will have many nieces and nephews for me to love. Do not think I am sad about being a Limner, but I sometimes think about what I am losing by having the Gift. I must never tell Mama, for she tells me that I am her One True Hope. I miss you very much.
Your devoted brother, Agustin.
You are wondering what I used. I used ink on parchment and mixed tears and sweat into the ink to give it potency.
To give it potency. Had the other Limners started this way? Regretful of what they had lost? But the Limners she knew had been eager to give up their fertility in order to be granted the power of the Chieva do’Orro. As she would have, in their place.
She closed a hand into a fist. I will not regret what I can do nothing about. She opened the third letter.
Dearest Eleynita,
Please do not forget to burn my letters. I am afraid Zio Giaberto suspects what I am learning to do, but I won’t tell him. I just won’t. I don’t like the way they want to rule me. They want me to obey them without asking why. When I ask them questions, they cluck like so many fat hens and say unkind things about you, and I won’t let them criticize you. You’re a better painter than any of them! Even if they are Limners. Well, you are an artist! So there! I have bad news to report. Nicollo’s carriage was set upon by ruffians and turned over. He broke his legs and an arm, and the arm is infected so badly the Viehos Fratos have called in a sancta. But the rumor is that it wasn’t ruffians who tipped the carriage but protestors, honest apprentices, who want the Corteis to reconvene, who think the Corteis ought to vote on what taxes the Grand Duke can levy. Zio Giaberto says it is the influence of the rabble, a disease from the north. Some people even say the entire royal family of Ghillas was murdered by a mob, but I don’t think people would do that kind of awful thing. Mother always comes in to make sure I’m sleeping, so I daren’t keep the candle burning long. I hope you are happy. Your letters are very short, but I suppose you must be cautious.
Your devoted brother, Agustin.
She was not barren.
She was an artist.
She chuckled. Spoken by a Limner, the words therefore became truth. Even if that Limner was her devoted little brother.
“Please do not forget to burn my letters.”
Eiha! It was past time to do so. She went to the side table, where an oil lamp stood. Lighting it, she removed the glass sleeve and stuck the first letter into the flame. It crisped swiftly and with a satisfying aroma.
“Eleyna? I smelled—” Don Rohario stopped, staring, caught halfway into the room. Behind him, the dining room lay in serene elegance, the long ebony table and twelve matching chairs, two long sideboards inlaid with ivory and faience, and the tall windows looking out over the park. And that horrendous wallpaper. For a long moment, while the parchment flamed, she stared, seeing his beautiful clothes framed by ghastly pale cherubim fluttering through a gilt forest of vines and fanciful leaves.
“Careful!”
She laughed, dropping the scorched corner, and blew on her fingers. “Forgive me. You startled me just as I was engaged in a rather furtive activity.”
“I see.” He held the book in one hand; the cracked and dusty leather contrasted oddly with his sober morning coat and neatly-buttoned cuffs.
Of course. She had forgotten about his offer to read to her while she painted. “These are my brother’s letters. He is just fifteen. He writes everything to me and then begs me to burn his letters so no one else can read them.”
To her surprise, Rohario paled. He wandered away to the window. “I wrote poems to a girl once, when I was fifteen,” he said, without looking at her.
“Did she burn them?”
His back was to her, so she could not see his expression only the shake of his head. “My mother found them.”
“Oh.” Something in the way he said those simple words made her want to know what his mother had said and yet fear to ask. She stuck the second letter in the flame and watched it roar to a quick conclusion. Then the third. Agustin’s secrets were safe.
The silence became oppressive. Suddenly Eleyna realized how many people would have to be told about Edoard and Beatriz. Humiliation curdled in her gut.
“It must feel awkward,” said Rohario abruptly, “now that Edoard has taken your sister for his Mistress instead of you. I hope … you are not too distressed.”
“I did not truly want to be Edoard’s mistress,” she said, too quickly. “Not that I don’t like Edoard, it was my mother’s wish although I agreed—but—I just. …” She floundered. “Eiha! I’m making a fool of myself, aren’t I?”
“I don’t think so.”
She dusted the last flakes of black ash from her fingers and walked over to her portrait of Edoard. “I must finish this before the guests arrive.”
“Matra Dolcha! I had mercifully forgotten the guests. How I hate Edoard’s parties!”
“I don’t like parties either. I suppose Beatriz will be happy.”
He sighed. “I hope you will forgive me if I say that I wish I did not need to be here.”
“Why do we need to be here?” The idea came to her, as startling as it was unbidden. “I need only finish the portrait. I don’t wish to endure the ill-placed pity of your brother’s noble guests!”
“Perhaps your family will welcome you home, but I am not at all sure my father will want to see me.”
“Why do we have to go home at all?” It came to her with the reckless beauty of a painting done in one inspired sitting. She did not need her family anymore, nor they her. “I have a small inheritance set aside for me by my grandmother. Nothing much, but I could rent a room in Meya Suerta. I could make enough coin to live on, painting Deeds and Wills and Marriages. Many a painter does so.” But none of them were women, alone. “Of course it is impossible. It would not be safe or proper.”
She examined the portrait of Edoard. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Painters and draughtsmen could always scratch out a living. If she could find wealthier clients … but a young woman without father or brother or husband to protect her was fair game in the rough world outside palasso walls.
She spun to face Rohario. Why not? It was risky, of course, but there came a time in life when you had to shut your eyes and leap forward on faith. The audacity of the idea dazzled her. She could not live alone and friendless in Meya Suerta—unless she had a companion, someone safe, a brother.
SIXTY-EIGHT
Agustin Grijalva sat in one of the stuffy attic closets crammed into the storeroom beyond the Atelierro and tried not to breathe. If he took in too deep a gulp of the stale air, he would cough helplessly. That had happened three days ago, when he had tried this for the first time, and he had barely escaped being caught. Now he fortified himself with a pouch of water and an infusion of fennel in honey.
The plank floor was cold and uncomfortable. His skin ached. He had gotten a terrible rash yesterday, but a salve of aloe had soothed the worst of the stinging pain. Despite that pain, Agustin bent his entire will upon the rectangle of parchment, prepared with oil from his fingers, that he had propped up on his bent knees against a thin piece of wood. At this awkward angle, his neck hurt. His skin pulled and burned. Probably he was going to get blisters all over.
But he did not move. He stared at the detailed sketch, bordered with an elaborate skein of symbols that he had drawn onto the parchment using pen and ink mixed with the tincture of his own blood.
He looked at a drawing of the long table that sat at the far end of the Atelierro. The setting sun shone, casting barred shadows along the table, just as he had observed it to do at the seventh hour after midday. At this hour, on the occasion of the Great Feasts of the year, the Grijalva Conselhos met. Once the Conselhos had been only the most senior Limners; now they included any family member, even women, made senior by age or influence.
Agustin intended to spy on them. He prayed to Matra ei Filho that it would work.
He knew he could never sketch every person in correctly, or even guess in what arrangement they might sit at the table, so he had only sketched in the table and the shadows. If he could catch the lighting just right and trigger the spell before the Conselhos assembled, then he could listen in on the whole thing. But was the sketch accurate enough? He had studied Eleyna’s drawings—the ones she had sent him from Chasseriallo—with the greatest care, but she had seven years of training beyond him as well as the better eye. Still, he had done his best to place the shafts of light as they would fall over the wood grain, illuminate the highbacked chairs, touch that one square of plush Tza’ab carpet.
“That is the test of magic,” Zio Giaberto had said. “For a spell to be triggered, th
e rendering must be perfect. Nothing else will do.”
“What if a man is Gifted with magic but not with the ability to draw?” Agustin had asked.
“Then his Gift is worthless. But while there are greater and lesser talents, I know of only three cases in our long history of Gifted males who simply could not learn to use their Gift. With enough drilling and practice, even a child with little natural aptitude for art will suffice as a copyist and can serve the family by performing certain routine duties which still demand the use of magic but not, perhaps, any great artistic talent. But do not worry, Agustin, you are not one of those sorry few. Your talents are evident.”
“Eleyna should have had my Gift,” he had said recklessly.
“I am not interested in having this discussion again, mennino. Your devotion to your sister is admirable but misplaced. Continue with the recitation.”
Recite he had, and did now, words from the Folio, to seal the magic, to trigger it. Whispering to himself helped him not to cough. But as he waited, the air grew thicker and thicker by some agency he could not know. Then, as if melded with the air, whispers floated to him.
“… Cabral will vote against us again … too much influence … isn’t Gifted, but always had the favor of the Grand Duke … hush, here come the others. …”
A confused jumble of soft noise. Agustin unfroze himself. His shoulders ached. No one was standing outside the closet door, trading secrets. The magic had worked.
“Greetings, cousins. We are gathered here to toast the Feast of Imago with this very fine Palenssia red. I know there is dispute at the Ecclesia about whether the Exalted were pruning back vines destined to produce a white or a red when they were visited with the Image of Matra ei Filho, but I trust we may give thanks to Their Blessed Visitassion with any fine vintage and leave the quibbling to the scholars.”