The Golden Key

by Melanie Rawn

  SEVENTY

  Eleyna surveyed the sitting room with dismay. Beyond lay two additional rooms, bedchambers furnished with old beds built of wooden frames and rope supports, flea-ridden cotton ticking, and yellowing sheets.

  “It’s an outrageous price for rooms such as these!”

  “It is?” Rohario asked.

  “Did you bargain?”

  “Bargain?”

  “You didn’t bargain with the innkeeper?”

  He toured the room, inspecting the table with two chairs, the cracked windowpanes, the sofa upholstered with a brocaded fabric whose original color was bleached to an undistinguished yellow-white from exposure to sunlight, its pattern disguised by a generous helping of old wine stains.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he said, circling back to her. He looked less disgusted than astonished. “Do people live like this?”

  “Like you,’ Don Rohario,” she said stiffly, “I grew up in a palasso. But Grandmother made sure we knew something of life outside. Every girl who grows up in Palasso Grijalva learns to act as a steward for the Grijalva clan. Grandmother even took us to the mercado to bargain, and once—” She laughed, remembering the scandal. “—when I was just sixteen and Beatriz thirteen, Grandmother took us to a taverna to watch tilemaking apprentices dance and sing on Madurrassia. It was a scandal mostly because the new journeymen could ask for a kiss from any unmarried girl, and we were asked for quite a few. Even Grandmother was asked for a few kisses, for her husband was dead by then and she always wore her widow’s shawl, even after the mourning period was over.”

  As this comment faded, it led not to a reply but to silence.

  Eleyna went to the greasy window and rubbed at it with a corner of her lace shawl, trying to see onto the courtyard below. The innkeeper had expanded his inn to include the residential apartments in the building built up against his own, an old palasso whose exterior boasted clay-red tiles and whose interior was as faded and worn as a servant girl’s three-times-handed-down fancy dress.

  She gave up on the window and twined the fringed end of her own “widow’s shawl” through her fingers. The black lace was bordered with embroidered hyacinths. If she was to lift those embroidered purplish-blue flowers to her face and inhale, would she be able to smell them? Would the scent ease her grief, as it was said to do?

  Except she had no grief for her dead husband. She only wore the shawl to protect herself.

  “Of course,” said Rohario suddenly, as if it had taken him this long to understand her last words. “Each year at Madurrassia a different guild is invited to Palasso Verrada to celebrate the elevation of the apprentices to journeymen. They come to the throne room, where my father recites the blessing and oversees their elevation. They were always dressed rather shabbily, I thought, but they were never dressed as poorly as the people I’ve seen in Meya Suerta these last two days.”

  Looking at Rohario’s beautiful clothes, only slightly crumpled from their ride, at his perfectly tied neckcloth—a work of art in itself—Eleyna chuckled. He looked so utterly out of place. No wonder the innkeeper had quoted such an outrageous price: if he dressed like a lord, he might as well pay like one.

  “Those apprentices and their families were probably wearing their finest clothes to appear before the Grand Duke,” she said. “What you see them wearing here are their everyday clothes. Don’t the servants dress so at Palasso Verrada?”

  “En verro, they all wear livery. My mother could not stand to have anyone she might see look out of place or shabby. Her family, you see, were noble but poor. She told me that once she married my father, she swore she would dress her own servants in better clothes than those she had worn as a girl.”

  “Even in the kitchens?”

  “I’ve never been in the kitchens.”

  “Eiha, Rohario! You frighten me!”

  “You think I’m a fool!” He stalked out of the room. Once she had recovered from her surprise, Eleyna followed him. She caught up with him in the busy courtyard in time to hear him launch into a harangue that would put a fishwife to shame. A crowd had already gathered.

  “… how many other of your customers are you cheating? Shall I ask these gentlemen right now? You, Maesso? Have you been overcharged as well? Eiha! I am only grateful that my own mother, may her memory be blessed, will not see my sister and I reduced to such a disgraceful suite of rooms! Your own mother, Maesso Innkeeper—would you install her in these lodgings?”

  Having cut to the heart of the matter, Rohario paused to let his audience react. At once, the innkeeper grasped his arm. Rohario recoiled but controlled himself and let the by now red-faced man lead him away to his private office.

  Eleyna moved to follow but was accosted by several men.

  “Carrida. Grazzo. My heart is yours if only you will receive it.”

  “I’d like to see what grieving heart she wears under that handsome lace shawl.”

  “How much is he paying you, corasson? I will double it!”

  Flushed and angry, Eleyna retreated to the sitting room. Cursing, she paced the limits of the chamber. Trapped again! She could not venture outside without a man to protect her!

  A thin layer of grease covered the tabletop, smeared by plates or fingers, and she refused to lay her precious paper down on such a surface. How could she work here?

  Was she so much better than Don Rohario, after all? She had never cleaned a room in her life. She supposed one needed a bucket of water and rags, but where to get the rags and the bucket, much less the water?

  Escaping to Meya Suerta had been a reckless decision, perhaps even a foolish one. But she would not creep back, defeated, to Palasso Grijalva. She could only imagine what her parents would say to her, running off with a young nobleman!

  Except she was not Don Rohario’s mistress.

  Matra ei Filho, I’m blushing! She strode to the window and, pounding on the lower corner, got it to open. The fresh air cooled her cheeks. When the door opened, she could turn and with some composure greet Rohario …

  … and the innkeeper and two girls armed with buckets and rags and brooms.

  “My good friend Maesso Gaspar has invited us to dine at his table tonight, sorella. We will go now, while these menninas clean out our rooms and make them fit to live in.”

  “Of course, frato.” Brother.

  He offered an arm. She took it, though she felt terribly awkward. Anyone with a featherweight of sense would know, would see by their postures, their faces, their way of speaking, that they were not related. Yet what did it matter? Men would think what they wished of her, but as long as Rohario agreed to act as her brother, he served as her protector. She remembered the men who had surrounded her in the courtyard and shuddered.

  “What is wrong?” asked Rohario softly as they followed the innkeeper down a series of stairs and landings, painted in the most depressing clay red, to the ground floor.

  “Nothing. Just cold.” She fixed her eyes on his hands, afraid her face might give something away. He had beautiful, well-proportioned hands.

  Edoard had been easy to paint because he was, truly, a man who could be captured in simple colors and lines. Rohario would make a more difficult, subtle, less clearly formed portrait. And in ten years, he might be very different than he was now. That was the difference between the two brothers. Edoard was already the man he would always be; Rohario was only beginning to take shape.

  “Here we are.” Maesso Gaspar showed them into a well-scrubbed dining hall that smelled of pine oil and almond. He introduced them to his other genteel guests. This room shared a great hearth with the common room. By craning her neck Eleyna could catch, through the roaring fire, a glimpse of the other room and its more boisterous, and less well groomed, inhabitants.

  As the first course—an onion soup—came round, Rohario leaned close to Eleyna. “In order to get a better rate, I had to pay in advance. He wouldn’t put the bill on credit!”

  “How can he know what your credit is
worth?”

  “It is true I did not tell him who I really am. But I have only ten mareias left. According to Maesso Gaspar, when I asked which wine he served with dinner, ten mareias isn’t even enough to buy a bottle of Palenssia red!”

  He was so indignant that she barely managed not to laugh at him. “No doubt that is all you are accustomed to drinking. We shall have to work for our living.”

  “Work?” He paled. “How exactly does one work?”

  Eleyna looked around the room. It was large, undistinguished, and drearily rectangular. One narrow end boasted the great hearth that divided this chamber from the common room. There was also a long wall of windows looking out over the courtyard and, opposite it, a long whitewashed wall along the inner side of the chamber. She stood up, reaching into her skirt pockets for the bits of charcoal and chalk that she—indeed, every Grijalva—always carried with her.

  “I beg your pardon, Maesso Gaspar. I see that this room is reserved for your more particular guests. But perhaps you would like to attract more, and more discerning, customers.”

  Surprised, the innkeeper offered her a polite bow. “Every man of business wishes to attract more customers.”

  “If every meal was served to me in the company of women as beautiful as yourself, Maessa,” said one of the men seated across the table from her, “then I would come here more often.” His expression grew suddenly forced, and he smiled placatingly at Rohario. “Begging your pardon, Maesso.”

  “It is my sister’s pardon you need ask,” said Rohario softly but with a hint of menace.

  Eleyna took out a piece of chalk and with a few swift strokes drew a caricature of the man on the white linen tablecloth. The other customers guffawed.

  “Maesso Gaspar, I am a skilled draftsman and painter. But I must work for my living as must all of you. My brother and I have few resources, and I would willingly bargain with you my work in exchange for our keep. For instance.” As she spoke, she began to expand her sketch, and Rohario quickly moved platters and dishes and cups so she had room to work. “That entire wall is simply a white backdrop on which you might hang a few paintings. Or better yet, commission me to paint a mural. It will represent the Feast of Providenssia, the harvest of the grapes, whose prosperity you certainly wish to emulate. But in addition I will weave into this mural the faces of your regular customers so those customers will bring their relations and their neighbors to see this mural. And I will hide pictures of places in Meya Suerta, of men and women from days long past whose stories we have all heard a hundred times during our childhoods, so that not just your regular customers but new customers will come to see this fine mural.”

  By now others of the guests had moved their tableware aside to leave room for her to sketch. She had to lean far, had to move chairs aside, and she no longer had thought to spare for talking. This tablecloth must be the prototype for the cartoon—the model sketch; it must include every face in this dining chamber, must be the piece that sold the innkeeper on her suggestion. For not only would such a commission give them board and room for as long as it took her to execute the mural, but her work on the piece would attract notice, and the finished piece would attract customers for her.

  It was not until she finished and paused, before signing, that she noticed how still the room had become. They all watched her as keenly as if they were waiting for her to vanish with her last stroke.

  Eleyna surveyed her work. There was nothing major to fault in the sketch: her hand was sure. She had drawn in Gaspar as the padron of Providenssia, dispensing wine and bread to an assembly which included every man and both other women seated at this table tonight, as well as the four servants who had been attending them and who strained to get a good look at the sketch from their stations by the kitchen door. The sketch was not quite balanced. The assembly was a bit too static, and Gaspar needed some kind of backdrop, a good view of his inn and boarding house, perhaps, garlanded with vines and with vases filled with sheaves of wheat, denoting riches to come. But overall she was pleased with it.

  Maesso Gaspar clapped a hand over his heart in the pose of a man who has just been surprised by the chest pangs that will kill him. “Magniffica! I agree, at once! When can you start?”

  She bit down on a smile. “We have not yet agreed to terms, Maesso Gaspar.”

  “How much for the tablecloth?” asked the man who had been so rude to begin with. Like many such men, he was converted easily.

  She shut her eyes, savoring the moment. Then, with a flourish, she signed the name “Riobaro” to the sketch.

  “That isn’t your name,” objected Rohario. “That says—” He broke off, eyes widening.

  “I beg your pardon, Maesso,” Eleyna said to her new admirer, “but I am afraid that according to a family tradition I must ask Maesso Gaspar to accept this tablecloth as payment for this meal—for all of us seated here—and as surety for our contract, since I am penniless.”

  “New to the business, eh?” replied the man. He rubbed his hands together. “I’m a guildsman, Zespiarre by name, and I’ve got a daughter getting betrothed next month. I’ll hire you to do the Betrothal.”

  “I will accept, Maesso Zespiarre, if the fee offered is sufficient.”

  “Momentita!” The innkeeper held up a hand. “I want my mural done first.”

  “You must plaster the wall, Maesso Gaspar, and the plaster needs time to dry before I can put on the underdrawing. For the mural itself, I will need a second, thinner layer of plaster, and I can only do an arm’s span wide and tall each day since this layer of painting must be accomplished while the plaster itself is wet. So there will be time for a few, select other commissions. If you can set aside a portion of this chamber, or another room, where I might do those portraits, then I would be willing to allow some viewing while I paint.” She could see by his expression that the innkeeper was adding all this into his head and seeing vast new hordes of customers.

  “No one will believe a pretty young woman like you can do this sort of work!” Gaspar exclaimed. “Eiha! What a fortunate chance has brought you here!” He winked. “Whoever you may truly be….”

  From the other room they heard the sound of music starting, a gittern and drummer, then a singer coming in. It was an old tune, a love song called “Astraventa Eventide.”

  Eleyna sat down, suddenly tired. She was content to wait while the servants took away the old tablecloth, set the table again, and brought the second course. She ate mechanically, not really tasting the food. Instead, she studied the wall, molding her sketch to its new proportions.

  “What will I do?” said Rohario.

  “What?” she asked, coming to herself at the sound of his voice.

  Before Rohario could answer, they heard a swell of agitated voices from the other room, smothered by the low roar of the fire. The door into the kitchens opened, and an aproned man hurried in.

  “Gaspar! The Shagarras are here! They have come to arrest the musicians for performing seditious tunes—”

  Shouting from the other room drowned out his next words: “We are the Grand Duke’s representatives! You must surrender to us.”

  “Leave them be! They’re only singers.”

  “When will the Grand Duke allow the Corteis to meet?”

  “Murderers!”

  Uproar. A chair was smashed against stone. A man yelled in pain.

  “Matra!” Gaspar leaped up and ran into the kitchens.

  His other guests, including guildsman Zespiarre, made haste to leave. But Rohario hurried after Gaspar. Eleyna gulped down a last bit of roll and followed him. In the common room a fight raged, furious apprentices and guildsmen using fists and chairs against the armed soldiers. A hopeless fight, except for weight of numbers. And their anger, so stark that it was like a wash of color in the room.

  “Bassda! I beg you!” No one heeded Gaspar.

  Where had Rohario gone?

  To her horror she saw him standing on the bar, waving a piece of dirty cloth to attract attention.<
br />
  “Bassda! Stop!” Rohario cried with the voice of a man who is used to his slightest wish being obeyed. But the dirty cloth carried a glint of gray-silver, and Rohario’s coat, picked out because it was the soberest in his extensive wardrobe, was dark blue, accentuated by a black waistcoat and black boots. In all, he seemed to represent in his own person the colors of the forbidden banner that the malcontents brandished.

  A serjaent lunged through the crush and, with the butt of his ceremonial lance, hit Rohario hard on the side of the head. Like a stone, Rohario dropped. He rolled off the bar and landed hard on the floor.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Rohario groaned.

  A female voice murmured words. A moment later he felt the cool drape of a wet cloth over his forehead. He opened his eyes.

  Panic clawed in his throat. He couldn’t see!

  Then, settling, pulse pounding, he realized he could not see because it was dark. A candle burned on the sidetable. He sat up.

  Nausea overcame him, and he vomited over the side of the bed. Only after he stopped, after he could breathe normally, did he realize that one of Gaspar’s maids held a pail beside his bed.

  She cleaned his face and collar with a damp rag. “Is that all, Maesso? You must not sit up when you’ve a bump on the head.”

  “I’ll lie down again,” he murmured, and did so. His head reeled but quieted. “What happened?”

  “The guards hit you, but your sister dragged you right out of the common room, and we brought you up here after so you wouldn’t be arrested. Gaspar is furious, for the guards have broken most of the furniture and wouldn’t even speak of paying for the damages. He’s going to take his case to the magistrate. But it won’t do any good, en verro, for the Grand Duke never listens to the common people.”

  “He doesn’t?”

  She snorted. She sounded remarkably hard-hearted for a girl barely of marriageable age. “Begging your pardon, Maesso, but where have you come from?”