The Golden Key

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The Golden Key Page 88

by Melanie Rawn


  “Agustin!” She jumped up and took the tray from him. He had, unaccountably, grown noticeably taller in the past weeks, but his complexion looked pallid. The manservant in the hallway shut the door behind them. Agustin made a little grimace as the door was locked from the outside.

  “You are ill?” Eleyna set the tray down and hugged her brother, examining him carefully.

  He smiled cheerfully. “No, it is nothing. I only have weak lungs. They will kill me, or the Gift will, eventually. What does it matter which one?”

  “Agustin!”

  His face wore a new maturity. “Pluvio en laggo. I can do nothing about it. What matters more is that I have learned so much these past weeks!” It flooded out: suggestion spells, the Blooded parchment through which he had listened in on the Conselhos meeting, the careful use of blood and tears to create a spelled painting.

  “Eiha, young master! I see you are wearing your Gift proudly, en verro. Can you protect me from a suggestion spell!”

  He sat down on the couch. “I am talking when you should be eating. There is onion and tomato soup, still cold. Saffron chicken with rice and peas. Bread, as you see. Fruit tart. Everything you like best. I asked the cook to prepare all your favorite things.”

  Eleyna laughed, but she sat down. The food did smell very good. “You are not hungry?”

  “Not at all. I ate all the leftover custard.”

  The soup was excellent, as always. “You haven’t answered my question, Agustin.”

  “I don’t know,” he said seriously. “The Folio is locked away, but I have been given a key—made of bronze but of the same shape as the Golden Key worn by the Master Limners—because I am recognized as an apprentice. I’ll read ahead.”

  “Don’t do anything that might endanger you!”

  “Damiano is twenty-four and already a Vieho Frato. I am the only apprentice. They need me.”

  “Surely they have ways of controlling you as well as unGifted family like me,” she said bitterly.

  He frowned, gnawing on a nail.

  “Your hands!”

  “Eiha.” He pulled his finger from his mouth and smiled sheepishly at her. “It’s a bad habit. In a few years I will paint my Peintraddo Chieva, which will elevate me to Master Limner status. With all the—eiha! This is what you do not know. In oils, with my blood. Oil and blood is the most potent spell. But if that painting is Blooded, they can use that painting to discipline me or as a threat of discipline to make sure I adhere to the decisions made by the Viehos Fratos.”

  Eleyna pushed the chicken away, suddenly sick with foreboding. “That would mean, if your essence was intertwined with the painting, if it was blooded with your blood, then to harm or destroy the painting would be to harm or destroy you.”

  “Exactly.”

  “The Grijalvas have always kept a tight grip on their own, have they not?” No ambitious Gifted Grijalva boy had ever taken the world by storm, done what he pleased for his own gain. All had served the family. “So they control you. If you do not do as they bid, then they destroy you.”

  Agustin picked up the chalk she had left on the table and spun it, end over end, through his fingers, as if its motion reflected his throughts. “This very morning I read some old documents from the time of Duke Baltran. The Serrano family were still Lord Limners then. They accused the Grijalvas of black magic. And you know what happened after the Nerro Lingua. If we do not protect ourselves, we could all be condemned and impoverished. Or killed.”

  “Eiha, Agustin. No doubt you speak the truth. It is an effective way to rein in the excesses of those men who might abuse the power they have. But it is easier for you, who have the Gift, to think lightly of it. I can only be its victim. And I do not like that.”

  “Eat your supper. It is rude not to eat what the cook has gone to such pains to prepare for you.”

  “You are growing up, picco frato.” She dutifully finished her supper. She was too practical to let good food go to waste, especially after drawing so many starving faces. And she had a special fondness for the old cook who reigned in the kitchens and who was always willing to slip treats to those Grijalva children who made the slightest attempt to sweeten her up. The fruit tart, garnished with apricots and nutmeg, was delicious.

  “Tomorrow,” said Agustin after she finished, “I will bring you some new drawings I have done.”

  From outside, they heard a muffled shriek.

  “Matra Dolcha!” Agustin sat up straight on the couch.

  The door opened. Dionisa appeared, a clutch of papers crumpled in her left hand. “Agustin, go back to your room!”

  He regarded her calmly. “No, Mama, I will not. I will visit Eleyna whenever I please, as is my right as her brother.”

  “Agustin! How dare you disobey me!”

  If he was at all nervous, defying his mother in this fashion, he betrayed it only by his hands, clasped together and thrust between his knees. Eleyna waited for the explosion, but to her astonishment their mother acquiesced to this rebellion. Instead, thwarted of one outlet, she threw all her anger at her daughter.

  “Giaberto tells me that you—you!—have been party to this Libertista treachery.” She waved the papers, which Eleyna now saw were broadsheets. “Is this true?”

  “You did not recognize my drawings yourself but had to have Giaberto identify them for you?” Her mother’s anger hurt less than the knowledge that Dionisa cared so little for Eleyna’s art that she did not know her own daughter’s hand.

  “Your beloved Libertistas burned down the west wing of the Palasso Justissia last night! And we found these … these thing’s, these spewings of a dog, being distributed on the streets. Where any man might see a Grijalva’s handiwork! You would be ashamed of yourself if you had any shame.”

  “I must do with my gift what I think is right.”

  Dionisa ripped the broadsheets into tiny pieces and threw them like so much confetti onto the plank floor. “Eiha! You will not defy me for long, mennina! You have a visitor. I would have prevented him from seeing you, if I could, but Andreo and Nicollo overruled me. It is all very well to say that his father has thrown him out of the Palasso, but I do not imagine the Grand Duke will cut him off completely or refuse to come to his aid if he is not treated with the deference due his station. So I gave in. Venomma! You have ruined all my plans!”

  Eleyna rose so quickly she knocked over her cup, spilling the dregs of her tea. Rohario walked in, escorted by Giaberto and—Matra!—Lord Limner Andreo himself.

  Rohario had gone to great pains with his dress, although she could see the worn patches at his elbows, faded but not yet fraying. Beside his sober elegance, Andreo’s jacket and waistcoat looked gaudy, not rich. But in all those tiny portraits she had drawn today, she had not even once gotten Rohario right: the mouth drawn too thin, or the eyes not dark enough, the brows too arched, his hands too lax, without a pen in them.

  His gaze fixed on her at once. Eiha! It was so obvious, now her own eyes had been opened. He loved her. How could she not have noticed it before?

  “Given all that has passed,” said Andreo without preamble, “the Conselhos would have preferred this meeting not take place, but we agreed to a brief interview.”

  She tried to speak but could not, not even to say his name. Instead, under the censorious gaze of her mother and uncle and of the Lord Limner, she crossed to Rohario and gave him her hands. He grasped them eagerly. His skin was hot, almost feverish.

  “You cannot imprison her in this way,” said Rohario, wrenching his gaze away from her to look at Andreo.

  “She is a Grijalva, and so have the Conselhos decided,” replied Andreo stiffly.

  “Eleyna is my betrothed.” Rohario released one of her hands and tucked the other under his elbow.

  She swayed, stunned by this pronouncement. The world had shifted under her feet.

  “Impossible!” cried Dionisa.

  “Grand Duke Renayo will never allow the match, and his children cannot marry without his conse
nt,” said Giaberto.

  “The Conselhos will forbid it,” said Andreo. “It has long been forbidden for Grijalva women to associate with the do’Verradas, except the one chosen as Mistress.”

  Agustin stared gape-mouthed, eyes alight.

  I can marry no man, Eleyna thought, but one swift, sharp glance from Rohario, perhaps as he felt her take in breath to speak, convinced her that the wiser course would be to say nothing.

  “I own two estates,” Rohario continued. “They are sufficient to maintain a household. We are both of age, and we have given our free consent.”

  “You do not understand, my lord!” said Andreo, suddenly grim. “There is much you do not understand about the do’Verradas and the Grijalvas. If your father gave his consent, I would not refuse mine, but he cannot. And he will not. Go and ask him why this must be, for I have no right to speak of such matters to you without his permission.”

  Grand Dukes did not marry painters, whose blood was forever stained by their chi’patro origins. But what would happen to the Grand Dukes if it became known that they had used magic—forbidden magic born out of those chi’patro origins—to gain wealth and power? Both the Grijalvas and the do’Verradas would do what was necessary to make sure such terrible secrets remained hidden.

  “You do not understand,” retorted Rohario, looking suddenly both arrogant and mulish. Eleyna had never seen him look quite so—forceful before. “I may be out of favor with my father now, but I am still his son—and brother to the next Grand Duke. A do’Verrada—descendant of Duchess Jesminia, to whom you Grijalvas owe your lives!” He wrenched his gaze from Andreo and turned it on Eleyna. “I will free you from this house,” he promised her.

  “Understand what is in my heart,” she said, not caring that the others would hear because this might be her last chance to speak to him with her will intact. She kissed him on the cheek, and he blushed furiously. “This is the truth, no matter what I might say when next we meet. Remember that.”

  “How can you doubt me?” he muttered, looking bewildered but ecstatic. He kissed her forehead, then released her. “I will return,” he said to Andreo.

  As he turned to go, Andreo spoke. “Travel cautiously, Don Rohario. I hear rumors that the streets are no longer safe for Grand Duke Renayo’s loyal subjects.”

  “For me they are safe.” Rohario kissed Eleyna’s hand, gave her a speaking look, and left, attended by Giaberto.

  Dionisa marched over to Eleyna and slapped her.

  “Mother!” Agustin jumped to his feet.

  Eleyna merely turned her back on her mother and went to sit down in the chair. “You have no more power to hurt me.”

  “Eleyna!” This from Andreo, stern and angry. “Must I explain to you why there must be a prohibition against marriage between do’Verradas and Grijalvas?”

  She faced his gaze squarely. “I understand why, Lord Limner. But how can you hope to keep such a secret forever? If the complaints of the people are not heard, how can you be sure the Grand Dukes of Tira Virte will not meet the same fate as the Kings of Taglis and Ghillas?”

  Dionisa gasped.

  Andreo whitened. “Do not seek to overturn the natural order, ninia meya. We have always worked for peace and plenty.”

  “And for the gain of the Grijalvas.”

  “Why should we not protect ourselves? Why not aid the do’Verradas, who aided us when we needed their help? Why else would the Blessed Matra bestow this Gift upon us?”

  Eleyna rose slowly. A fire was in her, burning so brightly she must speak now or be scorched by the fever of her passion. Though Andreo stood a head taller, she no longer felt she was looking up to him. “Unless it was not a Gift at all, but a curse! How long will Agustin live? My beautiful brother, doomed to die too young? How quickly do you all die, you who are blessed, and how terribly do you suffer at the end? That is why you must hoard your Gift, call it better than others, although not one of you alive today has painted anything as beautiful as this one of Cabral’s paintings.”

  She flung out a hand, gesturing toward the portrait of Mechella and the young Renayo, dressed according to the times in a perfect miniature imitation of adult dress: wide-brimmed felt hat, coat cut of silver cloth, gold-buckled shoes. He and his mother were drawn so lovingly the heart could not help but respond.

  “Look at that, and tell me I am lying! You have turned in on yourselves, and now you are dying out. Fewer boys are born. The Gift is failing. What will you have then? You have forsaken those of us—Cabral, myself, untold others—who also hold the Luza do’Orro in our hands and in our eyes, because we do not have the other thing, that blessing that runs in your blood and not in ours. But we are the ones, when the Gift fails and the do’Verradas lose their power or see no further reason to take Grijalva Mistresses and Grijalva Limners, who will keep intact the family fortunes that your Gift has built. You must nurture all of us, and you have not. That will be your downfall.”

  “I will not hear you,” said Andreo, but by the stricken look in his eyes she saw that he had. “Come, Dionisa.”

  Obedient, Dionisa accompanied him.

  There was silence after they left.

  “I am sorry, Agustin,” said Eleyna finally.

  He smiled sweetly. “Don’t be sorry, Eleyna. You always had the gift to paint the truth of the world. Don’t stop now.” He rose and crossed to her, resting a pale hand on her shoulder, leaning to whisper in her ear. “I will come back, but I will bring some vials. To protect you, if I can. You know what we must do. If you can trust me that far.”

  Give him blood and tears. Give herself into the power he had in his blood and in his hands. Eleyna studied his face: her little Agustin, whom she had nursed through many a childhood cough; the many illnesses had wrought him into a fine instrument but a delicate one. But beneath that fragile exterior was growing a man.

  “Of course I trust you. I will give you what you need.”

  A rap sounded on the door, followed by Andreo’s voice. “Agustin!”

  She hated to let him go. “What if they do not let you visit me again?” she demanded. They would paint her into acquiescence—but acquiescence to what? She shuddered.

  He kissed her cheek. “We can do what we did at Chasseriallo. They can’t stop us from communicating, I promise you.” With that reassurance, he left. The door was shut and locked after him.

  The next day they allowed her paper and pen and chalk, but no paints. The Holy Days came, and she waited alone all through Dia Sola. She drew the dead, those she had lost, those she regretted losing, those she did not. Leilias; her friend and cousin Alerrio; Felippo; the stillborn child; her twin siblings; Zevierin; Leilias’ sons. All of them gone now but still remembered. That evening—finally—Agustin came with the servant who brought her supper. He looked pale and angry.

  “They have forbidden you to visit me,” she guessed.

  “Andreo himself has done so.” He nodded at the servant, who left the supper tray and went out into the corridor—to keep watch, although he also locked the door behind him. “I hate them! I hate the way they want to control me!”

  “We’ll do a drawing of this—” She indicated one bare corner of the room. “—and you can send me letters.”

  “But you can send none back to me, unless you send one with a servant.” He shook his head. “That would be too risky.”

  She paced; it was the only way, confined so, that she could think. “You can cause a letter to appear. You can hear through a drawing. Then why—” She paused to frown at Cabral’s beautiful painting: Grand Duchess Mechella stood with white irises, for Love, strewn at her feet. “Then why can’t I speak to you through a Blooded painting, if we both have one, perfectly rendered, precisely placed, and all else is the same?”

  “The Folio says nothing about that.”

  “Perhaps the Folio doesn’t know everything!” she cried, exasperated. “Eiha! Are all of the Gifted this pig-headed?” She threw up her hands. “You can hear through one spelled painting. W
hat if there were two?”

  His eyes widened as he considered her words, and he nibbled on the tips of his fingers, caught himself, and lowered his hand. “Two spelled paintings, in two places, each linked to the other. Let me think about this, Eleynita.” Then he laughed. “You should have been Gifted. You would have become Premio Sorella in no time at all.”

  The servant stuck his head in. “Master Agustin, I dare not wait any longer—”

  “Yes,” said Agustin impatiently. He kissed Eleyna and left, already enthralled with the prospect of a new experiment.

  After he had gone she sat down and drew, in increasingly fine detail, all four corners of the room.

  The next day was Herva ei Ferro. Agustin appeared again—this time carrying a half-finished watercolor portrait of her—and again the servant remained outside on watch. “I brought a lancet,” Agustin said, “and vials to catch your blood, tears, and spit. Will you trust me?”

  “Of course!” She slid her four best sketches of the room out from under her sketchpad. “Here is what I have done.”

  He bit a finger. He wore today a plain gray jacket and waistcoat trimmed with black ribbon, suitable for Penitenssia. She herself wore the same plain high-waisted gown she had been brought here in, although the servant who attended her had been given leave to sew on the proper black ribbons.

  His expression disturbed her. “What are you thinking?”

  He hesitated, then stood and crossed to where the portrait stood on an easel. “You are the most gifted of us all, Eleyna, but no one has ever tested you.”

  “I am a woman. I cannot be Gifted.”

  “How do we know?” He had such an intense expression in his eyes, a window onto a different Agustin, a frightening one. Is this what he would have become, had he not been worn down by ill health? “You must at least try!”

  Matra ei Filho. Wasn’t it true that the finest Grijalva painters were all Gifted? Why not her? She caught in her breath between clenched teeth. If only it could be true—

  “Let me try,” he begged.

  In answer she wiped a sudden tear from her cheek and nodded silently.

 

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