by Melanie Rawn
Giaberto’s laughter was wild. “Even if it were true, for some impossible reason, can you imagine what it would do to Tira Virte? To reveal that the man who is Grand Duke is not a do’Verrada?” He shook his head. “Arrigo’s first son died without issue. His daughter married that nobleman from Diettro Mareia, and her children are foreigners.”
In her head, Saavedra used the old term so familiar to her: estranjiero.
Giaberto went on. “Arrigo’s sister, Lizia, has only two surviving grandchildren, both of her son Maldonno: the young Countess do’Dregez, who is named after Lizia, and her brother, the future Count do’Casteya.”
“En verro,” Cabral agreed quietly.
“We are already perilously close to riot with these Libertista agitators, Cabral. What would happen to the Grijalvas? Without the Ducal Protection issued and upheld by the do’Verradas, where would we be?” Giaberto shook his head angrily, clearly frustrated. “I think you are a revolutionary, Cabral. And agitator. Why else would you take up the case of a discontented madman?”
Cabral’s calm disintegrated. “Cabessa bisila, ‘Berto! So that we may be prepared with a reply! Precisely so we may protect Tira Virte, the do’Verradas, and ourselves. We must warn Renayo.”
Giaberto flung up his hands in disgust. “Grand Duke Renayo a bastard? Impossible! And if it were true, what filho do’canna is supposed to be his father?”
Cabral shut his hand over his silver Chieva and gripped it tightly. “I will thank you, ‘Berto, not to speak of my mother in such a fashion.”
Silence. Even Saavedra understood the implication. It is truth: a do’Verrada does not rule Tira Virte.
Eleyna went pale and murmured a man’s name. Saavédra did not know it, any more than she had known Arrigo’s name. So much now I neither know nor understand. The world had shifted under her feet, robbing her of foundation. And yet from the ruins of her life something new must be built. Not merely for her own sake.
Into the thunderous silence left by the cessation of the shock, she spoke of something infinitely personal. “What became of Alejandro?” she asked. “He, too, was a Duke—a do’Verrada Duke, with no hint of bastardy or chi’patro in his flesh. What became of him?”
Eiha, but it hurt: the knowledge, the acceptance. Never to see him again, save for portraits; never to touch, to embrace. Never to speak to him, only of him, and to strangers.
Estranjieros.
Cabral’s voice was gentle. He understood her grief. “He reigned many years. He married—”
“The Pracanzan.” She knew it. She and Alejandro had spoken of the woman, and she had cried into his fine velurro doublet.
“En verro. Though he married later than his conselhos desired. Because, the tale goes, of the great grief he suffered when his beloved left him.” Silenced then by the living embodiment of that loss, and the truth of its departure, Cabral halted awkwardly.
They came at last, the tears, nurtured as much by the compassion in his voice as by her own pain. But he knew, did Cabral; by his own confession, he knew as well as she the sorrow in loving one forbidden.
He went on gently as she wiped tears away. “With Sario Grijalva as Lord Limner, Alejandro ruled Tira Virte with a generous and even hand for many years. He is beloved as one of our great Dukes.”
She smiled. “He became, then, what he feared he could never be.” And recalled so clearly how she had assuaged that fear.
Silence still. They waited for her, stunned by her. Fearing her. She saw it in their faces, in their postures. She had seen that regard before, those postures, in men and women who looked at Sario.
Save for Cabral, and Eleyna. Who understood for utterly different reasons why they need not fear her at all.
I will have them all respect me. I am as they are: Gifted. But I am not Sario. Again she cradled the swelling deep beneath velurro folds. Alejandro, amoro meyo, I swear to you by the love we swore to one another that this child will have what is due by right of birth and blood.
She gazed upon them all, recalling their shock when Cabral confessed the truth: Tira Virte’s Duke was of bastard blood. Drew a breath. It was time. Far past time, because of Sario.
“I do carry a child,” she said. “Alejandro’s child. Grijalva. Chi’patro. But also do’Verrada. What will become of him?”
EIGHTY-NINE
Of course she returned to him. She came humbly and begged his forgiveness.
The Courtfolk in the Palasso had celebrated Mirraflores Eve with a ball. He had not attended. He was furious. Furious! Let them dance while the mob crouched waiting outside the gates, with their hulking beast’s patience born of long days of boredom and the knowledge that their trap—their Constitussion—was soon to be sprung. Let them dance while his heart raged within.
It galled. She and the boy, one unGifted, one untrained. How had they discovered this means to speak through Blooded paintings? How much more could he have done had he thought of it! Had he killed Il-Adib too soon? Had there been more the old Tza’ab man meant to teach him?
He had sat the entire night, long after the lamps and torches were extinguished, in his private chamber, and stared sightlessly at his canvasses. Surely he had done enough—and yet it was never enough.
He was Lord Limner now—again!—as he had intended all along. Grand Duke Renayo was his to command. Through Princess Alazais, Renayo would rule Ghillas or even annex Ghillas as a new province as Alejandro—with Sario’s aid—had annexed Joharra. If these Libertistas proved too dangerous, he would simply murder some as he had murdered the last male heir to Casteya, allowing Tira Virte’s first Clemenzo to wed the last daughter of the house of Casteya and thus bring it into Tira Virte’s orbit as well. The title of Duke had not been worthy enough for the first Benetto, so he—as Riobaro—had through a series of Blooded Treaties arranged the marriage to the della Marei heiress, whose political ties and colossal wealth had enabled Benetto to declare himself Grand Duke. If he—as Sario—wished, Renayo could now style himself with a grander title. Prince. King. For all these years and years he had served the do’Verradas and Tira Virte. Just as he had been taught to do.
But why? What did it matter, any of it? What was the point of being Lord Limner? What did he care who ruled, or if these Libertistas had their Constitusion?
His estuda had left him! What was the point in life if not to pass on his great knowledge? If not to be acknowledged as the greatest Grijalva painter who had ever lived?
It had been so fine a joke for so long, his own private jeer at all the moronnos who thought themselves such experts about art and never recognized that all those pictures had been painted by one hand. But amusement had long since palled. He felt an intense compulsion to unlock the Galerria this very night, to change all those false attributions. Sario Grijalva on this painting, Sario Grijalva on that, Sario Grijalva on all the finest pieces.
And he could do it. He could steal inside the Galerria and sign the truth on each and every one of his compositions. The truth, at long last.
To stand before them all, to acknowledge that all these works were his and more besides, to watch their eyes as they realized how much they owed to him and him alone. Where would the do’Verradas be without his skills? How many thousand Tira Virteian youths would be dead in battle if not for his cunning that had kept war at bay? Which of the great merchant houses would still be struggling in anonymous squalor in tiny villages had he not made their country an economic power? Who among the scented bravos swaggering their titled wealth through the Court would be sweating in their own barley fields, no better than peasants, if Sario Grijalva had not done what he had done?
But no one would understand. All the beauty, all the achievement, all the benefits of his long, long life.…
No one could understand. Except an estuda, properly trained. She must remain faithful to him, just as Saavedra always had.
Nothing else mattered. Nothing.
The night passed with agonizing slowness.
But in the end, in th
e morning, at the midday bells on Mirraflores Day, she returned. Of course she returned. “Master Sario,” she said, head bowed modestly. “I beg your pardon. I have come back.”
“Of course. Adezo! You have finished, I presume, the copy of the portrait of Saavedra? We will go at once to the Galerria and examine it. Then we shall decide which painting you are to begin next.”
“Yes.” She hesitated, then handed him a folded piece of paper.
“What is this? Can’t it wait?”
She dared look him straight in the eye. The true Luza do’Orro, this one! She, who had discovered a new spell, she who was not even Gifted. “You must read it now.”
He rolled his eyes. Eiha! As well to humor her for a moment. Women took strange notions into their heads on Mirraflores. It was expected of them. He took the paper and unfolded it hastily, impatient to continue their work.
And staggered.
It is the only way, Sario.
Her writing. Her voice, echoing down through the years: “Burn it. Burn it down, all of it. Everything in the Crechetta.”
Here, on this paper, in fresh ink, those simple words that had bound them irrevocably.
It is the only way, Sario.
In her handwriting.
His hand shook as if with a palsy. He looked up, caught an expression on Eleyna’s face, the face of a child who has opened a door and seen a monster. But it passed. It all passed, sooner or later, one life into the next.
“Where did you get this?” he demanded, shaking the paper almost against her skin.
“At Palasso Grijalva.”
He crumpled the paper into a ball. “You betrayed me, to them! How could you? You are my estuda!”
She did not answer, just stared at him.
Saavedra’s handwriting. He knew it as intimately as he did his own. Everything about her, for she was so much a part of him that it was almost as if she were his own creation. He pushed past Eleyna and walked out the door. Walked out through the suite, through the sitting room where Alazais sat passively on the silk couch, embroidering. Her head moved, to look at him as a sunflower turns with the sun, but he did not have time for her inane comments. She was nothing, a trifle.
He ignored the stares as he strode through the Palasso to the Galerria. It was impossible, of course. He flung the doors open and almost ran down the long hall.
Stopped. There she was, in her place. Moronno! To think that Saavedra could have gotten free without him! No one knew. How could they know? How could they alter the great spell he had wrought?
And yet… This was her handwriting. He walked closer. Closer still. Came to the brink, until he could practically step into the portrait.
He smelled the tang of drying paint. Eleyna’s copy!
What had they done with Saavedra?
Still clutching the note, he ran to the stables. “I need a carriage, a horse, a conveyence! Adezo!”
“Lord Limner Sario, it is inadvisable to travel outside the Palasso grounds—”
“Now! Moronno! If I must ride in a butcher’s cart, I will do so!”
In the end, it was a vegetable cart. Perhaps he looked an odd sight, a well-dressed man sitting next to the grizzled old driver, but none of that mattered. People stared and pointed, but they let them through, for the riot had died down days ago and today was Mirraflores, the day girls celebrated their passage into womanhood.
He smoothed out the crumpled paper, hearing old echoes in his head.
“I carry a child!” she had cried, when he cut her, when he proved to her she was Gifted. Alejandro’s child, growing beneath her heart even as Sario painted her Alejandro’s fertile seed, that had taken root. Never would he countenance this. Saavedra was his! His alone!
Or had there been other reasons? It was so long ago. He could not remember them clearly, not anymore.
“Here we are, Maesso,” said the old driver. “Begging your pardon, my lord, but we’ve been sitting here and you haven’t moved. I’d be grateful if you’d get down. My granddaughter has a feast tonight, and I’m not willing to be late so that you can stare at nothings in the air. Matra Dolcha, these Limners. I’ve heard it said before they’re all half-mad, but I never believed it until now.”
Sario shook himself and looked around. They had indeed come to Palasso Grijalva, which lay quiet, as dark as if it had been abandoned, emptied, given to the passing years. Shaking now, he sprang down and ran through the tunnel that led to the courtyard.
He wrenched open the doors that led up to the Atelierro and took the steps two at a time. Threw open the doors at the top.
Matra ei Filho! There they stood in the light that flooded the great chamber, nine buffoons and old Cabral, looking as if the cat had come in and caught the mice at the cream. There was, of course, no sign of Saavedra. They had tricked him.
But there, behind them, he saw the back of a huge panel. He knew it instantly, although he could not see the image. He could feel it, his work, his sigils, his blood and tears and seed and spittle melded with oak and oils and pigments, sealed with the oscurra he had learned from the old Tza’ab, the secrets of the Al-Fansihirro.
He walked across the plank floor. And was stopped.
Stopped dead. His feet could not move.
An instant later he knew it for what it was: a spell painted onto the floor. Moronno that he was, he had walked straight into their trap, right across the floor into the circle of oscurra that now ringed, and weighted, his feet. He had not believed them cunning enough to do it. Or perhaps this, too, had been Eleyna’s idea.
Enraged, he lifted the paper and displayed it to them. “Who has done this?” he shouted. “Which of you? Why did you steal my painting?”
“I have done this.” She stepped out from behind them: masses of coiled ringlets, clear gray eyes. “‘I will do as they tell me,”’ she said, echoing words he had long since forgotten, words that now accused him, in her voice.
Blessed Matra, her long-silenced voice.
She quoted him again. “‘I will give them a Peintraddo Chieva, but it will not be the real one. That, I will keep. That, I will lock away. And only you, and only I, shall know the truth of it.”’ Her face was the same, but her manner was harder, angrier. “I know you, Sario. I know it is you.”
“’Vedra.” Her name, on his lips. Like strokes made by a hand long barred from painting, the form came with difficulty. But it was her. Glorious Saavedra. “I was only waiting for you until the time was right. Then I meant to release you.” He did not move to touch her, not yet. “It is too early. Who has done this? It was for me to do!”
“Not too early. Too late. By many years too late, Sario.” He did not comprehend her anger. Saavedra was never angry with him. “By what right did you tear me away from Alejandro? By what right did you paint me into a prison from which you had no intention of releasing me?”
“That isn’t true!”
“I have lost my life!” she cried.
“Lost your life? I saved you from death! From becoming a gaping, empty-eyed skull, from becoming dust like all the others. Like Alejandro!”
“You did not save me,” she said fiercely. “You robbed me. Robbed me of years, of those I knew and loved, of all the things in the world—in my time—that I treasured. All I have left of them is you—and the child.”
He flinched. The child. The one thing he could never give her—he, who was no man in the eyes of the world, only and eternally a boy who painted. Was that why she had turned to Alejandro? “’Vedra,” he pleaded. “You don’t understand—”
“I understand this, Sario: that you will pay the price for what you have done. I have prayed before the altar, I have asked the Matra’s forgiveness, asked Alejandro’s forgiveness, for what I must now do. But I will give my child—Alejandro’s child—what is due him, and if that means I must sacrifice you, be certain I shall do it.”
What had happened to his faithful, pliant Saavedra? She who had always known and accepted his Gift and his destiny? She had always lo
ved him best. Except she had dared love Alejandro, who had nothing to recommend him except a handsome face—with its crooked, imperfect tooth!—and that restless animal energy that drew the eye—and his people—to him. Alejandro was nothing. Alejandro was only what Sario had made him. Once he made her understand that—
“Tie his hands behind his back,” Saavedra said to Cabral. She looked long at the assembled Limners, all but Sario. “You Viehos Fratos were always so enamored of your own power that you forgot—forget!—how fragile a thing it is.”
“We have never forgotten,” Giaberto protested.
Never forgotten. The words hung in the air. Never forgotten, just as the first Sario, as Riobaro, as Oaquino and Guilbarro and all the others he had been, were never forgotten because their genius lived on in their paintings.
Blessed Matra! They meant to bind his hands.
Cabral advanced on him with a length of stout rope. Sario was strong, but Cabral with the aid of young Damiano was stronger. It was not just physical strength that overwhelmed him; it was the sight of Saavedra, alive, staring at him, her great beauty incandescent once more in her face. But her face was turned against him, her gray eyes as hard as granite and her lips set and unforgiving.
It was Saavedra who bound his hands, though she set no hand on him. It was she who imprisoned him, though she moved no step from her place among the Viehos Fratos. From her place at their head, for any moronno could see at once that they deferred to her.
To the First Mistress! How Riobaro would have laughed at the irony. Perhaps all the Mistresses would have laughed: sweet Benissia; poor doomed Saalendra; exquisite Corasson; Rafeya; the incomparable Diega; Lina; confident Tazita; practical Lissina; that canna Tazia. They knew that a Mistress might have secrets that a Lord Limner could never know.
By whose power had the Grijalvas truly won their place? Through the Limners, or through their sisters and female cousins?
So he, the greatest Lord Limner, faced Saavedra, the first and most famous of the Grijalva Mistresses. How had they come to be at odds?