The Golden Key (12 page)

He looked at the silk-and-lace bundle in the cradle. “And—her? Even so small and smelly?”

His mother laughed. He rejoiced to see and hear it, though there was no explanation; his question was not, he considered, meant to amuse. “As she is small and smelly, so were you once. And yes, we love her also.”

Alejandro looked away from his sister to the woman who had borne them both. “When I marry, I will marry whom I wish.”

Amusement fled. The spark of her smile, the warmth of her eyes, faded. “So you may believe.”

“I
will.
”

Her fingers, cradling his face, were cool. She bent, pressed soft lips against his brow. “I hope it may be so.”

How could it not? He would be Duke.
The
Duke of Tira Virte.

“Pray for it,” his mother murmured, then rose, rustling, and turned to her women, pressing the flat of her hand against her belly. “Tighten the laces,” she said. “He must see me as I was, not as I am … and so must all the Courtfolk. So must the Lord Limner. I will not have them say of the
Peintraddo Natalia
done for my lovely little Doña that her mother the Duchess is
fat!
”

Sario watched, mute, as Saavedra made the world right again; as right as it ever could be, for those who had witnessed atrocity.

In the Crechetta there was little light save what they brought to
it in a single clay candle-cup. It was an interior chamber, washed with an ocherous finish as opposed to white paint as was the Galerria, so that in the light Saavedra carried, small, insignificant cup of wax and flame, the room glowed amber and ivory, with the faintest sheen of tarnished gilt. Wavering shadows made the chamber stark, shaped of few appointments: the iron candle-stand, the plain wooden chair, the cloth-draped easel.

And the self-portrait, the
Peintraddo Chieva
, of Tomaz Grijalva.

It yet stood upon the easel. Saavedra drew in an audible breath and pulled the cloth back, freeing the image from its brocade shielding.

Sario indeed had burned the painting, but poorly: a charred hole marred the center of the canvas, encompassing Tomaz’s breast, but no more. He had not destroyed the entire painting.

“Matra Dolcha,” Saavedra murmured. “Oh, Sweet Mother—” Her fingers, holding cloth, trembled.

“I couldn’t,” he said. “I thought someone might smell it … might come. I grew frightened, and put it out.”

She moved, releasing brocade. Now she stood before the easel, studying the painting. He saw the tautness of the flesh stretched over the bones of her face, the pallor, the stillness in her features, the bloodlessness of her lips as she pressed them together. A tangled mass of black curls fell behind her shoulders, though strands persistently escaped to shadow temples and brow. The quiet light was kind to her; he saw in that moment a promised purity of feature that men would long to paint.

I will paint her—I
… Of course he would. Who else? Who better?

She murmured beneath her breath, touching fingers to lips, then to heart. Sario looked again at the painting to see as she saw: the masterwork of an artist both gifted and Gifted, the subtleties of brushwork, the expert blending of the colors, the smoothness of the paints so carefully tempered by hand—by
his
hand; the creation of the face, the torso, from nothing but sheer talent, from eye, from Luza do’Orro—and the ability to transform what was seen in a mirror to what bloomed upon the canvas.

Tomaz Grijalva. The likeness was perfect.

As was the ragged hole burned into the torso where a man’s heart lived.

Another, looking upon it, cried out aloud of loss, of destruction, innocent of truth. Sario, looking upon it, would cry out silently of nothing but that they might be caught.

“Sario …” Saavedra turned great and glittering eyes upon him. “This is the truth, what you have said—”

He inhaled noisily. “Do you think I would
lie
?”

“You have.”

“Never to you!”

No. Never to her. She shut her eyes a moment, wet dry lips, murmured again as if seeking strength.

“You saw him,” he said. “You saw what became of him. He sat there,
right there
, in that chair—and they painted him crippled! They painted him blind! You saw it, ‘Vedra! For yourself; do your own eyes lie?”

She clamped both hands over her mouth.

“Yes,” he said, “it made you ill, what you saw. And you question me now?”

“I have to.” It came out muffled, until she took her hands away. “I have to, Sario … because—because what we saw—”

“—was magic,” he finished.

“And what
you
did, burning the hole in the heart—”

“—was also magic.”

“Then you … then
you
—oh, Matra ei Filho, then you are Gifted as was Tomaz, as all the Viehos Fratos—”

Now he could smile, though it was merely a ghastly stretching of his lips. “Did you ever doubt it?”

“But that means every Gifted male …” She turned to the ruined portrait again, whispering prayers repeatedly as she kissed fingertips and pressed them against her heart.

“He told me the truth,” Sario said. “And then begged me for release.”

“But you don’t
know
he’s dead!”

He looked at the painting. At his own handiwork. “He said burning would work. That I had no access to the proper paints—but destroying the canvas would work. I think he must be dead.”

She drew in a breath. Released it. Drew another, and let it go as well. Then turned to him abruptly. “They must know,” she said. “You must go and fetch them.”

“Fetch—?” It sent a shiver down his spine. “Who?”

“The Viehos Fratos.”

“’
Vedra
—”

“They must know. They must come and see.” Quietly she set down the cup of flame upon the floor. Then she lifted the portrait from the easel and placed it meticulously upon the candle-cup, so that fire crisped and caught the charred edge of the hole Sario had already burned. “Go,” she said.

He stared at her. He watched openmouthed as she struck down
the easel so that it fell across the burning painting. Now the brocade cloth burned as well.

She turned upon him a fierce, singularly fixed glare. Then she opened her mouth and shouted, “Sario! It’s
burning
—go and fetch aid!”

He stared at her; at the blazing painting.

“Go,” she hissed. And then shouted again, begging aid and forgiveness, and he saw what she meant to do.

Blame herself. For tripping. For knocking the easel over. For burning up the painting in a terrible accident.

Tomaz Grijalva: dead. And now his painting as well.

  FIVE  

Saavedra
was given no time, no time at all, not to change clothing to something more appropriate, not to catch her breath, not even to relieve herself. They simply escorted her without deliberation into the private quarters of Raimon Grijalva, one of the Viehos Fratos. And left her there. Alone. Meant to face a man she had never spoken to, nor had been addressed by, ever; his task was the ordering of vital family business, and she was wholly inconsequential.

Or
had
been.

Saavedra, in her contrived rush to put out the flames in the Crechetta, had—in full view of those Sario had summoned— scorched much of her tunic and trousers, and very nearly caught her hair on fire. All in all it had been an immensely successful undertaking: Tomaz’s portrait was almost entirely destroyed, with more than enough damage done to account for a death she and Sario were to know nothing of—and she had risked herself in attempting to douse the flames. Surely they would see that, the Viehos Fratos. Surely Aguo Raimon would.

Meanwhile, he was not present. She was left to wait, quite unattended, upon his pleasure—or, perhaps, his
dis
pleasure—and she found the task excruciatingly difficult. Anticipating his words, his disapproval, his punishment, knotted her belly so tightly she feared she might never be able to eat again.

Which might please Sario, because then I would have nothing in my belly to lose!

It was a small room, a solar, built of arched embrasures in one wall so that sunlight was given leave to enter in full measure. The bricks of the wall were handmade, hand-smoothed, chinked together with mortar, then smoothed again by hand, so that one brick was indiscernible from another. And over it all was layered thin clay, the warm sunbright clay that made her spirit soar, that freed it to fly. Colors and textures did that to her, giving release to her mind so she might imagine anything, and, in the imagining, transfer it to hands, to paper, to canvas; even perhaps to a wall still damp with new paint, a fresco of the landscape that lived within her head.

But that landscape now, despite the warmth of the sun-bright clay, was not at ease; was freed only to imagine the worst of possible punishments.

It was a room for relaxation, filled with soothing patterns and colors: a high-backed wooden chair, cushioned in rich sienna-hued velurro; a stool for Aguo Raimon’s feet; a table with books upon it, and a pot holding summer blooms; fine-loomed rugs upon the floor and intricate tapestries on the walls, depending from iron rods and ornate brackets.

A room for the taking of one’s ease, not for punishment—and yet she could not divorce her mind from that despite the soothing surroundings. Beauty could calm, but also kill, as was proved by the destruction of Tomaz’s self-portrait.

Saavedra fidgeted.
He will have been told how I tried to put out the fire. Surely he will see what I risked to repair my transgression.

But Aguo Raimon, stepping into the small solar from a chamber beyond, did not in any way suggest by expression or posture that he saw anything of what she had risked. And she recalled that to them, to the Viehos Fratos, the destruction of the painting destroyed also a life. A punished Grijalva, a disciplined man, but now a dead man.

She shivered.
I wish Sario were here.
With him present, she would think to protect him, and it was far easier to answer in defense of another than to defend herself.

But he was not present. They had taken him elsewhere, and now it was her task to explain without hesitation—or with only the proper hesitation—how she had come to burn a painting that was to have been unknown to her. Despite the chamber’s name, women were not permitted in the Crechetta.

Show him no fear. Let him suspect nothing beyond the obvious: you went where you were not meant to go, and you caused an accident.
Accordingly she raised her chin and let the man look at her, even as she looked at him.

Aguo Raimon wore black velurro, wholly unadorned save for the slender chain of gold around his collar. Saavedra followed the line of the fragile links and sought its ornament at mid-chest: the Golden Key of his family, and hers. A small Chieva, withal, though intricately made; on her it would be too large, but Raimon Grijalva was not a small man. The leonine mane of dark hair that flowed back against his shoulders sprang vigorously from his scalp; he was a young, vital, active man, renowned for quiet fairness as well as talent.

And abruptly she knew this man was due honesty, insofar as she
dared it. “Forgive me!” she cried, falling to her knees. “In Their Blessed Names, I beg your forgiveness!” The floor was carpeted, but the stone beneath was hard on the bones of her knees. Saavedra clasped her hands against her breast and bowed her head. “Matra ei Filho, I never meant it to happen … I only went—I only went because—because—” She drew in a noisy breath. “—because it was forbidden. I admit it.” She did not permit herself to raise her eyes, to see the man’s expression. “Aguo, I beg you—I
swear
to you—it was not intended!”