The Golden Key (122 page)

The sucked-in air sounded a roar in Agustin’s ears, which pounded with the beat of his own pulse.

“—then you will breathe as well. Not deep breaths. That will only cause you to cough—there, you see. Just with me. That’s right. Now come, take a step. Let’s get out of this dusty closet.”

By the time they got into the Atelierro, Agustin was still struggling to take deep breaths but the coughing had subsided.

“Here is your son, Dionisa,” said Cabral. “I think it would be well to have a sancta in to see him.”

“As if a sancta would lower herself to venture into our chi’patro Palasso,” said his mother furiously.

“Nevertheless,” said Cabral smoothly, “although they may have snubbed you, Dionisa, this is your Gifted son who is having trouble breathing. They will know what to do.”

Agustin was hauled off to bed and, later, given over to the attentions of a robed and wimpled sancta whose forbidding gaze was as stony as the statues in the Cathedral. But once Dionisa left the chamber—at the sancta’s direct order—and the old woman examined Agustin, her features softened.

“Poor boy,” she said. “You remind me of my great-nephew, all bones and big eyes. How old are you? Just hold up your fingers. Don’t talk. Fifteen, is it? That is the same age I was when my parents dedicated me to the Ecclesia.” Agustin wanted to ask if she, like him, had had no choice in the matter of her profession, but he dared not. “Let me listen to your lungs. What’s that I smell on your breath? Fennel? Something you brewed for yourself? You have good sense.” She said this approvingly, as Eleyna would. Agustin could not imagine Eleyna this old and wrinkled, but the sancta had an iron strength about her that reminded him of his sister.

Not like Beatriz. But Beatriz was now Don Edoard’s mistress … the thought triggered another spasm of coughing.

The sancta clapped her hands, loudly, and Dionisa hurried in. “I want a cup of boiled water.”

“But—”

“I want it now.”

Agustin could not quite laugh through his coughing, but he would have liked to, at the expression on his mother’s face.

“Have you always had this sort of coughing?” the sancta asked him. “Do you get colds easily in the wet season? Is it worse at certain times of year? Don’t speak. You need only nod or shake your head. Have you always felt a little weaker than the other children? Is it sometimes hard to catch your breath? Yes, yes.” The sancta sighed, caught herself, and turned just in time to intercept the cup of hot water. Rummaging in her woven pouch, she brought out a box and, opening it, sorted through little bags. Agustin could tell they were herbs and flowers, but by this time he could smell nothing.

She made a hot tea for him. After a few sips his spasms subsided.

“You have weak lungs, my child. There is little I or any other healer can do about it. You must walk frequently, not sit indoors all the time—as it appears you do with that pallor you have—but not overexert yourself. An infusion of coltsfoot, licorice, and manzanilla will help you through attacks. If you balance yourself between resting and exercise, eat well, drink a little wine but not too much, you can live a normal life. It is up to you. Do not let your mother bully you. There now. I will go tell your mother and father these same things.”

She blessed him and left.

Agustin stared bitterly at the ceiling, plain white, appropriate for the room of a boy who was supposed to think of nothing but painting, creating images against that white in his mind’s eye. He was a Gifted Limner, after all.

He squeezed his eyes shut to stop tears. What point was there in crying? There was nothing he could do about it. He took another sip of the tea and felt his lungs open a bit more.

He could never have any of the things he really wanted anyway: sons and daughters to dandle on his knee, a house of his own, a life that belonged to
him
, not to his mother and the Grijalva family. What did it matter if his lungs were weak? He would die young in any case.

He was a Gifted Limner.

And he wished desperately that he was not.

Dionisa refused to let him out of bed for two days and did not let him have pencil and drawing paper to while away the time. He was grateful to be allowed out of bed the third morning after the Feast of Imago. He was, in fact, sitting in his mother’s parlor taking a light breakfast of rolls and cheese and licorice tea when Cabral came in, unannounced.

“Your color is better,” Cabral observed. “What were you thinking about so pensively, young man?”

“About how to protect Eleyna,” Agustin blurted out.

“I trust that Eleyna can protect herself, but I take your meaning. Right now you must think about protecting yourself. You have been spared censure thus far because of your illness, but I am come to warn you that you are to be called before the Viehos Fratos. Which means I cannot be present.”

Agustin choked on a piece of bread, coughing, and managed to finish swallowing without having a new attack. “Are they going to do something awful to me?”

“Do not mention to them that I spoke with you. Listen carefully. They will threaten you, since they do not like to be trifled with. I thought it a clever trick myself, but I have always been at a disadvantage with the Gifted, you understand, and am more likely than they to think it amusing. But many boys died during the Summer Fever. You are a rare commodity now, Agustin, the commodity on which Grijalva wealth is founded. They will threaten you but cannot risk harming you, not unless you show yourself a serious threat to them, which you and I know you are not. Eiha! I hear someone. Be brave.”

Cabral vanished through one door just as Giaberto and Dionisa walked in through the other. Agustin would have found the theatrics amusing had he not been quaking. Giaberto’s expression was grave, and Dionisa looked furious and worried at the same time. Maybe he could have been brave if Eleyna had been here. But he was alone.

“Stop cowering!” his mother snapped. “You remind me of a cringing kitchen maid who’s just been caught with her hand in the syrup jar.” She broke off, hurried over to him as he sat, staring, too terrified to move, and stroked his shoulders. “Now, now, ninio. You know I will protect you. No one will hurt you. Giaberto and I want only the best for you. But you must act like the little man you are and go with your uncle now.”

Used to obeying the commands of his elders, Agustin went.

They waited for him in the Crechetta, eleven dour men, the youngest his fifth cousin Damiano, the eldest a distant cousin who
at forty-five was curled into the final stages of the bone fever that was killing him.

Agustin found he could examine old Zosio dispassionately. He would never have to suffer the agonies of failing hands and joints: his lungs would kill him first. This bleak thought gave him heart to face them down.

Lord Limner Andreo lifted a hand. “You may sit, Giaberto. Agustin, you will stand,
there.
”

Agustin complied, standing where they all could see him. The Limners glared at him, except young Damiano who, face in profile to the rest, winked at him. Nicollo looked positively surly where he sat twisted in a chair; his complexion had the pasty dullness of a man whose life is draining from him.

“Do you know, Agustin, how the Gifted discipline those of their own kind who disobey the stringent rules we have set for ourselves?”

He shook his head. Terrified, he nevertheless clung to two thoughts: Cabral had told him he was valuable, and he was going to die young anyway, whatever else they might do to him.

Andreo went on sternly. “We have been given a great Gift but also a terrible responsibility, and we owe service to the Grijalva family and to the Grand Dukes of Tira Virte. You know of the sacrifice made by Verro Grijalva. You know of the capture of his sisters by Tza’ab bandits, of their rescue by the first Duke Renayo. You know they are honored above all other women for their mercy and generosity in bringing the chi’patro children into the Grijalva lineage. You know also that our family was not murdered by the mob during Nerro Lingua only because of the intercession of Duchess Jesminia. All these things we Grijalvas remember. We live on the sufferance of the do’Verrada family, just as they prosper because of our aid to them. Thus, together, we increase Tira Virte’s fortunes.

“But we are never safe when plagues strike the city and whispers of black magic race through the streets again, when our name is still mentioned with mistrust in the Sanctias—or when any rash boy realizes the power he holds
in his hands
can be used for his own selfish gain.

“You do not yet understand the power that lives in
your
hands, but you must now learn what it is to be disciplined by your peers. Damiano, bring the portrait of Domaos.”

By this time, Cabral’s bracing words had been washed away by the flood of Andreo’s lecture. Andreo’s bland, staring eyes, old
Zosio’s racking cough (worse than his own), their collective frown, all combined to leave Agustin in a state of near panic.

Damiano returned with the portrait, and a fine portrait it was, too, of a handsome young man with burning, ambitious eyes and the broad shoulders of an athlete.

Andreo looked as grim as if he were about to pronounce a sentence of death. “Domaos Grijalva chose his own fate. He was brash enough to believe he could have an affair with a do’Verrada daughter and not pay the price. The Viehos Fratos were merciful in his case: he was banished and forced to live his life as an itinerant painter—not an Itinerarrio, a chosen ambassador who may be received at every court with the greatest honor, but a mere traveling artist who must take what work he can.”

Andreo paused to give Agustin time to envision the awful fate of Domaos Grijalva.

But why would it be so bad? All contracts in Tira Virte were paintings: as the old saying went, one word might have ten meanings or no meaning at all. There was always work for a good artist.

“In time, Agustin, you will paint a portrait of yourself, your
Peintraddo Chieva
, by which you will prove yourself worthy of a place among the Viehos Fratos. It will be painted with your own sweat, your tears, your saliva and urine and seed, with your own blood. It will hang in the Crechetta.” Andreo motioned toward the walls of the old chamber, adorned with the portraits of the living Limners.

“What do you think would happen if we burned that painting?”

His tears and sweat, mixed in ink. Burning … four days ago a rash had erupted over him, like a sunburn. He shuddered, began coughing.

Giaberto jumped to his feet. “Don’t scare the boy, Andreo. He’s still weak.”

Andreo slapped a hand against the back of his heavy chair. The crack startled Agustin out of coughing, and he struggled to compose himself.

“
The boy must understand.
We Grijalvas cannot afford to shelter Neosso Irrados. They must be disciplined or removed.
We
obey.
We
serve. Through our work we are rewarded.”

Just as Grijalva girls were told they would be rewarded with Gifted sons, and the unGifted limners told they would be rewarded with security and a wife and the wealth of the Palasso. Eleyna had said often enough that she felt trapped. Agustin was beginning to understand what she meant.

“Agustin,” Andreo continued, “do you have anything to say?”

I don’t want to be a Limner.
Agustin opened his mouth, but he could not say the words. He could not face their anger, their consternation, their scolding. He could not stand up against them.

“I will obey,” he said meekly. Alone, all he could do was obey. They frightened him. They were stronger than he was. Matra Dolcha! He hated being afraid all the time.

Andreo nodded with satisfaction. “You are a good boy, and you will be a good painter. You will serve the family, and your reward will be that the family prospers. Do you understand?”

“H-how can you call it a gift?” Agustin stammered. “Why do we have to die so young, and so horribly? Why must we remain sterile? Why can’t you change all that?”

Andreo smiled gently, but Agustin found the smile frightening. “Power takes its toll on our bodies. Sterility and early death, however awful they might be, are the price we pay for our magic, mennino. Never forget that.”

As if I could.

“There are so few of us,” Andreo continued, musing. “And so much to do. Fewer than two dozen Gifted Limners alive now.”

No wonder the Gifted died young. They bled themselves dry, just as the ancient heathen Tza’ab illuminators, the Al-Fansihirro, were said to have literally killed themselves by using their own blood mixed with ink to pen their holy book, the
Kita’ab.
The heathen Tza’ab … whose blood, through his chi’patro ancestors, flowed through his own veins.

“It isn’t as easy as it seems on the surface,” Agustin said finally and was rewarded by an approving smile from Andreo and a clap on the back from his uncle.

“You are learning,” said Andreo. “Viehos Fratos, let us adjourn to our work.”

As they began to move, a hard rap at the door stilled them. Young Damiano hurried to the door, opening it just a crack. He jumped back, expression bright with startlement.