The Golden Key (127 page)

“You must know, Eleyna, that you are free to say anything you wish to me!”

She smiled again, but absently, and returned to work.

The next day, loitering in a wine shop and wondering if it was worth spending his last mareia on a tolerably good white to bring as a present to Eleyna, Rohario overheard the proprietor complaining to a customer.

“Bah! Zelio has the bone-fever again and I must have a letter written by tonight’s tide for the ship to Niapali.”

A letter written.
Rohario stepped to the counter. “I can write, Maesso.”

The proprietor looked him over suspiciously. “Have you a good hand? The letter is for a Niapalese wine merchant and must be in the best hand, with no mistakes.”

“I have a good hand.” This, certainly, was true. “I was trained by a man who now works as a clerk in Palasso Verrada.” Also true, if misleading.

“Eiha!” Impressed, the proprietor let his gaze linger on the fine
cloth of Rohario’s waistcoat. “Down on your luck, no? I will engage you, Maesso, but only pay if the work meets my liking.”

Rohario thought fast. “You will provide tools?”

“The parchment. That is usual, of course.”

But he must have his own pens, ink, and nibs. “I will return as soon as I fetch my things.” He practically ran out of the shop.

The proprietor called after him: “Don’t be too long or I will hire someone else!”

It took Rohario half an hour to track down a shop that sold writing tools and two questions once there to ascertain that his remaining mareia would not suffice to buy what he needed. Outside the shop, cursing, he realized he had no choice. He made his way to the Avenida Shagarra and headed up the long slope that led to Palasso Verrada. He had never known what a very long walk it was, all the way up the hill.

The Palasso rose in all its elegant glory above him. It looked vast and cold, and the gates were shut. He paused to brush selfconsciously at his coat. Though clean, it had lost its satiny luster: the menninas at Gaspar’s were not trained laundresses such as the ones employed at the Palasso, and he had brought only one change of clothing from Chasseriallo, only as much as he could easily carry on the horse which had been returned to the hunting lodge with the groom who had attended them—well paid to keep his mouth shut. Matra! He looked like a clerk rather than a duke’s son. But was that not what he intended to become?

The guards on duty recognized him immediately. No chance for a furtive journey up to his suite. With an escort of four gold-sashed Shagarra guards, he was hustled in the main entrance and up the monumental stairs that led to the Grand Duke’s study.

The Grand Duke did not look up as Rohario entered the room. He signed his name to a paper and shifted it aside to look over the next document. Nor did Renayo’s voice betray any emotion. “You may go, Captain. So, Rohario, you have magnanimously chosen to return. Is the Grijalva woman with you?”

“No.” His father’s reasonable tone made Rohario nervous.

“But you know where she is, I hope?”

“Yes.”

“Where is that?”

“I am not at liberty to say.”

Renayo deigned now to lift his head and examine Rohario. He looked entirely bland. Then, unexpectedly, he barked out a laugh. “Eiha! I hear she’s a taking thing. I hope you have enjoyed yourself, but she must be restored to her family.”

“She is her own mistress, Patro, not mine.”

A Zhinna vase of royal blue-and-white ceramic filled with a bouquet of white iris sat on Renayo’s desk. He fingered it now, expression darkening, and turned it halfway round, so the scene painted on it shifted: a man bearing a burden crossed a bridge; a hill and two spindly trees, also in royal blue, curved off around to the hidden side. “This is not a game, Rohario. The Grijalvas are more important to our family than you can imagine. Edoard and his young Beatriz are by all reports very happy. While I might be amused now by your youthful daring, it will not amuse me for long, I assure you.”

“She does not want to return to her family.”

“So you have abandoned her?” This said threateningly.

But Rohario discovered, to his amazement, that his father’s threats no longer scared him. “No. I merely returned here for my pens and ink.”

“Your
pens
?”

“Yes. I am making my way as a clerk.”

Renayo slapped a hand down, hard, scattering paper as he rose. “A
clerk
?” he roared.

The door opened. “Your Grace?” A courtier looked in with a startled expression.

“Shut that door! Get out! Sit down, you young pup!”

“No, grazzo. If you will excuse me, I will be going.”

“You will not be going! You will explain yourself!”

“There is nothing to explain.” As soon as the words popped out, Rohario felt a tremendous sense of relief, followed hard by a wave of excitement so intense he had to forcibly stop his hands from shaking. “I am no longer living in the Palasso.”

“You cannot—”

“I am of age.”

“You have no money—!”

“I have Marissiallo and Collara Asaddo, two properties you settled on me when I turned twelve. As soon as I—” He faltered.
As soon as I earn enough money to hire a horse to ride out to them, and see about diverting a portion of their rents for my immediate needs so I can establish myself … and Eleyna … in a decent apartamento, a place large enough for a studio for hen then perhaps, perhaps, it might be appropriate to think of asking her to be … to become.
… He swallowed, unable to speak past the sudden constriction in his throat.

The Grand Duke’s study had once been a somber room with heavy, dark woodwork, fitting a duke’s sober and weighty responsibilities.
After Renayo’s marriage to Johannah it had been redone in the Friesemarkian style: the woodwork removed, new plaster laid on and painted a pale tangerine with delicately-rendered floral patterns added for accent. The only tasteful room in the entire palasso, it suited the Grand Duke not at all.

“I cannot imagine what you think you are doing.” Renayo sounded almost bewildered.

I am breaking free.
But Rohario could not say it.

“I begin to think I do not know you, Rohario. Imagine what your mother would say to all this!”

Rohario flinched. He could well imagine what his mother would say to all this. But he was determined not to let her stop him. “Did you know,” he said slowly, picking his words hesitantly, “that many of the common people in the city are discontented? They are angry with you for arresting singers and printers, just for speaking their minds.”

“For speaking out against
me.
I would be a fool to allow such idle talk, to allow agitators—no doubt gathered like vultures from Ghillas and Taglis—to incite the people of Meya Suerta to riot. But perhaps you would approve of them storming the Palasso. Perhaps we ought to throw Timarra out to them as a sop to their
discontentment.
”

“I have heard no talk of storming the Palasso! They want to reconvene the Corteis. The Corteis will not even have as much power as your own conselhos—”

“Only the power to interfere with taxation, to present any sort of ridiculous petitions they might then think they can impose as law. Even, Matra Dolcha, the right to sit in judgment on nobles or even on myself if they so see fit! How am I to govern with these restrictions? We do’Verradas have made Tira Virte a rich country, with prosperity and peace enough to enjoy those riches. They will destroy it in a decade with their quibbling and rioting and demands.”

“You don’t know that would happen. The Corteis will only be an advisory body.”

“And then?” Renayo crossed suddenly to a side table and poured himself tea from the silver urn. Everything in this room, except the white irises, came courtesy of his new wife. Renayo took his tea in one gulp and set the cup down so hard that it chipped. His face was flushed with anger. “Then you can be sure rogues and ruffians and men with no concern but their own gain would insinuate themselves into the proceedings. You can be sure every sort of criminal will be setting fire to this Palasso and murdering every man,
woman, and child they find within these walls. As they did in Ghillas. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not! But most of these discontented men are honest guildsmen and merchants. They have as much to lose as you do if the worst comes to pass.”

“Eiha! I have raised a lunatic!” Renayo crossed back to his desk, shoved aside the table globe, sending a quill pen tumbling to the floor, and leaned across the desk to glare at Rohario. “Now you listen to me, young sir. Young noblemen have gotten involved with these seditionists before, thinking it an exciting diversion while they’re not out hunting. They have, each and every one of them, ended badly. I see you are just as light-minded. I wash my hands of you until you are ready to beg my pardon for this folly.”

Rohario could not take his eyes off the pen, which leaked black ink onto the pale frost-and-lily Lillone carpet, which had cost, he now knew, as much as a year’s lodging at Gaspar’s inn. He forced himself to lift his eyes and look directly at his father. “I cannot do that.”

The Grand Duke appeared to be on the edge of an apoplectic fit. “Then I banish you from my presence!”

“Do I have your leave to go, Your Grace?”

“Get out!
Out!
”

Rohario bowed stiffly. He turned. He was a string drawn so tightly that a breath of air would set it thrumming. But he walked without faltering, he left the room without wavering, he spoke briefly, without a tremor, to the attendants outside.

“I am going first to my rooms.”

Not his rooms any longer.
That his father would simply let him walk away stunned him. But perhaps Grand Duchess Johannah was already pregnant; perhaps Renayo thought he had no further use for his troublesome second son. Two stewards and two guards escorted him. His servants arrived, agitated and pale.

“Don Rohario! How have you fared? Are you well? Is it true that His Grace has banished you? Surely, if you beg for his pardon—”

Still half-stunned, Rohario gathered up his writing tools, rifled through his safe box until he found the deeds to his two properties. He unrolled them and considered the fine hand of Cabral Grijalva, which had rendered the scene and the transfer with loving detail. Rolling them up, he tucked them into a small trunk. He could not resist taking more clothes. Finally he gazed long and hard at the
Birth of Cossima
that hung over his mantel. It was a difficult farewell to the laughing baby who had brightened his every morning.

“Regretto,” he said to his frantic body servant, to his downcast steward, “but I must go. Be sure to apply to Don Edoard. He will see that you find new positions.”

“Eiha! It cannot be, Don Rohario. No one dresses as elegantly as you. All my fine work will be for nothing on some oaf who cannot tie his neckcloth with the least semblance of style or tell a well-cut coat from one which is merely fashionable. Let me come with you!”

“When I am settled such that I can employ a body servant, you can be sure you are the only man I would trust for that job. But now is not the time, I fear.”

At last he extricated himself from their clutches. At last he lugged the trunk down to the gates, which closed behind him. Mindful of what little coin he had left, Rohario carried the trunk for perhaps half a long block down the hill. But he was not accustomed to such labor and had to stop.

“Amico!” He waved a hand and a young man driving a pony cart filled with barrels of olive oil pulled up beside him. “Might I pay you to convey me to the Wheat Sheaf and Sickle?”

The young man had a round, laughing face, and a blue and black kerchief tied around his neck, trimmed with silver ribbon. “I know that place. But it’s out of my way. How much can you offer?”

“Here it is, all of it,” Rohario said recklessly, pulling out his last mareia.

“Eiha! You look to be a fellow after my own heart, though I wish I knew where to find clothes as fine as those. I’ll take you as a favor.”

Rohario hoisted his trunk into the back and clambered up. “My thanks.”

Cast out from his father’s house. Severed at last from his mother’s remains. It was too terrible to imagine.

Free to make his own way, however clumsily. And not alone. The day looked brighter already.

  SEVENTY-TWO