The Golden Key (131 page)

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 consent,” 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. What 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.

He heated the lancet in a candle’s flame. She did not shut her eyes but watched him cut her hand. The blade stung, but the blood welled up like a promise. With a brush he daubed her fresh blood onto the painted shoulder, then drew the lancet down hard, cutting into paint, scraping through it to the paper beneath.

He yelped in pain, clapping a hand to his
own
shoulder. Lowered his hand. A line of blood, sudden and stark, stained his jacket from underneath.

But she felt nothing. She caught herself on the back of the chair and eased herself down. Tears stung.
Not
Gifted.

“Merditto!” Agustin swore.

She looked up and was startled to find him crying. But not from the pain. It was then she realized she no longer expected, or even needed, to be Gifted. She had her own Luza, and she would follow where it led.

In the end, it was
she
who comforted him.