The Golden Key (147 page)

Eleyna looked away, looked guilty—now that what she had guessed was confirmed. “Yes, his name is Sario also.”

Cabral objected. “It’s the fashion to name Limners after those who preceded them.”

“No.” Grief was extinguished. Certainty took its place. “It was he.
My
Sario. Matra Dolcha, do you think I don’t know the man who betrayed and imprisoned me?”

“But it can’t be,” Cabral protested. “This Sario looks nothing like the Sario of your time. I’ve seen the peintraddos. I remember when Sario was born.
Our
Sario.”

Giaberto spoke now. He was Eleyna’s uncle, and clearly Premio Frato. As Arturro had been, as Ferico, as Davo. But they were men from her time, not from this time; this time was Giaberto’s. “I myself recall when he was confirmed as one of our number, and when he painted his
Peintraddo Chieva
” He gestured sharply; he did not believe her. “You see, here is his portrait. We brought it up from the Crechetta, to study in better light.”

She moved to look at it. A man, not so different from a man of
her time: hands racked by bone-fever, eyes whitened by milk-blindness. Infirmity at odds with the youth of the face.

Saavedra shook her head. “This is not the man I saw standing beside you, Eleyna. That man wore the face of
my
Sario.” She turned. “You have already undertaken Chieva do’Sangua, have you not?”

Giaberto was startled. “How can you know that? Or
of
that?”

Saavedra smiled, walked slowly back to the table. She took up a piece of bread, examined its crust, its weight—
bread-baking has not changed, at least!
—and then turned to face them all. “I know because I, too, am Gifted.” For the first time she opened her hand to display the key. She knew its weight well after so many centuries. “This key, this Chieva do’Orro, is mine. I underwent my own form of Confirmattio, do you see, when Sario himself forced it upon me. Thus I have earned this, and the rights with which it endows a Grijalva.”

A torrent of protest, of conversation, from the men. Nothing from Eleyna. Saavedra let the protestations, the objections, wash over her, immune to their sting, their immediacy. She had heard them before. Had
made
them before, to Sario: “
A woman may not be Gifted.
”

Giaberto was definitive. “Only men may be Gifted—it is a woman’s duty to bear Gifted sons. That key is no more than a symbol of the sacred bond and service between the do’Verradas and the Viehos Fratos.”

Meanwhile, the only other woman in the room waited them out in silence, watching the First Mistress who had also, by her admission, confessed herself the first Gifted Woman as well.

Saavedra met Eleyna’s steady eyes. “Do you envy me?”

The young woman’s face colored. “Matra Dolcha!—I confess it. I do envy you.” And then, quietly, “Regretto.”

“No regrets,” Saavedra said. “Not now. Nor should you regret it. The Mother grants us such things as she chooses.”

“But if you are Gifted—” Cabral stepped forward hesitantly. “I beg your pardon. Excuse me for asking, but … was Mechella right? Are you with child?”

“En verro,” Saavedra answered evenly. “The child who would have been born more than three hundred years ago is still to come.”

Cabral sighed deeply.

Oddly, unexpectedly, tears sprang into Eleyna’s eyes. She turned away abruptly.

Saavedra reached out at once, without thought. “No, I beg you—grazzo, don’t turn away from me! Matra ei Filho, you of them all
may have the vision to understand. Would you deny me that?” Tears now threatened her own eyes. “Matra Dolcha, but I am alone here, out of my time, robbed of what and who I know—save for this child,
Alejandro’s
child, who will know nothing at all of his father, of his mother’s time, save what he is taught of ancient history.” Her throat threatened to close. “You see it, don’t you? You feel it? In your heart, in your head?”

Eleyna stood with her back to Saavedra. After a long moment she turned with infinite slowness. Extended a trembling hand. “Forgive me … I don’t begrudge you your Gift.” Their hands clasped. “It is true you have no one … and if you wish, you will be as a sister to me. As much as Beatriz, who
is
my sister. And Agustin—” Her voice failed abruptly; she released Saavedra’s hand. “Zio, regretto. I must go down to see if Agustin is awake.”

“Go, then, ninia meya.”

With regret, Saavedra watched her go. Then turned to Giaberto. “Who is Agustin?”

It was Cabral who answered, with anger as much as grief. “Agustin is her younger brother, newly Confirmed. He is dying because Sario burned one of the boy’s Blooded paintings with lamp oil.”

Saavedra flinched. Then kissed her fingertips, pressed them to her heart. “Matra Dolcha …
which
Sario?”

“This one.” Giaberto indicated the painted face she did not know. “But our Chieva do’Sangua failed.”

She did not reply at once. She knew how Sario protected himself.

“We have not yet answered how he did it,” continued Giaberto, taking her silence for astonishment. He glanced at the portrait. “Unless this man is not truly Sario. Not
our
Sario.” He looked now at Saavedra. “You are certain it was Sario you saw in the mirror?”

For the first time in her life—her magic-perverted life—Saavedra Grijalva used the vow that even they could not deny. “Nommo Chieva do’Orro.” She saw it register. Saw their shock. “His clothing changed, but his face remained the same. As did the Chieva he wore.” She felt cold suddenly, and shivered. “Perhaps he put the mirror there to be cruel—or merciful, in his own way, for his own reasons. But I think this mirror showed me the truth—the true world, his true face. And that world
always
contained Sario.”

“Then if you saw him with Eleyna—if you saw
your
Sario with our Eleyna. …” Cabral’s face was gray. “Forgive my doubts, grazzo, but it is difficult to believe.”

She spread her hands. “As difficult to believe in
me.
”

Giaberto’s voice shook. “How can this be?”

It was painful to speak; all was yesterday to her, and centuries to them. “Neosso Irrado,” she said. “You don’t know him as I do, as I
came
to know him—and still do not know him even though he had lived among you. I came to understand—too late!—there is nothing Sario will not attempt. There is no power, no magic, granted by our Gift that he cannot master and employ.” She drew a breath. “There was no one in my time, and no one in
your
time, who was—and is—like him.”

Giaberto accused now. “You sound as if you love him!”

She did not shirk it. “I loved him as much as I could love him. As I loved no one else. But there is love, and there is love—and what I gave
him
was entirely different from what I shared with Alejandro.”

“Ninia meya.” Cabral spoke the words with compassion and gentleness as he took her hands into a comforting grasp. “It would please me if you considered me your uncle, as you are to consider Eleyna your sister. You are a Grijalva, one of us, a part of me—” And he laughed. “Old enough to be my grandmother many times over, I fear, though far younger than I!”

An old man, older than the other Limners, broke the moment by pounding his cane on the floor. “Bassda!” His voice was reedy, cracked; clearly he was in the final stages of the decay that consumed Limners. “All this talk of Sario—
this
Sario,
that
Sario!—when I want to know something truly important.” He stared at her harshly. “Niapali yellow—how was it made? We can only imitate it, but it lacks the quality of the old paintings. How was it made?”

Too many shocks. Saavedra laughed. “You can no longer make Niapali yellow? Matra Dolcha—then it is most fortunate I am here, is it not?”

Cabral released her hands to raise one of his own in a sharp gesture. “Momentito!”

Odd, to see an unGifted limner granted authority within the Viehos Fratos. But already she trusted him, craved his kindness, his wisdom—and she needed friends so badly.

He had their attention now. “Sario is a danger not just to us, but to all of Tira Virte. If what Eleyna says is true, and Sario
has
painted a portrait compelling the Grand Duke’s obedience to him alone….” He shook his head; implication was plain. “Let us say it is true, that the first Sario Grijalva yet lives. How could such a thing be done? Only by a Gifted Limner, no? And there are none save Grijalvas.”

Giaberto objected yet again. “But how can this be?”

Wearied of their quarreling, Saavedra left them. She went instead to the
Peintraddo Chieva
of Sario Grijalva; of
her
Sario. And stared.

Only days ago … days, not centuries.
Days ago that she had spoken with him, argued with him, knew him for what he was, what he had made himself; that she had lain in Alejandro’s embrace, taken joy in their union, knowing they were meant to be together for as long as one of them lived.

She yet lived. He had died three hundred years before.

Pain welled. To escape it, to transmute it, Saavedra turned sharply to the knot of Viehos Fratos. To Cabral.

“You,” she said, and beckoned. When he came, she took his hand into hers. “Of you, he would have been jealous. I understand it now, far more than I could at the time; this much his insanity has taught me.” She gestured to the painting. “This man would have envied you, envied your power—”

“I have none,” Cabral said stiffly. “I am not Gifted.”

“En verro, your power lies in another direction. In lifespan. In fertility.” She sighed. “He told me once he wanted nothing to do with children, but I believe he lied. And he told me also how he believed a Limner lived on only through his paintings—and how he would find a way to change that.” She looked at Cabral. “You have studied the history of Tira Virte. How long
did
the first Sario live?”

“I believe he died at thirty-five.”

And Alejandro—did he live a long life, or a short one? And was there another woman to share his bed, to bear his children
?

Of course there was. The do’Verrada line continued to this day, three hundred and sixty-three years later. But she could not bring herself to ask. It hurt too much.

“You have asked,” she said to Giaberto, “how Sario could yet live. I believe I know. I read every word in that book—” She indicated the book that lay, closed, on the table in the painting. “—that book, which is his copy of the
Kita’ab.
You know it in its incomplete form as the Grijalva
Folio.
In it I read of a spell to transfer one man’s mind, his spirit, to another man’s body—”

The door to the stairwell clicked. Everyone started and spun around.

But it was only Eleyna. “Agustin is still asleep.” Her face was drawn. “Perhaps it is more merciful that he never wakes, if he must only wake to pain.” Her stricken gaze settled on Saavedra. “I heard what you said.” She drew breath, released it. “A day or two ago I asked Sario how he knew so very much—and he said: ‘because I have lived a long time.’ It seemed such an odd thing to say, for a
man only six years older than I.” She glanced now at the others, then to Saavedra again. “I can find out if this is true. I must return to the Palasso.”

“Matra ei Filho—you would do that? Risk that?”

“Impossible,” said Giaberto. “It is too dangerous.”

Cabral was less definitive, but his protest echoed Giaberto’s. “Eleyna, bela meya, you must know that if Sario is able to compel Renayo’s actions, he will certainly do the same to you.”

She shook her head, infinitely certain of her course. Saavedra could not help but admire her calm courage. “He can neither harm me nor compel me.” She stared defiantly at her uncle. “He has already painted a portrait of me that will leave me forever free of Grijalva influence.”

Saavedra examined the young woman, reassessing her. Handsome without question, if not beautiful; young, vital; but more importantly there was a fierceness about her that stirred response in Saavedra, a familiar desire to share a part of it.

And in that instant she recognized it in Eleyna, as she had always recognized and acknowledged it in Sario. Luza do’Orro, the Golden Light.

A painter.
That
was what she had been doing with Sario, to know him so well: painting. Learning. Kindling her own Light.

And yet. … “Does he love you?” Saavedra asked. He had always loved her as much as it was possible for him to love something other than his own vision, but if he had lived so long, surely there were others. Or, perhaps,
one
other.

Eleyna flushed but held her voice steady. “He is not my lover. But. …” The hesitation betrayed deep feeling. “I am his estuda.”

Uproar. The Viehos Fratos had truly decayed; Saavedra could not recall such petty argument so constantly diverting the men of her day.
They will not permit her to go.

As she would have gone; as she
had
gone—and into such danger as had brought her here, to this day, when she should have been dead, together with Alejandro.

“But only I
can
go back!” Eleyna cried. “He trusts me, and believes I trust him. Tell me what I must do, and I will do it.”

Giaberto began to pace. “Mennina moronna,” he muttered.

“Yes,” Eleyna agreed. “But it must be done, Zio.”

He swung on her. “If it is as you say—if he has painted a Blooded portrait of you, then you are truly safe from him as no other can be. Eiha—then you
must
go.” He swabbed perspiration from his upper lip. “First you must free Renayo from his influence. Find the portrait, place it in a vat of turpentine diluted by water, let
it soak. When it is well and truly ruined, add more water, pitchers of it, then pour all down the drain. So his power over the Grand Duke will end, without destroying him.”

“Why don’t I just
burn
it, or any other he has done?” Eleyna asked harshly. “What he did to my Agustin, let me do to
him!
”

Saavedra stopped the argument before it continued unabated. “I must see him,” she said simply. “I must see this man to judge him for myself.”

Eleyna, standing so close that only Saavedra heard, murmured: “If it
is
he, imagine how much of painting he knows!”