The Golden Key (20 page)

“Tell me,” Sario said acidly, unable to stop himself, “did the Mother and Her infant Son actually
say
so?”

Raimon did not answer with anger or equal hostility, but with a serenity Sario found infinitely galling. “A true Limner understands and embraces divine metaphor, even as it is visited upon him.”

“But—”

“Bassda!” Curtly banishing equanimity, Raimon stepped forward smoothly until he stood very close to Sario. “Do you count me a fool? A cabessa bisila? It is your freedom to do so, of course—I will not stay you from the privacy of your thoughts … but do not believe for one instant that you are alone in ambition, in the Luza do’Orro that demands release.”

“Then why—”

Raimon abruptly and without habitual decorum tore back from his left wrist the doublet sleeve and cuff of his shirt. “I have worn your shoes, Sario! I have even worn your name: Neosso Irrado!”

As he was meant to, Sario looked upon the bared forearm. Across the inside of the wrist where the flesh was most tender, an age-silvered weal was deeply scored.

“The Lesser Discipline,” Raimon said curtly. “The men who
ordered it done are dead, of course; they were on the cusp at the time. I can tell you only what they told me: that divisiveness and disruption does not serve the family and shall not be tolerated.”

Sario wet dry lips. “And so they quenched the fire in you.”

“Did they? Have you studied my paintings of late?” Raimon’s features were stark as bleached canvas. “Not ‘quenched,’ Sario— redirected. And I have come to believe that if I can be of some small service to my family—my poor, denuded family—that it is in all ways enough for me.”

“I don’t want ‘enough,”’ Sario said. “I want
more.
”

Raimon’s smile was bittersweet. “Then I don’t fear you, Sario … I fear
for
you.” He cut off an answer with an inclination of the head. “Your pardon, grazzo—but I have other duties.” And abruptly he was gone, opening and closing the door in equal silence.

Stiff as a spitting cat, Sario waited, trembling, letting the tension and anger bleed off. And then he walked to the draped easel and flung back the cloth, baring the self-portrait that bore traces of his essence, but not all that was required of a Gifted male Grijalva granted membership among the elite.

Power. But not enough.

Sario nodded at the self-portrait. He was safe. He would always be safe. No matter what they demanded of him. No matter how frightened they were.

He smiled at his image. “Verro Grijalva was a fool.”

Gitanna Serrano stared fixedly into the priceless mirror, a gift of the Duke after their first Astraventa, the Tira Virteian celebration of the month called the “starry wind” when the stars fell out of the sky and were trapped within mirrors carried by celebrants. This was not the actual mirror used in the ritual—it was too large, too elaborate, and much too costly—but a remembrance gift, something to mark the first night they shared a bed.

But that was so many nights ago, so many Astraventas. Gitanna inspected every inch of her face with a hard, relentless scrutiny equal to a man weighing his enemy. And in a way it
was
her enemy, that which looked out of the painted glass, for it reflected time.

The delightfully fresh, vibrant young woman who had come to Court, who was seduced during Astraventa, was indisputably gone, vanquished by the battles no less dangerous for all the weapons
were words, the campaigns political intrigue. Winter, summer; supply trains were not an issue, nor the harvest, nor the location of water and grazing, suitable terrain. Only advancing age, and retreating beauty.

The battle, she feared, was lost, the war nearly ended. Seven years he had come to her, seven years since that first night when he had given her signal honor by keeping her as his mistress, but seven years tacked on to a woman’s youth made the woman old.

Gitanna grimaced. A man merely grew older. A woman grew old.

There was no gray in her hair. Pomades and lotions kept her skin soft, denied Tira Virte’s summer sun, despite humidity, the power to ravage her. She had taken pains to bear no children, and so her waist remained slender and supple, her hips unsprung, her breasts firm. But there was no denying that she was not as she had been.

She closed her eyes a moment. Quietude took her; she heard the faint drone of bees near her unlatched shutters, the distant barking of a dog, and, rising from the courtyard, the muted laughter of a woman. She sat utterly still, moving only to breathe—and felt the faint trembling of her eyelids, defiant to her intent.

The latch rattled.

Gitanna smiled her relief.
He has not dismissed me yet.

The door opened, and again the latch rattled as the bolt was shot, sealing the chamber against intrusion. Eyes yet closed, she gave herself over to smell, to sound: the rustle of fine clothing as he moved, the faint acrid tang of physical exertion mixed with the scent of horse. And the sound of awed exhalation as he saw her bared breasts reflected in the mirror.

“Matra Dolcha,” he whispered, as if in supplication.

Her eyes sprang open. It took all of her strength not to swing around, not to twist her body, not to stare in bitter astonishment.

So. It had come.
No time, after all

Alejandro smiled. It was his father’s smile, though its undeniable charm was without intent, without calculation. He had learned neither yet, and simply was—himself.

A nervous himself. No more the boy, but not quite a man. Tall, and daily growing taller; broadening through the shoulders, though they lacked the mass of maturity; wide-palmed hands skilled at such things as the sword, the knife, the reins—but unskilled in this.

He drew in an unsteady breath. “He said—it is for you to do.”

After a moment she rose. Exquisite lace dripped from powdered, scented shoulders. She slid it off with an imperceptible shrug, let it
drift like weightless snow to the carpet-strewn floor, where his clothes would soon lie also.

“Yes,” she said.

The father had made her a woman. Let her make the son a man.

  TEN  

Saavedra
asked four people before she received the answer to her question:
in the Galerria.
And so she went there and found him utterly lost to reality, intently studying a cluster of paintings hanging in a shadowed corner.

He was rapt within his own mind, arms folded hard against his chest as if he held in his heart or held out fear. The angles of his face were sharp as glass, underpainted by an edge of bone that threatened to burst taut flesh; his black scowl was augmented by the forbidding tension in his mouth.

“So,” she said, “I came to see if you would partner me to the festival. But if you are in
that
mood …”

She waited. Nothing. He did not rise to her gibe.

“Sario.” She looked at the cluster of paintings: none of them large, none of them older than perhaps a month or two. She could smell the resin, the binders, the astringency of the ingredients. “Not yours,” she said.

“Raimon’s.”

“Raimon’s?” Saavedra looked more intently at the paintings. “But—why?”

“I was invited to,” he said icily. “He had a point to make.”

After a moment she ventured it. “And did he?”

He glanced at her briefly, annoyed, still scowling. “Did he what?”

“Make his point.”

Something blazed up in dark eyes, engulfing them; was extinguished with effort. “He did.”

“And?”

His tone blistered her. “You wouldn’t understand.”

It shocked her. Then her anger, slow to kindle but every bit as warm as his, flared. “Oh,
I
see—we are merditto alba today, are we? Too grand for a mere woman? One of the Viehos Fratos, Gifted, Confirmed, so much better than I! Regretto—forgive my intrusion … I will purify your air by taking myself from it!”

“Wait!” He caught her arm as she swung to stalk away. “Saavedra—wait! I’m sorry—nazha irrada, ‘Vedra.”

“I
am
angry,” she answered, “and I will be if I wish to be; you are not the only one with claim to the emotion.” She glared and
snatched her arm away. “Matra Dolcha, Sario, I am not to be treated that way, not as you treat the others. We know too much of one another, share too many secrets. Take out your frustration and impatience on someone else!”

“But you were here,” he said logically. “And—you asked.”

“Eiha, I asked! It was a natural thing to do.” She glanced again at the paintings. “What is so important about Aguo Raimon’s most recent paintings?”

“
Seminno;
he has been elevated. And I accused him of losing his Luza do’Orro,” Sario said. “I was angry—”

“You are always angry, Sario.”

“—and said some things I shouldn’t.”

“If you told
him
he had lost his Light, yes!” She gestured. “You have only to look at these paintings to see he has not.”

“You can see it. His fire. His—Light.”

“Of course I can.” She could see everybody’s Light.

“Then what do you see?”

“In
his
paintings?” She considered, examining them briefly. “It would require study.”

“No, no …” Urgency broke through. “’Vedra, what do you see just—just looking at them? Talent? His Gift?”

“A gift,” she clarified promptly, certain of her knowledge. “He is not as good as you.”

Sario colored deeply. “As—
Raimon
?”

“Sario, I have told you. You are the best. Of all.”

“‘Of all,”’ he echoed blankly.

“All,” she repeated. “You deserve what you most desire: to be Lord Limner at Palasso Verrada.”

The flush faded. He was white, chalky white, his eyes huge and black. “Why do you believe in me so? What have I done to deserve such loyalty?”

“You haven’t
done
anything. You’re just—you.” Saavedra shrugged. “I don’t know, Sario. But there’s a fire in you. Or perhaps it’s that your Luza do’Orro is too bright to ignore.” She smiled self-consciously. “You are everything they say of you, you know, Neosso Irrado … but it doesn’t matter to me. I see what also is there. What is underneath.”

“Underneath?”

“The paint,” she elaborated. “The layer upon layer of carefully tempered paint, made to be thick, and heavy, and impatiently slopped on with a paletto knife, so all the delicacy and detail is lost and only the dullness remains.” She shrugged. “A mask, like fresco plaster, behind which you hide.”

He was perversely fascinated by what she had begun. “But if I am hiding behind it, if I have layered on the paint like fresco plaster, how can you see what lies beneath?”

She found herself answering plainly, without prevarication or hesitation. “Surely a moth must feel the heat, yet still flies to the flame.”

Sario whispered it: “And is burned to death.”

“Sometimes,” she agreed readily. “But all of them know the Light.”

He blinked. He was lost within his mind, wholly apart from her. And then came plunging back. “Would you?” he asked.

“Would I what?”

“Burn to death in the flame?”

“Never,” Saavedra answered, quick and hard and certain, and saw the flare of recognition and comprehension in his eyes.

“You have helped me before,” he said.