The Golden Key (26 page)

“
One
woman, Patro?”

“One,” Baltran answered soberly. “I knew, once. I knew it instantly.”

“But—it was not my mother.”

“Eiha, no … I care deeply for your mother, Alejandro—I respect and admire her, and there is no question of my affection for her—but no, she was not the one. That one died.”

It shook the Heir visibly. “Died?”

“Bearing the son who would have been your half brother.” The Duke glanced away, staring briefly at the sun. That time was passed, and more passed now. “Regretto, filho meyo—but I must go in and refresh myself. There is an embassy due from Pracanza later today, and I must prepare for it.”

“Pracanza? Do you think they are seeking terms?”

“Demands,” Baltran answered crisply, turning toward the Palasso. “That’s all they ever make, the Pracanzans. Demands.”

“What kind of demands, Patro?”

Baltran paused, then clapped his tall son on the shoulder. “No need for you to concern yourself just yet! Enjoy your newfound manhood, Alejandro, and know in good time I will introduce you to the intricacies of diplomacy—
and
Pracanzan demands!”

In the private, sunny solar that had housed so many stimulating and pleasant discussions with Arturro Grijalva, Raimon leaned against a pillar in false nonchalance and contemplated the man who sat in the chair, one hand filled with a goblet of wine and the other with his key and chain, chiming them absently in his cupped palm as if he tested the weight of coin.

Raimon crossed arms across his chest, shoulder blades set firmly against masonry. He was not at ease, but the posture allowed him to seem as if he were. “It will be Otavio.”

The other twisted his mouth thoughtfully, considered it, then sighed and nodded. “I see no other possibility.”

“He is not an Arturro.”

“No man is an Arturro.” The other shook his head. “I approve no more than you, Raimon, but I think ‘Tavi will not prove a disastrous Premio Frato. He is not a stupid man.”

“Only shortsighted. Arrogant. Unwilling to consider how things change—how things
must
change, to affect greater change.”

“Eiha, it is difficult for an older man, Raimon.” Davo, eight years senior, grinned. “You may feel the same when you are ‘Tavi’s age.”

Raimon was not amused. “I doubt it.”

Davo’s smile faded. “So. What do you propose, then?”

Raimon lingered a moment, then scraped himself off the pillar and moved to the high, arched window. The scent of vine blossoms was heavy as a cheap perfume sold to the peasant women, the camponessas, on festival day, underscored by the thick humid weight of freshly trimmed grass below in the courtyard, where gardeners labored. In summer everything grew profusely, warmed by heat, nursed by moist air … others departed the city at the worst of the season, but Grijalvas never did. There was work within the Palasso. Always work.

Raimon sighed quietly but did not turn. He spoke to the air framed by the hand-smoothed embrasure. “I think we must undertake to serve our own designs.”

“Raimon! Matra Dolcha, it is well you say this to
me.
Do you know what would happen if another heard you say so?”

“Most probably Chieva do’Sangua.”

Davo now was alarmed. “And do you not care? Does it not distress you—”

Raimon turned sharply. “What distresses me is that we have our first and best opportunity to place a Grijalva at Court in several generations, and it will be thrown away by a moronno who detests a boy more gifted—and Gifted!—than he.”

Davo gestured. “’Tavi has always been difficult—”

“Otavio is impossible, and you know it!” Raimon caught and held his breath, reestablishing self-control, then blew it out in a noisy exhalation. “I know. I do know. And perhaps it is only my fear speaking, Davo—but I do fear. You know as well as I that Sario is our best hope.”

“Only if he is controllable,” Davo reminded. “Nommo Matra ei Filho, Raimon—I have never known a Grijalva so difficult to deal with!”

Raimon smiled faintly. “Not even me?”

Davo laughed indulgently. “Eiha, you had your moments … but you also displayed sense, Raimon. Eventually.”

Beneath his cuff, the flesh of his wrist sent a ghostly reminder of the pain of the Lesser Discipline. “Eventually,” Raimon echoed. “But have you another course to suggest?”

Davo did not hesitate. “There is no other.”

“Then what—”

“Because we cannot take it into our hands! That is not how we conduct ourselves.” Davo shook his head. “Compordotta, Raimon—
always
, the behavior must be correct.”

“Even if it is wrong?”

“You know why,” Davo said quietly. “Without the controls of compordotta, without the promise of the invocation of such things as the Lesser Discipline and the Chieva do’Sangua, we could become monsters.”

“Otavio might argue Sario
is
a monster.”

“And he may. But only if the boy is given leave to act improperly. And without the guidance of the Viehos Fratos, without the proper preparations, he will. Sario is—Sario.”

“And if we do not see Sario named as Lord Limner?”

Davo shrugged. “Then we wait.”

“For how long? Fifty years? Five hundred?” Raimon shook his head. “We have been resoundingly fortunate the do’Verradas have thus far sired clever, astute Dukes, but that could change … the incursions and depredations of Pracanza and other countries could well rob us of our strength and make it a simple matter for war to come upon us. A war that might destroy us.”

Davo’s expression stilled as if he had heard words beneath the words. Slowly he said, “You mean the Tza’ab. It isn’t Pracanza or Ghillas or any of the other countries that concern you, it’s the
Tza’ab.
”

Raimon sighed and collapsed against the wall beside the window, letting stone uphold his spine as he shut his eyes wearily. “En verro. I do fear them.”

“They were
destroyed
, Raimon! The Diviner was killed, the Riders of the Golden Wind defeated, the
Kita’ab
itself burned. By our own kinsman! The tribes were left in such disarray they will likely never again serve a woman even if she calls herself their Empress—and no male has been born to the Diviner’s line in nearly a century. They are no danger to us. They have lost their heart, their soul.”

Raimon lifted the back of his skull from the wall and looked hard at Davo. “How do we know?”

Davo blinked. “How do we know?”

“How do we know there are no Riders left, no fragments of the
Kita’ab
, no man willing to rouse Tza’ab Rih once more?”

“Because—” Davo stopped, then began again. “Because it has been too long.”

“Too long?” Raimon twisted his mouth. “How long is
too
long, Davo, to attempt to reclaim what was precious?”

“But—”

“Do we not do the same, Davo? Each boy born, Confirmed, trained, we pray will be the one to recapture what was lost … do we not do the same? What is to say the Tza’ab do not wait, as we wait, and train, as we train, the one candidate most likely to reclaim the position? For them, the Diviner; for us, Lord Limner. One and the same, Davo—except they want to destroy Tira Virte, while we wish to preserve it.”

Davo clearly struggled with the concept. “But we do not
know
, Raimon! There may be no truth in it. No truth at all.”

“Of course,” Raimon agreed quietly. “En verro, I could be wrong. Of course.”

“Oh, Matra,” Davo whispered. “Oh, Matra Dolcha.”

Raimon gathered his Chieva and lifted it to his lips, then pressed it to his heart. “Nommo Matra ei Filho, may there be no truth in any of it.”

But he feared very much there was. And with the Ecclesia as an enemy, Duke Baltran surrounded by Serranos, Grijalvas denied entry to the Palasso Verrada and Court—eiha, what was left? Compordotta? But circumscribed behavior was wholly ineffective and definitively deplorable when it enabled enemies to use it to their advantage.

I require a key.
Raimon closed a hand around his Chieva.
A
living
key.

  FOURTEEN  

Alejandro
was, he deduced, formally dismissed, and probably forgotten. His father had spoken; life thus remained as it was. Gitanna was, or would be, gone. But Alejandro’s world, despite his father, was changed. Life did
not
remain as it was, because life for him was altered. The yearnings he had felt now were answered, and he was more than content to let the question be asked as many times as it could be, so long as the answer was always the same.

But the woman would be different.
Patro has proclaimed it

Bemused, Alejandro watched the powerful figure of that father stride away across the courtyard, bound for the Palasso and ducal duties. There was no hesitation in the effort, no lessening of vigor, no tenderness evident in limbs or joints. Alejandro had seen nothing, ever, that could dim the fire of his father.

Have I any
? He spread his hands and examined them, turning them this way and that.
Have I any of his fire, or am I merely a spark
? And one so often doused in his father’s impressive presence.

“Merditto,” the Heir murmured, scrubbing thick hair into a spiky tangle. He scowled as the Duke climbed the steps and disappeared into the shadowed recess framing the low door; he used a side entrance, not the Portalla Granda. “No. He will save that for the Pracanzans.”

Alejandro sighed. He was at loose ends now, denied Gitanna’s bed as well as participation in the politics of Court. It was not that he wanted so desperately to be a part of politics—no one living in Palasso Verrada could avoid them altogether—but that he was so easily dismissed, as if he played no part in Tira Virte’s welfare.

Hands settled now on hips, Alejandro hooked a booted toe beneath a loose cobble and pried it up from its bed. One sharp kick sent it tumbling across its neighbors. And then he turned on his heel and marched toward the gate, politely refusing the groom who came running up with an offer to fetch him a fresh mount. “No, grazzo—walking will settle my temper!”

And if his father in one breath denied him Gitanna while also offering ducal blessing for his son to seek other women, that is precisely what the son would do.

Alejandro smiled as his disposition recovered itself. It was Fuega Vesperra, after all, and most of the female populace would be out in the city’s streets. Perhaps the day was not quite doomed after all.