The Golden Key (41 page)

If at the cost of his own.

  TWENTY-THREE  

Ignaddio
had done exactly as directed: stacked paintings, panels, wood for stretchers and frames against the walls of Saavedra’s new atelierro; piled jammed portfolios and sketchbooks, sheaves of unused paper in one corner; set out baskets and bottles and boxes into an ill-defined puzzle upon the floor, the worktable, even upon the lone chair. Saavedra herself, mired in the midst of sorting everything out of unfamiliar clutter into the equally cluttered arrangement she found comfortable and useful, did not at first mark the visitor’s arrival; it required a pointed clearing of the throat before she heard, turned to see—and then she very nearly dropped the dented pewter tankard serving as brush holder.

“Alejandro!” —
Eiha, but he is glorious!

Alejandro Baltran Edoard Alessio do’Verrada grinned his renowned grin, unself-consciously displaying the crooked tooth that was in adolescence considered a flaw, yet now was called charming. “I prefer you like this, I think, rather than Court-clad; it reminds me of the day we met.”

She remembered it as well as he. She had reeked of oil and solvents set into grimy linen, bore paint and chalk dust beneath her nails—while tangled, unbound ringlets were soaked with fountain water. Aside from the water, her present appearance in the midst of dust-laden industry nearly echoed that day.

She clutched the mashed tankard. “But I’m
filthy!
You might as well send me off to the middens, or to the dyers, even the
tannery
—”

He took one long stride, appropriated the tankard and bent to set it down, then, disdaining dust and perspiration, swept her all of a piece into his arms. “Filthy, mussed, with paint upon your face—” He touched a smudge on her cheek. “—and the pungent perfume of spilled oil … eiha, I am besmirched. And inconsolably desoladio.” He kissed her. Hard.

Response was instantaneous. She had never known it quite so powerful before, an abrupt and unassailable awareness that nothing else in the world mattered in this moment
but
this moment, and what they could make of it.

“Door—” she murmured against his mouth.

“Closed,” he answered, into hers.

“There is a bed in the other—”

“No,” he said. “
Here.
”

Amidst a tangle of unprimed canvas; the rattling of stoppered bottles; a basket of chalk tipped over to spill its contents in a rainbow across the rug; the tankard mashed yet again; his crushed and now-featherless hat—
here
it was.

Sario had caused to be made a massive upright chest with drawers and locks built into it: shallow, wide drawers that stored and warded finished and incomplete works. There were other chests, caskets, baskets, so many containers for the storing away of his needs. It took time to sort through, to sort out, to put away into an arrangement he found most appropriate and useful the tools of his talent, the tangible requirements of his Gift. Pots, bottles, vials, all sealed with wax, or cork, or leather; sealed also with lingua oscurra. Rims of tiny, indecipherable runes warded that which was vital, so that he need not find himself naked of the makings of power at any given moment.

Grijalvas learned many crafts as they grew and were taught; the family had survived the years after the Nerro Lingua not only by copying, by occasional commissions, but by serving the needs of artists and others. He as much as any of them knew how to mix, to make, to bind together the necessary ingredients for various crafts and recipes. He could make paper, bind leather … and so he bound the loose pages of Il-Adib’s unintended bequest and made himself a
Kita’ab.
An infinitely brief, unfinished, private—and wholly personal—
Kita’ab
, that was also as much as it could be Grijalva
Folio.

It took much time to sort out the past life of Palasso Grijalva he brought with him to the future life of the Palasso Verrada. He was given a wing all to himself so that he might tend his own requirements in such a way as to serve the needs of his Duke and thus the needs of the duchy. There were servants, of course, though he dismissed most of them; two he kept for convenience, because when lost within the work he often forgot to eat, to drink—and why not send another to fetch a tray to him rather than break his concentration?

Concentration was so vital, especially with the oscurra and borders that demanded his best, lest the magic harm
him
… it infuriated Sario sometimes that he needed to urinate. That too interrupted. But such things he would tend himself; he did not believe
paying a servant to pee would relieve his own bladder. Although there were times he wished it were possible.

At present he did not require the nightpot; kneeling upon the rune-worked Tza’ab rug brought from Il-Adib’s tent, Sario sorted papers. Papers upon papers: maps of Tira Virte, maps of Pracanza, maps of Ghillas, of Taglis, Merse, Diettro Mareia, even of Vethia, so far to the north of the world … he did not believe he could bear to look at another map, and yet he must. He was now Lord Limner; his task was to acquaint himself with treaties, wars, alliances, with family needs and family habits, with the interests of other Dukes and kings and princes, with their innumerable wives and children, even with their
pets
—because if he were to help shape diplomacy, to assist his Duke in creating history, he had to know everything.

“Matra,” he murmured. “I cannot believe
Zaragosa Serrano
was capable of this—capable of anything beyond clothing himself in scarlet!”

A step scraped at the door. He had not shut it of a purpose; what he did was never undertaken without invoking proper protections—and he needed just now to convince everyone in the Palasso Verrada there was nothing for them to suspect of their new Grijalva Limner. Let them look upon him.

“And so Zaragosa clothes himself in it forever, no?” the other asked evenly. “The scarlet of shame, the reddening of fever-racked hands, the crimson of his blood as the leeches bleed him in hopes of healing an unanticipated and debilitating illness very like that which commonly afflicts Grijalvas.”

Sario did not turn. He knew the voice, recognized displeasure bordering on contempt. “His talent was dead. His body might as well be.”

“When the Matra decrees it so.” Raimon Grijalva came further into the chamber. “Have you usurped Her place?”

Sario, who yet knelt with his back to the man, grinned, tended maps. “No doubt the Serranos would argue so!”

“And have they the right of it?”

So, it comes
… Sario stacked one map atop the other: Ghillas conquered Diettro Mareia. Now for the genealogies, the complex lattices and laceworks of marriages, births, deaths, the endless inventories of paintings recording events … “I do what I must. I am, after all, of the Viehos Fratos.”

“And?”

“And?” He shrugged, smiling, examined the multiple marriages of Baltassar of Ghillas written out so meticulously; how
could
a
man bear to marry so many women? And how had so many managed to die? “Am I supposed to be other?”

“More, perhaps,” Raimon said. “You have resources others do not, even those who are of the Viehos Fratos.”

Oddly, he felt anticipation, not regret; and a stirring nearly as powerful as lust. “Does it trouble you, Raimon?” He set aside the Ghillasian genealogies, the inventories, turned instead to trade agreements between Taglis and Tira Virte. “Do you fear I will misuse what I know?”

Silence.

Sario smiled more widely.
There is pleasure in this—there is POWER in this.
Quietly he put aside the papers and rose, dusting knees. Turned: chain and Chieva glittered in candleglow. With schooled self-possession he confronted the only man he had ever and always respected. “You made me,” he said clearly. “Grazzo, be precise in this—of
what
do you believe I am capable?”

Raimon’s face was stark. “Anything.”

Sario paused a moment—he had not expected the bald truth quite so soon—and then nodded. “Permit me to rephrase, grazzo— what do you believe I will do?”

“Whatever you choose to do.”

Truth, again.
From this man he expected nothing less, or more; events had moved more quickly than any anticipated, even he. Zaragosa had been meant to die, or to be dismissed because of illness, but Baltran’s freakish death had put all into motion too swiftly. And, clearly, Sanguo Raimon had accepted what others couldn’t or wouldn’t imagine. Not yet.

Then he shall have truth as well
“Nommo Chieva do’Orro, Raimon, I swear this: I don’t want to rule. Is that what you fear?”

The older man shook his head. “Even you comprehend that contesting for Tira Virte would throw the duchy into a civil war so disastrous it would destroy everything—and leave you with nothing worth ruling. Unless …” Raimon’s expression was at once bitter as winter, sere as summer. “Unless it is that you serve Tza’ab Rih now.”

Sario laughed aloud. “Eiha, they might wish it! They might even expect it—it was what the old man wanted—but that is not my goal.”

“Then what is your goal, Sario?” Raimon paused, examined expression, posture, then continued. “Have you any that avoids usurping the Mother’s Throne?”

So much pleasure now, so much anticipation. “Heresy—or humor! Which is it, Raimon?” Laughing, he spread hands wide. “To
be what I am. That is my goal. To be Lord Limner to the Duke of Tira Virte.”

“Why?”

“Because I was shaped to be so by men such as you.”

Raimon took a single step, checked. “It was not
I
who began this—”

“No? Of course it was. Otavio and Ferico would surely have done more than burned three tiny holes along my collarbone—” Sario touched his doublet. “—in fact, I believe they might have suggested I be treated as Tomaz was treated, thereby forever quenching a fire they could not control.” He shrugged easily. “I am as you see me. I might have been less, might have been more, left to my own devices—but now I am the man whom the Grijalvas view as savior—”

“
Savior!
”

“—because it is to me the Duke shall come,
must
come, to plot his plots, his policies, and the campaigns of the conselhos; to conduct trade and make treaties; to arrange to marry a woman, to get heirs upon her; to marry another if that one dies in the bearing; to commemorate deaths and births and marriages and thus more births and marriages, and possibly more deaths … to document
life
, Raimon! To record the history and change of a nation and her people.” He paused, looking for comprehension in place of contempt in the other man’s aging face. “That is what we do. That is our task. To unmask the world so others may know the truth and be bound by it.”

“
Your
truth.”

“We all of us make our own—or, in the name of coin, accept commissions to twist the truth as others will have it twisted.”

“You will bring harm to no one.”

He fears that—fears ME.
“No one beyond whom my Duke requires harmed.”

With elaborate irony and equally clear disdain, “Zaragosa Serrano?”

Sario sighed. “Do you truly care what becomes of him, Raimon? Eiha, I know you seek evidence I have become a monster—or threaten to become one … but why must you be so certain I shall? I am a
painter
, Raimon! All I have ever wanted to do is paint!”