The Golden Key (79 page)

Thus were the orphans painted, all of them dumbstruck that actual Grijalvas were drawing their pictures, and the finished portraits were given to the local Sanctias for safekeeping. Mechella met with each surviving sancta and sancto, outlining their duties toward each child and family. She always finished with, “I shall expect a report each Penitenssia and Sancterria—more often, if you like or if there’s something special to tell me. I’m deeply concerned with the welfare of these children and your village. I hope you’ll do me the honor of accepting this toward reconstruction of your beautiful Sanctia—it isn’t much, but it will get you started on your building fund.”

Winter approached, and the day snowclouds threatened over the Montes Astrappas Lizia announced that they had done as much as they possibly could. The injured were recovering, the dead were buried, the orphans placed with families, the paintings finished, and there were enough walls with roofs on them to shelter diminished populations until spring. Roads only just cleared of tumbled boulders would soon be rendered impassable by snow.

“And besides which,” Lizia finished, eyeing Mechella, “you’re getting bigger by the hour. Cold food, no bed, and unspeakable sanitation I will tolerate—barely!—but
not
the sight of my only sister with her back naked to the wind because she’s too pregnant to lace her gown!”

They went home by way of Corasson, an estate long held by the
Grijalvas. On the journey there, Mechella heard its history from Lizia, and did not much like the tale.

In 1045, Clemenzo III became Duke of Tira Virte at age eighteen. The next year he fell violently in love with Saalendra Grijalva—much to the annoyance of her family, which had another girl in mind for him. But he would have none but Saalendra, and they conducted much of their affair at an estate halfway between Meya Suerta and Castello Casteya.

“Which was at that time famous for its splendors,” Lizia sighed. “Clemenzo’s grandmother was a do’Casteya, so he had cousins at the Castello who welcomed him whenever he and Saalendra wanted some fresh mountain air. But he was a rather odd man, en verro.”

Odd, because he had ideas about including lesser nobles and even merchants in government. Like his great-grandfather Alejandro, he saw them as a counterweight to the great counts and barons, and made known his intention to reconvene the Corteis. He also resolved on war with Pracanza rather than endure any more border skirmishes—or marry the princess offered as peacemaker as Renata do’Pracanza had been offered to and accepted by Alejandro. When Clemenzo was assassinated in 1047, some thought the greater nobles were responsible and some that Pracanza was behind the crime. But it was also said that Clemenzo had been murdered—and Saalendra with him—by persons acting in revenge for the rejected Grijalva girl.

Whatever the case, Clemenzo’s brother became Cossimio I, and in 1049 the exquisite Corasson Grijalva became his Mistress. They also spent much time at the estate where his brother and her cousin had been so happy. In 1052 he purchased it for her, and there they lived the whole year round. There was no more talk of expanding the government or of war with Pracanza. Affairs of state bored Cossimio and he left everything to his conselhos—who, fortunately, included the highly capable Timius Grijalva, Corasson’s half-brother, who would one day become Lord Limner.

Then, in 1058, Corasson died in a riding accident. Shattered, Cossimio returned to the capital and buried his grief in work. Shortly thereafter he wed Carmillia do’Pracanza—younger sister of the princess proposed as his brother’s bride—and ruled for another thirty-seven years. He never again set foot within twenty miles of the estate, renamed Corasson by the Grijalvas to whom it now belonged, and when he died, his
Will
specified that his heart be entombed with his dead Mistress. Duchess Carmillia, who never even heard Corasson’s name mentioned—let alone suspected her
husband’s deathless devotion to another woman—ordered his heart removed from his corpse as he had wished. Then, with her own hands, she flung it into the deepest swamp in Laggo Sonho.

“What a horrid story!” Mechella exclaimed.

“It has its deplorable aspects,” Lizia allowed.

“I wish you hadn’t told me. I’m sure I won’t sleep a wink inside such a dreadful place.”

“You mustn’t blame the house, ‘Chella. Corasson is really quite wonderful, though we won’t be seeing it at its best time of year. And it’s quite comfortable for all it’s so old. A place for lovers. …” She sighed, and after a moment continued softly, “Ormaldo and I spent a few nights there right after we were married, on our way to Castello Casteya. I think I began to fall in love with him then.”

With her first sight of Corasson, contrary to all expectations, Mechella also fell in love. All the house’s unsavory associations went clean out of her mind. Every spindly tower and fanciful crenellation, every winter-bare climbing rose and venerable oak, every arched window and rounded turret enchanted her. It was like the castles of her childhood in Ghillas, though it lacked moat and drawbridge because it had never been meant for war.

“I don’t recall the original name or who built it,” Lizia said as the carriage rattled up the drive. “You’d think all these towers and turrets would make it look ridiculous—like a manor house trying to give birth to a castle. But instead, it’s beautiful.”

Cabral handed them down from the carriage. “It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to my family’s most charming property,” he said with a smile. “But it must be a quick welcome without a tour of the grounds—I think it’s about to rain.”

It did rain, and for three solid days, miring the roads in mud. Mechella spent the time exploring the lovely old caza with Leilias, whose sharp tongue both shocked and amused her.

“It’s a rather scandalous place, even aside from its history,” Leilias said as they admired the dining room’s painted ceiling—which featured scores of scantily clad youths and maidens draped languidly and sometimes licentiously around a sylvan glade. “Cabral says the pair in the middle are supposed to be Clemenzo and Saalendra. Personally, I’ve never entered a room here without wondering if they or Cossimio and Corasson made love in it!”

“In a
dining room
?”

“It’s a big table,” Leilias drawled, and Mechella giggled despite herself. “Dusty, too,” she went on, tracing an idle design on the wood. “Nobody lives here now—just a steward and the farm workers. Their houses are down the road. Poor neglected Corasson.”

Mechella wandered along the row of ladderback chairs, inspecting the flowers embroidered on the seat cushions. No two were alike. “It’s sad for a house that knew such joy to be empty now. Doesn’t anybody ever visit? I thought perhaps the Grijalvas use it the way the do’Verradas use Caterrine.”

“That’s another thing about this house. No child was ever conceived in it.”

“Now you’re making fun of me! All the Mistresses are barren!”

“No, Your Grace, I’m serious. Servants are always getting pregnant, correct? But not one has ever done so under this roof. They’ve been questioned, believe me. Each time they swear the lovemaking happened in the barns or the woods or one of the cottages, but never here. You’d almost think there was some kind of spell to prevent it.”

Mechella laughed. “I could make a story of it—the first lady who lived here was a nasty, wicked woman who decreed that any woman who got with child under this roof would be put to death. She made a pact with an old witch or wizard to ensure it.”

“Because her husband had a roving eye and was a scandal with the servant girls in every other house they’d ever lived in,” Leilias contributed, entering into the game.

“Very good, I hadn’t thought of that.” Mechella stood at the head of the table, fingers clasping the heart-shaped finials of the master’s chair. “Anyway, she let all the servant girls know what fate awaited them. But of course love will not be denied, and so when one of them turned up with a big belly, she had her executed.”

“As a witch,” Leilias added, “for only another witch could cancel the spell on the house.”

“But as time went by, the terrible woman found she’d made a terrible mistake. She got the wording of the spell wrong, and instead of limiting her curse to the servant girls, she’d made a mistake and said
any
woman. So of course she never had any children either, as punishment for her wickedness.”

“And so it remains to this day, that any woman living at Corasson who wants a baby must get one elsewhere than under this roof!” Leilias concluded, and applauded.

They continued on their tour of the house, Mechella dying to ask if Arrigo had ever brought Tazia here, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Much as she liked Leilias—for herself as well as for being Cabral’s sister—she could not discuss such personal things.

As they strolled a dank hallway to the music room, Leilias said casually, “The last do’Verrada visit here nearly ended in disaster.
There was a fire in the stables and Grand Duke Cossimio’s father almost died trying to save his favorite hunter. He decided he hated Corasson and bought Chasseriallo, and no do’Verrada has set foot here since.”

So Mechella’s question was answered without her having asked it. Arrigo had never even been here. That there was at least one place in Tira Virte that he had never seen appealed to Mechella; she could share with him something new to him about his own country. For the rest of the rainy morning she paid close heed to details of design and decoration, the better to describe Corasson when she got home.

The trouble was, the more she saw of Corasson the more she felt she
was
at home. She loved the architecture, so reminiscent of the great castles of Ghillas. She loved the warm grace of the interior, neglected though it was, with private and public rooms alike proportioned for daily living, not ceremonial grandeur. She loved the wealth promised by roses and herb gardens and trees, and the charming little pocket gardens snuggled into odd angles of the house. But most of all she loved one thing: the instant she saw Corasson, the moment she entered it, she could picture herself there. Herself, Arrigo, and their children.

Corasson had not been constructed for war; neither, despite Lizia’s impressions, had it been intended for lovers wishing solitude. It had been meant for a family. One had only to tour the sixteen bedchambers of the second floor to know that the private quarters were designed for a husband and wife and large, happy brood.

It was a shame that the Grijalvas—who were nothing if not a large family—had never put Corasson to its best use. To Mechella, the house cried out for a loving couple and lots of children with their nurses and tutors, toys on the stairs, ponies in the stables, dogs underfoot, laughter and games and even temper tantrums—all the cheerful chaos of a country home. Mechella had never known such things herself or observed them in other people’s houses. She imagined that Lizia had led that kind of life at Castello Casteya while Count Ormaldo was alive; she suspected something of the same at Palasso Grijalva (surely so, with all those children running about!). But Corasson, meant for a family, languished in lonely emptiness.

“Cabral,” she said one evening as they waited in the dining room for Lizia, “would your family ever consider selling Corasson, do you think?”

His brows climbed above startled hazel eyes. “Sell?”

Down the table, Leilias gave a small, half-choked laugh.
“Forgive me, Your Grace. It’s just that the Grijalvas have been trying to get rid of it for two generations!”

“Now you’ve done it,” Cabral scolded, grinning.

“What’s she done?” Lizia asked, striding through the double doors to her chair. “Pass the plates. I’m starving, and I can’t wait for those boys of yours to join us.”

“I want to buy Corasson,” Mechella explained.

Cabral said, “And my moronna of a sister just told her it’s been for sale with no buyers these last fifty years!”

Lizia crowed with laughter. “What a bargain you’ll get, ‘Chella! What a trick to play on the Viehos Fratos!”

Sighing, Leilias said to her brother, “The Countess has never forgiven us Grijalvas.”

“I’ve never understood why,” he said innocently. “It wasn’t Aldio’s fault that little Dona Grezella picked the lock on his paintbox—”

“—having decided that all my gowns would look better with red flowers!” Lizia complained, black eyes dancing. “Aldio had the gall to say afterward that my daughter showed a real eye for color!”

“Aldio,” Cabral said earnestly, “has ever been a shrewd critic.”

With a snort of appreciation, Lizia turned to Mechella. “Listen, carrida, if you’re serious, then I’ll have my steward stop here on his way to Meya Suerta next month. He can survey the home farm and tell you if the place can turn a profit. You’ll need a structural survey, too.”

Lizia plotted the purchase of Corasson as single-mindedly as a Marchalo Grando planned a battle. She made lists and estimated prices and debated alterations and repairs. All Mechella could say in response, with a glance at the rain-wrapped window, was, “Eiha, at least we’re sure the roof doesn’t leak!”

But if she was initially amazed by Lizia’s enthusiasm, that night she remembered what Lizia had said about making her own power and place, and her joy dimmed just a little.

They left Corasson two mornings later. After long hours being jostled in the carriage, with wheels spewing fountains of mud from every rut in the road, Mechella was deeply grateful for the sight of the wayside Sanctia where they would spend the night. As she stretched the stiffness and aches from her limbs by pacing the length of the lamplit nave, Cabral approached with a large sheet of paper in his hands. It proved to be a detailed sketch of Corasson.

“Rafeyo’s work,” he explained. “He got bored waiting for the rain to stop, so he went out in it and drew this. I thought you’d like to see it.”

“He really is very talented, isn’t he? I must thank him for the gift.”

“It’s … not exactly a gift,” Cabral said awkwardly. “He was showing us his portfolio. He condescended to discuss with me the difficulties of architectural painting.”

“I see.” She walked to a lamp hung from a pillar and inspected the picture. “He’s
very
good. I can almost see the roses getting ready to bud in the spring. Would he lend me this if I promise to return it once Don Arrigo has seen it?”