The Golden Key (91 page)

Later, Zevierin sat beside Leilias in Mechella’s private salon, listening to the silence. At length, he said, “It’s not just the death of her father she’s mourning.”

“One minute she weeps like a child, and the next like a woman whose heart has broken. It’s over, Zevi. For Mechella and Arrigo, there’s no hope.”

He reached for her hand, holding it to his heart. “I feel so guilty. For us, it’s only begun.”

“I know. It’s terrible to be so happy when she’s—I’ve been trying
to find the right time to tell her about us. To give her something she can be glad of for a little while. She’s trying to get used to losing her father and her husband while I’m try to get used to having everything.”

“Are you certain you want me?” he murmured. “I still can’t believe it—when you came to my room the night before we heard about King Enrei, I—”

“Don’t babble, Zevi,” she scolded fondly. “I’m certain that I’ve always wanted to be able to love someone. I’m just not certain why it should be you!”

“Be serious,” he urged. “I need to know, Leilias. In twenty years I’ll be forty-five, and old.”

“So? In twenty years I may be a grandmother.” Wrapping her arms around his waist, she leaned against him and teased, “Does the thought of making love to a grandmother horrify you?”

A few breathless minutes later, he sternly forbade himself her lips long enough to ask. “Are you certain about children?”

She laughed low in her throat. “I thought you’d topple like a pine tree when I told you I want babies. What do you think, am I too old for a Confirmattio?”

“Leilias,” he warned.

She made a face. “Oh, very well. Serious. The difference is that it’s not the Viehos Fratos ordering me to have children, it’s
my
choice. But only if you’ll be their father.”

“In heart and in spirit and even in blood, I’ll never think of your children as anything but mine,” he vowed.

“I’ll pick somebody kind and clever and talented, somebody who looks like you.” She nuzzled his cheek. “Mechella told me when we were in Dregez that one day I’d understand about wanting to be a mother. She didn’t know that for me, it came because I want so much for you to be a father.”

“I wish—”

“No, don’t.” She stopped his words with a finger on his lips. “You can’t, you’re a Limner. Maybe our sons will be, too. But let’s wish for the things we know we can have—things like being happy for the rest of our lives.”

“A certainty,” he said, tightening his embrace. “We’re going to be completely, wildly happy.”

Leilias laughed. “Insanely happy!”

“Nauseatingly, by the sound of it,” Cabral remarked from the doorway. “Do shut up, both of you, before I lose my breakfast. Zevi, unhand my sister. Leilias, try to stop pawing him for a moment.
Mechella wants us. Otonna said she asked if everyone was finally gone, then said she’d meet us in the rose garden.”

They waited for her in the morning sunshine, the first crisp breeze of autumn rustling the oaks. Green lawns spread to rose-covered walls, laced by beds of white and yellow roses at their fullest bloom. The fragrance was exquisite—and so was Mechella as she glided across the grass. Her simple gray silk dress was of the drop-waisted Pracanzan fashion, her bright hair in a single braid over her left shoulder. Days ago she had told Otonna to throw out every single stitch of clothing that held even a hint of the deep do’Verrada sapphire blue.

They rose from their chairs to greet her. She sat down below a trellis festooned with white roses, folded her hands in her lap, and addressed them as formally as if they were conselhos in conference.

“I apologize for interrupting your morning. I’ve come to some decisions that I wish to share with you. First, my father’s funeral took place mere days after his death, so there was never any question of my going to Aute-Ghillas to attend. But I
will
be going to my brother’s coronation after the half-year of mourning is completed. Grand Duke Cossimio has agreed to my request. I will be his sole representative and will go alone—that is, with a large escort of my Shagarrans but without Don Arrigo or the children. I expect that a few Grijalvas will accompany me as well, but that can be arranged at a later date.”

She paused for breath, and smoothed her skirts over her knees. “Secondly, except for state occasions when my presence is required, I will no longer live at Palasso Verrada. My children will stay here with me until such time as they’re old enough to take their places at Court. The Grand Duke allows this—though he thinks my withdrawal to be temporary. He and the Grand Duchess are welcome at any time to Corasson, of course—and the Countess do’Casteya and the Baroness do’Dregez. But if Don Arrigo attempts to enter, my Shagarrans have orders to remove him.”

The Grijalvas kept their faces perfectly still. Mechella’s tiny smile indicated that she noted this before she composed herself again and continued.

“Of the nobility, those who are welcome will know it. Those who are not will have the decency to stay away. Which brings me to you. Each of you must decide without thinking of anyone but yourselves whether or not you wish to stay here with me.” Cabral
surged to his feet; Mechella lifted a graceful hand. “No, don’t say anything yet, hear me out. I want you here. But I also want you to understand that Corasson will be a Shadow Court at best. There will be no real power or influence until Alessio is much older. To that end, I would appreciate any advice you can give me about tutors for him and for Teressa, and people to include in the households I’ll establish for them in a few years, and those who can advise me about political matters. I—”

“Stop it!” Leilias burst out. “You’re not reading a speech—”

“En verro, I am,” Mechella admitted. “I practiced it all day yesterday. It was the only way I could get through it. Let me finish, Leilias, and then you can take me to task for treating my friends like strangers.”

Zevierin shook his head. “If you’re going to insult us again, I’d rather not hear the rest. As if we wouldn’t stay here with you!”

“I knew you’d say that,” Mechella told him with a faint smile. “There’s not much more. I was about to say that I trust you to recommend people I need to educate my children and myself. I also want to know who among the nobles, conselhos, merchants, and Grijalvas I can count on as friends—and especially I want to know who my enemies are.” She paused and sighed. “I’ve been childish about many things. Instead of spending these last three years—Matra, nearly four!—learning the ways of Court, I thought my husband would guide and protect me. I was wrong,” she finished simply. “I need your help.”

Leilias slid from her chair to kneel at Mechella’s feet. “You have it. You know that. Whatever you need, whatever any of us can do—”

“Get up at once!” Mechella scolded fondly. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Zevierin, by marrying so much fire and passion!” They gaped at her; she laughed softly. “Did you think me sunk so deep in my own troubles that I’d be blind to my dearest friends? Even though you tried to hide it—for shame, trying to fool me! Do get up, Leilias, and let me hear from Zevierin and Cabral.”

“You know my answer,” Zevierin said.

“And mine,” Cabral grated, turned on his heel, and strode off.

“Eiha,” Mechella sighed. “Now I’ve offended him. You Grijalvas—more prideful than kings!”

By custom, foreign rulers were gifted with a painting commemorating their accession. Because the new King of Ghillas was
Mechella’s brother, Dioniso proposed and the Viehos Fratos agreed on two pictures: one official, one personal. The former would be on display in some useful room—a council chamber, for instance—and the latter would probably end up somewhere in the new King’s private suite. Both paintings would be steeped in symbolism all educated persons understood, and in magic known only to Grand Dukes and Grijalvas.

Dioniso, having done a portrait of Enrei III as Crown Prince, was Mequel’s resource on the official painting. Pencil studies and verbal commentary on Enrei’s personality were accompanied by the advice that if a horse was not prominently featured, the young King would stash the painting away someplace where it could not influence him and would do Tira Virte no good at all.

Dioniso painted the personal portrait himself, using it to teach Rafeyo several more things in advance of his fellow estudos. He also intended it as a kind of seduction into portrait painting, for Rafeyo showed an alarming preference for landscapes and architecture. This would not do at all. A Lord Limner put people in his paintings, not barns and cornfields and castellos and water mills.

The new style of landscape painting did not please Dioniso in the slightest. Low horizons with vast swaths of sky had been reversed; now the lands sprawled in marshy greens or desert golds beneath thin slices of cobalt sky. People were no longer perfect miniatures; instead, distant figures were suggested by a few swipes of color meant to convey the impression of a camponessa’s full skirt, a man’s dark cloak, a broad-brimmed straw hat. Worst of all, mathematical balance had been abandoned in favor of randomly scattered shapes with little relation to each other. Grijalva art must be strict in form because it must be strict in function, and Dioniso’s every instinct screamed against loosening the rules with experiments that weakened the composition and therefore the magic.

Still, even the deplorable landscapes now in fashion were preferable to the execrable still-lifes. “Still” they definitively were—“life,” they certainly were not. Nature had never produced such fruits and flowers as some Grijalvas were now painting without blemish, perfectly symmetrical, and about as mouth-was tering as the cold glazed ceramic they looked like. Every Limner painted dozens of still-lifes as a necessary part of his training, to learn how to place the symbolic flowers and fruit, herbs and trees
that anchored magic. But these pieces—meaningless exercises in trivia, every one of them, demonstrating nothing beyond the contrived architecture of a pile of fruit or the natural geometry of a flower.

As Premio Frato, Dioniso had influence. But he was too busy and his hands were too old to produce masterworks enough to turn his Limners from their useless meanderings in landscape and still-life. When Rafeyo became Lord Limner—a few years, no more, Mequel couldn’t last forever—he would work those young, strong fingers to the bone if necessary to save Grijalva art.

But before that time came, there was a portrait to do, and he used it to fascinate Rafeyo with the possibilities. The formal painting—Mequel’s first equestrian composition—contained all the usual elements. Cedars for Strength, yellow lilies for Peace, sage for Wisdom, and all the other indicators of kingly virtues. Dioniso had Rafeyo delve into more obscure symbolism from the
Folio
—Dioniso’s own copy, annotated with tantalizing notes from the
Kita’ab.
One in five hundred Limners knew the old Tza’ab symbology. Careful inquiry told Dioniso that Mequel was not among them.

The Envy of a brass hand-mirror; the Folly of the blue rose; the Arrogance of a crown studded with black diamonds—of which stones there were exactly two in the known world, one of them in distant fabled Zhinna and the other on the gouty finger of the Empress of Tza’ab Rih. These symbols and more were emphasized by an unvarnished pinewood frame reeking of Magical Energy. The effective range of the painting was considerable; one could smell the pine from every corner of Dioniso’s large atelierro in Palasso Grijalva.

The painting itself was a unique triple portrait: full-face in the center, right and left three-quarter profiles on either side. The unusual study was something Dioniso had been contemplating for a long time, and was a permissible experiment. Wherever it was hung, whichever way young Enrei faced, the magic would influence him. Left side Envy, Anger, and Pettiness; right side Folly, Arrogance, Stubbornness, and Inconstancy.

“Matra!” grinned Rafeyo. “If he paces back and forth, he’ll go mad with confusion! But what if he looks at it straight on?”

Dioniso only smiled.

One morning Rafeyo arrived in the atelierro to find a sheaf of mingled wheat and hawthorn painted upside down over Enrei’s
handsome head. Tying these symbols of Wealth and Fertility was a white ribbon. The boy turned to the master, one finger pointing an accusation at the painting.

“You just gave him all the personal riches and all the children he could ever want!”

Dioniso laughed. “Look closer at the ribbon, and tell me what you see.”

Rafeyo squinted. “Edged in silver at the top, gold at the bottom … triple knot tying the sheaf together—but the highlights are all wrong.”

“Possibly because they’re not highlights,” he responded dryly. “They are runes, the lingua oscurra, barely discernible as such. I’ll translate—these don’t appear in the standard glossary. ‘Thrice casting/Bind lasting/Ribbon’s reach/Cancels each.’ Note that the ribbon frames Enrei’s head and drops below his shoulders.”

“Then—” Rafeyo frowned. “You mean it cancels all his riches and his children?”

“At the very least it will make both more difficult to come by.”

What Dioniso did not say was that by painting Enrei as close to sterile as he could without the essential materials to hand, he had done everything possible to make Mechella’s children her brother’s only legitimate heirs. The advantages to Tira Virte of a do’Verrada on the Ghillasian throne were many and manifold. But Rafeyo, loathing Mechella, would not see them. He was much too young and too ignorant of politics to look beyond his hatred of the woman who had tried to take his adored mother’s place.