The Golden Key (14 page)

“As I came back,” Raimon said ironically.

Arturro’s smile was sweet. “Eiha, you came back!—and were justly rewarded for it.”

“And Sario?”

The older man touched his Chieva. “He must be watched, Raimon. He must be closely watched. One can see the hunger in his eyes, the transcendence of his Light—and also a little fear.” He sighed. “There is so much at stake now … we have labored so long to restore the family, and now that we have the Gift …” Arturro’s face was troubled. “It is such a slow process, this reestablishment of the family, but we dare not hasten it. We dare not let the do’Verradas suspect what the true nature of the Gift is.”

“There are whispers already,” Raimon said quietly. “The Serranos suspect.”

“Let them. They are … ‘modestly-talented graffiti-crafters.”’ Arturro’s amused expression acknowledged Saavedra’s accuracy. “We have the protection of the do’Verradas, and that is no small thing … so long as the ducal family suspects nothing of the Gift, we shall be safe.”

“Zaragosa Serrano has the Duke’s ear.”

“And the sister, Gitanna, has more than the Duke’s
ear.
” Despite the statement’s questionable taste, it was fact; Arturro did not shirk the unmitigated baldness of his observation. “But Baltran do’Verrada values her for something other than cleverness, even if such were said of her; and Zaragosa is a fool, a witless moronno who takes more pleasure in his fundamentally tasteless addiction to lurid color than in the intricacies true art requires … no, he is no threat. I think the boy poses more threat than any Serrano.”

“And he a Grijalva,” Raimon murmured.

“But that is how it must be. Now. We are—not what we once were.” Arturro closed one hand around the Golden Key depending from his collar. “We must be very careful with Sario. Eiha, but he is a prodigy, yes?—and although we require that hunger in order to bring the Gift to life, it must be carefully controlled. As he must be.”

“‘The seed of our destruction lies within our own loins,”’ Raimon quoted.

The Premio Frato sighed. “And in our prodigious talent. Well— let it be so. We were not made to rule, we Grijalvas; too much has befallen us even if we were in a position to take Tira Virte for our
own. There is the Tza’ab ‘taint’ the Ecclesia has called damnation, the brevity of our life span, the weakness of our seed. No, it shall never be our task to take Tira Virte, to rule it, but to enlighten, to educate, to entertain … and certainly to guide the
prospects
of our country. Quietly. Subtly. Wisely.”

“Matra ei Filho willing.”

“Indeed,” Arturro said, fingertips to lips, to heart. “As I think They must be, to let us come so far.”

  SIX  

Gitanna
Serrano, lingering contentedly at midday in the central zocalo with tumbling fountain spray lightly bathing her upturned face, was startled out of her reverie as her elbow was roughly grasped. She fired up to shout her outrage—how dare anyone lay hands on the Duke’s mistress?—but caught it back unspoken as she recognized her brother. “Zaragosa! What?”

With much haste and far less gentleness, he pulled her away from the fountain. “We have to talk.”

“Must you
drag
me?” She righted herself on uneven cobbles. “Matra Dolcha, ‘Gosa, people are beginning to stare!”

“Let them.” He ushered her briskly across the cobbled zocalo into one of Meya Suerta’s innumerable shrines. “What we have to discuss cannot be heard by others.”

She hissed as the carved and studded wooden door banged into a shoulder; he had misjudged its weight. “Well, you have certainly ensured they will
try
—Zaragosa! What is so important that you must be so rough?”

The door dismissed, he pushed her around the corner into one of the tiny niches containing an icon. Gilt paint glowed in muted sunlight let in through shuttered windows and the thin illumination of fat, scented candles set out in clay cups, upon wood and iron racks. “Bassda, Gitanna!” He glanced around quickly. There was no one in earshot. “Listen to me!”

There was little else she could do; accordingly, she listened. At first she was hard-pressed to give him the attention he so blatantly craved—she was angered by his rude handling of her—but she let the resentment go as she heard him out.

When at last he finished, she sighed prodigiously. “Eiha, I have tried,” she told him, letting the wall prop up her spine. “I have, ‘Gosa, but the Duke can be stubborn. You know that.”

“He dismisses me too easily,” Zaragosa said. “He sends me off to paint yet another family portrait, complaining that I meddle in what does not concern me.”

“You!” She rearranged the pearl-freighted silken scarf draped around her shoulders. “At least you he sends to paint! Me he sends off to bed, telling me not to worry my pretty little head about such
things as politics.” She glared at the icon; the serene expression of the painted Matra was an offense to their very real concerns. “I have tried to cajole him, to tease him, to make him swear in the midst of bedplay, but he refuses. He claims the Ducal Protection is inviolable.”

“It is not,” Zaragosa retorted. “But one needs
proof
to make him understand what we’re facing.”

Gitanna pulled away from him and walked to the small table on which the icon stood. Dried flowers bedecked the embroidered cloth, faded blooms left by someone asking intercession of the Mother; this was Her little shrine, not Her Son’s. “How are we to find proof?” Gitanna demanded, swinging back. “We are not Grijalvas to walk unmolested into their Palasso. They are insular, secretive—they take great pains to keep themselves private from others, so no one realizes the scope of what they intend.”

“Infamy,” he said. “They will bring down to the do’Verradas so
they
may claim the duchy.”

“Well,” she said grimly, “so long as we Serranos retain our places at Court, they will not gain a foothold. You must paint whatever he wishes you to paint, ‘Gosa … you must keep his favor.”

That sat ill with him. “And you as well, Gitanna!”

“Yes,” she agreed calmly, “I as well. But you as Court Limner know more security than a Duke’s mistress; me he may replace at any time, on any whim, but unless illness carries you off, he cannot replace you. Only Alejandro may appoint another Court Limner, when he becomes Duke in his father’s place.”

“An odd boy,” Zaragosa said, chewing idly on a thumbnail as he leaned a padded shoulder against the hand-smoothed wall.

“Odd or not, you should befriend him,” Gitanna suggested. “I can do nothing—my only power is in Baltran’s bed, but you have the freedom of the Palasso. You hold the Duke’s favor.”

“But not the Duchess’s” he said grimly, words distorted by the thumb still at his teeth.

“Does that matter? You were Baltran’s appointee, not hers. She has no power.”

“Beyond bearing heirs.”

Gitanna grimaced. “Well, I was never promised anything more than what I have. If I bear him children, they will be bastards. He has his heir in Alejandro—”

“—who will decide if a Serrano shall replace me, or someone of another family.”

“Then make certain
only
a Serrano may replace you,” she said. “We cannot let those cursed chi’patro Grijalvas steal our place
from us. Befriend Alejandro, ‘Gosa. Prove to him we are his allies in all things.”

“He is but a boy, Gitanna! Would you have me waste my days on a feckless child?”

“Eiha, you are a fool sometimes, ‘Gosa! Don’t you understand? It is an investment, this ‘wasting’ of days! He will be Duke one day … and if you are his friend, he will naturally look to someone else of our family when the time comes that a new Court Limner is appointed.”

Color flared in his thin face. “You mean when I am dead!”

“Well,” she said matter-of-factly, “you
will
die, one day, or become disabled by age. Why deny it? Find a solution, ‘Gosa. Do you think my time as the ducal mistress will last forever? Matra Dolcha, no! My time is limited, and I accept it … he will not keep me as long as he keeps you.”

He had stripped one thumb of nail; now he proceeded to the other. “I don’t know, Gitanna …”

Frustration clamped her teeth shut tightly. He was too shortsighted to fully understand the ramifications of what they needed to do, lest they suffer for its lack of success. “Coddle the boy,” she said. “Earn his trust, his affection. Make yourself indispensable to him.”

“What could I be to a ten-year-old child?”

“’Gosa,” she declared without leavening her disdain, “for a man who paints for a living you have an astonishing lack of imagination.”

It stung, as she intended. “Matra Dolcha, Gitanna—”

“Think,” she said plainly. “Think it through. Paint yourself a portrait, ‘Gosa. Surely you can do that.”

He glared at her, mutilated thumbs forgotten. “If this is how you speak to the Duke, it is no wonder he believes you fit only for bed-play!”

“Bassda,” she said wearily. “Go back to the Palasso and think on what I have said. We have presented it to Baltran in a straightforward manner, and we have failed. It is time for us to try another way.”

“He wants
proof.
”

“Then we shall have to find it,” Gitanna said calmly. “Or manufacture it.”

Saavedra stopped in the corridor before the narrow door of her tiny estuda’s cell. Beyond it lay her private world where she called her
own such things as a bed, a chest containing clothing, a table and stool before the deep-cut window. Little more, save for the necessities: a basin and ewer, a night pot behind a screen. And imagination.

The family believed that privation fed inspiration, that absolute privacy was necessary so that solitude encouraged exploration among the tools at her beck, such things as an understanding of proportion, the way the body fit together in the bending of a wrist, the way a corridor appeared broad at the near end but small at the far. There were classes to teach such things, but solitude refined it; a person left alone often created a world within the mind, and the artist put it to paper, to canvas, brought to life what was not real with such power as paint and chalk.

There were, of course, Grijalvas who did not exhibit the true-talent, who were no more than adequate; even those who lacked all artistic talent. Such persons were not condemned for this lack—the Matra did not bless everyone—but neither were they trained the way those who exhibited talent were. Saavedra was.

She had told Aguo Raimon the truth: Sario was her only friend. He had done her the courtesy of not telling her to find another, and for that she was grateful. Perhaps it was because he understood. He was after all a Grijalva, talented, Gifted— and he knew how the family was run. It was a city within the city, a smaller Meya Suerta that did not claim a Duke save for those men who by consensus had the ordering of the family “city.” Palasso Grijalva, the sprawling cluster of conjoined buildings fed by the blood of its people moving through corridors and courtyards, was a duchy in and of itself. The Grijalvas honored the do’Verradas in all ways—many of them had died for the do’Verradas—but they conducted family business independently, in perfect privacy.

And now in the midst of that privacy, that solitude, she would be punished for a transgression the depths of which even the Viehos Fratos did not know. Yes, she had burned the painting; that of itself was worthy of punishment. But she had also aided Sario, who had committed murder.