The Golden Key (77 page)

“We’ve had word, Countess,” said the weary sancto, who had miraculously survived the destruction of his Sanctia, “that Castello Casteya was only mildly shaken, Grazzo do’Matra.”

Bleakly, Lizia said, “Grazzo for what?” And she looked eloquently around her at the disaster.

Mechella trailed Lizia in stunned silence, ashamed of her ignorance. Lizia knew some basic medicine, enough to clean and bind wounds and discern which injuries required the physicians who had come with them. Mechella knew nothing about such things. Lizia, savior with her late husband of a tottering castello, knew what could be rebuilt and what must be abandoned; she could glance at a heap of broken stones and know if it was safe to dismantle or too dangerous to touch. Mechella knew nothing about this either. She saw only devastation that wrung her heart. But Lizia showed little emotion, and instead gave brisk orders that were always obeyed. Mechella felt useless, and knew how futile was her presence here.

Yet that evening as they sat in their carriage, sodden with exhaustion and staring at the meal served on Arrigo’s silver-gilt traveling service, Lizia smiled at her and said, “You’re more help than I thought you’d be.”

“I’m hopeless and we both know it.”

“At the things I’m good at, yes. You can’t wind a bandage without snarling it, and to you one pile of fallen stones looks just like any other. But haven’t you seen their faces? You don’t even have to speak. You just look at them, touch their hands—it’s as if their pain and fear are living things you cradle in your arms. Understanding and sympathy—they’re qualities I don’t possess.”

“And of no practical use. It was stupid of me to come.”

“Eiha, that’s just it, carrida. You don’t have to be here and they know it, but you came anyway.” Lizia sank into the butter-soft suede upholstery, sighing. “Matra Dolcha, I’m tired. And there’s worse to be seen further on.”

Mechella leaned toward her in the lamplit carriage. “Lizia, tell me what I can do. I’m not good at any of the things you know so much about. There must be
something
I can do besides talk to them and hold their hands.”

“It’s the one thing they need that I can’t provide. Mother can, but I’m more my father’s daughter, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed,” she finished wryly. “I’m too tired to think, Mechella. Let’s try to sleep.”

On the second day Mechella discovered how she could best help. Lizia lost track of her midmorning and had no time to look for her until late afternoon. She found Mechella in the cleared-out hollow of a cobbler’s shop, surrounded by children, telling them a story.

Lizia hated to disturb them, but it was nearing dinnertime and Mechella had to eat and keep up her strength. Arrigo had said she’d been sickly while carrying Teressa and was again in delicate health, though there was little evidence of it now. Lizia’s own pregnancies had been characterized by a ravenous appetite; even if Mechella’s were not, she had to eat.

On the walk back to the carriage, Mechella told Lizia what she’d learned. Most of the children had lost either mother or father. Some had lost both. One little boy had been trapped for two days, shielded by his mother’s slowly dying body. Another broke his arm falling out of a hayloft where he and his five siblings were playing; he alone had survived the earthquake. Twin girls barely four years old were found in the street outside a house; their father lay dead inside, killed by a collapsed beam, and no one knew how the girls had escaped. One brother and sister were alive only because their uncle had carried them to safety. When he returned for his sister and her husband, a wall toppled and all three adults died.

“At first I thought I’d just keep them out of everyone’s way, and make sure they didn’t play in dangerous places. But then they started talking to me, Lizi. Almost every child in this village is a tragedy. Some have no family left alive. Do you think—would it be all right if I tried to find homes for them?”

“Duchess Jesminia,” Lizia murmured. “’Chella, I think that would be a very good thing.”

So in that village and in a dozen more over the next twenty days, Mechella gathered children to her side. She talked to them, held
them while they cried, told them stories, gently coaxed their names and circumstances from them. And as each community began to recover and think about the future, she carefully matched each orphan to a new family.

Lizia’s reference to Jesminia reminded Mechella that the beloved Duchess had championed the chi’patro children of long ago, but this was a completely different situation. However, recalling who had taken in those children, she had an idea. One night in their darkened carriage, wrapped in furs against the mountain cold, she asked Lizia about it.

“An excellent point,” was the thoughtful reply. “Although I’ve never heard of such a document. Usually orphans are taken in by cousins, no matter how remote. This time whole families have been wiped out.”

“Then it would be better to make the adoptions legal?”

“I believe so. And at the same time we can protect their property, such as it may be. These children are still their parents’ heirs. We should establish ownership as soon as may be, before anyone can argue about it.”

“Lizi! Surely no one would steal—”

“My innocent, wouldn’t they just!”

“Then we’ll store the proofs at the Sanctias.”

“Brilliant! And if someone wants to buy the land to rebuild on—better a business than an empty hole along the street—the Ecclesials can decide if it’s a good offer—”.

“—and hold the money for child’s future,” Mechella interrupted excitedly, “the way part of my dower is being held for Teressa!”

“Better than brilliant!” Lizia laughed. “And to think you said you were useless! You can write to my father tomorrow.”

“I—I don’t think I’d better.”

“You’re not still worried about that silly note he sent? ‘Chella, if he were really angry and really wanted you to return, he would’ve said so, believe me. I know my father. But maybe you should write to Arrigo instead. This will give him something to do.”

Mechella was glad Lizia couldn’t see her face. “I—I don’t dare, Lizi. He really
is
angry with me. I haven’t heard from him since we left Meya Suerta.”

“Eiha, it was a naughty trick you played, but he knows by now how much good you’re doing.” She paused. “He and Patro are worried about the baby, of course, but you’re not very far along yet and you seem healthy as a horse.”

“I feel
much
better than I did with Teressa.”

“It’s my opinion that pregnant women shouldn’t be coddled,”
Lizia said forthrightly. “Shut up indoors, allowed no exercise except a turn in the gardens, nothing to do but knit and fret—being useful and doing things is infinitely better for one’s mental state as well as one’s health. But I
do
worry about these conditions, ‘Chella.”

She smiled in the darkness. “Don’t be. I’m warm, dry, comfortable, and everyone takes such good care of me. Most of the time I forget I’m pregnant.”

“Eiha, then I won’t send you back even if Patro
does
order it. You’re a great help to me here, and Arrigo will be pleased when he learns of it. And this new idea of yours—you’ll have to write him at once.”

Mechella shifted within her cocoon of furs. “I haven’t sent him any letters at all. I don’t know how he’ll react if I—”

“Not in all this time? ‘Chella!” There was a rustle of blankets and the scrape of a match that lit a lampwick. “You put pen to paper this instant!”

The resulting letter, composed under Lizia’s stern gaze, was at once stiff, wistful, and apprehensive. It was sent next morning by courier. Mechella lived in anguish awaiting Arrigo’s answer. It came several afternoons later in the form of a carriage emblazoned with the Grand Ducal Seal, rolling into another landscape of rubble that had once been a thriving town. From it emerged Cabral Grijalva, four junior Limners, and—in charge of doling out canvas and paint—Cabral’s younger sister, Leilias.

There was no letter from Arrigo or Cossimio. Gizella’s was the signature on the note Cabral presented to Mechella. The Grand Duchess had penned heartfelt words blessing her and Lizia, entreaties for them to stay safe and well, the approval of the new Premio Frato Dioniso of their plan, and assurances that the children were fine though missing their mothers very much.

Mechella read, handed the page to Lizia, and said quietly, “I’m glad you’re here, Cabral. I’ve a list of what we need. You’d best get started.”

  FORTY-FOUR  

Dioniso
took possession of the Premio Frato’s quarters with mixed emotions. It was the highest he had risen in the Grijalva ranks for a very long time, but it was not as high as he intended to go in his next life. Besides that, he had rather liked his predecessor, Agusto: a fine painter, a stern teacher, and a sardonic wit that made light of growing infirmities so that no one knew how truly ill he was up until the very day of his death.

Artistically, Dioniso was exactly where he wanted to be. Where he
needed
to be. As Premio he would pass judgment on everything and everyone—and especially on how the estudos were taught. The decline of painting would be reversed. He had sworn it. He would bring art back into line with his own genius, so that when he took Rafeyo in a few years, he would be hailed as the greatest since Riobaro.

Politically, he was also excellently placed. It wasn’t quite as good as being Lord Limner, but that could wait. Still, as Premio, he would have access to the Grand Duke whenever he liked, and to Arrigo and Mechella. What he had begun on the journey to Diettro Mareia had been nicely furthered by the painting of Teressa’s
Birth;
he would continue in this manner, doling out bits of information to Arrigo and ingratiating himself with Mechella through his art. This notion of hers to paint the inheritances of the Casteyan orphans had met with his approval, and he’d personally selected those who would do the work. Rafeyo was, of course, among them—resentful at this squandering, as he saw it, of his talents. But the goodwill he would establish with Mechella would be invaluable in the future.

There was the boy’s fierce loyalty to his mother, the discarded Mistress, to worry him—but as much as Dioniso might want to paint Rafeyo into liking Mechella, he could not. Any alteration in behavior would be remarked on. And anyway, how much damage could he do in only a few years, when he would be almost exclusively at Palasso Grijalva learning his craft?

The ceremony installing Dioniso as Premio Frato was a subdued one, out of respect for the earthquake victims up north. After a solemn ritual in the Crechetta, during which he received the
begemmed golden collar of his new office and vows of obedience of the other Limners, he went out into the torchlit gardens to be formally introduced to the rest of Palasso Grijalva and hear their congratulations. Normally there would have been a grand banquet, but it suited him not to spend the whole night drinking and feasting. He had another errand.

Accordingly, once all was quiet in the vast warren of the Palasso, he slipped out a back gate and made his way to his secret atelierro. The paints were a matter of moments to mix; he need only add one detail to the figure of Dioniso in the
Peintraddo Memorrio
: the collar of the Premio Frato.

It was the work of an hour. Afterward, he mixed other colors and painted in another sprig of rosemary for dear Matteyo, whispering, “It was not in vain, frato meyo. I
will
become Lord Limner again.”

Then he sat down at the table, running his fingers through the thick Tza’ab rug atop it, and contemplated the dead white bone of his own skull.

Fifty or sixty years after Sario’s “death”—he’d forgotten when he’d done it, and it didn’t matter—he had opened the grave one midnight. Nearly all the flesh had rotted off, so he hadn’t experienced the shock of seeing his own half-decomposed face. Taking skull from spine, leaving all else in the grave, he’d brought it back here and cleaned it with acids to get rid of the last bits of skin. It rested now on this table, a reminder of what he had been, what he had done, what he would do—and what fate did
not
await him.

Taking it between his two hands, he stared into the empty eye-sockets and smiled. For others, this was the end of all things: a hollow skull where once a brain had been, grinning teeth bared with no soft lips to cover them, cold bone unwarmed by flesh and skin and thick black hair. He alone had escaped this destiny.