The Golden Key (10 page)

“I know they are riddled with baseborn bastards, Baltran! And can even you name how many of them now have Tza’ab blood in their veins? Can even you swear they do not answer that blood, and plot revenge upon Tira Virte for their defeat at Rio Sanguo?”

“They are Grijalvas,” he said steadily, “all of them. Their unfortunate ancestors—who, I remind you, had no choice in their circumstances!—were accepted as such by the Duchess Jesminia herself, may the Matra ei Filho bless her gracious name—” fingertips to lips, to heart, “—and no one in the do’Verrada family shall ever neglect to serve her wishes in this.”

“That was more than one hundred years ago!” Gitanna cried. “She is long dead, Baltran—and surely she would admit that the blood of her own family is more important than the blood of either Grijalvas
or
Tza’ab bandits!”

“Grijalva blood, spilled in that battle—that is why it became known as the River of Blood, Gitanna, there was so much!—is one of the reasons the do’Verradas rule today,” he said quietly. “You forget yourself, Gitanna. You forget your history.”

“I know my history, Baltran!” She sat upright now, bed linens wrenched up to modestly cover what a scant hour before had given him so much pleasure. “Oh, yes, bless the name of the gracious Duchess Jesminia who took in those defiled Grijalva women and welcomed their half-breed bastards—but look also at what it has brought us! They live now as serpents in the very bosom of Tira Virte, in Meya Suerta itself. If the Tza’ab chose to attack, they would have confederates right here, Baltran!”

“The Tza’ab as a unified enemy were destroyed utterly at Rio Sanguo,” he said patiently; it was not a new argument, though never had it issued from her lips. “Additionally, without a holy man to lead them—what
remains
of them—they will never again attempt to take back the lands that now are ours.”

“But they
did
lay waste to the borderlands, Baltran, for nearly one hundred years! The Diviner’s death did not break their hearts; it made them desperate to redeem that death. That’s why the Empress fielded so many against us decades later. And there could be yet another Tza’ab chieftain who styles himself a second Diviner.”

“Skirmishes, Gitanna; and when there are rich lands to be won there will always be skirmishes, even as Pracanza attempts to carve away our lands. But those of Tza’ab Rih will never be the threat
they once were. There is no heart, despite the mouth that wails so eloquently of loss and endless demands for reparation.”

“But—”

“Trust me in this, Gitanna … Verro Grijalva himself destroyed the
Kita’ab
before he died. Without the Diviner
and
their holy book, there is no guidance, no unifying plan. And even a pretender who claims the Diviner’s name cannot hope to reassemble the Riders of the Golden Wind and lead a Tza’ab army without the
Kita’ab.
” He shook his head. “They are broken as a force, I promise you … those born of Tza’ab Rih are fallen, the Diviner killed, his Riders shattered. They are all of them merely bandits again—an occasional nuisance, no more. They are no threat to Tira Virte.”

“But the Grijalvas
know
things!”

He laughed, in good humor again despite her desperation. “So do you, viva meya. So do you! And so long as you do—and how to
use
those ‘things’—you shall please me well!” He held up his doublet. “Now, come dress me as hastily as you undressed me; it is time I returned to the Palasso.”

Her mouth formed a mutinous line even as she climbed out of bed to help him into his doublet. “You are wrong, Baltran. You dismiss our concerns too lightly.”

“As I have told your brother, given proof of your beliefs I will indeed move to prevent what you fear. But the Grijalvas themselves were broken by the Nerro Lingua, Gitanna, even as the Tza’ab were broken by battle … too few are born now, and too many die before their time. Their blood—their bandit-bred Tza’ab blood, Gitanna!—is too weak. So is their seed.”

She tended his doublet with experienced, efficient fingers, tucking here, straightening there, braiding and lacing and knotting and looping. “It requires only one, Baltran. One man of magic, bent on destroying you.”

He smiled as she tied the collar of his billowy lawn shirt, his cuffs, then smoothed the doublet over it. “And who would that be, Gitanna? Have you a candidate?”

She shook her head. “You make too light of it, Baltran.”

“Because they have neither the grounds nor the means to do what you fear. They have their own code of honor, Gitanna—and that is precisely why Verro Grijalva gave his life to save my greatgrandfather Renayo. They serve. They do not rule. Had they wanted to, they might have won Tira Virte by acclamation after Verro’s actions against the Tza’ab, but it was
us
they acclaimed: Do’Verrada. Not Grijalva.”

Her mouth was a thin line, flattening the lush curves that so attracted him. “He
died
, Baltran. Who can say what might have become of him?”

“He was hailed a hero, never a Duke. Even while he lived.”

She looked him square in the eye. “Once you do’Verradas were no better than Grijalvas. Warlords, Baltran, no more—though clever enough and strong enough to take
and
keep. But look at you now. You rule absolutely. All of Tira Virte worships the do’Verradas—after the Matra ei Filho, of course, and the Ecclesia—but who is to say the Grijalvas do not long for the same thing?”

“Eiha, woman, you weary me with this! I will tell you again: they are a small family severely weakened by the plague. Many of their women cannot conceive children, many of their men cannot sire any. They may never regain their numbers, nor even their physical strength. And they are, as you say, riddled with Tza’ab blood, which is considered a taint by the Ecclesia and many of the citizens—the Tza’ab are infidels, after all, condemned in the eyes of the Mother and Her Son.” He shook his head. “Do you really believe Tira Virte would accept a Grijalva as Duke?”

The exasperated protest did not even slow her. “It is fortunate for you Verro Grijalva
did
die, Baltran. You do not know what he might have planned had he survived.”

Patiently he said, “It was in Alesso’s name our people fought, and then in Renayo’s when we consolidated the duchy. Never in Verro Grijalva’s.” More pointedly, he added, “And never in the name of any Serrano.”

She had the grace to color. “No,” she murmured, “we inspire nothing, we Serranos—”

“Except do’Verrada lust.” He smiled, forgiving her. “Viva meya, I thank you for your concern, but you would do better to trust in me than in your ambitious family.”

“If we are ambitious, it is to retain our place—not to throw down the do’Verradas from theirs and fill it with Grijalvas.”

“Matra Dolcha, Gitanna, I cry you let it be done, this argument. Bassda! I weary of it.”

Though naked, she was clad in certainty. “Let none of them come to Court, Baltran. Ever.”

He sighed deeply, not troubling to hide exasperation. “As long as I live, your brother is Lord Limner. Other than art, the Grijalvas have no avenue by which to join the Court. And when I die, it shall be my son’s decree who succeeds to the position.”

“He is a boy, Baltran.”

“Just so, Gitanna … and unless I expire of overindulgence in your bed—far better that way, I think, than of a poisoned Tza’ab dart as Verro Grijalva did!—Alejandro will not be making any appointments until well after his majority.” He tugged at the crimson-embroidered cuffs of his shirt beneath stiff doublet sleeves. “And now it is time I paid my respects to the Duchess. Today we formally name our daughter before the Ecclesia.” He bent slightly, planted a kiss on her brow, and was gone.

Saavedra, much exercised and out of sorts, found Sario at last in the family galerria within Palasso Grijalva. In the ten days since they had witnessed Chieva do’Sangua each had avoided the other, as if afraid to be reminded of what they witnessed. But now she sought him out; they had been too close for too long to remain apart, and the secret too great to keep to oneself alone. It must be shared with him—
had
to be shared with him—who knew what she had seen.

The Galerria Grijalva was not as the Galerria Verrada. It was much smaller, less grand, and distinctly private; no one entered without permission, and permission was never granted save to Grijalvas, who had no need of it.

“Sario—” He was a slender nonentity in the distant dimness at the far end of the chamber, standing very still before one of the older paintings in the galerria. The long whitewashed chamber was empty save for themselves—and countless paintings of long-dead people—but she lowered her voice nonetheless. The determined whisper carried straight to him. It was an innocuous question; let them hear, if there were any near enough. “Sario, why were you not in drawing class this morning?”

He turned his head away from the painting then and looked at her. Shocked, she saw that he had lost significant weight; his face was very thin, and the shadows of the chamber, lit by its whitewash and little else, created angled contours she had never seen before. He was of the age when boys grew overnight, all awkward of limbs and voice and movements, but this was not growth. This was something far more serious.

“Sario!” She hastened the length of the gallery to his side. “Are you ill?”

He turned back to the painting, hitching a thin shoulder. “No!” A long pause; the set of his mouth was bitter, too bitter for a boy. “Why do we have nothing but copies here?”

“Copies?” Full of other thoughts, the question at first meant
nothing. But the answer took no effort. “The originals are in the Galerria Verrada, of course. Or in private palassos.”

What filled the galerria were carefully cataloged copies, placed in meticulous arrangement intended to best flatter the paintings, their colors, their composition. Gilt frames, wooden frames, canvas and wood and paper, patinaed and illuminated by natural light permitted entrance by strategically-placed windows and the angle of intricate shutters, as well as precisely-plotted placements of iron candle-stands, closely attended by quiet-colored clay jugs of water and sand, in case of fire.

“But we painted them,” Sario said. “
We
did. Grijalvas.” He looked at her again. “They rob us of our heritage.”

He leaves me behind so often.
… “Who does?”

“The do’Verradas. Serranos. The rich folk of the city.” The hollows beneath the angle of his cheekbones were dark as a dusting of soot, limning brittle bones as sharp as his tone. “They commission the great works from graffiti-crafters like Zaragosa Serrano, strip us of what we once were—and ask us to paint
copies
of our own works!”

Saavedra followed his line of vision and looked at the painting. It was a huge canvas, framed in a heavy, ornately-carved wooden frame:
Death of Verro Grijalva.
He was depicted as a miraculously attractive and unbloodied hero dying in the arms of his beloved Duke Renayo—blessed be his memory—with whom, the stories claimed, Verro Grijalva had been friends since childhood. The slackness in Verro’s handsome face confirmed his death, but it was not that which transfixed the eyes. It was the grief in Renayo’s face, the expression of deep sorrow, of a great and terrible anger—and of fear.

“A copy,” Sario declared bitterly. “The original hangs in Palasso Verrada.”

Saavedra studied the painting. The play of light and shadow intrigued her; chiaroscuro was difficult to paint properly, but this artist had been a master. Piedro Grijalva; only a Grijalva, grieving as much for his kinsman Verro as for Renayo do’Verrada, could properly capture the intense emotions of the moment.

“Tza’ab,” she murmured, for in the background, in the upper right corner, was a lone man, dusky-faced as if burned permanently dark by the desert sun, yet remarkably pale of eye. Magnificently mounted upon a gape-mouthed black horse, he wore dramatic robes of brilliant green, all aglitter with brass and glass, and in one hand clutched a brass-bound carved wooden tube through which had flown the poisoned dart that took Verro’s life.

Saavedra doubted the Tza’ab warrior had been so close as was depicted, or surely he would have been killed by do’Verrada forces. But such was the way of art: one re-created truth, remade history, in honor of the subject.

At the behest of the patron who ordered it painted?

“Tza’ab,” Sario said, looking at the green-clad warrior. “Perhaps a kinsman of ours. As Verro was.” He turned directly to her. “Tomaz is dead.”

The shift in topic, the baldness of the statement, shook her. “Dead? But—”

“They destroyed his talent, his Gift, by painting him blind, by painting him crippled in the
Peintraddo
… Chieva do’Sangua, the ‘discipline of the damned’—but now he is dead.”

“Matra ei Filho! Sario—”

“Dead,” he repeated. “Now he need not suffer.”

It had been ghastly, what they had seen, but Tomaz had not at any time appeared in danger of dying. Only of suffering.
As they intended him to suffer.
And he
had
suffered, she was certain, though she had sickened so soon thereafter that she had seen little beyond the physical results, and then only in a combination of shocked observation and a flash of insight, of too-vivid—and too accurate—imagination.