The Golden Key (134 page)

  SEVENTY-SEVEN  

Sario
approved of the suite assigned to Princess Alazais. It served his purpose. Sunlight flooded her sitting room, and so he had chosen this room as his atelierro. It was quiet here, this the second morning after their arrival at court. Alazais sat by a window, hands folded over her embroidery. Her faithful serving woman stood ten paces from her, ready to act at the slightest sign from her mistress. One of her soldiers waited at attention by the double doors that led into the long Palasso corridors; he and his brother shared this duty.

The windows looked out over the private courtyard reserved for the do’Verradas and their most favored guests. The garden was lush, green with rain but bare of flowers.

Sario watched Eleyna draw.

As requested, she worked on her third study of Princess Alazais. Once the drawing had been done to his satisfaction, she would prepare a canvas and transfer the drawing to a white ground, then layer in the paint. In this way he could watch over her technique every step of the way. He had seen immediately that she was as gifted as those boys he had marked out for himself over the years. She was not Gifted, true, but she would serve his purpose just as well. She was the canvas on which he could prove himself, for a teacher is only as good as his best student.

He had always been his own best student, of course. Certainly, in his first lifetime, he had changed the entire course of the Grijalva family, of Tira Virte itself. As Riobaro, he had left his stamp on the position of Lord Limner, the exemplar every subsequent Lord Limner must compare himself to. But of late he felt more and more that he was struggling against a strong current. More and more it was easier to go abroad—and yet harder, once he had gone abroad, to influence Grijalva painting. As Riobaro he had once commanded the obedience of every Grijalva painter. But now, despite his own great influence as a painter, the latest style had lost everything he had given to Grijalva tradition except that idiotic emphasis on precision, accuracy, and exactitude. He would never have spoken so if he had known they would take his criticism so literally. Eiha! They were not worthy of him!

He needed a student whose skills he could nurture so they
would, in their fullness, illuminate once and for all the truth: Sario Grijalva had no equal.

“Her Highness scarcely moves,” said Eleyna. “I’ve never seen someone who could sit so still for so long.”

He took the pencil out of her hand, leaned over her, and added lines to the rendering of Alazais’ hands. “Her hands are quiet. You make them look as if they are about to act.”

She frowned, studying the change without speaking. Saavedra would have argued with him or scolded him for his presumption. But like Saavedra this one had to admit, in the end, that he was right.

“Yes. I see!” As soon as she saw, her expression flooded with light, the Luza do’Orro; he recognized it at once. She took a fresh sheet of paper and began again, eagerly.

Eiha! It was this quality that had convinced him of her ability. Her desire, manifested in her constant striving. But it was an oddly charged quality, different in tone from that of the boys he had chosen. They had wanted mastery of power as well as art; they had wanted the acknowledgment and the authority as much as they had wanted the secret of the Golden Key. She wanted only the art. She
had
only the art.

Assured now, Eleyna drew quickly.

“Yes,” he said, seeing it develop, knowing it would be the correct sketch. “When you are done, you will prepare a panel with a gesso ground, whiting, animal glue, and a third part of titanium white. When it has dried and you have sanded it, you will transfer the drawing—”

“But that’s a very old-fashioned technique! A painting done in that way could take months.”

“I am not finished.”

“I beg your pardon, Master Sario.”

“We will practice other techniques, more drawing, in different media, alla prima and so on, while you work on this portrait in the old style.”

“Of course, Master Sario.” She had the grace to look shamefaced for questioning him. “En verro, I have never painted so closely to the style of the Old Masters.”

“Indeed. The moualimos no longer teach oil painting as they once did.”

“The moualimos?” She paused, startled, and then chuckled. “Oh, yes, that’s what they called the teachers, back—eiha!—fifty years ago.”

Impertinent child! “The training given in these days is not nearly
as vigorous as what I received when I was a ch—” He barely caught himself. “—as in the days when the Grijalvas were still struggling to establish themselves after the Nerro Lingua. But I have observed that so many years as the accepted masters of art in Tira Virte have made them lazy.”

She gave him an odd look, then turned back to survey Princess Alazais. “It has also made the Viehos Fratos complacent, while they yet remain arrogant about their Gifts.”

“You know a great deal about the Viehos Fratos.”

“My grandmother, Leilias, educated me.”

Lelias had certainly been free with the family secrets!

“I am aware she told me much I am not supposed to know,” Eleyna added cautiously.

Was that meant as warning? Or invitation? “Then you know that Grijalva secrets must remain secrets.”

“And I understand why … though it seems these few have enriched themselves, and the family, at the expense of others.”

“Eleyna, if you had been born a poor man’s child, you would not have such talent as you do. So does the Matra show Her grace.”

“But in the Academies there are young men who come from families that have no connection to the artistic crafts. How can you say that only we are so privileged?”

“Let us suppose, estuda, that you were such a child born into such a family.” He gestured toward the room they inhabited, its gracious space and high ceiling trimmed with sky blue roundels, lintels dripping with tiny carved cherubs who, frozen forever, held trumpets to plump lips. The wallpaper, of course, would have to go: Sario had grown heartily sick of the cloying scenes of shep-ardesses, their antique costumes encrusted with gilt, at rest in sentimental pastoral settings. The craftsman’s work was adequate, better than the composition. But it must be redecorated in the restrained and more tasteful Friesemarkian style.

Eleyna was staring at the wallpaper with an expression caught between horror and laughter. He plucked the pencil out of her hand. “Would this have been yours?” he asked.

“No.” She said it reluctantly. “They do not admit girls to the Academies, not in Meya Suerta. But in Friesemark—!”

“Eiha! We are not in Friesemark! Finish what you are doing, grazzo.”

“Yes, Master Sario.”

Not an easy student, to be sure. But an easy student would not be as rewarding, nor would a complacent student be able to go as far as he intended her to go. Eleyna Grijalva would, in her own way,
be another masterpiece added to his other works. He watched her finish the drawing. Alazais came to life under her hands. Yes, it would do.

A courtier entered to announce the Grand Duke. Renayo, despite his other faults, had no taste for his own personal aggrandizement. He moved through his Palasso with a minimum of retinue, unlike, say, old—what had his name been? Which Duke was it who had not stirred from his bed without at least twelve conselhos, Courtfolk, and servants fawning over his every word and act? Do’nado—nothing mattered but this: Renayo came to pay court to Alazais.

Sario dismissed Eleyna, who took her drawing and retreated out the door. He crossed to stand beside Alazais, who greeted the Grand Duke prettily enough but did not stand, letting him bow over her hand as a lesser prince bows to a greater.

“Your Highness.” Renayo sat beside Alazais in a chair brought forward by a servant. He spoke to her in Ghillasian, a tongue Renayo had learned at his mother’s knee. “I am pleased to find you alone here, so we may have an intimate little talk.” He looked up, pointedly, at Sario, who smiled blandly back at him.

“You may speak freely, Your Grace. It was Master Sario who rescued me from—” A delicate shudder, so perfectly executed. “— those … those ruffians who had taken me and … my beloved father and mother….” She could not go on.

Renayo patted her hand in a fatherly manner. “There, there, child. What you have suffered! Eiha! You are a young woman of remarkable strength! A credit to your sex. Although we grieve for your parents, you must know they gaze proudly down upon you where they rest safe in the arms of the Matra ei Filho.”

“What is to become of me?” asked Alazais faintly.

“We will keep you safely here, ninia meya.”

Alazais wore her hair in the new style, half up, blonde ringlets framing her pretty face. No man could suspect this delicate creature to be anything but what she appeared to be: a girl torn from all she knew, struggling to make sense of her new circumstances. Even when her words, uttered in that soft voice, belied her looks. “What of Ghillas? I am the rightful queen, as you know, but how am I to recover what the Matreia e Filei have granted to my family these many years? It would be going against their dictates, surely, to let these ruffians upset the natural order.”

“Let us wait a few days before we make plans. There is no need to hurry. You must rest and recover your strength.”

Sario frowned. Renayo was not taking the bait as quickly as he
ought to. Alazais, as if sensing Sario’s frustration, glanced up questioningly at him.

“Your Grace, if I may,” said Sario. “You must realize as well as I do that a delicate young woman such as Princess Alazais needs a protector.”

“It will not do to rush these things,” said Renayo sternly, letting go of Alazais’ hands and getting to his feet. “You are young and do not understand matters of state. I must consult my conselhos. I must consult Lord Limner Andreo,
your
superior. But alas, we are confined here for the time being until the mobs have dispersed. I have called in the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta to remind those goodfolk among the crowd of the Matra’s will in these matters. If the Ecclesia cannot reason with the rebellion’s leaders, then I must use force. But I will not act rashly.”

“You do not mean to marry Alazais to Edoard?” demanded Sario.
Moronno!
“You would be a fool to lose this chance to increase Tira Virte’s fortunes!”

“I would be a fool to divide my Heir’s attention in such a fashion! Eiha! You forget to whom you speak, young man!”

Why couldn’t this idiot just do what Sario knew was right? “You do not mean to take this advantage to further bind Tira Virte’s fortunes with Ghillas?”

“I have other sons,” said Renayo icily, but his anger did not deter Sario.

“One who is a half-wit and another, if rumor is true, who runs out on the streets with the Libertistas.”

But now Renayo regained self-control. Now he looked amused. “Some young men feel it necessary to rebel before they can return to the fold. And you, my impertinent young friend, understand that I have other resources, should I need them. You may go,” Renayo added, his voice dripping condecension.

Sario had no choice but to retreat. But as he walked the length of the sitting room, he looked back to see Renayo settling down for a cozy chat with Alazais. The Grand Duke might deny his ambitions, but they existed nonetheless.

The suite assigned to Alazais was large enough to accommodate a score more servants. Beyond the sitting room Sario had set aside a chamber for himself. It had windows, a single door, and mercifully drab decor: wood-paneled walls unchanged for a hundred years.

Entering and locking the door behind him, he surveyed the room and then shifted a table a hand’s width to the right, moved the couch out away from the wall, turned the covers back on his bed.
Placed a branch of candles, unlit, in a different position on the side table.

Finally he eased the cover off his newest canvas. He regarded the portrait of Renayo, still in half-tones, deadcolor and under-painting visible. Renayo stood in a parkland, his booted feet resting on grass, which represented Submission, his hands grasping a bouquet of blue-flowered flax—the only spot of bright color in the half-finished painting—whose blossoms signified Fate. He needed a tincture of valerian, to increase Renayo’s Accommodating Disposition. He should add a peach tree in bloom, a few of the blossoms settling on Renayo’s coat, and blend a fine powder of peach blossom into the paint as well. “I Am Your Captive.”