The Golden Key (136 page)

“Get back from him!” cried his mother. Through a fog, he felt her grab his shoulders and wrench him to his feet, drag him back, away from the horrible wreck that was all that was left of Andreo Grijalva.

“Matra ei Filho protect us,” murmured Giaberto. “He is dead.”

  SEVENTY-NINE  

Rohario
had never seen a council that conducted itself in such an unruly manner. The conselhos at his father’s council table spoke only when spoken to and rarely said anything with which his father might disagree. It was one reason Rohario found the Council of Ministers so boring.

This, the second official meeting of the Libertistas, was not boring.

“I say we call ourselves the Corteis and to the hells with those who feel we need the Grand Duke’s permission!” That from a brash young journeyman who wore the sigil of the Masons Guild, the most senior of the building trades.

“Sit down, young man! Maesso Torrejon has not finished speaking. We speak each in our turn. Or must I remind you again of the rules we have agreed to for this assembly?”

The journeyman threw himself onto a bench not five paces in front of Rohario, looking sulky but not displeased with his outburst. An equally young friend, wearing the fringed cap typically worn by young men newly come to the practice of architecture, whispered into the journeyman’s ear. This surprised Rohario, since architects were received at Court and craftsmen most certainly were not except for formal audiences on certain Holy Days. Somehow, these two young men had formed a common bond. Others now commented on the journeyman’s furious declaration.

Maesso Velasco pounded a fist on the table he was using as a podium. He had a big, booming voice and a jovial manner underscored by a steely authority. “My friends, my colleagues, let us pray have silence so Maesso Torrejon can continue.”

Slowly the crowd of men crammed into Gaspar’s dining room quieted down. They might, and did, disagree vehemently over some issues, yet the rules they had agreed to allowed every man there the right to speak.

And speak they did. Maesso Torrejon, representing the cloth merchants. Maesso Araujo, an ostentatious man who headed one of Meya Suerta’s prominent banking families. A goldsmith. A notary attached to the civic wing of the Palasso Justissia. Maesso Lienas, a landlord so wealthy he had managed to marry his handsomest
daughter to an impoverished Count. Two sanctos, who had sacriligious views about the Ecclesia’s support of the Grand Duke. Even a man Rohario recognized from Court, a perennial malcontent, younger son of one of Renayo’s ministers. Rohario remained in his corner and hoped no one would recognize him.

As for Maesso Velasco, his great-grandfathers had parlayed their shipbuilding business founded in the province of Shagarra into a trading venture that spanned all of Tira Virte and far beyond. Rohario knew the Velasco name well from
Treaties
hung on the wall of the Galerria. Now this scion of that house presided over the proceedings with solemn forbearance for the most outrageous speeches and a strict adherence to the time limit given to each man to present his views.

What they wanted did not sound to Rohario like the demands of thieves and ruffians.

A greater say in taxation; the right to grant imprimature to any unusual revenue demands by the Grand Duke. The right to judge themselves through their own courts and to pass laws that would affect their own proceedings and the lives of the many craftsmen and property-holding families who were—they insisted—the backbone of Tira Virte. The right to establish the Corteis as an assembly equal in stature to the Grand Duke’s appointed conselhos, whose ranks were only filled with men of noble family.

One of the sanctos suggested that the right of suffrage, of the vote to fill the assembly, be granted to all men because all men were equal in the eyes of the Matra ei Filho. “
Fraternite;
as they claim in Ghillas!” he cried. He was hissed down.

Rohario frowned as a new speaker stood up.

“Gentlemen, you know me as Maesso Azéma.” His silver hair stood out starkly against the fine cut of his black coat.

“Bloody aristocrat!” shouted the mason’s journeyman, not without pride at his own audacity.

Azéma smiled softly. Rohario did not trust a man who moved through the world so smoothly. “It is true, my young friend, that I am a relative of Baron do’Brendizia. For those of you who do not know why I am here today—”

“I don’t! Go back to the Palasso, if you can get through the barricades!”

“Quiet!” said Velasco sternly. “Let our friend speak. He has much of interest to say.”

Azéma continued. “I am here because my beloved brother, Sebastiano, died in the prisons of Grand Duke Cossimio, third of
that name. Sebastiano supported the very cause we meet for today: to reconvene the Corteis. I vowed to carry on his work.”

This confession brought a wondering buzz to the chamber. Rohario sighed and hunched farther down in his chair. Gaspar’s dining room was overcrowded, and with so many men lining the walls Rohario could see only the upper part of Eleyna’s beautiful mural. One white patch, the faint outline of the cartoon still stippled on its surface, was all that remained unfinished. It seemed forlorn, that bit of white caught halfway between starting and completion.

Had she truly said
those
words: “
Understand now what is in my heart.
” Matra Dolcha! She had kissed him.
Here.
He lifted a hand to brush his cheek. He could still feel the touch of her lips on his skin, even after so many days.

“To be successful,” Azéma was saying in that same oily voice, “you must unite all the discontented factions in Tira Virte, not just the guildsmen. If that means extending your hand to those of us who grew up in the Court, then so be it. No!” He gestured toward the journeyman, who had jumped up again. “My young friend, you look so fierce, but if you want your children to prosper, you will see that united by our common purpose we are stronger than we are divided by our birth.

“To that end, we have a potent weapon to hand which we must use wisely. Sitting in this room is the second son of Grand Duke Renayo, whose sympathies to our cause I have known about for some time.”

Matra ei Filho! But it was too late. First one, then another, then all at once the rest: they followed the line of Azéma’s gaze and stared. For once, there was complete silence.

“Don Rohario, perhaps you have something to say to these, our comrades?” asked Azéma.

Merditto! Those chiros Brendizias had never been trustworthy. His mother had said so. Despite a flash of real fury, Rohario knew he had to play along. He rose. The men stirred, like an anticipatory beast deciding whether to pounce or let alone. Innkeeper Gaspar, by the door, wore an expression of comical dismay—the secret he had been keeping was, at last, revealed.

“Amicos meyos,” began Rohario, although it grated to address these men with such familiarity. “I stand before you … at a loss for words. I did not expect to be asked to speak.”

A low chuckle from the assembly. He waited it out, struggling to think. Azéma still smiled, but his expression struck Rohario as more malicious than encouraging.

Rohario reached for his cravat, thought better of straightening it here where everyone was watching. “I am not accustomed to politics. Nor did I truly know anything at all about what went on in Meya Suerta outside of the Palasso until just after the Feast of Imago, when I came for the first time to this inn.”

“What brought you here?” demanded the journeyman defiantly. The lack of title resonated as clearly as a spoken insult in the chamber. Filho do’canna! Rohario fought to hide his anger. What could he say that they would believe?

To his astonishment, Gaspar pushed forward. The innkeeper waved expansively toward the mural on the opposite wall. “He fell in love with the lovely young woman I hired to paint this mural!”

That brought guffaws. Rohario blushed, but he felt the tide shift. It was time to forge forward.

“That is not what kept me here!” He stood on firmer ground now. “I have been working—” He had to wait a moment while the buzz died down. “—as a clerk. But I have been listening, also, listening to the voices of the people of Meya Suerta. When I asked my father what he was doing about these grievances—these justified grievances—
he threw me out!
” He waited for that to sink in and finished in a quieter voice. “So I am here.”

They regarded him with considering silence, no longer suspicious but not yet convinced.

“What do you mean to do to help us?” demanded the journeyman, jumping to his feet.

Velasco slapped a hand down on the table. “Young Ruis, if you speak out of turn one more time, I will happily throw you out of here. Bassda! Let Don Rohario speak.”

But Don Rohario was staring helplessly at his audience, at a loss for words. Azéma’s smirk broadened; he seemed positively gleeful.

Perhaps it was only coincidence. Perhaps the Matra truly watched over Her faithful sons. At that moment a rap sounded on the door which then opened to reveal a burly young man holding a cudgel.

“Maesso Velasco,” said the young thug, whose coat bore the sigil of the respectable Silk Manufacturers Guild, “regretto, but there is a man here.…”

“Regretto,” said his charge, who belied his polite expression by pushing past the young thug and into the room. He was a vigorous, elderly man with a full head of white hair. He wore a silver key on a chain around his neck.

As soon as he entered the room, a number of the assembled men hissed softly.

“—lackey for the Grand Dukes—”

“—chi’patro—”

“—cursed Limners—”

“Silence!” roared Velasco, losing his bluff joviality. “
All
are welcome to speak.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the old man, whom Rohario knew well. “I am Cabral Grijalva. I have come here to speak with—” He turned. “—Don Rohario. I did not mean to disrupt your proceedings.”

“Do you mean to betray us to the Grand Duke?” demanded young Ruis.

Cabral eyed him mildly, nonplussed by the antagonism directed against him, a man widely known to be the personal favorite of Grand Duke Renayo. “Young man, as long as you bring your petition forward without disturbing the peace, I can assure you the Grand Duke will take your grievances under advisement.”

A number of men shouted at once. “Throw him out! Sit down! Sit down! Outrageous! Chiros!”

Velasco seized a knife and with its hilt pounded furiously on the table. “Bassda!
There is to be silence
!” When the assembly subsided, he turned to Cabral Grijalva. “What is it you want, Master Cabral?”

“Maesso Velasco, quommo viva? How is your lovely wife? I remember vividly what a beautiful bride she made.”

“The wedding portrait you painted still hangs in our entrance hall, Master. Indeed, I have a daughter betrothed now, and we have only begun to think about her
Peintraddo Marria.
We had spoken of hiring you again.”

Cabral bowed, acknowledging the compliment. “I hope you will vouch for my good name, Maesso, before this hostile audience. My presence here at this time is entirely accidental. I received information that I might find Don Rohario at this inn. I must consult him on a personal matter.”

“Forgive me, but I must ask you to be more particular.”

Cabral carefully adjusted his lace cuffs, as if weighing his words. “It has to do with a young woman, whose good name I do not care to bandy about in circumstances as public as these. I hope you understand.”

Rohario walked forward before he realized he had set his feet one in front of the other. “A few minutes alone, I beg of you,” he said to Velasco, to the room at large. “Then I will return.” He was
flushed, he knew it, but the thought that Cabral had brought news of Eleyna set him on edge.

They relented but only so far as to let the two men confer in the kitchens. Here, by the hearth, it was hot, but private if they kept their voices down.

“Eleyna—” Rohario blurted out before Cabral could even sit down on the stool where the cook’s girl usually sat to turn the roasting spit.

“—is safely at Palasso Verrada. I think you unwise to allow yourself to become mixed up with these malcontents, Rohario.”