The Golden Key (151 page)

Velasco, as presiding Premio Oratorrio of the Provisional Assembly, rose and walked forward with deliberate slowness, holding the precious parchment in his hands. He knelt before the Grand Duke—Rohario admired the careful way in which Velasco and the other senior men went out of their way to show their respect for the dignity of the ducal office—and handed the parchment not to Renayo but to one of his conselhos. The conselho cleared his throat and read the entire document aloud.

The men assembled in the pews listened with intent silence. Renayo’s expression remained grave. To Rohario’s relief, they got through the entire document without anyone disturbing the peace. The bench on which he sat grew harder and harder, and despite himself he realized he was growing restless. Waiting. Anticipating.

It came as soon as the conselho, finishing, handed the document to Renayo.

“I will be heard!” There, on the opposite side of the nave in another aisle box, stood Azéma. “By the right given by the Ecclesia to any man to challenge falsehood, I challenge the right of Renayo Mirisso Edoard Verro do’Verrada to sign this Constitussion. He is
not
the son of Arrigo. He has no right to the ducal throne. His signature does not constitute a legal binding mark.”

So much for peace.

Rohario hunched down, covered his ears with his hands to shut out the roar of many voices shouting all at once, then thought better of the gesture. Better to face the trouble square on. In the great sanctuary the noise echoed doubly loud, so loud that he wondered if it could shatter the huge glass windows or the fine glass vessels that held the holy wine blessed by Matra ei Filho.

Strangely, if he could indeed discern any order in the madness, at least half of the shouting and cursing and wild uproar was directed
against
Azéma. There was hope, then. Renayo had adherents, even among those who sought to limit his power.

The Premio Sancto struggled up out of his holy seat and lifted a hand, but no one took any mind. The tremendous uproar showed no sign of abating. Even when the frail Premia Sancta rose, even when Rohario could see her mouth move, her words drowned by the tumult of louder voices, the shouting and hubbub did not quiet. Renayo sat stone-faced and watched the assembly. How could he ever come to trust in this assembly if this was how they behaved? Rohario bit his lip and then, at last, made up his mind to act. He stood up.

But at that moment the great doors of the Cathedral opened, light flooding in to sculpt new and darker shadows along the aisles.
A procession entered, a short line of men dressed in dark formal coats and trousers, gray caps tucked under their arms. Each man wore, around his neck, a golden key on a heavy gold chain. Each man carried, in his right hand, a copy of the Holy Verses. Behind them walked servants dressed in plain livery, bearing two huge shrouded shapes that could only be….

Paintings! They were so big that Rohario could not imagine what images they might be. Behind the paintings, escorted by Cabral Grijalva, walked a man whose arms were chained behind him. Rohario did not recognize him, but he also wore the sigil of the golden key. Directly behind him walked a woman veiled in black lace that hung to her waist; her ash-rose gown belled out beneath the veil, by its color and style a relic of ancient days. Behind her clustered other Grijalva adults and children, a mass of them, coming forward like postulants.
There!

“Eleyna!” He called her name, leaning forward, but she either did not hear him or chose not to hear. Her expression was grim. Her sister Beatriz, looking preternaturally calm, held her hand.

He could not look away from Eleyna. He could not bear to let her stand alone. He, too, had Grijalva blood in him. Why should he not join their number? He grasped hold of the half wall, ready to leap over it; a hand on his arm stayed him.

“Your place is here, Don Rohario,” said the man beside him, misunderstanding the intent of his movement, “not with your father. You have chosen your place, and that is to stand with us.”

Just as Eleyna had chosen, in the end, to stand with the Grijalvas.

Rohario bowed his head. Remembered his father’s words short hours ago:
We agreed it is the only way.
He sat down. Now the voices that had moments before been snouting against the Grand Duke or against Azéma shouted new words: “Grijalvas! Limners!”

The Grijalva Limners knelt, not before the Grand Duke but before the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta, who sat down again in their chairs. The servants holding the great paintings unveiled them and slowly turned them so that all could see:
two
paintings of
The First Mistress
, the most famous painting in Tira Virte … except that one of the paintings lacked the figure of Saavedra Grijalva. The room was a perfect reproduction, but it contained no woman.

The veiled woman strode up to the dais. She stood there while slowly the assembly quieted until only whispers disturbed the great hush that now fell in the cathedral.

“If I may beg your indulgence,” said Cabral Grijalva. His voice
carried sound and true in the vast gulf of the cathedral. His age of itself made him worthy of attention. “If you would examine these, Your Holinesses, you will see that the paints of this one are old and cracked and faded in color, yet it is perfect in execution, as befits a portrait done by one of the Old Masters. And here, a copy done recently: can you smell the faint odor of paint? Can you see that it is not dry yet but only beginning to dry down through the layers?”

The Premio Sancto touched his heart as though astonished. He pointed at the painting that displayed only an empty chamber.

Cabral went on. “For many years, Your Holinesses, you and your predecessors have heard but ignored rumors of magic born into the Grijalva line. Of Grijalva Limners working together with the do’Verradas to increase our country’s fortunes. And so, together, they have. For I am come today as senior Grijalva alive to tell you that it is true. That there is magic in the Grijalva blood, though it touches only a few of us.”

Rohario leaped to his feet. But he was alone. No breath stirred the air, no shout, not even a whisper. Every man in the Cathedral strained forward to hear what Cabral Grijalva would say next and how the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta would reply. He sat.

“I am not one of those Limners, Your Holinesses, for they are doomed by that same Gift to die young, but I swear to you now on this holy ground that there are such men in the Grijalva bloodline. And that for these many years they have faithfully served the do’Verradas and Tira Virte, offering up their lives. But in the end, perhaps, it was our own fear that has punished us most. Though we have struggled all these years to serve only the Dukes who protected us, there are always those few among us who choose to serve themselves. That is why we must throw ourselves upon your mercy and the mercy of the Ecclesia, which has scorned us as chi’patro for so long.”

He paused, as if seeking permission to continue. So long Their Holinesses hesitated. Rohario wanted to jump up and shout:
You cannot deny them now!
But he held his tongue. And at last the Premia Sancta signed for Cabral to go on.

His voice remained even. “For the greatest of the Limners, Sario Grijalva, out of hatred and envy imprisoned his living cousin Saavedra, the beloved of Duke Alejandro, in this portrait, so that she might never love another man but himself. This same Sario, by unspeakable means which no other Grijalva has learned or dreamed of, extended his own life over the endless years. This Sario murdered Lord Limner Andreo out of blind ambition and sought to control Grand Duke Renayo for his own ends.”

Shocked mutters rose from the benches, but Cabral waved them to silence impatiently. “This is
not
how we Grijalvas serve Tira Virte. We bring Sario Grijalva forward now, still wearing the same name although he wears a different body than the one he was born into almost four hundred years ago.”

The Premia Sancta rose laboriously and tottered forward. She examined the two paintings with her fingers. Rohario saw that she shook her head. The assembly was so quiet that the loudest noise was the rustle of cloth moving as people shifted in their seats, the squeak of leather shoes on the floor.

When the old woman spoke, her voice was as robust as her body was frail. “These paintings are as you say, Master Cabral. Yet what proof can you give me? Here I see Saavedra Grijalva, and here—” She gestured toward the painting that displayed only an empty chamber.

The veiled woman slipped the black lace from her head.

There was a moment of stunned absolute silence. Then everyone spoke at once.

But they quieted immediately when Saavedra Grijalva raised a hand.

Saavedra Grijalva!
Could it be? How could it possibly be she? And yet, the painted chamber in which she had stood was empty. Where else could she have gone?

Rohario stared. This woman he had admired for years from afar, and yet, standing there, she looked so different, not in face but in substance: a beautiful woman, truly, but one he did not know. And when he sought and found Eleyna, her face was infinitely sweeter to him and far more familiar, though he had gazed on Saavedra Grijalva’s face in the portrait for the whole of his life.

“I am Saavedra Grijalva,” she said in a rich voice that carried easily to every nook and distant corner in the Cathedral. A rich voice, one marked by a curious accent. “I am truly she, and I was captured and imprisoned in this painting by the magic of my cousin, Sario, who stands accused before you now, guilty by his own admission.”

Sario Grijalva stood with head bowed. He did not move or make any sign that he heard. Rohario could not see his expression.

“I have come to you, here,” Saavedra continued, “to beg protection for myself and for my family from the hand of Grand Duke Renayo and at the feet of the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta. If my family has sinned, it has only been because of their desire to serve. They have held their duty to the do’Verradas above all else. This I know, for I watched the Grijalvas regain the position of Lord
Limner and I see now how changed is Tira Virte, how much stronger, how much richer, how much more populous, since that day when I was cast into this imprisonment.

“How did you come to be free?” asked the Premia Sancta.

From the floor, from—of course!—Ruis, another question: “How can we believe this is true?”

She smiled gently and answered the Sancta first, as was fitting. “Once it was discovered I was alive within the portrait, it was simple enough to paint a door—the other side of that door, do you see?—without binding spells, so that I might open the latch and walk free. And as for you, young man! Come forward!”

Eiha! Rohario admired her audacity.

“You I do not know, but I ask you to examine that painting closely. Have you ever known a mirror in a painting to reflect a face? Have you? Look.”

Ruis looked. He jumped back, astounded. “I see my own face!”

“Now. Let Sario Grijalva look in the mirror. You, young man, look and see what face is reflected.”

Sario was led over, unresisting. Ruis gasped out loud. “It isn’t his face! It is another man’s face,
there!
”

Eiha! Again the assembly dissolved into confusion. Men stood on the pews for a better view, while others banged their hands against wood, crying for silence. At last, while Saavedra Grijalva waited with complete composure, they quieted.

Throughout, Renayo sat without changing expression. Rohario looked from him toward the gathered Grijalva family, and there he saw Eleyna, looking into the crowd, searching … searching … he refrained from waving his hands, but there! She had seen him. As if it were enough to mark him, she returned her attention to the dais.

“Two days ago I emerged from my prison,” continued Saavedra. “Five days ago I was alive in my proper time. Five days ago I spoke….” She stumbled over the word. Grief harrowed her face. “I spoke to Duke Alejandro. But I never had the chance to tell him that I was pregnant with his child.”

By now, at least one of the men sitting near Rohario was wiping tears from his eyes.

Her voice rang out more strongly than ever, as clear as the great bells that rang from the tower. “I admit, to my shame and his, that this child was chi’patro! That word has been used often enough against my family. But it is all I have left of him, and I will not be ashamed. I beg you, Your Holinesses, to forgive this sin.” She
threw herself on her knees before the Premio Sancto and the Premio Sancta.

“Matra Dolcha, ninia,” said the Premia Sancta, giving her hand to Saavedra. “What is past is long past. You have suffered enough.”

“What of my family? Must they be punished as well, for the Gift given them by Matra ei Filho, which they have nurtured in secrecy for these many years?”

The two Holinesses bowed their heads.

At long last, Grand Duke Renayo rose. He looked as dignified and noble as Rohario had ever seen him, his dark blue coat perfectly cut—if ten years out of date, for Renayo refused to give in to the new styles. Matra! And why should he if he did not wish to? The old style suited him. For the first time in his life, Rohario truly admired his father.

“I must interrupt,” Renayo said, “for there is a piece of business we have not concluded. I have not yet signed this document.” While the assembly gaped, still caught in the drama of Saavedra’s confession and absolution, Renayo took a pen from Velasco and signed the Constitussion with a flourish.

A great cheer rose, shaking the high windows and the gold-plated chandeliers.

Renayo waited until the cheering died down, then walked over to stand beside the Grijalva Limners. There were only nine of them, one so bent with arthritis he could barely stand, another as young as an apprentice. They did not
look
dangerous.

“It is true that the do’Verradas have benefitted from the service of the Grijalva Limners,” said Renayo. “And yet, secrecy is abhorrent to the Ecclesia. So in the spirit of this Constitussion which I have signed tonight, I make this pronouncement: That all Limners and all painters of any lineage may compete for the honor of painting the official documents of the court. I abolish the position of Lord Limner and instead appoint a Council for Documents, which will award commissions for the execution of portraits to document official proceedings as they are needed.”