The Golden Key (47 page)

“Your Grace.” This time it was Edoard do’Najerra, solid of frame, stolid of temper. “Your Grace, do you blame us for concern? We knew Zaragosa, were accustomed to Zaragosa—”

“Accustomed enough that you held him in contempt,” Alejandro retorted. “Or have you forgotten all over again that I have ears?” He clasped one, tugged it twice, then released it. “I think it far too soon to judge Sario Grijalva beyond what he has yet done, which comprises very little other than the mere
insignificance
of halting a war …” He let that make itself felt, saw the verbal slap register. “… a wholly unnecessary war that surely would have killed many of us, and as many Pracanzans; a war which all of you supported on the basis of a rumor.” He looked at no one now save do’Najerra. “I trust him at this moment more than I trust you, Marchalo, in regard to the ability to divide truth from falsehood, and with just cause.” The latter for Rivvas Serrano. “He has been named, has been acclaimed, is Lord Limner.
Accustom yourselves to it.
”

Do’Najerra held himself in tight control. “Your Grace, there is concern that they might rise to overtake us. Forgive me, Your Grace, but even your mistress—”

“—is a Grijalva. Indeed.” Alejandro swept them all with a scathing glance. “Can none of you count? Do you forget overnight the facts of our past? In my father’s time there were
four
Serranos of vast and abiding influence: Lord Limner, mistress, Premia Sancta, conselho.” He looked directly at Rivvas. “Only two left, after so many years … eiha, do you see the sun setting over Familia Serrano?”

“It’s not that, Your Grace.”

“No? Then what is it, Serrano?”

Rivvas did not shirk it. “Magic.”

Alejandro fell back a step in mock astonishment. “I had forgotten!
Dark
magics! Yes!” He turned, slipped behind the chair, clasped each top corner of the frame. “Rivvas, what
kind
of magic? Evil, I must suppose, for you to use it against him … well then, of what is he capable? We’ve already established he cannot paint a dead man back to life, en verro—what, then? Shall we invite him to paint
this
woman to life?” Alejandro indicated the painted image with an elegant gesture. “She is truly
alive, after all,
if
in Pracanza. Why not save the time otherwise wasted on a long and arduous journey and merely have him
paint
the Pracanzan princess here … why not have him mumble some words, breathe powder over the image, and conjure her into being? No? But, Rivvas—you want so very badly to convince me he can do evil things with this magic … eiha, what would you have him do?”

“Make himself Duke,” Estevan do’Saenza said sharply. “If the Serranos are correct and Sario Grijalva
does
know magic—”

“Then he would have to kill each and every one of you in addition to me,” Alejandro said. “And possibly even every citizen of the city, no?” He shook his head. “Do you truly believe it is possible for one man to usurp control of an entire duchy?”

“Verro Grijalva might have.”

“Verro Grijalva died saving his do’Verrada Duke from assassination in the aftermath of war.” Alejandro did not look, though everyone else did; behind him, on the wall, hung the massive original of Piedro’s spectacular
Death of Verro Grijalva.
A similar painting by another Grijalva, Cabrallo, hung on the opposite wall. “And
Sario
saved his particular do’Verrada Duke
from
war, which often is nothing more than mass assassination, no?”

They clustered yet, breaking only slightly into small clutches of like-minded men. Estevan do’Saenza and Rivvas Serrano remained partnered; Edoard do’Najerra stood alone, as always; others grouped themselves in twos, threes, fives. And waited, for what else their Duke might say.

Weighing me … eiha, it is time I weighed THEM.

Alejandro left the chair, the painting, and went out among them. He knew well enough how to intimidate by sheer size; he was taller than all but the Marchalo Grando, and even that man was no taller than he. Alejandro had marked it in his father, though he never understood why it should matter. Now he saw it did, and employed it as he sought out each man, looked into his face, let him look into
his
, then nodded slightly. He let them see what he did, let them squirm and shift and trade glances, let them wonder what he thought. Eventually he returned to the chair, to the painting.

“You don’t know me,” he said quietly. “I accept that, and I understand also that you are frightened and confused; Baltran do’Verrada is not a man lightly viewed or easily replaced. I accept
that.
I welcome that, en verro: he was a man among men, but wholly of himself.” He drew in a deep breath, let it go slowly.
“Time,” he said, “I ask only time. Grant me it, as I will grant it to you, and we shall make our way together.”

Rivvas Serrano stirred. “But—”

Edoard do’Najerra turned on him. “By the Mother,” he said in deep disgust, “can you not look beyond the length of your nose? He is a
Grijalva.
In twenty years he will be dead, or dying, and we will have this to do all over again!”

Alejandro opened his mouth to protest—it was not the sort of endorsement he would have preferred—then shut it. At this juncture anything would do, if it silenced them. And after all, it was true.

Twenty years
…
how would I feel if I had only twenty years to rule
? And realized, unhappily, that he did not truly wish to rule for twenty
hours.
Not if he had to argue with conselhos moronnos every day.

Alejandro sighed and looked at the portrait of the woman he was expected to marry.
Thank the Mother for Sario Grijalva, who will help me enforce their compordotta—and bless the Mother more so for Saavedra, who will help me embrace mine!

Raimon paused outside the door, put his hand to the latch but did not grasp it, drew in a breath that filled the depths of his belly, filled his head with air and light, then opened the door and went in.

His mind ticked them off as he stepped into the Crechetta and shut the door. He did not even need to look; he saw them in their customary places, albeit Ferico inhabited the chair once filled by Otavio, once filled by Arturro. Raimon had known no other Premio Frato personally, though He could count off the names. All the portraits, the
Pentraddos Chievas
, hung in the Galerria Viehos Fratos, a private locked chamber prohibited to anyone else, so no Gifted Grijalva might ever forget who had the shaping of their family and their world—and the risks to himself if he abrogated honor and servitude.

He wore customary black, though there was no rule of compordotta specifying such a thing. And his Chieva, glinting in candlelight. Vigorous hair brushed into quiescence. It silvered now from black into white, though he doubted he would live long enough to truly be white-haired.

They had left a chair for him at the foot of the massive table. Raimon moved to it, grasped the carved wooden finials, did not grimace as his grip sent a twinge of pain through sore knuckles. He
stood there, straight-spined, and let them evaluate the color of his spirit, of his soul.

Neosso Irrado. Once. Many years before.

Sario would smile at them … but there is none in me to give them, nothing in me but fear, and anger, and the knowledge of failure.

No man looked away, askance, aside. Nine surviving Viehos Fratos—he was tenth, Sario, eleventh—sat at the table and waited for Ferico to begin.

But it was Davo. And that frightened Raimon as nothing had.

“Nommo Chieva do’Orro,” he said quietly. “No more than that, Raimon. Truth. In the name of what we are.”

And so he told the truth. “He is more. He is other.”

“To what degree?”

That, he could not answer. And told them so, told them also there was no proof, only rumor. That although Sario himself alluded to improprieties, no evidence could be offered. There was none.

Not even the
Kita’ab
, Raimon knew, for no man among them would believe their
Folio
other than what they and their ancestors had believed for years: a manual of artistic instruction, detailed in all ways of technique, recipe, and behavior save for those pages that were missing … and as they could not read all that was text anyway, it made no difference what did not exist. What mattered was what
did
exist. Of Sario’s intent Raimon knew nothing, merely that the Limner’s compordotta suggested he knew things no other did. But implication alone could not convict a man without evidence.

What he had was not evidence:
Folio
, that was
Kita’ab
, but Sario merely
claimed
it was; a suggestive painting of Zaragosa Serrano, but bone-fever, despite its pronounced predeliction for Grijalvas, was not uncommon in Serranos any more than in any other family; a peintraddo that was not after all
Peintraddo
, but an ambitious man, an obsessed man, would not permit anyone to hold the key to his destruction, of talent or survival.

Chieva. Always a Chieva, of one sort or another. Chieva do’Orro. Chieva do’Sangua.
Peintraddo Chieva.
So many keys, so many locks, so many hidden doors.

The
Folio
itself was a door. Perhaps Sario had found a key in the other pages. Perhaps Sario himself
was
the key.

More. Other. Sario Grijalva was not as they were, and never had been. And Raimon, convinced of one certainty: that the man who was so different, so obsessed—he who was
more
, and
other
—might
become what no other had achieved in three generations … and so he commited himself into that brotherhood, that conspiracy, of which neither of them spoke, save for one day in the closet above the Crechetta.

“It is believed,” Davo said, “there was complicity. That compordotta was neither honored nor employed.”

Raimon gripped the finials more tightly. Complicity, conspiracy. He denied neither, but answered with truth. “Sario has always made his own compordotta. It is an element of his personality.”

Ferico spoke for the first time. “This element is not permitted.”

The truth, no more.
“Permission has never mattered to him.”

“And why is that? Is he better? Is he apart?”

“One might argue so,” Raimon said quietly. “He is Lord Limner.”

“But did he achieve it through compordotta, or no?” Ferico persisted. “There are
reasons
for compordotta, as you well know, and reasons why we must control it so closely, so inflexibly, giving way to no excuse. The
Peintraddos
alone, misunderstood by those not of the family, would mark us as capable of committing evil.”

Davo took it up in Ferico’s stead. “Those rumors have persisted for years,” he said, “despite efforts to discredit them. The Serranos, in particular, have been most diligent—imagine if they had knowledge of the
Peintraddos!
We would be persecuted. Rooted out. There are those in the Ecclesia who already suggest we should be, and the Premia Sancta herself saw to it we were prohibited from worshiping in public—though Duke Alejandro now has rescinded that bit of lunacy.” He shook his head. “Compordotta exists for a wholly legitimate reason, as each of us comprehends. We Limners walk a cusp such as no other walks, even other male Grijalvas. We are impaired by infertility, a stunted lifespan, the sheer decay of physical ability … and we are also impaired by rumor and false beliefs. It would take so very little to destroy us, you see. Alejandro may rule absolutely, but such rule came upon him early and unexpectedly; he is young, untried, tentative, inconsistent. He might seek guidance from the conselhos as a group, or from any one of them. And if that one is strong enough to gain Alejandro’s confidence, and if that one views us as a threat …” Davo gestured. “You are a clever, insightful man, Raimon. Explanation would be redundant.”

The rebuttal came instantly. “But there is Sario at Court. The Grijalvas have a voice there,
despite
its deplorable compordotta!”

“And that is why we can do nothing to him,” Davo said gently. “Without us, you have put the piece into play, Raimon. The game now must be completed. We dare not take from the board anything so vital as Sario, despite that in him which we abhor.
A
Grijalva is better than
no
Grijalva—and yet we dare not assume it is enough. Caterin Serrano remains Premia Sancta, and Rivvas Serrano remains a conselho. So long as there is a single Serrano so close to the Duke, we dare not grow complacent. The cusp remains.”

“Then why am I present?” Raimon asked. “I have no power among you, nor ever will now, and Sario listens to no one. If you believe I might be able to mitigate his arrogance, control his compordotta, I fear there is nothing to come of it. I have indeed put the piece into play, and it makes its own course from here. I myself have been taken off the board.”

“And so you have served your purpose,” Ferico said. “Your usefulness is finished. There is no work for you among us now; Baltran’s death and Sario’s appointment came too early. We were not prepared then, and we are not prepared now. All came too swiftly.”