The Golden Key (52 page)

Shock upon shock. “Then it was a copy—a
second
copy—”

He was white around the mouth. “I am particularly gifted at making copies. It was all we were permitted to do for so many years.”

“Sario … Sario—he’s
dead!
”

He frowned abruptly. “Regretto—I am not being properly sorrowful, no? Not giving him proper honor—such
shocking
compordotta …”

And then she saw the grief in his eyes, in the unnatural immobility of his posture. How he held himself so stiffly, with such absolute
rigidity that she did not know how he might ever move again.

“Did you know?” she asked. “Did you ever once
believe
he would do such a thing?”

“I believed in myself,” he said softly, “as he required me to do.” His face was harrowed. “Eiha, ‘Vedra—he must have known. And I suppose I did also … and yet did nothing to prevent it.”

“They must have meant to destroy his
Peintraddo.
”

“No—not destroy it. Destroy
him
—Chieva do’Sangua.” He took up and clenched into a fist a paletto knife. “And so another sacrifice is made.”

“For you.” She wanted to spit. “So much, in your name.”

“My Gift,” he murmured. “For my Luza do’Orro.” He looked at her then, stared at her. Extended his hand. “’Vedra, grazzo—can you offer me no comfort?”

“In this? Why should I? It was yours to do or undo, Sario—you chose to do it.”

He shivered once, enough to set the paletto knife to spasming in his hand.

She bared her teeth. “I want you to suffer.”

“I do.”

“Suffer
more.
”

“Eiha, ‘Vedra—Blessed Mother, Gracious Mother—” He shut his eyes, lifted the paletto knife into the air. “And so my Gift fails me, and I can’t bring him back—can’t paint him back … it isn’t
possible.
”

She feared then he might harm himself, might use the paletto knife on himself. And for all her anger, she could not deny his own measure of grief. He had never lied to her.

“Sario—Sario, grazzo …” She moved to him, put out her hand. “Give me the paletto knife—”

He whipped out his free hand, trapped her wrist in it, wrenched it over so the palm was exposed. And brought the knife down in an abrupt, slashing move that opened the flesh of her fingers.

“You’re Gifted,” he hissed. “Remember how Raimon burned a painting that had only a portion of the ingredients? This is the same, only this time it’s you who will manifest the damage. So I can prove even to
you
what you are.”

Saavedra was abruptly freed as he twisted away, reached toward the easel, the painting upon it. She staggered back, stumbled into a chair, over it, upset it, fell. Skirts were crumpled around her knees as she braced herself against the floor, one hand sliding in blood.

“Matra—” she gasped. “Matra ei Filho—”

Blood,
her
blood, splattered across the painting with a snap of his wrist, flung across the image of herself. She saw the spatters, saw the drips, saw how it marred the image, blended with the colors. “What are you doing?”

“I have said from the beginning you are different,” he declared. “Nommo Matra ei Filho, but you are like no other. I cannot say what has caused it anymore than I can say what has caused
me
—was it our parents? The spark that kindled conception? Something in the blood?”

“I’m just a
woman.
”

Sario laughed. “Perhaps that is it. Perhaps that you are a woman, and claim the Gift as I do—”

“I can’t!”

“—combined with the blood, the talent, the heritage—”

“I’m not what you think I am!”

“—because the bodies are different … whatever it is that makes us male as opposed to female—”

“I’m not
like
you!”

“Attend me,” he said sharply, and scratched blood and paint away with a ruthless thumbnail.

Saavedra cried out. Her shoulder
burned.

Sario spun on her. “Look at it.
Look
at it, Saavedra.”

It burned and burned.

“Not at the painting,” he hissed, “at your shoulder!” And before she could move, could make an effort to escape, he was on her. Hands scrabbled at the neckline of her gown, tugged it away, exposed the shoulder. “There,” he said. “Look,
look
at it—and tell me again you aren’t Gifted!”

A scrape. A peeling back of a layer of flesh so that blood stippled fluid. As if a man’s thumbnail had gouged into flesh, as his had gouged into blood and paint.

The wail escaped her, brief and broken.

“Admit it,” he said. “Nommo Matra ei Filho, nommo Chieva do’Orro—
to which you are entitled
—admit it!”

“I carry a child,” she said on a rush of expelled breath. “I carry a
child
—it can’t be!
I
can’t be!”

“In this there are no rules,” he said. “How can anyone simply decide a woman who is Gifted may not also be fertile?”

“I
can’t
be!”

“You are … as I have always known, you
are.
”

“Alejandro—”

“Gone—whining to his mother, no doubt. It is for you and I to sort out, ‘Vedra. As it should be … as it has always been.”

He was too close to her. She scrabbled awkwardly on the floor, aware of blood on the hardwood as she pulled herself away from him. “Let me go … Sario, let me go.”

He laughed. “I don’t hold you here. Grazzo,
go.
Go and think upon the truth.”

She struck out then, smashed the palm of her unbloodied hand across his cheek and set nails, so he would bleed as well.

He made no attempt to stop the blood, to explore the gouges. He sat before her, crouched as a supplicant, and grinned. “You are. Like me.”

“Monster,” she whispered, and saw the kindling of anger in his eyes.

“Gifted,” he said. “No more, no less. And other. Different. What I have learned from Il-Adib and the
Kita’ab.
”

“Bassda,” she gasped. “Bassda, I will hear no more of this.” She pulled herself away, caught at the chair, levered herself up to one knee, one foot. “Whatever you may be, I am not like you. In no way. I will
never
be like you …” It was hard to move, so hard; she felt ill and old and cold and weak. “—
not
like you—am not, will never be—”

He moved then, startling her anew. This time when he caught her shoulder it was not to pull away her sleeve, but to trap her, to push her back awkwardly against the wall. And he came down upon her, held her there, employing unanticipated, tensile strength to keep her.

“This once,” he said against her mouth. “I don’t love you, ‘Vedra—not in that way … but we are the same, we are bound, we are linked, we share the Luza do’Orro—”

She twisted, tried to wrench her head awry, but his mouth came down regardless, touching first the perspiration across the top of her lip—and it was wholly without love, without passion or desire that he kissed her; was nothing more than obsession, posession, the enmity and rage of a man who has relied on a ruthless determination and alien compordotta to make himself into something more. Something other. No matter what it cost.

Even Raimon’s life. Even her innocence.

And then he released her. Fell back, laughing, barely flinching as she spat first into his face, then again onto the floor.

“Grazzo,” he said. “Grazzo meya, nommo Matra ei Filho.”

Shaking, nearly unable to remain upright, Saavedra pulled herself to her feet and made her way to the door. She caught the jamb there, clinging as hair tumbled into her face, as a torn and forgotten
sleeve bared the telltale mark of a thumbnail that had never touched flesh, only paint.

“You
are
” he said.

She ran. From him. From herself.

Sario frowned. She had not had the presence of mind to close the door, and what he planned required secrecy. He got up, aware of aches, of bruises to be, of the sting of her outrage across his cheek. Blood. It was not his he needed, but hers. And she had supplied it.

He went to the door and closed it, set the latch. More than a lock was needed, but he would tend that. For the moment there were other more pressing matters, needs to be attended.

Quickly he gathered the glass vials, pried away the wax sealant, removed the cork stopper. He took a clean absorbent cloth and patted his lips, drying them of perspiration; then shredded the cloth and tucked threads into a vial. Then he took up paletto knife, cleaned it, knelt on the floor. With meticulous care he set the second vial against the hardwood and used the knife to coax spittle into it. When it was full he stoppered it, turned to a third. Blood next: two and one half vials, no more; he dared not scrape up wood, which would pollute the ingredients.

The vials he placed into the copper bowl. He then retrieved the clay pot Diega had brought him, placed it upon the table next to the bowl.

Urine. Blood. Saliva. Sweat. Not all, but enough.

Sario sighed, dabbed a cuff against the bloodied scratches, then stopped short.

A careful search divulged what he hoped for: a snarl of hair trapped in the filigree of his Chieva. Three strands, four, coiled into ringlets.

He worked swiftly and with absolute concentration, trimming a lock of his own hair, trimming hers, then binding the commingled human hair with that of sable onto a slender wooden handle. He sealed the bristles, made the brush; wet it with his own saliva, then uncapped the smallest jar. Smiling, he carried brush and jar to the door, and knelt. With swift economy he painted gilt-hued oscurra around the latch, so no one might open it.

When that was completed he returned the jar to the table, washed the new-made brush in solvents, dried it, then removed the blood-spattered, scratched painting from the easel and set it aside.

“Now,” he murmured. “Adezo.” He stood before the oak panel, examined its readiness by eye, by touch. Then took up an unused soft rag and wiped the surface entirely clean.

Alla prima. Begun and finished in one session.

He had no more time. Time was always his enemy.

  THIRTY-ONE  

In
her chambers, Saavedra stripped and washed, paying particular attention to her face, to the places he had touched her, to the scrape on her shoulder. She did not wish to touch that, but it was no more than it appeared. She found it both distressing and illuminating.

This is what they do. This is how they commit Chieva do’Sangua.
Only they painted, repainted, an image out of health and youth into decrepitude and age, from a proud, promising boy into an aging man afflicted with bone-fever twisting his hands, with milk-fever blinding his eyes.

Her hands were whole, her eyes. She was in all ways the same, save for the scrape upon her shoulder—and knowledge.

Trembling she put on fresh shift, fresh gown, spread bandaged hand across her abdomen. He knew. Sario knew. She had told him. Even Alejandro knew nothing, nor anyone else save perhaps the women who washed her linen; it was improper compordotta to announce an impending birth until four months had passed, for as sterility afflicted males, so did early miscarriage afflict females. Reaching four months did not assure certainty of birth or survival of the infant, but there was more safety in it, and so the custom had become a ritual.