The Golden Key (68 page)

The three older men took it on themselves to further Rafeyo’s culinary education. Dioniso lectured on wines, Cabral on meats and cheeses, and Zevierin on the intricacies of sauce. The tendency of every growing boy to inhale his food was scowled out of Rafeyo with orders to savor every mouthful or he’d offend the innkeeper. But what awed the boy most was not the meal or the wines but the deferential service and the respectful nods of patrons who recognized the Grijalvas by their distinctive gray feathered caps.

“At home,” Rafeyo confided in a whisper, “only the Fratos are treated so. I feel like a Lord Limner!”

And behaved as if he were. But his dignity was at last defeated by the clear liquor that ended the meal. Deceptively smooth on first sip, he didn’t notice the pepper flavoring until it grabbed him by the throat. When he finally stopped coughing, he wiped his eyes and at Cabral’s urging drank a whole glass of water straight down.

Dioniso leaned back in his chair, a smile on his lips. “Don’t look so downcast. You disgraced no one—not yourself, or us, or the Grijalvas, or Tira Virte. In fact, it’s a great compliment to this
house that you nearly choked to death on their homebrew. They may even give you a bottle.”

Rafeyo looked alarmed, then grinned. “I’ll be sure to accept politely—and then give it to an enemy!”

“Remind me to stay on your good side,” Cabral chuckled. Nodding to his left, he said more softly, “That’s an interesting turban that woman has on.”

“A Tza’ab?” Rafeyo’s eyes went wide. “Here?”

“Of course not.” Dioniso didn’t even give the woman a glance. “Turbans are current fashion here. But I agree, Cabral. It’s interesting. I noticed it earlier.”

“Why?” Rafeyo demanded. “I think she’s ugly.”

“Not shy, are you?” grinned Zevierin, a Limner about Cabral’s age. “The headdress indicates growing taste for things Tza’ab, which Tira Virte supplies to all other nations the way it supplies limners—through a strict monopoly. Now, this control of popular Tza’ab goods would make our merchants even richer than they are—if Principio Felisso hadn’t begun secret negotiations with the Tza’ab Empress.”

“Bypassing our monopoly,” Cabral finished, “and breaking a treaty that goes back a hundred years. We’re here to persuade the Principio otherwise.”

“It’s kind of boring, though, isn’t it?” the boy asked. “I mean, painting a treaty to stop a war is one thing, but—”

“Not one to waste your energies on anything less than the grand canvas either,” Dioniso observed. “Do you have any idea how much Tira Virte makes off import taxes on Tza’ab rugs, cloth, jewelry, glass, and pitch?”

Rafeyo did not.

Cabral gave a shrug. “Much Grijalva work has to do with such ‘boring’ things. You don’t paint to serve your own talents, Rafeyo, you paint to serve your country and your Grand Dukes.” All at once he nudged Zevierin. “Stop gaping at that woman over there, or I’ll tell my sister.”

Zevierin blushed darkly and glowered. Cabral grinned at him.

“Who are you watching?” Rafeyo asked. “Is this one pretty?”

“Very. Two tables away. Don’t turn and stare, Rafeyo, it’s not polite. Besides, her husband is with her, and worships her.”

Dioniso brushed crumbs off the tablecloth. “The gamba player has been performing for them alone when he hasn’t been gracing us—and he won’t take any money from them for it. So, Rafeyo, what can you tell me about them? Quick glances only.”

His gaze darted over his shoulder a few times. Hesitantly, he began,
“They’re married, but not very long because they’re still crazy in love.”

“Such cynicism! What else?”

“They don’t often come to such expensive places. Their clothes are nice enough, but she’s not wearing any jewels and he’s not comfortable—like he’s afraid he’ll spill something that won’t wash out. I think they might be celebrating something—their first anniversary?”

“Not bad,” Zevierin complimented.

“But not correct either,” Dioniso said. “It’s not their first anniversary, she’s not wearing her bridal coronet. That’s traditional here. By his expression, they’ve just found out she’s going to have a baby.”

Cabral snorted. “You’re right. There’s no mistaking that stupid grin.”

“Just like Don Arrigo,” Rafeyo muttered.

“You judge your do’Verradas harshly,” Zevierin observed. “Tazia had her twelve years with him. It’s time he married and fathered a Grand Duke.”

“But he
did
have that same stupid look on his face,” the boy insisted, and the other three exchanged glances acknowledging that wine had had its usual effect on the very young.

“Cabral is quite correct, it’s common to expectant fathers,” Dioniso said. “As if they’d accomplished a major miracle by getting a woman with child! Now, if it was you, or me, or Zevierin, it
would
be remarkable!”

Rafeyo giggled; Cabral smiled, not minding that he was not Confirmattio; Zevierin’s expression turned wooden before he glanced away.

Dioniso continued, “So they’re not rich enough to be regulars here, they’re deeply in love, and she’s pregnant. How would you paint them?”

Before Rafeyo could reply, the young man picked up the hitherto ignored account tally—and blanched.

“Uh-oh,” Cabral murmured. “He can’t pay the bill.”

The young man visibly gathered his courage and summoned the wine steward. There followed the sort of dispute rarely if ever seen in so elegant an establishment. Though conducted in rapid-fire Diettro Mareian, the Grijalvas were able to gather the gist of it. The bottle ordered was
not
the excruciatingly costly vintage listed on the tally. The wine steward showed the label; the young man looked slightly ill.

“The steward’s mistake, of course,” Cabral remarked. “Look at
his face. It’s a common enough ploy to increase the cost of the meal, though this waiter must be inexperienced, to choose this couple.”

“So?” Rafeyo asked, owl-eyed.

“So,” Cabral finished, “
somebody
has to pay for the wine, and if not this boy, then the waiter. And he’s obviously not impressed by young love.”

“The gamba player is,” Zevierin said.

“They’re talking too fast. I can’t get more than six words in ten,” Rafeyo complained.

Cabral obligingly translated. “The gamba player tells the wine steward to own up to the error. Refusal. He offers his own tips to cover the wine—which our young friend is too proud to accept. And now here comes our host to investigate.”

The lovely young wife was crimson with impending tears; her equally humiliated husband was grimly determined as he explained their circumstances to the innkeeper. Cabral continued his commentary.

“We were right. They’ve saved for this night since they married, to celebrate their first baby. The wine steward again denies any mistake. He’s lying.” Cabral blinked suddenly. “Matra Dolcha, sixty-eight mareias for a bottle of wine? That’s more than their whole dinner cost! What do you think, Dioniso?”

“I think I am a very lucky man.” He groped in his pockets, then swore. “Merditto! My pencil case is in my other coat. Cabral? Zevierin?”

Rafeyo dug a hand into a pocket and came up with a small sketchpad and two bits of charcoal. “Will this do? Are we going to pay their bill?”

“In a manner of speaking. Eiha, I haven’t had this pleasure in quite some years. Cabral, clear the table.”

Zevierin rose. “The needlework pillows hint at an embroidery frame or two upstairs, I’ll go ask.”

“Good,” Dioniso said absently, glancing around the room with a critical, evaluating eye.

“But what are you doing?” Rafeyo asked plaintively.

“Shh,” said Cabral, eager eyes fixed on the charcoal stub in Dioniso’s fingers. “Watch.”

“Watch
what
?”

“Shh!”

Dioniso swept away the last of the crumbs, pursed his lips, then nodded to himself and began to wield the charcoal with sure strokes. Tables, chairs, ceiling beams, polished lustrossos, arched
kitchen doorway—all took shape with breathtaking speed. He even incorporated the stains on the cloth into the composition. A splash of red wine became the flowers on the serving bar; a spot of sauce turned into the pewter platter hung on the far wall.

People were drawn in just as quickly, their characters portrayed as accurately as the knots in the planks of the floor. The innkeeper, his wife, the gamba player; the haughty woman in the Tza’ab turban, a boisterous family of six at the corner table; couples shyly courting and couples long married; a group of wealthy merchants enjoying an evening away from their wives (their expensive mistresses were diplomatically drawn in at another table). And, of course, the young couple in all the joy of their expectations. The wine steward was conspicuous in his absence. Cabral began to chuckle and ended laughing aloud with Rafeyo and Zevierin, who had returned with an embroidery frame.

“Bassda!” Dioniso snarled in mock fury, grinned all over his face. “How’s a man supposed to work in all this racket?”

The Grijalvas were making the only noise. Everyone’s neck craned to see what the Limner was up to. Those near enough to witness the miraculous transformation of a white tablecloth into a work of art whispered of its progress to others farther away.

At last Dioniso stood back. He surveyed his work for some moments, added a line here, a smudge there, and signed it. He whisked the cloth from the table in a swirl and held it up for inspection. Patrons exclaimed on recognizing themselves, and applause soon followed. Lively, evocative, in a minimum of strokes Dioniso had captured the room and those in it as only a Grijalva master could.

Cabral bowed to the innkeeper. “I trust this will cover everything?” he asked, and Zevierin groaned at the pun.

Befuddled with bliss at having a genuine Grijalva of his very own, drawn in his very restaurant on his very tablecloth—and perfectly aware that it was worth twice the cost of a whole case of the disputed wine—the innkeeper babbled incoherent thanks. He then ordered the wine steward to bring a bottle of the vintage in question to the Grijalva table.

Zevierin held the embroidery frame up to the cloth. It encircled less than a quarter of the drawing. “A bedframe might work,” he complained. “Did you have to draw
everybody
, Dioniso?”

“Dioniso?” The innkeeper squinted at the signature. “This other name is—”

“Yes, I know.” Handing the cloth over, Dioniso crossed to the young couple. The husband stammered, trying to protest; the wife, beyond speech, caught Dioniso’s hand in both her own, liquid
brown eyes eloquent of her gratitude. Smiling down at her, the Limner said, “You’ve done me a great service tonight, one I wish to repay.”

He freed his fingers and plucked a clean napkin from a nearby table. Spreading the linen out, he sketched a charcoal portrait of the startled pair as they had looked for most of the evening: gazing raptly at each other, giddy with joy.

“Will you do me the honor of accepting this?” he asked when he finished. “I regret I won’t be in Diettro Mareia when your baby is born, for surely the child of such handsome parents would be a marvel to paint. Please allow me to give you this small token of my hopes for your continued happiness and a fine, healthy son.”

Zevierin snatched up the napkin. “Now,
this
fits!” He stretched it over the inner circle of wood, eased the outer circle into place, tightened the brass screw, and gave it into the girl’s trembling hands. “And it’s signed ‘Dioniso Grijalva,’ which means it’s a personal gift. You really can’t refuse, you know,” he ended merrily. “He’d die of shame if you rejected him!”

The young husband recovered himself and with dignity said, “Master Dioniso, if the child is indeed a boy, he’ll bear your name. We are in your debt.”

“No, you aren’t,” Cabral told him. “That’s just the point.” To the room at large he explained, “You’ve just witnessed the continuation of a Grijalva tradition. One night in 1123, Lord Limner Riobaro was dining in a restaurant nearly as fine as this. It turned out that some young students near him were given someone else’s roast by mistake—” He cast a speaking look at the mortified wine steward. “—and couldn’t pay for it. Rather than insulting the students by paying in coin, Riobaro drew a picture on a tablecloth and presented it to the innkeeper. It still adorns the wall there in Castello Joharra.”

“Castello Granidia,” said Dioniso, who ought to know.

“Ah,” said Cabral, with a bow. “In any case, ever since, any of us lucky enough to see a similar situation pays tribute to the great Lord Limner by doing as he did, and signing his name to the picture.”

Dioniso bowed to the blushing girl. “So you see, it’s both a privilege and an honor for me to draw this picture. I thank you for the opportunity. En verro,
I
am in
your
debt.”

Later, when they were weaving their way through the streets back to the Ressidensa, Rafeyo proved himself a very sentimental drunk. “That was
beautiful
,” he kept saying, leaning on Zevierin’s shoulder. “Jus’
beautiful.
”

“We know,” Cabral said patiently. “You’ve told us. Several times.”

“It
was
,” the boy insisted. “Even
looked
like R’baro’s work!”

“By custom,” Dioniso said, “we try to use his style.”

Rafeyo nodded owlishly. “
Jus
‘like ‘im.”

“Damned close,” Cabral agreed. “Maybe the shadows weren’t quite Riobaro, but the signature was perfect.”

The man who had once been Riobaro arched a brow.

Rafeyo came to his defense. “Was
jus
‘like Ri-o-bar—
ohhh!
”

Zevierin spun the boy away from him and held him at arm’s length, but too late. Selections from a seven-course dinner and a great deal of wine and homebrew ended up on Zevierin’s brand-new boots. “Merditto!”

Dioniso and Cabral laughed as Rafeyo collapsed into Zevierin’s arms and slowly slid down his length to the cobblestones. Refusing to ruin their own clothes by helping to pick him up, let alone carry him, they laughed harder when the young Limner hoisted the boy across one shoulder like a sack of rags for the paper mill—and the completely unconscious Rafeyo continued his disgraceful performance down Zevierin’s back all six blocks to the Ressidensa.