The Golden Key (83 page)

The boy was all alone in the atelierro allotted to those currently studying with Il Aguo. Rafeyo sat on a stool half-turned from the door, an empty easel before him and sketches spread on the floor at his feet. Of water there was plenty: tears of angry frustration were knuckled away at regular intervals as Dioniso watched. But not a drop reached the pencils scattered any whichway on the nearby table.

His first impulse was to tell the boy not to waste his substance. It had been a long time since Dioniso had used his own tears; they’d been difficult to come by for decades. But he stayed silent while marveling at the emotions of youth that could so easily produce that precious moisture.

He cleared his throat to alert Rafeyo to his presence. The tousled dark head turned, a frown marring his features. In the time since Dioniso had first seen him, he had grown much taller and the severe adult lines of his face had emerged through boyish softness. But the eyes that regarded him resentfully were those of a thwarted, sulky child.

“Never tell me that at your age you’ve already run out of ideas, Rafeyo.”

“They want formal drawings of Corasson. It’s not
my
idea.”

“That’s our lot as Limners. We paint what we’re told.” He bent, picking up a sketch by one corner, trying to recall exactly what
Rafeyo would have learned by this point in his training. With the changes Dioniso had already made in the way the boys were taught … enough, perhaps. But he was about to learn more.

Rafeyo kicked at the table, and pieces of stone crockery rattled. “Heard it before—that we have to use every chance to paint something really special. But everybody else gets to paint whatever they want—look at all those boring old things put up for best of the year! And the winner! Imagos Brilliantos on Astraventa—Premio, I could do better than that in my sleep!”

Dioniso’s lips quirked; precisely his own opinion, but it wouldn’t do to say so. It was a treacherous balance, establishing authority while fostering familiarity. Besides, as Premio Frato he had cast the deciding vote for the abysmal painting. It had been necessary to gain its influential maker’s support. And he’d refined his thinking over the last weeks; should the Grijalva “best” decline in quality these next few years, the talent of “Rafeyo” would be all the more noticeable. So he’d allowed the ghastly piece to win the prize.

The boy was still complaining. “And they won’t even let me
near
oils yet—when they know that’s what I’m meant for!”

“Eiha, let’s see what you can accomplish with pencils.”

“Pencils!” he snarled. “Little girls draw stick-figures of their dolls with pencils!”

“But little girls aren’t asked to execute the picture that will drive up the price of Corasson when Dona Mechella opens the bargaining.” Rafeyo’s frown deepened, confirming that he’d heard all about last night. Dioniso smothered a grin. “All you need to do is make it pretty—she won’t notice any of the finer points.”

“And let anyone see my name on an inferior work?”

“Indignation is an asset, but don’t overdo it. Pencils or not, it’s an honor to be chosen to draw this. If you’re clever enough, reminder of Corasson’s beauties will fetch us a better price. Our purse is in your hands, Rafeyo.”

“Wonderful,” he muttered. “They only picked me because I was there and got bored and sketched the filthy old pile.”

Dioniso sighed. “If I show you something useful, will you keep quiet about it?”

Sullenly: “Show me what?”

“I suggest that you stifle your wrath at the injustice of not winning for year’s best initiato. Patience. At not quite sixteen, you’ve time.”

“The moronno who got it is only ten months older than I!”

“Too bad,” he replied without sympathy. “You’ve been weeping
large and bitter tears over it, to no avail. Squeeze out a few more and I’ll tell you how to use them.”

Fresh rage and humiliation stung new tears to Rafeyo’s black eyes, just as Dioniso intended. He caught them on the tip of a pencil labeled Serrano Brown—eternal reminder of the family he had long ago systematically destroyed for the sake of his Duke, his country, and art—and, not incidentally, the Grijalvas. The magic produced by these few droplets of water would be mild at best, but he had an idea.

“Now, Corasson must look its best, ‘cordo? Therefore you will work as if it were spring, not winter. Climbing roses in full bloom and fully leafed trees are worth a few hundred mareias.”

“But this is to be nazha coloare—”

“The limitations of monochrome can be overcome. Warm and soften the composition by using browns and grays more than black. You can get around nazha coloare with faint suggestions of red and yellow in the roses, green in the trees and grass—more of an
instinct
that color exists than the certainty of its presence. Do you see what I mean?”

“I—I think so.” Rafeyo began to look interested. “It takes a delicate touch to do something like that. Show me, Premio Dioniso?”

Rafeyo learned quickly. After two false starts soon crumpled and tossed away, the boy tacked up a fresh sheet of fine paper and, after a glance at his strewn sketches, began to draw.

Dioniso watched, gratified, as the outlines of Corasson took shape in muted grays. He noted the mannerisms of the boy’s concentration: one ankle wrapped around a leg of the stool, lower jaw thrust forward, an occasional tap of the pencil on the front teeth. The young body moved with enviable grace when he leaned back for perspective or selected another pencil—at which times he invariably licked his lips.

When he reached at last for the Serrano Brown, Dioniso stopped him. “Wait.”

“What for? You’ve broken my rhythm!”

“You’ll get it back. Your tears are on this pencil, part of its substance now. Use it carefully—for what you felt as you wept will linger in every line and shadow it draws.”

Rafayo eyed him narrowly. “You mean even without scents worked into the paper?”

“Even so. Pay attention. You could use this brown for any number of things—define a highlight, suggest a shadow, contour, shape. But what you felt with those tears will be felt by any person who stands at Corasson in the exact place you use the pencil.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing the boy so stupefied that he very nearly lost his balance on the stool. It took Rafeyo a couple of tries to find his voice; when he did, he rasped, “How, Premio? How is this possible?”

“For now you need only accept that it
is
possible. Think about Corasson, Rafeyo.” He made his voice low and lulling, the kind of tone that could seduce a woman from her virtue or a boy into his magic. “How it will look in the spring, who might walk through a door or beside a wall or beneath that big oak tree. …”

The Serrano Brown hovered, darted forward like an arrow to define the rough bark of the oak on the south side of the house.

“Is it
exactly
as it was?” Dioniso murmured. “Does it match not only your sketches but your memories? Consider the slant of spring sunlight. Is this as true a rendering as if it
were
spring and you were drawing the tree from life?”

Rafeyo hesitated, drew in another line here, another shadow there.

Dioniso murmured soundless words learned centuries ago; they would not be as powerful here as if he drew with his own substance, but they would add just enough to Rafeyo’s work to make a difference.

“Are you certain this is how it will be?” He leaned forward, his face just above the boy’s shoulder, his cheek nearly touching Rafeyo’s cheek. “What do you feel?”

Trancelike—so very close to the real thing, an amazing accomplishment of sheer instinct in one so young—Rafeyo said slowly, “Angry … it’s so unfair … they patronize me, treat me as a child … I want what I was meant for … the canvas … the oils. …” He gave an anguished sob. “Chieva do’Orro, I want to
paint!
They won’t let me, they won’t give me a chance—”

Dioniso inhaled the scent of his breath: chamomile from afternoon tea, basil from stew served at lunch. They would do. Magical Energy and Hatred. With these and his emotions of rage, resentment, and desperate longing for what he did not possess, encounters beside that oak tree at Corasson might prove entertaining.

Pulling back, Dioniso breathed a few more silent phrases before replacing the brown pencil with black in the boy’s unresisting fingers. “Touch the tip to your tongue before each stroke,” he whispered. “Yes, that’s it. Now finish the tree.”

Considering the limitations of monochrome, the result was uncannily lifelike. But now, of course, the oak did not match the rest of the picture. Dioniso waited for Rafeyo to come out of his haze—shaking
himself like a puppy in from the rain—before he spoke again.

“Do equally good work on the whole or they’ll know you’re up to something.”

The harsh command startled Rafeyo. “Wh-what?”

“Look at it!” Dioniso snapped. “One absolutely magnificent tree trunk—and a whole page of inferior scribbles! I’ve seen better graffiti from the charcoal stub of an alleyway Qal Venommo!”

“It is
not
inferior! It’s just not finished yet! I’ll show you, you just wait.”

“I am as accomplished at that as I am with oils—which, if you continue so impatient, you will never learn from me.”

All the defiance washed from the dark eyes. “You mean—
you
would teach me?”

How he had always loved that look in a young man’s eyes: awestruck, eager, humble and proud all at once … eiha, it had been such a long time … the Luza do’Orro was there in Rafeyo, and a joy to behold.

Rousing himself, he replied. “
If
you demonstrate enough talent—and produce a work that significantly increases the price we get for Corasson!” He decided to smile, and was rewarded with a brilliant grin. Yes, a handsome boy, with everything else he required besides. “I’m bored by the Viehos Fratos,” he went on confidingly, “and I intend to take on a few select students. Only the most promising, of course.”

“Me and who else?” Rafeyo asked, his natural arrogance reasserting itself in the implication that none of his fellows was as worthy of Dioniso’s time.

“Arriano, perhaps.”

“Eiha,
he’s
all right. Just not Cansalvio!”

“Do you think me a fool, to waste my teaching on such as he?” It was, truth to tell, his favorite aspect of each life: choosing talented young men, giving them the benefit of his genius, creating a group of Limners who had his teachings in common and who later would form his next life’s own personal faction among the Grijalvas—for of course his next life was always lived in one of those special estudos. To his choice, he said, “I take only the best. When you’ve finished this, we’ll speak again about truly finishing it.”

“With magic.”

“Not much, but enough.” He paused, composing his face into grim lines. “Rafeyo, should you be tempted to try this on your own, don’t. I’ll know—the Viehos Fratos know everything sooner or
later—and not only will you never study with me, you will never hold a brush in your hand as long as you live.”

Rafeyo nodded—too quickly. “I know enough to know I don’t know enough to do this on my own, Premio.”

“Send word when you think this is done. And tell no one what you’ve learned, not even your mother.”

Rafeyo caught his breath. “How did you—”

“I told you. We find out everything sooner or later.”

  FORTY-SEVEN  

In
the late spring of 1264 Mechella was delivered of her second child, a large dark-haired boy she called Alessio Enrei Cossimio Mequel. The absence of his father’s name in the list was not lost on anyone. She damned the gossips and named him as she pleased, as was a mother’s privilege.

The birth of his son’s son meant even more to Grand Duke Cossimio than the assurance that his line would continue into another generation—for at Alessio’s birth he suddenly discovered how much fun it was to be a grandfather. Lizia’s children had spent their early years at Castello Casteya, so he had missed his chance with them. Though he was fond of Teressa, his booming voice and bristling beard frightened her and she was only now learning not to be shy with him. But little Alessio cooed whenever his grandfather appeared—and moreover was Cossimio’s very image (but for the beard, of course). Arrigo and Lizia looked very little like the Grand Duke; Alessio was a copy in flesh of the
Birth of Cossimio III
hanging in the Galerria.