Grijalva's brittle posture grew more inflexible yet.

"You will," Alejandro said, finding it easier now to be as firm of spirit as tone. "I wish to find a way to make certain no man among the conselhos may undo what I desire done, and that is to make certain Saavedra Grijalva remains my mistress for as long as we wish it ourselves." He paused, studying the soiled folds of shirt that hung from the stiff line of Grijalva's shoulders. "I am to marry the Princess of Pracanza, and I would honor Saavedra and her family as much as I am able."

At last Grijalva moved. He swung around as if he held a sword, as if he expected attack. His eyes were alive in his face, burning with an intensity Alejandro found disturbing. "You would honor us?"

That annoyed. "I have said so."

"Then make certain no one in all of Tira Virte may harm us!"

Annoyance diffused into puzzlement. Alejandro frowned. "You have the Ducal Protection."

"And it is worthless, Your Grace." Grijalva's smile now was neither pleasant nor sublime, even if he did recall the required honorific. "You know the Premia Sancta poisons the Ecclesia.

One never knows when she may convince the Premio Sancto to join her."

Alejandro gestured sharply, dismissively. "That is over now. I declared it so.

"For that you are honored and blessed, Your Grace-" Perfunctory courtesy, no more. "-but do you see how it is with us? At this moment we Grijalvas have reclaimed two of the primary positions any of us may hold, by your will and grace, but there remain others who would see us thrown down from there; would, given leave, have us broken entirely." Offended by the blithe dismissal of the power of his word, Alejandro sat stiffly upright in the chair. "That will not happen."

"Your Grace . . ." The expressive face with its blade-straight Tza'ab nose now was troubled.

"Your Grace, there are ways men have of making certain they get their desire even if ordered not to."

"Then aid me in this, Grijalva! I have no intention of seeing you thrown down from your position, or Saavedra sent from me; nor do I wish to see your family broken. Find me a way in which no man may cause this to happen, be he Edoard do'Najerra, Rivvas Serrano, or Estevan do'Saenza." He paused reflectively. "Though, en verro, neither of the latter two are of such stature that they might accomplish it. The Marchalo might, but he is content enough at the moment to let you die in twenty years-it is a detached way of defeating the enemy." He sighed, chewed briefly at a cracked thumbnail. "Though I cannot promise it might remain that way."

"You are Duke," Grijalva said, as if he tested. "Your word is law."

Merditto, is he blind? He removed his thumb. "My word is the word of a young, untried, admittedly frightened Duke who would sooner have his father alive again and in this role than be in it himself. And they know that. They prey and play upon it." Alejandro sighed again, deeply, and rested his forehead against the rim of the chairback, letting tacks bite into flesh. Muffled by stuffed velurro, he said, "I am Duke, you are Lord Limner. We need one another, although few understand that." He lifted his face again. "Therefore I ask you to aid me in this, that we may, between us, protect your family."

Grijalva turned back to the window. He blocked much of the light; Alejandro could see little but silhouette. "There is perhaps a way, Alejandro."

He barely marked the familiarity. "En verro?"

Grijalva nodded, "If each mistress were to come from my family . . ."

"Each? You mean-forever?"

The words came more quickly now, with crisp declaration. "Let it be agreed that Palasso Grijalva and only Palasso Grijalva will supply the Duke with his mistress. A confirmed mistress-the one to whom he offers Marria do'Fantome." Grijalva turned sharply, gesturing further illustration. "That need not bind a man to only one woman, Your Grace-you and your Heir and his Heir and all the Heirs to come after may entertain whatever women you choose to- but only one woman, one Grijalva woman, would ever hold the rank." He spread slim, eloquent hands. "One wife, sanctified by the Ecclesia; and one mistress, 'sanctified' and confirmed by Marria do'Fantome."

"That gains me Saavedra," Alejandro said. "What does it gain you?"

"Not me," Grijalva said. "Do'nado-beyond the knowledge that my family's future is secured."

"And that is enough for you?"

Grijalva laughed softly. "I am Lord Limner. It is all I ever desired in this life . . . but my responsibility is to my family-" His pause was very slight. "-and of course to my Duke, for Grijalva Lord Limners, as much as the tragic Verro himself, have always served do'Verradas."

Alejandro considered it. He played out as many ramifications as he could conjure in his mind, knowing very well how others would react.

He smiled, taking fire. "Twist their tails," he murmured, seeing it, and the smile kindled to grin, to laughter, "eiha, how it would twist their tails!"

"And would go far to establishing your own rule," Grijalva added. "You are not your father, may the Matra bless his name-" Briefly he kissed fingers, pressed them to breast. "-and it is time they accepted it."

Alejandro thrust himself up from the chair. "Done!" He nodded vigorously, grinned; the world was whole again, bursting with promise. "Paint it, Lord Limner. Document this edict. Confirm this position. And when I am returned from Caza Varra, I will have it known to all the conselhos, all the Courtfolk-even to Serranos!-I mean to offer Saavedra Grijalva the Marria do'Fantome."

Sario Grijalva's expression was strange. "That," he said, "is more than Gitanna Serrano ever had."

"Or the Premia Sancta?" Alejandro laughed, then said: "Pluvio en laggo." He shrugged. "We make a new lake, you and I, with fresh rain besides." Alejandro shoved the chair back toward the table. "I must go. Tend to this, Grijalva, and you shall have my permanent protection in all things.

For as long as you live."

"Twenty years? Twenty-five?" Smiling oddly, Grijalva hitched a shoulder. "Eiha, what does it matter? Much may be done in so little time."

"Begin now," Alejandro commanded-it was effortless, now that he was certain of his course-and strode out of the room briskly.

The corridors, grazzo do'Matra, were empty of others. On a fine day such as this most went out into the city, or set up easels and sketchbooks in the colonnades surrounding the inner courtyard, or went into the gardens. Lessons were taken away from Palasso Grijalva entirely, so that estudos had the opportunity to take instruction at the specific sites the moualimos discussed.

Raimon recalled such occasions in his own life, as estudo and moualimo both.

Deep inside the walls, light was not a given. In the outer corridors high arched windows permitted sunlight to illuminate the chambers, the cells, but in the heart of Palasso Grijalva, grown large despite the harrowing of their numbers, dimness and darkness pervaded, and shadow.

His soul was as dim, as dark, as shadowed. Bitterness was banished; rage dismissed. It was done. The words said.

He walked stiffly, as an old man. It was age, but escalated, the age of a man twice his years, were he anything but Grijalva. But more even than age, than the depredations of bone-fever.

Nommo Matra ei Filho. Nommo Chieva do'Orro.

Through the inner corridors, through dimness and darkness, and shadow, into the light of acceptance, of peace, of willingness. He was only helpless in so much as he permitted it, and he did not.

At the doorway he paused. He unlocked, then set his hand to latch, lifted, and went in.

Galerria Viehos Fratos. Where brothers and uncles and cousins, and all manner of ancestors, contemporaries, stared out of painted images as if they yet lived. No sons. No fathers. That was denied such as he.

Peintraddo Chieva. Each one. Save one.

A copy. One of several. How clever. How sublimely prescient. And Raimon for the first time in his life truly envied Sario, for having the courage to know himself far more than any man alive, and to look beyond his immediate goal to the long-range repercussions.

Clever Sario. Gifted Sario.

Sario Grijalva, in whom burned a fire, a Luza do'Orro so bright, so incontestably brilliant as to blind a man. And to kill a man. As many, Raimon suspected, as he viewed necessary.

He went to his own face and gazed upon it. There was no doubting, even now, that it was his, did a man look from the painted face to the living. But younger, infinitely younger, less worn, less used, less shaped by the events of the latter years of his life; shaped of fifteen years only, not forty-one, full of hope and humor and certainty of purpose.

Certainty of purpose, that he among them all might become Lord Limner.

Nommo Matra ei Filho. Nommo Chieva do'Orro.

He had not become. He had made.

He sighed so deeply as to empty his lungs of air, his heart of apprehension. "Eiha," he said, "what does it matter? They will do it themselves, as we did to Tomaz ... as perhaps we should have done to Sario."

Nommo Matra ei Filho. Nommo Chieva do'Orro.

He took down from the wall the Peintraddo Chieva, to touch again the image, the brushwork, the pigments and binders and resins and varnish, the recipe of the Folio that was in truth Kita'ab, that was he: Gifted, Limner, of the Viehos Fratos; that had been he before Sario.

Raimon Grijalva shut his hand around the Golden Key hanging from its chain. Then adjusted his grip and plunged the Chieva through the heart painted beneath the clothing.

Sario stood before the unfinished painting Alejandro had so admired. He was distantly pleased that the Duke had been so impressed, but that reaction also stirred in him a measure of condescension, condemnation: it was not his best. But Alejandro could not see it.

"No," he said tightly, "I will not permit it to be so. No man may judge my work save me, because no man can know what of myself I put into it."

Into this, little. It lacked the ingredients Alejandro himself had commanded: the eyes of love.

No, he had painted it with the eyes of jealousy, of resentment, of impatience. And it showed. To him.

"Lord Limner?"

A small voice. A female voice. He turned and beckoned her in impatiently. Diega. A Grijalva, but little more; she was meant to bear children to unGifted males. In her hands was clasped a small clay pot, stoppered and sealed with wax. "There." He indicated the table. "Have you the other?"

She placed the pot on the table, then backed away. She shook her head.

He knew she was afraid of him. Eiha, he had required it; what he requested of her was to remain private. He had assured it by agreeing to paint a miniature of the man she professed to love to ensure he would love her, though he did not tell her how-bound with Tza'ab lingua oscurra so that the man would forever welcome her affections. He wondered if she thought of what she truly asked; if she grew weary of the man she would nonetheless have him until one of them died.

"No?" he asked sharply. "You clean her chambers, you wash her linens- can you not do so simple a thing?"

Diega shook her head again. "Lord Limner, her courses have ceased."

"Ceased! But-" It robbed him of breath, the abrupt comprehension. For a moment he gaped like a fish gulping air instead of water; then Sario shut his mouth so tightly his teeth protested.

Alejandro's child. Of course.

How could this not happen?

He had ignored it, because there was no child of their pairing-until now. He had ignored the images of bedsport utterly because the work had consumed him, and because he had been able to ignore it-until now. They were private people, Saavedra and Alejandro, and shared the fire of their passion with no one else.

Alejandro's child. Growing beneath her heart even as Sario painted her. Even now.

He became aware then of Diega, waiting stiffly. With effort Sario forced a smile. "Eiha, then it cannot be helped. There is cause for joy, then, no? A bastard do'Verrada, son of the Duke himself?" He paused. "Or daughter. One must not forget that women have some uses. You do, no?" He favored her with a smile that drained the color from her face. "Eiha, you may go. And be certain that you shall have what you want of-Domingo?"

"Alonso."

"Of course. Alonso. Forgive me." He nodded. "Come to my rooms at Palasso Verrada in ten days, and I will have it ready for you."

She wavered. "Ten days?"

"Can't you wait until then?" She forbore to answer. He had frightened her very badly. "Five days," he amended. "But no sooner than that, for I have other tasks."

She bobbed her head, waited for dismissal; he gave it impatiently.

As she left, he realized he trembled. For only a moment he wondered why-had he not accepted the truth?-and then the pain of renewed acknowledgment stooped upon him and took him so deeply in his vitals that he fell awkwardly and unexpectedly to his knees, gripped doubled fists into his belly, bent and bent and bent until his head touched the floor.

He rocked there, like a child; wanted to spew food and wine and pain out onto the floor until he was free of it all, free of grief and futility and fear, free of tears, of the emptiness that wracked him, of the knowledge that she had accepted it before he, had seen it, acknowledged it, had embraced it, even as she embraced Alejandro do'Verrada.

There was no crueler pain he could imagine, than to know the only one who shared his Luza do'Orro, his Gift, could so thoroughly, definitely, reject it. And him.

Blessed Mother, but he had accepted she would never sleep with him. That was no longer of any moment; his art was all, and though he would occasionally take such release as perhaps he wished or needed, it was more vital that he not spend himself profligately, not waste the power.

Eiha, it was not that at all. It was that she left him alone so entirely, that she turned from him when he most needed her to find his way among the enemy; that she spent herself in the arms of another man, and now carried his seed.

Fertile seed, that had taken root.

His own never would. Never could offer her what apparently she believed was worth the sacrifice of her Gift.

He, who had broken every oath, every vow made of such bindings as would result in the destruction of his Gift if he permitted them the opportunity, was left alone even by Saavedra, who had never once failed to support him, to guide him, to sacrifice herself in the name of his Gift.

She extinguished his light. Clouded his vision.

She might as well have burned his true Peintraddo Chieva, even as she had burned Tomaz's so many years before.

Evisceration, unflagging and systematic. She took from him his pride in achieving the goal he most wanted by admitting it was her doing, not his, that gained him that goal. She took from him his knowledge of cleverness in avoiding the only power a man might hold over him, the potential destruction of his hands and eyes by the alteration of his Peintraddo, by accusing him of changing, of madness. She took from him her absolute and unadulterated support of him, of his talent, of his Gift. And she bore another man's child, when he could sire none that might inherit his Gift, his Light.

It was not a thing of Grijalvas, inheritance; Giftedness was unstudied, unknown beyond that it existed, and infertility was welcomed for what it betokened. But in the world he now inhabited, the vast and boundless world of Dukes, of conselhos, of foreign courts and kings, he was no man in their eyes at all, merely a boy who painted. Whose loins were empty of fertile seed. And who could, by their lights, never prove his manhood.

It mattered to them. And thus it mattered to him, because it must.

Sario unbent and gazed blankly up at the unfinished portrait. With the eyes of love, Alejandro had commanded. Eiha. Therefore let it be so.

Nommo Matra ei Filho. Nommo Chieva do'Orro.

He rose, shook out the sleeves of his shirt, began to pack up his things. What he would do was best undertaken in his own atelierro, as it was equally undertaken in his own heart.

THIRTY.

Saavedra came upon Ignaddio crouched in a corridor, bundled up as if he were forgotten laundry. Legs were crossed, doubled up, pulled tight against his chest; elbows hooked his knees, but forearms stretched vertically to grant his hands the freedom to clutch hair, to drive fingers into the tousled curls and snug tightly, tight enough to threaten his scalp. His spine brushed the wall only momentarily, and again, and again: he rocked, if slightly, if with quiet, unceasing economy, with utter, abject grief.

' 'Naddi!" She swept down, skirts fanning across the broad flags of the corridor floor. "Blessed Mother, what is it?"

He stiffened beneath her hand, stilled, then turned to her, releasing his hair to grasp at skirts instead, to set his face into their folds and sob unremittingly.

Matra Dolcha-is it Confirmattio? Had he failed? She threaded fingers into hair, cupped the crown of his skull against her palm. " 'Naddi . . . Ignaddio-you must tell me."

He cried the harder, a harsh, racking sound that brought tears of empathy to her own eyes. One hand groped for her upthrust knee, capped it, clung. And when at last he raised his head and exposed his face, she saw grief coupled with horror.

She knelt fully now, cradling the back of his skull in both hands. "You must tell me, 'Naddi!"