"Your unkindness leaves me desoladio!"

"As it leaves me desoladia." Saavedra smiled brightly. "Why not cool it in the fountain?" She scooped up a handful of water and splashed it at his face.

"Canna!" he cried furiously, and clamped a broad hand around her wrist. "I should drown you for that!"

"No," another voice said. "I think not. Nommo do'Verrada."

"Do'Verad-" The first man broke off hastily and released Saavedra's wrist. "It's done. Do you see? Done!"

"I see," the other said gravely, "and now you may go. Adezo, if you please-though the latter is merely a courtesy; it pleases me that you go, and I am the one who matters."

"Adezo," the other blurted, and made his way off at once. Saavedra offered the newest arrival a broad grin. "You have a fine gift for command!"

"Do I?" He shrugged. "It was the name, no more. It carries some small weight."

"The Duke's name?-I should think so!"

"Not the Duke's. Mine. He knew me, that chiros."

"Yours? But-wait. . ." Saavedra moved so that the sun no longer shone in her eyes. She saw him clearly now, as she had seen him before, if from a greater distance, and knew him by the sketch Sario had disdained. And it was Sario's oath that came up to fill her mouth. "Merditto!"

"Yours, or mine?" Don Alejandro grinned crookedly. "His, most probably; he was a crude chiros."

"Oh," she said in dismay, staring into his face. "Oh, I did not get it right. Your nose!"

"My-nose?" He touched the indicated feature. "What-what is not right about my nose?"

"No, no-not your nose-mine!" Aggravated, she sighed and muttered self-abuse. "The shadow is wrong . . . the line here-do you see?" She touched the bridge of her own nose. "It is off-I made it off."

"Off?" He was clearly still bewildered. "Regretto-but I have no idea what you are talking about."

"No, no-you wouldn't." She scowled blackly. "I shall have to begin again."

"Begin what?"

"You."

"Me?" He blinked in astonishment. "But-how is this done? That you can-begin me . . .

again?"

"With chalk," she explained crisply. "Or pencils. Perhaps watered color, one day ... I have not advanced to oils."

His face cleared. "Arrtia!"

"Arrtia," she agreed, "though a poor one-or so the teachers tell me, because I am a woman and whatever talent I have is not necessary, save to make talented children." She did not know why she was speaking to him so-babbling, more like!-but she could not stop. It was easier simply to plunge ahead and give him no time to speak, because then she would have to remember again who he was. "I do what I can, learn what I can, and hope when I have borne my children, I can return to my art once more."

"Why not?" He shrugged. "I admit I have never known an arrtia before-always arrtios-but I see no reason you should not be one if you wish."

A Duke's son indeed, to be so sublimely ignorant of the way the world worked beyond do'Verrada doors. "I do wish," she said, "but there will be little time ... it is expected I will bear children, and children require much attention. Although if it is a son, and the son proves Gifted, I will have no time with him anyway." Saavedra hitched her shoulder and looked away from his fascinated face to the fountain. "I'm sorry-I should not say such things to you." She drew in a deep, hasty breath. "Grazzo, Don Alejandro. I doubt he would have harmed me beyond a dunking-and I am already soaked!-but you have done me a kindness. I will say your name in my prayers tonight."

"Momentita-" He stretched out a delaying hand. "Will you walk with me? The crowd is no place to talk ... I know! I shall buy you a lemonada and find you a seat in the shade." His smile was dazzling. "And I assure you I will not dunk you in the fountain, or beg improprieties of you, not even in the name of Fuega Vesperra."

As he grinned, Saavedra saw the faint overlap of the tooth Sario had decried. Heat rushed into her face. "Matra Dolcha, no! Eiha, I could not, should not-oh, Don Alejandro ..." A wild glance gave her explanation: the looming Cathedral Imago Brilliantos. "The Ecclesia would never permit it!"

The grin died. "The Ecclesia? Why? What should it matter to them if I buy you a lemonada and sit with you in the shade?"

For the first time in her life she dreaded saying her surname. "I am- Grijalva."

"Are you?" He was neither dismayed nor insulted. "Then it is no wonder you spoke of art- your family are fine painters!"

This was not what she expected. Only trained courtesy allowed her to stammer out a response.

"Grazzo, Don Alejandro-you are too kind."

"I am not," he disagreed promptly. "I am truthful. I have been in the Galerria Verrada many times, and there are Grijalva masterworks hanging in the Palasso. I see them every day."

Including Piedro's original Death of Verro Grijalva. Saavedra smiled weakly. "Of course."

"So. You are a Grijalva, and I am a do'Verrada. Bassda. Shall we fetch our lemonada and find our shade?"

" 'Cordo," she managed, and was treated again to his brilliant grin. But this time it was neither grin nor tooth she noticed. No, she reflected absently, I did not get the nose right at all.

FIFTEEN.

The boy now was gone, excused, given leave-though he believed it taken-to go out into the celebration, but the old Tza'ab believed he would instead proceed straight to Palasso Grijalva to contemplate and hotly reject all he had been told. Such truths as these took time.

Begun at last, the beginning, and an ending reached as well. No more waiting, no more clinging to hope that one would come out of the womb of the enemy, albeit sired by Tza'ab; one had come, and now Il-Adib could look to the present and the future instead of to the past.

The old man smiled. His name was spoken again by a Tza'ab in concert with Acuyib's. True enough the accent was imperfect, the tone one of youthful and wary skepticism, but the name was known again, spoken again, by one who bore the blood. No more estranjiero, or Tza'ab filho do'canna as all the cityfolk called him ... he was once again Il-Adib of the Al-Fansihirro, born to the Desert, to Tza'ab Rih, to Acuyib's service.

One among many; now two. The boy would learn. He had appetite, ambition, a quick and devious mind searching always for challenge, to challenge, though refuting those thrown at him with an eloquent grasp of irony that far surpassed his age. It would not be a simple task nor a comfortable journey, but the ending justified all.

And he has the vision.

There had been many Grijalva boys he had watched, even those who walked down this very street, but none had watched his tent because none of them had seen it. It was true the Grijalvas were bred out of the Tza'ab blood of their ancestors, but none had been blessed with the inner vision. None but this boy.

Acuyib promised me there would come another.

Il-Adib placed one withered hand atop the polished thornwood casket bound and tacked with brass. Wrinkled, plum-tinted lips stretched into a ghastly smile. "We begin again," he murmured.

"I shall make another Diviner, and we of Acuyib's Great Tent shall have back what was stolen from us.

Raimon counted the years as he counted steps. Fourteen of them, twice; and then he stood at the top beneath the low, looming ceiling, and recalled the last time he had been present in the closet over the Crechetta.

Not for unfortunate Tomaz. That had been another's task, another's burden when the Disciplined Limner was discovered unexpectedly dead. Before Tomaz, well before Tomaz, when it was his time, and his turn, at age twenty-eight-as there were twenty-eight steps-to be Disciplined and to think on it locked away inside the heart of the Palasso, albeit his punishment was not so severe or significant as the Chieva do'Sangua.

His wrist throbbed. Raimon bent and set down the lamp, then clamped a hand over the ache.

Beneath the cloth of silk doublet, the fine lawn cuffs of shirt, the scar burned again.

"Suggestion," Raimon murmured. "The magic is dead ... it has been too long, and I learned what I was to learn."

Indeed. He had set aside such questions as had gained him the Lesser Discipline, or learned to frame them differently. And the meticulous compordotta had served him well. No more doubts from others, no more distrust, no more punishments, no more arrested progression through the ranks of the Viehos Fratos. He was Il Seminno now, one of the loudest voices, though not to offer defiance but alternate opinion.

Eiha, he had gathered another opinion, an alternate opinion: Davo's. And it gave him no peace.

They listen to my voice, yet it is not heard. But he had not come here for that, nor even to recall his own punishment. He had come to wait, to meet, to discuss-and to offer a suggestion no other in the family would ever contemplate.

Raimon laughed softly; what it lacked in humor was replaced by bitter triumph. "This one will contemplate it!"

Indeed, this one would, and as the sound of ascending footsteps scraped through the narrow lamp-lighted stairway to the stuffy closet above, Raimon knew what he sought was the best, the only way, and that Sario Grijalva was solely the one who would not only accept the task but perform it perfectly.

Perspiration gathered beneath a fallen forelock. Raimon wiped it away impatiently with a sleeved forearm, then shut his eyes briefly to compose himself. By the time Sario climbed into sight, he was calm. He was prepared. And committed himself to damnation.

Alejandro was shocked as he heard himself tell the Grijalva girl all about Gitanna, his father, his intentions to come and find a woman to prove he could. Would she believe he meant her?

Would she fire up the way she had at the city chiros?

They were no longer at the fountain but sat in the shade, as promised, against a cool wall dappled by shadows from a looming olive tree, content to sit atop packed soil brushed hastily clear of deadfall fruit despite what it did to their garments. And he spoke about finding women; would she therefore hurl the contents of her crockery cup into his face in lieu of fountain water?

He hoped not. Lemonada was sticky, and it burned when in the eyes.

But all was admitted. It could not be unadmitted. He steeled himself for her withdrawal, for her coldness, for the intemperance of her anger. Yet none of it came.

"Eiha," she said equably. "I do not blame you for that."

"For-wanting a woman? Another woman? Even after declaring I wanted Gitanna?"

She sat mostly in profile, its purity uninhibited by the wilderness of her hair, dried into long curls. He could see the wry downward hooking of her mouth. "It isn't that you want a woman so much, but that you wish to prove to your father that you are a man who does as he chooses."

He considered it. Possibly. "How can you know that?"

She hitched a shoulder. "I have known other men to do the same."

Man. Not boy. It comforted him. But also provoked curiosity. "Have you known many?"

"Men? Eiha, yes-but not I myself, not as you mean." She laughed softly. "I live with men, Don Alejandro, and I am an arrtia. We are trained, you see, to watch the behavior and manners of others."

"Compordotta."

He saw a quick glint in her eye. "To gain the true spirit of a subject, to put into the portrait a portion of that fire, one must observe keenly. One must train the eye. One must understand compordotta."

"All of it?"

Her grin was brilliant, displaying white teeth. Hers were straight. Hers were perfect. Hers were better than his, with the lone crooked tooth Zaragosa Serrano refused to paint into his portraits.

"Some of it," she answered. "I am not able to see into minds, only into faces."

"Mine?" She grimaced. "Enough to realize I made the nose wrong."

He laughed. She had an exquisite way with wry self-deprecation and dry irony, subtle but unhesitating even in his presence. It was not the way most people spoke to him, especially women.

He sobered. "My father explained I don't love her, not truly-but that I am infatuated with her."

"It is likely," she agreed, unperturbed. "Sario believed he was in love with his first woman, but he wasn't. He only thought so, because it was new. Because it made him a man, and proved he was-Gifted."

The momentary hesitation was odd. "He bedded a woman to prove he had artistic talent?"

Now she withdrew, though she remained still against the wall. It was a subtle shift, but he felt it. Especially as she changed the subject. "Will she be sent away now? Gitanna?"

"It is likely ... he will give her a country estate, some money, some jewelry." Alejandro sighed.

"It seems so little after so many years."

"Surely a mistress cannot hope for more."

"I suppose not. And she will be comforted, I have no doubt, that at least her brother remains at Court. Her family will retain some power with Zaragosa there."

"Zaragosa-Zaragosa Serrano?"

"Of course. He is Lord Limner."

"I know who he is." She sat rigidly now, clutching crockery. "She is his sister? Gitanna Serrano?"

"Yes. Why?"

Her laughter now held a tight, ugly sound. "You are well rid of her."

It shocked him. "Why? What is she to you? What right have you to speak of her so?"

Her face was very white. "Yes-you are correct. My compordotta requires improvement." She rose stiffly, all the relaxed and bantering friendliness banished from her expression. "Grazzo, Don Alejandro, for the rescue, the lemonada-but I must go now."

Matra Dolcha. Why did he feel as if he had overstepped when it was she who transgressed?

Scowling, he pushed himself to his feet. "Wait. You are not to go until I say so."

Her face colored. Gray eyes glittered. "You order the chiros away, but you order the canna to stay. Quite the man with the animals, no?"

She was angry ... at him? But it was she who insulted Gitanna. And yet the words he meant to speak altered themselves into something else entirely, something bled free of affront. "You did say I had a fine way with command."

Anger evaporated. Startled, she stared, and then began to laugh. She is nothing like Gitanna. No, she was not. And there was no other woman in his life he could compare her to, which he supposed might amuse other men-and perhaps other women, perhaps even Gitanna-but not, he suspected, her.

He took her cup from her hand. "More lemonada," he said. "Momentita, grazzo." If he could not order her to stay, not even with his fine grasp of command, he would at least rely on her good compordotta.