Sario shook. I have done all save the last.

Paint, solvent, oil, wax, the pungency of plantstuffs, the incense of guttering candles.

Felt the shuddering of his heart beneath unquiet flesh.

And breath choking him as if he died of Plague.

Trembling hands worried hair into a wilderness of spikes and sweat-stiffened curls. Beard stubbled his jaw; his wrists scraped against it as he drew his hands down along the contours of his harrowed features. He caught the Chieva again and clasped it, shut it up within his hands, locked fingers around it.

Wait. Wait.

It was not achieved yet. He could still undo it.

Wait.

He would not. Dared not.

Tears welled. Spilled. Shivering, he lifted the Chieva do'Orro to his lips, kissed it, pressed it hard against his breast, and thrust himself to his feet in one abrupt motion. He walked swiftly to his table, took up the tiny brush containing his and Saavedra's hair, dipped it first into urine, saliva, blood, and lastly into pigment still smeared upon marble muller.

He leaned close to the portrait, biting deeply into his lip in intense concentration, hesitated- then crisply signed his name into the latch upon the door leading into Saavedra's cell.

Kneeling before the table, before the icon, Saavedra believed at first the candle had gone out.

She looked up, marking the sudden dimness, the pallor of the shrine, but saw through a hazy glaze the faint glow of lighted candle.

Within her chest, her heart hammered. Startled, she pressed both hands to her breast. Against her palm she felt the uneven beating, the thump and retreat, the too-swift hastening, the lagging.

She could not draw breath. Could not breathe- "Matra-Matra Dolcha-" It gusted from her, taking her final breath. Empty of air, lungs labored.

Saavedra stumbled up. Grasped the table, caught cloth, tugged it away so that the icon moved, but did not tip. And then she lost her grip, lost the cloth entirely, could not grasp the table beneath.

She threw back her head in a silent wail of fear, of utter incomprehension.

One hand clutched at her abdomen, the other at the icon as she fell, the painted wooden panel, Arturro's masterwork in praise of the Matra ei Filho.

Her hand passed through it. Through varnish, through paint, through binders, through oils, through the wood beneath. As she fell she did not rock the table, did not upset the icon, nor pull down the velurro.

She smelled oil and wax and blood, the pungency of aged urine, a drift of fern, of fennel, a trace of peach blossom.

Felt as she fell the weight of a chain on her neck, the cold touch of metal against warm and living flesh.

And then the weight was gone, the cold touch of metal; and flesh was neither warm nor living but mixed upon a muller, painted onto wood.

THIRTY-TWO.

In the sultry warmth of summer, Alejandro shivered. "Do you-" He stopped. Swallowed.

Found breath and strength, from somewhere. Began again. "Do you know what this says?"

Grijalva nodded.

"That-that-" Again he halted. Again read the words on the page held in trembling hand.

And, again, began. "-that she wishes to grant my wife-my true wife, she says-the love and honor of a true husband, and not a man of divided heart?"

Grijalva nodded.

"You know this? That it says this?"

Grijalva offered nothing.

"But it can't be true!"

"Your Grace."

Not disagreement, compassion. Merely confirmation.

Alejandro's outcry was framed of pain, of anguished denial. Frenziedly he tore the paper to shreds, then threw the scraps to the ground: supreme rejection of evidence, or truth. "I will have her back. I will. Do you hear it? I will."

Tonelessly: "Your Grace."

"Find her. Find her at once! You are a Grijalva, her friend-" His face spasmed. "-her kinsman, and closest companion . . .find her. I am Alejandro do'Verrada, by the Grace of the Mother and Son, Duke of Tira Virte, and I will have her back!"

Grijalva held his silence.

Silence defeated. The Duke was again no more than a man. "Nommo Matra ei Filho, this can't be." It was. He knew it. Knew her. "Sario-Sario, tell me she wants me to come fetch her ... I, myself, to fetch her, to prove my love and devotion ..." Of a sudden he looked down at the scattered scraps and cursed himself for destroying what was, the Limner said, written in her own hand. Through tears he begged, "Tell me."

Grijalva shook his head. "Filho do'canna, Limner, say something! Sweet Mother, you stand there with your mouth sealed up like a corpse, pale enough unto death . . . can you say nothing? Make no explanation?

Offer no suggestion?"

Grijalva at last graced his Duke with more than an honorific. "Her letter made it clear: she is not to be found. Not to be brought back. You are not to search for her-because it would be futile."

"Futile." The Duke sat down all at once, collapsing into the chair his father once inhabited.

"Futile."

"She will not be found, Your Grace."

"You must know something, Limner. You know things. Limners know things."

"Not what you wish me to know."

He slid out of his chair, knelt, took up the first scrap, then another, thought to mend the letter, to paste it back together.

Futile.

"I can't," he said unsteadily. "-can't-do this . . . Grijalva, I can't do this. Not without her.

She is to be here, with me . . . she is to be my mistress, my wife, confirmed according to the rite of Marria do'Fantome. You told me so. You showed me the way." He gazed down upon the two scraps of paper he clutched. Released them. "I can't do this without her."

"You are not without her, Your Grace."

He snapped his head up. "What?"

"Without her in flesh, perhaps, but not without her in spirit." Grijalva gestured to the wall, to the shrouded panel set against it. "I freely give you what is left of her, Your Grace . . .all that is left of her, so you may have her forever."

Alejandro stared at the concealing cloth. "Is that-" His throat closed painfully. "That is Saavedra? The portrait?"

"It is Saavedra." A hint of a smile. "Indeed, the portrait you commissioned, Your Grace. So she would never leave you."

Holy Mother, but it hurt. "She has left me!"

"In flesh, perhaps. Surely not in spirit." Grijalva lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug.

"Perhaps she lied in part-women do, Your Grace, as suits their needs-but there is truth in this."

He paused. "Every truth, Your Grace."

Dazed, Alejandro waited.

"So long as you have the portrait, you shall always have Saavedra. But you must tend the painting as if you tend her flesh."

"I can't," he said, and tears rushed into his eyes yet again. "Nommo Matra ei Filho, how am I to bear this?" "You will, Your Grace. You are the son of Baltran do'Verrada, and your task is to rule Tira Virte."

"Without her?"

"You have her, Your Grace; Nommo Matra ei Filho, I promise you that. You need only guard it most carefully, as if you guarded your life, your loins, your duchy."

He rose. Stared at the shrouded painting. Then gestured sharply with a snap of his wrist. "Take it away."

"Your Grace?"

"Take it away. Put it somewhere. Be rid of it. I will not look upon it."

Grijalva's face went corpse-white. Dark eyes blackened to fill his face. "Not at all?"

"I can't."

A gust of breath issued from Grijalva's mouth. "Eiha, I understand . . . here, then, I shall assist you-"

Alejandro took one step to halt it, stay it, prevent it-but it was too late, the shroud was lifted and pulled aside, the portrait was his to see.

"She's waiting for you," the Limner said. "Do you see it? Look closer. Here she waits, passing the time until you come-and here you have only just arrived, unseen but heard ... see how she begins to turn, to look? See the delicate color of her face as she recognizes your step? See how the Fol- the book-is left unopened; how she forgets all in the realization that you are there, just there, on the other side of the door? See how she means to rush to the door and lift the latch, to admit you in good haste?" Dark, desert-bred eyes were strangely opaque. "It is all there, Your Grace. All. Saavedra. For you."

Trembling beset him. What he felt, how he hurt, was private, not even for his Lord Limner.

"Go," Alejandro said. "Adezo. Go."

Grijalva made as if to turn, stopped. Gestured slight but eloquent inquiry. "Shall I have it carried away, Your Grace? Shall I keep her for myself?"

That stabbed. He could barely speak. "Leave it."

"Of course." The Lord Limner inclined his head. "Your Grace, regretto-forgive me for such presumption. But you are not alone in this. You have her still. . . and you have me."

"Nommo do'Matra-go-"

Alejandro heard the soft steps, the lifted latch, heard it click into place.

Alone. Alone.

Matra Dolcha, he could not bear this.

Alone.

Could not. And knew he must.

Sario departed Alejandro's presence and went at once to Palasso Grijalva, made his way up the stairs, to the rooms she had inhabited. The rooms where he had placed all of his paintings, such as the one of Zaragosa, that might provide evidence of his power, or a means to bring him down. He would paint more, of course, but there were other places for them to be hidden. What he had been was gone. For now the paintings of his past were where no one would ever find them.

He shut her door from the corridor, then took from leather scrip a small brush and a pot of paint. Unsealed, unstoppered it. Dipped the brush into it, withdrew, began to paint.

The door was a panel smaller than the other, but he did not intend to paint it all. Only what was required.

Lingua oscurra, born of Tza'ab Rih even as he had been. Fitting. Children of the Desert, Il- Adib had called them; had meant them to be. But they were not, either of them. They were Grijalva. Chi'patro. And Gifted.

He painted oscurra into the woodgrain, set a border around the edges, signed his name beneath the latch. And when Ignaddio came up the stairs and asked what he was doing, he did not do more than cap his little pot, clean his brush upon a rag, tuck both into his scrip.

"She asked me to do this," Sario said quietly. "Before she left, she requested this." He shrugged. "Who can predict what fancy will take a woman?"

Shadows cradled Ignaddio's eyes. "Why did she leave?"

"Because she loved the Duke, but he is to marry the Princess of Pracanza."

"She could have stayed here!"

"Eiha, some things are too bitter, too painful for women to bear." He turned toward the stair.

"Will you come? I thought I would walk through Galerria Viehos Fratos; would you like to accompany me?"

The boy's color ebbed, then rushed back. "With you?"

"Eiha, it is not so much."

"You're Lord Limner!"