"They say many things, but no one knows for certain."

Mechella experienced reluctant pity. The emotion angered her-as if she were feeling sorry for that other Mistress who deserved nothing but contempt. But then she abruptly understood why instinct prompted compassion and fellow-feeling. Before she could stifle the words, she heard herself ask, "Did anybody ever say that she was pregnant?"

Both men caught their breaths-Mequel a bit painfully as he moved in to study the painting, muttering to himself. Cabral joined him. Mechella only watched, not saying why she knew it to be the truth. It was quite simple, really: it was why Saavedra seemed familiar. It wasn't the shape of her mouth or nose or the color of her hair or anything else Grijalva. Despite the defiance in that set mouth, despite the poignancy of those luminous pale eyes, there was in her face that inexplicable something that Mechella had seen in her own mirror.

"I think she had to leave because she was pregnant with Alejandro's child," Mechella said.

"Bastards are never welcome. And at that time the Grijalvas were-how did you put it, Cabral?"

"Consolidating their position at Court," he mumbled, casting a wary glance at the Lord Limner. Mequel shrugged; it was only the truth, after all.

Mechella continued, "So if she was carrying a child, she'd be dangerous not just to the do'Verradas but to her own family. Perhaps she left on her own, or was taken away by force-but perhaps she really was murdered."

"It would explain much," Mequel mused. "The story has it that she and Alejandro were wildly in love and he would have wed her if he could. If a child was expected, then he would have had honor on his side. What true compordotta used to be, that combination of right behavior and justice and integrity that the Serranos never possessed. . . ." Suddenly he bent closer to the border framing the painting. "Cabral, look at this sequence. Have you ever seen anything like it before?"

Stiff as the oak panel Saavedra was painted on, Cabral replied, "I know little of the oscurra, Lord Limner."

"Oh, that's right. You're not-eiha, enough," he said hastily, wincing as he straightened up.

"I'll have to study her before she's put away again. Take her up to my office above the Galerria, Cabral."

"And cover her up with something," Mechella said suddenly.

Mequel gave her a curious look that turned to admiring approval. "She does have rather amazing eyes, doesn't she? I'd hate to walk into my office and be startled into a fall by that fierce look of hers. Sario was a genius, no doubt of it, but this painting is ... different."

Mechella hadn't meant anything of the sort; she merely wanted no one else to see The First Mistress and be reminded. She listened to their plans for shutting Saavedra away, wishing it was that easy to be rid of the Grijalva woman who had followed in Saavedra's footsteps.

The arrival some weeks later of Arrigo's sister and her three children set all Palasso Verrada into an uproar. Mechella, meeting Lizia for the first time, felt queasy not just from her pregnancy but from shyness; Cossimio and Gizella adored their only daughter, Arrigo thought his two-years- elder sister had hung the stars, and indeed the whole Court turned out to welcome her, even though she arrived at midnight during a thunderstorm. When the family was private and the children sent off to bed, Mechella ventured a compliment on how glad everyone was to see her.

Lizia laughed and kicked off her shoes. "Eiha, they turned out in force only because nobody's seen me in so long! They want to look at the damage done by the wilds of Casteya!" She tossed the black widow's veil from her face and propped her wool-stockinged feet on a stool near the fire.

"Expecting you to look like a wrinkled crone of seventy," Arrigo grinned, bringing her a tankard of mulled wine. "How clever of you to look scarcely fifty!"

She put out her tongue at him. He threatened to pour the drink on her head. Their mother clapped her hands sharply in automatic reproof, then burst out laughing. "Eiha, 'Chella, you see what I endured when they were children!"

"Still are," the Grand Duke said in mock disgust. "Not a day over ten, the pair of them." He frowned suddenly, all the humor draining out of him, even his mustache drooping. "Are you quite certain you're happy at the Castello, guivaerra meya? It's so far from Court."

"Oh, Casteya's quite civilized these days, Patro. I don't even have to wring the chickens' necks myself anymore. Amazing what a do'Verrado dower will do for declining grandeur." She drank wine and sighed, wriggling her toes. "It's good to be here, all the same."

Lizia had wed Ormaldo do'Casteya at nineteen in a marriage of convenience that became a love match. She'd once told Arrigo that because there was no one else interesting in Casteya, she'd been obliged out of sheer boredom to fall in love with her husband. When Arrigo reported this to Mechella, he had wryly added that not only had Ormaldo been ridiculously easy for his sister to love, she hadn't known an instant's boredom from the day the Count took her to his run- down wreck of a castello. "She was never one for parties and dances. She helped with Mother's charities, of course, but when she married Ormaldo she finally discovered what she was meant to be: a Marchalo Grando commanding the army that reclaimed Castello Casteya from wrack and ruin."

The marriage produced three children-Grezella, Maldonno, and Riobira-before Ormaldo died of a wasting disease, aged only forty-three. Lizia, eleven years his junior, had shut herself and her children up in their restored castello since his death three years before. But now Maldonno, Count do'Casteya, was old enough to become a page at his grandfather's Court. So to Meya Suerta they had come.

Next morning, bright and early, Lizia brought her children-still in night-clothes and bedrobes-to see their baby cousin. They dutifully expressed admiration for Teressa, then occupied themselves, with considerably more enthusiasm, playing in the nursery.

"And now that the children are out of the way," Lizia said, settling on the edge of Mechella's bed, "their mothers can have a nice cozy talk. I'm so glad to meet you at last, carrida! You're all that Arrigo told me in his letters."

"And you're everything everyone says you are," Mechella responded, trying to smile. She was feeling very shaky this morning after a late night last night, and with the Iluminarres holiday coming up, she knew she needed all the rest she could get.

"The one thing to believe," Lizia said with a wink, "is that I am indeed short of person and of temper! You leggy creatures don't know what it is to look up all your life-my neck aches constantly. The only reason I'm not black and blue from being stepped on is that I make so much noise people have to notice me. Now, tell me all the latest gossip."

Mechella knew that there was only one topic of general discussion these days: the Grijalva woman. Arrigo had said nothing about her for weeks, and no one could talk about her in Mechella's presence, of course, but she wasn't a fool. The woman was still at Court, though by mutual silent agreement an arrangement had formed between Mechella and Arrigo: if the Countess do'Alva was to be present at any function, Mechella would be absent from it. Arrigo could have either his wife or his former Mistress at his entertainments, but not both.

"Eiha, what a frown!" Lizia exclaimed, and Mechella gave a start. The tiny Countess snagged an apple from the breakfast tray and munched on it as she continued, "I have informants- everyone does-but they don't know all the ins and outs the way a do'Verrada must. I assume you've established your own little system for gathering information?"

Mechella shook her head.

Lizia was shocked. "You must! Rapidia! How else will you know what's really going on? I'll lend you a few of mine until you can find your own."

"I'd rather not," Mechella said primly. "I have no interest in gossip, and it seems like-"

"-spying? You'll be Grand Duchess, you have to know what goes on. My mother has Lissina, of course-" She stopped, gave Mechella a searching look, finished the apple in a gulp, and tossed the unbound black hair from her shoulders. "So that's it."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The Grijalvas. Eiha, don't look so stiff and formal and Ghillasian! We're rather free in our manners here, and I've always said what's on my mind and don't intend to stop at this late date.

Think me rude and graceless if you like, but we're going to do what Mother says you and she did right off, and that's talk about Tazia."

A year ago Mechella would have been overwhelmed into meek silence. Now she gave Lizia a cold stare. "I find her a boring topic of conversation."

"Eiha, I can tell. That must be why at the very sound of the name your eyes turn to ice. I'll tell you what Mother probably didn't. Arrigo was eighteen when Tazia began the chase. A year later, she caught him. Men are still boys at that age, and-"

"I have no interest in-"

"-and a boy is no match for a clever woman," Lizia went on inexorably. "She made him think he couldn't live without her. But now he knows he can, and very happily, too, so she's no danger to you. But there's something you must understand, Mechella. Father doesn't give Arrigo much to do. He likes being Grand Duke too much to give up any of the fun of it, even to his Heir.

I hope when Maldonno comes of age and is ready to take on Casteya, I'll be more gracious about sharing! But the point is that Tazia knew this, and used it. She made Arrigo feel important, essential, that even the most trivial official engagement was meaningful. And of course she was quite lovely then, and experienced in bed, which always appeals to a young man. She made him feel he was the most fascinating man and wonderful lover in Tira Virte."

Mechella cried, "And you tell me I have nothing to fear from such a woman?"

"I tell you my brother is deeply in love with you, much more so than he ever was with Tazia.

It's in his letters."

"What brother writes to his sister about his mistress?"

"Arrigo has always told me everything."

"Then tell me how I can send that woman from Court! I've begged him to, but he-"

"That's asking him to banish his youth. No man wants to do that. And, en verro, I think that hearing his young, beautiful wife complain about a woman he doesn't love anymore would flatter any man."

"But why does he need to hear it?"

"Because that's how men are," Lizia replied with a shrug.

Mechella shredded a slice of bread onto her plate. "I hate knowing she's here, I know it's part of what's making me so ill. But Arrigo won't send her away, he won't stop inviting her here- what can I do?"

The Countess sighed. "You have several courses of action open to you. First, accept her. Not as my mother did, of course. Tazia is-"

"-no Lissina, yes, I've been told," Mechella said impatiently. "I can't pretend to like her, I just can't."

"You could make Arrigo swear never to see her alone, and believe him-no matter what." "I-I'd have to believe him, wouldn't I?" Mechella whispered.

"Or die of jealousy." A grim note crept into Lizia's voice. "But there's another choice. Turn a blind eye, make your own life and power."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"Tazia is a grasping kind of person. I never much liked her, though I never told Arrigo so.

From what I've heard-and you'd hear it also if you'd done what you should to make certain you hear-she's only biding her time before she chases him down again. Her husband won't mind.

Garlo's interested in power, which is doubtless why she married him."

Mechella stared. "You mean-if she and Arrigo-Count do'Alva would-"

"You innocent child," Lizia sighed, "half the wives at Court have lovers. And possession of a Grijalva wife whose lover is the next Grand Duke would secure the do'Alva fortunes."

"That's despicable!"

"That's life," Lizia answered with another little shrug of delicate shoulders. "Whatever you decide, I advise you to gather people around you anyway, persons you trust and who'll be useful to you. Make yourself powerful. I had to, when Ormaldo became ill, or his cousins would have stolen my son's inheritance and ruined all that we accomplished in bringing Castello Casteya back to life."

"Make myself powerful? How?"

"Don't you see that in some respects you already are? The people adore you. Don't ever underestimate-carrida, are you feeling well?"

Mechella lurched out of bed, breakfast tray flying, and barely made it to the sink.

When she emerged, the room was tidy and Lizia was gone and the maid was waiting to help her into clean clothes. Mechella cursed feebly and wished she had the Lord Limner's determination to work no matter what his physical maladies. But Mequel's infirmities were mere pain, nothing at all like the trials of pregnancy.

She was ashamed of herself for disparaging the man's suffering. And as she recalled Lizia's words about how the Grijalva woman had captured Arrigo, she realized that she must emulate Mequel's courage or lose her husband. She must be the one to make him feel essential to Tira Virte; she must be the one to tell him he was a perfect lover; she must be the one he could not live without.

She was pitiably certain she couldn't live without him.

Her maid stood nearby, fidgeting. "What is it, Otonna?"

"Will Your Grace send word to Palasso Grijalva canceling today's lesson?"

Cabral-she'd completely forgotten Cabral. "My mother has Lissina, of course. ..." Cabral could be a beginning. But first she must take herself strictly in hand.

"No, I'll get dressed now, I'm feeling much better." She paused seeing Otonna with new eyes.

"Have you any sisters or brothers, Otonna? In service like you, I mean." Showing not the slightest puzzlement at the question-indeed, with a gleam in her eyes as if she'd been waiting for this for months-Otonna replied, "My mother had four daughters, Your Grace. Primavarra, she's head maid to the Grand Duchess. Yberria cleans the Grand Duke's private rooms. Varra does the same for the Palasso offices of four conselhos."

Spring, Winter, Summer-and her own Autumn; all the seasons of the year, and all the important rooms in the Palasso. One day she might even find this funny.

"You were listening at the door."

"I was, Your Grace, and I can't say it shames me." Her soft lips thinned and her plump chin lifted; it was a camponessa's face, broad and plain as the earth, and as wise. "Dismiss me for it, but this whole year I've been waiting for just this moment. Primavarra, she's my twin, when she heard about that woman coming back, she said to me, 'You tell her Grace that when she needs us, we'll be ready.' I've told all my sisters how good and kind you are, all innocent and unknowing of the nasty ways of the Grijalvas."

Mechella was well and truly startled-at first by the torrent of words, more than she'd ever heard at one time from Otonna, and then by their meaning. "You don't trust the Grijalvas?"

"Not a bit." Otonna folded her arms over a well-filled bodice of Verrada blue. "It's not decent, giving over a young man to an older woman who's meant to-to do what they do, which is keep Limners powerful at Court. Why, the Blessed Alesso who died freeing us from the heathen Tza'ab, he'd put a stop to it were he alive, and that's fact. It was that slinking Sario who trapped the do'Verradas into generation after generation of scandal, and he used Saavedra to do it!"

"He did?"

"He did! He gave her willingly to Duke Alejandro, bringing him to the Grijalvas instead of to the Serranos-so Sario could be made Lord Limner! And then when she vanished, he painted that picture so poor Alejandro would always have her Grijalva face before him, and when Alejandro's son came of an age for it, he was given a Grijalva woman for a Mistress as a seal on the bargain that made them Lord Limners one after the other, with the Serranos nowhere to be found!"

"I see," Mechella said faintly.

"The sanctas and sanctos have the right of it about the Grijalvas," Otonna continued, "but even they don't dare challenge them-and that's worrisome, Your Grace, when even those who speak for the Mother and Son stay silent. And that one-Varra's husband, he's master of Don Arrigo's horses, many's the time he went to Chasseriallo, so he's in a position to know about her."

Mechella nodded, confounded by this unsuspected view of the Limner family. "Yet you've said nothing to me before."

"Eiha, Your Grace had to learn on her own, Primavarra said to me, and she had the right of that as well. She was always the quickest-out of the womb before me, into service first of us four, and risen high in the Grand Duchess's favor as well."

Forcing herself out of bed, remembering Mequel's painful movements and wishing for half his bravery, Mechella asked, "But what about Cabral Grijalva?"

"As Your Grace's eyes and ears inside their Palasso?"

Mechella gave a start at how easily the maid followed her thoughts. "I was thinking of it, yes." How horrified Aunt Permilla would be to hear her ask the opinion of a servant. And how far away and thoroughly irrelevant Aunt Permilla was now.

"Eiha, there's Grijalvas and Grijalvas, aren't there? Proof enough in the sisters Larissa and Margatta, cherished friends to our blessed Duchess Jesminia. And Baroness do'Dregez, Lissina Grijalva that was, she's a fine kind lady with nothing but goodness about her. And Mequel isn't so bad, though he is one of the odd ones."

"Odd?"

"As I say, there's Grijalvas and Grijalvas. Yberria's husband, he's their cook, he said when I asked that Cabral isn't one of the unnatural ones- meaning those squint-eyed painters who can never father a child and put strange magical signs all over their pictures, and also the women who have one baby after another in hopes of getting a painterish son, just like prize horses bred for hunting."

In her year as Arrigo's wife, she hadn't even thought about what the Ecclesia or the commoners or anyone else thought of the Grijalvas. Limners were simply a fact of life in Tira Virte. Surely the sterile Limners couldn't help what they were-and Mequel was one of the dearest men she'd ever met. As for the other painters, they worked on behalf of Tira Virte, not themselves. Still, she agreed with Otonna's judgment of Grijalva women although a highborn wife was in much the same position when it came to it.

The getting of a son was Mechella's primary responsibility, too. It put her on similar footing with the Grijalva brood mares. And she didn't like it at all. She must be worth more than that- mustn't she?

Otonna said, "But Cabral's on your side, see if he isn't, and against his own Grijalva kin if it ever comes to it. And how is it I know this?" She smiled. "Only that he painted a copy of Your Grace's Marriage-and has been in love with you ever since."

Mechella sat down very hard on the bed. "Cabral?"

"En verro, and anyone without Your Grace's sweet innocence would have seen it weeks ago.

But don't ever let on that you know. Eiha, there's the hour chime, I'll have to hurry the lads with the bath water. Will Your Grace wear the lavender or the pink today?"

FORTY-THREE.

Four days later, Arrigo and his sister welcomed their guests-twenty-two titled parents and their forty noble offspring, aged ten to thirteen-to an afternoon of puppetry and games nominally hosted by Count Maldonno do'Casteya. The gathering, ordered by Cossimio and organized in haste, would serve to make known to his adolescent peers the Grand Duke's grand- son. From the ranks of the boys would come his friends; one of the girls might become his wife.