"I would be honored to show you around," said Rohario hastily. In fact, he had been bored.

"Are all the rooms like this?" asked Eleyna. "It reminds me of the Galerria."

Matra Dolcha! Rohario bit down on a grin, since it was unseemly of a man to make a jest of anything related to his mother. "Grand Duchess Mairie was a fine woman, may her memory be blessed, but it is true she and my father believed that gold and ornament are the chief marks of good taste."

" 'Solidity, conveniency, and ornament.' "

He laughed. "The three qualities that make a magnificent building. You have read Ottonio della Mariano's monograph?"

"His architectural studies are very good. If there must be so much ornament, however, I would rather it be less solid and more of a piece."

"Eleyna!" This blunt speaking clearly shocked the duennia.

But Rohario was delighted. "You must see the banquet hall! It hasn't changed in three hundred years. Most of the suites upstairs were redone twenty years ago when my mother decided to use Chasseriallo as a retreat. That's when the lower rooms were redecorated as well, and larger windows added."

"All in this style?" Eleyna asked, looking dubious. As well she might.

"Less monument, more ornament," he said, and she responded with a chuckle. At last! He had found someone who detested these styles as much as he did.

"Might we tour the gardens as well?" asked Beatriz in a prettily hesitant voice.

The duennia coughed again, meaningfully, but Rohario was not in a mood to placate old- fashioned notions of propriety, not after his father had exiled him to this awful old house that had only two fireplaces and the most execrable wallpaper.

"It would be my pleasure," he said enthusiastically. Afternoon quickly became evening as he showed them round the apartments. The women finally left him to go upstairs and dress for dinner. In his bedchamber, Rohario whistled as he tied his cravat, adding an extra flourish. Should he leave the lowest button on his cuffs unfastened, as was fashionable these days at Court? Or ought he to be more formal? After much consideration, and examining the effect from every possible angle, he decided in favor of the more conservative style. Grazzo do'Matra his waistcoat did not clash with the wallpaper; that had been chance good fortune. And since he preferred evening coats of the finest subtle gray, a color beyond reproach, he was certainly safe there. At last he was satisfied. Even a woman with as sharp an eye as Eleyna Grijalva would notice nothing amiss.

But soon enough Edoard would return. Rohario grimaced. Edoard had been so keen to take a Grijalva Mistress, but like most of his enthusiasms this one had as much permanence as the wink of frost on a cool morning. As soon as the sun rose, it melted.

But Edoard was not here now.

Over dinner Rohario and Eleyna argued about which of the Old Masters was best. "No, I can't agree," he said over fricando of veal. "Just because Guilbarro Grijalva's life was cut tragically short doesn't mean he can't be counted among the finest masters."

"I will agree that his Birth of Cossima is a masterpiece."

"Why not Riobaro? Everyone acknowledges him as one of the finest painters of the Grijalva line."

She considered while a servant offered her curried rabbit. "His work is beautiful, of course, but I can't help thinking it derivative. As if he was trying to let someone else speak through his hands. I can't explain it."

Rohario laughed. "Then who?"

"Sario Grijalva, of course. His altarpiece, his portrait of Saavedra-"

There was an uncomfortable pause. The First Mistress. Rohario fidgeted in the silence while the servants brought round puddings and a buttered lobster.

Mara coughed. Eiha! What an annoying habit. But Rohario was grateful to her for breaking the silence. "Any painter would wish to emulate Sario Grijalva," Mara said.

With a flourish made dramatic by the use of a silver fork, Eleyna came back to life. "But too many painters have tried to copy Sario's style rather than creating their own. Aldaberto and Tazioni painted in their own way. There is much we can learn from them. Miquellan Serrano was-"

"Eleyna!" The old duennia looked scandalized. "That any Grijalva would praise the man who painted that insulting Rescue!" Then she looked abashed, as if she had not meant to remind Rohario of the Grijalva's chi'patro origins.

"He was a fine painter," insisted Eleyna. "No matter that he feuded with our family. It is ridiculous we only praise Grijalva painters. Others have genius as well. There was a painter in Friesemark named Huesandt who died about fifty years ago. He is a true master! He paints his subjects so beautifully that you feel as if you know their inner hearts. And there is another painter from Friesemark, Meyseer. He uses light beautifully. He had a pupil known as "The Vethian.' She abandoned her family and husband in Vethia in order to study with Meyseer, throwing her old life away only to paint." Her face shone when she spoke so passionately. It startled and disturbed Rohario. In his father's court, enthusiasm was suspect. He pretended to indifference. "Have you seen these reproductions? The work of these painters?" she continued, leaning forward. Her hair, bound up with ivory combs, and the simple necklace of pearls she wore shone in the unsteady light of the candlabra.

Her words made him remember with awful clarity the Iluminarres riot: the young apprentices who had attacked him with such anger; Sancto Leo's senseless death. What had provoked it all?

What else was out there in the world that he had ignored, or never known existed?

"No," he said quietly, chastened. "We have seen none of their work in the Palasso. My father wants only the paintings from Tira Virte displayed in the Galerria, and Grand Duchess Johannah is not interested in art." Then, wanting to see her face light up again, he asked: "But perhaps you could tell me more about them."

The next morning Rohario got up at midday as usual, but he found the breakfast room empty.

He barely tasted fresh rolls and tea before he ventured outside.

The gardens lay beyond the courtyard wall. Once part of the fortifications for the lodge, the wall was now a picturesque ruin, worn down by time and rain. Through gaps in the wall he saw the winding trails, the topiary, and swathes of white flowers coming into bloom with the rains.

The last droplets of morning rain still clung to the blossoms and to the leaves of trees, although by now the sky had cleared, bringing with it the sun.

There, among the flowers, he saw Beatriz. She looked lovely, carefully cutting stems and placing flowers neatly in a long basket. She wore a handsome bonnet and a morning dress cut to reveal her graceful neck.

She greeted him prettily and without the least sign of self-consciousness.

"It is a lovely garden, Don Rohario. Your gardener tells me the herb garden has been let run wild." Thus she pleaded, with a nicely understated silence.

He smiled politely. "I am sure he would let you take the garden in hand." As he spoke, he looked around. "I have not seen your sister."

"She is painting," said Beatriz.

Abruptly he saw the corner of an easel protruding from behind a screen of rhododendrons.

"Grazzo." Painting! Of course. She was a Grijalva. Matra grant that her work was at least competent. He had never found himself able to lie about art. Never. Not even his own.

Eleyna was so intent on her work that she did not notice him walk up. The duennia did, of course; she acknowledged him with a curt nod and went back to her embroidery. He was not the quarry she was interested in. Rohario stopped a safe distance away and surveyed the work that grew on a cotton canvas covered with a red-brown ground.

Eleyna worked with a paletto of six colors, painting rapidly but with confidence. The garden took shape before his eyes, the fallen wall, the drooping trees, the highlights of bright flowers, and Beatriz in their midst, kneeling in a place she must have knelt an hour or so ago, although she had since moved on. Somehow the clouds, the tower, the sweep of the garden itself, led the eye to Beatriz who, in white with her hair spilling out from her bonnet, seemed herself to embody the spirit of morning. Unlike the current style, in which the painter took pains to remove any trace of brushstroke from the painting, giving it a smooth glossy coat, Eleyna made her brushwork part of the texture of the painting.

Rohario just watched, afraid to disturb her concentration. When a servant hurried forward, he signed for a chair and, when it was brought, sat. Intent on the painting growing in front of him, he did not notice the time passing. Eleyna worked with remarkable concentration, as if she were in a trance.

Matra Dolcha! She was good! Even in a fa presto piece like this, where she dealt with the design and the form and the colors in the painting all at once, she painted with a quality of brightness and life that staid Lord Limner Andreo never dreamed of. There were flaws, to be sure, but the spontaneity of the landscape was as much a part of its interest as its composition.

A servant brought coffee and plum cakes and set them out on a table. Catching sight of the movement, Eleyna paused and glanced over at Rohario. She smiled, as if sensing his enjoyment, and went back to work. He smiled, unable to help himself. He felt he had never been happier in his life than at this moment.

"It is done," said Eleyna, sitting back.

"It's beautiful!" He jumped up. Then, self-conscious, he approached the easel cautiously.

She looked startled. Her sunhat had come loose and it hung at her back, blue ribbons dangling.

"Do you think so? You needn't flatter me just to be polite."

"You must know you're a fine painter! Of course there's some roughness because you painted it in one sitting, without a preliminary sketch, but that's part of its charm."

She smiled again, this time so brilliantly he almost staggered. "You understand!"

He understood.

He thought, for a moment, that a cloud had dimmed the sun, because his sight clouded over.

But the sun's light did not waver. It was like being caught in the riot again, thrown this way and then that, unable to get his footing, lost in a tumult.

Rohario understood that he had fallen in love . . . with his brother's Mistress, a Grijalva woman who had-despite her initial reluctance-seen the multitudinous benefits of her new position as Mistress to the Heir.

He smiled wanly in reply and looked out across the garden, struggling to find words that would not give away the terrible emotions seething in his heart. In the distance, Beatriz looked up toward something he could not see. She rose, basket of flowers dangling from her arm, altogether a captivating sight.

A horseman rode into view. The gardens were not, of course, an appropriate place to ride a horse and especially not a creature as obviously ill-tempered as this one was. It shied at every shrub and flowerbed.

The rider jerked the horse up hard and dismounted. Giving his reins to a groom, he approached Beatriz. He had the saunter of a man entirely at home in his body and with his position in the world, a thick shock of gorgeous light brown hair, and an expansive laugh which was not, alas, ever forced. Women had been falling over their feet to attract his attention since he was fourteen, and not just because of who he was.

Eleyna rose from her chair. "Who is that?" She lifted paint-stained fingers to touch her black hair. Belatedly, she realized her sunhat had come off. She groped frantically for it.

"That," said Rohario flatly, his pleasure in the day, his heart itself, torn to shreds, "is my brother, Don Edoard."

SIXTY-FOUR.

Paint stained her fingers and she knew her hair was disheveled; it was too late to pretend her sunhat hadn't been hastily retied. Worst, drops of paint stained her morning dress, but the fine geometric pattern imprinted onto the white muslin almost disguised them. Her painting forgotten, Eleyna stared as Don Edoard tucked Beatriz's hand into his elbow and walked up along the winding path toward her. Their slow progress gave Eleyna the leisure to examine him. Only slightly taller than his brother, he had the grace of an athlete. Where Rohario had inherited his grandmother's delicate features, Edoard was clearly a son of Tira Virte, bold nose and thin face softened by his light Ghillasian hair. An interesting face.

I shall have him sit for a portrait.

Edoard and Beatriz disappeared behind a hedge, then reappeared not ten paces from the easel.

Beatriz was smiling, Edoard laughing. He had a marvelous laugh.

"Here is Eleyna," said Beatriz.

He came forward and, taking her hand, bowed low over it. He did not, Grazzo do'Matra, attempt to kiss her hand, although she felt alive to the press of his fingers on hers. "Eleyna. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Your lovely sister tells me you are a painter, which should not surprise me, I suppose, since you are also a Grijalva, but I did not know that women painted or perhaps only that they sketched, as the Court ladies do to while away the time."

"Yes," she said, carefully easing her hand out of his grip. "I have been painting."

He came around the easel to look. "Ah, yes, very fine. Very beautiful. I see your sister here.

How appropriate. And who is this charming woman? It is not every day that three beautiful women visit me at my hideaway. Mara? You are a welcome guest, I can assure you." He kissed the duennia's hand. Mara blushed and, almost, simpered.

"Rohario. Eiha! You will want to see the hunter I bought. Now, corasson meya," he continued, turning back to take Eleyna's hand with proprietorial interest and place it in the crook of his elbow, "we will go in to luncheon, which I am informed is quail cooked with some kind of sauce-you know how cooks are, they have every kind of sauce and several courses none of which I can pronounce, since all the cooks we employ come from Ghillas, and though dear departed Mama did try to teach me how to pronounce all those words, I have never managed to.

She despaired of me. 'Edoard,' she would say, 'the only language you can speak is hound, but at least you speak it well.' "

He chattered on in this way, mercifully content with the occasional murmured assent from Eleyna. They went into the lodge and were served luncheon in the intimacy of the dining room.

Edoard was not precisely a boring speaker. But when he got launched into one of his monologues, she found her attention wandering. It was like sitting in the tiled courtyard at home during Sperranssia, sketching while listening to the strolling gittern players as they serenaded the ladies of each house in the hope of gaining a kiss.

". . . of course no one expected Zio Alesso to die so early, in fact that is the reason dear Mama never wanted me to take up hunting because he was thrown while taking a hedge, but Patro always said he had a terrible seat, so I suppose it was only a matter of time." Edoard smiled.

Eleyna by this time had absolutely no idea of what he had been saying. "Only a matter of time before he was thrown?" she asked, terrified he would realize she hadn't been listening.

"What a clever beauty you are, carrida meya. That is what dear Mama always said about Teressa-my aunt, that is, who married that man from Diettro Mareia whose name I can't pronounce-that it does a woman no good to be beautiful if she remains stupid."

Eleyna smiled, knowing how vapid she must look. Moronna! She felt completely at a loss.

"Our Zio Alesso," broke in Rohario, looking exasperated, "visited this lodge frequently, enjoyed its rooms and gardens very much, and four years after he became Grand Duke got thrown from his horse within sight of it."

"Grand Duke Alesso died here?" asked Beatriz, intrigued by this lurid detail.

"I can tell the tale myself, Rohario." Edoard pushed his chair away from the table. The others hastily rose with him. "I would be delighted to show you the new hunter I bought," he added, offering his arm to Eleyna.

"Of course."

They walked out into the courtyard and from there to the stables. Edoard was uncharacteristically quiet. Rohario, whose own expression betrayed annoyance, trailed behind, escorting Mara and Beatriz. Obviously Rohario did not want to be here. Only the Grand Duke had the power to force him to remain. But why? This must be what her mother wanted from her: to ferret out all the secrets of the do'Verrada household. Eleyna shuddered. It was all so very chilling and nasty.

"Are you cold?" asked Edoard. "We could return for a wrap."

"No. Thank you."

"Here we are. Do you like horses?"

"I have not yet mastered the drawing of them."

It was dimmer inside the stables and it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust. Ahead, something was thumping loudly against a wall.

"My lord!" A groom hurried up. "The new chevallo is muito fuegosto, very fiery. You can hear him kick. It would be better if you stay away until we calm him down."

"I will return at a better time. This way, carrida meya. We will go see the hounds."

Once they got outside, he brightened considerably. They had managed to lose the others.

Edoard placed his other hand over hers where it rested at his elbow. Eleyna smiled tremulously but went numb inside. She remembered Felippo's marital attentions as through a veil, could see them, could feel them, his hands and his body and his lips, but it all seemed to have happened to someone else, someone she no longer knew.

"If you are cold, we could go back to the lodge. There is a fireplace in my suite. I will have it lit."

And they would be alone in his private chambers.

"I would like to see the hounds." She barely choked out the words.

"Eiha! They are fine dogs. We do'Verradas have been breeding these hounds for many generations, and I am sure the original three bitches came as a marriage present from Casteya. I can never remember these details, but if they are of interest to you, there are records the Palasso clerks could easily find, since I am sure they have little enough to do otherwise. Patro is never interested in the old records except as they relate to trade and as for the rest of us ... we children were never scholarly, which disappointed dear Mama, for she dearly loved a good philosophical discussion and only Rohario ever bothered to read any of the old academics. But he always must say something cutting, and after it happened once too often Mama refused to include him in the discussions any more. Here are the kennels. Framba and Fraga are the two bitches. Vuonno is named for his size, of course, but Suerto is the finest of the pack, aren't you, mennino?"

Edoard let go of her and gave his full attention to the red-brown hound who loped up to him.

Clearly the hound adored his master, and as clearly Edoard loved his dogs. At once, Eleyna saw how he was meant to be painted.