"What must be done. What perhaps should have been done many generations ago, before we and they painted ourselves into such a corner." Then he laughed, almost wildly. "Painted into a corner! An apposite saying, don't you think? Bassda! Who is it? Who are you there?"

For an instant Rohario thought his father had gone quite mad, but then he heard the plaintive voice.

"Your Grace, where are you?"

Renayo grimaced. "Eiha! The heifer has wandered out of her handler's keeping. Why did I ever marry her? All that tempting gold and those trade assurances. Though she's pleasing enough in bed, I suppose, and relieves me of the necessity of taking a mistress."

Shocked, Rohario gaped at his father, but a moment later a door opened and Grand Duchess Johannah, a vision of white softness, entered the chamber with several of her ladies-in-waiting at her heels. "I'm so frightened, Your Grace," she said in her tiny voice, "all those rough men waiting out in the Cathedral. Might I wait here with you? I feel so much safer here." Her gaze fluttered over Rohario; she blinked, staring, then fastened herself onto her husband, clinging to his arm. "Come, amora meya." With a sigh, he led her from the room.

Drastic measures for drastic times. Rohario did not follow his father but went out the way he had come and circled around to enter the Cathedral by the great front doors. There were indeed a great many rough men waiting, if one defined rough men as any man who was not born into the nobility. But they waited, to Rohario's eyes, with remarkable patience and restraint. These men were respectable in their own circles, guilds and merchant houses, banks and landlord's associations. They had as much to lose as did the Grand Duke if Tira Virte dissolved into the chaos that had torn apart Ghillas. Yet they choose to risk their lives and families and property in the name of Libera. Freedom. They chose to risk it for the sake of this Constitussion.

Like Eleyna, who had thrown away her chance at wealth and influence as the Heir's Mistress because she wanted, because she needed, to paint.

Certainly there were restless young men aplenty, huddled in groups but overseen by elders who kept a strict eye on these potential rabblerousers. Rohario admired the calmness with which the assembly waited. After two months of spirited and often angry meetings they had agreed on a Constitussion, and now they meant to present it to their Grand Duke and institute a new method of governance in Tira Virte, one that acknowledged the position of the Grand Duke, that acknowledged his importance and his time-honored privilege, but that granted privilege and power to the men of substance in the land as well.

Rohario walked forward quickly. The mason's journeyman, Ruis, called out a cheerful greeting; he had, in the end, become protective toward His Lordship, as he liked to call Rohario, and had defended him against the slurs of newcomers.

In one of the side boxes toward the front, near the altar, the shipbuilder Velasco gestured toward a free seat. Rohario slid in beside him. Velasco was seated here with other dignitaries, wealthy merchants, and a few noble landowners who had joined the Libertista cause.

"You see," said Velasco proudly, gesturing expansively to the crowd, "that we are civilized men here, who can bring about change without resorting to riot and mayhem. This will be our finest accomplishment."

"Do you think the Grand Duke means to sign the agreement?"

Velasco looked surprised. "Indeed, Don Rohario! You did not know? I was summoned last night to the Palasso, where I met with His Grace. He has already assured me that he will sign the document and agree to all of our terms."

Too amazed to reply, Rohario was grateful for the entrance of the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta. The assembly, buzzing before, quieted swiftly. As soon as the church elders had taken their seats on either side of lamp and altar, a captain of the Shagarra Regiment entered, leading the Grand Duke's retinue. Trumpets and banners were noticeably absent.

But Velasco stood, calling out in a loud voice: "All rise for the Grand Duke, Renayo, and for Grand Duchess Johannah and Don Edoard do'Verrada."

Rohario rose, as did every other soul in the vast nave of the Cathedral. The effect was stunning. Every man there rose to grant respect to the man whose authority they meant to erode.

In an odd way, it was reassuring. Renayo entered, looking stern and dignified. Edoard looked bewildered, but then, he never truly felt at home anywhere except in the out of doors. The Grand Duke paid his respects to the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta and then took his seat in the ducal box to the left of the altar, his chair placed to the forefront.

Velasco, as presiding Premio Oratorrio of the Provisional Assembly, rose and walked forward with deliberate slowness, holding the precious parchment in his hands. He knelt before the Grand Duke-Rohario admired the careful way in which Velasco and the other senior men went out of their way to show their respect for the dignity of the ducal office-and handed the parchment not to Renayo but to one of his conselhos. The conselho cleared his throat and read the entire document aloud.

The men assembled in the pews listened with intent silence. Renayo's expression remained grave. To Rohario's relief, they got through the entire document without anyone disturbing the peace. The bench on which he sat grew harder and harder, and despite himself he realized he was growing restless. Waiting. Anticipating.

It came as soon as the conselho, finishing, handed the document to Renayo.

"I will be heard!" There, on the opposite side of the nave in another aisle box, stood Azema.

"By the right given by the Ecclesia to any man to challenge falsehood, I challenge the right of Renayo M. isso Edoard Verro do'Verrada to sign this Constitussion. He is not the son of Arrigo.

He has no right to the ducal throne. His signature does not constitute a legal binding mark."

So much for peace.

Rohario hunched down, covered his ears with his hands to shut out the roar of many voices shouting all at once, then thought better of the gesture. Better to face the trouble square on. In the great sanctuary the noise echoed doubly loud, so loud that he wondered if it could shatter the huge glass windows or the fine glass vessels that held the holy wine blessed by Matra ei Filho.

Strangely, if he could indeed discern any order in the madness, at least half of the shouting and cursing and wild uproar was directed against Azema. There was hope, then. Renayo had adherents, even among those who sought to limit his power.

The Premio Sancto struggled up out of his holy seat and lifted a hand, but no one took any mind. The tremendous uproar showed no sign of abating. Even when the frail Premia Sancta rose, even when Rohario could see her mouth move, her words drowned by the tumult of louder voices, the shouting and hubbub did not quiet. Renayo sat stone-faced and watched the assembly.

How could he ever come to trust in this assembly if this was how they behaved? Rohario bit his lip and then, at last, made up his mind to act. He stood up.

But at that moment the great doors of the Cathedral opened, light flooding in to sculpt new and darker shadows along the aisles. A procession entered, a short line of men dressed in dark formal coats and trousers, gray caps tucked under their arms. Each man wore, around his neck, a golden key on a heavy gold chain. Each man carried, in his right hand, a copy of the Holy Verses.

Behind them walked servants dressed in plain livery, bearing two huge shrouded shapes that could only be. . . .

Paintings! They were so big that Rohario could not imagine what images they might be.

Behind the paintings, escorted by Cabral Grijalva, walked a man whose arms were chained behind him. Rohario did not recognize him, but he also wore the sigil of the golden key. Directly behind him walked a woman veiled in black lace that hung to her waist; her ash-rose gown belled out beneath the veil, by its color and style a relic of ancient days. Behind her clustered other Grijalva adults and children, a mass of them, coming forward like postulants. There!

"Eleyna!" He called her name, leaning forward, but she either did not hear him or chose not to hear. Her expression was grim. Her sister Beatriz, looking preternaturally calm, held her hand.

He could not look away from Eleyna. He could not bear to let her stand alone. He, too, had Grijalva blood in him. Why should he not join their number? He grasped hold of the half wall, ready to leap over it; a hand on his arm stayed him.

"Your place is here, Don Rohario," said the man beside him, misunderstanding the intent of his movement, "not with your father. You have chosen your place, and that is to stand with us."

Just as Eleyna had chosen, in the end, to stand with the Grijalvas.

Rohario bowed his head. Remembered his father's words short hours ago: We agreed it is the only way. He sat down. Now the voices that had moments before been shouting against the Grand Duke or against Azema shouted new words: "Grijalvas! Limners!"

The Grijalva Limners knelt, not before the Grand Duke but before the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta, who sat down again in their chairs. The servants holding the great paintings unveiled them and slowly turned them so that all could see: two paintings of The First Mistress, the most famous painting in Tira Virte . . . except that one of the paintings lacked the figure of Saavedra Grijalva. The room was a perfect reproduction, but it contained no woman.

The veiled woman strode up to the dais. She stood there while slowly the assembly quieted until only whispers disturbed the great hush that now fell in the cathedral.

"If I may beg your indulgence," said Cabral Grijalva. His voice carried sound and true in the vast gulf of the cathedral. His age of itself made him worthy of attention. "If you would examine these, Your Holinesses, you will see that the paints of this one are old and cracked and faded in color, yet it is perfect in execution, as befits a portrait done by one of the Old Masters. And here, a copy done recently: can you smell the faint odor of paint? Can you see that it is not dry yet but only beginning to dry down through the layers?"

The Premio Sancto touched his heart as though astonished. He pointed at the painting that displayed only an empty chamber.

Cabral went on. "For many years, Your Holinesses, you and your predecessors have heard but ignored rumors of magic born into the Grijalva line. Of Grijalva Limners working together with the do'Verradas to increase our country's fortunes. And so, together, they have. For I am come today as senior Grijalva alive to tell you that it is true. That there is magic in the Grijalva blood, though it touches only a few of us."

Rohario leaped to his feet. But he was alone. No breath stirred the air, no shout, not even a whisper. Every man in the Cathedral strained forward to hear what Cabral Grijalva would say next and how the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta would reply. He sat.

"I am not one of those Limners, Your Holinesses, for they are doomed by that same Gift to die young, but I swear to you now on this holy ground that there are such men in the Grijalva bloodline. And that for these many years they have faithfully served the do'Verradas and Tira Virte, offering up their lives. But in the end, perhaps, it was our own fear that has punished us most. Though we have struggled all these years to serve only the Dukes who protected us, there are always those few among us who choose to serve themselves. That is why we must throw ourselves upon your mercy and the mercy of the Ecclesia, which has scorned us as chi'patro for so long."

He paused, as if seeking permission to continue. So long Their Holinesses hesitated. Rohario wanted to jump up and shout: You cannot deny them now! But he held his tongue. And at last the Premia Sancta signed for Cabral to go on.

His voice remained even. "For the greatest of the Limners, Sario Grijalva, out of hatred and envy imprisoned his living cousin Saavedra, the beloved of Duke Alejandro, in this portrait, so that she might never love another man but himself. This same Sario, by unspeakable means which no other Grijalva has learned or dreamed of, extended his own life over the endless years. This Sario murdered Lord Limner Andreo out of blind ambition and sought to control Grand Duke Renayo for his own ends."

Shocked mutters rose from the benches, but Cabral waved them to silence impatiently. "This is not how we Grijalvas serve Tira Virte. We bring Sario Grijalva forward now, still wearing the same name although he wears a different body than the one he was born into almost four hundred years ago."

The Premia Sancta rose laboriously and tottered forward. She examined the two paintings with her fingers. Rohario saw that she shook her head. The assembly was so quiet that the loudest noise was the rustle of cloth moving as people shifted in their seats, the squeak of leather shoes on the floor.

When the old woman spoke, her voice was as robust as her body was frail. "These paintings are as you say, Master Cabral. Yet what proof can you give me? Here I see Saavedra Grijalva, and here-" She gestured toward the painting that displayed only an empty chamber.

The veiled woman slipped the black lace from her head.

There was a moment of stunned absolute silence. Then everyone spoke at once.

But they quieted immediately when Saavedra Grijalva raised a hand.

Saavedra Grijalva! Could it be? How could it possibly be she? And yet, the painted chamber in which she had stood was empty. Where else could she have gone?

Rohario stared. This woman he had admired for years from afar, and yet, standing there, she looked so different, not in face but in substance: a beautiful woman, truly, but one he did not know. And when he sought and found Eleyna, her face was infinitely sweeter to him and far more familiar, though he had gazed on Saavedra Grijalva's face in the portrait for the whole of his life.

"I am Saavedra Grijalva," she said in a rich voice that carried easily to every nook and distant corner in the Cathedral. A rich voice, one marked by a curious accent. "I am truly she, and I was captured and imprisoned in this painting by the magic of my cousin, Sario, who stands accused before you now, guilty by his own admission."

Sario Grijalva stood with head bowed. He did not move or make any sign that he heard.

Rohario could not see his expression.

"I have come to you, here," Saavedra continued, "to beg protection for myself and for my family from the hand of Grand Duke Renayo and at the feet of the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta. If my family has sinned, it has only been because of their desire to serve. They have held their duty to the do'Verradas above all else. This I know, for I watched the Grijalvas regain the position of Lord Limner and I see now how changed is Tira Virte, how much stronger, how much richer, how much more populous, since that day when I was cast into this imprisonment.

"How did you come to be free?" asked the Premia Sancta.

From the floor, from-of course!-Ruis, another question: "How can we believe this is true?"

She smiled gently and answered the Sancta first, as was fitting. "Once it was discovered I was alive within the portrait, it was simple enough to paint a door-the other side of that door, do you see?-without binding spells, so that I might open the latch and walk free. And as for you, young man! Come forward!"

Eiha! Rohario admired her audacity.

"You I do not know, but I ask you to examine that painting closely. Have you ever known a mirror in a painting to reflect a face? Have you? Look."

Ruis looked. He jumped back, astounded. "I see my own face!"

"Now. Let Sario Grijalva look in the mirror. You, young man, look and see what face is reflected."

Sario was led over, unresisting. Ruis gasped out loud. "It isn't his face! It is another man's face, there!"

Eiha! Again the assembly dissolved into confusion. Men stood on the pews for a better view, while others banged their hands against wood, crying for silence. At last, while Saavedra Grijalva waited with complete composure, they quieted.

Throughout, Renayo sat without changing expression. Rohario looked from him toward the gathered Grijalva family, and there he saw Eleyna, looking into the crowd, searching . . .

searching ... he refrained from waving his hands, but there! She had seen him. As if it were enough to mark him, she returned her attention to the dais.

"Two days ago I emerged from my prison," continued Saavedra. "Five days ago I was alive in my proper time. Five days ago I spoke. . . ." She stumbled over the word. Grief harrowed her face. "I spoke to Duke Alejandro. But I never had the chance to tell him that I was pregnant with his child."

By now, at least one of the men sitting near Rohario was wiping tears from his eyes.

Her voice rang out more strongly than ever, as clear as the great bells that rang from the tower.

"I admit, to my shame and his, that this child was chi'patro! That word has been used often enough against my family. But it is all I have left of him, and I will not be ashamed. I beg you, Your Holinesses, to forgive this sin." She threw herself on her knees before the Premio Sancto and the Premio Sancta.

"Matra Dolcha, ninia," said the Premia Sancta, giving her hand to Saavedra. "What is past is long past. You have suffered enough."

"What of my family? Must they be punished as well, for the Gift given them by Matra ei Filho, which they have nurtured in secrecy for these many years?" The two Holinesses bowed their heads.

At long last, Grand Duke Renayo rose. He looked as dignified and noble as Rohario had ever seen him, his dark blue coat perfectly cut-if ten years out of date, for Renayo refused to give in to the new styles. Matra! And why should he if he did not wish to? The old style suited him. For the first time in his life, Rohario truly admired his father.

"I must interrupt," Renayo said, "for there is a piece of business we have not concluded. I have not yet signed this document." While the assembly gaped, still caught in the drama of Saavedra's confession and absolution, Renayo took a pen from Velasco and signed the Constitussion with a flourish.

A great cheer rose, shaking the high windows and the gold-plated chandeliers.

Renayo waited until the cheering died down, then walked over to stand beside the Grijalva Limners. There were only nine of them, one so bent with arthritis he could barely stand, another as young as an apprentice. They did not look dangerous.

"It is true that the do'Verradas have benefitted from the service of the Grijalva Limners," said Renayo. "And yet, secrecy is abhorrent to the Ecclesia. So in the spirit of this Constitussion which I have signed tonight, I make this pronouncement: That all Limners and all painters of any lineage may compete for the honor of painting the official documents of the court. I abolish the position of Lord Limner and instead appoint a Council for Documents, which will award commissions for the execution of portraits to document official proceedings as they are needed."

More wild cheers. Bemused, Rohario wondered if his father might end up more popular after the institution of the Corteis than before. Truly it was a miracle that the Matra ei Filho had blessed Tira Virte with the wisdom to change without resorting to the violence that had destroyed other kingdoms.

"As for these Grijalvas who stand before you now, I am honor-bound by the Edict of Protection bestowed by Alessio the First and renewed by the first Benetto. It is time for that edict to pass out of my hands and into those of the Ecclesia."

Renayo bowed his head humbly. So did many of the men in the gathering, clasping hats to breasts. The Grijalvas, slowly and perhaps with some reluctance, knelt before the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta. All of them bowed their heads, even the great Limners, whose arrogance was legend-all, except for the accused man. Rohario sought out Eleyna's dark head, saw Cabral-grandfather!-kneeling with his white head bowed and his dignity intact.

At last Saavedra Grijalva raised her head and stared straight at Their Holinesses. She was proud yet also humbled by tragic experience, and she was as majestic as a queen in an elegant gown three hundred years out of date and yet as new-looking as if made last week.

"Matra Dolcha, ninia, we cannot forsake those who come to us for mercy," said the Premia Sancta, taking her hand and lifting her up. "Rise. For you have sinned grievously, but it is the mercy of the Matra which gives us life and hope. So come you under Her gentle hands and be forgiven."

Under the gentle hands, Rohario thought, of the great altarpiece painted by Sario Grijalva with his own blood. The altarpiece in which the Matra was a portrait of Saavedra herself. How could they not forgive her? Renayo came forward and took Saavedra's hand. "What you have suffered, bela meya, is beyond description. I will not allow you to suffer more." He turned to the assembly. His voice penetrated into the depths of the cathedral. "Is it just that Duke Alejandro's child be stained and cast out?"

"No!" they cried, a thousand voices in agreement. All but Azema, who stood alone, a fragile reed fighting hopelessly against the rising tide.

"Can you swear, Saavedra Grijalva, on the book of Holy Verses that this is the true child of Alejandro do'Verrada?" The Premio Sancto held out an old leather-bound, gilt-encrusted volume of the Holy Verses.

Saavedra laid first her palms, then her forehead, on it. The great dark mass of her unbound hair hid the book from view, yet no one needed to see it clearly. It was enough that they felt, with her, that it was there. "I swear it." She lifted her head so all might hear her words. "This child I bear within me is the child of Alejandro Baltran Edoard Alessio do'Verrada, he with whom I pledged love. This I swear on the Holy Verses of Matra ei Filho, may their blessings be upon me."

"This child she bears would have been Duke of Tira Virte, had he been a boy." Renayo extended an arm toward the Grand Duchess. No, indeed, Rohario realized abruptly. He was extending it toward poor bewildered Edoard, who stared at Saavedra as though at a vision which portended good fortune or, perhaps, ill. "So in the spirit of this new Constitussion which you have presented to me as your Grand Duke, I hereby as is within my rights and powers betroth Saavedra Grijalva to my son, Edoard, and I grant legitimacy to the child born of this issue. If it is a boy, I name that child Heir after my son Edoard."

By this time the assembly was too worn out by revelation to do more than raise a murmur that soon passed. Renayo clasped Saavedra's hand in Edoard's. Rohario saw, now, what the plan had been all along, concocted, as always, by the Duke and his Grijalva allies. We agreed it is the only way.

Grand Duke Renayo had never been a man to let others control his destiny. The Grijalvas did whatever they needed to do, in order to survive.

Renayo surveyed the assembly and drew himself up, for he remained, lest they forget, their Duke. "As for the other accusation," he said scornfully, "I will not dishonor my mother's memory by answering it, but I swear-" He knelt before the Premio Sancto and the Premia Sancta and kissed their rings. "I swear on these rings," he continued, rising to his feet and gesturing toward his son and his son's betrothed, "that my Heir is the true child of the bloodline of the do'Verradas."

NINETY-ONE.

Eleyna was holding Agustin's linen-swathed hand when he died. He had awakened only twice in the last two days, once in agony and the second time so weak that the pain no longer seemed to bother him. So at last, and mercifully, he breathed his last the evening after the great meeting at the Cathedral.

"A shard of the Mirror returns to the Great Soul." The sancta in attendance closed his blistered eyes. Dionisa wept uncontrollably, though Beatriz attempted to comfort her. They interred him the next morning in the family tomb. By midday Beatriz had packed her few possessions, including two fat notebooks, and made her farewells.

"I must go," she said to Eleyna. "If a Grijalva dedicates herself to the Sanctia, then the Ecclesia will see we are worthy of their protection and their forgiveness."

"But your balls and your manor house and your fine gowns, Beatriz! What about them?"