by Amy Maroney
“I just wish you’d take this a little more seriously. Why do I always have to be the voice of reason?”
He sighed. “Will I ever be a grown-up in your eyes? Doesn’t being a dad give me any cred at all? Or will I never outlive my reputation as a deadbeat addict?” His voice had grown serious.
“Come on, Gus, no one thinks about that anymore.”
“I wonder sometimes. I’ve been drug-free for ten years now. How much longer will it take for you to trust me?”
“I do trust you.”
“Then see me—really see me—as the adult I’ve become, not the mess I used to be.”
Zari was startled into silence. The tone of light amusement in her brother’s voice had vanished. His eyes held a look of reproach she had never seen before.
Her nephew’s high, sweet voice became audible. “Auntie Z! Auntie Z!”
Without another word, Gus handed the mobile to his son.
7
September, 2015
Amsterdam, Holland
Zari
Zari met John Drake the next morning for coffee at a small café overlooking a canal. Through the plate glass window, she saw cyclists wheeling across a bridge. Sunlight glinted off houseboats docked along the canal. Some were freshly painted architectural gems, while others looked as if they only stayed afloat due to a combination of glue, tar, and luck.
Across the table from her, John stirred his latte. He was dressed in black jeans and a button-down black shirt, a nod to his standard work uniform. His footwear was scaled down as well—the fancy brogues he’d sported during his presentation had been swapped out for high-topped Doc Martens.
Not for the first time, she wondered what his personal life was like. He never mentioned a partner, and she had absolutely no sense of his sexual orientation. The first time she’d seen him in a suit she had assumed he was gay, but that was because most of the straight American men she knew were incapable of putting together a sophisticated outfit. Things were different in Europe, she had soon learned.
His short-cropped black hair did nothing to soften the rough features of his face, and his skin was darker than it had been when she had met him a year ago, hunched over potions and gadgets in his workshop. That was because he’d spent most of his weekends over the summer surfing, it turned out. John surfed regularly in the frigid Atlantic off the west coast of England, and most of his travel revolved around the search for the perfect wave.
“Why aren’t you staying at the conference hotel?” John asked.
“I’m staying with—a friend.” Zari realized she didn’t know what to call Wil. Long-distance lover? Boyfriend? Partner? She would have to pick a moniker and stick with it. “So how was your summer of surfing?”
“I got to know the Cornish coast quite well,” he said. “I’m looking forward to branching out a bit. I’ll be heading to France in the spring.”
“Where?” Zari gave her own latte a stir.
“St. Jean de Luz. It’s only an hour or so from where you’ll be.”
“Have you surfed there before?”
“A few times. There’s a great community of surfers in the area. It has a strong Basque culture and a more relaxed outlook than you find in other parts of France.” He put down his spoon and glanced at her. “So what did Dotie have to say to you at the reception? I saw you two chatting.”
“I don’t think chatting is the right description for that encounter. He talked about my hair and spent a little too much time examining my...outfit. Things devolved from there.”
John shook his head. “Dotie does have a bit of a reputation, I’m afraid.”
“So I’ve heard. I got prickly because he laughed at my inexperience. The thing is, he’s right—I am inexperienced. I don’t have dozens of well-connected colleagues on my side. I don’t have an arsenal of experts backing my theory that Mira painted those portraits. What’s the value of experts anyway, when technology and science keep proving them wrong?”
John took a sip of his latte. “Technology and science have taken the experts down a peg or two, but they still carry a lot of weight. Get a few of them on your side and Mira will rise from obscurity. Right now, she’s a lovely idea based on a few scraps of evidence. You need to prove she’s a maker of history. Try birth and death notices, church records. You’d be surprised how far back some of these things go. A lot of them are digitized these days.”
“I know, and Laurence has offered to smooth the way with all of that.”
Laurence Ceravet, who owned the portrait of the merchant family, was a curator at the art museum of the university in Pau, where Zari would be spending the next several months.
“Bureaucracy can be mind-numbing in France,” John said.
“She’s cutting through all that red tape for me. We’ve already got appointments lined up in Bayonne at the municipal archives to see the records on Arnaud de Luz, thanks to her. Whatever we dig up, I’ve committed to presenting it all at a conference on Renaissance-era portraiture in Bordeaux next spring. Can I count on you to share your findings from the Fontbroke portrait analysis for my paper?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll e-mail you all the documents as soon as I get back to Oxford.”
Zari stared into her latte. Suddenly the thought of drinking it made her nauseous. Or maybe it was just the anxiety gnawing at her belly. “I wish I had your knowledge,” she said wistfully, looking up again. “I worry that I’ll find evidence that I can’t even see because I don’t know what to look for. Have you ever considered writing a blueprint for solving art mysteries?”
John smiled. “Tell you what. I’ll make time for dinner in my busy surfing schedule when I come to St. Jean de Luz if you can tear yourself away from your research. You can share your findings and pick my brain. Wait—you surf, don’t you? Why not join me in the water as well?”
She cradled her cup in her hands. “I’m warning you, my surfing skills are pretty rusty.”
“Do you mind wearing a wetsuit?”
“Not as much as I mind hypothermia.”
He laughed. There was a warmth in his eyes that Zari hadn’t seen before, and his smile was broad and unguarded. John’s cool reserve rarely slipped away, but this smile? It was evidence. He liked her.
And she desperately needed an ally like him in the art world.
8
Summer, 1504
Abbey of Belarac, Béarn
Mira
“We don’t have to go.” Arnaud stood holding his mule’s reins in the shade of a hawthorn tree, looking east to the green valley where the Abbey of Belarac lay.
“How can you say that?” Mira shifted in her saddle, swatting at a gnat that buzzed around her eyes. “We vowed to do it.”
He reached up and took her hand, studying her a moment. They both knew she dreaded entering the gates and being swallowed up again by the measured rhythms, the silent discipline of the cloistered life. It was a world she had learned to navigate, but always resisted.
“In truth, the only person I want to see within those walls is Sister Agathe,” she confessed. “Though I fear the reproach on her face. After all, I did abandon my duties at Belarac.”
“With my encouragement,” he said, kissing her palm. “You’re married. You’ll stay with me in the guesthouse.” He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “You’ve a different life now, Mira.”
In the morning, Sister Agathe took them on a tour of the workshop spaces where Mother Béatrice had created all of her industries. Sister Agathe had always been kind to Mira, and her warm smile had not changed. But now there were shadows under her eyes and lines around her mouth, evidence of her burdens. Mira felt a stab of remorse at the sight.
They entered the weaving room, which looked abandoned. Only one of the three looms Arnaud had built for the abbey still functioned properly. Arnaud admitted he was not surprised that his ha
ndiwork had proved faulty. He had copied the original loom gifted to the abbey by Carlo Sacazar as best he could, but with no instruction from anyone schooled in the engineering behind the contraption, he had relied on guesswork. He could reason his way through the repairs, but the real problem was that no one at the abbey knew how to fix a loom once it had broken.
Sister Agathe led them from the weaving room across the courtyard to the great iron gates, then to the orchards beyond. A basket under one of the trees was half-full of red apples. She plucked two from the pile and handed them to Mira and Arnaud.
“The new abbess—how is she faring?” Mira asked, polishing her apple on her skirts.
“She is from Gascony. She has filled the abbey with boarders, widows, and daughters of Gascon noblemen.” Sister Agathe looked around, lowering her voice, though there was no one else in the apple orchard. “But she cares not for the complexities of the wool trade, or the business of paper-making, or the harvesting of hops for ale. Since Mother Béatrice died, it has been difficult to keep it all going.” Sister Agathe sighed, her eyes on Mira. “Your presence is missed. You were raised under her wing, you absorbed the lessons of these industries, and you carried out tasks that were never taught to others.”
Mira fell silent, overcome by guilt.
“What about the villagers? The shepherds of Ronzal?” Arnaud asked. “Do they still uphold their obligations to the abbey?”
Sister Agathe nodded. “Yes. The agreements made by Mother Béatrice and your father hold firm.”
“We shall stay on for a time. We will do all we can to help you,” Mira promised. “And we shall see that others are trained to carry out the work properly after we leave.”
Sister Agathe looked from Mira to Arnaud, relief evident on her face. “My prayers have been answered, then.”
“Will we need the permission of the abbess?” Arnaud asked.
“She is in Gascony for the funeral of a bishop—and to drum up more noble daughters to fill our bedchambers. I accept your offer of aid on her behalf. Truth be told, the abbess leaves the workings of our industries up to me.”
Arnaud spent a fortnight repairing looms and helping the villagers with tasks in the orchards and the fields. He found a village boy skilled in woodworking and made him his assistant. Every day the boy was Arnaud’s shadow. In time, he would be responsible for repairing the looms and whittling replacement parts.
For her part, Mira reinstated the systems she had learned from Mother Béatrice for wool washing and dyeing, for spinning and weaving. She kept two bright novice nuns by her side and had them write down the steps taken to accomplish each project.
“Sister Agathe,” said Mira one afternoon while they supervised a group of young nuns boiling linen rags into pulp for paper. “Do the monks of San Juan de la Peña still stop here on their route north?”
Sister Agathe shook her head. “Not often. It was Brother Arros who used to convince the monks to detour into our little valley, and he no longer travels. His duties as prior forbid it now. And he is not as young as he once was. Riding a mule over the mountains is a burden to him these days, not an adventure.”
“Mother Béatrice relied on his counsel for every aspect of the wool business. I hoped he could do the same for you.” Mira peered into a steaming vat, then gestured to one of the nuns. “You can fit more rags in here,” she told the young woman. “Add a dozen more, but slowly—so you do not get splashed and burned.”
The nun nodded and hurried to the rag pile.
Mira watched her carry out the task, then turned back to Sister Agathe. “I would like you to write a letter.”
“To whom?”
“To the merchant of Toulouse whom Mother Béatrice made a contract with before she died.”
“Whatever for? He will not respond. We broke the contract, never gave him what she promised.”
“But the product he desired is still made here. With the right price, he may yet take up the contract again.”
“Seems a waste of time,” Sister Agathe said in a tone that was both exasperated and doubtful.
“I shall help you compose the thing,” Mira said briskly. “We will tell him our price is the lowest he will find for Aragónese wool. And if he points to a competitor with fabric of an equivalent quality, we will price ours cheaper.”
Sister Agathe’s face took on a brooding look. “How will that benefit us?”
“It will not—in the beginning. But that is not the point. The point is to get our fabric into the hands of a wealthy merchant of Toulouse. Once he has it, others will want it. Then we can raise the price.”
Sister Agathe regarded Mira with admiration. “You sounded like Mother Béatrice just then.”
Mira smiled. “So I did.”
9
Summer, 1504
Abbey of Belarac, Béarn
Mira
Arnaud spoke up in the dark one evening, perched on the narrow bed beside Mira in their chamber. They could see stars shimmering against the flat black sky through the open window. A trace of cool air drifted into the room. Mira wished they were still in Ronzal, closer to the stars, where the air was sweeter, scented with pine and wildflowers.
“Those looms were broken on purpose,” he said into the quiet.
“What?”
“Someone pried the batten adjusters off the pegs on top of each loom.”
“Perhaps they fell off.”
“No,” he said firmly. “It was deliberately done.”
“Why would anyone do that?” Mira asked.
“I’ve been wondering too.”
In the morning, Mira went straight to the servants. Often they were aware of transgressions that were never noticed by the nuns. One of the cooks who had been with the abbey since Mira’s childhood still worked in the kitchens. She used to save charcoal sticks so Mira could draw on the cold marble steps of the old well in the kitchen courtyard.
“There are two nuns who came here from the convent in Nay,” the cook told her. “Widows. Always keep to themselves. After you left, they asked for the job of keeping the weaving room tidy and stocked.”
“Is that unusual?”
“For them, yes. We talked on it in the kitchens, for those two aren’t known around here as worker bees. All they ever ask for is leave to go back to Nay.”
“How often do they go back?”
“Not so much anymore. Used to be when Mother Béatrice was alive, they’d go back at least thrice a year.”
“I do not recall other nuns having the same privilege.”
“No. It’s something Mother Béatrice worked out with the abbess in Nay, that foreign lady. Seems she had trained ’em to weave, and when we got the looms we needed weavers. So she sent them on, said she had a surplus of such women. But sometimes she’d call them back to Nay.”
“Did she indeed?”
The image of Amadina Sacazar’s perspiring red face floated into Mira’s mind.
The cook nodded. “That’s what they told us, anyway.”
Next Mira ventured to the stables and found Gaston. He was as large as ever, his shock of thick yellow hair standing on end as usual, and he was occupied rubbing harnesses and bridles with oil. Nearby, a slight man with clay-colored hair filled a wheelbarrow with soiled hay, stabbing great piles of it with his pitchfork, the dull clatter of the metal against the cobblestones ringing out in a slow rhythm.
“Gaston!”
He turned and squinted at her.
“Miss Mira?” Gaston said uncertainly.
“Not miss. Madame Mira now.”
“Ah. You’ve come back.” His eyes brightened. “Where did you go?”
She smiled. “Too many places to count. I got married.”
He widened his eyes, rubbed his chin with a meaty hand.
“To Arnaud de Luz.”
He grunted
in astonishment. “You and him...?”
“Yes.”
She tamped down the feeling of impatience she always got when dealing with Gaston. The other man stared, leaning the handle of the pitchfork against the wheelbarrow.
“Come out to the courtyard with me, Gaston,” Mira said.
“You, get back to work,” Gaston ordered the man, following her out the door.
The tines of the pitchfork shrieked against the cobblestones.
Outside, Mira turned to Gaston. “What do you know of those two widows from Nay?”
He thought a moment. “I drive them back there sometimes. Not so much since the new abbess came.”
“Where do you take them?”
“To the convent. Drop ’em off there of an afternoon and pick ’em up the next morning.”
“That is not much of a visit,” she observed.
“That’s what they harp on. They talk all the way there and all the way back about how much they hate Abbess Amadina, how cruel she is, how she won’t let ’em see their families.”
“Do they?” Mira drew closer.
“It’s a dull pair they make, complaining the way they do. Like a couple of flies buzzing about my ears.” Gaston jangled a bridle for emphasis. “All she does is ask them questions about wool, they say. Questions about the washing and dyeing, the weaving and such.”
“Is that so?”
He nodded. A donkey in the stable let out a bray that ended with a long, rasping hiss.
“I’d best get back inside, Madame Mira,” he apologized. “They don’t like standing in their own mess, the animals. And he’s not much help.” Gaston jerked his head in the direction of the other man, who stood in the doorway resting his chin on the handle of the pitchfork, staring at them vacantly.
“Thank you, Gaston.”
Mira walked quickly away.
The day Mira and Arnaud began making preparations to leave, a reply came from Lord Esteven de Vernier. Sitting side by side at the long table in the main room of the guesthouse, Mira and Sister Agathe pored over the merchant’s finely-inked words, crisp and black on linen paper. His elegant signature took up nearly a third of a page.
