by Amy Maroney
“See here,” Mira remarked. “Lord de Vernier is also a merchant of woad, though he calls it pastel. One of the villagers grows woad on the farthest field down the valley, does she not?”
Sister Agathe nodded. “She makes pigment from it for dyeing homespun. A lovely deep blue.”
They continued their study of the letter. The merchant was not prepared to reinstate the contract he had made with Mother Béatrice, he declared, but he would entertain a visit from a delegate and see samples of the wool—if someone could be dispatched to Toulouse.
“This is not an outright refusal,” Mira said, chewing her lip. “It affords us an opportunity.”
Sister Agathe looked up from the letter, disappointment on her face. “But who will go?”
Mira hesitated, her heart twisting. She had implored Sister Agathe to write the man in the first place. Yet there was no one at Belarac who could do this task with any chance of success—no one but her.
“I will go, of course,” she said finally. “And Arnaud. We will see what we can do to convince the man.”
“It is such a journey to Toulouse, Mira! What about Bayonne?”
Mira knew she should consult Arnaud first. But when she explained, he would understand. “Bayonne can wait.”
“If you are certain, then I will have our most skilled weavers make up the samples.”
“First we must dye a batch of wool blue.”
“Why?” Sister Agathe leaned back, perplexed.
“I imagine if this man is a merchant of woad, he finds great value in anything blue. If we offered him a gift of fine blue fabric, he might look more favorably upon the abbey.”
“He might. What can it hurt? I’ll see it done.”
“One more thing.” Mira lowered her voice. “Those two widows who came from the convent in Nay—they’re nothing more than spies for Amadina Sacazar. They report to her about the goings-on of Belarac’s wool business.”
“But why would Amadina Sacazar care about our wool? Her own fabric is renowned for its quality. She has contracts all over Béarn. There’s nothing she can learn from studying us.”
“The woman has an addled mind, and she is not inclined toward kindness the way her brother is. I suppose she sees Belarac as a rival to her own wool business.”
Sister Agathe’s expression tightened. “Are her spies to blame for the broken looms?”
“I cannot be sure, but it seems likely. Do not let them go in there without you. Have someone else tidy the room and stock it—and keep the door locked.”
“But how will I—” Sister Agathe broke off. “Never mind. I shall find a way. There is always a method of persuasion.”
Mira had seen since childhood how Sister Agathe, in her gentle way, planted seeds of influence and quietly watched them grow. This instance would prove no different.
“You were quick to volunteer us for this task.”
Arnaud worked silently by the light of two candles. With slow precision, he shaved off a whisker-thin piece of wood from the batten adjuster he was making, then blew away a bit of sawdust.
“The merchant’s letter tells of an inn near his home that will lodge the visitors from Belarac. See?” Mira waved the rectangle of linen paper at Arnaud. “A room awaits us in Toulouse.”
He set the metal edge of his tool against the wood again, giving no sign he had heard her.
“Who else could do it but us?” She knelt at his side, one hand on his knee. “I set it in motion, this proposition, and I must see it through to the end. It will delay us only a season more. We shall still be in Bayonne by winter.”
“I doubt that,” he said after a moment, regarding her steadily. “It is a long journey to Toulouse, and every step will take us farther from Bayonne. Besides, who knows what lies in store for us there?”
“We shall deliver the fabric samples, strike a bargain with the merchant, and turn around again for the west. It will be speedily done.”
He put aside his work, shaking his head. “You cannot foresee the future. There will be complications, Mira. Things we can’t even imagine.”
“I must do it, Arnaud. Mother Béatrice made the wool trade her life’s work. Sister Agathe spoke the truth when she said Mother Béatrice had me at her elbow all along. I understand the business of wool like no one else here. Besides, who else in this place has the courage to travel abroad and strike a bargain with a foreign merchant?”
“We both know the answer to that,” he said gruffly.
“You should be worried, too, for the abbey’s fortunes—”
“Are tied up with Ronzal’s,” he finished, sighing.
“Please,” she pleaded. “Let us go.”
Arnaud let the block of wood slide out of his grasp and turned to embrace her. They sank down on the brown wool rug, Mira’s skirts pooling around them. He unlaced the ties of her bodice, pulling the cords through each hole with gentle precision. A tingling ignited within her, gathering into a knot just below her belly.
“Husband,” she whispered into his ear.
He buried his face in the warmth of her throat, finding the throbbing place that pounded under her skin.
“Wife.”
10
Summer, 1504
Nay, Béarn
Amadina
The man standing before Amadina looked miserable. Rain had pummeled him throughout the entire journey from Belarac, and his hair was plastered to his cheeks like wet string. A sodden flax shirt clung to his skin and a pair of brown homespun leggings drooped around his thighs. His bare feet were streaked with mud.
Amadina frowned. Two of the servants had spent the better part of yesterday morning beating dust out of the red Moorish rug that her unexpected visitor stood dripping upon. She leaned back in her chair and tilted her chin up, staring at him with narrowed eyes.
“What is it you’ve come all this way to tell me?” she asked.
He hesitated, his gaze sliding greedily around the room. A person of his lowly stature would be gobsmacked by the opulence on display, she realized. The rugs, the gilt-framed portraits of saints hanging on the walls, the silver plate displayed on the oak chests that flanked her desk, the tall beeswax columns in their polished silver candlesticks—all evidence of her power. She was sure no other abbess in Béarn had a parlor quite as grand.
If only she could have this parlor in Zaragoza, where the Sacazars had been a family of repute for generations. Zaragoza was her birthplace, the heart of the kingdom of Aragón, a city of elegance and dignity that bustled with nobles and merchants whose fortunes rivaled her own.
Here in Nay, the members of the so-called merchant class were laughably coarse, just a few notches up from landed peasants. She made it a point to shun them. As a result, she had no friends. Her brother Carlo, his wife Flora, and their two daughters were the only people she visited or entertained. But she had little time for socializing. Running a convent and overseeing the nuns who did the weaving and the lace-making took most of her time, and she was often away attending to the matters of trade. Her convent’s merino wool fabric was coveted as far away as Toulouse, and she dreamed of finding a buyer for her lace in Paris one day.
Amadina glared at the sodden man before her. He worked the muscles in his jaw, twisting his hands together.
“Well, what news?” she asked.
“A man and woman with two mules bearing the brand of Ronzal came at the start of summer,” he said finally, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “They’d all manner of things strapped to those mules. Made a big fuss about taking it all into the guesthouse, wouldn’t be parted from it. Then they stayed on.”
“What is that to me?” Amadina asked crossly. “And speak up. You’ve a terrible case of mumbletongue.”
“It was them,” he said, louder. “That pale-eyed girl who used to live at the abbey and the big shepherd, the son of th
e leader from Ronzal.”
Amadina’s pulse quickened. “What is their business at the abbey?”
“Fixing things, mostly.” He swiped his nose with his sleeve. “Helping with the wool dyeing, the weaving…”
“What weaving? I thought their looms were broken.”
“He repaired ’em. Handy, that one.”
“What else?”
“Gossip is they’re heading north soon.” He flapped his hand toward the window. “All the way to Toulouse.”
A trickle of rainwater rolled down his forehead. She watched the bead of water make its way to the end of his nose and dangle there, quivering.
“Why?” she asked. “Why Toulouse?”
He shrugged. “There was talk of ‘samples’ among the villagers. And we were ordered to prepare the woad for dye. Those Ronzal folk, they get out of the harvest work by tending to their flocks. All the worst jobs, the stinkiest and dirtiest, fall to the likes of me.”
“Woad? What on earth?”
He held out his hands. They trembled a little. “I know not, other than my hands are still blue.”
She stared. It was true. She had thought they were simply dirty, but his hands were a ghostly grey-blue, his nails edged with stains the color of the night sky.
“You have given me little information of value,” she said.
He drew himself up. His cheeks flamed.
“That’s not all!” he protested. “Your spies—they’ve been forbidden to leave the abbey.”
“What?” Amadina felt a rush of anger. “How do you know that?”
“Heard it in the kitchens. They’ve been turned into kitchen servants and the cook’s not pleased, for she hates ’em.”
Amadina struggled to steady her breath. Her spies, relegated to Belarac’s kitchens? It had to be Mira’s doing.
She rummaged in a leather bag she kept in a pocket and drew out three silver coins. “Here.”
“But that’s silver.”
“Gossip gets you silver. Give me something worth gold next time and I’ll pay gold.”
He pocketed the coins, a sour look on his face. “You only once gave me gold.”
“You only once deserved it.”
“Then give me another job like that one, when I went to the abbey in Arudy. I did exactly what you said. I took the vial you gave me and—”
“Enough!” Amadina rapped her knuckles on the desk. “Your blather is tiresome.”
“I can do it again,” he insisted. “Quick and quiet, just like the first time.”
“No more of your impertinence. Away!”
The man slunk out the door.
Amadina heaved herself up and crossed to the window. Rain beaded against the leaded glass panes and splattered on the cobblestones in the lane below.
Mira had vanished from Nay last summer having finished only one of the portraits Amadina commissioned from her. Though Amadina dispatched spies south into the Pyrenees to search for the girl, they found nothing. Then winter clamped the mountains shut. One rumor did trickle back to her, though—a story that the girl had run off with that shepherd from Ronzal, crazy with lust, and the two of them lived like beasts in a tumbledown mountain hut.
Amadina stretched her lips back in a mirthless smile. If one paid close attention, one could see kernels of truth tumbling out of the mouths of gossips, glistening like rubies.
Her mind fluttered with memories of Mira, the novice nun who had grown up under the wing of Béatrice of Belarac, enjoying privileges shared by no other orphan in the abbey. When Mira had appeared in Nay after the death of Béatrice some years ago, casting herself as an artist of great skill, gossips whispered that she was the unwanted child of the Baron of Oto, spirited away to the abbey on the day she was born. Usually dismissive of rumors peddled by muleteers, Amadina had looked into the matter. And she had become convinced that in this case, the gossips had got it right.
Though her family had long mistrusted the barons of Oto, her brother Carlo had cultivated a relationship with Ramón de Oto in recent years. It was purely a matter of business: Carlo needed to exploit the man’s influence with the royal family of Aragón in order to expand his own merino wool business to the north. Once established in Nay, Carlo had taken advantage of a Béarnaise tradition that allowed impoverished religious houses to sell their titles and holdings to the highest bidder. Now he was a titled man, abbot of two monasteries—and his sister was abbess of a convent.
The Sacazars owed a great deal to the house of Oto. And none of them had benefited more than Amadina. She was acutely aware that few women ever reached the pinnacle of wealth and power that she enjoyed. Therefore, she felt it was her God-given duty to share with Ramón de Oto the sordid rumor that had leaked over the mountains from Aragón into Béarn.
She had not dared sign her name to the letter she wrote, nor did she seal it with her own ring. She dispatched it over the sea to the Kingdom of Naples, where Ramón and his son Pelegrín fought under the command of the Great Captain. She had paid handsomely to get her message safely to the swampy, mosquito-ridden battlefields across the Mediterranean. No price was too high, really. After all, a man of Ramón de Oto’s stature and reputation ought to be aware of the gossip that besmirched his name. Only God knew if anything had come of the letter—or if, indeed, Ramón de Oto was still alive.
Whatever the fate of Ramón de Oto, Mira’s reappearance was a more pressing matter. Thanks to Amadina’s subtle interventions, the Abbey of Belerac no longer posed a threat to her own convent’s merino fabric business. In fact, she was currently negotiating a contract with the very merchant in Toulouse who had unceremoniously severed their long-standing partnership in favor of a contract with the abbey some years ago.
If Mira thought she could resurrect the wool business at Belarac, she was sorely mistaken. Amadina would discreetly put an end to her interference, just as she had done with the matter of Béatrice of Belarac. Her brother would be none the wiser, and the Sacazar fortune would continue to grow.
Amadina leaned closer to the window, her breath fogging the glass.
For the first time in ages, she was overcome by a sense of joyous anticipation.
11
September, 2015
Pau, France
Zari
Zari let herself into the apartment. It had been raining in this part of France for four solid days, and the air in the cramped space smelled musty. She dropped her bags and looked around. There was nothing chic about the furnishings or decor, but the apartment was well-lit and clean.
She went to the bedroom and opened the window. A group of pilgrims wearing rain jackets and carrying hiking poles and backpacks strode across the small square below, then disappeared up the winding road that led to the old palace overlooking the city.
Zari smiled. Only a few months ago she had been one of them.
Showered and refreshed, Zari made her way down the curving stone staircase. She passed an elderly man wearing a beret, slowly ascending the steps with one hand firmly clasping the handrail. In his other hand was a string bag of groceries and a dripping umbrella.
“Bonjour, Monsieur,” she said.
Behind a pair of spectacles, his brown eyes flicked to hers. “Bonsoir, Mademoiselle,” he answered gravely.
After five p.m. in France, one said ‘good evening,’ not ‘good day,’ she remembered.
“May I help you?” she asked in her best French.
He gave her a startled look.
“With your bag?” she added, gesturing at his groceries.
He shook his head at her, frowning slightly, and continued on his way.
When she got to the ground floor, she glanced up. The man was still climbing.
Outside, Zari navigated the slick cobblestone streets, admiring the medieval stone buildings with their black slate roofs and narrow windows. Another gr
oup of pilgrims passed by, their hiking poles clacking against the cobblestones. Watching them, an urge gripped her to don hiking shoes and backpack again, set out into the green foothills, and follow the Camino trail all the way to the highest peaks.
Zari sifted through memories, remembering the long days of hiking, of watching Wil plant his trekking poles in the soft forest floor, listening to his tales of adventure in places she had only imagined. She yearned for him with sudden fierceness, then comforted herself with the thought that he was coming to Pau in a month.
Four weeks was not so long.
Even though it was raining steadily, Zari and Laurence sat outside at a café on a quiet side street. In fact, the outdoor seating area—protected by an orange awning—was completely packed. Most of the patrons had cigarettes in hand. A haze of smoke hovered over their heads, trapped under the awning.
Zari admired the bubbles spiraling up through their rose-colored drinks. Laurence had insisted on ordering festive cocktails, and these Kir Royales, tall glasses of champagne doused with black currant liquor, fit the bill.
“I’ve been looking forward to seeing your painting in person for a long time,” Zari confessed. “When did it come back from the lab?”
“The wait is not over, I’m afraid. My portrait is still in Paris at the conservation laboratory.” Laurence rummaged in her handbag for a cigarette and lighter.
Zari put down her glass. “Why?”
“There are more tests to be done.”
“What else is left to do? At this point, the paint’s been analyzed, the wood panel’s been dated, the infrared and x-ray images are done.”
“True, but there is also elemental mapping, false color imaging, liquid chromatography...”
Zari leaned forward, eyes wide. “Liquid chromatography? Really?”
