by Amy Maroney
“This was dyed with pastel,” he said, examining the fabric closely. “I trade in pastel as well as wool. But this gift implies you knew that.”
“I read your letter carefully,” she acknowledged. “If this blue wool is to your liking, we can make more. There is a field of woad in the valley of Belarac. We could earmark it all for you, the villagers can process it into pastel, and each summer the abbey can send as many bolts of fine blue fabric as you wish to Toulouse.”
He leaned back in his chair, a slight smile creasing the corners of his mouth. “Perhaps it is indelicate to say, but you neither look nor speak like a shepherd’s wife. No offense to you, sir,” he added, looking at Arnaud.
“None taken,” Arnaud said.
“My husband is no mere shepherd,” Mira objected. “He is a skilled woodworker. He built the looms that these fabrics were woven on.”
“Ah?” The merchant’s fingers were tented again. “A man of many talents, then.”
“As for me,” she went on, “I grew up in the abbey, learning the wool trade at the elbow of Mother Béatrice.”
“If that is so, why did you not pick up the threads of the connection she had made with me when she died?” He sounded faintly annoyed again.
“I left the abbey soon after her death.”
He glanced at Arnaud. “To tend to matters of the heart, I suppose.”
Arnaud stared levelly back at him, silent.
The merchant’s thin red lips twitched. He shifted in his chair, causing the leather backing to squeak.
“If you can provide fabric of this color and this quality in the amounts I desire, you need look no further for contracts. The desire for blue wool fabric of the highest quality is soaring in Paris. The new king and his court demand it.”
“New king?” Arnaud asked.
Lord de Vernier nodded. “The French court has changed hands. Our young king is quite interested in the trappings that befit his station.” He tapped a finger on the contract that lay on the desk before him. “Oh, it will be a headache to extricate myself from this woman again. But merino wool of such quality is quite rare in Béarn, and I have seen no blue fabric to rival yours.” His expression grew stern. “I do have one condition.”
“Yes, my lord?” Mira said.
“You must stay in Toulouse until the wool is delivered next summer and await my satisfaction. If I am unhappy with the product, or if the terms of our agreement are not met by the Abbey of Belarac, I will hold you and your husband personally responsible.”
Mira and Arnaud exchanged a look.
Just then the sound of children’s laughter floated in from the courtyard. Three little girls ran by the open doorway, giggling. One caught sight of Mira and stopped. In an exaggerated whisper she called out something in Aragónese to her sisters. They gathered in the doorway, staring at the strangers.
“Hello girls,” Mira said in Aragónese. “How are you, little ones?”
Their eyes grew even rounder. Then they all flinched at the sharp sound of hands clapping. The girls turned their heads, eyeing their pursuer, and fled. A plump woman with a black veil over her hair bustled after them, clucking her tongue. Her dour expression made it clear that she was not pleased with her charges.
Lord de Vernier drummed his fingers on the desk. “The girls are under of the care of our housekeeper Madame Heloise these days. We are in between governesses.”
“I used to care for the children at the convent,” Mira said. “I taught them their lessons.”
“Is that so?” he said, clearly unimpressed.
“I could teach your daughters to read and write in Aragónese,” she went on.
Lord de Vernier’s eyes swiveled back to her. There was something in his gaze—amusement? Irritation? She could not decipher it. She fought the rising color in her cheeks, tried to steady her breathing.
“If we are to stay in Toulouse, we must work,” she added. “We wish to accommodate you, my lord, but there are practicalities to think of.”
“My wife is Aragónese. Instruction in that tongue is not worth paying for,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “It is becoming a language of peasants, she tells me. Our children speak it enough with her, I’ve no desire to see them learn to read and write it.”
Mira’s throat was dry. “I could teach them Latin and arithmetic, if it pleases you and your wife. And drawing.”
“Whatever skills you have, I am afraid there is one requirement of a governess that you do not possess: noble birth.”
He stood up, indicating that the interview was over. Arnaud followed suit. But Mira stayed in her chair.
“My lord, I must respectfully disagree,” she said. “I am of noble birth.”
Mira felt Arnaud’s eyes boring into her. She stood and faced the merchant, clenching her fists to keep them from shaking.
“I am a daughter of the house of Oto, one of the great families of Aragón. I was placed in the convent for protection, and I was raised with an education that befits one of my rank. If you need proof of this, write to Brother Johan Arros at the monastery of San Juan de la Peña. He will vouch for my honesty.”
The merchant was silent for a moment. “I know the name. He is renowned for his knowledge of the wool trade. But the passage to Aragón over the mountains will soon close. Even if my letter gets through the pass, his reply would not arrive until the spring thaw.”
“If we stay in Toulouse through the summer at your bidding, that is time enough to learn the truth from Brother Arros,” she pointed out. “He can speak to my character, and that of my husband too.”
The merchant looked back and forth between the two of them.
“Why would a noble-born girl marry an unpedigreed man?”
“Fortune is fickle,” Mira said, keeping her voice light despite the sting of his words. “Not all daughters have dowries that attract the attention of titled men. That is the way all over the world, if I am not mistaken.”
He nodded slightly, seeming to accept her explanation.
“I shall have you meet Madame Heloise, then. Perhaps you shall make a fitting governess for my daughters after all.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“But heed this,” the merchant warned. “I am not a trusting man. Your commitment to do as we have agreed will be taken down in writing and witnessed by my notary. I shall hold you both accountable if this wool does not appear as promised, or if it is of inferior quality to these samples you’ve shown me. And I shall write to Brother Arros immediately.”
Mira bowed to him.
“As you see fit, my lord,” she said. “I promise we shall not disappoint you.”
4
Autumn, 1504
Toulouse, France
Mira
A stout woman dressed in blue sat at a broad wooden table, a leather-bound book open in front of her. In one hand she held a quill poised over the page. She looked up.
“Ah! The girl is here.” She put the quill back in its holder and stood up. “Come, approach.”
Mira walked to the desk.
“Take off your cloak.”
Mira untied the strings of her cloak and slipped it off her shoulders.
“Yes. Good.” The woman walked around her in a circle, looking her up and down. “Plain, modest. Except for that bauble.” Her gaze lingered on the scallop-shell necklace around Mira’s neck.
“It was my mother’s.”
“Pilgrim, was she?”
“My mother was a baroness.”
“That’s right. You told the lord you’re noble-born.”
“Yes, I am.”
The woman’s mouth slanted in a smirk. “Bastard, are you?”
Mira stared, her anger rising. “No.”
“You may call me Madame Heloise,” the woman said curtly. “I am the mistress of the household, though not
mistress of the house. They are two entirely different things, of course. Lady de Vernier is the mistress of the house. It is possible that you may never meet her. And if you do, only speak to her if she addresses you first, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Your trial begins today. We will see how the children like you. If they do not like you, no matter how well you teach, you will be let go.” A fleck of spittle shot out from Heloise’s mouth and Mira felt it come to rest on her chin. Resisting the urge to wipe it away, she took a deep breath.
“Thank you. I hope I do not disappoint Lord and Lady de Vernier.”
“As do I.” Heloise walked across the room to another door and pushed it open. “The nursery.” She swept into the sunny, open space and held out her arms as if surveying it for the first time. “Books, paper, quills, ink.” She pointed to a table and a chest near a window.
Mira went to the table and picked up one of the books, a collection of poems. She smiled.
“Why that is worth smiling about I cannot fathom.” Heloise squinted at Mira.
“I smile because I love poetry.”
Heloise pursed her lips and made an unintelligible noise that Mira decided to interpret as a grunt of approval. She nearly laughed at the thought, and felt a slight loosening in the tension between her shoulder blades.
Another door opened on the far side of the room, and three young girls burst through it. In a blur of glossy dark curls and swishing blue skirts, they rushed forward and stopped an arm’s length from Mira. The morning sun passed through the glass panes of the tall window, bathing the girls with golden light. Three sets of dark eyes stared at her.
“Girls, I am Madame Mira, your new teacher.”
They regarded her in silence for a moment, then all three spoke at once, raising their voices in an effort to be heard. Above the chatter Heloise’s voice rang out.
“Girls!”
Silence fell over the room.
“You will speak when spoken to,” she snapped. “You will ask no questions of your teacher. She is here to teach you, not listen to you babble.”
The children kept their eyes trained on Mira, ignoring Heloise’s scolding.
“They are, in order of size from smallest to biggest, Blanca, Sophie, and Sandrine. Now I will leave you to your work,” Heloise said to Mira. “There is a switch to slap their hands if they grow insolent.”
She jerked her head toward the table. Mira saw a slender birch rod next to the pile of books.
“Thank you, Madame Heloise.”
When the door closed behind Heloise, the smallest girl stuck out her tongue at it, then glanced at Mira.
“That is not polite, Blanca.” Mira composed her face in a severe frown.
Sandrine turned to her sister. “Why are you so rude? It is a stain on our family when you do such things.”
“Madame Heloise is a sour rotten cabbage.” Blanca folded her arms across her chest.
Mira stifled a laugh.
“She is trying to help you become a lady,” Sandrine said.
“I do not want to be a lady.”
“Too bad. You will be one. As will I and Sophie.”
They both turned to Sophie, whose eyes had never left Mira’s face.
“Why did you not use the switch on Blanca when she stuck out her tongue?” Sophie asked.
“I see no need to.”
“Why?”
“I have taught many children to read and write, and I have never used a switch on any of them.” Mira pretended to consider something for a moment. “Unless, of course, you believe that you require the switch.”
“We do not! But if you do not use it, she will think you are a bad teacher,” said Sophie. “She will tell our parents to turn you out.”
“If you learn your lessons, she will have no choice but to believe I am a good teacher. Switch or no switch.”
A slow smile spread across Sophie’s face, and she nodded, pleased.
“Now, Blanca, Sandrine, and Sophie,” Mira said solemnly. “Let us begin.”
5
Autumn, 1504
Toulouse, France
Arnaud
In the quiet before dawn, Arnaud and Mira lay in the dark on the narrow, lumpy straw mattress in their chamber above the inn’s dining room. Cold air leaked in from the wooden shutters. The past few nights, they had spread their cloaks over the thin blanket, and still Mira shivered. Arnaud enveloped her in his arms, willing his body heat into her.
There was a scuttling sound and a faint squeak. Mice. They scurried around the floors at night. Occasionally one climbed up the legs of the bedframe. More than once Arnaud had woken to the sensation of tiny claws on his skin.
“Silence,” he said softly. “I almost forgot what it sounds like.”
Their nights were marked by the voices of men raised in argument or laughter rippling up from the dining room. When the tavern closed, groups spilled outside to the alley, continuing their drunken discussions and disputes under the window.
“With my pay, we’ll soon be able to find lodgings of our own,” Mira whispered. “And perhaps you’ll soon have work from the guild.”
“I’ve no letter of recommendation. And I’m a foreigner.” Arnaud shifted in the bed and the webbing of flax rope that supported the mattress creaked. “I wish now I’d asked Carlo Sacazar to give me that letter he wrote vouching for me, instead of sending it to Bayonne. Who knows when we’ll get there now?”
“When the guild master sees what you can do, he will not care where you come from.”
Arnaud did not answer, just turned and found her lips in the dark.
The next afternoon Arnaud visited the cabinetmakers’ guild in hopes of convincing the guild master that he was a journeyman worth taking a chance on. There was no shortage of skilled work to be had in Toulouse, the guild master explained, but without an endorsement the guild would be breaking its own bylaws if it hired him. It was an unfortunate predicament, but his hands were tied.
Arnaud returned to the inn and found a table in a quiet corner. Supper was not yet being served, and the crowd was composed entirely of men. An ale wench dressed in a tight blue bodice that was unlaced at the top, exposing a pair of breasts that were pushed unnaturally high, plopped a wooden tanker of foaming ale in front of him. She held out a hand while he fished for a coin.
“Handsome one, you. Where’s your companion today?”
He dropped the coin in her palm.
“My wife, you mean? She’ll be back soon.”
The woman pocketed the silver. “Where’ve you come from, then?”
“The south.”
“What brought you north?”
“Work.”
“Not a very talkative one, are you?”
He raised his tanker and saluted her with it, and she flashed him a wide smile, exposing two gaping holes where teeth had gone missing. She whirled and was swallowed up by the crowd.
A group of city guards sat in the center of the room at a broad table, their blue uniforms unlaced at the throats and their black caps pushed away from their brows. It was clearly their customary gathering spot, for guards joined them and melted away at regular intervals. Arnaud made it a point not to stare at them overtly, but his eyes flicked their way as he regarded the rest of the crowd, watching the ale wenches evade the busy hands of the drunkest men and expertly sidling away from troublemakers.
From his perch in the shadows, he heard snippets of the guards’ conversations.
“...My two brothers fought in that war and only one came back. It took him nigh on a year to make the journey home.”
“Their queen’s the one who started it all. Isabella. It was her who sent that general over the sea. The one they called the Great Captain.”
“Sparks and steel, that’s how he won. Lead balls and powder, shot out
of a...”
“To hell with Aragón! To hell with Spain! To hell with Naples!”
There was the loud clacking of wood as they all slammed their tankers together, splashing ale over the table. An ale wench laughed, a coarse, brassy sound that ended on a note so high that Arnaud winced.
He glanced around at the other patrons. Two middle-aged men sitting nearby were engaged in a conversation that caught his interest.
“Those guards talk of war,” said one, a slight man clad in a black felt cap and a wine-red vest studded with carved wooden buttons. “But what we should be concerned with is the Spanish trade in blue dye.”
“What? No land south of the Pyrenees can match our woad production.” His companion, a thick-set, curly-haired man with a luxuriant beard, set his tanker down with a thump.
“I said blue dye, not woad. Grown in some foreign land across the sea.”
“Across the sea there is only plague and drought and war,” came the drawling response.
“Not the Mediterranean—the other sea.” The smaller man’s voice rose in exasperation. “The one that licks at the shores of the trading port Bayonne.”
“Trade ships can’t navigate those waters. They’re too fierce. And full of monsters.”
Arnaud watched the big curly-haired fellow take a long pull of ale.
“And yet the Spaniards have found a way to do just that,” the small man insisted. “Merchants from the south trickle through these city gates talking of crops across the sea, and slaves who do the farming and harvesting for them. The indigo plant, they call it...”
The ale wench’s face appeared in Arnaud’s line of vision.
“Ready for another?” She cocked her head and ran her tongue over her lips, peering into his tanker.
He shook his head, shooing her away. “No, I’m not yet half done with the first.”
The word ‘indigo’ floated past again, this time as a question. The ale wench stood her ground, leaning slightly forward to ensure he got a good view. He covered his tanker with a hand, scowling, until she sauntered off.
