by Amy Maroney
The fury that overcame him upon seeing what lay in that box rarely visited Carlo. He was a man of even temperament. But when something of this magnitude presented itself to him, he was capable of rage. His cheeks grew hot, his hands trembled. With great care he placed the contents of the silver box in a pouch he carried round his neck.
The morning after her return, Amadina sat next to her brother in the convent’s parlor, sipping wine and snacking on almonds. Her eyes showed her impatience with this meeting. She drummed her fingertips on the curved arm of her chair, registering no reaction when he waved the servants from the room.
“I only just returned, brother,” she complained. “I have not even unpacked my things. What is it you wish to discuss with me?”
He set down his cup. “Tell me about your trip to Pau.”
Her fingers ceased their motion. “It was nothing out of the ordinary,” she said after a moment, her eyes on the hearth.
“But you were away much longer than a trip to Pau would warrant. It must have been a most extraordinary visit, with much to tell.”
“The lace merchant was delayed,” she said airily. “I had to wait nearly a fortnight to see him.”
“Ah.” He sipped from his cup again. “While you were gone, an unfortunate mishap arose in your stables. The servants hastened to inform me, of course.”
She looked at him, astonished. “I’ve heard nothing of it.”
He put down his cup with a thump. “Are your servants lying to me? That is grave indeed.”
“I know not. I shall investigate the matter.”
“I have an idea. Let us investigate it together this instant.” He stood. “Come.”
“What is the meaning of this?”
“You are skilled in deception, Amadina. But even you make mistakes. Your confidence has bloomed. It outpaces your discretion.”
She made no move to stand.
“Do you wish to have your allowance cut off?” he said in a hard, low voice. “We are within a hair’s breadth of that occurrence. Consider wisely your next course of action.”
Finally she rose, her lips pressed into a thin line, and followed him out of the room.
In the stables he walked up and down the central aisle between the stalls, examining the mules.
“I know from my own records that this convent owns ten mules. And here before me I see eleven. This is strange, indeed. For their numbers have not dwindled but increased by one.”
He made a great show of entering each stall and examining the brand burned into the flank of each mule. When he got halfway down the row, he stopped.
“This is odd,” he remarked. “The brand is unlike the others.”
He glanced at his sister. Her face was stricken.
“Look into my eyes and tell me why you possess a mule of Ronzal,” he said.
“I am as ignorant of this development as you, brother,” she began, in a voice dripping with false innocence.
He took a great breath and exhaled, staring into the courtyard. Two chickens pecked aimlessly at the cobblestones.
“You and I both know that is a lie. Tell me where you went on this recent journey of yours. I will not suffer any more falsehoods about Pau.” He took a step closer to her.
“If you must know, I was settling a business matter in Toulouse. I thought it prudent not to burden you with the affair. Now are you satisfied?”
“I think not, Amadina. Let us make haste for your chambers to continue our talk.”
She was taken aback. “My chambers? No, no. The parlor, that is the place for conversation.”
“Not today. Your chambers.” He flung an arm in the direction of the door. “After you.”
In her sitting room, he pointed at the collection of silver boxes. “Open them,” he ordered.
She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Your allowance is dwindling by the minute,” he growled.
Reluctantly she began to unclasp the fastenings of box after box. They were all empty. When she came to the last one, she hesitated.
“You see. They are empty. Can we stop this ridiculous exercise now?”
“It is not complete until every last one is opened.”
She fumbled with the silver locking mechanism of the tiny box. “I do not remember how this opens. It is quite complicated.”
“On the contrary,” he said, plucking the box out of her grasp.
Her face froze. He deftly slid a series of silver bars this way and that, and the box clicked open.
“But how did you...?”
He overturned the box and shook it. Her face registered shock.
“You are surprised to see this one empty,” he said softly.
“Where is it?” she spat.
Carlo retrieved a tiny silken pouch from a pocket and tipped something glittering and gold into his palm. “Is this what you refer to?”
“That ring—it fell into my possession. I wanted to keep it safe,” she said carefully.
He twirled it between his thumb and forefinger.
“Remember, your last chance for the truth. How did this come into your possession?”
She looked away.
“This is the signet ring of Béatrice of Belarac,” he said. “As you well know. Do not act the innocent with me any longer, Amadina. It wears on my patience.” He stepped back, restraining his anger, batting it down with long, deep breaths.
Her lips tightened. “Sometimes matters get complicated. It is so with the business of wool. There were others who saw Béatrice of Belarac standing in their way. Why do you not interrogate them?”
“Because they do not possess this.” He turned the ring over and touched a finger to the blue enamel surface inlaid with a golden sheaf of wheat. “The ring that has been missing since the day she died.”
“I did not kill Béatrice of Belarac!”
“No, but you paid someone else to do it. I have done some investigating of the matter. It seems a stablehand who now works at the Abbey of Belarac lately bragged of undertaking such a job. He was easy to ply with drink and silver, my man said. The words poured out of his mouth like a great river, I hear, as soon as he saw those temptations.”
Her jaw worked, but no sound came out.
“He said the first job went off without a hitch. He was paid handsomely for it. The second job was a bit messier than the first, and he missed his intended target.”
Amadina’s face registered pure terror for a fleeting moment.
“What was the second job, Amadina?”
She struggled to compose herself. A few moments passed in silence.
“The mule,” he said calmly. “Let us return to that. How did that animal appear in your stables?”
Amadina stiffened.
“You cannot find the words? No matter. I am sure the residents of Ronzal will be happy to share the story of their missing beast. Mules are greatly valued by the mountain people. They mourn the loss of each as if it were a child.” He circled her, noting the tension in her coiled hands, the trembling of her shoulders.
“But back to the more pressing matter. How did you do it, sister?” He approached so that their faces were nearly touching. “How did you arrange for Béatrice’s murder? You cannot find the words? I will imagine myself inside your mind, then, and lay out your plan.”
Two nearly perfect circles of color, scarlet as summer plums, stood out on her cheeks.
“You sent your spies up and down the market road, and they learned she had made a contract with the merchant of Toulouse whom you considered your best customer. They also learned she was heading home again, by way of Arudy. You sent your evildoer there and bade him ply her with poison. Then he brought her ring to you as evidence that the deed was done.”
The corners of her mouth quivered and the light went out of her eyes.
&
nbsp; By her expression, he knew he had got it right.
Book III
Pulvis et umbra sumus.
We are dust and shadow.
—Horace
1
Summer, 1505
Perpignan, Aragón
Mira
They left Toulouse at dawn in steady rain that poured from a leaden sky, riding away from the wealth of the merchants with their soaring brick towers, away from the prosperous citizens clothed in layers of blue wool and silk, away from the fields planted in woad that stretched across the wide plains to the distant foothills of the Pyrenees. They headed east to Perpignan, where the kings of Majorca had long ago built a palace overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
Mira hugged baby Rose to her chest. She would finally glimpse the sea after a lifetime of dreaming about it. If only she could muster a thrill at the thought. Instead she was numbed by the events of the past few days, grieving the loss of Deedit, and overwhelmed by Rose’s needs.
Arnaud saw to it that they traveled in the footsteps of merchants who plied the roads between Toulouse and Perpignan. Oxcarts with their billowing canvas covers forged ruts through the mud. The plains were clothed with a skim of new green shoots that stretched on monotonously to the horizon day after day.
Mira sat in silence on her mule, one arm wrapped around Rose, watching the mountains standing sentinel over them to the south. Her mind shuttled through memories of Elena, of Mother Béatrice, of the Ronzal villagers. She tried not to think of her mother, because that always brought on a rush of sorrow. Or the impending return of her father and brother to Oto. They would never find her now, she told herself—if indeed they were still alive.
Each evening she and Arnaud searched for convents and monasteries bearing the carved scallop shell that indicated a welcome awaited them inside. Many nights they lodged at inns whose overpriced, filthy rooms crawled with fleas and lice. On the most desolate stretches of land they knocked at farmhouse doors, welcomed by farmers only too willing to trade supper and a night’s lodging for a few silver coins.
Rose was even-tempered for the most part. She slept well on the road, lulled asleep by the rhythmic movement of the mule. She accepted food eagerly, and she already had a few teeth pushing through her gums. One night in a convent’s guest house she pulled herself up to standing, her little hands clinging to an oak chair. Her face broke into a proud grin. Arnaud and Mira both burst out laughing, then exchanged a look.
It was the first time either of them had laughed since Deedit’s death.
One afternoon Perpignan rose up before them on the dusty plains, its walls of pink brick impossibly high. Above the city gates was a tower studded with arrow slits. Armored guards looked down at them from the parapets.
“What business have you in Perpignan?” asked the gate guard, his eyes on Arnaud.
“Work awaits me with the Moncada family,” Mira replied.
The guard ignored her, staring fixedly at Arnaud.
Arnaud said, “My wife speaks the truth. For my part, I intend to join the cabinetmakers’ guild.” He shook the leather bag strapped over his shoulder to impress the guard with the sound of tools clanking.
“Let me see your faces and hands.” The guard strode closer, examining them. Mira held out her hands, mystified. Rose shrank back against her chest and let out a wail.
He peered at Rose, inciting another shriek, then straightened his shoulders. “There’s talk of the plague again. Any travelers with spots or boils are turned away.”
“The plague?” Mira looked up at the tower again, at the impassive guards in their leather armor and metal helmets. A gust of wind tore her hood from her head. Suddenly she was overcome with an urge to turn and flee.
But at that moment the man waved them on. Arnaud clucked to the mules, nodded his thanks to the guard, and led them through the gates.
There was no turning back now.
Mira’s new employer was a nervous woman with a habit of blinking rapidly as if to chase away some speck of dust in her eye. The home she lived in was elegant and large, and her image was carved into stone above the courtyard doorway alongside her husband’s.
“How quickly can you finish the portrait?” she asked, waving Mira into a chair opposite her own.
“If you do not mind daily sittings, we can finish it within a few weeks.”
Lady de Moncada clapped her hands in excitement.
“Do you know,” she said in a tone that implied she was sharing a delicious secret, “my dear friend Lady de Berral employs an artist too. I have it on good authority that the woman is ill. She no sooner picks up a brush than she falls into her bed again. The first work she completed was exquisite, I’ll admit, but it took her nigh on half a year to do it. Now she attempts another, but the poor thing barely has the strength to stand.”
“Your friend’s artist is also a woman?” Mira asked in surprise.
“Yes.”
“She is ill, though?”
Lady de Moncada sniffed. “The only reason she still walks the earth is that her husband nurses her day and night.”
“How devoted he must be.”
“He works for the family as well. A musician.” Lady de Moncada rolled her eyes. “There is nothing practical about employing musicians. Feeding them, sheltering them, is quite extravagant. And for what? A nightly strum on the lute? What a waste of good silver. But then what does that family know of economizing?” She blinked several times for emphasis.
Before Mira could take a breath to answer, the woman went on.
“They pour gold into that home of theirs in the valley of Maury. It lies in the shadow of a great castle that falls into ruin. Their home, come to think of it, was likely built from the very stones of the place. Every time this city sees a case of sweating sickness or plague, off they run to the countryside.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “In my experience, if sickness wants to find you, it will.”
“Indeed,” Mira said.
“Here.” The noblewoman retrieved a small sack and gave Mira a handful of coins. “Buy what you need to create the best portrait in all of Perpignan.”
Mira looked at the small mound of tarnished silver in her palm.
“Thank you,” she said. “But if you want me to use the finest pigments, I shall require more than this.”
“Oh?”
“Lapis lazuli, gold dust, saffron. They are what the Flemish masters use to achieve the richest, most vibrant colors. Colors that glow and shimmer.”
More blinking. Then the hand went into the sack again and withdrew more coins, gold this time.
“I expect the results to be exactly what you just described.” The coins clanked into Mira’s palm.
She bowed her head. “You shall not be disappointed, my lady.”
On the next market day, Mira walked to the bookmakers’ stalls. She was after a particular tool that she could not do without, the lead stylus that Sebastian de Scolna had taught her to use for underdrawings all those years ago. The one she had used in Toulouse remained in Lady de Vernier’s sitting room, along with all of the other supplies she had purchased to complete the family’s portraits.
One of the stalls was staffed by a short, jowly man with a laugh so infectious that a small crowd had gathered around him.
“Rumbach is my name, you’ll not see a finer craftsman in this city!” he cried in a voice tinged with some guttural northern accent. “The finest Venetian silk covers my books. Straight off the ships it comes. Inside, you’ll see illustrations lustrous with gold, with crimson, with the finest blue. Come, come, see for yourselves. You’ll not be disappointed, I swear it.”
Catching the eye of a merchant’s wife, he opened a book to a page covered with a lacework of colorful painted patterns. A blank rectangle sat at the center of the page.
“This could be your image, madame,” he s
aid in a silky voice.
The woman took a few steps forward. He held the book out.
“Your lovely visage surrounded by this opulent design,” he purred. “Just imagine it.”
The woman simpered, took the book in her hands, stroked the cover. The bookmaker’s face split into an enormous grin.
Mira made her rounds of the market and returned to the bookmaker’s stall when the crowds had thinned. He was busily directing his apprentices to dust and oil the leather covers of a pile of parchment books. He glanced up as she approached.
“Yes, madame, may I be of service?” he asked.
“I wonder if you have a lead stylus.”
“I might. What would you be needing such a tool for?” He rummaged in a wooden box.
“I am an artist.”
“Oh?” He squinted at her.
“Yes. A painter.”
“And what would a painter use a lead stylus for?” He pulled a small glinting thing from the box.
“Underdrawings for portraits, mostly. But I have also used it for the kinds of illuminations your books contain.”
“I am the only bookmaker in Perpignan who offers such a service. Who employs you?”
“Lady de Moncada. But for portrait painting only, not illuminations.”
“Ah. I know the family. Nearly sold them a prayer book just last week.” He gazed at her suspiciously. “Where did you receive such training?”
“At an abbey in Béarn. I began illustrating books as a child, and then a master painter from Flanders taught me how to create a portrait.”
She examined the tool he held out. “How much?”
