by Amy Maroney
“Wow,” Zari marveled. “French kids are adventurous eaters. My niece and nephew wouldn’t touch that meal with a ten-foot pole.”
“I’m not acquainted with the world of children, nor their interests, I’m afraid. I’m an affirmed non-parent.”
“Have you always felt that way?”
“Yes.” John’s expression tightened. “It’s been a bit of a problem for me.”
“I can imagine.”
“I lost two partners over it. I’m upfront about the kid thing. But sometimes people think they can change you.”
“That must have been rough.”
The server deposited their wine and a plate of piping hot fried sardines between them.
“It’s not that I don’t like kids.” John poured them each a glass of wine, then picked up his fork. “I do. The idea of them, anyway. It’s—fear, more than anything, I suppose.”
“Fear of what?”
He put his fork down.
“My brother was diagnosed with leukemia when he was eleven. I was fifteen when he died. It was agonizing for all of us. My mother never recovered, really. She and my father divorced when I went to university. The grief took over her life. My dad managed to move on—he remarried and found contentment. But my mother’s health deteriorated and she died five years ago.”
“I’m so sorry, John,” Zari said haltingly, surprised that he had confided something so personal to her. Shifting in her seat, she accidentally knocked her injured foot against the table leg. She drank deeply from her wine glass, hoping the alcohol would numb the pain.
He speared a sardine on the tines of his fork. “There’s more to life than having kids, I’m happy to report.”
“Absolutely. Like surfing.”
“I’m a bit obsessed. I do at least one big surf trip a year if I can get away with it. I’ve been to Bali and Hawaii, I’m going to Costa Rica next year. This is a good budget adventure, St. Jean de Luz. There’s something special about it.”
Zari nodded. “These streets are filled with stories, I know they are.”
He looked at her intently. “You’re a story chaser.”
Something in his gaze made her heart beat a little faster.
“Especially Mira’s story,” she said.
The words hovered between them like a protective barrier, an antidote to the charged atmosphere.
He shifted in his seat, leaning back. “She existed. You proved it. And I’m guessing you’ve found at least a shred or two more of evidence to share with me.”
“I’ve found some interesting clues in a notary register from Toulouse and a prayer book from Perpignan,” she said. “And I found evidence of Marguerite de Oto in the archives of a sheep-breeders’ collective in Zaragoza.”
Zari took out her mobile and showed him the photo of the Oto trademark page. “Do you recognize this?”
“It’s the medallion on the woman’s belt in the Fontbroke College portrait.”
“And there’s something else you might recognize from Laurence’s portrait of the merchant family,” she added, scrolling to the photo of the cat.
“There’s no cat in the painting, if I recall correctly.”
She shook her head. “See the design in the stones on the courtyard floor?”
John studied the photo a moment. “Ah! The merchant’s ring has the same design.”
She nodded, watching him refill her wine glass. “Which proves the merchant is Carlo Sacazar—one of the people who signed Mother Béatrice of Belarac’s mortuary roll. The courtyard is at his home in Nay.” Zari sighed. “I went all the way to Zaragoza to find evidence of that connection and failed. Then today when I was waiting for you on the beach I pieced it together. I took this picture months ago and I never made the connection because the scale of the design in the courtyard is so big.”
“Excellent sleuthing.” John chewed a forkful of fish. “You’ve still found nothing that ties Mira herself to any of these paintings, though.”
“True.” A defensive tone crept into Zari’s voice. “But I’m hopeful about a painting that recently sold at auction in London, a portrait of a woman in blue. The ‘ADL’ mark is burned into the back of the panel.”
He set down his fork and looked at her in surprise.
“I know.” Zari smiled. “It could be huge for my research. The buyer was anonymous so I’ve hit a dead end there, but the auction house was kind enough to send me a high-resolution image. Would you please look at it? I need your expert eye.”
He glanced away, swirling the last of his wine. The muscles in his jaw tensed. “Zari, I hate to disappoint you, but—”
“Please, John. You see things I’m completely blind to. And remember that pep talk you promised me in Amsterdam? I could really use it right now. I’m trying to stay positive.” Zari tried for a light tone, but her voice betrayed her.
“You’re asking the wrong person for a pep talk, I’m afraid.” John’s dark eyes settled on her again. “While I’m impressed with your research, I don’t want to give you false hope. At the moment, I regret to say Mira is still not much more than a lovely idea.” His tone was different now, too—flat and businesslike, just as it had been the first time they met. “Convincing the art world that she was a master painter will take far more evidence than you’ve got.”
Zari crumpled her napkin in a ball and tossed it on the table. She stared at it in silence, listening to the animated buzz of conversations all around them, a prickle of anxiety tracing a path along her spine. If she had kept her findings to herself, maybe her confidence would still be intact. She bit her lip, wishing she had been more guarded.
“I’ll check out that woman in blue,” John said after a moment, more gently. “I just want you to be ready for what’s coming in Bordeaux. You’ve done excellent work, but your status as a newcomer will make you a target.”
“Then there’s the fact that I’m American,” Zari said dully. “And female.”
“I wish it weren’t the case, but to a certain breed, yes—you’ll be seen as an outsider, subject to suspicion.”
“And by a certain breed, you refer to Dotie Butterfield-Swinton and his friends?”
John nodded. “The very same.”
John drove Zari back to her hotel through a maze of quiet streets. Tourists had not yet descended upon St. Jean de Luz, and the town felt deserted at this hour. He regaled Zari with surf lore as they drove, describing his encounters with dolphins, seals, sharks, and eccentric locals. He was funny and loquacious, spinning one story after the next. Zari forgot her bruised ego, dissolving in laughter at his tales.
He pulled up near the entrance to the hotel. Exiting the car, Zari stepped up on the curb, putting all her weight on her sore foot. The tender spot on her sole where the vive’s stinger had penetrated her flesh flared with pain. She lurched to one side and nearly fell. John dashed around the car and put a steadying hand on her back.
The warm pressure of his touch sent a jolt of electricity through her.
Zari squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, woozy from wine and painkillers. The idea that John was attractive had not even occurred to her until she saw him surfing this morning. Was that because she was a completely shallow person, easily taken in by the sight of a fit man in a wetsuit astride a surfboard? Or was her loneliness the culprit?
She longed for the solitude of her room, eager to escape the tangle of confused thoughts plaguing her brain. But instead of stepping away when they reached the awning of the hotel, John pulled her closer.
For a moment she melted into his embrace, her heart thudding wildly. Then Wil’s face floated into her mind. What was she doing? She wanted Wil’s arms around her, not John’s. Didn’t she?
Zari pulled away, flooded with consternation. “That was...unexpected.”
John took a step toward her, his desire radiating like a magnetic
aura, drawing her in. To her chagrin, she felt her body responding.
“I can’t,” she said in a voice so quiet it was almost a whisper, more to herself than to him. “I can’t.”
She stared at the ground, unwilling to look him in the eyes again for fear she would give in to her loneliness, to the electric charge that was fizzing between them.
He took another step.
“No,” she said more sharply. “I’m sorry, John.”
Without another word, he turned away to the car.
“Wait,” she called out.
He stopped in the street, looked back at her.
“I’m in a relationship. That’s why. If circumstances were different...”
“No worries, Zari,” he interrupted levelly. “I understand. Good night.”
12
Summer, 1505
Nay, Béarn
Carlo
It was well past midnight. Carlo had been in his study for hours going over his accounts by candlelight, ensconced in his favorite leather-backed oak chair. When the numbers began to swim on the page before him, he got up and paced around the room, pausing occasionally to peer out the window. The courtyard was veiled in darkness. Overhead, a sickle moon hung suspended in the sky, glowing faintly behind a shroud of mist.
For months he had wrestled with the dilemma of what to do about his sister. The truth about Béatrice of Belarac’s murder hung over him day and night, casting a shadow on his happiness.
He had long wondered if some malady plagued his sister’s brain. And this was the proof. She was not fit to move through the world independently, let alone preside over a convent.
He did a few more laps around the room, hands clasped behind his back, breathing deeply of the comforting aromas of parchment and beeswax.
And yet—and yet. The Sacazars were respected, even feared in Nay. In the entire principality of Béarn, only a handful of families possessed wealth rivaling his own. More important still was his family’s reputation in Aragón. The brotherhood of sheep ranchers in Zaragoza had been shaped by Sacazar men since the time of the Moors. Carlo himself worked tirelessly to curry favor with the royal family as the merino wool business grew more lucrative. He even received a letter a few years back from Queen Isabella thanking him for his efforts to bolster the wool trade into the north.
Yes, his power was at its pinnacle. He would not allow his sister’s transgressions to spoil that. Too many generations of Sacazars had toiled to build the family’s wealth and reputation. He was bound to protect their legacy for his own children and grandchildren.
He would have to find a way to punish Amadina without bringing shame upon them all. An idea—a solution—had been idling in his mind for a while. He would find a convent for her in Aragón, someplace remote and desolate. He would not buy her a title this time, though. He would tell her she was going to rule the place as she had done here. But in reality he would put her into the care of others. Amadina would become a common nun, cloistered behind bars, no longer in possession of power. Perhaps then she would learn to be penitent and remorseful. Though he was no longer confident she had the capacity for remorse.
Carlo stopped at the window. The sky was silvering now, the moon fading as dawn approached. He stared out at the multi-hued river rocks on the courtyard floor that artisans had installed under his supervision over the course of a sweltering summer.
He held up a hand, turning it this way and that, admiring the ring that adorned his middle finger. It was gold, inlaid with a swirling design of black enamel that matched the pattern on the courtyard floor exactly. He had purchased the ring from a jeweler in Florence during one of his early trips abroad, when his wool business relied on Florentine merchants. The ring had belonged to a duke, the jeweler swore, and the design was a whimsical play on the letter ‘S’.
Stepping away from the window again, he brightened, thinking of a way to assuage his burden of guilt. He would send Mira’s portrait of Marguerite de Oto to Sebastian de Scolna in Flanders. There was no better man to undertake the task of repairing it.
He slipped the portrait from its canvas wrappings and propped it against the wall on an oak sideboard, overcome once again with the sick feeling that had twisted his gut the moment he had found it hidden in Amadina’s oak chest.
Once again he was taken by the marked similarity between Mira and her mother. Their eyes, the color of their hair, their angular jaws and high cheekbones, their arching dark eyebrows. And most remarkable of all, they had the same calm expression of confidence, a challenge in the eyes, a knowingness. It made one feel seen in a way that was almost unbearable.
Carlo ran a finger over the damaged area on the portrait. Luckily the face had escaped the worst of it. The bodice of the dress was destroyed, but Sebastian and his apprentices would have an easy time repairing that. They would have to plug the hole with something, smooth out the raw splinters of oak.
He bent closer, squinting. What had caused the damage, anyway? A knife? An axe? Something wickedly sharp, whatever it was.
Suddenly he wondered if Amadina had inflicted this scar on the painting. It was not unimaginable that she would do such a thing. He sighed, wrapping up the portrait again. He would have it sent to Flanders within the week.
And the matter of his sister? He would begin the process of finding the appropriate environment for her on his next trip to Aragón.
13
Summer, 1505
Valley of Maury, France
Mira
Lord and Lady de Berral sat in gilt-covered armchairs, staring in Mira’s direction. They were dressed in silk, he in a short yellow doublet and matching hose, she in a dress of brilliant blue, its white sleeves adorned with black ribbons. Her hands were laden with rings; her throat ornamented with pearls as big as chickpeas.
The windows were open to let in the morning breeze, which was scant and warm. A servant hovered nearby, blotting the couples’ faces wherever beads of sweat formed.
Mira wiped her hands on a rag and assessed the wooden panel before her. The artist who had begun this work was highly skilled. The brushstrokes were reminiscent of Sebastian de Scolna’s.
She struggled to match the blue of the lady’s dress. She suspected lapis lazuli was needed, but none was in the supplies she had been given. There was no simple solution. She would either have to paint the entire dress again with the inferior blue she had managed to mix, or hunt down a different type of pigment.
“My lord, my lady...?” Mira ventured.
The lord’s eyes settled on her. He raised an eyebrow inquisitively.
“One of the colors your artist achieved is not possible with the pigments at my disposal. Perhaps she has materials tucked away that I might use.”
He let out a barely perceptible sigh.
“Madame Van der Zee is very ill. But we shall send a servant to inquire.”
“I would not dare to hope if I were you,” his wife said through thin, cherry-colored lips. “The poor woman is rumored to be near death.”
“And yet she lives on,” her husband said in mock surprise. “She eats, she breathes. If death comes for her, it has been delayed.”
The lady looked at Mira. “Do not fret on your child’s account. Our own physician assures us the woman’s illness cannot pass to others. She simply wastes away from the inside. She has always been frail, her husband told me. Those cold Northern winters, I suppose. Flanders.”
“You trained in Flanders, did you not?” her husband asked Mira.
“No, my lord. My teacher was from Flanders, but I trained in an abbey in Béarn.”
“Interesting,” he mused. “How did you procure your first commissions?”
“I traveled to a nearby market town called Nay.”
“You’ve a patron there, then?”
“Yes.”
“What is his name?”
“Ah. And do you intend to return to Béarn one day?”
“I do, my lord. It is our hope to settle in the west, closer to family.”
“How unfortunate,” said Lady de Berral, frowning at the open windows. “We have lost our breeze.” She narrowed her eyes at Mira. “Can you not continue? It is simply too tedious, sitting here of a morning.”
“Of course.” Mira picked up her brush again.
The servant led Mira across the great central courtyard of the manor house, through a back wing, and out again to a field of lavender. On the edge of the field was a modest house of sand-colored stone, its shutters painted blue. They approached it through a small garden planted with vegetables and edged with rose bushes.
“Ever since she got sick, they’ve lived here,” the servant said. “The husband, he plays in the evenings with the other musicians. That’s why they’ve allowed them to stay, I suppose.” She rapped on the door. “Poor thing—”
“Thank you,” Mira said sharply to the woman, whose hopeful expression turned sour. “You can go back now.”
The servant turned away reluctantly.
Gossips, Mira thought. Always eager for a story.
The door creaked open. A man of middle age stood in the doorway, wisps of pale thinning hair crowning his bony skull, his face twisted in an expression of either worry or annoyance.
“You’re the new artist?” He gestured at her to come inside.
“Yes, Mira...Mira de Luz,” she said, stumbling over her name. Why did the word Oto suddenly press against her tongue, threatening to slip out once again?
“Today is better than most for my wife. You’re fortunate.”
He led her into a bright room that faced the lavender field. A gaunt woman lay on a bed near the window, which was flung open to allow the sunshine inside.
“Cornelia, your visitor is here.”
He busied himself for a moment tucking cushions behind his wife’s back to prop her up. She turned her head slightly and eyed Mira.
