by Amy Maroney
“She’s going to be okay, Zari,” Gus went on before she could speak. “But she’s got broken ribs and whiplash.”
“What about Obsidian?” Zari’s voice was a dull rasp.
“He’s in much better shape. Nothing broken, at any rate. He’ll have some monster bruises, though.”
“Listen, I’m coming back. I’ll book the next flight I can get on.”
“What about that conference? Isn’t it happening now?”
“Yes, but I can leave.”
“What? No, Zari, stay there. Mom’s in stable condition, on a lot of pain meds. She’s going to move in with us for a few weeks. It’ll be fine.”
“How can you say it’ll be fine?” Tears slid down her cheeks. “Can I talk to her?”
“She is so drugged up right now she wouldn’t recognize your voice.”
“I have to come home.” Zari’s voice broke. “She needs me.”
“Look, if she was dying, I would say get your ass back here. But she’s going to be fine. It’s not even like you could help that much if you were here, because our guest room is going to be booked, the couch is really uncomfortable, and we both know my wife can only take so much of the Durrell family.”
“Gus, I feel so useless. What am I even doing here?” Zari whispered. “This isn’t my world. I should be in California, where I belong.”
“So not true. You belong right where you are. Besides, you know exactly what you’re doing,” he said briskly. “You’re getting Mira de Oto out of the shadows. Don’t stop now.”
Zari succumbed to sobbing for a moment.
“Pull yourself together,” her brother ordered. “You know what happens when you really start crying. It’s a train wreck.”
Zari fought to stabilize her breath. “Don’t tell your big sister what to do,” she said, smiling a little.
“That’s the spirit. Now get back out there and kick some asses.”
Zari skulked to the women’s room and spent fifteen minutes rinsing her face with cold water, taking deep yoga breaths, and doing damage control with tinted moisturizer and lipstick. She regarded herself in the mirror one last time before heading to the reception. Her eyes were still red-rimmed but the puffiness had gone down. The dark raspberry lipstick she’d applied might serve to distract attention from the top half of her face. She made a tentative attempt at a happy expression. The hollow wisp of a smile that emerged made her look like a demented escapee from a Halloween frightfest.
Turning away from the mirror, she steeled herself.
At the reception, she scanned the room feverishly for Laurence. The crowd parted before her as if she glowed with radiation or had the plague. People seemed to eye her with curiosity, amusement, disdain. She told herself it was too easy to misinterpret the stares of strangers as judgement, especially when one was a paranoid wreck whose entire life was in the process of blowing up.
Before she could find Laurence, her path was blocked by a slender man about her height whose skin had the reddish-brown gleam of mahogany. He held a glass of red wine in each hand.
“Zari Durrell?” He offered her a glass.
“Yes.” She accepted the wine gratefully.
“I enjoyed your presentation very much.” His English was tinged with a slight accent that she tentatively identified as German. “I’m even more intrigued with Mira now than I was when I first heard her name.”
“When was that?”
“Amsterdam. My boss and I sat next to you during John Drake’s talk.”
Zari peered at his name tag.
“Andreas,” he said, sticking out a hand. “Andreas Gutknecht.”
She took the proffered hand and shook it.
“I remember now.” Zari felt as if she’d aged ten years since that September day. “And you e-mailed me about the portrait of the lady in blue.”
He nodded.
“It was a great lead—at least I thought so, until today.” She took a sip of wine. “So what got you interested in Mira?”
“I’m an art broker. My boss is an art dealer; he specializes in Renaissance-era portraiture.” He handed her his card. “We hire art historians and conservators as consultants when we’re considering purchasing a painting with dubious origins, or to verify that a painting was indeed made by a master.”
“That sounds expensive.”
“Once, my boss sold a painting that had been attributed to Raphael by an expert. Then analysis proved it was a copy made two hundred years later. He was sued by the collector who had purchased the painting. That was expensive. It makes far more sense to analyze the paintings before he sells them to collectors.”
“Which explains why you’re here, in a perfect storm of academics and conservationists.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Great networking.”
Over his shoulder, she saw Dotie and his Bermejo expert friend holding court, surrounded by a rapt group of junior academics. She dragged her eyes away and focused them firmly on Andreas.
“So that Bermejo theory...?” He raised an eyebrow.
She took a sip of wine. “I think he pretty much summed it up out there. Not much more to report from my end.”
“It would be quite a career boost for him, I imagine, if these portraits turn out to be the work of Bermejo.”
“He’s well-connected; these are his people. Bermejo is lucky to have him for an advocate. Mira, on the other hand—well, I’m all she’s got. And I’m a fish out of water in this world.”
“I understand better than you might think.”
“Why’s that?”
His eyes crinkled in amusement. “Did you not notice that I’m quite brown-skinned for a Swiss man?”
“I’ve never been to Switzerland so I’m clueless about the physical characteristics of the Swiss,” Zari confessed.
He laughed. “They’re a bit short in the melanin department. I was adopted. When I was very young, my father was an administrator at international schools all over the world, but he died when I was twelve and my mother and I returned to the town in Switzerland where she had grown up. In my school there, I was the only brown face in the room.”
“That must have been tough.”
“You know what I learned, though?” Andreas’ expression grew sober. “Sometimes being an outsider has its advantages.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
“Mira may not have a following yet. But there is a market developing for art by women of this era. Of course, much of what exists is unsigned, or buried in museum vaults and dusty attics.”
“That’s my line,” Zari said, unable to repress a wan smile. “But as you heard, my theory has its opponents and they’re quite influential. As much as I want to keep digging into those vaults and attics, I doubt I’ll get any more grant money to keep going with my research—especially after today.”
Andreas studied her a moment, swirling his wine. “Grant money isn’t my area. But you might be the kind of researcher my employer will support. Have you ever considered a private contract?”
“It’s not exactly in line with my career trajectory. I have to start applying for professorships.” Her mind turned to Wil. Then to her mother. Then back to Wil. “I don’t know. I would have to learn more about the opportunity and the compensation.”
“I think you would find the compensation more than adequate after a post-doc salary. Get in touch with me and we’ll talk about the possibilities.” He raised his glass, which was empty. “Time for another. You?”
She shook her head. “I’ve had enough, thanks.”
Across the room, Dotie’s eyes caught hers.
The look of triumph on his face was unmistakable.
26
Summer, 1505
Abbey of Camon, France
Mira
Mira was moved into a small room that overl
ooked the convent’s rectangular courtyard, directly opposite the guesthouse, the stables, and the gates that led to the road. A tiny window covered with a wooden shutter let in a bit of light and air. Occasionally she heard the sounds of muted voices and footsteps in the courtyard, the soft clang of the gates, the strike of hooves on stone.
For several days she mostly slept. She ate plain meals of porridge, bread, and barley soup that were delivered by a young novice nun with rosy cheeks and a ready smile. Slowly her strength returned, though memories of Rose still sent her into a fog of grief. She resigned herself to accommodating the dark thoughts. The sadness had worn a groove in her heart, a tender spot where Rose’s absence throbbed day and night. It was part of her now.
Though it felt strange to be apart from Arnaud, Mira was relieved that he had a respite from her grief. She had seen something in his eyes these last few days that frightened her—not the exasperation that he displayed when he was displeased with her, but something else. A flatness, a distance in his gaze.
She had asked too much of him. Now that Rose was gone and a new baby was coming, they could make a new life together, she resolved. They could put the sorrows of the past behind them.
On the third or fourth morning—she had lost track of the days—Mira awoke feeling rested and refreshed, her mind still caught on a dream. In it, she had been walking through the lavender fields near the place where Rose was buried. The sun warmed her face and the sky was the deep blue of lapis lazuli. She breathed deeply, luxuriating in the scent of the lavender and the heat of the sun. And though she was close to the spot where Rose’s body lay, she felt only peace.
A gusting wind set the shutter rattling. Propping herself up on an elbow, Mira looked drowsily around the dim room. When the wind died down, the faint sound of voices floated up from the courtyard, or perhaps the road. A horse whinnied. Then the sharp clang of metal rang out.
She sprang out of bed, went to the window, and peered through the slats of the shutter. Laundry hanging on flax ropes in the courtyard flapped in the wind, partially obscuring her view of the gates. There were several horses and riders on the road. Were there three men? No, four. They had the look of knights, dressed in red leather armor and carrying swords. One of the men dismounted. He was tall and broad-shouldered, long-legged, and when he pulled off his silver helmet a cascade of dark hair plummeted around his shoulders.
Mira’s heart lurched with a sickening thud.
Pelegrín.
He approached the guesthouse adjacent to the gates and disappeared around the corner of the building. The wind settled for a moment and she heard a dull thwacking sound. He must have been pounding at the door. The other men led the horses away from the gates, out of her sight.
Arnaud was in the guesthouse.
For a moment Mira stood frozen, overcome with terror, her mind churning with horrifying possibilities.
She pulled her clothes on, laced up her bodice with shaking fingers, quickly stuffed her hair under a flax cap. Struggling to open the shutter for a better view, she realized it had been nailed shut.
After a few moments the men were in the road again, massing before the gates. Were they about to burst through? Mira took a shaky breath, pressed a hand against her chest to steady the wild pounding of her heart. Then she forgot about breathing, forgot about her racing heart.
There was a fifth man in their midst.
It was Arnaud.
Without thinking, she screamed his name. But the sound of her voice was lost in a gust of wind that swooped into the courtyard, whipping the laundry into a froth.
She whirled, snatched open the door, and ran to the end of the corridor. The door there was locked. She turned and sprinted in the opposite direction. The door on that end was locked, too.
“Let me through!” She pounded on the door with both fists. “Let me out!”
No one came.
She ran frantically up and down the corridor again, entering first one room, then the next. None of them were occupied. It must be the hour of prayer, she thought. The nuns were in the chapel.
Back in her own room, she pressed her face against the shutter, but the view revealed nothing. No horses, no men, no movement at all near the gates or in the road. The wind had died as well. All she heard was a pair of doves cooing somewhere in the eaves above her window.
Mira sank to the floor, arms wrapped around her knees.
What had Pelegrín and his men done to Arnaud? Had they hurt him? Would they force their way into the abbey through the guesthouse? Would they come for her next?
She instinctively put a hand to her waist, seeking the reassuring touch of her dagger. But Arnaud had kept it in the guesthouse. A dagger was not a welcome accessory in a convent.
She looked around the room for anything she could use as a weapon. Her eyes fell on a brown ceramic pitcher in a bowl that stood upon a small oak table to the left of the door. She hefted it in her hand. It could be used as a bludgeon.
There was no latch on the door. Slowly Mira pushed the table across the floor to block it, the muscles in her back and arms straining with the effort. It was not much, but it would delay anyone trying to gain entry to the room.
A door creaked open in the corridor, then shut with a muffled thump.
Mira tightened her grip on the pitcher.
27
May, 2016
Lacanau Beach, France
Zari
Zari and Laurence watched the waves foam and break on the sand. Their deconstruction of the conference proceedings had gotten underway during lunch in a nearby village, but it was not quite over.
Dotie’s colleague, the Bermejo expert, had not revealed anything groundbreaking in his presentation. There was still no definitive proof that Bermejo had painted any of the portraits that Zari believed were the work of Mira de Oto. But the man had claimed that attribution to Bermejo was likely, and would probably be made official after an exhaustive analysis of the portrait of the woman in blue.
“There was nothing you could do to stop this, Zari,” Laurence said.
A fishing boat motored slowly past, several hundred yards from shore.
“What I don’t understand is how Dotie got that painting of the woman in blue,” Laurence mused. “And why.”
“I shared the news with him last year about the ‘ADL’ stamp being on both the Fontbroke College portrait and on your portrait of the merchant family,” Zari said. “When I told him about the word ‘Bermejo’ under the layers of your painting, he had his aha moment.”
“What do you mean?”
“When that word ‘Bermejo’ came to light, he went to Pau to see your painting, right?”
Laurence nodded.
“Dotie wanted to dig up more connections between the ‘ADL’ stamp and Bermejo. He probably put the word out about the stamp to a billionaire art collector friend who has contacts at every major auction house in Europe, some guy he’s been trading favors with since they were in diapers. When the woman in blue came to auction, I’m guessing it was already earmarked for Dotie.”
“Listen to you,” Laurence said approvingly. “You are starting to sound French.”
“I was so naive, Laurence! I thought I was doing the right thing, sharing what I learned with him out of courtesy.” Zari slipped her arm through Laurence’s. “I’m pretty clear-eyed about this. I don’t have the credibility or the experience to inspire confidence on the level of the world’s foremost expert on Bermejo. And let’s face it, Mira doesn’t have a place in the historical record—Bermejo does. Everything about those paintings that correlates to Bermejo is explainable. Nothing about them that correlates to Mira is. It’s that simple.”
“What will you do?”
Zari contemplated telling Laurence about Andreas Gutknecht, but decided against it. She had analyzed their conversation too many times to count during her mostly sleeple
ss nights these past few days. Finally she had rejected the idea of working with him. Going off on a private contract was not going to help her land a professorship. In fact, it would hurt her chances. She would lose her place in the queue, so to speak. Her commitment to the academic world would be called into question.
It would be a stupid thing to do.
Wil hadn’t returned her texts or calls since their tense conversation the night before her presentation. She felt a deep sense of shame every time she recalled the moment when she had flippantly suggested to Filip that he resume the adventuring that had nearly taken his life. Of course his family would be furious with her. She was an outsider who knew nothing of their private struggles.
Her eyes stung each time she thought of Wil. Maybe the cultural differences and the distance were all too much. They had both dreamed of experiencing daily life together—the banal details of shopping and working and cooking that so many couples took for granted seemed exotic and compelling. But perhaps their love wouldn’t have survived all of that. The deep loneliness of their separations might have been the critical fuel for the passion and joy of their brief times together.
Now, Zari feared, she would never have the opportunity to find out.
“I talked to Vanessa this morning. She said several people who were at the conference reached out to her in support of my research. And she said my habit of posting about Mira on social media sites is paying off. Mira’s starting to attract a following in the art history world.”
Zari turned to face Laurence, blinking back tears. “I know we’ve made some good progress, but I also feel like I’ve wasted your time. Mira is still a ghost, a silenced story.”
A fat seagull landed nearby, its unblinking yellow eyes fixed on them.
“Mira is not a silenced story,” Laurence said. “She is coming to life, little by little. And it is because of you. Listen, research is a long game. You cannot solve a mystery from five hundred years ago all at once. I am sorry to say it, but this is...”
