Watermark

by Vanitha Sankaran

  He had skill, she supposed, though she knew nothing about the taste of artistic patrons. There was something about the shading that made it seem like there was more to his subjects than what first caught the eye.

  When he reached a section of drawings, he began to flip past, but she slipped her hand in the box.

  The man tilted his head. “Oh, those are only some sketches. Just people who catch my eye, things I’m trying, to get better…” His voice grew shy.

  She took out the collection—simple line drawings of daily life on the streets, in the markets, on the docks. She had never seen such work before—normal people, not kings nor saints nor heavenly creatures, but people like her or Poncia, living their common lives. He’d inked them in various colors, blues and reds and greens.

  She stopped on a brown ink sketch of a woman cutting the head off a fish. The woman’s flesh spilled out of her smock into puddles on the counter where she worked. Her wiry hair escaped in grimy wisps from her bun, and her entire face, tired and angry, was tied into a scowl that looked like a wet cloth that had been wrung to dry. The drawing centered on the woman’s lips, large and fleshy, puckered as if she had tasted something foul or was gathering a wet glob of spit. The woman was hideous.

  “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Auda tore herself from the picture and stared at the artist, heart racing. She looked again at the drawing, trying to see what he saw.

  Something about the woman stood out—her determination? Perhaps. Her anger? Maybe that she had a purpose. It was the same expression her father wore when he was working. The feeling was familiar.

  “I like her lips in particular,” he said. “The ripeness of them, like two pieces of a plum, succulent and sweet.”

  She caressed the edge of the drawing.

  “I don’t suppose you’d want her? It would be my first sale in town.” His words came out in a tumble.

  Her heart plunged. She owned no wealth of her own.

  “Or perhaps a trade? The picture for the shoots?”

  A tempting offer. The picture was worth far more than a hand weight of old twigs, even if you took only the cost of the parchment into account. But the branch wasn’t hers to give. She glanced at Poncia; the thought of asking the favor somehow cheapened the drawing. She shook her head with reluctance.

  “Well,” he said, a smile quick on his lips and a sudden glibness to his voice, “let’s hope my luck improves.”

  She lowered her head in apology. Before she could think twice, she reached into her basket to pull out her tablet. Quickly, she pressed on the wax and pushed it toward him.

  Auda.

  She pointed to herself.

  He searched her face, from eyes to lips, chin, forehead and ears, and head covered by a thick cap. His entire face lit up in a smile and he gave her a flourished bow.

  “So you can write? I am surprised, I admit. I am Jaime.” He took her fingers in his for a kiss.

  She felt herself shiver as his lips grazed her fingers, his breath hot on her cold skin. Blushing, she snatched her fingers away before her sister could see. He bowed again and, with a wink, disappeared into the crowd.

  Chapter Eleven

  Martin arrived at the stall just after the bells sounded for midday. Poncia had left the wares in charge of the pregnant maid, who had finally shown up, and returned home with Jehan. Auda was glad to see her father. The maid had been darting fretful looks at her, drawing back every time Auda moved or made a sound.

  He greeted her with a wide smile. “It was a fine morning, ma filla. One of the cobblers came by with a message from his son. Turns out the son’s wife had her first child. A boy! The cobbler made me write the news out to three people right then.”

  Ducking out of the stall with a nod to the maid, Auda herded him toward the edge of the market, away from the town center with its priests and Jacobins. Impatient, she handed him her tablet. She had been waiting all day to see him, had already written a few sentences to explain last night’s dinner. She reiterated with her fingers, miming first a sheet of paper, then a crown atop a lady’s head. Paper ordered by vicomtesse.

  Martin stopped in the middle of the road and asked Auda to sign again.

  “The vicomtesse? I knew my patron had to be someone wealthy, but I never expected this. And a scriptorium in town? Now this is the chance we’ve been waiting for!” Clapping his hands, he laughed out loud. People surrounding them stared.

  Auda remembered the bloodied demonstrator in the square and shuddered. Taking her father’s hand, she forced him to keep walking. The rains had broken for the moment, but there was no point in lingering and getting drenched. And there were other things she wanted to discuss.

  Miller, she started to sign, but Martin interrupted.

  “Never mind the fat miller,” her father said, waving the thought away. “As my fortunes rise, so do yours. We’ll find you a man far more worthy than the miller.”

  Auda thought of the painter and flushed.

  Her father took a sharp turn to the left. “Come, Auda, I almost forgot. Remember what Tomas said, about Shmuel looking for me? Let’s stop and see what he has to say. I’ve a good feeling about this day.”

  The Jew. Her sister had warned her about them, said they killed innocent gentile children in the gray moments just before a ruby sky dawned. Of course Poncia told her so many rumors that Auda wasn’t sure when to believe her. Shmuel had always been courteous when he stopped at Tomas’s shop to see her father. But then why did the stationer view him with such suspicion?

  They turned eastward at the synagogue. A pair of darkly dressed men, with their hair in ringlets topped by inky black hats, walked on the opposite side of the street. Auda tried to look discreetly. She had never seen any Jews, other than her father’s friend Shmuel, before. The quarter was well marked, to ward away innocents and to keep in the many Jews who were fugitives from the French expulsion some fifteen years back. Eventually they had returned, albeit with heavy fines and restrictions on their movements. And always there was some vague threat of reprisal hanging over them.

  “They dance with the devil on their Sabbath days,” Auda had heard said of them. “To celebrate their killing of Christ, the Lord.”

  What did those same people say of her?

  She glanced at the men again, but still they paid her no mind. Wrapping her wet cloak around her, she tried not to shiver. Shmuel’s house was a small building squeezed between identical houses on either side. The front door was closed and the windows were shuttered.

  Martin motioned for her to stay by the gate while he stepped onto the verandah and knocked. A flurry of whispers hissed through the thin walls. The door cracked open to let out a sliver of light, a sweet, warm smell emanating from inside.

  “I’m looking for Shmuel,” her father said. “Tell him Martin, the papermaker, wishes to speak with him.”

  “Wait.” The voice was female, the accent harsh and unfamiliar.

  Auda looked at her father. Why had they not invited him inside?

  “It’s better to conduct business out where people can see,” Martin said, a rueful note lining his voice. “There are many who would see a Christian enter a Jew’s house and condemn him for that alone.”

  The door opened again and a small man with a graying beard appeared in the doorway. He was dressed in a warm brown robe, a pair of thin spectacles perched on his nose. Auda had seen this contraption before, at the Gypsy’s tables in the fair. She wondered if their friend Donino had sold it to him.

  “Martin! I have been looking for you.” His voice, though low, sounded warm.

  “Yes, Tomas told me. He was not so pleased to see you.”

  Shmuel shrugged. “That’s all you can expect from a man such as he. But we have other matters to discuss. Your business is going well, I take it? You have decent stock?”

  “I just finished a new batch,” Martin replied, before adding in a happier tone, “Some of it will even go to the palace!”

  “Good
news indeed,” Shmuel said, his eyebrows lifting. “Well, I have more happy news for you. I have another customer, a man who comes to me from time to time. He has need of folios, ten to start, perhaps more later. Can you handle this, my friend?”

  Auda craned her neck to listen more clearly. Ten folios? That was a bigger order than even the palace had placed! Who had the money, and the knowledge, to go to her father with such aspirations?

  She peeked around him to see what she could of the inside of the Jew’s house. It was a crowded space, stuffed with scrolls and books lining the shelves all around the room. An older man sat at a desk next to a glowing plate of coals, his face buried behind a stack of parchments. Two young boys wearing dark robes with the yellow patch of a wheel sewn on the front sat behind him, scratching on wax tablets.

  “When do you need the folios?” her father asked, only a slight tremble in his voice hinting at his excitement.

  “Midsummer,” he said. “Sooner if you can.”

  The men leaned in and dropped their voices beneath Auda’s hearing—no doubt discussing the matter of payment and delivery. The door closed and Martin turned to her with a smile wider than any she’d seen on his face before.

  “I told you this day would be special,” he exclaimed. “This batch of paper I made is just the beginning.”

  Auda nodded. But who needed the folios? Someone had seen the utility of paper. What were they writing on it?

  Martin didn’t stop smiling the entire time as they journeyed home to prepare supper. He even bought another chicken at the market, a fitting extravagance to mark their new fortune and to welcome a visit from her uncle Guerau. A tradesman who’d left the paper business for a more lucrative trade in cloths and furs, her uncle still maintained an interest in his old career and stopped to see Martin every few months. He’d sent word ahead that he was on his way.

  “Auda!” her uncle cried as soon as he arrived, opening his large arms to envelop her in an embrace. His beard smelled of smoked fish, his breath of fresh wine. “You’ve grown, girl. The time to search for a husband for you can’t be far off. Eh, Martin? Then you and your extra pair of hands can start your own paper mill.”

  Auda twitched her lips and ducked her head, but her uncle laughed, drawing a large bottle of wine and a bundle of dried fish from his sack.

  “Come, have a drink with your old uncle. It’s the Rioja, no? From your homeland. Your real homeland,” he said, poking at her father. “Martin, you need some too.”

  “Una mica,” her father said. Guerau overfilled his cup.

  Auda listened to the two men as they gossiped of family and politics. Though related only by marriage, they both had dark hair and ruddy skin, except that her uncle’s was hidden behind a thick beard and moustache while her father was clean-shaven. They had the same stoutness, ample and strong, their bodies used to hard work.

  Even their mannerisms were similar, the way their fingers explored what they touched, examining surfaces and textures. Subtle, like the feel of the artist’s soft lips on her fingers.

  “I went back to the old mill last month,” her uncle said. “Master Símon was still at the vats, voice as loud as a bull’s.” Guerau laughed and swigged his wine. “Yelling at the boys as always. I felt like I had returned to my youth.”

  “I can still feel the pain of his screams, and mine, that time he boxed my ears. Do you remember when he caught us playing maces with our mallets? I thought he would take a strap to us.”

  “He should have,” Guerau chuckled, pouring more wine. “Tell me, then, how does business go?”

  Martin grinned. “For years it has crept and crawled like a babe on its first legs. But finally the winds are changing.”

  “Ah, the French are catching up,” Guerau said. “Once you convince these peasants…”

  “Bah, forget about the peasants!” Martin rubbed his hands. “What if I get the eye of the nobles?” He relayed Auda’s news about the vicomtesse.

  “Good fortune, good fortune!” Guerau cried in approval and raised his cup again. “Let’s drink to it.”

  Auda picked up a piece of smoked trout from the table and bit in, happy to be listening to her uncle’s rich voice. When she was a child, her father had often told her how much her uncle resembled his sister, her mother. They were subtle features—the shine of their dark eyes, the wave in their black hair, the nimbleness of their fingers, long and tapered. Auda had inherited those fingers. She looked down, curling and uncurling her fists.

  “If only these damned rains would stop,” Martin said. “Or at least if the Church would stop preaching over it.”

  Guerau shrugged. “I think sometimes we have forgotten how to live simply. We become bored and look for trouble.” He sighed. “In the meantime, it’s all in the hands of God and His Church.”

  “Most men are men of conscience in their hearts, I think,” her father said after a moment, clearing his throat. “It’s only when they judge one another that their own purpose falters.”

  “I am glad to hear you say that,” Guerau said, his sudden melancholy lifting. He reached into his leather satchel and withdrew a stack of folded papers. “I have news. Not far from here, I met a man who sought me out to give me these. Here. They are from the Good Men. There is a town nearby where they gather. They are papermakers, Martin! Like us! And they need help to make the quantities they need for their writings.”

  “The Good Men?” Martin repeated. He pushed the pamphlets away. “You come here at a bad time, bringing things that should not be read!”

  Auda straightened. The Good Men? Again she wondered why the Church hated them so, but she knew enough not to ask. Things had changed—people had changed. Narbonne’s old tolerance was vanishing.

  “They are men of God,” Guerau said in a light tone. “They believe in His teachings. They say the Church has corrupted the message of how we are to find Heaven.”

  “It doesn’t matter what they say, what they believe,” Martin snapped. “They are heretics. And it has nothing to do with us. Unless you’ve fallen for their words?”

  “Come, Martin, you know me. I’m not one to listen too hard to what men say of God. Can you see me giving up sex, meat, and drink?” Guerau laughed and leaned in closer. “But did you hear me? They make paper, and it is very fine. Here, feel this, its smoothness.” He pushed a pamphlet into Martin’s hands. “You can write on it and the ink doesn’t bleed through. Surely you’re interested in learning more of their craft, maybe to better interest this vicomtesse of yours?”

  Martin stroked the sheet, then pushed it away. “No, no, it is lunacy. Auda, take them to the fire.”

  “There’s no need to go that far,” Guerau said, holding up a hand. “It’s only a few pamphlets, Martin. Look over them this evening. Tomorrow, you can burn them.”

  “Either these burn tonight,” Martin insisted, “or take them with you now. I’ll not bring this danger into our home.” He glanced at Auda. “Not for anything.”

  Guerau followed his gaze. Dropping his hand, he shrugged. “As you wish. I only brought it for your benefit.”

  Martin passed the bundle of sheets to Auda and she carried them over to the fire. So these were the pages that bore the words of heretics! Some were written by hand, but most bore the measured script of a woodcut, words carved in reverse into a block that could be stamped on paper many times over with little effort. She squinted to make out their words.

  “Have done and burn them,” her father interrupted before she could read anything.

  One by one under Martin’s intent gaze, she fed the pages into the flames, watching each sheet curl into embers and ash. She held one up to the flame and caught the shadow of an image buried into the paper, lines like a ladder. A watermark? It had to be. Again, she squinted to make out its details.

  “Burn them all, Auda,” her father repeated. “Their words are not for you.”

  A reckless courage flared up inside her. Maybe her father didn’t want to know more of these people and their
work, but she did. And what of these marks they left on their paper?

  Turning her back toward Martin, she burned the pages slowly, squinting to see if any of the others bore the trace of a watermark. She could see none. But the memory of the ladder stayed with her.

  Somehow, she would find a way to learn more.

  Chapter Twelve

  Two days later, Martin loaded a rented donkey cart with stacks of paper he’d chosen to take to the palace. Auda lingered around him in the misty drizzle, wondering if she could come along.

  “Of course.” He seemed surprised. “Ma filla, you are my lucky star. If not for you, I would never even know who my grand patron is.” He winked. “Better not tell her we also have another.”

  As they made their way to the palace, neither father nor daughter spoke, each absorbed in private thoughts. Auda’s mind raced to plot the future of their business. Between the lady’s interest and the order for ten folios, it certainly looked like their luck was changing. Maybe, if enough coin came from the sale, she could ask her father to buy the painter’s drawing, the one of the fisherwoman. Surely Martin would want to help the man who had so selflessly helped them?

  Once inside the palace gates, they were admitted to a large room where the vicomtesse sat waiting with her attendants. Martin and Auda bowed low before her. Seeing Martin freeze at the finery on the walls, Auda took her father’s hand, sweaty like hers, and squeezed. She knew what questions raced through his mind: did he have enough variety, was the paper fine enough? He had fretted over his choices all night.

  The vicomtesse ordered a long board be brought out. “Well?” she said, gesturing at the board. “Lay your goods out for me.”

  Martin hurried to unpack his boxes. As he fussed alongside the servants, Auda looked around the hall. At one corner of the luxurious solar, she noticed a table holding a slim book cased in soft leather. She squinted to see better. It was a Book of Hours, a prayer book with liturgy written in Latin for each hour. Most prosperous families owned such a book, complete with a calendar marking the holy days and special prayers. The illumination of the words would be masterful, vivid letters and fanciful creatures drawn in bright colors and edged in gold. How much would such a volume cost? Could it be done on paper? The thought made her tremble.