by Amy Maroney
“Hunger is the best sauce,” she whispered.
He shot her a sardonic look.
The prior entered and sat down next to Arnaud. He had a high forehead and a long nose, and his brown eyes were wedged under thick black brows.
“I hope your meal suffices,” he said. “We bake bread but once a week, and our cheese stock runs low.”
“Our thanks to you, prior. We’re grateful for your hospitality,” Arnaud said. “We were in sore need of a bath and a meal.”
“It is my God-given duty,” the prior said. “Where are you traveling to, if I may ask?”
“Toulouse,” said Arnaud.
“What do you know of the city?”
Arnaud glanced at Mira.
“It is a city of merchants,” she asserted. She imagined the high walls of Toulouse, the great houses glittering like dark jewels against the dun-colored plains of the north.
“Have you been to Toulouse before?”
“No, but we have a contract to fulfill with a merchant, and a bed awaits us in a fine inn there.”
“How do you know it is fine if you have never been there?”
Mira felt a prick of annoyance. “Lord de Vernier would not lie to us. He said it is where all the merchants lodge their suppliers, the Inn of the Blue Ox.”
“Ah. I have heard of the place. He spoke the truth.”
The prior turned his gaze to Arnaud. “You will be oddities there. An Aragónese mountain man and his high-born wife.”
Arnaud put down his mug.
“I don’t mean to offend,” the prior continued, “but one of you is clearly of mountain stock, while the other is just as clearly not. This will raise questions.”
“We’ll keep to ourselves,” Arnaud said. “As soon as our affairs are organized, we’ll be on our way.”
“Let me offer you some words of advice.” The prior looked pointedly at Mira. “First, discretion is an excellent idea.”
Mira stopped chewing her bread a moment and glanced at Arnaud. She felt chastened for the second time that day. The tips of her ears began to burn.
“I have heard it too many times to count from travelers of every stripe,” the prior went on. “Toulouse is a place where greed is only equaled by jealousy, a city filled with untrustworthy people all intent on making a fortune off the color blue.”
“You speak of the woad industry?” Arnaud asked.
The prior nodded. “Those who grow rich from it call the stuff pastel, not woad. If you plan to involve yourselves in that business, put your confidence in no one. And remember—the Aragónese are not beloved by the French. I trust you are aware that the King of France only lately lost the war for Naples to your Queen Isabella. All the more reason to keep your origins to yourself.”
Mira gave a start of recognition. Her father and brother fought in that war. Who knew how many Frenchmen they killed on the battlefields. Perhaps they themselves had died, torn apart by some French knight’s sword. Or perhaps they were even now sailing home to Aragón, intent on returning to Oto and finishing the job that the steward Beltrán had failed at when he killed her mother and then tracked Mira to the cave. She stared into her porridge, remembering the man’s fingers on her neck, his foul breath in her face, the covetous gleam in his eyes.
“How do you come by this knowledge, prior?” Arnaud asked.
“Pilgrims stop here, as you know,” he said. “They bring us news from the outside world. If what I have learned can help others, I share it.”
“If Cagots were to stop here,” Mira asked, “would you let them lodge?”
“Of course. We turn away no travelers.”
“Is that true of every place on the pilgrim’s way?”
“It is how things should be. But only a fool would say yes. Why?”
Mira told him of the gruesome sight they had witnessed in the mountain village.
“There are strange customs governing the lives of Cagots. I have heard of such unjust treatment before. Who cut off the man’s hand?”
Mira and Arnaud looked at each other.
“We did not see,” Mira admitted. “The priest denied doing it. But the man’s hand was nailed to the church door.”
“A priest is overseen by others more powerful than he,” the prior said after a moment. “Perhaps he was carrying out their bidding.”
“Perhaps.” Mira tilted her head, hesitating. “Are you subject to the same...obligations?”
“There is little on this scrubby mountainside to invite the interest of bishops,” the prior said. “We scratch a living from the earth, keep a few mules, a small herd of goats. We are not like the monasteries over the mountains in Aragón, with their fleeces of merino piled like snowdrifts. For us, poverty and isolation beget a bit of freedom.”
He leaned forward, a new intensity in his tone, his eyes fixed on Mira’s.
“Priests feel the scrutiny of their superiors, but they also endure the judgement of the townspeople who fill their coffers with coin. Perhaps that priest was simply complying with the demands of his congregation. I imagine judgement is a force you, too, shall reckon with in Toulouse. You would be wise to remember it.”
16
Summer, 1504
Pyrenees Mountains, Béarn
Mira
Mira shivered. The chill of evening was descending, though the western sky still glowed amber above the ridges. Dawn and dusk were always marked by a stillness that drifted down and clung to the land. Or perhaps the quiet was always there, but she only noticed it when night melted into day or day faded into night.
Their journey north was slow, hindered by the pace of the mule train that they were bound to follow for their own safety. Now the mules ahead were no longer in sight, for they had turned off to the guesthouse of the monastery at St. Anne’s. Still, they heard the faint sound of the pack-animals’ hooves striking stones on the road.
“Nearly there,” Arnaud called out from behind her.
At the edge of her vision Mira saw a shadow move in the trees just off the road.
She turned, eyes wide. “Arnaud, look—”
Three cloaked figures rushed out from the forest. Mira and Arnaud scrambled for their weapons too late and were dragged from their mounts. Mira drew a breath to scream with all the volume she could muster. Perhaps the mule train was still in earshot. Perhaps someone would raise an alarm and send out a party to investigate. No sooner did she open her mouth than one of the men leaped forward and slapped her face. She staggered back, the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth. Arnaud shouted in outrage, scrambling to his feet—but he, too, was silenced with a mighty blow to the head. He sank to the ground.
Mira swallowed her own blood. She stood on wobbly legs, trying to calm herself, trying to ignore the terror that rose in her throat.
The third man busied himself with their mules, taking each by the bridle and leading them into the woods.
“What do you want with us?” Arnaud tried to stand.
He was rewarded for his words with a savage kick to the gut.
“We are under the protection of barons,” Mira said with all the confidence she could muster. “If any harm comes to us, you shall meet your end in a dungeon.”
“Shut your trap,” the man closest to her growled. “It’s your own end you should be worried about.”
He spewed a gurgle of laughter and prodded Mira forward. The men pushed and dragged their captives through a grove of pines to a meadow that was divided by a wide stream, its banks swollen by snowmelt. A log lay across the stream, forming a rude bridge. In the half-light Mira saw a stone cabin on the other side of the water.
Ahead of her Arnaud stumbled and nearly fell, then righted himself. What would they do to him? To her? She choked back a sob.
The group paused before the stream. One of the men edged across the log and jumped
heavily to the ground on the other side, turning to face them.
“Come on then,” he shouted. “Get over here and be quick about it.”
Arnaud stepped out on the log and began to move slowly across it. The dark water pulsed by, rippling and whispering. Mira stopped on the streambank and made a great show of gathering her skirts. She took a hesitant step forward. Then she sprang up on the log, snatched Arnaud’s hand, and dragged him with her into the icy water.
There was a tremendous splash.
The swift current pulled them downstream faster than Mira had imagined. She tried to touch the bottom with her feet but it was too deep. In the next instant, she was sucked under.
Their attackers let out a barrage of outraged shouts, racing along the banks, trying to keep pace. But the stream curved around a bend thick with willows where the banks were steep and impassable.
Mira fought her way to the surface, the shock of the cold water paralyzing her lungs. She forced herself to draw a breath, then another. Water flooded her mouth. She coughed, kicking her legs the way Elena had taught her all those years ago.
The water pulled her under again. She flapped her arms, forcing herself back up as the current pulled her along. They were sluicing through the forest now. Tall pines closed in on either side of the stream. She imagined a great waterfall ahead, a bubbling pool beneath it spiked with jagged stones.
“Arnaud!” she cried, panicking.
“It’s wider here,” he shouted from somewhere ahead of her. “Swim to the rocks!”
She saw a group of boulders and willed her body to move toward them, spluttering and gagging, her heavy wool cloak dragging her under again. Somehow she clawed her way to the rocks and wedged herself between two of them. Arnaud was draped over a flat rock nearby, face down, heaving.
After a few moments he sat up and put a hand on her back. She felt the reassuring weight of it through her sopping clothes, and thanked God he had survived her reckless act.
“By the sun and stars, why did you do that?” His words came at intervals between gasping breaths.
“That cabin. They would have killed you, and as for me...” Mira shook her head against the rush of dark thoughts in her mind.
“We nearly drowned,” he rasped. “Would that have been better?”
“Yes!” For a moment Mira busied herself trying to wring out her skirts. Her hands were too cold to be of much use, and she soon gave up. “Do you think they followed us from the village?”
“We made ourselves targets, no denying that. But bandits ply these roads, and to my mind these men were no villagers out to teach a pair of strangers some lessons.”
“They have everything. My mother’s portrait. The chair you carved. The fabric samples for the merchant!” Mira’s voice rose in panic.
He enfolded her in his arms and for a moment she sat listening to the thump of his heart.
“We’re alive.” He looked up at the towering pines, at the stars that glimmered faintly in the narrow strip of slate-blue sky visible overhead. “As far as the rest—we’ve just misplaced those things. I’ve no intention of letting them go.”
17
Summer, 1504
Pyrenees Mountains, Béarn
Mira
At dawn, Mira and Arnaud walked shivering in their sodden clothes back to the site of their capture. They retraced the stream’s route through the woods, struggling through the dense groves of willows along the banks. Fresh signs of mules and men led them up a winding smuggler’s path into a narrow valley.
It was not long before they spotted the mules across a small meadow that was bracketed with birch groves. A short distance away, a smudge of smoke curled up from a rudimentary camp. Mira and Arnaud slunk around the birches toward the mules.
In the distance one of the men bent over the fire, poking it with a stick.
The mules’ ears pricked up when they heard Mira and Arnaud approach. They began to shift restlessly. Mira and Arnaud took hold of the ropes that bound the animals to a birch tree and quietly worked at the knots.
One of the mules stepped on a dry branch, startling the other into a high-pitched whinny.
The man tending to the fire stood up.
“What’s spooked you?” he shouted, moving across the meadow. His companions were slow to rouse themselves. One propped himself up on an elbow, rubbing his eyes.
Mira slipped her dagger from its sheath and slashed the ropes. Arnaud held out a hand to help her into the saddle.
But the man was moving quickly now, closing the distance between them. He yelled hoarsely for his companions, a blade in his hand.
Arnaud stepped in front of Mira, evaded a thrust of the man’s dagger, and felled him with a swift kick. The man got hold of his ankle and yanked him off balance. The dagger tumbled to the ground, but the bandit snatched it up again.
One of the mules bolted across the meadow to escape the fray.
Another man was crashing through the underbrush toward them, fully awake now, a short sword in his hand. Mira’s fingers closed around her dagger. She stepped behind a tree trunk, into the shadows. The man lunged past her toward Arnaud, who still grappled with the other bandit.
Mira stuck out a foot and tripped the man as he raced past. He rolled, seized one of her legs in his hand, and gave it a sharp tug. As she fell, she saw the flash of his blade in his free hand. With a desperate yank she wrested her leg from his grasp, sprang up, and turned on her heels. He caught hold of her skirts and dragged her back toward him. She twisted and arched, straining to get away. But it was no use. The dark shape of his arm rose up over her head, the blade glinting in his grasp. Just before he brought it down on her, she jammed her dagger into the side of his neck.
He grunted in surprise, fell heavily to his knees. Blood spurted from the wound, splattering the earth with dark, glistening stains.
She threw a glance at Arnaud. His dagger was buried in the other man’s ribs.
They both stood panting, shoulders heaving, watching the life drain out of their attackers.
The third man had stopped halfway across the meadow. For a moment he stood unmoving, his eyes on the forms of his fallen companions. Then he sidled backward and fled to the mule that now stood nonchalantly grazing the lush green grass. He pulled it up by the reins and leapt on its back, digging his boots into its belly and urging it forward into the woods.
“After him!” Mira cried, rushing forward.
“No,” Arnaud said, putting out an arm to stop her.
“But he has our things.” She frantically searched through the goods strapped to the remaining mule. “The painting is not here. Nor the pieces of your chair. Just the fabric samples and our satchels.”
She listened to the trampling of the mule as it ascended the smuggler’s trail. The sounds faded with each passing moment.
“Arnaud!” she beseeched him.
He stood his ground.
“What good will it do us to chase him? We’ve only the one mule between us, and look at its burdens. We’re lucky to be alive. Let’s get back on the road north and finish the job we’ve been tasked with.”
Mira knew he was right.
“But the painting.” Her voice was small.
It was the only record she had of her mother’s image, of their fleeting time together. She could not bear the thought of parting from it.
“Don’t despair, Mira,” Arnaud said, drawing her close. “There’s always a chance that it will come back to you.”
He winced, putting his palm to his side. Mira stared at him in alarm.
“You’re bleeding!”
She pulled his vest and blouse up. His opponent’s dagger had made a long, thin gash in the flesh over two of his ribs. Thankfully, the wound was not deep. But it bled profusely.
“Sit!” she ordered.
Yanking up her skirt, she rippe
d a length of flax cloth from her shift. She folded it in a square and pressed it against his wound.
He grimaced. “Don’t make it worse, now.”
Mira shushed him. “It bleeds too much. We shall have to turn back to the monastery.”
Arnaud shook his head. “We’re closer to Nay than we are to the monastery. Let’s call upon Carlo Sacazar for aid.”
Mira stared at him, biting her lip.
“Carlo Sacazar has always been a man of honor in his dealings with us and with the abbey,” Arnaud reminded her.
“But his sister—”
“He can’t help being bound to her. But he’s nothing like her. You know it’s true!”
She took a breath to argue.
Arnaud went on before she could speak. “Even if we return to the monastery, what can they do for us other than offer me a healing salve or two? We have only one mule now. We’ve lost everything of value save that wool fabric. There are many days of travel ahead to Toulouse. Who knows if we’ll be ambushed again? The road crawls with bandits, bears, and wolves. Look at me, Mira.” He gingerly lifted the blood-soaked padding and eyed his wound. “Nay is our best hope.”
A bluejay landed in a branch overhead and shrilled a warning at them.
Mira swallowed her words, the fire dying within her at the sight of his blood.
Her own fears, whether they were warranted or not, would have to be put aside.
18
Summer, 1504
Nay, Béarn
Mira
“Lord Sacazar.” Mira’s smile was forced. She hoped it did not betray the anxiety roiling in her stomach. “It is an honor to be welcomed into your home once again. Please may I present my husband Arnaud de Luz—”
“Señor de Luz, of course, we are well acquainted!” Carlo made a little bow to Arnaud. “I have often conversed with you and your father in the course of a market day.”