Mira's Way

by Amy Maroney

“What do you think?”

  “He wants to go. He told me. But I don’t know if he has the confidence.”

  “Why don’t you go with him?”

  Wil glanced at her, surprised. “But it’s an adaptive trip.”

  “I’m sure not everyone on the boat will be disabled. There has to be a support crew, right? You have tons of sailing experience. Ask if you can help out, be a volunteer sailor.”

  “That might work.” He pulled a blade of grass from the soil and twirled it between his fingers. “I’ll look into it.”

  “My presentation in Bordeaux is in May, too. I hope the dates don’t clash, because I’d love for you to be there. You can run interference with Dotie Butterfield-Swinton at the reception.”

  “Is that what I am to you? A bodyguard?” He grinned and stretched out on his back.

  She watched his face relax under the warmth of the sun. Beyond him the river pulsed and shimmered, its murky waters carrying snowmelt from the highest mountain peaks west to the sea. The swallow returned after a while, followed by another. They dipped and glided, tracing complicated patterns in the air, then vanished into a clump of willows on the opposite bank.

  Zari rested her head on Wil’s chest. The sun filtered through her eyelashes. Within minutes she was asleep.

  After a while she became aware of Wil’s voice in her ear.

  “What are you dreaming about?” he whispered.

  “I’m not sure if I should tell you.” She sat up, yawning, and pushed her hair out of her face. “Drinking wine during the day is never a smart move.”

  He rested his head on his hands and looked at her quizzically. “You can’t help your dreams. It’s your subconscious brain making things up.”

  “My subconscious brain doesn’t usually come up with anything this good. I dreamed about beautiful Dutch-American babies, to be perfectly honest.”

  A slow smile spread over his face. The tenderness in his dark blue eyes made her pulse tick up a notch.

  “How many?” he asked.

  “At least two. Maybe three.”

  “Move to Amsterdam when this project is finished and we can work on making your dream come true.”

  Zari laughed. “You have more imagination than I gave you credit for.”

  “What do you mean?” He sat up.

  “I think we’d have to try living together for a while before we add any babies to the mix.” She brushed a clump of dried grass off his shirt.

  “Live with me, then.” His expression was sober.

  Zari sighed, shaking her head. “What would I do there? I have to go where the academic jobs are. I’m on a career path, remember?”

  He nodded. “If nothing works in Amsterdam, find something else in Europe and I’ll come to you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I can sublet my place for a while.”

  “What about your furniture design business?”

  “I can do it anywhere. I can just bring my tools and rent a work space.”

  She regarded him thoughtfully. “Are you serious?”

  “I’m always serious about what I want, Zari.”

  He reached out and gently laid his hand on her cheek.

  2

  October, 2015

  Pau, France

  Zari

  After dinner in a small restaurant near Pau’s university, they wandered through the dark streets to a long, narrow park on the campus that was planted with meticulously trimmed shrubs. Zari pointed out to Wil the building at the opposite end of the park where, last summer, she and Laurence had discovered Mira’s traces.

  That was the moment, she realized now, when Mira had truly come to life for her. Combing through ancient documents in a climate-controlled laboratory, she heard Mira whispering to her across a yawning divide of five hundred years.

  “I existed,” Mira’s words and images told her. “I lived and loved, worked and grieved, in these mountains. This is the proof. What will you do with it?”

  Just weeks ago in Perpignan, Zari had felt Mira’s presence beckoning her back in time again. But in the intervening days, searching fruitlessly through digital archives on the list Laurence had given her, she had begun losing hope.

  She and Wil left the park and walked along a narrow lane that took them past lovingly preserved medieval buildings constructed of cream-colored stone. Zari glanced up at an arched doorway that was illuminated by a streetlamp and saw a scallop shell carved into the wall above it.

  She paused. “This must have been a stop on the Camino at some point.”

  “Maybe it was a convent or a monastery,” Wil agreed.

  Zari looked at the shell in silence for a moment. “In her self-portraits, Mira’s wearing a nun’s habit,” she said finally. “That makes sense. She grew up in a convent. But in the prayer book I saw in Perpignan, she’s Judith slaying Holofernes. Was that literal? Was it symbolic? Was it meaningless?”

  He shrugged. “Why did Judith slay Holofernes?”

  “To protect her people.”

  Wil waited for her to sort it out.

  “So maybe it’s not literal but symbolic,” Zari said slowly. “Mira saw herself not as a killer but as a Judith. A protector. I like that.” She sighed. “Another theory with absolutely nothing to back it up. Why was she in Perpignan, anyway?”

  “For now, Perpignan does not make sense. Think of it as…” He searched for the English word.

  “An outlier?”

  “Yes, an outlier. The Abbey of Belarac was on the Arles-Aragón route of the Camino, and so was San Juan de la Peña. The prior there signed the mortuary roll you found, right?”

  During the summer, Zari and Laurence had also examined a parchment mortuary roll that commemorated the death of Béatrice of Belarac. Mira had signed it, and Zari was convinced she had been responsible for the artwork on the document as well.

  Zari nodded. “Marguerite de Oto signed it, too. And others.”

  “Have you looked into those names?”

  “Yes. The most intriguing possibilities are Carlo and Flora Sacazar. They were wool merchants from Aragón who had a home in Nay. It’s a museum now. It’s closed for renovations until January.”

  “Too bad.” Wil thought a moment. “What did Mira write in the mortuary roll? About Béatrice, the mother abbess?”

  “‘The Abbess gave us refuge when we did not have homes, food when we went hungry, skills when we had none. She was a mother in deed as well as name. Death visited her too soon.’”

  “You memorized that?”

  “It’s all I have of her voice.”

  “Maybe use the Camino as your guide. Start with the things you are certain of and cast your net from there. The cave. The monastery. Belarac.”

  Wil had been at Zari’s side when she discovered the ancient foundation stones of Belarac, when she found Mira’s self-portrait and Arnaud de Luz’s mark carved into the wall of a cave that had been used by mountain people for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. And he was with her at the monastery of San Juan de la Peña when she unearthed the lineage of the Oto family.

  “What about Bayonne?”

  “Arnaud is the one connected to Bayonne, right? As far as you know, Mira was never there. So throw that out for now.”

  Zari glanced back up at the weather-worn shell carved above the doorway. Had Mira journeyed along the pilgrim’s way, seen that shell with her own eyes? The crumbs of evidence that she left behind were frustratingly few. But Wil was right. Zari needed to focus on the evidence she did have and find connections to it, radiating outward like the grooves in a shell.

  The next morning, Wil left the apartment early and came back with a map. It contained an east-west subsection of the Pyrenees, northern Spain, and southern France, and it showed all the known Camino routes. He tacked it to the wall and highlighted the ro
utes in various neon shades. Finally he plotted the locations of the Abbey of Belarac and the Castle of Oto and marked them as well.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder regarding the pink line that followed the Arles-Aragón route of the Camino, which passed through Toulouse and Pau, then climbed over the Pyrenees into Spain. Zari traced it with her finger first north, then south, then north again.

  “I’m going to start at the northernmost point, the city of Arles,” she announced.

  “Wake me when you find something good,” Wil replied, heading to the bedroom.

  Flipping open her laptop, she began to search through the digital archives of Arles. She could hear the creak of footsteps overhead from time to time. Her elderly neighbor, the man who wore his midnight-blue beret at a jaunty angle and took the stairs one slow, determined step at a time, lived directly above her. He was a night owl, but his muffled footsteps were never loud enough to wake her. Zari took comfort in the knowledge that another human nearby was awake during the loneliest hours of the night, when she sometimes got lost down research rabbit holes so deep that she didn’t come up for air until three in the morning.

  After an hour and a half, she had found nothing useful and got up to stretch.

  Wil was still asleep in her bed. She was tempted to join him, but instead did several yoga poses and chanted a series of her mother’s positive affirmations. Then she examined the map again. Toulouse was a lot closer to Belarac than Arles was. She gingerly settled back in her seat. The hard plastic chair was not ergonomically correct by any conceivable stretch of the imagination.

  Zari pecked out the address for the archives of Toulouse, then clicked through various pages until she found materials from the years 1500-1510. Zoomable photographs of centuries-old documents presented themselves.

  One at a time, she scoured the faded script and accompanying notes for each document. She circled back to a book containing records signed by the same notary, a man named Jean Aubrey. The most intriguing was a note written in ink the color of dried blood. The words were unintelligible to her, the script so faded in places she could barely make out the individual letters. Scanning down to the bottom of the note to see the signatures, Zari drew in a breath and held it. One of the names, in bold, blocky letters, was Arnaud de Luz. Next to it was another name in much smaller, more delicate script. The first word was quite faded, but it began with an ‘M’. And the last name contained an uppercase ‘L’. Zari zoomed in on the image until it became too pixelated to see. Reverting it to the original size, she held her pocket magnifying glass up to the screen, but the faded rust-colored letters refused to give up their secrets.

  She leapt from her seat and did a silent, exultant dance. Then she padded to the bedroom clutching her laptop. Wil slept on his side, his face smashed into a pillow. Zari felt a glimmer of guilt at the thought of waking him. She fidgeted in the doorway a moment, wrestling with her excitement.

  “To hell with that,” she said at last, bringing the laptop to bed. “Wil! Wake up.”

  He blinked at her with bleary eyes. “What is it?”

  “I think I’m back on Mira’s trail.”

  3

  Autumn, 1504

  Toulouse, France

  Mira

  It was evening when they arrived at the gates of Toulouse. Traders from the south waited in a ragtag queue, their mules burdened with ceramic vessels bearing wine, spices, olive oil, and salt. Interspersed with the traders were farmers leading oxcarts piled with bags of pastel, the blue dye made from woad.

  Mira and Arnaud led their mules to the back of the queue.

  “Compared to the others, we are a sad little group,” Mira said.

  She pulled the hood of her mud-spattered cloak down over her eyes and crossed her arms against the cold.

  “A humble appearance can be an advantage,” Arnaud replied, looking at her sideways.

  His beard was covered in a film of fine brown dust that matched the color of his skin, she saw. And his cloak was not only smeared with mud but ripped in several places.

  She raised an eyebrow. “We shall see.”

  When it was their turn, Arnaud dismounted and explained to the guards that they had business in Toulouse. He went to unlatch their panniers but the guards motioned him to stop, already focusing their attention on the Aragónese merchant behind them whose mules were loaded with wine. They would skim a little off the top of his load, Mira guessed. Within minutes she and Arnaud were riding into the walled city of Toulouse, the chatter of traders and farmers fading away with each step.

  She was grateful now for their miserable appearance.

  When the day of their appointment arrived, Mira and Arnaud stood waiting in front of Lord de Vernier’s home. Above them soared three stories of stone and brick. Diamond-shaped glass panes glittered in tall, narrow windows. The house was crowned with a hexagonal brick tower that soared into the sky—an architectural marvel envied by all of Toulouse society, according to the innkeeper at the Blue Ox.

  Mira straightened her shoulders, making a mental inventory of her appearance. Clean, simple homespun skirt and flax blouse. Dark green fitted wool bodice. Hair braided and pinned under a clean white flax cap. Arnaud, for his part, had been up late cleaning and oiling his boots. His hair was neatly drawn back and secured with a leather cord, and his black beard was trimmed close to his jawline.

  A stray dog trotted up and sniffed at the hem of Mira’s skirt. She clapped her hands, shooing it away. Nothing must interfere with her appearance on today of all days.

  One of the heavy doors swung inward. A servant beckoned them inside. They walked through a dark entry hall paved with cobblestones, then through another tall door into the interior courtyard. It was immense, ringed with a series of stone balconies supported by tall, decoratively-carved columns.

  The servant knocked at a broad oak door.

  “Come!”

  Inside, Lord de Vernier sat at a leather-topped desk that was strewn with paper. He put down his quill and waved them into the chairs opposite his.

  “I am a very busy man,” he said abruptly, bypassing the usual pleasantries. “I am beginning to regret I ever agreed to meet you. Especially in light of this.” He brandished a piece of linen paper that was covered with tiny script and numerals. “It is an offer of sale from a merino fabric merchant with whom I’ve had dealings before—at a price no other wool seller can match.”

  At the bottom of the page Mira saw the florid signature of Amadina Sacazar. A sick feeling twisted her gut. It took all her effort to focus on the man’s words.

  “Amadina Sacazar,” he said, jabbing the paper with a long, ring-laden finger. “Someone I disentangled myself from years ago, after I agreed to the Abbess of Belarac’s proposal. The woman is about as pleasant to deal with as a donkey.” His tone grew sour. “For all her faults, she has a better grasp on the concept of contractual obligations than your Béatrice did.”

  “With all respect, my lord,” Mira said, “Mother Béatrice was the most honorable of women. Her death was unexpected and threw the abbey into confusion for a time. But now that has been remedied.”

  “Excuses are nothing to me.” The merchant’s tone and flat expression implied he was entirely unmoved. He dropped the contract on his desk and made a tent of his fingers, elbows on the arms of his chair. “Business requires fulfillment of contracts. When they are broken, no matter the reason, merchants lose money.”

  Mira hastily pulled a sample of black merino wool fabric from her satchel and placed it on his desk, unfurling the roll so it spread over his pile of paperwork. He leaned forward and stroked the fabric, examining the quality of the weave.

  “What is the origin of this wool?”

  “My village has raised merino sheep in a high valley of Aragón for generations,” Arnaud responded. “We drive the flocks to the Abbey of Belarac each fall to overwinter on their fields. In
summer we take them back to the mountains to graze along with the abbey’s own flocks.”

  “So the abbey purchases wool from you and finishes it? Or does the abbey own the sheep outright?”

  Arnaud hesitated.

  In truth, Béatrice had purchased a flock of merino sheep from the shepherds of Ronzal long ago. It was a deal she had brokered with Jorge de Luz in her early years as abbess of Belarac. In return, she allowed Ronzal to populate the homes of the village in the valley of Belarac with its excess sons and daughters. Since the sale of merinos to foreigners was forbidden by Queen Isabella, the agreement had not been recorded on parchment. Officially, the merino sheep that overwintered at Belarac were all the property of Ronzal.

  “The ancient peace accords guide such things,” Mira said to break the silence. “The shepherds of Ronzal care for the sheep and the abbey processes the wool. They share the proceeds from the sale of the fabric.”

  “I see. Do the tariffs that normally inflate prices of Aragónese wool apply to this?” He tapped his fingers on the length of fabric.

  “No,” Arnaud said.

  “It is quite unfortunate that the arrangement I made with your abbess did not come to pass,” the merchant admitted, “for this is wool of the highest quality. But I cannot abide uncertainty in my business dealings.” He picked up the contract from Amadina Sacazar again. “The safer bet is this one, I suppose.”

  Mira half-rose from her seat. “Whatever she sells her fabric for, we will sell ours for less. And I can assure you, my lord, that no uncertainty will befall any future dealings with the Abbey of Belarac.”

  “Ah? How so?”

  “Both my husband and I have overseen the necessary improvements to the production and finishing of wool at Belarac. We have trained assistants to ensure the operation runs smoothly. And we developed something new. I hope it is to your liking.”

  Mira pulled a sample of the blue wool from her satchel and placed it on the merchant’s desk. The fabric was the color of the lapis lazuli pigment she used for painting. It glowed with a luminous sheen, the weave tight and even. Sister Agathe herself had operated the loom, and she had done a masterful job.