Pip walked down the aisle she’d designed—two rows of twelve waist-height terracotta pots planted with mature olive trees. Clumps of blue lavender and catmint made a pretty ribbon underneath, filling the walled area with perfume and the faintest drone of bees. Billie Holiday’s ‘Summertime’ started to play and Jack beamed at Pip. It was his favourite song.
Will leaned over and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Ready, mate?’
‘Ready?’ Jack repeated. ‘I’m the luckiest man in the world.’
David and Pip finished the walk down the aisle and Jack reached for Pip’s hand, eager to begin. He mouthed: ‘You look beautiful.’ Pip blushed.
The celebrant stepped forward and cleared her throat.
‘We are gathered here today …’
Chapter 47
Château de Boschaud, Midsummer 1487
Andreas skipped around the corner of the southern turret and gave a whistle as he swung the chestnut gate open to the walled garden. The solstice eve was warm and the sky wide and bright. Festivities in the banquet hall were well underway, with the music from the troubadours and harpists swelling out the windows and filling the grounds of the castle keep.
Andreas hummed along to the music, filled with a happy buzz. He’d enjoyed a couple of jugs of Abbot Roald’s mead and a pretty Burgundy. Lord Boschaud had granted permission for his marriage to Artemisia, though not without some ribbing. He suggested he might like to take a chambermaid and a couple of monks next time.
Andreas stood admiring the linden allée with gold shimmering leaves. What a fine evening this was. None better for a formal engagement. He couldn’t wait to lift her into the cart and take Artemisia back to his home where Alba had prepared a room for her until they were wed in front of the burgher at noon tomorrow.
There were new linen sheets washed with lavender and rosewater with a silk coverlet embroidered with daisies. Alba had gone to the attic and unwrapped her own lace veil from Genoa and hung it in the sun with a spray of lemon.
But where was Artemisia?
The last he’d seen, she was heading up to the tower at the bidding of Abbot Roald. But surely preparations of rosewater and libations for the bride would be finished by now?
She was probably sharing the news of her departure this eve with Emmeline and Hildegard. Artemisia would miss them, of that he was certain. He could spare her a few minutes, he decided, as he tapped his foot with excitement.
He rubbed his chest and enjoyed the softness of his fine new silk jacket, imagining Artemisia rubbing her soft cheek against the smooth cloth. When they were married at the village church tomorrow, he would present her with a velvet pillow made in peacock blue on which to rest her head. She would make a fuss of course, say it was too extravagant. Insist her tastes were simple. He’d expect nothing less from his Artemisia. But soon he would share his world with her. He stirred at the thought of her lithe, dark body entangled with his. He pictured her strong hands massaging rosehip oil and cloves into his shoulders.
A gust fluttered the leaves and he stepped into the square cloister divided into four equal sections planted with grapevines and the fountain at the centre. The trickle of water was refreshing. He sat for a moment on the edge of the pool.
The midsummer air was thick and warm with lavender and roses, gentle and sweet. It was perfect time to share happy news with his fiancée. Fête de la Saint-Jean—the day of new beginnings and new life.
Andreas rose and straightened his jacket.
A nightingale started to sing somewhere beyond the hedge. He wondered when the cages would be carried inside and the birds released to sing for Lady Rose.
He smoothed his hair as he gave a whistle, then stepped out past the hornbeam cloister towards their meeting point.
Chapter 48
Tasmania, March 2016
Pip and Jack were standing outside the winery in the moonlight, picking at the remains of Ashfield House crumbled on the silver platter. A series of floodlights hit the soaring rusted steel wall and cast a warm glow across the pale gravel terrace. There was no cloud cover and the day had been hot, but the evening had brought autumn’s familiar blanket of crisp salty mist. Pip watched the outline of each breath as she wrapped her blue shawl tight around her shoulders. The tiny crystal beads Mary had stitched onto the centre of each embroidered flower—love-in-a-mist, cornflowers and roses—sparkled when they caught the light.
Through folding glass doors they could hear the six-piece wedding band belting out Vance Joy’s ‘Riptide’ and the happy tones of the ukulele drifted high across rows of golden vines out to the velvety black ribbon of the channel.
Jack was standing in his dinner jacket with his bow tie pulled undone and the first couple of buttons open. Pip leaned in for a hug and pressed her cheek against the pleats of his white formal shirt where she could feel his heat. The starched cotton failed to button down his earthy scent.
‘Sign of a good wedding cake, Pip,’ said Jack as he broke off another piece of gingerbread wall and demolished it. He gave a broad smile and his eyes were glinting with pride. ‘The cake really blew everyone away. And your speech—Spain, and Gabrielle’s garden, this mysterious Artemisia. Describing your past couple of years as a nautilus shell, a … a logarithmic spiral.’
‘Spira mirabilis.’
‘Anyway, best cake ever—’
‘Entremet.’
‘Entremet.’ Jack let the word linger in the air for a moment before he reached into his tux jacket and pulled out a small parcel.
Pip stepped back, surprised. ‘What’s this?’
‘Call it a wedding present.’ Jack handed Pip the parcel, which was wrapped in cheesecloth. It was knotted at the top and she saw it had a twig of Artemisia, tied with some bracken and acacia threaded through the topknot. She shook her head and laughed at his clever riff. In a way, uncovering the mystery of those random letters hidden in the old pots had marked a change for both of them.
Pip unwrapped the cheesecloth and saw a small book bound with soft tan leather. She flipped open the book to a random page and saw the curling script of her mother’s hand on scraps of paper stained with drops of olive oil. Mary’s lasagne recipe. The next page was smeared with cinnamon—butter cake. And so on. She flipped through the pages looking at recipe after recipe filled with memories of birthday cakes, graduation dinners and Sunday lamb roasts.
Pip looked up at her husband with tears and she pressed the book to her cheek. ‘Where did you get these?’
‘Megs and your mum put the recipes together. It was their little project while your mum and dad stayed in Tasmania last year.’
Pip raised her right eyebrow.
‘Okay, okay,’ he said with a laugh. ‘So it was Mary’s project. She started writing down and testing her favourite go-to recipes for Megs; she thought it might be helpful. Then, when Will told me about Mary’s recipes, I asked to make them into a book.’
He paused and gave his cheeky lopsided grin. ‘I offered to make one for Megs too. She graciously declined!’ Jack let his full belly-laugh rip and Pip giggled too.
‘I made a special copy for your parents—I gave it to them this morning. With a massive thank you.’
‘What for?’
‘You. Being great in-laws. Just because …’ He blushed and shrugged.
Pip closed the book and ran her fingers over the engraved herb and recognised the feathery form. Wormwood. Artemisia. She flipped over to the back cover, and there were embossed tiny spindly leaves of her own favourite herb: rosemary. How did he guess?
She traced the spindles with her fingers and, as she tipped it over, pressed rose petals and bracken leaves dropped onto the ground.
‘Oh, I forgot about that. You missed a bit.’ Jack laughed.
She opened the book to where the rose petals had fallen out and saw a thick section of blank pages.
‘I thought you could start writing your recipes down. Now we have the bistro, maybe you’ll want to do a cookbook. Or a gardening book. Or both.
You know, all about all your herbs and spices. And plants. And fish. And benthic invertebrates.’ He beamed. ‘Plenty of room for recording sediment data.’
‘Perfect,’ Pip said and stood on her toes to lean in and place a slow, tender kiss on his lips. She opened up the front of the book and saw Jack’s wayward scrawl. He really should have been a doctor. She squinted to make out the words:
For my beautiful wife Pip,
Marine biologist, PhD, forager, cook and Mother of Herbs,
With love on our wedding day,
Jack xx
‘Jack! It’s—it’s amazing,’ said Pip as she reached up and ran a hand through his curls, before she kissed him. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
‘There’s something else I want to show you,’ said Jack. He tucked the book back in his pocket for safekeeping, took Pip’s hand and led her down the steps towards the vines. Pip lifted the hem of her silk dress so she didn’t trip, exposing her white Converse trainers as she skipped down the steps. Jack shook his head at the shoes and chuckled as he placed his hand on the small of her back.
‘Jack, I’m not sure we should …’
He threw his head back, laughing. ‘As desperate as I am to get you out of that pretty dress, that’s not quite what I meant!’
‘Oh,’ said Pip, half disappointed. ‘Then where are we going?’
‘It’s a surprise.’
He squeezed her hand as they followed the top row of vines along the contours of the hill until they reached the highest point of the vineyard where it overlooked the water. She turned and watched the water lapping at the sandstone rock pools. A pair of wedge-tailed eagles made the most of the moonlight reflecting across the water and rocks as they soared over the channel. They were probably heading to their nest.
Pip and Jack kept climbing the hill until they reached Pip’s favourite part of the property—a saddle about fifty metres below the peak. It overlooked neat vines tracking across the slope before flattening out to the low dense scrub, bracken and grasses along the waterfront.
One side of the saddle tumbled into wilderness, but on the other she could see Ashfield House rising off the terrace, shrouded in mist and protected by the proud row of macrocarpas.
Nestled into this sheltered area was an extraordinary wooden sculpture. It unfurled down the slope like a medium swell heading for shore. As Pip stepped closer, she gasped—Jack had built it using leftover boards from the shearing shed. Pip traced her fingers along one of the fifty or so overlapping horizontal grey hardwood planks, noting how the slight shift of angles and planes connected to make a continuous fluid form. It was hard to tell where the landscape ended and the wood began. The piece stretched up to the sky at the far end, plunged into the soil at the lowest point then reached out to the water at the far end.
Jack lay down on the sculpture, his head propped up at one end and Pip did a double-take—Jack’s sculpture was a daybed built for two.
‘Here.’ Jack patted the area beside him.
Pip hitched up her dress, clambered onto the seat and stretched out. The wooden wave hugged every curve.
‘Thank you, Jack,’ she breathed. ‘Only you could build something this …’ She hesitated, searching for the right word. ‘Magical … organic …’ Neither of these was adequate. ‘It’s perfect.’
Jack brushed away her compliment. ‘Well, what do you give a girl who thrives elbow-deep in soil, mud and silt?’ He cocked his head to the side, and grinned. ‘And who loves being in the mighty ocean? I figured a set of steak knives wasn’t going to cut it.’
Pip laughed at his pun. ‘Megs and Wills already got us a set anyway.’
She leaned her neck against her wooden headrest and slowly turned her head towards Jack. His eyes were the colour of midnight. She closed her eyes and found his lips, twisting her hips towards him.
‘Mmm, now that was worth knocking up a bench for,’ he joked. ‘What comes next?’
‘Don’t even think about it. If I wanted to get out of this dress—which I don’t—I doubt you could do up all these buttons in the dark afterwards.’
‘Not even a quick dip?’ he asked, glancing towards the water.
Pip shook her head. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said firmly.
‘Damn.’ Jack smiled and clicked his fingers.
Pip could hear the high notes of Ed Sheeran’s ‘One’ drifting out from the dance floor. ‘Besides, we have to get back to the wedding—what are people going to say when they see us walking back up to the house through the vines?’
Jack propped himself on one elbow, keeping the other hand resting on her hip. ‘Who cares?’ He tugged at a strand of her hair. ‘So I thought at the end of each day, when you come back from the lab or one of your test sites and I’m done in the vineyard, we can come sit here and have a yarn.’
‘With a glass of wine,’ said Pip.
‘Or bubbles,’ Jack suggested. He rolled away from Pip, reached under the seat and produced an unlabelled bottle of sparkling wine and two glasses.
Pip clapped her hands. ‘Because I haven’t had enough today.’ ‘I thought we should have a cheeky glass of Ashfield House’s finest before we head back.’
When Jack had finished pouring, they lay back on their seat and Pip watched the offshore breeze dance and skip across the channel, leaving patches of ripples illuminated by the full moon. The air was tinged with eucalyptus and sea salt. Pip shivered and felt the hairs on her forearms stand on end. Jack draped his jacket across her and tucked the corners under her body, leaving one arm free to sip sparkling wine, the other clasped in his.
‘Cheers—thank you,’ said Pip as she let go of Jack’s hand to rub the tip of her right index finger back and forth across the lip of the wood, exploring the differences in the textures. She and Jack were as different as two grains of wood could be, but they’d finally found a way to complement one another. She felt a tiny hole where a rusty nail once lived and marvelled at the seamless overlap between the old planks.
Chapter 49
Château de Boschaud, Midsummer 1487
Andreas straightened his velvet jacket as he brushed past the hornbeam hedge and out of the cloister. His pace quickened as he hastened to his meeting point with Artemisia.
The stars glistened. The midsummer garden’s maze of glossy hedges and the heady scent of roses and catmint spurred him on. The garden heaved with abundance. The evening felt laced with magic.
He’d wrap his arms around Artemisia and celebrate the joyous news.
Perhaps he should stop to gather a posy for his bride?
No. He’d had enough of waiting.
The instant he stepped into the berry walk Andreas spotted Artemisia.
His heart stilled. She wasn’t—
Artemisia was strewn across the gooseberry bushes like a sheet thrown out to dry. Arms and legs disjointed, neck snapped in half like a goose prepared for a feast.
His knees buckled and he dropped to the earth. Clutching his stomach he roared, ‘Nooooooooo!’ Artemisia was dead.
How?
It had something to do with Abbot Roald. Andreas just knew. He’d seen the abbot follow her up the stairwell.
Andreas forced himself to stand. Artemisia was the strongest person he knew and he wouldn’t sully her memory with his own weakness.
Heartbreak and fury flooded his veins and he sprinted down the gravel path to reach her.
‘Help me!’ he screamed as he ran. ‘Help!’
Andreas cared not if it ruined the wedding banquet—his life was over the minute Artemisia had drawn her last breath.
He scrambled through the prickly gooseberry bushes. Branches tore at his shirt and scratched his hands and chest but he felt nothing. He kicked through the bushes, stomping them flat and snapping the branches until he reached her. He gently lifted Artemisia’s broken body from the bushes and cradled her in his arms. Her still-warm skin smelled of cinnamon, galangal and cumin—the blend of his own sweet chambre des épices.
He dropped his head onto
her chest and wept.
Jacobus helped one of the monks and Andreas carry Artemisia’s body from the walled garden out to the spice cart. It was a burden too heavy for any child, but Jacobus had insisted and Andreas relented. Artemisia cared for the child and had talked to Andreas of paying his tax debt once he was of age. She wanted to buy his freedom so he could grow to adulthood outside the château. It was as if her own bright future gave her cause to secure freedom for those she loved.
The task of embalming her body with herbs would fall to Hildegard and Emmeline. With the lord’s permission, they would travel to the village with him tonight and set Artemisia’s battered body gently on a table in his spice storerooms. Abbot Roald refused to permit Artemisia’s body to enter the chapel. His mother would allow Artemisia to be buried in her wedding veil. Andreas would prepare a vial of lavender and rosemary oils with a touch of Artemisia and gold leaf. Strong. Bittersweet.
Because Artemisia was Andreas’s betrothed, she was his kin. Andreas alone was responsible for her burial. The filthy Abbot Roald would not agree to her body being consecrated within the château’s walls—the only home she’d ever known—as Artemisia had committed the eternal sin of taking her own life. Not even Lord Boschaud could overturn this religious decree.
‘I can’t make head nor tail of it, sir,’ said Jacobus. ‘Artemisia’s cheeks had never had so much colour as these past two moons.’ The child’s narrow chest heaved. ‘It—it don’t smell right to me.’
Andreas ruffled the child’s golden curls, too choked up to offer any words of consolation.
Abbot Roald had insisted she be buried outside the walls. An orphan—a servant and common cook—had no place in the cemetery at Château de Boschaud. None. In any case, Andreas thought a small mound beyond the wall in the chestnut forest was perfect for his Artemisia. From death would come life. Her blood would feed the earth—the herbs, the mushrooms she so adored. She would be free to rest and roam as she pleased.
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