The Blessing Stone

by Barbara Wood

  Katharina said, “I must think about it,” and that night prayed to St. Amelia for guidance, holding the little painting that had a mate somewhere in the world, another little painting of St. Amelia and her sacred blue crystal, most likely in the possession of a European nobleman with a beard like a golden sunburst, waiting for his daughter to find him. She prayed also to the spirit of Don Adriano, whom she would love for the rest of her life, and finally she prayed over the sleeping form of her daughter, little Happy Flea, glowing in health and free from nightmares at last.

  As sunlight streamed through the silken hangings of their bedchamber the next morning, and Katharina heard the whispering of courtiers, and the tinkle of fountains, and glorious birdsong, she wondered that she had even hesitated. For what Summer Rose had said was wise: the proclamations of Zhandu did indeed reach the ends of the earth and if anyone could find her father, it would be the emissaries of this mountain kingdom.

  And, after all, Katharina was fond of Lo-Tan.

  And so she said yes, and on a glorious summer day when all the citizens of Zhandu turned out for the great celebration, Katharina Bauer-von Grünewald of Badendorf, Germany, mother of the child of a knight of the Brotherhood of Mary, Don Adriano of Aragon, Spain, married the albino nephew of Heavenly Ruler and son of Summer Rose, Prince Lo-Tan, and in so doing became Princess Wei-Ming of Zhandu.

  As promised, Heavenly Ruler sent men out in search of the blue stone and her father: runners and emissaries bearing proclamations promising rich rewards to whoever came back with information about the blue stone, or the blue stone itself, or a yellow-bearded foreigner.

  Word spread. It was carried on camels and yaks, in the mouths of men dreaming of Zhandu riches, in conversations at garrisons, in dialogues at caravansaries and crossroads. Wherever two travelers met over a campfire, the blue crystal of Zhandu and the yellow-bearded stranger were discussed. Like wind whispering across sand dunes the proclamations flew so that within a year the first fruits began to appear: blue stones of all kinds were brought to the plateau at the foot of Zhandu, some as big as melons, some as small as peas; peacock blue and heaven blue, some nearer to green, others nearer to black. Everyday, guards went out to gather up the stones and bring them back for Katharina to inspect, and everyday the reward went unpaid.

  Then Heavenly Ruler had his royal artists copy the diptych of St. Amelia on durable paper and they were very good likenesses except they didn’t capture the living blue of the crystal, and the saint had an Asian look to her. These paintings went out of Zhandu in the form of scrolls, with a promise of reward written on them in Kosh, Latin, Arabic, and German.

  Years passed. While Katharina’s love for Lo-Tan never neared the passion and hunger she had felt for Adriano, her fondness for her gentle husband ran deep. She shared his sunless world with him, and Adriana grew and flourished and became elder sister to a brother, a sister, and a third brother. When Adriana was old enough, she attended school with other children of the court, learning to work basic sums on an apparatus called an abacus, and to paint rudimentary letters and words in calligraphy. Though she learned nothing in the way of geography, for the people of Zhandu believed the world was flat and that Zhandu was at its center, there were lessons in astronomy and mathematics, poetry and painting.

  Blue stones continued to be brought to Zhandu—big and little, transparent and opaque, from powder blue to royal blue—and along with them came stories of yellow-bearded men. Katharina listened to each with the same attention she gave to examining the stones, but none matched a German nobleman who had gone to Jerusalem looking for a magic blue crystal.

  Finally, in the summer of the tenth year after the first proclamation had gone out, and Katharina, while happy with Lo-Tan and her Zhandu children, was beginning to wonder if she should have taken the journey herself after all, a runner came to say that traders had found the man searching for the blue stone.

  Katharina, always hopeful, always doubtful, said, “You have found my father?”

  “And we are bringing him to you!”

  The foreigner was brought to the Garden of Eternal Bliss, where the royal family was gathered in breathless anticipation. Katharina’s heart fluttered anxiously as her mind raced with questions: What will we say to one another? How shall I address him? Are my brothers with him?

  And then he stepped through the archway and entered splendid sunshine. Katharina gave a cry. She saw the cloak first, and although travel-worn and patched, and not as white as it had been at the emerald stream, it still looked handsome and dignified. Adriano’s skin was sun-darkened and contrasted against his shoulder length white hair. Although his hair was no longer dark, his eyes still were, and he did not have the face of an old man, merely a well-journeyed one.

  Katharina ran into his arms, and while everyone looked on in amazement and awe, Adriano told her he was in Tashkent when he had met a man showing this little painting around. He knew then that he had found her.

  Katharina feasted her eyes on him, touched his arms, felt his solidness, and silently thanked God for this miracle. “But you were killed by the emerald stream! I saw!”

  Adriano could not get his fill of the sight of her, still his Katharina, and yet foreign in her silk robes and golden hair arranged on her head like an exotic birdcage. “There was a man in our caravan who coveted my cloak, and while I bathed he stole it. It was his poor fortune that at that moment the Kosh attacked. I was wounded and nearly drowned in the stream. But I was found by nomads who took me into their tents and nursed me back to health.”

  Realizing that a story was about to be told, Heavenly Ruler and Summer Rose, Lo-Tan, and the children gathered close to listen. “After I recovered,” Adriano said, “and bade good-bye to my rescuers, I went looking for you, Katharina. But there was no trail, I had no way of knowing which direction you had gone, if you were still alive even. So I went to Jerusalem, for I thought if I would find you anywhere, it would be there. I looked for the blue stone, but it was no longer there. I met a man who told me of a Saxony nobleman, Baron von Grünewald, who had also been in Jerusalem looking for the blue stone. We missed him by fifteen years, Katharina. The man said the German went next to Baghdad, and so I followed his trail there. All these years, I have been following your father’s trail, hoping it would lead me to you.”

  “But you never found him?”

  “No, but I found you,” he said with a smile.

  “But what of your work on Crete? What of your brotherhood? Should you not have gone to them?”

  “While I was in Jerusalem I heard news of the Turks invading Crete where my brotherhood were wiped out to a man.” He paused and looked at his audience with the air of a man bearing a wonderful secret. “And now the news…Katharina, although I did not find your father, I do know where he is.”

  A collective gasp filled the garden, for everyone was familiar with Katharina’s lifelong quest. “Tell me quickly,” she said.

  “When I was in Tashkent, I met a man who told me of a father and three sons, Germans, carrying a small painting like yours. They were searching for a blue stone. I was told that they learned it had been sold to monks traveling east to Cathay, where they were headed for the court of the emperor. That is where your father went, Katharina, to China, and he is most likely there still.”

  Food was brought, and wine, and the incredible people in dazzling silks flitted and fussed around him like exotic birds. Though white-haired and care-worn, Adriano still towered over the Zhandu, and he laughed at all the attention for, truth be told, he had had no idea what to expect while he was being escorted to this isolated kingdom in the sky.

  But when a young girl was brought before him, and she bowed respectfully and called him father, his laughter died. The garden fell silent, even the birds and tinkling fountain seemed to hush themselves in awe of this man’s reaction to news of something he never knew: that he had a child.

  It was some minutes before he could speak, and then it was in a voice tight with emotion
. “In our home in Aragon there hung a portrait of my mother when she was your age. You could be her, Adriana, the resemblance is so strong.”

  Father and daughter embraced, and everyone cried, none so loudly as Heavenly Ruler who sobbed like a child and wiped his face on his immaculate white sleeves.

  That night, as Katharina lay in Lo-Tan’s arms, he whispered to her, “If you wish to return to Adriano as his wife, I understand and release you, for he is your first husband. And if you decide to go to Cathay and search for your father, I give you my blessing. But I pray to Kwan Yin, my beloved Golden Lotus, that you keep me always in your heart.”

  But she said, “Adriano and I were never truly married. Not according to our laws. You are my husband, Lo-Tan, and always shall be.” As for the other, her heart was heavy as she said, “A blue stone meant more to my father than his own daughter did. He did not just leave me in a stranger’s care, he abandoned me. And if I go after him now, I would be abandoning my own children. But unlike my father, my children mean more to me than an elusive blue stone. I will not go after him. My place is here, with you, with my family.”

  The next morning she went to Adriano, who was marveling at all the riches and glory of Zhandu. She took his rough hands in hers and said, “I will not go to Cathay and search for my father. I believe the blue crystal became his obsession, just as he became mine. And I believe that somewhere along the way I lost sight of my true purpose, just as he lost sight of his. My father chose his path, Adriano, and I have chosen mine. I will stay here. But it would bring me great joy if you ended your long journey and stayed in this place. Can you stay here…as my dear friend?” she added, for the fact of her marriage to Lo-Tan stood between them, and both knew they could never rekindle the intimacy they had once shared.

  Adriano’s tone was deep and heartfelt as he replied, “When you first met me, Katharina, I was an intolerant man. I carried hatred in my heart for all men of another creed. I used religion as my gauge to measure a man. If he did not embrace Christ, then he could not be a worthy man. And in my arrogance I believed it was my destiny to bring all men to the true God, whether by word or by sword. But when I regained consciousness after the raid by the emerald stream, and found myself in the company of fire-worshippers, I was on the brink of death and they took care of me, they nursed me back to health and treated me with kindness. In another age, I would have called them demon-worshippers, but during my convalescence I saw that they were just people, like people everywhere, striving to survive, living in fear and hope, and worshipping the powers they believed in. I should be happy to stay here and teach the people of Zhandu about Jesus, Katharina, and if they come to accept Him, then so be it. But I am no longer of the belief that one must knock skulls in order to bring people to the true faith, for I am no longer convinced that there is just one true faith.”

  Adriano went on to say that he had had no right marrying her years ago. He broke his vows and believed that what happened at the emerald spring was his punishment. He had spent the past ten years doing penance for his sin, by seeking the blue crystal and Katharina’s father, and by staying celibate.

  Katharina accepted this, but when she saw how the ladies of the court eyed the robust stranger, and giggled and whispered behind their fluttering fans, she wondered how long Adriano’s renewed vow of celibacy would last.

  She marveled at the mysteries of fate. What if her mother, Isabella Bauer, had died before Katharina had reached her? What if she had died keeping the secret of Katharina’s birth? Katharina would have married Hans Roth and moved into the house behind the beer stein factory, and she would have lived out her days believing that Badendorf was the world.

  She said to Adriano, “I have been disguised as a boy and have lived in a Turkish harem; I have been shipwrecked, kidnapped, sold into slavery; I have been a Christian, a Muslim, and a goddess-worshipper; I have loved a man and lost him and found him again; I have known ecstasy and pain, fulfillment and loss. I have spoken German, Arabic, Latin, and the tongue of the Zhandu; I have traveled to the ends of the earth and seen wonders indescribable. But through it all, Badendorf remained my home. And in a way it still is, with its colorful marktplatz and familiar rathaus, the river and the forest and the castle. But Zhandu is also my home. And while I doubt I shall ever find my true father, I have a father nonetheless, in Heavenly Ruler. I have a brother in you, Adriano, and a sister and third mother in Summer Rose. Cousins and aunts and uncles do I have now in plenty, here in Zhandu, and a family more extensive than even that of the Roths of Badendorf. And I have Adriana, and Lo-Tan and my children by him. For all these years I searched for my family, and only now do I realize that they have been with me all along. I searched for the blue crystal, but it too was with me all along, in this little painting of St. Amelia. And so here I shall stay, in Zhandu, where I belong.”

  Interim

  Katharina lived the rest of her life in the isolated mountain kingdom, watching her children grow, taking the throne at Lo-Tan’s side when he succeeded his uncle as Heavenly Ruler. When Summer Rose died and was laid to rest, Katharina grieved anew for the mothers she had loved. And when Adriano died, at the age of ninety-three, the entire populace mourned, for they had so loved his stories.

  Two more generations came and went, telling and retelling the stories of Katharina von Grünewald, until finally Zhandu was toppled, not by an invading army but by nature itself—an earthquake so powerful that it brought down the walls and domes and spires of the fabled city, killing all its inhabitants. And then storms came, both rain and snow, delivering mud and boulders and massive sandrifts to the ruins of Zhandu. As decades and then centuries passed, the climate changed and desert sands came to bury the last tip of the last spire so that five hundred years in the future, archaeologists would pick through rubble and try to imagine the city that had once stood here.

  Baron Johann von Grünewald did indeed go to China with his sons, after learning from a merchant in Tashkent that the blue crystal had accompanied a consortium of Christian monks intent upon evangelizing the emperor’s court. He never forgot that he had left a daughter back in Germany in the care of a seamstress, and he believed in his heart that he would one day return for her. But the baron was a man born to roam, all he needed was a quest. Like the Grail of Christ that lured other noble-minded men to foreign lands, so was St. Amelia’s Stone his lure. But when he finally found it, in the possession of a royal courtesan skilled in the art of love, and he curled his fingers around the object he had been searching for nearly all his life, its purpose died, and so did his. Still vowing to return home and be reunited with his daughter, Johann von Grünewald died in distant China without ever setting foot in his beloved Europe again.

  From China the blue crystal was carried on a spice ship to the Dutch Indies, where the gem, having lost all connection to Christian saints, was named the Star of Cathay by a romantic-minded sea captain who believed it possessed love magic that he hoped would convince a certain young lady in Amsterdam to marry him.

  Off the coast of India, the spice ship met with misadventure, the captain was sold into slavery, and the Star of Cathay was taken to a temple in Bombay where it was fitted into the statue of a god, so that it was known for a while as the Eye of Krishna. But when the temple was attacked and ransacked during a religious war, the blue crystal was again liberated and carried north to Amsterdam by a Dutch sea captain who sold the stone to a gem merchant named Hendrick Kloppman. From letters written years earlier by the spice ship captain to the jewelers guild, requesting an estimation of the worth of the stone, Kloppman identified it as the Star of Cathay, and deduced from the letters that the lovesick captain had intended it to go to a certain young lady on Keisersgracht Street. Acting honorably and as a man of conscience, Kloppman sought the young woman out and offered her the gem. No longer young and past all desire for marriage, she accepted the crystal with indifference, saying she had only the vaguest recollection of the unfortunate spice ship captain, and sold it right back to Kl
oppman for enough money to open her own fabric shop and be independent of men forever. Kloppman traveled to Paris where, hoping to make ten times profit on the stone, he played up the romantic angle of the Star of Cathay, inventing a story about a wizard in the imperial court of China and how he had created the crystal out of northern glaciers and dragon bones, the blood of a phoenix and the heart of a virgin.

  There were those in Paris who believed him.

  Book Seven

  MARTINIQUE

  1720 C.E.

  Brigitte Bellefontaine had a secret.

  It involved forbidden love with a dark-eyed rogue, and as she sat at her vanity table, brushing out her hair and removing her cosmetics, she tried not to think of it, for with each passing day, the guilty burden of the secret grew.

  A rude sound brought her out of her thoughts. She looked at her husband reflected in the glass behind her. Henri. Sprawled on the bed and snoring. Drunk again.

  Brigitte sighed. There was nothing worse than a Frenchman who could not hold his wine.

  And he had promised. Tonight, after their guests left, he said, he was going to treat her to a special evening under the stars. “Just like the old days, ma cherie, when we were young lovers.” And then the guests had arrived, and the party had gotten underway, and the wine had poured and poured. And now Henri was flat on his back on the bed, wig askew, his waistcoat stained with samples from the evening’s menu: fried codfish fritters and crepes dripping with melted chocolate.