The old dame entered the conversation. “I’ve never heard of a scriptorium outside of an abbey,” she pronounced in a loud voice. “Though it’d be no bad thing to have an abbey here.” She shook her head, her hoary wattle swinging back and forth. “What with all this talk of heretics in town. I’d thought that with the burning of the Authié brothers, we’d finished this nonsense. But now, all these years later, two dozen friars are summoned to the king’s palace on charges of ministering to the Good Men! Do all the priests in town warn against their heresy?” Her icy glare settled on Auda.
Auda froze, conscious of the sudden attention. Yet what did she know of heretics and the Good Men? Suspicion of merely knowing a heretic could condemn a man to death.
Poncia leaned over her sister. “Father Michel has ministered to us for years at the Basilica of St. Paul-Serge,” she said, a trace of fear edging her voice. “Though I look forward to hearing Mass in the new cathedral, perhaps as early as next year, they say.”
The dame frowned at Auda. “Well, girl?” Her voice grew loud. “Speak. Or has the devil got your tongue?”
The conversation around them halted and the sound of spoons hitting against the silver-rimmed wooden bowls slowed. The vicomte turned his gaze to the ladies.
Drawing up her courage, Auda forced herself to meet the dame’s stare. “Nohh,” she said, struggling to push the sound out through her lips. It came out loud, a disfigured noise even to her ears.
The dame moved back a fraction but didn’t say anything. No one at the supper table moved. Even the miller, with his plain face and simple demeanor, seemed shocked.
Only the vicomtesse, and her husband, looked more thoughtful than appalled. “Of course not, girl,” the lady said, not unkindly. “Narbonne is God’s own town. You say you attend the Basilica, in the bourg?”
“Our entire lives,” Poncia answered. “My sister is mute. She lives with our father.”
“Ah, yes, the scribe,” the vicomte said, snapping his fingers, though his gaze was fixed on Auda. “I remember, from when Jehan said he was marrying.” He gave Poncia’s husband an exaggerated wink. “A thousand hearts broke over the news. But the scribe’s daughter has made a good match for you.”
Auda blushed under the vicomte’s look. He was appraising her, but for what? Her flush darkened with worry. Attention by a powerful man could only lead to trouble. Luckily, the vicomtesse spoke.
“I don’t suppose your father also makes a type of cloth parchment?” Her voice sounded light.
“Oc, that’s what some call it,” Poncia said and flashed Auda an uncertain look.
The vicomtesse didn’t seem to notice the reluctance in Poncia’s voice. “So he’s the one.” She turned to her husband. “Remember that I told you of the papermaker I found?”
“Hmmm,” was all the lord replied, his eyes returning to Auda. His scrutiny brought a blush to her face.
Auda only looked down, embarrassment competing with excitement. The order from the palace had come from the vicomtesse herself. What luck! She could only imagine her father’s reaction when he found out. Suddenly, the problems of the miller, the Jacobins, and even the inquisitor seemed far away.
Chapter Ten
Auda sat by the hearth in her sister’s solar. Rain pattered against the roof like an avalanche of pebbles. At the end of last night’s supper, Poncia had sent a maid to escort Auda to the guest hall. The others still had much to discuss on matters of trade and town, and Auda was not invited to attend.
Yet she did want to talk to Poncia. In the cold dawn of morning, Auda was certain of her decision not to marry the miller, glad he had left the supper right after the meal. Her father would support her, especially if he knew of the dismissiveness with which the man had dropped his paper to the floor. Anyway, they had more important matters to consider, like the lady’s interest in his work. Despite Poncia’s reservation, surely the lady’s attention could only bring good things? And why should their father not reach for the same sort of prosperity Poncia enjoyed?
She sat back and watched the flicker of the hearth fire. Well, if Poncia would not find her, she would have to find her sister. No doubt by this late in the morning Poncia was already in the marketplace, tending Jehan’s stall.
Donning her cloak and a tight wimple over her head, Auda slipped out of her sister’s home into the rain. In the market, the streets were lined with stalls full of hanging chickens, bloody cuts of beef, and baskets of waterlogged apples. Itinerant merchants jostled each other along the narrow road as they yelled out their wares:
“Mushrooms, freshly picked! Garlic! Onions for your pottage!”
“Pies! Meat pies! Goose and pork! Hot and tasty! Pies! Hot pies!”
“Cheese! Fresh cheese! Pelardon! Du cabre! Amé notz!”
Auda felt a pang of hunger at the warm scents. Although the bourg boasted a larger market, its space overflowing with merchants and farmers calling out to customers over loaded tables, the city was Narbonne’s true metropolis. The coinage gleamed brighter here, the fruits and vegetables smelled fresher and looked more colorful.
Jehan’s stall was the largest of the tables, marked by a blue cloth cover among surrounding stalls swathed in reds and browns. Sackcloth bags of peppercorns, gingerroot, cardamom pods, brown sea salt, and lemon peels lay spread across the counter, their colors a blazing spectrum. Scents rose into the damp air, an angry mixture of tang and heat, but dominated by fresh lemon. Additional bags lay on the floor, stacked in piles and waiting to fill the bare shelves.
Auda hurried inside and peeled off her drenched cloak.
Poncia was the only one working the stall this morning, her fingers busy unwrapping bundles tied tight with twine. As Auda approached, she glanced up. “What are you doing out? I would have sent the maid for you later.”
Auda shook her head at her sister’s distant voice. Poncia was frustrated by the miller’s early departure last night, suspicious of what Auda had done to scare him. Well, they’d have to talk about it soon enough. She nodded around at the stall. Everyone. Where?
Her sister pursed her mouth. “Late. The maid is nearing her time. Her mother hovers and the cook frets. The houseboy has disappeared.” Her lower lip softened. “This stall is all a mess and I’ve only just started learning how to work it.”
Putting a hand under Poncia’s chin, Auda forced her sister to look at her.
“It didn’t go at all the way it was supposed to,” Poncia blurted with sudden tears. “The miller decided things were not…so clear as they were before. A mute girl shouldn’t be able to cause so much commotion! And now the vicomte and vicomtesse ask questions, about Papa and about you. If only that damned old lady hadn’t fixed on you.”
What did the vicomte want to know of her?
She slid around her sister and faced her. Good for Papa.
Poncia glared at her with red-rimmed eyes. “I would have helped Papa,” she said in a watery voice. “After I arranged things for you.”
Auda snorted. Dull man. With no vision, no passion, no zeal except for his would-be heirs. She shook her head. The vicomtesse’s patronage would bring far more choices, far better chances.
Poncia’s nostrils flared. “Yes, everything is too dull for you, everything but these fantasies Papa feeds you. Can’t you see now is not a good time to bring the Church’s eyes upon us? How do you think the archbishop will feel, knowing the vicomte is building a scriptorium? And here you are, already thinking our father will give his paper to stock it!”
Why not? Auda shrugged.
Poncia turned away, dabbing her tears with the hem of her sleeve. “You are naïve if you really mean to ask that.”
Auda pushed away a pang of hurt. She watched in silence for Poncia to continue, but her sister said nothing more. A pair of customers slowed near the stall, then walked away.
Question for you, Auda signed after a moment. Rolling up her wet cloak, she stuffed it behind her basket and faced her sister. Men last night, met with Jehan. Know them
?
Her sister rubbed her tired eyes. “There were many men at supper last night, Auda.”
Auda took out her wax tablet and began to describe the men she’d seen, their clothes and the yellow cross one wore.
Poncia read over her shoulder as she wrote, but before Auda had finished she grabbed her wrist in midstroke.
“Auda!” Pulling the tablet away, Poncia rubbed at it with a piece of old sacking until the words disappeared. “Where did you see them? Never mind. Their business is none of yours. Put them from your mind.”
Auda stared, taken aback. What did these men speak of that had frightened her? She watched Poncia scrub at the tablet until nearly half the wax had peeled onto the rag.
Auda put out her arm. Stop. She looked around the stall. Help you. She’d ask again later, when her sister was calmer.
At last Poncia put down the rag and nodded.
“Jehan has many associates. Their business can be sensitive, and he angers even when I ask about them. Sometimes, Auda, it’s best not to know.”
Auda nodded without understanding.
Stepping away, Poncia pointed her toward a tall shelf in the back of the stall and unwrapped the scales stored beneath the counter. Her voice grew solid. “The spices are there. You’ll have to measure what we need onto one of those trays.” She gestured at a stack of polished lacquered squares. “Be careful with the balance. We bought it new in Paris.”
Poncia demonstrated how to measure a hand weight of pepper using metal weights and made Auda repeat the exercise, cautioning all the while.
“Don’t press on the trays.”
Auda fingered each of the weights, measuring them against each other. Poncia sighed and moved to speak with a customer who’d paused by the entrance of the stall.
Auda pulled a sackcloth bag smelling of anise out of the nearest pile. An oval seed was drawn on the dirty linen label. She picked up another: the label bore a picture of red paprika. The next bag contained saffron, and the one after that, cumin. She shook her head. What a mess.
“This is how the servants arrange it every day,” Poncia said, reaching around her to measure a heap of yellow ginger. “They have their own method with the pictures.”
You can read and write. Auda twitched her lips and fished a charcoal pencil from her basket to scratch letters on the cumin label.
Refusing to answer, her sister turned to another shelf.
Auda opened the next bag and sniffed a deep citrus scent. Orange peel. She lettered the label.
A customer appeared at the counter, a servant girl who recited a list from memory as Poncia struggled to keep up. Another girl and two older ladies followed. They all knew Poncia, smiled at her and chatted, lingering when their business was done. Poncia didn’t seem to mind, encouraging their talk with smiles and trivial chatter.
Was it only Auda’s imagination, or did the girls look askance at her with fear?
“Auda, some spices,” Poncia called out. “A dram of cloves—long with a clawed end; another of cinnamon—curled brown stick; and a scruple of mace—it looks like orange-dyed lace. Oh, and an ounce of gingerroot.” Then, in a lower tone, “Yes, your mistress will need that. No doubt she makes a mincemeat pie. Oc, you’ll want some anise too.”
Auda watched wistfully. Their mother had grown up in a merchant’s household. Had she worked a stall as Poncia did now? If Elena had lived, would she be directing Poncia, dispensing wisdom before her girl could even think to ask? Mother and daughter, side by side, all while Auda watched, mute in the shadows?
The wooden shelves creaked and bags of spices fell from the counter onto Auda’s feet, startling her into a cry. Seeing the commotion, Poncia stepped away from her customer and returned to help Auda sort through the jumbled pile of bags.
“We can still fix things with the miller,” she murmured, kneeling by the fallen spices. “I’m sure of it.”
Auda doubted it. The look on his face when she’d been questioned by the vicomtesse was not a happy one. That man could never grow accustomed to the attention Auda always drew. Especially not if she continued to work with her father, continued to read and write and learn.
“Let him speak to Papa about you,” Poncia said, trying to group the spice bags on the counter. “He asks for no dowry and he would be a good husband. He keeps busy with work and only wants a modest family.” She turned and met Auda’s gaze. “Yes, he is old, and large, and more than a little dull. But at least you wouldn’t be alone. You’d be taken care of when Father no longer can. Sometimes you have to sacrifice what you have to get something you want more.”
Yes, sometimes you did, Auda agreed. But to sacrifice what she loved for imprisonment was not a sentence she could bear. Couldn’t her sister see that?
“Well! It seems I have two beautiful women working for me today!”
Auda turned at the boom of her brother-in-law’s voice. Jehan was smiling. So, he was in a better mood today. What had changed his fortune?
Stepping into the stall, Jehan took his wife’s arm and kissed her fingers, though she looked distracted at the interruption.
Auda stepped around the couple, scrutinizing them from the side. Jehan smiled at Poncia, caressing her fingers and hands.
Her sister only said one word, though she looked at neither of them.
“Please.” Still gazing at Auda, Poncia led Jehan aside and spoke to him in soft tones.
Closing her eyes, Auda let out a heavy breath. She thought again of her mother. Had marriage, even life, been this hard for her?
“A moment, if I could,” a crisp male voice said.
Her eyes flashed open.
“My pardon.” A man stood at the counter, raindrops falling off his eyelashes and from the tip of his crooked nose. He cleared his throat and spoke in a lower tone. “A fistful of grape shoots, please.”
Auda stepped back, aghast. It was the stranger from Carcassonne, the one who had saved her from the mob. She was sure of it.
“It’s you,” he said in the same soft voice.
Auda shook her head, meeting his eyes. How had he found her? Why was he looking?
“God’s grace!” The words slipped out of his mouth. “Your eyes.”
Auda forced herself to keep her expression still. With all the varied colors of eyes—blues and blacks and greens—why did they always flinch when they looked at hers, neither red nor yellow nor any other dastardly color? The color of death, someone had called her tan watery eyes. Did they truly think her a roumèque, as the peasant children playing in the fields called her, avoiding her like some hideous ghost sent to frighten the babes? Had the inquisitor sent this man to find her?
But no, he’d saved her once.
He held out his hand. “A second pardon. I’ve never seen anyone like you.”
She stepped back. Poncia was busy with another customer. Should she call her sister anyway?
The stranger kept staring. “Truly, I didn’t mean to scare or offend you. I only came to buy supplies and saw you. I never thought I would see you again, but I’m glad to see you are safe.”
Despite herself, Auda felt herself softening. There was something about this man that seemed so harmless, almost lost. A foreigner, undoubtedly—with olive skin and large gray eyes, he spoke in a hurried, oily accent. His cloth was thread-bare, patched in many places and smeared with dabs of paint. Most likely an itinerant artist in search of work.
Noticing the conversation at last, Poncia hurried over with an arched brow.
“May I get something for you?” she asked the man, sending Auda a puzzled glance.
“A fistful of grape shoots will do,” he said politely, though he addressed his words to Auda.
Poncia made a low reply and nudged Auda with her foot. “Stay in the back, Auda. I’ll see to the customers,” she said and rushed back to the other counter.
“Just a fist of dried grape shoots and I promise to be off. I don’t mean to trouble you any further,” the man repeated.
Auda regarded
him. He was a handsome man, to be sure, though not in any traditional way. His eyes held a faraway glint, as though searching for something he couldn’t quite recognize. A mystery to puzzle out, she thought, then scolded herself for the whimsy.
Turning back to the shelf, she searched for a bag of dried shoots. She’d seen them before in Tomas’s shop, small twigs used to make charcoal for drawing and painting. Tomas baked his own and sold them in bundles. The sticks could be used as pencils or ground up and mixed with water or oil to make a dark black paint. She fingered the contents of a dozen bags until finally she found the correct one. These shoots were cheap stock, made for inferior browns and grays rather than the black the painter probably searched for. Tomas kept these in his shop also.
Selecting a fistful from the bag, she wrapped the package and tied it with twine, then held up three fingers.
He handed her the coins with a dusty black hand. “Aah, this ink and charcoal get everywhere,” he apologized, wiping his fingers on his tunic.
So she’d been right. Feeling emboldened, she mimed the motion of painting.
He tilted his head at her and blinked. “Oh. Yes.” He smiled. “Color and gilded miniatures, mostly, though I’ve done some illumination. I just arrived in town, came here looking for a space to sell my work. Not an easy thing.”
It didn’t surprise her. Portraitures commanded a good deal of money and though Narbonne acted like a rich city, people still preferred simpler tastes and practical wealth. This man would have done better to search for a patron in the northern cities. But the mention of illumination piqued her curiosity. Illuminators typically trained at monasteries. Was he a monk like the ones at Jehan’s house? He certainly looked poor enough. What manner of works had he illustrated?
She nodded toward his box, and the corners of his eyes lifted. Smiling, he untied the cords that bound his case shut to reveal a clutter inside: quills, pieces of charcoal, chalk pencils, and lumps of wax in various colors. Pulling out a cloth bundle, he unwrapped a stack of parchments and stiffened linen and shuffled through the collection: bright renditions of saints and manger scenes, dogs on the hunt and drawings of nobles in feast.
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