A Place in the World

by Amy Maroney

  He looked doubtful. “But we’ve only just met them. Perhaps they’re not trustworthy. Why won’t you let me hire a maid?”

  “Why would we trust a maid any more than our neighbors? I will hire one, in time. For now, we just need quiet. Quiet and rest.”

  Tristan squalled briefly, then grew still. His lips were like two pink rose petals. Mira kissed his soft cheeks, smoothed the sparse black hair on the crown of his head. He was starting to plump up, she noted with relief.

  “Go,” she urged. “You will be late to work.”

  Arnaud’s expression hardened. Mira knew he was terrified of his son’s fragility. When he held the boy, Tristan’s body was nearly swallowed up in Arnaud’s broad hands.

  Mira mustered a breezy voice. “The peace here will do us good. I will see to it that Tristan thrives even when you are not watching.”

  Arnaud kissed her, put a hand on the baby’s head, and reluctantly turned away.

  “Bar this door!” he called from the hallway. “Do not open it for anyone.”

  She sighed. “As you wish, my love.”

  Making her way slowly to the door with the baby in the crook of one arm, she felt a rush of lightheadedness. Mira was not as strong as she claimed. Not yet.

  Her gaze fell on the desk by the window. Pale winter light seeped through the windowpanes and illuminated the fresh sheets of linen paper that lay ready on its surface. A feeling of industry welled up in her. She had several letters to write, after all.

  Mira carefully laid Tristan on the bed. He immediately erupted in shaky screams. She crawled back under the blanket to comfort him, fully intending to complete her task when he fell asleep. Instead, she drifted off when he quieted.

  When she awoke the fire was cold in the hearth.

  She yawned, inwardly berating herself. Lighting the fire again seemed like an enormous task.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Yes?” she called from the bed, her heart skittering under her ribs.

  “It’s Nekane from downstairs. I’ve a tray of food for you. Just something for you to nibble on until your husband gets home.”

  “My thanks to you, Nekane.” Relief flooded Mira’s body. “I will not forget this kindness.”

  “It’s nothing. I know how tired you must be. It will get better soon,” Nekane promised. Even muffled by the door, her voice was rich and throaty, the voice of a woman who had lived well and long. “Have you need of anything?”

  Surely it was not a risk to invite the woman inside, especially given that she had brought food.

  “Yes,” Mira said, extricating herself from the sleeping baby and walking unsteadily across the room. She unbarred the door and opened it. “My husband will scold me for this, but I have let the fire go out and I have no strength to build another.”

  “Say no more.” Nekane swept into the room with a tray and plonked it down on the table. She crossed her arms over her ample chest and surveyed the room. Her dark hair was mostly hidden under a cream-colored linen cap, and a long flax apron covered her blouse and skirt. “You settle in again with your babe. When your husband returns, he’ll not be the wiser. He’ll think you kept the fire burning brightly all the day long.”

  Mira shuffled back to bed, first picking up a hunk of cheese from the tray Nekane had brought.

  “You are an angel,” she said, taking a bite. It was a creamy sheep’s cheese that reminded her of the rounds made by the shepherds of Ronzal.

  “Tell that to my husband,” Nekane said, rummaging in the kindling basket by the hearth. “He calls me all sorts of things. Never so sweet as that, though.”

  Within a few moments the fire was crackling again. Mira watched Nekane move around the room collecting the candles and lighting them one by one.

  “You’ll warm up in no time,” she declared, depositing a candlestick on the table next to the bed. Her hands were raw and chapped, smudged with ash. “You don’t have enough blankets!” She leveled an accusing glare at Mira. “Where are the rest?”

  “We have no others,” Mira admitted.

  “It’s wintertime and you’ve a new baby,” Nekane spluttered, nostrils flaring. “This won’t do. This won’t do at all.”

  With that, Nekane bustled out of the room. In a few moments she returned carrying a rough hand-loomed brown wool blanket.

  “This is a homely thing, but warm.” She spread it over Mira and the baby. Her hands were clean now, Mira noticed. The faint scent of lavender emanated from her.

  “Your little one needs changing,” she said, flapping a hand in front of her nose. “I’ll do it. Where are your linens?”

  Mira pointed at the opposite wall, where a wooden bucket stood. “You are too kind, but—”

  “Why on earth shouldn’t I change your baby?” Nekane hauled the bucket to the bedside. “I could do it in my sleep. I’ve had five babies of my own.”

  She leaned over the bed and unswaddled Tristan. He began to cry. Mira’s stomach lurched.

  “Perhaps we should have let him sleep,” she remarked, feeling spectacularly useless.

  “It’s good to wake him,” Nekane said. “Too much sleeping when the sun’s out makes a baby howl at the moon come nightfall.”

  Nekane deftly cleaned and changed Tristan, deposited the soiled cloth in the bucket, and swaddled him again. Then she thrust him at Mira.

  “Now give him what he wants. I’ll take this bucket and wash your linens for you.”

  On the way out, she gaped at Mira’s painting supplies heaped in the spare room, her face scrunched up in bewilderment. At this distance she looked youthful. But when she had leaned over the bed Mira saw deep lines on either side of her mouth, dark shadows under her golden-brown eyes.

  “Why in heaven’s name hasn’t your husband hired you a nurse or a maid?” Nekane demanded. “You can afford it, if you can rent two rooms.”

  “I am an artist.”

  The words floated in the air between them like a puff of smoke. Nekane looked astounded. Frankly, the idea that Mira could seriously claim to be anything but a leaking, weepy, bedraggled mess did seem absurd.

  “Painters need space to work,” she elaborated.

  “Painting and nursing a baby don’t go together,” Nekane informed her. “I could ask around, find you a wet-nurse.”

  “No!” Mira tightened her hold on the baby. “Tristan needs my milk. I have plenty to give him.”

  Nekane’s lips twitched. Whether she was repressing a smile or a frown, Mira could not tell.

  “Suit yourself,” she said, moving to the door. “But the kind of work you speak of doesn’t get done with a babe in arms. You’ll learn that soon enough.”

  27

  Winter, 1506

  Bayonne, Gascony

  Mira

  “Is Tristan strong enough?” Mira wrapped another length of wool around the baby, a hard lump of dread in her throat. “The winter air will be dangerous for his little lungs.”

  “We’ve no choice in the matter,” Arnaud said. “The law says we must appear at the city hall and have his name recorded within three months of birth.”

  “It is not quite three months yet,” she protested.

  “We can’t afford any missteps, Mira. I’ve a job now thanks to Carlo Sacazar. But his good word only goes so far. We must follow the letter of the law in all things if I’m to remain a member of the guild.”

  Arnaud scooped up the baby and looked at her expectantly.

  Mira retrieved her cloak and mittens from a peg on the wall, reminding herself that Tristan grew more robust by the day. Despite being born too early, he was a healthy, happy boy. It would not kill him to venture outside.

  As she bundled up, she glanced with longing at the wooden panels in the sitting room. Arnaud had crafted them during his few spare hours this winter, and they had been gathering du
st ever since. When would she get back to work?

  She sighed, her gaze falling on Arnaud. He touched his forehead to Tristan’s, humming a melody she recognized from her days in Ronzal. The baby gripped Arnaud’s finger and stared into his father’s eyes, his solemn face rapt with attention.

  Mira stuffed her feet into boots and cast another quick glance at her untouched panels. Despondently, she resolved to drape a cloth over them in an attempt to keep work out of her mind.

  As usual, Arnaud knew her thoughts just by studying her expression.

  “You’ll soon be back to work,” he promised, coming to stand beside her. “But we need someone to help with the baby. As much as you’d like to care for him and work at the same time, it’s impossible. When you get patrons, who will watch him then? You can’t bring him with you.”

  “Why not?” she challenged him. “I could carry him in a little basket and he could sleep in the corner.”

  Arnaud sighed. “Mira, what merchant will want a squalling infant disturbing his peace as you paint his portrait?”

  “Our boy will not squall. He will be calm and peaceful.”

  Tristan let out a peevish shriek.

  “Enough arguing,” Arnaud said curtly. “We can’t tarry any longer.”

  At the bottom of the staircase they encountered Nekane, who was returning from marketing with a heavily-laden basket on her arm and a black shawl over her head.

  “Good day to you, family.” She bent to coo at Tristan. “First day out for the little one?”

  “Yes,” Mira replied somewhat stiffly.

  Nekane sailed through life completing tasks with brisk confidence and the energy of twenty women. Mira dimly recalled feeling confident herself at some point in the distant past, but ever since Rose died, she had been plagued by worries and fears. She longed for the counsel of her own mother, though it would never come to pass. And she had cried herself to sleep wishing for Elena more than once.

  “You’ve bundled him up well,” Nekane said approvingly, straightening up. “Off to the city hall, are you?”

  “Yes, but how did you—”

  “Where else’d you be taking him in the dead of winter? It’s what every mother must do, as much as she might wish otherwise.”

  “Did you take your children there as well, when they were babies?” Arnaud asked.

  Nekane shook her head. “We’re from a village south of here. In Basque country. All my children were born there, and some of them live there still. Our eldest daughter takes care of things, makes sure our home is safe and snug. My brother lives nearby and watches over the place for us, too.”

  Mira looked at her in surprise. “But why do you and your husband live here?”

  “Abarran was hired by a shipping outfit here in Bayonne to supervise the construction of chalupas.”

  “Chalupas?” repeated Arnaud.

  “Whale-hunting boats. Our family’s built them for generations—never did I dream that one day we’d get paid for it. But some people have too much money, I suppose. Next summer my Abarran is to cross the Atlantic with some whalers and serve as harpooner. Not that I’m happy about it. If you ask me, it’s a mad proposition.” She dropped her voice and stepped closer. “But there are rewards. The harpooners get a big payout since they’re putting themselves straight in harm’s way. Of course, anything having to do with the sea is dangerous.”

  Tristan began to whimper.

  “Listen to me rattle on,” Nekane said. “I’ve kept you in this dank stairwell far too long. Good luck to you, and enjoy the fresh air, Madame de Luz, even if it is cold!”

  She began her climb up the stairs.

  “Why not ask Nekane to watch the baby?” Arnaud pushed the front door open for Mira. “You like her. She obviously likes Tristan. And you told me she knows what she’s doing.”

  “I have thought about it,” Mira confessed. “But what if something happened while I was away? I would never forgive myself.”

  “The first few times you leave him, you’ll hate it, but it will get easier.”

  “How do you know?”

  Arnaud slipped an arm around her. “Because that’s how it was for me.”

  They hurried through the streets to the city hall, waited in the long queue, and finally got an audience with a bored municipal scribe and a notary. When it came time to sign, Mira handed Arnaud the baby and picked up the quill. Carefully she inked her name next to Arnaud’s signature.

  Then Tristan began to wail in earnest.

  The scribe grimaced. “The notary will do his part now, madame,” he said. “You are free to move along. Good day to you.”

  “Thank you,” Mira replied. “Good day to you as well.”

  She reached for Tristan and soothed him as they walked away.

  “You have a way with him.” There was a trace of wistfulness in Arnaud’s voice. “He won’t settle down for me like that.”

  “I am the one with the milk, and he is used to being in my arms. But he loves us both the same,” she assured him.

  “How can he love us at all? He’s too small to understand anything.”

  “I do not believe that. He knows who we are.” Mira smiled broadly at Tristan, who rewarded her with a toothless grin. “See?”

  “No one can help returning your smiles.”

  Arnaud’s eyes lingered on her. Mira basked under his gaze. She would never tire of the way he looked at her. Even after all they had been through together—after all she had put him through—he still loved her.

  They clambered down the steps to the square. A light snow mixed with rain had begun to fall while they were inside. White slush coated the cobblestones. Mira clutched the baby a little tighter to her chest, pulling her cloak shut so he was completely covered, and walked gingerly across the slippery stones. She glanced down at Arnaud’s high black boots, their thick soles and oiled shanks impervious to the wet snow.

  “How did those boots come into your possession?” she asked. “When will I hear the story of your time with my brother? I have waited far too long already.”

  A man in a coarse brown cloak entered the lane just then.

  “Good day to you,” he said, nodding at them. His bearded face was half-shadowed by the hood of his cloak, but they recognized him at once. It was Nekane’s husband, Abarran.

  “Good day,” Arnaud replied. “On your way back from the harbor?”

  “Yes.” Abarran slowed his pace to match theirs. “Sawing and sanding oak with hands like icicles is a challenge, I tell you.”

  “Oak for your chalupas?” Arnaud asked.

  The man glanced at him, surprised. “Yes. I suppose my Nekane’s been talking to you. She’s got a mouth like a sieve, that woman.”

  “Do the shipmasters you work for have all the oak they need?” Arnaud persisted.

  Abarran laughed. “There’s not enough oak in the world for those fellows. They all got rich off the woad trade in Toulouse. Now they’re saying indigo from the islands across the sea will ruin the woad business, so they’re betting their silver on cod and whales. Trouble is, they know nothing of navigation, and the fishing grounds lie over the sea. Lucky for them, we Basques have the seafaring knowledge they lack. So the merchants want us to load our chalupas on their ships and hunt whales for their profit. Twelve oak barrels of whale oil for one voyage, that’s what they’ll pay me—so long as my harpoon’s aim is true. And they want only Basques on the voyage. I’ve promised them plenty of men. Should our journey be successful, I warrant the merchants’ thirst for oak will grow.”

  “My family comes from the high mountains, where oak is plentiful,” Arnaud said. “We plan to harvest it and bring it here. I already have a bargemaster lined up to transport the oak from Pau to Bayonne. All I need now are more buyers on this end.”

  Abarran gave Arnaud an appraising glance. “Come with me to the har
bor tomorrow morning and tell the merchants what you’ve told me. Could be you’ll find a way to profit from the trade in cod and whale-blubber, too.”

  They reached the door of the lodging house. Abarran waved them inside.

  “After you, madame,” he said to Mira. “You’d best tiptoe past our doorway,” he added. “If Nekane hears you, she’ll be wanting another glimpse of your baby. Can’t get enough of him, poor woman. She hates to be parted from our own children, and now we’ve a grandchild on the way.”

  “I would like to speak with Nekane about caring for Tristan while I work,” Mira blurted. “I am an artist.”

  As soon as she spoke Mira regretted the words. Arnaud would be cross with her for sharing private information with a stranger.

  But Arnaud’s face lit up. “Yes,” he said. “We would pay your wife well, of course.”

  Abarran let out a low whistle. “This could be just the remedy,” he mused. “Might be it’ll stop that baby hunger she’s got, keep her smiling instead of complaining. Come, follow me to our chambers and you can ask her directly.”

  Before they took another step, Nekane’s head appeared over the stair railing on the next floor. “What a happy day this is!” she trilled, beaming. “My answer is yes. Yes!”

  “Might want to wait to hear the terms of the arrangement,” her husband said drily. “Maybe think it over a day or two.”

  She snorted. “A baby’s only a baby for the blink of an eye. I’d be a fool to waste a day or two thinking when I could be rocking him, kissing his sweet face, singing him to sleep.”

  Abarran shook his head and began to mount the stairs. “How did I know you’d say that?”

  Mira looked at Arnaud. For a moment, panic overtook her. She wished she had remained silent. The world they had created for Tristan was tiny, but it was safe. Now they would have to expand their trust to include another person. Two more people, in truth. Nekane and Abarran both.

  If she wanted to begin painting again, though, she had no other choice.

  She would have to leave her baby, no matter how much it hurt.