by Amy Maroney
This had been her idea. She asked Abarran so many times for an introduction to his employers she could tell he was heartily sick of her question. He relented this morning after Nekane chimed in. He told Mira gruffly she could accompany him today—but if the merchants were busy or uninterested, he would not bring her back again.
As they walked in silence, Mira saw in the tense set of Abarran’s jaw that he was a bit thrown off guard by having a woman tag along on his way to the harbor.
“Tell me, Abarran,” she said, quickening her stride. “Which of these merchants do you believe I have a better chance of acquiring a commission from? And which is most trustworthy?”
He snorted. “I know nothing about patrons or whether my employers would make good ones. As far as I’m concerned, no merchant is trustworthy. They care only for their own interests. To be sure, some treat their workers with more kindness than others, but I put my trust in neither of those men.”
She was confused. “So, in your opinion, is one kinder than the other?”
“A merchant is a merchant, when all’s said and done. They’re cut from the same cloth, those two. But if I had to choose?” He shot her a quick glance. “The fat one. He’s a bit jolly, especially after he’s had a meal. Wine, roasted pigeon, salt cod...amazing what a full belly will do for a man’s mood.”
“And the other?”
“He’s stingy. Always demanding explanations, wondering why a chalupa requires the use of both oak and iron in its construction. So costly, he says. I suppose he’d rather have men ride the waves in vessels built of pine twigs and sap.” He grunted derisively. “Does he respect the wisdom of artisans who’ve learned over generations how to build boats that can survive violent seas and raging whales?” Aberran shook his head with vigor. “We won’t change a thing about our chalupas just to save a rich man a few sacks of silver.”
“I shall not even bother showing my portrait to him, then,” Mira said. “What is the use?”
“You never know what the rich will do,” Abarran pointed out. “Doesn’t hurt to ask, see if you can part the man from some of his gold.”
More bewildered than ever, Mira raised her skirts to keep them from dragging on the muddy cobblestones.
At the work site, the noise and bustle was overwhelming. Instinctively Mira felt under her cloak for the reassuring outline of the sheath strapped to her waist. She had slipped it on this morning before handing off the baby to Nekane, suddenly overcome with anxiety about the day’s outing. Normally she faced the world with interest and curiosity, eager to venture into the unknown. Now, with Arnaud gone, all she wanted was to cocoon in her nest, to hold her baby and hide.
Abarran led her through a set of arched doors to a walled courtyard full of half-constructed boats. Pulling her hood down over her forehead, she followed him into the chaos, her heart thudding. The sound of hammering and sawing rose up all around her. Several men in leather aprons were gathered by the skeleton of a boat, arguing over something in Basque. All around them lay oak planks, curled-up wood shavings, and toolkits bursting with hammers, chisels, and awls.
One section of the courtyard was walled off into a room with a window overlooking the work area. Inside, she saw the flickering glow of oil lamps.
Abarran nodded at the window. “The merchants are inside their warm little chamber watching the men work.” He harrumphed, flapping a hand around him. “Not a lazy one among us. The quicker we build these boats, the quicker we’ll be out on the water, away from all this. You’ll not find a Basque who loves being cooped up. We’re meant to be outside, away from crowds, far from the stink of cities.” Glancing at Mira, he seemed to notice the apprehension in her eyes. “Come. I’ll take you to them.”
He stumped across the cobblestones and rapped on the door of the little room.
“Enter,” said a voice from within.
Abarran opened the door. “Gentlemen,” he said. “I present to you Madame de Luz.”
“Good morning to you, sirs.” Mira followed him into the room, her mouth dry.
Both men stood up and came around from behind their desks. One was indeed portly, with fleshy lips that were the deep red of plums. He wore a short black cloak over a blue wool doublet. The other was tall and reedy, his waxy pallor a stark contrast to the fat merchant’s ruddy skin. He was dressed entirely in black.
“She’s the wife of Arnaud de Luz,” Abarran elaborated, “the man who lately left Bayonne to fetch you the best oak there is, from the high mountains of Aragón.”
“How may we be of service, Madame de Luz?” asked the stout man.
The tall man said nothing, but his eyes never left Mira.
“I hope to be of service to you,” she began, irritated to hear a tremor in her voice. “I am an artist, a painter of portraits, come to inquire if you might commission a work from me.”
The interest in the tall man’s eyes dimmed. The fat man, however, held her gaze.
“Ah! An artist, eh?” he said. “Your Gascon is quite good, barely accented.”
“My mother was Béarnaise,” she acknowledged. “There is not much difference between the two languages.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Abarran interjected, looking at Mira. “I’ll be just outside should you have need of me, Madame de Luz.”
A surge of gratitude welled up in Mira’s throat as he closed the door behind him. Her left knee began to tremble. She turned back to face the merchants, unwrapped the painting, and held it up for them to see.
“This is a self-portrait I painted over the winter. I have made portraits for many merchants in Béarn, and also for noble families in Toulouse and Perpignan.” Her voice was gaining strength now.
“May I?” The fat man plucked the painting from her grasp and walked closer to one of the oil lamps, holding it up to the light. He glanced from her to the painting, then back again. “A fine likeness,” he complimented her. “I have seen work of this quality in Flanders.”
“My teacher was from Flanders,” she explained. “Master Sebastian de Scolna.”
“Ah?” He raised an eyebrow politely, but the name did not seem to mean anything to him.
The tall man folded his arms over his chest. “I am not much interested in portraits, myself,” he said.
The fat man nodded. “I am of the same mind,” he said, handing back the painting.
Mira’s heart fell.
“But my wife longs for one,” he added. “She is a beguiling creature, not much more than a girl. It would please her to no end, a portrait such as this. And I would enjoy gazing upon her likeness whenever I see fit.” He paused. “I met your husband. He speaks like a man of the mountains, but you do not. Are you a well-born lady?”
“I was raised in a convent. And though my husband does not sound it, he is an educated man.” Mira always felt the need to defend Arnaud, though he would not be offended by the man’s words. That was not Arnaud’s way.
The fat man seemed to make up his mind. “Tomorrow, Madame de Luz, go to my residence in the Rue des Marchands. I will tell my wife you shall call upon her in the afternoon. You can make the arrangements together.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, dipping her head. “You and your wife shall not be disappointed.”
He regarded her with an amused smile. “No, we shall not. The notary will be present tomorrow also. I will pay upon delivery of the portrait, and only if it is completed to my satisfaction. You will sign an agreement to that effect.”
“Of course,” Mira agreed. “As you wish.” She began to wrap up the painting again.
“Wait,” the tall man said. “I am not done looking.”
Mira stepped back.
“My wife is in Toulouse,” he said. “But she comes to Bayonne this summer. What I propose is this: after you complete the portrait of my colleague’s wife, I shall view it. If it is of equal quality to this one, I shal
l have my notary write up an agreement for you to paint my wife as well. With the same terms, naturally.”
“An excellent idea,” Mira replied. She wrapped the painting in its canvas covering again. “My thanks to you, good sirs.”
The men remained standing as she made her way out the door. Catching sight of Abarran, Mira couldn’t repress a jubilant smile. He gave a quick nod and a wave.
Now she would have to prove she was as talented as she claimed. Her future in Bayonne lay in the hands of these two men. She could make no mistakes. If they rejected her work, no other merchant in Bayonne would hire her.
Her pace faltered.
Little by little, the triumph coursing through Mira’s veins ebbed away.
36
December, 2016
Alsace, France
Zari
Dusk was falling in Colmar. The fairy lights strung across the streets glowed against the sky. The streets were full of people—residents and tourists alike—sauntering past storefronts, ogling houses festooned with evergreen garlands, candy canes, ribbons, and ornaments. A man playing Christmas carols on a giant xylophone sent forth a cascade of chimes over the crowds. Everywhere were booths displaying holiday-themed trinkets and food.
Wil and Zari strolled hand in hand, soaking up the atmosphere, stopping occasionally to browse in a pop-up shop or admire the decor on the more extravagantly appointed buildings. One rooftop sported an assortment of stuffed polar bears. Another had no decoration save the shifting outlines of stars created by a hidden projector.
“What am I eating?” Zari asked, swallowing a bite of a sweet, buttery pastry they’d purchased at the bakery just across from the Colmar cathedral. “It’s outrageous.”
Wil’s eyes shone at her. “I know. It’s the best of French and German baking in one bite.”
“I had no idea Christmas markets were such a big deal here,” Zari remarked. “I thought it was strictly a German thing.”
“This part of France—Alsace—has strong German traditions.” Wil slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Germany and France have traded possession of it a few times.”
She leaned happily against him, soaking up his warmth. The temperature had plunged below freezing for the past few days. At least she was prepared now. She’d purchased thick wool socks and other warm items in Germany during the weeks she spent traveling from private collections to museum archives, hunting for Cornelia van der Zee.
None of those visits had unearthed paintings with the hallmarks of true Van der Zees. But at a home in Heidelberg, she flagged a portrait of a merchant’s daughter that struck her as something warranting the attention of a collector. In Andreas’s words, it had ‘wall power.’
The portrait showed a teenaged girl, her long braids wrapped with lengths of shimmering blue fabric. A single rectangular ruby was pinned to the cap on her head. One hand was poised at her waist, clutching what appeared to be a handwritten note. The entire work was faded and dirty, but its power to attract was still remarkable.
The provenance attributed the portrait to a member of the Florence artist’s guild in the late fifteenth century. If the artist had ever achieved fame or glory, his story had been lost to history.
She sent a digital photo to Andreas right away, along with a photo of the provenance. He gave her a budget for purchase and she managed to pull off another haggling session without having a massive panic attack. She secured the painting for the prescribed sum, then felt like she’d gotten an ‘A’ on a test when she reported her victory to Andreas.
Maybe she was getting better at this numbers game. Maybe, she confessed to Wil as they wandered the streets of Colmar, she even liked it.
The next day, they drove their rented Mazda away from Colmar, passing through tiny medieval towns in the foothills, then plunging deep into the Vosges mountains. They climbed higher and higher, winding through forests of evergreens, oaks, and beeches. Golden leaves lay in heaps along the roadside.
At the top of a ridge they found a vast parking lot that was virtually empty. Emerging from the car, they were immediately buffeted by a gusting wind. The stone walls of the abbey stood to their right, its chapel just visible inside a pair of iron gates that were flung open to the world. In the valleys below, the dark roofs of villages clustered like burrs. Long tendrils of white mist curled along the foothills.
“Before we go inside, let’s walk around the walls,” Wil suggested. “There’s something I want you to see.”
“Something better than this view?”
“Something I know you’ll like,” he said, taking her hand and leading the way down a narrow path.
They entered the woods, the force of the wind blunted by the trees. Armies of dry yellow leaves swept toward them along the forest floor. Just ahead, dark stones jutted out from the earth like colossal iron spikes. They were coated with moss, their surfaces pocked by erosion.
Zari stopped. “It almost looks like those rocks were placed here deliberately.”
“Not almost,” Wil said. “They were put here. Thousands of years ago.”
She looked at him with skepticism. “How could pre-industrial people have done this? There’s no way they could have gotten them up here and positioned them this way.”
“I don’t know how they did it, but they did.” He started down the trail again. “Come on. There are more over here.”
The entire abbey site was ringed by the stones, it turned out. They were monuments to the pagan gods, Wil said. Somehow an ancient people had winched them up, figured out a way to stabilize them. And then time and the elements had cemented the stones in place for good.
A cave of sorts had been formed in the space where two of the stones settled together over the years. Wil and Zari edged inside. Ferns clung to the stone, glowing pale-green in the dim light.
“The pagans used to gather here,” Zari murmured, gazing around with wide eyes. “They sheltered here. Maybe sacrificed animals—even people—in this space.”
Wil drew her into the circle of his arms and kissed her gently. “Or maybe they did this.”
She reached up and laid her hands on his cheeks, caressing the lines of his jaw, reveling in the electric charge that gripped her body every time they touched. Would it ever stop happening? She hoped not. She hoped they were destined to be hungry for one another without end. It seemed too good to be true, but then these rocks were evidence that impossible-seeming things did occur.
When they toured the abbey later, their guide recounted the legend of St. Odile, who had been condemned to die by her father when he learned she was not only a girl, but blind. Her mother spirited her away, and at twelve Odile returned home, welcomed by her brother. But when her father discovered her alive, he killed his son in a fit of rage for having invited her back. Then, remorseful, he told Odile she could return if she agreed to marry a nobleman of his choosing. She refused. Enraged, he pursued her into the forest, where a rock opened up to protect her. Convinced he had seen a miracle, the father converted his castle into an abbey and Odile became its first abbess.
“Do you think any part of that story is based on the truth?” Wil asked as they walked across the wide cobblestone yard between the chapel and the iron gates that led back to the parking lot.
“I hope so,” Zari replied, pulling her hat down over her ears. “I believe there’s a little truth in every legend. Odile was fierce. She was courageous. How many girls of that era got a story to follow them through the centuries? And infanticide is no myth. I still wonder if it happened in the Oto family.”
“There were no girls born to that family for—what—at least a hundred years?” Wil asked.
“For the entire fifteenth century. None who were documented, anyway.”
Wil unlocked the car doors.
“Maybe Marguerite de Oto was like Odile’s mother,” he suggested. “She hid her daughter away to save he
r from a horrible fate.”
“Yeah, rescuing Mira from her murderous husband,” Zari said, climbing into the passenger seat. “Imagine knowing that your husband planned to kill his own daughter. And then maybe the two of them were reunited so Mira could paint her mother’s portrait. Maybe Marguerite traveled to the Abbey of Belarac to sit for the portrait. Or maybe Mira crossed the mountains and busted her way back into the castle of Oto.”
Wil started the engine. “The legend of Mira.”
“Let’s hope I can dig up enough evidence about her to turn Mira’s legend into a true story. I’ve been so swamped with work for Darius Eberly that I haven’t had any time to focus on her since I went to Bayonne.”
“You’ll get your chance soon,” he reassured her. “She’s been waiting for five hundred years, she can wait a few more months.”
Zari smiled a little sadly. “It’s true. There’s no rush, is there?”
She stared out the window all the way back to Colmar, wondering if Mira’s story would ever come out of the shadows. Wil was right. This process of digging up a silenced story would take more time than she ever imagined. All she could do was chip away at the layers of history between her and Mira, unearth the truth bit by bit. The archivist in Bayonne was hunting for Mira, too—along with Laurence, and others whose imaginations had been sparked by Zari’s research.
Slowly, with all these people working together, the puzzle pieces of Mira’s life would lock into place.
Zari just hoped it would happen before she turned eighty.
37
December, 2016
Amsterdam, Holland
Zari
Zari and Wil followed the other guests into a restaurant in a sleekly modern building overlooking the Amstel River. After removing their winter coats and exchanging pleasantries with several of Wil’s relatives, they stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows and watched sleek barges cruise through the river’s dark waters. Two pairs of ducks glided past on the opposite bank. Overhead, a seam of light opened up under the clouds to the west, revealing the sun’s last amber rays.