by Amy Maroney
Carlo had built an empire for himself in a foreign land, securing noble titles for himself and his wife, purchasing a convent, and installing his sister as abbess. What if he had discovered Amadina’s dark deeds? He would rightly have been angry. But Carlo would never jeopardize his family’s position in Béarn by bringing shame upon his own flesh and blood. Perhaps he was planning a private punishment for his sister—and she had ferreted out what he meant to do.
No. Arnaud shook his head at the horrible idea taking root in his mind. A woman would not murder her own brother.
His thoughts fixed on the image of black mourning cloth draped over the Sacazar home in Nay, flapping in the wind. On the manservant who tried to lead Mira’s mule into the courtyard at Amadina’s bidding. On Amadina’s face at the window. The woman had been beholden to her brother in every way. But now she oversaw all of his affairs, all of his property. His death had turned everything to her advantage.
Arnaud’s hands began to shake.
Once the oak was packed on the barge, he would go straight to the bailiff of Pau and report the attack on Belarac’s wool by men in the employ of Abbess Amadina Sacazar.
The river Pau shimmered before them. Across a stone bridge lay the gates to the city. High on a hill lay the palace of the counts of Béarn. Weak sunlight straggled through a thin layer of clouds, setting the spires of Pau’s churches alight.
Briefly he contemplated the idea of entering one of them. The thought made him uneasy, but he was certain the clergy would be interested to hear about a foreign abbess in Béarn who dabbled in violence, whose pockets were heavy with gold.
His mistrust of the church and of priests in general was so strong that he discarded the idea in the next moment. There was just no accounting for the behavior of priests, in his experience. Some were good men, but some were bent on evil. Deliberately inserting himself into their domain seemed idiotic.
Arnaud shook his head again, trying to vanquish thoughts of Amadina, of priests. He had to keep his mind sharp, keep focused on the reason for this journey.
For generations, the valley of Ronzal had been dragged behind the Abbey of Belarac on a chain. It has been so since the ancient agreements, when Ronzal was bound to the abbey for all time. He could never undo the agreements, but he could bring other sources of income to his people. He could provide them a measure of freedom with this oak shipping scheme. Others had turned a profit on similar ventures. If they could do it, so could he.
The dank smell of mud and rotting vegetation drifted up from the riverbanks. A bitter taste rose in Arnaud’s throat as the mule carts rumbled across the bridge. He peered down at the river, frowning. The water was much lower than it had been when he was last here. Now new worries crowded his mind: would the barge flow swiftly downriver, or would it be delayed by low waters, mired in mudflats, marooned along the way?
Arnaud swallowed hard. His desire to be reunited with Mira and Tristan before the advent of winter had never ached so fiercely as it did at this moment.
A shout went up ahead. City guards in helmets with longswords strapped at their hips materialized from the gate tower, watching the carts approach.
Arnaud looked up at the white peaks hulking over the city and whispered another prayer to the mountain gods. He handed the reins to his companion, slipped down from the wagon’s bench, and stepped forward to meet the guards.
56
Autumn, 1506
Béarn
Amadina
The wood and iron chest was snug between Amadina’s feet, hidden under her skirts. Her wounded servant sat on the bench next to her, his head drooping on his thick neck, the mules’ reins clutched in his meaty hands. She looked over her shoulder at the two men riding in the cart bed who would serve as guards during the journey. They were young and strong and, most importantly, beholden to her.
There had been an unforeseen benefit to Carlo’s habit of taking in poor boys. If they had sisters, he sent the girls to Amadina’s convent, where they became servants or, occasionally, nuns. Ever since Amadina took the helm of Carlo’s household and selected young men to do unsavory errands for her, she always threatened to punish their sisters if they did not comply.
It was sunny and crisp, perfect traveling weather. When they rolled over the bridge into Pau, they barely had to pause at the city gates. With little to inspect in the cart—and Amadina’s generous sprinkling of coins—the guards waved them in without delay.
After inquiring at the river harbor, the men carried back to her the news that Arnaud was gone. The barge carrying Arnaud and his load had barely made it out of the city, and a dozen helpers had been required to pole it through muddy shallows.
Amadina marched to the harbor and talked herself hoarse, trying to convince someone to take her west on the river, too. But the sight of Arnaud’s load of oak making its precarious journey downstream had convinced all the other bargemasters in the harbor to cease navigating the river until more rain arrived. One after the next, the men declared they would not launch a vessel until the water level rose. Not even for a wealthy widow who longed to grease their palms with gold.
She prayed for rain and considered her options. Arnaud had likely already approached the authorities in Pau and spun them a tale about her misdeeds. It was best to leave Béarn quietly and not return for a time. A season or more.
No, the better course, the wiser course, was to continue west in the wagon to Bayonne.
For she was certain Arnaud’s final destination lay there, where his wife and child awaited.
Amadina began to dispense instructions to her manservants.
Within a few days they were far enough from Pau that the anxiety squeezing Amadina’s chest began to dissipate. Amadina disliked inns, but she did not dare stay in convents. Masquerading as a widow was well and good in the secular world, but in a religious house? The idea gripped her with panic anew. The sight of a steeple flattened out her lungs like a bellows that has been emptied of air.
A week or so into the journey, they came across a manor house, set back a little from the road. A sign reading ‘lodging’ hung from the iron gates.
“Oh, God be praised,” Amadina said. “This will be a welcome change. Turn here,” she instructed her driver.
He complied, pulling sharply on the reins. She stared absently at his battered hands. Each scar had been placed there by her. Layered like autumn leaves on the forest floor, she mused. She knew he resented her, but he also loved the coins she pressed upon him at odd hours. She often summoned him to her bedchamber to relieve the torment of her loins. He was only too eager to do her bidding in those hours before dawn.
Amadina knew his loyalty was to her purse, not her person, and she did not care one whit. That was the beauty of wealth. It was so easy to control people with gold. They were puppets on strings to her, just as she had been to her brother.
Now that Carlo was gone, she told herself, no one could force her to bow and dance and mince like a mindless marionette. She held the puppet strings. Each and every one.
The cart rattled into the courtyard of the manor home. Chickens strutted under fluttering linens strung up on flax ropes. An elderly manservant opened the door and greeted her. Amadina was overcome by a heady sense of relief. She would rest well here, away from the bawdy inns and taverns of the market towns they had encountered. She would find comfort and sustenance within these walls. Perhaps her racing heart, her weak lungs, would regain their balance here. She would find strength again. Strength enough to complete her task.
At the supper table, Amadina sat across from the manor’s owner and his wife, a noble couple who had fallen on hard times and now rented out rooms to keep the roof from falling in. The wife watched Amadina eat, her eyes full of judgement. She had set out meager portions of food, a scant helping for each of them. Still hungry, Amadina asked for more.
The woman gave her a hard look, then sen
t the ancient servant to the kitchens in search of more meat.
“So. You are Aragónese by birth?” her husband said, peering across the table at Amadina. “I hear the lilt of it on your tongue.”
“Yes,” Amadina said. “I was born in Aragón, but my dear deceased husband was from Béarn.”
“We rarely see travelers from Aragón,” he said. “My sister rode away from here as a girl, betrothed to an Aragónese baron. We never saw her again.”
“Which part of Aragón did she travel to?” Amadina asked.
He shrugged. “Somewhere in the mountains. I do not recall exactly, as I was a boy at the time.”
The servant shuffled in, carrying the mutton.
“You knew Marguerite!” the master of the house exclaimed, pointing at him.
“That I did, my lord,” the servant replied in a reedy voice. “She was always at her mother’s elbow, learning how to run a household. I remember well the talk in the kitchens about her betrothal. She married into a rich and powerful family. The Barons of Oto, they were called. Favored by the kings of Aragón.”
The mistress of the house eyed Amadina.
“Is something the matter?” she asked.
Amadina struggled to take a breath. “I felt a moment’s dizziness, that is all,” she gasped. “The hardships of travel, you see.”
She lay awake that evening, wondering if this was the very room Marguerite de Oto had slept in as a girl, perhaps the very bed. The air was close and stale, shot through with the faintest whiff of lavender. A scent Amadina had always hated. She veered closer and closer to panic, imagining her lungs clamping shut like oyster shells.
Just before dawn Amadina slipped into unconsciousness. A short time later she awoke, sweating, startled by a nightmare. She had been on a stage, dressed in her abbess’s costume of habit and wimple, before a jeering crowd. Every joint in her body was fastened to long silken threads that floated up into the inky night, operated by some invisible power. The threads yanked hard, making Amadina’s limbs jerk and twitch in a strange dance, leading her across the stage, forcing her to lunge and twist and sag against her will.
Heart pounding, eyes stinging from sweat and tears, Amadina gulped for air.
She had to escape these walls.
57
Autumn, 1506
Bayonne, Gascony
Mira
“Mira!” Nekane shouted from the door, where a young servant in black and white livery fidgeted in the hallway. “A gentleman calls for you, this boy says. A Master de Scolna.”
Mira hastened to Nekane’s side. “Send him up, right away,” she instructed the boy.
Turning back to survey their rooms, she grimaced. “We have little to offer him.”
“We have a bit of wine and a few apples, some cheese. I’ll put a cloth on the table.” Nekane looked Mira up and down. “You do whatever you must to keep your heart from jumping out of your mouth. Who on earth is this Master de Scolna?”
“He taught me to paint.” Mira rushed around the room, tidying up. She tripped over a stool and it clattered on the floor, waking Tristan. He began to fuss. Quickly she plucked him from the bed and smoothed down his black hair. He stared at her wide-eyed with a solemn, sleepy gaze.
Footsteps sounded on the stairway. Mira threw a glance at Nekane, who was slicing apples and placing them in a decrepit wooden trencher. She sighed. There was no way to disguise their shabby surroundings. This was how they lived. Master Sebastian would not think less of them for it.
Sweeping into the room, he pushed his cloak’s hood off his forehead. Mira was so used to his scarred face that she did not blink at his appearance, but Nekane was struck uncharacteristically dumb. She busied herself poking at the fire.
“Young Mira!” Sebastian cried in delight. “I’ve tracked you down, after all these years.”
In his arms he carried a canvas-wrapped parcel, which he thrust at Mira.
“Master Sebastian, it warms my heart to see you again.” Mira put the parcel on the table and took Sebastian’s hands in hers. “May I present my son, Tristan, and my friend Nekane?”
He nodded courteously at Nekane, who bobbed a curtsy. Then he turned his attention to Tristan.
“He is a handsome boy. With eyes like yours, but little else of you. He favors his father, eh?”
She nodded.
“And where is Arnaud?” Sebastian looked around their rooms expectantly.
“He is returning from the mountains as we speak,” she explained. “He has been away since summer.”
Nekane apparently decided that Sebastian was not a threat, despite his horrifically disfigured face.
“Please, sir,” she said, waving a hand at the table. “Sit. Drink. Eat.”
Sebastian sank into a chair. “Ah, how I love a good apple,” he said cheerily as Nekane poured wine into a ceramic cup for him. “And a cup of wine is just what I’ve been craving.”
Mira sat opposite him, handing a piece of apple to Tristan, who gummed it with enthusiasm.
“I am grateful Carlo Sacazar wrote you about our plans to move here,” she said.
Sebastian smiled broadly. “As am I.”
Mira could tell from his response that he had not been informed about Carlo’s death.
“I must tell you some sad news,” she said. “Carlo died last autumn.”
His smile faded. “How did it happen?”
“We were told it was a brief illness, one that took him in the night.”
“This is a dreadful shock.” Sebastian put down his cup, shaking his head. “Our reunion would have given him much joy. Saints above, I wish he were still alive for many reasons—one of them is wrapped inside that parcel.”
Mira handed Tristan to Nekane and set about unwrapping the gift. Inside was a painting on an oak panel. She held it up at arm’s length, flabbergasted.
Nekane peered over her shoulder. “Is that you, Mira?”
Mira heard Nekane’s voice as if from a long distance. With great effort, she gathered herself.
“No, it is my mother,” she said unsteadily. “I painted this portrait just before she died.”
“She’s dressed as you are in your self-portrait,” Nekane observed, jiggling Tristan on her hip. “In that fancy red gown. Like a real high-born lady.”
Mira exchanged a glance with Sebastian. “Yes,” she said.
She had never told Nekane her full story, and did not wish to reveal it now.
Sebastian clearly understood. He quietly munched a few more slices of apple, ate a hunk of cheese, and drank from his cup, his eyes on Mira.
“What a beautiful frame you chose, Master Sebastian. And your repair work!” She bent closer to the painting, searching for imperfections. “It is almost impossible to see the damage.”
“It is the best I could do, under the circumstances.” He smiled. “I worked for many days to repair that hole.”
“I thought it was lost forever,” she said, turning to him with wet eyes. “How can I repay you?”
“You owe me nothing,” he assured her. “It was my pleasure. I only regret that I cannot share the news with Carlo Sacazar.” He quieted, then brightened again. “Still, here I am. And I intend to stay for some time. I’ve rented rooms. I’ve the idea of taking a carriage to the seashore and sketching the waves over a number of days. Would you consider joining me?”
“I would love nothing more, but I am obliged to complete a portrait for a patron.” She glanced at Nekane and Tristan, longing for a private conversation with Sebastian. “Perhaps we can walk to the cathedral square together this afternoon and continue visiting, and then when I finish the portrait we can sketch together.”
“A fine plan. Let us take some air. I’ve had my fill of refreshment.” He stood and bowed to Nekane. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, madame.”
She
smiled at him for the first time. “The pleasure was mine, sir,” she said politely.
“Goodbye, little man,” Sebastian said to Tristan.
The baby plucked the apple slice from his mouth and held it out to Sebastian like an offering, grinning.
Sebastian laughed. “Children are a balm for the soul,” he declared, and pulled his hood low over his forehead again.
During their walk, Mira told Sebastian of her struggles to establish herself as an artist in Bayonne, and the difficult situation she now found herself in, erasing the bruises and scars of an abused wife.
“The husband claims that he has no choice but to beat her, because she is a madwoman and attacks him in the night.”
“Do you believe that?” Sebastian asked.
Mira thought about the maids’ gossip in the courtyard. About the merchant’s plaintive explanation for his wife’s injuries. About the bruises under her cheekbones, the dark impressions left by his fingers on her throat. The raw anguish she sometimes witnessed in the woman’s eyes.
“I do not,” she said vehemently, surprising herself. “I believe he spins a web of lies. I wish I never had to return to his household. But I have no alternative. My future as an artist here depends upon him.”
Sebastian considered her words, strolling with measured steps over the cobblestones. They entered the square. Two seagulls circled the bell tower of the cathedral, shrieking. Mira had yet to enter its doors, for Nekane was suspicious of priests and she herself was loathe to bring Tristan into a space crowded with unwashed bodies for fear he would contract some illness. Arnaud, for his part, had not set foot in a church in his life, and had no intention of doing so in Bayonne. The people of Ronzal still worshipped the mountain gods, though they kept that to themselves.
“A wife has no recourse when her husband beats her,” Sebastian finally said. “She is his property, after all. I advise you to stay silent, as much as it pains you, and finish the work. An artist is seen by his employer as little more than a servant, Mira. Never forget that. In my case, I’ve become wealthy enough to rise in the estimation of the merchant class, and I’ve been careful to befriend the priests and bishops in Flanders by gifting the church many portraits. This has afforded me a bit of power. Still, I am always aware of the fact that my patrons hold my future in their hands. If I ever offended or insulted one of them, my livelihood could be destroyed.” He looked at her sideways. “You would be wise to remember this. As difficult as it sometimes is to hold your tongue, you must think of your future. Of your family’s future.”