A Place in the World

by Amy Maroney

  An unwelcome memory surfaced. In her mind’s eye, Amadina saw herself at six years old offering her grandfather a cushion for a long journey north in a cart such as this one. Instead of accepting the cushion graciously as a grandfather should, he had frowned and rolled his eyes. Carlo, on the bench next to him, flung the pillow back at her. But it missed its mark and tumbled into the street. Amadina had taken five lashes with a willow rod in punishment when she returned the muddy cushion to her mother.

  But that was how it went in those days. Carlo was never punished for anything. He was the heir, the boy, doted over and coddled by his parents and his grandfather. And she was a disappointment, the squalling girl who somehow survived after three more boys were born and perished one after the next. Amadina always knew her father and grandfather wished she were a boy, too. Why else would they ignore her so completely, look through her as if she did not even exist? Her mother fell mute around the men, never questioned their treatment of the girl. And none of the adults deemed her worthy of a proper education.

  Carlo was the only one who actually saw her. He taught Amadina what he could from his daily lessons with various tutors. When they were older, he convinced their parents to let her enter a convent instead of marrying. In time he bought two monasteries and a convent in Béarn through an arrangement that allowed religious houses to be sold to the highest bidder. To her surprise, he gave her the greatest gift of all: the title of abbess.

  The cart wheels creaked and rattled as they entered a particularly rutted stretch of road. Amadina’s eyelids fluttered open and she found herself squarely back in the present, relieved to be distracted from her memories.

  The fog was beginning to thin. Long wisps of it trailed like ghostly fingers over the low hills abutting the coast. She sighed and squinted up at the gray sky. Perhaps, in a bit, the sun would burn through the gloom.

  One of Amadina’s hands strayed into a pocket, searching for the silver vial she had carried with her since her brother’s death. She cradled it, comforted by the cool metal against her skin. The vial was empty now. But she possessed several other tiny vessels packed with life-ending tinctures and powders purchased over the years from her favorite apothecary in Zaragoza.

  Amadina couldn’t suppress a shudder of anticipation. Soon the walls of Bayonne would rise up before them and the carts would clatter over the river to the city gates. And then she would know if her poisons had extinguished the life of Miramonde de Oto.

  It struck Amadina that perhaps Mira’s baby, too, was dead. Children did love sweets. She ruminated, forehead furrowed in a frown. Well, so be it. The world was a cruel and unjust place, especially for those lacking wealth. If the baby was dead, she had saved him from a life of struggle and misery.

  Amadina had just one more task awaiting her in Bayonne. It was good fortune that the River Pau was running low, too clogged with mud to allow Arnaud de Luz a swift return to the city. But he would arrive any day—perhaps he already had, during her absence.

  Once he was dealt with, Amadina would quietly leave the city and find a winter nest. Perhaps she would return to St. Jean de Luz and establish herself there as a patron of unparalleled generosity, a person whose legacy roosted in the collective memory of the place forever. Or perhaps she would continue south, all the way to Compostela, and see the bones of Santiago.

  Thoughts such as these were a pleasant distraction from the dark current of fear that pulsed through her veins day and night, a whispering reminder of the troubles she left behind in Nay. As much as she desired to take the helm of the Sacazar fortune again, she was terrified of doing so too soon. If indeed Arnaud de Luz complained to the bailiff in Pau about her, it was best to give any resulting scandal time to flame out.

  She pressed a hand to her fluttering heart. There was no reason to panic. While authorities from Pau might venture to Nay to investigate, the bailiff there was firmly in her pocket. He would deny her involvement in any roadside skirmish, would point out that she was away on an extended journey as proof of her innocence.

  Amadina looked west and breathed deeply of the tangy air. The veil of fog was truly lifting now. She saw waves capped by white foam shifting on the sea. The sight gave her courage.

  She would not hide for the rest of her life in a strange city on the seashore. She was a Sacazar, and it was her duty and privilege to manage the affairs of her family. Come spring, Amadina vowed fiercely to herself, she would journey back to Nay and reclaim all she possessed.

  75

  February, 2017

  London, England

  Zari

  The cavernous room was brightly lit. At one end of the space was a dais. On it, behind a wooden lectern, stood the auctioneer. He was a ruddy-skinned man of fifty or so, his short salt-and-pepper hair glistening with pomade, his blue eyes scanning the room with shrewd interest.

  Near the dais was a double row of chairs occupied by elegantly-dressed men and women. In the center of the room more chairs stood in long, curving rows, filling up with bidders and spectators. A low buzz of conversation reverberated overhead. Paintings in gilt-covered frames hung on the walls at intervals, illuminated from above by directional lights.

  Andreas guided Zari to a pair of chairs in a row near the back. They put down their auction catalogues and coats, then returned to the painting of the woman in blue. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they scrutinized the portrait.

  “I can’t find it,” Andreas said. He was standing as close as he dared to the painting, staring fixedly at the windowsill behind Lady de Vernier.

  “Here.” Zari slipped him a pair of high-magnification reading glasses she had purchased that morning at a pharmacy.

  He put them on. “Ah!” he said, startled. “There it is. The Oto mark.”

  “Hidden in plain sight,” she replied, arms crossed over her chest. “Someone’s about to buy this portrait because of a name, and it’s not the right one.”

  Andreas removed the reading glasses. “I understand why you feel this way. But you’re not the expert here.” He jabbed a slender brown finger at the catalog, where the name of the Bermejo scholar was printed in bold black ink. “He is.”

  Zari knew color was rising on her neck. Her outrage was justifiable in the situation, but she could not express those dark emotions now. Especially to someone who had done her an enormous favor. Someone who made it possible for her to be here in Europe, diving down more research rabbit holes in search of Miramonde de Oto.

  Shut up before you say something colossally stupid, she admonished herself silently.

  The auctioneer’s hammer bounced on the lectern. The crack of wood brought Zari back to the room, to the hum and bustle of the crowd, the scent of perfume, the sight of people wearing shoes that cost more than a transatlantic airplane ticket.

  Andreas touched her elbow. Up close, his russet-colored skin glowed with luminosity she envied. Hers was starting to get the sallow greenish tone it took on in winter.

  “It’s time,” he said.

  They hurried to take their seats. Lots were introduced, bidders made their bids, the hammer crashed down again and again. Zari glanced around the room, unable to discern who was making the bids.

  “Where are the paddles?” she whispered to Andreas. “How does he pick out the bidders? No one’s raising their hands.”

  “That’s not how it works,” Andreas explained. “The first few bids are called ‘chandelier bids.’ They’re fake. It’s a way to get people interested in making a move, to heighten the energy in the room. The real players—the ones with the deepest pockets—aren’t even here. They send representatives. Or they call in their bids by phone.”

  “What about them?” Zari nodded at the cordoned-off seating near the dais. The men and women sitting there composed roughly the same number as a jury, though they were dressed more richly than any jury she’d seen. “Who are they?”

  “Dealers. The
y have their marching orders. If any of them want this painting for their clients, you’ll never see them acting as if they do.”

  A hush fell over the room as a five-hundred-year-old drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger was carried out. The auctioneer grew more animated, waving his gavel like a conductor’s baton, his eyes alighting on various people, then darting away.

  “With the more expensive works, the buyers are pre-arranged,” Andreas said.

  “What do you mean?”

  He shifted in his seat, his eyes glued to the auctioneer. “The auction house guarantees a minimum sale price to the seller of the work,” he said. “Then they find buyers who guarantee they’ll meet the price on the floor.”

  “Why bother going through with an auction, then?”

  “The minimum price is guaranteed, but after that, the sky’s the limit. Multiple bidders drive the price up quickly,” he explained. “Art’s a commodity, Zari. It’s sold like any other commodity—to the highest bidder.”

  Her mind caught on the complexities of this strange new world, she nearly missed the announcement that the Holbein drawing sold for triple the price of the minimum bid.

  “It’s just a drawing,” she marveled, shaking her head. “Holbein probably whipped it out in under thirty minutes.”

  “The price is all about the maker,” Andreas said. “Anything with Holbein’s name on it will fetch impressive results. Even a simple sketch.”

  “Who bought it?”

  He glanced around the room. “Hard to say. The bid was probably called in via phone.”

  Then the portrait’s lot number, thirty-six, was called. Two women carried it up on the dais.

  The auctioneer rattled off a few facts about the painting, noted its recent attribution to Bartolomé Bermejo, and launched into the bidding. His smooth diction never wavering, he worked the room masterfully. The bids rolled in, pushing the price higher and higher.

  Finally the hammer banged on the lectern. “And the lot goes to you,” the auctioneer declared to someone Zari couldn’t see. “For two hundred thousand pounds.”

  “Wait a minute,” she whispered. “Who bought it?”

  Andreas shrugged. “Likely another call-in. Someone who’s on the phone with one of them.” He pointed at the bank of people behind the velvet rope, most of them holding mobile devices to their ears. “Prearranged deals, remember?”

  “Yes.” A feeling of intense disappointment charged through Zari’s body. She twisted in her seat, eyeing the painting again, her hands clenched in tight fists. “It’s going to disappear,” she said in despair. “And now we’ll never get the truth out.”

  They watched the two assistants remove the painting from the dais.

  Zari’s heart caught in her throat. A voice screamed in her head to go after the portrait, to stop them, to jump up and proclaim to the room that the transaction had been based on a lie, this whole world of art auctions was a lie, history was more important than money, art shouldn’t be a commodity—

  She felt her heart thudding so fast she was sure her blouse was trembling. Stiffly, she leaned back in her chair and unfurled her fists, willing the sweat on her palms to dry.

  Afterward, waiting for Andreas to finish a conversation with a small cluster of art dealers and brokers, Zari’s mobile buzzed in her pocket. She fumbled for it.

  The number lighting up her screen was familiar, though she hadn’t seen a call come in from that number for months. She pressed ‘accept.’

  “John?” she said, in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Are you at the auction?” he asked abruptly.

  Andreas broke free of the group and approached her, glancing at his wristwatch.

  “Yes,” she replied to John, flustered, “but—”

  “A colleague of mine is there, too. I know the painting of the woman in blue just sold. We have to talk. Can you come out to Oxford tomorrow, meet me at my lab?”

  “Yes,” she said, stifling a flurry of questions. “I’ll take the first train I can get in the morning.”

  “Great. Call me when you arrive at the station.”

  John rang off just as Andreas closed the space between them.

  “That was John Drake,” Zari said. “The art conservator I worked with in Oxford. He wants to talk about the painting.”

  Andreas’s eyes widened. “Any indication why?”

  Zari stared unseeing at her mobile, brooding. Why had John chosen to call her now, after all this time, when it was too late? Why did he have to be so goddamned enigmatic?

  She straightened her shoulders and attempted an expression of calm neutrality.

  “I’ll know soon enough,” she said levelly. “I’m meeting him tomorrow.”

  76

  Autumn, 1506

  Bayonne, Gascony

  Arnaud

  Arnaud waited impatiently as the bargemen navigated their craft to the dock at the edge of the river. Once the barge was in position, the crew secured the bow and stern lines to the wooden pilings jutting up from the water. The banter that accompanied the tying of the ropes, usually a source of amusement to Arnaud, was irritating today. He longed to leap from the vessel, to dash home and fold Mira and Tristan in his arms. All these months away, all the longing, all the imagining...now, finally, their reunion was here. He had kept his word to his family in Ronzal—and he had returned to Mira alive.

  He sighed, looking away from the crew to the stone wall beyond the harbor. Onlookers were gathered along it, watching a flotilla of boats row in from the sea. He cast a glance at the approaching crafts, which appeared to be loaded with oak barrels. Then he gathered up his meager belongings and prepared to disembark. He promised the bargemaster he would be back directly with payment, and the man vowed to keep guard over Arnaud’s cargo until he returned.

  Walking up the quay toward the gangway, he noticed three knights among the onlookers near the wall. He felt a jolt of recognition at the sight of their red leather armor and slowed his pace. They were Pelegrín de Oto’s men, part of the group Arnaud had guided away from Mira last summer, all the while spinning a web of desperate lies in order to turn Pelegrín off her trail for good.

  His heart hammering, he realized there was nowhere to go but directly past the men. It was the only way into the city from the harbor.

  Arnaud’s hair and beard were long; he had not attended much to matters of personal grooming since his journey began in the spring. Even if the men caught sight of him, perhaps they wouldn’t recognize him. Pulling his cloak’s hood low over his eyes, he fell in with a group of sailors who had disembarked from a battered cod-fishing vessel and were surging up the gangway. The gate guards congratulated the sailors on surviving their perilous voyage and waved them into the city. As soon as the men were through the gates and the waiting crowd pressed forward, chaos broke out. The mingled sounds of delirious joy and abject grief clashed overhead.

  None of the knights gave Arnaud a second glance.

  Striding through the streets, he fought off panic. Were the men here for Mira? Had they found her? He jogged the rest of the way to the workshop where the stout merchant and his tall, lanky colleague kept their office.

  Inside, all was quiet. The subdued atmosphere was a stark contrast to the last time he was here, when Abarran and his Basque helpers toiled over the chalupas day after day.

  The fat merchant, sitting behind his desk, did not even recognize him until Arnaud introduced himself.

  “Ah! You have the mark of a mountain man upon you now,” the man said, looking Arnaud over with interest. “I wondered what had become of you, in truth.”

  “It’s been far too long since I’ve had a bath or trimmed my beard,” Arnaud admitted. “But I’ve a shipment of oak planks for you. There was one delay after another. The barge was at the mercy of rains, and we ran aground more times than I could count.”

>   The fat merchant heaved himself to his feet.

  “All the more reason to celebrate your safe arrival. The timing could not be better,” he confided, coming around his desk to clap Arnaud on the shoulder. “Our oak supply is so low I’ve had to send away my best workers.”

  “And your partner?” Arnaud asked.

  “He accompanied his wife and children back to Toulouse, where his family winters. I shall finish out our business in his stead, though we’ll have to call a notary to witness the note of sale before I pay you.”

  Arnaud nodded. “The bargemaster awaits payment for his services at the harbor. Then he’ll release the oak to you.”

  “Let us get the mattered settled quickly,” the merchant said. “I’ll send a servant for the notary this instant.”

  When their business was concluded, the merchant handed Arnaud a fat sack of coins. He hastened to the harbor and paid his debt to the bargemaster, grateful to see the knights had vanished. Then he set off quickly toward the lodging house, consumed by the raw need to see his family alive.

  Once there, he pounded up the stairs to discover the door to their rooms was locked. So Mira had taken his admonishment seriously about securing their home during his absence. He rapped lightly, his ears pricking at the sound of voices inside. A woman spoke, but it was neither Mira nor Nekane. A deep male voice responded. It did not belong to Abarran. His throat thick with emotion, Arnaud struck the door with both fists.

  “Mira?” he cried.

  The door burst open and Mira flew into his arms, laughing and weeping all at once. He lost himself in her familiar beloved scent, silenced by joy.

  Arnaud’s eyes widened.

  Beyond Mira, Xabi and Elena stood beaming at him. Between them, holding their outstretched hands, swayed little Tristan, his eyes lit up like gray-green stars. Hanging on the wall behind them were two paintings. The self-portrait Mira had made before he left Bayonne, though the background was much changed now. And next to it, Mira’s portrait of her mother Marguerite de Oto.