by Amy Maroney
In Valencia, he lodged in the home of a nobleman who also fought under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the Great Captain, during the battle for the Kingdom of Naples. He learned the Great Captain was in disfavor now his champion Queen Isabella was dead. Rumors planted by his enemies insinuated that he lived lavishly in Naples, squandering gold, land, and properties which rightly belonged to the crown. Irked, King Ferdinand ordered the Great Captain home to Spain.
But the Great Captain’s ailing wife and daughters were in Genoa, too ill to travel. He sent word to Pelegrín’s host, asking for a trusted comrade to journey across the sea from Valencia to Genoa and accompany the women back to Spain when their health permitted.
Pelegrín immediately volunteered for the job.
The letter he sent Mira was written in Valencia, just before he departed for Genoa. He owed the Great Captain his life and was glad to do his friend this favor. But Pelegrín’s own future was uncertain. He had no idea how long the journey would be—or where, in the end, it would take him.
His biggest worry was Alejandro. He wanted Mira’s assurance that Alejandro could live with her until he was of age to move about the world independently. It was better, Pelegrín thought, for the boy to be raised with family instead of rattling around in a castle filled with men and servants.
Nothing would make me happier, she wrote in her reply. Alejandro lives in my heart now. He is everything to our boy Tristan. Being parted from him would be painful for all of us.
Mira remembered the sea of words that flooded the paper when she inked her response to Pelegrín. Her twin. It was an odd sensation not to feel dread at the thought of him. Instead, curiously enough, she felt serene.
Settling her body next to Arnaud’s prone form, she let the creaking of the oxcart lull her to sleep.
When they rolled up to the broad whitewashed house, its red-tiled roof gleaming in the sun, Mira was transfixed. This place was nothing like she had imagined. A dozen people rushed out to greet them in a babble of excited Basque. A cry of delight went up at the sight of Tristan, who, astonished and round-eyed, endured a barrage of kisses and enthusiastic embraces from every member of Xabi’s family.
Elena and Xabi led the travelers inside and offered refreshment. Sitting at a battered wooden table in the front room, a cup of wine in her hands, Mira gazed around the space. A vast hearth was built into one wall. Two stone benches were set into the space for people to warm themselves on winter evenings. Copper pots, tools, and dried herbs hung on the walls. Above the doorway a heavy oak beam was carved with a detailed pattern of curved, intersecting lines. Mira studied it over the rim of her cup.
Xabi followed her gaze and smiled. “You like the family mark?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He came to her side. “Now that I have my whale oil, I’ll hire a mason to replace this wooden beam with stone.”
Mira looked at him. “Will you join a whale hunt again next year?” Silently she pleaded with him to say no. The dangers were too great.
Xabi seemed to have Arnaud’s gift for reading her mind. He chuckled. “I considered it, but Elena’s knocked the idea out of my head. Too many people depend on me.” He glanced across the room, where Elena stood, Tristan on her hip. “I can’t take that kind of risk anymore.”
Mira and Elena slipped out of the house into the sunshine. Arm in arm, they walked past the kitchen garden, past the pen of bleating goats, into the apple orchard.
“You’ve moved, then?” Elena asked.
Mira nodded. “I have three commissions to complete, and Arnaud has orders from the merchants for another shipment of oak from Ronzal. We talk of moving to St. Jean de Luz one day. It crawls with rich sea captains and ship-builders. It is closer to you and Xabi, too. For now, though, we are content in our new home.”
“Does your mother’s portrait hang there?”
“Yes. She watches over us all.”
“Just as I’ve always hoped,” Elena said in satisfaction. She tipped her head in the direction of Sebastian’s oxcart, which stood out garishly amongst the modest mule carts clustered by the stables. “He’s been good to you, hasn’t he?”
“Sebastian has been like a father to me,” Mira said. “He is only leaving in the autumn because he is finally satisfied that we are safe and prosperous.”
A trio of crows vaulted from an oak tree beyond the orchard and glided squabbling into the woods.
“Sometimes life’s surprises are happy ones.” Elena watched the crows suspiciously until they vanished. “You never knew love from your own father. Sebastian has served as one, though. And Brother Arros, too.”
“I wish he had lived to see this,” Mira told her.
Elena sighed. “I knew he was failing the last time I saw him. He was weary of living.”
Mira bent to pick up a robin’s nest from the grass. She cupped it in her hands a moment, then gently placed it on a low branch.
They walked in silence past the orchard to the meadow. Mira fished the necklace with Beatrice’s ring strung on it from her bodice, then pulled out a more delicate golden chain. Marguerite’s ivory shell dangled from it.
“Now I have mementos from my mother and Béatrice,” she said, holding them up. “But none from you.”
“You’ve got the Oto medallion I gave you,” Elena reminded her.
“You said yourself you despise the thing.” Mira shook her head. “No. I need something else. Something you love.”
Elena stopped and turned to face her. “That’s easy.” She took Mira’s hand and rested it on her own belly. “Here’s something I love that also belongs to you.”
Mira looked at her, confused. “What do you mean?”
“This is my gift to you,” Elena insisted, keeping Mira’s hand pressed against her abdomen. “A cousin.”
“Truly? You are with child?”
Elena nodded. Mira gasped and drew her into an embrace.
“I didn’t know it was still possible for a woman of my age,” Elena whispered into her ear. “But the gods saw fit to smile upon me. And Xabi too.”
“Does everyone at Erkodun know?”
“You’re the first outside of Xabi. I want to keep it quiet for a while, at least until after the wedding.”
“It will be between us,” Mira promised.
She was weeping now, unabashedly, smiling through her tears.
“Stop that,” Elena scolded. “It’s a wedding, not a funeral! Save your tears, for we both know all too well there’ll be ample opportunity to cry. Let’s laugh and dance under the moon tonight instead, and raise a cup to our good fortune.”
Mira dried her eyes on her cloak.
“How will it be,” she asked softly, “raising a child here, where you feel you do not truly belong?”
Elena looked at her, sheepish. “I think the problem was I didn’t want to belong. Living at Castle Oto made me realize what I was missing. The truth of it is, I want the rest of my time on earth to be spent here, at Xabi’s side. I’m learning Basque. That helps. Then there’s Nekane—”
“You know Nekane?” Mira asked in disbelief.
“Xabi took me to visit Pasai Donibane, where Nekane and Abarran live.”
“Let us visit her together one day, after the baby comes,” Mira said eagerly. “She adores children.”
“Can’t you just see us?” Elena beamed. “Visiting back and forth, watching our babies play?”
Arm in arm they turned back to face the homestead, listening to the chirp of crickets. A blue dragonfly droned overhead. The sun slid lower in the sky, staining the grass gold, the oaks and apple trees casting sinuous shadows along the meadow.
“You’ve done it, my girl. My Miramonde.” Elena stretched out the name, pronouncing it with pride as Marguerite de Oto once had. “You fulfilled the promise of your name, just as your mother wanted.”
Arnaud, Alejandro, and Tristan emerged from the house. The boys caught sight of the women and ran toward them. Alejandro held Tristan’s little hand in his, helping him up each time he fell. Their laughter rippled over the grass.
Mira watched the children bound forward, her eyes wet again. More sorrows would strike, tragedies would unfold—yet she would always have this moment. Proof that despite everything, hers was a happy life.
A feeling of deep contentment settled in her bones.
“I have seen the world, it is true,” she agreed. “But do you know what is even better?” Mira glanced sidelong at Elena, her heart cracking wide open with joy. “I have found my place in it.”
THE END
To find more books in the Miramonde series, please click on the book links below:
The Girl From Oto
Mira's Way
Be the first to learn about future releases—plus get a free prequel novella to the Miramonde Series—by joining the author's readers' group at www.amymaroney.com
Author’s Note
During the Renaissance era and beyond, female Old Masters lived and painted alongside the famous men whose art commands mind-boggling prices at auctions around the world. We don’t hear much about those women. Only a few of them ever made it into history books, and even fewer are represented on the walls of the world’s great art museums. Many of them leave a legacy of unsigned paintings or works falsely attributed to men.
One of the most famous examples is Judith Leyster, an artist of the Dutch Golden Age who was largely forgotten after her death. For centuries, her entire body of work was credited to men. But in the 1890s, Leyster’s distinctive monogram (her initials entwined with a five-pointed star) was discovered on several paintings attributed to painter Frans Hals, and the truth began to emerge from the shadows of history.
Miramonde de Oto is a fictional character, but her story echoes Leyster’s—and it is shared by an unimaginable number of real women whose voices remain silent. In the past few years, paintings by female Old Masters have enjoyed record-breaking sales at auction, prompting some art world observers to lament the short supply of such works. I believe there are more works of art by women still waiting to be found—and the relentless curiosity of Zari Durrell’s real-world counterparts will keep surprising us all.
Contemporary Cast of Characters
Zari Durrell
Art historian
Portia Durrell
Zari’s mother
Gus Durrell
Zari’s brother
Eva Durrell
Zari’s niece
Jasper Durrell
Zari’s nephew
Lena Mendieta
Zari’s relative
Wil Bandstra
Adventurer and furniture builder
Filip Holst
Wil’s best friend
Hana Holst
Filip’s sister and Wil’s ex-girlfriend
Vanessa Conlon
Professor at Fontbroke College, Oxford
Dotie Butterfield-Swinton
Professor at Fontbroke College, Oxford
John Drake
Art conservator based in Oxford
Laurence Ceravet
Professor at University of Pau, France
Andreas Gutknecht
Art broker based in Switzerland
Darius Eberly
Art dealer based in Switzerland
Señora Beramendi
Spanish art collector
Señora Perez
Owner of a mysterious portrait
Historical Cast of Characters
Elena de Arazas
Nomadic healer and midwife
Maria
Elena’s adoptive mother
Ramón de Oto
Baron of Oto in Aragón
Marguerite de Oto
Baroness of Oto, originally from Béarn
Their children:
Miramonde (Mira)
Pelegrín
Alejandro
Xabi Mendieta
Basque shepherd
Johan Arros
Monk at the monastery of San Juan de la Peña
Béatrice of Belarac
Abbess of Belarac Abbey
Carlo Sacazar
Merchant of Aragón
Flora Sacazar
Carlo’s wife
Amadina Sacazar
Carlo’s sister, abbess of a convent in Nay
Jorge de Luz
Patriarch of a family in Ronzal
Thérèse de Luz
His Béarnaise wife
Arnaud de Luz
Their eldest son
Beltrán Fivalas
Ramón de Oto’s steward
Sebastian de Scolna
Painter and pilgrim
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba
‘The Great Captain,’ Spanish military leader
Deedit
A Cagot woman
Rose
Deedit’s baby
Nekane and Abarran
Basque couple
About the Author
Amy Maroney lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family. She studied English literature at Boston University and worked for many years as a writer and editor of nonfiction. A Place in the World is the third book in her Miramonde Series.
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Acknowledgements
Once again, thank you to everyone who helped me with The Girl from Oto and Mira’s Way. In addition, I wish to thank the following people. Deepest thanks as always to art conservator Nina Olsson, for her continued assistance and inspiration regarding the world of art conservation. To Sara Starbuck, for insightful and comprehensive editing, and for her support of my writing. To Catherine Blanksby, for introducing me to the fascinating world of art auctions. And to Erika Gaffney, for her enthusiastic support of my story and her efforts to educate the world about female Old Masters.
Thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed the first books in the series, who took the time to leave a review or spread the word to friends. And thanks to those who reached out with words of encouragement, wisdom, and appreciation—your kindness buoyed me just whe
n I needed it most.
Finally, gratitude and love to Jon, Dahlia, and Nora. I am so lucky to walk alongside you three in this journey.