A Place in the World Read online

  Elena went to the slender window that faced south, toward the valley of Broto, and peered out. Though the view never failed to fill her with awe, on this afternoon it made her heart leap into her throat.

  Far down the valley, the tiny dark figures of men on horseback advanced along the river like so many determined ants. There was no telling who they were or what they wanted. Perhaps it was Pelegrín returning at last. But perhaps it was some neighboring lord and his men intent on a raid. Whatever their origin, they could not come upon Alejandro outside the castle walls.

  She burst through a small exterior doorway that led to the parapet. Elena had posted two guards in a tower half a league away with instructions to start a signal fire if any threat approached from the south. Shading her eyes with a hand, she searched for evidence of the fire. But a brisk northern wind was blowing. Above her head the Oto banner on top of the tower writhed and snapped under the force of it.

  If the guards had followed her orders, the wind had blown all evidence of the signal fire far, far away.

  Elena descended the tower steps in haste and ran all the way to the gates.

  “Open the gates again,” she shouted at the blinking guard. “Now!”

  Slowly he moved to do her bidding.

  She pushed past him and stood with her hands cupping her mouth.

  “Alejandro!” she shouted. “Return at once! At once!”

  Alejandro and the men were nearly down the hill, about to cross the meadow to the woods.

  “What is it?” one of the knights called back to her.

  “A group of riders comes this way. I saw them from the tower.”

  The men turned their horses, closed ranks around Alejandro, and hurried back inside the castle walls. One of them leapt from the saddle to help the guard bar the gates.

  “No hunting today, I’m afraid,” he said to Alejandro.

  “What do they want with us?” the boy asked. “Do they wish to fight us?” He sounded half-hopeful, half-frightened. “I have my armor now and we practice our swordplay each day. I am ready to fight.”

  The knight chuckled. “I know you are, my boy. But I’m sure we will not need your aid this day. Go along now.” He glanced at Elena. “Bring everyone within the castle walls to the great hall and bar the doors.”

  “You know where everything is,” she told him. “If you have need of it.”

  Elena had shown the knights Ramón’s weaponry and defensive supplies. She regularly inventoried all of it and entrusted the men with keys to the armory, to be used in case of attack.

  The knight’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “How many men were there?”

  “At least a dozen.”

  He nodded. “Take the boy now. Keep him safe.”

  3

  Autumn, 1505

  Nay, Béarn

  Mira

  The mules ambled to the bridge and began to cross it, their hooves clopping brightly on the stone. Dark water seethed in the river, carrying a flotilla of autumn leaves west toward the distant sea. Rocks along the riverbanks were tinged blue and pink from the effluent spewed by dye-houses each day.

  Mira cast a glance overhead. The sky was leaden and dull, the air heavy with moisture. It had rained lightly all morning but now the weather was changing, the clouds gathering in preparation for a storm.

  A lone titmouse skimmed over the river’s surface and disappeared into the branches of a willow. Mira wished for a pair of wings herself, for the hollow bones of a bird, the freedom to glide weightlessly in any direction she chose. How much easier things would be if she could fly all the way to Bayonne.

  Despite her hesitation to return, she was a bit relieved to see Nay’s familiar cobbled lanes. Her mood lifted at the idea of taking refreshment in Carlo Sacazar’s opulent home, where she had lodged for a time when she was employed by the family a few years back, painting their portraits. She knew Carlo would take pity on them when he saw her condition. He would likely gift them a wagon, wave away their offer of payment. She could curl up under a blanket in the wagon’s bed and close her eyes as they marked off the leagues to Bayonne.

  Mira was fairly certain Carlo would even offer to trade their weary mules for two of his own. If he did, she would accept his generosity with gratitude. After all, Carlo had promised aid to Mira more than once. She knew him to be a man of his word. Yes, a visit with Carlo Sacazar would be a good thing, she decided. As long as it did not include an encounter with his sister Amadina.

  Perhaps the abbess was off on another of her journeys north, cultivating relationships with merchants interested in buying her convent’s fine merino wool cloth or lace. In any event, if they did happen to cross paths, it would be nothing like the last time Mira saw Amadina. Several summers ago, Mira had painted the abbess’s portrait while the rest of the Sacazar family was away in Aragón. One particularly sweltering afternoon, Amadina’s tongue was loosened by too many cups of wine. She dissected Mira’s dubious origins, seizing on local gossip about a baby girl left in the woods by noble parents who wished her dead, and then gleefully concocted a theory that Abbess Béatrice of Belarac had been murdered. Her spite-laced monologue shook Mira to the core.

  Today, no such thing could happen. Mira would have Arnaud by her side at all times. At worst, she would have to briefly endure Amadina’s presence, perhaps exchange a few pleasantries with the woman. A few moments’ discomfort was a small price to pay for a wagon. Mira had survived far worse.

  Now the mules were entering the square where the Sacazar home stood. It was market day, but the stalls had closed. Merchants and artisans were cleaning up the day’s mess, packing the wares they had not managed to sell. The cobblestones were littered with canvas sacks, woven baskets, and leather satchels half-filled with goods.

  A rumble of thunder drifted down from the granite peaks in the south. As if responding to a signal, the air began to swirl and gust. A long wisp of cream-colored wool sailed on the breeze, coming to rest on Mira’s cloak. She reached down to flick it away.

  “Mira,” Arnaud said in a low, tense voice.

  She looked up, startled, and followed his gaze across the square. The Sacazars’ home was draped with lengths of black fabric.

  Mourning cloth, she thought.

  It felt as if a lump of granite had lodged in her chest.

  An artisan across the square was loading decorative hardware into panniers on the flanks of a swaybacked mule.

  “That’s the iron forger,” Arnaud said. “My father considers him a friend. He’ll know what’s happened.”

  Arnaud dismounted, tossed Mira his reins, and strode quickly across the cobblestones. After a hurried exchange with the man, he returned to her side, a haunted look in his eyes.

  “Carlo Sacazar is dead.” His voice cracked. “He died in the last days of summer. Gossip is some illness took him quickly. His wife and daughters have returned to Aragón.”

  “And his sister?” Mira could barely push the words out.

  Arnaud glanced at the Sacazar home before he answered. “Amadina is managing the family’s affairs now.”

  4

  Autumn, 1505

  Nay, Béarn

  Mira

  Mira tilted her head back, transfixed. One of the lengths of black cloth draped over the home’s facade caught on a gust of wind and fluttered high into the air. She watched it flap against the glinting windows Carlo took such pride in, fitted with tiny diamond-shaped panes of glass he had imported from Venice.

  His face materialized in her mind, his round cheeks and warm brown eyes, his ready smile and rich laugh. It was inconceivable that a man so full of life could be dead, could simply vanish from the earth.

  And yet he had.

  Someone who had been her ally and advocate was gone forever. He had been more than a patron. He had cared for her as a father or uncle might, offering her counsel
and aid, expecting nothing in return. Because of him, a job awaited Arnaud with the cabinetmakers’ guild in Bayonne.

  Sorrow drifted over Mira, settling upon her like a suffocating cloak. She felt a twinge of shame, too. She had not fully appreciated Carlo’s kindness while he was alive. Her thoughts were always poisoned with vitriol toward his sister, with mistrust that leaked into her imaginings about Carlo himself.

  “There is no point spending another moment here,” she said to Arnaud. “That is no longer the house of a friend.”

  Was it her imagination, or did a figure move in the window then? Behind the flapping black cloth, did a face peer out at the square?

  Arnaud swung up into the saddle again. “I have no quarrel with that. We’ll continue west. Maybe I’ll find a bit of work in Pau, enough to buy a wagon. I have to arrange the bargemen for Ronzal’s oak there anyway.”

  At that moment the wide doors in the shadowy arcade that fronted the Sacazar home opened. A broad-shouldered servant dressed all in black emerged and stumped across the square to them.

  “The Lady Abbess Amadina Sacazar bids you to come in and take refreshment with her,” he said gruffly.

  Mira and Arnaud exchanged a glance.

  “That is kind,” Mira replied. “But we cannot delay.”

  “She insists.” The servant directed his gaze at Mira. “She has a gift for you from her brother.”

  His eyes were like two pools of ink. Mira stared into them, wrestling with her uncertainty. Perhaps it did make sense to accept the woman’s offer. If nothing else, their mules would be fed and watered. And there was the temptation of this gift from Carlo. Knowing him, it was likely to be a bag full of silver coins. Something they sorely needed.

  She knew Arnaud had never harbored the worry about Amadina that she herself possessed. He had even scoffed at it on occasion. Was this not another opportunity to show her husband she was amending her selfish ways, was willing to look at the world through his eyes?

  “I see,” she said finally.

  The servant reached for her mule’s reins.

  A light rain began to fall as he led them toward the house. The black banners rippled gently, lifted by a breeze, then stilled.

  “I don’t recall your face,” Arnaud said, staring at the servant’s broad back. “We visited Lord Sacazar not too long ago. Were you in his employ at that time?”

  “I pass between Lord Sacazar’s household and Lady Abbess Amadina’s convent.”

  Mira’s gaze fell to the servant’s hand clutching her mule’s reins. It was meaty and broad, the skin marred by long, silvery scars.

  She fought an urge to yank the reins from him and turn her mule’s nose west. But again, she tempered her worries, tried to expel her fears in a rush of breath.

  A clatter of metal interrupted Mira’s thoughts. Across the square, the iron forger let out a shout. His mule’s panniers had slipped out of place, discharging their contents upon him, and he lay surrounded by his wares.

  Amadina’s servant did not even turn his head. He continued forward as if he had heard nothing.

  “Wait!” Arnaud slipped down from his saddle and sprang forward, grabbing Mira’s mule by the bridle. “The iron forger is in need of aid.”

  “It’s not my business,” the servant replied.

  Arnaud set his jaw. “Do what you like, but my wife and I will help him now.”

  The servant did not relinquish Mira’s reins. He glanced into the Sacazar courtyard, where the decorative stonework on the floor glistened wetly.

  “She’s waited too long already. She’ll be displeased.” There was a strange tightness in the man’s voice.

  Mira saw Arnaud’s expression darken.

  “The displeasure of your mistress is no concern of ours,” he snapped. “Release the mule at once.”

  The man did not comply.

  With a determined yank, Arnaud wrenched the reins away from him.

  Mira’s heart skittered against her ribs. She watched the servant take one step toward Arnaud, then another. Though Arnaud was tall, his wiry body supple and strong, this man was much broader.

  Pushing aside her fatigue and her grief, she reached a trembling hand to the sheath at her waist. As long as she was able to draw breath, Mira told herself, she could still wield a blade.

  But when Arnaud led the mules away, the servant made no move to pursue them. Mira bowed her head, weak with relief.

  “Are you hurt?” Arnaud asked the iron forger as they drew alongside him.

  “I didn’t see any other way to stop you.” He got to his feet and brushed off his shirt.

  “What do you mean?” Arnaud asked.

  “You didn’t tell me you meant to go inside. You could have saved me all this mess.” The iron forger stooped to retrieve a nail that lay on the ground. “That Abbess Sacazar is not to be trusted. Her brother Carlo, now he was a fine man. A good man. But her? No.” He straightened up, staring at the stately house across the square. “She shuts herself up in those fine rooms, plays with her brother’s piles of gold. Her servants are paid well, but she treats them worse than beasts. There are stories...” He fell silent, glancing at Mira.

  She flinched, remembering the silvery scars on the servant’s hand. She cast a glance behind her, but the man had vanished. The great oak doors leading to the Sacazars’ courtyard were shut now.

  The drizzle turned to a pelting rain as they gathered the rest of the iron forger’s wares and retreated under the cover of the stone arcade to help him repack his panniers. All around them lay the traces of market day chaos: smashed turnips, feathery carrot tops, the papery skins of onions.

  “Where are you headed?” the iron forger asked.

  “West,” Arnaud said firmly.

  The man glanced at the sky. “You’re welcome to stay the night with me. My son and his wife went to Arudy for a few days. You can sleep in their bed.”

  Riding away through the rain, Mira stole a glance at the Sacazar residence one more time. A bright flash in one of the windows caught her eye. Through the glass, she spied a ruddy, round face framed by a white wimple.

  It was Amadina Sacazar.

  5

  Autumn, 1505

  Nay, Béarn

  Amadina

  Amadina pressed her face against the glass, watching Mira and Arnaud ride away. She kept her eyes trained upon them until they disappeared. The iron forger was clearly to blame for this turn of events. Like most of the other citizens in Nay, he smeared her good reputation at every turn.

  She had never curried favor from anyone in this shabby little town, had never bothered making good with the merchants who strode through its twisting alleyways with their polished boots, garbed in clothing made of the finest wool, trimmed with exquisite lace.

  Her wool.

  Her lace.

  But did they value her for that? Thank her? Oh, no. It was her brother they credited with everything the Sacazars had brought to Nay. Carlo Sacazar would be a saint if the people of Nay had their way. The more schooled among them had probably written to the pope himself, asking for her dearly departed brother to be anointed with a sainthood.

  Amadina drew back from the window. Saint Sacazar. She rolled the words around on her tongue. Her hand went to the heavy silver cross that dangled upon her ample bosom.

  She had studied the lives of the saints closely over the years. There seemed to be a saint for everything. There was even a saint for the common cold, a woman in the Kingdom of Naples who had cured legions of cold sufferers. Amadina had often imagined a sainthood for herself. But saint of what? Just when she thought she had hit on the perfect theme, another idea would seize her, and she would begin to waver again.

  Now, though, Carlo’s death had changed everything. She had little time to ruminate over dreams, over secret ambitions. The idea of mortality weighed heavily on her m
ind these days. Who knew when her own life would be taken from her?

  A gust of wind seized hold of the black cloth draped outside. It fluttered against the window like the dark wing of a crow, drawing her eyes to the square where a few moments ago Mira de Oto had appeared on the back of a mule and then just as quickly melted away again.

  Amadina sighed.

  All she had wanted was to question the girl, after all. She wasn’t a fool. She wouldn’t invite travelers into her brother’s home and inflict harm upon them. No, Amadina was simply curious. Curious about the path the girl had taken since Toulouse, the plans she had for the future. The plans she had for the Abbey of Belarac. For it was obvious that Mira and her husband were headed there again.

  At the thought of Belarac, Amadina sat down heavily in Carlo’s favorite leather-backed chair. Despite her best efforts, the abbey in the mountains was enjoying a resurgence of activity. The wool fabric sold by Belarac’s nuns in Nay’s market equaled that produced by her own convent. Worse, Belarac had developed a line of fabric dyed blue with woad, earmarked for the very merchant in Toulouse who had cancelled his own contract with Amadina years ago. And who had coaxed the embers of Belarac’s wool business back into flame? Mira, of course.

  The spies she once relied upon to share tidbits about the goings-on at Belarac had vanished. The wormy little man who worked in the stables there and carried out odd jobs for Amadina on the side was the biggest loss. It was annoying. She had planned to use him for at least one or two more important tasks in the coming years. But his loose lips had sealed his fate, and he no longer walked the earth.

  She ran through a mental list of all the servants in her employ, settling on two who would be appropriate for the task she had at the present moment. Some of her best spies had fallen by the wayside, but that was the thing about spies: there were always more materializing at her elbow, attracted by the gleam of gold.