Watermark (16 page)

Martin spoke in a neutral voice, his face betraying no emotion. “Of course the heretics do. They look to whomever they can to spread their lies. I’ve heard they consort with jongleurs and town criers too.”

The archbishop nodded. “Then you’ve not been approached by any such as these?”

“No,” Martin answered.

“And if you were?”

Martin did not blink. “I would turn him away.”

The archbishop smiled and nodded at Poncia, who looked relieved. “I am glad to hear it, my son. If one such as this does come your way, be sure you let me know. Tell me, in your trade, do you come across many books?”

Martin nodded. “As expected.”

“Have you read any of the works by St. Thomas Aquinas, or better, by his inspiration, St. Augustine?” He looked into Martin’s face without expression.

Martin did not flinch. “I am no learned man to make sense of such words.”

The archbishop leaned forward, his voice silken. “Then let me educate you on his words. He says, ‘Why should not the Church use force in compelling her lost sons to return, if the lost sons compelled others to their destruction?’ And why not, I agree. For ‘there
is
no salvation outside the Church.’”

The words hung in the air as servants entered with trays of fish and bread.

“To the beauty of God,” the archbishop intoned at last, gracing each of them with a thin smile. “In God’s eyes we are all beautiful. When we arrive at heaven’s door, we too will share in His vision.” His gaze ended on Auda. “Let us pray.”

He bowed his head, clasping Poncia’s hand on one side and Auda’s on the other. The words he uttered held no meaning for Auda—she had thoughts only for her mother.

Later that night, when they had returned home, she turned to her father.

Mother?
she signed.
Sacrifice?

Martin shook his head. “He meant nothing by it, I’m sure—”

But this time Auda did not let the question go. Cupping his face with her hands, she forced him to look at her.

At last Martin sighed. “We knew the birth wouldn’t be easy, early when she carried you. There was a risk, the midwife said.” His voice grew rough. “She had to make a choice, to let them cut you out while she still lived, or let both of you die.” He turned eyes gleaming with tears on her. “She made a choice, a sacrifice, for whom and what she loved.”

“You.”

Auda sat before
the hearth, eyes reddened and swollen with tears. Yet she couldn’t shed a single one.

How could they have kept this from her, father and sister? Her mother had given her life for Auda, and she had never even known. They hadn’t wanted her to bear the guilt, Martin said. Yet what about the burden of not knowing if her mother had ever loved her?

Auda had been saved for a purpose, just like her father had always said. She was not just a girl born badly, cursed, the death of her mother, but a girl her mother had loved, had saved. But for what?

Surely not to be chattel for a man like the miller. Nor to be trapped in a marriage with a man who beat his frustrations out on her. Nor to be cuckolded by her own husband. Auda could do, could imagine, could write so much more than that. She could bring back the poems of love, only her verses would tell a different story. Hers would tell the truth of love.

Her father walked down the stairs, staring at her for a moment. “She loved you,” he said at last. “As I do.” He handed her a sheaf of papers. “I made the first batch of paper with
your new watermark. All of my new sheets will bear the mark now.”

The pages looked beautiful, creamy sheets marked by the faintest of imprints. The bridge of Narbonne stared back at her, replete with the tiny M that made this paper her father’s. Hers.

Auda turned teary eyes to her father and hugged him as hard as she could. She felt his own tears hot upon the back of her neck.

She pulled back abruptly.
Have to go.
She needed to talk to someone—but not her father. She needed to see Jaime.

The artist had told her he lived in a rented room above a certain brothel near the western edge of the extended market. She’d never been to such a place before and felt apprehensive the moment she walked in. The bar was crowded today, full of people who’d wanted a respite before either succumbing to the smoldering embrace of some half-dressed woman or heading back out to join the fair.

Auda threaded her way around sweaty customers trading bawdy jokes, curses, and laughter. A brawl erupted two tables from her, a man kicking back his stool and knocking over a cup of ale. The clay shattered on the ground.

“What’d you say? D’you take me for a lying Churchman?” he said, drawing out a dagger. The crowd roared in raucous encouragement. The other man took a swing.

Auda jumped back, hearing laughter behind her. She hurried up the stairs toward the back, into a dim hallway reeking of urine and ale. Four doors lined one side, three lined the other. The door nearest to Auda opened and a girl dressed in a transparent tan shift emerged. Auda gasped. It was Rubea, Na Maria’s niece.

The brown-haired girl looked just as shocked, though she recovered in a moment. Her full lips opened into a laugh. Pat
ting her ample hips, she ran a hand over her frizzy braid and winked.

“S’ma third week here. You?” The scent of old sex wafted about her.

Auda flushed and dashed past.

“You’ll get used to it,” the girl called out, her laughter mocking.

Desperate to get away, Auda scurried to Jaime’s door, which would be the last one on the right. Luckily, he’d left it cracked open. She pushed inside and slammed it shut behind her. Only a short time as newlyweds. Had Rubea’s husband already left her? Or was this a plan they’d hatched together to earn a little more wealth?

Jaime sat at the end of the small room behind an easel by the open window. He brightened as she entered.

“What are you doing here? Never mind. Have a seat, I’m almost done.” He waved her near.

The room was functional, furnished with a thin straw pallet, a low table, two stools, and an easel. Canvases of all sizes were stacked along the walls, and a bag stuffed with clothes had been shoved in one corner. Pigments lay scattered in boxes and cups on the table, along with bottles of inks and clear liquids.

Auda forced herself to smile back and waved at him to keep working.

“No, I am finished,” he said. Reaching for a multicolored rag, he wiped his charcoal-stained fingers. “It was not a bad day. I sold two drawings of Fontfroide’s mill.” He shrugged. “The man wanted one of the monks, even offered to pay me to paint one in portraiture.” He gave her a dark look.

She made a cross with her fingers and looked pointedly toward his canvas. Not many people had the money to spend on art for their own tastes. Most likely he’d find his customers
among the wealthy, those who favored religious subjects and wanted to display piety before God’s suspicious Church.

His frown deepened into a look of disgust. “I know. They come, they look, they tsk, they leave. One man asked me if I’d pay him to sit as model for the Christ. Can you imagine, a dirty wooler as the face of the Lord?”

Auda moved closer. Peering around the side of his canvas, she caught her breath. Like most of his work, this one depicted a simple scene, a series of hills painted in vibrant shades of green and brown and a tan road snaking through. But in the foreground Jaime had drawn a naked boy lying across the road, his body pale, his lips and fingers a bloodless blue. The boy’s eyes were closed, and his limbs twisted, each in a different direction. A small furrow creased the boy’s brow before deepening down his body into a dark crevice that ended between his legs.

She breathed out. Anger drove this picture, anger and sadness. Jaime wanted to disturb with this scene. It was the first time she’d seen anything like this done by his hand. Who would buy such a cruel depiction, a marker of melancholy and doom?

This hadn’t been drawn for any customer.

Jaime tossed a cloth over the canvas.

“My brother.” He smoothed the fabric with trembling hands. She knew those hands, had grasped and kissed them—his callused palms that smelled of charcoal and paint, his bitten nails, his stiff fingers, curled as if around a brush. She had not expected they could create this.

“It seems in this world, there are things you can control, and things that control you.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “That idiot who wanted me to paint him as Christ—him I could say no to, but this…” His voice wavered as he caressed his painting. “This won’t let go of me.”

Her mind conjured an image of her mother lying eviscerated on the floor. Yes, some things wouldn’t let go of you, no matter what the consequences.

Moving around the easel to face him, she tucked her hand into his. He closed his eyes, face tightening and lips turning down, but didn’t pull away. Silent for a moment, he opened his eyes and with a quick squeeze of her hand, spoke with false interest.

“I’m glad you came to see me today.”

Auda dropped his hand and plaited her fingers, then sat on a stool in front of him.

Jaime reached out to touch her fingers. “Some days are more difficult than others, aren’t they?”

Auda let her head fall so low her chin almost touched her chest. He understood; of course he did, even through the lack of words.

She took a piece of paper from her pouch. It was another verse about his fisherwoman. She had played with it for weeks, but only this morning had the final meaning become clear.

Jaime’s voice faltered as he read aloud. “Bleak words. Hardly befitting…” He stared at her hard. “Though perhaps not. Something bothers you. What?” His eyes looked troubled.

Auda pushed her wax tablet at him.

Auda’s patched leather boots sank into the cemetery mud. It was a good day for the trip. The clouds formed a diaphanous curtain over the bright summer sun, tempering both heat and light. Pink and white almond blossoms sweetened the air, accented by the buzz of bumblebees and the twitter of robins and chaffinches. Auda let the folds of her wimple hang loose.

At the entrance to St. Paul’s, budding poplars encircled the rusted gates and a choke of weeds concealed the pathway. Normally a place for quiet contemplation, today the grounds seemed burdened, forgotten. Blackbirds preened on a bare tree, the only movement against the sky.

Auda threaded her way through the cemetery to a simple plot, marked with a desiccated vine and a thick wooden cross. Laying down her basket, she sat beside the marker.

“M-Ma,” she said, wincing at the thickness of her voice, and made the sign of the cross. She picked away the dead leaves from the creeper twisted around the grave marker.

Taking her tablet from her basket, she wrote into the wax.

She didn’t add the question she asked herself—was her mother’s sacrifice worth it? A beautiful life given to a child born wrong. Unless Auda did something with the blood her mother had shed for her.

Jaime knelt beside her and took the tablet. Auda was surprised to see tears form in his eyes as he read.

Caressing the gravestone, he knit his brows. “You asked about my painting,” he said in a soft voice. “I came here from the north. I always wanted to travel away from the town I grew up in.” He handed her the tablet. “It was a small city, not far from Paris, just outside the abbey I ended up in.

Auda gasped. Jaime gave her his crooked smile.

“Surely you guessed I had a Church education. I was to be an illuminator. It’s a rich profession.”

His eyes took on a faraway look. “I was orphaned there. Bandits on the road overtook my parents’ cart. I was young, my brother younger yet.” His voice stayed flat. “They slit my parents’ throats with gentle ease, I’ll give them that. But the silver my parents had was meager, so they tied us, my brother and I, to the back of their horses and dragged us on the road near to a league. Lucky for me, I’d worn a leather jerkin that day. My brother’s clothes were softer, just a thin tunic that shredded against the rocks and dirt like ribbons.”

Auda stared without blinking.

“I think they tied his knots loosely, perhaps out of kindness to a young child, for his rope broke first. It was a fading humor for them anyway, watching us scream. When my rope snapped, a few hills past, they laughed as I ran away. My brother was just pulp and blood when I found him. The skin on his back and legs had rubbed away. He’d died with his eyes screwed shut.”

Auda let out a soft cry, staring at Jaime as though seeing him again for the first time. How did one so young put aside
such cruelty and sadness? She knew the answer firsthand—you couldn’t.

“I wrapped him in my jerkin and carried him to the abbey. They took me in but said it was too dangerous to go back for my parents, that the bandits ruled the road. I dreamt that night that the buzzards picked their bones clean.” His lips were pressed flat.

“A caravan of Jews brought their bodies back a few days later, wanting them to have a proper burial.”

Auda breathed out. She laid a hand on his arm, feeling the warmth of his flesh under her cold fingers. He didn’t move, not to flinch, not to face her.

“We live our lives the best we can, the way we can. I believe that’s what God asks of us, whatever His damned Church says.” He closed his eyes and smoothed the lines on his forehead. “I came here searching for peace from my life.” He paused, opening his eyes, and reached for her cheek. “And I think I’ve found it.”