Autumn, 1506
Pau, Béarn
Arnaud
As soon as dawn broke, Arnaud and the others made haste for the north in a steady drizzle. At the turnoff for Pau, they parted ways.
“Take extra care on the road to Toulouse,” he cautioned the Belarac villagers, inspecting their cargo one last time. “Fall in with mule trains and merchants when you can.”
“Someone should go to the bailiff in Nay,” one man complained. “Amadina Sacazar was behind that attack. Her manservant admitted it to you!”
“What good is it to go to the bailiff there?” Arnaud removed his cap and ran a hand through his hair. “He’s been in the Sacazars’ pocket since they arrived in Nay.”
There was a murmur of assent.
“We’ll put a stop to this,” he promised the men. “The first order of business, though, is to get to Toulouse unharmed, do you hear? The Abbey of Belarac’s future depends on it.”
Watching the oxcart roll down the muddy road, he whispered a prayer to the gods for safe transport of the fabric to Lord de Vernier. There was no longer a shred of doubt in his mind that Amadina Sacazar was bent on destroying the wool industry at Belarac. How far would she go to achieve her aim? Mira had long suspected Amadina knew more than she let on about Béatrice’s death. Arnaud had never put much stock in that idea.
Until now.
During the ride to Pau, he reflected on what Gaston told him at the Abbey of Belarac—the stablehand’s drunken confession about being death’s messenger. Perhaps the stablehand was not just a shifty-eyed fool, after all. Perhaps he was Amadina Sacazar’s hired killer.
A new thought made Arnaud freeze in place. When Deedit had been stabbed in Toulouse, she insisted her attacker was coming for Mira, not her. At the time, Arnaud brushed off her words as the nonsensical ramblings of a dying woman. Now he wondered if Deedit had made a clear-eyed observation.
His mind turned next to Carlo Sacazar. A kind man, a generous man, someone who genuinely respected Mother Béatrice and supported her efforts to build a wool business at the Abbey of Belarac. He made no secret of his wish to help Mira thrive in her art practice, and he had come to Arnaud’s aid by recommending him to the cabinetmakers’ guild in Bayonne.
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.