Autumn, 1506
Bayonne, Gascony
Mira
Amadina brushed past Mira and stood by the hearth, still shrouded in her veil.
Mira turned slowly, keeping the other woman in her sights. Her throat felt coated with sawdust. Behind her, Amadina’s manservant closed in.
“I am in mourning, so I cannot show my face,” Amadina said mildly in Aragónese. “But I do not feel at ease unless I can see a person’s eyes.”
She dipped her head at her manservant. He ripped Mira’s hood off, prodding her forward until she was an arm’s length from Amadina.
Mira caught a whiff of burning tallow mixed with smoke. Xabi and Elena must smell it too. Surely they would descend the stairs any moment. The thought gave her courage.
“When did you exchange your nun’s habit for the costume of a widow?” she asked Amadina in a voice that was far more confident than it had any right to be.
Amadina balled her hands into fists.
“Your poisoned sweets served only to kill a few mice,” Mira said, her heart battering her ribs. “And your deadly pigments float across the sea. I cannot fathom why you wish to end my life. You, an abbess and a Sacazar! What could I possibly have done to make you hate me so?”
“Béatrice de Belarac made you her apprentice in all her little industries—especially wool,” Amadina snarled. “She connived my brother into giving her all she needed to become my greatest rival. Equipment, silver, credit, advice. And how did she thank the Sacazar family? By robbing me of my best contract. I spent years traveling to Toulouse, cultivating a partnership with Lord de Vernier, building relationships with all of his merchant friends.” She stepped closer, the delicate material of her veil shuddering with each exhale. “Your Béatrice stole him from me, undercut all I had done, offered him a lower price and God knows what else, knowing all the time he was my partner.”
“That’s not true!” Mira burst out. “You lie. No one at the Abbey of Belarac knew Lord de Vernier had signed a contract with you.”
The servant pressed one meaty hand on Mira’s shoulder, forcing her to kneel. His fingers dug into her flesh with such power she feared he would snap her collarbone.
“No, you lie,” Amadina spat. “You are no better than Béatrice. Last summer, when Lord de Vernier was about to sign my contract anew, you stole him from under my nose just as she had done. To spite me.” She leaned closer. “I’m sure the woman instructed you to do it. Did you never think there would be consequences?”
“I did nothing to spite you,” Mira retorted. “I knew nothing of your business dealings. I was only helping Belarac survive.”
Amadina gave a short laugh. “Playing the innocent. You are no longer a girl. Do not insult me with falsehoods.”
“I speak the truth!” Mira protested. Anger ignited in her chest and smoldered there, gathering strength.
The sound of muffled shouts penetrated the ceiling. Footsteps pounded on the staircase.
Please, Mira thought. Let that be Elena and Xabi.
Amadina withdrew a glittering object strung on a gold chain from her bodice and lifted it over her head. Her veil drew back, revealing her flushed face.
Mira’s eyes widened in astonishment. Mother Béatrice’s signet ring dangled on the chain, the ring that had gone missing when she died.
“You,” she breathed. “You murdered her.”
Amadina smiled thinly, a shimmer of pride in her brown eyes. “No, I did not.”
Amadina’s slight emphasis on the word ‘I’ gave Mira pause. The memory of her friend Deedit’s death in Toulouse last year came rushing forth in a flood. In broad daylight, Deedit had been felled by a cloaked assailant’s blade. During the chaos afterward, Deedit insisted that the man lunged at Mira, not her.
“You gave the order, though,” Mira said to Amadina, rage flooding her veins. “By my guess to the same man you paid to kill me in Toulouse. But he slaughtered my friend instead. Twice now you have tried to end my life. And twice you have failed.”
“I will not fail a third time,” Amadina murmured, stepping closer, swinging the ring on its golden chain in front of Mira’s face. “You can be sure of that.”
With one deft motion she slipped the necklace over Mira’s head, twisted it tightly, and pulled.
Mira felt the world begin to go dark. Desperately she lurched toward Amadina and gathered the woman’s skirts in her hands, yanking with all her strength. Amadina cried out and tumbled to the floor.
The huge man behind Mira yelped in pain. Then, blessedly, the pressure on her shoulder vanished. Mira gasped for air, trying to clear her head.
“Get buckets!” screeched the innkeeper from the stairwell. “We need water! Hurry!”
Mira staggered to her feet. Her eyes fell on the bellows next to the hearth. She leapt for it just as Amadina heaved herself up and pivoted in her direction.
This time they both crashed to the floor in a tangle of skirts and cloaks. Mira thrust the bellows violently at Amadina’s head. But Amadina ducked and rolled over in a surprising display of nimbleness. She sat up with a blade in her hand.
Mira swung the bellows again. This time she got Amadina on the shoulder, but lost her balance and pitched forward. Amadina’s dagger pierced her skirts, slicing into her thigh.
She could not suppress a cry of pain.
Behind her she heard Xabi cursing in Basque as he tussled with Amadina’s servant. Then she heard another familiar voice.
“What by all the gods is this?”
Braid flying, Elena wrenched the dagger from Amadina’s hand and tossed it into the fire.
Mira fumbled under her skirts for her own blade, trying to ignore the searing ache of her wound. She stalked toward Amadina, brandishing the weapon. Amadina scuttled backward, eyes wild.
Mira lunged, her blade coming within a finger’s breadth of Amadina’s throat. Amadina pulled away in panic and stumbled into the fireplace grate. She toppled to the floor again.
A crack of wood on bone sounded behind them. Glancing sideways, Mira saw Amadina’s manservant collapse. Xabi stood over him holding a splintered chair, blood trickling down his cheek.
Elena knelt by Amadina’s side, her own dagger at the ready.
“She means to murder me,” Mira croaked. Her breath came out in jagged bursts.
Elena’s expression darkened. “Say the word, and I’ll slit her throat.”
Amadina let out a scream. “Help me! I am under attack!”
Elena pushed the point of her blade against Amadina’s neck until blood beaded there.
Mira stood over Amadina, studying her face. It was so like Carlo’s, with the same round cheeks, wide brown eyes, generous mouth. Two siblings—so alike in appearance, yet so horribly different in temperament.
A realization struck her.
“You poisoned Carlo, too,” Mira said in a voice so low, so terrible, that even Elena glanced at her with alarm. “You murdered your own brother.”
Amadina’s lips trembled. “I had no other choice,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “He betrayed me.”
Mira raised her dagger high, desperate for vengeance, the blood pounding in her head. Elena stood aside, seeming to understand. Mira’s blade would end Amadina, not hers.
Then, with great effort, Mira corralled her anger. She stilled herself, dropped her arm.
“Why do you hesitate?” Elena asked, eyes blazing. “Strike!”
Mira’s gaze did not stray from Amadina’s face. “If I kill her we all face punishment.”
“The woman deserves to die,” Elena protested. “She’s a murderer.”
“Her gold carries more weight than the truth,” Mira said. “She has the bishop in her pocket. Destroying Amadina will bring my death as well—perhaps all of ours. What will happen to the children?”
Servants and lodgers streamed down the staircase into the entry hall, their arms loaded with belongings.
“Fire!” someone shouted.
“No!” Amadina’s face constricted in terror. “My things!”
She caught sight of her manservant, who lay unmoving on the floor, face down.
“Step back,” she ordered Mira and Elena. “Your man has killed my servant. You will go to the bailiff, all three of you, for the crime.”
“He’s not dead,” Xabi interjected from the doorway. “He’s still breathing. I checked.”
Amadina scowled.
“Anyway, you’re not the one holding a blade,” Elena pointed out acidly. “You’re scrabbling on your backside like an upended tortoise.”
Mira put a hand on Elena’s shoulder. “Please, do as she tells us.”
Mouth pressed into a thin line, Elena complied.
Amadina heaved herself up, stumbled into the entry hall, and pushed through the crowd descending the stairs.
“What are you doing?” the innkeeper roared at her.
“I will be hasty,” she snapped, mounting the first step. “Leave me be.”
“We’ve seen enough,” Xabi thundered at the women over the din. “Let’s go.”
Her wound throbbing with pain, Mira grasped Elena’s hand and limped toward the door.