Autumn, 1506
Bayonne, Gascony
Arnaud
Xabi, Elena, and Mira burst through the door. The baby began to wail.
Arnaud roused himself groggily. After washing himself and changing his clothes, he’d climbed into bed for a rest and instantly fallen asleep.
“What’s wrong?” he aked, scrambling to his feet.
Elena hustled Mira to his side. Xabi strode to the hearth, tossed a log on the fire, and hoisted the iron water kettle into place. Alejandro hushed Tristan, whispering into his ear, his eyes glued to Mira.
Wide awake now, Arnaud helped Mira into bed. She lay down gingerly, gasping with pain.
He saw the fresh bloodstain on Mira’s skirts.
“What happened?” he asked, pushing aside the layers of fabric. The sight of the wound on her thigh made him blanch.
“It is not serious,” Mira assured him. She tried to smile.
“I’ll fix it,” Elena vowed. “Xabi and I will.”
“Who did this to you?” Arnaud’s heart was pumping furiously now. He smoothed the hair away from Mira’s face. She looked shaken, but her eyes held their customary light.
“Amadina Sacazar,” Mira replied.
“What?” Arnaud looked sidelong at Elena, bewildered. “Mira’s mind is addled. Do you have something for fever?”
“She’s got no fever,” Elena asserted. “Amadina Sacazar was at the inn. Along with her manservant, who I swear is half bear. Or was. I think Xabi might’ve knocked the life out of him.”
Xabi poked the fire until flames shot up, then fetched a small satchel from a peg on the wall and began searching through it. “The fellow’s not dead—well, not yet, anyway,” he declared. “Still, we won’t be hearing the end of this. The woman won’t rest until we’re all in chains.” He found what he was looking for—a slim iron needle—and tossed it into the kettle.
Arnaud struggled to make sense of the news. “But she can’t be here. She was in Nay when I passed by those parts, not long ago. She dispatched her men to ambush the Belarac wool shipment. I went to the authorities in Pau and reported what she’d done.”
“That may be, but she turned up here instead of paying for her crimes,” Elena said flatly. “Intent on murder.”
“I knew she disliked me,” Mira said. “But even delirious with fever I could not imagine a tale this strange.” She fished the chain bearing Mother Béatrice’s ring from her bodice and held it out to Arnaud. “Amadina tried to strangle me with this. She had Mother Béatrice killed, Arnaud. And when Deedit was attacked in Toulouse—it was me the man was after, not her. Just as she tried to tell us. Amadina killed her brother, too. She murdered Carlo.”
Arnaud stared at the glimmering tangle in Mira’s palm. His shoulders sagged.
“Forgive me, Mira.”
She rested her hand on his. “Why do you ask my forgiveness?”
“You always feared the woman. I’m ashamed to admit how many times I brushed aside your worries. I should have stopped her long ago.”
“How could you know she would venture all this way?” Mira winced while Elena poured wine from a leather gourd over her wound. “There is no accounting for the actions of a madwoman.”
Elena busied herself laying out herbs and ceramic jars of salve on the table. Then she folded a length of linen over Mira’s thigh.
“Press down on this,” she instructed Arnaud. She put the wine gourd to Mira’s lips. “Drink deeply. It’ll help with the pain once Xabi starts sewing.”
“Where is Amadina now?” Arnaud struggled to keep his thoughts organized.
“There’s a fire burning at the inn,” Xabi said. “Someone left a candle burning in one of the chambers. Amadina was trying to get back upstairs when we left. The fool.”
Elena turned to Arnaud. “She’d be dead now if I had my way. But Mira said we had to leave her alive.”
Arnaud threw Mira a hard look. “By the sun and stars, why?”
“The first thing Amadina did when she arrived in Bayonne was grease the palms of the clergy at the tribute feast. She is favored by the bishop now.” Mira grimaced, trying to find a more comfortable position. “I wanted my revenge, Arnaud. I nearly slit her throat myself. But we have Tristan and Alejandro to consider. If we are jailed—or worse—what good are we to them?”
Arnaud gestured to Xabi. “You press down on the wound,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’m going back to the inn.”
Mira put a restraining hand on his arm. “No,” she begged. “You are too angry at this moment. Wait until you are calm, for all our sakes.”
He faced her, his heart full of ice. “She will not stop until she ruins us. I won’t allow that, Mira. I can’t.”
Arnaud tugged his arm free of her grasp and made for the door.
His anger did not diminish as he jogged over the cobblestones. When he neared the inn, he saw people jostling ahead of him, shouting excitedly. A thin haze of smoke hung in the air.
He was not fifty paces away when he heard the clatter of breaking glass. A cry went up.
Moving closer, Arnaud saw one of the inn’s second-floor windows had shattered. A figure in black stood there, looking down at the crowd.
He pushed through the throng, his gaze never leaving the woman at the window. She was staring intently at the ground, at a wood-and-iron box surrounded by shards of broken glass. Her mouth moved rapidly, perhaps in prayer.
Arnaud bent down and retrieved the box. From the weight of it, from the jangle of metal inside, he knew what it contained. He hefted it in the air, held it up over his head as if it were an offering.
“Your gold, Amadina,” he shouted in Aragónese. “Never fear, it is in safe hands now.”
“Thief!” Amadina shrieked. “That gold belongs to me!”
She vanished from view. Then came a scream of abject fear. In the next instant, Amadina clambered up on the sill and launched herself into flight. The crowd quieted as she went airborne, skirts aflame. Her body shot down to the earth in a swirl of fire and thumped unceremoniously onto the cobblestones. She writhed, screaming for help in a panicked stream of Aragónese.
Instantly people crowded around her, attempting to stamp out the blaze. But just as swiftly they retreated, fearful of catching fire themselves. The crowd watched in horror as she burned.
“Couldn’t be parted from her gold, not even by fire,” Arnaud whispered.
Had his heart ever pounded this fiercely before? His gaze dropped to the metal box in his hands. One of the hinges had broken off in the fall.
Arnaud marshaled the last of his anger. With a mighty surge of energy, he thrust the box aloft once more and smashed it on the ground. Glittering gold coins spewed everywhere. The crowd’s attention shifted from Amadina to the treasure raining down on the gritty cobblestones. As one they set upon the windfall, scrambling to fill their pockets with Sacazar gold.
Without a backward glance, Arnaud staggered away, his entire body shaking.
All that mattered now was Mira.