It was a vexing problem.
Alphaios stood at his worktable, a six-hundred-year-old bifolium in front of him. It was odd seeing one completely ruined page right next to one that was completely intact. But because of the way quires were constructed, the right and left sides of the bifolium did not actually face each other.
Across the top gutter-corner of the page on the left was an indigo border surrounding rich malachite and lush fuchsia. The rest of the page was left in smears.
It was Jeremiah's work. Jeremiah had not only been the most talented artist to work on the book, but the most adventuresome, the one most likely to take chances, to stretch religious convention or, with a stroke of his brush, snub some character or Church dictum. He was the most unpredictable, audacious illuminator Alphaios had ever encountered.
This complicated an already difficult problem. Somehow, this page needed to be recreated with historical accuracy. Fortunately, the text in the rest of the quire was known. It was from Psalm 44 in the Hours of the Virgin.
Given the size and spacing of script throughout the rest of the psalm, he and Inaki had been able to determine that there was considerably more room on the three contiguous damaged pages than would be necessary for the missing portion of text. So the question had arisen as to whether there had been text on all three pages with significant illumination on each, or text on only two, leaving the entire third page for a painting or paintings. If the latter were the case, the devotion of a whole page to one illumination meant its subject would have had particular importance to the patron. What was it?
As if determining the subject of the page weren't difficult enough, Alphaios wondered how Jeremiah would have treated it. He already knew it would be different from anything found in any book of hours before or after.
It wasn't the first difficult hurdle they'd faced, and wouldn't be the last, but these three pages had thus far stumped him, Inaki, and the entire membership of the commission of experts. Three months ago, Inaki had sent out a worldwide call to libraries and medieval scholars asking for any period reference to a book of hours such as they had before them. They had very nearly given up hope of assistance. Then, just yesterday, Inaki had left word that one possibly relevant response had been received. Alphaios was waiting for him now.
Some thirty minutes later, the archivist hurried into the scriptorium, his face and eyes alight. He was carrying a thin file folder and a rolled document of some kind.
"Got something that might help," he said. "A letter and photograph from a music professor on sabbatical. He's in a town called Uncastillo. Northern Spain. He's conducting research for a book on medieval songs and minstrels. Says my query tickled his memory. He went back through some manuscripts and finally came up with this." He pulled out a photograph. "It's a picture of a page from a journal. The professor says the last dated entry in the manuscript was 1448. He sent it in electronic format, so last night I had it blown up." With that, he unrolled a poster-sized version of the same photograph.
Alphaios placed the damaged bifolium back in its drawer, then spread out the large photograph on his worktable and placed small blocks of wood on its corners.
It was a good photo, taken in natural light. There was no glare, and a ruler had been placed next to the book to identify its dimensions; the professor had known what he was doing. There were indications of cracking on the edges of the page, and though the ink had faded somewhat, it was easily readable. It was in Latin.
The writing had a spontaneous rather than formal or edited feel, consistent with a journal. In it, the writer made reference to a very large, lavish book of hours he had recently encountered; he didn't say where. He was critical of the extravagant show of wealth the book represented, but that was not what had wound him up into a holy screed. The subject of his wrath was one extraordinary illumination, one that covered an entire page. He reported that a person in a royal retinue had one eye closed—winking, he howled—just as the king, queen and other members of a royal court bowed low before a pope and his cardinals. The writer, whose position was abundantly clear that sovereignty belonged to the pope alone, believed the wink to be forthright evidence that the obeisance was contrived. The book's unnamed patron drew the writer's ire for this heresy.
Indignation had apparently not affected his appetite, however, for at the end of the entry was the following note: "Supped on an excellent meat soup under the sign of a horned ibex."
Alphaios leaned back from the table, intrigued. Jeremiah was not beyond playing such a game, but there was not yet enough information.
"The painting described would be unusual for this text," Inaki said, "but it's not beyond the realm of possibility. Perhaps they did choose what's known as the royal psalm to make a point about fealty to the Church—or the lack of it."
Alphaios felt a prickle of electricity. On more than one page, he'd seen Jeremiah indulge in a twist of, or a poke at, some code or precept. Why not a wink? But he needed to know more. "First, do we know of any other manuscript with such a depiction? Any other reference to a wink?"
"I don't," Inaki said. "I'll put the question to the commission. If such a painting were known at the time, it might well have been combustive."
That was true. The question of whether ultimate sovereignty rested with the head of state or with the Church had been more than philosophical. It had been the cause of outright war between kings and popes, let alone the subject of long diplomacy. Alphaios frowned. "Which royal family could it have been? If we knew that, it would not only provide an important clue as to the origin of the book, but could put further light on the consequences of such a picture—perhaps even a reason for keeping it hidden."
Inaki studied the blowup again. "Let's say the scholars were right, and the book was created in the first decade of the 1400s. How many possibilities are there? If the royalty were French, it could have been Charles VI—he was known as Charles the Mad—or any number of major or minor nobles. If it were Spanish, maybe Charles III of Navarre or Martin I of Aragon or others. But if you open the time window beyond just that one decade..." He shook his head. "The problem grows even greater. Too bad we don't have a coat of arms or other details."
Alphaios gave him a small smile. "You know your kings."
Inaki shrugged. "They were all adventurous, and they all touched Basque history some way or another."
"And they all had their own quarrels with the Church," Alphaios said. "Don't forget the Church was feuding within itself. This is right in the middle of the Western Schism. There were Roman popes and Avignon popes and even ones chosen by a council in Pisa, all claiming the Throne of Peter. Arguments about legitimacy were heated and personal, not to mention competition for tithes and taxes. Fealty must have been a very difficult challenge for people of faith. Tenuous, and dangerous."
"All good points. Unfortunately, they don't make our job any easier."
Alphaios thought for a moment. "If this painting really were in our book of hours, could it have had anything to do with Cervini's acquiring it and then taking it for his own private chapel? Was this something more for him than just a particularly beautiful book? If there really were a wink in such a scene, could that have been significant to him?"
"And could it tell us anything about why or how the book disappeared when he died?"
The men looked at each other. The mystery was deepening before their very eyes.
"We're getting ahead of ourselves," the archivist said. "First, we need to go back out to the academic world with this information. If such a painting is known to exist elsewhere, the entry is probably not about our book."
"What's a horned ibex?"
"A kind of goat, I think. I'll have to find out."
"Are there other references in the journal that could be helpful?"
"The professor says not."
"His field's music, Inaki. We need to send someone else to examine the journal, and any other documents that might be there. Perhaps you. Even if there isn't any more about this particular page, the account of his travels might provide more information. Where is this Uncastillo?"
"Near Pamplona, in northern Spain. On the edge of what we consider the Basque country." Inaki rolled up the photograph and prepared to leave. "I'll call Cardinal Ricci's office and propose a trip. Meanwhile, let's continue work on what we know."
Just before the archivist left the room, Alphaios called after him, "Inaki, Jeremiah is capable of this."
Inaki nodded thoughtfully, then closed the door behind him.
Alphaios withdrew the ruined page from its drawer and gazed at it again. With a penknife, he took small scrapings of the smeared paint and placed them in glassine envelopes for analysis, labeling each one with its place on the page. Knowing the minerals and plants used to form the original paint would help him decide what colors, hues and densities to mix. He could see a very rich palette.
He would not wait for confirmation. He knew in his heart this page could only be Jeremiah's work. In his mind, he began to sketch the painting so briefly described by an itinerant critic some five and a half centuries earlier.
~*~*~