Watermark (4 page)

“At church, they tell us to pray as we never have, and on street corners and in the markets, they preach en masse that we’ll be drowned in the flood of our sins.” Poncia picked at her plate of pottage, then pushed it aside and wiped the grease from her fingers.

Auda turned a worried gaze on her sister. She’d assumed the rains were like this all through the land. Was something different in Narbonne?

“Madness is the word,” Martin said, arching his brow at Auda. He drained his mug of beer. “The rain has addled their heads.”

Auda fished the eggs, now boiled, from the pottage. Setting them on the table, she sat beside her father.

“Madness or ill thoughts,” Poncia agreed, reaching for an egg. “They say the pope has given permission to the inquisi
tors in Carcassonne and Toulouse to arrest those suspected of witchcraft, anyone who’s made a ‘pact with hell.’ Carcassonne! It’s just on our doorstep.” She shuddered. “They’re speaking of it even in Paris.”

Auda swallowed. A tremble underscored Poncia’s words. What was her sister hiding?

“The inquisitor in Toulouse writes a manuscript,” Poncia continued. She shelled the egg and split it into quarters with her thumbs. “A treatise on the questioning of heretics. Parts of it have already passed through many hands, is the talk of kings and priests alike. This inquisitor rides south as we speak, on a mission to seek out examples for his writing.”

Martin frowned. So the tales were true? Auda wondered, accepting the egg from her sister. The inquisitors
were
about?

Poncia gathered the discarded eggshells into a pile. “It’s said he may yet stop nearby, or in Narbonne itself.”

Fidgeting, Auda looked at her father, but Martin shrugged and ate his pottage. “The inquisitors will find nothing in Narbonne,” he said. “They’ll move on, as they always do.”

Auda remembered the Jacobins on the bridge that morning and shivered. She ate the yolk of the egg first, savoring its richness.

Martin placed a warm hand over Auda’s. “It has nothing to do with us. We brook no heresy.”

Poncia raised grave eyes to him. “If only it were so simple.” She rose and rummaged through her surcoat, returning with a piece of parchment. “Listen.” She read aloud, stumbling over the words.

Auda’s breath caught in her throat. Who had written this, and given it to her sister?

Martin took the page and scanned it. His lips stretched thin, and white spots pulsed above his reddened cheeks. Jaw clenched, he tossed the writing back toward Poncia.

“Rubbish.”

“What if it’s not?” Poncia stood to face him. “Do we dare take the chance?”

Auda looked back and forth between them.

Martin swallowed a mouthful of egg and stood. “What choice do we have? There’s aught we can do about it.”

Poncia flashed him a triumphant smile. “But there is. We can arrange for Auda’s safety. It’s already done.” Her voice grew solid with confidence. She turned to her sister.

“It’s time you got married. And I have just the man for you.”

Auda stared at
her sister in confusion.

What?
she signed.
Marry?

Martin frowned. “Who is this man and what is this talk of marriage?”

Poncia waved the questions away. “I’ll tell you all about him, Papa. But first we must decide how to move forward with this. I’ve already spoken to him—”

Auda slammed her fists on the table with a bang, rattling the dishes and cups. The others flinched.
Ask me? No!

Martin nodded. “We’ll hear the whole of this from your sister now.” He turned a stern look on Poncia. “You had best begin at the start.”

Poncia let out an exaggerated sigh and rolled the inquisitor’s scroll back up. “Auda, I thought you’d be pleased. He’s a good man, a friend of Jehan’s who is looking for a wife. A miller, very wealthy.”

What foolery had her sister concocted?
Why marry me?

“He’s an older man, looking for a girl to bear him a family. He’s been married twice already, and is twice the widower.”
Poncia met Auda’s glare. “All he wants is a quiet girl who’ll mind home and hearth.”

Martin made a rumbling noise deep in his throat. “What he wants is no concern of mine. I’m not sending my girl off to live with some stranger.”

“He’ll be no stranger if they marry,” Poncia countered.

Ugly, fat, stupid?
Auda signed in rapid succession. What manner of man would consent to marry a girl he had never even seen? Especially one like her?

Poncia ignored her and spoke to Martin. “It’s the best plan we have, to keep Auda safe—”

“The best plan we had,” Martin cut in, “was for her to stay here with me. She’s safe outside of the town’s notice. Besides, we are on our way to prosperity even as we speak. We’ve just received an order for paper from the palace itself!”

Poncia narrowed her eyes. “From the palace? Who placed the order?”

Martin shrugged. “I don’t yet know, but it doesn’t matter. Once they see our paper is as good as parchment, we’ll have our pick of whom Auda marries.
If
she chooses to marry.”

Glancing back and forth between them, Auda blushed. They’d never talked about her marrying before—she’d never even thought it was a possibility.

Poncia shook her head. “Maybe so. But with this tripe from the inquisitor, we should look after every option. Any chance we can give her of a life of normalcy—”

Auda frowned.

Poncia turned to her, softening. “I didn’t mean it that way. But being a wife and mother will go far to show people that you are like everyone else.”

But she wasn’t like everyone else. Hadn’t her father and sister always told her that?

I’ll stay here
. She clasped her father’s arm.

“When Papa’s gone and you’re alone, what will you do then?” Poncia’s voice was kind. “How will you fend for yourself?”

Paper. Scribe
. Yet even as she mimed the motion, the improbability of scribing for a living was obvious to her.

“When something goes awry, you’ll be the first person they hunt,” Poncia said in a soft tone. “You of all people should know that. A woman living alone, with no man to guide her. The white witch.”

Auda shook her head, stubborn despite her fear.

“I was fortunate to hear about the miller early. We can arrange this before others come forward with their suits.” Poncia fixed a resolute gaze on her sister. “I am hosting a supper for some men of importance in a few days. You can meet him then.”

And what of Papa?
she signed, gesturing at their father. Did Poncia mean to leave him alone while his daughters both sought better fortunes? She tried to catch her father’s gaze, but he only looked down.

“He can care for himself, Auda. The miller knows about your…condition, and says it matters not a whit to him.”

Auda shook her head and reached for her father’s arm again, this time more desperately.

He looked reluctant. “It leaves me ill at ease, the thought of Auda so far from home. I need her here.”

“The miller lives in town, not far at all,” Poncia said in the same patient tone. “Papa, be reasonable. You didn’t think Auda would stay at home forever?”

Why not
, Auda asked,
not safe?
She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. Her father’s mouth turned down.

“Safer than this,” Poncia said, addressing Martin again. “Marriage and a normal life is better protection than anything
else you can give her. The things that I have seen—” Her voice faltered.

Martin’s gaze grew troubled. “The madness of men…we know it well. But that Auda should marry—it’s something that bears more thought. I don’t want to keep her from having something she might want.”

Auda clenched her jaw.
Don’t want to marry
.

“It’s what Maman would want,” Poncia said in a soft voice.

Martin flinched. He pressed his hands against his temples and bowed his head. Auda glowered at her sister.

“Things are changing, Papa, for all of us,” Poncia said, a light sadness lacing her voice. “Think on that when you decide what to do.” She grabbed her cloak from the wall and stopped to squeeze her sister around her shoulders, but Auda shrugged her off.

Poncia’s hand hovered over Auda for a moment. She dropped it and left, looking back only once. The scent of rose and citrus lingered in her wake.

Without a word, Martin retreated into his studio and slammed the door behind him. Auda stayed at the table, tears pricking at her eyes.

It’s what Maman would want
.

Yes, their mother would no doubt have wanted what safety she could give her children, what good fortune. And it
was
a good chance that Poncia had arranged for her. But surely fate had something else in mind; she had only to see her reflection to know.

An image of herself working side by side with her father flashed in Auda’s mind. They were poised to do great things together, she was sure of it. She sighed in bitterness. As if what she wanted mattered in the face of such terror as the inquisitor could bring upon them.

She swallowed, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe.
Mind reeling, she rose to scrape Poncia’s uneaten meal back into the pot, and took the dishes to wash in the barrel of rainwater out back. She was just returning inside when she caught sight of the woman who sold old rags ambling up the road. The door to her father’s workshop remained shut. She’d have to take care of the woman herself.

The ragpicker stood on the doorstep until Auda waved her in. Glancing askance at her, the woman dumped a basket of old linens at her feet. Most of the women who came to see her father—the wine seller, the fur seller, and the lady chandler—were used to her silent presence, even smiled at her. This woman was new, had moved to town only a year ago. She had come by a few times to make eyes at Martin and unload her remnants, torn cloth fit for little else but the paper pulp. It made a living, but probably only just. The woman’s husband had taken the cross and joined the war, she told everyone, but others whispered that he had run off with the kitchen maid. Her story would make for good song.

“Five deniers for the lot,” the woman said in a loud voice. She stepped back as Auda moved near.

Auda bent to sort through the pile. Most of the rags were torn and dirty, and sported holes ringed with bare threads. A few might be salvaged for bandage dressings. She would wash and darn them later to sell to the physickers in town for a denier.

The ragpicker rubbed a thick finger inside her mouth. The click of her nail against her teeth was erratic. Auda stood and held up three fingers; the woman countered with four.

“Your father?” the woman said without looking at her.

Auda dropped the pennies onto the ragpicker’s dirt-lined palm. She shrugged and pointed at the closed door to the workshop.

The woman clacked her teeth and picked up her empty basket. Casting a last scornful look at Auda, she headed out.

“Masco
.” Her accusation was no louder than a whisper.

Auda stared in shock at the ragpicker’s retreating back. Had she heard correctly? The woman had called her a witch, an omen of darkness.

She slammed the door shut and carried the rags into the workshop. She dropped the cloths on the ground in front of the vat, where Martin stood stirring the pulp.

Seeing her come in, Martin laid down his mallet. “You shouldn’t be imprisoned here, in this room and this house,” he began. “You should have the life your sister has.”

Auda let out a sigh.
I don’t want
, she signed, shaking her head, all the while wondering if that were true.

It wasn’t like her to smile as brightly as Poncia, to bat her eyes and speak in coy tones, to catch a man at the height of love. Maybe if there were a man who knew her, who could understand her as well as her family did. She banished the thought. No such man existed in her world, certainly not this old miller. Why should she trade the joy of working with her father for life with a stranger?

Her father watched her but said nothing. She walked to him and laid a kiss on his sweaty head.

Stay here, Papa
, she signed, staring into his eyes.

Martin’s shoulders drooped. “If this inquisitor does turn his eye on Narbonne…”

Auda touched his cheek but he moved away.

“Wife of a miller could bring good fortune. You would have wealth, at least. And with wealth you can do many other things. Perhaps this is the chance we waited for.”

It didn’t seem like any good chance at all. Auda scowled, trying not to give in to tears.

Make my own chance.

Martin’s voice grew gravelly. He laid a heavy hand on Auda’s shoulder. “I don’t know what to advise. But your sister was right about one thing.” He dropped his hand and turned away. “It’s what your mother would want.”

Auda climbed the
ladder to the loft where her father slept and let herself sink into the hay bed beside the window. Loneliness solidified into a lump between her shoulders.

The impressions she had of her mother were few, either imagined or given to her by Poncia. Had she lived, how would Elena look today? Martin rarely spoke of his beautiful wife who had died so young. Auda imagined that she must have looked just like Poncia.

Would things have been different had she lived? What had her mother’s last thoughts been? Were they for the baby she carried, a prayer for the life she might have taken to the grave? Or perhaps she’d been angry at this mewling ‘it’ that clawed inside her, blamed it for tearing through her. Perhaps she’d held her breath and shut her legs, had never wanted Auda to be born, died to keep it from happening.

Uncharitable thoughts, Auda realized. She should be blaming herself for taking her mother from her sister and father. She wondered, not for the first time, on the circumstances of her birth. Neither father nor sister would speak of it, except to say her mother loved her.

Yet whoever she’d been, whatever she’d thought, Elena had taken a piece of her daughter with her. Not just the lack of color that had left Auda an unsightly specter, nor the flesh cut from her living body. Something deeper. Tears collected in the corners of Auda’s eyes.

Maman, help me if you can
, she prayed. She meant to ask for her mother’s guidance: was Poncia right to insist Auda should move to a strange home with a strange man away from her family? Who would take care of her father? Yet other thoughts invaded instead.

Please, Maman, am I to find someone who loves me as Papa loved you? Will he want to know me, know what I think and what I write? A darker thought surfaced—would he even let her write?

Her father and sister had never talked to her about such things. Martin only spoke of books and writing, and gossip he learned while scribing. Poncia had not spoken much of love to Auda either, never shared dreams of the future. She just worried over Auda’s safety.

So how then was Auda to know what to hope for?

Sighing, she drifted back down to the studio. Martin had brought out his mould and deckle, the basic tools of his trade, for cleaning. Each mould consisted of a wire sieve mounted in a wooden frame that would be dipped into the paper vat to filter the pulp slurry. A larger wooden rim, the deckle, fit on top of the mould, creating a tray that both kept the pulp from sliding back into the vat and defined the edges of the sheet. The fibers left after the water dripped through the wire screen would be pressed and dried, and cut into pages.

Her father usually used his favored mould and deckle set, acquired from his apprenticeship in Spain, but over the years he’d collected many others. There was the large set for
making receipt books for the moneylenders, the long, narrow set meant to duplicate the feel of scrolls, and another for palm-leaf books. Stacked to the side were the lesser used sets—the one made of stitched bamboo reeds bought from an Oriental at the fair in Barcelona, another made from thin strips of flattened wood shavings that her uncle Guerau had given him, even one made of grass and animal hair.

Martin took out a small hammer and began tapping at his deckle, fixing it so it would fit more flatly atop its companion mould. He glanced at her for a moment but said nothing.

Walking over to him, she picked up one of the moulds and drifted her fingers over the screen. How would that watermark the Gypsy spoke of fit into the process of papermaking? Was the wire supposed to be attached to the mould? Or pressed into the paper after it had dried?

What did it matter? She dropped the mould back on the table. In a few weeks, at the most a month, she’d be steeped in another family’s matters with nothing to connect her to reading, writing, or paper.

“Best cut some quills,” her father said, still watching her, “so we can test the paper properly. This new batch has to be perfect. Nothing but the best for the palace.”

Auda nodded. She rummaged through her basket of quills sitting on the desk and picked out the broken shafts to burn later.

She spread the bedraggled feathers saved from yesterday’s chicken across the desk. It had been hard for her and Martin to get any meat at all from the butcher, despite the fact Poncia had bought from him every week for years. Under the torrent that had waterlogged the whole town, every last scrap of fat and remnant suddenly had a price. They had taken the smallest chicken to get these feathers—eight deniers for a scrawny
carcass that shouldn’t have cost more than six. When they’d stopped the butcher from plucking the bird, he hesitated like a gambler told to tithe his winnings.

“T’were for the abbey,” he said. “On account of the rains.”

Martin had clenched his jaw and added another penny to the pile. The butcher mumbled about the goodwill of priests. A penny more.

Auda picked up the feathers, wiping blood and dirt off each one. She dumped them in a tall pail of rainwater, nibs down. The feathers clung together in a bundle. Stowing the pail under the workbench, she took out another bucket holding feathers that had been soaking for a full day. Their shafts, clear when dry, swelled milky white and flexible now. She dried each with a soft cloth and picked up her knife.

“Heat those before you cut them,” her father said. “We’ve nothing to waste, so take care.” He took a bucket of sand from the shelf and placed it on the fire where the vat of pulp had stood before. Ten score sheets would be sieved with the mould and deckle, then pressed and dried in the barn. It would be another week before the fermenting linens in the barrels would be ready to be made into the next batch of pulp. In the meantime, the finished sheets had to be smoothed and tested. Most would be boxed loose into quires of fifty, but some would be sewn into folios.

Martin plunged his fingers into the sand. “Wait till it’s warm to the touch.”

Prepare quills. Know how
. She twitched her lips.

He said nothing.

She crouched by the bucket, checking the temperature of the sand. When it grew lukewarm, she took the bucket off the fire and propped the quills inside. Minutes later, when they’d cooled, their shafts had returned to their original transparency, tougher, smaller, and tempered.

She cut tips on each of the quills, shavings from the shaft curling on the floor. How many more times would she cut quills for her father before they sent her away? How often would she see her father? When would she ever work in his studio again?

Martin cleared his throat, still watching her.

“Those will be fine for our regular work. But we need thicker nibs for the new ink. Goose feathers will do us better. Could be we’ll find some in Carcassonne tomorrow.”

She whipped her head around.
We?

He shrugged, voice still nonchalant. “I’ve business to attend, if you want to join me.”

Is it safe?

“Safe enough, I should think. And I want to keep you with me.” His smile was laced with sadness.

Her only reply was to jump up and embrace him.

They left the next morning, renting passage on a merchant cart heading west across a carpet of green grass and vineyards. Auda huddled in her cloak and peered into the misty rain, but seeing only blurs of color, she settled back in the wet straw. Despite the muddy ruts in the roads that made their wheels stick, she dozed until they arrived, early in the evening.

Carcassonne was surrounded by a stone wall lined with turrets and arrow loops for archers. Seven large towers stood on the front side of the walls. The tops of further towers loomed behind the city like a studded crown atop the knoll.

“Narbonne looks like a bunch of huts from here,” her father said, but Auda couldn’t discern the town from the vineyards far on the horizon.

Martin pointed to their right. “The old Roman amphitheater. And beyond that, the Aude.”

Squinting through the drizzle, she searched for the fat snake of gray that was her namesake. Their cart wound up the
hill and stopped at the double drawbridge lowered over a full moat. Martin nudged her.

Gathering her sack, which contained a heel of bread and a flagon of wine, she jumped off the cart and followed him across a set of bridges. She stepped quickly through wooden doors in the outer and inner walls and ducked under the hanging iron portcullis.

Martin motioned for her to keep moving. “Stay near.”

Larger than Narbonne and built on a hill to separate the nobles on high from their poorer neighbors, Carcassonne was still peopled with the usual vendors, Gypsies, and noblemen jostling each other in mutual chaos. Painted signs with colorful pictures hung above the shops, the odd torch burning inside some, hinting at an inner vivacity. But mostly the city’s luster was dampened by the same gloom that shrouded Narbonne, the same patter of rain.

As at home, the clergy perched on trestles, chanting prayers to passersby amidst the heavy clanging of bells. A pair of priests shepherded chained penitents past Auda and Martin, followed by a column of self-flagellants carrying thick whips they used against their own bloodied flesh. Nearby cries heralded the sight of more prisoners, naked save for their loincloths and reeking of fear, prodded forward by guards with sharpened pikes.

Auda turned her head. This was nothing like she’d expected. She heard the cruel snap of a switch hitting bare skin and hid her face.

“It’s never been like this before,” Martin said, grim. He picked up the pace and led her along the narrow promenades, pointing out various artisan streets and the giant well where the lower city inhabitants drew their water. Prayer tokens and crosses hung on nearly every door.

They arrived at a house squeezed between two others on
Parchmenter’s Lane. Through the milky animal skin covering the window, a bulky figure moved.

Martin knocked. “Arnaud,” he called out, knocking again. A slot in the door opened and a pair of large eyes, rheumy with suspicion, appeared in the crack.

“Martin!” The gray eyes softened and the door swung wide. A large man clasped hands with her father and showed them in. The house was small, not much larger than their own hearth room, but cozy and warm, exuding the faint scent of cooked meat.

The man looked her over. His gaze lingered on her eyes, but he said nothing.

Auda returned his look with sadness. Was this how it would always be for her, even among friends? Would anything change if she did marry the miller? Maybe she’d be better accepted then, if only for the wealth she married into.

“Arnaud,” Martin said, “this is my youngest daughter, Auda. Auda, Arnaud and I have been friends for many years.”

Arnaud dipped his head in greeting. His face was kind and craggy, crowned with thick white hair that shot out in all directions. He held out a wrinkled hand. “Come, sit by the fire. It’s a cold beast that hunts this evening.”

They hung their cloaks to dry near the fire. Martin pulled the wineskin and brown bread from their bag while Arnaud added water to the pot on the hearth and spooned out the broth into coarse wooden bowls. He garnished it with shavings of bacon.

“Not much, but it fills the belly,” Arnaud said between sips. “Prices have gone up everywhere and people hoard what they have.” He snorted. “The only one doing well these rain-infested days is the Church. She has her mercenaries on every corner, preaching to the poor on what their sins have visited upon us all.”

Martin tore off a chunk of bread and handed it to Auda. “It’s the same in Narbonne.”

Arnaud shook his head. “No, it can’t be. Surely you’ve seen the penitents and prisoners suffering on the road. Narbonne will never resort to such ugly displays.”

Auda had read in one of Tomas’s history books that back in the days of heresy, the days of the Good Men, all of south France had burned except for Narbonne. The one time the town had been threatened with destruction on account of her heretics, her guardians—the archbishop and the
vicomte
—had sold all of the town’s gold in exchange for the safety of the people. Rumors suggested that perhaps some within the Church—not to mention the old
vicomte
—had succumbed to the allure of heresy themselves.

What was this heresy that scared the Church so? she wondered. She knew that the heretics shunned all physical things, including their own bodies, as evil creations of the devil. Only the soul was pure, they said, created by God. Her sister once said that the heretics defiled their own bodies with buggery and mortification.

Yet whatever this heresy was, it gave its people uncommon will to survive. They seemed indefatigable.

“Narbonne is no longer the haven it once was,” Martin said and looked at Auda.

“Maybe,” Arnaud allowed. “But if it’s that bad in Narbonne, imagine how much worse it must be everywhere else.”

Martin’s mouth turned down in worry. “Perhaps it was not the best time to come here. I had thought it might be better than at home.”

Arnaud shrugged. “Madness is afoot. The worst is the Inquisition. The bastards have brought out two score of condemned in the past month. The only thing keeping them from burning is this wretched rain.” He spat out a piece of chewed
fat and examined it. “If you listen to the priests, all the heretics in the whole of France have flocked here. The inquisitors won’t be satisfied until half the town is drowned or burned to cinders and ashes.”

Better this town than her own, Auda thought, then flushed at her lack of charity. She mouthed a short prayer for the penitents they’d passed on the road.

“Well then.” Arnaud turned to Martin. “Have you come to tell me you’ve given up this nonsense with paper?”

Martin snorted. “And what, turn to parchment? I’ve no call to be the Church’s whore. At least they still let me sell my paper, even if they won’t give me a stall of my own in the market.”

“Why struggle so hard? Parchmenters make a living same as you.”

“Aaarch.” Martin set his cup down. “Many trades make a living. In fact, I’ve come to meet with a bookseller who says he may have need of paper books.”

Auda looked up. Why hadn’t he told her of this customer?