The collection of objects didn’t look like much, but they held enormous significance, for they represented the past eight months.
I picked up the small book with a trembling hand and flipped it open. Matthew had given it to me soon after we’d arrived at his mansion in Woodstock. In the autumn of 1590, the book’s binding had been fresh and the pages creamy. Today the leather was speckled and the paper yellowed with age. In the past I’d tucked the book away on a high shelf in the Old Lodge, but a bookplate inside told me that it was now the property of a library in Seville. The call mark, “Manuscrito Gon?alves 4890,” was inked onto the flyleaf. Someone—Gallowglass, no doubt—had removed the first page. Once it had been covered with my tentative attempts to record my name. The blots from that missing leaf had seeped through to the page below, but the list I’d made of the Elizabethan coins in circulation in 1590 was still legible. I flipped through the rest of the pages, remembering the headache cure I’d attempted to master in a futile attempt to appear a proper Elizabethan housewife. My diary of daily happenings brought back bittersweet memories of our time with the School of Night. I’d dedicated a handful of pages to an overview of the twelve signs of the zodiac, copied down a few more recipes, and scribbled a packing list for our journey to Sept-Tours in the back. I heard the gentle chime as past and present rubbed against each other, and I spotted the blue and amber threads that were barely visible in the corners of the fireplace.
“How did you get this?” I said, focusing on the here and now.
“Master Gallowglass gave it to Dom Fernando long ago. When he arrived at Sept-Tours in May, Dom Fernando asked me to return it to you,” Alain explained.
“It’s a miracle anything survived. How did you manage to keep all this hidden from me for so many years?” Matthew picked up the silver rat trap. He had teased me when I’d commissioned one of London’s most expensive clockmakers to make the mechanism to catch the rats prowling our attics in the Blackfriars. Monsieur Vallin had designed it to resemble a cat, with ears set on the crossbars and a little mouse perched on the fierce feline’s nose. Matthew deliberately sprang the mechanism, and the cat’s sharp teeth dug into the flesh of his finger.
“We did as we must, milord. We waited. We kept silent. We never lost faith that time would bring Madame de Clermont back to us.” A sad smile played at the corners of Alain’s mouth. “If only Sieur Philippe could have lived to see this day.”
At the thought of Philippe, my heart skittered. He must have known how badly his children would react to having me as a sister. Why had he put me in such an impossible situation?
“All right, Diana?” Matthew gently laid his hand over mine.
“Yes. Just a bit overwhelmed.” I took up the portraits of Matthew and me wearing fine Elizabethan clothing. Nicholas Hilliard had painted them at the Countess of Pembroke’s request. She and the Earl of Northumberland had given the tiny likenesses to us as wedding gifts. The two of them had been Matthew’s friends at first—along with the other members of the School of Night: Walter Raleigh, George Chapman, Thomas Harriot, and Christopher Marlowe. In time most of them became my friends, too.
“It was Madame Ysabeau who found the miniatures,” Alain explained. “She scoured the newspapers every day looking for traces of you—anomalies that stood out from the rest of the day’s events. When Madame Ysabeau saw these in an auction notice, she sent Master Marcus to London. It’s how he met Mademoiselle Phoebe.”
“This sleeve came from your wedding dress.” Matthew touched the fragile fabric, tracing the outlines of a cornucopia, the traditional symbol of abundance. “I will never forget the sight of you, coming down the hill to the village with the torches blazing and the children clearing the way through the snow.” His smile was full of love and a pleased pride.
“After the wedding many men in the village offered to pay Madame de Clermont court, should you tire of her.” Alain chuckled.
“Thank you for keeping all of these memories for me.” I looked down at the desk. “It’s much too easy to think I somehow imagined everything—that we were never really there in 1590. This makes that time seem real again.”
“Sieur Philippe thought you might feel that way. Alas, there are two more items that require your attention, Madame de Clermont.” Alain held out the ledger. A tied string kept it from being opened, and a blob of wax sealed the knot to the cover.
“What’s this?” I frowned and took the ledger. It was far thinner than the ones here in Matthew’s study that contained the financial records of the Knights of Lazarus.
“Your accounts, madame.”
“I thought Hamish was keeping my finances.” He’d left piles of documents for me, all of them awaiting my signature.
“Mr. Osborne took charge of your marriage settlement from milord. These are the funds you received from Sieur Philippe.” Alain’s attention lingered for a moment on my forehead, where Philippe had placed his blood to claim me as his daughter.
Curious, I cracked the seal and opened the covers. The little account book had been rebound periodically when more pages were required. The first entries were made on thick sixteenth-century paper and dated from the year 1591. One accounted for the deposit of the dowry that Philippe had provided when I married Matthew: 20,000 Venetian zecchini and 30,000 silver Reichsthaler. Every subsequent investment of that money—such as the rollover of any interest paid on the funds and the houses and land purchased with the proceeds—was meticulously accounted for in Alain’s neat hand. I flipped through to the final pages of the book. The last entry, made on sparkling white bond, was dated 4 July 2010, the day we had arrived back at Sept-Tours. My eyes popped at the amount indicated in the assets column.
“I am sorry it is not more,” Alain said hastily, mistaking my reaction for alarm. “I invested your money as I did my own, but the more lucrative, and therefore riskier, opportunities would have required Sieur Baldwin’s approval, and of course he could not know of your existence.”
“It’s more than I could ever imagine possessing, Alain.” Matthew had settled a substantial amount of property on me when he drew up our marriage agreement, but this was a vast sum. Philippe had wanted me to have financial independence like the rest of the de Clermont women. And as I had learned this morning, my father-in-law, whether dead or alive, got what he wanted. I put the ledger aside.
“Thank you.”
“It was my pleasure,” Alain said with a bow. He drew something from his pocket. “Finally, Sieur Philippe instructed me to give you this.”
Alain handed me an envelope made from cheap, thin stock. My name was on the front. Though the poor adhesive had long since dried up, the envelope had been sealed with a swirl of black and red waxes. An ancient coin was embedded in it: Philippe’s special signal.
“Sieur Philippe worked on this letter for over an hour. He made me read it back to him when he finished, to be sure that it captured what he wanted to say.”
“When?” Matthew asked hoarsely.
“The day he died.” Alain’s expression was haunted.
The shaky handwriting belonged to someone too old or infirm to hold a pen properly. It was a vivid reminder of how much Philippe had suffered. I traced my name. When my fingertips reached the final letter, I dragged them across the surface of the envelope, pulling at the letters so that they unraveled.
First there was a pool of black on the envelope, and then the ink resolved into the image of a man’s face.
It was still beautiful, though ravaged with pain and marred by a deep, empty socket where once a tawny eye had shimmered with intelligence and humor.
“You didn’t tell me the Nazis had blinded him.” I knew that my father-in-law had been tortured, but I had never imagined his captors had inflicted this much damage. I studied the other wounds on Philippe’s face. Mercifully, there weren’t enough letters in my name to draw a detailed portrait. I touched my father-in-law’s cheek gently, and the image dissolved, leaving an ink stain on the envelope.
With a flick of my fingers, the stain lifted into a small black tornado. When the whirling stopped, the letters dropped back into their proper place.
“Sieur Philippe often spoke with you about his troubles, Madame de Clermont,” Alain continued softly, “when the pain was very bad.”
“Spoke with her?” Matthew repeated numbly.
“Almost every day,” Alain said with a nod. “He would bid me to send everyone from that part of the chateau, for fear someone would overhear. Madame de Clermont brought Sieur Philippe comfort when no one else could.”
I turned the envelope over, tracing the raised markings on the ancient silver coin. “Philippe expected his coins to be returned to him. In person. How can I, if he’s dead?”
“Perhaps the answer is inside,” Matthew suggested.
I slid my finger under the envelope’s seal, freeing the coin from the wax. I carefully removed the fragile sheet of paper, which crackled ominously as it was unfolded.
Philippe’s faint scent of bay, figs, and rosemary tickled my nose.
Looking down at the paper, I was grateful for my expertise in deciphering difficult handwriting.
After a close look, I began to read the letter aloud.