Cranwell and Lucy spent their time in September just roaming the estate. I would see him sometimes while I was jogging, sitting in the forest on a fallen log scribbling in the notebook he always carried in his pocket, or throwing a stick for Lucy in the meadow. He would wave at me and then turn back inside himself.
At dinner, as a rule, he was attentive and made for good company. I asked him about his walks one evening over gougère bourguignonne and braisé de boeuf. The spongy texture of the cheese bread was a perfect foil for the meat.
“So what is it that you do out there in the forest with Lucy all day?” I asked this as I unwound my hair from its bun and combed through it with my fingers. The uncommonly nice weather was drying out my skin, making my scalp itch. Of course, I wouldn’t be caught dead scratching in Cranwell’s presence, but the feel of my fingers gliding through my hair was soothing.
“Hmm?” He looked up at me over the rim of his wineglass.
“You’ve been wandering around out there for the past three weeks.”
“I’m getting ideas. Talking to God. I think best when I walk.” He reached toward his back and pulled his fisherman’s sweater over his head, leaving his hair in an uncharacteristic sprawl across his forehead.
I resisted an urge to reach out and push it back into place.
He unbuttoned the sleeves of his faded denim shirt and rolled them up. I’d like to know why denim shirts always look so good on men.
“How’s it coming?”
“Well.” His eyes were glazing again and their focus moved from my eyes to my hands, to my hair. He stared, as if mesmerized, and reached out a hand, fingering the ends of my hair.
I could feel my chest constrict.
“What color hair did Alix have?” It was clearly a question he was asking himself. I couldn’t have answered if I’d tried. My voice had disappeared.
He put his other hand to his chest as if to search inside a pocket on his jacket. When he realized he wasn’t wearing his jacket, his lips curved into a self-deprecating smile. “I think I’ll take Lucy for a walk.”
He let go of my hair. I watched him rise like a sleepwalker and snap for Lucy.
She rose and sighed, sending me a beseeching look.
I gave her a pat and then shook my head as they walked up the stairs to the back door.
“Don’t forget your coat.”
He paused and then turned, staring at me for a long moment. “Right.” Reversing directions, Cranwell came back down the stairs and then went up the spiral staircase toward his room.
Watching them leave, I put shaking hands to my hair, gathered and rewound it, and knotted it back into place.
That week I dedicated to making confiture, or jam. I’d put foundation correspondence on hold, canceled my regular trip into town, and decided to skip the week’s regional flea markets. September is the traditional month for jam making in France. In fact, in the 1700s, when the revolutionaries renamed the months of the calendar, September became Fructidor, identifying it with the fruit processing done during the month. In case of questions regarding my cooking diploma, I do adhere to the laws of jam making. (In France, birthplace of bureaucracy, you cannot doubt that there are laws governing this skill.) For to make jam is not to make marmalade; neither is it to make compote. Jam is composed of great quantities of both sugar and fresh fruit, whole or juiced. Marmalade, of course, includes gelatin and purée, while compote violates the jam rules by including very little sugar.
My boxes of fruits verger, or orchard fruits, covered every available space of the kitchen. There were apples, pears, peaches, plums, figs, gooseberries, and black currants, as well as a mound of lemons, a pile of vanilla beans, and bag after bag of sugar. I also had a selection of hazelnuts and chestnuts to add to several of the jam mixtures, and I had an assortment of jars and lids.
Standing back to survey the work before me, I suddenly felt very tired. Over an espresso I organized my work according to the ripeness of the fruits in front of me. The prep work wouldn’t take too much time: squeezing the lemons, crushing and chopping the nuts. The more perishable fruits I would process first: peaches, pears, gooseberries. The others could safely be left for the end of the week.
After my espresso, I rearranged the boxes in accordance with my plan of work: Those I would process first were nearest my work area; the rest were placed farther away toward the back door.
I’d made sure I’d taken no reservations that week, and I’d stocked the freezer with food from Picard… but that was my little secret. The Picard frozen food grocery chain sold anything one could imagine from sauce béarnais to coquilles St. Jacques. And the preparations were extremely well done. Serving Picard wouldn’t damage my reputation in the least. I only hoped it wouldn’t help it!
It was in the middle of my jam week that things began to rearrange themselves. At first I assumed it was Cranwell, so I mentioned it at dinner on Wednesday evening. We were enjoying filets de pintade aux cèpes et aux girolles-so much that I’d almost decided to let Picard do my cooking more often. The fowl was perfectly moist, and the sauce that accompanied it, studded with mixed mushrooms, was divine.
Between courses, I got up to check on a batch of jars and happened to realize how stained my white tank top and pants were; at that point in the evening, it wasn’t worth changing clothes. And besides, Cranwell didn’t care. And that was what reminded me.
“Cranwell? If you need to move my boxes when you take Lucy out, could you remember to replace them afterward?”
“What boxes?”
“The ones by the back door. The fruit. I lined them up in the order I’ll be needing them.”
He turned on his stool to take a look at them. “We haven’t been going out that way. I didn’t want to interfere in your production line.” He turned back around to face me. “What’s been going on?” The color of his burgundy crew-neck sweater was echoed by the color of the wine we were drinking. As he took up his glass and put it to his lips, the color was reflected by a glint in his eyes.
I swallowed. “Nothing. It’s probably just me.” I picked up the baguette and sliced a piece for myself. But the problem was, it wasn’t me. I knew myself, I knew my work habits, and I knew exactly how I had laid out the boxes. They were no longer in the same order I had placed them.
“Maybe Sévérine cleaned down here and moved them around.”
My brow couldn’t be stopped from wrinkling into a frown. “She never cleans down here. The kitchen is my responsibility. She helps me serve meals and clean up after them, but that’s it.” But even as I was speaking I remembered that I had come upon Sévérine in the kitchen at an odd time earlier that day. It had been in the mid-afternoon, long after lunch had been put away and hours before she was due for dinner. I had gone out into the garden to do some weeding but then decided to snip some basil for dinner while I was thinking about it. I gathered some leaves and returned to the kitchen to put them in the refrigerator.
As I came through the back door, I saw Sévérine crouched along the bottom of the kitchen wall by the stairs.
Pausing in my step, I almost lost my balance and cried out. Sévérine whirled around and came up to her feet, a dinner knife in her hand.
She’d said something about wanting a baguette and dropping the knife when she had been buttering it. At the time, I remember being surprised: The French only butter their baguettes at breakfast. Now that I’d remembered, I decided to ask her about it.
But when she came down for dinner, Cranwell plied her with questions. She was still responding as she made her way back up the stairs.
“How broad was education during Alix’s time? I know that she was a scholar. Would she have read books in Latin, French… Arabic, Hebrew, Greek?”
She paused on the staircase. “We know she read Latin and French. Arabic is not popular. With the Crusades, the church is not so pleased with the Arabs. All their knowledge is thought stained by their religion, and so they keep their sciences and their maths to themselves. Hebrew is difficult. The Jews of course know Hebrew, but they have been chased from France in the fourteenth century. Before this, there have been many in this region. But they must leave and settle in the Kingdom of Provence and in Spain and Italy. There are no official Jewish populations in France during the fifteenth century. There are people in France who are Jewish who pretend that they are not. Understand? But we have no documents written in Hebrew and no schools of Hebrew because they are not allowed. And Hebrew is difficult whatever is the case because at that time it is used as both alpha and numeric. Each letter represents also a number. I will show you this.”
She came back down the stairs, set her plate on the table, and took a pad of paper and pencil from my desk. “By example, the letter Y and the letter A. The tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Yod, may be used like our letter J or like Y. And Aleph, like our A, is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.” She drew what looked like an N with a wavy line on top of it. “In Hebrew these are also the numbers ten and one. So you might add them together and make eleven. And the fun is that an eleven such as this might be just the number eleven or it may be a symbol.”
“A symbol?” Cranwell looked thoroughly confused.
“Yes. The ancient language is read on many different levels. Some numbers were special and some were not. Twelve by example is a complete number and very significant. Eleven misses one, and because it is not quite twelve, it symbols for not complete. You see?”
“I think so.”
“Bon. As for Greek, according to her journals, Alix did not know this. I have answered your question?”
Cranwell nodded.
As Sévérine continued her ascent, my eyes dropped to the place I’d seen her crouching earlier. The mortar between the stones looked as if it were crumbling. Either that or I had mice. I grabbed a broom and swept up the debris. As I was sweeping, I thought of Sévérine picking up that dropped knife and then using it to cut and spread a pat of butter. My nose wrinkled. After dumping the crumbled mortar in the wastebasket, I decided to throw away the butter Sévérine had used. No point in contaminating food with what might be mortar mixed with mice droppings. I opened the refrigerator, found the butter dish, grabbed it, and took it to the sink. When I took off the lid, I was surprised to see that it was still wrapped in paper. It had never been used.
Why would Sévérine have lied to me? And what had she been doing with the knife?
The next week brought a conference to my chateau. It was sponsored by the French Ministère de la culture et communication and it was meant to address the significance of Alix’s journals to the current record of late-medieval French history. Mostly it was a chance for six professors from the University of Rennes II and the University of Paris IV (the Sorbonne) to come together and debate their interpretations of the journals.
The significance to me? It was the first conference I’d ever hosted.
During the restoration of the estate, I had made the decision to put off restoring several of the outbuildings as well as the stable that I currently used as a garage. I could have easily added another six guest rooms to my total, but I wanted instead to narrow the scope of my efforts. I had also been tempted to close off the council room on the bottom floor. There was no real need for it; I’d already placed a library on the third floor and had a pseudo-office in my kitchen. Besides, the room was huge, stretching the entire width of the chateau, with the towers flanking it on either end. It might have been used as a ballroom in an earlier period of history. The windows had retained their integrity, and the fireplace was functional; no immediate work was necessary. It had been my first guests who had inquired whether I had any meeting facilities. At that point, starting my business, I’d had no idea of the ridiculous fees I could charge, and so I was interested in anything that would bring in more money.
The conversion of the space to a conference room had been easy. It necessitated the purchase of modern amenities such as a large screen that could descend from or roll up into the ceiling; an overhead projector; a VCR and a computer hooked up to a ceiling-mounted one-gun projector; a printer; a copier; a fax machine; a telephone; blackout shades for the windows. And also pieces to lend the room atmosphere, like a huge, respectably faded and worn carpet, purchased from Drouot auction house in Paris; a large, long reproduction table in the best Renaissance style; a dozen comfortable folding leather arm chairs of a sort of medieval “director’s chair” model; a map desk filled with paper, tape, scissors, and paper clips; a long, waist-high, hand-carved cabinet on which I had placed a coffee maker, a thermos for hot water, and a selection of teas, demitasses, and cups and saucers. I even had the ceiling’s beams painted in rust, green, and gold with coats of arms and trophées de guerres, military trophies.
To enhance the “Council of War” theme, the walls were decorated with all the shields, pikes, helmets, and spears that I had been able to pick up at flea markets. I’d even acquired two full suits of armor to guard the fireplace.
On the whole, it was a room to be proud of, and I had to admit that if I wasn’t looking forward to the horde of guests that week, I was looking forward to seeing the room used.
In planning for the conference, I’d been certain that I’d thought of everything. I designed the breakfasts around breads and fruit, making sure that they would not require time-intensive preparation. I’d planned lunches and dinners around easy stews or roasted meats with simple desserts such as sorbets, cakes, and cheese platters. And everything would be served from a buffet table. It had been perfect.
Until Sévérine announced that she wouldn’t be able to help.
“But-”
“It is impossible for me to be here.”
“But this is a conference on Alix. Think of your dissertation. All the experts in your field will be here.”
“I have not been invited.”
“So invite yourself. Offer to take notes. I can’t believe you would want to miss this opportunity.”
Sévérine just shrugged and that was the end of it. At least as far as she was concerned. It wasn’t the first time she’d dumped the duties she’d signed on for. A month earlier, she’d left me short-staffed as I was preparing lunch for some guests. She hadn’t returned until late the following day.
Maybe that single-minded pursuit of knowledge was an asset as an academic. It certainly wasn’t appreciated by this employer. Our arrangement wasn’t formal-it had been verbal. That left me with more power, but Sévérine seemed to act, at times, as if she were doing me a favor by showing up to help at all.
If I hadn’t been so busy with my work at the inn and with the foundation, I might have asked her what was going on. I was familiar with the symptoms of a workaholic, and I knew Sévérine was consumed with her academic pursuits. Peter had been the same way with his career. But my role as his wife had precluded me from saying anything because when I voiced my concerns, it sounded like I was nagging.
Sévérine had become my friend. And this time, maybe I could say something.
But not right now. My job had just doubled. Not only would I be making meals, I would be serving them, tidying the guest rooms, doing unending loads of laundry, and trying to wedge in a few hours of sleep when I could.
Deciding to prep as much of the food as possible in advance, I spent an entire day chopping vegetables like celery and carrots and creating pear, apple, and cassis sorbet, as well as delicate chocolates that would accompany espresso during the conference coffee breaks, and oeufs en gelée, eggs in gelatin. I made terrines, both of vegetables and meat, and simmered stock for several of the dishes I would prepare later.
Cranwell appeared promptly that evening for dinner, Lucy ambling along beside him. Frankly, I hadn’t put much thought into dinner, but I made quick work of slicing into one of the vegetable terrines and tossing a baguette on top of the island. Then I seared two steaks and made a quick reduction of wine and mushrooms to accompany them. For dessert I decided some of the aged Roquefort I’d had delivered would sit well with an old Porto I had in the cellar. And I was right.
Cranwell thought so too. “I’ve never tasted a better Roquefort.”
It was the perfect combination of salty tang and cream. “It’s from my secret source.”
“Have you had any other strange happenings lately?”
“No.” I was embarrassed at ever having brought the subject up with Cranwell. “Have you had any other encounters with God in your wanderings?”
He looked surprised and took time to spread cheese on a piece of baguette before answering. “Yes. Quite a few-”
I heard Sévérine coming down the stairs and excused myself so I could prepare her steak. Cranwell never finished his thought.
“Robert, you are well?” Sévérine appropriated my stool and sat down next to Cranwell.
He put down his bread and smiled at her. “Yes. And I have some questions about Alix I’d like to ask you.”
“Of course. I can answer after I have eaten. I will meet you at your room.”
I smiled to myself. Her response was so typical: Never mix business with food… at least not until dessert.
Cranwell glanced at his watch. “Nine?”
Sévérine nodded. Then she rose and took her tray from me and climbed back up the stairs.
“It’s a good thing you caught her tonight. She won’t be here next week.”
“Where’s she going?”
That question stumped me. She hadn’t really said.