A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [128]
“So where is it?”
“You’re already out of patience, I see.” He went to a shelf, his eyes darting among the volumes. He pulled out a small book with black tooled covers and presented it to me.
When I looked for a velveteen cradle to put it on, he laughed.
“Just open it, Diana. It’s not going to disintegrate.”
It felt strange to hold such a manuscript in my hands, trained as I was to think of them as rare, precious objects rather than reading material. Trying not to open the covers too wide and crack the binding, I peeked inside. An explosion of bright colors, gold, and silver leaped out.
“Oh,” I breathed. The other copies I’d seen of Aurora Consurgens were not nearly so fine. “It’s beautiful. Do you know who did the illuminations?”
“A woman named Bourgot Le Noir. She was quite popular in Paris in the middle of the fourteenth century.” Matthew took the book from me and opened it fully. “There. Now you can see it properly.”
The first illumination showed a queen standing on a small hill, sheltering seven small creatures inside her outspread cloak. Delicate vines framed the image, twisting and turning their way across the vellum. Here and there, buds burst into flowers, and birds sat on the branches. In the afternoon light, the queen’s embroidered golden dress glowed against a brilliant vermilion background. At the bottom of the page, a man in a black robe sat atop a shield that bore a coat of arms in black and silver. The man’s attention was directed at the queen, a rapt expression on his face and his hands raised in supplication.
“Nobody is going to believe this. An unknown copy of Aurora Consurgens—with illuminations by a woman?” I shook my head in amazement. “How will I cite it?”
“I’ll loan the manuscript to the Beinecke Library for a year, if that helps. Anonymously, of course. As for Bourgot, the experts will say it’s her father’s work. But it’s all hers. We probably have the receipt for it somewhere,” Matthew said vaguely, looking around. “I’ll ask Ysabeau where Godfrey’s things are.”
“Godfrey?” The unfamiliar coat of arms featured a fleur-de-lis, surrounded by a snake with its tail in its mouth.
“My brother.” The vagueness left his voice, and his face darkened. “He died in 1668, fighting in one of Louis XIV’s infernal wars.” Closing the manuscript gently, he put it on a nearby table. “I’ll take this up to my study later so you can look at it more closely. In the morning Ysabeau reads her newspapers here, but otherwise it sits empty. You’re welcome to browse the shelves whenever you like.”
With that promise he moved me through the salon and into the great hall. We stood by the table with the Chinese bowl, and he pointed out features of the room, including the old minstrels’ gallery, the trapdoor in the roof that had let the smoke out before the fireplaces and chimneys were constructed, and the entrance to the square watchtower overlooking the main approach to the château. That climb could wait until another day.
Matthew led me down to the lower ground floor, with its maze of store-rooms, wine cellars, kitchens, servants’ rooms, larders, and pantries. Marthe stepped out of one of the kitchens, flour covering her arms up to the elbows, and handed me a warm roll fresh from the oven. I munched on it as Matthew walked the corridors, pointing out the old purposes of every room—where the grain was stored, the venison hung, the cheese made.
“Vampires don’t eat anything,” I said, confused.
“No, but our tenants did. Marthe loves to cook.”
I promised to keep her busy. The roll was delicious, and the eggs had been perfect.
Our next stop was the gardens. Though we had descended a flight of stairs to get to the kitchens, we left the château at ground level. The gardens were straight out of the sixteenth century, with divided beds full of herbs and autumn vegetables. Rosebushes, some with a few lonely blooms remaining, filled the borders.
But the aroma that intrigued me wasn’t floral. I made a beeline for a low-slung building.