When Ms. Chancellor moves to the third painting, I have to step back to fully realize what I’m seeing. A man. It is a painting of a man, a giant, standing in the clear blue waters I know well.
“As you know, Grace, the Romans founded Valancia. Even two thousand years ago it was the crossroads of the world, and to mark the entrance to the bay they erected a monument, something to announce to the world that this was their land. Of course, eventually, the Roman Empire gave way to the Byzantines, and the Byzantines eventually lost Adria to the Turks, and the Turks to the Mongols, but the point is that for a thousand years a great stone idol stood, guarding Adria’s shores.”
“What is it?” I ask, gesturing to the painting.
“It’s Neptune. Roman god of the sea. Some say the angel led Sir Fredrick and his knights through the storm, kept them safe until Sir Fredrick could see Neptune on the horizon like a beacon, calling them home.”
I watch Ms. Chancellor’s light play over the scene as seven ships sail though the long, dark shadow of Neptune’s outstretched hand.
“Was there really a statue?” I ask.
“Oh yes. I’m told it was the height of two football fields.”
“Why haven’t I ever seen it?”
“Oh, it fell and eroded away ages ago,” Ms. Chancellor says with a wave of her hand. “The important thing is that it still stood when Sir Fredrick and his men battled that storm. Because of it, they found Adria. And safety.”
It’s easy to imagine ships full of war-torn knights coming here to outrun their demons. I don’t stop to consider the irony that this is where mine found me.
In the next painting, Adria looks like Eden. The seven ships bob on peaceful waters while the knights make their way onto the land. They fall to their knees and kiss the ground.
“When Sir Fredrick’s men climbed onto our shores they were greeted by people who had never known anything but war and unrest — people who had been mere pieces on a chessboard for centuries. They were greeted by people who took them in. Of course, at the time, Adria was ruled by the Mongols.” Ms. Chancellor points to the painting, at the warriors who watch Sir Fredrick’s knights from the hills in the distance. “But the knights quickly formed an alliance with Adria’s people, and together they fought until this new land was their own.”
When Ms. Chancellor turns to me again, there is a new twinkle in her eye. “Seven knights came to Adria, my dear. What the stories never say is that this is where they found and married seven women.”
When she reaches the next-to-last picture, Ms. Chancellor shines her light upon the beautiful faces of the brides who stand behind their husbands, smiling knowing smiles.
“These women had been born here, raised here. They knew every tunnel the Romans had carved beneath the city, every cave high in the hills. What the history books never say, Grace, is that Sir Fredrick and his knights won Adria because their wives showed them how to do it.”
She says this like it’s important, and I have to remind myself that once upon a time, my mother came to this room and heard this story.
A part of me has to wonder if this is what killed her.
Ms. Chancellor lowers her candle. “Now, it’s important to understand that Adria had never known peace. Not really. It was too important, too pivotal — every great empire wanted it for its own. And so as the knights of Adria ruled, their wives watched and listened and whispered in their husbands’ ears ways to keep their homeland from being pulled once more into war and chaos.”
She takes another step and lets her light fall upon the image of a great stone wall beginning to rise around the city.
“They told their husbands they would feel safer behind a wall. They suggested who the new country should trade with and why. And, most of all, these women remembered what their mothers and grandmothers had learned from the Romans, the Byzantines, the Turks, and the Mongols: that history almost always repeats itself. And it is almost always written by men.”
She’s right, of course. There’s a loop in my life — a pattern of violence and death and heartbreaking sorrow that I would give anything to stop. To rewrite. To end. But my walls are not yet high enough, not strong enough. What Ms. Chancellor doesn’t know is that I never will stop building.
“So that is how Adria was born, Grace. Sir Fredrick became King Fredrick the First. The knights who led the other six ships were given lands and riches and a place at the king’s side as his most trusted advisors. Years passed, and their sons became princes and lords and the leaders of Europe.”
She pulls the candle farther from the wall. Its gentle glow lights her face, and somehow I know this moment matters. My heart is pounding, my hands sweating as Ms. Chancellor turns to me.
“We are what became of their daughters.”
Three years ago the prime minister of Adria called his chief of security into his office and ordered him to kill my mother.
I don’t know why.
When I started asking questions, the same prime minister ordered the same man to kill me.
And now the prime minister is in a coma and my mother is dead, but the mystery lives on. The look on Ms. Chancellor’s face tells me that she thinks the answers are here, in this dimly lit alcove and centuries-old story. But I don’t see it. So I look up at the angel, willing her to guide me to the truth.
“What did the daughters do?” I ask. I can’t meet Ms. Chancellor’s gaze.
“They did the only thing women could do a thousand years ago: They stayed in the shadows. But shadows are the perfect place from which to watch, to see. And make no mistake, my dear, the women who founded Adria saw everything. We still see everything.”