The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Newman, Sharan

  “Stop treating me like an old man!” Hubert shouted at her. “That doctor in Paris is an idiot. There’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing except my youngest child being a prisoner alone in a barbaric country, subject to calumny and on trial for her life!”

  “Walter says she’s not being mistreated,” Catherine said. “Lord Gerhardt’s family is prepared to follow the law in this and wait until she can be tried according to custom. And we’re traveling as swiftly as possible. The children have been good and not held us up at all.”

  “As if that weren’t an altogether greater madness!” Hubert interrupted, glaring at Edgar, who had just come back from arranging for the boat.

  “You’re right, Hubert,” he said. “But it’s our madness.” He hesitated, licking his lips. “I know that Eliazar and Johanna offered to keep the children with them while we were gone. Perhaps they would have been safer in Troyes, but perhaps not.”

  Hubert started to give an angry answer, but Catherine interrupted.

  “You can’t pretend you don’t understand, Father,” she said. “I know that Abbot Bernard sent letters to try to stop the monk who is preaching destruction of the Jews. But that doesn’t mean he’ll succeed. And there are those who need no urging. I know the count and the bishop of Troyes will do everything they can to protect their Jews, but it may not be enough. I don’t want my children slaughtered or stolen because someone thinks they aren’t Christians.”

  “I’m sorry, Hubert,” Edgar said softly. “At least with us, they have nothing to fear from fanatics.”

  Hubert heard the unspoken statement. As long as he traveled with them, he had nothing to fear, either. They were a good Christian family, all of them. Catherine wore an ivory cross at her neck and his grandchildren were being taught Christian prayers. So no one doubted his orthodoxy. He felt the bile of self-loathing in his throat and swallowed it. He must think only of Agnes, not his own pride.

  Edgar continued. “There’s a man taking wine barrels down river to Trier to refill. He leaves tomorrow and has room for us all. We can put our baggage in the empty barrels.”

  “And arrive smelling like a tavern,” Hubert grunted.

  “Walter will ride ahead to let Agnes know we’re coming,” Edgar went on, ignoring him. “The river is fairly tranquil now so it should be a calm journey. The boatman says it should only take two days.”

  Two more days. Catherine’s throat constricted. What if Agnes were angry at them for coming, ashamed to be found in such a situation? Even worse, what if there were nothing they could do to help her?

  Margaret sensed her fears and came to sit by her, putting her hand in Catherine’s. Catherine smiled down at her. Poor Margaret! There hadn’t been time to take her to Count Thibault. She had considered asking if the girl might stay under the protection of the countess, but Edgar had forbidden it. It wasn’t right to leave her with strangers, he insisted, not after all she had been through. Catherine reluctantly agreed. There would be time when this was settled to introduce her to her grandfather.

  Hubert stood up suddenly.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “Good work, Edgar. That’s the best we could have hoped for. But if I sit here until then, I’ll start raving. I’m going out. I need to walk.”

  “Let me come with you, Father,” Catherine said. “I’m restless, too.”

  He hesitated, then gave in.

  “Very well, if you must,” he said.

  Catherine laced up her street shoes. Edgar had reminded her earlier that there might be some in Metz who knew Hubert as a man often in the company of Jews. The scene in Paris had frightened her. If he were alone and challenged, her father might well proclaim his Jewish birth. If she were there, she could prevent that.

  At least she hoped she could.

  The afternoon was warm, the sun heating the cobblestones of the street and glinting off copper pots hanging from a stand in the square. Children ran past them, some rolling a hoop, others intent on a game of hunting, riding on worn broomsticks and brandishing toy bows. Women sat by open windows with their spindles and chatted with friends passing by. The normality of the scene calmed Catherine’s spirit. She took her father’s arm.

  “Remember how you used to take us on feast days to see the tumblers in front of Notre Dame?” she asked. “Agnes still doesn’t know how the man was able to find a whole egg behind her ear.”

  “And you wanted him to repeat the trick until you figured it out.” Hubert laughed. “Even as a child you refused to believe that it was magic.”

  “No, I thought it was, but I believed I could learn how to do it, too,” Catherine said. “I broke so many eggs trying that Mother finally forbid the cook to let me have any.”

  As soon as she mentioned her mother, Catherine knew she had broken the mood. Hubert grimaced.

  “She was very tolerant of you.” He sighed. “Your cleverness pleased her. She had visions of seeing you become an abbess one day.”

  They walked in silence for a few moments, each thinking about the way their lives had altered from expectations. A wooden ball rolled into Catherine’s foot and she kicked it back toward the little girl who had lost it. She thought of Edana. No, it grieved her that her refusal to enter religious life might have led to her mother’s derangement, but she had chosen the right path.

  “Father, don’t dwell on it,” she said. “You did the best you knew how. You gave all of us anything we ever wanted. And I know how much you give the nuns for Mother’s care. We can’t change anything.”

  “I know that.” Hubert wasn’t comforted. “But perhaps I can redress the harm I did to Agnes, even if she never forgives me.”

  There was a way, Catherine knew. If Hubert honestly in his soul accepted Christianity and told Agnes of the sincerity of his faith, then she would have to forgive him and accept him again. But for that to happen would need a real miracle. And right now, her prayers were so occupied with sparing her sister’s life that it seemed impolite to bother God for anything more.

  Walter had only rested a night before heading back to Trier. Even though he trusted Hermann not to harm Agnes, he was uneasy about what was happening among the rest of the people at the castle and in the town. Accusations of sorcery were hard to prove, but people were more inclined to believe them if the accused were a stranger.

  He was also worried about Jehan. The knight had literally set up camp at the edge of Gerhardt’s land. He brought gifts of food or flowers for Agnes and was loud in protesting her innocence, offering to prove it in combat at any time. Walter had been unable to make him see that his devotion could only hurt Agnes. Soon people would suspect that the two had conspired to murder Gerhardt, if the rumors weren’t flying already. If the true culprit weren’t discovered, there would be little hope for either of them to prove innocence.

  Walter urged his horse to a faster pace. It seemed that, instead of fighting the servants of Satan in the Holy Land, he first would have to confront evil much closer to home.

  He was even more aware of it as soon as he arrived in Trier. He was surprised to find that even his pilgrim’s cross and his imposing presence weren’t enough to get him a room at one of the inns. He finally ended up again at the monastery of Saint Maximin, which refused shelter to no one.

  After seeing that his worn horse was being cared for and changing into a clean tunic, Walter set out on foot for the castle. After some thought he took both his sword and crossbow. He doubted that anyone would try to attack him but wanted it made clear that anyone who tried to harm Agnes would have to climb over him to do so.

  The first person he encountered was the last one he wanted to see.

  “Walter!” Jehan greeted him from his tent by the gate. “Have you seen Lord Garnegaud? Is he sending help for Agnes? When will they be here?”

  “God save you, Jehan,” Walter greeted him. “I didn’t see Agnes’s grandfather. I went to her father, instead. They should be here within the week.”

  Jehan’s dismay was palpable.

  �
�Her father? What were you thinking of? How could you go to those people?” he shouted. “Agnes would rather die than have them come to her aid.”

  “If you’ll forgive me, Jehan,” Walter said as he opened the gate, “I’ll ask Lady Agnes myself if that is her choice. Because it may well be the only one she has.”

  “You’ve doomed her, Walter!” Jehan wailed at his back. “They’ll hang her and it will be on your soul!”

  Walter continued up the hill, giving no sign that he had heard. If Jehan didn’t realize how much his own actions were damning Agnes, then his judgement on Hubert wasn’t to be considered.

  At first Agnes had simply been in a state of shock, then confusion. This couldn’t be happening to her. Wasn’t it bad enough that she had been so humiliated by Gerhardt on their wedding night? She had endured that without saying anything to anyone. Each night she had begged him to reconsider his behavior. She couldn’t make him understand that eventually someone else would find out and they would both be shamed. But she hadn’t reproached him before his family. She knew where her duty lay and she was prepared to bear her suffering in silence.

  And then, horribly, he was dead. There on the floor, first thrashing about and shrieking at things only he could see and then going limp in her arms as she screamed in terror.

  How could anyone believe that she would poison him and then be there to watch such agony?

  But someone must, or they would have set her free.

  They thought they were being kind to her. She was put in a comfortable room, allowed her clothes, needlework and the company of her maids. They simply refused to let her go or to tell her what was happening outside.

  She had rejoiced when Walter arrived from Köln, believing that he would soon put all to rights. But then he rode away again, with only a quick word of encouragement and the promise that he would not let her be harmed.

  And now she was left here with Laudine and Lisette.

  After the first week, she began to wish that Hermann had shackled her in a windowless dungeon rather than make her suffer through another minute with them. The dread she had felt at the thought of being imprisoned for murder was replaced by the fear that her punishment might be to live the rest of her life with these two.

  “You used all the blue!” Laudine whined as she sifted through the thread. “You always take the color I want.”

  “You always want the color I have,” Lisette retorted. “Why can’t you think up a design of your own instead of copying me all the time?”

  “Who would want to copy the insipid things you make?” Laudine raised her embroidery hoop and brought it down on Lisette’s fingers.

  Lisette screamed with rage.

  A moment later there was a knock on the door. Agnes lowered her hands from her ears to gesture for Laudine to open it.

  Two guards stood there. Behind them was Lady Maria, with a basket of new thread.

  “I understand you are running out of materials,” she said softly. “I thought I would bring more to keep you occupied.”

  Agnes rose to take the basket. She hadn’t understood the words but the meaning was clear. “Danc,” she said. “Is there anyone in the castle who speaks French? Frankish?” she added in desperation.

  Maria shook her head. Agnes’s shoulders drooped. She had to find a way to get rid of her maids. Was it possible that they were hoping she’d confess to the poisoning just to be free of their constant whining?

  The door shut and she threw the basket at Lisette and Laudine.

  “How could you behave so badly?” she said. “Lady Maria must believe we have brawling cats in here with us.”

  The two women stared at her in astonishment.

  “You killed your husband and forced us to be locked up with you,” Laudine answered. “And you reprimand our behavior? How dare you!”

  “We came with you on the promise that good husbands would be found for us here,” Lisette added. “Now we’re captives in a strange country. And, even when we get home, what can we hope for, with people suspecting us, too? You’re a haughty, ungrateful mordrisseuse and I wish you were hanged already!”

  Agnes could only gape in disbelief as Lisette burst into tears.

  “Look what you’ve done.” Laudine put her arms around Lisette. “Calm yourself, bele seur. I’ve been praying to Saint Perpetua that we’ll soon be released. She’ll help us.”

  Agnes could stand it no longer.

  “I did not kill Lord Gerhardt,” she stated in fury. “And you might find someone better to pray to, if you want to go home. Saint Perpetua wasn’t set free; she was martyred on a gladiator’s sword.”

  The looks they gave her told her that they didn’t believe her on either count. Agnes turned her back on them and retreated to the window in the far corner of the room. For the first time, she began to despair.

  “It doesn’t matter if I’m proved innocent or not,” she sniffed. “By the time any rescue comes, I shall be drooling with idiocy. Another day with those two should be enough. Dear sweet Virgin Mother, comfort me! I’ve fallen into Hell.”

  Ten

  Trier. Tuesday, 6 kalends July (June 26), 1146; 10 Tammuz, 4906. Feast of Saint Maxence, soldier, who was converted when his sword froze in midair as he tried to decapitate a monk.

  Cotidie morimur, cotidie commutamur et tamen aeternos esse nos credimus.

  Each day we die, each day we are changed and still we believe ourselves to be eternal.

  —Jerome

  Letter LX

  To Heliodorus on the death of his nephew

  The boat trip had been lively. Edgar had finally tied one end of a rope around his waist and the other around James to keep the boy from tumbling into the river, or at least to pull him out when he did. That and keeping Edana from following him managed to distract Catherine from what might be awaiting them in Trier. But as the walls of the city appeared on the right, harsh among the burgeoning vines, she was struck with fear.

  “Is Agnes in there?” she asked. The stones seemed so forbidding.

  “No,” Hubert answered. “Gerhardt’s castle is farther downriver, Walter says. But we’ll have to land on this side of the city.”

  He pointed to a line of wooden posts coming up on the right bank.

  “The boatman is taking the casks only this far,” he said. “We’ll have to walk the rest of the way, unless I can get a mule to carry Catherine and the children as well as one for the baggage.”

  “Believe me,” Catherine said. “After two days on this boat, all of us will be glad to walk.”

  With the help of the boatman, they were able to find an ostler who let them have a mule at a reasonable price and they loaded it with their belongings. He also gave them directions to the porta media, the southern gate into Trier and advice about where to stay.

  “I’d stop the night with the monks of Saint Eucharius, just outside the gate,” he said. “And wait until morning to enter the town.”

  “We’re supposed to meet a friend who will be at Saint Maximin,” Edgar told him. “Is your monastery near there?”

  “Nah, Saint Maximin is north of Trier.” The man grunted as he started to unload the barrels. “You’ll not make it tonight, not with babies and all. You on some sort of pilgrimage? Can’t think why you’d travel with children if they weren’t sick.”

  “It’s a family penance.” Edgar sighed.

  He picked up his daughter and deposited her on the back of the mule, between the parcels. They bade the boatman farewell and set out on the last part of the journey. Tomorrow they would meet Walter at Saint Maximin and reach poor Agnes at last.

  The monks greeted them kindly and provided plain, but adequate, shelter. That night Catherine couldn’t settle in her bed. Edgar and Hubert had been sent to sleep in a room with other men, but she was the only woman visitor. So she and the children had a room to themselves. It was lonely. Long after they had gone to sleep she lay awake listening to the sounds of night, punctuated by the footsteps of the monks as they rose
and hurried to chant the night office.

  She wanted to get up and go to the chapel, where she could join the prayers, even though she would have to remain hidden from the monks. But she daren’t risk the panic if one of the children, even Margaret, woke to find her gone. So she lay through the hours staring at the darkness above until the light grew enough to make out the thatch ceiling. This last night was the worst, for tomorrow she would be thrust into a strange world where, once again, she couldn’t speak the language and didn’t know the customs. Even more, she would have to face the stranger her sister had become.

  In the soul-searching that only comes in the silence of the hour before dawn, Catherine wondered if it were just possible that Agnes could have changed so much that she might be capable of murdering her husband.

  When they reached the marketplace of Trier the next morning, Catherine and Edgar realized at once that they would hardly be noticed among all the other travelers and traders. This was a wine city, as well as the seat of an archbishop. Foreigners were common and a merchant arriving from France, even accompanied by his family, aroused no one’s interest. On the journey they had heard that trade had fallen in the past few years, due to the feud between the archbishop and Graf Heinrich and a famine in the lowlands. But the marketplace still seemed busy to Catherine’s eyes. Perhaps the fine summer weather had brought people in from nearby villages.

  Now Catherine walked with the men beside the mule, which still carried their bags and Edana. James rode proudly on Hubert’s shoulders, kicking occasionally to point out something that excited him. Margaret clung to her brother’s arm, fearing to be lost in the throng.

  They passed a stone column surmounted by a granite cross that seemed to be a meeting point. Several people were sitting at its base, chatting with each other all the while looking around as if expecting someone. Hubert stopped and pointed it out to them.