The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Newman, Sharan

  Edgar smiled. “Yes, of course. Actually, I suspect that she wanted to go with you on the chance of seeing the young lord again.”

  Catherine gave him a look of horror.

  “Carissime, I’m not prepared to deal with that as well,” she said. “Please, for now let’s concentrate on returning home safely with my sister and my father. If you think we should start looking for a husband for Margaret, it can wait until then.”

  Edgar laughed outright. “Very well, now, go wash your face and prepare for the challenge of getting sense out of your stubborn sister nolens volens.”

  A short time later, impeccable of dress but highly rumpled of spirit, Catherine found herself in the great hall of the castle. Berengar introduced her again to Gerhardt’s family. She presented Maria with a gift of silver and onyx earrings that Edgar had made, although she didn’t mention that. She was offered cakes and wine, which she choked down as good manners demanded. Finally she found herself standing before the door to Agnes’s room.

  Hermann lifted the bar and opened the door. She stepped in and Berengar followed.

  “I’ve been told stay with you and note what you say,” he said in Latin. “To be sure you don’t plan her escape. Please don’t speak French too quickly.”

  Catherine had expected that, but she feared that a stranger in the room would make it impossible to reach Agnes.

  Agnes must have been told she was coming. She had dressed herself in her best clothes and looped her braids into an intricate pattern. She was sitting in the shadow by the window. Catherine couldn’t make out her face.

  “Agnes, are you all right? They haven’t hurt you, have they?” she asked. “I brought you some strawberries. We picked them this morning.”

  “I have not been mistreated,” Agnes answered steadily, ignoring the gift. “Except for the false accusation against me and the denial of my freedom.”

  Catherine took a step closer. She felt as if she were approaching something wild that might bolt if she made a sudden move.

  “We won’t leave here until you’ve been exonerated and freed. Father has promised to give all he has in your defense,” she told Agnes.

  “I don’t wish him to pay for a crime I did not commit,” Agnes voice rose.

  Catherine stepped back.

  “Then you have to help us, dear.” Her voice shook. She swallowed. “We’ve been here for weeks and can’t find anyone else who might have done this. No one will even tell us exactly what happened.”

  “That’s because I was alone with him,” Agnes told her. “Nobody else knows.”

  Catherine came closer again, gesturing to Berengar to stay in the corner where he had seated himself. She knelt before Agnes’s chair and reached her arms up to her.

  “Please, let us help you,” she whispered. “Confide in me as you used to. I want so much to release you from this nightmare.”

  She waited for the rebuff accompanied by an outpouring of scorn.

  Agnes only sighed.

  “There’s nothing you can do, Catherine,” she said finally. “I don’t know why Gerhardt died, either. I understand completely why they accuse me. No one else could have put poison in his food without killing me, too.”

  “That can’t be,” Catherine insisted. Inside she was rejoicing that Agnes had relented and was confiding in her. “Do you mean that you ate from the same plate, drank from the same cup and stayed together every moment?”

  “We were only married three weeks,” Agnes retorted. “Isn’t that how you and Edgar behaved?”

  Catherine felt herself blushing.

  “Actually, things were rather confused just after we were married,” she said.

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” Agnes’s voice turned sour again. “Gerhardt and I were never apart.”

  “I’m glad that you had some happiness, then, before the tragedy,” Catherine said with sincerity.

  Agnes closed her eyes and sighed. “Does that man have to be here?” she asked, referring to Berengar.

  “Lord Hermann insisted,” Catherine said. “But his French is rudimentary. And I think he’s dozing now.”

  They both looked over to where the monk sat with his hood up and his chin down, breathing slowly.

  Catherine leaned against Agnes. “Tell me what happened,” she said again, gently. “Maria has told everyone that she heard you crying on the wedding night and as for those maids of yours—!They would have it that you’re a wanton and a virgin both. Did Gerhardt hurt you?”

  She waited so long for the answer that she nearly fell asleep, herself.

  “No,” Agnes said at last. “Not in the way you think. I was prepared for pain. I’m not an innocent. No, what he did was worse. He rejected me. He refused to even get in the bed.”

  Catherine looked up in astonishment. “How can that be? You’re perfect. When you walk into a room, all the men start readjusting their belts.”

  “Elegant as always, Catherine.” But there was a hint of amusment now. “I believe that Gerhardt’s physical reaction to me was something like that. When he came in after I had been left in the bed, I lifted the blankets for him to join me and he took one look at me and groaned. Then he backed away, mumbling something that I couldn’t understand. But he made it clear that he wouldn’t get in with me, although his body made it clear that he wanted to.”

  “But why not?” Catherine asked.

  “It took some time for me to find out, since we didn’t feel like calling for an interpreter,” Agnes said. “When I covered myself he regained some composure. He then managed to explain that he had taken a vow of chastity after his wife died and begged me to agree to a spiritual marriage.”

  “Oh, Agnes!”

  “Don’t you laugh, Catherine,” Agnes warned.

  “I’m not even thinking of it,” she said. “How could he do that to you? He might have mentioned his vow before the wedding.”

  “Why did he even contract the marriage in the first place?” Agnes’s hurt and anger were obvious. “What I think is that his family didn’t know about his vow and, for some reason, he wouldn’t tell them. He was using me, Catherine. I was part of a deception and I don’t know why. But that wasn’t enough for me to kill him. I could have had the marriage annulled since it was never consummated.”

  “Why didn’t you tell your maids?” Catherine asked.

  “I was ashamed,” Agnes said. “They love gossip, as you know, and they didn’t like me. And I hoped that I could change his mind.”

  “You’d entice a man to break a vow like that?” Catherine kept her voice down and glanced at the corner. Berengar hadn’t moved.

  “He made a vow to me, too,” Agnes reminded her. “He had to break one of them.”

  “Saint Melania convinced her husband to have a spiritual marriage,” Catherine mused. “And any number of other couples have died virgins: Saints Amator and Martha, Sigolnea and Gislulf, Injuriosus and—”

  “Thank you, Catherine,” Agnes interrupted. “But if I had wished to be celibate, I would have entered a convent.”

  “Yes, of course. Sorry.”

  “I was considering explaining the situation to Walter when he returned,” Agnes continued. “Although that would have been almost as embarrassing. But then, suddenly, Gerhardt died.”

  She thought for a moment. “You know, I don’t believe anyone poisoned him. I think he was ill and trying to hide it from his family.”

  Catherine grasped at this eagerly. “What makes you say that? Did he appear ill?”

  “Not exactly, except at the end, of course,” Agnes said. “And I didn’t know what he was like before. You’d suppose his family would have noticed if his behavior had changed.”

  “In what way?” Catherine pressed.

  “Well, he was always moving about,” she said. “I thought it was excitement, or an attempt to contain his lustful thoughts. But sometimes he would rub his head, as if it ached and his hands were cold, even when he’d been running. He was thirsty all the time. He kept
a pitcher of water or beer at hand always and emptied it four or five times a day.”

  “That does sound like an illness,” Catherine said. “I know this is painful, dear, but what about the night Gerhardt died? Did he seem worse in the hours before?”

  “No more than usual,” she said. “He was trying to teach me German words. But now and then he would stop and stare over my shoulder, as if he saw a ghost … Oh, Catherine, you don’t think first wife was haunting us, do you?”

  “No, I don’t,” Catherine said. “Go on.”

  “I’m trying to remember.” Agnes pressed her fingers to her head. “We prepared to sleep. He had a mat on the floor in front of the door. I presume he didn’t want anyone to know we didn’t share the bed. We knelt together and said our prayers, but he kept stumbling over the words. He seemed exhausted and confused. I blew out the lamp.”

  “And then?”

  Agnes drew away as if even the memory could hurt her.

  “Far into the night I was awakened by his screams. He was having some sort of fit, thrashing about and yelling. I called for help as I ran to him. I tried to keep him from hurting himself. Aren’t you supposed to put something in their mouths? I was feeling about for a stick when he began to gasp for air. I thought he’d swallowed his tongue. All the while I was screaming. It seemed days before anyone came. By then he was almost dead.”

  Catherine went over this slowly. “Can you remember what he was saying at the end?”

  “No. He said my name once. Then it was just gibberish. Oh, yes. Sometimes he would shriek ‘min Got.’ That means he was asking God to save him. I’ve been learning the language, you see.”

  “Could he have been accusing you of poisoning?”

  Agnes seemed surprised. “I … I don’t know,” she hesitated. “No, if he had been, then there would have been no doubt and I’d be dead or in chains by now.”

  Catherine’s head had begun to ache, too. There was something she should be asking.

  “Who arrived at the room first?”

  “They all came in at once,” Agnes answered. “Hermann first, I think. He broke in with some servants who brought light. Then Folmar and Maria. She tried to keep Peter out but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Oh, poor boy!” Catherine exclaimed. “Now, this may be important, did someone say then that he had been poisoned? Who accused you first?”

  “I don’t know, Catherine,” Agnes said. “It was horrible. Gerhardt on the floor, thrashing among the rushes, and there were people everywhere. I was afraid they’d start a fire. Everyone was shouting at me and I couldn’t understand. Hell could be no worse.”

  “Oh Agnes, I’m so sorry.” Catherine took Agnes’s arms and slid her down until they were both on the floor. She held her sister and rocked her just as she would have Edana. “This should never have happened to you. You’re the good one; the dutiful child.”

  “So was Job,” Agnes snuffled.

  “I never really understood that book,” Catherine said. “But life did turn out well for him in the end and it will for you, too. You’ve given me enough to work with. I’ll find how who did this and how. Or I’ll find a way to prove Gerhardt died naturally. But I promise, promise that we won’t ever leave you here alone.”

  Agnes suddenly realized that the monk was awake and watching them. She pulled away from Catherine and straightened her head scarf. Catherine had forgotten all about him. She got up and went over to his corner.

  “I know you didn’t understand all of that,” she said in Latin. “But my sister made no confession. What she did tell me has created a lot of questions. Will you help me ask them?”

  Berengar let his cowl fall back. He smiled at her. She realized that he had been awake all along.

  “I saw nothing that would make me believe that child could do murder,” he said. “Yes. I will help.”

  Catherine was halfway back to town before it occurred to her that neither she nor Agnes had once mentioned their father.

  In Trier, Hubert made his way slowly to the Judengasse. At first he was so angry at Catherine that he could have struck her. Then, as he walked off some of his fury, he realized that she had only spoken the truth as she had learned it, a truth self-evident to most of the people around her.

  That didn’t make it any less bitter.

  What could he tell her, that he would be a good Christian for her sake? He’d already tried that and all he could manage was an outward image. The pain of having to do that much had always been like a dull knife cutting into his gut. But in recent years the knife had grown sharper and the pain could no longer be ignored.

  As he approached Mina’s door, he was relieved that this wasn’t a day of rejoicing. His grief would be unfeigned, although the destruction of the Temple was not such a loss to him as the tearing apart of his family.

  Mina greeted him quietly. “The men are all at the house of prayer,” she said. “My oldest son has gone there, to represent the family until Simon returns. I’m telling the other children stories. Would you like to join us or the men?”

  “You, please,” Hubert said. “I never learned the prayers and my ability to read Hebrew is only good enough for simple things. I am ashamed of this. I wasn’t much older than Asher when I was adopted. Almost everything I know was learned after I was grown.”

  “We won’t mock you for it,” Mina led him in. “Asher hasn’t started proper school, yet. His father will take him to the teacher’s home for the first day when he returns from England.”

  Asher overheard this. “But when will that be? Abba said he’d be back by today,” he complained.

  “He hoped to be,” Mina answered. “But you know how many things can delay one.”

  “I certainly do,” Hubert agreed. “Buyers who can’t decide, sellers who don’t appear when they said, goods that are not what was promised, all these things cost days. And add to that bad weather, detours because of bad roads or sickness in the towns. I could tell you so many tales of woe!”

  “But you always made it home,” Mina said.

  “Oh yes, of course,” Hubert added hastily. “All I had to do was think of my children waiting for me and I packed up my horse, no matter the weather, and stayed on the road until I saw the spires of Paris.”

  “And your Abba will, too, Asher,” Mina finished. “Now, you and Rebecca may go and and play … but quietly.”

  “I would offer you something,” she added to Hubert when the children had gone. “But not today. There is a bit of information I can share, though.”

  She seemed eager and Hubert felt a dawning of hope for Agnes.

  “Of course, something that will help?” he asked.

  “Perhaps,” she said, seating herself by the window where she could keep an eye on Asher and his sister. “According to a Christian woman I know, Gerhardt was in the habit of going to Köln every month or so. He said it was to arrange for the shipping of his wine, but really, no one needs to do that every month! And Maria’s husband, Folmar, does most of the shipping, anyway.”

  “So why did he really go?” Hubert asked.

  “That’s the odd thing; no one is quite sure,” Mina answered. “At first it was believed that he had a concubine there, perhaps one of our women, whom he would be ashamed to bring home.”

  “That’s most unlikely!” Hubert said.

  Mina gave him a look of derision. “Surely you don’t think it never happens? There is a man in town, we call him Shem. He lives with his father, Moshe. His mother was a Christian girl from a village downriver. Her family disowned her, of course, when she went to live with Moshe, but she never became one of us. So of course, Shem isn’t either. And yet he still insists he’s a Jew.”

  “So he willingly attaches himself to a ‘despised race,’ even when they don’t want him,” Hubert turned this over in his mind.

  “What did you say?”

  Hubert looked up. “Nothing. So now you don’t think it was a woman that drew Gerhardt to Köln?”

  “Not accordin
g to my friend.” Mina dropped her voice to a whisper. “She says her brother saw him coming out of the home of a man who just three years ago was tried for heresy.”

  “That doesn’t agree with the things I’ve heard about him,” Hubert said. “He was supposed to be exceedingly pious.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve heard that these heretics are bad even for Christians. They don’t accept the Torah at all, and only some parts of the books of the crucified one. They have strange rites where they perform acts only done in Sodom and Gemorrah.”

  Hubert nodded. “I have heard of these things in the past few years, but I thought them only idle gossip. Are you certain of your information?”

  “I’m certain of where he was seen,” Mina said. “As for the rest, it’s only hearsay. For all I know, the man no longer lives there and it’s now a convent. But it’s something for you to look into, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I do,” Hubert rose. “I’ll go myself. Thank you, Mina.”

  By unspoken agreement, Catherine and Hubert said nothing of their argument that morning. Both prefered to spill out all they had learned.

  “From what Agnes told me, it’s possible that Gerhardt’s death was from illness, not poison,” Catherine said. “We have to find out if he’d been behaving strangely or acting as if he were in pain before Agnes arrived in Trier.”

  “And I’m leaving as soon as possible for Köln to investigate Gerhardt’s actions there,” Hubert added. “We may yet find someone who wished him dead.”

  Edgar and Margaret listened politely. In the middle of Hubert’s talk Edgar noticed that Edana had grabbed a table leg and was leaning back with a reddening face. He picked her up with a practiced motion and deposited her on a handy chamber pot.

  “Stay there until you finish,” he ordered her. “Now, Catherine, you haven’t asked what we did today.”

  Margaret was grinning. “You aren’t the only ones who can get information, you know.”

  “But how?” Catherine asked. “Who could you talk to?”

  “We didn’t have to talk,” Margaret said proudly. “We just watched.”