The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Newman, Sharan

  “I must be here if she needs me,” Jehan replied without looking up. “She knows I’ll do anything to save her. Unlike some, who seem to be treating her peril as a chance for a summer outing.”

  “That’s a lie!” Catherine bent over so he had to look at her. “We’re all worried about her. But there’s no proof of her guilt and, if you just went away, we might get Lord Hermann to let her go in our custody!”

  “And forever have the stain of murder on her.” Jehan sneered. “That’s like you. Do whatever least upsets your life. I’ve offered to exonerate her as her champion over and over. She must know that someone is willing to defend her with his life.”

  Catherine tried to be gentler, even though Jehan could be very annoying.

  “Everyone knows that,” she said. “It’s very brave of you to offer to endure the pain of the ordeal for her sake. But there are always those who’ll deny the proof of it.”

  And, she added to herself, there’s always the chance that you’d fail.

  He saw the doubt in her eyes and spat on the ground by her feet.

  Edgar stepped forward. “How dare you insult my wife!” He shouted, raising his fist.

  Jehan only laughed. “Or what? You’ll pound me into the earth like a nail? I wouldn’t stain my sword with the likes of you.”

  “Here now!” Walter put the children down and loomed over Jehan. “None of that. A man who’s taken the cross shouldn’t behave like this. If you want to help Agnes, then you should pray for her instead of making a fool of yourself where everyone can see. You’re a soldier of Christ and should act with more charity.”

  “Only to those who deserve it, Walter.” Jehan stood so that Walter’s bulk wasn’t so overwhelming. “As a soldier of Christ you should be more selective about the company you keep.”

  “Walter?”

  He had wanted to raise his hand to the man but there was someone holding it. Margaret looked up at him.

  “Don’t hurt him,” she pleaded. “He’s so unhappy already.”

  Catherine felt a rush of shame. Of course Margaret didn’t know all the insults and injuries Jehan had given them over the years. But that shouldn’t make any difference. If they couldn’t forgive their enemies then what right had they to castigate others for not behaving like Christians?

  However, Catherine found that the best she could do was to hold her tongue. Edgar noticed the way her lips tightened to keep the sarcastic words from escaping. He smiled at her tenderly. Then he sighed; his heart wasn’t yet ready to feel charitable toward Jehan.

  Walter’s fist unclenched under Margaret’s gentle touch.

  “Jehan,” he said softly, “she’s right. And there’s nothing here that will bring you happiness. Go home. For Agnes’s sake. Go home.”

  Jehan turned away from them. Catherine thought she saw tears glittering on his lashes.

  “I can’t do that,” he said brusquely.

  He bent down and went into his tent, pulling the flap down after him.

  “Well, that was a cheery diversion,” Edgar commented as he picked Edana up from the roadside where she had been eating flowers.

  “I only hope Agnes is more appreciative of our company,” Catherine said.

  Agnes was becoming heartily sick of the wall hangings in her room. The blue and yellow woven pattern grated on her, especially when the sunlight struck it showing all the dust that had accumulated since they were last taken down and washed. She knew she couldn’t complain of ill-treatment. Every morning the chamber pot was emptied and a ewer of warm water brought her to wash with. Once a month a boy came to sweep out the old rushes and replace them. She was fed the same food the family ate. Lately she had received a clear impression that the family was beginning to doubt that she had killed Gerhardt. Even Maria, who had been the most fervent in her accusations, was relenting. Perhaps her father and Catherine were helping.

  So why was she still a prisoner?

  The worst of it was having so much time to think. It wasn’t something she had ever felt the need to do before. She usually had spent some time each day planning what needed to be done and what she hoped to do, but this enforced lack of activity had driven her to speculation in areas that she would rather not have entered.

  She said her prayers as she embroidered the cloth sent to her by the nuns of Saint Irminen, each flower or animal a symbol of the faith. She tried to concentrate on saints who had been unjustly incarcerated and miraculously freed. But against her will, her thoughts kept going back to her father. She had spent so many years blaming him for her mother’s unhappiness. But Madeleine had known of Hubert’s Jewish parentage when they married. Perhaps it was her own guilt that had sent her into madness.

  At least her father hadn’t waited until the wedding night to tell her mother what he was. He hadn’t rejected her mother or called her terrible names just because she was happy to take up her marital duties. If Gerhardt hadn’t wanted Agnes, then why had he gone through with the ceremony in the first place? What kind of man would be so hypocritical?

  These things went round and round in her head with no satisfactory answers. There were days when Agnes wondered if they were leaving her alone so much so that she would go mad, as well, and thus save everyone the scandal of a trial.

  It was in this frame of mind that she began looking forward to Catherine’s visits. Even her sister’s peculiarities were preferable to the notions lurking in her own mind.

  Today she heard the dogs barking below and Walter’s clear voice as he shouted over them. She wondered how many of the others had come. When the door finally opened, Catherine was there alone.

  “Brother Berengar couldn’t come today,” she said. “So Hermann will only let us have a few moments. Edgar has been allowed into the library at Saint Maximin and I’ve gone through all the medical manuscripts that the nuns had and we’ve found no illness with symptoms like those you described.”

  “Well, I’m sure you tried.” Agnes didn’t hide her disappointment.

  “But,” Catherine said, “we did find cases of a nervous condition that could either arise from a seriously troubled mind or—and this is the crucial part so please stop that sewing, Agnes.”

  “Catherine, if I don’t do this, I’ll start poking you with the needle,” Agnes answered. “I wish you’d stop using rhetorical devices and just tell me what you found.”

  “Sorry, I slip into it without thinking,” Catherine said. “Very well. Gerhardt was behaving in a way that might conform to slow poisoning. If he had a small amount of poison, an extract of monkshood or wolf’s bane, for instance, every day, he could have been building up enough in his body until one day, it was enough to kill him.”

  “Are you sure?” Agnes felt a glimmer of hope. “But what could he have been eating that no one else had?”

  “Well, it might be something he particularly liked and others didn’t,” Catherine said. “Can you think of anything like that?”

  “No, I can’t remember anything,” Agnes said. “No sweetmeat or delicacy. He ate very little, really. It would have been easier to poison me.”

  “But there must have been something,” Catherine insisted.

  “If there is, I don’t know it,” Agnes told her. “Don’t you think I’d tell you? Do you think I enjoy being up here all summer with nothing to do but wonder if I’ll live to see the autumn? And don’t you realize that if you can’t find a food that was only for Gerhardt, they might go back to assuming I had to have killed him through sourcery? For such a crime, I could be burned.”

  Catherine fell back on her chair. She hadn’t considered that. She had only been so excited to find a poison that someone else could have administered.

  She took a deep breath and set her jaw.

  “Then we’ll have to find out what this was put in, that’s all,” she said firmly.

  Agnes nearly laughed. “That’s all? Oh, Catherine, for once I’m almost glad of your amazing pridefulness. You really believe you can uncover the truth no matter wh
at.”

  “Not alone,” Catherine said. “Edgar will help me. We look at problems differently, you see, and so together we often find a solution.”

  Agnes’s throat felt suddenly tight. “How lucky you are,” she said wistfully. “Are you at all thankful for what you have?”

  “Every day, Agnes,” Catherine said. “And we’re going to get you out of this.”

  There was a knock on the door, signaling that their time was up.

  Agnes rose and hugged her sister. “I’m going to pray tonight for the faith to believe that you can do it,” she said.

  “You mustn’t give in to despair, my dear,” Catherine whispered. “It’s only then that the devil wins.”

  Downstairs the rest of the family were having a fairly pleasant time, under the circumstances. They had been offered white wine, chilled in a brook that flowed near the castle, and bits of herbed meat and fruit. Margaret was surprised to find herself put next to Peter.

  She smiled shyly at him. He blushed and offered her a plum from his plate.

  Maria watched them with a satisfied smile. She beckoned to Walter.

  “Peter told me that the child is no blood relation to Lady Agnes,” she began.

  “That’s correct,” he said. “She’s Edgar’s half-sister.”

  “And her mother was?” Maria waited.

  “He name was Adalisa,” Walter said. “I believe her mother’s family was from north of Paris somewhere.”

  Maria licked her lips in anticipation. “We understand her mother’s father is a man of some note.”

  Walter shuddered. Catherine had confided the name of Margaret’s grandfather to him with the injunction to tell no one. Now he understood why.

  “My information is that he is from Blois and Champagne,” Walter admitted. “But Margaret is unaware of the relationship and it’s up to her brother to decide when, or if, she should know.”

  “But Adalisa was of good family and acknowledged by her father, wasn’t she?” Maria said.

  Walter guessed she already knew the answers. A few questions to friends in the neighborhood would elicit all the gossip of the past thirty years. It was the same everywhere.

  “I believe so,” he said. “But I really know little about it.”

  “She’s a very sweet child.” Maria smiled at her. “And Peter is quite enchanted by her.”

  “I made it clear to Peter that in my opinion they are both too young to be thinking of an alliance.” Walter tried to close the conversation.

  “Oh, they are,” Maria agreed. “But it’s high time someone began making arrangements for them. I’m sure Lord Edgar has already started looking for a suitable husband for Margaret.”

  Walter knew damn well that Edgar hadn’t and would be furious to know what Maria was thinking. He was grateful that Maria couldn’t approach his friend without an intermediary.

  But Edgar had been watching the conversation, especially the nods and smiles at Margaret and Peter. When Walter managed to extricate himself from Maria, he walked directly into another predicament.

  “You told them about Adalisa’s father, didn’t you?” Edgar accused him. “Did you also mention that Margaret’s other grandfather is spending the rest of his life atoning for murder?”

  “No, but I don’t think Maria would care,” Walter said. “As long as he was of noble birth and the penance was conducted somewhere else.”

  Edgar saw the truth of that. “You shouldn’t have said anything to Peter about it. It was only to be expected that he’d tell his aunt. It was that woman’s scheming that brought Agnes here, remember? I have no intention of leaving Margaret under her care.”

  “Of course not,” Walter said. “But she is right about one thing, Edgar. The child isn’t a child anymore and you have to start thinking about her future now before she decides it for herself.”

  Catherine had entered the hall just in time to hear the end of his statement. She came over and linked her arm in Edgar’s.

  “That true, carissime,” she said. “Or Margaret may suffer my fate and be married all on her own to a man she adores.”

  Neither Walter nor Edgar could think of a rebuttal.

  Sixteen

  The home of Hezekiah, in Köln. Monday, 2 ides of September (August 12), 1146; 2 Elul, 4906. The feast of Saint Gaugeric, vulgarly called Gery or, even worse, Guric, who was born in Trier and became bishop of Cambrai.

  In the month of Elul, at the time when Radulf the priest—may God hound and smite him—arrived at Köln, Simon the Pious, of the city of Trier, returned from England where he had spent few a days.

  —Ephraim of Bonn

  Sefer Zekirah

  “I’m sorry, Simon,” Hubert said. “Now that I’ve found some men to ride to Trier with me, I think I’ll take Walter’s horse back by the road, rather that risk losing him in the river.”

  “It’s a wise decision.” Simon laughed. “I confess to being glad of it. I wasn’t eager to share my boat full of wool and furs with a nervous stallion. The dogs might not like it, either. In that case, you’ll probably arrive before I do, so you’ll stop by and let Mina know I’m on my way?”

  “Of course,” Hubert said. He was delighted to see that no harm had come to Simon on the journey to England. With the country still fighting a civil war, any trip there could be fatal. He asked Simon how the news of King Louis’s expedition had affected the Jews in England.

  “Oddly enough, that seems to be one thing King Stephen has control over,” Simon answered. “There’s been no talk of persecutions as far as I know. Wandering preachers who came to ecourage pilgrims to take the cross were forbidden by the king to speak against the Jews. Of course it may just be that the English have enough to worry about without bothering with us.”

  Hubert shook his head. “I don’t know. When times are bad, people look to find a cause for their misery. Too often it seems to be us.”

  “Ah but in England they’re all too busy blaming each other.” Simon stretched out on the warm bench and closed his eyes in contentment. “Why are you worried? There hasn’t been trouble here, has there?”

  “Nothing major,” Hubert said. “Mostly from routiers and layabouts, the kind always ready to create mischief. There has been a man in town for the past few weeks who’s attracted large crowds with his preaching against us, but so far there’s been no violence.”

  “Not even the gentiles want a repeat of the murders at the time of Pope Urban,” Simon said, though he was too young to remember them. They were part of legend now, like Judah Maccabee, and beyond his understanding.

  “No one in authority at least,” Hubert said. “But I don’t like the passion of this Radulf or the way some of his listeners look as if they’re dogs only waiting the right moment to be unleashed upon the hunted.”

  Simon gave Hubert an encouraging pat. “Köln is a city with too many strangers,” he said. “We’ll be back in Trier soon and among friends. The emperor has shown no interest in joining this mad army of King Louis’s. Without his support, few others will go and the preaching against us should soon end.”

  “I hope you’re right, Simon,” Hubert said. “So, when are you leaving for home?”

  “Tomorrow,” Simon told him. “They’re loading the boat now. We’ll set off just after dawn. I can’t wait to be home. My son is starting cheder as soon as I get back.”

  “May he grow strong in the Torah,” Hubert replied.

  Each man sank back into his own dreams. Simon of the family he would soon rejoin and Hubert of the world he could only watch from the edge.

  In Trier Catherine was pacing back and forth across the main room of their lodgings, kicking up chaff as she went.

  “Leoffest, could you please do that out of doors?” Edgar said. “I’m trying to put a varnish on James’s toy bow and all this upheaval is leaving bits stuck to it.”

  Catherine stopped. “Very well,” she said. But instead of going out she plunked herself down on a stool next to the work table Edgar had set up.


  “This is becoming ridiculous,” she complained. “No one really thinks Agnes killed Gerhardt any more. Everyone seems to want her released, but unless we can find a poison …”

  “Or prove he was ill,” Edgar added.

  “Or that,” she agreed. “No one will set her free. I know how angry you are that I spoke to Walter and he to Peter and so forth, but since she found out about Margaret’s grandfather, Maria has been much more helpful about searching her brother’s possessions for some clue as to what killed him.”

  “Not that it’s done any good,” Edgar grunted. “My dear, you’re leaning into the varnish.”

  “Sorry.” She rubbed the sticky patch on the end of her braid. “It must be something simple, something so normal no one would think of it. I know that when we find it, we’ll be astonished at our blindness.”

  “Perhaps.” Edgar didn’t have Catherine’s faith in their deductive ability. “Nonetheless, I want it understood that Margaret is not to be the price of Agnes’s freedom.”

  “Of course not!” Catherine was hurt that he’d think she’d even consider such a thing. “She does seem to be very taken with Peter, though, and he’s a nice boy.”

  “He’s just turned fourteen,” Edgar reminded her. “That’s the year I was sent to Paris to study.”

  “So?”

  Edgar rolled his eyes. “Boys are sent to other cities at that age not for the repute of the master but to get into trouble far enough away that their families won’t be embarrassed by them.”

  “Really?” Catherine was amused. “Is that why your friend John came from England?”

  “John sent himself, Catherine,” Edgar said. “That’s different. I don’t want Margaret left alone with Peter, however honorable he thinks his intentions might be.”

  “I love it when you act the paterfamilias.” Catherine kissed the bridge of his nose. “But I agree. We have enough to worry about here already.”