Peter felt neither hunger nor fatigue as he raced up the hill to spread the word. He waved and shouted it to all he saw, and more than one man crossed himself and vowed to light a candle to the saints in gratitude that he didn’t have a murder on his soul.
Maria saw him from the gate and guessed his news. She quickly ordered a bath for him and food prepared.
She met him at the door and was rewarded by a filthy hug.
“I don’t have time for a whole bath, Aunt,” Peter said as he snatched up a hunk of bread. “Have someone saddle a horse for me. I’m going to the house in Trier so I can be nearby if she needs anything.”
He took the steps two and three at a time, slamming against the stone wall as he went round the curve. He went straight to his room and took out his best tunic, pants and shirt, with hose to match the tunic. Then he ruined them all by stuffing them into a bag. After that he rummaged around in a box that his father had kept by his bed.
“Ah, there it is,” he said at last. “This will be good.”
He put the stone jar in the bag, as well, and pulled the strings. He took another bite of the bread and started back down.
“Send a barrel of last year’s wine from Saint Agatha’s field after me,” he told Maria. “You and Uncle Folmar can come with it, if you like.”
His horse had been hastily saddled. Peter checked the girth and then mounted and galloped off.
“What was that?” Folmar said as he came up behind his wife.
“Our nephew,” she replied. “I can’t how believe this girl has changed him.”
“It’s only his first infatuation,” Folmar said. “The feeling will soon pass.”
Maria looked him up and down.
“I’m sure it will,” she said sadly.
The dust kicked up by Peter’s horse as he made the turn into the main road fell gently onto the figure of a solitary man sitting cross-legged in front of his tent. The cross on his tunic was grimy, but he kept the one on his shield bright. It proclaimed to all that he was neither beggar nor brigand but a soldier of Christ doing his work.
By now most of the local people had become accustomed to seeing Jehan there. Opinion about him varied. Some brought him offerings of food or small coins. Others mocked his devotion and hurled insults or road apples at him. Familiarity had lessened the earlier belief that he was an accomplice in Gerhardt’s death. Now he was just another oddity of the community.
He had whiled the time by practicing his swordsmanship on a makeshift dummy, hung from a branch. The village children found this eternally entertaining and there were usually three or four of them watching from a safe distance. He told himself that he had to be prepared for the moment when Agnes saw reason and allowed him to champion her in combat or even let him under go the ordeal in her name.
The weeks passed, though, and no summons came from her. She didn’t even send a message. No one would allow him to see her, and Jehan was beginning to suspect that he had made a fool of himself for a woman who was just as cruel to him in her way as her sister, Catherine, had been. Agnes didn’t care for him. She never would. Even if she should change, he had nothing to offer her except a readiness to die on her behalf. He wondered if she would regret it if he starved to death waiting for her here, but he was too much a soldier to succumb to anything so ignoble.
It was in this state of gloom that Andreas found him.
Jehan was staring mournfully at the hills beyond the river when his view was blocked by a tall, lean man with a weather-beaten face. He waited incuriously for the traveler to pass.
Instead the man crouched down, turning his head this way and that, as if to have the benefit of several angles before making a decision.
“What is it?” Jehan snapped. “I have no alms for you.”
Andreas grinned. “Ah, but I’m not asking for help; I’m offering it. You look like a man with a problem.”
“Nothing the likes of you can aid.” Jehan stood and made to return to his tent.
“Don’t be so sure, friend,” Andreas said more loudly. “You suffer from a common affliction, the scorn of a lady. It bites sharper than a tipped flail, doesn’t it?”
Jehan didn’t turn around. “That’s none of your business,” he growled. “Get away from me.”
Andreas took a step toward him. “But if this scorn could be turned to love, even adoration, what would a man give for that?”
Despite himself, Jehan was intrigued.
“A man might give a great deal, if it worked,” he answered.
Andreas smiled in satisfaction. He opened a bag hung around his neck and pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment. He held it up just out of Jehan’s reach.
“Yes see this?” he asked. “Can you read it?”
“I can make out French,” Jehan said. “That’s not it.”
“Of course not,” Andreas said. “This is an ancient charm written in the language of the prophets. What do you think took Bathsheba from the arms of her husband and into King David’s bed?”
“Money?” Jehan guessed.
Andreas lifted his eyes to Heaven. Not another one.
“No,” he answered. “Money can’t buy a virtuous woman.”
“Then maybe she wasn’t …” Jehan said.
“No, it was this very incantation!” Andreas wasn’t about to get into another unprofitable debate. “Words of power that cast a lasting spell to make any woman your adoring concubine … or even wife, if you prefer,” he added as Jehan opened his mouth again.
“What good is it to me if I can’t read it?” Jehan asked.
“You don’t need to,” Andreas answered. “You eat it. First you soak it for three days in the blood of a heifer. Then you mix it with red wine. After that you rub the letters off the parchment so that they dissolve in the liquid. Then, on the night of the new moon, before there are more than three stars in the sky, you line a cup with oak leaves and drink it, all the while thinking of the face of your beloved. The next morning she will wake with a desperate desire for you.”
Jehan scratched his chin. “It sounds reasonable,” he said. “But the new moon is over a week away. If it doesn’t work, you’ll be long gone with my payment.”
Andreas hadn’t expected this much sense from him. He decided to take a chance. He drew himself up and placed his right hand on the hilt of Jehan’s sword.
“I swear to you by the cross that you wear and by the blood of Our Lord, that this charm will bring you all you desire from your lady,” he said.
“Very well,” Jehan said. “I’ll take it.”
The price was high, a fine pair of leather gloves, but Jehan would have given much more to at last win Agnes’s devotion.
It was only after Andreas had vanished down the road and Jehan sat examining the parchment that he realized there was something familiar about it, especially the French words only partially scraped out on the reverse side.
He jumped up angrily, preparing to go after the swindler and retrieve his gloves, preferably with the man’s hands still in them. Then a thought occurred to him. If this were what he thought, it was certainly a sign from God. How else could a complete stranger bring him the one thing that might convince Agnes to give him her body, if not her heart?
Catherine sat on one side of the bed and Solomon on the other. They had watched all through the night but Margaret’s condition hadn’t changed.
“What more can we do?” she asked. “Her poor body is beginning to heal, but her spirit has fled.”
“I hoped that when she heard my voice, she’d wake at once.” Solomon bit his lip. “That was prideful of me, wasn’t it?”
“There must be a way to get her back.” Catherine sighed. “Brother Berengar says that he’ll ask the infirmarian to come by and examine her.”
Edgar woke and came to watch with them.
“We must send someone up to the old woman’s hut with a gift,” he suddenly realized. “She thought Margaret was a Jewess but saved her life anyway. That was very kind of her,
and very brave.”
“I’ll try to find out what she needs most,” Catherine said. “And bring it to her, myself.”
Hubert came in just after dawn. “The boy Peter is here,” he said. “He wants to see Margaret. Will you let him? The lad seems so miserable.”
“I don’t suppose it will harm her,” Catherine said. Solomon nodded agreement.
Hubert left and returned a moment later, followed by Peter. The boy gasped when he saw Margaret’s battered face.
“Will there be scars?” he asked.
“On the inside, certainly,” Solomon answered. “We don’t know about her face.”
Peter hesitated, then unknotted his sleeve and took out the clay jar.
“I thought this might help her,” he stammered. “Father said it eased the pain in his hands and shoulders. He used it every night.”
Catherine reached out for the jar. She untied the twine holding the lid on and sniffed it.
“What’s in it?” she asked. “Where did it come from?”
“Father got it from a friend who had the making of it from the convent at Mount Saint Rupert,” Peter answered. “The abbess there is known for her wisdom and skill with medicine.”
Solomon translated and Catherine sniffed again. “Yes, I’ve heard of her. Mother Heloise corresponds with her from time to time. This seems to be the same compound that they used for Sister Bertrada’s suffering.”
She dipped a finger in the salve and licked it. She made a face and wiped her tongue on her sleeve.
“It’s all I could think of, and I so want to help,” Peter pleaded.
“It might ease her pain.” Solomon took the jar and started to rub some into the angry cut on Margaret’s cheek.
“This tastes like … Solomon, stop!” Catherine cried as she knocked the jar from his hands. “Peter, where did this salve come from. Who made it? How long did your father have it? Solomon, ask him!”
Solomon did. “What is it, Catherine?”
“There’s something in there that I don’t believe was put in at Mount Saint Rupert,” she answered. “Solomon, I think I know how Gerhardt was poisoned. Now we just need to find out who did it.”
Twenty
Monday morning, 7 kalends September (August 26), 1146; 15 Elul, 4906. Feast of Saint Roc-Amador, the earliest Christian hermit in France, arriving before the death of Saint John. Getting there first allowed him the cave with the best view.
Homo, qui mollem carnem habet et de superfluis potionibus de gutta, id est gich, in aliquo membro suo fatigatur, petrosilinum ac- cipiat et quater tantum de rutha et in patella de oleo olivae frixet, vel si oleum non habuerit, cum hicano sepo infriaxi faciat, et her- bas istas calidas loco, ubi dolet, imponat et panno desuper liget.
A man with tender flesh and troubled in any limb by excess flux of gout, that is “gich,” should take parsley and four times that amount of rue and roast it in a dish of olive oil. And if he has no oil, he should have it roasted in goat grease He should put the herbs warmed in this way on the place it hurts and tie it up with a bandage.
Hildegarde of Bingen,
Liber compositae medicinae de
aegritudinum causis, signis
atque curis. liber v
Peter was mortified that Catherine believed his offering to be tainted.
“But Father used it for years,” he insisted. “It always eased the pain.”
“There wasn’t wolf’s bane in it originally, I’m sure, Peter,” Catherine said. “But there is now. I know the taste of it. When I was around your age I helped in the infirmary at the Paraclete. Sister Melisande taught me the difference between horseradish and wolf’s bane. Many people have eaten it accidentally and become very ill. They don’t often die because the taste is vile and they recognize it at once. But the oddest thing about this poison, she said, was that it could be potent if one only touched it, although it would take longer to kill a person that way.”
“Wolf’s bane?” Peter said. “There’s some growing by the stream just south of the castle. Margaret stopped me from eating it.”
The memory and the sight of her still form on the bed were enough to cause his eyes to fill again.
“Peter, all we can do for Margaret now is wait and pray,” Catherine said. “But now that we have this we might be able to find the person behind your father’s death. Now, do you have any idea when this jar was made up for him?”
Peter tried to remember. “After Easter, I know, because he was complaining that it was almost gone then. He had thought there was more.
“Did he have to send to this convent each time or did someone here know how to make it?” she asked.
“Oh, anyone could do it,” Peter said. “It’s just parsley and rue roasted in goat tallow. You heat them in a little pot and put the preparation on a cloth while it’s still hot as a poultice. But father didn’t always have the patience to wait and so he just rubbed it on, especially when it was warm out. You know, he did say that the latest batch was the best, yet. It made his skin tingle and he felt the warmth through to his bones.”
“It would, at the beginning. Did anyone else in the family have this problem with swollen joints?” Catherine asked. “Hermann, Maria?”
“No, just Father. He said my grandfather had been troubled by it, too.”
“Who knew where the jar was kept?”
“Oh, everyone, I suppose.” Peter shrugged. “It was in a box in his room, along with the cloth for the poultice.”
Catherine sighed. That didn’t narrow down the possibilities much. Even Agnes could have ground up wolf’s bane and mixed it in with the tallow. So, even though she now knew how and had an idea of why, the who still eluded her and until they found that, Agnes would never be free.
In the meantime, there was the question of this man who had incited the villagers to attack Margaret. Catherine could feel no forgiveness for those who had listened to him but was willing to leave them to Peter and the abbot of Saint Maximin. However, the kind of monster who would enjoy stirring people up to viciously harm an innocent girl, that was a man who should be destroyed. Vengeance may belong to the Lord, but Catherine wanted to be there to cheer when He collected from Andreas.
At the moment Andreas was not far away, blissfully unaware of the hatred directed toward him. He had also yet to learn the magnitude of his mistake in thinking Margaret Jewish. The men he had fallen in with in Köln had been eager to punish the infidel at home rather than go all the way to Edessa. The men in the village near Trier were angrier about the bad harvests and the continual fighting between the archbishop and Graf Heinrich. It was harder to get them interested in saving a soul for Christ. And in the end the girl had nothing valuable on her, after all.
Andreas sat up and stretched. It was time for him to be heading somewhere else. South, perhaps, into Burgundy. He had only joined up with the heretics because of his belief that they had wild orgies as part of their rites. A man at a tavern in Provins had told him that these were like the Manichees that Augustine wrote about. They would have a service and at the end, when the candles were blown out, each man would grab the woman nearest him and they would couple as many times and in as many ways as they wanted.
Instead he found that they didn’t believe in sex at all, even in marriage. Their food was terrible. Moreover, everyone was expected to share all they had with the others, except their women, of course. Andreas had left in disgust. If he’d wanted that kind of life, he’d have sold himself to a monastery as a lay brother. At least he’d be guaranteed care in his old age. These people were likely not ever to reach their dotage. No one had told him until he arrived in Köln that just three years ago, some of this same sect had been burned at the stake.
Now it seemed like a good idea to distance himself from them. And what better way to do it than by denouncing that one up at the castle? It was the rich heretics who were the most dangerous. They could bribe officials to protect their people, just the way the lousy Jews did. Andreas sneered just thinking about
it. No one had ever paid to save him from anything and he had the scars on his back to prove it.
Andreas rolled up his pack, secreting the gloves he had received from Jehan deep in the middle. First he would go to the bishop’s palace, where the archdeacon had promised him a reward for his information and then he would slip out the south gate and try to get as far away as he could by nightfall.
Peter was deep into speculation about who had contaminated his father’s salve and what he should do about it. He didn’t notice Andreas coming across the marketplace until he nearly bumped into him.
“Out of my way, lad,” Andreas pushed him aside.
“How dare you, peasant!” Peter pushed him back. “And I’m not a lad; I’m a lord. It’s your place to make way for me.”
Andreas looked at Peter’s worn clothes and dusty boots and realized that they were finer than anything he ever hoped to own. Swallowing his bile, he stepped aside.
“Forgive me, my lord,” he said.
Peter got a good look at his face then and leaped for him.
“Du mortraete!” he screamed. “Murderer! Help! Edgar! Walter! Come quickly! It’s him!”
Andreas spun in Peter’s grasp and twisted the boy’s arm painfully so that he had to let go. The man then loped off toward the palace. He didn’t know what the boy thought he had done but it was better to deal with it from the safety of the archdeacon’s office where he could present his information in trade for protection.
“After him!” Peter shouted at the townspeople who had gathered at his cries. “He tried to murder Margaret.”
Andreas could feel the chase but knew better than to take the time to look. He flung himself at the cathedral door knocking over a cripple begging in the porchway. He then ran down the east aisle and past the altar screen into the choir.
The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Page 32
