The Devil's Door: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Sharan Newman

  “Have you ever met the count of Tonnerre?” she asked.

  Paciana shook her head.

  Across the cloister the bell was ringing for Matins. Catherine washed her hands.

  “You’ll stay with her?” she asked.

  Paciana nodded, then her fingers made the sign for the number seven and seven again. Catherine sighed.

  “I know that one should forgive seventy times seven, but only those who sin against us. And the sinner should first repent, I think. Mine is a righteous anger, Paciana. The proud and haughty need to be brought low, especially the haughty count Raynald.”

  Catherine followed the sound of the bells to the chapel, but she stumbled often in her recitation of the office. The only thing she wanted to pray for was the swift smiting of the count of Tonnerre. What sort of man would beat his wife and then try to pass it off as the work of someone else! They found her outside the castle! Who would believe that? Why would she have been travelling alone? Where were her guards? Did Raynald think the nuns were incapable of noticing the difference in the scars? Well, he wouldn’t be allowed to continue in his wicked schemes. Mother Héloïse would learn of this.

  The office of Matins flowed into Lauds, and from Lauds until the office of Prime, at dawn, the sisters worked quietly by candlelight on sewing or study. Catherine usually read for these hours, the most pleasant of the day for her. But this morning she went over to the abbess’s chair and, kneeling next to it, whispered that she must speak with her about the countess. At first Héloïse frowned, then she whispered back.

  “You may come to my room, after Prime. We can discuss it then fully.”

  When they had finished singing the office, Catherine followed Héloïse to her room. The abbess sat down at a table covered with papers, which she regarded wearily. Catherine could tell they were not devotional reading without looking at them. Only the convent accounts caused the abbess to look so tired. Héloïse picked one up and began to read through it.

  “Catherine,” she said without looking up. “If we are given the rights to berries and apples in the wood between the convent and the monastery of Vauluisant, and fallen trees for fire, but may not cut any standing trees and must maintain the road through as well as leave all acorns for the pigs belonging to the monks, do we have a profit or a liability?”

  She handed the paper to Catherine.

  Catherine studied for a moment. “There isn’t enough information here,” she said at last. “How do we feed the men who clear the road? What is the fruit harvest and who gathers it? And how much damage do the pigs do?”

  She gave the paper back.

  “The pigs!” Héloïse exclaimed. “I knew I was forgetting something. They can turn a road into a morass in no time at all. It would be our responsibility if a cart lost a wheel or a horse stepped in a hole and broke its leg. And we haven’t even been given the tolls to that road. Prioress Astane felt there was something suspicious about this offer. Wait until we meet again with the prior of Vauluisant!”

  She stopped. “But that’s not why you’ve come. What is troubling you so that you felt the need to speak to me during the Great Silence?”

  “Mother, I’ve found out something dreadful.” Catherine told her what she had discovered.

  Héloïse listened gravely.

  “You are making a very serious accusation,” she told Catherine. “What proof do you have that any of the wounds suffered by that poor woman were caused by the count?”

  “Who else had the power to use her so severely for so long? Many of those scars were long ago healed over.”

  Héloïse began to gather up the accounts.

  “I can think of many others, her parents or guardians. I don’t remember all of her early history. I believe she has a mother and a stepfather. She may have been a recalcitrant child.”

  “Mother! No child is wicked enough to deserve such treatment!”

  Catherine thought of her parents and how recalcitrant a child she had often been. She had endured her share of punishments, but no one had ever hurt her like that.

  Héloïse nodded. “I agree. I am only pointing out that there may be other explanations for the scars. Some may even have been self-inflicted. She may have felt the need to subdue the flesh. I do not approve of that practice, either.” She forestalled Catherine’s objection. “I am simply putting forth another possibility.”

  Catherine was outargued, but not convinced. She shook her head.

  “I understand what you are saying, Mother. I formed a conclusion without studying all possible rational hypotheses. But I feel I am right.”

  “Ah, my dearest Catherine,” Héloïse smiled. “That is the worst fault of the human philosopher. When logic fails, we feel. Or we twist the logic to fit our emotions.”

  “Then I should ignore my feelings?” Catherine asked.

  “Not at all.” Héloïse turned back to her desk as she replied. “Often our feelings are sound. But you must analyze them fully and find a rational basis for them. If you can find none, then you must learn to put them aside. The dialectic I have taught you is not for use in the classroom alone. Just because you dislike Count Raynald is not good enough reason to assume he is a monster. You may go.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Catherine waited. “Would you like me to come back before Compline and help with the accounts?”

  “No, they can wait.”

  Héloïse piled up the stacks of papers with little interest. Under the accounts were a few pages of a letter. Catherine only glimpsed the salutation. “Heloisae ancillarum dei, ducttici ac magistrae … frater Petrus humilis Cluniacensium abbas, salutem a deo …” Peter, abbot of Cluny! Why would he be writing Héloïse?

  No doubt you feel you should be informed of all business between the abbey of Cluny and the Paraclete? Catherine’s voices said scornfully.

  Feeling well-chastised and completely frustrated, Catherine turned to go.

  “Catherine.”

  She stopped. “Yes, Mother?”

  “Whatever horrible things have happened to Countess Alys, you have my word that, as long as she is under my care, I will see to it that no one ever hurts her again.”

  Catherine closed her eyes and swallowed hard.

  “Thank you, Mother Héloïse.”

  But her heart still cried for the countess and her mind still insisted that whoever had hurt her should not be left to God alone.

  Two

  The coast of France, Feast of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin,

  Monday, March 25, 1140

  Forthon nu min hyge hweorfeth ofer hretherlocan

  min madsefa mid mereflode

  ofer hwœles ethel hweorfeth wide,

  eorthan sceatas, cymeth eft to me

  gifre ond grœdig gielleth anfloga

  hweteth on hwœweg hrether unwearnum

  ofer holma gelagu.

  And still my mind wanders within me my spirit with the tide across the whale road, wanders far upon the earth’s surface, and comes back to me eager and greedy, the lone flier calls, inciting the unwary heart on to the whale road and across the wide sea.

  —The Seafarer 11.58—64

  As the boat jolted against the sand, people began spilling out, wading or flopping to shore. Some fell to their knees as soon as they reached the waterline; others lay face down, kissing the salty earth. A tall, gaunt knight wobbled on sea legs as far as the rocks and gave one last retch before collapsing. Only one man stayed with the oarsmen and helped them drag the boat and its cargo onto the beach. He lifted out his precious oilskin satchel of books, gave each man an English farthing, and walked steadily across the sand.

  The sailor bit his quartered coin, dropped it in his purse and grinned at his companion.

  “Clerk he may be now,” he said, “but that one’s forefathers knew the whale road, I’ll swear to it.”

  “More Norse than Norman, for all his fine Latin and French,” the other agreed. “If I hadn’t known it by his hair, I’d have been sure the moment I saw him
downing ale and salt herring below deck in a full gale.”

  They laughed and belched at the memory, then tossed out the belongings of the other passengers and then, shuddering from the cold, swam the boat out past the breakers. They hoisted themselves aboard and rowed back to the ship, ready to sail on for Boulogne when the tide turned.

  Edgar didn’t look back as he left the channel behind him and strode inland to the village. He paid no attention to his fellow passengers, either. They had spent most of the trip moaning and praying. His excellent health and obvious enjoyment of the rolling of the ship had not endeared himself to them. He shifted the books to his other shoulder and felt once again for the roll of cloth tied about his waist. Sewn in it were thirty bezants, pure gold. Apart from the books, they were his entire fortune. He wondered how his brother, Egbert, had come by them. Like many things concerning his brother’s activities, it was better not to know. They were his now, honestly acquired, a bride-price to prove his worth to Catherine’s father, a merchant more impressed by ability and moveable wealth than lineage, especially when the lineage consisted of land in a country at the northern end of the world and a claim to a title usurped by the Norman invaders three generations ago.

  He fixed his thoughts inland, down through Flanders and Picardy to the edge of Champagne, to the Paraclete, where, he prayed, Catherine still waited for him. He had been gone less than four months, from Paris to Scotland and back again, resenting every moment wasted in waiting for tides or safe passage through the war in England. There had been no time to send or receive word, but he refused even to consider that she had changed her decision. His step quickened. His father had raged at his plans and his stepmother had warned him against competing with God for a woman’s affections. But he had placed his faith in Catherine, in the promise she had given him, and, yes, in the certainty that the intense need he felt to be with her was returned.

  Thinking of Catherine made him feel more wobbly than any ship could and he had an intense need for a long gulp of beer or even the sharp pear cider they fermented in Picardy. Edgar was glad to see the roofs of the town of Saint-Valéry and to remember that hard by the church was a fine inn which specialized in slaking the thirst of wandering scholars and pilgrims.

  The inn was ancient, the dirt floor swept down well below the level of the street. Edgar could imagine Roman soldiers sitting at these same plank tables and speculating on the chances of invading Britain. He knew that soldiers of William of Normandy had drunk there seventy-five years ago, waiting for the order for their own invasion of England. But the soup was hot and the cider cheap and none of the innkeepers of the last thousand years had allowed politics to interrupt business.

  Edgar sniffed his way through the windowless room to the hearth, handed over his money, filled his bowl and mug and trusted that his shins would find an empty stool where he could sit until his eyes adjusted to the gloom.

  “Here, man. You can sit next to me.” A hand guided him to a resting place. “You just off the boat from England?”

  Edgar downed the cider. “This is the first drink I’ve had in two days that didn’t taste of bilge and tar.”

  He pulled out his spoon and started on the soup. His companion went back to his meal. Edgard relaxed. Only thieves and trigoleres . made idle conversation with strangers.

  “Salve, amice! Going to Paris with those books?” another voice startled him.

  Edgar amended his thought; thieves, degenerates and vagabond students. He turned to the group at the end of the table.

  “Going back to Paris,” he told them, to forestall any of the wild tales gullible new students were treated to.

  “Anything good in your book pack?” the boy nearest him asked. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Edgar, at twenty-five, felt quite paternal toward him.

  “Not really,” Edgar said. “The Letters of Hildebert, a Macrobius, Seneca’s Naturales Quaestiones and a Life of Saint Cuthbert.”

  The boy groaned, “Just the sort of plodding stuff my master wants me to study. I’d have carried it to the bottom of the sea.”

  Edgar laughed and got up for another draught of cider. When he returned to the table, the two young students had gone outside to relieve themselves and then to try to follow the innkeeper’s directions to the nearest brothel. One man was left. He looked up briefly as Edgar sat. Something about his face in the flicker of the lamplight was familiar.

  “Don’t I know you?” Edgar asked. “Did we meet in Paris?”

  The man looked up again, startled. “Shouldn’t you have tried that speech with the boys?” he replied.

  Edgar cringed. Every father in Christendom warned his sons about the prostitutes and their procurers who pretended to be from one’s home town and then fleeced the poor homesick students of all they had.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “For a moment you looked like someone else. I meant no offense.”

  “None taken,” the man answered. “What’s the news from England?”

  “The truce with King David still holds,” Edgar answered, “or I wouldn’t have been able to cross from the north. But King Stephen has a talent for creating enemies. He made Philippe d’Harcourt bishop of Salisbury for about a week before Bishop Henry of Winchester stopped him and appointed his own man. I don’t see how the king hopes to maintain his authority. After all, if Stephen’s own brother, Henry, is against him, who will be next? I forget who’s bishop now. It’s nothing to me, in any case. No one has suggested putting a Saxon in the see again, just another bloody Norman.”

  “Don’t glare at me!” the man laughed. “I’m Breton. It was your people who drove mine out of Britain five hundred years ago. No one’s suggested giving anything back to us, either.”

  Edgar looked at him more closely.

  “I had a friend from Britanny once,” he said. “A stone carver named Garnulf. He came from Le Pallet.”

  “You knew Garnulf?” The man stared at him doubtfully. “What are you called?”

  “Edgar, of Wedderlie, in Scotland,” Edgar answered. “And you?”

  The man hesitated, then spoke. “I am also of Le Pallet. Garnulf did the altar carvings for my uncle, Dagobert, when he had the chapel rebuilt about ten years ago. He went on to work on Abbot Suger’s church, I heard, and died in a fall from one of the towers.”

  Edgar nodded. “I was there.”

  The man studied his face carefully. Then, to Edgar’s relief, he changed the subject.

  “I’m on my way to Paris with those two nurslings. You may join us, if you like,” he said. “I have a mule that can bear the weight of a few more books.”

  “I had hoped to travel with a better-armed party,” Edgar began.

  “It’s almost Holy Week,” the man reminded him. “The roads will be full of pilgrims and merchants going to the shrines and faires. I’ve arranged to join a group of Flemish cloth sellers.”

  Edgar felt the weight of the gold against his skin and thought of cut throats. But then he thought of Catherine. He wondered if he could have one coin made into gold bells for her ears. How they would shine against her dark hair!

  Suddenly he felt hotter than Saint Lawrence on the gridiron. “If you’re leaving at once,” he said, “I’ll come with you. I need to be in Paris as soon as possible.”

  “Neither of my charges have enough coin for more than a small taste of the delights of the flesh. They should be back shortly. If we leave before noon, we should be able to take advantage of the hospitality of the monks of Saint-Riquier tonight. With luck and good weather, we can celebrate Palm Sunday at Saint-Germain-des-Prés.”

  Edgar agreed. The man returned to his own dish and Edgar concentrated on finishing his soup. Damn. He hated making a fool of himself, but the man had seemed familiar. Even his tricks of speech and his cool disdain had reminded Edgar of someone. Not Garnulf, though. The poor old stone carver had been a model of gentleness and his tongue full of the rough gallic speech of the Bretons.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the r
eturn of the two young students. They tumbled into the inn like half-grown puppies, bumping against the tables and benches.

  “They wouldn’t take our money,” one whined. “Said the jaels were all busy with the knights from that ship. We have to wait until they’re finished.”

  “Then you’ll have to wait a few more days,” their keeper told them. “We’re leaving at once for Saint-Riquier. But no doubt the monks will provide more edifying entertainment.”

  “But As—tro—labe!” The boy’s whine rose as his voice squeaked in frustration.

  Astrolabe gave a quick glance toward Edgar, saw the gleam of recognition at his name, and sighed.

  “Get your things and meet me at the stables,” he ordered. “Are you coming with us?” he asked Edgar.

  Edgar nodded, his face expressionless. Inside he was grinning, though. Now he knew where he’d seen that face. Edgar had spent the past few years attending the lectures of Master Abelard. He should have seen it at once. Astrolabe’s face was a younger version, not worn by adversity, sorrow and illness, but with the same high cheekbones and long nose, the same air of assuredness. No wonder he didn’t want to give his name. Only one couple in France had been so uncaring of convention as to name their son after a navigational device, Héloïse and Abelard. Edgar wondered how he’d have felt if his father had named him Protractor or Anvil.

  He got up, wiped out his bowl and spoon and put them back in his pack. He filled his cup once more, for the journey. Although intensely curious about his new travelling companion, he vowed to wait for the man to talk about himself. Astrolabe must have passed his life answering the same questions that had leaped to Edgar’s mind. What was it like for all the world to know that your father had seduced your mother and been castrated for it by her furious family? Since Abelard and Héloïse had married after his birth, Edgar supposed that also made Astrolabe a bastard. Well, he’d known plenty of those, many of whom had legitimate bloodlines longer than his arm.