Cursed in the Blood: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Newman, Sharan

  Solomon came and sat beside them.

  “I was hoping we’d see little men, painted blue, dancing on the rocks,” he said.

  Willa’s eyes grew wide.

  “Wood demons?” she asked.

  Catherine answered before Solomon could embroider the tale.

  “No, just men,” she told the girl firmly. “Picts, they’re called. And I don’t think they live on this side of Scotland. If there are even any left. Edgar says Saxons have been living in this area for generations now.”

  “Then perhaps we’ll see some Saxon elves?” Willa wasn’t ready to release her fantasy.

  Catherine realized that this country, so frightening to her, was like a living jongleur’s tale to Willa. There might be monsters, but there would also be heroes. And God saw to it that heroes always won. Who was she to destroy someone’s else’s faith?

  “We might,” she told Willa. “We’ll both keep watch for them.”

  Edgar had no hope of magic. As they drew nearer to the coastline, all he felt was dread. Somewhere on that soil the men who had killed his brothers and nephew lived in freedom. Part of him wanted to leave the matter to divine justice, as his early clerical training had dictated. But another side was surfacing. It astonished him that all the years of contented exile in France were slipping away, leaving him exposed to feelings he thought he’d cast out. He hadn’t much cared for his family, but someone wanted to destroy them and that meant they wanted to destroy him, too.

  How far would this reach? How many generations did the hatred last? Edgar thought of Catherine, lying miserably in the shelter of the tarp, and James happily watching the clouds sail by. Hubert had reminded him that he had taken on the enemies of her family when he married Catherine. He hadn’t considered that she had done the same. The realization chilled him. If anyone tried to harm his family …

  Edgar stopped himself. All the years of cathedral training fell away, and he knew that if Catherine or James were in danger, he could slaughter those who seeked to harm them and do it gladly.

  Four

  Durham, outside the bishop’s castle. Monday, 18 kalends July (June 14),

  1143. Feast of Saint Basil the Archbishop.

  Anno MCXLIII: Rogerus, Prior Dunelmensis, et Ranulfus archidiconus,

  directa legatione ad Apostolicum, ei afflictiones ecclesiœ Dunelmi

  exposuere. Cujus auctoritate freti, convocaverunt ad se apud Eboracum in

  capella Sancti Andreœ, … paucos de personis diocesis Dunelmensis, quos

  vix habere poterant propter persecutionem Willelmi Cumin, in media

  Quadragesima. Consenserunt ergo omnes in electione Willelmi decani

  Eboracensis, qui in diebus cuidam concilio apud Lundoniam intererat.

  1143: Roger, Prior of Durham and Ranulf, archdeacon, on a direct

  mission from the Pope, revealed to him the afflictions of the church

  of Durham. Fortified by his authority, they convened a few people

  from the diocese of Durham in the chapel of Saint-Andrew at York in

  the middle of Lent, … who were barely able to attend because of the

  persecution of William Cumin. Therefore, all agreed on the election

  of William [Ste. Barbe] a deacon of York, who was at that time

  attending a meeting in London.

  —The Chronicle of John, Prior of Hexham

  Urric hadn’t really minded being ordered to go to Durham and roust out Waldeve’s third son, although he grumbled about it loudly in the kitchens. The knight had long had a secret admiration for Duncan. It amazed Urric that anyone could be so absolutely certain of himself. Of course, Duncan had no sympathy for the weak or vacillating. His temper had been hardened by the fire of Waldeve’s outbursts and then cooled to icy stillness. The man was nerveless. Urric had seen Duncan slice men in two in battle without seeming to notice their screams. He was as oblivious and uncaring as Death himself.

  And yet, Urric trusted him. Duncan might be cruel but never without purpose. In this he was unlike his father, who seemed to thrive on making all those around him miserable. Waldeve hurt people for his own amusement and one never knew when he might be in need of diversion. If Duncan tortured a man, that man would know why long before the rope was tightened around his head.

  Urric felt that the change in lordship might not be so terrifying as others feared.

  That didn’t mean that he had set off with eagerness. Durham wasn’t a place anyone went to willingly these days. The county was a civil war inside the greater one being fought by King Stephen and his cousin, Matilda. Three years before, when Bishop Geoffrey of Durham had died, his acolyte, William Cumin, had convinced some of the monks to conceal the death until he could arrive from Scotland and claim the bishopric for himself. With the support of King David, whose chancellor he had been, Cumin managed to take over the bishop’s castle and receive the homage of most of the barons of the county. But the majority of the monks of the cathedral refused to accept him as bishop and a bizarre struggle had begun, with the monks barricaded in the church and cloister, surrounded by Cumin’s men and yet protected by the patronage and the relics of Saint Cuthbert, who was the true lord of Durham in the eyes of the people.

  Duncan had been Cumin’s friend at King David’s court and had joined him at once, hoping for the reward of land confiscated either from a recalcitrant lord or from the patrimony of Saint Cuthbert himself. Duncan’s respect for the Church ended at property lines.

  The past three years had not brought Cumin the recognition he demanded. King David had long ago withdrawn his support for the usurper. The papal legate had excommunicated him and there was a rumor that some of the monks had managed to escape the cloister and arrive in York, where a new bishop was to be canonically elected. But Duncan remained loyal to William Cumin.

  That puzzled Urric. Did Duncan really believe that there would still be a reward for supporting the false bishop? What could be great enough to risk dying in battle while excommunicate? Urric couldn’t imagine anything in particular but would be interested in discovering what was worth damnation and, if possible, getting a share of it.

  Now he and his fellow messenger, Swein, stood at the barricade at Framwellgate Bridge. Above them on the right rose the escarpment that jutted into the middle of the river Wear. That was impressive enough. But what took their breath away was the sight at the top where the cathedral of Saint Cuthbert stood, solid as fate and, next to it, made of the same massive stone blocks, the bishop’s castle, with guards staring down from every merlon.

  As he was about to present himself to the watchmen, Urric felt a prickling on the back of his neck and turned away from the sight of the impregnable fortress.

  Behind them in the road was a row of men, peasants and tradesmen by their dress. They carried no weapons but gazed at the knight and the serjeant with a hatred that pierced Urric’s mailcoat and left him cold and frightened. Even knowing that Swein stood next to him, huge and Danish, was not enough assurance. Urric showed his pass to the guards and crossed the bridge. Whatever awaited him inside the usurper’s lair couldn’t be worse than the palpable anger of the tenants of Saint Cuthbert, cut off from the shrine of their lord.

  From the far side of the bridge, Urric glanced back at the lowering men. The look on their faces was enough to send him hurrying up the steep path to the castle. He wanted thick walls and hard steel between himself and their fury. How had Cumin survived for so long with such opposition?

  Catherine wasn’t concerned with the politics of the English. All she wanted was for the ground to stand still. She didn’t understand it. She had spent hours gazing hungrily at the coast as the boat searched for a safe place for them to come ashore and now that they had, the land seemed to be as untrustworthy as the waves had been.

  “What’s wrong with it?” she moaned. “Does your island roll like the sea?”

  “The feeling will pass,” Edgar assured her. “Sit down and close your eyes.”

  “Not
until we’re in a warm, dry, still place,” she answered.

  They had landed at the town of Berwick, not far from Wedderlie. Edgar was surprised at how the place had grown in the past few years. Trade must be improving. The boat had sailed up the Tweed to the docks of the town, newly enlarged. The tollhouse at the dock had also been enlarged, whitewashed, and it was well staffed, to the captain’s despair.

  “That’s another reason I didn’t want to stop in here,” he muttered. “Tolls are much too high. And the place is full of monks. I have to trade with them or no one.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Solomon asked. He had spent the last ten years working for the abbey of Saint-Denis. He was used to monks.

  The captain grimaced. “They pay with the thinnest coins I’ve ever seen. They can drive a bargain tight as a wedge and I can feel them wedging it in me already.”

  He sighed and scratched at a flea in his crotch. Solomon shrugged.

  “You can set off back down to Wearmouth, if you wish,” he told the captain. “Cloth won’t spoil.”

  Having thoroughly irritated the flea, the captain turned his attention back to Solomon.

  “I could,” he said glumly. “But I need money now for repairs. I’ll have to sell what I can here and hope that my supplier will take coin for his skins, instead of cloth. At least,” he added, brightening, “I might get King David’s silver instead of the half-weight coins Stephen is minting.”

  They were interrupted by Leonel, the clerk who had traveled with them, weak from hunger and fear. “Captain,” he said, mustering up all his strength in an effort to assert his rights. “I paid you to take me to Wearmouth, not Scotland. How am I supposed to get home?”

  The captain stared at him.

  “You should thank the saints you’re still alive, on any shore,” he answered. “I’ll take you back down the coast with me, no extra charge, or you can see if the monks will give you shelter and then walk home.”

  “But I need to be at York in a week!” Leonel protested.

  The passenger’s complaint didn’t really interest Solomon, to whom the story was an old one. All travelers and traders faced these problems and it was how one solved them that made the difference between wealth and poverty. He left the two of them to come to their own solution and returned to the rest of their party.

  “Catherine?” He squatted next to where she was sitting. “Are you better now?”

  She opened one eye and then, cautiously, the other one. She took a deep breath and then stood.

  “Yes,” she said at last. “Now what do we do?”

  Edgar looked at his brother.

  “The abbey of Kelso has a hostel on Waldesgate,” Robert told them. “We can stay the night there. I’ll arrange for horses and guards for the journey to Wedderlie.”

  “Is it far?” Catherine asked when Edgar had translated.

  “A few more miles up the river is all,” Edgar said. “We’ll be there by tomorrow afternoon.”

  Catherine nodded and began to gather up their belongings. A hostel sounded fine. She wondered if there were a place where she and Willa could wash the salt from their hair and find someone to boil James’s swaddling cloths. She was as tired as she could ever remember being and her face was chapped from the wind and spray. Even her nervousness over meeting Edgar’s family was melting under her desire to be in one place, anywhere warm, dry and steady.

  The men took the bundles and led the way as Catherine, holding James in one arm, took Willa’s hand and followed.

  They walked down Briggate, parallel to the river. Catherine looked around. There were shops and even two-story houses. There was a church, although she couldn’t see to which saint. There actually seemed to be more monks in the street than lay people. It didn’t look so different from home. Not Paris, certainly, but perhaps a village nearby, one dependent upon an abbey. There were more blondes and redheads than she was used to, but none of them wore that silly skirt that the Scottish students in France affected. Well, there were a few, she amended, as a group of men rounded a corner, dressed in nothing but the skirts with their tunics tied by the sleeves around their waists. Willa nudged her and giggled.

  “Hush,” Catherine said. “We may look just as odd to them.”

  But she didn’t believe it.

  Solomon nudged Edgar, but not for the same reason.

  “Uncle was right!” he said excitedly. “We could make a fortune here. The monks are doing tremendous amounts of business. I’ve seen Benedictines, Tironians, Cistercians and some I don’t even recognize. They must need spices and incense and fine silk. Well, not much silk for Cistercians, but the others certainly! Perhaps this journey wasn’t as useless as I thought.”

  “Useless?” Edgar said. “Then why did you come?”

  “To take care of you and Catherine, of course,” Solomon answered. “How else do you think my uncles could have convinced me to leave them? I was also hoping you’d show me the lake with the monster in it.”

  “That’s far north of here,” Edgar said absently. “To take care of us! What sort of cracked-brain idea is that? You can’t even speak English!”

  “What difference does that make?” Solomon replied. “Do you think you’ll talk your enemies to death? I’m here because you can trust me. Is there anyone else in this whole kingdom you can say that of?”

  Robert looked at them quizzically, wanting to know what the argument was about. Edgar smiled an apology, then turned back to Solomon.

  “You plan on being Olivier to my Roland?” he asked. “Thank you. I mean it. You’re right. There are only two men in Britain that I trust completely. No, not even Robert. He’s the best of my brothers, I think, but I’m not positive even of him.”

  “So, who are they?” Solomon wanted to know.

  “Æthelræds, both of them,” Edgar answered. “And both too far away. One is my uncle and the other a friend from when I was a page at King David’s court.”

  Solomon’s eyebrows rose. “It’s always good to have a friend at court.”

  “This is even better.” Edgar grinned. “That Æthelræd has gone to be a white monk, somewhere down near York.”

  “A Cistercian?” Solomon commented. “I hear that they’re almost as powerful in England as in France. Still, York is a long way to call for help.”

  Edgar nodded. “So I’m glad you’re here, in case any is necessary.”

  Just then Robert gave a cry and began running up the street. Edgar gave one look at the man who had just appeared from around a corner and, with a whoop of delight, ran toward him as well. Catherine stopped where he had dropped their baggage.

  Willa bumped into her. She had been gaping at the man now being effusively greeted by her master and his brother.

  “Mistress,” she whispered tremulously, “I don’t think we’re in Paris anymore.”

  Catherine put a protective arm around her. Then she looked down at James, who stared up at her with Edgar’s clear grey eyes.

  “I suspect this is another relative of yours,” she told him. “And I was worried about how Edgar would react to my family!”

  She turned to Solomon, who had stayed with them.

  “Do you think he’s safe?” Willa asked, gesturing at the man.

  Solomon grinned at her. “Not in the least,” he answered. “So don’t you think we should greet him very politely? From Edgar’s reaction, I feel fairly confident that he’s a friend.”

  Willa wasn’t so sure. She had imagined magical creatures from the woods but they weren’t meant to be so big.

  “What does he eat, do you think?” she asked.

  “Large amounts of meat, most likely,” Solomon answered. “We’ll have to be sure he gets enough, or he may take a bite of you.”

  “Solomon!” Catherine stopped him. “She’s frightened enough!”

  Solomon started to apologize when Edgar came racing back to them.

  “It’s my uncle!” he told them. “Æthelræd, the one I just told you about. Come meet h
im.”

  He tugged at Catherine, who advanced slowly, Willa hiding behind her. Æthelræd started toward them, then seeing Willa’s frightened face peering around Catherine, he stopped with a laugh.

  “Ic beo manne, swa swa min broðorsunnu, Edgar! Ne forhtiað, cild!”

  Willa clutched Catherine to keep herself from running away. Even Catherine was startled by the sudden rush of alien words. The only one she understood was Edgar’s name. Æthelræd turned to Edgar.

  “What’s wrong with them?” he asked. “Do I reek?”

  “They don’t understand you,” Edgar explained. “French convents don’t give English lessons.”

  He went over to Catherine and took the baby from her arms.

  “Uncle says he’s human, just like me,” he told her. “You don’t need to fear him. He’s big but not dangerous … usually.”

  Not greatly reassured, Catherine still put out her hand in greeting. To her astonishment, Edgar’s uncle bowed like a fine lord and responded in heavily accented Latin.

  “In nomine Christi te saluto.”

  Catherine gave a startled laugh. It was as if a trained bear had spoken. Then she blushed.

  “Please forgive me,” she said hastily, also in Latin. “I wasn’t prepared to be honored with such a greeting. I thank you and greet you also in the name of Our Lord.”

  It was Æthelræd’s turn to be startled. His forehead creased in his effort to follow her fluid speech. Then he grinned at Edgar.

  “My informants told me she was educated,” he said. “But they didn’t say how well. Tell her I haven’t read more than psalms and charters for thirty years and can’t keep up with her refined phrases.”

  Edgar translated and Catherine blushed more deeply. They picked up the bags and continued toward the hostel. As they walked, Æthelræd nudged Edgar.

  “She talk like that in bed, too?” he muttered.

  “You should hear her periphrastics.” Edgar leered.