The woman chanted a few lines. Margaret listened, then repeated, “‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, cast the demons to the four winds and heal this child.’ Then say a paternoster.”
Catherine listened and nodded. “I can remember that. Thanc ∂e,” she said to the woman, who smiled and nodded back.
Catherine opened the pot and sniffed it. Honey with herbs steeped in it, something pungent. Much like what she had been given as a child.
“We have nothing to pay her with,” Catherine told Margaret. “But I can finishing the hoeing, if that will be enough to repay her.”
Margaret’s eyes lit up. “May I help? That would be fun.”
It was settled that the payment was satisfactory and the woman returned to her house while Margaret and Catherine hoed and weeded. Willa took a dose of the medicine and was told to sit and watch James.
The task soothed Catherine’s rumpled spirit, reminding her of the days when someone else was responsible for her. The familiarity of the work also comforted her and she was almost sorry when they had finished and the woman had sent them off with a gift of a thick slice of ripe cheese.
They returned to the monastery to find Solomon and his new friend, Samson, in discussion with another man. Margaret took one look at the newcomer and ran for him with a cry of delight.
“Alfred!” She said as she leapt upon him. “Did Father send you? Are we going home? Is everyone all right?”
The old man returned her hug with some embarrassment.
“I’m glad to see you, my lady,” he said. “Though heartily grieved at the news of the tragic death of your mother. Fortunately, no one from the village was killed in the attack, although some were wounded and will be some time mending. I was telling Solomon that I was sent down to find your father, as we’ve had no word from him. Many of us would like him to bring our men home so that repairs can be made before winter sets in.”
Solomon greeted Catherine, commenting on the smudge of dirt on her nose. She rubbed at it with her sleeve as he explained what Alfred was doing in Jarrow.
“He’s going on down to Durham with a party from King David that’s on its way to York. We should be able to accompany them in safety.”
“Oh, Solomon.” Catherine was radiant. She bounced the baby on her hip. “Do you hear, mon doux? We’re going to find your father at last.”
James gave her a big, toothless smile. She was sure he understood every word.
In Paris, Catherine’s uncle Eliazar and his wife, Johanna, sat alone in their chamber. Outside there were the sounds of people enjoying the warm summer evening. From a tavern in the next block, they could hear swearing that might soon erupt into fighting. Johanna put her hand on Eliazar’s knee.
“You needn’t worry so,” she said. “This will pass; it always does.”
“Not always,” he answered.
“In Rouen or Speyer, not Paris,” she argued, but her voice held a note of uncertainty.
“Things have been different ever since King Louis burnt the church in Vitry last year,” he muttered. “People need a reason to excuse him. He’s the king, after all. There have always been those who say that he and his father have been too lenient with the Jews.”
Johanna snorted. “We pay him to be lenient. How else do they think he can give his fancy wife all the baubles she wants?”
“My dearest.” Eliazar cut off her argument. “The truth doesn’t enter into this. Hubert and I have been treading an icy path ever since we became partners. It was only a matter of time before someone started asking questions.”
“But he’s been to the bishop’s palace twice now and was able to satisfy all their doubts.”
“This time.” Eliazar sighed. “Johanna, my pearl, we must consider leaving Paris, for the good of all of us, Solomon, Hubert and dear Catherine and her family. You know our friends have also complained that we spend too much time with these Christians.”
Johanna looked around at the house she had lived in for thirty years. Then she turned back to her husband and tried to smile.
“I’m your wife,” she said. “My home is where you are. And until the Temple is rebuilt and Jerusalem free, I suppose one place is as good as another.”
Eliazar kissed her. Then they both sighed. Now they would need to find a place to take them in.
“Perhaps when Solomon returns, he’ll tell us if England would be suitable.” Eliazar ran his fingers through his beard. “I’ve heard there’s talk of new settlements in the north of the country.”
Johanna shivered. “I know we have many friends from Normandy who’ve gone, but unless Solomon tells us it’s a second Eden, I’d rather go somewhere not quite so full of blonds.”
Now that Cumin had the backing of the earl of Richmond, there was an increased air of confidence among the soldiers, along with increased activity. Rumors were so thick that they contradicted each other in midair. If Edgar had given credence to all of them, he would have expected to see an army of thousands, led by the earl, King David and his niece, the empress Matilda, marching across the bridge, heralded by the archangel Michael waving a flaming sword, with perhaps all the knights of Arthur bringing up the rear. There was even speculation that Cumin had obtained a special salve to protect his men from the elf darts that had been plaguing them with fever since the siege in the marshland.
“I want an ointment against human arrows before I join this army,” Robert said sourly.
He and Edgar were back in the tavern along the road up to the castle. Through the open door, they could see as much as they desired of the activity going on among the defenders.
Edgar got up to refill his bowl. At least the beer here was as good as he remembered it. He had never adjusted to the flavoring the French used in theirs. He stuck his tongue in the foam and suddenly was overwhelmed by a vivid image of Catherine using the point of her sleeve to strain out the pieces of herbs and other flotsam from her beer. It was one of her more irritating affectations. In retrospect it seemed almost erotically endearing.
He was shaken from his maudlin memories by the arrival of his father. Both Edgar and Robert came to attention at once. Waldeve had never before bothered to seek them out. If he wanted them, he would send for them and woe to the son who took his time about appearing.
“Father?” Edgar tried to smile.
“I’ve finally found a use for you two,” Waldeve growled. “You! Beer! Now!” he shouted over his shoulder.
The bowl was in his hand as soon as he reached it out. Waldeve drained it and held it out for a refill. When that was poured, he drained it, as well. Only then did he direct his attention back to Robert and Edgar.
“I told the bishop that both of you would carry messages for him to Bishopton. Word is that Saint-Barbe is there now and the barons of the district are falling over each other to be the first to pay him homage. They trust you there, God knows why. They’ll believe what you tell them.” Waldeve wiped his mouth and signaled for more beer. “Don’t think you’ll have a chance to do anything heroic, though. I’m sending guards with you and not for your protection.”
Robert stood. “Perhaps I don’t wish to be your page, Father,” he said with dignity.
Waldeve glared at him. “Perhaps you’d prefer eating for the rest of your life toothless and tongueless.”
Robert didn’t back down. “I’ve done with you, Father. I’ll make my own way now. I’ll sell the house in Berwick that Mother left me and go up into the high lands to farm.”
Edgar was astonished to see a flicker of panic in Waldeve’s face. It passed quickly.
“I see,” he said. “Then I’ll give you another option. Do as I say or I’ll have that crippled dog of yours hanging from the eaves along with the men who defied William Cumin.”
Robert looked down. Lufen was gone. She had been investigating the mouse hole in the corner a moment ago. Waldeve moved aside and Robert saw the dog in the arms of one of the soldiers. Another half brother of his, by his looks. He lunged across the table at his
father. Edgar stopped him before his body landed on the old man’s swiftly drawn sword.
“Robert, he feeds on your hate,” he hissed in his brother’s ear. “Look at him. You can almost see his strength grow.”
“If you do anything to Lufen, I will cut your throat with joy,” Robert threatened as he struggled in Edgar’s grip.
Waldeve laughed. “I’m almost glad Æthelræd stopped me from shooting you. I assume this means you will do as ordered. And you, Edgar, don’t you want to defy me, as well?”
Edgar’s shoulders sagged as he released Robert. The look he gave his father was of total weariness.
“If it will help bring this ordeal to an end, I’ll do anything you like,” he said. “When we’ve done here, I’m returning with my family, my real family, to France and I pray never to see or hear news of you again.”
Edgar’s weary contempt seemed to upset Waldeve more than Robert’s outburst. He opened his mouth to sneer, but nothing came out. Instead he clenched his teeth and the look he gave Edgar was more cutting than his sword.
“So be it,” he stated. “Be at the gate of the palace tomorrow at dawn.”
He wheeled about, dropping another half-finished bowl of beer to the floor, and stalked out of the tavern. His men followed, Lufen whining in the arms of her captor.
Robert stood for a long time after they had gone, his hands clenching and unclenching at his side. Finally he sat again. Edgar had gotten him more to drink. He drained the bowl with the same gesture Waldeve had used.
“I don’t think I’ll cut his throat, after all,” Robert said, his voice calm and considering. “Poison would be better. Something that takes years and makes his life drizzle slowly out his asshole. Yes, that would be good. Either that or find a way to give him leprosy.”
Edgar regarded him with caution, trying to decide if this were madness or the family trait of biting humor in the face of adversity.
“I’ve heard that there is a charm to make a man’s cock fall off,” he said conversationally. “It’s supposed to flake away. Takes weeks.”
Robert pursed his lips. “I like it. Where can we find this charm?”
“It’s Irish,” Edgar told him. “All the best charms are.”
Robert shook his head. “I don’t have time to go hunting it. It will have to be leaking shits and leprosy.”
“Fine,” Edgar agreed. “But what do we do right now?”
Robert got up again and headed for the door. Edgar followed.
“We’re going to carry the old naddrenes messages and try to find a way to rescue my dog,” he said as they came out into the street.
Edgar looked wistfully toward the Northwest, imagining that he saw Catherine coming up the street toward him. But none of the women there resembled her at all. He wondered what the fate of the women of Durham would be, or had been already. It was just as well that his family was all safe on Holy Island.
At that moment, Catherine was trying to keep her cloak from blowing away in the coastal wind.
“How much farther?” she shouted at Samson, who was only a step ahead of her.
“We’ll be turning inland soon,” he shouted back.
James squirmed in his sling. He seemed to have grown much heavier over the last few days. “Soon!” she shouted down at him.
Why had she thought the pilgrimage to Compostella hard? Then she had been surrounded by family and other pilgrims, ridden a horse and most nights been sure of a warm bed and hot water. Even the morning sickness that had tormented her the last half of the trip seemed nothing compared to the endless slogging between the sand and the tree line, with the wind blowing cold off the North Sea unremittingly, causing them to bundle as if it were January instead of the middle of August.
At last the men leading the party turned from the coast and into the woods, following a narrow road leading up though the trees.
For some time Catherine still felt the howl of the wind in her ears. Then the early-evening warmth began to penetrate her cloak and she took it off with a sigh of relief.
“Samson,” she asked in a more normal tone, “when will we reach Durham?
“Sometime tomorrow,” he told her. “The king’s men will pass to the east of the city, but you will have only a short journey from the place where your paths diverge and Alfred knows the way.”
Catherine bent over James and whispered. “Tomorrow, leoffœst, tomorrow we’ll be with your father at last.”
James belched up a few clots of sour milk. Catherine wiped his chin and decided not to take it as a personal opinion of their chances. One more day. She could do it. Tomorrow everything would be all right again.
Seventeen
The road from Durham to Bishopton. Wednesday, 15 kalends September
(August 18), 1143. Feast of Saint Helena, mother, devout convert, pilgrim,
finder of the True Cross but not British, despite what Geoffrey of
Monmouth said.
Recole nunc, ut dixi, corruptiones meas cum exhalaretur nebula libidinis ex
limosa concupiscentia carnis et scatebra pubertatis, nec esset qui eriperet et
salvum faceret. Verba enim iniquiorum prevaluerunt super me, qui in suavi
poculo amoris propinabant mihi venenum luxuriae …
Remember, as I told you, my corruption, when a cloud of lust
breathed forth from the murky swamp of my body’s desires and the
gushing passions of youth. And no one would rescue me. The words
of iniquitous ones swayed me, those who in the sweet goblet of love
offered me the poison of dissolution …
—Aelred of Rievaulx,
Advice to a Recluse
(his sister), pt. 32
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Edgar kept repeating under his breath. “What’s wrong with me? I should have taken a horse and made a run for it the first day out. I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
Robert, riding beside him, hoped all those muttered words were prayers. They needed some divine help at this point. He wasn’t thinking of the reaction of those at Bishopton to the defiant messages they were carrying, but of the possibility of losing Lufen to his father’s wrath. Even more, he was fearing and hoping that among the supporters of William Saint-Barbe he would find Aelred. Perhaps they might even manage a few minutes alone together. Robert needed more than the pathetic note he had been sent informing him that his best friend in the world had renounced that world and would never see him again.
So between Edgar’s subvocal fretting and Robert’s thousand imagined reunions, the ride from Durham to Bishopton was unnaturally silent. Even the soldiers accompanying them, uncertain whether they were an escort or a guard, refrained from the usual banter.
Edgar had anticipated some difficulty in reaching Roger Conyers and the Bishop, but when they arrived, they found the gates they had spent weeks trying to breach thrown open and a stream of people coming and going.
Robert raised himself up in the saddle, trying to find one face in the mass of men.
“Is there anyone there you know?” Edgar came alert to ask.
“I don’t see him,” Robert answered vaguely, then he forced himself back to their task. “Yes, I recognize some of them. There’s Geoffrey Escolland talking to Bernard de Balliol and I think that standard belongs to Aschetin of Worchester. It seems as if the barons of Durham have decided which bishop to support.”
“Now that Saint-Barbe has been elected and consecrated, I don’t see that Cumin has any choice but to surrender,” Edgar said. “The barons must know that, as well.”
Robert shook his head. “As long as Cumin has the chapter seal and control of the silver mines, he has a chance. Saint-Barbe’s consecration is only a minor obstacle. Remember, a bishop’s office lasts only as long as he lives.”
They joined the throng entering the gates. Almost immediately Robert was hailed by one old friend and then another. One of the men with Bernard de Balliol saw him and ran over, catching him in a
bear hug as he dismounted.
“Robert! Where have you been?” he shouted. “We all heard you’d turned hermit, either that or gone to Denmark for hunting dogs.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Erik.” Robert continued scanning the faces in the courtyard. “I did neither. This is my little brother, Edgar.”
Erik gave Edgar his hand. “I don’t remember you. Are you the one who went to France and—” He stopped, reddening.
“Yes, I am.” Edgar took the outstretched hand. “And I’ve never regretted it, especially the ‘and …’”
“Well, good!” Erik said. “Have you come to give your support to the bishop?”
The question was addressed to Robert but he was still looking for Aelred. Edgar answered for them both.
“We’ll give such support as we can,” he said. “But our principle charge is to deliver messages from William Cumin to Bishop William. Do you know who we should approach to get an audience with him?”
“Hmm, let me think.” Erik scrunched up his face, almost grunting with the effort. “There’s no real order here, but I’d say that Archdeacon Rannulf is the one who could get you in to see the bishop. I hope Cumin is surrendering. I want to get home to my wife. We’ve only been married four months.”
Edgar winced. “I’m only the messenger,” he told Erik. “But I’m with you. I want to see my wife, too, and we’ve been married four years. Can you take me to the archdeacon?”
Erik led them through the bustling courtyard to an even busier meeting hall, so new that the floorboards were still sticky with sap from the green wood they had been cut from. Edgar soon had bits of straw and leaves attached to the bottom of his boots. Robert bumped into him every time he stopped to scrape them.
“Will you stop gawking and give your mind to the task at hand?” he complained the third time this happened.
“If you’d keep moving, we wouldn’t collide,” Robert snapped back.
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