Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur)

by Newman, Sharan

  Peter felt a twinge in his stomach but resolved to bear it, as he did the other weaknesses of his body, as an offering to the Lord. Brother Bernard had made up the potion recommended by Dr. Bartholomew on his last visit to Cluny, but so far, it was having no effect.

  Brother Rigaud rode up alongside him.

  “Are the lay brothers all accounted for?” Peter asked.

  “Yes, Lord Abbot,” Rigaud answered. “They are all well. None has uttered a word of complaint about conditions on the road. However, one of the garciones is causing some trouble. He is inclined to tease the younger boys, especially those who miss their mothers.”

  Peter, who still grieved for his mother, set his face sternly. “Have the boy brought to me this evening,” he said. “I will see to him personally. Now, has there been any other problem among the pilgrims?”

  “Nothing of any consequence, Lord Abbot,” Rigaud replied. “There are two lepers among the group that joined us at Figeac. Their keepers have been told where they may go and warned that any attempt to mingle with the others or to bathe upstream from them will cause them to be immediately expelled.”

  “Good. And there is no more information on the death of your old comrade?” Peter asked.

  Rigaud hunched his shoulders as if trying to slide off the stigma of his former life. “No, my lord,” he answered. “Brother James and I have concluded that it was done by outlaws. There have been no more incidents.”

  “Very well.” The abbot grimaced at a sharp pain in his lower stomach. “You may go. Send Brother Bernard to me. Tell him I need more of the digestive potion.”

  Brother Rigaud did as he was bid. When he had delivered the message to the infirmarian, he did his best to lose himself among the other black-robed monks. But his old friends, Rufus and Gaucher, spotted him easily and made their way to him, one riding along each side.

  “Glad to see that you don’t sit your horse like a monk,” Gaucher said. “It infuriates me the way they ride slumped over with their legs dangling. A stiff wind could throw them off.”

  “Peter of Montboissier doesn’t look like a bag of flour,” Rigaud responded. “The abbot rides as well as any knight.”

  “I’ll give you that,” Gaucher conceded. “It’s in the blood. Seems a pity to waste all that skill on a cleric.”

  “Do you want something?” Rigaud stared straight ahead, hoping they would vanish.

  “Your company, vieu compang,” Rufus laughed. “You realize that there are now only three of us left.”

  “Two,” Rigaud said firmly. “I have abandoned the world.”

  Gaucher pursed his lips, looking at the sky as if expecting a letter from heaven. “I see,” he said. “Then you have no more interest in the parcel we left at Najera?”

  Rigaud looked sharply from Rufus to Gaucher and back. “You mean you never returned for it?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Norbert felt it wasn’t safe,” Rufus said. “But this year he decided that it was time to take the risk, before we all died and it was lost forever. Think what it’s worth, Rigaud! After all this time, no one alive will remember where it came from. The bishops of France and Burgundy will fall over each other to have it.”

  Rigaud bent his head and was silent for a long time. When he looked up again, his face had changed. It was stern and somehow stronger than before.

  “Of all the sins I have committed in my life,” he said, “that is the one that grieves me most. If your intention is to ransom this to the highest bidder, then I will tell everyone just how we came by it, whatever it may cost me.”

  “What do you mean ‘how we came by it’? It was rescued from the Saracens,” Rufus said. “There was no sin.”

  “We risked our lives to redeem it from their sacrilege,” Gaucher added. “It’s ours now.”

  “We stole it from Christians,” Rigaud answered, “and slaughtered them to do it. You know that well.”

  “We didn’t know they were Christian until it was too late.” Gaucher lowered his voice, making sure no one had overheard Rigaud’s outburst. “They looked and dressed just like the Saracens. How were we to know? And I’m still not sure they weren’t lying to save their lives.”

  Rufus leaned over, one hand pressed against Rigaud’s shoulder. “And I don’t hear you repenting of what you did to that boy we caught that day,” he whispered. “That gives you no qualms? Does your noble abbot know about it? Do you confess all your sins, old friend? And if so, do they let you near the garciones? Or was the prospect of being so close to all those fresh young men what brought about your conversion in the first place?”

  Rigaud whipped around angrily, knocking Rufus back so that he almost toppled out of the saddle.

  “Consider the state of your own soul, Rufus!” he hissed. “There are far blacker stains on it than mine. I took a vow of chastity when I entered the monastery and I have remained chaste. Not that it is any of your concern. Pilgrimage! Quelle merdier! I knew that none of you had any contrition for your heinous deeds. I knew it from the moment I saw you at Vézelay.”

  “What?” Gaucher now reached over and gathered Brother Rigaud’s cowl in a tight grasp. He lifted the furious monk halfway off his horse. “What were you doing at Vézelay?”

  “I was sent to accompany Abelard’s son,” Rigaud said. “I saw you all, praying so devoutly all night and then drinking yourselves insensible the next day. Your pilgrim badges and staffs didn’t fool me. Now, for the last time, understand that I will not help you in your wickedness. I’ll do everything I can to stop you.”

  Gaucher lifted him further. Rigaud set his jaw and prepared to be thrown to the ground.

  “Gaucher,” Rufus warned, “people are watching.”

  Slowly the knight loosened his hold on Rigaud. “They won’t always be,” Gaucher assured him. “If you want nothing more to do with us, so be it. Rufus and I will trouble you no more. But I would advise you to keep proper monastic silence concerning this matter, or you may find yourself truly leaving this world.”

  Gaucher signaled to Rufus and they rode forward, forcing the monks on foot leading the packhorses to make way for them. Rigaud watched them until they rounded a bend in the road, Gaucher’s blond stripe of hair gleaming in the sunlight.

  “There must be a way to stop them,” he murmured, “without the abbot learning the truth.”

  Ignoring the curious glances from the brothers around him, Brother Rigaud bent his head, praying fervently for a way out of the horror that he had thought left behind when he entered the gates of Cluny.

  They came at last out of the narrow valley, past the point where the Celé River joined the Lot again. The land was now gentler. It had been tamed centuries before and instead of tangled forests teeming with wild men and monsters, there were orchards of apple and peach trees in bloom, and row upon row of vines. There were more pilgrim refuges along this route so that it was no longer necessary to camp in caves or on the riverbank.

  The days passed without any further incident. Mondete continued to trail behind the rest of the group, but she now tolerated Solomon’s presence beside her. For his part, he rarely spoke, not to Mondete or anyone else. Catherine worried about this. She had the feeling that his spirit was off on some other pilgrimage while his body continued to travel with them.

  In her concern for Solomon, Catherine didn’t notice how much time her father was spending with the widow Griselle. To the annoyance of Gaucher and Rufus, Hubert rode next to her almost every day, entertaining her with stories he had learned in his travels or discussing the possible uses for the small estate she had inherited from her husband.

  “Since it will be the property of Saint Peter when I die,” she explained, “I can do little to improve it without the permission of the monks.”

  “I doubt they would object to anything that brought in more profit,” Hubert said.

  “I’m not so sure,” Griselle answered. “I know they are very strict about cutting down the woods. The abbot is looking ahead to timber for his
building program. Also, I had thought to put in a water mill, but there was some question about what it would do to the fishing farther downstream. My, the sun is bright today. It seems fiercer the farther south we go.”

  She signaled to Hersent to bring her broad-brimmed hat.

  “My poor husband was born in Spain, you know,” she said. “He was dark, like you. He told me that the summer was very cruel there. He was grateful when his uncle died without heirs and he could come to live in Burgundy.”

  “His family was one of those that settled in Spain after Alfonso the Sixth drove back the Saracens?” Hubert asked.

  “Not exactly,” she answered. “His father was also a knight and a younger son. There wasn’t enough property to divide. Bertran’s father went with Alphonse Jordan of Toulouse to fight the Saracens and then married a woman whose family had converted.”

  “A Saracen woman?” Hubert was shocked.

  Griselle drew herself up proudly. “Her family was from that of one of the caliphs,” she told him. “I have always thought it thrilling, like something from a tale of the heroes of the past. There is always a brave pagan woman who converts to the true faith for the sake of love.”

  “Yes,” Hubert said sadly. He wondered if he could have convinced Madeleine to abandon her Jesus and all His saints and convert to the true faith. But he knew that there had never been enough love in her for that, only obedience to her father’s choice and a certain fondness that had come with the children and fled into guilt when so many of them died.

  “Don’t you agree?”

  “What?” Hubert jerked back to the present. Griselle was looking at him expectantly. What was he supposed to be agreeing to? “Oh, certainly, certainly,” he said quickly.

  “You don’t think it would be too much of a miracle to hope for?” Griselle asked.

  “Oh, no, not at all,” he answered in confusion. “All things are possible with God’s help.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Griselle said slowly. “But it seems rather odd that He would make someone like Mondete the instrument.”

  Now Hubert was completely lost. “Mondete?” he said. “Instrument of what?”

  “Bringing that Jewish man to baptism, of course,” Griselle answered sharply. “What did you think I was talking about?”

  Since Hubert had had no idea, he wisely, if belatedly, kept silent. He doubted that either Solomon or Mondete were intent on converting the other. The only point at which their beliefs met seemed to be at the depth of their individual misery. Hubert smiled an apology and tried to steer the conversation back to something safe, such as the cost and availability of genuine Byzantine embroidered silk.

  Edgar was only marginally relieved when they came out onto the river plain. He knew that worse mountains awaited them. Solomon had told him of his winter treks across the Pyrenees. Even allowing for exaggeration, there were very likely a number of steep and narrow trails with precipitous drops. Catherine’s dream of falling off a narrow ledge haunted him far more than it did her. Edgar had studied dreams. He knew that even true sendings were often couched in metaphor. It might not be a real bridge that collapsed, but a symbol for a test of faith.

  Edgar’s trouble was that crossing a real bridge over a chasm was the strongest test of faith he could imagine.

  “Edgar, look!” Catherine poked a pungent branch under his nose. “Lilacs! Isn’t it beautiful here?”

  Edgar pulled his mind away from the mountains. He looked around and admitted that the land was indeed beautiful. Catherine’s arms were full of the lilac branches. Whatever did she intend to do with them? He asked.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “At home, we would dry the petals, mix them with lavender and orrisroot and use the potpourri to keep moths from the linen. I suppose I’ll have to throw them away. I didn’t think. I just smelled the perfume and wanted to have the flowers. Perhaps we’ll pass through a village and I can give them to someone there.”

  Edgar smiled at her disappointment. “I’ll tie them together for you,” he suggested, “and we can leave them at the next shrine we pass, as an offering.”

  “Yes, that would be appropriate,” Catherine said. “You know, whenever someone speaks of the ‘odor of sanctity,’ I always have imagined lilacs.”

  She buried her face in the blossoms, inhaling the rich scent. “Do you think that’s foolish?” she asked him.

  “No,” he said.

  She looked so happy. He hadn’t seen that much hope in her since they lost the first child. If lilacs could give her back that air of possibility, if they could remove the grief from her eyes, then Edgar was willing to grant them leave to run riot in heaven.

  Perhaps the mountains wouldn’t be as dreadful as he imagined.

  Maruxa didn’t fear the mountains. She had crossed them before. All that mattered to her was that they lay between her and home and the children she hadn’t seen in six months.

  “Do you think Diede is old enough to come with us next time?” she asked Roberto as they stopped with the others to rest in the noonday heat.

  Roberto sighed. “Old enough, yes, but I wish we could apprentice him to a safer trade than ours. Or that we could find a place to stay permanently. I’m getting too old to wander about.”

  Maruxa put her hand on his shoulder. “You’re as strong as ever,” she assured him. “It’s only seeing that man again that’s upset you. Stop worrying. Now both he and his wife are dead and their wickedness with them. No one else knows what happened.”

  “I wish we could forget it,” Roberto said. “And how do we know that Lord Hugh didn’t tell one of those other men?”

  Maruxa didn’t want him thinking in that direction. “Why should he have?” she asked. “That would mean admitting he had been cuckolded.”

  “Yes, of course,” he said.

  He got up and stretched out the kinks in his back. Maruxa exhaled in relief. She’d kept the secret nearly ten years now. Roberto had confessed what he had been forced to do and she had forgiven him. But she had never had the courage to say what had happened to her. She had tried not to think about it, but seeing Hugh and his companions had brought the nightmare back, as fresh as the morning after.

  They would be at Moissac soon. They could find another party to travel with. Maruxa couldn’t stand the constant fear that one of the remaining knights would remember them. She couldn’t bear wondering if Roberto had learned the truth and decided to take his revenge on Hugh of Grignon.

  Roberto held out his hand to help her up. Maruxa took it and stood, feeling the ache in her back that told her it was almost her time of the month. One more thing to cope with.

  As they passed through the field of lilac bushes, Maruxa thought of how overpoweringly sweet the odor was. It made her want to retch.

  Ten

  Moissac, the abbey of Saint Peter, Saturday, May 17, 1142; Commemoration of the landing of Saint Tropez, noble Roman, martyred under Nero, who later relocated to the south of France.

  Quid dicamde lectione? Cellam sine lectione infernum reputo sine consolatione, patibulum sine releuamine, carcerem sine lumine, sepulcrum sine respiramine … .

  What should I say about reading? I consider a room without reading to be a hell without consolation, a gibbet without relief, a prison without light, a tomb without a vent … .

  —Peter of Celle,

  On Affliction and Reading 8—13 PL 202

  “What do you mean, the emperor can’t meet with me in Pamplona?” Abbot Peter rose from his chair to face the messenger. “It’s at his invitation that I’ve made this journey.”

  “Yes, my Lord Abbot,” the man replied, “but our gracious emperor is at this moment personally conducting a siege of the Almoravid stronghold at Coria. He had hoped to be able to present you with the souls of the citizens for baptism, but they are more reluctant to surrender than we supposed and he fears he will not be able to join you for another six weeks.”

  Peter walked around the messenger, who wasn’t sure whether to tur
n respectfully or stand motionless while being inspected.

  “You have been at this siege?” the abbot asked.

  “Yes, Lord Abbot.” The man stared straight ahead. “I ask pardon for the state of my clothes. I rode from dawn to sunset for a week to bring you this message.”

  “Very well.” Peter waved the man out. “Someone will see that you are fed and given a place to rest. I’ll send for you when my reply to the emperor is ready.”

  When the man had left, Peter paced back and forth across the chamber that the local abbot had vacated for his use.

  “Well, Pierre,” he asked his secretary, “what shall I do? I could go on to Compostela and meet the emperor upon my return, assuming he brings his siege to a successful conclusion.”

  “That would be one possibility,” Pierre answered. “Of course, your appearance at Compostela might be taken to indicate a preference for one episcopal candidate or the other. However, you might also take this opportunity to cross over into Catalonia and visit our establishments there before heading west. No abbot of Cluny has made an appearance there for at least forty years.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking.” The abbot sat again. “It’s all too easy for remote dependencies to become lax in their observance. It’s only proper that I use this gift of extra time to inspect them myself.”

  “I’m sure the monks will be overjoyed at the prospect of your arrival,” Pierre told him.

  The secretary took out his wax tablet and prepared to compose a draft of the letter to the priories.

  “Begin with Sant-Pere-de-Casseres,” Peter said. “Tell the prior that I will also go to Comprodon and Clarà, the roads permitting. Inform Alfonso’s messenger of this and have word sent to me at Casseres when he has concluded his siege and is ready to meet with me.”

  “Of course, my Lord Abbot,” Pierre said, scratching the information on the tablet in his own form of shorthand.