Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur)

by Newman, Sharan

  “I don’t like to see you weighted down with all those packages,” Eliazar said to his brother.

  “Tomorrow you can carry them,” Hubert said firmly. “Or we can hire someone. I won’t coerce you to carry anything on the Sabbath.”

  “You couldn’t,” Eliazar said. “But that doesn’t mean I want you to, either.”

  “This is an old argument,” Hubert sighed. “Be grateful that I’m young enough to carry the load for two.”

  They trudged along until they reached the inn where Hubert had found them a whole room to themselves. Eliazar shook his head. “Such extravagance!” he told Hubert. “One room for the five of us!”

  Hubert went up the narrow stairs and dumped the boxes on the bed. “I’m hoping that three of us will find a reason to come in late,” he said. “With all that camping and staying in hostels, it really will be a miracle if Catherine and Edgar are able to give me a grandchild.”

  Eliazar laughed. “You underestimate your daughter and her husband. They manage these things better than you think.”

  “Perhaps,” Hubert said. He sorted out the packages as to owner, then set the piles on the floor and sat heavily upon the bed, causing a cloud of dust to rise from the coverlet.

  “What am I to do with this son-in-law?” he asked Eliazar. “He shows no talent for trade. He obviously has no future in the Church. He sold his land to give Catherine a dower. All that seems to intrigue him is the work of common laborers: masonry and machines and carving designs in bits of wood and ivory.”

  “His talents have proved useful in the past,” Eliazar pointed out. “He was able to pose as a goldsmith and keep us from being accused of stealing Christian relics.”

  “And how many times will that happen?” Hubert asked.

  “Never again, I hope,” Eliazar answered. “But there must be other ways he can be of service.”

  Hubert ran his hands through his graying black hair. “Don’t you think I’ve tried to find some?” he said. “I know how the boy feels. As much as they despised my profession, Madeleine’s family at least had to be polite to me because I brought them wealth. And I have been angry and rude to Edgar more than once. I forget that his family is, if anything, better than Madeleine’s. Do you know what I fear most?”

  Eliazar shook his head. Hubert looked at him bleakly.

  “I am terrified,” he said, “that Edgar will decide to take Catherine back to his people. Scotland! The end of the world. You’ve seen the students in Paris, dressed in belted skirts with no brais, just their ugly knees showing. I can’t let my daughter live among savages!”

  Eliazar stood and patted Hubert on the back.

  “There now,” he said. “Kings have done worse. But why should it come to that? If the boy wanted to study Torah, you would support him, wouldn’t you? Why not let him learn masonry and machines? Perhaps Count Thibault will hire him to design siege engines. Or some bishop will have him oversee the building of his cathedral. That’s a lifetime of employment.”

  Hubert still looked glum. His stomach rumbled.

  “That’s it,” Eliazar said. “Hunger has put your humors out of balance. Come along and eat with us. The brethren from Toulouse are traveling with their own cook. We’ll have real food tonight!”

  Gaucher and Rufus had also found congenial lodging. They judged any inn on two things: the quality of the beer and the absence of fleas. In this case, they decided to put up with the fleas.

  “I haven’t tasted anything this good since we left Mâcon,” Rufus said as he lowered the bowl and wiped his mouth. “Why do you think they can’t make decent beer here in the south?”

  “Too many heretics,” Gaucher answered. “You need absolutely orthodox methods to make beer properly.”

  Rufus accepted this as logical. “Have you seen Rigaud?” he asked. “I’m worried about him.”

  “What for?” Gaucher asked. “What can happen to him? He says he doesn’t play with boys anymore. And if he’s caught at it, they’ll only make him pray harder.”

  Rufus belched loudly in disgust. “I don’t give a damn what he does with boys,” he said. “He can poke it up a cow, if he wants to. I’m worried about him keeping his vow of silence to us. He seems to think we’re about to commit sacrilege.”

  Gaucher leaned back on his stool and toppled over. He righted himself and poured another bowl. “So he’ll pray for our souls,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

  “What if he decides to confess to the abbot instead?” Rufus asked.

  “He wouldn’t!” Gaucher said, shocked. “He swore a sacred oath!”

  “That was before he became a monk.” Rufus peered into the pitcher, then upended it over his bowl.

  Both men stared at their beer in silent contemplation. Gaucher looked up first, his forehead creased in the attempt to resolve a theological paradox.

  “Rigaud took the oath with us first, didn’t he?” he demanded. “He can’t break it just because he’s joined the Church. It would even be worse then. Who would trust a monk who didn’t keep a vow?”

  Rufus wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know. They don’t have the same kind of honor we do.” He stared at the bits of herb floating in the beer as if waiting for them to form the answer.

  “I think,” Gaucher announced, “that we need to ask him, just to be sure.”

  Catherine had finally stopped weeping, but she felt drained of more than tears. Edgar guessed what she was thinking.

  “Leoffaest,” he said, “your being at the Paraclete when Abbess Heloise heard the news would not have been a comfort to her. There is some grief that cannot be consoled.”

  “I know,” she answered, thinking of the tiny graves they had left behind and of how little comfort anyone had been able to give her. “Astrolabe will go to her.”

  “And when we return, we can go see her as well,” Edgar suggested. “By then, the first pain will have died and she may want to speak of him to friends.”

  “He was no heretic,” Catherine said firmly. “God knows that, if the pope doesn’t.”

  “Yes,” Edgar said. “I have no fear for his soul.”

  They were walking slowly back to the inn at twilight. The shops were boarded over, the tables taken in. Lamplight glowed through cracks in the doors. The dust of commerce had settled and the air was clear. Catherine leaned her head on Edgar’s shoulder.

  “We’ll tell our children about him,” she declared. “I won’t have him forgotten even though his work was condemned.”

  He turned his face and blew at the curls escaping from her scarf. “Abelard won’t be forgotten,” he promised. “All of us who loved him will make certain of that.”

  At the inn, they found the Lady Griselle eating alone at one end of a table. At the other end, her guards and maid sat with their dinners and made sure no one came between them. When Griselle saw Catherine and Edgar, she smiled at them to join her.

  “It’s so difficult, keeping a sense of rank on a journey like this,” she explained. “And don’t you go on about all being equal before God. In His house there are many mansions, and I don’t expect to be in one with some villein with filthy feet. Are you quite well, my dear?”

  This last was addressed to Catherine, who smiled and said she was simply tired. Edgar went to fetch their cups and spoons and get some food. Catherine sat across from Griselle, who was wearing a shimmering green-silk bliaut over a white-linen chainse. At her shoulders were gold brooches in the shape of hunting dogs with tiny rubies for eyes.

  “I don’t know how you stay so fresh under these circumstances,” she told Griselle in honest admiration. “I feel as if everything I put on becomes soiled instantly.”

  “One learns the art of it after many years of marriage to a warrior,” Griselle answered, patting her smooth scarf. “Hersent is an excellent servant. She came to me as a child and I had the training of her before she married. We often traveled with my husband. We even accompanied him on some of his campaigns.”

  “Have you been t
o Spain before?” Catherine asked. “My father tells me that your husband was born there.”

  Griselle bent over her soup, gracefully sipping a bit of it. “No, Bertran never spoke much about his home there,” she said. “His parents had died and there was no one for him to go back for. It always made him sad, so I didn’t ask much.”

  She took another sip, then smiled brightly at Catherine. “Your father is a dear man, isn’t he?” she said. “He’s been very kind to entertain me as we ride. I’m a little vague on his family connections, though.”

  “They were merchants in Rouen,” Catherine said guardedly. “He also lost his family when he was young and was raised by a fellow merchant, a friend of his father’s. He settled in Paris before I was born.”

  “And your mother is of an irreproachable family of Blois, I understand,” Griselle continued.

  Catherine thought of her bombastic and apparently immortal grandfather. “Irreproachable” was not the first adjective that came to mind.

  “We have allodial land granted us by Charlemagne himself,” she said proudly, neglecting to mention how little of it was left. “My sister, Agnes, is currently living with our relatives there.”

  She wanted to ask Griselle about her own family and if they were of a lineage old enough to share a table with Catherine, but convent manners prevailed. Edgar returned with the soup and bread. They ate quickly and excused themselves to go upstairs.

  “How long do you think it will be before Father and Uncle Eliazar come in?” Catherine asked as Edgar helped her out of her clothes.

  “Long enough, I hope,” he answered.

  The next morning, the entire inn was awakened not by roosters, but by shouts and screams of panic in the street below. Hubert stumbled from his bed and stuck his head out the window.

  “What is it?” he called down. “Is the city being attacked?”

  “Yes!” a man shouted back up at him. “But not by the infidel. The devil himself is among us. There’s been a murder at the altar of the church.”

  Eleven

  The abbey church of Moissac, Sunday, May 18, 1142; Commemoration of the martyrdom under Diocletian of Tecusa, Alexandria, Claudia, Euphrasia, Matrona, Julitta and Phaina, strong-minded seventy-year-old virgins.

  Reconciliatio ecclesiae benedictae fieri potest aqua lustrati communi; reconciliatio vero ecclesiae consecratae fiat aqua ad hoc benedicta secundum leges liturgicas; …

  The reconciliation of the church that has only been blessed can be done with ordinary holy water, but the reconciliation of an actually consecrated church must be done with water blessed for this purpose according to the liturgical laws.

  Codex Iuris Canonici

  Canon 1177

  “This was done by nothing human!” Brother James ex-his was done by nothing human!” Brother James exclaimed.

  Abbot Peter shook his head in denial, horrified at what he saw before him. “The impulse may have been demonically instigated,” he said, “but I have no doubt that the hand was human. The man who did this shall be found and brought to me before sunset tonight. Do you all understand that? Now, I want this mess cleaned and the church reconciled at once. I will not allow even such an atrocity to prevent me from serving Mass.”

  He strode out through the door to the cloister, leaving Brother James and the other monks to deal with the remains.

  For a long while, no one dared move closer. The only sound was the murmur of prayers. Finally, Brother James approached the grotesque form draped over a sawhorse that workers had left in the transept.

  “He mustn’t be left like this for everyone to see,” he said.

  “But how are we to move him?” one of the monks asked. “We should send for the lay brothers.”

  “No, even they shouldn’t be allowed to witness one of our order in such an improper position,” James snapped. “Now, help me!”

  They came forward timidly, all staring in a combination of revulsion and horrid fascination. The very stiff body of Brother Rigaud lay propped over the sawhorse. His feet barely touched the floor on one side. His hands seemed braced against it on the other. They were spattered with blood, which was still dripping slowly from the spear-point coming out of his throat. His robe had been pulled up to his waist, and the other end of the spear was protruding from between his buttocks.

  “Improper” was the least one could say about his position.

  That he was dead was a given.

  “But how … how will we get it out?” Brother Felix asked.

  Brother James stopped. He wasn’t sure what would happen if they tried to pull the spear out. He wasn’t even sure which end to pull from. Nor did he have any idea of what Rigaud’s body would do if they tried to lift him with the spear still stuck through him.

  “We’ll leave that problem to the infirmarian,” he decided. “For now, let’s see … one of you lift him by the legs, and you, Brother Vulgrinus, take his shoulders from the other side. Turn him so that the body can be put on the litter.”

  “Someone will have to get the spear out,” Brother Vulgrinus said as he attempted to lift the body without causing further damage. “We can’t bury him like this.”

  Brother James heartily wished that they could, and as soon as possible. Thank the saints Rigaud hadn’t been murdered in the cloister. At least out here in the church, anyone might have killed him. But if word of the method used became known, the scandal would be horrendous. There were enough ribald stories about effeminate monks for most people to gladly believe that Rigaud had come to the church during the Great Silence for an assignation and been killed by his lover.

  It certainly appeared so, James thought. How else could one explain such a humiliating position? One would hardly lift one’s robe and bend over politely for a stranger with a spear.

  As the brothers managed to get Rigaud’s body onto the litter and lifted it to carry him out, Brother James stopped them.

  “That’s odd,” he said as he knelt before the point of the spear. It protruded from Rigaud’s throat like a serpent’s tongue. James realized that the tip had been broken off, leaving a slight fork. Had it snapped within the body—against a bone, perhaps? But that wasn’t what puzzled him. The wound was actually wider than the end of the spearhead, which had completely exited the body, leaving the gaping hole where blood was just now starting to coagulate around the shaft of the spear.

  James stood up, brushing dust from his knees. “Thank you,” he told the monks. “You may take him away now.”

  He went back to the sawhorse and knelt next to it, examining the pattern of blood on the floor. He certainly wasn’t an expert on death, the way the former soldier, Rigaud, had been, but he had seen his share of violence. It seemed to him that there should be more blood. It should have gushed not only from the wound, but from Rigaud’s mouth, too, as his vital organs were punctured. Brother James had no idea who he could ask about such a thing. At the very least, he decided, his observation must be brought to the attention of the abbot.

  While everyone else at the inn was discussing the morning’s discovery in delighted consternation, Catherine returned to their room. Though sorry for the monk, she was more relieved that for once she hadn’t been the one to find the corpse. She was much more interested in deciphering the astrological notes that Solomon had bought the day before. When the mattress and covers had been taken from the trestle bed in their room and stored for the day, she spread the pages out on the board, trying to find their order and a clue as to who had written them and under what circumstances. Solomon hovered over her impatiently.

  “It’s all in the same hand,” she told him, “but done in different inks, and the size of the letters differs even within each page. I believe these were intended to be personal notes, from lectures, perhaps, done at various times. The treatise certainly isn’t in any form to be circulated. He may have made a clean copy before he sold these.”

  Solomon leaned over the pages and tried to follow her finger as she pointed out the various sections
of the work. Most of it meant nothing to him, but here and there he was able to piece together a series of letters that made sense.

  “Isn’t that word ‘angel’?” he asked.

  “Angeli. Angels, yes.” Catherine squinted as she read the passage. “This part isn’t about the stars. It’s about the power of words. What’s it doing in with this?”

  Solomon fidgeted while she deciphered the words.

  “Oh, I see,” she said at last. “He says that using the secret names of God and calling upon the angels by name can be efficacious in controlling the weather, but only if the words are said with the correct motions and when the stars are favorably positioned. There’s a note in the margin saying that he had tried the formula recommended by his master but it wasn’t successful. Then there’s a digression about the importance of knowing the correct pronunciation of the names.”

  Solomon picked up the parchment and stared at it as if he expected tongues of fire to leap from it. “Does it say what the names are?” he asked.

  “Not that I can see,” she said. “At least not on this page. The rest seems to be a lecture on how to calculate the most auspicious times to cause earthquake and flood.”

  She looked up. “Solomon, I will not help you if you intend to use this to destroy people.”

  “Catherine!” he said, shocked. “I don’t want to cause earthquakes or even a mild spring rain. I’m not interested in making things happen. I want to know why they do. I want to know what the Almighty One wants from me, why He has left us amidst our enemies, and when the Messiah will come.”