Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur)

by Newman, Sharan

  “Any reason they can blame us for it?” The man who spoke was named Aaron. His family had lived in Narbonne and then Toulouse for nearly a thousand years. His face bore traces of every race that had passed through, from the Greeks to the Franks to the Visigoths to the Arabs. As far as he was concerned, the only line he came from was Abraham’s.

  Eliazar poured another dipper of fish stew onto his bread. “Who can say?” he said. “If they find no one else, they can always accuse us. But I see no reason for them to. I spoke to the man only once.”

  “That might be enough,” Aaron said darkly.

  They sat around a campfire not far from the bank of the Tarn River. The stewpot was balanced on coals at the edge. Catherine thought it very cozy, but the way the men tended to start and turn at the sound of every splash or twig snap reminded her of the danger always present. She wondered what would happen if someone decided that the monk’s death was the fault of the Jews. If a party from the town descended on them now, would they spare her? She felt sure that Edgar could not be mistaken for anything but a Christian, but she knew that she and her father looked as if they belonged with the others. Catherine was darker than some of the men there, one of whom even had bright red hair, a gift from a Visigothic ancestor.

  She had noticed the way they looked at her and her father, and then at Solomon, enough like her to be her brother, but no one said anything.

  Talk had drifted from the murder to the journey.

  “The Lady Griselle informed me today that Peter of Cluny isn’t entering Spain by way of Navarre,” Hubert was saying. “She was wondering if I knew of anyone going by way of Roncevalles. She has two men-at-arms with her.”

  His comment was greeted with silence.

  “Griselle is a woman who would speak for us if there were problems with the Edomites,” Eliazar added.

  “Loudly,” Catherine added.

  “Is she so fond of Jews?” Aaron asked.

  Solomon thought about that. “She certainly hasn’t avoided us,” he said. “Her maid tells me that Lady Griselle’s husband was half Arab. Perhaps she’s inclined to tolerance.”

  “I don’t think so,” Catherine said.

  They all looked at her. She could see that they weren’t used to being contradicted by a woman who was also a Christian. But she was too accustomed to arguing with Solomon to stop now.

  “The Lady Griselle is determined to reach the shrine of Saint James,” she continued. “I believe that she will defend anyone willing to help her to that goal.”

  “It comes down to the same thing,” Eliazar said. “You have guards but more wouldn’t hurt, especially now that we’re about to enter the country of the Basques. They have no allegiance except to their own people.”

  The other men considered this but refused to make a decision until they had spoken privately.

  “We don’t plan to set out until the day after tomorrow,” Aaron said, as spokesman. “If you wish to come with us, and if the pilgrims promise not to try to proselytize, we’ll consider allowing you to join us.”

  They walked back to the town in the misty spring twilight. Fog was crawling up from the river behind them but it was still too light for a lantern. Catherine and Edgar walked with their arms around each other, well-fed and content. Solomon followed them. All at once he gave a startled exclamation. Everyone stopped.

  “What is it?” Edgar asked.

  “Nothing,” Solomon said. “I thought I saw someone, but it was just a pile of wood, distorted in the mist.”

  “I had forgotten how much you hate fog,” Catherine said. “Come walk with us.”

  Solomon came up beside them and Catherine linked her free arm in his. She could feel the tension in his body and tried to think of something to say to ease it, but her head was full of the charms and spells she had been reading all day. The fog came in wisps like stretched fingers, curling around the trees and lying in wait at hollows in the path. Catherine thought of the words she had dared to whisper. They were supposed to be the names of the seven spheres above the earth.

  What if they were the names of demons of the air instead? What if she had in her ignorance called them into form? The cold damp stroked her neck and she shivered.

  “Put up your hood, leoffaest,” Edgar said absently.

  Catherine did. She clung more tightly to the men on either side of her. Saint Genevieve, she thought, please make there be no demons in the night. Please bring me back safely to your city.

  Surely the patron saint of Paris would want to bring her child home again!

  They reached the inn without incident and went immediately to bed. The next morning was bright and clear. Catherine woke early, stretched her arms and crawled over Edgar to get out of bed. Her father and uncle were still snoring, but Solomon had already wakened and dressed.

  “Want me to walk you down to the privy?” he asked her.

  “Let me get my shoes and bliaut on first,” Catherine whispered back. Since they all shared a room, she had slept in her shift so that she was at least partially covered.

  They stopped at the outhouse behind the inn and then wandered around to the front. The sun was climbing and the heat growing. It promised to be a warm day.

  They were sitting on a bench in front of the inn, sharing a slab of cheese, when the guards came. With them was a man in ragged clothes and bare feet. He pointed at them.

  “That’s the man!” he shouted.

  The guards moved forward and lifted Solomon from the bench, the cheese still in his hands.

  Twelve

  Moissac. Monday, May 18, 1142; Commemoration of the Blessed Alcuin, student of the Venerable Bede, teacher of Charlemagne and his daughters.

  Cur haec igitur versa vice mutentur scelerumque supplica bonos premant, praemia virtutam mali rapiant, vehementer admiror, …

  Why, therefore, these things are switched, and the penalties of the wicked are visited upon the good while the rewards of virtue are seized by the wicked, I wonder greatly.

  Boethius,

  The Consolation of Philosophy,

  Book Five

  As the guards lifted the astonished Solomon from the bench, Catherine screeched and launched herself at the one nearest her.

  “Let go of him!” she shouted, kicking the guard and pulling his arm. “Put him down at once!”

  “Catherine, don’t!” Solomon yelled at her as the men tried to drag him away. “Get Uncle Eliazar! Call your father!”

  She paid no attention but continued flailing her arms and feet upon the increasingly irritated guard.

  Solomon made no attempt to fight. He knew official force when he saw it. He also knew what would happen to him if he spilled Christian blood. So he made no move for his knife. His experience had been that most of these things were taken care of with an exchange of gold … but let the townspeople become involved and he would find himself hanging from an oak tree before the terms of his release were arrived at.

  “Catherine!” he shouted again. “Stop that! You’ll hurt yourself!”

  The guards had now managed, despite Catherine’s efforts, to tie Solomon’s hands behind him. A crowd was starting to form, and night-capped heads were poking out of windows all up and down the street.

  “What’s going on?” someone called down. “Have you caught him? Is that the man who murdered the monk?”

  Solomon’s heart sank. He turned to the guard being pummeled by Catherine. “Whose men are you?” he asked. “Is this about the dead monk? Is that why you’ve been sent?”

  “We’re Lord Geraut’s guards, but in service to Abbot Peter for the time being,” the man answered. “I don’t know what they want you for. Will someone get this woman off me?”

  “I’ve tried,” Solomon said. “She never listens to me. Is this beggar, here, accusing me of killing the monk?”

  “That’s for the abbot to say,” the guard replied as he twisted away from Catherine’s knee. “Aiee! That hurt, young woman!”

  His patience exhausted, th
e guard thrust out a gauntleted hand and Catherine dropped to the ground.

  “You didn’t have to do that!” Solomon protested.

  “I just winded her,” the guard assured him. “I’ll be bruises all over tomorrow from what she’s done to me.”

  Solomon nodded in unwilling sympathy. “Take me to the abbot,” he told the guard. “I’m innocent of any wrongdoing, so I have nothing to fear from him. These people here, however, I have no such faith in.”

  So, leaving Catherine sitting dazed in the street, Solomon practically led his guards to the abbey, where he would at least be safe from the mindless violence of the crowd.

  “Saint Felician’s nails and pincers! Get out of my way!”

  Catherine looked up. The people who had been encircling her moved back. Her father pushed through them, looming over her, dressed only in his shift. He held out a hand to help her up.

  “Are you hurt, child?” he asked as he pulled her to her feet.

  She shook her head. “They took Solomon.” She shook with anger. “I couldn’t stop them!”

  “The abbot sent the guards to capture the monster who committed murder in the church,” a woman from the shop across from the inn explained to Hubert. “Then this hellion attacked them! Is she yours?”

  Hubert put his arm around Catherine’s shoulders. “She certainly is,” he said. “I’m only sorry I wasn’t here to defend our friend as well. I’m proud of her.”

  The woman glared at him. “It may be that you’ll all hang from the same gibbet,” she said. The thought seemed to satisfy her and she left.

  The rest of the crowd was also dispersing, some to work, others to wait outside the abbey for word of the punishment of the murderer. Hubert took Catherine back inside the inn.

  “Father, they’ll kill Solomon.” She was still shaking in anger. “What are we going to do?”

  “Put on our clothes,” he said. “Our best clothes. Take our letters of safe passage from Abbot Suger and show them to the abbot. See how much gold it will take to set Solomon free.”

  “That’s all?” she exclaimed. “What if they torture him?”

  “He won’t confess to something he didn’t do, no matter what,” Hubert said, hoping it was true. “But while he’s in the hands of the Church, they won’t do more than question him. We have to free him before he’s turned over to the town authorities.”

  They had reached their room. Inside, Edgar and Eliazar were busy packing their belongings. Edgar held up the pages Catherine had been working on.

  “I don’t know where you and Solomon got these,” he said, “but they must be destroyed before someone from the abbey is sent to search the room.”

  “Oh, no!” Catherine cried.

  Eliazar agreed with Edgar. “It’s more of Solomon’s madness. All those astrological symbols. Burn them at once. Do you want us charged with necromancy as well as murder?”

  “But I haven’t finished reading them!” Catherine said.

  “Catherine, are you mad?” Edgar asked. “We aren’t just talking about Solomon’s life. All of us could be implicated if they think sorcery is involved.”

  “Well, then,” she said, “how are we to burn them? There’s no fire in the room.”

  She was right. They all looked around for a method of destroying the parchment pages. It had been too warm the previous night to even have a fire on the hearth in the common room. Cooking was done at a bakehouse in the next street.

  “Give them to me,” she told Edgar. “We’ll have to hide them for now.”

  She knelt on the floor and began to go through her pack. She pulled out a bundle and began rolling up the parchment tightly.

  “What are you doing?” Hubert asked. “If our things are searched, they’re sure to find them.”

  “Perhaps not,” Catherine said. She began unrolling the bundle. “It depends on how fastidious the searchers are.”

  The pieces of cloth were clean but covered with old brown stains. Catherine put the parchment in the center and rolled the menstrual rags around it. From the expression on the faces of the three men, it was the last place anyone would want to check.

  “Hurry, Catherine,” Eliazar said. “Your father and I have to go negotiate for Solomon.”

  “No,” Hubert said. “I think only Edgar and I should go. This is a time when it would be better to have Christians to stand up for him.”

  “But he’s my nephew!” Eliazar said.

  “And mine,” Hubert reminded him. “In a case like this, we can’t rely on the protection of the king or Suger. We’re not in France now. Also, Abbot Peter is not well-disposed toward Jews. He’s taken out a number of loans from them. Unless you can promise him remission of his debts, I doubt he would listen to you graciously.”

  “What about me?” Catherine asked.

  “Absolutely not!” Edgar and Hubert said at once.

  Before she could protest, Hubert raised his hand. “One—” he turned up his thumb “—women are allowed to give evidence, but you have none as to where Solomon was last night. And you can’t stand surety for him. Neither can Eliazar. Edgar and I can.”

  He waited for her to explode, but she simply stared at him.

  “Two—” he held up his first finger “—it has often been remarked how much you and Solomon resemble each other. Would you have more questions added to the accusations?”

  Catherine sighed and shook her head.

  “Three,” she finished for him, reciting as by rote, “you love me and don’t want me put in danger.”

  “Well, that too,” Hubert agreed. “But more important, I don’t want to remind anyone that Edgar is part of our family.”

  “What?” Edgar was outraged. “Godes micellic palstr! How dare you? I have endured much from you for Catherine’s sake, but this is going too far! Who are you to refuse to admit me to your family?”

  “No one,” Hubert answered, deflating Edgar’s wrath into flat confusion. “And that’s why you must come with me to speak for Solomon.”

  “I don’t understand,” Edgar said.

  Hubert looked uncomfortable. “I am too used to thinking of you as some student who has bewitched my daughter,” he said.

  “More the other way around, I think,” Edgar interrupted.

  “Perhaps,” Hubert conceded. “Nevertheless, I forget that in your own country, you are a nobleman. You are accustomed to being treated with a certain deference. And though you usually hide it, you have an arrogance that comes only with being well-born and knowing it.”

  “Come to the point,” Edgar said. He was still angry.

  Hubert smiled. “Exactly. I’ve been rude to you, and you’ve taken the insult for Catherine’s sake. I apologize. It was wrong. For now I need your name and your arrogance if we’re to save Solomon and continue our journey. Peter of Montboissier comes from an old Auvergnat family. He is a great lord of the Church but was born to be a secular lord as well. I know that in his eyes I’m simply another trader. He might not be inclined to trust my oath. Yours, Edgar, he would have to take. You are his equal.”

  Catherine looked at her husband. His clothes were plain, his tunic still unbelted. His boots were good leather, but scuffed from the journey. He hadn’t brought valuable chains or rings on the pilgrimage, and rarely wore them anyway. She wasn’t sure he could convince the abbot of his identity.

  Edgar wasn’t either. He rubbed his chin. “I need a shave,” he said. “I need a bath, probably a delousing.”

  “We all do,” Hubert said. “It’s one of the hardships of travel. But that won’t make any difference. Go in your pilgrim garb. He’ll know the quality of the material. He misses nothing.”

  “Of course I’ll do anything I can for Solomon,” Edgar said. “I will even offer myself as pledge. He’s my friend.”

  Catherine hated being left behind when something was happening, but saw the sense in her father’s argument.

  “Then hurry!” she told them. “Get dressed. Edgar, at least wear a clean tunic.”<
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  Eliazar followed Edgar and Hubert down into the street. “I’m going to the brethren from Toulouse,” he told them. “If you can free Solomon with words and promises, good. But we may need more than that. Aaron will advance me the ransom, and the community in Paris will repay him. I’m going now to tell him what has happened. When one of us is accused, we all are.”

  Catherine rubbed her jaw. It was sore and swelling from the blow the guard had given her. It had been foolish of her to attack him with only fists and feet.

  Everyone else had gone to do something to help. They had left her with little more than an absentminded kiss or a pat on the shoulder. Catherine sat amidst the hastily stuffed packs and tried to think of what she could do.

  The idea that Solomon would sneak into a church in the middle of the night to murder a monk was preposterous, of course. He wouldn’t enter a church for any reason.

  Well, he had once, Catherine remembered suddenly. A ruined church, it was true, but it went counter to everything he believed in. He had done it for her, because she was in danger. He’d saved her life. She owed him more than to simply sit and wait while other people worked for him.

  With no clear idea of where she was going, Catherine put on her shoes and arranged her head scarf neatly. She fastened the belt over her plain bliaut and went out to find a way to repay her debt to her cousin.

  Catherine hadn’t gone far when she had to stop to let a group of riders pass.

  “Halt!” a familiar voice ordered.

  Catherine shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up at the Lady Griselle, glittering as the sun behind her caught in the jewels of her earrings.

  “I heard they took your father’s friend to the abbey,” she said.

  “Yes, we fear he’s to be accused in the death of the monk,” Catherine said. “Can you help?”

  “I’m going up there to try,” she answered. “They may not be willing to listen to me.”