The wall of stone turned a corner. Catherine reached out to feel how far the new wall went. Her fingers dislodged some pebbles that bounced to the ground with a rattle.
“There,” Gaucher said quietly from not far away. “I’ve got you now. Give it back to me and I won’t hurt you. That’s my redemption you’re holding. I must have it back.”
“Catherine, don’t.” Griselle was standing behind him. “Would you let him buy his way into heaven? Bertran’s mother bought that statue with her life’s blood. I must have it to avenge her death. Give it to me.”
The stones on the Virgin’s crown were cold against Catherine’s throat. “Maria Mater,” she begged aloud, “what should I do?”
Climb.
The sandstone was pocked by the elements with hollows that could be used as hand- and footholds. Catherine didn’t question, but felt around until she found something that she could hold onto, a hole to put her foot into. The statue hanging from her neck made it hard to get close enough to the rock. If she could only get a bit higher; there must be another ledge she could rest on until help came.
A hand grabbed at her foot. She shook it off in another torrent of pebbles. Gaucher swore furiously as he slid back down. Catherine continued to climb.
Finally, her hands felt a flat place above. Now all she needed to do was to hoist herself up onto it.
The wind was stronger up here. It whistled through the pores in the rock. The statue hanging across her chest and stomach made it impossible for her to pull herself all the way over the edge. She tried to adjust her burden with one hand so that it swung around behind her back. There. That was better. She put both hands on the ledge, braced her feet and knees in ridges in the wall and strained to lift herself.
She had just thrown one knee over the edge and was bringing the other leg up when the sling became unbalanced. Catherine felt the shifting and reached around to catch the statue as it fell out.
As it slipped through her grasp, she managed to take hold of the upraised hand of the child. The weight pulled her around so that she was now hanging over the side of the rock face, the statue dangling from her outstretched arm. Catherine could feel herself slipping back over the edge, the statue pulling her down. Below her, she could just make out the faces of Gaucher and Griselle turned up to her, arms reaching to catch the treasure.
“Catherine.” The voice came not from below, but somewhere to the side. Catherine tried to turn to see who it was, but the statue began to swing alarmingly with the movement.
“Good. A little more and I can reach it,” Brother James said. “I’m only a few feet from you, but the path narrows here. I can get hold of the statue, though, if you swing it harder to your left.”
Catherine didn’t think to ask how he had appeared, as if by divine intervention, so near her. But despite her precarious position, she wasn’t any more inclined to obey the monk than she was the two shouting at her from below.
“You only want her as a prize, just like they do,” she panted, managing to grip the hand of the Child Jesus more firmly.
“No, not like they do,” James insisted. “Not like Chaim and Eliazar either. Can’t you understand? I gave up vengeance when I converted. I gave up everything. I only want to save you. Please, child, even if you despise me, you must trust me.”
Still she hesitated. The sweat on her palm was causing the wood to slip. She slid forward in her attempt to hold on and had to scrabble back to avoid going over the edge.
“I’m afraid,” Catherine said at last. “If I try to swing her and I can’t reach you, she’ll fall and break.”
“Better a piece of wood and metal than you, child,” James said softly. She could hear the tears he was forcing himself to swallow. “Catherine, I couldn’t save my mother. Don’t punish me more by preventing me from saving you, too. Please, if you can’t move the statue to where I can reach it, then drop it to the jackals below. Our Lady wouldn’t want you to die for her image. It’s but a thing of this world, nothing more.”
The darkness was not so thick now. Catherine could tell that others had arrived below. Someone had pulled Griselle away and wrapped a cloak around her, from which she struggled to break free. But Gaucher had found the toeholds in the rocks and had begun to climb, inching up toward her. In a moment he would be able to pull the image out of her grasp. Catherine closed her eyes and with an effort that wrenched all the muscles in her shoulder, swung the statue over to where Brother James waited, leaning with both arms stretched forward over the path on the other side. He caught the hem of the Virgin’s cloak as Catherine let go.
She was left hanging halfway over the edge, her shoulder aching too much for her to pull herself all the way back up. But she was no longer in danger of falling.
Dawn was approaching. In the grey light, Catherine saw Gaucher’s face as he realized that the treasure had been taken from him. Hatred flared from his eyes as he struggled to reach her anyway. Then a spasm shook his body and the hatred turned to terror. One hand went to his throat and he gave a series of ever-shorter gasps as he fought to make his lungs work. He clawed the air with both hands, then fell back onto the ground, where he continued jerking as people gathered around in a futile attempt to help him.
The first light of the sun hit the red cliffs.
Catherine looked down. The town of Najera was far below her, the river still in predawn shadow. She hadn’t realized how far up she had climbed. She hadn’t known how small the shelf was that she lay upon … or that the only way down was either by the footholds she had used to climb up or a ridge no wider than the span of her hands.
On the other side of the ridge stood Brother James, holding the Black Virgin. He put the statue down next to himself and reached out to her.
“It’s not far, Catherine,” he said. “Only a few steps and I’ll have you.”
She looked down. She saw the distance between herself and Brother James. She shook her head. Her stomach pitched and rolled. She closed her eyes and concentrated. This was no time for morning sickness.
“Leoffaest.” Catherine’s eyes opened and she lifted her head. “Leoflic Catherine, min lif.” Edgar had come up behind Brother James. “Stay where you are, carissima. I’m coming for you.”
“But you can’t …” Catherine remembered the steps at Le Puys all too well. In her mind she saw his face again, drawn with terror at being up so high. She couldn’t ask him to confront that again. She’d spent much of the trip trying to protect him from doing just that.
He didn’t hesitate, though. He stepped firmly on the strip of crumbling rock and walked to her as steadily as if crossing a street in Paris. He knelt next to her and took her in his arms. Catherine began to cry.
“You know,” he said, brushing damp strands of hair from her face, “there are those who might suggest that I should beat you for being here at all, for risking yourself so rashly. It isn’t just your own life anymore, deorling.”
“I know. It was stupid,” Catherine admitted. “I felt as though I were meant to come. When I heard Griselle, I thought she was calling me, but it was Gaucher she wanted. She didn’t even know I was there.”
She pressed closer to him. “I was right, you know,” she said. “Griselle killed all of them. I don’t know how, but she did.”
“Later,” Edgar told her. “First we get you back to the hostel and to bed. Can you stand without getting sick?”
“I think so.” She took a breath and got to her feet. “What’s going on down there?”
Edgar didn’t answer. Instead, he took her by the shoulders and led her confidently back to the pathway and down to the church.
Hubert never forgot the sight of the elegant Lady of Lugny, hair matted with dirt and blood, naked except for a cloak that one of the monks was desperately trying to keep her in, shrieking epithets over the body of Gaucher, knight of Macon.
“Has she gone mad?” he asked the world at large. Hubert was struck by the thought that it was somehow his doing, that this was what happene
d to every woman he fell in love with.
“She is possessed by evil, that is certain.”
Hubert turned to find Brother James standing next to him, holding a statue of the Virgin Mary.
“Jacob!” he said. “That’s nonsense! Look at her! Obviously that old man tried to ravish her and drove her senses from her.”
The monk nodded slowly. “If that’s what you wish to believe. Excuse me. I need to take this to the abbot. He will need to decide what’s to be done about her.”
Leaving Hubert not sure if he were referring to Griselle or the statue, James hurried to the abbey, where the rest of the monks had just finished saying Lauds. He was immediately granted an audience with Abbot Peter, but it took him some time to explain everything that had happened.
When Brother James had finished, Peter’s face was grave. “And the maid, Hersent, was she killed because she knew what her mistress had done?” he asked.
“From what we can discover, Sir Gaucher stabbed her,” Brother James told him. “because he thought she was trying to steal the statue from him.”
“I see, but that doesn’t justify the bizarre behavior of Lady Griselle or negate the fact that she had already prepared the poison. Her actions were planned.” Peter leaned forward hopefully. “Do you think this was an act of insanity or possession?”
James shook his head and sighed. “No more so than any other deed of vengeance. Her husband made her swear to punish those who had murdered his mother and tortured him. Gaucher himself admitted the truth of it. Those five men committed heinous acts. They went beyond mindless cruelty or battle lust. Thinking that the boy was a Moslem, they even found a pig and made him perform sexual acts with it, to shame his Faith.”
Peter looked at him sharply. “Does that offend you more than the knights’ sacrilege concerning their own Faith?”
James returned the look with no hint of prevarication. “Everything these men did offends me,” he said. “As it must all decent Christians.”
Peter thought for a moment, pursing his lips. “There are many who will agree that her actions were justified,” he said finally. “And yet, it was murder, pure and simple, whatever her reasons. I can’t let her go unpunished. I take it she has admitted her guilt.”
James nodded. “She glories in it.”
The abbot winced. “Is she calm enough to be questioned?”
“The doctor is seeing to her, and one of the women among the pilgrims, the jongleuse, is taking care of her physical needs. Perhaps this afternoon she can be brought before you.”
“Very well.” Peter got up. “I must consult with Bishop Stephen and my advisers. This is a problem I would be rid of as soon as possible.”
Brother James bowed. “And the statue?”
“You indicated that the knights wished it to be an offering to the Church,” Peter said. “It will look well in a chapel at Cluny and we shall venerate Our Lady whenever we gaze upon it.”
At the hostel, clean and fed, Catherine was unraveling her own mystery.
“So the child in my dream wasn’t ours,” she concluded sadly. “I was so certain of it. It was the Child Christ of the statue instead. I suppose that means we can’t be sure the baby I’m carrying will live.”
Edgar disagreed. “It’s not the nature of dreams to be unambiguous, even those sent as prophecy. You know that as well as I. In essence, what happened last night fits your dream. You were in danger of falling. The child was caught not by Saint James, but by his namesake, Brother James.”
“And then when I believed I would die, you were there.” Catherine snuggled closer to him. “And that was the deepest truth, the one wrapped around the first dream like a wall around a castle. I should have had more faith in you.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he said. “I’m only human. The saints are a better repository for your faith.”
“I’m not giving up on them,” she laughed. “But you’re the one I want to wake up next to every morning and lie down beside every night until I die.”
“I love you, too, Catherine,” Edgar sighed. “So will you please start taking more care that the day of your death is far in the future?”
“I promise,” Catherine said and meant it.
The Griselle who appeared before the assembled witnesses and church prelates that afternoon was far removed from the wild woman of the night before. She stood quietly, guards on either side, dressed in her finest robes, her hair braided tightly and hidden under her widow’s veil. It was difficult for those who hadn’t seen her howling over Gaucher’s body to believe the story. But as Brother James had told the abbot, she had no desire to deny it.
“For all the years of our marriage,” she announced proudly, “Bertran and I knelt each morning and evening and prayed for justice. At first he didn’t know the names of the men; even their faces were blurred by time. Only the horror and hatred remained. Then one day he saw Hugh of Grignon wearing the emerald from the ring, the one Bertran’s Saracen grandfather had given him. That he recognized at once, for he carried the empty setting with him always, on a chain around his neck. From that clue, we eventually learned the identity of the others.”
“And why didn’t your husband accuse these men openly and demand justice from the Duke of Burgundy?” Peter demanded.
Griselle looked at him. “A minor lord with a tainted heritage accusing five men, well-established in the area, of such things? Even if he could have brought himself to recount the indignities those monsters had visited upon him, how could he be sure he would be believed? His father was dead, his claim to his land through an uncle. He had no other family. No, we had to do this ourselves.”
She was so reasonable. Peter could feel the mood alter in the room as people considered her arguments. The part of him that had been born a secular nobleman could sympathize with Bertran’s dilemma. But he was not a layman now.
“Vengeance belongs to the Lord,” he said firmly. “If your husband deemed it necessary, he could have challenged these men to trial by combat, although I personally find that an intolerable practice. But it would have been better to come to me or the local bishop for retribution. You did neither of these but preferred to murder these men by stealth, so that the blame might fall on others.”
“No, that I did not intend,” Griselle said decisively. “If my poor Bertran hadn’t been killed in the service of King Louis, he would have managed it much better, I’m sure. But the duty was left to me, and I did the best I could. I never meant anyone to suffer for it but those men. That’s why I killed each one differently, so that the deed might be attributed to bandits from the woods or a passing cutpurse. But there was no way I would leave their punishment to the Church. They all had to die, my Lord Abbot, and be damned.”
Peter rose in his chair. “What are you saying, woman?”
Griselle seemed puzzled by his inability to understand. “What would have been the point of killing them if they had been shriven before?” she asked. “If they had repented, they would have been given the hope of heaven. This way, they will be punished for all eternity.”
Many of those present crossed themselves hurriedly. Even the abbot appeared shaken. “You not only took their lives,” he said in wonder, “but you intended to damn their souls as well?”
Griselle smiled. “Exactly. They deserved no less.”
Peter sank back into his chair with a thump. Never before had he encountered anything like this. What was he to do with this woman? If he were a secular Lord and she a simple townswoman, it would be simple. He’d have her hanged and left to dangle at the crossroads. But Griselle was not only heir to her husband’s property, she had powerful relations of her own. Even more, he could not in good conscience act as a secular Lord would.
He was a man of God, even if that sometimes got lost in the quotidian concerns of managing the abbey of Cluny and its dependents. And as such, it went against everything he honestly believed to allow Griselle to die in mortal sin, even though she had desired to send others to th
at fate. So he pushed aside the temptation to turn her over to the local ruler. Her soul would be fought for. That is what he meant by being a soldier of Christ.
Peter resolved to give Griselle one final chance.
“You have, by your own admission, brutally murdered five men, all of them knights of Burgundy and affiliated with Cluny,” he intoned. “Even worse, you have done so in an attempt to deny them the opportunity for salvation. This is a deed so horrible that I know of no set punishment for it. There might, however, be a penance, if you can be brought to repentance.”
Griselle smiled again, more wistfully. “I have fulfilled my oath to my husband, and gladly. If you must punish me for the fate of the knights, I would welcome death.”
“Oh, no, Griselle of Lugny.” Peter grew so stern that even Griselle was finally unnerved. She stopped smiling and stared at him with round, wary eyes.
“Even such murders as you have committed might be expunged with a life of honest penitence,” Peter continued. “Your crime is far worse. Your sin is that of Lucifer, in thinking that you are greater than God.”
In a corner of the room, unnoticed, Mondete Ticarde put her hands over her face.
Griselle was outraged. “I would never think anything so blasphemous,” she sputtered. “I’m a good Christian. I go to Mass and pray daily. I’ve donated most of my property for the health of my soul and that of my husband. I give alms. How dare you compare me to the Great Deceiver?”
Peter was not impressed. “Those are only actions, and even Satan might perform them for his own ends. In your heart, you did not trust your god to tend to matters in his own way and time. Pride is the greatest sin of all, Griselle of Lugny. Our Lord may have intended something much worse or much finer for those men. And I believe that in the case of Brother Rigaud, at least, you failed. He confessed his sins to me when he entered our order. He suffered for them every day. By leaving him in such a position, you wanted us to think that Rigaud had returned to his old habits, but Brother James examined the body and realized that Rigaud was already dead when the spear was run through him.”
Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur) Page 35
