“Well, perhaps we could get a ball of yarn and see how much of this labyrinth we can explore,” Catherine said.
“And if we find a door to another world?” Margaret was only half joking.
“Then we knit our way back home,” Catherine grinned.
“My brother won’t like us wandering off.” Margaret hesitated.
“Margaret, we’re not leaving the castle,” Catherine reminded her. “And if we get lost, all we need to do is wind up the skein again to find our way back.”
“Well.” Margaret didn’t need much encouragement. “It sounds harmless enough. And I’m very curious about what lies beneath the keep.”
“Good!” Catherine said. “I’ll go check on the children. You find a big ball of yarn and I’ll meet you in the Great Hall.”
They met a few moments later. Margaret was carrying a bag containing three balls of yarn, each as large as a baby’s head.
“Enodu!” Catherine exclaimed. “We could find our way from here to Paris with that.”
“The ladies all wanted to give me something,” Margaret said. “They didn’t even ask what it was for.”
“That’s what happens when you come from a powerful family,” Catherine teased her. “If I had asked, they’d have given me the tailings from an old pair of stockings. Now, we need to tie one end firmly to something.”
“What about the post at the foot of the stairs?” Margaret suggested.
“No, then it will go straight across the floor where someone will trip over it.” Catherine looked around. “Here, the linen chest! It has big brass handles. That will work. Right against the wall and too heavy to budge.”
The two women stared at the doorway Catherine had gone through the night before. Several people passed them, including Seguin, but no one commented.
“Perhaps all visitors explore in this way,” Margaret said after another servant had gone by with no more than a glance at them.
“The way these passages twist, it may be that even the natives carry lengths of string,” Catherine answered. “That could be why you had no trouble getting the yarn.”
They deliberately chose any way that sloped downward. It wasn’t long before they left the main keep far above. The walls became rougher and the floors more worn. The lower chambers and storerooms had been dug out of the hillside, cavelike. The ceilings were long boards propped up by wooden pillars. In some places, white roots reached out between the slats.
“We’re so far below ground!” Margaret looked nervous. “How did they manage to create this honeycomb of rooms without bringing the castle down on their heads?”
Catherine had been trying not to consider how much stone and earth hung above them.
“Perhaps these tunnels started out as mines,” she suggested.
“Silver or copper. The keep might have been built over them.”
“Who would do that?” Margaret was skeptical. “It’s like building your house upon the sand. Actually, with all these holes in the earth I can’t see why the castle hasn’t collapsed.”
“Margaret!” Catherine cried. “Please let’s concentrate on the path. Everything has stayed here for centuries. I imagine it will last a few days more.”
They continued in silence. Both of them were thinking of the curse and wondering if it had become strong enough to cause Boisvert to suddenly crumble around them.
“Catherine?” Margaret asked after a bit. “This section looks very old. How often do you think anyone comes down here?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t seen anyone for quite a while.” Catherine paused, realizing what Margaret was saying. “There are torches every few paces, aren’t there? They would have to be replaced almost every day. So this area must be used often. What for?”
Margaret looked around. They were in a long tunnel at the moment. The walls were thick blocks and there was no sign of a doorway or a branching passage.
“Perhaps Lord Gargenaud keeps wine down here?”
“We passed any number of storerooms full of wine casks three or four levels up,” Catherine told her. “But, even if he did, why would anyone do anything so wasteful as to keep light going all the time?”
Before them, the passage bent to the right. A light glowed from around the turn.
“Aha! The answer may be just a few steps away.” Catherine hurried forward.
“Catherine, stop!” Margaret called. “I’ve reached the end of the yarn.”
Catherine went to the turn in the passage and looked back at Margaret.
“It slopes down and twists again,” she said. “But there are no forks. We can’t get lost.”
Margaret stayed where she was. “No, Catherine, we can’t take the risk of coming back and finding our Ariadne’s thread gone.”
“Who would take it?” Catherine pleaded.
“Who keeps the torches lit?” Margaret answered. “Catherine, you’re responsible to your husband and children. You can’t wander off into an adventure anymore.”
“But,” Catherine stood at the turn, “don’t you want to see where this goes?”
“Not as much as I want to get back to the same world we came from.” Margaret began to wind the yarn again. “Don’t go any farther, Catherine. Which is more important, a mythical mother of your clan or the family waiting for us? Think of your children!”
Catherine wavered in the direction of the passage, one foot raised. At the end of this could be the answer to all her questions. She looked up at Margaret, already moving slowly back the way they had come. She seemed so fragile! Her thick red plaits had to weigh more than the rest of her. Yet she had survived seeing her mother slaughtered, being taken from her home to a strange land, and then a terrible attack by a mob. It wasn’t cowardice that kept Margaret from continuing, but duty.
“Perhaps another day,” Margaret promised. “When we have more yarn.”
Reluctantly, Catherine joined her sister-in-law as they retraced their way back through the maze. But every few minutes, she paused and looked around, listening. She could swear she heard voices coming from the way not taken. No, she told herself. It’s just my imagination.
They walked and walked.
“We should be getting close to the upper levels now,” Catherine said at last. “It couldn’t have taken us this long to go down.”
“No.” Margaret sounded worried. “I don’t understand it. I’m following the thread. Here’s where we tied the red one to the blue. But I don’t remember this place. And, I think, no, I’m sure. We’re going downward again. Catherine, how can this be?”
“We must have just forgotten,” Catherine said, but there was doubt in her voice.
They continued past a few more turns. At last they came to a circular chamber with three passages radiating from it. The yarn stretched across the room and vanished into the darkness of the one opposite them.
“There’s no light that way,” Margaret said. “Catherine, you know we’ve never been here before! What should we do?”
She was near to panic now. She clutched the ball of yarn like a lifeline.
Catherine put an arm around her, as much for her own comfort as Margaret’s.
“What choice do we have?” She tried to keep her voice steady. “Can you find the way back without a guide? Yes, it seems that someone has untied the yarn and sent us in a new direction. We don’t know if their purpose is to hurt us or help.”
“How could this help?” Margaret squeaked.
“I don’t know,” Catherine admitted. “But our only hope of getting back to the family tonight is to find someone to show us the way up and the best place to find someone is at the other end of this thread.”
They were in the center of the chamber now. Margaret stared in terror at the black opening before her.
“I can’t go in there,” she stated.
“Not in the dark, ma douz.” Catherine reached up and un-hooked a torch from its sconce. “See, we’ll not only have light, but a weapon of sorts.”
Margare
t gave in. She trusted Catherine more than she feared the void. “But I know we’re doing this just as much because you have to know what’s going on as to get out of here.”
Catherine gave a shamefaced grin.
“Don’t you want to know, too?”
Hesitantly, Margaret admitted to a slight bit of curiosity.
“But I’m tying the string to the sconce. I’m not getting lost a second time,” she announced.
So, Catherine carried the torch and Margaret felt along the taut yarn. The two of them entered the tunnel.
It never occurred to Edgar that Catherine would go hunting for answers beneath the castle. Whatever the truth of the family legend, he was sure that everything that had happened was the result of living, breathing malice.
“Martin!” He stopped the young man on the way to the stables. “Is your mother tending to the children?”
“Yes, Master Edgar,” Martin answered. “She’s washing and dressing them for the arrival of Lord Guillaume’s family.”
“Really?” Edgar paused. “That seems a waste of time. They’re always torn and filthy within an hour of joining their cousins. Oh, well, I suppose it’s good to start out presentable.”
He recollected his reason for hunting Martin down.
“I need to know more about the people here,” he said. “There’s little chance that any of the servants will tell me a thing, but they might talk to you. I want to know why, if there is no famine here, it appears as if Gargenaud is storing up for seven lean years. Is there truly a chance of our being attacked by this Angevin Lord Olivier? Also, do the folk of the village and the castle servants believe these legends? And if so, in what form? I’ve certainly seen no sign among them that they are expecting doom to fall.”
“Perhaps they haven’t been told that the well is failing,” Martin suggested.
“Seguin has tried to keep it secret, I know,” Edgar said. “But surely they must be curious about all this preparation.”
They had reached the stables. It was occupied by several young men cleaning out stalls, a couple of men-at-arms mending harness, and one of the men who had been a guest at the banquet. Edgar had received the impression he was somehow part of the family, but they hadn’t been introduced.
“See what you can find out,” he said to Martin. “Without betraying anything that we have learned of this prophecy and curse.”
“Then what information will I have to trade?” Martin objected.
“Give them my family,” Edgar offered. “Say anything you like. You can even tell them how I lost my hand. I’m sure they’re all wondering.”
“Very well.” Martin winced at the bitterness in Edgar’s tone. “I’ll do my best.”
“Good. Start with the stablehands,” Edgar said. “I’m going to see what I can get from him.”
He nodded toward the man from the banquet, who was sitting by the doorway, holding a broken spur, apparently waiting for the blacksmith.
Martin had no trouble striking up a conversation with the stablemen. He started by taking care of the horses they had brought with them. While seeing to their needs, he asked about life at the castle. As Edgar guessed, they wanted him to give information about his life in return. When they learned that Martin had started life as a serving maid’s bastard and managed to become apprentice to a trader, they were at first skeptical.
“Truly!” Martin insisted. “How could I lie with him standing over there able to deny it? My mother is now housekeeper at my lord’s house in Paris. I grew up there. Last year I told him I wanted to learn the skill of trading. He and his partner took me on. We have only just returned from a profitable journey to Lombardy.”
The young men gazed at Martin in hopeful respect. Each had dreams of rising above his station. This was the first time they had met a man who had actually done it. Then one of the lads, a tall blond who had yet to fill out to his recent growth, shook his head and went back to shoveling the stable floor.
“Maybe that sort of thing happens in Paris.” He emptied the shovel with an energy that spattered the contents against the wall behind the wheelbarrow. “But this is Boisvert, where nothing ever changes.”
“Why not?” Martin asked. “Your lord is old. When he dies, won’t the new lord be looking for likely men to promote?”
The second young man laughed. “Do you know how many have grown old waiting for Gargenaud to die? Lord Seguin is his grandson and he’s past sixty. They say Seguin’s father gave up ever inheriting and so went and got himself killed in the Holy Land, trying to win a fief for himself.”
Martin gave no sign that he’d heard this all before.
“How can a man of sixty still have a living grandfather?” he scoffed. “I’ve seen Lord Gargenaud. He’s old, I’ll grant you, but hale enough. He can’t be as ancient as you think.”
The blond looked around to see if anyone was listening. Then he leaned toward Martin.
“It’s sorcery,” he whispered. “Everyone knows it. One of the old man’s ancestors made a pact with the guardian of the spring. There’s some that say it was Gargenaud, himself and that he’s immortal.”
Martin sighed. He had hoped the servants would have a more matter-of-fact explanation for the strangeness of the place, but it seemed that the legend had saturated the minds of all who lived there. He hoped Edgar was finding out more.
Edgar was getting an earful, but not about Boisvert. He had approached the man in a casual manner, keeping his left hand hidden in the folds of his tunic to avoid the distraction of having to explain it.
“Good day!” he smiled. “That spur looks like it was smashed between two rocks. You must have taken quite a fall.”
The man stared at him in glum resentment.
“I never fall,” he said. “This is a cheap piece of shit some peddler stuck me with. Swore it was Cordoban steel. Hah! More likely Welsh tin. Crumpled the first time I dismounted.”
“Too bad,” Edgar said, wondering how any man could be so stupid as not to know the difference. “Think the blacksmith can fix it?”
“Not unless he can transmute the elements,” the man growled.
Edgar blinked. This wasn’t normal language to hear from a knight. It was time to find out more about him.
“I’m Edgar of Paris,” he said. “From Wedderlie in Scotland by birth. My wife’s mother is a daughter of Lord Gargenaud.”
“I know who you are,” the man interrupted. “And what. It was bad enough that Gargenaud sold his daughter to a merchant, but we needed hard coin then. But, you, born into the aristocracy, lowering yourself to take up the trade. You’re no better than the Jew that sold me this spur!”
His voice had been steadily rising. At the end, he was standing, shaking the crumpled spur up into Edgar’s face.
Edgar’s gray eyes grew frosty.
“I do not sell to men like you, but kings and great lords of the church,” he said. “And anyone who claimed this metal was steel must have assumed you’d know he was joking.”
He grabbed it from the man’s hand and tossed it over his shoulder.
“Saint Benoît’s wrathful rod!” the man exclaimed. “If you weren’t a cripple I’d flatten you!”
“Please don’t let that stop you.” Edgar’s smile could have sliced through granite. “I’m sure you’ve had a great deal of practice on poor widows and beggar children.”
“You arrogant. . .” The man drew back his arm to strike him. Edgar’s eyes didn’t flicker, so when a hand caught the arm and yanked back, almost sending his assailant to the floor, the man was taken completely by surprise.
“Odilon! What do you think you’re doing?” Seguin glared at him. “Lord Edgar is a guest here.”
“Right,” Odilon sneered, rubbing his arm. “He only came because he thinks there’s a treasure to be found. What’s honor to his kind? Well, you might as well go back where you came from, my lord peddler, because of all the stories about this place, that is the only one that’s a total lie.”
Edga
r still hadn’t moved. His total lack of reaction was making Odilon nervous. Seguin started once again to apologize. At last Edgar took his eyes off Odilon’s face.
“My lord Seguin,” he said calmly. “There is no need for you to make excuses for this man. I am presuming that he is another family member. He reminds me very much of Catherine’s uncle Roger. He was subject to uncontrollable outbursts also.”
Seguin winced. He remembered Roger all too well.
“Yes,” he admitted. “Odilon is the great-great-grandson of Gargenaud’s only brother. We are related in the third degree.”
“I see,” Edgar said. “Are there any others of his kin that I should be prepared for?”
“His brother, Ysore, is also here,” Seguin told him. “The priest. You may have noticed him last night. You are safe from attack from him,” he added dryly.
Edgar nodded, ignoring the slur. “So, this truly is a dwindling family?” he asked. “It’s strange to me that anyone leaves Boisvert if, in doing so, they lose the protection of your magical forebear. I expected to find the castle crowded with Catherine’s cousins.”
“Those who stay are protected from early death,” Seguin said. “At least they were. But only the lord lives beyond the natural span. There were never many children in each generation. Some entered the church. Others fought for the counts of Blois and died in battle. And now we have been cursed with barren wives. Only Madeleine’s children have escaped this.”
“Seguin.” Only those who knew Edgar best would have seen how angry he was. “I have promised to stay here until Guillaume and his family arrive. I admit that I am curious enough to wait a day more for you to unveil all the secrets of this place, but the more I learn of you, the more I believe that you should all be left to molder in your myths.”
He started to move away from them.
Seguin moved in front of him to keep Edgar from leaving.
Odilon crowded to the side, keeping him from turning around.
“You think this has nothing you to with you?” the young man shouted, rising onto his toes to look Edgar in the eyes.
At the other end of the room, the stablemen stopped even pretending to work. Martin wondered if he should grab a pitchfork and defend his master.
The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Page 15
