The Wandering Arm: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Sharan Newman

  “I have been well fed,” he told them. “I can sit up, but my head spins when I try, so they’ve advised me to lie still for another day or two. The only thing I need is the love of my children.”

  Agnes wouldn’t meet his eyes. Hubert reached out for her. She didn’t take his hand, but neither did she move away. Guillaume watched her with undisguised curiosity.

  “Agnes,” he said, “whatever it is, it can’t be worth abandoning the honor and affection you owe your father, can it?”

  He clearly wanted an answer. Catherine held her breath. Hubert let his hand drop. He closed his eyes.

  Agnes sat as unmoving as the statues at Saint-Denis. She appeared as unmovable. At last, she took a deep breath and looked up at Guillaume.

  “I know my duty,” she said. “But nowhere have I heard that affection must accompany it. I was not taught dialectic or knightly codes, only the things proper to a woman of our class. You and Catherine may lecture me from your superior education, but I shall follow the teaching of our mother.”

  Finally, she took Hubert’s hand. His eyes flew open in hope, but he found none in her face.

  “I have no wish to shame or dishonor you,” she said. “Or our family. I intend to obey the commandment. Does that satisfy you?”

  It didn’t, but Hubert slowly moved his head, wincing as he jarred his hurt shoulder.

  Agnes released his hand and got up. “Guillaume, where have you arranged for us to stay?” she asked. “I didn’t have time to have a bed dismantled and brought with us.”

  “There is a section of the hostel for women,” Guillaume told her. “I’ll show you the way. Catherine?”

  Catherine didn’t move. “I’ll stay with Father until you return,” she told them. “I know I’m not very dutiful, but I can do this for love.”

  The look Agnes gave her was harder than a blow, but Catherine didn’t care anymore. Agnes’s holy indignation was irritating her beyond sympathy.

  When the room was empty, she leaned over and kissed Hubert on the cheek.

  “Uncle Eliazar and Aunt Johannah send their love and concern,” she whispered. “Solomon came with us and will be happy to do any errands you may have. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Hubert smiled at her, then sniffed. “You look so like your grandmother,” he said. “It breaks my heart that you never knew her. Now, don’t worry. I’m fine. I was very lucky that those thieves were inept.”

  “Father, you are certain they were thieves?” Catherine asked. “This attack had nothing to do with what is happening in Paris, did it?”

  “It would be foolish to assume so,” Hubert said, after consideration. “It does bother me that the men Guillaume hired to protect me let themselves be taken off guard, but the road is normally safe enough. They had no reason to expect an attack in daylight.”

  “I suppose,” Catherine said. “It was very lax of them, all the same.”

  Hubert smiled. “Of Jehan, most of all,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll be hearing any more about his seeking a bride from my household.”

  “Jehan! He was there? No one told us,” Catherine said.

  “That’s not all.” Hubert told the tale of his own questionable heroism with some relish. Catherine did her best not to laugh.

  “Yes, that should end Jehan’s attractiveness as far as Agnes is concerned,” she said. “She told me once that she only wanted a man who could protect what was his. A man who needs to be rescued by her father … I can almost pity him.”

  “You would, if you saw him,” Hubert said. “He came last night to beg my pardon. He looked like a man waiting to know the nature of his torment in Hell. I promised him that I wouldn’t boast of his disgrace. You mustn’t do so, either.”

  “No, I won’t,” Catherine promised. “At least, I’ll try not to. But I must tell Edgar. He’s suffered more than once from Jehan’s scorn. Poor Agnes, where will she look for a husband now?”

  Later that evening, Solomon stretched his legs contentedly before the fire in Fantin’s hut by the river. It was only one room, and the hearth was made from packed clay, but here he could relax, knowing he was welcome. Still, it must be a hard life for the old man, who had made a good living buying wine and catching fish for the nuns before Suger had driven the women out and replaced them with his monks.

  “Why do you stay?” Solomon asked. “You have family in Melun and Paris. They would take you in.”

  Fantin picked up the dinner bowl and the cups, wiped them out and put them on the shelf over his one clothes chest. He looked around, seeming to take inventory of his possessions.

  “It must appear a poor place to you,” he admitted, “after the grand homes of Paris. But I need little. My only sorrow is that I have no way to study the Law here, no one to pray with.”

  “A good reason to move to a place where there are brethren,” Solomon said.

  “Ah, but then who would give you a safe bed and a fish that is clean?” Fantin asked. “Who would you recite morning and evening prayers with?”

  Solomon wiggled uncomfortably. His daily prayers generally consisted of a mumbled acknowledgment that he still trusted in the God of Israel. And as for food, it was better that neither Fantin nor Aunt Johannah ever found out the composition of the meals he had consumed on his travels. All the same …

  “I’m grateful to you and glad you’re here,” Solomon admitted. “It’s good to be able to sleep without wondering which of the other people in the room might want to slit my throat.”

  He took back his cup. Fantin still had access to some remarkable wine, from the vineyards of Abraham of Paris, he guessed.

  “So far, I haven’t been threatened,” Fantin assured him. “The Christians seem to find me a curiosity and Abbot Suger considers me under his protection, along with the families of Saint-Denis. The mayor of Argenteuil is a nephew of his, so the abbot’s wishes are honored. And,” he added with slight embarrassment, “I have friends here. I sometimes take a pitcher and have a game of tric-trac with Lazarus, the shoemaker. They named him that because, when he was born, he cried and then stopped breathing. They got him started somehow and he says that the whole thing frightened him so that he’ll never stop again. He’s the only man in town older than I am.”

  That reminded Solomon of something. “I’d forgotten how long you’ve lived in Argenteuil,” he said. “You must have been here when Héloïse was prioress.”

  “And before that.” Fantin smiled fondly. “I remember when she first came to the convent for schooling. Such a pretty, happy little girl. She’d climb trees and sit on the branches laughing at the poor old nun who had her in charge. She grew up too bright and beautiful to be hidden away from the world.”

  “Or perhaps that was the only way to keep her so.” Solomon had learned a few things from Catherine.

  “I haven’t seen her since the monks came,” Fantin said. “Ten, twelve years ago it was. That was after Abelard, of course. She was still beautiful but the sadness in her would break your heart. I always wondered what happened to her baby.”

  “Astrolabe?” Solomon had a hard time thinking of him as a baby. “He still lives mostly with his father’s family in Le Pallet. But I saw him last year, when they condemned Abelard again. Astrolabe is a good man. I like him. He was very disappointed in the decision of the council.”

  “Ah, well, it was hard for him, I imagine,” Fantin said. “To have his father shamed like that. But it does keep the Edomites from worrying us, when they go after their own.”

  Solomon could see the logic in that. He had never understood what the argument between Abelard and his accusers was about, anyway. It was difficult for him to become excited about the nature of a trinity he didn’t believe in, just as he found it hard to share Edgar’s passion for the bones of some dead Saxon priest.

  The next morning Solomon went with Fantin to the dock on the off chance that someone had hired men from the town to attack Hubert.

  “It doesn’t seem likely, though,” he sa
id. “He was only bringing a wine shipment for the abbey. Hubert has made the trip a hundred times. He’s well known. Who from here would bother him?”

  “But if someone wanted to,” Fantin replied, “they would have no trouble in finding him.”

  As they approached, they could hear the sounds of serious disputation. One man was standing on the wooden quai, the other in a small boat tied to the post at the end. The one in the boat seemed to be unhappy with the amount of the toll.

  “There’s nothing I can do about it,” the man on the dock was saying. “All fees are set by the town and the abbey of Saint-Denis. It’s my job to collect them. Would you have my family starve because I neglected my office?”

  “If they look anything like you, starving would do ’em good,” the man in the boat said. “I’ll be fried in hot oil before I pay that; it’s twice what it was last year.”

  “It’s been a hard winter; we had to raise tolls to repair the dock and the road,” the first man said.

  Solomon stopped dead in the middle of the street. He grabbed Fantin’s arm and pulled him behind the shelter of a garden hedge.

  “That man!” he said. “The one collecting the tolls, who is he?”

  “Gerard, mayor of Argenteuil,” Fantin told him. “And if that poor fool in the boat thinks his saints will help him win, he can stop praying. Gerard holds the tonlieu from the abbot of Saint-Denis, who is also his uncle. He won’t decrease it a sou.”

  “Saint John on a platter!” Solomon said, despite Fantin’s reproving stare.

  “You shouldn’t swear by their saints,” he cautioned. “It only makes them angry.”

  Solomon didn’t care if he meant the Christians or their saints. He had to get back to see Catherine, get her to take a message to Hubert. He exhaled explosively. This was a true revelation and a wicked dilemma. It made him feel better to know that the peasant he had taken the grain and chalice from wasn’t in danger of starvation, whatever he might tell people. But he didn’t want to be the one to tell Abbot Suger that his nephew was trafficking in wares stolen from the church.

  Even more so if it turned out that the abbot already knew.

  Catherine woke to the warmth of a soft body pressed against her back. She snuggled into it, then opened her eyes with a start. That wasn’t Edgar. Most definitely not. Where was she? Who was in her bed? She twisted around.

  There lay Agnes, just as she had for all the years of their childhood, one golden braid still wrapped around her head, the other fallen loose, caught under her shoulder. She was sound asleep and looked as innocent as the angels in the frescoes at Notre Dame.

  Her appearance in the bed was as amazing to Catherine as if she had been one of the angels themselves. She remembered quite clearly that Agnes had haughtily refused to even share a room with her and settled on a bench in the hall instead. For a sleep-sodden second, Catherine wondered if the person beside her was an incubus, come in the form of her sister to destroy her.

  Agnes slowly opened her eyes. “Have I missed breakfast?” she mumbled.

  Catherine decided it probably wasn’t an incubus. “It’s Wednesday in Lent, Agnes,” she said. “Breakfast won’t be until afternoon.”

  With a groan, Agnes burrowed into the blankets. Then she realized where she was. She sat bolt upright.

  “What are you doing in my bed?” she asked.

  It took some time, but Catherine finally convinced Agnes that she was the intruder.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, rubbing her head. “I was cold and the bench hard. I decided there was no reason to be uncomfortable because I was angry with you.”

  “And they say I’m the logician of the family,” Catherine said.

  “Well, there wasn’t,” Agnes said. “Now, I left my clothes in the bag in the hall. I can’t get up until someone brings them to me.”

  Catherine reached for her shift and shoes. “We certainly don’t want Sir Jehan finding you almost in a state of nature,” she laughed. “I’ll get your things.”

  “Jehan?” Agnes squeaked, looking around as if he might pop out from a cupboard. “I thought he had returned to Blois. What’s he doing here?”

  “Trying to heal his wounded pride, I would guess,” Catherine told her. “Ask Father. Or better yet, ask your brave knight.”

  Gracious! her voices intruded. You are becoming a most uncharitable, unforgiving person!

  Catherine sighed and admitted the fault, but she didn’t go back and apologize. She was surprised to find that, like Agnes, she wasn’t ready to reconcile, not yet.

  Edgar didn’t relish going back to a cold, empty room that night. Without Catherine in it the place reverted to a student hovel, like a thousand other drafty, noisy rooms in Paris. He’d lived in them for the past five years. It was only watching Catherine’s delight in the freedom and privacy that made it tolerable. Well, perhaps simply having her with him was enough to make anything tolerable.

  So he stayed longer at Bietrix’s tavern than usual, staring into his beer mug and wishing he hadn’t been so short with Catherine about her propensity for examining each fleck and lump in her food. It was true that the habit annoyed him, but still, it was much more entertaining than eating alone.

  “Edgar? That you?”

  Edgar looked up. “Maurice!” he said. “What are you doing out so late? Come, sit with me.”

  Maurice took the offered half of the bench, balancing his mug of fish soup. It was as full as Bietrix could make it. She had a soft spot for hungry clerics.

  “I shouldn’t be out at this hour,” he admitted. “But I was sent on an errand. The lord gave me a coin for my trouble. I tried to refuse, but he insisted. He said that I was to get my dinner with it as I’d arrive too late to eat with the others.”

  “That isn’t the same ‘Syrian’ lord you were telling us about, is it?” Edgar asked.

  Maurice shook his head. “No, a Norman. One of the canons sent me with a message for him. I haven’t seen that other man again. He must have returned to his own country.”

  Edgar was relieved to hear that. It would have ruined his half-built theory if it could be proved that the man Maurice had run into wasn’t Natan.

  “You didn’t get any beer,” he said. “Are you abstaining, or wasn’t the coin enough for soup and drink?”

  Maurice seemed embarrassed. “I have only the one cup,” he said. “And I don’t need anything more.”

  Edgar guessed that Maurice was either saving the rest of the money for another hungry time or, more likely, intended to give whatever he had left to the first beggar who held out his hand. He went over to the table where Bietrix watched over the barrel and the soup pot.

  “Here’s a quarter sou.” He put the ragged bit of silver on the table. “I’d like the loan of a cup and as much beer and bread as that will buy.”

  Bietrix picked up the coin and laughed. “If that were any thinner, you could see the light through it,” she said. “Here, if you’re not too proud, you can have the loaf ends some lordling students left this afternoon. Already softened and soaked with a nice bit of pork fat. They didn’t seem to mind it was the Lenten season.”

  Edgar looked over at Maurice, so thin one could almost see light shining through him. He could have used the fat.

  “Don’t play temptress, Bietrix,” he said. “The usual flatbread and a cup of beer. We will try to keep the Lenten season, at least.”

  “Ah, that’s why you’ve sent your wife away?” Bietrix asked as she filled the wooden cup to the rim. “Can’t keep to the rules with her right there in the bed?”

  This was closer to the mark than Edgar liked. He and Catherine had endured enough of that sort of abstinence during the last months of her pregnancy and the required forty days after. Since then they had been fairly lax in obeying the rules for proper time and place. He had worried about it, but Catherine had decided that it was better to heed the commandment to be fruitful and multiply while they were still young enough to do so. Edgar had needed little convincing.


  “Illness in the family; she’ll be back soon,” he mumbled.

  He took the bread and beer to the table and made Maurice finish it, despite his protest.

  “Actually, I’ve been wondering something,” Edgar said. “You might be able to help me.”

  “Anything,” Maurice answered through the soup.

  “You know I’ve been working with a metalsmith for the past few weeks,” Edgar said. “But it worries me that my master is not attached to any of the guilds. I was curious, do the canons of Notre Dame have their own smithy, somewhere on the grounds?”

  Maurice stopped eating long enough to screw up his face in thought. “No,” he said at last. “I suppose there’s no need. We can get anything necessary here in town. Who would want the smell right under the window of the cloister?”

  “Yes, and most of the metalsmiths are on the Right Bank, over by the butchers and the tanneries and the other objectionable trades,” Edgar said, mostly to himself.

  “That’s not too far to go,” Maurice said.

  He dipped the last of the bread in the last of the soup, delighted that it came out even.

  “I must be back before Compline,” he told Edgar, “so I’ll take my leave now. Many thanks. I hardly gave you much company in return for your generosity.”

  “Give me a paternoster,” Edgar suggested. “I need all the intercession I can get.”

  Maurice promised he would give the state of Edgar’s soul earnest consideration during his prayers. He hurried off to do so at once.

  Edgar remained at the table, staring into his beer, until Bietrix suggested that he either go home to his own bed or rent one from her, complete with companion. Edgar put on his cloak and left.

  Where could that blasted Gaudry have his shop, then? As Edgar made his way through the narrow, twisting streets, he tried to imagine a place on the Île where the sharp distinctive smell would be unnoticed. The east end of the island was the cathedral and the bishop’s property; the west end, the palace of the king. In the middle there were only a few blocks of shops, mostly cloth or other finished goods and the houses of some of the Jews. Most of the Jewish butchers and other businesses were on the Right Bank. Then there were a number of shabby buildings like Bietrix’s that served as housing and classrooms for students and their masters as well as tending to other needs of those young men who were far away from home and family supervision. But Edgar could think of nothing that might mask the smoke and stench of the kiln. And he had just built a second one! Why hadn’t anyone noticed?