“No!” Samonie answered. “We must continue.”
She looked up at Astrolabe. “I only wish I could recall why it’s so important, but I know that I should send you all on without me. You need to keep going! Someone…something about a heretic. I’m sorry, I can’t remember any more.”
She shook her head emphatically, then winced at the pain.
“Samonie, let me help you to the room,” Astrolabe said soothingly. “Catherine is waiting for us. We can get you to bed and discuss it in the morning, which is almost here.”
He yawned. Samonie was instantly apologetic.
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll go at once. And I’ve kept Mistress Catherine up as well. If only I knew why.”
Her distress was so obvious that Astrolabe ignored his irritation with her and took her up to the room.
Catherine was waiting.
“Samoriie!” she cried. “I’ve been so worried. Here, come lie down. The children have kept the bed warm. Astrolabe, thank you.”
She noted how drawn he seemed.
“Would you tell the other guards that we’ll rest here one more day?” she told him. “We could all use some time out of that cart, and that will give Solomon and Edgar a better chance to catch us up.”
Astrolabe saw no reason to protest. He looked at Samonie, who still seemed perturbed by the idea, but made no comment. She was already sagging onto the bed. He bade them all good night and went to look for a corner where he could snatch a few hours of rest.
Catherine bit her lip in worry when she saw the shape her servant was in.
“I’ll put you on the outside of the bed,” she told Samonie. “And I’ll take the middle. Then I can check you from time to time.”
Samonie nodded, too exhausted to do anything but obey.
They arranged themselves, pushing the sleeping children closer to the wall. It would be colder for them but safer. Catherine feared that, in her present state, Samonie might overlay one of them and smother the child without waking.
Catherine closed her eyes.
Questions piled up in her mind. Why had Samonie gone out? Why had she needed to find Astrolabe? Was someone following them? Were they in danger? Most of all, she wondered, what was keeping Edgar and Solomon?
Her mind speculated on these for some time, the answers becoming more and more implausible until, at last, she fell asleep.
The monk Arnulf stomped his boots on the stone outside the tavern. It had taken him the rest of the way from the cottage to regain his equilibrium. What was that guard doing with the woman from Paris? He had guessed her to be loose legged when he had first spotted her at the monastery, but he was amazed that she would have gone out for a topple so late and in such weather. He sincerely hoped she wasn’t badly hurt and wondered what she and the guard had been doing when she had hit her head. Something sinfully acrobatic, no doubt, he thought wistfully.
He entered the tavern, reeling at the sudden gust of heat, sweat and beer. In one corner was his friend from Paris, Canon Rolland. When he saw the cleric, the canon got up and climbed the ladder to the sleep loft above. The cleric followed.
“Did you spot him?” he asked Rolland. “He wasn’t at the abbey.”
“There was no one with the guards,” the canon answered. “Perhaps he didn’t come with them after all.”
“I tell you my information is that a man left from the Blue Boar with the Jew and entered the house of Edgar, the English merchant,” insisted Arnulf. “I was sure they had smuggled him into the cart with the family. I wish you had been the one to ask at the monastery.”
“You should be able to spot him,” Rolland said, “if he’s really old Peter Abelard reborn. You knew his face well enough.”
“That I did,” the cleric answered. “And hated it. But I saw no ghost of Abelard wandering the streets tonight. Only that servant woman out whoring with some soldier.”
“We’ve missed something,” Rolland insisted. “He’s either with them or with the merchants. We must find him before he gets to the Paraclete. Once under his mother’s protection, we won’t have a chance to have him condemned.”
“Not even for murder?” Amulf asked.
“Idiot! Once it’s known who he is, the worst that would happen is that he’d be given a heavy penance, a pilgrimage barefoot or something.” Rolland lowered his voice. “But if we can prove he’s a heretic, then he’ll never have peace again, even if he doesn’t burn. The scandal will ruin him. Oh, it will be such a joy to shame that Astrolabe even more than his cursed father did me.”
He drank his beer, grimacing as if it were vinegar. Amulf moved away from him a bit. There was something about the bitterness of the man’s anger that unsettled him. It was important to Amulf that Astrolabe take the blame for Cecile’s death. But there was no need to be so passionate about it. Murder and heresy were not to be made instruments of revenge.
Nor, he reflected, could they be allowed to go unpunished because the criminal’s mother was friends with half the nobility of Champagne and his father had taught half the bishops. It would have been better if the man had been no one of any importance. Still, Amulf reflected, the choice had not been his.
Far to the north of the Paraclete, another friend of Heloise was awake in the dark winter morning. Faintly she could hear her new baby crying, but that didn’t concern her. The wet nurse would be feeding him in a moment. Sybil, countess of Flanders, had more serious matters to worry about. Her husband, Thierry, had also gone to the Holy Land, leaving Sybil to run the country, care for their four small children and deliver the fifth safely.
No sooner had he left than their old enemy, Baldwin of Hainaut, had attacked the country. Sybil had immediately been faced with the task of raising and directing an army. She had managed to arrange a truce for the last month of her pregnancy, but no sooner had Peter been born, even before she had been churched, than Baldwin had made more incursions. Sybil wasn’t surprised. A man who would break an oath made to the pope wouldn’t be intimidated by one sworn to her.
Normally, the absence of the count would not have been a disaster. Sybil had allies of her own. But most of the lords had left with the king. Her brother, Geoffrey of Anjou, was fully occupied with seeing that his son, Henry, inherited the duchy of Normandy and the throne of England. That left few whom she could turn to in her need.
And now word had come that the count of Tréguier had dared to remove Cecile of Beaumont from her convent. Sybil had not yet told Cecile’s sister, Annora, who was living in the castle under Sybil’s protection. She had sent one of her men to Brittany to find the count and see that the girl was returned at once to her proper cloister. It angered her that this was necessary at a time when she needed every one of her knights.
Sybil was proud of her army and the loyalty of her men. They had fought off Baldwin’s attacks and even taken the battle into his own territory. Nevertheless, Baldwin had sworn to keep the peace while Count Thierry was on pilgrimage, and he had broken this vow. It was up to Pope Eugenius to see that he was punished. To acquire papal help, she needed the support of people of undoubted piety and wisdom.
She had decided to present her case before the pope, his cardinals and the bishops of Europe when they convened at Reims next month. The ignominy alone might be enough to convince Baldwin to withdraw his forces, although she would prefer more concrete aid. But first she would go to the Paraclete. Heloise would know whom to approach and how. She could also lend her voice to the demand that Henri of Tréguier be punished for violating the sanctity of the convent of Saint-Georges-de-Rennes.
If Pope Eugenius couldn’t convince Baldwin to stay in his own land, then she had only one other recourse. Sybil would take the drastic step of unleashing the full force of the censure of all the women religious she knew. She had friends or family in all the great convents of Christendom. All those women had fathers, brothers, sons and nephews who listened to them. And they would all counsel these men to protest Baldwin’s aggression and Henri’s blasphem
y.
Having made her decision, Sybil returned to her bed. In his keep, miles away, Baldwin whimpered in his sleep.
Solomon regretted suggesting that they make haste on their journey. The roads were deadly for two men going this quickly on horseback. He expected any moment to be thrown as his poor mount went down on the icy trail.
“Edgar, there’s no point in pushing us like this,” Solomon complained. “We left Paris too late to catch up with the cart. They’ll all be nice and warm at the Paraclete by now.”
“All the more reason to get there soon,” Edgar answered, panting. “Catherine will worry until she sees us.”
They were riding as quickly as the road allowed, too quickly for Solomon.
“Look, vieux compang, it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a pagan statue,” he said. “Even Jupiter would cover himself against this wind. And what will Catherine say if you show up with all your parts iced over and ready to break?”
“She’d be furious and tell me that there were some things she couldn’t live without,” Edgar laughed. “Very well, we’ll stop at the next town.”
“Sooner, Edgar,” Solomon begged from beneath the wreath of scarves he wore. “I can’t feel my nose at all and am all too aware of the rasping of the saddle on my ass. And the light will be gone soon.”
They had come to a rise in the woods. Edgar stopped and scanned the horizon before they descended again. He rose in the saddle, exposing his nether region to a chilling blast.
“I can see smoke rising over there,” he pointed to the north. “It may be a village or a company of ribauz. Do you want to risk it?”
“Right now I’d rather have my throat slit than continue freezing. At least I’d die in warm blood,” Solomon answered. “Besides, a lot of the ribauz are no more than charcoal burners or peasants driven from their land. I don’t mind paying well to share their fire.”
“Be on your guard all the same,” Edgar said. “We’re no match for a troop of desperate men, even if we’re better armed.”
“At least we haven’t much to steal,” Solomon said philosophically as they made their way in the direction of the smoke. “It was a good idea of yours to put all the money under the straw in the cart.”
It was farther than it had looked from the road to the source of the fire. Edgar had begun to fear that they had passed it among the trees when they came upon a trail that seemed more worn than the deer runs they had been following so far. About a hundred yards later, they entered a clearing.
“Amazing!” Solomon exclaimed. “We seem to have chanced upon a rich hermit!”
Edgar was also surprised to find, instead of some rude leantos, two well-built houses on either side of a small stone oratory. There was also what looked like a grain shed behind one of the houses.
Solomon made for the nearest house, but Edgar held him back.
“There’s something odd here,” he said. “Listen. No chickens clucking, no dog. Not a sign on the ground of sheep or goats. No pigsty. What sort of hermit doesn’t even keep a goat?”
“Why don’t we ask him when we get inside,” Solomon suggested. “Perhaps he gave everything away to the poor. Do you think he’ll let us stable the horses in his church?”
“He’ll have to,” Edgar said. “There’s no place else.”
Solomon accepted that. Every now and then Edgar got a tone in his voice that reminded one that he had been born a nobleman, not a merchant. If the owner of the oratory refused their request, Edgar would simply order him to obey. Usually, people did. The worst thing was that he seemed totally unaware of it. As a Jew, Solomon had been forced too often to seek protection from lords who had no intention of ever letting him forget that his safety depended on their power. The mere sight of them made his bile rise. Edgar was his best friend. Solomon didn’t want to be reminded that he came from this same stock.
Of course, he sighed, he was more than willing to use Edgar’s assumption of authority when he needed it.
“Shall we get down and knock on the door,” he asked, “or wait until spring thaws us?”
Edgar dismounted and approached the nearest house. Before he raised his hand, the upper half of the door opened to reveal three frightened faces, two women and a man.
“We mean you no harm,” Edgar said quickly. “My companion and I seek shelter for ourselves and our horses for the night. We have food we can share with you and coin to pay for your trouble.”
The three looked at each other and shut the door. Edgar heard a low, intense conversation.
“I don’t think we need to worry about this lot,” Edgar called back to Solomon. “They seem to be trying to decide if we plan to slit their throats, not the other way around.”
“Well, tell them to be quick about it,” Solomon answered.
The door opened again, this time all the way. The man stood there alone.
“You are welcome to our poor shelter,” he said. “We have no space for horses, but”—he swallowed—“you may use the chapel. There is some straw and water, but we have no hay to give them.”
“Thank you,” Edgar said. “My friend and I will attend to them and then join you, unless you’d rather we stayed with our animals?”
The man’s face showed that he would much prefer that.
“No, of course not,” he answered, aware of the rules of hospitality. “Please return to share what little we have, my lord.”
The door shut on them again. Through the wood, Solomon and Edgar could tell that the argument had started again.
“Two women and one man.” Solomon tried not to smirk. “Being a hermit is suddenly much more appealing.”
“They may be brother and sisters,” Edgar suggested, annoyed at the slur.
“Even more interesting,” Solomon said as they entered the oratory.
The small building had two slits for windows on either side. In the far wall was a larger window, crudely covered with boards. It was nearly dark and the men could see little as they unsaddled the horses and rubbed them down. Solomon went out in search of a bucket and a source of water.
The hermit was waiting for him.
“I’m sorry we don’t have more to offer,” he said, handing him the water bucket. “We have few visitors and almost none on horseback.”
Solomon thanked him and brought the water in.
“These people are hiding something,” he told Edgar.
Edgar had made one pile of straw for the horses to nibble on and was spreading more against the far wall. “Such as…?” he asked.
“How can I tell?” Solomon snapped. “They won’t let me see it. But I want to know what they have in that other hut. I’m sure I heard movement in there before the man stopped me.”
Edgar was tired and worried about his family. There was something strange about the hermits, but they didn’t seem threatening. He laid his bedroll on half the straw pile.
“Unless it’s a feather bed, I don’t care,” he said.
Solomon wasn’t satisfied. He wasn’t convinced of the harmlessness of these people. The hermitage could be a blind, drawing travelers in so that they could be robbed or murdered in the night.
He doubted he’d sleep. But first, he had a more pressing need.
“What do we have to eat?” he asked Edgar. “From the look of this place, gruel is all they can offer.”
“I’ve cheese and dried meat in my pack,” Edgar said. “They probably won’t touch the meat, but the cheese should be welcome. We can spare it.”
But when they returned to the house, they found their gift rebuffed.
“We are fasting this month,” the older woman told them. “We have only grain and water. You are welcome to that.”
“You don’t mind if we eat our own food, do you?” Edgar asked.
In the flicker of the small lamp, Edgar could see the yearning of the younger woman for the cheese and meat, but she set her lips and shook her head when he offered it to her again.
They tried to make conversation, but the th
ree hermits gave only short answers. Once they had eaten, the three bowed their heads and recited a Nostre Pere, then they bid them good night. Edgar nudged Solomon when he saw that each went alone to a narrow pallet against the wall.
“Makes our packs and blankets look luxurious, doesn’t it?” he said as they returned to the oratory to sleep.
“I’ll never understand you people,” Solomon said as they unrolled their blankets. “Why should the Holy One give us bodies if he meant us to abuse them? But as long as it’s dry and out of the cold, and we are undisturbed I’ve no complaints.”
They were awakened the next morning by the chanting once again of repeated Our Fathers. Solomon felt that their hosts had deliberately increased their fervor to a level that would make sleep impossible.
When Edgar and Solomon came out, the three were waiting by the door.
“We know you want to be on your way,” the man said. “Please take what you need.” He hesitated. “There’s a broom by the door. If you could remove the evidence of your animals?”
“Certainly.” Only the manners required of a guest kept Edgar from losing his temper. He told himself that these were holy people who had removed themselves from the world and that he was an intruder. He told himself this several times.
The men were soon on their way. Edgar looked behind and saw that the door to the hut was once again shut. He could almost believe that the people had never existed. There were stories about odd beings in the forests. He enjoyed them on a warm summer night in the comfort of Paris. He didn’t care to see them come to life.
“Strangest hermits I ever came across, even if they didn’t try to kill us,” Solomon echoed his thoughts. “Do you think they’re holding the young one against her will? She’d have eaten the cheese if the others hadn’t been there. Pretty, too. Or she would be if she were better fed.”
“She didn’t seem any worse off than the other two,” Edgar said. “They probably thought we were devils come to tempt them. Still, I’ve never seen a less welcoming group. No wonder they have so little, if they greet everyone like that.”
Heresy: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Page 7
