Then what about the Father Founder of the Paraclete?
Abelard? Absently, Catherine unwound the cloth from her finger and began to twiddle the ring. How could I get to him? He’s so important. Why would he listen to me?
Héloïse told you to go to him, the voices reminded. Will you ignore all her advice?
No, of course not. Catherine made up her mind and gave a last tug on the ring.
It slid off.
There. The voices were smug. A sign. Unmistakable. When will you go see him?
Catherine looked at the ring, sitting innocently on her palm. A sign. Yes, she would go tomorrow, when Abelard would be lecturing on the île, near the Juiverie. She would tell him everything. It concerned him, certainly. He would know what should be done next. It was certainly better than sitting useless in Paris while a murderer roamed at Saint-Denis.
She threaded the ring on the chain holding her crucifix and hid it beneath her chainse. Then she rewrapped the cloth around her finger. It wouldn’t do for Agnes to notice that her cut had miraculously healed.
The next morning she waited until Madeleine had left for Saint-Gervais and Hubert had gone to the Greve to oversee the unloading of a shipment. Then she hurried down to the kitchen to get her cloak and fur gloves. Agnes was sitting by the fire.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To a lecture on philosophy,” Catherine answered, knowing Agnes would never suggest going with her. “You won’t tell Mother I was out, will you?”
“No, not that it would matter to her,” Agnes answered. “But you shouldn’t go out alone. I think it’s going to storm soon. Take Adulf.”
Catherine laughed. “Adulf is only eight! What protection would he be?”
“He could run for help,” Agnes said. “Take him with you or I’ll tell Father and he will care.”
So, accompanied by a proud Adulf, Catherine set out across the Seine to the student quarter, scattered around the old Merovingian Cathedral of Notre-Dame.
As they crossed the Grand Pont, Catherine was forced to skirt the caravan of some noblewoman trying to get to the palace before the rain began, and was nearly run down by some pigs coming in the other direction. Luckily, Adulf heard the bells and pulled her out of the way. They reached the other side of the bridge breathless and jostled.
“Are you all right?” Adulf asked, brushing mud from her skirts. “It’s a good thing all the pigs in Paris are belled. They aren’t in my village.”
“No, only here,” Catherine said when she had caught her breath. “Do you know why?”
They started off again, down the street of the King’s Palace. Adulf shook his head. He had never wondered. Everything was different in Paris.
“Well, you know King Louis had an older brother, don’t you?” Catherine said. “Prince Philippe. He would have become king when Fat Louis died, but one day he was riding through Paris when a pig ran by and startled his horse. The horse threw the prince and … he died.”
“Maybe I heard about it,” Adulf admitted.
“So the king made a law that each pig in Paris had to wear a bell so that riders would have warning of their coming. And,” she added, “so that you could keep me from being trampled by them.”
They turned left and walked down the rue de la Draperie. It was clean and full of elegant shops. At the end of it, the road split, the rue de la Lanterne on the left and the rue de la Juiverie on the right. As they went down this road, the smell of baked goods nearly drove Adulf mad with hunger. Catherine had pity and bought him a small loaf of braided challah. They went past the synagogue and down the rue Saint-Christofle. This was much less well-kept than the drapers’ row. Opening off it were numerous narrow alleyways where the students found lodgings. Adulf edged closer to her.
Abelard wasn’t due to speak for some time yet, but the area in front of the church was already crowded with students, some in cleric’s robes, some already associated with a monastic order. There were also a few secular attendees: some curious tradesmen, bored knights and heavily veiled ladies of the court. Catherine was not at all conspicuous in the crowd.
“After the lecture,” she told Adulf, “you have to help me get to Master Abelard before he goes. But you mustn’t tell anyone at home. Will you promise?”
“I’d never betray you!” Adulf said. “Not if they poke me with hot irons.”
“If it comes to that,” Catherine told him, “you can tell.”
In spite of the raw day, the crowd waiting to hear Abelard continued to grow. His arduous life had worn him considerably and he rarely now found the energy for the public life he had once thrived on. Catherine and Adulf wormed their way through as close as they could. Adulf stood on tiptoe to see the great philosopher.
“He doesn’t look like a … you know,” he whispered to Catherine. “I thought he’d sound like a girl.”
“Adulf! No.” Catherine felt obliged to explain. “That only happens when they’re, um … changed as little boys. Abelard was in his thirties when he was attacked.”
But Adulf heard only the first part. “Little boys? Like me?” he squeaked.
He moved even closer to her.
“It’s all right,” Catherine said. “They don’t do that in Christian lands anymore.”
Adulf was visibly relieved.
Catherine was enthralled by the lecture. It was an interpretation of the theory of sin: was the act itself damnable, or the intention behind it? What if one did not get the opportunity to sin but wished to? Which would be worse, unknowingly marrying one’s third cousin or desiring her? Catherine was in her element, leaping from one point of the argument to the next. Adulf had finished his bread and was longing to take a nap. She let him sit on the pavement, leaning against her, half wrapped in her cloak. When it was almost over, she roused him.
“I’ve got to reach him,” she said. “Do you think you can push a way through?”
“Of course.” And Adulf set out, happily using elbows and feet to clear a way for Catherine to follow.
Just as they reached the steps, the storm broke. Abelard took no notice and continued his refutation. Some of his followers rushed up to take him away.
“Wait!” Catherine cried into the wind. The rain was icy and the force of the storm shoved her words back.
“I have to see you, Master!” she called again. But they were getting away, going toward Saint-Pierre-le-Buef. Catherine slipped on the paving stones.
“Master Abelard, wait!” Adulf ducked and wove through the scurrying people and finally grabbed Abelard’s cloak.
“Here, you!” One of the students hit at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Adulf held on grimly. By now, Catherine had reached him. First she rounded on the student.
“Don’t you touch him!” she yelled. “Master, please.” She switched to Latin. “Magister! Ego Catharina, Paracletus novicia. Requira adiumentun de te!”
“I must admit,” Abelard said later, handing Catherine a mug of warm ale, “I wouldn’t have stopped if you hadn’t spoken Latin.”
Catherine grimaced. She knew she didn’t look very intellectual, especially after the morning’s encounters with pigs and muddy roads.
“Mother Héloïse says she thinks it possible that bedraggled is my natural state and, however clean I become, I am drawn to disorder as a spark to the sun.”
Peter Abelard smiled. “Now I have no doubt you were at the Paraclete. When did you leave? How was she?”
“I last saw her five weeks ago,” Catherine said. “She was in good health but worried, for your sake and for ours.”
She explained about the psalter. He listened, the muscles in his jaw tightening as if only a great effort was keeping him from speaking before she had finished. Catherine hadn’t known eyes could really flash in anger until then. She had always understood how he could have fallen in love with Héloïse; even Peter of Cluny admitted he had admired her intellect and beauty. But she had never seen Abelard in his years of glory. She on
ly knew the man, unnaturally old in his fifties, continually battered by the world. And she had never really understood why Héloïse was still so devoted to him.
But now she knew. Even she could sense the passion in him that, he said, was now directed totally to the pursuit of Truth. But something, something must remain of his love, for him to show such fury.
“I did know there was something wrong at Saint-Denis,” he said when she had finished. “You were right. Garnulf had sent word of it. But I had heard no more. I didn’t even know he had died. I will say a Mass for him. I wish Heloïse had consulted me.”
“She had no wish to add to your troubles, Master,” Catherine said. “And this has to do with us, with me. That is my work that has been profaned.”
They were seated in a small room by the Benedictine cloister. The others had gone on. Catherine had sent Adulf with them to dry off. The wooden walls echoed with the sound of people gathering happily for a warm meal on a cold day.
“What shall I do, Master?” Catherine asked.
“Heloïse would insist I send you back to her at once,” he said.
“Oh, but …” she started.
“However,” he continued, “you have managed to uncover far more than the one I sent to investigate the problem. He only guessed that funds intended to rebuild the abbey were being stolen.”
“And the psalter?” she asked.
“I don’t see how that could have anything to do with the thefts,” he said. “But it is a wicked and unnerving occurrence. I don’t understand why Garnulf’s notes were in it. What could it have to do with the Paraclete? Another of my tormentors clumsily trying to destroy me. Why does my folly always seem to hurt Héloïse? I had hoped to protect her from those who persecute me.”
“Master,” Catherine said timidly, “I don’t think she wishes to be protected.”
To her astonishment, he chuckled. “You can be sure of that,” he said. “Which is why I believe she will understand when I ask you to return to Saint-Denis.”
“Of course, Master.” She grinned. “Shall I steal back the psalter, or try to discover the guilty party? Do you want to keep the ring? And what of Garnulf?” she added. She crossed herself. How could she have forgotten him?
He became stern. “My agent is the one to deal with the murder of Garnulf,” he said. “He hasn’t returned from Saint-Denis yet, but will report to me soon and I will tell him what you have discovered. However, since it seems to please you, I would like you to retrieve the psalter. It must go back to the Paraclete. As for the ring, keep it for now, hidden. The time may come when you will need it as evidence. Will your uncle swear it was his ring?”
“Of course,” She paused. “There is something else. It was in Garnulf’s cloak when he fell. I’ve studied it many times, but it tells me nothing.”
She took out the other paper. “You see. It appears to be a sketch for a Last Judgment. The saved to the right, the damned below. Perhaps that’s all it is, but why did he have it with him when he died?”
Abelard took the paper. The saved were a bland group, alike in their holiness. The damned … he squinted. His eyes weren’t what they once were. The damned seemed to have individual faces: the usurer, crying in agony as molten coins were poured over his hands; the drunkard drowning in a vat of wine; the adultress with snakes biting at her breasts.
“What do you make of it?” he asked Catherine.
Catherine hesitated. “I can see nothing that would explain why Garnulf died. These are not people I know, but … see how the saved all look away from Christ, from the damned, as if they don’t want to know. They seem so smug. This may only be my fancy, but looking at this, I don’t feel horror for the sinners, only pity. And, please forgive me, but Christ does not seem just here, but cruel. Is that sacrilege?”
“Do you agree with what you see here?”
“I do not believe God is vindictive.”
“Nor do I,” Abelard said firmly. “Although in my younger days, I had doubts. It may be that Garnulf was reflecting his own heretical views or …”
Catherine understood. “Or it may be that this is a message. Someone has taken on the mask of a god and is hiding behind this lie to torture the weak—Aleran. I think Garnulf knew what the hermit was doing.”
“And he came to me for help, knowing that the sinners in his nets were inside the abbey as well as out. And I failed him.” Abelard put a hand over his eyes. “I only saw the threat to myself. I was too caught up in my own troubles.”
“Master, are you in danger?” Catherine asked. “Could William of Saint-Thierry and Bernard of Clairvaux have you declared a heretic?”
“William?” Abelard sniffed. “Hardly. He was not one of my better students. Bernard … he is difficult. He believes in what he is doing. He’s wrong, of course. But blind sincerity is almost impossible to combat. Still, I am not without friends. You, for instance.”
Catherine blushed. “Thank you, Master.”
“And there are others.”
He got up. “So, even knowing of the wickedness that is there, you will return to the abbey? I must be mad to allow it.”
“I will go back,” she said. “And you will let me, for Mother Héloïse’s sake and for the sake of those whom Garnulf pitied. What kind of Christian would not try to help them?”
He smiled. So did Catherine. The matter was settled.
They went into the refectory, which quieted at the sight of a woman. At the end of the table, a man stood.
“It is not allowed that you join us, Lady,” he said. “But I shall be pleased to serve you and escort you to the solar.”
Catherine stumbled on the hem of her skirt as Cardinal Guy of Castello, emissary of Pope Innocent, offered her his arm. To be in the presence of such an exalted official of the church made her so nervous she could barely walk. It was fortunate that she was unaware that in three years’ time, this old student of Abelard’s would become Pope Celestine II.
Adulf was not impressed by the company he had kept, but he heartily approved of the Benedictines’ table.
“Pheasant pie!” he sighed. “Honey cake, roast pork. I think I will become a monk when I grow up.”
Catherine laughed. “Just be sure you don’t join the Cistercians by accident. You’ll have a rude surprise.”
It was almost evening and the street was full of students heading for the taverns. They pushed her roughly as she tried to get past them. One boy made a lewd comment in Latin but was brought up short when she answered him with a quote from Saint Ambrose. Adulf caught her skirts and guided her to the side of the road, in the sheltering wall of the synagogue.
“It’s too dangerous here,” he panted. “Let’s go home.”
Catherine agreed. “One of those boys tried to cut my purse! Don’t worry, he didn’t get it. I had my hand over it.”
She held up the torn glove. The fur was becoming matted with her blood.
“He cut your hand, too!” Adulf exclaimed. “Would you like me to go kill him?”
“Adulf! That’s not a very Christian thought.” Catherine laughed. “Anyway, I didn’t see his face, and even if I did, the worst we could do would be to haul him up before the bishop. You can’t kill a cleric.”
“I could try,” Adulf muttered. This wasn’t his first run-in with the students of Paris, who used the protection of minor orders to get away with anything, even murder.
“Charity, Adulf,” she said. “The bishop won’t protect us from Father’s wrath if we’re late.”
They made it to the end of the street and turned right for the bridge. Just as they did, Catherine saw someone out of the corner of her eye. It looked like her uncle Roger. But what would he be doing at the synagogue?
“Roger!” she shouted and waved. “Uncle!”
He looked but appeared not to see her and vanished in the other direction.
“Here! Watch it now!” a street peddler yelled as she ran into his cart. She tripped and fell against a man in student’s robes. He caught
her and set her on her feet.
“Thank you,” she said, looking around for Adulf. “Do you see a little boy somewhere about? He’s wearing a red …”
The student tried to elbow his way past her, but not before she saw his face.
“Edgar! What are you doing here?”
His eyes widened a second; then his face was empty of recognition. She tried to stop him, but he pulled away.
“Wait!” she cried. “Why aren’t you at the abbey?”
“Hey, English!” one of his friends snickered. “You going to eat or fornicate?”
Despite the cold, Catherine went hot with embarrassment. She found Adulf on the other side of the road, where he had darted in his unsuccessful effort to catch Roger. Worn out, they made their way home.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t mention seeing my uncle,” she told Adulf. “Perhaps we shouldn’t say anything except that we went out to a lecture and were caught in the rain.”
“I already swore I wouldn’t tell,” Adulf reminded her.
“So you did. I apologize.” She took his arm as if he were a grown escort and let him lead her back as her mind tried to work out the events of the afternoon.
It would be easy to fulfill Master Abelard’s request. They were going to Vielleteneuse soon and that was only two miles from Saint-Denis. It would be simple to arrange another trip to the library and this time take the book out with her. And Roger—well, he must not have seen her. It was odd he should be in the Juiverie, but he might have been carrying a message for her father.
But Edgar! No, she must have made a mistake. It couldn’t have been. Yes, she had guessed he was once in minor orders, but not here, not in France. People didn’t just hop out of one station and into another. And he had said he would stay at Saint-Denis! She knew very few true English, only Normans. Maybe the Saxons all looked alike. And yet, those eyes, more angry than the rain. How many people could have such eyes?
Adulf tugged at her arm.
“Lady Catherine?” She looked down. His eyes were round and hazel and worried. “Did I do wrong? Should I have stayed with you? Did that man upset you?”
Death Comes As Epiphany: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Page 11
