Death Comes As Epiphany: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Sharan Newman

  The wind made her eyes sting and she wiped them with her bandaged hand. The cut was throbbing. She was so tired. She pushed the door open, handed the basket to the cook and went straight to bed.

  They left for Vielleteneuse the next day. The pace was such that Catherine could walk most of the time, letting Adulf lead the horse. Her mother’s constant stops and detours were driving her distracted. Why not just light one huge candle to all the saints and leave money to have it burn in perpetuity? Then they could get on with their lives. She wondered if Edgar were back at Saint-Denis yet. She had a few things she wanted to say to him. Starting with how incomparably bad his impersonation of a workman had been.

  The ring bounced against her breastbone. Heat seemed to radiate from it, constantly reminding her of her own stupidity. Her hand ached, too, under the bandage. It had been difficult to get her glove on this morning over it. She had thought of telling Agnes, but Agnes was still annoyed with her and had also developed a cough. She carried a leather flask of honey and cinnamon-spiced wine and sipped at it from time to time. But the cough stayed.

  It was early on a dreary afternoon when they finally sighted the skeleton spire of the abbey. Catherine sighed in relief. Only a few miles more.

  At the gates of Saint-Denis, Madeleine paused to direct the carters to continue on to Vielleteneuse.

  “We’ll stay the night here,” she told them. “Tell the Lady Marie to have my room ready tomorrow. Now, Agnes, we’ll keep vigil tonight at the shrine of Saint Hilary. I don’t think we’ve given him enough attention lately. Go to the guesthouse and tell them we’ve arrived.”

  But the guesthouse was full of pilgrims. There were no empty beds. Petronilla, sister to Queen Eleanor, was visiting and had demanded a room entirely to herself.

  Catherine sat outside while her mother argued with the wardress. She wondered if Edgar had returned yet. Perhaps she could deliver her well-rehearsed speech on the ineptitude of his pose as a stone carver to him before they went on. She got up.

  “I’ll be back in a moment, Agnes,” she said.

  She hurried across the courtyard before Agnes could answer. On her way she passed another one of the masons. She called out to him.

  “The Englishman, Edgar, Garnulf’s apprentice, is he here?”

  “Edgar?” The man shook his head. “Left a few weeks ago. Haven’t seen him since just after they buried the old man.”

  “When he comes back, can you give him a message?”

  The man spat. “Not likely he’ll be back. There was things missing when he left. He’d be a fool to return.”

  He looked more closely at Catherine. “Took something from you, too, eh?” He laughed. “Should’ve known better, a lady like you. Go on home and pray your father never finds out. These wandering workmen are all the same. What did he promise you, anyway, sweet? Maybe I can get it for you?”

  He grinned and spat again. Catherine turned and ran. She was getting much faster.

  Agnes was waiting.

  “They say they can make up a bed for the three of us in the hall,” she told Catherine. “It will be terribly drafty.”

  “You mustn’t consider bodily comfort, Agnes,” Madeleine said. “We’ll be praying all night, anyway. Come along.”

  “Mother.” Catherine stepped in front of her and forced Madeleine to look at her. “Mother!” she repeated. “Agnes isn’t well. We must get her to Vielleteneuse where she can be cared for.”

  Finally, for the first time since she had come home, Madeleine looked at her.

  “If Agnes is sick, then it’s your doing,” she hissed. “I gave you to God, to keep my last children safe. But you, with your evil pride, ruined it. God threw you back in my face. Now he’ll take another. If you aren’t a good enough atonement for my sins, then you’re no use to me. Go away!”

  “Mother?” Catherine was too shocked to cry. She stepped back, tripped on a cobblestone and sat down hard. She hadn’t understood. Her mother had meant her to be Isaac, the perfect offering. Now she was Esau, thrust into the wilderness.

  Agnes helped her up. Then she went and embraced Madeleine.

  “Mother, please,” she said softly. “Catherine’s not to blame. I just have a cough. I’m not going to be taken. We’re all very tired. Please, let’s go home. Come on, Catherine.”

  Catherine got up wearily. She was so tired. Her arm was throbbing. Her mother was mad. Edgar had left her, gone back to his books, his private quests, forgetting all about her, no doubt, now that her usefulness was over. Twice a fool. She was conscious only of her own stupidity.

  “Home,” she repeated.

  They soon overtook the carts and the pace slowed again. Catherine swayed on her horse and gripped the reins tightly, trying to ignore the pain in her right hand. Adulf saw her weaving and ran up, taking the reins from her and leading the horse himself. As they passed the fork in the road that led to the hermit’s, she felt a sudden rush of cold. She fought an urge to vomit and tried to call out for help, but gagged on the words. She was cold all over now, except for the fiery brand her hand had become. Something was terribly wrong, she knew. The world shifted around her. She held on. She knew that if she fell from her mount, the demons would get her. She could hear them now, panting and howling through the woods. Catherine grasped the crucifix in her left hand and wordlessly begged for strength.

  Just outside the village, their way was suddenly blocked by a group of armed men. Catherine had a vague impression of armor and noisy harness.

  “Avoi! What do you scoundrels think you’re doing?” Madeleine cried. Then she gave a shout of joy. “Roger, my dear. Come, help me. Agnes is ill and needs to be gotten indoors as quickly as possible.”

  Agnes held out her arms and Roger took her in front of him, where she lay, coughing gently into his chain mail. He looked at Catherine. She was dead white, except for a flush of red across her cheekbones.

  “Catte? Are you all right?” he asked. “Madeleine, I think we should take her too.”

  “Nonsense,” Madeleine said. “Take care of Agnes!”

  Catherine paid no attention to what was happening. The world around had faded and been replaced by strange shapes; sinuous, blurred, half-human objects. She watched them with distant curiosity that slowly changed to panic. They reminded her of the illuminations in the big Gospel book at Saint-Denis, only these were writhing in pain and stretching out to her as the party crossed the castle drawbridge and entered the courtyard. She should have been safe now, home at last, but even here the space was filled with bulky forms, fantastic beasts from Revelations, frozen grotesquely out of time. As she stared, one of them revolved and started moving toward her. Catherine held up her hands to fight it off and slid numbly to the ground.

  She lay unmoving in the mud. A face loomed over her. A demon, a pale, familiar demon. Edgar! He touched her forehead. The coolness in his hand cleared the mist around her.

  “Catherine!” Was there fear in his voice? “Sanctissima! You’re burning! What have you done now?”

  “Willfulness, sinfulness and pride,” she answered. “I’ve been sent to hell. Why are you here?”

  And then she passed out.

  Madeleine saw her daughter lying motionless on the ground. She was still a moment. Then she screamed.

  “Catherine! Catherine, no! Somebody, help me!”

  She ran over and pushed aside the workman pawing at her. “Get away from my child, mesel! Oh, Catherine, you brave girl! You took her illness onto yourself. Oh my sainted child! Forgive me. You mustn’t die, too! Oh Lord, my Lord! Haven’t I repented enough?”

  Hubert heard the commotion and came running. He knelt beside Catherine.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s been blessed,” Madeleine moaned. “God has come for her to take away our sins. Oh, my baby, I didn’t mean for you to do this!”

  She turned on her husband.

  “This is your doing, Hubert. This is what you’ve done to us! God knows your heart! One by on
e, he takes our children. Then what use is your crime, your wealth? With no dynasty, it’s dust! That’s all. Nothing. You did it all for nothing and you took me with you!”

  “Get her away from here,” Hubert ordered. “Roger, help me carry Catherine.”

  Ladies from the castle took Madeleine’s arms and led her inside. Roger gathered up Catherine himself, and carried her to a pile of cushions next to the great hearth.

  “She’s on fire,” he said. “But how?”

  He took off her cloak and left glove. He tried to get the right one off, but it wouldn’t come. Hubert held a lantern over them.

  “Oh, my God, her hand,” he said, his mouth suddenly dry with fear. “Cut the glove off. Gently, Roger!”

  “I’m trying,” he answered. “But it’s too tight.”

  Catherine cried out as he slashed and the leather peeled off.

  The cut on the finger was almost lost in the swelling. It was oozing infection and, from it, ran a tracery of fine red lines inching up her arm, like an army growing stronger as it conquered her body.

  Roger cradled the wounded arm in his hand.

  “Hubert,” he said steadily, “I need a clean, sharp knife. Marie, tell one of your women to get a small reed, a bowl and bandages and keep my sister out of here.”

  Hubert brought him the knife and set it into the fire. As they waited, Roger held the injured hand still as if it might shatter. It was now grotesquely swollen, mottled purple, white and red.

  “My precious, wide-eyed Catherine,” Roger whispered. “You should have stayed in the convent.”

  “It’s my fault,” Hubert said. “I’ve been so caught up with this business at Saint-Denis, I couldn’t protect my own child.”

  Catherine’s sister-in-law, Marie, brought in the reed, the bowl of hot water and the bandages.

  “Agnes told me how it happened,” she said. “Those miserable students, may they all roast in Hell. You’re going to reopen the wound, aren’t you?”

  Roger nodded. “We’ve got to drain the poison. You can see it racing toward her heart. What herbs do you have for her fever?”

  “Angelica, almonds, feverfew … we’re making up a paste of it now. I’ll mix it with wine and bring it in as soon as it’s ready. I hope we can get it into her in time.”

  But they all knew how slight the hope was. Guillaume, Catherine’s brother, came to report.

  “We’ve sent for the doctor from Saint-Denis,” he told them. He looked at his sister. “She’s grown up since I last saw her. I wouldn’t have known her.”

  Guillaume went to the kitchen for hot ale to give Roger and Hubert. He was Hubert’s oldest child, the only surviving son. He had seen too many of his brothers and sisters die; some as babies, hardly baptized, some old enough to play with and care about. And it hadn’t stopped when he left home. In the five years of their marriage, Marie had had three stillbirths before their son had been born healthy. He had long ago hardened himself to senseless death and no longer asked for miracles. For his mother’s sake, he had sent for her priest as well as the doctor, but he had no faith in either.

  The keep, the tower of the castle, was the only part that was livable in winter, and the season of Advent filled it with relatives, servants, friends and stray travelers. Normally the hall was raucous with humanity. Tonight it was silent. A few people sat along the stone bench which ringed the room and kept watch, praying for Catherine. The children were scolded and ordered to keep quiet. One of the maids terrified them mute by telling them that the angel of death was hovering over the house, waiting to swoop down and snatch Catherine’s soul.

  “If you make so much as a peep,” she threatened. “The Aversier will take you instead.”

  The children neither spoke nor slept the rest of the night. Poor Adulf lay in an agony of fear that God would remember he had been Catherine’s ineffectual guard when she had been hurt.

  When Roger sliced into the puffy flesh, Catherine winced, but did not awaken. The herbs had done that much good. He tied the reed in place to drain the wound and keep it open. Marie forced more of the fever draught down her throat. Father Anselm brought down the chalice and chrism.

  “She never took her final vows?” he asked Hubert.

  “No,” Hubert could barely force the word out. He was remembering the night he had watched his mother die, as helpless as now to save her. Catherine’s dark curls and olive skin came from her. He could never tell his children about their grandmother, but just possibly Catherine would have understood. And now it was too late.

  “Perhaps I should administer the vows now, ad succurren-dum ,” the priest suggested. “I know it is an honor reserved to the bishop, but I know the words and I think it is allowed in extremis, that is, if she wakes long enough to take them. It will ensure her a higher place in heaven.”

  “No,” Hubert said again. “I want her to meet her grandmother,” he added.

  Father Anselm gave him a bewildered look, but did not pursue the subject.

  Roger sighed in relief. Catherine wasn’t meant for the convent. He’d always known that. She wasn’t to be bound to God, not even in death. But she wasn’t going to die. Unlike the others, Roger would not abandon hope.

  No one noticed when he left the hall or found his way down the ladder outside, and set out in the direction of Saint-Denis.

  It was near dawn when he returned. In the chapel, several people were saying Prime. The chanted psalms floated down to those keeping vigil. “Deus in adjutorium meum intende.” Help me, Lord.

  Agnes had come down and was sitting by the fire, shivering with guilt and ague.

  “I should have taken better care of that cut, Father,” she sobbed. “I should have told someone who would know how to treat it.”

  “It’s all right, darling,” Hubert held her. “You did all that anyone could. There must have been poison in the wound from the beginning.”

  They looked up as Roger came in, but he walked past them, unseeing. In his hand he held a tarnished silver box. He knelt by the bed, opened the box and took out a pinch of powder.

  “Roger, what is that?” Hubert demanded. “It smells disgusting, like the bread we feed to the pigs.”

  He didn’t answer but mixed the powder in a spoonful of wine and held it to Catherine’s mouth.

  “He said to give it to her at each of the Divine Offices,” Roger told them.

  “You saw a doctor?” Agnes asked.

  “Of a sort,” Roger watched Catherine’s face. Was the pain easing?

  “Whatever it cost you, Roger, I’ll pay,” Hubert said.

  The spoon shook in Roger’s hand. “Thank you, brother,” he said. “But I will pay for this myself.”

  He made sure Catherine swallowed every drop.

  Eleven

  The village of Saint-Denis, Saturday, November 25, 1139, the feast of Saint Catherine

  At Rouen, at the time of the Great Crusade, those who had pledged to go said, ‘Why should we deliver Jerusalem from the infidel, when there are infidels in our midst? That is doing our work backwards.’ So they herded the Jews into a certain place of worship, … and without distinction of sex or age, put them to the sword.

  —Guibert de Nogent

  The house was set far back from the road, behind a thick stone wall. Hubert had to pound at the gate for several minutes before someone answered.

  “Who comes like a thief in the middle of the night?” an old voice quavered.

  “One whose heart is in Israel, though his body is enchained in Babylon.”

  The gate creaked open. “shalom, Hubert,” the old man said.

  “Shabbat shalom to you and your house, Baruch,” Hubert answered. “Is Solomon here? I must see him.”

  “At this hour? He’s asleep.” Baruch led the way to the house. “I was asleep. We don’t get up for Matins in this family.”

  “Baruch, do you think I would disturb you for a trifle?”

  Baruch opened the door. “Sit. I’ll wake him.”

  Hub
ert made himself comfortable in a cushioned chair by the hearth. He took an apple from the bowl on the table and peeled it in a long strip. He was teasing one of the cats with it when Solomon came down.

  “Is the abbey on fire?” he asked. “Has the Messiah come? What is so important?”

  “I’ve just spent the evening with Suger,” Hubert said, dropping the apple peel. “He had a messenger from Peter Abelard, of all people. A tall, serious Norman boy, full of his own piety.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. My invitation must have been lost.” Solomon yawned.

  “Abelard insists that someone is stealing from the abbey,” Hubert continued. “He also thinks Suger should look into the death of the stone carver.”

  Solomon stopped in midstretch. “Investigate it or find a scapegoat?” he asked. “How much does Abelard know?”

  “Nothing about our part in it, I’m sure,” Hubert said. “But the abbot is worried. I’ve been telling him for months that this sort of thing has to be done carefully. But he can only see his plans for the new church. He wants it built overnight, if possible.”

  “I know,” Solomon said. “He’d be up there laying brick himself if the guilds would let him. What does he want us to do?”

  “Be more careful, he says. Sell farther afield.”

  “I’m halfway to Samarkand as it is!” Solomon protested.

  Hubert didn’t answer. He knew none of the jewels had ever been traced through Solomon.

  “What if Garnulf’s death wasn’t an accident?” Hubert asked after a moment. “What if the times we thought we’d missed some things in the mortar, it was because someone else had gotten there first?”

  “Who? How?” Solomon asked. “How could they smuggle them out of the abbey? Where would they sell that we wouldn’t know about?”

  “I don’t know, Solomon,” Hubert said. “If I had all the answers, I’d be pope.”

  “I’d like that,” Solomon said. “As your nephew, I’d be first in line to be a cardinal. Then I could stop risking my ass traveling the length of Christendom on Suger’s whims.”