Edgar kicked the muddy wall in embarrassment.
“I didn’t expect to see you. And, right then, I couldn’t think. The other students were with me. You know what they’re like?”
She did. “You were ashamed of me?”
“I didn’t want you maligned!”
“Oh. Well. Never mind. It’s not important,” she said. “Do you have the psalter? It’s not in the library anymore.”
“What? How can that be!” he said. “If it’s already been sent to Bernard at Clairvaux …” He kicked the wall. Clods of mud fell on his boot. “Then I’ve failed. I’ve messed everything up.”
“Don’t be so arrogant,” Catherine told him. “We’ve failed, not just you. I was supposed to get the psalter. I hoped it might be in Aleran’s hut.”
“No, not while I was there.” He paused. “Aleran was dead when I arrived.”
“Which time?” she asked.
“The second. The first time there was someone with him. I heard the voices, but I don’t know who it was. I couldn’t get away again until the next day. The body was lying there and the place was a shambles. I didn’t know anyone had seen me. I was hunting for some sort of evidence to link him to Garnulf’s death. But your uncle and his men arrived and decided to make me the main course at the Christmas feast. So I didn’t find anything. I didn’t kill him. Do you believe me?”
For answer Catherine leaned over the edge and stretched her arms down to him. He reached up as far as he could, but their fingers couldn’t touch. He blinked as a tear fell onto his upturned face. Quickly she sat up again. Her breath was ragged. This wouldn’t do. She forced herself to a semblance of calm and resumed theorizing.
“Very well. We will take it as given that you and I are innocent. Someone else isn’t. Now, I would guess that every man in the village had reason to stab Aleran, if he behaved with all women as he did with me.” She shuddered. “Then his death and Garnulf’s are unrelated. But if he were part of a plan to rob the abbey and if he were working with someone else, then they both might have been killed by that third person. But why? And who? And where does the psalter fit in? We have to find a stronger connection.”
Edgar stared up in awe. He wished he could see her face better.
“By the wandering body of Saint Cuthbert!” he exclaimed. “I do think you and I are the only intelligent people in the whole of France! The psalter must be the key. Garnulf’s drawings were there for a reason. That’s what I have to find. That is, if I live that long.”
“That’s what we have to find,” Catherine corrected him again. “Don’t worry. They won’t hang you yet. If it comes to that, tell them you’re in minor orders. Or I will. But Guillaume wants to keep you until he is sure of your guilt. He’s very conscientious about such things. Also, he wants to enjoy being the local justice a while longer. You’re, his first real prisoner.”
“I will cherish the honor,” Edgar muttered.
Catherine didn’t hear him. She was hurrying back to the great hall before she was missed. Edgar had given her no solid reason for trusting him, and yet she did. She tried to think why, avoiding the most probable reason. It wasn’t just that, she told herself angrily. It was more his manner. He wasn’t the sort of person who could kill or dissemble.
She suspected that he was very much like her. Dilemmas were to be thought out, carefully, step by step. He was the sort who’d go on presenting arguments for both sides of the question right up to the gallows. He had picked the right teacher in Abelard. But she wasn’t fool enough to think her brother would release an accused murderer on her protestation that he was too much a philosopher to kill.
And, of course, since Edgar was innocent, there was someone who was guilty. One of the other masons, perhaps. Some poor man caught in Aleran’s nets. But a mason could hardly have the knowledge to alter a manuscript. One of the monks? That would be highly possible. Monks weren’t restricted as much as nuns were. A man could get away long enough to deliver the offerings to Aleran. He also would need the hermit to disperse and sell the jewels. A monk with gold to sell would be suspect anywhere. But why would anyone so worldly as to traffic in gold given to the church care about condemning Peter Abelard? Even Catherine admitted some of his theological tracts were too dense for her to understand.
The answer must be in the psalter.
You’re missing something. Her voices weren’t taunting now, but worried. Your heart is clouding your reason.
Nonsense.
She mounted the steps with firm resolve, stamping out the nagging voices. All right, she admitted grudgingly. I have let my own feelings interfere. But I know I’m right about Edgar.
She went on climbing. Nothing else mattered. Garnulf was dead and that was tragic. Aleran was dead and that was a relief. But Edgar was alive and she would do everything she could to be sure he remained so.
Thirteen
In and about the castle, the third week of Advent, December 1139.
… the solitary life removed from all others has only one aim, that of serving the ends of the individual concerned. But this is manifestly opposed to the law of charity.
—Saint Basil of Caesaria
Catherine could hear the debate continuing as she climbed the twisting staircase. The voices seemed mainly to be Roger’s and Guillaume’s. She entered the hall and slid as inconspicuously as possible around to the alcove where the women were sitting. Marie moved over on her bench to let Catherine in.
“What’s happening?” Catherine whispered.
“The knights still want to torture him until he confesses and then hang him,” Marie whispered back. “But Guillaume feels that we should send the matter somewhere else. Since the man is a craftsman at Saint-Denis, Abbot Suger may want him back.”
Catherine sighed in relief. “It would never do to offend the abbot.”
Marie nodded. “If your father would take one side or the other, the matter would be closed. I don’t understand why he hasn’t spoken.”
Hubert sat near the hearth watching the debate. Catherine couldn’t see his face in the shadow but his hands gripped the arms of the chair with an intensity that was echoed all through the line of his body. She expected him to leap to his feet any second. But he didn’t move.
“It’s very odd,” Marie commented. “He usually speaks his mind.”
“Vociferously,” Catherine agreed. “Perhaps it’s a test for Guillaume.”
“Oh, I hope not.” Marie looked at her husband. “He’s always so nervous when his father is here. He’s not at his best at all.”
Catherine was surprised at the concern in her voice.
“Marie, do you love Guillaume?” she asked.
“Of course,” Marie said. “Do you think I’d have resorted to anything as horrible as consulting that hermit if I didn’t?”
Catherine didn’t answer. But if Marie loved Guillaume, she wondered, why did she give Roger the ring? Or had she? It was a natural assumption that he had gotten it from her, but were there other possibilities? Catherine turned her attention to her uncle.
Roger was standing in the middle of the room, speaking patiently, in a tone that was sure to annoy Guillaume.
“I don’t see why we should wait,” he said. “We found the man next to the body, going through the hermit’s possessions. He’s clearly guilty of something.”
“But perhaps not murder,” Guillaume answered. “After all, he could have taken whatever he wanted at the time he killed the hermit. Why come back?”
Roger thought. “Maybe the pigherd scared him away. Maybe he didn’t know there was anything to look for. He might have dropped something and had to come back for it. Of course! The knife. He’d left his knife stuck in the body. There. Now let me haul him up here and find out what else he did.”
Catherine waited for Guillaume to respond, but her brother only stood, chewing his thumbnail, his eyebrows pulled together with the strain of thinking. Oh, Roger! She knew he was only doing what he felt to be his duty, but he had it all wrong. Even the
logic was specious. Wasn’t that clear to everyone? Why didn’t her father say something? What was he waiting for?
Some of the knights were already standing, ready for the order to go down and fetch the prisoner.
“Are you sure the knife was his?”
Catherine’s voice sailed clearly across the hall. Even the whispering of the servants stopped as everyone turned to stare at her. Catherine blushed. She knew. She had no position in this house and, even if she had, a woman’s advice was to be given privately, not bellowed. Knowing this full well, she repeated the question.
“Are you sure that the knife that killed the hermit belonged to the stone carver?”
Guillaume finally came out of his trance. He looked at Catherine in shock, then turned to Roger.
“Did it?” he asked.
“Well, it must have,” Roger answered. “If we get him up here, he’ll tell us soon enough.”
“But you don’t know,” Guillaume pressed. “Who searched the prisoner?”
“I did,” Sigebert answered.
“What did you find?”
“Not much,” the knight said. “An iron cross on a neck chain, a bit of carved leather and his spoon and meat knife. That’s all.”
Catherine was afraid she’d have to speak again, but Guillaume spotted the point.
“Then he had his knife with him.”
“He might have had two,” Sigebert tried.
There were derisive snorts from all about the hall. Craftsmen had their tools, of course, but no one of that class possessed more than one knife.
“So, he might have killed the hermit, or he might have been there just as he said, to find a charm,” Guillaume concluded.
Roger shrugged. The matter seemed to be once again at an impasse. The audience was growing restless. They had counted on blood by now—if not the stone carver’s, then at least from an argument among the knights. Catherine felt Marie fidget next to her. Was she worried about what might come out regarding others who had gone to the hermit, or was she just wondering if the kitchen workers were getting on with dinner without her to oversee?
Guillaume gave in. He turned to Hubert.
“Father, you’ve said nothing. What do you think on this matter?”
Finally Hubert released the arms of the chair. He leaned forward.
“I think …” he said. Everyone waited. “I think I want to see the hut of this so-called hermit.”
“You want to see it, Father?” Guillaume said the words as if he expected them to change to something that made sense. “Whatever for? The man is dead.”
Hubert rose. “I want to know what kind of man he was. I’ve heard all the tales about how wondrous he was, but nothing about what he preached or how he healed. I have no confidence in the holiness of hermits. You know that, Guillaume. A man arrogant enough to look for God on his own often comes under the influence of Something Else instead.”
He started for the door, calling for his gloves, cloak and horse. Then he stopped.
“And I want Catherine to come with me,” he announced.
This produced an uproar in which Catherine was the only one silent.
“Nonsense!” Guillaume said. “It’s not her concern.”
“She’s not well, yet, Father. It will tire her too much,” Marie said.
“It’s a foul place, Hubert, and not fit for a lady,” Roger added.
The knights all shouted their agreement in various expletives. Hubert glared at them in haughty disapproval until they subsided.
“None of these things are important, except Catherine’s health,” he told them. “I will see she doesn’t overtire. Whether you like it or not, Catherine has the sharpest mind and the clearest understanding of anyone here. Should we refrain from using them simply because of who she is? Catherine, put on your warmest things and don’t dawdle. I want to be back before sundown.”
“Yes, Father.”
She walked through the stunned group in a haze of delight. Before all these people, her father had praised her. Not for docility or embroidery or music, but for the one quality she had thought he despised, her clarity of thought. Was it possible that he was proud of her?
Roger recovered from his shock with a start and followed.
“I’m coming with you both, then,” he said. “I want to be sure Catherine is well taken care of.”
Catherine hurried upstairs to get her things. Marie went after her. When they reached the room, instead of helping her dress, Marie sat on the bed, biting her upper lip and wringing her hands red.
“Sister?” Marie said.
Catherine stopped with her boot half on, her foot in the air.
“Marie? What is it?”
Her brother’s wife studied her as if trying to see into her soul. Then her body sagged in despair.
“I need your help, Catherine,” she blurted. “You didn’t tell Guillaume about the ring; maybe I can trust you. I have to trust you. There’s no one else. I’ve done something horrible and you’ve got to find it before your father does.”
“Marie, the ring is going back to Saint-Denis. No one need know anything about you and Roger.” Catherine dropped the boot and put her arms around the sobbing woman.
“Roger? What has this to do with him?” Marie rocked back and forth. “It’s Aleran, damn him. I paid with my body; I paid with my ring. You’d think it would be enough, but then he said I had to promise him the only thing that was truly mine, or he would take back what he had given me.”
Catherine froze with dread. Abelard was right. She had let her feelings keep her judgment at bay. It was another possibility, which led to an even more frightening conclusion. She whispered, not wanting to hear the answer. “Marie, what happened with the hermit? What have you done?”
Marie hid her face against Catherine’s shoulder. Her voice was barely a whisper.
“I sold him my soul in return for my son.”
“Oh, my dear,” Catherine breathed.
Marie moved away and faced her, defiant now that the worst had been said.
“Guillaume and I tried for four years. In that time I conceived three times and all miscarried late. I felt them live and then die inside me. I tried everything—prayer, penance. I fasted. I gave alms. Nothing worked. God wouldn’t listen.”
Marie got up and started pacing the tiny room. Round and round. Catherine watched in growing fear.
“I had no more hope, Catherine!” Marie went on. “Then, about two years ago, when Guillaume and I went to Saint-Denis to pay the tithe, I met a woman. I had heard of the hermit before, of course. The villagers often went to him for charms and cures. But this was a woman of our own class who had come to Aleran. She had tried everything, also. She had even gone to Campostella, begging for a miracle.”
Catherine thought of Mathilde, the woman she had shared the bed with at Saint-Denis. How many others had Aleran snared?
Marie stopped her circling and spoke calmly, looking out the window at the snowy fields. “The saints wouldn’t help her. The Virgin Mother didn’t answer. Her husband needed an heir. She had come to the hermit as the last resort. She told me about him. She told me everything.”
Catherine covered her ears. “Marie! Don’t!”
Marie paid no attention. “In my own way, I was as desperate as she. You don’t know how hard Guillaume has worked to establish himself here. The castle, the respect of the townspeople. None of what he is building will have any meaning unless he has children to inherit it. It was my job, my duty, to provide them. But God wouldn’t help. Why not? What could I have done? I was determined that I wouldn’t become like your mother. She’s half mad now, from grief and that strange guilt. So, I decided to go see the hermit, too. Yes, I knew. There were certain … rituals to perform. They were horribly degrading, but they worked. My precious Gerard was born nine months later, strong and whole.
“I did it for Guillaume, Catherine! Only for him. But I didn’t know about the paper. I thought giving him my jewels would be enough. Whe
n he told me, it was already too late. He said he would send demons to steal Gerard if I didn’t. So I signed.”
She stopped and sat down. She seemed to think that everything was now clear.
“What paper? How could you sign? You can’t write.”
“I made my mark, the same one that’s in the ring. A crown with rays coming from it. For Marie, the Queen of Heaven. He wrote the words next to it. He said his Master required a contract before he could promise Gerard would be safe. I never knew Lucifer was a lawyer.”
“Marie, you signed a contract with Satan?” Catherine had never heard of such a thing. Aleran had been more devious in his evil than she could have dreamed.
Marie nodded sharply. “I’m not sorry, you know. Gerard hasn’t been touched by this. And I think there is another child coming. That’s worth damnation to me. But I can’t have Guillaume finding out. You must help me! There’s no one else I can ask. You’re the only woman I know who can read. Find the paper for me, Catherine. Destroy it. I’ll never ask how you got my ring or what you went to Aleran for. You must do this, or I will go to everlasting torment without a scrap of comfort.”
“Catherine! What’s taking you so long?” Hubert’s voice resounded up the stairwell. Both women jumped in terror. Catherine finished putting on the boot and started to go, but Marie blocked the way.
“Will you do it?”
Catherine didn’t know how to answer. How could she abet a mortal sin? It would imperil her own soul. But how could she turn her back on Marie, who was suffering?
“Yes, I’ll try,” she said. “But you must do something for me. Edgar is frozen and starving down in the hole. You’ve got to get him some dry clothes and warm food. He didn’t kill the hermit and he mustn’t die for it. Aleran was alive when the pigman saw him. Edgar heard voices inside the hut. That’s why he came back yesterday. Will you help him?”
“I will,” Marie said. “I’d do it if he did kill Aleran. He probably did, you know. He’s lying. He couldn’t have heard voices there yesterday morning. Aleran was dead when I went up there two days ago. But it doesn’t matter. I’m glad. I didn’t think anyone could kill a disciple of Satan. Maybe God cares about us, after all.”
Death Comes As Epiphany: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Page 16
