Death Comes As Epiphany: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Sharan Newman

  “Oh, no!” She felt the back of her gown, hoping that somehow the vellum had been caught on it. It was stupid. Of course the paper she had taken from the box in the hut was gone.

  “You simpleton!” she railed. “It must have fallen at the abbey, when the belt broke. Wonderful. Someone’s sure to find it. I had to lose it in a place where everyone knows how to read. That’s what comes of not taking time. I should have put it in my sleeve. It’s the only safe way to carry anything.”

  It couldn’t be helped now. But she hated imagining what Brother Leitbert would do when he found it. If only she could be certain he hadn’t seen her face.

  There was nothing along the road that she could tie the skirts with. She’d just have to hold them as best she could.

  Catherine looked down the road. Seven miles to Paris. It seemed to stretch forever. And she knew she could no longer trust the straight way. It would be winding paths and false trails all the way. Nightfall came early this time of year. The winter darkness would find her lost in the forest.

  Catherine sighed, commended herself to the protection of Saint Catherine, and took the first turning she came to.

  Her footprints in the snowy path were clear as a map. A good tracker like Roger would spot them immediately. After a moment’s panic, Catherine went back to the road and started again, this time holding up her skirts in front, but letting them trail behind, sweeping away the evidence of her passing. A deer came through soon after, his antlers dislodging the snow mounded on the bushes. Even the brush marks were obscured. Saint Catherine was watching out for her namesake.

  Leitbert was only winded when Catherine knocked him over. He sprang up at once to follow the strange monk. At the doorway, he noticed the sheet of vellum. He picked it up, took one look and went pale.

  “It’s a message!” the precentor gasped. “It can’t be. Oh, Lord, Lord! Whatever shall I do now!”

  He collapsed onto the steps, moaning and wringing his hands so that the ink on the vellum smeared and stained his fingers. He made no more effort to capture the silent monk. He knew the man was not of this world. That paper had been sent as a warning from Somewhere Else.

  Seventeen

  Somewhere in the woods north of Paris, the same evening

  Ic this giedd wrece bi me ful geomorre, minre sylfre sith … AErest min hlaford gewat heonan of leodum ofer tha gelac; hœf de ic uhtceare hwœr min leodfruma londes wœre. Tha ic me feran gewat folgath secan, wineleas wrœcca.

  I make this song from my own sorrow … First my lord

  went forth from his land over the dark sea; I had sadness

  at dawn, knowing not in what lands my lord wandered.

  Then I went forth friends to seek, in woeful need.

  —The Wife’s Lament

  Freezing to death always looked so peaceful. Catherine moaned. But I hurt all over.

  Her voices must have gone to seek a warmer body to nag, for nothing responded. The psalter thumped bruisingly against her side; her skirts tangled themselves around her legs and tried to trip her with each step. It was getting dark and the snow had begun again. Catherine couldn’t remember what she was doing here, all alone in the wood, or why she had set out. Something just made her move one foot and then the other, always heading south.

  She was stopped by a drift of snow that covered a low fence. She plowed through it, fell and lay flat, a dark shadow on the white ground.

  “Papa! Papa!” Two shrill voices woke her. She moved her head. “We found a frozen lady!”

  Someone lifted her to her feet. “This way, Lady. Try to walk. I can’t carry you. Odo, help the lady!”

  They dragged her into a low-roofed hut in a clearing.

  The single room was both smoky and humid and the stench was choking. The warmth brought feeling back into Catherine’s hands and feet and she cried in pain.

  “There now, that’s a good sign.” An ancient sexless being helped her off with her boots and began rubbing life back into her toes. It looked up at her and grinned toothlessly.

  “And what’s a pretty lady like you doing out alone, eh?” it asked.

  “I’m lost,” Catherine answered. “I’m lost and tired and hungry. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

  “That long, eh?” The being chuckled. “Lords and ladies do like their meals regular, don’t they?”

  “Mustn’t talk that way, Grandam.” The man who had helped her in handed her a bowl of soup, thick with barley.

  “She’ll not eat that slop,” Grandam sneered.

  Catherine took the bowl clumsily in her bound hands. She noticed everyone in the room stopped to stare at the bandages.

  “I cut them; that’s all. I swear,” she said. “You can see if you like. There’s nothing to fear.”

  She took a bit of the soup. There was no flavor to it but she had never had anything that tasted so good. She scooped up more, hardly stopping to chew. She was starving.

  Over the edge of the bowl she saw two pairs of enormous eyes. Children’s hungry eyes, just like Adulf’s. Children were always fed last. Catherine wondered how much was left in the soup pot.

  In a house like this, do you think there’s ever enough? her conscience chided.

  Catherine handed the bowl to the children. “It was very good. I’ve had all I want, thank you.”

  They attacked it with fingers and tongues and soon there was nothing left.

  There are those who fast for the good of their souls and those who have no choice, she thought. It was something she had always known intellectually, but never realized so forcefully before. These people knew what starving was. They could tell one the number of days until the first spring shoots would appear to signal the end of winter famine. They would probably think John the Baptist’s diet of honey and locusts a feast.

  Her layers of wool and linen were all at once overly hot.

  “If you could give me a bed for the night and point the way to Paris in the morning,” she said, “I could pay you with my bliaut. It’s good wool and will make warm cloaks for your children.”

  She held out the skirt with its embroidered pattern of goldfinches. The grandmother rubbed the fabric between her fingers.

  “A fair deal,” she said. “Give her the bed, Dadin. And what will ye give us to say we’ve never seen ye here?” she added.

  “I have nothing else,” Catherine said. “And you can tell whom you like.”

  “Grandam!” Dadin chided. “We don’t want anything more.”

  The old woman subsided.

  They gave Catherine the one bed, such as it was, and the family slept in a heap around the hearth. Catherine was exhausted, but not so much that she didn’t notice the state of the blanket Dadin was preparing to cover her with.

  “Thank you, no,” she said quickly. “My cloak is warm enough. You take it.”

  “Thank you, Lady,” he said. “You are most gracious.”

  “Mmff,” she responded from the depths of the cloak. Gracious indeed! It was no act of charity to avoid sharing a bed with what must be living in that blanket.

  It’s probably cousin to what’s living in the bed, the ghost of Sister Bertrada sniffed.

  That was Catherine’s last thought until morning.

  She awoke at the far edge of owl-light, the air still dark but the stillness of early morning all around. There were odd snortings in the room with her, and for a hazy moment she wondered if she had accidentally fallen asleep in a pigsty. There was something shuffling along the floor; a dog or goat? It had a goaty smell to it. Where was she?

  All at once her breath was cut off. A greasy rag pressed hard against her mouth while sharp fingers raked her clothes. Catherine grabbed with both hands at the arm holding her down but it was as immovable as an iron bar.

  “Don’t move, little liar, or I’ll smother ye now,” Grandam croaked.

  Catherine tried to scream. The rag covered her nose, too, cutting off her breath. She lay still.

  “That’s better,” the old woman said. �
��Now, let’s see what ye’re hiding in that sleeve. Nothing but yer clothes, ye said. Pretty little lady, running from home, took nothing with ye. Think we’re fools? What did ye steal to take to yer lover, girl, Mama’s jewel box?”

  Catherine struggled again, this time pulling at the hand trying to get at the psalter. The old woman was as strong as Samson.

  “Stop that,” she said. “Here, Dadin, get over here and hold our fine lady down while I see what she’s hiding.”

  “Grandam, I’m tired,” the man muttered. But he got up and grabbed Catherine’s hands, pinning her down as his grandmother took out the psalter.

  “Best to humor her,” he said to Catherine. “She always gets her way.”

  “Now, what sorts of pretty things have we here?” Grandam said. “What is this? A book? Ye can’t have gone out into the world with naught but a book! Yer mad, girl!”

  She released Catherine’s mouth so that she could use both hands to search the rest of her clothes.

  “It’s my prayer book,” Catherine gasped. “From the convent.”

  “Merciful Lord in heaven!” Dadin cried. “Yer mauling a nun!”

  “What’s she doing out of the cloister, I’d like to know. Ye just keep a tight hold on her, till I say to let go.”

  Finally she reached the chain around Catherine’s neck.

  “Aha, this is better.” She examined the cross. “Wood! Worthless! Wait, here we are, a ring, a nice shiny gold and jeweled ring. That’s better. Fit payment for a fine meal and a warm bed.”

  “That’s meant as an offering!” Catherine protested. “You’d rob the Church?”

  “We belong to the Church,” Grandam said. “The bishop of Paris owns us down to the manure pile in the yard. Time we got something back.”

  Even Dadin seemed interested.

  “We could sell it to the Jews and get enough to pay the tithe for the next ten years.”

  “That’s my good boy.” Grandam twisted the chain until it broke. “Now, girl, take your prayers and go.”

  “Shouldn’t we kill her?” Dadin asked.

  Catherine started in amazement. “But you saved me. You fed me!”

  “That’s when I thought I could get a reward,” Dadin answered. “No one pays for a runaway nun.”

  “Shame on ye, boy,” Grandam snapped. “Murder’s a mortal sin. I’m not spending eternity in the ice of Hell for a trinket. She’ll not tell, will ye, sweeting?”

  She stroked Catherine’s cheek.

  “Just give me my prayer book and let me go,” she said. “I’ll tell no one.”

  “Ye don’t believer her?” Dadin asked.

  “Look at her,” the old woman said. “She’s so stiff with fear, she’s near to wetting herself. Anyway, she’ll not be eager to have it known where she is. This jael don’t want to be found. All right. Let her up.”

  Dadin released Catherine’s wrists and she sat up. She reached for the psalter.

  “Not just yet, girl.” The old woman held it over the hearth. “Ye promised warm wool for the children and Dadin’s wife always wanted a skirt of linen. Take ’em off. Saint Germain’s bones, girl, didn’t they teach ye any charity in yer convent?”

  “But I’ll freeze!”

  “Ye can keep the cloak. Go on.”

  Catherine dropped her woolen bliaut and linen chainse on the floor. Red with shame, she quickly wrapped herself in the cloak. By now the rest of the family was awake and watching the proceedings as if it were a play.

  The old woman handed her the psalter. “Thank ye for yer kindness, good Lady,” she grinned. “May God’s blessing be upon ye. Ah, ye forgot to leave yer hosen and shoes.”

  “But I can’t go barefoot!” Catherine cried.

  “Dadin, give her a bit of rag to wrap her royal toes in. Now take yer silly book and be grateful I believe in Christian charity.”

  Catherine took the psalter and rushed out into the cold. Behind her she could hear children laughing.

  The day was even colder than the one before, but rage and mortification warmed Catherine considerably.

  “Idiot, idiot, idiot, IDIOT!” she told herself. “What did you think they were, kind serfs from a nursery tale? Noble peasants? Christ’s poor? It’s a long way to Jerusalem from France and that old bordelere and her mesel family will never walk in the City of God.”

  Catherine! Where did you learn such words?

  Catherine paid no attention. She followed the first well-trodden path she came to and, luckily, came out on the Chaussée St. Lazare not far from the city gates. It was still too early for them to be opened but she knew that there was always a doorway for late travelers to enter by. If only no one would question a person in nothing but a monk’s robe, looking like she’d spent the night in a haystack. Catherine reflected ruefully that if anyone guessed she was female it was all too likely she’d be taken for a bordelere herself.

  Her luck held, for once. The guard was nursing a holy hangover and barely glanced at her as she passed.

  As she shuffled along the road, she clutched the psalter beneath the cloak as if it were her salvation. Her body ached. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been without pain. Her heart was flaming with anger and the voices of cherubim wouldn’t be enough to quench it. But she had accomplished her mission.

  She crossed the Grand Pont and made her way through the Juiverie to the house where Abelard was staying. By now the streets were beginning to fill with early-morning revelers and late returning students.

  Catherine knocked at the door. No answer. She knocked again, louder. From deep inside she heard swearing. The door opened. She wasn’t surprised at all.

  “Diex vos saut, Edgar,” she said. “I see you arrived safely. I’ve brought the psalter. May I come in and sit down?”

  He opened the door wider and stepped aside to let her pass.

  “Do you feel faint?” he asked.

  “Not at the moment,” she answered. “But I am considering it.”

  “You look terrible,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You look different. I can’t think … oh, I know. It’s the first time I’ve seen your face without dirt on it.”

  “Catherine?”

  “Please hold me, Edgar, before I fall down.”

  He caught her in his arms as she collapsed in tears.

  “Edgar? What’s going on down there?” Abelard’s voice came from above.

  “Catherine LeVendeur has brought us the psalter from Saint-Denis, Master,” Edgar called back. “I’m seeing to her now. It’s all right, Catherine. I won’t let anyone hurt you again.”

  That made her laugh.

  “No, don’t take my cloak.” She could feel herself blushing. “I have nothing on under it.”

  “What? What did they do to you?” He took the psalter and set it down on a bench without looking at it. All he could see were the filthy bandages on Catherine’s hands. His own eyes blurred. “I did that, didn’t I?”

  “Never mind,” she said. “Is there someone who can see to me? Is there a woman in this place?”

  “Yes, I’ll take you to her.” Edgar helped her up and led her to the back of the house. She took the psalter with her. It wasn’t going to be out of her sight until she gave it back to Héloïse.

  Edgar asked her, “Do you want to tell me what happened to you after I escaped?”

  “Not now,” she answered. “But everything is turned round wrong. I’m afraid I can never go home again.”

  “You can come home with me,” he said.

  Catherine didn’t answer. They reached the kitchen, where a comfortably round woman was putting fresh bread on the table.

  “Dame Emma,” Edgar said, “this is the Lady Catherine, despite appearances. She needs whatever tending women do.”

  “Ah, you poor little thing!” Dame Emma crushed Catherine in her arms. “Edgar, what are you standing there for? This is no place for you.”

  “Oh, yes, uh, if you need anything …” he said.

&
nbsp; “Just go.” Emma pushed him to the door.

  She took off Catherine’s cloak and shook her head, more at the bruises than the nudity, but asked no questions. She brought hot water and herbs for her body, bread and honey for her stomach and gentle words for her heart.

  “I have nothing half so fine as what you’re used to, I’m afraid,” she fussed. “But I’m sure I can get you decently covered. Will you be staying long?”

  “I don’t know,” Catherine answered. “I should go back to the Paraclete now. Mother Héloïse is expecting me.”

  “The Paraclete? You talk as if it were a stroll across town. It’s no journey to take in midwinter. You’re not one of the sisters there, are you?”

  “Not yet. I was hoping to make my profession when I return.”

  Dame Emma smiled. “I’d wait a bit longer, if I were you. A man ever looked at me like that, and I wouldn’t be running off to some convent.”

  “There is nothing on earth greater than the Love of God,” Catherine murmured.

  “True, my dear, but there’s nothing in the Bible that says only the celibate go to heaven.” Emma busied herself with cleaning Catherine’s various wounds. “Does that hurt?”

  “No, you have a delicate touch,” Catherine said. “Thank you.”

  “Now, I’m putting you to bed in the sickroom next to the kitchen, where I can hear if you need me. And I don’t care what those men say, you’re not to get up until you’ve slept the day through.”

  Catherine had no argument with that. She curled up in the warm box bed, feeling like a kitten that’s just found its mother. The psalter was cradled against her heart. For once, she was at peace.

  Eighteen

  Paris, December 26, 1139, Saint Stephen’s Day

  And they did compel me with my own hand to cast my book into the flames … and I lamented the hurt to my fair name far more than the one to my body. The latter, indeed, I had brought upon myself through my wrongdoing. But this other violence had come upon me solely by reason of the honesty of my purpose … which had compelled me to write that which I believed.