Death Comes As Epiphany: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Sharan Newman

  —Peter Abelard On the condemnation of his work at the Council of Soissons, 1122

  Catherine woke up lying on her stomach with the psalter wedged underneath, a corner of it digging into her ribs. She stretched, wondering if her body would ever stop hurting. The tiny room was redolent of bread and onions. The odor pulled her up by the nose and carried her to the kitchen door, where Dame Emma was chopping a huge pile of leeks.

  “Good morning,” Catherine said. Where … ?”

  “Out back,” Emma sniffed. “The moss bucket is in here by the door. Best wrap up. It’s cold as Pilate’s … ah … heart out today.”

  Catherine took a handful of absorbent moss on her way out. Dame Emma was thoughtful to keep it inside. There was nothing worse than having to wipe oneself with an icy clump of moss. When Catherine got back, Dame Emma had new bread and hot soup waiting for her.

  “The master wants to see you as soon as you’re fit,” she told Catherine. “I found you a decent chainse to wear. It’s rough wool, but it will keep out the wind. And a pair of slippers, but they’re a bit large, I’m afraid.”

  Catherine went back to the room to dress. The psalter lay innocently on the bed, loose pages sticking out. They had been scratching Catherine for two days but she had not yet had a chance to examine them.

  She pulled the papers out and glanced at them.

  “Lucifer, dyobolo …”

  Her stomach tightened. No. How could … ? She looked at the next one.

  “Ego, Nevelon, vassal du Due de Normandy, …”

  Catherine didn’t want to see the rest of them, but she couldn’t stop.

  “Lucifer dyabolo mihi pollicenti hac in vita cxxv solidos aureos atque amorem fidelem Beatricis mulieris cfare uxoris militis Henrici de Aquaforte, ego, Robertus animam meam in vita futura dicto dyabolo die mortis mee dare ut in eternam habeat polliceor.”

  “Ego, Raisinde, uxoris Evardis, …” “Ego, Aubrée …” “Ego, Gautier …” On and on, poor, desperate fools who had trusted in Aleran, who had believed they could attain what they wanted most on this earth in return for their immortal souls. Yes, here it was, “Ego, Maria, uxoris Guillaumis Le Vendeur, …” At the bottom, the little crown with heavenly rays around it. Marie’s mark. Well, at least Catherine could take care of its destruction and reassure Marie that her sacrifice would never be discovered.

  She started to bundle up the letters when a further one fell from the psalter. It was dated just a few weeks before.

  “Ego, Roger, miles Theobaldis Champagne …”

  No. Not Roger. Never Roger! He was too strong, too honest. He had no reason to apply to Satan for help. There was nothing he wanted that he couldn’t get for himself.

  But there it was, Roger’s mark, and his name. And the date—St. Leonard’s feast day, November sixth. Catherine tried to remember back that far. What had been happening then?

  It came to her in a horrible rush what had been happening then. Catherine LeVendeur had been dying of a poisoned knife wound and her Uncle Roger had gone out and brought back a strange powder that had saved her life.

  “Not for me, Uncle. Not for me!” she cried.

  She crumpled the paper in her hand and stuffed it under the mattress. Of all the nightmares she had lived through since leaving the convent, this was the worst. How could she face the fact that she was alive only because of someone else’s blackest sin? How could she ever atone?

  Now she understood how Marie felt. It didn’t matter if the hermit had really been an agent of the devil. It only mattered that people believed it. They might just as well have handed over their souls, for in signing the contract, they had given up their hope.

  Catherine barely managed to get to the kitchen door. She threw up new bread and warm soup all over the back walk.

  “I thought you were eating too fast on an empty stomach,” Dame Emma said when she staggered back in. “Have some spiced wine and we’ll try again.”

  “No, not now,” Catherine said. “I must see the Master.”

  She gathered up the book and the contracts, all but the ones signed by Marie and Roger, and went up to lay the problem before the most logical mind in all Christendom.

  Abelard was sitting with Edgar in a small solar at the top of the house. The room contained only a writing table and a few stools. A small brazier filled with coals provided very little heat. But the windows let in what they could of the watery midwinter sun and gave the room an illusion of comfort. When Catherine entered, Abelard put down his pen and motioned for her to sit. She told him the story, from the death of Aleran to the night in the peasant’s hut, leaving out only the names on the two contracts she had left in her room. He listened to it all without once interrupting. Edgar jumped up when she told how the old woman had made her undress, but Abelard sat him back down.

  “She’s all right,” he said. “You mustn’t get distracted by nonessentials.”

  Catherine agreed. The less said about her stupidity, the better.

  “I don’t know how the contracts got in the psalter, Master,” Catherine concluded. “I’m not sure who distorted the book. But I do know that all the things that have happened are somehow woven together. What should I do now?”

  Abelard turned to Edgar. “You’re sure this is the book the precentor was reading when you saw him?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  It was Catherine’s turn to be upset. “You didn’t stop at Saint-Denis with Uncle Roger and all his men after you!”

  Edgar smiled. “I knew you’d give me enough time.”

  “You idiot!” Catherine shouted.

  Abelard quieted her with a look. He opened the book.

  He studied the changes in the psalter, shaking his head in disgust. “Clumsy,” he muttered. “No one would believe this came from Heloïse or me. If we wanted to be blasphemous, we could do it with much more subtlety.”

  His expression turned to anger when he saw the scraps of paper that represented pawned souls.

  “How could anyone be as cruel as this hermit?” he said. “Even his murderer was less wicked. You say he also took offerings from these people?”

  Catherine nodded. “In many guises.”

  “Yes.” His mouth tightened. “Those pathetic women.”

  He studied the contracts again. “Wait a minute. Look at this.”

  Catherine came over and looked where he was pointing.

  “Yes, I noticed that odd way of forming the g,” she said.

  “Look here.” He indicated the marginalia in the psalter. She and Edgar leaned over his shoulder. Behind his back, Edgar took her hand. She didn’t pull away, even though the rope burns were being squeezed painfully. She studied the caption under the picture of the devil and the nun.

  How could she have missed it? “‘Igitur … ego, Lucifer te gravido.’ How could I have missed it? The hands are the same, even the wording is the same!”

  “His imagination does seem limited,” Abelard observed.

  “Then the person who wrote the contracts was the same one who defaced the book!” she said. “But how could Aleran have gotten into the abbey library? How could he have known the psalter was there?”

  “I could surmise several possible ways,” Abelard said. “But I see no need to reach for the unlikely. Think, Catherine. How well did Héloïse teach you?”

  Catherine sighed. “I don’t have to think. I’ve seen it for a long time. I kept hoping for another answer. It just seemed so dreadful that someone inside the abbey …”

  “Why?” Abelard asked.

  “They are men of God,” Catherine said simply.

  Edgar snorted.

  “They are only men,” Abelard replied. “In any group of men there are those who resist temptation and those who fall.”

  “I know. Truly I do,” she said, thinking of the contracts hidden down in her room. “I want to believe those who have chosen God are better than that.”

  “Those who have honestly chosen God are, my child. So,” he continued, �
��someone at the abbey was working with Aleran. This is a school hand, so it must be one of the monks. But not one raised at Saint-Denis, so you needn’t fear the good abbot is involved. Chartres, perhaps? At any rate, they seem to have had quite a business: theft of church property, deception and extortion of pilgrims, most likely vile lechery, and of course, and at last, murder.”

  “Leitbert doesn’t seem strong enough to murder anyone,” Catherine said.

  “We have no real proof that he was the one who defaced the book,” Abelard said. “He may have found it and the contracts and been planning to show them to Abbot Suger.”

  “Master,” Edgar interrupted, “with respect, I think now it is you who are refusing to face the logical conclusion.”

  The self-proclaimed greatest thinker in France glared at his student. Then he laughed. The lines around his eyes and mouth changed abruptly. It occurred to Catherine that she had never heard him laugh before.

  “Very well, we’ll assume that poor Adam Suger has made a sad miscalculation in his appointment of a librarian and that this man, like so many other fools, resents me enough to go to the trouble of ruining a beautiful and holy piece of work,” Abelard conceded.

  “And the contracts?” Catherine asked.

  The lines fell back into place. “That is something much more terrifying. Perhaps the hermit had a hold over the precentor, also, and forced him to write the contracts.”

  “But then why did he finally kill Aleran?” Catherine asked. “And how?”

  “On why, I can only speculate,” Abelard said. “But you may have heard the saying that there is no honor among thieves. As for how, even a weak man can find sudden strength in great need.”

  “And what about the little boy at Vielleteneuse?” Catherine said. “Adulf ate the soup meant for me. And he died. But Aleran was already dead and we had no monks visiting at the castle.”

  “Your family thinks my student, Edgar, killed Aleran,” Abelard said.

  “But we know he didn’t,” Catherine said.

  “Yes, we do,” said Abelard.

  Edgar said nothing. He let go her hand and put his arm around her waist. Again, she didn’t reprimand him.

  “Could something have been brought in to the castle before Aleran was killed?” she suggested. “Perhaps it was an accident, not intended to hurt me at all.”

  “Catherine, in view of everything else that has happened, do you think that likely?”

  Definitely, it was his eyes, she decided. They had summoned Héloïse into love with him and now they were reaching into her and forcing her to face the reality of the situation.

  She didn’t want to look at it.

  “I think someone at Vielleteneuse wanted me dead,” she said at last. “And that’s why I ran away.”

  He nodded gravely. “And I think you are beginning to look at the problem as a scholar, Catherine. It can be painful, as I know too well, but it is the only way to find the truth.”

  He folded the contracts back into the psalter. “I’m going to keep these for now. When you return to the Paraclete, I would like you to take the psalter with you.”

  “I am relieved to turn it over to you,” Catherine said. “Now what must I do?”

  Abelard glanced over at the sundial cut into the windowsill.

  “Eat,” he said.

  “The most logical thing I’ve heard all morning,” Edgar said.

  They went down to the hall, where they were met by the other English student, John.

  “Hubert LeVendeur has half of Paris out looking for his daughter,” John told them.

  “And the other half looking for me, no doubt,” Edgar said. “I shouldn’t stay any longer, Master. Now that I know the book has been found and that Catherine is safe, there’s no reason for me to risk being discovered here, under your protection.”

  “It was on my orders that you became involved in this, Edgar,” Abelard said. “I am responsible for your safety.”

  They went into the central room where tables had been set up. Dame Emma came in with a platter of stewed fowl, followed by a boy with bread and apples.

  “See that you eat slowly, child,” she warned Catherine.

  “Master,” Catherine said, “I should get word to my father. He must be dreadfully worried.”

  “Catherine, you mustn’t take the risk!” Edgar said.

  “It wouldn’t be wise for you to return to your family yet,” Abelard agreed.

  “I know someone of my brother’s household is part of this,” Catherine said. “But it might be one of the knights, Sigebert or Meinhard. Or one of the villeins from the town. Any one of them could have gotten into the kitchen. Some of the names on the contracts are villagers of Vielleteneuse and Saint-Denis.”

  “I don’t know yet how far this reaches,” Abelard said. “But you are also my responsibility now. You were sent into this danger on my behalf.”

  John blessed his bread and ate it with the apple. He took no meat.

  “It seems to me that the root of this problem is Abbot Suger and his desire for glory,” he said. “If the abbot weren’t so eager to have the most precious jewels to ornament his church, no one would have thought of stealing them.”

  Edgar took a thigh piece from the platter. He had taken no vows of abstinence.

  “We can’t blame Suger because there is greed in the world.” He gestured with the bone as he spoke. “He only wishes to glorify God and France.”

  “Yes, and he’s so obsessed with doing so that he has ignored the evil growing in his own house,” John added.

  “I wonder if my father has done the same,” Catherine said. “When I was a child, I assumed he knew everything. But since I have been home, he seems more distracted, less involved with matters of the family. Sometimes, he even seems afraid.”

  “Another good reason for you to stay here,” Abelard said. “Edgar, if you must think with your hands, could you be sure there is nothing in them?”

  Edgar dropped the drumstick he was now working on and apologized to Catherine for spattering her with sauce.

  Hubert was nearing the end of his wits. No one at the castle had seen Catherine leave. There was a general conviction that she had done so through divine grace and Marie was having trouble keeping the clothes she had left behind from being torn into shreds to sell as relics.

  At Saint-Denis, no one had seen her either. The monks were in an uproar there because the precentor had taken to his bed, babbling about being attacked by a ghostly demon in the abbot’s quarters.

  He had hoped that she had gone back to the house in Paris. He didn’t believe shock had driven her mad. She only needed to get away from the attentions of her kin. But here he was and the house was empty. There was no sign that she had even stopped there to get more clothes.

  Hubert sat alone in the great hall of his town house. The hangings were gone from the walls and the wind crept in through the cracks. He rubbed his aching head and wondered if Madeleine were right. She had borne eight children. Only three were left. Perhaps only two. Oh, Catherine, am the one who brought you to this? If this is God’s way of saying I made the wrong choice, then how can I correct it? Am I to abandon my family and return to my people? Or should I give away all I have and enter a monastery?

  He sighed. I wish I lived in the days when the Almighty spoke from whirlwinds and fire and told us clearly what we were to do.

  There was a banging at the door and a clatter of spurs against the stone floor in the entry.

  “Hubert!” Roger called. “Where are you? We’ve been on every path from here to Vielleteneuse and halfway to Provins. Catherine has vanished. Christ, it’s cold in here. Isn’t there anyone about who can make a hot drink?”

  “In here, Roger,” Hubert answered. “All the servants went with us to the castle. I made a fire in the kitchen hearth. There’s a pot of mulled cider warming.”

  Roger hadn’t been out of the saddle for more than an hour in the past two days. He was gaunt and muddy. Sigebert and Jehan did
not look much better. They went straight for the cider. Roger stopped to report to Hubert.

  “You’ve got to realize that she may be wandering blindly, not even knowing her own name. She could be anywhere.”

  “Why must I realize that?” Hubert snapped. “What good would it do? Anyway, I don’t believe it. She’s run off to find that man she helped escape. If anything has addled her mind, it’s that.”

  Roger blenched. “Not my Catte. She wouldn’t do that. She’s only interested in God.”

  Hubert sighed. “As you wish, Roger. You hunt for her in your way, if you like.”

  Roger paced the room angrily. Finally he stopped in front of his brother-in-law. “That boy didn’t act like a workman, nor talk like one, either. If he’s gone to ground in Paris, there’s only one area he can hide in.”

  “I had thought of that,” Hubert said. “And if she wanted to reach the Paraclete, but couldn’t, she just might go to the man who founded it.”

  “I still think you’re wrong about her sanity,” Roger said. “But that’s another good reason to search on the île. Jehan! Sigebert! I need some men to take apart the student quarter—and damn the bishop if he tries to stop us!”

  “Roger! Don’t do anything insane!” Hubert said. “Remember the season. You wouldn’t fight so near the Nativity?”

  “The destruction of a servant of the Devil would be a fine Christmas offering, brother,” Roger answered. “And if he has snared Catherine I’ll send his soul to Hell with joy in my heart.”

  Abelard, John, Edgar and Catherine were still discussing the theological implications of the contracts when Dame Emma burst in on them.

  “There’s a riot going on out there!” she cried. “Drunken knights on horseback, shouting and breaking into houses. It’s said they’re looking for an English boy who’s abducted a nun.”

  She glanced pointedly at Edgar and Catherine.