Roger wiped the knife carefully on Leitbert’s robe. He put it back in the sheath and stood.
Catherine stared at him in horror.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “Someone had to see justice done. He would have been brought before the abbot for killing Garnulf. They would have given him a few prayers and set him free.”
“But he said it was an accident,” Catherine said.
“You can’t believe that!” Roger laughed.
Catherine continued staring. She felt as she had when she had looked into the emptiness in Aleran’s eyes. It was her uncle’s body, but Something Else was living in it. And she knew what it had done.
“Yes, I do. Leitbert was nasty and vindictive, but he wanted the kind of revenge he could get by slandering others, not murdering them. This was not a man of action. You should have left him to the abbot,” she said. “Or were you afraid of what he might say about you?”
Roger’s face hardened. “You don’t know anything about it, Catte. You don’t know. I’ve been someone else’s errand boy or soldier all my life. I had a right to something of my own. No one missed the little we took. Suger has so many jewels he can’t count them all. It’s not as if we were stealing bread from the poor.”
“That’s between you and your conscience, Uncle,” Catherine said. She moved toward the doorway. “Why didn’t you take the contracts when you killed the hermit?” she asked.
“Because I can’t read!” he shouted, too startled to deny it. “There were papers everywhere. I didn’t know which was mine.”
“You could have destroyed them all,” she said. She was horribly calm. Had something moved into her body, too?
“No, I couldn’t.” He came closer, intent on explaining. “I needed the others. People would pay well for them. Finally, by trading those, I could get all I ever wanted. I hid them, but he stole them from me! They would have been our fortune. I did it for you, Catte.”
“No, not for me.”
She backed away from this stranger in her uncle’s body.
“Who else?” He moved between her and the door. “You know I love you. Do you know what it did to me when you left for the convent? I would have taken you then, but I had nothing. No land, no money, no power. But now I will have all of those. Aleran gave them to me, through his master. So you see, you must get those contracts back. They’re ours. All for you.”
“No, it’s not true. If you did it for me, then why did you try to poison me?”
“Oh, Catte, precious.” He took a step toward her. “Is that what’s troubling you? I never did that.”
Catherine released her breath.
“I’m so glad,” she said. “There’s hope then, if you couldn’t go that far. That poor little boy!”
“That sneaking, spying little traitor, you mean. He saw me coming back from the hut. Who knows how long he’d been watching me? Telling me not to worry, he had ‘lots of secrets’. Well, he’ll keep them all now.”
Catherine’s heart went dead.
“He wouldn’t have told,” she said. “He wanted to be honorable, like a real knight.”
“A real knight! That kind of honor would cut your throat sleeping,” Roger said. “My soul was gone, anyway. I had too much to lose, here, to worry about a child.”
“Roger, listen. What you’ve done is abominable!” Catherine had to make him understand. “But you mustn’t believe you can’t be saved. Even to the last breath, we have a chance. If you repent now, sincerely, and change your life, God will take you in.”
“Catte, haven’t you been listening?” Roger came closer and took her arms in his hands. He rubbed up and down, from her shoulders to her elbows, as he spoke. The friction warmed her skin, like slow roasting.
“I tried God,” he said. “But God doesn’t pay attention to men like me. He made heaven for the monks and eternal weepers like Madeleine. The only knights who are saved are the Templars and I wasn’t about to vow chastity and charity when I wanted wealth … and you.”
“Roger, you’re my uncle. Marriage between us is forbidden.”
“Catte, theft is forbidden, but Suger and your father do quite well from it. Murder is forbidden unless you kill infidels. Incest is forbidden unless you can bribe the pope for a dispensation. If one can break all the laws in the name of God, then one can do even better with the help of Satan. Can’t you see? All I’ve done is take away the hypocrisy.”
“Roger, because men are venal, that doesn’t mean God agrees.”
“Yes it does, Catte.” He drew her closer. “The rules are clear. God and the devil both want our souls. Only God makes us pay Him. We suffer and starve and self-deny all our lives for a chance at a heaven with no sex or power. Not my idea of bliss. But Satan is willing to deal. He gives us something now. He gave me your life; he promised me wealth and fame.”
“But Roger, a few years of glory for an eternity of pain?” Catherine had to make him see before it was too late. “Everlasting torment … you can’t be willing to risk that!”
“The only torment, Catte, is to lose you again. Come with me.”
“Where, Roger?”
“Far away, where we’re unknown.” He smiled at her, looking almost childlike in his trust. “We can go to the Holy Land, you’d like that. I have jewels now that I can trade for a castle. You can have silks and … and all the books you want. Our children can be baptized in Jerusalem.”
Ok, Saint Catherine! How can I help him?
“Roger, I will go to Jerusalem with you, but only as a pilgrim, barefoot and poor, to repent my part in your sins.” She held him close, trying to drive out the evil. “Please, Uncle! Whatever penance you are set, I will suffer, too. But you must understand the horrible wickedness of what you have done.”
He held her tightly and sighed. “Oh, Catte!”
She looked up at him. “Then you will go confess to Abbot Suger?”
“Will you come, too?”
“Of course.” She took his hand.
They stepped out into the night, leaving the body of Leitbert lying in a widening lake of blood.
At the guesthouse, Hubert found not the man from Vielleteneuse, but Solomon and, to his astonishment and fury, Edgar.
Edgar did not wait on formalities.
“Where’s Catherine?” he asked. “What have you done with her?”
Hubert ignored him.
“Solomon, what are you doing here with this person?” he demanded.
Solomon pulled off his boots and poured the melted snow onto the hearth, where it hissed and boiled away.
“I assure you, this is not my idea of pleasure, Hubert,” he said. “You should listen to him. You told me Catherine was ignorant of worldly matters. What she has uncovered is far worse than anything we knew about.”
“Where is she?” Edgar broke in. “You didn’t leave her alone, did you?”
“Of course not,” Hubert shouted. “That monk who sees to the library is with her.”
Both men leapt to their feet. Edgar started for the door, heedless of his bare feet.
“Old idiot!” he screamed. “You’ve left her with the one man most likely to harm her!”
“What’s he saying?” Hubert screamed back. “Don’t tell me how to guard my daughter!”
In the back of the building, the wardress heard them and bolted the connecting door.
“The man was in league with the hermit,” Solomon explained. He started to put his wet boots back on. Hubert stopped him.
“Don’t worry,” he told them. “I passed Roger on my way over and told him to wait with her.”
Solomon relaxed but Edgar just shook his head.
“I don’t know why all of you have faith in this man,” he muttered. “I can tell you, seeing him from under the toe of his boot didn’t give me any belief in his probity.”
“Roger has been devoted to Catherine since she was a baby,” Hubert said. “Now, Solomon, tell me everything. From the beginning.”
Edgar shifted
impatiently as the story went on. Solomon had the knack of making a tale interesting, but not brief. So what if Roger were a knight? He had four brothers who were knights and only two he would trust not to put a knife in his back if it suited their needs. Maybe he had been devoted to her as a baby, but Edgar could see that it wasn’t the same sort of devotion the man felt now. What was the matter with these Frenchmen? Did wine soften the brain? After half an hour of explanation, when Solomon had barely reached the part about the defacing of the psalter, Edgar decided he had had enough and, slipping his boots back on, went out to find Catherine.
The night was clear, but moonless. There were no lanterns in the courtyard. Edgar’s eyes were still dimmed from the indoor light and he made his way from memory.
He knocked at the door to the abbot’s house. There was no answer. He knocked harder and the door swung open. He stepped in. The room was dark.
“Catherine!” he called. “Catherine! What … ?”
He had stepped into something sticky. He lifted his foot up and set it down on a body.
“Catherine!” He bent over and felt frantically at the robes, exhaling in relief when he felt the tonsured head. Whoever it was didn’t matter. He hurriedly crossed himself and muttered “In nomine Patris …” over the dead man. Then he ran up the stairs to find Catherine.
The library was empty. Edgar looked out the window, wondering where to go next.
The stars gave so little light. The world was only shades of gray and black. The tower with its vacant windows loomed over the abbey. The courtyard was empty, the monks in the dormitory preparing for the next Office. Where could she have gone?
For a second, there was a variation in the darkness at one of the windows. The flutter of a white veil, waved and dropped to the ground. It sank slowly, like a wounded dove still trying to rise on one wing. Edgar did not see it land. He was down the stairs and racing across the courtyard.
Twenty - two
Saint-Denis, in a space between the hours of Vespers and Compline, where time has ceased to matter
For a long time now Wisdom has been fighting against wickedness and for that reason it comes down now, too, into the arena of this world.
—Gueric of Igny Sermon for Christmas
“Roger, let’s go get Father first,” Catherine said, as he led her across the courtyard. “He will help you, I know. Anyway, I don’t think Abbot Suger is in the church now.”
Roger didn’t change course.
“I want you to look at something first, Catte,” he said. “Then, if you’re still not convinced, we’ll go to the abbot.”
They were almost to the entrance to the west tower. Catherine tried to pull back.
“No, Roger,” she pleaded. “You said you would confess.”
Roger drew her into the hollow of the unfinished tower.
“Come with me,” he said.
She couldn’t see his face. She didn’t want to.
“Roger, no!” she screamed.
She screamed again.
“They won’t hear you,” Roger said quietly. “My master has stopped up their ears. But he will open yours. Come with me. When we get to the top, you will understand.”
She tried to run, but he caught her by the skirts, then around the hips, and threw her over his shoulder. Then, ignoring her cries and the pounding of her fists on his back, he began to mount the stairs.
“He promised you to me, Catte,” Roger explained. “You would be well and we would live together forever. Forever, Catte, not only in this world, but the next. There are no pleasures of the body in heaven, but in hell we can have them all. Forever, my own, for all eternity. They will never take you from me again.”
“Roger, listen to me.” It was hard to speak while hanging upside down. “What if Aleran told you these things? Why should you believe them? The devil keeps no bargains.”
“Oh, but he does, Catte,” Roger said as he climbed. He wasn’t even out of breath. “Didn’t Marie get a healthy son? And didn’t the wife of Henry of Aquaforte leave him for the knight, Robert?”
“I thought you couldn’t read,” Catherine said.
Roger laughed. “Aleran told me. What do you think happened to the hundred and twenty-five pieces of gold Robert asked for? I was higher in Satan’s favor and they came to me. As you see, you came to me, too.”
As he spoke, Catherine gave up her fruitless struggling and starting working off her headdress. They were nearly to the top. How was he finding his way so surely in the dark? There was a patch of dim light and a rush of wind. She threw the cloth out with all her strength and prayed it would not be blown back in. Roger arrived at the top of the west façade. The very place from which Garnulf had fallen. He put her down.
“You must look over the edge,” he told her. “I want you to see how small the world is.”
He dragged her over and held her until she looked down. With despair, she realized there was no one there.
“You see, Catte,” Roger said gently. “The abbey, the village … see how quickly they disappear into the forest? In there is darkness and chaos. No one rules. That’s what this world is, a little spot of order. Outside there is nothing certain. I gave my pledge to the strongest lord I could find in this life. As I did for the next. Satan will reward us, Catte. He will give us everything we want.”
Catherine began jerkily to recite the Lord’s prayer. Roger shook her until her teeth chattered and she couldn’t make the words come out.
“You mustn’t do that!” he shouted. “You don’t know the power you go against.”
“Neither do you,” Catherine pleaded. “Stop this madness, Uncle!”
He started dragging her back toward the stairs. “Very well, Catte,” he said. “You will have to learn. I’m taking you with me and, you’ll see, nothing can stop us. First we are going to Paris to get back my contracts.”
This time Catherine’s scream was strong enough to bring monks and visitors to the windows. Hubert and Solomon ran out into the courtyard, searching for the source. Solomon pointed to the tower.
Edgar was already halfway up the stairs.
Roger clapped his hand over her mouth.
“Why do you do this? Why won’t you see the truth?” He was weeping in frustration.
Oh, where were her provoking voices now? From what sermon or syllogism could she find the answer to stop Roger?
Edgar arrived at the top of the steps and stood, panting and dizzy. Catherine’s scream had carried him up as if borne by dragons. He had never moved so quickly in his life. He wiped sweat from his face. Damn the night! Where was she?
He made out the shapes on the walkway. He could see the smaller one struggling to free itself.
With a primal roar, Edgar threw himself on Roger’s back.
Even befuddled with madness Roger was more than a match for an unarmed, untrained cleric. He whipped around at once, slashing Catherine’s shoulder in passing as he jabbed at Edgar’s arms. Edgar cried out and let go. Roger stood and bore down on him.
Catherine tried to stand, stanch the blood and see what was happening. She accomplished only the first. From below there were shouts and the clank of metal.
As grotesque shadows scuffling in the darkness, she made out Edgar and Roger. Roger’s knife glittered against the blackness. He was advancing.
Edgar had no knife.
She didn’t even think. Edgar was in peril. She ran at her uncle Roger with a vague intention of strangling him, tripped over her torn robes and landed hard against him.
He fell.
“Edgar, get his knife!” she shouted as she tried to rise.
“Catte!” Roger reached for her. “You’re mine! You can’t …”
He was too well trained. He was up again before Edgar could reach him. But now Catherine was between them.
“You wanted my soul,” she said. “You will have to take it, before you can hurt this man.”
“Catherine,” Edgar said softly. “Don’t.”
“You can’t
want him, Catte,” Roger said. “What did you promise, avoutre? You never offered more for her than I did. Catte, sweet, dear, beautiful Catte, come with me. We shall make love tonight in Hell.”
He rushed at Catherine. Edgar pushed her aside and grabbed Roger’s arm, using both his to keep the blade pointing upwards. At that moment, Hubert and Solomon arrived.
“Hubert, help me!” Roger cried. “He was trying to abduct Catherine.”
Hubert drew his knife and came at Edgar.
“Father!” Catherine caught his cloak. “It was Roger! He killed Aleran. He killed Adulf. He’s possessed! Stop him!”
Hubert paused. In that second, Roger broke free.
Instead of resuming the attack, he ran to the edge and climbed up between the crennels.
“Now see the power of my master, Catte.” He smiled. “He will take me to safety. Don’t worry. I’ll come back for you soon.”
He stepped off the tower. Catherine saw the confidence in his eyes turn to disbelief and then horror before he disappeared, to land in the courtyard below.
“Roger!” she shrieked. “No one can fly! No one …”
Irrationally she thought of Simon Magus. The devil couldn’t give him wings, either. How could Roger have believed so many lies? She began to cry.
“Oh, my baby:” Hubert reached out for her.
But Catherine went to Edgar.
“I felt as if he were pulling me into another world,” she said. “What frightened me most was that he would take me there before you came. How did you get here from Paris? How did you know where to find me?”
Edgar looked at her.
“Do you want the truth or may I say that I will always know where to find you?” he said.
Catherine opened her cloak and put her arms around him, wrapping them both in it.
“That is the truth,” she said.
Epilogue
Paris, Saturday, January 6, 1140, The Feast of the Epiphany
Death Comes As Epiphany: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Page 26
