Death Comes As Epiphany: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery
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Ante luciferum genitus, et ante secula dominus, salvator noster hodie mundo apparuit.
Engendered before Lucifer and Lord from all eternity, upon this day our Savior was made manifest to the world.
—The Paraclete Breviary from the “Liturgy for Epiphany”
“I’m sorry, Catherine,” Hubert said. “But we’ve all agreed that you can’t let your mother see you, at least not until she’s recovered from her grief at Roger’s death.”
“But, Father,” Catherine argued, “Agnes says she’s started lighting candles to me!”
“I know, but it gives her comfort, and”—Hubert grimaced—“it keeps her quiet. Her mind is already so confused that knowing you’re alive will hurt more than it helps.”
“So you want me to return to the Paraclete and take my vows as if nothing had happened?”
“Yes, Catherine, that is what I want,” Hubert said. “As I recall, it was what you wanted, too.”
“I know,” she answered. Then she looked at Edgar.
They were seated around the hearth in Eliazar’s house. It was the only place Hubert would agree to let both Edgar and Catherine stay. He had known from that moment on the tower that it would be too much effort to try to part them.
“Later, Hubert,” Eliazar had warned. “Catherine has just been horribly betrayed by one she loved and trusted. Give her a few days to recover.”
But it had been a few days, and while Catherine had said very little about Roger and seemed, apart from cuts and bruises, to be almost her old self, she showed no signs of losing interest in Edgar. Hubert stared sourly at this complication in his daughter’s life. Edgar gave him a nervous smile.
“What did Abbot Suger say when you told him about all this?” Edgar asked.
Hubert grunted.
“Nothing,” Eliazar said. “Even Abelard agreed that, for once, the truth would serve no purpose. Suger thinks that the precentor was killed by a thief and that Roger died trying to capture him. All those who were involved in stealing from the abbey are gone now. It would only grieve the abbot to know what really happened.”
“And he might lose confidence in those he trusted his business to,” Catherine observed.
“Charity, Catherine!”
She looked around, startled. That wasn’t one of her voices. Who had spoken?
“But sir,” Edgar continued, “are you sure everyone involved is dead? I know I heard two people speaking when I went to Aleran’s hut. If he was already dead, they had to be Roger and Leitbert. But I would swear Roger believed I had this contract with Satan.”
“There was someone else,” Hubert answered. “He’s here now. He begged to be allowed to speak with you before he left.”
Hubert left the room for a minute and returned with a large man garbed in penitent’s gray. He was stooped and timorous and it took Catherine a moment before she realized who it was. Even then she didn’t believe.
“Sigebert?” she asked.
He threw himself to the floor with a loud moan.
“Forgive me, Catherine, although I’m not worthy to be forgiven!” he cried. “I listened to the honeyed words of the devil and followed his orders. I do not deserve your pardon, but I crave it all the same.”
“Sigebert?” she said again. “What is all this?”
He was crying too hard to answer. Hubert patted his back and tried to make him rise, but he was prostrate with emotion.
“He came to me a few days ago,” Hubert explained. “He had been employed by Aleran and Leitbert as a messenger. They had promised him his brother would die soon, with no heir, and he could inherit. He really believed in Aleran’s power. Roger’s death unnerved him, but, even worse, he learned shortly after that his brother’s wife had had healthy twin boys. Even Sigebert can recognize a sign.”
“Is that true, Sigebert?” Catherine asked.
“All true,” he gurgled. “I’m a miserable damned sinner!”
“Sigebert has volunteered to accompany the cleric, John, to all the ones who also signed contracts for Aleran. They are to be given back the paper and instructed in the orthodox doctrine of divine forgiveness. When that is over, he intends to go to Cîteaux.”
“Whatever for?” Edgar asked.
Sigebert managed to get to his knees. “I’m going to ask the abbot for admittance to the order as a conversus,” he said.
“You? A lay brother?” Catherine shook her head to clear it. “Working in the fields with peasants?”
“I must pay for my sins,” Sigebert told her simply. “If not here, then in greater torment later.”
“You truly mean it!” Catherine said. “If that is so, then I forgive you gladly and wish you well.”
“Thank you.” He got up. “Will you forgive me, too?” he asked Edgar.
Edgar struggled with himself a minute. He wasn’t so angry about being trussed up and beaten; it was being humiliated while he was in the prisoner’s hole that still rankled. Still, he could hardly do less than Catherine.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “I forgive you, too.”
Babbling his gratitude for their mercy, Sigebert left.
“Now, Catherine,” Hubert said when she had gotten over the shock. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Please, sir,” Edgar broke in. “I would very much like to marry your daughter.”
Hubert grunted again. “Considering her recent behavior, I suppose you think I should be honored by your offer. You may not realize that I already gave her dowry as a donation when she entered the convent. Just how would you expect to live? I can see it, the two of you in a single room over a tavern, with nothing but books and no food or fire.”
“It sounds lovely,” Catherine said.
“That, daughter, is because you’ve always been fed and clothed. And I’ll be laid over hot coals and roasted before I let you take her back to that god-awful island of yours.”
“I would be willing to live in France,” Edgar said. “I don’t think my father will want me back when I tell him I don’t intend to take holy orders.”
“There’s another point,” Hubert said. “Just who is your father? I realize I’m on shaky ground here, but I won’t hand out my daughter to just anyone.”
“If you ask him, he’ll tell you he should be king of England. But for the moment he’s Laird of Wedderlie,” Edgar answered.
“Where the hell’s that?”
“Scotland.”
“But you said you were English,” Catherine interrupted.
“I am,” Edgar said patiently. “But in case no one told you, England was taken over by the Normans almost seventy-five years ago. My father’s family fled to Scotland. I have a noble enough lineage, but, I admit, few prospects. I’m the youngest of five sons. All my brothers are married and three have sons of their own now. All I have is a bit of my mother’s dower land, which she left to me.”
Hubert didn’t hear the last part. “Five sons, you said? And they have sons, too?”
He looked at Edgar with new respect.
“You know, Hubert,” Eliazar observed, “it has long been customary among our people that, when a man has achieved a certain wealth, he takes a poor student into his home and supports him that he may grow in wisdom without starving. It is considered a mitzvah. Of course, he is meant to be a student of the Talmud, but nevertheless …”
“Five sons,” Hubert repeated.
“I would not be poor,” Edgar said. “I can sell my inheritance to my brother, Egbert. And if I completed legal studies, I could be of some use to you in your occupation.”
“You would do that? A nobleman, demean himself by studying law?” Hubert asked.
While her father and lover were considering her proper disposal, Catherine was considering, too.
“I have other duties, too,” she said. “I must return to the Paraclete.”
“What!” Hubert shouted. “By Saint Urusla and the eleven thousand virgins, then what are we arguing about?”
“You don’t wan
t me?” Edgar was suddenly lost.
“I said I would return the psalter to Mother Héloïse and I intend to,” Catherine said. “It is also my obligation to see that it is repaired. Furthermore, although Master Abelard has assured me that Roger”—she swallowed—“that he was almost certainly possessed by a demon and not responsible to God for his actions, I cannot but feel that I must spend some time in prayer for his soul. He loved me.”
“Catherine, you cannot torment yourself all your life because of this,” Edgar pleaded.
“I didn’t say all my life,” she answered. “You just announced that you were returning home to sell your patrimony. You should be back in about four months. If you haven’t changed your mind. If I haven’t decided to take the veil after all, then I’ll marry you.”
“Catherine!” Hubert said. “That is not your decision to make!”
Catherine smiled. She held out her hands to Edgar.
Hubert looked from one to the other. Both were thin, scarred, ragged and worn. If they loved each other now, they might just continue to do so, a risky but not unprecedented way to begin a marriage. One last suspicion remained in his mind.
“Catherine LeVendeur,” he asked sententiously, “have you known this man carnally?”
“No, Father,” Catherine answered. “But, with your kind permission, I would very much like to.”
Five sons, Hubert thought.
“Very well,” he consented.
The voices of the convent had no parting comment. They had expected this all along.
By Sharan Newman from Tom Doherty Associates
CATHERINE LEVENDEUR MYSTERIES
Death Comes as Epiphany
The Devil’s Door
The Wandering Arm
Strong as Death
Cursed in the Blood
The Difficult Saint
To Wear the White Cloak
GUINEVERE
Guinevere
The Chessboard Queen
Guinevere Evermore
Praise for Death Comes as Epiphany
“Sharan Newman has written a spellbinding book!”
—Charlotte MacLeod
“Newman skillfully depicts historical figures and issues in a very different age, one in which piety and great beauty coexist with cruelty.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Gentle humor and a popping plot, [Death Comes as Epiphany] offers a most likable heroine.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Sharan Newman brings twelfth-century France to vivid life. Fans of Ellis Peters and P. C. Doherty will enjoy.”
—Library Journal
“Sharan Newman weaves dark mystery and sparkling romance into a fascinating tapestry of everyday life in twelfth-century France.”
—Mystery News
“Newman has delivered Ellis Peters some fierce competition for her Brother Cadfael novels.”
—Booklist
“The author’s attention to details makes this book one of the most compelling mysteries I’ve ever read—it’s a passport to a medieval world that might have been.”
—Aimée Thurlo, coauthor of Red Mesa
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
DEATH COMES AS EPIPHANY
Copyright © 1993 by Sharan Newman
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Edited by Claire Eddy
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eISBN 9781466817258
First eBook Edition : March 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Newman, Sharan.
Death comes as epiphany / Sharan Newman.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-85419-6 (he)
ISBN 0-765-30374-4 (pbk)
1. France—History—Medieval period, 987—1515—Fiction. I. Title
PS3564.E926 D43 1993
813’.54—dc20
93-12761