Cursed in the Blood: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (36 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

BOOK: Cursed in the Blood: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery
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“Not yet,” Robert answered. “And if he’s done anything to harm Lufen, I swear I’ll run him though.”
“I liked the slow curse better,” Edgar commented. “It has more time to enjoy. He likes watching others suffer so much. But I wanted to ask you, please, don’t tell him Catherine and James are here.”
“Why not?”
“The less they have to do with him, the better,” Edgar said. “And, if you’re right and he’s having our family murdered, one by one, I don’t want him to know they’re still alive.”
“Excellent sense,” Robert said. “It’s about time you started paying attention to me.”
“Well, Catherine thinks you may be right,” Edgar admitted.
“She does? I suspected you’d married above your intelligence.”
Edgar ignored that. He sometimes agreed. Instead he asked about the whereabouts of Uncle Æthelræd.
“No idea,” Robert told him. “I think he’s convinced everyone here that he’s totally mad, so they let him wander about as he wills. Of course, he’s also big enough that even armed men think twice before challenging him.”
“You know that when he acts the complete wild man, it means he’s planning something.” Edgar said.
“All too well,” Robert tried not to think of certain episodes of his childhood. “Whatever it is, I don’t want to be involved.”
“Robert.” Edgar sighed. “Nobody seems to be giving us a choice.”
 
Waldeve was closeted with William Cumin, his steward, his loyal archdeacon, Duncan and Alan of Richmond. Edgar and Robert were sent into their presence at once.
“I sent you to get Conyers’s surrender.” Cumin glared at them. “Instead you bring an army back. Would you care to explain this?”
Robert shook his head. “Edgar, you’re the philosopher.”
Edgar bowed to the men. He cleared his throat nervously. “We delivered your ultimatum to Lord Roger and to William of Saint-Barbe. However, we also found that Saint-Barbe has acquired the support of many of the local barons. He feels that his position is strong enough to make you give up your hold on the see, either by force or through fear of the loss of your immortal soul. The message we were given is that if you turn over the keys and the chapter seal and honestly repent your actions, then you and your followers will be allowed to leave unmolested.”
As he spoke, Edgar had difficulty refraining from backing closer to the door. Cumin’s face grew dark with anger. He seemed about to erupt. Edgar wouldn’t have been surprised if flames had poured from his mouth when he opened it to answer. The beleaguered bishop stood stiffly, his hand gripping his pectoral cross until his knuckles were white.
“This is why William Saint-Barbe has taken up residence at Saint-Giles? He believes that I’ll throw myself before him and beg for mercy?”
He gave a furious jerk on the cross, bending the chain links so that it was pulled off, the chain clattering to the stone floor.
“What answer shall I give him?” Edgar asked, hoping it wouldn’t be a blow.
“Answer?” Cumin laughed. “No answer at all, young man. You’re my emissary, not Saint-Barbe’s. Duncan, double the guards at all possible entries to the city. If Saint-Barbe or his cohorts come anywhere near them, drive them off. If that doesn’t stop them, prepare to attack. How soon will your army be here, Lord Alan?”
“A few days, at most, Lord Bishop,” the earl replied. “From what my spies report, we’ll far outnumber the rabble Conyers has gathered.”
“Good.” Cumin’s color had returned to normal. “Until then, we only need to seal ourselves off and let them wonder what terrible assault we’re planning.”
Edgar started forward to protest. “There must be some word of defiance that I could take back to Conyers and Saint-Barbe,” he pleaded, seeing both his promise to Catherine and their reunion dissolve under this new threat.
Cumin regarded him with suspicion. “No, there will be no more communication between our palace and the invaders. They can stew until we’re ready to smoke them out like lice. You may leave us now.”
He held out his hand to them. There was nothing Robert and Edgar could do but bend over the nonexistent ring and back from the room.
 
“That went well, didn’t it?” Robert commented. “We got out with all our limbs still attached.”
“Robert, I have to get out of here.” Edgar hit his palm with his fist. “I’m not risking losing Catherine and James again.”
“Edgar, first of all, there’s no way out,” Robert said. “Secondly, if you get out and Cumin notices you’re gone, he’ll send men out hunting for you. And you’ve seen how much respect they show women and children.”
“Then I’ll have to get back in again, as well,” answered Edgar.
“Brother mine, the only way you’ll manage that is if you sprout wings.”
“No, there is another way,” Edgar said. “If the monks can help me. If we can get in to see them again. If they can get to the northern cliff. If I don’t die of terror, I can do it.”
They were at the church door. Robert gave it a push. The door didn’t budge. He tried again.
“It’s locked!” he exclaimed. “It’s not enough that they shut up the monks in the cloister, now they’re keeping the faithful from the shrine of Saint Cuthbert! Is there no offense the man will not commit?”
“Apparently not,” Edgar said. “Of course, it could be locked from the inside. In fact, I think it is.”
He tried to see through the keyhole. One of the pillars blocked his view of the door to the cloister on the opposite side.
“Æthelræd,” he said. “We have to find him. He had the key to the north door to the priory.”
“It will be guarded,” Robert warned.
“Æthelræd is mad enough to find a way around that.” Edgar had confidence in this aspect, at least, of his uncle’s character. “Especially if we tell him that doing it will thwart Father.”
After much questioning and several false directions, they at last found Æthelræd sleeping peacefully under a tree near the palace wall. They had no compunctions about waking him and little patience with the time it took him to shake the cobwebs from his mind enough to understand what they were asking of him.
“Apology first,” he demanded.
“I give it willingly,” Edgar said. “I beg your pardon for doubting your gift. I would have been spared my blackest hours if I had believed you.”
“Nicely done. Short and sincere,” Æthelræd said. “I forgive you.”
“So will you help me?” Edgar asked.
“I’d have done that in any case.” Æthelræd grinned. “If it will give a tweak to Waldeve’s nose.”
“The canons have a rope-chair and know the best place to use it,” Edgar explained. “Robert and I have also promised to relay instructions from Saint-Barbe and Archdeacon Rannulf to those still locked in the priory. Can you get us in?”
“If there are fewer than four guards, there’ll be no problem,” Æthelræd assured him.
“With the added force at the gates and bridges, I doubt Cumin can spare more than two men,” Robert said.
“Very well,” Æthelræd said. “Meet me at the north door when the bells ring for Vespers. But, Edgar, are you sure you want to do this? I remember your dislike of heights. I had to come get you more than once when you’d climbed a tree and then looked down.”
“I didn’t need you to remind me, Uncle.” Edgar looked ill already. “But my promise to Catherine is enough to overcome my fear.”
Æthelræd expressed his opinion of this in one word, then added, “Don’t make this a matter of personal honor, boy. What
you mean is, you’re willing to risk your life for a good lay. At least I presume she is.”
Edgar frowned at their sniggering. “This is one subject about which you know nothing, Uncle. I need her for far more than that. I always have. I’m not going out to visit a whore, but to lie with my wife.”
Æthelræd wasn’t impressed. “Call it what you like; I still know what part of your body is leading you.”
Edgar gave up the argument. He needed his uncle’s help. And he knew it was no use expecting him to understand something he had never felt nor wanted to.
Æthelræd settled back down to finish his nap.
As they left him, Edgar was still muttering imprecations. Robert interrupted them.
“Give it up, Edgar. The old goat is more like Father than he wants to admit,” he said. “He’s never loved anyone. How can he know that a person can be one’s whole life and the chance just to see them, to talk with them, can be worth any risk?”
Edgar felt shamed by Robert’s compassion. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “If I can do anything—”
“No,” Robert cut him off. “I’m grateful, but you can’t. No one can help me now but God.”
 
“Catherine, we’ve scoured the whole village.” Solomon’s voice rose in exasperation. “Every place flat enough to unroll a blanket is taken.”
“There must be one little corner somewhere.” Catherine wasn’t ready to give up.
“Not for those who aren’t celibate,” Solomon explained. “Or unless you want to rent yourself to the soldiers. Sorry, but that seems to be the two ends of the situation.”
“I just hate to disappoint Edgar.” Catherine sighed.
“Of course, my dear,” Solomon said. “Such a good wife, putting her husband’s desires before her own.”
Catherine shut her eyes. “I’m just so tired,” she said.
Solomon put his arm around her. “I know you are,” he said gently. “There is something about lying with another body between you and the door that makes one sleep better. I don’t believe you’ve had an uninterrupted night since we got here.”
“Actually, not since James was born,” she said. “But that was done for love. I’m sorry, Solomon. I shouldn’t complain. You’ve had the responsibility for all of us on your back and had hardly any time to do the work you were sent here for. I should be kinder to you.”
“I’d collapse from the shock,” Solomon assured her. “And right now the wool trade doesn’t seem very important. If someone doesn’t restore order in this land, there’ll be nothing left but burned fields and empty towns.”
“When both the secular and clerical rulers are in dispute, how can anyone be sure of what the right order is?” Catherine said. “It’s the same thing that happened when King Louis refused to appoint a new bishop for Reims. A few years of that and the town was in chaos. No wonder the merchants took things into their own hands and founded a commune.”
“That brought the king around quickly enough,” Solomon remembered. “Odd that it hasn’t happened here.”
Samson overheard the last part of the conversation.
“The individual lords are too powerful,” he told them. “What we have instead are a hundred kings, each gouging as much as he can from the land while he can. Only Londoners have any say at all in how things are done. Did you hear how we kept Matilda from the throne?”
“Yes,” Catherine said. “It’s said it’s because she treated the citizens like serfs.”
“Exactly. We don’t allow that from anyone,” Samson said.
“‘We’?” Solomon asked. “You consider yourself one of the English? I thought you said they hated us.”
“Not so much in London,” Samson tried to explain. “It’s complicated. The English hated Jews before we even came here, but in the way they hate demons and monsters or Danes. We only existed in stories. Like the idea that we have horns. In London, our neighbors know that we’re just people. But outside of it, we’re legends and it’s hard to convince people that their folktales aren’t true, especially when they’re repeated by the priests.”
“Horns?” Catherine was puzzled. “Like a cuckold?”
“Of course not!” Samson said. “More like a devil.”
“How strange,” she said. “I’m sorry you don’t. You might be able to frighten someone into giving up their bed tonight.”
“Catherine, can’t you think of anything but getting you and Edgar a bed?” Solomon asked.
Catherine pretended to consider this. “No,” she said. “I can’t.”
 
Æthelræd’s subtle plan for getting past the guard at the door had been to start a brawl with two passing townsmen and pull the soldiers into the dispute. While they were occupied, Edgar and Robert used the key and entered the priory.
“I’ve no idea what he’ll do when we need to get out,” Robert said.
“One problem at a time,” Edgar told him. “Now to find Brother Lawrence.”
“That should be easy enough, seeing that the bell for the end of Vespers is still ringing,” Robert reminded him.
“Right, they’ll be coming out the door nearest the choir.”
Now that they were inside, there was no worry about being seen. Robert and Edgar hurried to the covered walk where the monks were filing out.”
“Brother Lawrence!” they called, causing all the men to stop. “We bring news from the bishop.”
Instantly they were surrounded. A dozen people spoke at once, all asking the same question. “When will he be here to free us?”

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