Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur) (10 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

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But Catherine realized that it wasn’t the sculpture that had caused Edgar’s joy. He wasn’t even looking at the tympanum, but beneath it.
For, sitting on the stones beneath the entrance to the church of Saint Foy was Solomon, and sitting next to him, directly under the Mouth of Hell, was the dark shape of Mondete Ticarde.
Conques, just after sundown, Sunday, May 3, 1142; The Feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross.
 
Hòdie misericordia et veritas obviaverunt sibi, et multitudo miserationum Domini in peccatricem feminam refusa est. Filius enim Viriginis, peccatricis et menstruatae manibus attrectatur, Deumque Dei Filium mulier infrunita contingit.
 
Today mercy and truth have met one another, and the multitude of God’s mercies have been poured out upon the woman of sin. For the Son of the Virgin is touched by the hands of a sinning and unclean woman and the unfit woman touches God, the Son of God.
—Nicholas of Clairvaux
Sermon for the Feast of Mary Magdalene
PL 185: 1, 213
 
 
“
I
had my eyes on the river and nearly ran into her,” Solomon explained to Catherine and Edgar as they sat under one of the chestnut trees and ate the bread given them by the monks. “She was limping along the road in front of me. I don’t know how she survived, how she managed to pull herself from the river. Her cloak was soaked. It must have been as heavy as armor.”
“She told you nothing?” Edgar asked.
“Wouldn’t say a word,” Solomon replied sadly. “Wouldn’t let me touch her. She’s hurt, I know. She must have been badly bruised, at the least. Catherine, can you do something?”
Catherine looked over at the unmoving figure. The people entering the church for Vespers flowed around Mondete as they would a stone in the path. No one bent to speak to her. No one attempted to remove her. Catherine felt a moment’s fear that if she tried to touch Mondete, her hand would vanish into the darkness. She shook the thought away as unworthy of her education.
“I’ll help her … if she’ll let me,” Catherine told Solomon.
She got up and brushed the crumbs from her skirt to the birds waiting around them. Then she slowly made her way to Mondete. She stopped in front of the figure, hoping that her presence alone would bring some response. Nothing. Catherine knelt and hesitantly laid her hand on the woman’s arm.
“Mondete?” she said softly. “My name is Catherine. My husband and I are also pilgrims coming from Le Puy. We
thought you had been drowned in the river. It is a wonder you survived. Only a miracle could have saved you from that torrent.”
From deep within the folds, Catherine heard a distinct snort.
“Our friend Solomon said that you were limping. You must have been dreadfully battered by the water and rocks,” Catherine continued. “I’d like to help you. Are you in pain?”
There was no response at first. Then …
“In pain?” Mondete seemed to consider the question from far away. “Yes, young Catherine, I am always in pain. And you cannot help me.”
“But,” she added as Catherine stood, “you are kind to ask. I was not badly used by the river. My bruises will heal. I have had worse.”
“If you wish, you may ride our horse until you’re able to walk with more ease,” Catherine offered.
There was another silence. Catherine wondered again if there were really a person inside the cloak, or merely shadows and an echo of someone who had once lived.
Mondete rose in one seamless movement. She wavered and a strong brown hand gripped Catherine’s shoulder for an instant. “I thank you,” Mondete said, “but I am not worthy of your charity. Good night.”
With that, she strode, limping only a little, down the main road, then turned left into one of the steep and narrow passageways that led from one level of the town to another.
Catherine returned to Edgar and Solomon. “Maybe you’re right about her knowing some great secret,” she told Solomon. “I’ve never encountered anyone so completely still within herself. It’s not just the cloak.”
She shivered. Edgar got up and put his arm around her. “Let’s go on to the hostel while there’s light enough to find it,” he said. “If we don’t get a bed there, we’ll have to sleep in the galleries of the church. You need a warmer place than that. You’re worn out.”
“So are we all,” Catherine sighed. “Solomon, don’t try to seek out Mondete anymore. She frightens me.”
Solomon opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. “Not tonight, anyway,” he assured her. “We’ve barely begun this journey, though. I must have her answers somehow, before it can end.”
He kissed her good night and left for the house where he and his uncle had found a room.
Catherine leaned against Edgar. “Solomon frightens me, too,” she said. “He seems almost a stranger now. Oh, Edgar, you won’t change when I’m not looking, will you?”
He smiled at her. “Shape-shifting is not one of my talents,
leoffaest
. And even if it were, the old story says that the shifter can never change in the eyes of the one who holds his heart.”
Catherine’s body relaxed in his hold. She turned her face up to his. “Will you tell me that story tonight, before we go to sleep?” she asked.
“The ending is sad,” he warned her.
“Then tell me only the happy parts,” she answered, “and I’ll finish it my own way as I dream.”
 
If she dreamt that night, Catherine didn’t remember it. She awoke with her cheek against Edgar’s warm back and feeling perfectly happy. She reached around to tickle him. He grabbed her hand as it moved.
“I’m already awake,” he whispered.
“Do you think anyone else is yet?” she whispered back hopefully.
Around them, a general rustling destroyed their hopes.
“Oh, well.” Catherine reached for her shift and wiggled into it under their blanket. Then she got up and felt for her
bliaut
. As she picked it up, she heard a soft thump. She looked down at the floor and squealed.
“Edgar! A rat!” She kicked at it, and it rolled a little. “It’s dead!”
By now everyone in the room was looking at Catherine, half-dressed, her hair tangled, poking at a dead rat with her bare toe. She glared back at them.
“Whoever did this, it’s not funny!” she said.
There was a chorus of indignant denial. Edgar, by now having
pulled on his
brais
and thrown his shift over his head, bent down to examine the corpse.
“There’s a piece of something in its mouth,” he said. “It looks the same color as your
bliaut.
”
Catherine didn’t want to get any closer to the rat. Instead, she examined the hem of the
bliaut
. There was a stain on one section of it, a reddish brown, like wine or blood. In the center of the stain, a hole had been gnawed out. Catherine looked from the hole to the rat.
“Do you think it was killed because it ate the stain on my skirt?” she asked, showing the fabric to Edgar.
He looked at it and then at the rat. “Well, Catherine, you do step in some odd things,” he said at last. “Never mind. The monks should thank us for ridding the hostel of one more bit of vermin. I’ll throw it in the midden. Then I want another look at the carvings on the church.”
 
The town and the monastery at Conques had been maintained for pilgrims ever since the body of Saint Foy had been brought there almost three hundred years before, through the agency of Saint Foy herself and the stealthy cunning of the monks who stole her from her original home. The site of Conques was so difficult to reach and hard to keep supplied that it was only the determination of the pilgrims to pray at the shrine of the saint that allowed the monastery to continue-in prosperity. In more recent times, Conques had become an established stop on the way to Santiago de Compostela. Shopkeepers reminded visitors of this with scallop shells carved over their doorways, and pins, honeycakes and felt badges in the same design for sale at their stalls.
Catherine wanted a pin, even though Edgar said it was poorly made and would fall apart in a month. “When we get to Compostela, you can have a real scallop,” he promised, “with the cross of Saint James painted on it. I’ll even get you one made from silver, to hang around your neck.”
“Very well,” she answered. “We can put it on a hook above our son’s cradle, to keep him safe.”
Edgar’s jaw clenched. Ever since Master Abelard had interpreted
Catherine’s dream, she had been calmly certain that it would come true as long as they followed the Way of Saint James to the end. He wished he could be so sure. Edgar didn’t like the icy fear that touched him when he thought of what might happen to Catherine if the journey proved fruitless, in every way.
“Why don’t we just buy a candle today?” he suggested. “And leave it in thanksgiving for surviving the flood.”
“That’s a good idea,” Catherine said. “I’ve been thinking about that. I have formulated a theory as to how such a sudden inundation might have happened.”
“Really?” One eyebrow rose in amused doubt. “Pray, Master, expound.”
“Great minds must become used to scoffers,” she answered, then spoiled her dignity with laughter. “I would tell you eventually, so you may as well resign yourself to listening now.”
“You have my complete attention,” Edgar said as he paid for the candle and they moved on to the next stall.
“Well—” she took a deep breath “—as I recall, the mountains all around Lyon were still covered in snow. When we reached Le Puy four days later, the snow did not come as far down the mountains. Now, it seems to me that several people commented on how unusually warm it has been this spring. The snow melts into the rivers. In the warmth, it may have done so more rapidly than usual. The water behind dams and millraces would then rise more quickly. What if someone upstream did open a millrace, or the rush of the snow water was too much for a dam—wouldn’t that cause a sudden overflow of the river, even without rain?”
She waited. Edgar pursed his lips. “I suppose it could,” he said at last. “Where did you get the theory?”
“Some part-Seneca, some part-Marius, some part from the evidence of my own eyes,” Catherine answered.
“They’re beautiful eyes,” Edgar said.
Catherine smiled. “You can’t think of an argument to refute me, can you?”
He was spared the ignominy of admitting her right by the arrival of Hubert.
“I have consulted with the rest of the party that came with us from Le Puy,” Hubert told them. “We are all agreed to stay together for now and leave as a group when the abbot does, tomorrow morning.”
“Good,” Catherine said. “If we have a whole day in one place, I’m going to try to find a trough to wash shifts in.”
Edgar was already heading for the church.
“He can spend every moment of daylight just studying the carvings in there,” Catherine told her father, looking after Edgar fondly.
Hubert sighed. This desire to work with his hands—mak—ing carvings like some journeyman—wasn’t appropriate for a man of Edgar’s background. Ah, well. He was young yet. Perhaps he would outgrow it. But Hubert had no intention of encouraging his son-in-law in such foolishness.
“My favorite torment in the Hell is the poacher being roasted by the rabbits,” Catherine continued. “What’s yours?”
“I hadn’t thought,” Hubert answered, startled. “I didn’t really notice.”
“What’s the matter, father?” she asked. “Something is worrying you.”
“The journey,” he said too quickly. “Your safety. Solomon’s strange behavior. I have many things to occupy my mind.”
“Of course,” she answered, not quite believing him, although the reasons he gave were quite enough.
Griselle of Lugny passed by on her way to the church, accompanied by her maid and guards and followed by Gaucher and Rufus. Behind them, Hugh trailed, looking exhausted. Catherine wondered if any of the knights would survive the pilgrimage. They all three seemed less robust than even the week before, and the most difficult part of the journey was still before them. The death of their friend must have disturbed them more than they acknowledged.
“It’s disgusting the way those men drool over her,” Hubert
said as Griselle stopped to adjust her veil and both the knights hurried up to her to offer assistance.
Catherine laughed. “I doubt she’s in any danger from them. The Lady Griselle seems well able to manage men.”
“Yes,” Hubert agreed, “she does.”
Catherine caught an odd tone in his voice, but as she opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, he changed the subject.
“How much money did you have changed?” he asked. “What’s the state of your shoes? Eliazar says the cobblers here charge too much. You can do better in Figeac, if they’ll last that far.”
They began to discuss mundane matters attendant on any journey, and Catherine forgot to question her father concerning the Lady Griselle.
 
Hugh of Grignon was not interested in joining the chase for the person and property of Griselle of Lugny. He had had enough of that when his wife was alive. Most of his land had been settled on the two older sons that he knew were his, and the rest of the children she had presented him with had been parceled off to convents, monasteries or useful marriages. What little property he had left, he had deeded to Saint Peter for the good of his soul.

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