Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur) (29 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

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This journey had become a disaster. He should have said something the moment he spotted Jacob. How could he have hoped they would be able to avoid each other? Hubert had been too young to remember his brothers who had left Rouen to study in Paris. Only Eliazar had known that Jacob had been ensnared by the preachers of the Crucified One. Eliazar shivered at the memory. Jacob must have been sneaking off to hear their sermons for months before he made his decision. Then, on a simple trip to the yearly fair at Provins, he had vanished. He had left behind two letters, one for his brother and one for his wife, begging her to join him in baptism. Eliazar had burned both missives, returned to Paris and told everyone that Jacob had died, drowned at a ford, his body washed away. The next year, Solomon’s mother had died and he and Johannah had taken the child into their home to cherish.
After a while, he almost believed the story was true.
And here Jacob was risen from the lie Eliazar had created. What would happen now? Would Jacob denounce Hubert to the abbot? Could Jacob see his own baby brother hanged for murder? It was possible that Jacob would see it as a test of the sincerity of his conversion. And what of Solomon? What would this do to him?
Eliazar felt the world settle onto his shoulders. He wished with all his heart that Johannah were here to help him. In their
thirty years together, she had always been able to make the burdens lighter.
 
Back at the priory, Brother James was in the chapel, prostrate before the altar. He had not been in such a torment of spirit since he had made his decision to enter the monastery. With flowing tears, he prayed for forgiveness, guidance, strength.
“But first, Lord, please,” he begged, “take away the faces from my mind! I cannot bear them!”
Despite knowing now that she was Chaim’s child, he could only see his mother in Catherine’s face. The beautiful, gentle woman who had been killed by the soldiers of the god he now worshiped. He thought that he had long ago managed to reconcile the contradiction in his mind. Christ could not be held accountable for all the evil done in His name. But every time James saw Catherine, he felt that his mother’s blood was on his hands.
Solomon was even worse. James should have seen who he was from the beginning. The man was all he had been himself: arrogant, stubborn, belligerent, scornful of the Christian world he lived in. No wonder James had felt an instant antipathy to the son he had left behind.
He remained on the floor through the morning, until the canons came in for None. The chantor conferred briefly with the prior; then Brothers Bruno and Deodatus were asked to remove their colleague so that the recitation of the Office could begin.
The two monks lifted James and dragged him to the cloister.
“How may we help you, Brother James?” Bruno ran to dip a cloth in water to mop James’s tear-streaked face.
“Tell us what has happened to bring you to this state,” Deodatus begged. “Have you found out who killed Brother Rigaud?”
James took the cloth and rubbed it over his face and head. “The murderer. Yes, perhaps. I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“Brother Bruno, get the infirmarian,” Deodatus said. “Brother James needs something to calm his spirit.”
James shook his head and made himself stand. “No, Bruno,” he said. “My spirit should not be calmed. I need to be overflowing with fire to finish my task. Forgive me, my brothers, for frightening you and for delaying our journey. We must leave at once if we’re to rejoin the others at Larrsoaña tonight.”
 
The descent in the sunshine was much easier than the climb in the rain had been, despite the warnings. The road twisted many times but led them gently into the kingdom of Navarre. Catherine didn’t notice. For the moment, she had forgotten her own pilgrimage to ponder the meaning of the events of the morning.
Logically, as a good Christian, she should have rejoiced to find that this unknown uncle had converted of his own volition and gone so far as to become a servant of the Church. Hadn’t she been trying for years to get Solomon to do the same? Why, then, was the revelation so upsetting?
It couldn’t be because you love your Jewish cousin and loathe your Christian uncle, could it?
Oh, no! When those voices began to argue with her, Catherine knew she had’gone too far into speculation. They always confirmed the one thing she had tried hardest not to face. Very well. Yes. Monk or not, uncle or not, she found Brother James/Jacob repellent. Rigid, humorless, unforgiving of others.
And he had been put in charge of discovering the killer of Brother Rigaud, and by extension, finding the one who had murdered the two knights.
That was what was really frightening Catherine. Whoever he was, whatever his past, did James hate her family enough to refuse to look elsewhere for the answer? Was he so eager to prove he had renounced his old beliefs that he would see his brother, his son, hang rather than admit that someone from the neighborhood of Cluny was responsible for these deaths? It would have frightened her even more to know that Eliazar was pondering the same questions.
Edgar was right. They had to find out more about how all
these people were connected. Everyone in their party seemed to have known each other, more or less, for many years. Even Maruxa and Roberto had passed through Burgundy several times in their travels. They must have learned all kinds of things about the people they had entertained. As someone had once told her, kitchen gossip is the most reliable. The
jongleurs
and the maid would have heard most of it.
Even though the journey that day was nothing to the day before, Catherine was exhausted by the time they reached the hostel. She let Edgar put her down on a blanket in the straw like one of the parcels and fell asleep before he had returned with their allotment of bread.
 
Edgar wasn’t sleepy. After assuring himself that Catherine wasn’t likely to awaken soon, he looked around for something to do. Solomon and Eliazar had gone to the camp where Aaron and the men from Toulouse were staying. Hubert was still entertaining the Lady Griselle. Gaucher and Rufus were sitting on opposite sides of a bench outside, eyeing with suspicion anyone who approached them. Edgar thought they wouldn’t welcome his company.
He wandered about for a while, exploring the area around the Augustinian hostel. There were a few houses by the roadside, one clearly intended for providing the pilgrims with comforts that the canons declined to offer. Edgar wondered if decent ale could be found, but decided it wasn’t likely. He felt a spasm of homesickness. It had been years since he’d had what he considered a proper bowl of ale. And the farther south he went, the worse the brewing seemed to be.
Perhaps he was tired. This sense of being an alien in a foreign land happened to him rarely these days. French came as naturally to him now as English, something that would horrify his father. He had friends here, and a family, albeit an unusual one. Of course, in Paris there were English friends as well. He missed John particularly. The cleric from Salisbury was a keen observer of people and would have been able to advise him on what to do next.
Finally, he wandered back to the hostel. Gaucher and
Rufus hadn’t moved, but they had been joined by Griselle’s maid, the one with the name Catherine thought so funny. What was it? Oh yes, Hersent. She was sitting at the end of the bench chewing on some bread that she dipped into her wine cup from time to time. The two knights were regarding her with something besides suspicion.
“My poor husband fought in Spain once,” she was telling them, “before he became a vassal of Lord Bertran. I think they became friends because Ghyso also knew the country. He was a squire at the siege of Saragossa. Perhaps you knew him? When were you there?”
“It was more than twenty-five years ago,” Rufus answered. “We haven’t been back since. There was enough to do, keeping our own territory at home safe. I don’t remember your husband.”
“You never met Lord Bertran either?” Hersent asked. “It seems strange, when your lands aren’t that far apart. He came to Burgundy after his father died, about twenty years ago. One would think you would have been called to fight together.”
“I’ve heard of him, of course, but no, I don’t think we ever did meet,” Rufus answered. “You didn’t know him either, did you, Gaucher?”
“No. From what I hear, the man was far too uxorious,” Gaucher said. “He didn’t often serve in person when he was required to send military help. Not but what I might not stay close to home if I’d had a wife like Griselle. Now that I’ve seen her, I understand better.”
“They were devoted to each other,” Hersent said. “He wasn’t jealous; he just loved her too much to leave her alone.”
“Unnatural,” Rufus commented. “Sort of like this one.” He gestured at Edgar, who came out of the shadows, embarrassed to be caught eavesdroppng. Rufus ignored his discomfort.
“Of course, your wife isn’t bad either,” he admitted. “Too dark for my taste, at least to marry, but she has an air about her. And since you’re here, tell us, what was all that about this morning? Brothers, sons, everyone with another name? Sieur Hubert won’t escape justice that easily.”
Edgar stiffened. “As I recall, what happened was that you two accused my wife’s father of murdering your friends.”
“That’s right.” Rufus was unperturbed. “That jongleur fellow, Roberto, told us he’d seen Hugh’s ring in the man’s purse when the merchant emptied it to find some coins last night. We took the purse from him, searched it and found the ring.”
Edgar was immediately alert. “Really? And how did Roberto know what this ring looked like?” he asked. “Why didn’t he assume it was Hubert’s?”
“Must have heard us talking about it,” Gaucher answered him. “Both rings were taken, but Hubert only had the one without the stone.”
“What?” Hersent stood up quickly, the wine splashing down her
bliaut
. “Both rings?”
“Hugh had one ring, with an emerald in it, part of some booty from Saragossa,” Rufus explained. “And another one—”
Gaucher jabbed him in the side with his elbow. Rufus suddenly remembered that the ring without the stone hadn’t been Hugh’s and had only just reappeared.
“Your mind is failing with your years,” Gaucher said. “He means that the emerald was missing from the ring when we found it yesterday. The merchant must have pried it loose and given it to one of his Jewish friends. Which brings me back to our original question. What was all that this morning with Hubert and Brother James? What did that trader mean, calling him Jacob?”
Edgar wasn’t about to be pulled into that. “Perhaps you should ask Brother James,” he said. “I still want to know how Roberto knew that the ring he saw was the one taken from Hugh.”
“Perhaps you should ask Roberto,” Gaucher answered.
“I intend to,” Edgar said.
“Just remember that you’re standing surety for your father-in-law,” Rufus warned. “If he vanishes before we get to Burgos, you’ll be hanged in his stead.”
“We’ll find out who really did this long before then.” Edgar reined in his growing anger. “I wouldn’t be so eager to start
measuring the rope until you know whose neck it will circle.”
Edgar turned his back on them and walked slowly to the door of the hostel, feeling the tickle of a knife-point between his shoulder blades with every step. But neither Gaucher nor Rufus made any move to attack him.
In their standoff, only Edgar noticed that Hersent had gone, leaving behind on the bench her bread soaked with spilled wine.
 
Edgar searched the hostel for Maruxa and Roberto, but didn’t find them. It was possible that they had been asked to play for some other travelers, or that the canons had decided that as the two weren’t genuine pilgrims, they weren’t entitled to a place. The pilgrim shelters varied in their restrictions. Some were open to all, others allowed only pilgrims on foot without money, and made men and women sleep in separate rooms.
It was too dark now to search outside. Edgar only hoped that the
jongleurs
hadn’t decided to leave the party now that they were over the mountains.
When he came back to their pallet, Catherine hadn’t moved. As he took off his shoes and slipped in beside her, she stirred in her sleep to fit herself against his body, draping one arm across his chest. Edgar felt her breath on his neck and wished they were someplace where they didn’t have to sleep in their clothes. He turned onto his side, and her warmth slid into his body.
He didn’t feel homesick anymore.
 
The next morning at Mass, Catherine saw that Brother James had rejoined the group. He was assisting the priest from the hostel to distribute bread to the pilgrims. His face remained blank, as if he had never seen her before. Only when she raised questioning eyes to him, did he flinch and blink.
She tried to keep her mind on the journey, but the face of the monk kept intruding. He looked nothing like her father. The chins were different, and James was as gaunt as she was herself, while Hubert always appeared well fed. Catherine wondered if under his beard, Eliazar had a chin like James’s. She
couldn’t feel connected to this man. She had known Eliazar and Solomon since childhood, even if the relationship had been kept from her, but Brother James was a stranger.

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