Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur) (41 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

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Hubert never forgot the sight of the elegant Lady of Lugny, hair matted with dirt and blood, naked except for a cloak that one of the monks was desperately trying to keep her in, shrieking epithets over the body of Gaucher, knight of Macon.
“Has she gone mad?” he asked the world at large. Hubert was struck by the thought that it was somehow his doing, that this was what happened to every woman he fell in love with.
“She is possessed by evil, that is certain.”
Hubert turned to find Brother James standing next to him, holding a statue of the Virgin Mary.
“Jacob!” he said. “That’s nonsense! Look at her! Obviously that old man tried to ravish her and drove her senses from her.”
The monk nodded slowly. “If that’s what you wish to believe. Excuse me. I need to take this to the abbot. He will need to decide what’s to be done about her.”
Leaving Hubert not sure if he were referring to Griselle or the statue, James hurried to the abbey, where the rest of the monks had just finished saying Lauds. He was immediately granted an audience with Abbot Peter, but it took him some time to explain everything that had happened.
When Brother James had finished, Peter’s face was grave. “And the maid, Hersent, was she killed because she knew what her mistress had done?” he asked.
“From what we can discover, Sir Gaucher stabbed her,” Brother James told him. “because he thought she was trying to steal the statue from him.”
“I see, but that doesn’t justify the bizarre behavior of Lady Griselle or negate the fact that she had already prepared the poison. Her actions were planned.” Peter leaned forward hopefully. “Do you think this was an act of insanity or possession?”
James shook his head and sighed. “No more so than any other deed of vengeance. Her husband made her swear to punish those who had murdered his mother and tortured him. Gaucher himself admitted the truth of it. Those five men committed heinous acts. They went beyond mindless cruelty or battle lust. Thinking that the boy was a Moslem, they even found a pig and made him perform sexual acts with it, to shame his Faith.”
Peter looked at him sharply. “Does that offend you more than the knights’ sacrilege concerning their own Faith?”
James returned the look with no hint of prevarication. “Everything these men did offends me,” he said. “As it must all decent Christians.”
Peter thought for a moment, pursing his lips. “There are many who will agree that her actions were justified,” he said finally. “And yet, it was murder, pure and simple, whatever her reasons. I can’t let her go unpunished. I take it she has admitted her guilt.”
James nodded. “She glories in it.”
The abbot winced. “Is she calm enough to be questioned?”
“The doctor is seeing to her, and one of the women among the pilgrims, the
jongleuse,
is taking care of her physical needs. Perhaps this afternoon she can be brought before you.”
“Very well.” Peter got up. “I must consult with Bishop Stephen and my advisers. This is a problem I would be rid of as soon as possible.”
Brother James bowed. “And the statue?”
“You indicated that the knights wished it to be an offering
to the Church,” Peter said. “It will look well in a chapel at Cluny and we shall venerate Our Lady whenever we gaze upon it.”
 
At the hostel, clean and fed, Catherine was unraveling her own mystery.
“So the child in my dream wasn’t ours,” she concluded sadly. “I was so certain of it. It was the Child Christ of the statue instead. I suppose that means we can’t be sure the baby I’m carrying will live.”
Edgar disagreed. “It’s not the nature of dreams to be unambiguous, even those sent as prophecy. You know that as well as I. In essence, what happened last night fits your dream. You were in danger of falling. The child was caught not by Saint James, but by his namesake, Brother James.”
“And then when I believed I would die, you were there.” Catherine snuggled closer to him. “And that was the deepest truth, the one wrapped around the first dream like a wall around a castle. I should have had more faith in you.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he said. “I’m only human. The saints are a better repository for your faith.”
“I’m not giving up on them,” she laughed. “But you’re the one I want to wake up next to every morning and lie down beside every night until I die.”
“I love you, too, Catherine,” Edgar sighed. “So will you please start taking more care that the day of your death is far in the future?”
“I promise,” Catherine said and meant it.
 
The Griselle who appeared before the assembled witnesses and church prelates that afternoon was far removed from the wild woman of the night before. She stood quietly, guards on either side, dressed in her finest robes, her hair braided tightly and hidden under her widow’s veil. It was difficult for those who hadn’t seen her howling over Gaucher’s body to believe the story. But as Brother James had told the abbot, she had no desire to deny it.
“For all the years of our marriage,” she announced proudly,
“Bertran and I knelt each morning and evening and prayed for justice. At first he didn’t know the names of the men; even their faces were blurred by time. Only the horror and hatred remained. Then one day he saw Hugh of Grignon wearing the emerald from the ring, the one Bertran’s Saracen grandfather had given him. That he recognized at once, for he carried the empty setting with him always, on a chain around his neck. From that clue, we eventually learned the identity of the others.”
“And why didn’t your husband accuse these men openly and demand justice from the Duke of Burgundy?” Peter demanded.
Griselle looked at him. “A minor lord with a tainted heritage accusing five men, well-established in the area, of such things? Even if he could have brought himself to recount the indignities those monsters had visited upon him, how could he be sure he would be believed? His father was dead, his claim to his land through an uncle. He had no other family. No, we had to do this ourselves.”
She was so reasonable. Peter could feel the mood alter in the room as people considered her arguments. The part of him that had been born a secular nobleman could sympathize with Bertran’s dilemma. But he was not a layman now.
“Vengeance belongs to the Lord,” he said firmly. “If your husband deemed it necessary, he could have challenged these men to trial by combat, although I personally find that an intolerable practice. But it would have been better to come to me or the local bishop for retribution. You did neither of these but preferred to murder these men by stealth, so that the blame might fall on others.”
“No, that I did not intend,” Griselle said decisively. “If my poor Bertran hadn’t been killed in the service of King Louis, he would have managed it much better, I’m sure. But the duty was left to me, and I did the best I could. I never meant anyone to suffer for it but those men. That’s why I killed each one differently, so that the deed might be attributed to bandits from the woods or a passing cutpurse. But there was no way I would leave their punishment to the Church. They all had to die, my Lord Abbot, and be damned.”
Peter rose in his chair. “What are you saying, woman?”
Griselle seemed puzzled by his inability to understand. “What would have been the point of killing them if they had been shriven before?” she asked. “If they had repented, they would have been given the hope of heaven. This way, they will be punished for all eternity.”
Many of those present crossed themselves hurriedly. Even the abbot appeared shaken. “You not only took their lives,” he said in wonder, “but you intended to damn their souls as well?”
Griselle smiled. “Exactly. They deserved no less.”
Peter sank back into his chair with a thump. Never before had he encountered anything like this. What was he to do with this woman? If he were a secular Lord and she a simple townswoman, it would be simple. He’d have her hanged and left to dangle at the crossroads. But Griselle was not only heir to her husband’s property, she had powerful relations of her own. Even more, he could not in good conscience act as a secular Lord would.
He was a man of God, even if that sometimes got lost in the quotidian concerns of managing the abbey of Cluny and its dependents. And as such, it went against everything he honestly believed to allow Griselle to die in mortal sin, even though she had desired to send others to that fate. So he pushed aside the temptation to turn her over to the local ruler. Her soul would be fought for. That is what
he
meant by being a soldier of Christ.
Peter resolved to give Griselle one final chance.
“You have, by your own admission, brutally murdered five men, all of them knights of Burgundy and affiliated with Cluny,” he intoned. “Even worse, you have done so in an attempt to deny them the opportunity for salvation. This is a deed so horrible that I know of no set punishment for it. There might, however, be a penance, if you can be brought to repentance.”
Griselle smiled again, more wistfully. “I have fulfilled my oath to my husband, and gladly. If you must punish me for the fate of the knights, I would welcome death.”
“Oh, no, Griselle of Lugny.” Peter grew so stern that even Griselle was finally unnerved. She stopped smiling and stared at him with round, wary eyes.
“Even such murders as you have committed might be expunged with a life of honest penitence,” Peter continued. “Your crime is far worse. Your sin is that of Lucifer, in thinking that you are greater than God.”
In a corner of the room, unnoticed, Mondete Ticarde put her hands over her face.
Griselle was outraged. “I would never think anything so blasphemous,” she sputtered. “I’m a good Christian. I go to Mass and pray daily. I’ve donated most of my property for the health of my soul and that of my husband. I give alms. How dare you compare me to the Great Deceiver?”
Peter was not impressed. “Those are only actions, and even Satan might perform them for his own ends. In your heart, you did not trust your god to tend to matters in his own way and time. Pride is the greatest sin of all, Griselle of Lugny. Our Lord may have intended something much worse or much finer for those men. And I believe that in the case of Brother Rigaud, at least, you failed. He confessed his sins to me when he entered our order. He suffered for them every day. By leaving him in such a position, you wanted us to think that Rigaud had returned to his old habits, but Brother James examined the body and realized that Rigaud was already dead when the spear was run through him.”
“He would have bled more, and struggled as he died,” James explained. “Your poison again, I presume. Therefore, Griselle, as he died innocent, you may have provided him with a direct path to paradise.”
“No.” But for the first time, Griselle was doubtful. “He was one of them. He treated Bertran as a catamite. All of them were evil and they all deserved to die.”
Her eyes, unseeing, searched the room as she tried to make sense of what the abbot had said. Finally, she found a response.
“Would you have had me break my oath?” she asked. “When a man swears to avenge the death of a kinsman and does so, he is honored. I have done the same.”
There was a murmur of agreement from those assembled. Everyone knew that an insult to one’s family must be avenged. How could society exist otherwise?
Peter sighed. “Our Lord forgave His killers from the cross,” he reminded her.
“But as you have told me, I am not Our Lord,” Griselle snapped back.
Bishop Stephen tugged at Peter’s robe. Peter bent to hear his advice. After a moment, he nodded and straightened.
“The good bishop is right,” he said. “It’s clear that you are not only arrogant, but also sadly in need of instruction if you are to be made aware of the enormity of your sins. Therefore I sentence you to finish the pilgrimage you set out on.”
Griselle stared at him, waiting.
“But you are not to ride a fine horse or be attended by servants,” he pronounced. “You are to go barefoot and in rough cloth. And you must carry upon your body five chains, each one the measure of the length of each man you deprived of life. I will set guards on you to be sure this is done.”
Griselle showed no emotion. “May I be allowed to distribute my possessions before I leave?” she asked.
“There’s more,” the abbot told her. “After you reach the shrine of Saint James at Compostela, you shall be taken to our convent of Marcigny, where you will spend the remainder of your days in service to the sisters there, who will attempt to correct the many flaws in your theology and bring you to a true repentance of your acts.”
“I would rather you hanged me,” Griselle said flatly.
“Perhaps, but I hope that you will one day thank me for not doing so,” Peter said.
He signaled the guards to take her away, and the party rose to leave. Hubert had been watching from the corner, not even sure why he had come to see this. Now he found himself stepping forward to address the abbot.
“My lord, I ask a favor,” he said hesitantly.
Peter stopped and looked at him, trying to place him. He seemed familiar.

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