The Outcast Dove: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (16 page)

“Sorry,” the young man answered. “Food, wine, and a bed. That’s all they’ll pay for. Company you have to arrange yourself.”

Guy sighed. Berengar tried to think of something to cheer him.

“I hear there’s a
jongleur
staying here tonight,” he said, refilling their cups. “He has a couple of other people with him who act out his songs in a dumb show.”

“Either of them female?” Guy asked.

“Don’t know,” Berengar said. “But those women charge more than the town whores. You have to pay for imagination. Now, if you can be really charming, Adelina there might give you a tumble out back behind the stable.”

Guy squinted to see through the smoke from the oil lamps. The woman cutting cheese for the guests was not particularly attractive. Her skin was bad and the light brown hair escaping from her head scarf was wispy. But, from what he could tell, all the parts were in the right places.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked Berengar.

“Do you mean, is she diseased?” Berengar answered. “Not that I know. Her father’s a cripple who keeps her home to care for him. She works here now and then and picks up a bit extra when she can. She’ll let you do what you like for a few ribbons or a length of wool, if you don’t take too long.”

“Don’t think I’ve got that much.” Guy returned to his wine. “Can’t you give me a loan? Your father’s rich.”

Berengar grimaced. “That doesn’t mean he ever lets me near his purse. He thinks the best way to keep his sons from rebellion is to make sure they have nothing of their own.”

“Where I come from that’s the best way to guarantee they’ll rise against him,” Guy noted. He was still staring at Adelina. Was Berengar playing him for a fool? He didn’t relish being rejected by a tavern drab.

“Well, I figure I can wait a couple years more,” Berengar said. “Why don’t you at least talk to her? She’ll let you know if she’s interested. I’m going out for a piss.”

Guy waited a few moments for him to return. When it seemed that Berengar had abandoned him, too, he decided that he had nothing to lose and got up to try his luck.

Solomon knew that it wasn’t wise for him to go to a tavern that evening. But the delirious preparations for Pesach at Gavi’s made him feel very much in the way. It would be worse at Bonysach’s. He thought of going to see Aaron but his sister was no doubt also in a frenzy of cleaning. He didn’t even consider visiting his uncle. So that left the choice of a solitary drink someplace not too far from the synagogue. If he’d been a local Jew, the other men would have overlooked his existence as an infidel, remembering he was also a neighbor, but strangers were always fair game. Solomon hoped that everyone was too involved with their own business to pay heed to him.

He got a bowl of sour
pinot
with a pot of lavender water to blunt the taste. Then he looked around for a quiet, dim corner to enjoy them in.

That was when his luck ran out.

There was a rustle as a man on one side of the room nudged the one next to him. Solomon heard the muttering. The words weren’t clear but the meaning was. He moved away from the men, hoping that he could put down the wine before one of them jumped him.

The tavern was just a narrow room that might once have been a corridor between streets, now roofed over, with straw spread on the earth. Both ends were covered only with burlap curtains. Solomon gauged the distance to the nearest and what he’d have to leap over to get out quickly.

A sensible man would have left then. But Solomon had paid for his drink and he wasn’t going to let some half-wit Edomites keep him from drinking it.

He put the bowls down on a bench and was about to sit when someone spat on his boot.

He rubbed it off on the leg of the bench, thankful that he wasn’t wearing sandals.

On the other side of the room someone snickered.

He told himself that he had asked for this. He should have stayed with his own people.

The bravest of the men got up and faced him.

“I know you,” he said. “Saw you with Bonysach. He should have told you that we don’t drink with filthy Jews.” He belched in Solomon’s face. The reek of garlic and rotten teeth was choking. “Go back to your sty, pig.”

“Dirty Jew kills our Lord and Savior and then wants to drink our wine,” another man growled.

Solomon revised his opinion of their sobriety. He hoped the ones still seated were too drunk to stand. It would give him infinite joy to knock the man flat. In his state it wouldn’t take more than a push. But he knew that any action he took would be brought back to the community. Homes had been burnt and Jews beaten to death from smaller sparks.

He edged toward the doorway.

The man advanced. Solomon noted the broad shoulders and muscled forearms. Wonderful. He was probably a smith, used to knowing he was stronger than most of the men around. He could smash Solomon’s face open, if he didn’t pass out first.

“There’s no need to cause trouble, Friend,” he said softly.

The man’s fist crashed into him.

Solomon was quick enough that the blow only glanced his shoulder and sent his tormentor tottering forward. Before Solomon could reach the exit, the man made a leap for him, catching him by the belt.

Solomon grabbed a low beam and managed to stay upright, but his weight plus that of the smith threatened to bring down the flimsy roof.

By now the man’s friends had staggered up to join the fun.

“Got him by the tail, you do!”

“Let’s have those boots. Who’ll bet he has goat hooves?” The speaker grabbed Solomon’s foot.

He kicked out, trying to control himself enough to keep from doing them any damage. His belt was about to snap along with his temper.

Hell,
he thought.
They’ll tell the bishop I caused any mark they have. Why not give them a few?

His right hand reached into his sleeve for his knife.

A shadow blocked the lantern light. Solomon felt his leg yanked and then released as the drunk was picked up and tossed against the far wall. Next, the smith gave a howl and let go Solomon’s belt to clutch his own groin.

For an instant Solomon thought that perhaps the angel Gabriel had descended from heaven to destroy the foes of Israel. Hadn’t he just told his uncle that it was about time for the Messiah to arrive?

Then the light struck the face of his rescuer.

Solomon gaped in disbelief. He squeezed his eyes closed and then quickly opened them. What he saw was no less astonishing than a divine savior.

Jehan of Blois stood in front of him, grinning.

“It fills my heart with joy to see you looking so foolish,” he said. “I can’t believe you’ve lived this long, the way you invite trouble. But if anyone ends your life, it will be me, not some miserable wine-soaked scum.”

He took Solomon’s bowl from the bench and drained it, ignoring the curses and groans of pain from the floor.

“I’d get out of here now,” he told Solomon. “Unless you want to wind up hanged as an Easter offering.”

His words broke Solomon’s paralysis.

“I would thank you but I know you’d throw it back in my teeth,” he said. “It should give you much more satisfaction to know that I’m in your debt.”

Jehan grinned once more. It was an expression of pure gloating. “Oh, it does,” he said.

As Solomon reached the street, he was disgusted to realize that he was shaking as if he had the palsy. He tried to tell himself that it was from anger. But deep down he knew that what he was feeling was pure terror.

Had any of the past hour really happened or had he been caught up in some demonic vision? Had he really been in a dank tavern or on the edge of the grave? The damp, mud-drugged straw, the narrow room, the smell of rancid animal fat as it burned, the faces blurred by smoke, made it a charnel house in his memory.

It couldn’t have been Jehan of Blois who had just saved him. Jehan would have slit his throat as he hung from the rafter. It must have been an incubus in his form. Only that made no sense. Why would Satan protect him from the Christians? But then why would a messenger of the Holy One come in the shape of his worst enemy?

Come to think of it, why would an angel come to him at all?

It was full dark now, the waxing moon just rising. The bells of Toulouse were ringing Compline. Good Christians were saying their prayers and preparing for bed. The watch would be making their rounds soon. Solomon should be on his way to Gavi’s and his own bed. But he needed time to sort out his thoughts. He needed to convince his limbs to be still.

The street of the tanners and bleachers of cloth wasn’t far from the Garonne. Instead of going directly to Gavi’s, Solomon went down to the river’s edge. He pulled off his boots, tunic, hose, and leather
brais.
Clad only in his shift, he plunged into the icy water.

He surfaced a few feet downstream, gasping but clear headed. As he waded, dripping, back to shore he heard a howl of terror from someone standing above him on the bank. He peered through the darkness, but saw no sign of anything dangerous. All the same, he retrieved his clothes in haste and hurried back to the warmth of the tanner’s home.

A few moments later a harness maker stumbled into his house. When his wife could get any sense from him, she learned that he had seen John the Baptist rising from the Garonne, shaking his head in reproach.

“Never again, I swear,” the man vowed. “I promise you, Tilna, I’ll sin no more.”

The next day his wife bought a candle to light at the church of Saint John. He was a saint that she had greatly underappreciated.

It was full dark when the monks finished Compline and proceeded in silence to their dormitory. Brother James was near the end of the line. His steps faltered with fatigue; it was an effort not to stumble into the man in front.

He was at the bottom of the stairs when the commotion began. Someone gave a cry and a moment later one of the younger men came running down, bumping against the others in his haste.

“What is it?” James asked the man ahead.

He feared he might be chided for breaking silence but now all the monks were trying to get into the room. Finally, James reached the top of the stairs. What greeted him was pandemonium. Some of the beds had been overturned and all the bedding torn off and thrown about the room. Straw mattresses had been slashed open and the innards scattered. The thin pillows were in shreds, feathers drifting though the air and landing on the monks as they tried to salvage what they could from the mess.

James crossed to what was left of his own bed. It was in the same state as the others. What could have done this and why? Around him the monks were speculating.

“Some evil spirits must have flown in the windows to create havoc while we were at our prayers,” one suggested.

“Did no one hear anything?” another asked.

James noticed something near him on the floor. He took a candle from the sconce on the wall and bent down to examine it.

Some feathers were stuck to the wood in a clump. James blew on them and a few fluttered loose. Gingerly, he touched the sticky substance holding the others in place. He sniffed his fingers.

“Mud,” he said. “And the print of a boot heel.”

His new partner, Brother Martin, came over to see.

“Fairly solid evil spirits,” he commented. “But how did they get in here?”

The loud voice of the priory doorkeeper rose from the stairwell.

“I told you, my lord,” he insisted. “No one entered the priory after Vespers. I let the cook’s helpers and the waste collector out. No strangers at all.”

The prior entered the room, followed by the porter who whistled in amazement.

“Aren’t you lads a bit old for pillow fights?” he asked.

Brother Martin spoke for them all.

“Several of us were up here just before Compline,” he told the prior. “This had to have been done while we were in the chapel.”

“Well it wasn’t by an outsider,” the doorkeeper stated. “Nor no sane man, to my mind. Could have been squirrels.”

Prior Stephen raised his eyebrows.

It might also have been a troop of monkeys or lions,” he said. “But I find the theory of demons more believable.”

He addressed the monks.

“Did any of you see anyone, stranger or not, enter the dormitory?”

They all shook their heads.

“Ghosts, perhaps?” one suggested. “Damned souls who wish to keep us from our rest.”

“We’ve had no previous visitations,” the prior said. “Any other possibilities?”

“Whoever it was,” Brother Martin said, “he was well shod.”

He showed the prior the boot print.

“There’s another here.” James had been continuing his search. “And one more at the window.”

He looked out. There was an old chestnut tree whose branches scraped against the wall. It would be no trick for an agile man to climb in and out again.

The other monks came to see. A few feathers clinging to the bark just outside convinced them.

“So, Brother Olivier, you are exonerated,” the prior said.

“No one gets past me,” the doorkeeper muttered. “Thank you, my lord,” he added.

“Brother Martin, Brother James.” Prior Stephen beckoned to them. “Come with me. Bring torches. I want you to see if you can find which way our vandal went. The rest of you, salvage what you can to sleep on tonight.”

James followed Brother Martin reluctantly. He tried to stifle a yawn. The odds were that the street would be so scuffed that they would have no way of tracing the intruders. How many feathers could have stayed on their clothing? Perhaps they would find a scrap torn from a pair of hose or a shift, but that would be no use unless they also found the man who wore them.

But, although the two monks searched on hands and knees, they found nothing but a few dents in the soft earth where the intruders had landed.

They reported this to the prior in his quarters. James tried not to look longingly at his pristine bed.

“I didn’t expect there to be much more evidence,” the prior admitted. “At least there was enough to prove this a deed of human wickedness.”