The Outcast Dove: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (29 page)

Solomon would have preferred to continue brooding but roused himself enough to answer.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve seen it many times. You can touch the rock that Roland split. It’s not far from the hospice where we’ll stay tonight.”

Arnald’s eyes shone. “I can’t wait to tell Belide about it. She’ll be so impressed. Oh!” His face fell. “I forgot. Do you think it was wrong to go on and leave Samuel behind like that, without even finding his killer?”

“It’s one of the hazards of travel,” Solomon explained gently. “We’ve all had to do it. That doesn’t mean any of us will forget him. Aaron has his things, to give to his family. And they will perform the proper ceremonies of mourning.”

Arnald seemed content with this answer. “My father never told me trade was so dangerous. But he just gets the salt from our marshes and sells it in the area. Oh, look! A hawk! Do you think there are hunters in the woods?”

He rose in the saddle, twisting to follow the flight of the bird. Solomon marveled at how easily his attention shifted.

“I don’t see any jesses,” Guy said from behind them. “It must be wild.”

Each turn in the path brought something to excite Arnald. Solomon realized that he had lived only a few days journey from the mountains all his life and never known what they were like, much less what lay on the other side.

“Look! Down there!” Arnald leaned far over the edge of the path. “Tiny sheep! Or are they white rocks?”

Solomon glanced over. “Neither. Those are clouds.”

Arnald laughed. “I’m not that naïve. What are they really?”

Guy decided to take over his education. “They’re floating cows,” he said. “The Basques use magic to make them glide above the earth so they can feed off the grasses on the precipices.”

“Floating cows!” Arnald was impressed. “Amazing.”

Solomon gave up. “Wait until you taste the cheese.”

They stopped early in the afternoon to eat and water the horses at a mountain stream. Solomon contrived to sit with Aaron away from the others.

“When do we break off from the group?” he asked.

“At Pamplona,” Aaron said. “I have directions to Fitero from there. It’s about two days ride south, near Tudela.”

“Are you sure you want Arnald to come with us? He’s so eager to help that he might get us killed.”

“He understands how important this is,” Aaron said. “When the time comes, he’ll do his part.”

“If you say so.” Solomon bit into the cheese and pickled turnip that Caudiza had given him that morning.

Aaron chewed on his lip in concentration. “What about you, Solomon? You’ve been distracted all day. I’ve never known you like this. Is it because of that woman, Caudiza? What did she do to you?”

Solomon shrugged. “I guess you could say that she tried to get me to convert.”

Aaron snorted. “Most of the Edomite women you know try that.”

“Yes.” Solomon gazed down at the “floating cows” and the narrow valley beneath. “But for the first time in my life, I was tempted to do it.”

He wrapped up the remainder of the cheese and put it in his pack.

“Don’t tell me they’re going to walk all day again,” Guy said to Jehan. “Do they do this every Saturday?”

“The really devout ones do,” Jehan said.

Guy shook his head. “Insane. It would be like going to Mass and taking communion every Sunday. Nobody has time for that. That’s what monks are for. With all those laws to obey, how do Jews ever get any work done?”

James overheard this and would have given an impromptu sermon on the importance of lay attendance at Mass, but at the last minute he managed to restrain himself.

“Jews are wily; they find ways around the rules. Sometimes they hire Christians to do what the law forbids them,” he told Guy instead.

“Really? Lazy bastards.” Guy stretched before mounting his horse. “So the road is all downhill from here, right?”

Jehan gave him a humorless smile. “Right,” he said. “Smooth roads, easy fords, and featherbeds every night from here to Valencia.”

“Just watch out for the Navarrese,” Berengar warned. “We’ll be going through their land next. They’ll steal your clothes and rape your horse.”

“What?” Guy looked at him in alarm and then back at Jehan.

“Oh, yes, it’s well known,” Jehan told him. “The Navarrese put a lock over the rumps of their animals at night, so no one else can get at them. Then they attack travelers passing through, steal their goods and violate the horses. You’ll see.”

“I hope not.” Guy wondered if this story was like the one about the floating cows. Of course everyone knew that shepherds got lonely in the summer pastures, but horses! This was too much. Did they think he was as gullible as Arnald?

“Are we ready?” Brother Martin asked. “I might walk part of the road today myself. My poor mule is worn from climbing all that way yesterday with my weight on her back.”

“That would not be wise,” James told him. “It would appear that you were following their customs.”

“But Placida, here”—Martin patted the mule’s back—“she’d think it a blessing to have a day of rest.”

“Then give it to her tomorrow,” James said. “Do you want the others on the road to think you’ve been judaized?”

Brother Martin hung his head, abashed. “No, I would never want that. Of course I’ll ride.”

“Sorry, Placida,” he whispered as he climbed on. “I’ll see if I can find you some wild carrot for a treat tonight, instead.”

Jehan rode over to Brother James. “Do you want me to make Arnald ride, as well?” he asked.

James pursed his lips. He did, but it would be better not to annoy the young man until he had been questioned about his friends.

“Arnald is not wearing the robes of a monk,” he said. “Likely other pilgrims will assume he’s one of the Jews. That might make him think twice about spending so much time with them.”

“Very well,” Jehan said. “Arnald can be the rear guard today. Then Aaron can’t say we aren’t keeping to our end of the bargain. The rest of us won’t need to slow our pace for them. We might even make it to Pamplona by sundown.”

Berengar and Guy approved the plan with enthusiasm.

“I know of a bathhouse in Pamplona,” Berengar told them, “where you can get food, wine, and women without ever leaving the tub. My uncle told me about it.”

“I wouldn’t mind a bath,” Guy agreed. “And a shave, and a pretty girl to wash my hair and back. Of course, I’d need some money in hand to get those things.”

He looked at Brother James without much hope.

James cleared his throat. “It might be possible to advance you a sum for the purpose of cleanliness,” he said.

Jehan turned around to make sure it was really Brother James who had said that. The monk looked at him and shrugged.

“Of course I would expect you to refrain from licentious behavior,” he added.

“Oh, most certainly!” Berengar grinned. “I intend to say a prayer of thanks as soon as my tired body enters the water and I know God won’t be far from my thoughts throughout the evening.”

“I pray all the time,” Guy assured him.

“I’ve noticed,” Brother James said.
“Especially,”
he thought,
“Just before you turn over the dice cup.”

They set off down the mountain. Sometime later, Brother Martin looked back and noticed, with concern, that the men on foot had fallen so far behind that they were out of sight.

The other people at the hospice that morning gave Aaron’s group some curious looks, but not because they were leading, rather than riding, the horses. It was Babylonia who attracted their attention

“What’s she done?” a man asked Yusef as he put her onto his saddle and then tied her hands to the harness.

Yusef didn’t answer. The man turned to Arnald.

“If she’s a criminal, why does she get to ride?”

Arnald thought quickly. “She’s not a criminal. She’s taken a vow not to make rude gestures while on this journey and is afraid that, without having her hands bound, she might forget.”

The man looked up at Babylonia, who wiggled her little finger at him.

“I see,” he said, and backed away.

Solomon laughed. “Very good, Arnald. You’re learning.”

Arnald basked in the praise. He had been feeling unprepared to deal with the variety of people they were encountering and he was still unsure about the cows. But it did seem that most people preferred to create tales rather than give a stranger the truth.

“Aaron told me that we’re only a couple of days from Fitero,” he said to Solomon. “What are we going to do with Yusef? Aaron doesn’t want him to come with us.”

Solomon threw up his hands. “I have no idea how to get away without making it seem that we’ve forsaken him.”

“That is a problem,” Arnald agreed. “Maybe Aaron has a plan.”

“He’d better,” Solomon muttered.

As people passed them on the road, more than one stopped to stare at Babylonia. With her wild hair and rough stained clothing, she was out of place on horseback. Several greeted her, asking about her penitential pilgrimage. She ignored them all, leaving Arnald to invent various explanations.

“Do you mind his nonsense?” Solomon asked Yusef after listening to Arnald telling a family from Dijon that Babylonia was his aunt, afflicted by sudden fits of wanting to walk on her hands.

“No, it keeps people from making their own conclusions,” he answered. “I didn’t know the boy had such a good imagination. He was always just one of those drunken troublemakers in Toulouse.”

“His father may have been right in sending him with us,” Solomon said. “But you and I know Babylonia isn’t on a pilgrimage. And I don’t believe in some physician in Tortosa with miraculous cures. Where are you really taking her, Yusef, and why?”

Yusef set his jaw. “That is our business,” he said.

“Very well.” Solomon sighed. “Then where did she learn about the sanctification of the Name? I know that, when the Christian mobs came through Germany on their way to free the Holy Land, many Jews chose suicide instead of conversion. But most gentiles don’t know that it’s called
kiddush ha-Shem
. Babylonia does.”

“She’s worked in my house for several years.” Yusef avoided looking at him. “I imagine she overheard it in a conversation.”

“Of course,” Solomon said. “And when she found poor Samuel’s body, she immediately decided that was what he had done. Why would she leap to that conclusion?”

Yusef shrugged. “You know her mind is twisted. Her thoughts don’t follow the usual paths.”

“That’s not good enough, Yusef,” Solomon insisted. “Why would she treat him as a dead child? Did she lose a child? Did she commit infanticide?”

Yusef stopped in the middle of the road and looked Solomon straight in the eyes.

“No,” he said. “Babylonia did nothing wrong. Nothing.”

And that was all he could get from Yusef.

Solomon decided that it was time to tackle Aaron.

They were coming to the lower slopes of the mountains. The countryside was green with new shoots and the drone of bees could be heard from flowering bushes along the road. In Toulouse spring was settling in. Here in Navarre it already felt like summer. They shed their cloaks and rolled down their hose, savoring the touch of the sun on winter skin. Even Babylonia seemed affected by the gentle weather. She let her hood fall back, showing a less forbidding expression than Arnald had ever seen. He dared to ask if she needed a drink of water.

The question startled her. “Water. To drink. Yes, I am thirsty, thank you.”

He poured a cup from the skin slung from his shoulder and handed it up to her. She took it between her bound hands and bent down to tip it toward her mouth.

She managed to get a few swallows before the cup slipped out of her fingers and to the ground.

Arnald ran after it in a crouch as it tumbled down the path.

“Arnald! Watch out!” Babylonia screamed.

He looked up to see an enormous horse bearing down on him. The rider was trying to pull up on the reins but he had been cantering on this open stretch, not paying attention and didn’t see Arnald until the last moment.

“Roll, you idiot!” Solomon shouted, running toward him.

As the great sharp hooves descended, Arnald fell to the ground and rolled out of the way.

The cup was smashed to shards.

The next moment, Arnald felt the sting of a whip across his back.

“Vilanet!”
the man shouted. “Why didn’t you watch where you were going? You could have crippled my destrier!”

With another lash at Arnald he rode off.

“Arnald, are you hurt?” Aaron ran up to him.

Arnald rubbed his shoulder where he had landed on a rock. “No, I’m fine,” he said. “Did anyone see his face?”

“I couldn’t make out his features under the helm,” Aaron said.

“Well, I won’t forget his voice.” Arnald was furious with himself for leaving his sword in its sheath hung around the neck of his horse. “And people ask me why I loathe noblemen.”

Babylonia tried to reach down from the horse to pat him.

“Poor innocent,” she murmured.

Solomon gave her a look of alarm. “Arnald is fine, Babylonia,” he said. “And he’s
not
an innocent.”

“What are you talking about?” Arnald asked.

“Yusef knows.” Solomon’s voice carried a warning. “And he’s going to tell us the whole story tonight if he wants to continue on with us tomorrow.”

“But, Solomon!” Aaron protested.

“I’m not traveling with a woman who’s liable to slit our throats or smash our skulls,” Solomon declared. “No matter what that monk said, I’m not convinced that she’s innocent in Samuel’s death.”

“You only say that because you can’t stand the monk,” Yusef responded. “Jacob based his opinion on the evidence, not his prejudices.”

Arnald was beginning to think that the near accident had shaken his wits as well as his body.

“I don’t understand anything you’re saying,” he whined. “Except that we’ll never reach Pamplona today and I wanted to go to the bathhouse with the others.”

He slapped at the seat of his
brais,
raising a layer of dust.

“It can’t be helped,” Solomon decided. “The sun is too low. We’ll still be north of the town by the time it’s full dark. You can have your bath tomorrow. I’ll take you there, myself. For tonight we’ll find a place to make camp and then Aaron is going to tell Yusef where we’re really heading and Yusef will give us the complete story about Babylonia.”

“And you, Solomon?” Yusef asked. “Will you also disclose your secrets?”

“Me? I have no secrets that have anything to do with the journey we’re on now,” Solomon said.

Yusef shook his head. “I think that you do. Before we rejoin the monks, you need to tell your friends about Brother James.”

The bathhouse in Pamplona was everything that Guy had dreamed of. The tubs were in private curtained chambers. Next to each was a table laden with cups, wine, fruit, and meat pies within easy reach. Every so often more hot water would be brought in by beautiful women barely covered in thin saffron-colored, sleeveless tunics.

“A Saracen captive told me once that this is their idea of heaven,” Jehan commented as he leaned back to have one of the attendants pour soap over his hair.

Berengar frowned. “That’s sacrilegious. I don’t like it. Heaven is where you are free from the demands of the body, no longer tormented by temptation.”

“I thought that was only because saints don’t have bodies,” Guy commented. “In heaven, I mean. They’re all over the place down here.”

Jehan ducked his head under the water to rinse. “Well, at the final judgement, we get our flesh back, they say and in perfect form. If so, I want a heaven where I can give it some fun.”

“That reminds me,” Berengar asked. “Did the old buzzard give you enough coin for a bit of
jeu d’amor?”

“I’m astounded he released any coin at all,” Guy said. “I thought he had it glued to his chest.”

“I’ll bet he keeps the ransom money stuffed up his ass,” Berengar said. “He has the look of a man who’s permanently constipated.”

“Ahem,” Jehan interrupted. “You are speaking of our patron. The man who unwittingly handed me three
rossol
instead of three
pogesi
. We have enough for a woman each, my lords. And another pitcher of wine.”