The Outcast Dove: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (3 page)

Solomon looked around the barge. As planned, the group had hired it just for themselves and their goods. The horses had been left in Moissac until their return. Fresh ones would be found in Toulouse. The only Christians on board were the boatmen, and Arnald.

Seeing that Arnald was now busy asking questions of the bargeman, Solomon leaned closer to Bonysach.

“What is the Edomite doing with us?” he asked.

Bonysach looked surprised. “The salt merchant’s son? He told us you were friends,” he said. “He said you had asked him to join us.”

Solomon shook his head. “Never saw him before. He says he was at the inn with me last night.”

Bonysach nodded. “The state you were in, you may have become sworn brothers. What possessed you to try to drain a vat by yourself?”

“I don’t know,” Solomon admitted sadly. “I’ve been to Moissac several times since my encounter with my…with that monk, but somehow, this time, the shame of it hit me like an anvil on my back.”

The older man’s face softened and he patted Solomon on the shoulder.

“The shame is not yours, my friend,” he said. “But his.”

He paused.

“You know we aren’t angry with you for your behavior,” he continued. “Not really. It’s only that we fear that you spend too much time with the Edomites. We all have to live in a world of idolaters and unbelievers. It’s the Law alone that keeps us safe. I think you enjoy flouting it.”

“No,” Solomon answered earnestly. “I respect the Law; I just don’t see the need to observe it rigorously. But, Bonysach, I have never denied my faith. Nor have I doubted it. No matter what happens, I will die rather than be ‘blessed’ in their filthy water. I promise you.”

Both men were silent a moment, remembering those they had known who had been martyred or forced to convert in the past two years. When King Louis had decided to raise an army to fight the Saracens, it was the Jews who were the first victims.

Bonysach shook himself. “Enough of misery. It’s a beautiful spring day. We are safe and I, at least, am going home to my family. You’ll stay with us again, won’t you? Belide asks after you often. She’s seventeen now, you know.”

“Belide seventeen!” Solomon feigned shock. “The little girl with the skinned elbows and dirty face? I do feel old.”

Bonysach looked him up and down. “Despite your current condition, you aren’t decrepit, yet.”

Solomon started to back away. He suspected what was coming. “My friend, Abraham the vintner, says you need a wife,” Bonysach went on.

“Oh, no,” Solomon interrupted. “It’s Rebecca, Abraham’s wife, who feels I should be married. She has tried to match me to most of the eligible girls from Paris to Rouen.”

“Those are French women.” Bonysach dismissed them with a wave. “You know the women of Provence are more beautiful, more educated, more able to manage your business while you are gone and passionate enough to provide you with many children to carry on in your name.”

“Bonysach!” Solomon was honestly shocked. “You can’t be talking about your own daughter!”

“Believe me, I know Belide,” Bonysach said. “She’s ripe for marriage. But dutiful and pious,” he added quickly.

Solomon was horrified and said so.

“Bonysach, you’d sacrifice your own child to see to it that I don’t turn Christian? How can you even consider such a thing?”

Bonysach held up his hands in protest. “She doesn’t feel it would be a sacrifice,” he said. “Anyway, we both know that marriage won’t stop a man who wishes to leave the faith.”

Solomon shuddered.

“Old friend,” he answered. “My head aches still from my excess last night. This is far too much for me to wade through now. But I know you can do better for your child than a man who eats and drinks with infidels and is never home more than a few days in a year.”

Bonysach shrugged. “Actually, I do have a few other possibilities. It’s Belide herself who wants the chance to reform you.”

Solomon rolled his eyes. “Will someone save me, please, from infatuated young women who think I can be redeemed!”

The other men turned to stare at him. Solomon lowered his voice.

“I know you’re a doting father, Bonysach,” he said. “And I’m sure Belide is all you say and more. You must make her believe that I am a lost cause. She would weary of me within a year.”

His friend gave a relieved grin. “I agree, Solomon. My wife has tried to tell her the same thing. Josta’s fond of you, of course, but doubts you’ll ever be domesticated and doesn’t want Belide to waste her youth trying.”

Solomon grinned back. “Give Josta a kiss for me with my thanks. And tell Belide that I have a pair of amber earrings that will be perfect for her bridal gift.”

Bonysach moved onto speak to one of the other traders. Solomon collapsed against the pile of bundles in relief.

Arnald had been listening with interest. He came over and plopped down next to Solomon.

“You don’t know what you’re giving up,” he said. “Bonysach is very rich and Belide is even more beautiful than he said. It’s a pity she’s Jewish.”

Solomon tensed.

“How do you know Belide?” he asked suspiciously. “Is she why you wanted to travel with us?”

Arnald fidgeted with a rope end, unraveling the twine.

“Oh, I see her in the market,” he said. “We sell little cones of salt there. I help my mother at the stall sometimes. Belide and I have been friends since we were children.”

Solomon turned to him. “Look, if you took advantage of my state last night to wriggle your way onto this boat and ingratiate yourself with Belide’s father, then you’re not only mad, you’re in serious danger of having to swim the rest of the way to Toulouse.”

“No! I…” Arnald looked over Solomon’s shoulder. Bonysach was deep in conversation at the other end of the barge. “I do like her. But nothing more than that. My father would kill me if I took up with her.”

“So would hers,” Solomon pointed out.

“Yes, I know.” Arnald was sweating now. “It was you I wanted to meet,” he explained. “Belide said you were used to Christians, that you understood our ways. She thought you might be willing to help us.”

Solomon’s eyes narrowed. “Who is ‘us’? And what sort of help for you to do what?”

“Didn’t Aaron talk to you?” Arnald asked.

“Aaron? The horse trader? We talked a bit, but he only spoke of his marriage plans.”

“Yes, yes, oh good!” Arnald relaxed visibly. “Then he must mean to tell you the rest when he returns.”

He got up. “That’s all right, then.” He brushed the back of his tunic. “I know you’ll be willing to help, now that we’ve met. You’re not afraid of anything. Say, captain!” He stopped the boatman as he passed. “Will we be home by sundown tomorrow? My mother worries, you know, if I walk home in the dark.”

He sauntered off to the other side of the barge.

Solomon was too stunned to reply.

They tied up under a bridge for the night and left again at dawn. Feeling somewhat foolish, Solomon joined the other men for prayers, as promised. After the
Shema,
he did not give a good account of himself. What made him feel worse was that the men seemed more sad than annoyed that he had forgotten so much.

By late morning the forest on either side of the river was thinning. Fields and vineyards grew more frequent. Solomon noticed that villages had risen in new clearings made since his last trip south. The buildings and fences were of fresh wood, the tree stumps still raw between the riverbank and the huts. Now there were people everywhere, hoeing, fishing, sawing down more trees to expand the town. Children waved at them as they passed.

“Everywhere you look, the forest is being pushed back,” Bonysach commented to Solomon. “Trade is getting better all the time. Even the peasants are becoming more prosperous. We hear it’s not as good in the North.”

“No.” Solomon thought of the wasted bodies of the beggars in Paris. “There are new towns enough, but the famine of the past few years has caused some to be abandoned.”

“Thank the Holy One, blessed be he, that we have escaped that,” Bonysach said. “They say there’s much resentment in France that the king has gone on this expedition to Israel.”

“Yes, and it gets louder every time he sends back for more money without any victories,” Solomon said. “What right has a king to starve his own land in order to wage war in another? I’d rejoice at his defeats if they weren’t so bad for all of us in France.”

Bonysach nodded. “Our count, Alphonse, left recently to join the expedition. While I would wish to see Jerusalem free of the Christians, the count has been a good friend to us and so I’d also like him to win all his battles and come home loaded with wealth.”

“That’s our existence in a nutshell,” said Solomon. “We live in two worlds, feeling safe in neither.”

“Perhaps you think we should raise our own army and retake the Temple for ourselves,” Bonysach suggested.

Solomon gave a laugh.

“Has the Meshiach arisen to lead us? And where would the soldiers come from?” he asked. “All our great men are scholars. What would we do, argue the enemy to death?”

Bonysach laughed with him. “I know some men who could do it! If only walls could be brought down by words.”

They didn’t see Yusef come up next to them until he spoke.

“That is not a subject for jest,” he told them. “Words built the world. How do you know the learned ones among us may not find the word that could end it?”

Solomon laughed again, but with less conviction.

“I don’t want the world to end, Yusef,” he teased. “Just for the Edomites and the Ishmaelites to give us back the land their ancestors stole.”

“And I want my daughter to marry a prince and my sons to be great teachers,” Bonysach said. “And all my goods to sell at ten times what I paid for them. If you find magic words that will do that, Yusef, I’ll turn scholar, too.”

Yusef regarded them with pity.

“You mock because you don’t understand,” he told them. “Only those who give their lives to study can approach the divine knowledge.”

Bonysach patted Yusef consolingly. “And that’s why we support such scholars. But I don’t expect any revelations in my lifetime, so allow me my dreams.”

Yusef gave them both a superior smile. “Of course, my friend,” he said. “But don’t be surprised if someday soon you find yourself suddenly and sharply awakened.”

As they came closer to Toulouse, the river grew more crowded. The passengers sat close to the center of the barge to stay out of the way as the boatmen steered through the maze of rafts, mills and other boats. They docked above the city, at the Bazacle port, where the merchants kept a shed to store their goods. Here, where the river picked up speed as it turned, there were several mills, a dyer’s, and many storehouses.

Solomon paid the final toll and gathered up his packs.

“Don’t forget,” Arnald said, as they parted. “Aaron will tell you what we propose doing. With you I know we’ll succeed!”

He hurried off before Solomon could protest that he had agreed to nothing.

“Come by for Sabbath dinner,” Bonysach told him. “One of the prospects for Belide will be joining us. You can help judge his worth. Josta will be happy to see you.”

Solomon promised he would.

Yusef caught up with him as he was heading for the city walls.

“Are you going to evening prayers?” he asked.

Solomon stopped with a sigh and set down his bag. “No, Yusef. I’m going to see if Gavi will take me in while I’m in Toulouse.”

“Gavi!” Yusef said in shock. “But he’s a tanner! Why would you want to stay there?”

Solomon put his hand on Yusef’s shoulder. “Because Gavi has no daughters. He doesn’t try to make me a better Jew or even a better man. His wife makes good beer and they have an empty bed they’re always happy to rent.”

“But the smell!” Yusef made a face.

“They’ve never complained about mine,” Solomon said. “So I can tolerate theirs.”

He picked up the bag and continued on his way, leaving Yusef standing in the road, shaking his head in stupefaction.

The bells of Saint Sernin, Le Taur, Sainte Marie la Daurade, and Saint Pierre des Cuisines were tolling the start of Vespers in the Bourg of Toulouse when another barge docked slightly farther up the river. The men aboard were all clean-shaven and tonsured. They wore sandals and the dark robes of monks of the Cluniac order. They came ashore and headed directly to the priory of Saint Pierre des Cuisines, chanting the office as they walked. Before them people stepped aside, moving hand carts, piles of refuse and small children out of their path. The prior gave the citizens his blessing as he went by.

In the midst of the group was a monk whose cowl was pulled forward so that his face was partly hidden. He looked at the ground as he processed through the town. His demeanor was of a man whose whole mind was occupied with the contemplation of heaven.

Yusef and Bonysach stopped to let the monks pass. As he watched them, Bonysach gave a start. He blinked and looked again. Once the street was clear, he grabbed Yusef by the arm.

“Do you know who that was?” he asked. “The older man with the stoop walking in the center?”

“No, I wasn’t looking at them,” Yusef answered. Then he realized. “You don’t mean him? Why would he be here? Do you think it means a new persecution? Could he have convinced those monks of his to follow us from Moissac and force us to convert?”

“I don’t see how.” Bonysach bit his lip. “Or why a whole troop of them would need to leave the monastery just to thwart us. It’s probably just a coincidence.”

“Perhaps, but I don’t like it,” Yusef said. “We should tell this to the elders.”

“I think you’re right,” Bonysach said slowly. “They can decide what to do about it and whether Solomon should be told.”

“One thing I am certain of,” Yusef said with feeling. “I don’t want to be anywhere nearby when he finds out.”

The next morning, as Solomon shared bread and sausage with Gavi and his wife, Nazara, there was a knock at the door.

“Who could that be?” Gavi said as he rose to answer it. “I know it’s too early for the tax collectors to show up and all my customers meet me at the market.”

He opened the door. In front of him stood a thin old man, his full white beard tinged with remnants of the dark hair of his youth. He wore a wool cap and clothes of good linen stained with food and candle drippings.

“Welcome, Rav Chaim!” Gavi said in surprise. “You honor my home. Please come in.”

Solomon stood, wondering why a respected teacher would visit a lowly tanner, especially so early. The sunlight was behind the visitor so Solomon could only see his form. Somehow, the man seemed familiar. He looked closer as the visitor entered and the light fell on his face.

“Enondu!”
he exclaimed. “Uncle Hubert, is that you? I thought you wouldn’t be in Toulouse for another week.”

The man grinned as he hugged Solomon. “I couldn’t wait for news of my daughter,” he said. “Where is Edgar?”

“He went back to check on that same daughter,” Solomon answered. “I’ve never seen such a uxorious man in my life.”

“Catherine is well, though?” Hubert asked worriedly. “James and Edana aren’t ill?”

“They were fine when we left,” Solomon assured him. “Although you should have a new grandchild by the summer.”

Hubert’s grin widened. “Say what you like about the English, Edgar does give my daughter fine children. Is he coming back?”

“I don’t know,” Solomon answered. “If he thinks Catherine needs him, he may decide to stay until the baby arrives. I told him I’d be in Toulouse until after Easter but I’ll wait no longer than that for him.”

“Ah, well,” Hubert began. “I might have a commission for you before then if you don’t mind a short trip.”

“Anything you like, Uncle,” Solomon said.

Gavi’s wife had been standing politely while they spoke, but she felt that she must show their guest some hospitality.

“Would you like some beer and sausage, Rav Chaim?” she asked. “We would be honored for you to join us.”

Solomon remembered that Hubert had returned to his Hebrew birth name and this was what the people of Toulouse would know him by. Chaim, a fitting name for one who had been born into a new life.

He was amazed at the change in his uncle. As a young boy in Rouen, Hubert’s mother and sister had been killed by soldiers on their way to join the first expedition to the Holy Land. The other men of the family had been away. Hubert had been taken in by a Christian of Rouen, baptized, raised and married as a Christian. His father and brothers thought he was dead and it was many years before they found him again. By then he was part of the Christian community.

Yet, in the autumn of his life, Hubert had returned to Judaism. It had meant leaving his children and grandchildren behind, knowing that he might never see them again. Leaving most of his wealth with Edgar and Catherine, Hubert turned his back on the life he had led for over fifty years. He had started in Hebrew school with boys of seven or eight, trying to pick up what he had barely started learning before his life had been torn in half.

But that was only two years ago! How had he attained such respect in so short a time? Solomon was mystified.

“Uncle,” he said as they sat at the table and Gavi poured the beer. “When I last saw you, you had scarcely begun your
aleph-bet
. What miracle has led you to the rank of teacher?”

Hubert smiled sheepishly. “I’m rather embarrassed by that. It’s not my learning they seem to respect.”

“Rav Chaim has become a
parush,
” Gavi explained. “An ascetic who spends every hour of the day in study and prayer.”

“Most days,” Hubert added. “Most hours.”

“You are devoting your life to the study of the Torah,” Gavi’s wife, Nazara, said. “Such dedication to the words of the Creator is always to be honored.”

“You forget that I have a lifetime of study to make up for.” Hubert was clearly ill at ease.

“We’re all proud of you,” Solomon told him. “I even have a gift for you from your old friend, Abraham the vintner. ‘For the lost sheep,’ he said. ‘Who found his way home.’”

Hubert smiled but seemed preoccupied.

“Abraham was always a good friend,” he said.

He finished his beer and, when Gavi started to pour more, put his hand over the bowl.

“I am grateful for your hospitality,
Mar
Gavi.” He inclined his head to Gavi and his wife. “But I mustn’t stay. Solomon, would you walk back to the synagogue with me? I’ve been given a bed there while I am in Toulouse.”

“Of course, Uncle,” Solomon answered. “Just let me put on my boots.”

The two men walked in silence along the river before turning into the Cité, the part of town under the protection of the count.

Just before they entered the gates of the Cité, Solomon rounded on Hubert.

“Now that you have my guts twisted like a bloom of iron hot from the kiln, tell me what’s wrong,” he demanded.

Hubert grimaced. “Clearly, I’ve lost the skill to hide my true emotions. The talents a trader needs most are a hindrance to the kind of study I’ve been doing.”

“Uncle!” Solomon warned.

“I came this morning because I was eager to see you, of course.” Hubert fiddled with his beard nervously. “But I also am the unwilling bearer of some upsetting news.”

He took a deep breath.

“Solomon, your father has been seen in Toulouse.”

Solomon’s face shut. His gray eyes were like stone.

“My father is dead,” he said evenly.

Hubert bowed his head. “Solomon, you can’t ignore the truth. I know the pain he has caused you. Even when I was a Christian in name I was appalled at what he did to you and your mother.”

“He killed her.” Solomon’s voice remained flat.

Hubert sighed. “Yes, he did, as surely as if he’d put a knife in her heart.”

Suddenly, Solomon exploded. “That’s exactly what he did, Uncle, and in my heart, too! And, if Edgar hadn’t defended me in Moissac six years ago, he’d have put a rope around my neck as well. In thirty years he has become more evil than when he left us. If you’ve come to warn me to avoid the thing he has become, you needn’t worry. I wouldn’t let myself be soiled by the touch of his shadow!”

He turned away, staring at the currents in the river.

Hubert gave him a moment to control his anger.

“Solomon,” he said softly. “Remember that Jacob was also my brother. He still is.”

Solomon turned his head sharply.

“How can you say that after what he has done? Especially now that you have become such a ‘holy man’ and scholar?”

He was shocked to see tears on Hubert’s cheeks.

Hubert wiped them away with the back of his hand.

“You and I know how far I am from being either,” he said miserably. “All I can do is strive. But in my study I have learned one thing. ‘Even though a man be a sinner, he is still Israel.’ Jacob will remain my brother no matter what.”