The Outcast Dove: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (35 page)

“Aaron,” Solomon said carefully. “Don’t you think it would be better if Arnald and I went out there first? We can see what the situation is, make certain Mayah is really there. Then we can find out who to approach about getting her out.”

“You must be out of your mind, Solomon,” Aaron answered. “I won’t leave Mayah there another moment. She’s coming back with us tonight.”

“Of course she is,” Arnald agreed. “What’s wrong with you, Solomon? How could he come all this way and then wait here in town like a coward?”

Solomon closed his eyes. “Thank you, Arnald. Very well, just remember that I warned you.”

They found plenty of people willing to direct them to the construction site. Half the inhabitants of the town were part of the building, from stonecutters to smiths, to copper molders and pipe makers.

The church was only partly built, the walls not much above man height. A wide paved road had been created for the last mile to make it easier to bring in the huge stones and the enormous logs to support the roof. Around the area were huts for the workers and piles of materials; huge vats for mixing mortar, saw horses, coils of rope and lengths of scaffolding.

One of the huts was set apart from the others. It was windowless and fenced. Just inside the barrier a woman wrapped in a long, hooded cloak was throwing grain for a few scrawny chickens.

“Let’s ask her,” Arnald said. “She may be the brothel keeper.”

“Arnald, just in case she isn’t, let us do the talking,” Solomon told him.

As they approached, they noticed a chain reaching from a band on the woman’s ankle to an iron ring in the wall.

“I think we’ve found the place,” Aaron said tightly.
“Salaam,
good woman.”

The woman started at his voice. She straightened up and moved as far as she could from the men.

Aaron smiled at her, speaking in passable Arabic. “We’re looking for someone. She may be living here with you. She’s from Córdoba. Her name is Mayah.”

The woman looked at him strangely. Then she shook her head.

Aaron came closer to her. She shrank from him, turning her face away.

“Please,” he said. “I won’t hurt you. I just want to know what happened to Mayah. Do you understand me? Can you tell me where she is?”

The woman looked back at him. Her eyes were rimmed with dark kohl, smudged from the previous night and her lips and cheeks were bright with rouge. But from behind Aaron, Solomon could see that her face was gaunt. There was a bruise on her jaw that powder couldn’t hide.

“I’m sorry,
Senhor,”
she said in clear Occitan. “The woman you are looking for is dead.”

At that moment the door of the hut opened and a tall man reached for the chain. He yanked it so hard that the woman almost fell. Quickly, she hobbled back inside.

Aaron turned to Solomon, his face blank with shock.

“Dead?” he said. “No! Dear Lord, No! Oh, my poor Mayah! How could this be?”

Solomon didn’t answer. He looked from Aaron to the hut and back again. He didn’t know what to say.

Despite his obvious grief, Solomon thought Aaron’s voice also held a tinge of relief. He wouldn’t have to marry a whore after all.

It didn’t seem the time to tell his friend that the woman he had just been talking to was his beloved Mayah.

Solomon followed slowly behind Aaron and Arnald as they rode away from the monastery. He hardly noticed the path. All he could see was Mayah’s face, painted like a crude image at a peasant shrine. But beneath the paint was still the beautiful, brilliant girl he had watched grow up. How could Aaron not have recognized her? Adversity hadn’t changed her appearance that much. What it had done to her inside was something he wasn’t ready to find out.

Ahead of him, Aaron was sobbing. Arnald was trying to ride close enough to catch him should his grief overwhelm his balance.

Despite his total consternation at the situation, there were two things Solomon was sure of. The first was that if Mayah had wanted Aaron to know who she was, she would have told him. The second was that somehow he had to get her out of that nightmare.

Upon their return to the inn, Aaron threw himself onto his straw pallet and buried his face in his blanket. The wool did little to muffle his moans of anguish.

Arnald sat in the room below with a pitcher and cup. Now and then he would pause in his drinking to wipe his eyes.

“Now we’ll have to go home and tell everyone that there will be no wedding.” He sighed. “Poor Aaron! Solomon, why aren’t you weeping with him? I thought Mayah and her father were friends of yours, too.”

“I’ll weep when I know there’s reason to,” Solomon answered.

He climbed the ladder to the sleeping loft.

“Aaron.” He pulled the blanket off his face. “Aaron, you’re too quick to accept such terrible news. How do you know the woman was telling you the truth?”

“What?” Aaron brushed dust from the rafters off his face. “What do you mean? Why would she lie?”

“To get rid of you,” Solomon said. “To hurt you. Perhaps to protect Mayah. You might have come to harm her.”

“How could anything harm her worse than that place?” Aaron asked.

“Or she might have just been malicious.” Solomon took his arm and tried to make him stand. “Mayah might not ever have been there at all. Or it might have been someone else with the same name. It’s a common one, after all. Don’t you owe it to her to be certain?”

Aaron’s expression was a mixture of hope and confusion.

“But how?”

“We go back,” Solomon told him. “We find out who else was inside that building. If she really has died, then we find her grave.”

Aaron seemed unable to comprehend this sudden call to action.

“Solomon, it’s good of you to help me like this, but…”

“It’s not you I’m thinking of, Aaron,” Solomon said. “It’s Mayah. If there’s even a possibility that she’s still alive and in captivity, I must find a way to free her. I won’t return home until I know.”

Aaron gave a shudder. “Of course. You’re right. It’s just that the place…it was so much worse than I had expected.”

Solomon put a hand on his shoulder.

“I know,” he said. “It would be easier to believe that death has freed her, that she is safe in the Garden of Paradise. But that may not be true.”

It took Aaron a moment to compose himself enough to stand. His head grazed the thick thatch and bits of it stuck in his hair. It gave him a comical look that contrasted starkly with his red eyes and tragic face.

“Tell me what to do, Solomon,” he said.

“First, go down and eat,” Solomon told him. “I know it’s
treyf
but you’ll need your strength. I’ll go back to investigate the area better. There’s no moon tonight. Maybe the darkness will allow us to get close enough to the hut to find out who’s inside.”

He guided his friend down the ladder and left Arnald with strict instructions to stay with him and make sure he ate whatever the innkeeper had on hand.

“Even pork?” Arnald asked.

“No,” Aaron said. “Even for Mayah, I won’t disobey that commandment.”

“Then bread, cheese, soup, pickled turnips.” Solomon didn’t care. “Just be sure that you can follow my instructions without fainting from hunger or alerting the guards with a rumbling belly.”

It was only after leaving the inn that he realized he had forgotten to feed his own stomach. Just as well. With the turmoil he felt at the moment, he doubted anything would stay down.

He took their horses to a stable built against a rocky hillside. The ostler seemed to know his business and they were soon rubbed down, watered and contentedly munching a barley mash. Solomon felt a pang of jealousy.

He had decided that it would be better to explore the area on foot. Before he made any attempt to liberate Mayah, he needed to know what she wanted him to do. The problem was to get to her. A windowless building, cleared land all around it and a eunuch watching the one door; that shouldn’t be hard to breach. The heroes of all those
mesfaé
stories never had any problem.

As he left the stable another party was entering. Solomon’s heart fell when he saw who it was. He tried to dodge behind a pile of hay bales but was too late.

Jehan’s face lit. “I owe you three
pogesi
, Guy!” he said. “Brother James was right.
Harou!
Solomon, I hear none of your own women will have you so you’re out hunting Saracen whores. Couldn’t you find any closer to home?”

Solomon gave a sigh. This was all he needed. He came out from behind the bales.

“Did you follow me here to get my leavings?” he countered. “No, wait. I haven’t time to tilt words with you. I suppose that damned monk is somewhere around.”

“He’s gone up to this monastery to find out who’s in charge,” Berengar volunteered. “He took Brother Martin but told us to stay here.”

Jehan cuffed his ear.

“He doesn’t need to know that,” he told Berengar.

“Yes, I do,” Solomon answered. “Thank you, Berengar.”

Jehan stepped forward. “Look, I don’t know why you loathe Brother James so particularly, but I’m not about to let you lie in wait for him on the road. You’re not going anywhere until they return.”

“Jehan!” Solomon tried to push past them although he knew he had no chance against three. “At the moment, I need to speak with the man, that’s all. If you want, you can come with me; but it can’t wait.”

The old Jehan would have smashed his face in. Solomon prepared to dodge the first blow. Instead the knight gave him a curt nod.

“Berengar, Guy, you two see to the horses,” he ordered. “I’ll go with you, Solomon, if only to find out what’s so damned important.”

Berengar started to protest but was quelled with a look.

“Find us a place to stay, preferably without vermin,” Jehan told him. I’ll be back here by sunset.”

Reluctantly, Berengar agreed. “Stay alert,” he warned Jehan. “I’ve seen how he moves.”

“So have I,” Jehan said. “And I know his tricks. That’s why I’m the one who’s going.”

Regretfully, Solomon reclaimed his horse. There would be no chance now to explore the place undiscovered, at least not before dark. Still, it was better to find out what Brother James was planning. He didn’t believe for a moment that the man had been moved by the plight of Aaron’s betrothed.

The two men rode in uncomfortable silence back to the site. As they neared it, they heard shouting and the clank of metal on stone.

Jehan and Solomon looked at each other and reined in.

“Could just be the sounds of the building crews,” Solomon said.

“Possibly,” Jehan agreed. “Or a celebration of some sort.”

“Of course Brother James might have managed to antagonize the men overseeing construction. They’re probably making it clear to him that they don’t need his interference.”

“If that is the case,” Jehan said. “It’s my duty to see that he comes to no harm. From them or from you.”

“I told you, I’m not going to attack the man, however much I might want him dead,” Solomon insisted.

“But will you help me save him?” Jehan’s words were a challenge.

“Oh, yes.” Solomon gave a thin smile. “If only to see him choke when he finds out he is in my debt.”

The scene that greeted them was far beyond anything they had expected. Workmen and monks were milling around the half-finished church. Most of them were yelling with such cacophony that it was impossible to make out the reason for the excitement. Some men were busy moving a ladder against a naked arch that curved high over the main portal.

Solomon blinked and then pointed at the apex of the stone arch.

“What the hell is that?”

Jehan squinted, trying to make it out. “It looks like some giant black vulture perched over the doorway,” he said.

He crossed himself hurriedly. “What have they conjured up? Do you think it’s one of those Saracen idols, come to free the slaves?”

“They don’t have idols,” Solomon said. “You Christians do. It does look demonic, though. And oddly familiar.”

“Oh,
merdus!”
Jehan exclaimed. “I knew there was something I meant to tell you. We passed your friend, Yusef, on the road. It seems that woman of his has run away again. I’d have let her go and good riddance, but he was bent on finding her. He said she might have been coming this way. It seems he was right.”

Solomon shaded his eyes with his hand. Slowly the form became a woman wrapped in a black hooded cloak. What had looked from a distance like a long beak resolved itself into a face. As he watched, she tossed her head and a braid swung loose.

“What new madness is this?” he breathed.

Jehan had been scanning the rest of the site. “Perhaps not madness as all,” he said. “Look over there.”

Solomon did. While everyone was focussed on Babylonia’s performance as the harbinger of doom, the door of the brothel had opened. First the eunuch came out to see what was happening. After a moment, he ventured farther out.

At this point Bablyonia sent up a wail that caused all the dogs in the area to howl in response. She balanced precariously on the unfinished stone, waving her arms as if about to launch herself into the air. The eunuch moved away from the hut to get a better view.

Solomon and Jehan continued to watch the hut. As Babylonia’s shrieks began, the door opened again and two women rushed out, heading for the cover of some storage sheds nearby.

“They’ll never make it away safely without help,” Solomon said.

“I know,” Jehan said. He searched the crowd of onlookers for the monks. Finally, he spotted the hulking form of Brother Martin. He seemed in no danger.

“Jehan!” Solomon had dismounted and was making his way to the place where Mayah and the other woman were hiding. “Are you with me or not?”

“I’m coming.” Jehan tied the reins to a stunted tree and followed. “I wonder what the penance is for stealing Saracen whores from monks.”

“Just cheer yourself with the thought that whatever they set you won’t be an option for me,” Solomon told him. “My choice will be conversion or the gallows.”

Jehan grinned. “What a glorious prospect! Thank you!”

Solomon stopped abruptly. “But the object is for all of us to escape capture. Don’t forget that!”

“I’m not likely to.” Jehan’s grin faded. “I’ve been imprisoned, as you know well. No one is ever going to shackle me again.”

The workmen were now climbing the ladders toward Babylonia’s perch. She wasn’t making it easy, flapping her cloak and kicking chips of masonry on their upturned faces. Anyone who had a hand free was using it, not to ward off the scree but to make signs of protection against evil.

“Stop that!” a voice shouted in Arabic. “She’s not a demon, just a human woman.”

The overseer turned to Brother James. “There’s a demon inside her for certain. Can you deny that?”

At that moment Babylonia began to laugh, a cackle that was more horrifying than her screams.

James clapped his hands over his ears. “No,” he admitted. “I can’t.”

He raised his arms and began to intone a prayer of exorcism. As he did so, a group of monks in gray robes hurried over, summoned by the master builder. They ignored Babylonia and went straight to Brothers James and Martin. The leader was a man in his late twenties with an aristocratic bearing no humble monastic robe could disguise.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”

He paused to catch his breath. “A blessing upon you, all the same.”

James smiled and bowed. “And to you, my brother. I am James, a monk of Saint Pierre of Moissac. This is my companion, Martin. We are at this place only by chance. However, we are acquainted with the woman who has terrorized your workmen. We encountered her on our journey.”

The monk wasted no time with formalities. “Can you get her down?”

“I can try.” James sighed. “If someone will hold the ladder.”

As they crept from the cover of one rock to another, Solomon gave Jehan a quick explanation of who Mayah was and how she had ended up in such a place. Jehan had no trouble believing the story; it was common enough. It was Aaron’s behavior that mystified him.

“He finds out where she’s been taken and he goes north to sell horses for her ransom?” Jehan was aghast. “Then he ambles into Spain with us and when he finally finds her he doesn’t even know her face? That’s nonsense. Like those stupid minstral tales when a man puts on a beggar’s cloak and tries to seduce his own wife and even the servants, who dress him every day, don’t know it’s him.
Tost fantasial!”