Heresy: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (28 page)

It was a dark walk to the river. The road had a line of houses and sheds along it and then nothing but fields beyond. There was no sound from any of the buildings; everyone was either asleep or in the taverns. Rolland walked with the confidence of someone protected by clerical garb and a strong right arm. He could hear the river not far away. The toll hut must be nearby.

There it was, a crude wooden construction, one room with a window that could be opened to make a table for collecting the money from travelers and tradesmen arriving by water. Now the board was up and barred. But the door wasn’t locked. There was nothing inside to steal. Takings were brought into town each night to be counted and assigned.

Rolland thought it was an odd place to meet. But in the battle against evil one had to do some unusual things.

He pushed open the door. The hinges were rusty in the moist air and gave a high-pitched squeal. Rolland stepped in. Something caught at his ankles, and he fell full length on the dirt floor.

“Saint Alban’s bloody scourge!” he cried. “What the hell was that?”

It was the last thing he ever said.

“Lady Catherine, wake up at once!” Gwenael was shaking her.

Catherine tried to open her eyes. Around the room there were moans and sharp commands for quiet.

“Gwenael?” she asked, staring at her blearily. “How did you get in here?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the woman said. “You’ve got to come with me right now!”

“But it’s not dawn yet.” Catherine tried to roll over, but Gwenael gripped her shoulder tightly and shook her again.

“Get that woman out or I’ll send for the guard!” someone ordered from under a blanket.

“Please!” Gwenael’s voice was shrill with fear.

With a groan, Catherine swung her feet to the floor, sorry for once that she had been sleeping on the outside. She felt around for her shoes.

“I have them.” Gwenael took her by the hand and dragged her out to the landing. “And your
bliaut
.”

Catherine took her shoes. “My hose!” she complained. “And my belt. I’ll trip.”

“Here, take this.” The woman untied the rope from her own waist and gave it to Catherine. “Though I can’t see that you need it, the way your belly is swollen.”

Catherine pulled the
bliaut
over her head and gathered the material up over the rope, tying it above the offending stomach.

“Very well,” she said. “I’m dressed; I’m almost awake. What is so important that you must rouse me and aggravate a roomful of women? Has someone died?”

“Not yet.” Gwenael’s eyes moved left to right and back again, as if trying to see behind her own back. “But I might be dead unless you can hide me.”

“What do you mean?” Catherine asked. “What have you been doing?”

Gwenael lifted her chin proudly, but she remembered to keep her voice low.

“I grew tired of waiting for Master Astrolabe to free Lord Eon,” she said. “So I went to the palace of the bishop to do it myself.”

Catherine’s jaw dropped. She looked around the narrow landing, lit by a small oil lamp. There was nothing to sit on. She leaned against the wall. Some news shouldn’t be given to sleepy people when they are standing.

“However did you propose to do that?” she asked.

“A woman can always get into a place where there are men sleeping alone”—Gwenael shrugged—“or having to watch through the night.”

Catherine accepted this. “But how did you mean to get Eon out?”

Gwenael sagged. “That’s where I didn’t think it out carefully. I supposed I could steal some keys and open his cell.”

“What happened instead?” The fact that Gwenael was here with her instead of in chains meant that she had succeeded in part.

“The guards were smarter than I expected,” Gwenael said. “Or better provided for than most. They guessed what I was doing.”

“And so you left.” Catherine yawned. “Well, it was very stupid of you, but it doesn’t sound as if you’re in any danger. Why don’t you go back to bed?”

“I can’t.” Gwenael swallowed, looking so guilty that Catherine was finally alarmed. “They’re outside the convent now. Oh, please forgive me, my lady! I was afraid and a coward. I don’t want to burn.”

“If you renounce this insane heresy, you won’t,” Catherine said sharply. “Simply keeping your mouth shut would save you, for that matter. Now, what did you promise them?”

It probably wasn’t wise to be so curt with her, Catherine refleeted. But she was cold and tired, and the baby was sitting directly on her bladder. Forbearance was more than could be expected.

Gwenael immediately became defensive.

“Nothing,” she said. “I only mentioned that I knew where they could find this Astrolabe everyone was talking about. They didn’t believe me at first, but I told them I’d seen him myself.”

Catherine grabbed Gwenael by the shoulders and shook her hard.

“How could you betray him?” she spoke through clenched teeth. “After all he’s done to help you and save your Eon.”

“I didn’t t-t-tell them,” Gwenael managed to get out. “I just said I knew so that they would let me go. But they wouldn’t take my word. They insisted that I stay with them until he was found. I didn’t expect that. So they came here with me.”

“You brought guards here, to the convent?” Catherine rubbed her forehead. “What did you tell them, that he was masquerading as a nun?”

“I said that a woman staying here was a friend of his and knew where he was.” Gwenael spoke so quickly and her voice was so low that Catherine thought at first that she had misunderstood.

“I see,” she said finally. “And so you brought them to me. And now what do you expect? Am I to hand myself over to be questioned?”

“Oh, no!” Gwenael was horrified. “You’ve been kind to me. I would never want that. It was just the first thing I thought of. You know important people. You’re clever. You’ll know what to do.”

“Oh, Gwenael!” Catherine threw her head back so that it thumped on the wall. “It may surprise you, but I can’t think of a thing.”

Gwenael took her hand again and started pulling her toward the stairs.

“You must come,” she said. “The men say that if I don’t return soon, they’ll come in and get me.”

That woke Catherine.

“That’s nonsense!” she said, even as she started down. “Men entering a convent in the middle of the night? Have they no fear for their souls? Have they no fear of the abbess?”

As they left the guesthouse, Catherine noted that the portress had already called the lay brothers to defend the entry to the convent. She hoped this could be settled before someone woke Abbess Odile. Once she was involved, there would be hell to pay.

The portress glared at them as they entered. “I should have known this one would be the cause of such a disturbance,” she said, pointing at Gwenael. “I know all about you, girl. You’ve disrupted both the laundry and the kitchen. I should turn you over to these men right now.”

Gwenael tried to hide behind Catherine. In the room were four men, all fully armed and angry. The portress had given them a tongue-lashing that made it clear that anyone who woke her up for no good reason was in serious trouble and that they weren’t too big for her to take a birch switch to them.

Catherine put a hand up to smooth her hair and realized that she had not brought anything to cover her head. It made her feel undressed. Silently, she cursed Gwenael in terms that would have shocked even Edgar.

“Are you the woman who’s protecting the heretic Astrolabe?” the captain asked her roughly.

“My name is Catherine,” she answered. “I am of Paris but I am here by the kindness of the Lady Sybil, countess of Flanders.”

The men were not impressed.

“Your servant girl said you know where this heretic leader is,” the man said. “You are risking your immortal soul if you lie to us.”

Catherine raised her eyebrows. The guard had no suspicion of what he had just let loose.

Catherine smiled. It wasn’t a friendly sign.

“You break into a house of women religious after Compline and you dare warn me about my soul?” she asked in an almost conversational tone. “I believe you are at a disadvantage. Your souls are in peril at this very moment, as are your places at the palace. The archbishop will not be amused to find you’ve left your posts on such an errand.”

“Never mind that,” the guard began.

“As for this Astrolabe person,” she said. “I have heard the tales circulating for the past day or so. Who hasn’t? I find them hardly plausible. An army of demons? Such fantasies are for children or credulous peasants on a winter night. And what sort of person is named Astrolabe? A demon king, perhaps? They say he’ll unleash the forces of Hell against us. Really? In Reims, with the pope in residence along with cardinals, archbishops, bishops, abbots, archdeacons, deacons, canons, priests and monks? You can’t believe such nonsense!”

“That’s as may be,” the guard made a brave attempt to reclaim control. “But what about what this woman told us?”

Catherine moved away so that Gwenael was clearly visible to all. The portress made a snort of disgust.

“Lowborn
jael
,” she muttered. “Never should have let her in the kitchens.”

“Gwenael was taken in and given some work as an act of charity,” Catherine explained. “She has lost her home and family. We have done our best, but I fear that her trials have affected her mind. Did she tell you why she tried to get into the archbishop’s prison?”

The guard shifted from one foot to another. From behind him, one of the men said, “We just thought she wanted a bit, you know, in return for some food.”

“Stuff it!” the captain shouted. “She was trying to seduce one of us into giving her the keys to the cell where the Breton heretic is kept. As if we didn’t know that one. She talks like they do. I figure she’s one of them. She’s free only because she said she’d turn the leader in.”

“It’s possible that she’s one of the Eonites,” Catherine answered. She was thinking as quickly as she ever had in her life. “But if she is, then she would believe that a demonic force was coming to rescue him. Why risk her freedom with such an obvious scheme when help was on the way?”

“Right,” the portress said before the captain could respond. “I told you, she’s just a poor addled slut. And she’s made fools of the lot of you. Now go back to your posts before the Night Office begins or I’ll have the abbess down here to report your names to Archbishop Samson.”

She shooed them toward the door and, in some confusion, they let her. The captain turned and gave Catherine one parting shot.

“We know you now,” he warned. “If we find you’ve lied to us, not even that brat you carry will save you. You’ll go to the pyre the day it’s born.”

“OUT!” the portress said. The guards had barely crossed the threshold when she gestured for the lay brothers to shut and bar the door.

“As for you”—she swung about to face the cowering Gwenael—“if it were my say, you’d be out on the streets this moment. Look what trouble you’ve put Lady Catherine to. Shame!”

Catherine heartily agreed. The man’s last words had shaken her more than she dared show. However, she had taken Gwenael in and now the woman was her responsibility.

“Thank you,” she told the portress. “It is you who have been put to trouble and I am most deeply sorry. I’ll see that Gwenael is properly chastised for her behavior.”

“I’d suggest a few months on bread and water,” the portress answered. “And the same time spent on her knees, scrubbing and praying.”

“A distinct possibility,” Catherine promised. “Now, Gwenael, I want you to go to your own bed and not leave it until I send someone for you. Do you understand me?”

Gwenael nodded. “Yes, my lady. Thank you, my lady. I’m sorry, my lady.”

She dropped to her knees, taking Catherine’s hand and kissing it. “They would have killed me, I know, but for you, my lady. I knew you would save me.”

“Next time you might try putting your faith in Our Lord.” Catherine drew her hand away. “Of course, if you had in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. Now, please, Gwenael. I want to go back to sleep.”

Having finally got the woman off, Catherine made a stop at the latrine and then wearily made her way back up the stairs. She was too tired even to be furious. That could wait until morning. All she could think of now was the warmth of the bed.

But there was a hollowness inside her. She had felt pity for Gwenael. Now all she felt was terror at what the woman’s foolish act might have brought upon them all.

It wasn’t until she returned to bed that she realized only Margaret was in it. Annora had never returned.

“Good Lord!” Thomas exclaimed. “I think I’m seeing a ghost.”

“You see why I liked the beard,” Astrolabe said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have had it shaved. Now there will be men at the council sure that my father is haunting them.”

“It will do them good,” John said. “There are some who should examine their consciences on that score. No, you did the right thing. You came here to face your enemies openly. You might as well show that face to the council.”

He cocked his head, studying Astrolabe’s naked countenance. “You’re leaner than you used to be. Harder. I noticed that you didn’t have the tonsure shaved as well.”

“It didn’t feel right, somehow,” he answered. “To hide behind minor orders. I’m tired of hiding. It didn’t help avoid the scandal. Perhaps I’ve made things worse by coming to Reims in disguise.”

“If you hadn’t, you might not have got here at all,” John said. “Rolland and his friend may well have meant to kill you before you could defend your name.”

“Anyway,” Thomas laughed, “if I had to suffer the indignity of wearing rough, salt-soaked fisherman’s clothes to make my way here, it assuages my spirit to know that you had a like experience.”

Astrolabe laughed with him but secretly felt that he was going to miss being Peter. The cleric’s robes felt far too light after the mail.

“Very well,” he said. “My most important objective is to report Cecile’s death officially. I need to go to the archbishop of Tours and tell him everything. He should know that one of his men may also be in the pay of Henri of Tréguier.”

“And if you are denounced by this Canon Rolland?” Thomas asked.

“I can defend myself. Unlike when I first arrived,” Astrolabe said, “I have friends who will stand by me.”

“More than you realize,” John told him. “From what we learned last night, Rolland’s plan of setting the populace against you has only infuriated the council members. Archbishop Samson is particularly displeased. It’s only a few weeks since the commune was put down. He wants no excuse for the townspeople to revolt again.”

“Then it seems that the worst has already happened,” Astrolabe sighed in relief. “And we’ve survived. Although my name may become a threat to the children of Reims for many generations. ‘Eat your porridge or the Astrolabe will get you!’ It’s a legacy I can endure.”

“So we try to reach Archbishop Engebaud before he leaves for the council,” John said. “Then, if you still feel obligated to defend Eon, you can appear there this afternoon when he’s due for trial. If the archbishop is willing to trade for your testimony against the bishop of Dol, you may even be able to get the poor fool released to the custody of a monastery.”

Astrolabe stretched his arms over his head, almost feeling the weight lift.