The Devil's Door (6 page)
Catherine fell into bed that night, more tired than she had ever been in her life.
“Dear Lord,” she prayed, “let me sleep until Edgar comes. I’m so tired of hurting alone.”
Near the Paraclete,
Good Friday, April 5, 1140
Good Friday, April 5, 1140
Quid Salomone sapientius? Attamen infatuatur amoribus feminarum.
Was ever man wiser than Solomon? Yet love for woman made even him foolish.
—Saint Jerome,
Letter to Rusticus
Letter to Rusticus
D
ense fog filled the valley as the three travellers made their way down the road from Nogent. Edgar and Astrolabe were warm from walking, but Abelard shivered as the mist coalesced and dripped from the hood of his cloak and down his neck. Astrolabe touched his hand. It was cold and trembling.
ense fog filled the valley as the three travellers made their way down the road from Nogent. Edgar and Astrolabe were warm from walking, but Abelard shivered as the mist coalesced and dripped from the hood of his cloak and down his neck. Astrolabe touched his hand. It was cold and trembling.
“Perhaps we should find a house to rest in and dry ourselves,” Edgar suggested.
“Father?” Astrolabe said.
Abelard looked through the fog, at someone neither Edgar nor Astrolabe could see.
“You can’t expect everyone to comprehend on faith alone,” Abelard pleaded. “They must be gently guided to belief by simple logic. We are not all saints, after all. If we were, Our Lord’s sacrifice would have no meaning. You must see that. Why won’t you admit it?”
Astrolabe touched him again, trying to call him back from his wandering.
“Father!” Astrolabe bit his lip. “You’re not well. Perhaps we shouldn’t go any further. We could stop for the night at Saint-Aubin.”
“You are called ‘saint,’ even ‘angel,’” his father shouted into the air. “It is not so. You’re only a man, whatever your repute. How dare you correct me!”
“There’s an inn at Saint-Aubin,” Edgar said. “We should at least get him warm and calm him, if we can. After that, it’s only another mile or two to the Paraclete. They can care for him there better than anywhere else.”
“You’re right, of course,” Astrolabe said. “I’m as bad as he, thinking more of his dignity than his health. It’s only that the nuns revere him so. I fear that he might not want them to see him in such a state.”
“I don’t think their respect for him would be diminished if they saw him ill,” Edgar told him.
Suddenly, echoing faintly in the fog, came the sound of a wooden clapper, which called clerics to prayer instead of the bells, from the Gloria of the Mass of Maundy Thursday to the Gloria of the Mass of the Easter Vigil. Edgar turned his head, hunting for the source.
“Listen! It must be None,” he said. “I’d lost all sense of time in this cloud.”
At the sound, Abelard first started in surprise, then quieted and bowed his head.
“Parasceve,”
he whispered. “I had forgotten! How could I be so full of my own persecution?” Softly, he began to chant, “Nona, qua
vera lux penam finierit, subtractam lucem hanc mundo restituit … .”
he whispered. “I had forgotten! How could I be so full of my own persecution?” Softly, he began to chant, “Nona, qua
vera lux penam finierit, subtractam lucem hanc mundo restituit … .”
“‘At the ninth hour, when the true light ended his torment, he restored to this world the light that had been lost,’” Edgar translated. “I don’t know that hymn.”
“It’s Father’s,” Astrolabe said. “He wrote it for the Paraclete, for Mother. He made one for almost every office of the last days of Holy Week.”
They listened without moving until Abelard fell silent.
“How much farther?” he asked.
Edgar looked up. Master Abelard smiled at him. His eyes were red and his hands still shaking, but he had returned to them.
“A couple of miles,” Astrolabe told him. “Do you feel well enough to continue?”
“Of course. I am ashamed of myself. In my own anger over my troubles, I had forgotten the day. How can I complain of those who torment me, when I think of what Our Lord suffered at this very hour for speaking his truth?”
He set his horse at a brisker pace. Astrolabe and Edgar soon had no breath for conversation, but neither suggested they slow down. Edgar was glad that the redness of his face could be put down to the exercise, but he was also ashamed. He had known well enough that it was Good Friday but, instead of remembering the passion and death of Christ, he had only been thinking of his own passion for Catherine. It was just as well he had decided not to become a bishop.
They began to hear another sound, growing rapidly, that of hooves beating against the dirt road. Without warning, a party of knights galloped out of the fog, giving them no time to move out of the way. Edgar managed to hold onto the neck of Abelard’s horse as the party raced by, not even seeming to see them, but Astrolabe was thrown to the side of the road.
Abelard rose in his stirrups.
“Questres!”
he shouted at them.
“Fis des lisses!
If you’ve no care for your own worthless necks, think of your horses!”
“Questres!”
he shouted at them.
“Fis des lisses!
If you’ve no care for your own worthless necks, think of your horses!”
Edgar ran to Astrolabe, who was trying to untangle himself from a thornbush.
“Don’t worry,” he assured them. “Apart from scratches, I’m fine. What incredible
bricons
! Who would be insane enough to ride at top speed in weather like this?”
bricons
! Who would be insane enough to ride at top speed in weather like this?”
“Perhaps,” Abelard said, “they’ve had a divine summons and were hurrying to join the brothers of Clairvaux.”
Astrolabe looked at his father and then at Edgar. He relaxed and then began to laugh much more than the joke allowed.
“You’re feeling better, Father,” he said at last. “I stand rebuked. Who are we to keep the converted from hastening to their new life?”
“That’s right, my son,” Abelard answered. “Of course, as they journey, we might piously wish that they will soon discover how the mighty may be humbled.”
“Still,” Edgar added, “I would feel better if I knew where they were really going. There isn’t much along this road besides the Paraclete.”
The three men looked at each other, considering Edgar’s observation. Without speaking, they started off again, even more quickly than before.
The clapper sounded also at the Paraclete. Barefoot, the nuns headed to the oratory. But Catherine was not among them. She knelt on the hard floor of the infirmary. Her hands were raw and her nose running. She dipped the brush into the bucket again and splashed the soapy water onto the wall. The scent of death still lingered in the room despite all the scrubbing and censing.
They had taken down all the dried flowers and herbs and put them in a brazier in the center of the room, where they were slowly burning. The smoke seared Catherine’s lungs and eyes. Kneeling beside her on the floor, Paciana rubbed at the oaken planks with her scrub brush as if attempting to cut through them. She kept her head down. Catherine had given up trying to talk with her.
Together in silence, they wiped up the water and opened the door to let out the smoke.
In silence they changed their wet robes. In silence they walked to the chapter house for the daily conference, a practice not omitted at the Paraclete even on Good Friday. Catherine sat silently next to Paciana in the back with the lay sisters. Her decision to return to the world had removed her from a place with the other nuns. But all here could listen to the conference, a short spiritual talk given by Héloïse or one of the other sisters.
Héloïse entered and all the women rose.
“I had planned today,” she started, “to speak to you on the Book of Luke, chapter twenty-three, verse forty-four. However, my original thoughts have been superceded.”
She smiled at them tenderly.
“We are a young house and have lost few of our own since our founding, for which we thank God. Yesterday, a woman died among us. She was only one of our community for a moment. Yet she was our sister, and our benefactress, and it is right that we mourn her on this solemn day and also rejoice that she came to us in time to die surrounded by our love and prayers.”
Catherine felt the resentment rising to her throat again.
Stop this, Catherine!
her voices rang in her head.
Charity, forgiveness! Anyway … you’re being hypocritical admit it. It’s not what was done to Alys that upsets you. It’s the fear that it might happen to you.
her voices rang in her head.
Charity, forgiveness! Anyway … you’re being hypocritical admit it. It’s not what was done to Alys that upsets you. It’s the fear that it might happen to you.
No! Edgar would never hurt me! Catherine thought.
Of course not. She knew he wouldn’t. It was true they had only spoken a dozen times, but the circumstances had been optimal for complete understanding. She hated those voices, that part of her that had been trained to line up arguments on both sides of every question. They bored through everything she said to comfort herself and illuminated the smallest shred of doubt.
“Therefore,” the abbess concluded, “on this day of grief and hope, let us all pray that the soul of our sister Alys be granted the true peace, which is unknown to any of us still on this earth.”
Héloïse handed the list of daily duties to the prioress and left. Catherine looked about, embarrassed. She had missed most of what the abbess had said. Catherine took a deep breath, the first all day that didn’t smell of smoke or decay. Peace. There were small sounds in the room; the creak of the wooden chapter seats, the rustle of clothing, a gentle click of beads, the patient elderly voice of Prioress Astane, who had grown up in a convent and come with Héloïse from Argenteuil, going over a few rubrical details concerning the Good Friday afternoon liturgy.
This was contentment. This was what she knew, where she belonged. To Catherine, heaven was a convent, one with no novice mistress and an infinite number of books.
And Edgar?
“By the thundering vengeance of Saint Emerentiana, stop!”
“Catherine!” Prioress Astane stared at her reproachfully. Sister Bertrada started toward her, stick raised.
Catherine looked up in horror, half expecting a thunderbolt to strike her down and half hoping one would. Those stupid voices, changing sides on her so suddenly that she had spoken aloud. She was too embarrassed even to apologize. She just buried her face in her hands and hunched over. Someone nearby giggled.
Thwack! The giggle was replaced by a yipe of pain.
Catherine felt a wisp of comfort. God may choose his own time and place for revenge, but the blows of Sister Bertrada were swift and certain.
As they left the chapter, Catherine managed to pass near Emilie and Sister Bietriz. Emilie shook her head at her, trying not to laugh.
“If you must carry on arguments with demons, Catherine,” she teased, “couldn’t you at least use a softer voice?”
Catherine sighed. “The demons were winning this time.”
Bietriz put a hand on Catherine’s shoulder. She was a tall woman who moved with more resolve than grace. Her face was all wrong for the standard of beauty extolled in the songs of the jongleurs. Her nose was straight and large, her hair almost as dark as Catherine’s own, and her eyebrows so thick that a lady of the court would have plucked them to almost nothing. Her chin was also firm and decided. All the same, as the niece of the seneschal of the count of Champagne, she could have made a good marriage, had she wanted to. Catherine admired her greatly, but always felt a little bit in awe of someone so completely undistracted by imagination.
Bietriz smiled. “Emilie tells me that you are concerned about the death of Sister Alys. No, I correct myself, it is her life that troubles you.”
“Yes,” Catherine said. “She suffered greatly.”
“It is a mystery why some have lives of so much pain and others, who seem no more deserving, have so little,” Bietriz said sadly. “The Book of Job has never seemed to me to give an adequate answer to this paradox. But I trust that there is one, if only our minds were capable of comprehension.”
“No doubt, Sister,” Catherine answered. “I understand that you may know something more about the mystery of Countess … of Sister Alys’s family.”
Bietriz nodded. “Oh, that’s no mystery. We all know her family. She is the child of Gerhard of Quincy’s second wife, Constanza. Constanza is the daughter of Norbert, who was the second son of Hugo, lord of Neuvry. Her brother is Robert, prior of Vauluisant. Constanza’s second husband is a man named Rupert, of no discernible family whatever, as far as I know. I can’t imagine why she chose him.
“Now, let me think, …”—she was arranging the family on her fingers—“a sister of Constanza married into a family in Flanders that supposedly was involved in the murder of Charles the Good, although they try to keep that quiet. Then, through the marriage of her aunt, she’s related to the …”
“Wait,” Catherine stopped her. “I can’t remember all of this unless we write it down. Would you do that for me?”
Bietriz seemed uncomfortable. “I don’t know. It’s terribly worldly. Some might think all this no more than idle gossip. You know that nothing of the world should matter here.”
“I know that well. And it doesn’t matter here,” Catherine agreed. “But it matters a great deal outside.”
But Bietriz had already repented her lecture in genealogy. “Then perhaps,” she said, “when you are out there again, you can ask someone who has taken no vow to renounce the world. Family connections no longer exist for me. We are all only one family, equal in the eyes of Our Lord.”
She strode across the cloister, leaving Catherine and Emilie standing sheepishly at the door to the chapter.
“Sorry, Catherine,” Emilie said. “I tried. She is right, though. I know you only ask because you were so affected by the countess’s suffering. But she’s dead. You can’t help her. Leave the matter to her family to sort out. I still think Walter of Grancy was responsible.”
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