The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (17 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

BOOK: The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery
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“Oh, Peter,” Maria moaned. “Look at yourself! Covered in mud and the archdeacon coming to dinner tonight.”
“I’ll wash and change at once, Aunt,” Peter replied listlessly.
“But why must we feed the archdeacon? Doesn’t he know we’re a house in mourning?”
“Of course, my dear,” his aunt said. “He hopes to bring consolation.”
Peter continued on to the room that had been his father’s and was now his. Absently, he sent for wash water. Despite the numbness of desolation, he started to wonder about the archdeacon’s visit. Aunt Maria’s explanation had been too facile. Was it something to do with Agnes? Perhaps Uncle Hermann wanted the man to use his authority to make Agnes confess. They had tried that once before with a French-speaking priest from Saint Maximin’s who had been sent for when Agnes complained that her bodily needs and those of her maid’s were being met but their spiritual ones ignored.
Apparently there had been no sudden admission that one of them had slipped poison in Gerhardt’s wine cup, for Father Otto had seemed disappointed when he came down from seeing the women.
Peter would have liked to question Agnes himself, but his new position didn’t seem to include being allowed to do so. He would have to wait for Walter of Grancy to return with Agnes’s family so that the trial could begin.
He finished dressing, carefully smoothing the pressed linen tunic with his damp hands before leaving the room. Aunt Maria was so exacting about his appearance. It was trying. He wondered how much longer he’d have to pay attention to her.
As he went down the stairs the clink of platters and the murmur of polite voices rose to meet him. Even the dogs were behaving. The contrast to the raucus meals with his father was almost more than he could bear.
Peter clenched his teeth and lifted his chin, determined to see this through as Gerhardt would have wished. But all the time his heart cried out for his father to come back.
 
Even though they had tried to hurry, it was another week before Catherine and Edgar arrived in Metz, where they hoped to buy space on a boat going downriver to Trier. Hubert chafed at each delay, threatening to take a pair of horses and ride off on his own.
“Father, you can’t do that,” Catherine told him. “I won’t let you
risk yourself. It will be of no use to Agnes if you fall dead by the roadside in your haste to reach her.”
“Stop treating me like an old man!” Hubert shouted at her. “That doctor in Paris is an idiot. There’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing except my youngest child being a prisoner alone in a barbaric country, subject to calumny and on trial for her life!”
“Walter says she’s not being mistreated,” Catherine said. “Lord Gerhardt’s family is prepared to follow the law in this and wait until she can be tried according to custom. And we’re traveling as swiftly as possible. The children have been good and not held us up at all.”
“As if that weren’t an altogether greater madness!” Hubert interrupted, glaring at Edgar, who had just come back from arranging for the boat.
“You’re right, Hubert,” he said. “But it’s our madness.” He hesitated, licking his lips. “I know that Eliazar and Johanna offered to keep the children with them while we were gone. Perhaps they would have been safer in Troyes, but perhaps not.”
Hubert started to give an angry answer, but Catherine interrupted.
“You can’t pretend you don’t understand, Father,” she said. “I know that Abbot Bernard sent letters to try to stop the monk who is preaching destruction of the Jews. But that doesn’t mean he’ll succeed. And there are those who need no urging. I know the count and the bishop of Troyes will do everything they can to protect their Jews, but it may not be enough. I don’t want my children slaughtered or stolen because someone thinks they aren’t Christians.”
“I’m sorry, Hubert,” Edgar said softly. “At least with us, they have nothing to fear from fanatics.”
Hubert heard the unspoken statement. As long as he traveled with them, he had nothing to fear, either. They were a good Christian family, all of them. Catherine wore an ivory cross at her neck and his grandchildren were being taught Christian prayers. So no one doubted his orthodoxy. He felt the bile of self-loathing in his throat and swallowed it. He must think only of Agnes, not his own pride.
Edgar continued. “There’s a man taking wine barrels down river to Trier to refill. He leaves tomorrow and has room for us all. We can put our baggage in the empty barrels.”
“And arrive smelling like a tavern,” Hubert grunted.
“Walter will ride ahead to let Agnes know we’re coming,” Edgar went on, ignoring him. “The river is fairly tranquil now so it should be a calm journey. The boatman says it should only take two days.”
Two more days. Catherine’s throat constricted. What if Agnes were angry at them for coming, ashamed to be found in such a situation? Even worse, what if there were nothing they could do to help her?
Margaret sensed her fears and came to sit by her, putting her hand in Catherine’s. Catherine smiled down at her. Poor Margaret! There hadn’t been time to take her to Count Thibault. She had considered asking if the girl might stay under the protection of the countess, but Edgar had forbidden it. It wasn’t right to leave her with strangers, he insisted, not after all she had been through. Catherine reluctantly agreed. There would be time when this was settled to introduce her to her grandfather.
Hubert stood up suddenly.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Good work, Edgar. That’s the best we could have hoped for. But if I sit here until then, I’ll start raving. I’m going out. I need to walk.”
“Let me come with you, Father,” Catherine said. “I’m restless, too.”
He hesitated, then gave in.
“Very well, if you must,” he said.
Catherine laced up her street shoes. Edgar had reminded her earlier that there might be some in Metz who knew Hubert as a man often in the company of Jews. The scene in Paris had frightened her. If he were alone and challenged, her father might well proclaim his Jewish birth. If she were there, she could prevent that.
At least she hoped she could.
The afternoon was warm, the sun heating the cobblestones of the street and glinting off copper pots hanging from a stand in the square. Children ran past them, some rolling a hoop, others intent on a game of hunting, riding on worn broomsticks and brandishing toy bows. Women sat by open windows with their spindles and chatted with friends passing by. The normality of the scene calmed Catherine’s spirit. She took her father’s arm.
“Remember how you used to take us on feast days to see the
tumblers in front of Notre Dame?” she asked. “Agnes still doesn’t know how the man was able to find a whole egg behind her ear.”
“And you wanted him to repeat the trick until you figured it out.” Hubert laughed. “Even as a child you refused to believe that it was magic.”
“No, I thought it was, but I believed I could learn how to do it, too,” Catherine said. “I broke so many eggs trying that Mother finally forbid the cook to let me have any.”
As soon as she mentioned her mother, Catherine knew she had broken the mood. Hubert grimaced.
“She was very tolerant of you.” He sighed. “Your cleverness pleased her. She had visions of seeing you become an abbess one day.”
They walked in silence for a few moments, each thinking about the way their lives had altered from expectations. A wooden ball rolled into Catherine’s foot and she kicked it back toward the little girl who had lost it. She thought of Edana. No, it grieved her that her refusal to enter religious life might have led to her mother’s derangement, but she had chosen the right path.
“Father, don’t dwell on it,” she said. “You did the best you knew how. You gave all of us anything we ever wanted. And I know how much you give the nuns for Mother’s care. We can’t change anything.”
“I know that.” Hubert wasn’t comforted. “But perhaps I can redress the harm I did to Agnes, even if she never forgives me.”
There was a way, Catherine knew. If Hubert honestly in his soul accepted Christianity and told Agnes of the sincerity of his faith, then she would have to forgive him and accept him again. But for that to happen would need a real miracle. And right now, her prayers were so occupied with sparing her sister’s life that it seemed impolite to bother God for anything more.
 
Walter had only rested a night before heading back to Trier. Even though he trusted Hermann not to harm Agnes, he was uneasy about what was happening among the rest of the people at the castle and in the town. Accusations of sorcery were hard to prove, but people were more inclined to believe them if the accused were a stranger.
He was also worried about Jehan. The knight had literally set
up camp at the edge of Gerhardt’s land. He brought gifts of food or flowers for Agnes and was loud in protesting her innocence, offering to prove it in combat at any time. Walter had been unable to make him see that his devotion could only hurt Agnes. Soon people would suspect that the two had conspired to murder Gerhardt, if the rumors weren’t flying already. If the true culprit weren’t discovered, there would be little hope for either of them to prove innocence.
Walter urged his horse to a faster pace. It seemed that, instead of fighting the servants of Satan in the Holy Land, he first would have to confront evil much closer to home.
He was even more aware of it as soon as he arrived in Trier. He was surprised to find that even his pilgrim’s cross and his imposing presence weren’t enough to get him a room at one of the inns. He finally ended up again at the monastery of Saint Maximin, which refused shelter to no one.
After seeing that his worn horse was being cared for and changing into a clean tunic, Walter set out on foot for the castle. After some thought he took both his sword and crossbow. He doubted that anyone would try to attack him but wanted it made clear that anyone who tried to harm Agnes would have to climb over him to do so.
The first person he encountered was the last one he wanted to see.
“Walter!” Jehan greeted him from his tent by the gate. “Have you seen Lord Garnegaud? Is he sending help for Agnes? When will they be here?”
“God save you, Jehan,” Walter greeted him. “I didn’t see Agnes’s grandfather. I went to her father, instead. They should be here within the week.”
Jehan’s dismay was palpable.
“Her father? What were you thinking of? How could you go to those people?” he shouted. “Agnes would rather die than have them come to her aid.”
“If you’ll forgive me, Jehan,” Walter said as he opened the gate, “I’ll ask Lady Agnes myself if that is her choice. Because it may well be the only one she has.”
“You’ve doomed her, Walter!” Jehan wailed at his back. “They’ll hang her and it will be on your soul!”
Walter continued up the hill, giving no sign that he had heard.
If Jehan didn’t realize how much his own actions were damning Agnes, then his judgement on Hubert wasn’t to be considered.
 
At first Agnes had simply been in a state of shock, then confusion. This couldn’t be happening to her. Wasn’t it bad enough that she had been so humiliated by Gerhardt on their wedding night? She had endured that without saying anything to anyone. Each night she had begged him to reconsider his behavior. She couldn’t make him understand that eventually someone else would find out and they would both be shamed. But she hadn’t reproached him before his family. She knew where her duty lay and she was prepared to bear her suffering in silence.
And then, horribly, he was dead. There on the floor, first thrashing about and shrieking at things only he could see and then going limp in her arms as she screamed in terror.
How could anyone believe that she would poison him and then be there to watch such agony?
But someone must, or they would have set her free.
They thought they were being kind to her. She was put in a comfortable room, allowed her clothes, needlework and the company of her maids. They simply refused to let her go or to tell her what was happening outside.
She had rejoiced when Walter arrived from Köln, believing that he would soon put all to rights. But then he rode away again, with only a quick word of encouragement and the promise that he would not let her be harmed.
And now she was left here with Laudine and Lisette.
After the first week, she began to wish that Hermann had shackled her in a windowless dungeon rather than make her suffer through another minute with them. The dread she had felt at the thought of being imprisoned for murder was replaced by the fear that her punishment might be to live the rest of her life with these two.
“You used all the blue!” Laudine whined as she sifted through the thread. “You always take the color I want.”
“You always want the color I have,” Lisette retorted. “Why can’t you think up a design of your own instead of copying me all the time?”
“Who would want to copy the insipid things you make?” Laudine raised her embroidery hoop and brought it down on Lisette’s fingers.
Lisette screamed with rage.

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