The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (35 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

BOOK: The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery
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“Margaret would never have let herself be lured away by someone she didn’t know,” Edgar stated.
“She might if he said he had a message for her,” Walter suggested.
“No, not even then,” Edgar was sure. “She knows that dodge. I think we should go back to the village. If she made it that far, someone must have seen her.”
“I agree,” Walter said and translated for the others. “Hermann, Peter, will you come with us? Perhaps they’ll tell you what they’re afraid to admit to us.”
“Yes, of course,” Hermann said and Peter nodded. “Let us get dressed. I’ll have some food sent down to you.”
Edgar flopped onto a bench in the hall. He lifted his left arm to rub his eyes and looked again in surprise at the space where his hand had been. Would he ever get used to it? He switched to the right. If Margaret were found whole and well he would never again complain about what he had lost.
“Please, God, keep her safe,” he begged, all other prayers forgotten.
It was only a few moments before Peter and Hermann returned. Maria had gone to the kitchen and gathered up a bag of dried venison, cheese and new carrots for them to eat on the way.
“Save some for the child, when you find her,” she said. “I shall pray for her constantly.”
Walter thanked her.
“Where are my riding boots?” Hermann asked suddenly.
“In the drying room,” Maria told him. “They were covered in mud. I’ll send Hulda for them.”
“No, I’ll go myself,” Hermann said. “No sense in wasting time. Have the horses ready. I’ll meet you all in the courtyard in a moment.”
Edgar wearily sat up and prepared to ride again. He glared at Peter who was sitting in his own misery nearby.
Peter looked up at him. His eyes plead for some reassurance, but Edgar was too frightened and far too angry to give him any. He got up, pulled on his riding glove with his teeth, and strode out.
Peter turned to Walter.
“He thinks she’s dead, doesn’t he?”
Walter had exhausted his sympathy as well.
“Yes,” he said. “Don’t you?”
Herman grabbed an oil lamp as he left for the drying room. It gave less light than a torch but he was mindful of all the things in there that could easily burn. As he entered, he set it on a shelf and began rummaging around the floor for his boots.
“There’s one, damn it,” he muttered. “Now where’s the other?”
He got down on his hands and knees and felt under the drying racks. His fingers touched something and he grabbed at it.
“Ee! Eeep!” Something squeaked.
Hermann pulled his hand back at once and then reached for it again. It was definitely a boot and there was also a foot in it.
“Come out of there now!” he commanded.
There was a rustle and a blond head appeared from beneath the herbs. Agnes stood up and dusted herself off, her expression a mixture of defiance and fear.
“How did you get here?” Hermann asked.
The meaning was clear if the words weren’t.
“I can’t stay locked up any more,” Agnes said. “I didn’t kill your brother. I don’t know why he died. Let me go, please!”
She knelt before him, her hands raised and clasped. “Ich
wil iuch biten flêhelîch, mîn Herr,”
she said carefully. “I beg you, my lord.”
Hermann stood with one boot in his hand, totally at a loss. “Saint Jerome’s naked visions!” he breathed. “You are so beautiful.”
He dropped the boot and raised her to her feet.
“Agnes, I don’t know what to do,” he said, still holding her arms. “You can’t go out there; it’s dangerous. But I don’t want to drag you back to your room in front of your friends. Please, stay here until I return. Will you? Do you understand anything I’m saying?.”
Her face showed only puzzlement. But she didn’t try to move away from him. He could feel her breath in small puffs against his neck.
“Hermann?” she said.
“Please don’t go,” he answered.
His hands moved up to her shoulders and slid around her back. Still she didn’t struggle. Her breasts beneath the thin summer shift were outlined in the flickering light.
Agnes gazed up at him with wonder.
“Hermann,” she said.
Then he lost his mind completely and kissed her. The intensity of her response startled them both.
“My boots,” he said when he could speak again. “I have to find them. Edgar is waiting for me.”
He picked up the one and started looking for the other. Agnes watched him, then dove back under the herb racks and brought out the other boot. She handed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said. “Agnes?”
Slowly, she smiled. “Hermann?”
He yanked the boots on, then took her hands in his.
“Don’t go,” he said again. “Wait for me here.”
She studied his face, considering. Then she moved her hands to over his heart.
“Here,” she repeated.
“Hermann!” Maria’s call was piercing. “What’s keeping you?”
“Coming!” he called back. “I couldn’t find my boots.”
“You should have sent one of the servants,” Maria told him as he emerged into the night. “They always know where things are.”
 
Early the next morning, Catherine was roused from her fitful sleep by a knock. She hurried to the door, her heart pounding.
“Mina!” she said when she saw the visitor. “What is it? Father! Come quickly!”
The woman was standing nervously in the sunlight and ducked in as soon as Catherine opened the door far enough.
Hubert came down the stairs, still dressed from the night before.
“Mina! You’re in mourning,” he exclaimed. “What are you doing out?”
“I had to tell you,” she said. “I heard about the little girl being missing. I’m so sorry,”
“Thank you,” Hubert said. “But …”
“Late last night word came to us that a young Jewish girl had been captured in a village north of here,” Mina said. “Some men in a tavern saw her and dragged her into a church, where they baptized her, beat her and left her for dead.”
“Oh dear God in heaven!” Hubert gasped.
Catherine saw the look and ran to them, her heart in her throat.
Mina patted her hand and went on talking to Hubert. Catherine stood in an agony of fear. When Mina finished, Hubert thanked her again. She gave Catherine a gentle kiss for comfort and left.
“Tell me, Father,” Catherine said when the door had closed. “It’s Margaret, isn’t it? What’s happened?”
“Mina says that some monsters from a nearby village are said to have attacked a Jewish girl to force her into baptism, but there are none missing from the community here,” he said. “She’s afraid from the description that it may have been Margaret.”
Catherine swayed. She felt that all the humors of her body had suddenly rearranged themselves. The room wavered in front of her. Hubert caught her just as she fell.
“Oh, my dear, try to keep up hope,” he said. “It may not have been she. A servant from the town on an errand, perhaps. Not Margaret! She would have proved that she was a Christian.”
Catherine’s head slowly cleared. She heard the end of what her father was saying.
“You know what mobs are like,” she said. “They may not have given her the chance. She doesn’t have much German. Oh, my Margaret! Father, go find Edgar. Tell him to look in the village church for her. And then come back as soon as you can, before I go mad from dread.”
 
In a hut on the edge of the village, an old woman sat on the dirt floor, next to the straw that was her bed. Outside, despite the heat, a fire blazed, heating water in a large cauldron so the woman could wash the sheets and table linen of the lords and richer peasants. On the bed lay Margaret.
She wasn’t completely conscious, yet. All she was aware of was pain and terror.
“Mama!” she called. “Mama!”
The old woman wiped the child’s face with a damp rag.
“There, there,
süzelin,”
she crooned. “We’ll find your mama as soon as you’re better. Those horrible men. You’ll get to Heaven sooner than their sort, for all you’re an infidel Jewess. Don’t worry,
trutgeselin
, I won’t let them find you. Vinta will take care of you. You’re safe with me.”
Edgar wiped his face with his sleeve. He was exhausted and his temper was being held in check only by the knowledge that he had to remain steady for Margaret’s sake.
“Ask him again what they did with her after they dragged her to the font,” he said to Walter.
The four of them were seated in the church with a somewhat battered man kneeling before them.
Hermann glanced at Walter as he repeated the question.
“Rolf can’t tell us more than he knows,” he said. “But he shall tell all of that. Isn’t that right, Rolf?”
Rolf was acutely aware of the soldiers standing behind him and of Walter’s bulk in front. But none of them frightened him as much as the thought of what he had done to endanger his soul.
“When she made the sign of the cross, we thought she was mocking us,” he said again. “Andreas said that she needed to be taught a lesson and then given God’s grace to be sure she remembered it. Once we were inside the church we only hit her with our fists and feet. We wouldn’t draw a weapon before the altar.”
Edgar winced at the memory of the altar candles shining on his father’s sword before the blow fell through his wrist. At the same time Peter shuddered at the thought of Margaret being mauled by these men.
The peasant noticed both movements and added, “No one raped her. We weren’t after that. We were acting simply for the good of her soul. Forgive me, Lords. I only went with the others. I didn’t strike her, myself. I didn’t know she was a Christian.”
Edgar stood. Rolf cringed before him, waiting for the blow. Instead Edgar walked past him.
“Get this thing out of my sight,” he said.
Walter followed him out. He found Edgar emptying his stomach into a pigsty.
“We brought Margaret with us because I thought it wasn’t safe enough in Troyes.” He gulped. “I should have left her in Scotland where she was known. This never would have happened.” A new thought struck him. “Oh, Walter, how can we tell Solomon she’s dead? You know she means almost as much to him as she does to me.”
“Don’t lose hope, yet,” Walter pleaded. “Everyone we’ve spoken
to says the body was gone and no one admits to taking it. Perhaps she was only knocked senseless and has recovered. She may be wandering the roads now, trying to get home.”
Edgar wasn’t comforted. “If so,” he said, “then why hasn’t anyone seen her? The roads are crowded with people coming in for the grape harvest.”
Hubert found them a few minutes later with the news that Mina had brought him.
“We already know,” Walter said. “I’m afraid that we’re almost cetain it was Margaret. But there is a chance she’s still alive.”
Hermann and Peter came out of the church then, followed by the guards with Rolf.
“I can punish him,” Peter told Edgar. “But Uncle Hermann says that then I’d have to do the same to most of the men in town. I’ll fine them and have the priest set the town as a whole an extra penance. But the most important thing is to have their help in getting Margaret back.”
“That’s very wise of you, my lord,” Walter told him. “It’s exactly what I would have done had this happened on my land. You’ve shown wonderful restraint.”
Peter was old enough to sense the mocking underneath the words. “I know,” he said. “This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t asked her to come see me. I deserve a penance, too.”
“The person we should be after is this Andreas. It seems that it was he who convinced them all to bother the girl in the first place,” Hermann added. “He pointed her out as a Jew and then suggested that they could also be
milites Christi
if they forced her to accept the faith. He should be found before he leads other credulous fools to violence. That’s one man I’d be happy to hang at the crossroads.”
“The villagers didn’t have to listen to him,” Edgar said. “Would you be so forgiving of them if the man had suggested that they burn your fields and they followed him in that?”
“I don’t know,” Hermann answered. “But I’d still want to hang the instigator.”
“Margaret is all I care about,” Edgar said. “My revenge can wait.”
“Edgar, may I ride the mule back?” Hubert asked. “I left Catherine alone and she’s ragged with worry.”
“She doesn’t know about this, does she?” Edgar asked.
Hubert nodded.
“Yes, take the mule and hurry,” Edgar said. “Tell her there’s still hope. Make her rest. I don’t want her to lose another baby.”
“Jesus’s blood!” Hubert exclaimed. “Pregnant again. You two do pick the worst times. Don’t fret. I’ll see that she doesn’t try to join the search herself. After all, she has two children to care for.”

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