The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (37 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

BOOK: The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery
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Finally, there was the house that he had bought in Köln and given to a group that called themselves the “poor of Christ” who were governed by a woman.
Alone these things meant nothing. Many penitents went to extremes in their fasting. The roads were full of “
pauperes Christi,”
some seeking Heaven, some just hoping for a better life. But all together, it reminded Catherine of something she had heard of before. It was a new heresy, or a very old one, depending on whom one talked with. It had begun in the east somewhere and rumors of its spread had circulated for the past few years. Its adherents rejected all things of the corporeal world and believed that Jesus had been a bodiless spirit who took the form of a man. They also thought the hierarchy of the Church corrupt and answered only to their own priests and bishops, some of whom were women.
Actually, from what she had heard, Catherine was inclined to approve of much of their teaching. There was a great deal of it that appeared to return to the days of the apostles when all lived simply with no thought of wealth.
But to deny the sacraments, especially baptism of infants, was too much. It gave Catherine great solace to know that their stillborn child was safely in Heaven.
However, the question was not her own beliefs but those of Gerhardt. Had he accepted the teachings of these people? If he had, it might well be a reason for someone to want him dead—many people, now that she thought of it.
But this was all speculation. They had no proof that Gerhardt was a heretic and even less that anyone else knew of it. If only she could find one more piece.
“Mama! James hit me!” Edana splintered her concentration with wailing and Catherine was forced to return to maternal duty.
 
Vinta hobbled down the side of the road, ever watchful for horsemen or carts that might delight in driving her into the thistles along the verge. She noticed the man coming from the town long before he saw her.
He had nearly passed her when she called out to him. “Ho, there, man! Stop a moment.”
Solomon turned and regarded her. He saw a bent hag with scraggly hair and only a few teeth, her face a mass of wrinkles. If he had met her before, it was in a nightmare.
Still, Johanna had raised him to be polite. He bowed and greeted her.
“What may I do for you?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet,” she answered, peering at him. “You’re dark enough for one and have their sort of beard, but it’s hard to be sure. You a Jew?”
Solomon blinked. “Why do you ask?”
“I’ve got something for you, if you are,” she answered.
“And what would that be?” Solomon asked, preparing himself to jump back if she went after him with her stick.
Vinta shook her head. “I can’t tell you unless I’m sure.”
“What would you have me do, old woman?” He began to find the situation amusing. “Drop my bruchen for you here in the road.”
Vinta considered it. She hadn’t seen a nice big ocker in years, but she knew he’d take her request the wrong way. There wasn’t time for dallying.
“I’ve found something that belongs to your people,” she said. “It’s in my cottage. Come with me and I’ll give it to you. That is, if you promise to give it back to those who had it first.”
“Back to your cottage?” he asked, starting to move away. “I’m sorry, but I really have to be going. Maybe I could come by with my friends later.”
At this Vinta made a feeble swing at him with her stick. “You’re all the same, Jew or Christian! There’d have been a time when you’d have crawled through briars for a visit to my cottage, you scum. I try to do some good and all I get is scorn. Never mind. Go swill beer with your friends. I’ll limp into Trier and find her family myself.”
“Wait!” Solomon took her arm. “Forgive me, good woman. I’m hunting for a lost child, a girl. She may be badly hurt. Do you know where she is?”
“Maybe.” Vinta looked him up and down. “What is she to you? There are those who’d do like to do worse to her, I fear. Perhaps keep her from naming those who treated her so.”
“What is she to me?” The answer hit Solomon with the force of a landslide. “She’s the whole world, the sun, moon and stars as well as all that remains of a woman I loved dearly. Please, take me to her. I implore you, kind lady.”
Vinta gave him her arm.
“Now that’s the way I like to be spoken to.”
 
 
Hermann felt as if he’d been dropped into a raging river. He tried to tell himself that Agnes was only using him to free herself. How could she care about him after he had kept her prisoner so long? They couldn’t even speak to each other properly. And all the while his thoughts were trying to make some sense out of what had happened between them, his body had to keep up with Edgar, Walter and Peter as they went through every house, hut, barn, mill, kitchen, grainstore and dovecote in their frantic hunt for Margaret.
“I don’t think the villagers are hiding her,” he told them after they had all become covered in bird droppings while disloging a number of chickens to examine the space behind the nests. “Everyone wants to help, even those who were a part of it. Anything to keep you from destroying their winter stores.”
Edgar spat out something disgusting and reached for the water bag.
“If she was as badly hurt as they say, she can’t have gone far,” he said. “Unless someone carried her. So, either she’s hidden in the village or one of your people isn’t telling all he knows. Now, where do we look next?”
Walter leaned on a garden fence that creaked under him.
“Edgar, we’ve taken the place apart,” he said. “We were more thorough than the tithemen. She isn’t here.”
“She has to be, Walter. I won’t leave without her.”
“Edgar, think of the boy, here,” Walter said. “He hasn’t eaten or slept in nearly two days. He blames himself.”
“Good,” Edgar said. “I blame him, too.”
Peter didn’t need the translation for that. He sat disconsolate on the ground wondering if anyone would mind if he hired on as horseboy to Walter and went to get himself killed at Edessa. It seemed the only way to atone.
He watched without interest as old Vinta came across the fields and between the vines, occasionally whacking something out of the way with her cane. She’d been on the fringe of the village as long as he or most anyone else could remember. There was a story about her. Some scandal almost as ancient as she was, but he had never known what. He wondered where she was going in such a hurry.
Walter was watching her, too.
“Who’s that woman?” he asked. “I don’t remember going to her home.”
“She’s just a laundress for the church and the castle,” Hermann said. “I don’t think her house has a place to hide anything.”
“She’s coming this way,” Edgar said. “We might as well question her.”
Vinta didn’t give them a chance to ask any questions. She went straight to Peter and bowed.
“You’ll be the young lord,” she said. “You look just like your grandfather.”
Peter nodded.
“I don’t know that I should have left him with her,” she continued. “He said he was family to her, but I’ve no proof of that. I mean, he wouldn’t even show me his
ocker.”
“He wouldn’t?” Peter said. He looked at Walter for guidance.
“No, so how could I be sure?” Vinta went on. “But he seemed to know her and was very gentle. He sent me to find her brother, somebody called Edgar, I think. Strange name.”
“Edgar!” Peter and Walter said together.
“We’ve found her!” Peter yelled and burst into tears.
Edgar turned to Walter, not daring to hope.
“It must be Margaret,” Walter said. “But I don’t know who the man could be.”
“Hubert?” Edgar guessed as he ran after Peter, who was off in the direction of Vinta’s hut.
“Does it matter?” Walter called back. “We’ll take care of him when we get there.”
But the thought of her being spirited away again by a stranger made them run all the faster.
Hermann watched them sprint off and decided that someone should return to tell Agnes the good news. He appointed himself.
 
Solomon had sent Vinta away only partially from a desire to inform Edgar. He didn’t want the old woman there if Margaret woke and didn’t know him. She’d been like this once before and he’d been able to waken her from the nightmare, but a second time might be too much to ask. He knelt over her and stroked her cheek, a finger circling the bruise under her eye with the cut at the center. There
was another cut on her temple and her nose was swollen, if not broken. He was afraid to find out what else had been done to her.
“Margaret,
cossete,
my dear, can you hear me?” he said softly. “Oh, Adalisa, I hope you don’t know how badly I’ve failed to watch over your daughter. Margaret?”
She didn’t wake, but rolled to her side. As she did, her hand fell upon his and her fingers curled around his thumb, holding on tightly. Solomon didn’t move. When Edgar arrived at the hut he found them so, Solomon twisted at a most uncomfortable angle to keep from causing her to lose her grip on him.
 
Now that Margaret was found, Edgar suggested that Peter go home and sleep. There was nothing he could do at the moment. When he had reluctantly left, Edgar then ran ahead to tell Catherine and Hubert while Walter brought Margaret cradled in front of him on the horse with Solomon walking alongside to see that she wasn’t jostled.
Vinta watched them go. They had hardly thanked her. That was the way of men, as she knew all too well. She knelt by the pallet and gathered up the blankets to wash.
Peter felt neither hunger nor fatigue as he raced up the hill to spread the word. He waved and shouted it to all he saw, and more than one man crossed himself and vowed to light a candle to the saints in gratitude that he didn’t have a murder on his soul.
Maria saw him from the gate and guessed his news. She quickly ordered a bath for him and food prepared.
She met him at the door and was rewarded by a filthy hug.
“I don’t have time for a whole bath, Aunt,” Peter said as he snatched up a hunk of bread. “Have someone saddle a horse for me. I’m going to the house in Trier so I can be nearby if she needs anything.”
He took the steps two and three at a time, slamming against the stone wall as he went round the curve. He went straight to his room and took out his best tunic, pants and shirt, with hose to match the tunic. Then he ruined them all by stuffing them into a bag. After that he rummaged around in a box that his father had kept by his bed.
“Ah, there it is,” he said at last. “This will be good.”
He put the stone jar in the bag, as well, and pulled the strings. He took another bite of the bread and started back down.
“Send a barrel of last year’s wine from Saint Agatha’s field after me,” he told Maria. “You and Uncle Folmar can come with it, if you like.”
His horse had been hastily saddled. Peter checked the girth and then mounted and galloped off.
“What was that?” Folmar said as he came up behind his wife.
“Our nephew,” she replied. “I can’t how believe this girl has changed him.”
“It’s only his first infatuation,” Folmar said. “The feeling will soon pass.”
Maria looked him up and down.
“I’m sure it will,” she said sadly.
 
The dust kicked up by Peter’s horse as he made the turn into the main road fell gently onto the figure of a solitary man sitting cross-legged in front of his tent. The cross on his tunic was grimy, but he kept the one on his shield bright. It proclaimed to all that he was neither beggar nor brigand but a soldier of Christ doing his work.
By now most of the local people had become accustomed to seeing Jehan there. Opinion about him varied. Some brought him offerings of food or small coins. Others mocked his devotion and hurled insults or road apples at him. Familiarity had lessened the earlier belief that he was an accomplice in Gerhardt’s death. Now he was just another oddity of the community.
He had whiled the time by practicing his swordsmanship on a makeshift dummy, hung from a branch. The village children found this eternally entertaining and there were usually three or four of them watching from a safe distance. He told himself that he had to be prepared for the moment when Agnes saw reason and allowed him to champion her in combat or even let him under go the ordeal in her name.
The weeks passed, though, and no summons came from her. She didn’t even send a message. No one would allow him to see her, and Jehan was beginning to suspect that he had made a fool of himself for a woman who was just as cruel to him in her way as her sister, Catherine, had been. Agnes didn’t care for him. She never would.
Even if she should change, he had nothing to offer her except a readiness to die on her behalf. He wondered if she would regret it if he starved to death waiting for her here, but he was too much a soldier to succumb to anything so ignoble.

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