The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (15 page)

“Welcome home to Boisvert!” Seguin roared loudly enough that those at the end of the procession heard him clearly. “Enter and welcome!”

As they passed through the gate, Catherine tried not to think of all the tales that began with the hero rashly entering a castle and finding himself in another world. And yet, coming through into the great outer bailey, she felt as if she had been transported into a bustling city totally apart from the village
they had just passed through. There was activity all around her. Even in the heat, the ovens were blazing. A perspiring woman was removing fresh loaves and setting them on a long wooden table. In front of the stables, the farrier was examining the hooves of a brown palfrey. His assistant was having a hard time keeping the animal still.

And no wonder. Chickens fluttered everywhere, some chased by lean dogs, some by angry servants. Catherine could hear the calling of ducks and geese and the low snorts of pigs in their runs. Against the wall on one side ran a long row of wooden huts. Next to them stood barrels and baskets of food. The woodpile against a stone wall was higher than a man’s head, even Edgar’s.

“They seem to be well prepared for us,” she said.

“It seems so,” Edgar answered, looking around. “I don’t think the king has this many servants.”

“I wonder why the people of the village were so amazed that we brought the children,” Catherine went on. “I was sure you told me that the message said they had to be here, too. Perhaps we didn’t understand.”

“If so, it will just be another thing to add to the list,” Edgar grunted. “No, James, you can’t help catch the chickens. You are going to meet your great-grandfather, so stop wiggling.”

They halted by the stairs to the main keep. As soon as they dismounted, their horses were led away by stablehands. Other servants began unloading the boxes from the mules. Hermann helped Agnes, the nursemaid, and Edana out of the chair. Catherine expected her daughter to run to her at once, but the little girl stood quietly beside her aunt.

Catherine tried to ignore the pang.

Seguin dismounted, along with the other men. “Most of my knights are other cousins of yours to varying degrees.” He waved in their direction. “You’ll meet them properly this evening. My wife has prepared baths for all of you and assigned places to sleep and keep your goods. Follow me.”

The stairs up to the inner bailey were wooden, warped with age except in a few places where boards had been replaced. Catherine ascended slowly, carrying Peter. The door at the top was designed not to greet guests but to give an armed man no room to enter. It was open. As Catherine approached, a woman came out and stood on the landing. Her
bliaut
was of crimson silk, heavily embroidered at the hem and neck with beads of glass. She wore a bright green head scarf, held in place by a delicate gold-link chain. Her face was slightly plump and little wrinkled. Only the lines around her eyes betrayed her age.

“I am Elissent,” she said. “Seguin’s wife. I bid you welcome in the name of Lord Gargenaud.”

“Catherine, daughter of Madeleine.” Catherine bowed. “This is my son, Peter, and my husband, Edgar of Wedderlie, in Scotland, with our eldest child, James. Our daughter is with my sister and her family.”

She looked down. Agnes had stopped to give instructions to the porters about where the boxes should go. Edana clung to her hand and didn’t even look up at them.

Elissent ushered them in. “My maids will take you to your room,” she said. “Treat them as if they were your own.”

Catherine stumbled on uneven stones as she entered the passageway. Despite lit torches, the narrow hall was dim. Another ploy to repel invaders. No wonder the castle had never been taken. There was no need for a protecting spirit with so much stone. The passage continued for several steps and then turned sharply to the right.

“Os por le cuer be!”
Catherine exclaimed.

The dark tunnel ended abruptly at an enormous hall. Its high ceiling allowed the placement of several long, thin clerestory windows in the eastern and western walls that let light in from sunrise to dusk. Between them hung thick tapestries woven with images of animals and birds. They covered nearly all the stone. On either side of the room were staircases leading to wooden
walkways, ending in doors that led to other parts of the castle. There was even a space above for musicians to play.

Long tables had already been set up and covered with light green linen cloths. A high armchair stood at the center behind the main table, its back to a cavernous fireplace built into the far wall. Empty in the summer heat, the hearth seemed to Catherine to be a dark open mouth inhaling the very air from the room. She tried to shake the thought from her mind, but she couldn’t free herself from the sense that this ancient building was somehow alive and unwelcoming.

She stood uncertainly in the doorway until Edgar poked her in the back, moving her into the room. At once, a woman hurried up to them, her arms laden with soft cloths for washing.

“Welcome, my lord, my lady,” she said. “My mistress was sure you would wish to wash off the dust of the road. Please follow me.”

She led them toward a low door on the other side of the hall. As they followed her they heard the crackle of someone trying to run through the rushes on the floor.

“Edgar! Catherine!”

They spun around, not believing that it was a voice they knew.

A young girl ran toward them, her face alight with joy and her thick red braid swinging loosely.

“Margaret! How did you get here?” Catherine cried in delight. She held up the baby. “Peter, look! It’s your aunt Margaret. It’s a miracle!”

Edgar dropped James’s hand and caught his little sister in a bear hug. She clung to him, shaking.

She seemed frail in his arms, this child of his father’s second wife, the only mother Edgar had ever known. When Adalisa had died, Catherine and Edgar had taken Margaret into their home. But for two years past, she had been studying at the convent of the Paraclete, as Catherine had done.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Margaret gulped, trying not to cry. “I was afraid you might not come.”

“We had to,” Edgar said. “But why are you here? You have no tie to these people. Why aren’t you still at the Paraclete?”

She let him go and wiped her face with her sleeve before kissing Catherine and the baby.

“The abbess of Tart wrote to Mother Heloise and asked if I could be spared,” Margaret explained. “She didn’t want to send any of the professed nuns and she knew Catherine was my brother’s wife. I think my grandfather may have been consulted, as well. So, I was put in charge of seeing that she arrived here safely.”

It was a moment before Catherine understood the task Edgar’s sister had been set. Her stomach contracted with dread and guilt.

“Oh, Margaret!” she cried. “You brought my mother here? How could they put the burden on you? I’m so sorry! Why couldn’t they have let her stay where she was happy?”

Margaret smiled. “I was glad to come. I missed you all so much.” Her eyes looked back to the entrance and the smile dimmed when she saw no one there.

“And really,” she continued. “Apart from the fact that she never remembers who I am, I find your mother charming.”

Catherine’s stomach sank. She had known it was a possibility, but had tried to ignore it. She felt again the sharp fear that she deserved Agnes’s reproaches. Madeleine had always been devout. Catherine’s decision to enter the convent of the Paraclete had given her mother great joy. How could Catherine have known that her mother believed her to be Madeleine’s expiation for the sin of marrying a converted Jew? When Catherine decided against the religious life, her mother felt betrayed. Eventually, this had led to her retreating into a pious madness.

Therefore, the news that her mother was only a few doorways
from her sent Catherine into a rare panic. At the moment, saving a legendary ancestress from a curse was so much more tolerable than coming face-to-face with the poor deluded woman who had borne her.

Her mind was still in turmoil as she busied herself organizing their assigned quarters.

“I’m so relieved that you finally got here.” Margaret sat in the deep sill of the window in the room they had been given. “We’ve been here almost a week and I was becoming worried that I’d have to stay among strangers. Not that everyone hasn’t been very nice to me,” she added quickly.

“I’m just so sorry that you were made to be the guardian for my mother,” Catherine said. “Where is she now?”

“Probably in the chapel with the priest. I think he’s some sort of cousin of yours.” Margaret fiddled with her long auburn braid. She had plaited it loosely over her cheek to hide the thin white scar that was all the visible evidence of an attack she had barely survived a few years before. The mark was not disfiguring, but she felt the curiosity and pity every time she had to meet someone new.

“The chapel. Of course. Where else would she be?” Catherine said as she laid out the clothes they would wear at the banquet that evening. “Even before her mind became fragile, she spent most of her days in prayer.”

“As do all devout Christians.” Margaret grinned at her.

Catherine laughed. “Yes, but they don’t pray to a daughter whom they think has ascended bodily into heaven.”

“Not usually,” Margaret admitted. “But the nuns told me that she no longer believes you to be a saint. I think she’s simply retreated farther back in time. She talks to me about the family as if you and your brothers and sister were still children.”

“What do you think seeing us will do to her?” Catherine
dreaded the meeting. And yet, in her heart she longed to see her mother again.

Margaret shrugged. “I’m not a physician. Perhaps it will recall her to her senses.”

Catherine was now shaking out a linen
chainse
. At Margaret’s words, she gave it a hard snap that sent a cloud of dust and flower petals up from the floor, causing them both to cough violently.

With unsteady hands, Catherine set the
chainse
on the bed. She was appalled at her reaction. Of course she wanted her mother’s mind restored. Or did she? How much of the events of the past few years would have to be explained? How much
could
she explain? Madeleine would be returning to a world that no longer held a place for her. Her husband was gone, her children married. Catherine was now mistress in her mother’s home.

“Perhaps even then she would prefer to stay in the convent,” Catherine concluded, pushing the fear away. “Will she be at dinner tonight?”

Margaret swung her legs off the windowsill and stretched, yawning.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Up until now, we’ve just had simple meals in the solar with the other women.”

That reminded Catherine of another question. “Margaret, just how many of the family have come? Seguin said that Guillaume is the last. By my reckoning, this place should be stuffed with cousins.”

Margaret took a pair of Edgar’s stockings and unrolled them, looking for holes. She thought a moment.

“I haven’t really asked, since I’m not one of you,” she said. “It didn’t seem polite. But I don’t think there are more than two or three families. Elissent and Seguin are to all intents the lord and lady here. Aymon is their younger son. The older is called Raimbaut. I’ve only seen him once or twice. He’s always out. Neither
he nor his brother is married yet, which seems strange to me. There is the priest who seems to be related to you and a few others, mostly men.”

“But I thought that all the people who are descended from this sorceress of the water were supposed to be here,” Catherine protested. “There can’t be only a handful of us!”

“Why not?” Margaret asked. “Think of how many people die without heirs. Perhaps some families became members of religious communities. That happens often enough. And then there are wars. What’s really amazing is that Boisvert has passed from father to son for so many generations.”

Catherine was unconvinced. “It still seems much too few. And what about bastards? You can’t tell me all the men who ruled here were saints.”

“Perhaps they only count legitimate children,” Margaret said. “After all, my mother wasn’t included in my grandfather’s plans for inheritance.”

“It’s just all very peculiar,” Catherine concluded lamely.

“I suppose.” Margaret was being unusually thorough in her examination of the stockings. “Of course, Solomon is almost the last of his family, isn’t he? I see he didn’t come with you. Is he all right?”

“He’s fine,” Catherine said, avoiding the girl’s eager face. “The same as ever. This didn’t seem to be the best place to bring him, don’t you agree?”

Margaret tried to hide her disappointment. “Of course. Your grandfather probably doesn’t do much business with Jews. Solomon might feel uncomfortable.”

“That’s what we thought,” Catherine said. “And, of course, he’s not affected by this prophecy or curse or whatever, if it does exist. Nor should you be.”

She stopped and looked at Margaret. She was nearly seventeen, much more beautiful than she knew, with her dark eyes and rich auburn hair. The scar she was so aware of was little more than a thread across her cheek. Even without the dowry promised
by her grandfather, the count of Champagne, Margaret was a rich marriage prize. If only she could let go of her childhood attachment to Solomon! She wondered if those feelings would change if Margaret knew that one of Solomon’s many conquests had presented him with a daughter.

Catherine turned away. She couldn’t hurt Margaret more. The mute pain already in her eyes was more than Catherine could stand. Margaret knew well that she had only two choices in life, to marry a man the count approved of or stay at the Paraclete and take her final vows. The highest-born of the land were less free than the serfs in this. Catherine felt a pang of guilt that she had been allowed, with only a bit of opposition, to marry for love. She put her arms around her sister-in-law.

“I’m sorry you’ve been put to so much trouble,” she said. “But it is wonderful to have you with us again. We’ve missed you so much!”

“Thank you.” Margaret’s voice was muffled in Catherine’s robe. When she stepped back, her expression was once again cheerful. She put the stockings on the bed.