The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (3 page)

A moment later, Catherine straightened. The woman was still in death. Catherine couldn’t believe she had made out those last words.

“Your mother, Catherine,” the old woman had gasped. “You must save your mother.”

The keep at Vielleteneuse: Later that day.

. . . si vit une peucele

Vestue d’une purpre bise

E d’une mut bele chemise. . .

A une fontenine veneit

Ke suz un grant arbre surdeit
.

. . . he saw a maiden

Clothed in a purple coth

And a most beautiful gown. . .

She went to a fountain

That gushed from under a huge tree.

—
Lai de Désiré
, II. 134–136, 141–142

I
don’t understand why you don’t believe me!” Catherine said for the hundredth time. “Why should I lie about such a thing?”

“Catherine,” Marie’s voice was edged with the effort to remain patient. “I’m only saying that it’s unlikely that the woman could have roused before she died, much less been able to speak,
with her stomach crushed like that. Perhaps you were dozing. Dreams so close to the surface of waking can often seem real.”

“Marie, I was not dreaming!” Catherine circled the small tower room, her feet crushing the brittle straw and dried herbs strewn over the floor. The scented dust tickled her nose.

Marie coughed and motioned for Catherine to sit down again.

“Very well,” she said. “Then what else could it have been? A vision? A visitation? Why? From what you’ve said, this woman told you that you have to save your mother before the well goes dry. Are you sure that’s what you heard? It makes no sense to me.”

Catherine rubbed her forehead. “Something of that sort. She talked about a spring, I think. Perhaps not a well. I was so startled that I didn’t hear it completely.”

“Exactly!” Marie leapt on this. “So even if she did wake for a moment before she died, she might have been babbling. You are trying to create sense where there is none.”

Catherine remained unconvinced. Marie got up and went to the window, hoping it would be cooler there. The evening sun was still hot enough to cause dry hay to smolder. The walls in the keep below were sweating as heavily as the people. This heat even pulled water from stone. Finding no relief, Marie turned to face Catherine.

“I can’t believe you’re giving any credence to this,” she said. “You’re the one who always tells me to think logically. On top of the fact that the poor thing was a hair from death when they brought her in, and could hardly have said anything coherent, there are many reasons why none of what you thought you heard makes sense. First of all,” she held up her thumb. “What danger could your mother be in? She is quite safe in the convent. She’s being well cared for. We received a message not six months ago saying that she’s much better. She’s become tranquil there, even content. She now believes that you and your brothers and sister are still small. She talks to you all the time.”

Catherine bit her lip. Marie continued.

“Second,” she held up her first finger. “A dream about a well that fails is natural at this time of year. Everything is drying up. We pray constantly for rain. The weather is making everyone light-headed. Why can’t you admit that this is what happened to you?”

Catherine shook her head. “You don’t understand. It wasn’t like a dream or a
fantasia
. It was terribly real. And Marie, if the woman was delirious, then how did she know my name?”

“Catherine!” Marie threw up her arms in exasperation. “
If
she actually woke and
if
she said anything clearly, then why wouldn’t she use your name? She may not have really been unconscious when we were fussing over her. Then she would have heard me tell you to stay with her. Now, isn’t that a better explanation than yours?”

Reluctantly, Catherine agreed. Marie knew that common sense could shake Catherine, no matter what she thought she had seen. It was one of her more endearing faults. Catherine sighed as she got up and dusted off the back of her skirts.

“I suppose it’s just as well I’ve said nothing to Guillaume about it,” she said. “My brother has less tolerance than you for such things.”

“Well, I’m only sorry that you told Father Anselm,” Marie answered. “Now he’s all a dither about whether this woman can be buried in the churchyard. The villagers don’t want the people who died with their sins forgiven to resent having a sorceress buried among them. They fear that the dead will try to throw her out of her grave.”

That made Catherine laugh. “I’ll speak to him,” she promised. “I’m sure we can arrange something.”

“Do it now,” Marie added when Catherine didn’t move. “Even in the cellars, her corpse is ripening by the minute.”

Catherine went down the winding stairs to the chapel, hoping that Father Anselm was taking his afternoon nap on the cool stone floor, as was his custom in the summer. But the little room
was empty. She was turning to leave when she heard a scuffling noise coming from the direction of the altar.

“Father?” she said.

The noise stopped.

Curious, Catherine came a few steps closer. There was something sticking out from behind the stone table. Something pale against the dark wall.

“Hello?” she said.

All at once she realized what she was looking at. Two pairs of feet, one mirroring the other.

“Oh!” She backed toward the door. “I beg your pardon.”

Catherine hurried on down to the hall, trying not to laugh. A few years ago she would have been shocked and embarrassed. Ten years of marriage had changed that. Now she only felt a touch of envy coupled with the wish that Edgar would return home soon. She was glad she hadn’t seen who it was, however. She had no interest in overseeing other people’s morals. That was what the priest was for, after all.

The thought crossed her mind that one of the pair might have been Father Anselm, himself. That was an unpleasant image! So when she reached the bottom of the stairs and found the priest at the middle of a group of angry people, her expression was more cheerful than the situation called for.

“Catherine!” The priest greeted her with relief. “You’ve read the Fathers of the Church. Tell them that it’s wrong to bury the poor woman in unconsecrated ground unless we are certain that she died in mortal sin.”

“Well,” Catherine hedged. “I haven’t read all the Fathers. I know that Tertullian said that we should always assure the poor a decent burial.”

“But not the damned!” a woman from the town broke in. “I don’t want a wicked old woman sharing the same land with my father and my children.”

“But what if she wasn’t wicked?” The priest was clearly teetering on a theological precipice.

Catherine felt she had to throw him a rope.

“Shall I ask my brother if she can be put in our private cemetery?” she asked. “My own first child, baptized as she was born and died, lies there.”

Anselm gave her a look of intense thankfulness. “Oh, yes, please do!” he said. “And, if it turns out that she was excommunicant, we can always dig her up and move her.”

All eyes turned to Catherine for confirmation.

“Certainly,” she told them. “They do that all the time, even to popes.”

“Excellent.” Anselm waved the townspeople away. “Should I plan a Mass for her? Prayers at the graveside?”

“Guillaume will have to decide that.” Catherine backed away. “Or Marie. I’ll tell them. Perhaps we could all recite Psalm Forty-two at evening prayers tonight?”

“Quite appropriate,” Anselm beamed. “Thank you, Lady Catherine. When should we bury her?”

Catherine inhaled. The air was rank enough with the smell of the living.

“As soon as a grave can be dug,” she announced. “Guillaume will agree with me, I’m sure. I’ll go tell him now.”

Her brother gave a grimace when Catherine told him what arrangements she had made, but he didn’t protest.

“I’ll set some men to digging when the sun is lower,” he said. “Marie is rummaging through the stores for the last of the smoked meat to feed all these people tonight. I asked her what we were expected to eat this winter. Do you know what she told me?”

“That you’d better start bringing down deer and wild boar?” Catherine guessed.

“Humph,” Guillaume snorted. “If we don’t get rain soon,
there’ll be no bread to go with the meat, supposing we shoot any.”

Catherine suddenly realized how worn her brother looked. He hadn’t changed from his hunting leathers yet. His body was streaked with sweat and grime. His face was as tanned as his tunic and there were fine lines around his eyes. There were streaks of gray in his dark brown beard, although he was only thirty-four, five years older than Catherine. She often felt the burden of caring for her husband and children. Guillaume had a whole town to protect and the abbot of Saint-Denis to answer to if he failed.

The dinner that evening was sparse, but adequate. It was too hot for most people to have any appetite. Catherine spotted James and his cousin finishing off a tray of honey cakes. She signaled to Marie’s oldest daughter, the long-suffering Evaine, to take the tray away from them, but from the smears on their hands and faces, Catherine predicted there would be two little boys with stomachaches hanging over the chamber pots before morning. It might be wise to prepare an emetic now.

The morning came all too soon, the sun striking leaves already curled and brown with thirst. The tolling of the chapel bell reminded everyone that there would be a funeral Mass before anyone could break their fast. For once Catherine was glad that Father Anselm tended to omit large parts of the text.

They had just raced past the elevation of the Host when there was a shriek of terror from just below the window.

“I told you!” The sound was shrill, yet Catherine thought the speaker was a man. “Didn’t I say she wasn’t human? Didn’t I?”

Guillaume signaled the priest to continue. Then he jerked his head toward two of his knights to go down and find out what was wrong.

They returned swiftly. Marie turned her head as they went over to Guillaume and spoke in low urgent voices.

“Attend, my lady!” Father Anselm said in panic as she knocked against the chalice. “You might have spilled the Sacred Blood.”

Marie went white with horror and took a timid sip of the proffered cup. She blessed herself quickly and returned to her place.

“What is happening?” she whispered to Catherine.

Catherine shook her head. “I can’t hear them. Something about the woman’s body.”

“Oh, I hope it hasn’t exploded,” Marie murmured.

Catherine gave her a look of consternation.

“It happened once when I was a child,” Marie spoke close to her ear. “In a summer like this. You can’t imagine what the smell was like.”

Catherine could, but tried not to.

The Mass ended rapidly and Father Anselm paused to catch his breath.

Guillaume approached the altar and turned to face the household.

“It seems that the burial will have to be delayed.” He spoke through teeth clenched in anger. “The woman’s body is no longer in the cellar.”

The small chapel emptied in an instant as everyone rushed to see.

Catherine had stopped to check on her son and his cousin, who were, as predicted, suffering from a surfeit of honey cakes. By the time she reached the bailey, the usual confusion had become chaos.

“I tell you, Father, no one has been down there!” Hamelin was shouting at the priest over the din. “Bernat, you were on guard, tell him.”

Bernat, a burly, good-natured man, nodded agreement. “I swear it, Father. I’ve been at the door all night. Not a soul went
up or down into the cellar the whole time. But, when I went down this morning, the body had vanished!”

“Really?” Anselm was shorter and slighter than the knights but, in an argument, he had the advantage of knowing all their sins. “Then would you like to tell me just where the body of that unfortunate woman is?”

Hamelin moved past Father Anselm, heading for the steps.

“It must be down there,” he insisted. “Perhaps you weren’t looking in the right place.”

Anselm was at his heels. “Unless Bernat stowed her in a beer vat, I just searched every possible spot.”

Hamelin grabbed the lantern from the priest, and started down into the cellar. The crowd started to follow, but a sharp word from Guillaume halted them in midstride.

A few moments later Hamelin returned, holding the lantern with one hand and making the sign to ward off evil with the other.

Anselm gave a cry of triumph.

“What did I tell you?” he said.

“Well, I tell you that it’s impossible!” Bernat snatched the lantern from Hamelin. “We carried her down and she didn’t come back up. Maybe she melted.”

“Are you sure she was dead?” Catherine stood on tiptoe as if this would help her be heard. “It seemed so to me, but I only knew she’d stopped breathing.”

Bernat gave her a look of exasperation. “It doesn’t matter!” he shouted. “
No one
came up those stairs. There was a guard there all night. Someone is playing tricks and I’m going to find out who!”