The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (6 page)

He shook his head.

“I had the feeling that he would rather have spoken to you,” he said. “Now that I think of it, he might well have been one of your cousins. He gave the impression that only family should hear what he had to say. It worries me that he didn’t reach you. He said the matter was grave.”

“If the message is really from Boisvert then there is no ques
tion of ignoring it. We must save our mother.” Guillaume sighed. “And not let the treasure be destroyed.”

After that there was nothing more to say.

Edgar and Catherine didn’t go to the field that night. Without discussion, they retired to a bed in an alcove off the staircase within hearing range of the children’s room. Perhaps this story was no more than moonbeams but they both felt it was better to keep close to their own treasures.

“You don’t seem too upset by the idea that I’m descended from a water fairy,” Catherine commented as Edgar helped her out of her tight sleeves along with the rest of her clothing.

“The way you get sick at the sight of a boat, I find the idea difficult to believe,” he answered. “And it does seem that all the best families have similar stories. My uncle Aethelraed always insisted that our great-grandmother was a selchie.”

“What’s that?”

“A bit like a mermaid, only with seals.” Edgar lost his concentration as he carefully unrolled her stockings.

“You mean a woman with flippers?”

“No,” he laughed. “Seal in the water, human on land.”

“Well, that makes more sense than a water sprite hiding in a rocky hill with some mysterious treasure. At least you’d get out more.” She closed her eyes. “Mmm. . . what are you doing?”

“You know quite well,” he said.

There was no more speculation that night.

Edgar and Catherine slept through the bells for Mass the next morning but they couldn’t ignore the children bouncing on them shortly after.

“Mama!” Edana pulled at the coverlet. “Papa! Why are you sleeping in your bodies?”

“Uh, it was very hot last night.” Edgar was too pale to hide the blush as his daughter stared at him.

“Have you washed your faces?” Catherine knew better than to bother with explanations that would only lead to more questions.

She threw a loose
chainse
over her head as Edgar pulled the sheet farther up.

“Come with me,” she told Edana and James. “I imagine your brother wants his breakfast.”

Edgar dressed quickly after they had left and went down to the village to find Solomon.

“What’s the gossip on this vanishing dead woman?” he asked when he found Solomon at the tavern poking gingerly at something that might be fish pie.

“Good morning to you,” Solomon answered. “I’ll tell you, if you tell me what Lord Lance-up-his-ass is so upset about.”

In a low voice, Edgar did. By the end of the story, Solomon realized that he had eaten the entire pie without tasting it, for which he was profoundly grateful.

“And you say Guillaume seems to believe this?” he asked. “It sounds like a thousand other tales told from the corner by the fire on a winter night.”

“I know,” Edgar said. “And yet, there is something at the root of it, I think. It can’t be by chance that this strange old woman should show up now. What do the villagers say about her?”

“The usual,” Solomon shrugged. “That it’s a sign, probably of something bad. But no one knows why. Oddly enough, your brother-in-law is fairly popular among his people. Even with the bad crops these past few years, they trust him. He doesn’t overtax them and he keeps his men mostly in check. No one has accused him of bringing evil upon them. If anything, they’re sure this woman was some demon jealous of their loyalty to him.”

“So no one has suggested that her body was stolen by someone at the castle?” Edgar asked. “They leap right to the idea that she wasn’t human?”

“Well, the story of her emerging from a tree trunk to throw
herself under Guillaume’s horse seems to have inclined them in that direction,” Solomon explained.

“Makes sense,” Edgar admitted. “Perhaps you and I should ride out that way and see if we can find any trace of sorcery.”

Solomon got up. “Or a big hollow tree right next to the path?”

“Exactly.” Edgar smiled grimly. “I don’t want to fight Catherine over taking all of us to Boisvert. I can see that she’s half-afraid this tale might be true. I’ve got to prove to her that she has no reason to fear for our children.”

“And if we can’t?” Solomon asked.

Edgar sighed. “Then I suppose I’ll finally get to meet the immortal lord of Boisvert.”

Only a few days ride from Villeteneuse and even closer to the castle of Boisvert, in the comital town of Blois, someone else was listening to the legend of the undying spring.

“Does it work miracles?” she asked.

“It’s supposed to keep people young forever,” the man answered. “Or at least alive. The current lord, Gargenaud, is reputed to be over a hundred now.”

The woman tapped her gnarled hands impatiently on the table.

“That’s not immortal,” she snapped. “Especially if he’s deaf and blind, with his fingers curled in on themselves, his back twisted like a willow leaf, and only three teeth left.”

The man stared at the wall above the woman’s head.

“I hear he recently married again,” he said.

The woman snorted. “A Shulamite to warm his bed? That means nothing. Go find the truth of this.”

“And if the well does bring youth?” the servant asked.

“Fill me a flask of it,” she laughed. “Whether they let you or no.”

He knelt in obedience.

“What if the other rumors are also true, that the water is receding?”

The woman gave a long, tired sigh.

“Then,” she told him, “Lord Gargenaud is going to need my help. At last.”

The woman sat hunched over the table for a few moments after the man had gone. Then, slowly, she raised her head, letting her shoulders drop and the bent back straighten. She rubbed her clawlike fingers, pulling at the swollen knuckles until the hands, too, were straight.

When she stood, she no longer looked elderly, but like a woman still in her prime. As she muttered to herself, however, her voice creaked like that of one who had spent a long life shouting into the wind.

“So, all this time, all this time,” she said in wonder. “Who’d have thought you’d pick a place so close by for your hidey-hole? Well, to give you your due, it worked. But no longer, my sister. It’s time to root you out and take you into the sunshine for your sins to be shown to all.”

She didn’t cackle gleefully, but there was a space in the air that indicated satisfaction with the way things were starting to go.

Marie went to the window of the keep as a crash told her another of the large clay water jugs had fallen onto the stones. She sighed and returned to where the bailiff awaited the last of her instructions.

“I don’t see why they can’t come here, where we still have water, by God’s grace. We can’t bring enough with us to do any good.”

The bailiff, Conon, had served her many years.

“I understand that it’s a family matter,” he said, hinting that someone should have told him all about it.

Marie nodded absently, her head full of lists.

“Lord Guillaume’s grandfather,” she said. “I’ve never met
him. Now, we should be back before winter, but you are to see that our share of the harvest, such as it is, is collected. Half to go into the grain sheds and half to be sent to Boisvert. There’s enough smoked meat and salted fish to be distributed to the villagers on the appropriate feast and fast days. Should we, by some horrible chance, be delayed until after the Nativity, Hamelin has marked the wine casks you can open. Abbot Suger’s bailiff will be by around Michaelmas for what we owe the abbey.”

Conon already knew all this but waited in respectful silence for her to finish.

“I suppose that should take care of most problems,” Marie concluded doubtfully. “You can always send a messenger if necessary. Lord Guillaume can be back in two days.”

Conon nodded but didn’t take his leave.

“What is it?” Marie asked. “You act as if you have mice in your
brais
.”

“Yes, my lady,” he said. “I mean no, of course I don’t. It’s that my wife wanted you to speak to Lord Guillaume about the drought.”

“He has done everything he can,” she answered sharply. “We pray for an end to it every day. He has asked Abbot Suger to authorize digging a trench from the river to the fields but the abbot hasn’t responded.”

“I know, my lady,” Conon replied. “We don’t hold you at fault. But the women, that is all of us, that is. . .”

Marie was starting to understand.

“They want to do the old rite, don’t they?” she asked.

“Nothing else has helped,” Conon pleaded. “Beyond the drought, too many odd things have happened lately. Many among us think that it’s time to call upon the sylphids of the forest and streams.”

Marie thought about it. “Perhaps it might help. I can’t see how any harm could come of it. It’s not as if they were demonic spirits. Anything that brings us relief can only be on the side of
good. Yes, I’ll let my husband know and see to it that all his men are accounted for on the night.”

“No fear there,” Conon said. “Any man found within the square won’t be walking straight for a month.”

“Very well,” Marie told him. “Let them know we won’t interfere. Just be sure that no one mentions this to Father Anselm or my sister-in-law. Catherine gets very upset at anything she can’t find in the Fathers of the Church.”

Edgar and Solomon rode slowly through the forest.

“This must be the spot.” Solomon pulled his horse up. “There are fresh tears in the underbrush and deep clefts in the dirt where the men tried to keep their horses from running into the one ahead.”

“But the trees here are thin,” Edgar objected. “How could the woman have hid behind them?”

Solomon gave him a perplexed look.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose this means you’re going to Blois?”

Glumly, Edgar nodded.

Marie had a quiet word with her husband, who agreed about keeping the ritual a secret from Catherine. Guillaume had been castellan of Vielleteneuse for nearly twenty years, and he knew that there were things done for the good of the crops and the village that the pope might not approve of. Following the old ways didn’t make anyone a bad Christian, he felt. In times like these it was best not to neglect the ones who had been caring for the land longer than Christians had lived on it. He just didn’t think his sister would see the sense of this.

Catherine knew Edgar thought they shouldn’t make the journey to Boisvert. He had agreed in the face of Guillaume’s insistence, but she knew he wasn’t happy about it.

“If you really are opposed, we can send word that it’s impossible to make the journey,” she suggested. “I’m not eager to see my mother’s family again. There are many who blame me for her madness and, even more, for my uncle Roger’s death.”

“I am just as much to blame as you,” Edgar reminded her. “It was to save me that you wove the tales that made your mother think you were blessed. And Roger might well have killed us both, if his own madness hadn’t overcome him.”

“Reason enough for us both to stay home,” Catherine said. “If only I were absolutely sure that there was nothing in this curse.”

They were standing at the edge of the field watching James and his cousins pretend to hunt down monsters. Catherine tried not to wince as the boys happily whacked at each other with wooden swords.

“Good blow, son!” Edgar shouted as James dispatched a withered sapling.

“Edgar.” Catherine tried to bring him back to the subject. “I can feel you simmering. Shall I tell Guillaume we aren’t going?”

Edgar kept his eyes on the field for another moment. Then he turned to his wife.

“I don’t want us to go,” he admitted. “I think it may be a ploy on your grandfather’s part to extract money from the rest of us. That was why he let your father into the family in the first place.”

Catherine agreed that it was not impossible. Edgar raised his hand to stop her.

“But when my father ordered me home to Scotland, you came with me.” He smiled at her tenderly. “I didn’t want to go then, either. Or course, I was right.”

He raised his left arm and looked at her. Even after five years, he couldn’t stand to see the empty space where his hand had been.

Catherine took his wrist. The stump never bothered her as much as how close she had come to losing him.

“My grandfather is strange, but not cruel.” She didn’t add,
“As your father was.” But the memory floated between them of the sword shining in the candlelight and the blood and Edgar’s hand on the floor of the chapel, fingers outstretched.

Catherine took Edgar’s right hand in her own.

“I don’t know if there is anything to this curse,” she said. “It sounds like one of a hundred tales that every old family has. For all I know, Grandfather finally feels death approaching and wants to see his progeny before he goes. That isn’t such a great thing to do for an old man. It shouldn’t be as dangerous as other journeys we’ve been on.”

“Like going to Scotland to avenge the death of my brothers?” Edgar said it at last. “Or all the way to Trier to save your sister from a murder charge?”

“Or even just to Reims to keep a friend from being burnt as a heretic,” Catherine added. “Next to all of that, a few days’ journey to Blois seems. . .” She happened to glance at the field where the boys were playing. She caught her breath in horror.

“James!” she screamed. “Stop that! Stop it at once! Edgar! Do something!”

Edgar was already running across the field to where his son had knocked one of the other boys down and was now hitting him mercilessly with sword and fist.

“Enough!”

Catherine didn’t know where her brother had come from. Guillaume reached the children before Edgar and lifted James off his victim.

The boy struggled a bit and then dropped the wooden sword. He looked around as if puzzled to find himself hanging from his uncle’s arm.

Edgar arrived and bent over the child on the ground.

“Bertie, are you all right?” he asked.