Read To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Online

Authors: Sharan Newman

To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (10 page)

BOOK: To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

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Solomon waited.

“You wish us to find you another horse?” Edgar asked. “Or sell one for you?”

“Oh, no, no, not at all!” The visitor seemed unsure of what to do next.

“Then why have you come to see us?” Edgar prompted. “What may we do for you?”

In some embarrassment, Bertulf opened the purse at his belt and took out a silver brooch.

“Lord Osto and I came to Paris to join the king’s army; that is, Lord Osto did. I have other plans. In any case, we had thought ourselves well prepared for the journey,” he explained. “But many places would not feed or house us unless we paid, even though we are pilgrims. And Paris is so much more expensive than I remembered. So.”

He held the brooch out for Edgar to examine.

“I see.” Edgar held the piece in the light. “We don’t take objects as pledges, you understand. We’re not usurers. If you wish to sell it, I can give you only fifteen pennies of Paris. The silver is light, the design crude and scratched. You might do better taking it elsewhere.”

He looked at Solomon, who nodded agreement. Edgar then handed the brooch back to Bertulf.

“I’m sorry we can’t give you more,” he said.

Edgar meant what he said. Bertulf’s plight touched him deeply. The man was clearly worn. His troubles weighed on him so that Edgar could almost see them pressing him down. How did Bertulf expect to survive the trip to the Holy Land?

“You and your lord have a place to stay, don’t you?” he found himself asking.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Bertulf said. “Fifteen pennies will keep us until the king sets out, I’m sure.”

He gave Edgar back the brooch. Solomon stared, wondering why he was buying such a shoddy piece of work. Edgar shrugged. Later, when Catherine found the notation in the record book, it was listed as “alms for Jerusalem.”

“Just a moment, then,” he told Bertulf. “I’ll get the money.”

He went upstairs to the counting room, where the box that held the coins for daily use was kept. Bertulf started to follow him, but Solomon stepped in his path and, taking his arm, guided him back to the center of the hall.

The door to the kitchen opened and Samonie appeared, balancing a basket of newly washed linen. When she saw them, she started and dropped her load, sending it tumbling onto the rushes.

“
Damedeu
!” she exclaimed as she bent to pick up the wet clothes and shake the bits of herb from them. “I didn’t know anyone was here.”

Solomon hurried over to help her. “
Dant
Bertulf was just leaving, Samonie. As soon as Edgar pays him. Are these going to the roof to dry?”

She nodded.

“I’ll take the basket,” Solomon continued. “Perhaps you could give our guest some bread and soup before he goes.”

She glared at Bertulf, who cringed, but she didn’t dare protest.

“He can have what’s left in the pot,” she said. “Come with me
Dant
Bertulf.”

She went back into the kitchen. Bertulf followed at a safe distance.

Solomon carried the basket up the stairs, stopping to call out to Edgar.

Edgar came out of the counting room. He grinned at Solomon.

“We’re taking in washing, now?” He laughed. “Have you no faith in my trading skills?”

“Not if every bargain you make is like this one,” Solomon answered. “No, this time I don’t grudge the man his pennies, even
though I have no interest in giving charity to these pilgrim knights of yours. But Bertulf is so pathetic that I can only pity him. He must mean to leave his bones at Antioch.”

“Yes, he’s a strange man to be a warrior,” Edgar said. “It may be that his lord commanded Bertulf to accompany him, and the poor man had no choice but to go.”

“I’d have picked a squire more fit,” Solomon commented as he continued up to the roof.

Edgar considered this as he went down to the hall. He heard voices coming from the kitchen, but when he opened the door they stopped. Samonie was ladling soup over a crust from the previous night’s supper. She seemed angry. That puzzled Edgar. Normally Samonie was happy to share what they had with others.

“Here are your pennies, Bertulf,” he said as he put the coins on the table. “The king should leave any day now, so I’m sure you’ll have no more difficulties. If you do, come to me before you decide to join the beggars in the parvis of Nôtre Dame.”

“Yes, thank you.” Bertulf put the money in his purse without even counting it. “Very kind, thank you.”

He took the crust from Samonie without waiting for the soup to soak in and, spilling as he went, he hurried through the hall and back out into the street.

Edgar stared after him.

“That Bertulf is a strange pilgrim,” he commented. “But there was no reason for you to treat him rudely, Samonie.”

“I have reason.” Samonie then snapped her mouth shut. Edgar knew she would say no more.

He sighed. “It’s nothing to me. By the way, you’ve left the door to the spice cabinet open. Lock it, please, in case any other ‘pilgrims’ come by for charity.”

Solomon returned, having passed Bertulf in the hall. He broke a corner from a hunk of cheese and shook his head.

“That man has something on his conscience,” he said.

Samonie grunted and pointedly began wrapping the rest of the cheese. Edgar looked at her quizzically.

“What is the matter with you?” he asked. “What is your reason for disliking Bertulf? Is there something wrong with that man? Do you know something about him that you should tell us? Do you think he stole the brooch he sold me?”

“No, my lord,” Samonie answered. “I have no doubt it was his. This Bertulf seemed harmless enough. I’ve nothing against him. I’m just out of sorts today. Perhaps it’s the moon.”

Edgar accepted that. Catherine had a problematic relationship with the moon, as well.

“You do remember Bertulf from Troyes, don’t you Solomon?”

Solomon chewed reflectively. “Oh, yes. I couldn’t recall the name of the buyer, but I remember the horse well enough. The man’s face was familiar. He and another bought the bay together. They said at the time that they were going to breed him.”

“That’s all right, then.” Edgar took a deep breath. “Then let’s return to the storeroom. We need to organize it according to a system of our own. Hubert’s makes no sense to me. I know he said there was a box of saffron in there somewhere, and one of the water merchants told me he had a buyer for it. But we have to unearth it today, or he’ll find a vender elsewhere.”

They left the room. Samonie heard their boots clomping above her. Carefully, she put the cheese back in the pantry. Then she made herself a chamomile tisane and sat sipping it until she stopped trembling and the tears dried.

As she walked home, Catherine felt as if everyone were looking at her and knew what she had hidden under the kerchief in her basket. Desperation had driven her to it, she told herself. There was no other course. She was determined to carry the plan through, but she wouldn’t feel sanguine about it until she was safe at home with the thing locked in the box under their bed far away from prying eyes.

Her heart almost stopped when she came around the corner from the bridge to the house and ran into a hunched-over man rushing the other way. She barely glanced at him or heard his apologies; she was so terrified that the basket would spill.

Bertulf had a vague impression of having bumped into something, but he was as preoccupied as Catherine. Without looking back, he hurried on to the tavern by the river where Godfrey was waiting.

“Did you get it?” he asked before Bertulf had sat.

Bertulf nodded and signaled for a pitcher of beer.

“She gave it to me right away, once we were alone,” he said after taking a long gulp. “I stuck it up my sleeve. You should have gone, you know. I’m not meant for this sort of subterfuge.”

“You had seen them before. I couldn’t have convinced them so well. Did they recognize you?” the other man asked.

“Not really,” Bertulf said. “The Jew knew he’d sold me a horse, but didn’t know my name. It’s a good thing Hubert has left. I never could have faced him and lied.”

“Old Hubert would have helped us,” Godfrey said. “He understood how the world works. This son-in-law, his father’s a lord in Scotland, they say. The high nobility, they look at things differently. They can’t be trusted, even on oath. What’s wrong?”

Bertulf had suddenly stood up and was patting himself all over, turning out his sleeves and shaking his belt.

“It’s not here!” he cried. “I know I had it. I must have dropped it in the street!”

“Calm yourself, Master!” Godfrey pulled Bertulf back onto the bench. “It doesn’t matter. As long as it’s no longer in the house. No one will ask where it came from if they pick it up from the gutter.”

Bertulf saw the sense in that and cursed himself for drawing the attention of the others in the tavern. Of course it didn’t matter. As long as no one connected it with him. He finished his beer and sighed.

“Now we have to present ourselves at the preceptory of the Knights of the Temple. That frightens me even more. Oh, Godfrey, what have we set in motion?”

Godfrey put his arm on Bertulf’s shoulder. “We’re following the original plan; that’s all. It’s what he would have wanted. You honor his memory with your sacrifice.”

Bertulf lifted his chin. “I give it gladly for my child and my descendants,” he said. “If only I knew that it wouldn’t be in vain.”

Edgar looked at the object in Catherine’s hand as if he expected it to leap at him.

“What is that thing?” he asked. “And why have you brought it to bed?”

Now that the time had come for explantions, Catherine’s courage faltered. Only the scent of Edgar’s skin so near kept her from abandoning her plan. Another night of this would drive her mad.

“It’s called a
mokh
,” she said. “Aunt Johanna told me about it after our first child was stillborn.”

She stopped. After all this time the memory still hurt. Edgar caressed her cheek. The grief was his, too.

“I told her then that I didn’t need any such things,” Catherine went on. “But the past few months have made me change my mind. In my mind I went over all the issues the Fathers of the Church raised, and there seems to be a question as to how bad it is to use this. After all, it’s to save us from a greater sin.”

Edgar gingerly poked at the spongelike object. It had a long cord sewn onto it, rather like a tail.

“I’m afraid to ask what one does with it,” he said.

She explained.

Edgar realized that his reaction wasn’t so much guilt as disgust. What would it feel like?

“What if it gets stuck?” he asked.

“I tie the cord around my leg,” Catherine said. “Rebecca told me how. Edgar, it’s either this or we both go insane. Unless you want me to risk another pregnancy now.”

“No! Of course not.” The thought of listening to her cry out in the agony of childbirth, fearing all the while that this time she would die, was terrifying. Edgar knew that bringing forth children in pain was the curse placed on Eve, but when it happened to Catherine all he could think of was that it was all his fault.

“Isn’t there any other way?”

“I know of herbs and potions one can use,” Catherine admitted. “But they’re dangerous. They can cause a woman to become barren or even die. This simply prevents the seed from planting itself in the womb.”

Edgar grimaced. That was what they’d been doing already. He supposed this wasn’t any different except that Catherine could enjoy it, too.

“Very well,” he decided. “We’ll try it. But I don’t know. Maybe I won’t be able to.”

Catherine moved closer to him. “Beloved,” she whispered, “that’s one problem I never even considered.”

It was well past dawn when Catherine awoke. Edgar was already up. She could hear him downstairs coaxing Edana to stay on her stool while she ate her bread. She smiled. She felt wonderful. After some internal conversation, she decided that she had been right; the sin of preventing conception wasn’t nearly as bad as denying the marriage debt.

Removing the
mokh
wasn’t as pleasant as putting it in, but Catherine managed it and slipped it back in the basket, meaning to rinse it in cold water when she emptied the chamber pot. As she pushed the basket back under the bed, it fell over and something clanked.

She leaned over and saw a knife caught in the folds of the scarf. She picked it up.

“That’s strange,” she said. “How did that get in here? I thought Samonie had put it away in the kitchen.”

She pulled a
bliaut
over her shift and went down to greet her family.

“Edgar, isn’t this the knife that cut Edana?” she asked, holding it out to him.

BOOK: To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

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