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

Authors: Sharan Newman

To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (6 page)

BOOK: To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery
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“You very much resemble your grandmother,” he said softly. “Although she was blond, as was your mother. I never saw Adalisa after she was a child. I’m sorry for that. Is she well?”
Margaret looked up at him in panic. Catherine rescued her.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” she said. “Lady Adalisa was killed by brigands in England not long ago. We brought Margaret back to France with us to keep her safe.”
Count Thibault closed his eyes and crossed himself, murmuring a
prayer. “My poor daughter. And is that when you were hurt, as well, Margaret?”
He touched the scar gently.
“No, my lord,” Margaret said. “I was set upon, they say, by villagers in a town near Trier. They thought I was a Jewess, and I didn’t have enough German to tell them who I really was. At least, that’s what I was told. I have no memory of it.”
Thibault set his lips in anger. He turned back to Catherine.
“I thought Abbot Bernard had put a stop to such things?” he said.
“He came to Trier after the incident, too late for Margaret,” Catherine told him. “The men beat her and dragged her into a church. Because it was a holy place, they didn’t violate her, but left her for dead.”
“My poor child.” Thibault shook his head. “And after Bernard arrived?”
“There seem to have been no more occurrences after he preached to the town,” Catherine said.
“No, and now I hear that all the Jews of the area have barricaded themselves at Wolkenberg Fortress,” Thibault commented. Catherine gave a start, but Thibault continued to Margaret, “Never mind, my child. The scar will fade, and I hope the memories never return. This would not have happened in my lands.”
Margaret smiled. “I know, my lord. The Jews of Troyes speak very highly of you.”
Thibault snorted. “Ah yes, I’d forgotten that you now live in Hubert’s family. You must have met many of the Jewish traders.”
“I know it may not have been proper for her to live as we do,” Catherine interjected. “But there’s nothing left for her in Scotland. She has a bit of dower land in the Vexin from her mother, but not enough to live from. Her brother, my husband Edgar, has agreed to take on my father’s affairs in partnership with the Jew, Solomon of Paris. We have more than enough to keep Margaret. We thought it best for her to be with those who love her.”
Thibault caressed Margaret’s cheek again. “I agree,” he said. “But you needn’t worry about a dowry, Margaret. When the time comes,
with my wife’s permission, I shall see that you are provided for. And I want to be consulted in the matter,” he added to Catherine.
Catherine bowed. “Of course, my lord Count.”
Thibault smiled. “I should like to spend more time with you, but I have to settle some trivial dispute at Saint-Florentin. There are times when I wish I could bash men’s heads together rather than listen to all these legal speeches.”
He bent toward Margaret. “Now, I expect you to visit me when I return to Troyes. Can you spare a farewell kiss for your grandfather?”
For answer, Margaret threw her arms about him and let him lift her and hold her close.
Thibault set her down at last and blew his nose loudly.
“Thank you for coming,” he told her. “Your grandmother was a noblewoman and a good one. Our families simply had other plans for us. I’ll see you again soon. May Our Lady keep you safe.”
He nodded to Catherine. “Take care of her, now. She’s not to be out wandering alone. The streets are full of ruffians these days.”
Catherine promised. They both bowed to him again and left.
Margaret said nothing all the way home, but her eyes were shining. When they got back, they found that Edgar was home. Catherine hesitated, preparing herself for his anger, but Margaret got round it entirely. She raced in and threw herself at her brother crying, “Edgar, my grandfather is a wonderful man, and he thinks I’m beautiful!”
Over her shoulder Edgar saw Catherine. He shook his head and sighed.
“I think you’re beautiful, too,” he told Margaret, but it was Catherine he was looking at.
The Fortress of Wolkenberg, on a hilltop in Lotharingia, near Koln. Tuesday, 2 nones May, (May 6), 1147; 4 Sivan, 4907. Feast of Saint Aurea, hermit and martyr, who charmed scorpions with her beauty.
 
 
The children of Israel lifted up their eyes and saw the contemptible oppressors closing in from all around … Each one went to a Gentile acquaintance, anyone who owned either a castle or fortress, to accept him in the cave and hide him until the anger passed.
 
—Ephrahim of Bonn
Sefer Zekirah
 
 
S
olomon ben Jacob of Paris looked down from the parapets of Wolkenberg. He had come to the hill fortress only as escort to the widow and children of an old friend. Now it was time to leave. He knew this. He had obligations to his family and to his new partner, Edgar. He shouldn’t have come here at all.
And yet …
In the courtyard below Jewish children were playing happily. Under a tree the scholars met to argue fine points of the Talmud. Their voices rose more loudly than the children’s laughter, but Solomon could hear the joy beneath the sharp tones.
The sun shone on them all.
There were no gentiles at Wolkenberg. For the first time in their lives, these Jewish families were free to be themselves without fear. No one mocked them or threw stones. No one tried to make them feel inferior or unwanted. Solomon knew this was the closest he would ever come to
Eretz Israel.
He didn’t want to give it up.
“You could stay, you know.”
For a moment Solomon thought the voice was a spirit answering his longings. He’d been so far into his own reflections that he hadn’t heard Mina come up behind him.
“I would live here forever if I believed it would always be like this,” he answered her. “But we both know it’s just a temporary haven. We can’t stay up here forever. There are too few of us. We need the gentiles to survive. At least for now.”
“Yes, we need them, but that doesn’t mean you have to live with
them, Solomon.” Mina’s face was serious. “It worries me. You’re more a part of your uncle Hubert’s Christian family than you are one of us.”
“I know,” Solomon admitted. It worried him, too. Until the last year, he had trusted and loved his Christian relatives completely. He still loved them, but when the persecutions were at their height, he had seen the fear in Catherine’s eyes, not for him, but for her children if they were thought to be Jewish, too. After poor Margaret was attacked, he felt his cousin’s anxiety had been justified. Solomon still felt a stab of guilt about it. He had promised her mother that he would protect Margaret always and then the poor child had been hurt simply because she wasn’t ashamed to be seen in his company.
“Solomon? Are you listening?” Mina snapped her fingers in his face. “I was saying that my cousin, Zipporah, has come of age. She’s a fine woman, gentle and pious and very pretty. Her father might be persuaded to look kindly upon the match.”
“Mina, not again!” Solomon gave a sigh. “Why do you want to inflict me upon these fine innocent girls? What kind of husband would I make to them?”
“A good one, I think,” Mina said. “For you’d feel so sure you were a trial to your wife that you’d be twice as kind to her as any other man.
Solomon shook his head.
“Thank you, Mina, but no thank you,” he said. “It’s true that I’ve been too long among the Edomites. I don’t belong in our community anymore. But I’ll never belong in theirs, I promise.”
Mina laughed.
“Zipporah would soon change your mind about belonging, Solomon,” she said. “If you’d let her. If you wait too long, she’ll be taken.”
“I wish her joy.” Solomon put his arm around Mina. “And I promise that when I decide I must have a good Jewish wife, I’ll let you choose her for me. But for now, I must return to Paris.”
Mina pulled away from him angrily.
“What is wrong with you, Solomon ben Jacob?” she cried. “You’re a grown man, now, past thirty, and it’s time you started a family. I don’t want to see you lost to us as your father was!”
The moment she said it, she knew she had made a terrible mistake. Solomon’s expression was ice.
“What do you know about my father?” he said slowly.
Mina hung her head. “Your uncle Hubert told me before he left. He’s concerned. I’m supposed to look out for you.”
“I’ll look out for myself, Mina,” Solomon told her. “You have enough of hardship taking care of your fatherless children.”
This time she met his gaze.
“Exactly,” she said. “And after what the Christians did to my Simon, you still want to go live with them. Why are you so eager to spend your life among people who despise you?”
Solomon took a long time to answer. He turned from the secure contentment of the people within the fortress to the view below. He saw rivers cutting through dark forest and villages full of people who wished him and all like him swept from the earth. Then he thought of Catherine, who had risked so much for him and even more, of Margaret, the child he had promised to protect.
“Everything you say is true, Mina,” His voice was soft. “But out there, amidst all those who hate me are also the people I love most. I leave for Paris tomorrow.”
 
In Paris, Catherine could only spare a few minutes a day to be anxious about Solomon, although she did it then with great intensity. Margaret worried enough for her. Every time they heard someone at the door, her face would turn in expectation and then fall when she saw that it wasn’t he.
“She loves him as a daughter,” Catherine told herself, watching the disappointed slump of the girl’s shoulders. “Or a favorite niece. Nothing more.”
But the sadness in Margaret’s eyes when no word came and Solomon failed to appear made Catherine extremely uneasy.
It was almost a relief to be forced to study the problem of the body in the counting room.
“How can we be expected to find out who killed him if we don’t even know who he was?” Catherine said in exasperation. “I’ve spoken
to all the neighbors and no one will admit to having seen or heard anything. They probably didn’t. Carts come and go all the time on the Grève. I don’t know where to go from here!”
Edgar blew a strand of hair from his face. His hand was occupied with trying to set up his vises again so that he could resume work. He might now be a merchant by trade, but if he couldn’t turn the images in his mind into carved toys, boxes and inlaid jewelry, he would go mad. In Scotland, his family had been ashamed of his fascination with crafting objects. It was unworthy of his birth. But so was trading. If he had given up his place for Catherine’s sake, it also freed him to enjoy the work he loved best.
“As soon as I’m finished here, I’ll go to the Île,” he promised. “There should be someone around Nôtre Dame from the old days who can tell me the news.”
“But only about who is debating whom on the nature of the Trinity and which of the Masters is most popular now,” Catherine reminded him. “No one there will care about the death of a Knight of the Temple. Half the scholars we know don’t think they should even have been given permission to form an Order in the first place. Only Abbot Bernard’s support could give them respectability.”
“Well, the idea of a monk who wields a sword does seem a contradiction,” Edgar answered. “But there are worldly men among the secular clerics. The canons of Nôtre Dame, for instance, keep abreast of events in town. I wish I knew if John were in Paris. He usually knows everything that’s happening.”
“The pope is still here in Paris,” Catherine said. “Isn’t John attached in some way to the papal court?”
“No, the last I heard, he was at Celle acting as secretary to the abbot, but he’s applying for a place in the curia of the Archbishop of Canterbury.” Edgar grunted as he tried to tighten the vise to the table. “I never could see him as a monk. I suppose Master Adam might know where he is or …”
“Edgar, we could speculate all day.” Catherine was becoming testy. It was hard to watch him struggle with the tools. She longed to help him, but he hated that. He let the children hold things for him, but not her.
He finally managed to attach the vise.
“You want me to go now?” he asked.
“Yes,” she urged. “Tomorrow the house will be full with Marie and Guillaume bringing their four and our two. Tonight is our best chance to have a quiet discussion with a guest.”
“Ah, you want me to find an informant and bring him home to dine with us,” Edgar said.
“Well, of course!” Catherine nearly pushed him out the door. “Don’t come home alone!”
After he had gone, Catherine went over to the worktable. The different vises were lined up, scrapes in the wood showing how often they’d been attached and with what effort. On a cloth on the bench the tools were laid out: hammers, pincers, organarium, drawplates, chisels, rasps, scorpers and files. Once he had also had a small anvil to beat out the heat-softened metal. But there were some things even Edgar had to admit one needed two good hands for.
Catherine gently brushed her fingers over the neat row of implements. She sniffed to hold back tears. Perhaps it was just because she loved him so much, but Catherine believed Edgar to be the bravest man she knew.
Samonie had prepared a pot of barley soup with early carrots and sent one of her boys to the baker’s for trencher loaves. Catherine went down to the storeroom and found a small cask of Gascon wine. She sniffed the bung and decided that it was still drinkable.
The bells had rung for the end of Vespers before Edgar returned. With him was a thin man with a clerical tonsure wearing plain woolen robes. It took a moment for Catherine to recognize him.
“Maurice?” she said. “How good to see you again! You look wonderful. Are you still at Nôtre Dame?”
“Yes, I’m a subdeacon now.” Maurice smiled shyly. “The food is more adequate than when I was just a student. But I shall always be grateful for the number of times you fed me in those days.”
“Your conversation alone was payment enough,” Catherine said. “As I’m sure it will be tonight. We’ve been away so long. I’m eager for a report on what’s going on in Paris.”
She led them into the hall and poured cups of the wine from a pitcher, then let them mix it as they wished from the water jug.
“As for news.” Maurice sat and sipped his wine. “Certainly the greatest bustle involves having the pope in France and the preparations for King Louis’s expedition to free Edessa. But you must know all about that.”
“The world seems to be crowded with people wearing the pilgrim’s cross,” Edgar said. “Does Paris have time to think about anything else?”
“Well.” Maurice laughed. “We have a new dean, Clement, and a new precenter, Albert, at Nôtre Dame who don’t seem aware of it at all. Clement and Albert have entered into a war over the shape and tone of the music for the liturgy. They haven’t come to blows, yet, but the shouting can be heard all the way to Saint Genevieve.”
“I can understand fighting over the wording of the liturgy,” Catherine said. “But the music?”
Maurice shrugged. “No one but those two takes it seriously. It’s a change, though, from arguing over whether or not the bishop of Poitiers is a heretic.”
Catherine was so astounded that she nearly dropped her cup.
“Master Gilbert!” she exclaimed. “But he’s one of the most brilliant theological expositors in France, especially since Master Abelard died.”
“And wasn’t Abelard judged a heretic, as well?” Maurice reminded her.
“I can’t believe anyone would accuse Bishop Gilbert, though,” Edgar said. “Master Abelard was always offending people with his sharp tongue, but who could old Stoneface have bothered?”
“Master Peter of Lombardy, for one,” Maurice answered. “And Bernard of Clairvaux.”
“Oh, not again!” Catherine cried. “I was just beginning to like Abbot Bernard.”
“Bishop Gilbert was at the council at Sens that condemned Master Abelard,” Edgar said thoughtfully. “Abelard warned him then that accusations of heresy leap like flame from one scholar to another.”
BOOK: To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery
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