The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Newman, Sharan

  “You will?” Hermann dragged Gerhardt off his stool and held him in a bear hug. “I knew you’d finally see reason! Maria will be so relieved. She’s already hired the entertainers!”

  He couldn’t see his brother’s face at that moment. If he had, he would have known that it was too soon to rejoice. Gerhardt’s expression was one of desperate panic.

  Four

  Paris. Wednesday, 4 ides of April (April 10), 1146; 25 Nisan, 4906. Feast of Saint Ezekiel, Jewish prophet, celebrated because he foresaw the birth of Christ.

  Inter haec Radolfus monachus, vir quidem religionis habitum reli- gionisque severitatem sollerter imitans, sed litterarum noticia sobrie imbutus, est partes Gallias quae Rhemum attingunt ingreditur multaque populorum milia ex Aggripina, Maguntia, Warmatia, Spira, Argentina, aliique vincis civtatibus, oppidis sue vicus ad accipiendam crucem accendit.

  Meanwhile, the monk, Radulf, a man who wore the habit of religion and imitated the strictness of religion, but was only slightly literate, entered those parts of Gaul along the Rhine and inflamed many of the inhabitants of Cologne, Mainz, Worms, Speyer, Strasbourg and other neighboring cities, towns and villages to accept the cross.

  —Otto of Freising

  Gesta Friderici I imperatoris

  Book I, xxxviii

  “Why did you bring them with you?”’ Agnes asked Catherine, regarding the squirming bundle in her arms with distaste.

  “The children should get to know you,” Catherine answered calmly, taking off her wool cloak. “And Margaret wanted to meet you. She’s Edgar’s sister, but she’s French as well, and ought to spend more time with people of her own class. Don’t be afraid, ma douz,” she added to Margaret, “my sister won’t hurt you.”

  The girl held out her hand to Agnes with a shy bob of her head.

  “You don’t look like Catherine,” she observed. “Are you half sisters, like I am to Edgar?”

  “No,” Agnes answered. “We’re just different.”

  Agnes seemed interested in neither Margaret nor the younger children. James was fortunately worn out from the walk across the city but Edana had been carried and was eager to get down and play.

  “Are the rushes clean?” Catherine asked. “I have a blanket but since she started walking, she won’t stay on it.”

  Agnes looked from her to the wriggling baby. She shook her head in amazement.

  “The nuns are most careful about sweeping,” she told Catherine. “Who would have thought it? My scholar sister, with her hands always stained with ink and her head a maze of philosophy, reduced to being little more than a nursemaid to her own children.”

  Catherine was stung. “They have a nurse. I just left her at home. And I still read and go to the lectures of the masters when I can. In four years James will be sent for fostering. I want as much of him as possible before he goes away. I’m not sorry, Agnes. I know you wish I’d stayed at the Paraclete and taken my vows, but this is what I think was intended for me. I have a good life.”

  Agnes’s expression indicated disbelief. She motioned for them to sit and gave them dried fruit and nuts from a dish the nuns had left for guests. James went to sleep on the blanket as Edana explored the room.

  “Why did you come?” Agnes asked.

  “Mother’s jewelry,” Catherine reminded her. “You may have all of it if you like. There’s a gold cross I would like to save for Edana that belonged to our grandmother, but I have no need of the rest.”

  “You’ll need some to make a decent impression among Father’s friends,” Agnes insisted. “You can’t have people mistaking you for one of the servants.”

  “Perhaps you would prefer it if they did,” Catherine suggested sharply. She needed all her patience to deal with her children. There wasn’t much left for Agnes.

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am to be going where no one knows you.” Agnes stood as if to go. “You seem to take such joy in giving me shame.”

  “Catherine would never shame anyone with her manners!” Margaret exclaimed. “You should have seen the dress she wore to our castle. And the jewels. She looked as fine as a queen! Mother was very impressed.”

  Catherine smiled. “Thank you, Margaret. I’m doing better than when we were young, Agnes. I cover my hair most of the time, I remember to use my napkin at table and I don’t argue theology however much I’m provoked. At least not often.”

  Agnes looked doubtful, but returned to the box Catherine had brought. She glanced at a movement from the corner. “Should your daughter be eating that?”

  She gestured to where Edana was investigating a piece of metal she had uncovered from among the rushes and herbs.

  Catherine jumped up to grab the thing from the child before she cut herself.

  “No, no!” she said. “Not in the mouth!”

  She examined what Edana had found. “I thought you said the nuns cleaned here. What is it?”

  It was a roughly square piece of metal, about half the size of her palm. There was a sharp edge to it and holes at two of the corners.

  Margaret peered at it from her seat.

  “It looks like it fell off a leather tunic,” she guessed. “From a soldier’s gear?”

  “I suppose,” Catherine said. “It reminds me of something else. I’ll take it to Edgar. He’ll know.”

  She started to tie it up in her sleeve but Agnes leaped from her stool and snatched it from her.

  “It’s not yours,” she insisted. “You can’t just take things.”

  “But it’s just a bit of detritus left on the floor,” Catherine said. “Some visitor must have dropped it. It’s not as if it were a ruby.”

  “That’s not the point.” Agnes was firm. “I’ll give it to the nuns. The owner may return for it.”

  Catherine nodded. “Of course,” she said as soothingly as she could. “You never know. It may be have been a very strategically placed bit of metal. From over the heart, for instance.”

  Agnes’s hand shook as she tied the metal into her own sleeve. Her reaction surprised Catherine, but this was just one of many things she didn’t understand about her sister.

  Catherine picked up James, who flopped over her shoulder sound asleep. Margaret retrieved Edana from the corner, where she was still investigating.

  “If you’ll make a list of the jewelry you’ve taken,” Catherine told Agnes, “I’ll send one of Father’s men to bring back what’s left. I think we should be going now. You know that you’re welcome to stay with us. Margaret has our old room, but she can share or come down and sleep with us.”

  “I’ll never return until you totally disassociate yourself from those Jews,” Agnes answered. “Whatever their blood ties to us, there should be no spiritual ones and certainly no friendship. You may not care about the state of your soul, but I won’t risk damnation along with you.”

  “I have no fear for my soul,” Catherine answered proudly. “At least not from the arguments of the Jews. I love our cousin and won’t give up seeing him, just as I’ll never stop praying for him to wake to the true faith. Just as I pray for you to wake again to your family’s love.” Her voice softened. “To my love, Agnes. You’ll always be dear to me. You’re my only sister.”

  Agnes bit her lip and looked away. “I can’t risk my soul for sentiment,” she said.

  Catherine had meant to sweep out with a dignified swish of her garments but that was hard to do while burdened with an unconscious three-year-old and one’s cloak still hanging on a peg on the wall. So she contented herself with keeping back a sharp reply and bundling everyone up as quickly as she could.

  Eventually they were sorted out and left for the walk back to the Greve, the merchants’ quarter on the north bank of the Seine. The trip back took longer than the one there, for Catherine felt burdened by Agnes’s animosity as much as by the weight of her son.

  As they were heading down the rue de la Lanterne, toward the Grand Pont, Catherine noticed a disturbance to their right. She tried to look around James’s head to see wh
at it was.

  “There’s a crowd around the synogogue,” Margaret said. “What could they want?”

  “I don’t know,” Catherine said, although she feared that she did. “I think we should hurry past, don’t you?”

  She could hear the angry shouting as they went by and then the sound of rocks thrown against wooden shutters. Her first thought was to get her children to safety. The second was relief that Solomon and Uncle Eliazar were in Troyes far away from danger.

  But if this were happening in sensible Paris and weeks after Eastertide, what might be going on in other places? Could her father’s family be truly secure anywhere?

  They pushed their way across the bridge, fighting the people who had heard the commotion and come to investigate. It wasn’t until they were on their own street, with the gate in sight, that Catherine slowed down. She could hear Margaret panting behind her.

  “Father! Edgar!” she called as they entered the house. “There’s a mob attacking the juiverie!”

  No one answered. The house was silent.

  “Samonie! Willa!” Catherine called again for the servants. Still no answer.

  “Where could they all have gone?” Margaret asked. “None of the boys are here, either.”

  Catherine bit her lip in worry. It was unheard of for the house to be left empty. She set James on a pile of cushions on the floor and went to investigate.

  “Margaret, mind the baby and don’t go upstairs until I see what’s wrong.”

  “I will,” Margaret answered. “I mean, I won’t.”

  The quaver in her voice told Catherine how frightened she was.

  “Stulta!” she said to herself. “Margaret’s been through so much already. We brought her here to escape all that. You can’t expect her to be brave all the time.”

  “Perhaps she’d be happier someplace secure, like a convent.”

  Catherine swore as she continued up the stairs. She had no time now to start one of her internal arguments.

  “Samonie!” She called her maid. “Ullo! Hugh! Martin! Anyone?”

  All the rooms on the upper floors were empty. Catherine came down again, assured herself that Margaret was coping and went out to the kitchen. There was no one there, either. An iron kettle hung from a hook over the fire, which had recently been stoked. They hadn’t been gone long.

  She looked out the back window. The fruit trees were beginning to bud. The creek was still high from winter rain and had flooded the garden. In the summer it would be paradise. Now it just seemed forlorn and definitely uninhabited.

  She returned to the hall.

  “I don’t know where they’ve gone,” she told Margaret. “But there’s no point in rushing out to hunt for them since we have no idea where to start. We’ll just stay here and wait. Someone should return soon.”

  It went against every natural inclination for Catherine to remain. In the old days she would have run back at once to find out what was going on at the synagogue. But now, life was different. She sat next to James and laid her hand on his brown curls. He shifted in his sleep. Margaret had put Edana on a chamber pot and was encouraging her to make use of it. The child wasn’t happy with the idea. She preferred leaving presents in the soft rushes to depositing them in cold pottery.

  Catherine sighed. Yes, things were very different now. And so she would wait. But not patiently.

  It was nearly dark before they heard steps in the entry. Catherine had taken everyone into the kitchen, where she was tending the fire and chopping dried herbs to mix with honey and vinegar for a meat sauce.

  “I’m not going to go out there,” she told Margaret. “They can look for us for a change.”

  But she dropped the knife and went running when Edgar shouted.

  “Catherine! Hurry! He’s hurt!”

  Catherine stopped short at the doorway. Edgar was bleeding from a cut on his cheek, but Hubert was hanging unconscious between Ullo and Hugh, the boys straining to keep him upright until they could lay him on a bed.

  “Margaret, get the sauce I was making and some old bread,” Catherine ordered. “Ullo, put my father next to the hearth. Edgar, I’ll help you set up the bed. Has anyone called for a doctor?”

  “Mother and Willa went,” Hugh panted. “We met them coming through the market.”

  Margaret came back with the bowl. Catherine spread a mattress on the trestle bed she and Edgar had assembled, giving the girl directions at the same time.

  “Crumble the bread into the sauce until you have a paste. No, it doesn’t matter if it’s moldy. Those aren’t the right herbs but honey and vinegar should be enough.” She finished with the mattress. “There, now you boys can lower him onto it. Ullo, run to the storage chest for a blanket. Hugh, down to the creek for water.”

  She leaned over to examine Hubert. His skin was pale and his breathing shallow. She felt all over his head through the thick grey hair, but found no wound.

  “What’s wrong with him?” she demanded. “What happened, Edgar? Oh, carissime! Are you all right?”

  Edgar knelt next to her, wiping the blood from his cheek with his left arm.

  “Isaac the draper came to us, saying that there was a mob outside the synagogue. He wanted your father to help,” Edgar began.

  “So, of course, you went,” Catherine said. “You didn’t think of sending to the palace for the guards.”

  “We wanted to see how bad it was first.” Edgar winced as Catherine wiped his cut with a clean cloth and then spread the paste over it.

  “It will dry soon and keep out putrefaction,” she told him. “Don’t touch it. I knew something was happening; we went near there on our way back from seeing Agnes. What started it?”

  “I’m not sure,” Edgar said. “It began in a tavern, most likely. From what I could get, someone said that a lot more people could join the king’s pilgrimage if they had the money of the Jews. Then someone else said it wasn’t right that Jews should profit from the misfortunes of the King of Jerusalem. Someone else mentioned Judas and the crucifixion. Then one idea stood upon another until there was a crowd bent on storming the synagogue and stealing all the gold and jewels kept there—”

  “But, Edgar, there’s nothing at the synagogue but the books they use in their service,” Catherine interrupted.

  “That’s what Abraham the vintner tried to tell them, when they demanded gold,” Edgar said. “And then your father arrived. He pushed through to Abraham’s side and shouted that the people must be mad to attack their neighbors. It wasn’t the right thing to say.”

  They both looked at Hubert.

  “Someone yelled that he was no better than a Jew, himself,” Edgar continued. “I thought Hubert was going to say something really dangerous then, so I tried to get to him to stop him. That’s when they started throwing things. You’d be amazed at the hard objects that just lie about in the street for any fool to use as a weapon. I think I was hit by a ragged-edged bone.”

  “And Father?”

  Edgar shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t see what happened. I was between him and the crowd so I don’t think he was hit. He just suddenly slumped against the wall. It was shortly after that the king’s guards appeared and broke things up. The boys and I thought it would be best to bring Hubert home, but it took some time to carry him through the streets.”

  “And no one offered to help you?” Catherine’s lips tightened.

  “We were nearly here when we saw Samonie and sent her for Master Clement,” Edgar finished. He didn’t want to discuss the time they had had getting Hubert back, nor the things the kindly inhabitants of Paris had yelled at them.

  Catherine leaned over her father. He was breathing, but his skin was clammy and grey.

  “There seems to be no sign of a blow, but he’s so still. I don’t know what to do.” Catherine swallowed her tears. “Why doesn’t the doctor come?”

  It seemed forever before Samonie returned with the doctor, although it was really but a few moments before the man arrived. In the
meantime all Catherine could think of was to keep her father warm and to put herbal compresses on his feet to draw out whatever evil was keeping him from waking.

  The serving woman had dragged the doctor from his meal and insisted that he accompany her. He didn’t try to hide his irritation when he came in.

  “She told me that Master Hubert was dying,” he said. “He’d better be. My wife whipped up egg and quince jam to pour over lamb tonight. Do you know what that tastes like cold?

  “Oh, my!” he said when he saw Hubert. He was instantly serious. “How long has he been like this?”

  “Perhaps an hour,” Edgar told him. “There was a crowd, shouting and pelting us with street refuse, but I don’t think he was hit.”

  “Nor do I.” The doctor took off his cloak and tunic and rolled up his sleeves. He listened to Hubert’s breathing and his heart. “When was he last bled?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Catherine said.

  “Idiot! I told him the last time we met that a man in his fifties has to take care of himself.” The doctor turned to Edgar. “I’ll need a urine specimen. However, I believe that he has allowed his humors to become decidedly imbalanced and the excitment today simply pushed them too far. As you can see, he’s cold and moist, when he should be warm and dry.”

  “What can we do?” Catherine begged. “Will he waken?”

  The man pursed his lips. “I think so, but he must be bled as soon as he does. At least you’ve kept him warm. Take the poultice off his feet and apply one to his head. When he does wake, give him a broth made of partridge, with fennel, marjoram and leeks. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Partridge!” Edgar said, when the man had left. “Where can we find partridge this time of year?”

  “Veal will do,” Catherine answered. “It just has to have warm and dry properties. Ullo, run down to the butcher and see if you can get a soup bone.”