“Peter,” she breathed. “You promised me you would be immortal. I’m holding you to that. It’s hard enough to live each day, knowing you’re somewhere else, that you can never stay with me. But if I lose even the hope of seeing you again, I will die.”
Slowly his eyes opened and he smiled at her.
“Dilectissima,” he said, “I will be immortal. Do you think an intellect such as mine can be extinguished so easily? Are you now becoming like those grey vultures who expect me to humbly bow before their superior faith? Ridiculous! I intend to outlive them all.”
Héloïse’s eyes filled but her voice remained steady.
“That’s better,” she said.
“I don’t know what the lady abbess was thinking of,” the lay brother Baldwin said as he ladled the last of the turnip soup out for Edgar and Astrolabe. “It’s Good Friday; you boys should be fasting. Bad enough that those men of the count’s demanded the last of the wheat bread and then wanted fish, as if we had any.”
“There’s nothing in the vivarium?” Astrolabe looked out the window to the spot in the river netted on three sides so that fish coming downstream would be trapped.
“There haven’t been many yet this spring; what we salted from the gift of Felix of Bossenay is almost gone. Those mesels wouldn’t have wanted it anyway. They prefer the taste of blood.”
“Just so it isn’t ours,” Edgar said as he ate his soup. “Why are they here, in any case?”
“It’s convent business, I shouldn’t tell outsiders,” Baldwin said. He took out some barley bread and began cutting it. They waited. “Of course, you aren’t really outsiders … .”
Edgar smiled; Astrolabe kicked him under the table.
“Of course not,” he said. “What’s been happening here? When I mentioned that Father was ill, Prioress Astane told me the infirmary was not yet fully cleansed. What has happened?”
“Oh, the smell is something dreadful! It was horrible; there were maggots in her living flesh! I haven’t seen an infection that bad since I left the Holy Land. I don’t believe her people did anything to help her until they brought her here.”
“The poor woman!” Astrolabe crossed himself. “Who was she?”
“The wife of the count of Tonnerre. And now Count Raynald is trying to cause scandal in the convent, shouting that we forced his wife to take the veil just to steal her property. As if the lady Héloïse would stoop to such a thing! He’s just like his father! No respect for the Church!”
Brother Baldwin rose, jabbing with his bread knife as if the count were there to be sliced.
Edgar and Astrolabe looked at each other gloomily. Edgar shook his head.
“Is there nothing concerned with your family that doesn’t involve scandal?” he asked.
“My parents do seem to attract it,” Astrolabe admitted. “But our notoriety needn’t bother you. You are simply here to retrieve your bride.”
Edgar was glad he wasn’t holding a breadknife.
“Do you imagine that either Catherine or I could return to Paris with the Paraclete threatened and Master Abelard sick and beset by enemies?” Edgar’s voice rose. “We have already proved our loyalty, how dare you doubt it!”
“We?” Astrolabe’s eyebrows rose. “Not even married and already you speak for her. What would Catherine say to that?”
“That he was right, Astrolabe.”
Both men started.
“Catherine! How long have you been here?” Astrolabe recovered first.
“Only a moment. I’m supposed to be hiding in the chapter until the count has left,” she said as she came and sat down next to Edgar.
Brother Baldwin looked at her askance and stood behind them as chaperon. Under the table, Edgar took Catherine’s hand. She sighed happily. He had spoken just as she would have. Her fears were ridiculous. No one who understood her that well would ever hurt her.
Those are the ones Who can hurt you the most, the voices taunted. She clenched her teeth and ignored them.
“There must be something we can do,” she said. “I believe Count Raynald is afraid we’ll discover that he caused his wife’s death.”
“Did he?” Astrolabe asked.
“He must have,” Catherine said. “In one way or another. He’s cruel and proud. He didn’t care if she died. He only wanted a reason to attack Walter of Grancy.”
“Catherine,”—Edgar removed his hand—“I can’t see that it would be worth killing one’s wife just to provoke a blood feud. Laming a horse is excuse enough.”
“He probably cared too much for his horse,” Catherine sniffed.
“And he didn’t have to bring Alys to the Paraclete,” Astrolabe added. “He could have let her die at her own home.”
“Yes, but there might have been more questions then,” Catherine countered. “It would seem a pious act, bringing her here. How could he know she would awaken? That was a kind of miracle.”
“Yes, there is reason in that,” Edgar said. “But not enough for an accusation. How can we prove it?”
“And what difference would it make to the countess’s bequest?” Astrolabe added.
Catherine frowned. “He couldn’t keep her dower if he had murdered her, could he? I don’t know the law; would it be decided at the court of Count Thibault? He would never make a judgement against Mother Héloïse.”
“I don’t think so,” Edgar said. “Isn’t Tonnerre a fief of the king’s?”
“But Raynald only holds it from his father, William of Nevers, so it would be … no, the property couldn’t be decided in his own father’s court, could it?” Catherine shook her head. “I can never remember who holds what from whom. It may be that the whole matter should be decided by Archbishop Henry. I think we should first find out what really happened to Alys and let the law sort itself out.”
“But how?” Astrolabe asked.
The three of them stared in deep concentration at the empty soup bowls until Brother Baldwin made a pointed comment about getting ready for the afternoon service, which was already later than usual, due to the interruptions. But none of them had formed a brilliant plan. With a guilty start, Catherine got up quickly to go and then swayed dizzily.
“Catherine? Are you ill?” Edgar was glad of an excuse to hold her.
Astrolabe gently pulled her away and set her on her feet.
“When did you last eat?” he asked.
“Eat? I don’t remember.” She tried to think. “I couldn’t face the bread last night. I kept imagining maggots. I drank my water. I suppose I ate Wednesday.”
“Catherine! And you let me sit here gorging on turnip soup!” Edgar said. “Brother Baldwin, Catherine is starving, give her some bread, at least.”
“No, Brother Baldwin,” Catherine said firmly. “I am still a member of this community and I wish to abide by the Rule. After the service we will have bread and water. I doubt I’ll die of hunger before then.”
“You won’t stand with me in the church transept, then?” Edgar asked. “You intend to stay with the nuns?”
Catherine took his hands.
“I have made my choice to marry you, Edgar, and I do not regret it,” she smiled and lowered her eyes. “In fact, I’d like to begin at once.”
“Well, then …” He began to pull her to him.
“But,” she added, “I would like to share the service with my sisters one last time, as far as I am permitted. I will see you tomorrow and then, after Easter, I never want to be apart from you again. Can you understand that?”
“The last part, very easily.” His arms went around her waist.
Astrolabe spent a moment studying the design of a water pitcher while Catherine became further convinced that there were many compensations for giving up the convent.
“You’re going to be late for the service,” Brother Baldwin warned her again, when it began to appear that Catherine was more in danger of suffocation than starvation. He placed a hand heavily on Edgar’s shoulder.
Reluctantly, Edgar let he
r go.
Catherine reached the cloister just in time to get in line at the end, behind the lay sisters. Silently, they all filed into the choir. The consecrated virgins came in first, with the other moniales behind them and then the lay sisters. Héloïse and Prioress Astane stood in front, one on each side. Hersende, the chantress, faced them. The choir screen running across the nave, just behind the transept, hid them from the view of the people of the town of Saint-Aubin who had come to the service and stood in the left side of the transept.
There was a rustle of whispers from the other side of the screen and Catherine wished she could see what was happening. She strained to hear what the voices were saying, but she was too far away.
On the other side of the screen, Astrolabe and Edgar stood with the townspeople. In their worn woolen cloaks, they blended in easily. The convent church was really only an oratory, too small to hold large numbers of worshippers. It reminded Edgar of the local church at home, with children sitting on the floor at their parents’ feet, thumbs in their mouths, quieted with threats or promises. These weren’t querulous, sophisticated Parisians who demanded entertainment with their devotions, but peasants and craftsmen for whom the plain ritual of Holy Week was enough to comfort and refresh.
Astrolabe nudged him from his reflections.
“Isn’t that Count Raynald?” he asked, pointing to the man leaning against the transept wall, looking bored. “I thought he was leaving.”
“Apparently not,” Edgar said. “I’ve never seen him before, but he fits Catherine’s description. He doesn’t look as though he’s here to make peace with the abbess.”
“If he tries to interrupt the service, I’ll …” Astrolabe stopped. The door to the sacristy had opened and the clergy entered the sanctuary.
The people around them began whispering in pleased excitement. They had not known that Abelard was visiting.
Father Guiberc chanted the opening collect. Then, giving his arm to Abelard, he helped the master to the lectern. Abelard bowed his head a second, then began: “Haec dicit Dominus: In tribulatione sua mane consurgent ad me: Venite, et revertamur ad Dominum, quia ipse cepit, et sanabit nos; percutiet, et curabit nos, …”
Catherine listened to the melodic voice and realized it was Master Abelard. She couldn’t believe he had recovered so quickly. The world was full of small miracles. “Come, let us return to the Lord, for it is he who has wounded and he will heal us, he has struck us down and he will bind us up, …” God healed Abelard so that he could perform the service for his daughters in Christ once more. But, Catherine remembered at once, no one had healed Alys; she had been struck down and no one had lifted her up.
Catherine’s anger began to burn again. The words of Hosea rolled through her without meaning until the end of the passage.
“Quia misericordiam volui, et non sacrificium; et scientiam Dei plus quam holocausta.” “For I desire compassion and not sacrifice; and understanding of God more than burnt offerings.”
As the chantress rose to intone the tract from Habakkuk which followed, Catherine felt properly chastised.
Edgar kept a close watch on Count Raynald throughout the long service. The count took no part in the prayers or responses. He didn’t seem moved by Abelard’s sermon on the Passion or by the unearthly beauty of the singing of the sisters. Why was the man there? What did he want? For a moment Edgar had the wild thought that Raynald was attending on the chance of hearing something heretical to help destroy Abelard and the Paraclete with him. But that was nonsense. Edgar doubted the count could follow the sermon, much less take notes on it. The man must be plotting some revenge. When, at the end of the service, Raynald left the church, Edgar resolved to follow him.
After the service, the nuns went to the refectory for their one meal of the day. Catherine ate her bread slowly, afraid her stomach would reject it. The stench of the sickroom still lurked in her nose. While the bread was deciding what it would do, Catherine noticed Paciana leave the lay sisters’ side of the room. She signaled a request to go also, indicating that she was not feeling well, and hurried after her.
Paciana was not returning to the building where the lay sisters slept. She had gathered up her skirts and was heading outside the convent to the tiny graveyard.
When Catherine saw where she was going, it occurred to her that perhaps she shouldn’t follow. It was a private grief. It was not her right to intrude.
She slowed her steps and hid behind a tree. Watching wasn’t as bad as intruding, she told herself.
Her voices were too outraged to comment.
Paciana knelt by the new grave. The ground was lumpy with clods left behind by the diggers. She threw herself forward, lying on her face across the mound of earth. She made no sound although her face was streaked with tears and dirt. She pushed herself up and, ripping open her tunic, she dug her fingernails into her chest, clawing across her breasts until there were deep streaks of blood.
“We have to stop her!” a voice hissed in her ear.
Catherine nearly cried out. Edgar put his fingers to her lips.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she hissed back.
“Neither of us should,” he answered. “Who is she?”
“Her name is Paciana,” Catherine said. “You’re right. We must keep her from hurting herself. But she will be furious if she knows we’ve been watching. Why did you follow me?”
“I didn’t,” Edgar said. “I followed him.”
Catherine looked where he was pointing. At the edge of the cemetery stood Count Raynald.
“You! Woman!” he shouted. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
Stunned, Paciana quickly covered herself before she looked up.
Count Raynald moved closer to her in the twilight.
“Don’t think you can fool me with some fake show of grief,” he sneered. “All you want from Alys is her property. That abbess of yours has no business …”
His voice stopped as if snuffed out. He had seen her face.
“‘Ciana!” he said. “Oh, Paciana!”
Catherine listened in astonishment. She had never heard the count speak with a trace of emotion before, and now …
He was almost crying. “Dear God, ’Ciana, they told me you were dead!”
Paciana remained kneeling in the soft earth, one hand holding her ripped tunic against her chest. Her face showed no emotion and she rose to her feet and backed away from Raynald.
For the last time in her life, Paciana spoke.
“I am dead,” she said.
Seven
The cemetery of the Paraclete,
twilight, Good Friday, April 5, 1140
Habet effrenis elatio hoc amplius surperbia ut, cum hec superioritatem, illa nichilominus dedignetur paritem …
He who has unbridled conceit is worse than one who is proud, for the latter thinks no one is his superior, while the former believes no one is his equal …
—Abbot Suger,
Vita Ludovici Grossi Regis
Paciana turned and walked slowly back toward the convent. Raynald moved as if to follow her, then shook his head and stumbled in the opposite direction, toward the town. In their hiding place, Catherine and Edgar watched in astonishment.
“What just happened?” Edgar asked.
“I’m not sure,” Catherine said. “In all the time I’ve been here, Paciana has never made a sound. She must have been terribly upset to break her vow. I swore I would say nothing about her, Edgar. I promised, so I can’t explain why I believe this. But I’m sure she knows what happened to Raynald’s wife.”
“Her grief was not that of a stranger,” Edgar said.
“No, she knew the countess,” Catherine admitted. “But I don’t understand this at all. What is she to the count? I thought she had been here since long before his marriage to Alys. Oh, Edgar, why are people’s lives so tangled? Things should move in straight lines, nice and clear, from birth to heaven, without all this pain.”
Edgar held her more tightly,
his cheek against the curls that had once again tumbled loose onto her forehead.
“So they should,” he said. “So ours should. But I have no power to make it happen. I wish I did, min leoffœst.”
Catherine sighed and then smiled as she felt the roughness of his jaw against her face. She ran her fingers across the stubble on his chin.
“I’m glad you don’t,” she said. “You’d be insufferable if you were omnipotent.”
“Catherine.” He kissed her again, thoroughly enough that she began to wonder whether the ground were very uncomfortable and whether a bit more mud on her robes would be that obvious. With an effort, she broke away.
“Edgar, it’s Easter Vigil,” she reminded them both.
“Yes, yes.” He inhaled deeply to clear his head. “You are quite right, and the rain seems to have started again. We should return at once.”
They hurried back to the guesthouse, but not quickly enough. Prioress Astane stood at the door, arms crossed.
“Catherine,” she said. “I saw you leave the cloister. And now you return alone with this man! I cannot allow such flouting of the rules of proper behavior. You gave no thought to the reputation of your community. I’m ashamed of you.”
Edgar stepped in front of Catherine.
“She is not a member of your community any longer, Sister,” he said. “She is my betrothed and we have done nothing dishonorable.”
The Devil's Door: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Page 8