Cursed in the Blood: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Newman, Sharan

  “Why do you want me to go?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I don’t want you to go.” The honesty in Hubert’s voice was unmistakeable. “But I think you should. I shall miss you and worry about you every day.”

  “Really?” Catherine said. “I mean you really believe that it’s my duty to go to Scotland?”

  “With all my heart,” Hubert told her.

  “Edgar?”

  “Your father made me see that it might be best if you met my family,” Edgar said. He didn’t sound as certain as Hubert had. “I have my doubts about it. There is war in England and the North is unsettled by it. The journey won’t be easy.”

  “No journey ever is.” Catherine dismissed that.

  “I would miss you terribly if you stayed behind.” This was said with more conviction. “If I must go, I would rather you were with me.”

  Catherine smiled. She wasn’t sure how she had won so easily but she wasn’t going to complain lest they change their minds. Time enough to ferret out the reason when it was too late for them to back out.

  Suddenly Edgar spoke in English.

  “You can come in, Robert. I can hear your breathing out there. And, yes, I’ve decided to come back with you.”

  Since he’d been found out, Robert pulled the curtain aside and came in. He rushed over and gave Edgar a bear hug. Then he hugged Catherine as well.

  “I understand more than you think!” he said. “She’s talked you into coming, hasn’t she?”

  He grabbed Catherine and lifted, whirling her around.

  “Thank you, bele soeur!” he cried. “Thank you!”

  Catherine grinned at Edgar as she flew past him.

  “I presume this means he likes me?”

  Edgar nodded, then went over to the window where Hubert sat. He stood there for a moment, looking out across the garden to the stream and the town of Paris beyond it. This was Catherine’s world. She had lived most of her life by the hours rung on the bells of Paris. How could he prepare her for the emptiness, the wildness, of Scotland? Or for the bleak homecoming he expected?

  Solomon prepared for the trip as well, but was determined to sulk through the whole process.

  “So, what do I have to be this time?” he asked. “I doubt that Catherine could remember to call me Stephen.”

  “She won’t have to,” Edgar said. “There are men named Solomon in Scotland, and I’m certain none of them are Hebrew. We use the old names more than they do here.”

  “Ah, but you still don’t think I could go as myself?” Solomon had expected this.

  Edgar had managed to get his English friend John to take Robert out for an afternoon so that they could meet with Eliazar and discuss the monetary aspect of the journey.

  “I hate making you pretend to be one of them, Solomon,” Eliazar muttered. “There’s no profit anywhere worth risking your soul.”

  Solomon patted his uncle’s shoulder.

  “No one is making me do this,” he said. “After all these years, there’s no chance of my converting. I promise you I’ll not touch pork or take Communion.”

  Eliazar shuddered at the thought.

  “It has to be,” Hubert reminded him. “If he’s going with Catherine and Edgar. His resemblance to her is too strong.”

  Solomon grinned at his cousin. The black curls, the olive skin, the straight, determined nose were the same in each of them. Solomon’s eyes were green and Catherine’s blue and Solomon’s beard covered the chin that was also the same as hers, but no one seeing them together would believe they weren’t related.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t let anyone torment you,” Catherine assured him.

  “Except yourself, of course,” he added, reaching out to tweak her hair. She moved to avoid him and fell off her stool.

  Hubert glared at them both. “You are both too old for that sort of nonsense,” he warned. “Solomon, no one is going to take you for a serious merchant’s representative if you are seen pulling your cousin’s braids. And, Catherine, you should remember that you’re a married woman and keep those braids covered.”

  “Yes, Father.” Catherine was tempted to pull her skirt up to cover her hair but decided that age did indeed bring wisdom and resisted the impulse.

  “Now, have we finished with the school room long enough to plan what you’ll need to take with you?”

  Solomon and Catherine folded their hands like children and prepared to behave.

  Everything was finally ready. Gifts assembled and wrapped. Clothing chosen and packed. Guards hired for as far as Boulogne, and Samonie convinced to let Willa go along as nursemaid to James, a decision that Catherine was infinitely grateful for.

  “I truly couldn’t bear to be parted from him,” she told Edgar as they prepared for bed the last night before going. “But I don’t think I could manage to take care of him on my own.”

  “I still think we should bring a wet nurse as well,” Edgar said. “What if the travel causes your milk to stop flowing?”

  “You know how I feel about that,” she answered “All the authorities agree that a child needs to be fed by its own mother. Saint Ida found that a wet nurse had fed one of her sons and made him vomit the foreign milk. But it was too late; the other two sons became kings but Eustace was only a count.”

  “I’m sure that proves something,” Edgar said. “But James has little chance of becoming even a count, in any case.”

  “Edgar.” Catherine started to speak, then stopped and looked at the floor. Edgar realized that the subject was about to change radically.

  “Catherine? What is it now? I know you.” He bent down and took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look up. “Something is gnawing at you and you won’t be content until it’s been stopped. Now, what is it?”

  She closed her eyes, her lips twisted in embarrassment.

  “It’s just that you still seem unhappy about my coming with you … . I keep wondering what there could be in Scotland that you don’t want me to see, and … it really doesn’t matter if you … especially before we met.” She sighed again.

  Edgar’s sigh echoed hers. “Catherine,” he started, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice, “if that’s what you’re worrying about, don’t. I left no bastards behind at home, no women pinning for me and no one I want to return for. Why don’t you trust me?”

  “I do trust you,” she answered. “It’s myself I doubt. What do I have to keep you here but your own sense of honor? The past few years have been so hard for you. You gave up everything for me.”

  “Stulta carissima!” Edgar hugged her tightly. “How many ways do I have to say it? I gave up nothing for you. I found everything, more than I ever dreamed possible on this earth. I love you sacreli-giously. I adore our son. I want no life other than with you. There is nothing calling me back to Scotland but duty. Is that clear? Now, please stop moping.”

  She had buried her face in his tunic. When she looked back up at him, the imprint of his sliver brooch was on her cheek.

  “I know I’m being foolish,” she said. “But I also know there’s a lot you haven’t told me and I have the feeling that there’s something your brother isn’t telling us, either. Whatever it is, we need to be together to face it.”

  “And James?” Edgar countered. “Would you risk him, as well?”

  “It would kill me to leave him,” Catherine said. “And I must go with you. So we’ll have to have faith that the Holy Apostle who granted us the miracle of his birth will continue to watch over him.”

  “It may be that it’s because of James that I even considered obeying my father’s command to return,” Edgar said. “No one could have warned me that I could feel so intensely about a being so small, useless and smelly. Every time I look at him, I want …”

  “I know.” Catherine leaned against his shoulder. “I do, too. I’m sorry I’m acting so oddly. I don’t really fear you’ll want to abandon us for some woman of your own race.”

  “That’s good,” he said and put
his arm around her, steadying them both.

  “But, Edgar.” She kept her eyes on the cradle and his rough hand, so huge next to the baby’s. “I do sense something very wrong about all this, and although I intend to see it through, I’m still very frightened.”

  Edgar didn’t respond. She had no idea of what they were running away from or what they were heading into. He did.

  And he was terrified.

  Three

  The North Sea, a day out of Niewpoort, Flanders. Saturday, 2 ides of June

  (June 12), 1143. The feast of Saints Basilidus, Cyrini, Nabor and Nazar.

  Roman soldiers martyred under Diocletian.

  Cernens autem Edgarus Ethlinge … ascensa navi cum matre et sororibus in

  patriam reverti, qua natus fuerat, conabatur. Sed summus imperator, qui

  ventis imperat et mari, mare commovet, et spiritu procellarum exalti sunt

  fluctus ejus. Saeviente vero tempestate, omnes in desperatione vitœ positi,

  sese Deo commendant, et puppim pelago committunt. Igitur post plurima

  pericula … coacti sunt in Scociam applicare.

  Edgar Atheling … with his sisters and mother, boarded a ship,

  attempting to return to the country where he was born. But the Lord

  above all, who rules the winds and seas, disturbed its waters. The

  waves rose with the force of the tempest. In the raging storm, with

  everyone despairing for their lives, they commended themselves

  to God, and entrusted the boat to the sea. Therefore, after many

  dangers … they were compelled to land in Scotland.

  —Johannes de Fordun,

  Chronica Gentis Scottorum,

  Liber V Captitulum xiv

  “I’m dying,” Catherine moaned. “Edgar, for mercy’s sake, please don’t take a second wife who will be cruel to my son!”

  Edgar looked down at her and laughed heartlessly.

  “You’re not dying,” he informed her. “You’ll be fine soon. It’s a beautiful day. The winds are with us. We should see the coast of Northumbria by tomorrow.”

  Catherine lifted her head an inch off the deck and regretted the movement immediately.

  “I hate you,” she croaked. “Go away.”

  She turned her face back to the wall of the canvas shelter and tried vainly to pretend the world was still.

  Edgar bent to give Catherine a comforting pat, but decided it was better simply to obey her and leave. He stopped at the doorway to check that Willa was not suffering as badly as Catherine and that James was content in his sling, which had been nailed to a frame on the deck so that he would stay steady as the boat rolled. The baby was sleeping soundly. Edgar went over to the windward rail where Solomon was leaning out, his black curls blown into Gordian knots by the breeze.

  “Is she any better?” Solomon asked.

  “She’s able to speak,” Edgar said. “Though I’d almost rather she weren’t.”

  “Perhaps we should have taken the risk and gone through Normandy to Calais,” Solomon said. “We could have made the crossing in just a few hours.”

  Edgar shook his head. “Absolutely not. That would mean another week going north on dangerous roads, with robbers at every turn and no guarantee of a safe place to rest the night. I wish we could sail even farther north and land at Berwick.”

  “It’s that bad in England? What does your brother say? How did he make his way to France?”

  “He came through York and out the Humber,” Edgar told him. “He says the journey is better now than when I was last there, but still not worth the risk. No, the water is friendlier. Well, it is for most of us. Poor Catherine! I never thought she’d have such trouble with seasickness.”

  “Neither did she,” Solomon answered. “Remember, she’d never seen anything wider than the Seine before this trip. It’s not something one can describe.”

  “How will we ever get her home?” Edgar worried.

  “We won’t,” Solomon told him. “Catherine will have to find the courage herself.”

  He looked out at the empty sea. “I only hope we have a home to come back to.”

  Catherine was miserable. Once the worst of the motion sickness passed, she felt a fool. No one else was suffering like this. What was wrong with her?

  “It doesn’t matter what’s wrong, girl.” Catherine bit back a curse. Sweet Virgin! Four years out of the convent and the voices of her teachers still haunted her. Catherine cringed, but the voices in her head continued. “Stop whining! Bear your affliction with patience. You’re a grown woman, with a baby to care for. What will happen to James without you?”

  Cautiously, Catherine sat up. She groaned. The long swells were pushing her stomach up and down with the boat. And the smell made it even worse. Thank God the traders were on their way to England to buy skins for tanning and not on the return. The cargo on this trip was finished cloth. She didn’t think she could have stood the odor of fresh animal skin along with the tar and fish smells that permeated the air. Bile rose in her throat and she leaned over the bucket they had left for her. Why couldn’t anyone see that she was in extremis? Edgar was cruel and unfeeling and probably had a new wife selected and waiting for him in Scotland.

  “Willa?” she whispered.

  The girl was beside her at once.

  “Any better, Mistress?” she asked.

  “Perhaps I’ll wait until tomorrow to die,” Catherine answered without conviction. “Is the baby all right? I haven’t heard him.”

  “Fine,” Willa answered. “He’s awake now and watching everything. He seems to like the rocking of the waves.”

  “Little traitor,” Catherine muttered. “He must get it from his father. Well then, he’ll want to eat soon. Can you get me something gentle to drink before you bring him to me? Flat beer, perhaps? I’m worried that my milk will stop if I have nothing in my stomach.”

  “Of course.” Willa raised the tent flap to leave. She hesitated, then spoke again. “It wouldn’t make any difference if a wet nurse had come with us. She would likely have had the same problems as you.”

  Catherine smiled. “Thank you, Willa. How did you know I was regretting not bringing one?”

  “I just guessed,” the girl answered. “But you’ve no need for regret. Look at you, almost sitting up. You’re much better. In your worry for James, you’ve overcome your own illness. So it’s all to the good, isn’t it?”

  Her words cheered Catherine, even though they were inaccurate. She felt terrible. She was drenched in her own sweat. Her skin, normally a light olive-brown, was now an unripe-olive green. The boat crested a wave and slid into the hollow. Catherine shut her eyes and lay down again. Why had no one told her that the sea was so unstable?

  Edgar was slurping down pickled eel, letting the juice drip onto a slab of rye bread balanced on his knees. He took a long swig of beer from the gourd that was being passed around and belched appreciatively.

  The captain nodded approval. “You’d have made a good Viking,” he commented. “Both of you,” he added as he passed the beer to Robert.

  Robert grunted and pretended to drink. He wasn’t as good a sailor as Edgar but he’d be damned and fried if he let on.

  There was one other passenger on the boat, a young cleric named Leonel. He took no part in the camaraderie. When he wasn’t hanging over the side, he sat and glared at those who were obviously enjoying the journey. Seeing him so miserable, Solomon had tried to help him, but Leonel’s only response was to moan and wave him away.

  Solomon went back to the group and sat beside Edgar.

  Edgar leaned back. “They say our family came to England with Hengst and Horsa,” he said. “But I suspect there’s a bit of Danish in us, too. We’ve lived in the North several generations now.”

  Solomon took a strip of eel and lowered it into his mouth. “Can’t understand why Catherine’s so ill,” he said. “We come from a long line of Saracen pirates.”

  There was a silen
ce from the sailors as they studied Solomon’s dark features. Solomon grinned at them wickedly and Edgar rolled his eyes. At last the captain decided it was a joke and they all laughed.

  “We don’t get Saracens much in the North Sea,” he said. “But there are still Danes who roam the coasts, especially north of the Humber. They haven’t forgotten Viking ways.”

  “I’ve seen them in the east, sailing up the Dnieper,” Solomon told them, serious now. “They aren’t too fond of other traders. Board, steal, kill and sink seems to be their general strategy.”

  The captain agreed. “But we’ve had no trouble with them so far this year. Perhaps they decided that they had plundered Northumbria to the bone or maybe King David’s justice has finally reached them. Whatever the reason, I’m grateful. We have a steady supplier in Wearmouth who saves the best of the skins for us. He’s even promised a brace of hunting dogs that I can sell at a fine profit in Bouillon. I may be able to put out two boats by next Saint John’s Eve.”

  He paused and gave them a nervous glance. “Forgive my blether,” he added quickly. “I know men like you have no interest in trade, unless you hold the tithes for some seaport. If you do, forget everything I just said. Trade is terrible. The sea takes most of what I earn.”

  He regarded them with suspicion. Edgar laughed.

  “Do I look like an abbot?” he asked. “Or an earl? We’re lucky in my family if we can collect the cornage and have enough left over for conveth when the king comes visiting.”

  “Ah, yes. There’s a lot of you like that now,” the captain said. “The North’s full of Saxon lords trying to hold on to what they can all the while hunting for a rich marriage with one of the Normans’ daughters.”

  Edgar tensed.

  “Our family doesn’t have to marry to reclaim our own land,” he said.

  Beside him Robert wiggled uncomfortably. Edgar looked at him.

  “Are you ill, Brother?” he asked.