Cursed in the Blood: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Newman, Sharan

  They reached the women’s rooms. Sitting on the floor by the window was Margaret along with Anna’s son. They were dutifully rocking the cradles of the two babies, both of the children watching with rapt delight as Willa’s long fingers tied bits of string, cloth and sticks into figures. A horse, a monk, a knight with a sword, these were already set on the floor next to her. As she worked, Willa hummed a song from Champagne. The children didn’t look up as their mothers entered.

  The tears Adalisa had fought so hard to control came rushing out. Quickly she went to her clothes chest, opened it and began rummaging in its depths as if looking for something. There the tears fell from her face onto wool acrid with dried herbs.

  Willa stopped her song when they entered. She smiled at Catherine.

  “James is awake, Mistress,” she said. “The other baby is sleeping still. Did you have a good dinner?”

  There was no answer to that. Catherine took out the bread and gave it to the girl, then bent over James’s cradle. Her son looked up at her with his father’s eyes.

  “What cursed place have we come to?” she murmured, as she lifted him and settled herself to give him his dinner.

  Anna and Sibilla watched her with something between contempt and wonder. Catherine ignored them. She was used to the belief that only peasants breastfed. But all the scholars agreed that weaknesses and flaws in the character could be drawn in with strange milk, so she held to her determination. Edgar had assured her that King David’s mother had nursed all her own children. If a sainted queen could, she told people, so could she.

  The women lost interest in her oddity after a moment and retreated to a corner to discuss the events of the afternoon. Adalisa emerged from the woolens, her emotions conquered. She seated herself on the rushes next to Catherine and gestured to Margaret to join her.

  The child came, still clutching her new toys. Adalisa wrapped her arms around her and rubbed her face against Margaret’s soft, bright curls. Then she gave Catherine a rueful smile.

  “There are too many men in this family,” she announced.

  Catherine smiled back.

  “Perhaps that’s why we really send our sons out for fostering,” she suggested. “They’re too much like their fathers to all live together in unity.”

  Adalisa nodded with a sigh. “Now, I imagine you want to know what all that was about.”

  “Among other things,” Catherine answered.

  Adalisa gave her a puzzled glance, but went on to explain the gist of the argument that had gone on below. Catherine listened while James fed contentedly.

  “I see,” she said when the story was ended. “It’s strange. I don’t know the customs of this place, but it appears to me as if these deeds are the act of someone deliberately trying to demean Lord Waldeve. His sons murdered and mutilated like felons, his horses returned as if worthless. Is this usual behavior in Scottish feuds?”

  “Not in the least,” Adalisa said. “Revenge is brutal here, even with the efforts of King David to make people bring their grievances to his court. But it’s also straightforward. A man has a grudge against his neighbor and he kills him in the open and sticks his head above the gate for all to see. This … this desecration, it’s unnatural.”

  Catherine agreed. “And you have no idea who would want to behave so?”

  It seemed to her that Adalisa hesitated.

  “No,” she said. “My husband has never felt the need for friends, but in his own way, he is honorable. He has never betrayed his lord, which is almost a miracle in these times of shifting allegiances. He isn’t kind to those under him, but he is just, I believe. He’s more cruel to his family than to his slaves.”

  Catherine had seen enough in her short time at Wedderlie to believe this. She shifted James to the other breast and asked another question.

  “Why do you think the horses were returned to Hexham? Where is it?”

  “Southwest of here,” Adalisa answered. “Just past the Roman wall.”

  “Is it in Scotland or England?” Catherine asked.

  “That depends on whom you ask,” Adalisa said. “At the moment, King David and his son, Earl Henry, have the greatest claim. But the church of Hexham is under the protection of the archbishop of York.”

  “Does Edgar’s family have any connection there?”

  Again a hesitation. Was Adalisa preparing a lie or simply trying to remember?

  “Edgar and Robert had a friend who grew up at Hexham,” she said at last. “Robert gave some money for the rebuilding of the church of Saint Peter there. Waldeve, of course, refused. It’s not much of a connection but there’s nothing else that I know of.”

  “Could this have something to do with Robert, then?” Catherine asked. “Might this be an attempt to place blame on him?”

  Adalisa sighed. “I have no idea, Catherine,” she said in exasperation. “This does not seem to be the work of sane men, so how can I imagine their reasoning?”

  Catherine finally took the hint and subsided.

  James was dozing now. In the unfriendly silence Catherine was having a hard time staying awake herself. She felt that Edgar’s stepmother wasn’t telling her the whole truth, but everything here was too new and confusing for her to risk more questioning. What she wanted was time alone with Edgar.

  Gently, she made James release his grip. His arms twitched beneath the swaddling. Soon, Catherine reflected, they would have to make some little shirts so that his upper body could move freely. She placed him back in the cradle and stood.

  “Do you think the men have finished their council?” She asked. “If we are leaving again in the morning, I need to speak with Edgar.”

  Adalisa seemed startled. “Catherine, you aren’t considering going to Hexham, are you? The road there isn’t safe at all. And what they find there may be even more dangerous.”

  “We came here as a family,” Catherine explained. “Edgar won’t let us be parted now.”

  “If you say so.” But Adalisa seemed unconvinced.

  “Catherine,” Edgar began, in the voice of one who expects to have to continue talking for some time. “There’s no reason for you to come to Hexham with us and every reason for you to stay here.”

  “My safety? James’s?” Catherine asked, knowing that they were both good reasons but not enough to sway her.

  “Yes, of course,” Edgar answered. “But much more than that. If I go with my father, I can investigate the situation at Hexham with him and, perhaps, prevent him from striking out at the first person he sees.”

  “That makes sense,” Catherine admitted.

  “And, more important,” Edgar continued, “I want you to stay because my father won’t be here.”

  “Oh … oh, yes!” Catherine understood. “I can be of help, then, can’t I? People will speak more freely if he’s not here. Little Margaret can translate for me.”

  “Yes, carissima, you can.” Thank the saints he had married such a perceptive woman!

  He kissed her in gratitude and she returned it, for love’s sake, but she wasn’t through with him.

  “Now that that is settled, carissime,” she whispered seductively. “You can explain to me why you never told me that your proud Saxon father took a French woman for his second wife and moreover, why you never mentioned that absolutely adorable little sister.”

  “Ah.” Edgar bit his upper lip. “That’s a long story. Do you think it could wait until morning?”

  He kissed her again and started working his way down the side of her neck, fumbling with the strings of her chainse. Catherine cursed him silently and then herself, for she knew she was going to let herself be persuaded.

  Anyway, she considered, morning came very early this far north.

  But even dawn wasn’t soon enough for Waldeve. It was still the grey of constant summer twilight when everyone was rousted out.

  Algar woke Edgar with an apologetic shake of the bed curtains that set the rings rattling.

  “My lord requests that you be ready to
leave within the hour,” he told Edgar.

  Edgar stared at him blearily. “What the hell hour is it?” he asked.

  “I heard the bells at the monastery ring for Matins not long ago. I haven’t heard Lauds rung, yet.”

  “Saint Servanus’s risen pig!” Edgar roared. “Even the birds are still asleep, man!”

  As if to flout him, at that moment a cock crowed. Edgar swore again, but swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

  “Catherine.” He pushed at the coverlet. “Catherine?”

  She wasn’t there. He vaguely remembered her climbing over him some time ago, but this was a normal nightly activity. She had always returned before.

  Algar coughed. “Um, Lord Edgar, I believe your wife is already down in the hall, preparing your things for the journey.”

  Edgar frowned. That was so like what an obedient, dutiful wife would do that it made him nervous. In any case, it appeared that he was doomed to stay awake.

  The half light of a midsummer morning tended to muffle vision rather than clarify it. There were shapes moving about in the hall and more in the courtyard, but they all appeared the same. Edgar found Solomon first by tripping over him.

  “What are you doing still on the floor?” Edgar asked.

  “I was sleeping,” Solomon answered. “I’m not going anywhere, so there seemed no reason to leave my bed, such as it is. Obviously I was mistaken.”

  He let Edgar help him up. Together they went out into the misty air.

  “I’m glad you’ll be here with Catherine,” Edgar said.

  “I knew you’d appreciate me sooner or later,” Solomon answered.

  Edgar gave him a worried glance.

  “The two of you aren’t planning something, are you?” he asked.

  Solomon laughed. “Don’t worry, vieux compang. I’m staying because your brother and I have some ideas about the wool trade we want to explore. It’s good that your stepmother can translate. Why didn’t you tell us she was French?”

  Edgar shrugged, then his attention turned. “There you are!” he said in relief.

  He hurried toward Catherine.

  Catherine was shaking out his heavy cloak from his pack so that it could be refolded and repacked. It seemed a pointless task to Edgar but he had learned that women do such things. The scorn shown him when he asked had taught him to accept that it was part of the arcane feminine rituals that even Catherine excluded him from.

  Catherine looked up at his shout and waved them closer.

  “I’ve almost finished,” she told them. “The packhorse we bought in Berwick is loaded and your father says you’re to find your old saddle for the other one. Do you know where it is?”

  “It wasn’t in the stables when I was last here,” Edgar answered. “It must have been put in the storeroom. I’ll get a lantern and go look.”

  Adalisa had come up in time to overhear the last of this conversation.

  “No, Edgar,” she said at once. “You’ll never find it amidst all the barrels of provisions. I’ll send Algar.”

  “That’s all right,” Edgar told her. “Algar is busy with his own work. I’m sure I can find it.”

  “No!” she said, so sharply that they jumped. “I don’t want you rummaging around upsetting things. Algar can be spared for a few minutes.”

  She went off to see to it, leaving the other three staring at each other in confusion.

  “I’m sure all the turmoil here has upset her,” Catherine hazarded. “All this coming and going as well as the strain of grief …”

  Edgar looked after her. “I suppose so,” he said slowly. “Solomon, don’t leave Catherine and James alone for a moment. Promise me.”

  “Of course not,” Solomon assured him. “Don’t worry. Nothing will happen to us here.”

  “That’s right; we’ll be fine,” Catherine agreed. “It’s you who needs to be careful. It’s your family that someone has attacked.”

  Edgar forbore mentioning that it was now her family, too. Perhaps it wasn’t, though. The events of the evening before had made him doubt that it was even his family anymore.

  “Catherine,” he began.

  She looked at him, then looked down quickly, but it was too late. He had seen the terror in her eyes.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  She shook her head without raising it. “No, it’s best, if I stay here,” she said softly. “Imagine taking your wife and child in a war party. James and I will be safer here.”

  She started fussing with the mail shirt they had found for him, settling it so that the links didn’t stick into his tunic. Edgar took her hands.

  “I’m not going to get myself killed,” he said.

  “Of course not.” Her lip trembled.

  “Oh, carissima.” He held her close, oblivious of the people bustling around them. “I am so sorry. I never should have brought you here.”

  “Do you think I’d worry less in Paris?” Catherine reminded herself that this was women’s fate, to wait and worry. Her job was not to make his harder. But she hated it. She hated everything about it.

  “I see no glory in battle,” she told him. “But if you must fight to save yourself, then do it. Anything you must do to return safely to us. Promise me.”

  Edgar smiled down at her. “With pleasure, my love. I have strong beliefs about keeping my skin whole.”

  “Saint Drostin’s dripping tears, Edgar! Kiss her good-bye and get your ass in the saddle or I’ll have you tied to it!”

  Edgar clenched his teeth.

  “I’m coming, Father,” he said.

  He turned back to Catherine. She put her hand over his mouth.

  “I don’t know what he said,” she told him. “But it’s clear he wants you to go. There’s no sense in making this worse.”

  He kissed her good-bye and mounted his horse.

  The sun was hanging just over the horizon as they left the castle. They threaded their way down and across the motte, between the tumble of huts and onto the road.

  The morning grew warmer as they rode south, toward the Roman wall. Edgar was just considering taking off his leather mail shirt when they rounded a bend and were brought up short by a force of ten men strung across the road and into the woods, all in mail and helmets. Their swords were drawn. Edgar clutched at his knife.

  Waldeve let out a roar.

  “About time you got here! Saint Macarius’s maiden mare! What took you so long?”

  “My Lord Bishop didn’t want to spare me,” the leader answered, pulling off his helmet. “It took some time to convince him that filial obligation came before my vows to him. Now, Father, I’m at your service.”

  Edgar closed his eyes. Life had just become infinitely worse.

  His brother Duncan had come home.

  Six

  The road to Hexham. Wednesday, 16 kalends July (June 16), 1143.

  Commemoration of Saint Julitte, martyred for being Christian, and her son,

  Cyrus, age three, martyred for kicking the Roman governor in the stomach.

  Est in Northanhymbrorum provincia, haud procul a Tine flumine, ad

  austrum site, villa quœdam, nunc quidem modica, et raro cultore habitata,

  sed, ut antiquitatis vestigia tenantur, quondam ampla et magnifica.

  Hœc … Hestild vocatur.

  There is, in the province of Northumbria, not at all far from the River

  Tyne, on the east side, a certain village, now rather ordinary, and

  sparsely inhabited, but it holds the traces of antiquity, at one time

  important and magnificent. This is called Hexham.

  —Richard of Hexham,

  History of the Church of Hexham,

  Capitual I

  Duncan grinned at the stupefied expressions of his family. The grin grew wider as he recognized Edgar.

  “Baby brother!” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe they would bother to drag you back home. Father must truly be desperate. What do you intend to do, preach our enemies to death?
Or has Father decided that our brothers were murdered by demons and sent for you to exorcise them?”

  Edgar was too stunned to respond. He had tried very hard to forget the effect his brother Duncan had on him. But again he found himself feeling like a calf about to be slaughtered, listening to the scrape of the sharpening knife. He knew he should have fled, but now it was too late.

  “Greetings, Brother,” he managed. “Are you coming with us to Hexham?”

  If he wasn’t, Edgar intended to turned around now and hurry back to Wedderlie. He wouldn’t for all the world risk letting Catherine fend for herself in the same household with Duncan.

  To his relief, Duncan nodded. “We were on our way here when word came to us that the horses had been found. So we decided to wait for you so that the family could arrive in force in case the canons should decide to fight.”

  “Don’t mock, Nephew,” Æthelræd shouted. “This could be a trap. Do you want us to be caught unprepared?”

  Duncan looked from Edgar to Æthelræd. His eyebrows raised at the sight of his uncle. He scanned the group of warriors, noting the familiar faces among Waldeve’s men-at-arms. Bastards, all of them, some his own. All tied to them by blood oaths as well as blood. He smiled his approval. “For once, Uncle, you make sense. Very good. The murderers will know we stand together. All but Robert, I see. Father, how did you dare to leave that plotting weasel behind?”

  Waldeve snorted. “That bœdling! He can do no harm. I left him tilling his fields like a peasant. Adalisa knows better than to give him any control over my keep, and he hasn’t the hangelles to take it.”

  Duncan smiled again, but said nothing. He knew that Wedderlie was as good as his now. To Edgar, that smile was a smirk of triumph and he longed to knock his elder brother sprawling in the dirt.

  Their father was well aware of this. He looked from one son to the other with satisfaction, noting Edgar’s barely suppressed anger. About time he showed some, to Waldeve’s mind. This last son of his might turn out to be worth something, after all.