Cursed in the Blood: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Newman, Sharan

  She glared at Solomon and Catherine both. “You’ve lived here only a few weeks, but that should be enough time to tell you what it’s like. I feared for my life. I feared even more for Margaret’s.”

  She put her arms around her daughter.

  “Solomon,” Catherine said, “it doesn’t matter now. He’s here with us and we’ll have to care for him as best we can. But we have to care for ourselves, as well.”

  “Yes, I know,” Solomon said. “If anyone survived from the village, where would they go?”

  Adalisa considered. “If they were afraid to return to their homes, Berwick is the nearest safe place for them, but it would only be temporary. I had thought to go there only long enough to get horses and provisions and to send a message to Waldeve. It’s clear that someone wants to destroy us completely. So the only true refuge is with the monks at Holy Island.”

  “How far is it?”

  “Less than a day from Berwick, if we can ride,” Adalisa paused. “Longer if we have to walk.”

  Catherine looked at the prisoner, then at Willa. Willa tried to smile, but her chin was trembling. This was more adventure than she had expected. And James, where would they find swaddling for him? What if she were too worn to supply him with enough milk? Catherine was close to tears, herself.

  “Where is your faith, child?” Those nagging voices were, for once, almost kind. “Where is your courage?” That was more normal. “Are you any different from any poor refugee of war? Women have endured such things from the beginning of time. You’re young and strong. You can survive, and care for your child, too.”

  Catherine could almost feel the voices shouting inside her head, drowning out fear and doubt and the knowledge that many women and children did not survive. She would concentrate on those that had. It would have been helpful, she reflected, if the voices had come up with some solid suggestions as well as encouragement.

  “If we follow the stream here,” Adalisa told them, “it joins the Tweed a few miles on. Following that, we should reach Berwick by tomorrow afternoon. It twists around a bit, but the forest isn’t too thick in this area. I think it would be better not to try to go by the road.”

  They all agreed.

  “Do you think we dare ask for help if we come across anyone?” Catherine asked.

  Adalisa looked at Solomon. He shook his head.

  “I don’t know. If we knew who we were running from …” he raised his eyebrows at Adalisa.

  “I swear, by the veil of the Virgin, I don’t know,” Adalisa answered wearily.

  “We’ll have to decide when the time comes,” Solomon said. “Now, we need to make something to protect your feet.”

  He had slept with his clothes and boots on and so was better prepared than the others. He started to take off the boots.

  “Don’t be silly,” Catherine said. “Your feet are much bigger than ours. We’d fall more often than walk in those.”

  She took one of the covers that Willa had grabbed and began tearing strips of it. Adalisa got up and began examining the nearby trees.

  “Solomon, I need your knife,” she called a moment later. “Birch bark should come off easily enough. The sheep have no trouble destroying it.”

  In a moment she had pulled off a long strip of the bark, which she sliced into lengths. Then she took the cloth Catherine had torn and wrapped it around a piece of the bark.

  “Margaret, give me your foot,” she said.

  The girl sat on the ground as her mother wrapped the rest of the strip of cloth around her foot, making a crude shoe with a bark sole.

  “I don’t know how long it will last, but it’s better than nothing,” Adalisa said.

  She and Catherine finished covering their feet and Willa’s. Then they looked at the prisoner. He hadn’t moved from the place where Solomon had set him. Nor had he made a sound.

  “I can carry him,” Solomon assured them. “There’s hardly any flesh on him at all.”

  They tested their new shoes. They were a little lumpy, but not uncomfortable.

  “We should try to go as far as we can, today,” Solomon said. “It’s high summer. We should have no trouble finding berries in the wood and fish in the river. We’ll be fine.”

  “I never doubted it,” Catherine said. “But could I take a moment to change the baby before we set out?”

  Solomon sniffed the air. “I think we’d all appreciate that.”

  While she did, using the last of the cover she had demolished, Catherine wondered again about the man from the storeroom.

  “He should have a name,” she said. “Even if he doesn’t respond to us. We can’t keep saying ‘him’ or ‘the captive’.”

  “His name is Lazarus,” Willa said at once.

  They all turned to her.

  “It is? How do you know?” Adalisa asked.

  “Look at him,” she said simply. “What else could it be?”

  She was right. The white skin stretched over bones and the astonished stare resembled nothing more than a resurrected corpse, confused and terrified at being dragged back into the world.

  “Well then, Lazarus.” Solomon bent down and picked him up. “We’d best be on our way.”

  Edgar stood up and threw down his ale bowl in disgust.

  Æthelræd looked at him in mild curiosity.

  “You don’t like the ale?” he asked.

  “The ale is fine, Uncle,” Edgar answered. “Just as I remembered it. But I didn’t come to Durham to sit in a tavern and guzzle ale. We’ve been here three days and have done little else.”

  “I say, don’t complain when things are going smoothly,” Æthelræd cautioned him.

  “They’re not going smoothly, Uncle. They’re not going at all,” Edgar sat again but continued fuming. “Every time I ask my father what I should be doing, he puts me off. I’ve tried to get permission from Cumin to visit the monks but I can’t even get an audience with him. What am I doing here?”

  Æthelræd finished his ale and belched.

  “I wondered when you’d get tired of waiting,” he said. “Why don’t we do a few things without permission?”

  He reached inside the scrip hanging from his belt and took out a key. Edgar began to grin.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked. “I thought Cumin had confiscated all the keys.”

  “Apparently he missed one,” Æthelræd answered. “Every monk has a key to the north door. The archdeacon took his with him and happened to give it to me.”

  “Why did you wait?” Edgar said in exasperation.

  “I didn’t know how much trouble you were willing to get into,” his uncle said. “If we’re caught in the cloister by Cumin’s men, we may join the men who wouldn’t pay the tithes. The ones hanging outside their homes on Silver and Saddler Streets.”

  Edgar had seen them, dangling not by their necks, but by their waists, with weights hung from hands and feet. It takes a long time to die that way.

  “I know every place a boy can hide in the cloister and cathedral,” he said. “We won’t get caught.”

  They decided to go the following morning, reasoning that two men wandering about the cathedral would be less remarkable by day. That night Edgar ate his fish stew with more appetite than he had since coming to Britain. At last he was doing something, not letting himself be blown about on his father’s whim.

  The man he sat next to seemed vaguely familiar. Edgar had seen him among his father’s retainers.

  “I don’t remember you from when I lived at Wedderlie,” he admitted. “What’s your name?”

  “Algar,” the man answered. “I remember you, though. I’m Alfred’s grandson. When I was little, I used to run errands to the keep. Once, you gave me a honey cake.”

  “You remember that?” Edgar was astounded.

  “It was an act of fellowship, not charity.” Algar smiled. “You confessed that you’d stolen them from the kitchen.”

  “I probably had.” Edgar thought back. “There were never any left a
fter the men had eaten, although sometimes my stepmother managed to save me a few. Are we … uh … related?”

  Algar grinned. “Your uncle asked me the same question. My mother says not and I believe her.”

  “She should know.” Edgar offered his hand. “I’m glad to meet you again, Algar. It is nice to know there’s one man in my father’s company who isn’t my brother or nephew.”

  Edgar studied the face before him. Algar must be five or six years younger than he. The incident he remembered must have occurred on Edgar’s last visit home before he left for France. Fifteen years ago and yet that small act had remained in this man’s mind. This was someone he should pay attention to.

  He woke the next morning with his head full of plans about how to reach Brother Lawrence with the message he had been charged to convey. He didn’t pay much attention to the commotion in the outer bailey. Then he heard someone call his name.

  “Edgar, come quickly.” It was Æthelræd, looking unusually grim. “There’s news from Wedderlie!”

  Edgar rushed out to find a crowd of men gathered around a rider who hadn’t had time even to dismount. He then recognized Oswin, who had been left in charge of the guards at Wedderlie. His heart began pounding.

  “Where is Lord Waldeve?” Oswin shouted. “Lord Edgar, where is your father? He must know at once. Two nights ago we were attacked. We drove the invaders back but most of the men were killed and the keep has been burnt to the ground.”

  Edgar felt all the blood drain from his head. He only stayed upright because of his uncle’s strong arm around him.

  “My wife?” he yelled across the tumult. “Where is she?”

  Oswin’s face was still blackened by smoke and there was a bandage around his head that was oozing blood.

  “I don’t know, Lord,” he said miserably. “We fear they were all trapped inside.”

  Edgar stared at him, uncomprehending. This wasn’t happening. The man was mistaken. Catherine must have escaped. He had left her there so that nothing could harm her and James. Oswin couldn’t have meant that they had been hurt.

  “Why are you here?” he shouted. “Why aren’t you back home protecting my family?”

  “My lord.” Oswin was weeping. “Forgive me, but there’s nothing left to protect.”

  Twelve

  An abandoned cottage outside of Berwick. Thursday, the kalends July (July

  1), 1143. The feast of Saint Serf, a Briton, about whom nothing is known.

  Quae vero pestis efficacior ad nocendum quam familiaris inimicus?

  And truly what plague is more powerful in hurtfulness than a

  member of one’s household who has become an enemy?

  —Boethius

  Consolation of Philosophy,

  Book III part V 11 41–42

  “Solomon should have been back by now,” Catherine fretted.

  “Do you think he’s been attacked by brigands?” Willa asked.

  Catherine immediately regretted voicing her worry. Willa had been so brave through the past few days, even when her teeth were chattering from terror. It would be cruel to add to her burden.

  “No, I don’t,” she told the girl. “I think he probably had trouble finding someone who could understand him well enough to explain what has happened.”

  “I should have gone with him.” Adalisa was fretting as well. “The monks at the hospice there know me.”

  Catherine shook her head. “No, Solomon was right about that. If someone wants to destroy the whole family, it’s best that no one knows we survived the fire.”

  Adalisa was trying to comb her hair with her fingers. She yanked at it in frustration.

  “Why are they such cowards?” she cried. “How can we fight an enemy without a face?”

  The image gave Catherine a frisson at the back of her neck. That was the worst of it. Since they didn’t know who was after them, they had no idea whom to trust. Even asking for help was dangerous, which was why Solomon had insisted in going into the town alone.

  There was nothing for it but to wait. Catherine gazed at James lying naked on a blanket in the warm morning sunshine. He seemed content for now, but they had only been able to rinse out his swaddling in the river and hang it to dry on the bushes nearby. There were red chafe marks on his poor little bottom already. They had nothing to oil him with and no clean cloths to wrap him in. The ones they had used to make shoes with were filthy.

  On the other hand, James was the only one of them who wasn’t hungry. They had found berries and edible plants enough, but they hadn’t managed to catch any fish and had no way to cook one even if they had. Catherine had been imagining bread with mutton drippings for the last hour so strongly that she could almost smell the fat.

  “If Solomon doesn’t find someone who will loan us a horse,” she asked Adalisa, “do you think we can manage to reach your Holy Island, with the children and with him?”

  She nodded toward the corner where Lazarus was curled, fast asleep. Berries had apparently satisfied him. He had rolled them in his mouth and bit into them with a joy that was almost painful to watch. But he had still said nothing and his legs were clearly too weak to support even his fragile body.

  Adalisa had been trying to think of a way that she and Catherine could carry him, but she knew that even if they made a stretcher to put him on, they could only go a mile or so before they would need to rest. At that rate, it might take a week to reach safety. With Margaret and James to care for, especially James, a week would be too long.

  She stroked Margaret’s vibrant hair as the child slept, her head in her mother’s lap.

  “If Solomon doesn’t return soon,” she decided, “we’ll have to take him into town ourselves. Our enemies will certainly find out then that we’re alive, but if we stay here much longer, we won’t survive and then they will have won.”

  Sadly, Catherine agreed. She watched James kicking happily in the sun, tended by Willa. Her duty was to care for both of them. The weight of it was crushing. When she had left the convent, all she had considered was Edgar, the love and, to be honest, the lust she felt for him. Mother Heloise had left her own son to be raised by his father’s family when she had taken the veil. Catherine knew she couldn’t do that. She had no wish to go back. But why had no one told her of the terrible responsibilities of love?

  Late in the afternoon they heard someone moving in the woods. In a moment, they had gathered together, Adalisa holding the long knife Solomon had left as meager protection. Her relief was overwhelming as he appeared, leading a mule loaded with provisions. She dropped the knife and rushed to embrace him.

  “It’s all right,” Solomon said over and over as she wept. “I’m sorry I was so long.”

  Catherine was surprised by how tenderly he comforted Adalisa and by how certain she seemed to be of receiving it. The way he smoothed her hair and wiped her eyes. And the way he smiled into them! Catherine looked away, unsettled by the sight.

  She turned her attention to the provisions he had brought.

  “Does this mean we can’t go into Berwick?” she asked, gesturing at the laden mule.

  “Word has already come that we were killed in the fire,” Solomon told them. “A few of the people from the village have taken refuge at the hostels for now, but they’re returning to Wedderlie soon. I don’t think any of them saw me. The trader I talked with told me that the taverns were full of the news. They’re calling it a judgment on Waldeve, saying how strange it was that the castle was destroyed and the village left unharmed.”

  “I’m glad of that,” Adalisa said. “Even if it does seem to confirm that our enemies only care about killing us. But why? What have we done?”

  “Did you learn anything about Robert?” Catherine asked.

  Solomon nodded. “His farm was torched, as well, but he escaped. The rumor is that Waldeve and his men have gone to Durham. Robert is supposed to be going there himself, to bring the news. I hope the dog survived.”

  “Robert must have saved her,”
Adalisa said. “Or else he’d have died trying to.”

  “But that means Edgar will think he’s lost us!” Catherine said. “We can’t let him, Solomon. It will kill him!”

  “We have to, Catherine,” Solomon said. “There was no one there I could trust to send a message to him. Once we reach Holy Island, then I’ll go myself to Durham. But first we must find all of you a haven from this nightmare.”

  Catherine knew he was right, even though the thought of what Edgar would be suffering was horrible. The only thing was to reach the island as soon as they could.

  They ate the cheese and dried meat he had brought and Catherine rubbed grease from the cheese paper on James’s bottom and wrapped him in the dried swaddling. Solomon didn’t need to tell them to hurry. But he watched with impatience. He had another reason for wanting to be on their way as soon as possible. While in the tavern in Berwick, he had been surprised to see Leonel, the cleric who had come with them from France. The man had recognized him, he was sure. But, instead of greeting him, Leonel’s face had paled with alarm and he had quickly gotten up and left. Solomon didn’t know what to make of his actions. Had the cleric believed he had seen a ghost? Or was there another reason? Why was the man still in Berwick when he had made such a point of wanting to go to York?

  Solomon tried to think of an innocent reason for Leonel being there, but could come up with none. Only one possibility rang in his mind. That the man hadn’t traveled with them by chance, but had been sent to follow them. And the only reason he could think of for that was that someone wanted information on him and, perhaps, on his relationship with Catherine.

  What if Leonel were to go back to Paris and tell the Bishop that he had been posing as a Christian and that Catherine and Edgar were in collusion with him?

  He knew that his first job was to see that they all arrived safely at Holy Island. But Solomon couldn’t help but wonder if there would be any haven for him or his family, should word of this reach Paris.