“I promised her mother that the child would never be returned to Waldeve,” Solomon said. “I won’t break faith. Adalisa suffered enough without having to worry about Margaret from beyond the grave.”
“Yes, she did.” Catherine knew she was treading near an open wound, but wasn’t sure where it lay. “And we couldn’t help her. But there must be something we can do now for her child.”
Solomon got up. “Let Margaret know we care. There’s nothing else possible. This kind of pain only heals from within.”
That closed the door on that topic. But it didn’t stop Catherine from wondering. Just what had happened between Adalisa and Solomon? She knew her cousin’s charm worked on Christian women as well as Jewish, but she assumed it was always women who weren’t … women who tended to … not someone like … oh, dear! She supposed that, after all, Adalisa might be even more susceptible than beer brewers and innkeepers’ daughters. Poor thing! And was Solomon grieving because he’d taken advantage of her loneliness or because he hadn’t?
“Do you really think that’s your concern, child?”
Ah, it must be the influence of the nearby monastery. Those voices sounded most righteous regarding her unchristian thoughts. Catherine went on to ask Solomon to help with her next problem.
“The prior doesn’t seem concerned that the man he sent to tell Edgar we were safe hasn’t returned, yet. But it’s been two weeks. Don’t you think we should send someone else?”
Solomon was standing by the window to the hostel. It looked out onto the North Sea. Even in calm weather, the waves frightened Catherine. On the softest of days, the sea off Holy Island always seemed menacing. The wind roared over the water, creating a turbulence that increased as it hit the shore. Not even trees could withstand it and there were few on the island, all tucked into sheltered corners. Catherine had never lived in a place where one could see so far. In a way, it was comforting, after all they’d been through. One could see an enemy approaching. But an enemy could also see her.
Solomon took a while to answer her last question. It was as if he needed to recall his spirit to his body each time he had to interact with another person. Catherine was trying to be patient, but it had never been one of her virtues. “Do you want me to go look for Edgar?” he asked at last.
“Well.” She paused. “You did say that was your plan. That is, if you’re strong enough.”
“My health isn’t the problem,” he answered. “It’s the fact that this evil seems to be following us despite my attempts to convince everyone that we were all killed in the fire. Now I think we should stay together. I don’t want to leave you and the children unprotected.”
“We’re as safe here as we’re likely to be anywhere in Britain,” she argued. “Solomon, I’m not worried about us anymore, it’s Edgar. There are people who seem determined to murder everyone in his family. He may not know about the fire or the trap set in Robert’s garden. Or, even worse, he may and not know that we escaped. Do you want him to believe that all of us are dead?”
“Of course not,” Solomon said. “But neither do I want him to find that you’ve been attacked again while I was out searching for him.”
Catherine’s whole body tightened in frustration. She wanted to hit something. Solomon was the obvious target. But she knew his reasoning was accurate. It wasn’t fair to take her anger out on him. She compromised by stamping her foot.
“I can’t stand this!” she shouted. “There must be a way! Oh, Solomon, I don’t care what these people do to each other. I just want to find Edgar and go home!”
She burst into tears. Solomon put his arms around her.
“I know, Catherine,” he said patting her back ineffectually. “I wish I could make it happen.”
He also wished he knew what was happening at home. There had been no messages from Hubert or Eliazar. It was entirely possible that Paris was as dangerous for them as Scotland had turned out to be. Then where could they go?
“Why don’t we bundle James up and take Willa and Margaret down to the other end of the island,” he suggested. “We can watch the sea birds fighting over their catch. Perhaps we’ll even see a puffin.”
Catherine sniffed and tried to smile. Solomon thought her attraction to the silly-looking birds was bizarre. She had never seen one before this journey and had found their oversized beaks and quizzical eyes endlessly droll.
“All right,” she agreed. “But if we don’t have word of Edgar soon, I intend to wrap up James and set out to look for him, myself.”
Edgar was feeling much the same. But he had no idea where to start looking. In the meantime, he had become trapped amidst the soldiers trying to take Roger Conyers’s castle at Bishopton.
If they had started a day sooner, they might have had a chance. But two nights of torrential rain had made the countryside a bog for miles around. Progress was slow. Solid ground turned to marsh at a misstep and horses had to be pulled from the mud. When the defenders came forth to engage Cumin’s men, they found that there was no place where either party could stand long enough to fight.
Cumin had decided on a siege, counting on the men being sent by Earl Henry of Huntington to augment his forces before long. It wasn’t a popular decision. Many of the men only owed a few weeks service and wanted to go home and tend to their crops. Waldeve’s troop was kept from deserting only by his threats of what would happen to those who did when he returned to Wedderlie.
However, it was the state of their souls that worried the soldiers most. Word was out now that a new bishop had been consecrated. Cumin had no hope of ever gaining the see of Durham. He had been officially excommunicated and his benefice at Winchester taken away. There were also rumors of his ill-treatment of the canons still left in the cathedral cloister.
“It’s one thing to torture a man for his money,” Edgar overheard someone say. “But forcing a priest to say Mass at knifepoint, that’s the sort of thing that brings down fire and pestilence on a land. I want no part of it.”
Edgar agreed. Even the officious Brother Lawrence didn’t deserve to be so used. Of course, he thought with a smirk, this would be the canon’s chance for martyrdom. Not many were able to have that these days without going on an arduous journey to the Saracen lands.
Now where had that come from? Edgar scratched his head. It was just the sort of comment Catherine would make.
The pain that hit him was worse than any sword could make. He didn’t want to remember her laughing, teasing him, making fun of the pompous clerics in the schools of Paris. One memory like that just led to another and another, until they came crowding in, demanding his attention, reminding him of all he had lost forever.
It made him seriously doubt the mercy of God.
The mud under his boots was thick with leaves and broken plants. People didn’t walk so much as slide. All their clothing was caked with the stuff. This was the glory of battle that the scops always sang about? Edgar made his way through the encampment and finally reached the place where Robert had set up his lean-to.
“Sit down, Brother,” he greeted Edgar. “Any spot will do. They’re all equally wet.”
Edgar sat and Robert handed him a mug from which steam was rising. Edgar sniffed.
“What is this stuff?” he asked, wrinkling his nose.
“Some herbal concoction,” Robert told him. “A woman down the road makes it. Suppose to keep away creeping fungus.”
Edgar put the mug down. “I don’t doubt it. Are you sure it’s supposed to be drunk? It might be better just rubbed into leather.”
“Hmm …” Robert took the mug back. “Maybe she did say that’s what you did with it after it was heated.”
Edgar grimaced. “If you’re back to playing tricks on me then Lufen must be better.”
Robert smiled. “The keeper of hounds sent word that she’s up and eating well and that the other dogs haven’t set on her, even though she’s weak and crippled. I’d like to see a pack of humans behave so.”
“Is that why
you spend more time with dogs than people?” Edgar asked.
Robert’s smile vanished. “No dog has ever betrayed or abandoned me,” he said. “Do you think Aelred is still inside the castle?”
Edgar understood that the question wasn’t a change of subject.
“So I’ve heard,” he said. “He’s waiting for William of Saint-Barbe to arrive to take over the bishopric. Aelred will represent the abbey of Rievaulx at the welcoming ceremony.”
“It will be an interesting ceremony,” Robert said. “With the clergy all in mail shirts under their copes. Even if Cumin can’t take the castle, he can keep Saint-Barbe from getting in to the cathedral. Durham is one of the strongest fortresses in England.”
“Robert.” Edgar moved closer. “Do you really care who wins this? Does it matter to you who the bishop is?”
“Of course not,” Robert answered. “I’m here now only because it’s just possible that the gate to the castle might open and the bridge come down and Aelred walk across it and greet me as he used to when we were … friends.”
“That I understand,” Edgar admitted. “It made no sense to me that you stayed even under Father’s threats. I only wish I thought Catherine and James would appear in the same way.”
Robert looked at him quickly and then looked away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I forgot.”
Edgar shook his head. How could anyone who had known them forget? It was amazing to him that the sun hadn’t turned black and gone out. He sighed at his brother and left him to his vigil. Waldeve should put Robert on the watch since he spent all his time staring at the gate anyway.
Edgar stopped. Damn. Would he spend the rest of his life thinking of things that Catherine might have said?
If so, he hoped the time would be short.
Catherine’s hair blew across her eyes. She tried to tuck it into her hood but it always escaped. Willa and Margaret had hair that obeyed. Willa’s deep brown braids and Margaret’s red-gold ones swung as they walked together ahead of Solomon and Catherine. Solomon had taken James and was singing to him as they walked.
“What is that?” Catherine asked him. “It sounds so mournful.”
“Just an old Hebrew song,” Solomon said. “Aunt Johanna used to sing it to me and I think my mother did too, before she died.”
“What does it mean?”
Solomon covered James’s head from the wind, but the baby seemed to like it. He shut his eyes from the force of it, but he was gurgling happily at the feel of the breeze on his face.
“I am my beloved’s and he is mine,” Solomon said, looking away from her.
It was a full minute before Catherine started laughing. “They sang you the Song of Solomon!” she gasped. “No wonder you grew up to be so arrogant.”
“I am not!” he protested. “Just because I don’t let you get away with your nonsensical logic when we argue!”
She laughed again. That was better. The old Solomon was creeping out from the cave of misery he had hidden in. Now if Edgar would only come home to them, they might start repairing their lives.
They climbed out of one of the hollows in the rolling land. Catherine glanced across the island and stopped short, frozen in terror.
“Saint Felicity’s seven sons!” she exclaimed, pointing at the edge of the stone hill at the north end of the island. “It’s followed us here! Solomon! Look! Over there! It’s the monster I saw!”
Solomon was fussing with James’s wrapping, which were going from damp to sodden. “Of course, Catherine, monsters.”
Willa screamed. Solomon looked up. He saw what Catherine was pointing at.
“What in hell is that thing?” he said.
It seemed to be a huge brown beast with wide-swinging arms and a dozen legs. It had a long tail dragging behind and, as they watched, two men popped out from under the monster and detached it, following behind with the tail now over their shoulders.
Solomon turned to Catherine. “This is what you saw?”
“In the mist I couldn’t see that the legs were human,” Catherine protested. “Even if I had, I might have believed it to be some demon. What would you have thought?”
Solomon studied the contraption that the men were apparently trying to set up. He had to admit that it could be mistaken for some crude dragon costume.
Up until now, Margaret had said nothing. Since the death of her mother, she hadn’t appeared to notice anything happening around her. Now she spoke up.
“It’s a secret,” she said. “You mustn’t tell.”
“Hell of a big secret,” Solomon said, looking at the monstrosity.
“Margaret, what do you mean?” Catherine asked.
“I’m sorry.” The child twisted nervously. “I promised Alfred and the other people in the village that I wouldn’t tell anyone. I swore on my Saint Cuddy’s feather! They were very angry with me.”
“Margaret—” Catherine began, but Solomon interrupted.
“If we ask the men what they’re doing and you translate,” he suggested, “that won’t violate your oath, will it?”
Margaret didn’t think so. So they all followed the “monster” as it moved up the hill and stopped at the top, where a thick log had been buried upright in the ground and secured with three wooden legs also sunk into the soft earth. Catherine had noticed the post before and wondered if it were for a cross to be erected on holy days.
The men noticed them watching. One of them gestured for them to come closer.
“Ask him what it is they’re building, Margaret,” Catherine said.
“Oh, I know already,” Margaret answered. “It’s a windmill.”
“A what?”
“It’s a mill for grinding flour, but instead of being pushed by the water, it’s pushed by the wind,” she explained. “The man wants to show you how it works.”
“He doesn’t seem to think it’s a secret,” Catherine said.
“No,” Margaret agreed. “I wonder why not. Alfred was very clear that I mustn’t say anything to anyone about the one at Wedderlie.”
The man was practically dancing in his eagerness to demonstrate the wondrous new machine. The others had removed the canvas over the thing and now Catherine saw that it was a small house, only large enough for one or two people to stand in. Attached to it were four long arms, with lengths of greased cloth nailed to each. With much effort and several near-disasters, the men managed to perch the house on the top of the pole in a hole designed for it.
The wind had caught the arms before the house was even in place. But it wasn’t until the tail was reattached and one of the men turned it slowly into the wind, that Catherine saw what an amazing thing it was.
“My goodness,” she said. “It’s like a bird or a ship, flying on the air. And there are wheels inside and a quern to grind grain?”
Solomon was staring in openmouthed astonishment.
“You can hear the millstones turning, even through the noise of the sails,” he said. “This is fantastic! Where did it come from?”
Margaret asked the man who seemed to be in charge.
“He says,” she told them, “that it’s a southern invention, from east of London. It’s new. The farmers there built one because they lived too far from …” She paused and asked the man to explain again. “A reliable source of swift water,” she concluded.
“Amazing.” Solomon couldn’t take his eyes off it.
“Edgar should be here to see this,” Catherine said. “He loves machines.”
“It doesn’t seem very stable, though,” Solomon commented. “If the wind catches it from the wrong side, the whole thing will go over. I don’t think it has much of a future.”
“I still don’t understand why the peasants at Wedderlie wanted to hide this,” Catherine was getting dizzy from watching the arms spin. “I see now that this is what flattened the grass on the side of the road there. But they couldn’t have gotten it down that narrow path on the other side. Where did they take it?”
S
he looked at Margaret, who tightened her lips and shook her head. Her eyes were frightened. Catherine knelt by her.
“You mustn’t break an oath,” she told the girl. “I would never ask it of you. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I was just curious.”
“Are you sorry it wasn’t a demon?” Margaret asked.
“Of course not,” Catherine said. “I’m relieved, of course. Why do you ask?”
Margaret fiddled with her braid. “I used to dream that a great dragon would come and lay waste all the countryside and then Mama and I would fly off on its back to the Western Isles, where it’s always summer and no one shouts at anyone. I guessed the windmill was your monster but I was hoping for the dragon.”
This came out as a confession. Catherine wasn’t sure how to respond. Solomon did it for her.
“I know about that dragon,” he told her. “I spent many a night in Paris listening for the sound of its wings swooping through the air. This mill sounds much like I imagined it would. A pity that it grinds flour instead of taking us to magic countries.”
Willa had not said a word since they had seen the mill. When it was set up, she had walked around it at a safe distance, and then sat down to study it more intently. Now she got up, brushed off her skirts and held out her arms for the baby.
“It’s just a machine, after all,” she said sadly. “It doesn’t even have a heart. I thought it might be a magical mill that a brave knight had stolen from the elves. But it isn’t even very well put together. Oh well, let’s go back.”
Catherine would rather have stayed and learned more so she could explain it all to Edgar, but James was in danger of floating away in his swaddling, so she followed the others back to the priory.
There was still no message waiting for them when they returned. Only one of the monks, a Brother Hugh, greeted them. From the day they first arrived, he had taken the care of Lazarus on himself, teaching the poor prisoner how to sleep in a bed and eat with a spoon and a hundred other things he had forgotten in his captivity. Or perhaps, things he had never known.
Cursed in the Blood: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Page 23