Cursed in the Blood: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Newman, Sharan

  “I’m so sorry!” He backed away.

  Edgar wiped his eyes with his sleeve. He noted the bandage Brother Clarence wore.

  “Are you looking for the leech?” he asked.

  “No, I … I don’t know.” Brother Clarence felt his head. “I’m fine. Can ye tell me where to find the lord of Wedderlie?”

  “What?”

  Edgar stood so quickly that his head spun. Clarence realized too late how odd his question had sounded. Edgar grabbed his shoulders.

  “Lord Waldeve is my father,” he said. “What do you want of him?”

  “A message, Lord, only that!” Clarence’s voice rose over the chanting. “The prior of Holy Island sent me to tell him that his family has found refuge with us.”

  “What?” This came from Edgar as a croak. “Who? Which ones?”

  “It was all written on a paper the prior gave me,” Clarence said. “The thieves took it with my clothes. But I saw them, a woman and two men, two girls and a baby. There was another woman, but she was killed. I helped dig her grave.”

  The leaps and plunges from hope to despair were keeping Edgar from regaining his balance. He leaned against the solid pillar again as he asked, slowly and carefully, “The woman who lives, do you know her name? Can you describe her?”

  “Oh, yes.” Clarence was eager to help. “I didn’t hear her name, but she’s dark, like an Italian. The man is, too. I think he’s her brother.”

  “Cousin,” Edgar whispered. “He’s her cousin.”

  Without realizing it, he had slid down the pillar and was sitting on the floor. He looked up at the lay brother.

  “They were all well when you left?”

  “Yes, Lord, except the woman we buried, of course.”

  Edgar’s head felt back with a thunk against the stone. Æthelræd had known all along. They were alive and in a safe place. He could go to them now without waiting to die. The wonder of it rolled over him like a giant wave and he felt robbed of breath and sense.

  Clarence bent over him. “Will you take me to your father, then? I’m to wait for an answer.”

  Edgar let the lay brother help him to his feet.

  “There’s no need to find him,” he said. “The message was for me. And you don’t need to take an answer. I’m coming back with you to deliver it myself.”

  Catherine was sharing James’s afternoon nap when the messenger arrived. She lay on her side with the baby cradled in the arc of her body. In his new little tunics, he seemed to have changed, grown. They had wrapped the swaddling around his waist and up between his legs and he was fascinated by the sight and feel of his newly revealed toes. He had wakened before her and was happily waving them in the air when Willa came in with the news.

  She shook Catherine gently.

  “Mistress, a man has come from Lord Waldeve with news of Master Edgar.”

  Catherine was awake and standing before she finished the sentence.

  “Is he all right?” she asked.

  She rushed out to the courtyard where a strange soldier was talking with one of the monks. He looked from her to the baby on her hip.

  “Yes, you’d be the one,” he said. “Lady Catherine?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “My husband, is he well?”

  “Fine when I left,” the man told her. “He is greatly relieved to know that you survived the fire and wants you to join him at Durham as soon as possible.”

  “Let me get my shoes on,” Catherine said.

  The messenger blinked. “I’m sure you have other things to prepare,” he said. “But I can be ready to accompany you by the first low tide tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow,” Catherine said. “I suppose I can wait that long. Did he say why he wanted us to come to him? I’d have thought he’d return with you. He is all right?”

  “Oh, yes,” the man said. “But he’s needed to help Bishop William in his battle against Lord Roger. He said you’d be safer from your enemies in the fortress at Durham.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Catherine was doubtful.

  Just then she saw Solomon and Margaret coming back from their walk. She beckoned to them to join her.

  “Solomon, this man has come from Edgar,” she explained. “He wants us to meet him at Durham. We leave tomorrow.”

  Solomon looked doubtfully at the messenger. He was dressed as a foot soldier with a rough leather vest and cap as his only armor. His French was Norman with an English overlay so that his speech was hard to follow. He was a head taller than Solomon and well muscled. The man could probably protect Catherine and the children as well as anyone, but he would also be a formidable opponent if Solomon were forced to confront him.

  “I don’t understand,” he told the man. “Why does Edgar want us at Durham, where there’s open warfare? Perhaps I should go back with you, alone, and ask him myself.”

  The man shrugged. “If you insist, Lord, but my instructions were clear. He said something about wanting to go on from there to York and thence to the coast and France.”

  “Home!” Catherine’s eyes lit.

  Solomon was still unconvinced. “Did he give you a written message or a token so that we know you really come from him?”

  “He gave me no paper,” the soldier said. “We were in the marsh when the man you sent found us. I was pulled from my post and told to come fetch you.”

  “Who told you?” Solomon asked sharply.

  “Lord Edgar.” The man was becoming angry. “I know him well enough. He said, ‘Bring them back at once. I’ve had enough of this. I’m taking them home.’”

  Catherine looked at Solomon. He raised his hands in doubt.

  “My cousin and I need to discuss this,” she told the man. “I’m sure you want to rest from your journey. We’ll let you know what we decide.”

  When the messenger had left, Solomon took Catherine’s arm and guided her well away from the buildings and any eavesdroppers.

  “The words sound like his,” he said. “But it doesn’t feel right. Why didn’t Brother Clarence come back? Why didn’t Edgar come? I’d think his first impulse would be to see you and assure himself that you really were safe.”

  “His father may have prevented that,” Catherine was torn between caution and desire.

  “No, Catherine.” Solomon had made his decision. “We can’t take the risk. We’re in a foreign country where most of the people don’t speak our language. We know little of the customs. I want to send the man back to Durham with another message from you, in your own hand. Write it in Latin. Tell Edgar that you’re safe here and will only leave when he comes for you.”

  Catherine considered this. It might annoy Edgar, but more likely he would understand her reluctance to trust their lives to a stranger.

  “Yes, you’re right,” she said. “I miss Edgar so terribly that I wasn’t thinking clearly. Thank you, Cousin.”

  The man wasn’t happy with this decision. He pleaded that it would go hard with him if he returned without them.

  “Not if you give my husband this note,” Catherine assured him. “The monks here have kindly offered us a refuge. We shall remain in it until he comes to take us back to France.”

  There was nothing the messenger could do but take the letter and leave, which he did at once and with bad grace.

  “We did the right thing,” Solomon said as the man threw a last curse at them as he rode away.

  “Yes, I’m sure we did,” Catherine answered. “But I’m even more worried than before. We still don’t know if Edgar is alive and well. We don’t know if he knows that we are the same, and even worse, we have no idea who else may have sent this man or why.”

  Solomon put his arm around her. “That seems an accurate summation of the situation. And I say, when you don’t know which way to jump, it’s best to stay put as long as the ground beneath your feet remains.”

  “Considering the nature of this island, that may not be long.” Catherine watched the sea roll over the road the messenger had just crossed, cutting them
off from the rest of Britain. She would be quite happy to have it remain so, if only Edgar were safe on this side of the water.

  Edgar was facing his own frustrations. His uncle had found him in his tent as he was making preparations to go to Lindisfarne. His first mistake had been in telling Æthelræd that he had been right all along.

  “Holy Island? Best place for them.” Æthelræd beamed. “Now will you learn to trust my sight? Can’t think what sort of gibberish you learned in those schools that you no longer have faith in me.”

  “I apologize, Uncle,” Edgar said. “If I’d believed you, I’d have been spared the blackest moment of my life. I promise never to doubt you again, no matter how preposterous your tale may be.”

  Æthelræd grunted. “That’s not exactly a solid sign of your confidence, but considering what you’ve been through, I’ll accept it.

  “I hope I remember the roads to take to Lindisfarne,” Edgar continued. He was busy stuffing his belongings into a leather bag. “I wonder if I can get some cloth in Wearmouth. Brother Clarence says they arrived with nothing but what they wore. Poor Catherine, all those fine clothes she brought to impress my family gone up in flames.”

  “Hold, nephew!” Æthelræd blocked Edgar with his arm. “You’re not thinking of setting out alone just after telling me that a poor monk couldn’t even make the trip here safely?”

  Edgar pushed Æthelræd aside. “I’m taking a horse and will be well armed. And I don’t plan to rest until I get there.”

  “I see,” Æthelræd mocked. “You’re counting on speed to hide the fact that you haven’t a clue how to use those weapons you’ll be carrying.”

  “Exactly.”

  Edgar continued his packing. Æthelræd chewed the end of his mustache, proving he had more in common with Waldeve than either of them would admit. Finally he thought of another argument.

  “It won’t work, Edgar,” he said. “Bandits will attack you if they think you can’t fight back. But this whole area is patrolled by soldiers, as well. And they’ll only attack you if they believe you can threaten them.”

  “I’ll get a safe passage from Cumin and another from Conyers,” Edgar insisted, but Æthelræd heard the beginning of uncertainty in his voice.

  “Ah, that would be fine, to be caught with letters from two implacable enemies. Whichever side finds you will decide you’re a spy and hang you right there.”

  Edgar threw down the pack in fury. “Then what should I do, Uncle?” he cried. “I thought they were dead. Now I have to see for myself that they still breathe. I can’t stay here and do nothing. It’s not as if I had a purpose in Durham beyond annoying my brother. And you do that better than I.”

  “I agree with that.” His uncle laughed. “But I believe you do have a purpose here and it’s not to let yourself be slaughtered in battle or on the road. What could I tell that wife of yours if I let you ride off to your death?”

  Edgar, remembering his own terror of telling Catherine’s father of her death, took this to heart. He knew he had lost. He gave the bag at his feet a savage kick that lobbed it against the tent wall and scattered clothes and coins everywhere.

  “There must be a way to get a message to her, at least,” he muttered, as he bent to pick up the detritus. “A pity she doesn’t have your sight, as well.”

  “With eyes like that, I’m surprised she doesn’t,” Æthelræd commented.

  Edgar looked at him in astonishment.

  “I’m old, I’ll grant you, lad,” his uncle added. “But I’m not dead, especially to a pair of blue eyes that gaze at me as if I was stripped to my soul.”

  “A message,” Edgar reminded him.

  “Let me think on it.” Æthelræd turned abruptly and went out, leaving Edgar to collect his belongings and wonder when he would ever see his family again.

  Catherine was chafing equally under the enforced inactivity. Beyond caring for the children and reading such books as the prior thought suitable—mostly saints’ lives she had read before—there was nothing to do but watch the road as it was hidden and exposed and wonder if Edgar would ever come across to get them.

  She knew Solomon’s advice was sound. But she knew that if it hadn’t been for James, Willa and Margaret she would have borrowed a pair of brais, looped her braids around her head and ridden off long ago. This was an aspect of parenthood that hadn’t occurred to her.

  Although she was wrapped up in her own worries, Catherine couldn’t help but notice that they weren’t the only refugees on Holy Island. People came and went with every tide, but the ones who stayed seemed to be the most wretched. They were starving with the kind of hunger that has gone on for months. Some were maimed or wounded. At first Catherine thought they were pilgrims, hunting for a cure, but she eventually realized that they were there for the same reason she was. War had destroyed their homes and crops. They had been forced to flee with what they could gather up, driving their cattle before them. Margaret told her that many of the women and girls had been raped, and the child’s matter-of-fact attitude toward this shocked Catherine as much as anything.

  “It’s what men do whenever they can,” Margaret told Catherine, upsetting her even more. “Mama explained it to me long ago. My brothers would laugh about it at dinner. They thought it was fun, but I don’t think I’d like it.”

  “No,” Catherine managed to stammer. “I’m sure you wouldn’t. Neither would I.”

  She repeated this conversation to Solomon late that evening.

  “What kind of life has that child had?” Her voice was tight with anger. “I knew nothing of that sort of thing at her age.”

  “You didn’t need to, Cousin,” Solomon said. “You were guarded every moment. When your father took you to the fairs with him, there were always men assigned to do nothing but watch over you. The lectures I was given on not letting you come to harm!”

  “You!” Catherine was incredulous. “You tormented me constantly.”

  “Well, how would you like to be told you had to watch out for a stupid Christian girl when you wanted to have fun on your own?”

  Catherine had never considered it from that angle.

  “Very well,” she said. “I see that I was protected more than most children. I should have been more grateful, I suppose.”

  Solomon made a disrespectful sound.

  Catherine kicked him gently in rebuke and continued.

  “But it’s Margaret we’re talking about. I understand now why Adalisa didn’t want her returned to her father. If Edgar’s brothers could brag about such things in her presence, who knows what else they might do. Is there any hope that we could take her back to her mother’s family?”

  “From what Adalisa told me, no.” Solomon winced at the memory of the sad face that had smiled on him for only one night. “She was a bastard daughter of the count of Blois, from before his marriage. Her mother was a well-born woman from Ponthieu so she had to be acknowledged, but I gather that with the count’s religious conversion and her mother’s marriage, everyone was glad when Adalisa was given to a lord at the edge of the world.”

  “Count Thibault, her father?” Catherine was amazed. “She had nothing of him in her that I could see, except for perhaps his courage. I wonder if he will grieve at her death?”

  Solomon didn’t care.

  “Margaret is Edgar’s sister,” he said. “He can also become her guardian. I’ll pay for her raising.”

  “Saint Barbara’s three-windowed tower!” Catherine exclaimed. “You’re offering to take on the care of a ‘stupid Christian girl’?”

  “She’s not annoying like you were,” Solomon answered. “She’s bright and lively and I don’t want her shut up in a convent or sold to some oaf who will mistreat her as her father did Adalisa.”

  “I’ll stand by you, of course,” Catherine told him, once she’d recovered from the shock. “My only condition is that if Margaret should desire, on her own, to enter a convent, you’ll not forbid it.”

  Solomon and his conscien
ce had a long bout. At last he gave a sigh and nodded.

  “But only if it’s her choice. And not until she’s eighteen and able to know her own mind.”

  “Fair enough.” Catherine gave him her hand. “Now all we need to do is convince Waldeve to give her up.”

  “One step at a time.” Solomon yawned. “And my next step is to my lonely narrow bed.”

  “Don’t look for sympathy from me.” Catherine yawned in response. “Mine is equally lonely or else overcrowded with children who’ve had bad dreams.”

  They bid each other good night. Catherine was tempted to wake James and feed him again in the hope that he wouldn’t rise with the monks at Matins, howling with hunger. But he slept so sweetly that she didn’t have the heart. She crawled into her bed next to the cradle and tried not to imagine Edgar’s warmth beside her. By now she had resigned herself to remaining on the island until he arrived.

  But the next day brought news that would change all that. Solomon appeared at the door to her room at first light, having just returned from his daily tour of the island.

  “We have to leave here at once,” he said with no preamble. “The last group of peasants has brought the spotted fever.”

  “Oh, my God.” Catherine crossed herself. She picked up James, who had slept all night. “Margaret, Willa, you haven’t been near those people, have you?”

  The girls sat up in their bed, rubbing their eyes. Willa answered. “No, Mistress. We were at the other end of the island all day yesterday and with you the day before.”

  “Thank the Virgin for that.” Catherine let herself breathe again. “Are others going, as well?”

  “The monks have told all those who haven’t associated with the new people that they should leave, especially if they have children. Riders have been sent to Jarrow, asking if they will take us in.”

  “I’ll pack at once,” Catherine said. “Not that there’s much to load. What of Lazarus?”

  “Brother Hugh thinks he’ll be safe enough here,” Solomon told her. “Lazarus doesn’t leave the cloister where he’s being cared for. We can come back for him when the danger is past.”