Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur)

by Newman, Sharan

  “As far as we can tell,” Brother James said. “But the pilgrims who camped in the valley are in disarray. Several of them were caught by the flood and carried away. We don’t know if they are living yet or not. Some of those who managed to save themselves have lost what little they brought to survive the journey.”

  “Find out from the prior the state of the supplies of Saint-Marcel,” Peter said. “Then you and Brother Rigaud go down and discover the degree of the need. We must at least provide these people with bread. And send Brother Savaric to me.”

  Brother James left at once and went to fetch Brother Savaric, the almoner. Normally, Savaric handled only the charitable activities of the monastery, but for this trip he had been given charge of all the funds. James explained again what had happened while all those above slept.

  Brother Savaric blessed himself. “Those poor souls,” he said. “I’m sure we can find enough to clothe them again, at least. I shall consult with the abbot on how the aid may best be distributed. Will you and Brother Rigaud report your findings to me at once?”

  “Of course.”

  Shortly after that, the two monks made their way down the path from the priory to the river. They could see that the current was much stronger than it had been on the previous day. It rushed now over rocks that had provided a place for campfires the night before. From the scum and debris, it was also clear that the water had once been much higher. People were standing in stunned groups or disconsolately scraping the mud from the belongings they had salvaged.

  Brother Rigaud was surprised to find that he felt relief upon seeing that Gaucher, Hugh and Rufus were among the survivors. But that relief did not extend to giving a warm welcome when Gaucher rushed up to him.

  “We can’t find the Lady Griselle!” the knight greeted him. “No one remembers where she was last night. We think she’s been drowned.”

  “If you mean Griselle of Lugny,” Brother James told him, “she and her maid were given shelter in the priory guest quarters last night. Her late husband, Bertran, willed all his property to Cluny at her counsel, with the proviso that Lady Griselle be allowed the use of it until her death. We consider that means she is under the protection of the abbey at all times.”

  “She argued the point most forcefully herself,” Brother Rigaud said. “The woman should have been an advocate.”

  Gaucher’s shoulders sagged. He ought to have known that the damned woman would have found herself a dry bed. And the news that her land would go to Cluny at her death was most disappointing. Still, he brightened; she wasn’t that old, a few years past thirty, he guessed. A man could spend his last years quite comfortably in her care—if he could get around her cutting tongue, Gaucher reflected as he returned to tell the others.

  The monks continued their survey of the damage. They concluded that three people were missing: two of the Germans and the woman known as Mondete Ticarde. Others had suffered some loss of goods or had their clothing soaked in mud, but were otherwise unharmed.

  Brother Rigaud approached a man who was helping Maruxa, the jongleuse, scrape off her blankets. Next to them, her husband was making a forlorn attempt to blow silt from his pipes. Brother James followed his companion a few paces behind. The man straightened as they came up to him and smiled cautiously through his greying black beard.

  Eliazar was used to being polite to monks; he spent enough time dealing with the abbey of Saint-Denis. But new clerics always made him nervous. Sure enough, the second brother gasped in revulsion when he saw Eliazar, averted his face before Eliazar could even get a look at it, then pulled his cowl down to his nose and retraced his steps to get as far away as possible. Brother Rigaud looked after him in puzzlement, then remembered his mission.

  “The abbot of Cluny sends his condolences,” Rigaud told the three. “He wishes to know what he can do to aid you.”

  “I and my companions escaped harm.” Eliazar said, “but there are others here who could use the loan of dry clothing and some help in cleaning their own.”

  “We could use a hot meal as well,” Maruxa added.

  Her husband merely continued blowing glumly into the pipes.

  Rigaud finished the rounds of the survivors on the bank. He found Brother James attending to the remaining Germans. “What did you run off for?” Rigaud asked. “I thought we were doing this together.”

  Brother James pulled Rigaud aside. “Do you think that man saw me?” he asked. “They can curse you with their eyes, you know.”

  “Who?” Rigaud asked. “The players?”

  Brother James lowered his voice to a rasping whisper. “That Jew, of course,” he said. “The man with the beard. What is he doing, traveling with honest Christians on a holy mission?”

  “Jew?” Rigaud repeated. “Was he? I had heard there were two of them sent by Abbot Suger. I haven’t seen them. How did you know what he was?”

  “By the smell, of course,” Brother James answered. “If Suger is protecting them, there’s nothing we can do, but I would stay away from him and his coreligionist. They’re dangerous, deceptive people.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Brother Rigaud answered. “Very well. Have you finished questioning the pilgrims as to their needs?”

  “Yes, we can take the list to Brother Savaric at once,” Brother James answered. “We should make haste. Charity ought never be sluggardly.”

  Maruxa gave the blanket Eliazar was holding one last thump with her hand. “There,” she said. “I’ll beat it again when the mud has dried. That’s the best I can do for now. Thank you.”

  Eliazar helped her fold the blanket. Roberto put down the pipe with a forlorn sigh.

  “At least we saved the vielle,” he said. “That isn’t so easy to replace.”

  “Cheer up, m’aucel,” Maruxa said. “We have our voices yet, our stories, our hands to keep the rhythm and our feet to dance. We will survive much more easily than others.”

  “We always do, don’t we?” Roberto smiled. “Very well, no more long faces. Although …”

  All three of them looked at the place where Mondete had been sleeping. The flat rock on which she had lain was just visible under the water.

  “Poor thing,” Maruxa said, crossing herself. “She had no chance. Sieur Eliazar, has your nephew returned?”

  “Not yet,” Eliazar replied. “I share your fear for the poor woman. Wrapped in that heavy garment, she could not have been able to save herself. But Solomon wouldn’t listen. He’s obsessed with her. Thinks she’s hiding the wisdom of the ages under that cloak.”

  “How strange,” Maruxa said. “I believe that all that lay inside it was Mondete and her sorrow.”

  Eliazar looked downstream where Solomon had gone and Edgar had followed. He saw no sign of either of them.

  “I hope my partner’s son-in-law can convince him to come back,” he said. “We mustn’t delay too long here. Once we’re through the gorge and onto the plain, we’ll be out of danger from floods.”

  “Yes,” Roberto said. “Then we can return to worrying about wolves and robbers.”

  Eliazar left them still sorting out their things. He considered going after Solomon and Edgar, but decided that it would simply mean one more person missing. Farther up, he could make out the figures of Catherine and Hubert. Perhaps from their vantage point, they could see if the other two were on their way back. He went to join them.

  Edgar had caught up with Solomon easily. His friend was moving slowly along the edge of the water, scanning both banks for some sign of Mondete.

  “Solomon, come back with me,” Edgar said when they met. “The force of the river was too strong. Everything will have been carried miles downstream. You won’t find her, at least not alive.”

  “I will,” Solomon answered. “One way or the other.”

  “We need your help,” Edgar pleaded. “Everything is in confusion.”

  “It can be nothing to the turmoil I feel,” Solomon answered. His eyes never left the water’s edge.

  Edgar open
ed his mouth to argue further, but realized that Solomon would not be persuaded by reason. He and his cousin, Catherine, were alike in so many ways. They both believed themselves to be fortresses of rational thought, but all that logic withered when opposed by passion. Passion for a person, an idea, an answer, it didn’t matter what. When they were in the grip of it, there was nothing to do except try to protect them from the worst of the consequences they were certain to face.

  “Very well,” Edgar told Solomon. “The sun has barely raised itself over the edge of the gorge. The road, what’s left of it, follows the river. We can still be at Conques by nightfall, where there is a proper pilgrims’ hostel. If you don’t see us on the road, meet us there. Otherwise, all four of us will come looking for you. You’ll have no rebuttal to Catherine’s scorn then, nor will I protect you from it.”

  “Thank you, Edgar.” Solomon paused for a moment to take his friend’s hand. “If I don’t find her by the time the Lot meets the other rivers, I’ll know she’s lost forever. But I must be sure.”

  “I don’t understand your fascination with this woman,” Edgar said.

  “Don’t say it,” Solomon said. “She’s nothing but a jael who’s finally repented her licentiousness, and hides her face only because she’s become old and ugly. That’s what those old men say, and the Lady of Lugny as well. I don’t believe it. And I won’t believe she’s drowned.”

  “I never said that you would,” Edgar told him. “At Conques by nightfall. Be careful.”

  As Edgar made his way back, he shook his head at this new madness in Solomon. Up until now, he had thought Catherine’s cousin always able to counter his intensity with his logic. Solomon had never studied philosophy but he had long been a classic cynic, never trusting anything enough to take it seriously. What had happened to him on this last trip to Spain?

  Catherine’s unnatural display of patience lasted only until the sun was fully up. By that time, as much order as possible had been restored and the pilgrims had been fed by the monks of Saint-Marcel. By the haste in which the parties formed Catherine knew she wasn’t the only one eager to leave the narrow valley behind.

  “What’s keeping Edgar?” Hubert asked. “Solomon couldn’t have been that far ahead of him.”

  “Perhaps we should start now and meet him,” Catherine suggested.

  “No,” Hubert said. “Everyone isn’t ready yet. Lady Griselle’s men are still loading her packhorses. If he isn’t here by the time the party sets out—”

  He stopped. Catherine had spotted the flaxen hair of her husband among the cluster of people milling about on the road below. She was halfway down the slope before Hubert could finish his sentence. He started after her, then noticed that there was no dark head next to the fair.

  Eliazarhad found Edgar also, and as Catherine and Hubert approached, the two men seemed to be having a strong disagreement.

  “You should have dragged him back by the belt of his brais,” Eliazar was saying. “Hubert, did you hear this? Edgar found that idiot and then let him go wandering off like some poet in a song, hunting for his true love.”

  “I couldn’t force him to return, sir,” Edgar said. “And I don’t think he’s looking for love, not this time.”

  “Whatever he thinks it is, a good short yank on the back of his brais would bring him to his senses,” Eliazar grumbled. “I only hope we don’t lose days searching the riverbank for him.”

  No one was in a better mood as the pilgrims set off again, this time following closely behind the party from Cluny. There was little talking and only an occasional mournful toot as Roberto continued to work on his pipes. As the sun rose higher, many of the party gave off steam when their wool clothing began to dry. They looked like bewildered sinners rescued in the Harrowing of Hell, back in the world but still bearing the stigma of their punishment.

  Catherine made no objection when Edgar shifted their packs to Hubert’s horse and hoisted her onto their own. She used the vantage point to take an inventory of her fellow travelers.

  The two remaining German men were tight-lipped but determined to continue. They agreed that the loss of their comrades was simply part of the price exacted for the saving of their town. To turn back might only bring further disaster. Catherine felt that this was bad theology. But even knowing the correct doctrine on the matter hadn’t kept her from a feeling that everything in life was a matter of reward and punishment, of covenant made and honored or covenant broken and betrayed. Like Gaucher, Hugh and Rufus, like the German townsmen, like Mondete, she had taken a sacred oath to complete the pilgrimage. If she failed through her own weakness, she could hardly expect Saint James to make any effort on her behalf.

  Catherine sighed and turned her attention to Griselle. Having spent the night in a comfortable guest room at the priory, and having had her hair combed and then braided with ribbons by her maid that morning, the Lady of Lugny looked radiant. Catherine noted her own rumpled clothes and terminally tangled hair and had a brief struggle with envy.

  Never mind, let voices told her. She is a poor lonely widow. You have a perfectly nice husband who’s every bit as disheveled as you at the moment. Charity, child.

  Odd how those voices could give her such good advice and still sting with irony. Catherine watched as the “poor lonely widow” refused conversation first with Gaucher, then with that Rufus, his nose as red as his beard had once been. Griselle seemed relieved when Hubert happened to draw up beside her. He said nothing to her beyond a perfunctory greeting, then looked straight ahead as they rode.

  Father is more considerate of her than I am, Catherine thought. It’s very kind of him to save her from unwanted attentions.

  As they began to climb the road up to the town of Conques, Catherine tried to keep the worry from growing. They had seen no sign of Solomon when they left the banks of the Lot to follow the ravine of the Dourdou. He wouldn’t have followed the river farther. They passed by holes in the side of the limestone cliffs, many as large as doors.

  “Father,” Catherine called, causing Hubert to start. He had been occupied with thoughts that didn’t involve his daughter.

  “Father,” she said again, “are those hermitages? Could Solomon be in one of them?”

  “I don’t know why he would have bothered seeking any shelter before nightfall,” Hubert answered. “And most of those caves are used to store cheese and wine and suchlike. They’re cold and damp all year ’round. Hardly a welcome refuge.”

  Still, Catherine examined each dark opening carefully as they passed, hoping that her cousin would magically emerge from one of them.

  They finished the long climb to the town just before sundown. The golden light was enhanced by the warm sandstone walls and buildings. Despite her worry for Solomon, Catherine felt herself becoming excited at the thought of being able to worship at the shrine of Saint Foy.

  Edgar was walking along more briskly as well. Catherine thought it was because of his nervousness on the narrow path along the steep cliff falling to the river below. But then she realized that he was humming and saw that his face was alive with anticipation.

  “I didn’t know you had a particular devotion to Saint Foy,” Catherine said.

  Edgar looked up at her, puzzled. “I don’t. I have my own saints.”

  “Then what are you so eager for?” she asked, hoping he would say it was the night ahead with her.

  “Haven’t you heard about the tympanum here?” He asked.

  Of course. Catherine firmly quashed her disappointment.

  “It should face west, if the church was built properly,” he continued, not noticing her lack of enthusiasm. “If we can get up there just as the sun is setting, that will be the best time to study it.”

  He startled the horse by pulling on the dangling reins. They moved past the other pilgrims and in among the party from Cluny.

  Catherine sighed in resignation. When she first met Edgar, he was a student pretending to be an apprentice stonecarver. But now she knew that the real
pretense had been the student. Edgar had been born an artist. It wasn’t his fault that he came from a noble family in that almost-mythical Scotland. He had studied, trained to become a cleric, tried to be enthusiastic at the prospect of spending his life as abbot of the family monastery, or Bishop of St. Andrews, but his hands would always search out something to carve: wood, stone, ivory.

  Catherine touched the delicate ivory cross at her neck. Edgar had made it for her and been too ashamed to tell her the work was his own. At first she had felt strange about this craftsman’s trade that he loved so much. But not anymore. At some point without realizing it, she had come to love him so much that anything he did seemed wonderful to her.

  All the same, she wished that it had been the prospect of a night in a real bed with her that had hastened his step.

  “I’ve heard that the Last Judgment is one of the best in France,” Edgar said.

  Catherine felt a flicker of interest. She had a nebulous memory about the Hell at Conques, a recollection that real people were portrayed on it: abbots who had despoiled the property of the abbey, a lord who had tried to encroach upon land belonging to Saint-Foy. And there were always inventive punishments for the usual run of sinners. She couldn’t see the tympanum in the same way Edgar did, but still, it might be worth the visit.

  Griselle was suspicious when the merchant from Paris began to ride alongside her. She wasn’t inclined to speak to such people … although she had heard someone mention that this Hubert LeVendeur had married into a fairly good family of Blois. That might make him acceptable at least as a dinner companion. But what had happened to his wife? Not that it was of any matter to her. Griselle of Lugny had only one desire: to fulfill her husband’s unfinished goal, let his anguished soul find satisfaction for the terrible wrongs done to him, and then to join him in Purgatory.

  Now, perversely, she wished that Hubert would talk to her.