Catherine didn’t realize how tightly she was gripping Edgar’s hand until he gently pulled her fingers away and shook his arm to restore the circulation.
“You have such an interesting family,” he said.
“And I used to think we were quite usual,” she answered. “Mother was always a bit more devout than most people, but otherwise …”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I believe I’m becoming inured to sudden shocks. I don’t particularly like the idea that Brother James is my uncle, but he doesn’t seem interested in exploring the relationship either. No, what I’m really worried about is that ring. How did it get into Father’s scrip? And why are we being suspected at all? None of us knew those men who died. But first Solomon is accused, then Father. Maybe next it will be you.”
“It does seem strange,” Edgar said. “As if someone were trying to turn the investigation as far from Cluny as possible. Perhaps it’s time we started finding out more about our fellow pilgrims. It doesn’t appear that Brother James, or Jacob, is in any condition to make a clear analysis of the situation.”
When they reached the bridge at the River Urrobi, they found the Lady Griselle and her servants waiting for them. Catherine wondered when they had left the priory. She had been so fixed on what was happening that she hadn’t even noticed Griselle leaving. It was odd that the woman hadn’t stayed to watch the outcome of the drama.
“I don’t believe you finished the tale you were telling me last night, Sieur Hubert,” Griselle greeted him calmly. “I should hate to be deprived of the ending.”
Hubert straightened out of his gloom. “I beg your pardon, my lady,” he said. “I’m surprised to see you here. I believed that you wouldn’t want to associate with me any longer.”
“Really?” she said. “You were mistaken. Now, please tell me what happened after the wine was stolen by the Flemings.”
Hubert’s troubled heart flooded with joy. He hadn’t expected this of Griselle. All the warnings and lectures he had given himself regarding her interest in him were totally forgotten. Inhaling her perfume, he felt his anguish evaporate. At least for the present.
“Ah yes, the Flemings,” he said as he fell into place next to her. “They thought they would be safe in London, which is infested with their countrymen these days, but my partner and I knew a few tricks to match theirs … .”
Eliazar was left alone, walking rather than riding since it was the Sabbath. Griselle and her party, the guards riding nervously before and behind her, moved ahead of him. Ordinarily, Hubert would have walked as well, but he seemed oblivious to all but Griselle. While the sight of his brother so obviously infatuated filled him with dread, Eliazar was glad to be ignored for now. The company of his own thoughts was all he could stand.
This journey had become a disaster. He should have said something the moment he spotted Jacob. How could he have hoped they would be able to avoid each other? Hubert had been too young to remember his brothers who had left Rouen to study in Paris. Only Eliazar had known that Jacob had been ensnared by the preachers of the Crucified One. Eliazar shivered at the memory. Jacob must have been sneaking off to hear their sermons for months before he made his decision. Then, on a simple trip to the yearly fair at Provins, he had vanished. He had left behind two letters, one for his brother and one for his wife, begging her to join him in baptism. Eliazar had burned both missives, returned to Paris and told everyone that Jacob had died, drowned at a ford, his body washed away. The next year, Solomon’s mother had died and he and Johannah had taken the child into their home to cherish.
After a while, he almost believed the story was true.
And here Jacob was risen from the lie Eliazar had created. What would happen now? Would Jacob denounce Hubert to the abbot? Could Jacob see his own baby brother hanged for murder? It was possible that Jacob would see it as a test of the sincerity of his conversion. And what of Solomon? What would this do to him?
Eliazar felt the world settle onto his shoulders. He wished with all his heart that Johannah were here to help him. In their thirty years together, she had always been able to make the burdens lighter.
Back at the priory, Brother James was in the chapel, prostrate before the altar. He had not been in such a torment of spirit since he had made his decision to enter the monastery. With flowing tears, he prayed for forgiveness, guidance, strength.
“But first, Lord, please,” he begged, “take away the faces from my mind! I cannot bear them!”
Despite knowing now that she was Chaim’s child, he could only see his mother in Catherine’s face. The beautiful, gentle woman who had been killed by the soldiers of the god he now worshiped. He thought that he had long ago managed to reconcile the contradiction in his mind. Christ could not be held accountable for all the evil done in His name. But every time James saw Catherine, he felt that his mother’s blood was on his hands.
Solomon was even worse. James should have seen who he was from the beginning. The man was all he had been himself: arrogant, stubborn, belligerent, scornful of the Christian world he lived in. No wonder James had felt an instant antipathy to the son he had left behind.
He remained on the floor through the morning, until the canons came in for None. The chantor conferred briefly with the prior; then Brothers Bruno and Deodatus were asked to remove their colleague so that the recitation of the Office could begin.
The two monks lifted James and dragged him to the cloister.
“How may we help you, Brother James?” Bruno ran to dip a cloth in water to mop James’s tear-streaked face.
“Tell us what has happened to bring you to this state,” Deodatus begged. “Have you found out who killed Brother Rigaud?”
James took the cloth and rubbed it over his face and head. “The murderer. Yes, perhaps. I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“Brother Bruno, get the infirmarian,” Deodatus said. “Brother James needs something to calm his spirit.”
James shook his head and made himself stand. “No, Bruno,” he said. “My spirit should not be calmed. I need to be overflowing with fire to finish my task. Forgive me, my brothers, for frightening you and for delaying our journey. We must leave at once if we’re to rejoin the others at Larrsoaña tonight.”
The descent in the sunshine was much easier than the climb in the rain had been, despite the warnings. The road twisted many times but led them gently into the kingdom of Navarre. Catherine didn’t notice. For the moment, she had forgotten her own pilgrimage to ponder the meaning of the events of the morning.
Logically, as a good Christian, she should have rejoiced to find that this unknown uncle had converted of his own volition and gone so far as to become a servant of the Church. Hadn’t she been trying for years to get Solomon to do the same? Why, then, was the revelation so upsetting?
It couldn’t be because you love your Jewish cousin and loathe your Christian uncle, could it?
Oh, no! When those voices began to argue with her, Catherine knew she had’gone too far into speculation. They always confirmed the one thing she had tried hardest not to face. Very well. Yes. Monk or not, uncle or not, she found Brother James/Jacob repellent. Rigid, humorless, unforgiving of others.
And he had been put in charge of discovering the killer of Brother Rigaud, and by extension, finding the one who had murdered the two knights.
That was what was really frightening Catherine. Whoever he was, whatever his past, did James hate her family enough to refuse to look elsewhere for the answer? Was he so eager to prove he had renounced his old beliefs that he would see his brother, his son, hang rather than admit that someone from the neighborhood of Cluny was responsible for these deaths? It would have frightened her even more to know that Eliazar was pondering the same questions.
Edgar was right. They had to find out more about how all these people were connected. Everyone in their party seemed to have known each other, more or less, for many years. Even Maruxa and Roberto had passed
through Burgundy several times in their travels. They must have learned all kinds of things about the people they had entertained. As someone had once told her, kitchen gossip is the most reliable. The jongleurs and the maid would have heard most of it.
Even though the journey that day was nothing to the day before, Catherine was exhausted by the time they reached the hostel. She let Edgar put her down on a blanket in the straw like one of the parcels and fell asleep before he had returned with their allotment of bread.
Edgar wasn’t sleepy. After assuring himself that Catherine wasn’t likely to awaken soon, he looked around for something to do. Solomon and Eliazar had gone to the camp where Aaron and the men from Toulouse were staying. Hubert was still entertaining the Lady Griselle. Gaucher and Rufus were sitting on opposite sides of a bench outside, eyeing with suspicion anyone who approached them. Edgar thought they wouldn’t welcome his company.
He wandered about for a while, exploring the area around the Augustinian hostel. There were a few houses by the roadside, one clearly intended for providing the pilgrims with comforts that the canons declined to offer. Edgar wondered if decent ale could be found, but decided it wasn’t likely. He felt a spasm of homesickness. It had been years since he’d had what he considered a proper bowl of ale. And the farther south he went, the worse the brewing seemed to be.
Perhaps he was tired. This sense of being an alien in a foreign land happened to him rarely these days. French came as naturally to him now as English, something that would horrify his father. He had friends here, and a family, albeit an unusual one. Of course, in Paris there were English friends as well. He missed John particularly. The cleric from Salisbury was a keen observer of people and would have been able to advise him on what to do next.
Finally, he wandered back to the hostel. Gaucher and Rufus hadn’t moved, but they had been joined by Griselle’s maid, the one with the name Catherine thought so funny. What was it? Oh yes, Hersent. She was sitting at the end of the bench chewing on some bread that she dipped into her wine cup from time to time. The two knights were regarding her with something besides suspicion.
“My poor husband fought in Spain once,” she was telling them, “before he became a vassal of Lord Bertran. I think they became friends because Ghyso also knew the country. He was a squire at the siege of Saragossa. Perhaps you knew him? When were you there?”
“It was more than twenty-five years ago,” Rufus answered. “We haven’t been back since. There was enough to do, keeping our own territory at home safe. I don’t remember your husband.”
“You never met Lord Bertran either?” Hersent asked. “It seems strange, when your lands aren’t that far apart. He came to Burgundy after his father died, about twenty years ago. One would think you would have been called to fight together.”
“I’ve heard of him, of course, but no, I don’t think we ever did meet,” Rufus answered. “You didn’t know him either, did you, Gaucher?”
“No. From what I hear, the man was far too uxorious,” Gaucher said. “He didn’t often serve in person when he was required to send military help. Not but what I might not stay close to home if I’d had a wife like Griselle. Now that I’ve seen her, I understand better.”
“They were devoted to each other,” Hersent said. “He wasn’t jealous; he just loved her too much to leave her alone.”
“Unnatural,” Rufus commented. “Sort of like this one.” He gestured at Edgar, who came out of the shadows, embarrassed to be caught eavesdroppng. Rufus ignored his discomfort.
“Of course, your wife isn’t bad either,” he admitted. “Too dark for my taste, at least to marry, but she has an air about her. And since you’re here, tell us, what was all that about this morning? Brothers, sons, everyone with another name? Sieur Hubert won’t escape justice that easily.”
Edgar stiffened. “As I recall, what happened was that you two accused my wife’s father of murdering your friends.”
“That’s right.” Rufus was unperturbed. “That jongleur fellow, Roberto, told us he’d seen Hugh’s ring in the man’s purse when the merchant emptied it to find some coins last night. We took the purse from him, searched it and found the ring.”
Edgar was immediately alert. “Really? And how did Roberto know what this ring looked like?” he asked. “Why didn’t he assume it was Hubert’s?”
“Must have heard us talking about it,” Gaucher answered him. “Both rings were taken, but Hubert only had the one without the stone.”
“What?” Hersent stood up quickly, the wine splashing down her bliaut. “Both rings?”
“Hugh had one ring, with an emerald in it, part of some booty from Saragossa,” Rufus explained. “And another one—”
Gaucher jabbed him in the side with his elbow. Rufus suddenly remembered that the ring without the stone hadn’t been Hugh’s and had only just reappeared.
“Your mind is failing with your years,” Gaucher said. “He means that the emerald was missing from the ring when we found it yesterday. The merchant must have pried it loose and given it to one of his Jewish friends. Which brings me back to our original question. What was all that this morning with Hubert and Brother James? What did that trader mean, calling him Jacob?”
Edgar wasn’t about to be pulled into that. “Perhaps you should ask Brother James,” he said. “I still want to know how Roberto knew that the ring he saw was the one taken from Hugh.”
“Perhaps you should ask Roberto,” Gaucher answered.
“I intend to,” Edgar said.
“Just remember that you’re standing surety for your father-in-law,” Rufus warned. “If he vanishes before we get to Burgos, you’ll be hanged in his stead.”
“We’ll find out who really did this long before then.” Edgar reined in his growing anger. “I wouldn’t be so eager to start measuring the rope until you know whose neck it will circle.”
Edgar turned his back on them and walked slowly to the door of the hostel, feeling the tickle of a knife-point between his shoulder blades with every step. But neither Gaucher nor Rufus made any move to attack him.
In their standoff, only Edgar noticed that Hersent had gone, leaving behind on the bench her bread soaked with spilled wine.
Edgar searched the hostel for Maruxa and Roberto, but didn’t find them. It was possible that they had been asked to play for some other travelers, or that the canons had decided that as the two weren’t genuine pilgrims, they weren’t entitled to a place. The pilgrim shelters varied in their restrictions. Some were open to all, others allowed only pilgrims on foot without money, and made men and women sleep in separate rooms.
It was too dark now to search outside. Edgar only hoped that the jongleurs hadn’t decided to leave the party now that they were over the mountains.
When he came back to their pallet, Catherine hadn’t moved. As he took off his shoes and slipped in beside her, she stirred in her sleep to fit herself against his body, draping one arm across his chest. Edgar felt her breath on his neck and wished they were someplace where they didn’t have to sleep in their clothes. He turned onto his side, and her warmth slid into his body.
He didn’t feel homesick anymore.
The next morning at Mass, Catherine saw that Brother James had rejoined the group. He was assisting the priest from the hostel to distribute bread to the pilgrims. His face remained blank, as if he had never seen her before. Only when she raised questioning eyes to him, did he flinch and blink.
She tried to keep her mind on the journey, but the face of the monk kept intruding. He looked nothing like her father. The chins were different, and James was as gaunt as she was herself, while Hubert always appeared well fed. Catherine wondered if under his beard, Eliazar had a chin like James’s. She couldn’t feel connected to this man. She had known Eliazar and Solomon since childhood, even if the relationship had been kept from her, but Brother James was a stranger.
She wished she dared ask Solomon how he felt about it all. But he had refused to speak to anyone, even Mondete.
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After Mass, the pilgrims started out again. If the weather held, they would reach Pamplona today, the home of the king of Navarre. The next day they would come to Puenta la Reina, where all the pilgrimage routes met. From thereon at this time of year, the Way of Saint James would be as crowded as Paris on market days, or so she had been told.
Catherine had fallen asleep without eating and then waited until late morning before getting the bread. As she left the hostel, she felt dizzy and stumbled against the Lady Griselle.
“I beg your pardon,” she murmured as she was steadied.
“Not at all,” Griselle answered. “Let me help you to your horse. Are you quite well, my dear?”
“I just forgot to eat,” Catherine assured her.
“Fasting won’t help you conceive,” Griselle said. “I tried that, along with everything else. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen.”
“It does to me,” Catherine said sadly. “All the time. But the babies never survive.”
“Oh.” Griselle paused, then said decisively, “all the more reason to eat. And perhaps Saint James will take pity on you and grant your request.”
“Yes, thank you,” Catherine said. “And thank you for your kindness to my father. I haven’t seen him so alive in a long time.”
Griselle seemed embarrassed. “Not at all. He’s very kind to amuse me on the journey and to protect me from those filz a frarine, Gaucher and Rufus. Excuse me.”
She waved to attract the attention of her guard, who changed direction to meet her.
Edgar set Catherine on the horse, and today she had no complaint. He gave her a hunk of cheese to nibble on but she had no appetite for it. She couldn’t understand why she was still so tired. Sleep was all she wanted.
The road to Pamplona was hilly and rough. At the top of one steep climb, Catherine looked to her left and realized that they were again following a river.
Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur) Page 25