Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur)

by Newman, Sharan

  “That’s what I have to explain,” Gaucher said. “It must be divine providence. It’s waited all these years, so that Abbot Peter might receive it for Cluny.”

  “Waited? Where? Where did you hide it, then?” Brother James wasn’t the only one bewildered.

  Gaucher seemed to think he had been very clear. “Why, in Najera of course. We wrapped it in silk and leather and left it in the caves above the monastery. Norbert and the others made plans to come back and sell it for their own profit, but I knew Our Lord wouldn’t let the image of His mother be used so. And now they’ve all been removed and there is no one left to keep me from rescuing it again.”

  The old knight looked around at them calmly. Edgar had the feeling that he ought to throw him a coin for such a fine performance. Hubert opened his mouth to protest at this unexpected ending. Brother James lifted his hand to stop him.

  “Thank you,” he told Gaucher. “I’m sure the abbot will be most pleased to accept your offering. Do you think you can find the hiding place again after so long?”

  “Of course,” Gaucher said. “I remember the spot exactly.”

  He stood. “And now you know why I have endured this long journey and borne the loss of my old comrades. When I see the statue once again receiving the veneration of the faithful, I will know that my last duty has been fulfilled. Afterwards I plan to retire to my land and live simply, in prayer and contemplation, awaiting my call to heaven.”

  Gaucher wiped his mouth, and with the gesture, his posture altered so that he was no longer an exemplar of knightly virtue, but a mere mortal.

  “Saint Ursin’s vial of holy blood!” he said, “but all that talking’s given me a horrible thirst. I could drink straight out of the river!”

  Hubert collected himself enough to answer. “I believe our landlord told me he’s been experimenting with a form of beer from the grain here. He has a cask you could sample from. Edgar and I will stay a moment to have a word with Brother James.”

  “Then I’ll see you back at the inn,” Gaucher said. “Beer, in this heat! Probably taste like donkey piss, but anything is better than water.”

  He set off for the guest house, sauntering as if he had just won a tournament. The other three gazed after him in wonder.

  “How could he live under the weight of so many sins?” Edgar asked.

  James shook his head to clear it. “The only thing he did penance for was rape inside a church! He probably wouldn’t have mentioned it if it had happened anywhere else. How could his confessor let him go without instructing him?”

  “Even the soldiers of William the Bastard did penance for the Saxons they killed,” Edgar said.

  “That’s only because they were fellow Christians,” Hubert reminded him.

  “Not only,” James spoke absently. He started to walk away from them, then stopped and turned around.

  “Hubert—” he began. “Chaim. I have to know. It’s haunted my sleep for too many years. Our mother, our sisters, were they … harmed as well?”

  Hubert wanted to hurt his brother, this man who had disowned them all, but he couldn’t lie. The truth was evil enough. “No, Jacob,” he said. “Apart from being dragged from our home and having their throats slit, they were unmolested.”

  Brother James closed his eyes and exhaled.

  Hubert took a step toward him. “How could you join with those who committed such an act?”

  James sighed once more. “You won’t understand. I have become a monk, not a soldier. Those men did a terrible thing, but that doesn’t mean they followed the wrong faith—only that they were not good practitioners of it.”

  “Just because the hand of God didn’t come down from the heavens and smite them, it doesn’t mean that their faith was the true one,” Hubert answered.

  “I didn’t convert out of fear,” James told him.

  “Why, then?”

  “Because I was touched by grace. My eyes were opened and I believed,” James said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  “Not to me,” Hubert answered shortly.

  Edgar knew this was a debate without hope of resolution. “Brother James,” he interrupted, “about this story of Gaucher’s, how much do you think was true?”

  Hubert and James had moved closer and closer to each other, until they were glaring barely a nose-length apart. At the sound of his name, James started and turned to consider the question.

  “Almost all of it, I should say.” He thought for a moment. “Certainly the parts he was most vague about. I think it would be worthwhile to go with him to search the caves at Najera, just in case he and his friends ‘liberated’ more than a statue from Saragossa.”

  The Lady Griselle fluttered about Catherine like a pigeon over a newly hatched chick. “I can send my guards for a litter if you’re too tired to walk,” she suggested.

  “No, thank you. It’s not far at all,” Catherine said. “I’m quite well. I simply didn’t feel like waiting while the men discussed their business.”

  “Odd, I always did,” Griselle said. “But Bertran relied so on my counsel. He always wanted me with him at such times.”

  Catherine felt that there was a rebuke of Edgar in that. She started to defend him, then decided that she was taking offense too easily. She remembered from previous times that this was a problem that was magnified when she was expecting. So instead, she took this as a chance to find out more about Griselle.

  “Your husband must have been a wonderful man,” she commented. “It’s rare to find a lord who prefers to stay home with his wife to joining other knights in tourneys and battles.”

  “We were devoted to each other,” Griselle said, her face bleak. “He didn’t believe in warfare for pleasure. But he trained for it all the same, and went when his lord commanded. He knew his duty. And he wasn’t weak! His men both loved and feared him. Almost all of them chose to die with him rather than retreat.”

  “Including Hersent’s husband,” Catherine said.

  “Yes, poor woman,” Griselle said. “But at least she has the comfort of children and grandchildren. I have only the memory of love and my obligation to honor Bertran’s memory.”

  “Your care of his soul is most commendable,” Catherine said. “I’ve known other women in your situation who started their widowhood by searching for another husband.”

  “I’ve known them, too. Horrid women. But even if I desired such a thing, I couldn’t think of it until my duty to Bertran is completed.”

  They had reached the guest house. Griselle called to the landlord to bring Catherine a hot infusion of herbs.

  “It seems that we’ll be delayed here for another day,” she said. “I think I’ll avail myself of the bathhouse. One never knows when one will have another chance.”

  Hersent went to their rooms to pack up the oils and toiletries for the baths.

  “Would you care to come with us?” Griselle asked.

  “No, Edgar and I bathed last night,” Catherine told her.

  Griselle smiled. “Ah yes, I used to so enjoy doing that. Bertran kept to the Saracen custom of shaving at the baths, you know, and taught me to appreciate it as well. Does that shock you?”

  “I don’t know what the custom is,” Catherine admitted. She didn’t really care to know. Now that she had her hot drink and was sitting down, the torpor was settling into her limbs. In a few minutes, she would be too tired to climb the stairs to her room.

  Griselle didn’t appear to notice. “I imagine that your father knows; he’s very well-traveled. The fashion is for everyone, men and women, to shave the hair from under their arms and—” she raised her eyebrows coyly “—from their private parts as well.”

  Catherine stifled a yawn. “Really?” she said. “Whatever for? Is it part of their religion?”

  “No,” Griselle admitted. “Bertran said it kept the body from smelling too strongly and helped prevent lice.”

  “Oh.” It really wasn’t a topic Catherine wanted to pursue. The remedy sounded worse than
the problem. She managed to excuse herself, stumble up the stairs and into bed.

  It was just as her head touched the pillow that she realized she had been handed an important piece of information. Mondete wasn’t the only woman among the pilgrims with a razor. But had Griselle told her intentionally, or simply to shock her? Did she realize how much Catherine and Edgar had guessed? Catherine thought that perhaps she was letting her sense of unease about the woman create ridiculous theories. Yet, hadn’t Griselle been at the baths the night before? Who would go twice in the same week? Perhaps … but Catherine was too tired to speculate. In another moment, she was sound asleep.

  Later, while Catherine slept, Edgar told Solomon about Gaucher’s revelations.

  “It’s tempting to think that all these deaths are the work of one person set on revenge,” Solomon agreed, “but even I find your conclusions hard to believe. Without a confession, I don’t think you have a chance of convincing Abbot Peter. I don’t even think you can convince Uncle Hubert.”

  “I’m not even sure I’ve convinced myself,” Edgar said.

  “So now what?”

  “We go to Najera,” Edgar said, “and let Gaucher search the caves for the statue. If we’re right, that’s why the murderer has let him live this long. It may be that the gold and jewels that ornament the piece are the only reason those men were killed.”

  “Not by those methods,” Solomon said after a pause to think. “There was hatred in those murders, not just greed. There’s a vicious malevolence behind all this. Someone wanted those men to be humiliated even in death.”

  Catherine thought it would be difficult to act normally now that she had decided who must be guilty of killing the knights. But she got up the next day, put her things into her pack for the journey, rubbed oil on her callused feet, and threw up out the window, just as usual.

  The original group from Le Puy rejoined on the road. Along with them were the traders from Toulouse, among whom Eliazar was glad to hide. The translators, Robert, Mohammad and Hermann, going to meet with Abbot Peter, came too, riding among the monks. Gaucher rode with them, staying close to Brother James, as if his only possible source of protection now was divine.

  Edgar had told Catherine, Solomon and Mondete about the old warrior’s “confession.” Mondete sniffed her disbelief.

  “I’m surprised he even mentioned the woman,” she said. “Gaucher has much more disgusting habits than that. But I suppose the citizens of Saragossa had locked up their livestock, so he settled for the woman and the boy. He wouldn’t have been shocked by anything the others did.”

  She looked at Catherine half apologetically.

  “Don’t worry about her sensibilities,” Edgar told Mondete. “Catherine has read extensively.”

  “I did see something in a penitential about bestiality once,” Catherine said. “I still can’t understand why the sheep has to do a harder penance than the man.”

  The other three looked at her.

  “Do you think we could speculate on that later?” Solomon suggested.

  Catherine looked at the ground. “Sorry.”

  Edgar put his arm around her. “Did you find anything out from Griselle?”

  “Yes.” Catherine was relieved to get back to the subject. She repeated the conversation, concluding, “It was odd, really, how she told me about the razor, as if she wanted me to know.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” Mondete said. “Even if she had wanted to, how could Griselle have killed all those men? She’s half their size.”

  “And half their age,” Solomon reminded them.

  “But who else could have a reason for killing all of them?” Catherine asked.

  “She has a reason only if her Bertran was the boy that Gaucher and the others tortured,” Mondete said. “And even so, why would it take so long to exact revenge? Bertran was in possession of his land for fifteen years and more. Why didn’t he challenge the knights?”

  “I have no idea,” Catherine said, “just as I can’t imagine how Griselle could have managed to run a spear through Rigaud or pull Rufus up into the tree—unless her guards helped. How loyal do you think they are?”

  “That’s one of the many reasons no one will believe us if we accuse her,” Edgar said. “All her servants will undoubtedly swear to her innocence.”

  “Brother James has to present Abbot Peter with the murderer when we reach Najera,” Solomon reminded them. “If we don’t give him the true one, he may well simply choose the person least able to defend himself.”

  “No, he won’t,” Edgar said.

  “And why not?”

  “Because, Solomon, your father is far too much like you.”

  Edgar wasn’t entirely surprised by the blow Solomon landed on his chin. He flinched, but didn’t fall. Catherine leaped upon her cousin.

  “How dare you!” she shrieked.

  Solomon was ashamed, but too angry to admit it. “How dare he say that? I am nothing like that man, and he is not my father! My father is dead, do you all understand?”

  They nodded. Edgar rubbed his chin. “I understand,” he said quietly, “but you are like him nevertheless.”

  Solomon poised himself to strike again. Edgar tensed. Instead, Solomon swung around abruptly and walked away.

  Mondete watched him sadly. “I think he’s beginning to understand God,” she said. “The difficulty is that he doesn’t like the revelation.”

  Then she, too, walked away.

  Edgar turned to Catherine. “Why are we the only sane people left on this road?” he asked.

  Catherine didn’t smile. “Perhaps our madness is still to come.”

  She wanted to return to the subject of the murders, but the press of others’ emotions and the heat of the day overwhelmed her. Without any warning, she began to throw up again, and then it was necessary to take up a much more personal topic.

  The translators, Robert, Hermann and Mohammad, had no idea of the turmoil they had landed among. They were under the impression that the job they had been assigned—and for which they had been taken from their customary work—was the main concern of Brother James. Therefore they were not pleased to find that he had little interest in them and scant information regarding their duties.

  “You don’t even know where the abbot intends us to work?” Robert asked.

  “He said nothing about it to me,” James answered. “His secretary, Pierre, will tell you, I’m sure. I think the idea is dangerous, myself. Such books shouldn’t be translated; they should be burned.”

  “Are you afraid that knowledge of the true words of the Prophet will lead to the conversion of the Franks?” Mohammad asked. “If so, I think you have good reason for your terror. Many of your people here have chosen to submit to Allah when they heard his Truth.”

  The Moslem was astonished when instead of responding with anger, Brother James began to laugh. “The conversion of the Franks?” he repeated. “From what? They can’t read their own books, much less yours.”

  “Then why are you worried about a Koran in Latin?” Robert asked. “Do you fear for the souls of the monks?”

  Robert was genuinely curious. He had come to Spain and learned Arabic to study science, following the example of Adelard of Bath and others. He hadn’t felt any contamination from the religion, only contempt from the Saracens he studied under for those they considered infidels. No one had thought him worth converting.

  “I have no fears for my brothers,” James told him quietly. “I simply feel that such heresy should not be honored by putting it into our language.”

  Robert shrugged. “The abbot doesn’t agree with you. He believes that by understanding the infidels, we will be better able to refute their arguments and convert them to Christ.”

  James laughed again, shortly and without humor. “If this is what my lord abbot wishes, I will not gainsay him,” he told the men. “But I think we would be better served if you translated the evangelists into the tongue of the Saracens to bring our Truth to them.”
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  “An interesting idea. Have you suggested it to the abbot?”

  “It’s not my place to,” Brother James said. “But it doesn’t matter. Conversion comes from the heart, not the mind. We learn the words only later. If you will excuse me, I must keep a man from being murdered.”

  When he had left, Hermann turned to Robert and Mohammad. “My French is not as good as yours. Did he say murdered?”

  “Perhaps he only meant it in a spiritual sense,” Robert said. “Why would anyone want to murder a fellow pilgrim?”

  Hubert had become accustomed to riding near Lady Griselle and Hersent by now. He didn’t notice that Catherine and Edgar were far behind them, and he preferred to believe that Eliazar stayed with Aaron for the sake of discretion, not because he disapproved of Hubert’s friendship with the woman.

  It had been so long since a woman had seemed to want his company. Especially a woman like Griselle, with her refined gestures and golden hair. She reminded him a little of his wife, Madeleine, in the days when they were first married, before the uncertainty of his commitment to Christianity began to torment her.

  Hubert shifted uneasily in his saddle. Why should he think of poor Madeleine now? She was far away, at the convent of Tart, and her mind was even more remote. It came to him with a shock that it wasn’t only Griselle’s manner that was familiar, but also her expression—so like Madeleine’s had become in the end, as if only a lifetime of training kept her from self-destruction.

  “Are you well today, my lady?” he asked cautiously.

  She gave him a suspicious glance. “Have you been talking with your daughter recently?”

  “About you? Of course not!” he said.

  “Perhaps you should,” she answered and lowered the veil she wore over her hat to protect her face from the sun, thus ending conversation.

  Hubert was startled, then embarrassed, then angry. What had Catherine said to Griselle? It was bad enough when his brother lectured him on his friendship with the woman, but for his daughter to interfere was intolerable. He wheeled his horse about and went back to tell her so.