The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Newman, Sharan

  “Catherine!” Guillaume stood and shouted for her. “Peter has swilled enough. He can finish up with sausage. The lad’s got a couple of teeth; time for him to chew something besides you. I need you to write the list of what’s been lost for Abbot Suger.”

  Catherine gave Peter another few gulps and then released him. He had almost finished, anyway. She folded the flap over the slit in her clothing and joined her brother at the table.

  They didn’t finish with the last recital of woe until the lamps had been lit and most of the village gone back to their smoky but untouched homes. Catherine had written as shortly as she could, but the wax tablet was full with squiggles running down the side.

  “I should get this on parchment as soon as possible,” she said. “Before I forget what all my abbreviations mean. Guillaume,” she checked to be sure everyone else was busy elsewhere, “something strange happened to me this afternoon.”

  She told him about the voice in the hut.

  “I think it was the same old woman that your horse stepped on,” she finished. “And don’t tell me that she’s dead.”

  Guillaume sighed and rubbed his eyes. Every muscle in his body ached, including some he hadn’t used in days. His head was full of speculations about how they were going to survive the winter, or even autumn. Under this worry was the fear that the fire had been a warning. Catherine’s story only deepened his fear.

  “How can I leave my wardship?” he asked her. “Without the keep to protect them, these people will be prey to any brigands who may come by. The abbot will certainly want rebuilding to start at once.”

  “I know.” Catherine put her hand over his. “I don’t know what to do, either. It all seems like something from a winter night story. Yet, the messenger was killed on his way to you. Not struck down from the sky or appearing from a gnarly oak. A harmless man was murdered to keep you from going to Boisvert. What would the abbot think about that?”

  Guillaume sighed and withdrew his hand.

  “You know as well as I do that he would consider it a personal insult,” he said. “Abbot Suger has strong opinions of those who challenge his authority or who threaten his people.”

  “That’s right.” Catherine stood up, stretching her tired back and hands. “Why don’t you go and explain it to him, yourself. Edgar and Solomon want us to return to Paris for a few days before we set off. If the abbot agrees, you can meet us there.”

  “I suppose.” Guillaume was reluctant. “I’m surprised he hasn’t sent someone down here already. The smoke must be visible from Saint-Denis.”

  Then he looked at her sharply. “What do you mean, ‘Solomon’? What has he to do with any decisions? That Jew doesn’t intend to come with you, does he?”

  Catherine wished that just once she could tell Guillaume that Solomon was family, too. But this wasn’t the time.

  “He has the right to help us decide anything that might affect the trade he and Edgar do,” she explained. “He has offered to come with us on his way to visit the Jewish community in Blois. I don’t think he has any interest in staying at Boisvert.”

  Guillaume was pacified, but not pleased. He spent the rest of the evening in the corner in deep conversation with his bailiff.

  Catherine had only a few words with Marie before they left the next morning. Considering how her sister-in-law had reacted to the first story about the old woman, she didn’t think the most recent encounter would be appreciated. And Marie had enough to cope with at the moment. Catherine was amazed that she seemed so calm, with most of her possessions now fluttering in the wind across the countryside.

  But Marie did have something on her mind.

  “Catherine, I don’t want to worry you,” she began.

  Catherine was mildly amused.

  “What more could there possibly be?” she asked. “A plague?”

  “No, of course not,” Marie answered. “But, I’ve just been wondering. Edgar says that all of the descendants of Lord Gargenaud must return to Boisvert. Have you thought about what that means?”

  “Well, I don’t know how many there are,” Catherine admitted. “He’s outlived three wives, at least. So there are likely cousins I’ve never. . .”

  “Not cousins, Catherine,” Marie said. “I was thinking of your mother.”

  “Oh, sweet Virgin!” Catherine was thunderstruck. “It never occurred to me. They can’t mean to take her from the convent!”

  Madeleine de Boisvert had been in the care of the Cistercian nuns of Tart for the past ten years. Her guilt over marrying a baptized Jew had been exacerbated by Catherine’s decision not to enter a convent. Eventually, her mind had broken. The ritual and routine of the religious life helped her survive, but nothing had brought back her senses.

  Marie shrugged. “I don’t know. But, even though the nuns say she’s much calmer, she apparently thinks that you and your brother and sister are still children. Or she may believe that you ascended bodily into heaven. Either way, seeing you might not be good for her.”

  Catherine sagged against the wall of the tavern. Edgar had almost finished overseeing the loading of the packhorses, not that there was much left for them to carry. She really didn’t need something else to worry about. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t even considered that anyone would be so foolish as to wish her poor mother to leave the refuge where she was cared for in her gentle madness.

  “I’m sorry, Catherine,” Marie said, “but I didn’t know if I’d be able to mention it before you got there. I thought you should be prepared.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Catherine told her. “You’re right. It’s thoughtful of you to consider it amidst all this trouble.”

  “But you wish I hadn’t.” Marie gave a wry smile.

  “Well, yes,” Catherine said. “However, as you say, at least now I’ll be able to prepare for the possibility.”

  As they followed the river downstream toward Paris, Catherine’s mood began to lighten. Once away from the heavy layer of smoke, she could smell the remnants of rain in the forest. It was as if the dust of the world had been washed away to make it ready for guests. The shock of the fire receded. They were all safe. Guillaume would manage as he always did. She had let the oppressive heat and odd occurrences affect her mind. They would have a short, pleasant visit at Boisvert with relatives she had never met or could barely remember. She would show the children where she had played on her rare visits there. The abbess of Tart would never be so ill-considered as to disrupt her mother’s life on a whim. Everything was going to return to normal soon.

  When she caught a glimpse of a pale, greenish face looking down at her from the overhanging branches of an oak tree, Catherine closed her eyes and didn’t open them until the road had twisted, leaving the apparition far behind.

  Five

  Paris, Wednesday (feria quarta) 9 kalends September (August 24) 1149. Feast of Saint Bartholomew, apostle to India. He was martyred by being flayed alive. The patron saint of tanners and leatherworkers. 11 Elul 4909.

  E Lorois, ki les esgarda

  De la merveillese segna

  Jamais ne verra sa pareille.

  Seeing this, Lorois crossed himself

  At this wonder, for never had he seen the like.

  —Lai de Trot, II. 135–137

  Do you know what I like best about the baths?” Catherine asked Edgar as they steamed together in a large, curtained tub near their home.

  “I know what I like best,” Edgar answered and demonstrated.

  “Exactly,” Catherine laughed. “We can do whatever we like and not worry about one of the children coming in.”

  “Yes, I feel strongly that children should learn about copulation from watching dogs and goats, just as we did,” Edgar said. “And not from their parents.”

  “Well, that explains a lot.” Catherine let herself float against him.

  “Are you complaining, my lady?” he asked.

  “Not at the moment.” She sighed.

  There was an interval of silenc
e and near-drowning.

  When they had both recovered, Catherine reluctantly pulled herself from the warm water and draped a linen sheet over her shoulders. Then, over his protests, she scooped a finger into the pot of face cream she had brought and began rubbing it into Edgar’s left wrist around the part where the leather strap chafed his arm. Gently she smoothed it over the scarred skin that was still tender, even four years after the hand had been cut off.

  “Stop wriggling,” she told him. “You’re worse than James.”

  He tried to pull away. He didn’t like her paying so much attention to an ugly stump. She knew it and continued her ministrations.

  “Now that we’re home again,” she said. “I’m beginning to feel a bit foolish about my insistence that we go to Grandfather’s. Since Guillaume is so involved in getting at least part of the keep rebuilt before winter, he may not want to bother with it, either.”

  “Catherine, are you forgetting that a man died trying to deliver the summons?” Edgar asked, keeping his eyes from what she was doing.

  She was silent a while, her fingers massaging the cream up his arm with hard strokes.

  “No,” she said finally. “But it all seems so unreal now. I think I was bewitched by the heat and that strange old woman. There probably is no emergency. It’s more likely that Grandfather is senile and bored and wants to stir up some excitement to amuse himself.”

  She put the leather patch back on his arm, winding the straps around to secure it. “Don’t you agree?” she asked him.

  He lifted himself out of the tub to sit next to her. Catherine looked down.

  “Anything else in need of a soothing cream?” she asked, distracted for the moment.

  “They say one should always oil a sword before sheathing it,” Edgar suggested. “Of course that’s a very ambiguous adage.”

  “You don’t have any obvious bruises,” she said after making an examination. “Nor rust, I’m glad to say.”

  “I thank you for that, carissima!” He grabbed her in a tight embrace that almost sent them both back into the water.

  “Now, about going to Blois?” Catherine asked reluctantly. “What should we do?”

  Edgar sighed. He and Solomon had been debating the matter since their return to Paris. As the summer waned, more people were returning to the city. There was business to be transacted. Could they afford to spend even a few weeks away, especially when they had just completed a journey to Italy and back?

  “It may be that this was just a whim on your grandfather’s part,” he answered. “The messenger might have been the victim of brigands who were interrupted before they could loot his body. In that case, it would make no sense to pack up and travel again so soon. But what if there is something to it?”

  “A curse?” Catherine asked. “A fairy great-great-grandmother? That’s only for stories. If it had been so vital, someone would have told me,” she added with resentment.

  “Most stories have a seed of truth in them.” Edgar’s voice shook as she dried his back. “But you mustn’t blame your brother if you were kept in ignorance. Your mother may not have felt it was appropriate for someone intended for a religious life.”

  “Ha!” Catherine snorted. “You should have heard the real histories of some of the nuns’ families. I should have been told.”

  Edgar ran his hand through her curls and kissed her forehead.

  “Perhaps,” he soothed, “but it can’t be changed now. Solomon has offered to go down on his own this week and see what he can find out. He was planning to go to Blois in any case.”

  “Another bridal prospect?” Catherine asked hopefully.

  “Not likely.” Edgar shook his damp hair like a dog. “He runs the other way every time a nice Jewish girl of marriageable age enters a room.”

  “He should take one of them,” Catherine said sadly. “What is he waiting for? He likes women well enough. It’s not right for him to refuse to marry. Who will he leave his share of your partnership to? Who will take care of Aunt Johanna and Uncle Eliazar when they’re old?”

  “I don’t know, Catherine.” Edgar finished dressing. “You would think that the sweet tranquillity of our home would fill him with the desire to have one just like it.”

  Catherine thought of the havoc that the children were probably causing at that very moment.

  “Oh, well,” she decided. “We can’t force him to marry and we can’t turn him out, so he might as well be useful. How long will it take him to return from Blois?”

  Solomon was already trying to get information on what was happening at Boisvert. His old friend, Abraham the vintner, had family in the region. In order to learn the latest news, Solomon had resigned himself to passing an evening listening to a litany of the virtues of every unmarried Jewish woman in France, Normandy, Champagne, and Burgundy. At least so it seemed. Abraham’s wife, Rachel, had made it her life’s work to see him settled and procreating.

  “She’s not only beautiful, but even tempered, sweet as a dove,” Rachel extolled her most recent find. “Her father will give you a house near Troyes. Think how convenient that will be.”

  “Very nice,” Solomon said. Unbidden, his mind reminded him that Troyes was close to the Paraclete, where Edgar’s sister, Margaret, was staying with the nuns until her fate was decided. He pushed the thought away. Margaret’s fate was not in his hands.

  “Solomon, you can’t enjoy this rootless life you lead.” Abraham felt obliged to support his wife. “You’ve no home but a corner of a room in the home of Edomites!”

  “Catherine is my cousin, for all she’s a Christian,” Solomon reminded them.

  “And it’s worth your life should the other Christians discover it,” Rachel reminded him. “You survive on their goodwill.”

  “We all do, Rachel,” Solomon answered. “And must continue to as long as we are forced to live among these idolaters. At least the Christians I depend on love me as I do them.”

  “But you need your own family,” Rachel almost wailed. “You need a son to bring to the Torah.”

  “Rachel,” Abraham said quietly. “You’ve done your best. We cannot continue to badger poor Solomon.”

  “Thank you.” Solomon smiled ruefully. “Everything you say is true, Rachel, and I’m sure the women you suggest are all paragons of virtue and beauty. I don’t know why I can’t accept my obligation. But everything in me says that it’s not time.”

  Rachel sniffed. “Well, from the gray I see in your hair, I’d say time is running out.”

  Solomon laughed at that. “Catherine tells me that there is a mixture that will cover the white hair. She swears she doesn’t use it herself, but I have doubts. Now, what is the news from Blois? Is there a reason a man might send for all those of his blood to gather there? Even more, is there reason to stay away?”

  Abraham tugged on his beard in thought.

  “Henry, lord of Blois isn’t yet returned from the Holy Land,” he said. “That’s both good and bad. When he’s home, he and Geoffrey of Anjou are in a constant battle over border castles. But now that he isn’t there to oversee matters, minor lords feel that they can chip away at their neighbors’ lands with impunity.”

  “Do you think Lord Gargenaud’s keep at Boisvert is in danger?” Solomon asked.

  “It’s probably the strongest fortress in the area,” Abraham said. “Been there forever, as far as I know. Almost all the buildings are stone now. The ditches are deep and full of sharp stakes. The walls are thick. And the place has its own source of water within the keep itself, they say. I suspect that Paris would fall before Boisvert.”

  “Don’t ever say such a thing, even in jest.” Rachel signaled the serving girl to bring more wine.

  “So you know of no reason why Edgar shouldn’t take his family there?” Solomon wanted to be certain.

  “The Holy One, blessed be He, has not given me knowledge of the future,” Abraham said. “But it seems a safe enough place.”

  “Do you know any strange tales of the
family of the lord?” Solomon asked. “That they have lives unnaturally long, for instance?”

  Abraham shook his head. “Gargenaud is very old, I know. No one can remember when he was young. However, when they get past a certain point people tend to add to their age. I remember hearing about a woman in Rome who swore she was the daughter of Moses’ sister. Some say old Gargenaud fought with Charlemagne or even his grandfather, Charles the Hammer. Nonsense, of course.”

  “Nothing else?”

  Abraham laughed. “What do you want, demons flying around the towers by night? No, Solomon, nothing else.”

  Solomon thanked him for the information and the food. He didn’t feel especially relieved that there was nothing sinister to tell Edgar. Even if there were no demons at work, something about this whole affair gave him the feeling that a storm was rolling toward them all.

  Mandon huddled in the shadow of the church of Saint-Merry, shrinking closer to the wall whenever anyone approached her. There are beings in the world who need masses of people about them in order to survive. But Mandon was one who diminished when forced to live long among throngs. Paris was agony to her. The streams here were tame for the most part, confined by stone embankments. This summer they had no force at all. They trickled their way to the Seine, too tired even to turn a mill. For one used to living always with the endless sound of water flowing, the muddy, clogged waterways were torture. She longed to return home but couldn’t until her task was done.

  What did it take to make these people heed the prophecy? Did they have no respect for tradition?

  The next morning Catherine went down to the storage cellar next to the kitchen. The next moment, she was racing back up the stairs to wake Edgar.

  “Rats!” she cried. “Everywhere! In the grain sacks and gnawing through the cheese rinds. The cellar is full of them!”

  “How can that be?” he asked as he pulled on his leather brais and hunted for the thick boots that laced to his knees. “Damn! Do these up for me, Catherine, would you?”