The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Newman, Sharan

  Quickly she laced and tied the boots.

  “I don’t understand it,” she said as she worked. “The traps were set as usual last night. But we’ve had no problem with rats in months. Where could they have all come from? It looks like one of the ten plagues down there.”

  Edgar was looking for a riding glove.

  “Is Solomon up?” he asked. “Tell him to meet me in the kitchen. Have Samonie see if the neighbors have also been invaded. If it’s as bad as you say, we may need to get dogs in.”

  Catherine found the glove and helped him get it on. “What should I do?” she asked.

  “Go tell James that I need to borrow Dragon for a while,” Edgar answered. “I know he’ll want to come, too, but convince him that he should stay upstairs and guard you and the others.”

  “Edgar, I haven’t let the dog sleep in the children’s room for months.” She followed him onto the landing. “Dragon is down in the hall, keeping watch. I’ll go see that no one comes down until you and Solomon say it’s safe.”

  Even on the third floor, they could hear the shouts, howls, crashes, and barks. Then there came a series of high-pitched squeals and skitterings on the stone floors. At last Catherine heard a cry of triumph, and soon Edgar and Solomon appeared at the bottom of the steps.

  “They’re gone,” Edgar announced. “Dead or chased off. You can come down now.”

  “About half the stores have been contaminated,” Solomon added. “The room will have to be emptied, scrubbed out, and resealed.”

  “Resealed?” Catherine asked.

  Edgar started to remove his glove with his teeth, then thought better of it. He held his hand out so that Solomon could pull the glove off.

  “There were holes in the two outside walls,” Edgar told her. “As big as a fist.”

  “And a trail of greasy bread leading to each one,” Solomon added.

  “Someone set rats on us?” Catherine couldn’t believe it.

  “It seems so,” Edgar said grimly. “Has Samonie returned?”

  “Yes, she says no one else has noticed a flood of vermin.”

  “Then,” Edgar said, “we have to assume that someone did this out of malice against us.”

  Catherine thought of asking in indignation who would want to do such a thing, but decided that would be naïve. The task would be winnowing down the list.

  She sighed. “I suppose we’d better get to work then. We need to build a fire to burn the bodies and everything the rats destroyed. Then sweep out the cellar and lay new straw. Then see about replacing what we’ve lost before we leave for Boisvert.”

  She looked at Edgar, who looked at Solomon. All three nodded. If someone were trying to harass them, it was just as well that they were going to a well-defended place.

  “This may be nothing more than the work of some trader who feels we cheated him,” Solomon suggested.

  “Can you name him?” Catherine asked.

  “No,” Solomon admitted. “No one has complained that I know of. But there are a hundred reasons besides your summons to Blois, especially since you were preparing to go there anyway.”

  “It may be that we’re not moving quickly enough,” Catherine said. “Edgar, can you send Martin to Vielleteneuse to ask my brother how soon they can be ready? I don’t want to wait here until something worse happens.”

  “I don’t understand,” Edgar said. “I thought someone was trying to prevent us from learning of your grandfather’s command.”

  “But someone else seems to be driving us there,” Catherine answered. “At least it seems so. Saint Berthe’s balancing rod! I can’t stand all this ambiguity.”

  “It would be nice if people would just tell us what’s going on,” Edgar said. “But that never seems to happen. So, I’m deciding. Before our home is burnt down or we’re all attacked by griffins, we’re leaving for Blois. Solomon, can you leave at once and meet us in Chartres once you’ve investigated the area?”

  “Of course,” Solomon assured him. He gave a wry smile. “I feel as though we’ve all fallen into some winter’s story and our only choice is to learn what part we must play. What am I?”

  “The gadfly, of course.” Catherine pushed him back toward the hall. “But it’s the depths of summer and I’m certain I would know if we were in a conte merveilleuse. For one thing, we’d all be speaking in rhyme.”

  “Catherine.” Edgar put his arm around her. “You’re babbling. I think we should let Samonie and Martin start on the kitchen and storeroom while the rest of us go find some unpolluted food. You’ll feel better when you’ve eaten.”

  “Samonie?” Catherine asked the maid. “What do you think?”

  “Martin and I will work better without you all underfoot,” she said. “We’ll get some of his friends to come and help with the clearing out before he leaves with your message to Lord Guillaume.”

  “Just don’t let them dump the rats in the stream out back,” Edgar warned. “The water’s too low to carry them down to the river.”

  Samonie nodded, then shooed them all out.

  They soon found themselves settled around a rickety table between the bakeshop and a tavern along the edge of the Grève. The children sat on the ground underneath and played.

  “Bread, cheese, and fresh berries,” Catherine sighed. “Perfect.”

  “No beer?” Solomon said plaintively.

  “I brought the pitcher.” Edgar handed it to him. “Your turn to pay.”

  Solomon sighed and went in search of the beer cask.

  While they waited for him to return, Catherine watched the activity in the square in front of them. The Grève was a major marketplace in Paris. It sloped down to the Seine, where barges unloaded goods from upriver. There were tables of cloth, pottery, and leather goods as well as foodstuffs, sausage, vegetables, and cheese. Many of the artisans came here to get the raw materials for their trades and make deals for future shipments.

  The space was also dotted with carts from which people hawked fresh milk, sweets, and small ropes of bread, twisted into knots. Among them on this clear hot morning were jugglers, beggars, and cutpurses, all hoping to make their fortune from the citizens of the town.

  Catherine loved each and every one of them. Paris in all its grubby glory was home to her, not some ancient pile of stones in the countryside. Why, then, was she being pulled to a place she could barely remember? It wasn’t just the frightening incidents and enigmatic warnings of disaster should they ignore the summons. She could feel something inside herself answering a call to come back.

  Peter crawled onto her lap, looking for breakfast. Catherine opened the slit in her clothing and he settled down. Solomon came back with the beer and then got cups of new milk for the older children. Edgar was laughing with his mouth full.

  It was a perfect moment. A fleeting instant of mindless contentment.

  Catherine had grown wiser over the years. She recognized it and treasured it as it passed.

  Later that morning Solomon packed his saddlebag and sent for his horse to be brought round.

  “You’ll meet me a week from now, in Chartres,” he reminded them. “Whether Guillaume and his family are ready or not.”

  They promised him they would be there.

  “And don’t become distracted by some new conquest,” Catherine teased. “Unless she’s one you mean to bring home.”

  Solomon grunted without amusement.

  “As if I’d subject any poor woman to inspection by you and Marie, not to mention Rachel.” He mounted the horse and gave them a quick smile. “Expect me alone in a week and don’t make me wait! No, James, you can’t come with me!”

  It would have been nice to gallop away in a cloud of dust, but the road was so crowded he had to ease his way toward the city gate. That gave them time to make James let go of the stirrup and drag him back to the house.

  “Catherine, why don’t you take the little ones up for a nap,” Edgar suggested as they came in. “You could use some more sleep, too.”
/>   James protested a nap loudly.

  “I’m six! I don’t want to stay with babies,” he yelled.

  Edana, at four, was more than happy to go up for a nap. Catherine sighed, not eager for a struggle with her stubborn son.

  Edgar smiled. “Go on up,” he told her. “James and I will see how the cleanup is going.”

  “Thank you, carissime,” Catherine kissed his nose. “Just don’t let him touch the rats.”

  “Of course not,” Edgar sighed.

  He let James climb up to his shoulders, warning him to duck as they went through the door to the kitchen. Edgar was Saxon-tall and most doors were designed for a shorter race. James always enjoyed the thrill of nearly being knocked unconscious by the approaching lintel.

  They found Samonie, with a scarf over her mouth, bringing out baskets of torn grain sacks.

  “I can pour some of this into new sacks,” she told Edgar. “But a lot of it was eaten into and then peed on. Martin and his friends are outside. Did you check with the neighbors? We could get into trouble starting a bonfire on a day like this.”

  “They want to be rid of the bodies as much as we do,” Edgar assured her. “I’ll go out and see that it stays confined.”

  Martin had built a ring of logs and brushwood near the stream at the bottom of the garden. Two other young men were helping him pile the rats next to it, ready to toss on to the flames.

  “There’s going to be an awful stink,” one said, wiping his nose.

  “It can’t be helped,” Martin said. “It would be worse if we let them rot. That would just draw more of them.”

  For the thousandth time, Edgar wondered who Martin’s father was. Samonie had been a serving girl at a castle in Troyes and her children were apparently the product of extra service to visiting lords. But she never spoke of it and he never dared to ask.

  The boy was close to seventeen now, with a mop of thick, wavy brown hair, light brown eyes, and a nose that seemed made to look down. At his own request, he had apprenticed to Edgar and Solomon and was learning the difficulties of being a merchant firsthand. He had gone with them on the recent trip to Lombardy and acquitted himself well. He had the gift of saying less than he knew and noting when others said more than they intended. He had also shown himself to be completely loyal, something far more rare in Edgar’s experience.

  Samonie had given him a bucket of charcoal to increase the heat of the fire. Edgar set one of the boys to spreading it and sent the other to the bake house for a shovel of live coals. While they were occupied, he took Martin aside to discuss matters.

  “Did you find out what made the holes in the wall?” he asked first.

  Martin shook his head slowly. “I thought someone had simply hammered through the plaster, but the cuts were too clean. It’s as if someone sliced triangles in the wall with a sword.”

  “I can’t see that,” Edgar said. “A sword would be too long. Even lying on your stomach, you couldn’t do it. There’d be no way to put any force behind the thrust.”

  “I know, Master,” Martin said. “But that is what it looks like. And there’s more. Come see.”

  He led Edgar down to the stream.

  “This is diabolical.” Edgar could hardly miss the meaning behind the length of flattened plants. The trail went halfway up to the house.

  “There are still bits of bread going from here to the storeroom.” Martin knelt to show a few orts that the rats had missed.

  James bent over Edgar’s head to see what they were looking at. He overbalanced and tumbled off. Edgar reached out his left arm to catch him, but missed. He could almost feel his phantom fingers move through the child’s body.

  Martin twisted on the ground and broke James’s fall.

  “I’m not hurt,” James told them.

  “Thanks to Martin,” Edgar said. “If you can’t pay attention, you’ll have to stay on the ground.”

  “I’ll be careful, I promise.” James grinned with confidence. He began to climb his father again.

  Once his son was established on his shoulders, Edgar returned to the broken plants and the bread crumbs. He found the conclusion too ridiculous to believe. He looked at Martin.

  “Are you telling me that these were imported rats?” he asked. “There weren’t enough in the parish?”

  “It’s the only explanation I have, Master,” Martin said. “Of course, perhaps these are all false clues, left on purpose to deceive us.”

  “Now you sound like Catherine.” Edgar sighed. “Let’s deal with what we can see and touch and work from that. Very well. James! Stop yanking on my ears and help us. What can you see from my shoulders?”

  “I can see the whole world, Papa,” James answered calmly. “Over the wall and into the street. There’s a man going by with honey sticks. Can I have one?”

  “Not today,” Edgar said, turning toward the stream. “Now what can you see?”

  “Just the water, Papa.” James sounded bored. “There are too many trees in the way. Oh! There’s something at the top of the cherry tree! Do you see it? Like a gonfanon that soldiers carry.”

  Edgar tried to look up without sending James down again.

  “Yes, there is something fluttering,” he said. “Martin, can you climb up and get it?”

  “I’m too heavy,” Martin decided. “Rodric,” he called to the boy shoveling rats. “Can you get that piece of cloth that’s caught up in the cherry tree?”

  Rodric was more than willing to change jobs. He went up the tree with ease and soon reached the cloth. There he stayed.

  “What’s wrong?” Edgar called.

  “The destrois thing is tied to the branch,” Rodric called back.

  “It’s a complicated knot. It’s going to take a while.”

  “I know him,” Martin said. “Anything to avoid a nasty job.”

  While Rodric was struggling in the tree, the other boy had returned with the coals. Edgar and Martin had the fire hot enough to start adding corpses by the time Rodric descended.

  “I got it!” he shouted. “It took forever, but I figured you didn’t want me to cut anything this fine.”

  Beaming with pride, he handed the length to Edgar, who held it up to examine.

  It was a long piece of very thin linen, he thought, almost like the strip a priest wears around his neck. But there were no crosses or fish or alphas and omegas on this. Nor was there a border of flowers. Instead, there were embroidered pictures of a mermaid smiling and beckoning from the water. A bit farther on, a man lay beneath a tree.

  “It looks like writing at the top here.” Rodric pointed. “Does it tell the story of the mermaid?”

  “I don’t know,” Edgar said. “These words aren’t in a language I’ve ever seen.”

  James looked down at it. “Let me see. I can read.”

  Edgar set him on the ground. “Yes, you can, James, but Mama reads better. I want you to take this in to her and ask her to take good care of it. Is that clear?”

  James took the folded strip. “Yes, Papa.”

  Edgar watched him until he entered the house. Then he turned back to Rodric.

  “Is there any chance that the cloth could have blown into the tree by accident?” he asked.

  “No, my lord,” Rodric said. “It was tied up there on purpose, I’d take an oath on it. That knot was like the ones the boatmen make, only worse. Who’d do such a crazy thing?”

  Edgar didn’t answer. He handed Rodric the shovel and set them back to work.

  They were at it all afternoon. When the vermin had been destroyed, Edgar gave the young men a denier each and treated them to a visit to the bathhouse. It was nearly dusk when he returned to the house.

  Catherine was waiting impatiently.

  “James told me that this flew into a tree and he found it,” she greeted him, waving the cloth in his face. “You might have given me a little more information before going off to soak again.”

  Edgar caught at the cloth. “I’m sorry. I had rats on my mind,” he s
aid. “Martin’s friend says this thing was tied to a branch so tightly that a whirlwind couldn’t bring it down. What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Catherine answered. “I thought you would tell me. The handwork is incredible.”

  “But the writing,” Edgar pushed. “What does it say?”

  “I’ve been trying all afternoon,” she said. “But I can’t make sense of it. The letters are like French or Latin, but I don’t know the words. I thought maybe it was closer to English.”

  Edgar examined it again. “There are no English letters here, no-eth or thorn. Nothing I recognize.”

  Catherine sat on the steps as if too worn out to stand.

  “What’s going on?” she wailed. “Who left this and why? Is it the same person who set the rats on us, or have an angel and a demon both been loosed on us, tearing from opposite sides?”

  Edgar bent over and lifted her to her feet.

  “The only answer I have is that everything seems to be leading us to Boisvert and it’s time we left, before something worse occurs. Tomorrow, if we can be ready.”

  Catherine nodded.

  “The day after that, at the latest. We had almost everything packed up before we were invaded this morning,” she said. “Samonie and I need to get more supplies for the journey and finish putting what we rescued back in the storeroom.”

  “Good.” Edgar thought a moment. “And, Catherine, don’t forget to bring this embroidery strip to ask them about. It may be part of your family legend.”

  “Definitely,” Catherine said. “And if this is some sort of monstrous joke, I may use it to strangle whoever is behind it.”

  Despite their fear that they would be subjected to more threats and warnings, the family’s journey to Chartres was calm. They were able to travel part of the way by river and then by roads that were well maintained and patrolled. This meant an inordinate number of tolls, but Edgar paid cheerfully.

  They arrived at Chartres well before the week was up and found an inn to stay at while they waited for Solomon.

  “You know,” Edgar mentioned to Catherine once they were settled. “You might copy out the text from the cloth and take it to the cathedral school here. The best scholars left some time ago, but there may still be a master about who can decipher the language.”