He sounded the oliphant in grief and pain
Charlemagne heard it and his Franks took heed.
—La Chanson de Roland, II. 1785–1788
Before he died, Thierry swore to them that he had not divulged the existence of the tunnel. He had told his captors that he had been hunting and knew nothing of Boisvert. Olivier had insisted that he and his companion were spies and punished them accordingly. The other man had died after his feet had been cut off. He had said nothing about another entrance, either.
Gargenaud ordered that Thierry be buried with honor in the family vault.
The next day Olivier attacked with a charge that cost him many men, thanks in no small measure to the trebuchet Edgar had designed and that the workmen had improved upon. Even the lower walls remained unbreached.
Olivier was undaunted. Even though they had no weapon that could reach the defenders, the assault continued every morning for ten days, as if Olivier felt he had no need to conserve his forces nor any interest in how little damage they were doing.
At this point everyone at Boisvert had been pressed into service, carrying stone, filling the baskets, making new arrows for the archers. There was not enough time for anyone to sleep or prepare food nor, with the state of the well uncertain, was there a chance to wash. The inhabitants became increasingly grimy, their faces lined with gritty sweat.
Now and then Olivier would let loose a shot from a mangonel and there would be a thump and shake as the boulder hit the walls.
“Why does he bother?” Marie cried in vexation as the stool she was sitting on rocked with the vibration.
“To rub out nerves raw,” Agnes answered. “In my case, it’s successful.”
Eventually, the daily assaults ended, and Olivier contented himself with an occasional charge against the gates when they least expected it. These were easily repulsed by the archers on the walls.
“I don’t understand it,” Seguin said. “He hasn’t tried a battering ram on the lower gate. Not even flaming arrows. Why not?”
“Do you think he knows that we can’t use the well?” Odilon asked, with an apologetic glance at Guillaume.
“How could he?” Seguin asked.
The unspoken answer lay between them. There was a traitor.
“Perhaps he wants to keep Boisvert in good repair for when it belongs to him,” Odilon suggested.
“There’s no way that will happen,” Seguin said. “Especially if he continues his siege in this halfhearted fashion.”
“We should be grateful,” Guillaume added. “It gives us more time to try to find the passage that leads out to the forest.”
“Does Aymon still insist he never knew about it?” Odilon asked.
“Yes,” Seguin said. “He says he found the stable and made use of it. That was all.”
“I wish we could get out to explore from that end.” Guillaume tugged his beard in frustration.
“Better stay far away lest Olivier find it,” Seguin reminded him.
“Well, Count Thibault will surely arrive soon with enough men to drive Olivier back to Anjou,” Guillaume concluded.
“Huh!” Odilon said. “If Thibault ever got the message. What will you wager that the count knows nothing of our trouble? Do you really think this Solomon cares what happens to us?”
“I don’t like Solomon,” Guillaume told them. “But it’s because he’s arrogant and an infidel. Other than that, he’s trustworthy. It may be that Thibault wasn’t in Paris or Troyes and Solomon had to track him down elsewhere. But he won’t abandon his mission.”
Odilon shook his head. “You’ve been contaminated by your sister. She and her husband are obviously far too friendly with the man. No one is coming to save us.”
“That’s not true!” Guillaume felt odd defending Solomon.
Seguin interrupted. “I don’t know which of you is right. It doesn’t matter. What we must do is find a way to defeat Olivier on our own.”
“And what has happened to Andonenn?” Odilon wanted to know. “We did everything we were supposed to. Instead of being our salvation, that magic gift from Charlemagne turned out to be a knife that killed the best warrior we had. We have a foe without and a curse within. How are we supposed to fight both at once?”
“I own the knife makes no sense.” Seguin sighed. “But Andonenn has protected us this long. We must have faith in her yet a while.”
The men were sitting beside the empty hearth in the Great Hall. It was late in the evening and their faces were lit by only a small oil lamp hanging from an iron sconce. Varying emotions were reflected in them, but the predominant one was irritation. There was no need yet for fear or despair, but each man felt that the days of calm punctuated by sudden shrieks of men or the whoosh of objects hurled at the wall were only a stalling ploy. Guillaume finally said what they all were thinking.
“He’s waiting for something, or someone.”
“So are we,” Seguin said. “But even if he brings in a thousand more men, we can still keep them from breaking through. The slope is way too steep for battering rams or belfries.”
“There’s something we’re missing.” Odilon tapped his teeth with his meat knife.
From outside there was a crash as a boulder flattened an empty chicken coop.
Seguin paid it no mind. “Yes,” he agreed. “But what? What have we failed to see?”
“Mama.” Edana climbed on Catherine’s lap. “I want to go home.”
“So do I, deorling.” Catherine tried to smooth her daughter’s tangled hair. “But we still have work to do here.”
Edana nodded wisely. “That’s what the lady says.”
“What? What lady?” Catherine feared she already knew.
“She asks me and Evaine why you aren’t helping,” Edana told her. “I always say I think you’re trying. Is that right?”
“Yes, it is,” Catherine said. “I didn’t know you still saw her. I thought Evaine promised to call if she came again.”
“She told us not to,” Edana confessed.
“Edana, I am your mother,” Catherine said sharply. “Your first duty is to me. Now, you must call if you ever see her again. I need to speak with her. Do you understand?”
Edana seemed worried but she promised. She hugged Catherine and ran out to play with her cousins.
Catherine sat for some time, pondering the message that Mandon had given Edana. Not doing enough to help? What more could they do? Berthe had vanished. No one else had admitted to seeing her and Catherine was half-convinced she and her matching knife had been a dream. Mandon only spoke to children, apparently. They had prepared the best they could to hold out against Olivier de Boue. They had followed the commands of the legend. What else was there?
Through the window she could see clouds gathering again. Hopefully, there would be rain soon. After a few days, when Madeleine’s body had not floated to the surface, Seguin had decided that the water might be used for washing and, after boiling, for cooking. But there was the fear shared by them all, that Madeleine was still in there, caught on something or weighted down by her clothes. No one wanted to drink from a grave. Rain would be a blessing.
The fact that her mother’s body was still missing gave Catherine a shred of hope. Perhaps Madeleine was still alive. But, if so, where was she and why hadn’t she been found?
Catherine pressed her forehead against the stone edging the window.
“We’re missing something,” she muttered.
Brehier also felt there was something that had been overlooked. Olivier’s sorties were too desultory. His men must be getting hungry by now. There wasn’t that much left in the fields. They did nothing beyond making sporadic raids on the countryside and occasionally hurling stones over the walls. Olivier had to be waiting for something, but what?
Someone should go and find out.
Brehier thought of what had happened to the men caught spying. Death didn’t frighten him particularly, but how much torture could he endure?
He hones
tly didn’t know.
After debating the subject with himself, he decided to go to Edgar.
“This isn’t a decision I can make,” Edgar told him with alarm. “You should talk to Seguin.”
“I can’t,” Brehier insisted. “He’s my lord and kin. It’s the same with the others. They knew me as a child and as a man returning home with his tail between his legs. Seguin half believes that I am the one who betrayed us.”
“And, if you are, what better way to get out than to offer to go among the enemy again? It would give you the chance to tell Olivier what the situation is in here?” Edgar pointed out.
“Yes, I thought of that,” Brehier said. “I’m wondering if Olivier is stalling because his spy hasn’t been able to get out to report. But it isn’t me.”
Edgar remained unconvinced.
“There’s another possibility,” Brehier continued. “I thought of you as soon as it occurred to me. Can you teach me to recognize different kinds of siege engines?”
“Why?” Edgar asked. “What do you think he could be constructing?”
“Something we won’t notice until it’s too late,” Brehier answered.
Comprehension dawned in Edgar’s eyes.
“You can’t go alone,” he said. “It would take too long for you to find it. They’d catch you for certain. You need someone to go with you. Martin and I can take the west side, go over the wall by the middens, and slip into the forest by night. We’ll be able from there to see what they are up to. There’s not enough going on where we can see. I think most of the army is building some engine in the forest.”
“No,” Brehier said quickly. “Not Martin.”
Seeing Edgar’s puzzlement, he added, “He’s too inexperienced. And not you, either. If I let you fall into their hands, I would be just as sure to die as if Olivier captured me. And I doubt your wife would be as gentle as his torturers.”
“Then it will be to both our advantage for me to accompany you.” Edgar smiled. “I’ll leave Martin here, if you like. I don’t like risking the boy, either. But, if you want me to keep this from Gargenaud and the rest of the family, the only way is by taking me with you. And, if you are the traitor, you had better pray that you never fall into Catherine’s hands.”
“I swear you can count on me.” Brehier offered Edgar his hand.
Edgar clasped the hand. “I am depending on it.”
“Shall we meet by the gate tonight after Compline?” Brehier asked.
“No, the guards will be alert and we’ll spend the time stumbling in the dark,” Edgar said. “Better in the twilight just before dawn. This time of year we might be lucky and get a ground fog that will conceal us better than night.”
“Tell no one,” Brehier cautioned. “There is still a deceiver living among us.”
“Yes, I know,” Edgar answered, wondering if he was talking to him.
Margaret was sorting through the clothes she had brought with her. There hadn’t been much to begin with. Agnes seemed to have an inexhaustible number of clean chainses and five or six fine bliauts to wear over them. Margaret had brushed and spot-cleaned the stains on her things as best she could and aired the clothing that touched her skin, but she was beginning to feel as shabby as some poor serf who had but one change of clothing for the year.
There must be a bit of ribbon or a length of brocade to brighten the dull colors and cover the grease spots. She dug down to the bottom of the bag.
The thing she came up with surprised her. She’d never seen it before. It was a piece of embroidery about as long as her arm and as wide as her hand. The design was crude, a knight standing with one foot on the chest of his enemy, then the same man receiving a box of sorts from his lord, no, his king. The rough figure wore a crown. The next part showed the same knight riding toward a tower on a hill where a female figure waited. There was writing, too, but Margaret couldn’t read it.
She couldn’t understand how this had gotten into the bottom of her clothes bag, but she did have a good idea where it had come from.
She rolled the embroidery up and tucked it into her sleeve. Now, where would Catherine most likely be?
Agnes was not as well prepared as it seemed. She realized that most of her strips of old linen had been set aside for bandages. Now she realized she would need a few of them back.
“Marie,” she asked, grateful to have found her brother’s wife alone. “Do you think you could spare some rags. All of mine are soaking in a pail of cold water.”
“Yes, of course.” Marie went at once to her cache. “I have plenty and I’m not due to need them for another week or two. Now, what’s this doing here? How odd.”
She held up the cloth that had been discovered at the top of their burnt-out tower.
“Saint Gertrude’s slipping sandals!” Agnes exclaimed. “Do you know what that is?”
“No,” Marie answered. “Do you?”
“Not at all,” Agnes said. “But I have another piece of it, I think. It was hanging outside my window the morning we left Trier. I asked Hermann if the writing at the top were German and he said it rather looked like it, but he couldn’t make it out. Now, where did I put it?”
“If you can find yours, I’d like to compare them,” Marie said. “Guillaume thought someone was trying to tell Andonenn’s story in tapestry. But why it would then be hung from the tower, I can’t imagine.”
Agnes took the wad of rags and went back to her room. She was certain that she had packed that embroidery piece. A search of her clothes boxes turned up nothing. She asked her maids, but no one remembered seeing it.
The nursemaid overheard them as she entered, bringing Gottfried to his mother. She made a guilty noise.
“Oooooh, my lady,” she said. “Forgive me. I thought it was for the baby.”
“Why ever would you think that?” Agnes asked. “And what did you do with it?”
“It has a picture of saints and magic writing,” the woman explained. “I want little Gottfried to have all the protection I can give him.”
“That’s very commendable,” Agnes told her. “But I don’t think the cloth has any power to do that.”
She ended on a note of doubt. For all she knew, it might have. She held out her hand for the embroidery piece. The nurse-maid laid the baby on a cot and took off his long chainse. She turned it inside out and there it was, loosely stitched around the hem of the garment.
“I’m afraid he’s soiled it a bit,” she told Agnes. “Shall I rinse it out for you?”
Agnes nodded. “I’ll be in the solar with Lady Marie.”
At the same time, Margaret was showing her discovery to Catherine.
“I think it belonged to your mother,” Margaret said. “But I don’t know how it got in with my things unless she put it there.”
“It looks like another piece of the one from the tree in our garden,” Catherine said, studying the design. “But, look, this one seems much older. The colors of the thread have faded.”
“Perhaps it’s a family pattern?” Margaret suggested.
“I suppose,” Catherine said. “But I’ve never seen it. I wonder where she kept it.”
“Your sister might know,” Margaret said.
Catherine sighed. “Yes. Mother talked with Agnes much more than with me. We’d better take this to her. I don’t know what it means, but at the moment we have no other hope.
Seguin was on his way to consult with his father when he decided to check on Aymon’s condition. Despite initial improvement, his son was still too weak to leave his bed. Marie had said nothing, but Seguin feared that there had been permanent damage. Aymon’s legs were unnaturally still beneath the sheet.
He found Elissent sitting with him. She was reading from a book of psalms in French and Aymon was trying to appear interested. He greeted his father with enthusiasm.
“At last,” he said. “Someone who can rescue me from my overprotective nurses! Father, look at me. I’m doing much better. I can hear that you need me.”
&
nbsp; “When you can get out of bed on your own,” Elissent responded, “I won’t try to keep you in it.”
Aymon grimaced. “It’s true my legs are still a bit weak, but put me on a horse and I’ll be fine.”
Over his head, Seguin’s eyes met Elissent’s. She gave a small, sad shake of the head.
“One more horseman will make little difference,” Seguin told Aymon. “There’s no point in riding out to attack Olivier when all we need to do is wait him out. You stay where you are until your mother and Marie say you’re completely recovered.”
“But I feel so useless here!” Aymon thumped the bed in frustration.
“We all do, to some extent,” Seguin tried to assure him. “Waiting is not natural to men trained to fight. We can’t even get out to hunt. You’re not the only one on edge from lack of occupation.”
“Have you spent more time searching the tunnels?” Aymon asked.
“No, I don’t want to risk losing anyone else,” Seguin said. “Whoever attacked you and killed your brother may still be hiding down there. The doorways down there are guarded now, but it would take an army to go through every one of the old passages safely.”
Aymon leaned back on his pillows, not entirely mollified.
“I wish I had seen the face of the one who struck me,” he sighed.
“Perhaps you’ll soon remember more about him,” Seguin said, patting his shoulder. “A sound or a smell that might help us identify him.”
Aymon shook his head. “There’s nothing. I was so agitated by the sight of my brother’s body that I would not have noticed a lion ready to pounce.”
“Of course,” Seguin said. “And we’re grateful that you, at least, survived. Marie says it’s a miracle that none of the blows penetrated your liver or heart. It’s strange that the thrust that killed your brother was so precise and your wounds so clumsily made.”
“Are you sorry it was not the other way around?” Aymon asked sharply.
“Of course not,” Elissent answered for them both. “Your father was only making a comment. You and Raimbaut were equally precious to us. Isn’t that so, husband?”
The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Page 28