The Wandering Arm: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery

by Sharan Newman

  “He may be dying! Poor Hubert.” Eliazar wrung his hands. He suddenly wondered if Menahem had somehow managed to exact revenge for being beaten, but how? He was a simple draper, with few contacts outside Paris.

  “If Agnes will permit it, we’ll stay with her tonight so that we lose no time in the morning,” Catherine said, looking warily at her sister, who seemed to be responding to the calming effect of the undiluted wine. “When she’s ready, will you take us home?”

  “I can take you home!” The voice was exasperated.

  Catherine looked around Eliazar, then down to where the page sat on the dirt floor. “Ullo! I’m sorry, I didn’t see you. Of course you can take care of us, but it’s dark tonight with only a slivery moon. Did you bring your crossbow or your sword in case we are set upon in an alley?”

  Ullo scowled and owned that he hadn’t. Edgar took pity on him and drew him aside.

  “My wife and the Lady Agnes take a deal of protecting, as I know too well,” he explained. “I would prefer the largest force possible to see them across the river. Of course, you could lead it.”

  Ullo knew he was being condescended to and appreciated it. Most of the time he was just ignored. Even though Edgar was at the moment as grubby as his father’s pigman, Ullo remembered that he was some sort of English lord and accepted him as such. A lot of the tales he listened to in the hall and at the fairs concerned knights dressed as serfs. They always triumphed in the end and rewarded those who had been kind to them while in disguise.

  “Have you found the magic sword and horn yet?” he asked.

  Edgar seemed startled, then looked at his tattered clothing and laughed. “Not yet,” he said. “I hope I do soon, before I have nothing left to wear.”

  Eliazar had brought a lantern for them to find their way through the narrow streets. He tried to get Agnes to agree to come to his home first, but she adamantly refused, so he, Edgar and Solomon accompanied her to Hubert’s house on the Right Bank.

  “Will you permit me to stay here tonight and go with you tomorrow?” Catherine asked Agnes when they had arrived.

  “I came for you in the hope that you would,” Agnes said stiffly. “You are the elder daughter and the responsibility is yours. Is your husband staying as well?”

  “Of course,” Catherine said.

  Edgar caught her arm. “I can’t go with you,” he whispered.

  Before Catherine could answer, Agnes decided that her duty as a hostess included making everyone sit and have a hot drink before leaving.

  “I can’t believe you’ve never been here when I visited,” Solomon said as he followed her up the stairs to the hall. “Are you sure you don’t remember me?”

  Catherine and Edgar stayed behind in the entryway.

  “I have to be at the workshop tomorrow,” Edgar said. “Gaudry will be furious if I don’t appear and I have no way to let him know. I should go back to our room tonight. It would ruin our story if someone saw me leaving here in the morning. Your father is supposed to have disowned you.”

  Catherine swallowed the whine she felt rising in her throat. He was right. It wouldn’t do to ruin the plan now, after so much trouble.

  “But you agree that I must go to my father,” she said.

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t like being away from you.” She hadn’t meant to say that. He knew it well enough.

  Edgar took her hands. “The bed will be very cold without you. If you haven’t returned by Sunday, I’ll come to Argenteuil. Solomon can go with you tomorrow and you can send a message back by him.”

  “Yes, I suppose that would be best.” Catherine sighed and released Edgar’s hands. She rubbed her own on her skirts. “My dearest, even if you don’t stay the night, I think we should try to prevail upon Agnes for some soap and water before you touch anything else here.”

  Agnes did not offer to let Catherine share the bed with her, as they had all through their childhood. Instead she had a cot made up in the little counting room where their father kept his papers and records of transactions.

  “You were always happiest here, anyway,” she said.

  “Agnes,” Catherine tried, “what kind of Christian are you that you can’t forgive me?”

  “Have you repented?” Agnes asked.

  “Repented what?” Catherine demanded. “Leaving the convent? It would have been a sin to stay when my heart was out here with Edgar. Deceiving Mother? I regret that every day. I want to see her so much that it aches, and everyone tells me it would only make her condition worse. Don’t you think that’s penance enough?”

  “It’s a beginning,” Agnes said. “But not enough. What about what you’ve done to me? How you left me to run off with your strange-looking lover. How I was deceived. You knew what Father was; you’re friends with these people. You never told me. Instead you went to them. You abandoned Mother and me, that was bad enough. Oh, Catherine, have you also abandoned Our Lord?”

  “Never!” Catherine cried. “I am Christian to the core of my soul! But Agnes, ‘these people’ are our blood kin. I’ve grown to love them. Why should I abandon them in their darkness? Did it ever occur to you that I might be able to convert them by my example?”

  For the first time, Agnes wavered.

  “No, I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted. “That is the way the priests tell us is best, especially for women, although I find it difficult to imagine you preaching to that Solomon or him listening.”

  She rubbed her fingers along the edge of the writing table and checked them for dust. Catherine waited hopefully.

  “Can’t we be friends again?” she asked. “You’re my only sister. I miss you.”

  Agnes’s lower lip trembled and she blinked rapidly.

  “Not yet.” She shook away the tears. “I’m taking the lamp with me. There’s too much in here that can burn.”

  She left Catherine alone in the dark.

  What did you expect?

  Catherine moaned. She was not about to add an argument with herself to all else she had endured today. But the voices were insistent.

  “I expected her to come to me in tears and beg me to accompany her so that we could care for Father together, as sisters and friends,” she admitted. “Do you think he’s seriously hurt?”

  Your reasoning adility has clearly faded since you left the Paraclete, they sniffed. You forget that your sister is as proud as you are. As for your father, that’s in the hands of God, whom you appear to have forgotten in spite of your recent avowal”

  Catherine took the rebuke and, in part to drive the voices from her mind, knelt by the bed, crossed herself and began reciting from the book of Lamentations.

  “Plorans ploravit in nocte, et lacrymas eius in maxillis eius; non est qui consolatur eam, ex omnibus charis eius.”

  Perversely, it comforted her to think of someone else crying alone in the night with no one to give her consolation. Then she thought of her father again and her prayers became less affected and more heartfelt. She fell asleep in the middle of the psalm Conserva me, Domine, “Protect me, Lord, for you are my refuge,” and slept all night without dreams.

  Twelve

  The workshop of Gaudry, the silversmith, Tuesday, March 11, 1141 / First day of Rosh Hodesh, 1, Nisan 4901

  Incipium autem disciplinae humilitas est …

  “The beginning of discipline is humility …”

  —Hugh of Saint Victor

  Didascalion Book 3, Chapter 13

  Edgar stepped back and looked with pride at the kiln he had constructed. The coals had been burning all morning; the inside glowed white with the heat, but there was no sign of cracking. He felt something inside himself glowing, too. For the first time since his marriage, he was confident that he and Catherine would never starve. He could do something that people would trade food for. It was a shame he would never be master in his own shop as his father was master in his own castle. Fleetingly, Edgar wished he had been born into a class that appreciated his talents.


  “I pay you to work, not worship.” Gaudry’s voice came from directly behind him and made Edgar jump.

  The smith moved around Edgar to see the kiln better. He squatted before the coals and nodded once. “It’s not bad.” He spoke grudgingly but not without admiration. “This will do.”

  Edgar suppressed a desire to whoop with delight. Instead he tried to make his comments as matter-of-fact as the master’s. “Now that we’ve made it, what are we going to refine in it?”

  “Gold,” Gaudry told him. “Rich red gold. But first I need a box carved from wood. You did say that was your first talent.”

  “I can shape wood more skillfully than metal,” Edgar admitted. “I’ve been doing it since I was a child. What sort of box do you need?”

  Gaudry hesitated. He seemed to be considering the best method of explaining something he didn’t want to talk about at all.

  “It’s this way,” he began. “I’ve been given a commission by an important churchman. He needs a good copy made of a certain reliquary.”

  Edgar’s first thought was, what for? One didn’t make a new reliquary unless the old one was considered too humble to honor the saint. Abbot Suger was constantly adding to the adornment of the containers for the bones or possessions of the saints of Saint-Denis. There was no point in copying the same design; it had to be better. However, this didn’t seem the time to challenge Gaudry.

  “A copy?” he asked instead. “How exact a copy do they need? Am I to work from the original or a sketch?”

  “Neither,” Gaudry told him. “The original is … not available. I’ll give you the dimensions of the piece and you’ll work from those.”

  “Which saint is to be honored by this reliquary?” Edgar asked. “I’ll need to know who it is so that I can carve appropriate scenes on the box.”

  “No, you won’t,” Gaudry said sharply. “You just make the damn box the way I tell you to. I’ll cover it with gold leaf and do the decoration myself. Do you understand?”

  Edgar nodded. “But any cabinetmaker can fashion you a box, sir,” he added.

  Gaudry’s face returned to its habitual look of annoyance. “Do you want me to hire a cabinetmaker?” he asked. “If so, then I can see no reason to keep you on.”

  “No, sir, of course not,” Edgar said. “I’ll do it. I simply was confused.”

  “That’s because you keep trying to think,” Gaudry snorted. “Your head is still full of that useless drivel the masters spout. I’ve heard them shrieking out that Latin nonsense as I cross the bridge. In this world, boy, there are no prebends or benefices for most of us. If a man has neither, then he does the work his master sets and asks no questions. Now, for the last time, is that clear?”

  “Yes, Master Gaudry,” Edgar said. He looked down so that the master wouldn’t see the anger. Perhaps it was just as well he had not been born to a family of artisans.

  “Now,” Gaudry continued, “I want you to choose a block of wood that can be hollowed and hinged. It needs to be in the shape of an arm, the left, fingers included, up to the elbow. Is that too difficult for you?”

  “No, sir!” Edgar said. He was so startled that he sounded eager and willing enough even for Gaudry.

  Aldhelm! It had to be. It was Aldhelm’s left arm that Abbot Warin of Malmesbury had given to Saint Osmund for the cathedral of Salisbury. Edgar didn’t know what the original reliquary had looked like, but he remembered John saying that Philippe had put the arm in a gold-plated box. A box in the shape of an arm? It was a strange way to smuggle a relic secretly, in a box that could be for nothing else.

  Also, if they were planning on receiving a ransom for Saint Aldhelm, why would the thieves need a new reliquary? If the arm were returned in a new container, there would always be questions as to its authenticity. Miracles would have to flow from it like milk to convince the people they hadn’t been tricked.

  But what if the original reliquary were returned? That must be it. Edgar went cold with fury. Someone was planning to fool Philippe or Salisbury or both, by returning the old reliquary with a false relic and keeping the real one. Edgar’s fists clenched. Those eolderdeofol-cynn! Did they think that the sainted bishop would work miracles for those who had stolen him? Edgar was determined that he’d have nothing to do with such sacrilege. Saint Aldhelm was English and he belonged in England.

  But how could he help to ensure that this saint of his people went home? Edgar had little hope of ever living in England himself. His family had made their choice to go north after the Saxon defeat at the battle of Hastings and their home was now Scotland. Even with their civil wars, Edgar had no hope that the Normans would ever leave. But he knew that he must do whatever it took to return Aldhelm to the place where he had once been bishop, even if it meant trusting the Normans who now controlled Salisbury.

  “Halig Aldhelm,” he prayed. “I will do whatever I can to fulfill your desire and I hope that it is to return to Salisbury. But, if you want me to help you, a little guidance would be much appreciated. And if you’re of a mind to manage a small miracle, that would be even better.”

  Catherine clutched Solomon around the waist and reflected on how much less comfortable riding was since the days when she had crisscrossed Francia perched behind her father on his horse. She leaned against her cousin’s back, grateful that he had insisted on coming with them so that she wouldn’t need to ride astride so soon out of childbed.

  It had, however, deferred any possibility of a reconciliation with Agnes. Catherine’s sister rode ahead, alone and astride, her bright yellow hose showing above her boots, no matter how often she pulled the skirts of her bliaut over them. Solomon watched her with appreciation Fortunately she refused to turn around and notice.

  They reached Argenteuil about midday. The bells for Tierce had not yet rung. Guillaume was waiting for them in front of the priory hostel. He hugged Agnes and Catherine, assuring them that their father seemed to be recovering rapidly. Solomon was greeted with a cold stare.

  “I’ll see to the horses while you visit your father,” he told Catherine. “You know how I feel about monasteries. Find out when he’ll be able to travel. If it’s only a day or two, I can stay in the village and accompany him back to Paris, unless he prefers to go to Vielleteneuse.”

  “Will you have a place to stay?” she asked. “I don’t remember any Jewish families in Argenteuil.”

  “There’s one old man, a trader,” Solomon told her. “He used to sell wine to the nuns. The new prior won’t buy from him, but he manages to find work in town. I know he sells fish to the peasants. I believe Uncle Hubert gives him a commission now and then. He’ll have a bed for me.”

  Catherine looked at him closely. “I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that this man might have taken a commission from Natan, as well,” she asked.

  Solomon rubbed his nose and grinned at her. “Fantin doesn’t get many visitors,” he said. “I’m sure he’ll be eager to tell me all the gossip, especially as to how difficult it’s become to earn an honest living surrounded by monks and other Edomites.”

  “Just be sure you remember every word to tell me,” Catherine said.

  Solomon grew serious. “Of course I will. And you be sure to find out all you can about what happened to your father. When Natan died, I thought the only pity of it was that you were assaulted in such a manner. But now people in the community are saying that it wasn’t an accident that he came to Uncle Eliazar’s cellar.”

  “They don’t believe our uncle had anything to do with Natan’s death, do they?” Catherine said, alarmed. “How could he have?”

  “Rumors don’t need to follow rules of logic,” Solomon told her. “And Uncle doesn’t help by refusing to explain the nature of his business with Natan. Yes, I’m afraid there are those who believe Natan was killed to keep him from betraying Eliazar’s secret.”

  From the doorway, Guillaume shouted for Catherine to come with them.

  “I’m coming!” she called back. “Solomon, you should have to
ld me this sooner. I’ll do what I can and meet you here this afternoon, before Vespers.”

  He nodded. “‘Go on. Your brother looks ready to flay me alive just for speaking to you.”

  “Guillaume has become terribly pompous since he was made a castellan,” Catherine sighed. She raised her voice. “Yes, I said I was coming!”

  “Saint James the Dismembered!” Guillaume greeted her, holding open the door to the hostel. “Your father lies inside on a bed of pain and you stand in the road in full view of everyone chattering with that Jew. I don’t care if you’ve known him all your life; it’s scandalous!”

  Catherine passed through the doorway in front of him. For a wonder she held her tongue. But she was thinking how sad it was that Guillaume had been sent to their mother’s family in Blois for fostering and training as a knight instead of traveling the fairs with their father. She suspected that he was ashamed to be related to either Hubert or her. Heaven only knew what he would do if he discovered that Solomon was also a relative. She suspected that his reaction would make Agnes’s seem mild.

  Then she saw her father.

  He lay quietly in the narrow bed, his head and shoulder bandaged. One of the monks had given him a shave that morning. Without his usual dark stubble, Hubert looked very pale. Catherine hurried over and knelt by the bed, taking his hand.

  “Don’t worry, ma chère,” he told her. “I’m fine, truly. I only fell from my horse, nothing more. They shouldn’t have sent for you.”

  “Yes, they should,” Catherine told him. “It isn’t right to leave you in the care of strangers. Is there anything you need? What have they fed you? Can you sit up yet?”

  Hubert gave her hand a squeeze. He looked at Agnes, sitting stiffly on a stool on the other side of the bed. She hadn’t touched him. She kept her eyes fixed on the crucifix over the door to the cloister.