It probably wasn’t wise to be so curt with her, Catherine refleeted. But she was cold and tired, and the baby was sitting directly on her bladder. Forbearance was more than could be expected.
Gwenael immediately became defensive.
“Nothing,” she said. “I only mentioned that I knew where they could find this Astrolabe everyone was talking about. They didn’t believe me at first, but I told them I’d seen him myself.”
Catherine grabbed Gwenael by the shoulders and shook her hard.
“How could you betray him?” she spoke through clenched teeth. “After all he’s done to help you and save your Eon.”
“I didn’t t-t-tell them,” Gwenael managed to get out. “I just said I knew so that they would let me go. But they wouldn’t take my word. They insisted that I stay with them until he was found. I didn’t expect that. So they came here with me.”
“You brought guards here, to the convent?” Catherine rubbed her forehead. “What did you tell them, that he was masquerading as a nun?”
“I said that a woman staying here was a friend of his and knew where he was.” Gwenael spoke so quickly and her voice was so low that Catherine thought at first that she had misunderstood.
“I see,” she said finally. “And so you brought them to me. And now what do you expect? Am I to hand myself over to be questioned?”
“Oh, no!” Gwenael was horrified. “You’ve been kind to me. I would never want that. It was just the first thing I thought of. You know important people. You’re clever. You’ll know what to do.”
“Oh, Gwenael!” Catherine threw her head back so that it thumped on the wall. “It may surprise you, but I can’t think of a thing.”
Gwenael took her hand again and started pulling her toward the stairs.
“You must come,” she said. “The men say that if I don’t return soon, they’ll come in and get me.”
That woke Catherine.
“That’s nonsense!” she said, even as she started down. “Men entering a convent in the middle of the night? Have they no fear for their souls? Have they no fear of the abbess?”
As they left the guesthouse, Catherine noted that the portress had already called the lay brothers to defend the entry to the convent. She hoped this could be settled before someone woke Abbess Odile. Once she was involved, there would be hell to pay.
The portress glared at them as they entered. “I should have known this one would be the cause of such a disturbance,” she said, pointing at Gwenael. “I know all about you, girl. You’ve disrupted both the laundry and the kitchen. I should turn you over to these men right now.”
Gwenael tried to hide behind Catherine. In the room were four men, all fully armed and angry. The portress had given them a tongue-lashing that made it clear that anyone who woke her up for no good reason was in serious trouble and that they weren’t too big for her to take a birch switch to them.
Catherine put a hand up to smooth her hair and realized that she had not brought anything to cover her head. It made her feel undressed. Silently, she cursed Gwenael in terms that would have shocked even Edgar.
“Are you the woman who’s protecting the heretic Astrolabe?” the captain asked her roughly.
“My name is Catherine,” she answered. “I am of Paris but I am here by the kindness of the Lady Sybil, countess of Flanders.”
The men were not impressed.
“Your servant girl said you know where this heretic leader is,” the man said. “You are risking your immortal soul if you lie to us.”
Catherine raised her eyebrows. The guard had no suspicion of what he had just let loose.
Catherine smiled. It wasn’t a friendly sign.
“You break into a house of women religious after Compline and you dare warn me about my soul?” she asked in an almost conversational tone. “I believe you are at a disadvantage. Your souls are in peril at this very moment, as are your places at the palace. The archbishop will not be amused to find you’ve left your posts on such an errand.”
“Never mind that,” the guard began.
“As for this Astrolabe person,” she said. “I have heard the tales circulating for the past day or so. Who hasn’t? I find them hardly plausible. An army of demons? Such fantasies are for children or credulous peasants on a winter night. And what sort of person is named Astrolabe? A demon king, perhaps? They say he’ll unleash the forces of Hell against us. Really? In Reims, with the pope in residence along with cardinals, archbishops, bishops, abbots, archdeacons, deacons, canons, priests and monks? You can’t believe such nonsense!”
“That’s as may be,” the guard made a brave attempt to reclaim control. “But what about what this woman told us?”
Catherine moved away so that Gwenael was clearly visible to all. The portress made a snort of disgust.
“Lowborn jael,” she muttered. “Never should have let her in the kitchens.”
“Gwenael was taken in and given some work as an act of charity,” Catherine explained. “She has lost her home and family. We have done our best, but I fear that her trials have affected her mind. Did she tell you why she tried to get into the archbishop’s prison?”
The guard shifted from one foot to another. From behind him, one of the men said, “We just thought she wanted a bit, you know, in return for some food.”
“Stuff it!” the captain shouted. “She was trying to seduce one of us into giving her the keys to the cell where the Breton heretic is kept. As if we didn’t know that one. She talks like they do. I figure she’s one of them. She’s free only because she said she’d turn the leader in.”
“It’s possible that she’s one of the Eonites,” Catherine answered. She was thinking as quickly as she ever had in her life. “But if she is, then she would believe that a demonic force was coming to rescue him. Why risk her freedom with such an obvious scheme when help was on the way?”
“Right,” the portress said before the captain could respond. “I told you, she’s just a poor addled slut. And she’s made fools of the lot of you. Now go back to your posts before the Night Office begins or I’ll have the abbess down here to report your names to Archbishop Samson.”
She shooed them toward the door and, in some confusion, they let her. The captain turned and gave Catherine one parting shot.
“We know you now,” he warned. “If we find you’ve lied to us, not even that brat you carry will save you. You’ll go to the pyre the day it’s born.”
“OUT!” the portress said. The guards had barely crossed the threshold when she gestured for the lay brothers to shut and bar the door.
“As for you”—she swung about to face the cowering Gwenael—“if it were my say, you’d be out on the streets this moment. Look what trouble you’ve put Lady Catherine to. Shame!”
Catherine heartily agreed. The man’s last words had shaken her more than she dared show. However, she had taken Gwenael in and now the woman was her responsibility.
“Thank you,” she told the portress. “It is you who have been put to trouble and I am most deeply sorry. I’ll see that Gwenael is properly chastised for her behavior.”
“I’d suggest a few months on bread and water,” the portress answered. “And the same time spent on her knees, scrubbing and praying.”
“A distinct possibility,” Catherine promised. “Now, Gwenael, I want you to go to your own bed and not leave it until I send someone for you. Do you understand me?”
Gwenael nodded. “Yes, my lady. Thank you, my lady. I’m sorry, my lady.”
She dropped to her knees, taking Catherine’s hand and kissing it. “They would have killed me, I know, but for you, my lady. I knew you would save me.”
“Next time you might try putting your faith in Our Lord.” Catherine drew her hand away. “Of course, if you had in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. Now, please, Gwenael. I want to go back to sleep.”
Having finally got the woman off, Catherine made a stop at the latrine and then wearily made her way back up the stairs. She was too t
ired even to be furious. That could wait until morning. All she could think of now was the warmth of the bed.
But there was a hollowness inside her. She had felt pity for Gwenael. Now all she felt was terror at what the woman’s foolish act might have brought upon them all.
It wasn’t until she returned to bed that she realized only Margaret was in it. Annora had never returned.
“Good Lord!” Thomas exclaimed. “I think I’m seeing a ghost.”
“You see why I liked the beard,” Astrolabe said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have had it shaved. Now there will be men at the council sure that my father is haunting them.”
“It will do them good,” John said. “There are some who should examine their consciences on that score. No, you did the right thing. You came here to face your enemies openly. You might as well show that face to the council.”
He cocked his head, studying Astrolabe’s naked countenance. “You’re leaner than you used to be. Harder. I noticed that you didn’t have the tonsure shaved as well.”
“It didn’t feel right, somehow,” he answered. “To hide behind minor orders. I’m tired of hiding. It didn’t help avoid the scandal. Perhaps I’ve made things worse by coming to Reims in disguise.”
“If you hadn’t, you might not have got here at all,” John said. “Rolland and his friend may well have meant to kill you before you could defend your name.”
“Anyway,” Thomas laughed, “if I had to suffer the indignity of wearing rough, salt-soaked fisherman’s clothes to make my way here, it assuages my spirit to know that you had a like experience.”
Astrolabe laughed with him but secretly felt that he was going to miss being Peter. The cleric’s robes felt far too light after the mail.
“Very well,” he said. “My most important objective is to report Cecile’s death officially. I need to go to the archbishop of Tours and tell him everything. He should know that one of his men may also be in the pay of Henri of Tréguier.”
“And if you are denounced by this Canon Rolland?” Thomas asked.
“I can defend myself. Unlike when I first arrived,” Astrolabe said, “I have friends who will stand by me.”
“More than you realize,” John told him. “From what we learned last night, Rolland’s plan of setting the populace against you has only infuriated the council members. Archbishop Samson is particularly displeased. It’s only a few weeks since the commune was put down. He wants no excuse for the townspeople to revolt again.”
“Then it seems that the worst has already happened,” Astrolabe sighed in relief. “And we’ve survived. Although my name may become a threat to the children of Reims for many generations. ‘Eat your porridge or the Astrolabe will get you!’ It’s a legacy I can endure.”
“So we try to reach Archbishop Engebaud before he leaves for the council,” John said. “Then, if you still feel obligated to defend Eon, you can appear there this afternoon when he’s due for trial. If the archbishop is willing to trade for your testimony against the bishop of Dol, you may even be able to get the poor fool released to the custody of a monastery.”
Astrolabe stretched his arms over his head, almost feeling the weight lift.
“Then I can take Catherine safely back to my mother,” he said, “and get on with my life. After all the insistence that she come to be able to overhear Latin conversations unnoticed, she really hasn’t had any cause to do so. I’ve stolen her from her family for nothing.”
“I’m sure she’s been of use to Countess Sybil,” John mentioned. “And she may yet be asked to participate in the debate concerning Bishop Gilbert.”
Astrolabe stared at him.
“Joke!” John said. “Although I’m sure she could give a good account of herself. I just had an image of her going nose to nose with the Lombard. It would be more than many of the elderly members of the council could survive.”
The thought of this put them all in a good humor. They descended the steps to the hall, ready for bread, cheese and beer to break their fast and fortify them for the day.
Instead they found chaos. No one had put out the food. The tables weren’t even set up. Servants appeared carrying bags of altar linen and the instruments of the Mass. The other English clerk came running down from the bishop’s chambers with a chalice tucked under his arm.
“What’s happening?” Thomas demanded.
“They found a body by the river,” the man told them. “Someone identified him as the man who had warned him about the heretic army. Now everyone is in a panic. They say the Astrolabe has come. Do you have any idea what that means? Why should anyone be afraid of an astrolabe?”
Astrolabe reached back and pulled his cowl over his head. It seemed he had decided to resume his own identity too soon.
“Godfrey!” Catherine called down from the window. “We’ve been told not to leave the convent until things have calmed down. I have to send a message to John. Meet me in the entry.”
Godfrey cupped his hands over his mouth to be heard above the noise in the street.
“At once, my lady!”
A few passersby looked up to see whom he was yelling at, but most continued on, either heading toward the bishop’s palace next to the cathedral to be in on whatever was going to happen, or running as quickly as they could to take cover from it.
“Never take refuge in a convent,” Catherine greeted him a few moments later. “It’s far too easy to find yourself trapped inside for your own good.”
“It sounds like Heaven to me,” Godfrey answered. He realized what he had just said. “Begging your pardon.”
Catherine was pale and drawn that morning. She hadn’t slept again after the incident with Gwenael, and the news they had awakened to had set her in a frenzy of worry. If she hadn’t seen Godfrey in the street, she might have made a rope ladder and let herself down from the guest house window.
His words made Catherine blink. Then she laughed. The guard relaxed.
“We all have different images of Heaven,” she said. “Mine is to be home with my husband and children, not cooped up with a dozen women, all of whom want to be out as much as I do. Avoi, I need you to find John. Do you know anything about this murder last night?”
“Me? No,” he said quickly. “I spent the night camped out by Saint-Hilarius. I learned of it this morning. They say the dead man is a canon of Paris. Rolland, I’m sure.”
“That’s what Lady Sybil’s men told us,” Catherine said. “Do they know how he died?”
He shook his head. “No. There are a thousand speculations. Many are sure he ran afoul of the demon lord because he tried to warn people of his plans to conquer the city. The methods they suggest could only have been accomplished by demonic energy. But I seriously doubt that the body was found with all his organs having been pulled out through his mouth.”
“What do they mean, ‘conquer the city’? I thought the story was that the demon was merely going to free Eon,” Catherine said.
“That was yesterday,” Godfrey said. “By tomorrow his army will have already overrun Spain and Provence and be at our gates demanding a tribute of gold and virgins.”
“No doubt,” Catherine said. “Godfrey, I need to know how Rolland really died. Was he drowned, strangled, run through, poisoned, hanged, stabbed through the heart or hit over the head?”
Godfrey took a step back. “Is there one method you’d prefer?” he asked.
“I have a suspicion,” she said. “Of course, I knew someone once who took pride in inventing appropriate ways to dispatch each of her victims, but most people have a favorite and stick to it.”
“You’ve had much experience in this?” Godfrey stepped back again.
“More than I care to,” Catherine said absently. “Of course, he might not have been murdered at all. He could have fallen or had a fit. But we wouldn’t be that lucky.”
“I’ll find out for you,” Godfrey promised. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes, but first I have to tell you what Gwenael has done.�
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Catherine did.
“So don’t try to see her today,” she concluded. “She’s in the nuns’ chapel, cleaning the floor. Someone will be watching her constantly.”
“Stupid, stupid woman!” Godfrey looked around for something to put his fist through. “I knew something was wrong when I couldn’t find her last night. She’s as mad as that heretic lord of hers. Give her up to the bishop.”
“You don’t know how much I’d like to,” Catherine sighed. “I have no idea how to pierce her faith in Eon. She needs someone far more skilled than I am. But I’m sure that, even in her madness, she might be able to help Astrolabe. And we can’t risk what she might say if she were questioned now without one of us nearby.”
“She’s convinced that Astrolabe is going to free Eon,” Godfrey admitted. “It would be hard to explain that her belief has no substance.”
“Now, if you’ll try to discover all the particulars of Rolland’s death,” Catherine continued, “that will help me. After that, find John. Ask him please to come here as soon as he is free. I’m hoping that the tumult in the streets will die down soon. If it does, then I’ll do my best to be at the cathedral this afternoon when Eon is brought in.”
“But surely it was Rolland who intended to denounce Astrolabe,” Godfrey said. “So now there’s no danger.”
“Perhaps that was Rolland’s intention,” Catherine answered. “Someone else was certainly willing to let him be the visible target. That was very wise. But now that he’s dead, the threat to Astrolabe is even worse. Aren’t they saying in the street that he killed the canon?”
“Yes, but you haven’t listened closely,” Godfrey said. “No one thinks he’s a man anymore, but some sort of demon king. There are even those who now are certain that Rolland was really his messenger and struck down by God.”
“No tale would be too incredible,” Catherine said, “for those already infected with panic. But those who have the job of investigating the death are not going to listen to the streets. They will look for a human hand. That’s why I need to know how it happened.”
She rubbed her temples with both hands. “I can almost see it,” she complained. “Eon, Cecile, Annora, Gui, Rolland, that unknown monk, even Gwenael. Somehow they all fit together. Astrolabe has been caught up in a tangle worse than Margaret’s thread box. We must work harder or he may be the only one who can’t escape.”
Heresy: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Page 28