“And I’ll ask at the Parleoir whether anyone has run across him, as well,” Edgar said. “I know what he looks like. It’s possible he went to one of the other merchants seeking news of Hubert.”
They left Clemence only after she vowed not to leave the house without a proper escort, even if Lambert came for her.
“May I come visit Margaret later?” Clemence asked, a plan forming in her head.
“Of course,” Catherine said. “I’ll send Martin and one of the guards for you.”
As they left the house, Catherine and Edgar both felt as if they had aged in the night. Suddenly, they seemed to have more obligations than they could handle. Each had a wistful, if guilty, longing to be unencumbered once more.
“Will you be all right, going home alone?” Edgar asked as he kissed her good-bye in the parvis of Nôtre Dame.
“I’m not a sweet young country rose.” Catherine laughed. “I know what sort of people to avoid.”
“See that you do, leoffest,” Edgar said with mock severity.
Once he had gone, Catherine dawdled along the streets of the Île, spending some time looking at the stalls of goods set up in the open space in front of the Cathedral. Near the wall of the canons’ cloister there was a group of boys and young men listening to one of the masters lecture. She went nearer to hear what the lesson was, but was disappointed to find it an elementary class in arithmetic. It seemed a hundred years since she had sat like that, off to one side, absorbing the teachings of Master Abelard, Robert of Meulan, Gilbert de la Porée, Adam de Petit Pont and so many others. The debates had been lively and exciting. Now Master Abelard was dead, Master Gilbert was bishop of Poitiers. Master Adam was growing old. She didn’t know the new teachers, many of whom seemed as young as she.
In a side street a man dressed in patched brais and a ragged tunic pleaded with passersby to return to the life of the apostles, give up their goods to the poor and trust to God for their sustenance. He had gathered a small group around him, but most people avoided looking at him or jeered as they went by. Catherine hurried on, feeling uncomfortable with the earnestness in the young man’s demeanor. She knew that unless he advocated taking goods from the rich or despoiling the churches as they had done in Rome and other places, no one in authority would trouble the fervent reformer to get a license to preach from the bishop, but no one was likely to act upon his suggestions, either.
As she made her way to the bridge, Catherine was tempted to stop at Abraham’s to see her father. It was true that he had seemed to cast them off along with Christianity, but she couldn’t stop loving him. How dangerous could it be to drop by for a few minutes?
She had just made up her mind to go and had even turned her steps back when she saw a familiar shape from the corner of her eye. Quickly, she ducked behind a stack of pewter dishes outside a shop and peeked around them in the hope that she had been mistaken.
No, it was Jehan.
Her first impulse was to throw herself at him, kicking and pounding. The intense anger that surged through her had been building for years. Just once she’d like to give way to the need to hurt him for all he’d done to them. She was stopped only by the knowledge that he was strong enough to shake her off like a hound would a playful kitten. She couldn’t hurt him, but he could kill her with a blow.
There seemed to be no one with him. Catherine looked around for Lambert, but there was no young man in the vicinity, only a little girl sitting on a barrel enjoying the shaft of sunlight that fell between the eaves overhanging the street on either side. Farther down some women were chatting at the communal well.
So, what was Jehan up to?
Catherine knew that whatever it was, she should find out about it. Now, how could she follow him without being recognized? She already had her head covered, the black braids tucked out of sight. Perhaps if she bent a bit to hide her face and walked with a limp. She tried that. After a moment she decided she ought not to make the lameness too exaggerated, or she would soon lose him in the twisty streets.
She hoped he was returning to the room he shared with Lambert. Then Edgar and his friends could go later and extricate the young man. But as she followed, she noticed that Jehan was heading away from the area where one could rent rooms across the river and went down along the bank, where poor people made shift with crude huts and lean-tos that were washed away each year in the spring tides.
She found it hard to keep her footing on the marshy path, especially since she had to duck behind a bush or low wall every few moments. She caught her scarf on one bramble and nearly lost Jehan as she struggled to free it.
Finally, he turned down a narrow trail, hardly wide enough for one. Catherine stopped in time to see him knock at the door of a building that seemed to have grown like a mushroom by the river, a confusion of boards, stone and moss. She jumped back as the door opened and so didn’t see who answered. When she looked again, Jehan was gone.
While she was standing on the path considering what to do next, she was startled to hear someone call her name.
“Catherine? Have you come to consult the wizard?”
Once she had pushed her heart down from her throat, Catherine smiled.
“The wizard, Maurice?” she said. “Is that who lives there? It looks like a sorcerer’s hut, now that I consider it. No, I was just … uh, hunting for early berries. What brings you this way?”
Maurice smiled back at her.
“I’m coming home from Saint Victor,” he said. “I spent the morning among their books, but now I have to get back to my duties as a new subdeacon. Your basket is empty. You had no success?”
“No, it’s too early, I guess,” she took his arm, almost dragging him back up the path and to the Petit Pont.
“What were you saying about a wizard?” she asked casually. “Is it just because the house is so tumbledown?”
“No, it’s really more of a joke,” Maurice said. “The old man who lives there is harmless. He’s been trying for years to contact a demon that will do his bidding, but without success. Some of the students come to him for love potions and such, but they never work. He’s been there so long, he’s almost as much a part of student life as Master Adam on the bridge. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of him. Edgar must have. He’s a source of much humor among the students.”
“So the bishop doesn’t mind his doings?” Catherine asked, wondering why Edgar had said nothing of him before. Could he have once wanted a love potion?
“None of them has so far,” Maurice said. “Someday we might get a bishop who thinks he’s dangerous, but, as I said, at the moment he’s more of an example of the futility of dabbling in magic.”
Catherine wondered if Jehan knew he was consulting an inept sorcerer.
They had reached the gate of the cloister of Nôtre Dame.
“Do you want me to escort you to your home?” Maurice asked.
Catherine rejected his offer, knowing that he would still have work to do after taking the extra time for her.
“I hope you’ll be able to visit us soon, though,” she said. “We miss you now that you’ve become so busy. I’d like to learn more about what you’ve been reading.”
“Come to Vespers someday,” Maurice offered. “And I’ll come back with you. Clement and Albert are working together on the liturgy this week, and the result is true magic, if you’ll excuse my saying so. But who knows how long it will last?”
Catherine rushed back to the house, hoping that she would get there before Edgar. She wanted to share the information with him but didn’t know how without admitting that she had taken a risk in going after Jehan. She wondered if she could fit Maurice into the story to make it seem that he had been with her the whole time without actually saying so.
“Samonie!” she called as she came in. “I’m sorry I’m late. Have the children behaved? Samonie?”
She slipped out of her wooden-soled outside shoes and went through the hall and down to the kitchen.
“Samonie? Margaret
! Where have you got to now?”
It seemed that people were always wandering off without telling her.
“Catherine?” Margaret’s voice came from far upstairs.
Catherine trudged back up to the children’s room, where she found everyone just waking from their afternoon naps.
“Is something wrong?” Samonie’s face appeared at the top of the second landing. She was yawning.
“No,” Catherine said, feeling foolish about her moment of alarm. “I didn’t realize how late it was. Did you all have a good morning?”
“Quiet,” Samonie answered. “That, in itself, made it good. Did Clemence balk when she saw how felt makers live?”
“She seemed grateful for their kindness and flattered by how obsequious they were,” Catherine told her. “I don’t think she’s used to being treated like nobility.”
“Those country castellans with only a village or two don’t live much better than their peasants,” Samonie observed. “Still, I’m surprised Clemence’s parents let her marry a miller’s son. Do you think she was telling the truth?”
“Why would they be hunting for her father if he hadn’t approved the marriage?” Catherine asked.
Samonie had come downstairs, and they moved into the hall, newly strewn with fresh rushes and herbs. Samonie picked up one of Edana’s toys, thoroughly chewed by the new puppy.
“They might not be hunting for him at all,” she suggested to Catherine. “What if it’s a ruse? Perhaps they know he’s dead and want to be sure suspicion doesn’t fall on them?”
“Nonsense!” Catherine said. “For that, all they had to do was stay in Picardy.”
“And if they weren’t in Picardy when the man died, but Paris, wouldn’t they need a reason?” Samonie responded.
“Oh, Samonie!” Catherine put her hands to her temples. “I never considered that possibility. I thought the worst thing about this death was finding the poor man’s body. But all this confusion and suspicion is horrible. Won’t it be ironic if the man had nothing to do with us or the Temple but was simply left here because the house was empty?”
Samonie gave a thin smile. “I’m sure we’d all have a good laugh about it.”
She then went back to her housework, leaving Catherine to ponder what she should do next and if there were anyone outside of her family whom she could trust.
Lambert stood in a space between the buildings on the Grand Pont, staring forlornly into the water rushing below. The creaking of the mills below the bridge almost drowned out the cries of the pedlars. But there was only one voice he wanted to hear, and he would have picked it out through any other sound.
It had been a mistake ever to let himself be parted from Clemence. He was responsible for her welfare. He depended on her counsel. Without her he was lost and baffled by all that was happening. Now Jehan proposed they commit an act that he could be hanged for. The knight insisted that it was necessary in the fight against evil and that they might never find Clemence otherwise. He also reminded Lambert that the wizard had given them protection, in case the saints should fail them.
But why should the saints abandon him if he were laboring on the side of God?
He was so sunk in gloom that he nearly fell into the river when a man with a bucket pushed him roughly aside.
“Out of the way!” the man ordered. “This spot is for taking a quick piss, not lounging.”
The bucket was already full of night soil, and the man seemed perfectly happy to dump it on Lambert if he couldn’t get to the river.
By the position of the sun, Lambert realized that Jehan was probably at their room, waiting for him. He finished crossing the bridge and slowly made his way out of the light and down the side street to the bridle makers. Despite Jehan’s friendship and encouragement, Lambert wished with all his heart that he had someone, anyone, else to turn to.
“You’d think Catherine would at least come back to see how I was,” Hubert grumbled to Solomon.
“You told her it wouldn’t be wise, remember?” Solomon said. “She has enough to worry about. Your reappearance has only added to their problems.”
“I hate leaving them with this new trouble,” Hubert continued. “I’m sure that body is Jehan’s doing. I’d suspect him of anything that caused us trouble.”
“I can’t think of anyone else,” Solomon admitted. “And Catherine would be happy to agree. But we have no proof. It would give me pleasure to see him swinging at the crossroads. I swear Edgar would pull the rope.”
Edgar’s name diverted Hubert.
“What do you think of him as a partner?” he asked. “Will he be of help to you or another burden?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure yet,” Solomon answered. “He has an inborn contempt for merchants and traders that he’s finding hard to overcome. But he has a good knowledge of the wares, and he can talk with the abbots and lords as an equal; something we could never do.”
“Does he take good care of Catherine?” Hubert prodded.
Solomon laughed. “Can anyone? My cousin needs half of Heaven to keep her safe. But you’ve seen them together enough to know that no one would better tolerate her quirks. He does love her, you know.”
Hubert grudgingly conceded that. But he had never really been able to understand Edgar and had the lingering fear that one day he would disavow his wife and children and return to Scotland.
“I’m going mad staying in the house,” he blurted out. “Abraham and Rebecca are wonderful to me, but to be home and not be able to walk the streets, not to see my grandchildren …”
He got up from his chair and went to the window, peering through the crack in the shutter to the sunlit world outside. Solomon shook his head at him.
“That’s the price you must pay,” he said. “You should have known better than to return at all. I would have brought you the Torah. Are you sure you aren’t regretting your decision?”
“Not my decision.” Hubert turned back to him. “But the world that casts me out because of it. You’re right. I came back partly because I wanted to make sure everyone was doing well. I wanted to hold James and Edana in my arms again before they forgot me.”
“Don’t contemplate it,” Solomon warned. “Catherine has decided they can never know the truth. For them, you’ve gone on a pilgrimage. When years pass and you don’t return, she’ll tell the children that you’ve gone to Heaven with all your sins forgiven.”
Hubert slumped against the wall. “This is my punishment, for not returning to the True Faith at once, isn’t it?”
“How should I know, Uncle?” Solomon was losing patience. “But for the sake of everyone you care about, including me, you must stay hidden until you can leave Paris safely. And you must promise that you’ll never come back.”
Hubert gave no answer. He turned his face back to the sliver of light, all that he could see of the world he had left.
Edgar arrived at the Parleoir to be enthusiastically greeted by Archer and Giselbert.
“We thought you might not be here today,” Giselbert explained.
“Why not?” Edgar asked, looking over their heads for the leather buyer he had come to see.
“Those men from the Temple were here again, asking about you,” Archer said. “We thought that Commander Evrard might have sent for you.”
Edgar gave them both a cool stare.
“But since you’re here …” Archer tried to smile.
“Since I’m here,” Edgar said, “I should be getting on with my work. A pleasure to see you both. And my thanks, again, for coming so quickly to keep the fire from spreading.”
He bowed slightly and left them.
Archer’s mouth twisted in distaste.
“I don’t know which annoys me more,” he told Giselbert. “That arrogant lord or his Jew partner.”
Giselbert shrugged. “As long as they trade fairly and give me a good price, I don’t care.”
“That’s not enough,” Archer insisted. “They don’t fit in. In a crisis, who will they
side with?”
Giselbert eyed him nervously. “What kind of crisis? Famine? Taxes? Invasion? Do you think the Englishman will side with the Normans if they invade?”
“I wasn’t thinking of that,” Archer said. “I meant something important. Say, like the Flemings hoarded grain while they bought cheaply from us and then tried to sell it back at exorbitant prices in the time of famine. Would he stand against them and refuse to buy their wool?”
Giselbert scratched at a pimple on his nose.
“I don’t know,” he concluded.
“You see?” Archer said in triumph. “That’s what comes of letting haughty foreigners into the water merchants!”
Both men would have been astonished to see Edgar at that moment, laughing at a ribald joke from the dealer in leather. The two of them had settled on a bench outside the old building and near a tavern.
“But the priest forgot to ask the goat!” the man ended, laughing so hard that he nearly spilled his beer.
Edgar pounded the bench with his left arm in appreciation. “That reminds me of the one about the Saxon sailor and the lovesick seal.”
He proceeded to tell it, to the edification of all around him.
By the end of the afternoon, Edgar had made a firm deal with the leather trader and learned a new story to tell Catherine in bed that night. Of course, the last time she had laughed so loudly that James had woken up and come to ask them why they were having fun without him. That had made her laugh even harder, so that he finally had to pull on his tunic and take James back to his own bed, explaining that Mama was inclined to be ticklish and that he’d be more careful in future. Still, Catherine’s welcome when he came back to their room had been worth the interruption.
So, after a few bowls of beer and a pleasant afternoon, Edgar set out for home feeling much more content with life than he had been in days. If they made the money they expected to at the Lendit they should be set for the whole summer with something put by for winter, as well.
He crossed onto the Île and cut down the street of the drapers to the Grand Pont, not paying attention to passersby as he computed profits in his head. He vaguely heard the harangue from the man on the corner of the rue de Juifes but didn’t even note if it were to sell goods or save souls. He hoped that, for once, Catherine would be home so he could tell her of his success.
To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Page 26