“Are you my cousin?”
Catherine leaned away. “I doubt it,” she told him.
Gui shook his head. “Then I don’t understand why you are here.”
Teasing someone far gone into his cups was losing its appeal. Catherine wished the nobility would rise so that she could leave.
“I am in the party of the countess of Flanders,” she told Gui. “She was kind enough to invite me to eat here tonight.”
Gui clonked his cup on the table.
“But then you must be someone,” he insisted. “Everyone here is important, or a cousin.”
“Sorry,” Catherine said. “I’m very sure I’m not either.”
Finally, Count Thibault stood, signaling that the guests might leave. Catherine knew that she still had to wait awhile before her turn came.
Gui rose when Archbishop Hugh prepared to leave.
“Umm,” he looked at Catherine. “Annora doesn’t seem to have noticed me. You won’t tell her I was here, will you?”
“If you don’t wish it, then I won’t,” Catherine answered. “But why not?”
“Oh, you know how families are,” he said. “My father, her father, words spoken in anger, a matter of land donated without permission. That sort of thing. We aren’t speaking at the moment.”
“Perhaps you could make it your job to mend things between you,” Catherine suggested.
“Not with the dragon of Flanders guarding her.” Gui stopped, all color draining from his face. “I didn’t say that. Yes, my lord. I’m coming at once.”
He hurried away.
Catherine was relieved to be done with him. At the moment, all she wanted was to get back upstairs and into bed, even though she knew the room would be crowded with women, most of whom would not be ready to sleep.
Margaret and Annora were by her side as she walked slowly toward the stairs.
“Are you well, Catherine?” Annora asked. “You seem tired.”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Catherine answered. “The dinner was excellent. The singer was a bit too slow for my taste, that’s all.”
“You can’t expect anything lively in Lent with bishops underfoot,” Margaret commented. “At least you didn’t have to sit at the high table with everyone looking at you.”
“That’s true,” Catherine admitted. “Which reminds me, I have some sweets for you. I saw how little you ate.”
Margaret said nothing but squeezed Catherine’s hand.
“I’ve been given permission to stay with you, if there’s room in the bed,” she said.
“We’ll make room, won’t we?” Annora smiled at Margaret.
Catherine stared at her. “Thank you, Annora,” she said. “I hope we won’t be too cramped.”
“It will be nice,” the woman answered. “Like when I was a child and my sister… my sister and I and our friends would all be put in a featherbed and have to signal when we should roll over together.”
Catherine smiled. “Yes, my sister and I used to do the same.”
“I wish I had a sister,” Margaret sighed. “Not that some of my brothers aren’t nice but…”
“It’s different.” Annora finished. “I miss her terribly, you know. Even though I didn’t think I’d ever see Cecile again once she entered Saint-Georges, I still knew she was there if I needed her. It’s lonely now.”
Catherine opened her mouth to mention Gui but remembered his warning. It did seem that Annora had deliberately ignored him at dinner, still, she was sure he was wrong. Annora would probably be delighted to forget old feuds just to have family around.
Or perhaps it was just that she was missing her own family so much.
Where was Edgar now?
Edgar swore silently at the man across the room, who was snoring loudly enough to rattle bits of thatch down from the roof. He couldn’t believe hat anyone else was asleep. Yet no one was throwing anything at the snorer. Edgar stuck his fingers in his ears and tried praying that the man would strangle on his own tongue.
But it wasn’t just the noise that was keeping him awake. For several lays now, Edgar had felt uneasy about Catherine. There was something le should have told her, something he had seen or heard that wasn’t right, hit he couldn’t remember what. He told himself that it was just his worry and guilt at leaving her with another baby coming, but the disquiet wouldn’t be quelled.
The next day on the road, just north of Toulouse, he finally admitted his concerns to Solomon. Edgar wasn’t surprised at the reaction.
“You’re not getting out of this,” Solomon said. “Catherine and all the children are safe at the Paraclete. Heloise is not going to let anything happen to them.”
“I know that,” Edgar snapped. “It doesn’t change the feeling. There’s something wrong. I know it.”
Solomon gave him a sidelong glance.
“You aren’t getting like your Uncle Ethelraed, are you?” he asked. “I made my flesh creep the way he could see what was happening miles away You start in with visions and I might send you home.”
Edgar had to laugh at his nervousness.
“No chance of that!” he chuckled. “You’re more likely to start having visions than I am.”
They rode on for a few moments in silence. The path was steep and slick with spring rain. The horses had to be guided carefully over loose scree. From the woods on their left came a sound of scrabbling. For a moment, everyone froze, hands to swords. Then one of the men whistled and a dog appeared, a fresh rabbit in its mouth. They all relaxed.
“But I know there’s something,” Edgar continued, “something that wasn’t right.”
Solomon rolled his eyes.
“I know you,” he sighed. “You’re going to gnaw on this just like that dog and get far less pleasure. If you ever come up with something, you can tell me. Until then, keep it to yourself. It’s nothing to do with me.”
Edgar shifted in the saddle. He hadn’t ridden so much in years.
“But I think it is,” he insisted. “You know it, too. Damn! It’s right a the edge of my mind. Think. Our journey to the Paraclete. What happened?”
“You nearly tore the town of Nogent apart looking for your family. Solomon was tiring of the game. ”Perhaps you noticed something ode there.“
“Perhaps.” Edgar lapsed back into brooding.
After a moment, Solomon moved forward in the line to talk with hi friend Isaac of Troyes. Edgar alone was not a stimulating companion.
Catherine woke up the next morning to discover that the bed had no been big enough to hold Margaret, too. The girl was curled up on the floor in Catherine’s cloak. As Catherine leaned over the edge of the bed Margaret opened her eyes and smiled.
“The narrow cots of the convent are looking more appealing,” shi said. “Although they are cold. Are you going to talk to my grandfather today?”
Catherine nodded and stepped over her, then wove around all the luggage to reach the curtained corner where the chamber pot resided.
“Oh, excuse me!” she said to the woman squatting before her.
“You’d better find another,” she warned Catherine. “I’ve got a dreadful constipation.”
There was a rustling around the room as several of the women dove for their medicine chests.
“Olive oil and dust from the tomb of Saint Martin,” Annora called from the bed. “My mother swore by it. I know I have a vial here someplace.”
There were various other suggestions from around the room, but the one most welcome to Catherine was the location of another chamber pot.
She returned to find that most of the women were now out of bed. “he bedding and the portable beds had been folded up against the wall a that there would be space for everyone to dress.
“What have you come to plead for?” one woman asked her. “It must e serious to travel now in your condition.”
“It’s a matter of duty,” Catherine answered.
The woman nodded and didn’t press her. Everyone understood duty, specially to family or
one’s lord.
“I’m here with the countess of Nevers,” she said. “Now that her sons have gone with the king and Count William has become a Carthusian, he governance of the county has been laid on her.”
Catherine blinked. This last was news to her. She had only met Count William once, and her opinion of him was that he was a wicked, impious philanderer. How amazing that he should decide to end his days at one of he strictest monastic houses. Or perhaps not. The depth of his sins would require some serious repentance.
Annora told of Countess Sybil’s problems with Baldwin of Hainaut. Others added their stories.
“Abbot Bernard, when he preached this pilgrimage, said that it was a chance for even murderers and blasphemers to find salvation,” one woman sighed. “But it seems to me that only the best men went to the Holy Land and the worst were left behind for the rest of us to cope with.”
Catherine listened without making any comment. She realized that, in this room, she was learning more about the situation throughout Christendom than would ever be presented at the council. These women were he ones who had been left with the responsibilities of their fathers, brothers and husbands added to their own. Many were traveling with countesses and vicountesses who were bringing charges against other nobles and also church officials who had appropriated rights. They were well informed about the situation in their lands.
No one said a word about heretics.
Ten
Near the portico of the church of Saint-Symphorian, not far from the cathedral of Notre-Dame, Reims. Saturday, 13 kalends
April (March 20), 1148. Feast of Saint Marcellinus, orthodox Christian martyred at Carthage by heretics.
Ad ipsos spectat eleemosynarum largitio, quorum est
terrena possessio, vel quibus credita est rerum eclesiasticarum
dispensatio. … Quicquid habent pauperum est, viduarum et
orphanorum, et eorum qui altario deserviunt, ut de cdtario vivant.
The distribution of alms is the duty of those who possess earthly wealth or those charged with dispensing the goods of the church… Whatever they have belongs rightfully to the poor, to widows and orphans and to those who serve at the altar and thus deserve to live from the altar.
Aelred of Rievaulx, De Institutione Inclusaum
Catherine bent her head, letting the snarled curls dangle over her face. She stretched out her bare feet. They were filthy with street debris. John had obligingly rubbed muck on them, adding a few splotches to her face for good measure.
“It might help if you had some sores or bruises,” he mused. “And a lady’s hands are always better cared for than a beggar’s. I don’t know if this will work.”
“Look at my hands, John,” Catherine held them up. “I’m not a grand lady. I scrub and prepare food. I’m scarred from slips of the knife and spatters from the pans.”
“You don’t take care of your nails, either,” John commented as he examined her hands. “Amazing! You could pass as a beggar after all.”
“Thank you, I think.” Catherine bit at a ragged cuticle, adding defensively, “I have a goose grease and rose petal salve for my skin but I never have time to use it.”
“You should make the time,” John said. “You don’t need to do all that work. I don’t understand why you don’t have more servants. Edgar never struck me as a miser.”
“We like keeping our household small,” Catherine answered. “Now, am I ragged enough?”
John surveyed her critically. “Yes,” he said slowly, “but there’s still something wrong. What do the rest of you think?”
Catherine turned to present herself to Astrolabe, Godfrey and Gwenael, who had advised them on where to get worn clothes.
“She looks disreputable enough to me,” Godfrey said.
“Do you think her hair is too clean?” Astrolabe asked.
“It’s not her hair.” Gwenael spoke so softly that the others couldn’t make out what she had said.
“Speak up, Gwenael,” John said. “On this subject, you are the expert.”
“Master John!” Godfrey admonished him.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” John tried to explain. “Haven’t I myself been a beggar at the doors of my friends? It’s only through their goodness that I haven’t joined the troop at the church door. Gwenael, if you think that Catherine is still not able to appear in need of charity, then please tell us.”
Gwenael pursed her lips. “She’s grubby enough, I’ll give you,” she said. “It’s not that. But I don’t know. The way you sit, my lady, it’s too straight, too confident. You don’t look as if anyone has ever kicked you or beat you with a stick. You haven’t been so hungry that you would eat scraps left for the pigs or boil acorns for soup. Your hands are rough, but your face hasn’t been out in all weather. You haven’t bent your back in the field for days on end just to lose the crop to a storm or a battle. Your eyes, they still have hope in them.”
“Oh.” Catherine had no answer for that. Her life had been hard enough, but there had always been love in it and a measure of security. Even when she had been lost in England with baby James and no understanding of the language, she had still known that somewhere she had a home and people who loved her and could afford to feed her. How dare she think she could pretend to be truly in need? Her shoulders drooped.
“You make me ashamed of even attempting such a ruse,” she told Gwenael. “I’m sorry.”
“There!” Gwenael said. “It’s a bit like that. Despair is what you were missing. If you could add some humility and fear, then you’d have it. I know, let me go with you. I won’t speak, then no one will note my Breton accent. But I can remind you if you sit up straight or look people in the eyes.”
“You’re not supposed to look at donors? All these years I’ve been giving alms and I never noticed that the paupers didn’t look at me,” Catherine said. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Gwenael said firmly. “You look at the ground as if about to kiss their feet and mutter, ”Blessings on you, good lady. May the saints guide and keep you,“ or something equally grateful. But you never dare to meet their eyes.”
“I don’t think that this was what Our Lord had in mind when He told us to remember the poor,” John said. His clerical garb seemed suddenly constricting.
“That is a difference between us as well,” Gwenael added. “I would never assume to know what Our Lord meant. My Lord Eon shared with us equally. He made us all feel that we were the same, not only in the eyes of Heaven, but in his eyes as well. They say that Jesus did the same. Is it any wonder I believe Eon to be Our Savior come again?”
John’s jaw fell. “Are you sure you are not a theologian?” he asked.
Gwenael drew herself up indignantly. “Of course not. I’m a good Christian!”
“John, we’re straying from the matter at hand,” Astrolabe observed. “Catherine, will you feel better if Gwenael accompanies you?”
“I confess I would,” Catherine said. “I’m very much afraid of being accused of taking alms falsely. I don’t think I could bear the shame of it, and how could I explain?”
Astrolabe grimaced. “This was a bad idea from the start,” he said. “I don’t believe that the possible gains are greater than the risk. What are the chances that you’ll hear anything that will be of use to us?”
“It’s all we have right now,” Catherine answered. “I’m willing, just nervous. Gwenael will keep me from doing anything stupid.”
“I will at least try, my lady,” Gwenael said. “We should start at the church, where we won’t be noticed in the throng. If that works, then we can move to the door of the house of the bishop of Tours.”
“Good enough.” Catherine stood, putting a hand to her aching back. “Now, if you men will leave, we’ll see if we can find a place at the church portico, in the shadows.”
Where I shall pray that no one from the dinner last night recognizes me, she added to herself, imagining the expression of her trencher mate, Gui, if he should see h
er in this state.
“We won’t be far, if you need us,” John said. “I’ll keep you in sight every minute.”
Margaret had been fetched early that morning by a servant of Countess Mahaut. Fortified by her conversation with Catherine, she had made up her mind to tell the countess that she declined the kind offer to be married. Her resolve lasted all the way to the house where the lords of Champagne were staying.
“Good morning, my child!” Mahaut kissed her. “My brother and I are so delighted that you will be joining our family. We have much to discuss. I want to provide you with an appropriate wardrobe as my wedding gift. You must come with me to my fair at Provins. There are always drapers there with wonderful cloth.”
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