Catherine looked at her in astonishment. “You have grown up, haven’t you? Perhaps you should consider this marriage. You’d make a good countess or whatever it is they have there.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” Margaret answered decidedly. “Now, will you promise to dress decently and be at the dinner tonight to support me in my decision?”
“I will, if you’ll help me set up one of these beds so that I can have a nap first,” Catherine answered.
She lay down but didn’t get any sleep. Between her own thoughts and the women coming in and out of the room, there wasn’t much chance of repose. But at least she had her feet up and the baby only kicked now and then to reassure her that it was still alive.
She closed her eyes. There was just too much to worry about. Catherine knew that her first responsibility was to help Astrolabe. She agreed that the clerics would be more likely to talk unguardedly around her, but there must be a better way to find them. The idea of pretending to be a beggar had sounded exciting. Now she knew better.
And try as she might, the concerns of her own family worried her more than those of Astrolabe and Annora. Were James and Edana really doing well at the Paraclete? And if so, why? She missed them horribly. How could they be happy without her? Then there was Margaret. Poor dear. Was nothing in her life ever to be easy? Of course she wasn’t going to be packed off to a foreign country like a shipment of spices. But how could they prevent it without alienating the count and countess of Champagne? Their patronage was essential to continued trade. Her family had always received privileges and freedom from tolls within the county and at the fairs. The loss would be devastating for the family finances.
These thoughts tumbled about in her mind as she dozed, becoming blended and confused. She finally awoke with the vague feeling that Annora was to be married in Carinthia, Astrolabe lose his trading privileges and she and Edgar about to be burnt as heretics.
It was not a restful afternoon. But, in that space between sleep and reality, Catherine had an idea.
John had been easy to locate. The tavern had been staked out by the few English clerics whom King Stephen had permitted to attend the council. Astrolabe and Godfrey found him at a round table in the corner chattering away happily in his native language. He broke off the conversation when he saw them.
“How did she do?” he asked, sliding into French effortlessly. “I thought that I should leave when I saw them start back to you.”
“A total of six silver pennies,” Godfrey said. “I didn’t know how well beggars were done by.”
“I didn’t mean that,” John said. “Did she learn anything?”
“Only that a lot of people have been driven from their villages by the famine and that abandoned wives are common,” Astrolabe answered, giving him the money. “Can you see that this gets to those in need?”
“Of course.” John put the coins in his purse. “So it’s no use to try again?”
“Lady Catherine is willing,” Godfrey forestalled Astrolabe’s objection.
“So she says,” Astrolabe admitted. “I wish there were another way. Have you learned anything?”
John shook his head. “That in itself is strange. There’s a great deal of discussion about the heretic the archbishop of Tours has brought in but nothing about a woman being murdered. That doesn’t make sense. You’re quite certain she was dead?”
“John, no one survives a slit throat like that,” Astrolabe said with a shudder. “She was cold and drained of blood. I know. Half of it was on me.”
He closed his eyes, trying to remember Cecile as she had been in life, not when he had last touched her.
John pretended not to notice Astrolabe’s emotion.
“I wonder why you weren’t killed, too,” he commented.
“I don’t know,” Astrolabe said, forcing himself to remember less sharply. “I presume the murderer was interrupted or felt that only Cecile was a danger to him.”
“It only takes a second to cut the throat of a man already unconscious,” Godfrey observed. “And he couldn’t be sure that you hadn’t seen him as well when Cecile recognized him.”
Astrolabe felt his neck. It seemed undamaged. The talk had given him a frisson as if cold steel were tickling him just below his ear.
“Do you think I should worry about being attacked?” he asked.
“Always,” Godfrey answered. “But especially now. Someone killed your friend to protect himself. If you are seen as a threat, then what would stop him doing it again?”
The shiver at Astrolabe’s neck ran down his spine. He shook himself to expel it.
John put his arm on his friend’s shoulder. “We’ll find him, Peter. Whatever this monster is planning, whoever is helping him, we won’t let him do any more harm.”
It was only bravado, but the words gave Astrolabe some comfort.
Another dinner. Huge amounts of food on platters. Heapings of spices that were even more expensive because of the wars. Wine only slightly diluted with water. And all in the middle of Lent.
Catherine sighed. She ate all the meat put before her, reminding herself that it was for the baby, but she had to force herself to finish. Even though she knew that the remains of the meal would be given to the poor, even now lining up at the gate, it seemed obscene to have so much. She felt in the trencher to see if there were any bits of lamb left. Then she realized that her bread partner had eaten nothing.
“Annora,” she said, “you should have stopped me. Please, get the page to bring you more.”
“I’m not hungry, Catherine.” Annora smiled. “I have only myself to feed. You take what you want.”
“I feel such a glutton.” Catherine wiped her fingers on her napkin. “Are you feeling well? The room is very close.”
“That is a polite way to put it,” Annora answered. “It’s impossible to find a laundress or a bath in this town. We’ve all, well most of us, tried to counter the problem with scent. Attar of lily and lamb don’t mix.”
“Would you like to go out for a few moments?” Catherine asked. “I would accompany you.”
Annora accepted and they threaded their way through the tables out to the convent garden where cool evening breezes soothed their rumpled spirits and settled their stomachs.
“Have you been out in the town at all?” Catherine asked. “I’m sorry that I haven’t spent much time with you. I didn’t mean to abandon you.”
“Don’t fret about it,” Annora said. “The countess took me yesterday to visit the Abbess Marie. She is here in place of the abbess of Saint-Georges, where my sister was, to plead for the return of the nuns, you know.”
“Why didn’t the abbess of Saint-Georges come herself?” Catherine asked. “I had wondered.”
“Abbess Adela is now bedridden,” Annora explained. “She’s terribly old. They say she’s nearly a hundred!”
“Ah,” said Catherine. “Now I understand how Henri de Treguier could kidnap the nuns. I couldn’t imagine any abbess allowing such a thing. Don’t they have a lay advocate?”
“I think it’s the same Henri,” Annora said. “After all, if he could throw his own mother’s confessor out of his monastery, he must be powerful. I wish Cecile had gone to Saint-Sulpice. No one would dare confront Abbess Marie.”
“For one so young, she does have a commanding presence,” Catherine said.
“Well, she is a king’s daughter,” Annora said. “It’s in the blood.”
A vision of Edgar’s “fishwife” face passed through Catherine’s mind. Yet Margaret showed no signs of aristocratic arrogance. The noble blood must flow more thinly in some, or more nobly.
“My goodness!” Annora exclaimed suddenly. “What was that?”
She turned quickly toward the door to the dining hall, bumping into Catherine.
“What?” Catherine managed to avoid falling. “What is it?”
“I’m sorry,” Annora said, puzzled. “For a moment I was sure… I must have been mistaken. I thought I saw someone in the doorway. H
e seemed to be about to come toward us, then I could have sworn something came out of the ground and pulled him down, like a soul dragged into hell.”
Catherine crossed herself. “Saint Anthony’s dancing demons!”
She headed for the door. Annora ran after her.
“Catherine, where are you going? It was just a trick of the light, I’m sure, someone passing by, not coming out.”
“Perhaps,” Catherine answered. “But I want to see, all the same.”
“Look, there’s no tunnel to Hell,” Annora said when they reached the doorway. She laughed. “I knew as soon as I spoke that it was but a fancy. I’m unsettled by my loss.”
Catherine glanced at her. In the torchlight, her face seemed flushed. Her laugh was high and nervous. She must have seen something. But what? And why was she so eager to deny it now?
Catherine took the torch from its bracket and held it so that she could see the ground.
There was no gaping hole to the netherworld. But the grass had been gouged deeply and recently. She swept the torch in an arc. Something gleamed. She bent and picked it up.
It was a gold brooch, intricately made, with topaz stones. The clasp had broken. Catherine held it up to the light.
There was a red smudge on the topaz. Catherine sniffed it. Yes, there was no mistaking that.
It was blood.
Eleven
The garden. A few seconds later.
… ecce astitit in visione homini turba daemonum in morem Scotorum sitarcia suas prono, ut assolent, dune portantium.
A vision of a crowd of demons appeared to this man in the form of Scots carrying their provisions, as is their habit, in a bag attached flat on their buttocks.
Guibert de Nogent, autobiography
“I told you!” Annora said. “Some poor soul has been swallowed up by Hell. Shouldn’t we go for help?”
“Yes, why don’t you?” Catherine answered, studying the ground by the doorway.
She continued circling the area with her torch, moving a bit outward each time.
“I can’t leave you here alone,” Annora protested. “What if it comes back?”
Catherine looked at her. “I’m not afraid of demons,” she said. “My faith is strong.”
“Well, of course, but…”
“Go on.” Catherine shooed Annora in with her free hand.
The woman went in, calling loudly for someone to come aid her. Catherine grimaced. She had only a few moments. It may have been a demon coming for a sinner, but there were other possibilities and she felt they should be discounted first.
The ground by the door had been disturbed as if by a scuffle. Likely, she thought, that had been when the brooch had been torn from a cloak or tunic. The plants were flattened farther out as well. Catherine followed the trail, noting more blood gleaming on the flower buds. It ended at a thicket of ill-pruned laurel bushes. Catherine hesitated to try to make her way through them. She stepped back. Already there were cries from the hall, along with some laughter. Annora’s tale of demons was not being received with complete seriousness.
Catherine shone the light onto the laurel. There were broken branches and still more blood. She stepped closer.
The bush in front of her moaned.
Catherine jumped back, slipped on the damp grass and landed hard on her bottom.
“Who…” She caught her breath. “Who’s there?”
The groaning grew louder as the bush began to shake.
“Maria Virga, ora pro me!” Catherine shrieked as she tried to get up.
She scrabbled backwards on her heels and elbows. Behind her the voices were growing louder. Before her something was emerging from the laurel.
A blackened hand reached for her.
Catherine screamed.
When she fell, the torch had rolled along the grass to stop, still flaming, between her and the monster. In its light, Catherine saw a shape break from the bushes. At first it seemed short and misshapen, then it rose, stretching out until it hovered over her, blood dripping on her skirts.
“Pater, Filius, Spiritus Sancti!” Catherine held her hands up from the ground in an effort to ward it off. “You have no power here! Go back to… go back to… to… Gui?”
She had finally recognized the face under the blood. It was her dinner partner of the night before.
“Help me,” the man choked as he fell at her feet.
The next few moments were a confused haze as Catherine felt herself being lifted back to her feet amidst questions and exclamations.
“This man has been attacked.” She pointed at the now unconscious Gui. “He needs attention at once. I’m fine. I just need to rest a moment.”
There was a ripple in the crowd as Margaret pushed her way through.
“Catherine!” She embraced her tightly. “I knew when they said a woman had been cornered by a demon in the garden that it could only be you. Did you defeat it?”
Catherine opened her mouth to explain. She looked at the chaos around her: finely dressed nobles, guards, servants, everyone talking at once. In the torchlight they all looked demonic.
“Yes,” she answered, “I did. Let’s go back inside.”
She leaned against Margaret. They walked slowly back to the hall. From the doorway Annora saw them and came to help.
“Did it attack you?” she asked. “Are you hurt? You were right. I should never have left you. I should have had more faith.”
“Harou!” came a shout from behind them. “Out of the way!”
The women moved aside as four men came through carrying Gui. He was awake enough to keep his arms around the shoulders of two of the men, but his eyes were glazed and his face smeared with blood. Annora took one look at him and shrieked.
“Gui! What are you doing here? What happened to you?”
“Annora,” Catherine pulled her back. “He’s in no shape to answer you now.”
“No, I suppose not,” Annora said. “But as soon as he is well enough I intend to find out why he’s in Reims. So he managed to escape the monster. I’m not surprised that a demon was lying in wait for him. My father always said he was born to walk the path to Hell.”
Catherine sighed. “I don’t think it was a demon you saw, after all,” she told Annora.
“But there was this big black shape rising from the ground,” Annora insisted. “What else could it have been?”
“Someone in a long, black cloak,” Catherine answered. “Wearing a gold brooch.”
She fumbled at the knot in her sleeve. “I hope I haven’t lost it.”
“Catherine,” Margaret spoke gently, “wait until we get you inside.”
“I can’t have dropped it.” Catherine felt the material until she found [he lump that was the brooch. She sighed in relief. “Very well. You’re right, Margaret. I really would like to go in, sit down and wash my hands and face.”
When they got back into the hall, bright with candles, Catherine looked down at the front of her robe, then twisted as best she could to see the back.
“Oh, Margaret,” she sighed again. “I hope Edgar and Solomon have good luck on their journey. Grass, mud and blood! I’ve ruined my best silk bliaut!”
Margaret shook her head. “Edgar won’t mind,” she said. “It’s a small price to pay for routing a demon.”
The next morning was the fourth Sunday of Lent, the one at which Laetare s sung. More important, it was the official opening day of the council, Pope Eugenius was to celebrate Mass before the proceedings began, assisted by his cardinals.
“There’s no way we’ll get anywhere near the church,” Astrolabe fretted.
“I know,” John said. “But for you it will be all right. You don’t need to be there today. They aren’t going to bring Eon out for another three or four days at least. We still have time to find out who is trying to hurt you.
Astrolabe wasn’t reassured. So far they had discovered nothing. John stared into his bowl of watery soup as if it would reveal the future.
“It�
�s no use for me to even try to find a position,” he said at last. “The one person I had hoped would help me isn’t here. Without an introduction there’s no hope. I might as well go back to Paris and tutor rich dullards again. They’ll probably all become bishops and I’ll die in some dank garret without even a candle to my name.”
“More likely in a tavern, crushed by a falling beer barrel,” Astrolabe said with small sympathy. “This isn’t your last chance, John. You aren’t without friends. We won’t let you starve.”
Heresy Page 20