The Devil's Door (10 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General

BOOK: The Devil's Door
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She waited for a chorus of disapproval, both from the people in the room and the voices inside her mind. No one spoke at all.
Abelard looked at Héloïse. She put her hands to her lips and stared back at him for the longest moment of Catherine’s life. Was the abbess remembering the hasty and hidden wedding she had made, and all the sorrow that had come afterwards? Catherine had heard the story many times. She remembered that Héloïse had resisted, even after Astrolabe was born. She had been determined not to ruin her lover’s career by marriage. She had told people she was proud to be Abelard’s whore.
Could I do that for Edgar?
she wondered.
It would be a poor sort of love if I couldn’t.
And his would be a poor sort of love if he’d let you.
Ah, yes. She had feared those voices couldn’t keep silent for long.
Finally Héloïse lowered her hands to her throat and closed her eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “It seems the best way.”
“We should leave at once if we’re to be at Troyes by nightfall,” Solomon reminded them.
“And Father and I wanted to reach Provins today,” Astrolabe added.
“Very well,” Abelard said. “We shall meet at the church door. Catherine, go get your things.”
As they left, Héloïse put a hand on Catherine’s arm.
“Stay a moment,” she said. “I wish to speak with you alone.”
Catherine waited until everyone had gone. She smiled nervously.
“You have a last word of advice for me?” she asked.
Héloïse sighed. “No, my dear. I’ve given you all I can. From now on you will have to discover life for yourself. I asked you to wait because I have another commission for you.”
She took a small square of parchment from her sleeve.
“Some time ago, the convent made a loan to Peter of Baschi, deacon of Saint-Aventin in Troyes. He has made no effort to repay us. I have sent letters to him and to friends in Rome who might have some influence over him, but I’ve heard nothing.” She stopped, seeming embarrassed. “It was twenty marks of silver and we need it.”
“Twenty!” That seemed a huge sum to Catherine.
“Catherine,” Héloïse continued, “these people you will be staying with, ask them if they will undertake to recover from Father Peter the money he owes us. I will be willing to pay them half of it for their efforts.”
“I don’t know about that part of the business,” Catherine said. “Father does little moneylending, except as I described. But I’ll ask Solomon.”
“Thank you,” Héloïse smiled. “Now, I’ve kept you long enough. Get your things. We’ll say our farewells after you’re married.”
Catherine hugged her and ran.
True to her promise, Catherine cried for the few moments it took to become Edgar’s wife. It wasn’t much of a ceremony; only the exchange of vows was required outside the church door. No one had remembered a ring. They were witnessed by Héloïse and Prioress Astane, Solomon and Astrolabe, as well as a few of the lay sisters and brothers who had seen them assemble and been curious as to the reason.
When Master Abelard closed the book and announced that she was married, Catherine felt quite unchanged. Shouldn’t something have happened, some grand revelation or sense of loss? Mother Héloïse was kissing her cheek and wiping her eyes.
“You will always be welcome here, if you need us,” she whispered. “Don’t be afraid.”
Catherine hugged her. “I’m not; I don’t seem to feel anything. Why not?”
“It can be a great shock to get what you want most so suddenly.” Héloïse smiled. “I assure you, feeling will return.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Catherine noticed Paciana. The lay sister was standing on the pathway, her arms full of kindling. She turned away as soon as Catherine looked, but in that second, her expression hit Catherine with a sharp slap. There was no pity or forgiveness or sisterly love. Paciana was staring at her with murderous hate.
Catherine shuddered. Héloïse followed her glance.
“Catherine, you are not to worry about Paciana any longer,” she said. “Go to Troyes and find out what you can about that land. And make that request for me. Nothing more. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mother,” Catherine said.
The men had gone to get the horses. Solomon had gone to Saint-Aubin and purchased a mount for Edgar and Catherine to share. Héloïse went back to her duties, leaving Catherine to wait with Brother Baldwin. He leaned on his hoe as they watched the men load the packs for the journey.
“The boy over there,”—Brother Baldwin gestured—“you called him Solomon; he a Jew?”
“Yes,” Catherine admitted. “The nephew of a man who trades with my father.”
“Funny,” Brother Baldwin said. “He doesn’t look like the Jews I saw in the Holy Land. He looks just like us.”
“How were they different?” Catherine asked.
“You know, darker, crafty-eyed,” Baldwin said. He scratched his head. “Truth is, the Saracens looked like that, too. We couldn’t tell them apart. Now that I think of it, even the Christians who lived there were dark and crafty-eyed.”
Catherine stared at him.
“Then how did you know who to fight?”
“That was easy; we just killed everyone who lived there.” Brother Baldwin went back to his hoeing. “After all, they were all pagans and heretics, so it didn’t much matter.”
Catherine had heard the stories and songs of the crusade. Somehow she had always imagined that a divinely empowered army would know who the enemy was. She looked at Solomon again. He probably would have been spared. He was as French as anyone.
Brother Baldwin was feeling reminisicent. He leaned on his hoe again.
“Of course, when I came back, it was harder,” he mused. “When I was fighting for the old king. You figured that if you were besieging a place, anyone who came out was the enemy and everyone around was a friend. And, if you were inside the castle, you killed anyone who tried to come over or tunnel under the wall. But it didn’t always work that way. Annoying, that was.”
He shook his head and returned complacently to his work.
Catherine stared at him. Whatever his reasons for becoming a conversus, they didn’t seem to include slaughtering fellow Christians.
As she was pondering this, the church door behind her opened a crack and a hand reached out and beckoned to her. Quickly, she slipped inside.
Emilie hugged her.
“Benedicite,
Catherine,” she whispered. “Be happy in your life. You know I have nothing for a wedding gift, but I can give you a piece of information. Alys’s mother, Constanza, is my second cousin; my mother’s father and her father’s mother were brother and sister.”
Catherine absorbed this. “And … ?”
“We don’t talk about it much; her grandmother was a bastard, but,” Emilie continued, “Constanza has always tried to establish herself in the family. If you have any trouble meeting her, use my name. She’ll have no choice but to admit you.”
“Thank you, Emilie,” Catherine said. “But I don’t think I’ll have the chance to meet her.”
Emilie looked over her shoulder. “I have to hurry. I’m supposed to be copying a commentary on Romans II. I thought you were going to Troyes.”
“I am, but …”
“Constanza always spends the month after Easter at her late husband’s home in Troyes. It’s near the Paris gate, not far from Saint-Remi. Anyone can direct you.”
There was a noise from the shadows on the convent side of the church. The steady tapping of a wooden rod on a stone floor.
“Sister Bertrada,” Emilie sighed. She hugged Catherine again. “Good luck! Don’t forget me.”
“Never,” Catherine promised. “Good luck to you. Pray for me.”
Emilie vanished into the shadows and Catherine stepped back into the sunlight.
Edgar and Solomon were waiting.
“Are you ready?” Edgar asked.
Catherine’s hand touched the weathered paint of the church door. She hoped Sister Bertrada wouldn’t punish Emilie too much.
“Yes,” she answered.
Solomon steadied her as she swung up behind Edgar and wrapped her arms about him. His pale hair hung past his collar and tickled her nose, but she only tightened her grip.
“Do you feel married?” she asked him.
“Not yet,” he said.
“I don’t either,” she said. “How long does it take, do you think?”
He twisted round in the saddle and kissed her, nearly causing them both to fall.
“I would say until ten minutes after we finally find a bed to ourselves,” he answered.
“Oh.”
Solomon rode ahead of them, trying not to listen. He foresaw a very boring journey that day, with little intelligent conversation. He resigned himself to a dull trip and only hoped that this sex business wouldn’t permanently ruin two fairly good minds. With the way things were shaping up in Paris, as well as the problems here, he knew he would need as many clear-reasoning people around him as he could find.
The hayloft of a stable near Troyes,
very early in the morning, Tuesday, April 9, 1140
It se coucent ensanble quant nuis fu enserie,
L‘une cars conut l’autre, Nature nes oublie;
L‘uns rent l’autre son droit et font lor cortoisie
Qu‘amors a estoré entre ami et amie
Quant ont lor volenté et lor joie aconplie,
Si n’est mais damoisele, ains est dame joïe.
When night had fallen they lay together,
Then one body knew the other. Nature does not forget them.
The one renders the other her right and they make the respect
That love has created between a man and woman.
When they have all their desire and their joy fulfilled
She is no more a maid but is now a happy wife.
—
Elioxe
11.460—465
“
C
ould you move a bit, Edgar?” Catherine asked. “There’s a very sharp bit of this hay sticking straight into my back.”
Obligingly, but with reluctance, Edgar lifted himself up and waited while she wriggled herself away from the offending fodder.
“This isn’t exactly the wedding night I’d planned,” he told her. “I had thought we’d have a feather bed and silken sheets.”
“And all the relatives snickering at the door? I’ve heard enough about those to be glad we didn’t,” she said as she put her hands around his neck. “A blanket on straw is really more practical, considering. It’s just as well the fog was too thick for us to reach Troyes last night. By the way, you don’t have to hang above me like that anymore.”
“I know,” he smiled. “I just wanted to look at you. It was too dark last night to see clearly.”
He proceeded to do so. Catherine felt herself blushing. She looked above him, to the bits of dim light penetrating the thatch of the roof. She could hear the scurry of the rats as they ran across the timber frame. A trickle of dust landed on Edgar’s back. He didn’t seem to notice. It embarrassed her to be so closely examined.
“The scar on my side is from falling out of a tree when I was seven,” she said, trying not to watch him. “Everything else is just as God made me.”
“I see nothing in his work to complain of,” he said as he settled back down on her.
“Wait, get up again,” she said. “Where did you get that?”
She pointed to the fist-sized bruise over the left side of his rib cage.
He’d almost forgotten about the knife attack, although the area was still tender to the touch and ached if he had to breathe heavily. Actually, it was aching a bit now.
“An accident in Paris,” he told her. “Someone bumped into me. You know how the crowds are in Holy Week.”
There was no point in worrying her, he told himself. It was near enough to the truth.
She brushed her hand lightly across the bruise, as if to erase it. Then she drew him back down against her.
“From now on,” she said, “we must try to watch out for each other more.”
His lips felt the scar on her throat, still red even four months after the incident. Watching out for Catherine was no easy task. She had already endured pain for his sake, and he had begun their life together by giving her more.
He lay quietly for a minute, as her fingers idly wandered across his back. Then he rolled over onto one elbow.
“Catherine,” he said, “are you sorry this morning that you chose me? I hurt you. I tried not to, but I know I did. You can’t deny it. I wanted so much not to hurt you.”
She snuggled closer to him, pressing her ear against his chest to feel the certain pattern of his heartbeat. Then she smiled up at him.
“It’s all right,” she said. “It couldn’t be helped. It’s Eve’s fault, not yours. Really, it wasn’t as bad as I’d been told. The way some women talk, one would think slow evisceration was preferable to a bridal bed.”
She considered a moment, then kissed the underside of his chin.
“I suspect,” she added, “that they didn’t approach the event with as much shameless desire as I did. And Mother Héloïse has assured me that each time will be better. She was quite emphatic about it.”
“Bless her for that,” Edgar said fervently. “I will do my best to fulfill her promise.”
“I’m sure I could do better, too, with practice,” Catherine said. “After all the advice I’ve been given, when the time came, I was so involved that I forgot most of it. I’m sorry; I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
“You didn’t.”
They lay quietly for a few moments, Edgar renewing his examination, this time with his fingers. Catherine closed her eyes.
“Edgar,” she said. “Mother Héloïse’s hypothesis about improving with practice may not be true in every case. I think we should start testing it … at once.”
And, as a fellow seeker of knowledge, he could only agree to aid in the inquiry.
Solomon had spent a damp night rolled in blankets beneath a tree. It was uncomfortable but he preferred it to sharing the stable with Catherine and Edgar. He consoled himself with the thought that those two would very likely have some trouble riding their horse today. If day ever came, he amended. The fog was still as impenetrable as it had been last night.
Solomon hated fog. He needed to see the road before him for miles ahead. It was too easy to make a false step and crash into a chasm in the mist. It was too easy for one’s enemies to hide in it and either attack or slip away. The fog was worse than darkness, for there were half-shapes in it that might be human or animal or a little of both. And one couldn’t be sure if they were friends or demons until it was too late.
All the same, he wished Catherine and Edgar would forget that they were newly married and remember that he was outside, dripping, cold and with a task to be completed.
Catherine and Edgar had forgotten Solomon altogether and didn’t think of getting up until rousted out by a good-natured but vulgar query from the owner of the stable. Catherine cringed in embarrassment but Edgar leaned over the side of the loft and grinned down at their host.
“Quite well, thank you,” he said. “Any chance of a meal before we go?”
“Your friend ate some time ago,” the man said. “He seems impatient to be off. But I can get you some bread and cheese to take with you. And my wife makes a goose grease salve we could spare a bit of, if you need it.”
He smirked up at Edgar.
“Why, thank you,” he answered. “We are in great need of …” Catherine reached out and pinched the first bit of flesh she found. Edgar gave a small yelp. “Bread and cheese will be fine,” he finished. “Any chance of beer?”
Solomon tried not to show his annoyance when they finally started, late in the morning. There was still only enough light for them to feel their way along the road. Occasionally they would overtake a cart loaded with a few boxes holding the last of the winter roots or be overtaken by a messenger on his way from Paris, but for the most part, the three of them were alone in the cloud.
To Solomon’s secret amusement, Catherine shifted from side to side and finally slid off the horse early in the journey. He decided then that he would forgive her for making him wait.
“We’re going so slowly that I might as well walk,” she explained.
No one commented.
“It shouldn’t take long to find out about the land that the countess Alys donated to the Paraclete,” Catherine continued, after a few moments of silence. “Did Father say how long he wanted me to remain in Troyes?”
“He hoped your mother could be convinced to return to Vielleteneuse soon,” Solomon answered. “The household in Paris is too small to spare someone to be with her constantly.”
Conversation lapsed again. Catherine watched Solomon. He was worrying about something. He had the same look her father wore when he’d been forced to sell at a loss.
“You’re keeping something from us, cousin,” she said. “There’s another reason for us not to return to Paris, isn’t there? Are you sure my father isn’t ill?”
“Yes, of course,” he answered. “It’s nothing to do with his health, or with you. It’s business, we think. Someone unhappy with a trade or a debtor who won’t pay. Maybe just another overzealous Christian.”
“What is?” Edgar broke in. “Are you aware of how infuriatingly oblique you’re being?”
“Your father didn’t want you upset,” Solomon said to Catherine.
By now she was more than upset. She grabbed the reins from Solomon and forced him to stop.
“By the sunburnt body of Saint Mary the Egyptian!” she shouted. “Tell us what’s been going on!”
Solomon exhaled and dismounted. Edgar also got down.
“In this fog we could be ten yards from the gates of Troyes or ten miles,” Edgar said. “We need to have this sorted out before we get there. You shouldn’t have been so angry with the nice man who let us use the stable, Catherine. Along with the bread and cheese, he filled a skin with ale for us as a wedding present. Unless there’s a bog on either side of us, I think we should sit, eat and let Solomon explain.”
“I think he should explain before he gets anything to eat or drink.” Catherine added.
“An excellent suggestion. Solomon?”
“Very well,” Solomon answered. “There seems to be a tree over there and a rock beneath it. We can tether the horses and you two can beat my head against the rock until I talk. Will that make you happy?”
He looked so miserable that Catherine couldn’t be angry, although she was thoroughly frightened by his half-told story. She took his hand and looked into the face that was so like her own.
“We have been worried about Master Abelard and about this threat to the Paraclete,” she told him. “And, it is true, we have been absorbed in each other. But no one told us there was also something amiss in Paris.”
Solomon felt unbelievably weary. He allowed Edgar to take his horse as Catherine led him to the rock and sat him down. He put his head in his hands, rubbing at his scalp.
“Everywhere I go, there’s something amiss,” he said. “The world is changing beneath my feet, it seems. I have the sense that, when the fog lifts, I’ll be in a land I’ve never seen. It scares the hell out of me.”
“Solomon,” Edgar said. “If you don’t come to the point, I might indeed start pounding your head against the rock.”
“Last week, just after you left,” Solomon said, “someone tried to murder Uncle Eliazar.”
“What!”
“We thought at first it was just a robber, but he didn’t try to cut Uncle’s purse. The man simply stabbed him in the crowd and vanished.”
Edgar rubbed at his side. Perhaps there was a cult of murderers arising in Paris.
“How is he now?” Catherine asked.
“Did he see who did it?” Edgar spoke at the same time.
“Recovering, we think,” Solomon answered Catherine first. “He must have moved just as the man struck. The blade went through his side. It was a clean wound, beneath the ribs. As for who did it, the street was full. But Uncle heard him mutter. That’s what made him suspect it was some Christian out to avenge the murder of his Savior.”
The chill on the back of Edgar’s neck had nothing to do with the weather.
“What did he say?”
“He said,” Solomon concentrated. “‘This one’s no
aversier
; he can die.’ Don’t you think that sounds like Easter polemic?”
“Poor Uncle Eliazar!” Catherine said. “Those priests don’t think when they give their sermons. Every year someone decides they’ve been called to destroy the Jews in their midst.”
Edgar said nothing. The chill spread down his spine. He had been coming from Eliazar’s when he was attacked. But with his white-blond hair and fair skin, he couldn’t imagine that anyone would have taken him for a Jew. Of course, his first years in Paris, the other students had taunted him, saying that he was a follower of the Evil One and had lost his color from hanging over vats of poisons and elixirs. But they had been more interested in learning the ingredients than in persecuting him. Still, the man who had tried to kill him had certainly been startled when the knife hadn’t penetrated and had called him a demon. Could it have been the same person? He shivered.
“Have some ale.” Solomon handed him the skin. “So you see, it has nothing to do with you, but it does provide another reason for Hubert to want you away from Paris. He didn’t wish you to worry. I’m sorry to have told you of it, now. Shall we be going? The ale is warming but I keep having visions of hot soup and a blazing fire.”
Catherine agreed and they started off again. This time she rode behind Edgar, clutching him carefully to avoid the bruise on his chest. She wondered if being married gave one an extra sense, for she felt decidedly ill at ease after Solomon’s story. She was horrified by the attack on Eliazar, of course, but the panic she felt wasn’t for him, but for Edgar.
you have no reason to fear for him. You’re simply overwrought by recent experiences.
Catherine sighed. She had rather hoped she would lose her voices along with her virginity.

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