The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (18 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

BOOK: The Difficult Saint: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery
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A moment later there was a knock on the door. Agnes lowered her hands from her ears to gesture for Laudine to open it.
Two guards stood there. Behind them was Lady Maria, with a basket of new thread.
“I understand you are running out of materials,” she said softly. “I thought I would bring more to keep you occupied.”
Agnes rose to take the basket. She hadn’t understood the words but the meaning was clear. “
Danc,
” she said. “Is there anyone in the castle who speaks French? Frankish?” she added in desperation.
Maria shook her head. Agnes’s shoulders drooped. She had to find a way to get rid of her maids. Was it possible that they were hoping she’d confess to the poisoning just to be free of their constant whining?
The door shut and she threw the basket at Lisette and Laudine.
“How could you behave so badly?” she said. “Lady Maria must believe we have brawling cats in here with us.”
The two women stared at her in astonishment.
“You killed your husband and forced us to be locked up with you,” Laudine answered. “And you reprimand our behavior? How dare you!”
“We came with you on the promise that good husbands would be found for us here,” Lisette added. “Now we’re captives in a strange country. And, even when we get home, what can we hope for, with people suspecting us, too? You’re a haughty, ungrateful mordrisseuse and I wish you were hanged already!”
Agnes could only gape in disbelief as Lisette burst into tears.
“Look what you’ve done.” Laudine put her arms around Lisette. “Calm yourself,
bele seur
. I’ve been praying to Saint Perpetua that we’ll soon be released. She’ll help us.”
Agnes could stand it no longer.
“I did not kill Lord Gerhardt,” she stated in fury. “And you might find someone better to pray to, if you want to go home. Saint Perpetua wasn’t set free; she was martyred on a gladiator’s sword.”
The looks they gave her told her that they didn’t believe her on either count. Agnes turned her back on them and retreated to the
window in the far corner of the room. For the first time, she began to despair.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m proved innocent or not,” she sniffed. “By the time any rescue comes, I shall be drooling with idiocy. Another day with those two should be enough. Dear sweet Virgin Mother, comfort me! I’ve fallen into Hell.”
Trier. Tuesday, 6 kalends July (June 26), 1146; 10 Tammuz, 4906. Feast of Saint Maxence, soldier, who was converted when his sword froze in midair as he tried to decapitate a monk.
 
 
Cotidie morimur, cotidie commutamur et tamen aeternos esse
nos credimus.
 
 
Each day we die, each day we are changed and still we believe ourselves to be eternal.
 
—Jerome
Letter LX
To Heliodorus on the death of his nephew
 
 
T
he boat trip had been lively. Edgar had finally tied one end of a rope around his waist and the other around James to keep the boy from tumbling into the river, or at least to pull him out when he did. That and keeping Edana from following him managed to distract Catherine from what might be awaiting them in Trier. But as the walls of the city appeared on the right, harsh among the burgeoning vines, she was struck with fear.
“Is Agnes in there?” she asked. The stones seemed so forbidding.
“No,” Hubert answered. “Gerhardt’s castle is farther downriver, Walter says. But we’ll have to land on this side of the city.”
He pointed to a line of wooden posts coming up on the right bank.
“The boatman is taking the casks only this far,” he said. “We’ll have to walk the rest of the way, unless I can get a mule to carry Catherine and the children as well as one for the baggage.”
“Believe me,” Catherine said. “After two days on this boat, all of us will be glad to walk.”
With the help of the boatman, they were able to find an ostler who let them have a mule at a reasonable price and they loaded it with their belongings. He also gave them directions to the porta media, the southern gate into Trier and advice about where to stay.
“I’d stop the night with the monks of Saint Eucharius, just outside the gate,” he said. “And wait until morning to enter the town.”
“We’re supposed to meet a friend who will be at Saint Maximin,” Edgar told him. “Is your monastery near there?”
“Nah, Saint Maximin is north of Trier.” The man grunted as he started to unload the barrels. “You’ll not make it tonight, not with
babies and all. You on some sort of pilgrimage? Can’t think why you’d travel with children if they weren’t sick.”
“It’s a family penance.” Edgar sighed.
He picked up his daughter and deposited her on the back of the mule, between the parcels. They bade the boatman farewell and set out on the last part of the journey. Tomorrow they would meet Walter at Saint Maximin and reach poor Agnes at last.
 
The monks greeted them kindly and provided plain, but adequate, shelter. That night Catherine couldn’t settle in her bed. Edgar and Hubert had been sent to sleep in a room with other men, but she was the only woman visitor. So she and the children had a room to themselves. It was lonely. Long after they had gone to sleep she lay awake listening to the sounds of night, punctuated by the footsteps of the monks as they rose and hurried to chant the night office.
She wanted to get up and go to the chapel, where she could join the prayers, even though she would have to remain hidden from the monks. But she daren’t risk the panic if one of the children, even Margaret, woke to find her gone. So she lay through the hours staring at the darkness above until the light grew enough to make out the thatch ceiling. This last night was the worst, for tomorrow she would be thrust into a strange world where, once again, she couldn’t speak the language and didn’t know the customs. Even more, she would have to face the stranger her sister had become.
In the soul-searching that only comes in the silence of the hour before dawn, Catherine wondered if it were just possible that Agnes could have changed so much that she might be capable of murdering her husband.
 
When they reached the marketplace of Trier the next morning, Catherine and Edgar realized at once that they would hardly be noticed among all the other travelers and traders. This was a wine city, as well as the seat of an archbishop. Foreigners were common and a merchant arriving from France, even accompanied by his family, aroused no one’s interest. On the journey they had heard that trade had fallen in the past few years, due to the feud between the archbishop and Graf Heinrich and a famine in the lowlands. But the
marketplace still seemed busy to Catherine’s eyes. Perhaps the fine summer weather had brought people in from nearby villages.
Now Catherine walked with the men beside the mule, which still carried their bags and Edana. James rode proudly on Hubert’s shoulders, kicking occasionally to point out something that excited him. Margaret clung to her brother’s arm, fearing to be lost in the throng.
They passed a stone column surmounted by a granite cross that seemed to be a meeting point. Several people were sitting at its base, chatting with each other all the while looking around as if expecting someone. Hubert stopped and pointed it out to them.
“If any of you should ever become separated from the rest of us, go here and wait,” he said. “James do you understand?”
James kicked acknowledgment.
As they started up again, Hubert was suddenly accosted by a woman who threw her arms about him, kissing him on both cheeks. She was trailed by three children, all of whom seemed delighted to see him.
“Hubert!’ she cried.”
Wîs willekomen
!”
The rest of her greeting was in a mix of Hebrew and German. Catherine stared in growing dread. She had heard about merchants who had wives in many towns but it had never before occured to her that her own father would do such a thing.
“Edgar!” She nudged him. “
Who
is that woman?”
“How should I know?” Edgar snapped. The woman’s familiarity worried him, too. He wondered if this was why Hubert had been reluctant to take Agnes to Trier for her marriage.
Hubert sensed their consternation. He looked from one to the other and began to laugh.
“Edgar! Catherine! I want you to meet Mina, the wife of Simon, a learned man and a shrewd wine trader. They live here.”
“How … nice,” Catherine said, forcing a smile.
“Simon is a good friend of Solomon’s,” Hubert added.
Edgar recovered more quickly than Catherine. “Does she know anything about what has happened to Agnes?”
“Enondu!” Hubert exclaimed. “How could I have forgotten?”
He turned back to Mina and spoke in a low voice for a moment.
Her face grew serious as she listened. She shook her head and gave a short answer. Hubert closed his eyes and Mina took his hand, patting it in consolation.
“What’s wrong?” Catherine’s heart froze.
Hubert came to her at once.
“Agnes is still in the castle,” he said. “Mina tells me they recently sent her maids back to a nearby convent so she’s all alone there. But there’s been no trial and no rumor of her having been harmed.”
“Yet,” Catherine added without thinking.
“Yet,” Hubert echoed.
He said something more to Mina, who then took Catherine’s hands in hers and gave them a comforting squeeze.
“Todah robah
.” Hubert thanked her and they hurried on. “We must find Walter at once” he muttered. “How could they lock her up alone with no one who can speak to her, or for her!”
As they approached the
Porta Nigra
, the northern city gate next to the bishop’s palace, Catherine looked back. Mina was still there, now talking to another woman. She pointed at Hubert and her friend stared after them shaking her head.
Catherine felt a chill run up her spine. Had it been her imagination or had she seen the other woman’s fingers flickering in the sign to ward off evil?
How many people in Trier believed Agnes to be an enchantress?
 
Agnes paced back and forth across her room. The sunlight poured in through the glass window, one of two in the keep. Gerhardt had been delighted with them but Agnes prefered the convenience of shutters. The only way to open this window was to break the glass, and so the room was unbearably hot.
Agnes had been rather proud of the way she had managed to rid herself of the bickering Lisette and Laudine without offending them. She had begged that they not be forced to endure her incarceration as they had been accused of nothing. Hermann consuulted with Maria and they agreed that the women should remain with the nuns until they were questioned by those investigating Gerhardt’s death. Hermann promised that then they could return to their
homes. Agnes had been so obviously relieved when they left that Maria had felt the first twinge of doubt about her guilt. It was such an unselfish act.
But in the days afterward, Agnes had begun to wonder if she had been so clever after all. With the constant irritation of the other ladies, she hadn’t had time to dwell overmuch on her predicament. Now, there was nothing else to think about.
As she paced she retraced all the events of the night that Gerhardt had died. She had hidden her outrage at him well enough in the short time they had been married, she thought, trying to behave as a happy bride should. He was eager to please her when they were in public. He showed her all over his land, teaching her more about grapes and wine making than she had ever wanted to know. She smiled and pretended great interest. They drank from the same cup at meals and he gave her the choicest bits from his plate. That alone should have caused people to doubt that she would knowingly poison his food. But more worrying, if someone else had done so, how could he have been poisoned and she remain well?
It made sense to her that people would think she had bewitched him and killed him with a potion. It was the only solution she had come up with so far for his death. She had hardly been apart from him in the brief weeks of their marriage. Someone must have clouded her mind and administered the poison without her seeing. How else could he have been killed?
Therefore, the only answer Agnes could come up with was that someone else in this keep was practicing sorcery. And how could she get anyone to believe that?
Just as she was thinking this, Agnes noticed a thin wisp of smoke rising from the rushes on the floor where the sunshine hit it.
“They heard my very thoughts! Sweet baby Jesus, save me!” she cried. “Protect me from the demons!”
As she prayed, she stomped on the dry rushes and scattered them out of the sunlight. In a moment, the fire was out. The sun beat in upon a scorch mark on the wooden floor. Agnes stared at it. It seemed to her to be in the form of a profile. There was a chin and nose and some sort of crown or helmet. But it didn’t appear to be anyone she knew. Was it the face of the demon?
Hurriedly, she went to the basket by her bed and strewed fresh herbs all over the mark. Then, just to be sure, she emptied a flask of holy water on the spot.
“There,” she said and crossed herself. “That should do it.”
Still, as she resumed her pacing, she carefully avoided treading on the covered face.
 
Peter saw them as they came up the river path. At first he thought they might be pilgrims, but then he recognized Walter of Grancy, riding his war horse with a little boy seated in front of him. There was a lady in fine silks riding a mule, holding a younger child and two men and a young woman walking beside them.
So this was Agnes’s family. He squinted to make them out better. Strange, none of them really looked like her. He wondered how they were connected to her and what they would do to free her.
He ran to tell Uncle Hermann.
Hermann had already seen them from his vantage point at the guardpost over the gate. These people weren’t what he had expected, either. Where were the retainers? The pack animals with beds and supplies? Why was no one but Walter armed? Agnes had brought a respectable dowry with her. Had it impoverished the family to raise it?
Most important, how did they intend to convince him to release Agnes?
As he came down the ladder into the bailey, he was accosted by his sister and her husband.
“Are they coming? What are they like? How many men at arms did they bring? Is it my job to feed them all?” Maria pelted him with her questions.
“Yes. You’ll see. I wouldn’t worry about it,” Hermann answered. “Gerd! Raise the gate!”
Maria found it difficult to contain her surprise and disdain at the group before her. Fortunately, her training held and she took a moment to study them before making any remark that could not be withdrawn.
They were dusty from the road, but the clothes were of linen and silk, if she were any judge. The men wore velvet tunics and the jewels in the brooches glittered. The woman was wearing earrings of
pearls the size of wine grapes and even the children were quite elegantly turned out.
Perhaps they had left the servants behind in Trier.

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