Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur) (11 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

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He should have retired to Cluny at the same time, he thought; but he had been coerced to come on the trip by Norbert’s persuasiveness and the feeling that there was another reason the old knight wanted to return to Spain. This pilgrimage plan was nonsense. Hugh didn’t believe he had been that evil in his life. Not for the past thirty years or so, anyway … and before that, only in the way all warriors are. Nothing God would have much minded, he reasoned. Nothing, except that boy.
Hugh shuddered. Why should he remember that now? It was so long ago and in another country. And almost everyone who had been there was dead.
“Hugh!” Gaucher called. “We’re going to negotiate with
the monks here for a jug or two of better wine. Do you want some?”
For a moment, Hugh couldn’t remember where or when he was. His mind had leaped in panic to another time, when Gaucher had suggested much the same thing with terrible results.
“No,” Hugh answered. “I don’t mind the wine they give us with our bread.”
“You would if you knew what they made it from,” Rufus laughed. He stopped. “Hugh, what is wrong with you? You’ve been even more gloomy than usual today.”
Hugh caught up with his friends, who had left Griselle to her devotions. He waited until they were on the path to the cave where the monks stored the wine and safely above anyplace where someone might overhear.
“I found something in my pack last night,” he whispered to them.
“I hope it wasn’t as messy as what was left in mine at Vézelay,” Gaucher said.
“No, but more frightening to me,” Hugh answered.
He reached into his pilgrim’s scrip and drew out a ring. It was made of gold and had once had been set with a large stone. Now there was only a gaping hole in the metal, like a missing tooth. They all three stopped to look.
“Why would anyone give you a ring without a stone in it?” Rufus asked.
“Don’t you remember?” Hugh answered. “Either of you?”
He held out his left hand. On the first finger was another ring of gold. This one had a large rough-cut emerald in it.
“Oh, yes,” Rufus said. “That’s right. You got the ring as booty, but you took only the stone. I’ve forgotten why. But this can’t be the ring it came from originally.”
“I would swear it is,” Hugh said. “Gaucher was right. Some one of our old enemies is stalking us. He’s taunting us with signs from our past.”
“That’s nonsense,” Rufus said. “What has an empty ring to do with pig parts? And who here would know anything
about us? Do you even remember where you got that emerald?”
“In Spain,” Hugh said softly, seeing it all again. “At the siege of Saragossa. Fighting the Saracens.”
“There,” Rufus said in triumph. “And you think some Saracen lord has decided to go on pilgrimage with us?”
Gaucher had been listening with amusement to Hugh’s tale, but now his forehead creased in worry. “Why not?” he asked. “The men in the party of Bishop Stephen … have we really looked at them? Many of them are Mozarabic Christians. I can’t tell them from Saracens, can you?”
“Who would know we would be traveling with the Cluniacs?” Rufus protested. “And anyway, I didn’t see any of them at Vézelay. I tell you, someone dropped the ring into Hugh’s pack by accident. Someone else thought to play a stupid joke on Gaucher. The events have nothing to do with each other. Ever since Norbert died, the two of you have jumped at every shadow.”
Hugh did not appear convinced, but Gaucher straightened his shoulders and shook his white-and-golden hair like a lion rising to hunt. “We are going back to the places of the deeds of our youth,” he said. “Our minds are much in the past. It’s not surprising that the past should awake to greet us. Whichever, I do not intend to turn coward at this time of my life. I am continuing to the end of the journey, whatever it may be.”
Rufus looked at him sourly. “That’s the sort of speech I’d expect from Hugh here. Why don’t you just say, ‘Damn all the bastards. We don’t surrender’—like you did at Saragossa?”
Gaucher threw his head back and laughed. “You’re right,
vieu compang
. Damn them all! On to Saint James!”
 
Catherine had found a place to wash their shifts and stockings as well as certain other articles necessary to women. She hung them in the sun from a branch of the tree by the church and went to sit next to Edgar, who had been cross-legged before the figures on the tympanum all morning.
“One of the townswomen told me that they might have a display of the relics tonight in honor of the abbot of Cluny,”
she remarked. “I’d like to see Saint Foy outside of the grillwork in the church. They say her reliquary is exquisite. And, of course, I want to venerate her from as close as possible.”
Edgar nodded, not really hearing. “If only I had a scrap of parchment and a pen,” he lamented. “I don’t know if I can remember it all clearly.”
“You will; you always do,” Catherine said as she studied the work. “I think I know who all the damned are. But I can’t recognize all the saved. They look too much alike. There’s Charlemagne, I suppose, and those others must be his family. And some hermit with Saint Peter, and the usual assortment of local martyrs. I wonder who that is in the corner.”
“Arosnide,” said a voice from over her shoulder. “The monk who went to Agen to steal Saint Foy and bring her to Conques.”
Catherine turned and saw Roberto and Maruxa, their vielles as usual in leather cases strapped to their backs.
“The sculptor should have given him a more prominent place,” the
jongleur
added, “considering the prosperity he brought to the town.”
“But only through the kindness of Saint Foy,” Catherine said. “And she isn’t here at all, is she?”
“Yes, she’s kneeling there, see? Have you found the angel who speaks Arabic?” Maruxa asked.
That got even Edgar’s attention. “Where?” he asked.
They pointed to one of the angels on whose wing there were lines that Catherine had assumed were decoration.
“It is said that a number of workmen came from Spain to help with the building of the church,” Roberto told them. “Some were Moslem, although they didn’t mention it. One of them left that.”
“How do you know?” Edgar asked.
“What is he saying?” Catherine asked at the same time.
“I can’t read it,” Roberto admitted, “but I’ve seen the same design in my travels and been told that it means something like ‘May Allah bless and keep you.’”
“Is Allah one of their gods?” Catherine asked.
“That’s their name for the one God,” Roberto said.
“I thought they worshiped many gods: Mohamet, Apollo, others I don’t remember,” Catherine said.
“No, just the one,” Roberto told her. “Our beliefs confuse them as well. They think we have many gods because of the shrines to the saints. And they can’t understand the idea of the Trinity.”
“Where did you learn all this?” Catherine asked.
Maruxa put her hand on her husband’s arm in warning. “We travel many places, wherever we are paid,” she explained. “Years ago we visited some of the courts of the caliphate. Other entertainers told us stories. We live by stories. It’s important to have new ones from time to time.”
“It’s also important to know something of the beliefs of the people you travel among,” Roberto added. “Tread on a local custom and you can find yourself dead.”
They all returned to the contemplation of the figures over the doors.
“That knight falling off the horse there,” Maruxa said. “Is he supposed to be Anger?”
“Pride, I think,” Catherine told her.
“I’ve never seen anyone fall in that position,” Roberto said. “With his head down and his legs straight out. And the way the demon with the spear is aiming, it looks as though he’s about to be spitted right up his—”
Maruxa kicked him. Roberto looked at Catherine in apology. Catherine sighed. “What is it about me?” she asked. “I know where the spear is pointed. You don’t need to be delicate.”
“We heard you were from the convent,” Maruxa explained. “A few days on the road and no one has secrets anymore.”
“Except Mondete Ticarde,” Catherine said.
There was another silence.
“There’s no secret to her life,” Maruxa said at last. “She was concubine to a lord who eventually tired of her. He passed her on and on and on, until she ended on the streets of Macon. But that’s only the outside. What she is now and why she’s with us, that is a mystery.”
“Not one, I think, that will soon be unraveled,” Roberto said.
Catherine sighed. She only wished Solomon would agree.
 
The next morning was startling in its brightness. Catherine awoke with her mind still glowing from the candles around the golden reliquary of Saint Foy the night before. When she came out of the hostel, the sunlight hit her with a harshness that made her want to duck back inside.
Edgar had much the same feeling. “Your uncle said we should get wide-brimmed felt hats in Moissac for the journey into Spain,” he said, “but perhaps we should buy them now.”
Catherine agreed. “I’m not used to the world this bright,” she complained. “It hurts my eyes.”
The hats made her laugh. They both looked silly in them, like peasants in the vineyards. But the shade hers gave was enough to stop her from squinting. And she needed to see the way clearly as they descended to the valley, crossed the still-high Dourdou and then climbed up the other side.
At the old chapel of Saint Roche, the party stopped for water. Looking back across the valley, Catherine could see the town of Conques. It seemed so remote, as if it had sprouted buildings and trees out of the rock the night before.
“Edgar,” she said, her gaze roaming the hills and woods around them, “I wonder if the sunlight is affecting my mind. I keep feeling that we’ve wandered into one of your stories and that dragons and giants will suddenly swoop out of the forest, or that half-human trees will begin to sing and lure us from the path.”
Edgar was doing his best to avoid looking at the view that so enchanted his wife. He wished Catherine would stay farther from the edge of the road. There was no need to imagine dragons. In one form or another, they were all around him.
Solomon, passing by, pulled the reins of her horse, bringing Catherine back to the center of the path. “There are no dragons in France anymore,” he said with certainty. “Your saints drove them all away. But there are still wolves and wild boar and wilder men. So stop dawdling, Catherine.”
Instead of being annoyed, Catherine rejoiced at Solomon’s querulous tone. That was more like her cousin’s usual mood. Perhaps the sunlight had awakened him from his fascination with discovering the secret of the universe.
The mild weather, and the fact that they were well above the river now, seemed to raise everyone’s spirits. Maruxa and Roberto played a dance tune from their region that made even the horses move more briskly. The three elderly knights were telling stories of their exploits, each tale grander than the last, to any who came near enough to listen. Occasionally one of them would glance at the Lady Griselle, to be sure she hadn’t moved out of hearing distance. The two remaining Germans were enthralled and begged for more.
Behind them, Hubert and Eliazar rode intent on their own conversation. If they approached the knights too closely, Hubert would give a sour look and slow down until they had dropped back.
Ahead of them all was the splendor of the entourage of the abbot of Cluny. At the very end as usual, Mondete walked alone.
Solomon seemed to have learned his lesson. Every now and then he checked to be sure the woman hadn’t fallen too far behind. But he offered no help. Neither did anyone else.
By that afternoon the party had reached another meander of the Lot River. By common consent, they went a few more miles until the plain broadened and they found an area well away from the water to camp. As Catherine shook out their blankets, getting rid of the last of the dried mud, she thought how strange it was that such a short time ago they had all nearly been swept away by raging waters. Yet now they were in another place behaving as if it had been years ago.
It was something about the pilgrimage itself, she realized. She and Edgar were going in the hope of life, but so many others—the knights, Mondete, the German townsmen, even Griselle—were prepared for death. If they escaped it today, there was always the chance it would meet them tomorrow. Therefore, Catherine reasoned, disaster must not affect them the way it would if it had occurred on their doorsteps.
In the convent, Mother Heloise had scoffed at those who went great distances to reach the shrines of saints or the sites of the passion of Christ. Life was enough of a pilgrimage for her. Staying in one place when her whole being longed to be somewhere else was as arduous as anything that might face them on the way to Compostela.
At least Catherine hoped so. They had barely begun the journey and already three people had died. By Solomon’s reckoning, it would take two more weeks at least to reach the other side of the Pyrenees and another four or five weeks before they arrived at Compostela. And then,
Deo volente
, there would be the long road home.

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