Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur) (33 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

BOOK: Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur)
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As they reached the other side, there was a commotion behind them. Catherine turned around to see Solomon with his knife out, the point just touching underneath the chin of one of the Basques. Four others of the band were standing around him, knives out, ready to strike.
“What happened?” Catherine cried.
“That man came up behind Mondete and tried to find out what was under the cloak,” Hersent answered. “I never even saw Solomon draw the knife. I imagine the Basque didn’t either.”
Solomon didn’t react at all to the weapons nearly touching his skin. The Basque leader watched but gave no order. On the other side of the river, Hubert and Eliazar hesitated, knowing that Solomon would be dead before they could reach him. It seemed they would stand like that forever.
Mondete had been startled by the man trying to pull up her skirt. She had spun around to stop him, then been even more surprised at Solomon’s response.
Now she was angry. She turned with her back to the pilgrims and faced the assembled men. Her fury was so forceful that slowly they were compelled to turn their eyes from Solomon and look at her.
“Curious, were you?” she said. “Of course. Why should you be different from any of the others? Very well. Why not? I’ll show you. Just release my idiot protector.”
They didn’t understand her, but her next gesture was clear. She undid the brooches and opened her cloak.
After one glance at the scars on her body, Solomon looked away. The Basques lowered their knives, unable to look anywhere else. Some blessed themselves as they backed off the bridge to their own side of the river. Mondete refastened the cloak.
“Happy?” she asked tightly. “Was it worth the trouble?
Avoutres!
I curse you all! May your eyes burn forever, sleeping and waking. May you never find tears or salve to cool them. May all those you love run from you in fear of the flames in your wicked eyes!”
She didn’t bother to see what they did next, but took Solomon’s hand and led him away.
“When will you learn,” she muttered when they had reached safety, “that I have no honor to defend?”
“Yes you do,” he answered. “And if God allowed that to be done to you, then He’s the one who should ask for forgiveness.”
Mondete stopped. “Even among Jews,” she said carefully, “I believe that idea is considered blasphemy.”
Solomon’s head went up sharply. He reached out and lifted the folds of her hood so that he could see her face. She didn’t stop him but fixed his eyes with the flames in her own. They stood thus for a long minute, then Solomon blinked and exhaled.
“So that’s why,” he said. “This is your final test of God.”
“Yes,” she answered. “And you?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes. I hadn’t realized it, but yes, that’s what this is for me as well.”
He lowered the hood, wrapping her once again in mystery. They started walking.
Everyone else had already turned away.
 
It was insane, Catherine thought, that they simply kept moving. No matter what happened or who died, they all moved on, drawn by some tidal force to reach the shrine of Saint James. She knew it was essential that they get there, but she couldn’t think of anything beyond arriving. She tried to imagine Paris, her home, the child they wanted so much, but the images were vague and distant, with no emotions attached.
“Have we all died and not noticed?” she asked Edgar. “Things happen and we simply shrug and go on. What’s wrong with us?”
“The wind,” Edgar said. “It’s so hot. It scorches the thoughts out until there’s nothing left but the dust and the sun and the road. Even in my sleep, I hear it.”
So it wasn’t just her. Everyone was exhausted, constantly whipped by the weather, never in the same place long enough to rest. And tonight they would be in Estella, another place she had never heard of, in another hostel with dirty straw for a bed. Catherine knew she should make the discomforts an offering to the saint, endured in his name, but even her soul had gone numb.
They kept on walking.
 
Griselle forced her back to straighten. She had never in her life ridden astride for so long. It jarred her spine and made her legs ache. But if her suffering would lead to peace for Bertran’s soul, then she was prepared to suffer. Not for one moment could she forget the purpose of her journey. She didn’t worry about what would happen after Compostela. After that, nothing else mattered.
“Are you well, my lady?”
Griselle gave Hubert a wan smile. “Yes, certainly,” she
told him. “A little worn, as are we all, but nothing more. I should be asking you the same thing. You’ve had more worries than I.”
Hubert was touched by the concern in her eyes. “The accusation of those knights is not serious,” he said. “Even if the
jongleur
gives witness that he saw a ring in my possession, they found nothing when they searched me. And you have said that you didn’t see it. Your word will carry more weight than Roberto’s … unless you think that I’ve bewitched you.”
She laughed. “Gaucher and Rufus would like to believe that. Anything to explain why I refuse their advances.”
It was on the edge of his tongue to ask if she would refuse his, but Hubert stopped himself just in time. Griselle tolerated him because he wasn’t of her rank. Any improper behavior on his part would result in immediate action by her guards. There was nothing more to it, he told himself severely.
And yet she hadn’t been repulsed on the discovery of his ancestry. Could it be that she was fond enough of him to ignore it?
He wished she would give him some sign.
 
The hot wind sapped them more than the cold rain of the north had. By the time they arrived at Estella, everyone was parched inside and out. Catherine felt as if her lungs had been put through a tannery. All she wanted was to immerse herself in liquid.
Edgar’s mind had fixed on liquid as well, but he was hoping it would be fermented.
“Do you know what I would like?” he murmured. “To stay in a house in a real bed with sheets and a mattress instead of straw and a blanket. I want to eat from a loaf that hasn’t gone stale and maggoty. I want a cup of wine that isn’t tanning fluid or vinegar. Beer is too much to hope for. I want a hot soak in a deep tub with you.”
Catherine smiled and took his hand. “You might as well wish we were back in Paris, for all the good it will do.”
From the distance, the town of Estella looked much like the others they had passed through. It was set half on a crag and half
by the river below. There were the towers of churches and fortifications. As they approached, Catherine hoped for no more than a flat place without vermin where she could lie undisturbed.
The first indication that something was different was when the guard at the gate hailed them in French.
“
Òc plan!
” he shouted in Occitan; then, “Halt! Welcome, pilgrims! The citizens of Estella wish you godspeed on your journey and invite you to share their homes and meals. The burgo franco is just down the street of San Martin. Keep your eyes on the church above and you’ll run right into it.”
The guard assessed the composition of the group with practiced skill. “The Jewish quarter is on the other side of town, on the hill below the castle. And for you monks, black monks are you? The canons at the church will welcome you as they did your abbot, Peter, who passed through here but a few days ago and will await you at the abbey of Santa Maria in Najera.”
They stared at him, slack-jawed with surprise and fatigue.
“What are you waiting for?” the guard jibed. “The gate is open. Welcome!”
As they entered, Eliazar turned to Hubert. “Will you join us?” he asked his brother. “Tomorrow night you can pray in the synagogue with us.”
Hubert shook his head sadly. “I must stay with Catherine. This is the road I’ve chosen.”
Eliazar followed Hubert’s glance and wasn’t surprised to see, not Catherine, but the Lady Griselle. “The road you’ve chosen leads to destruction,” he said. “I say this not in anger, but in concern, Chaim.”
Hubert grasped Eliazar’s arm. “I know it does,” he said. “But I will walk it all the same.”
 
Solomon was making the same decision. “Do you want me to come with you?” he asked Mondete.
She snorted. “To protect my virtue?”
“Then will you come with me?”
“Why? Experience tells me I’m just as likely to be propositioned by your people as mine.”
Solomon sighed. “There are scholars here in Estella. Not
many, but some who have studied in Toledo. I thought you might like to question them.”
He couldn’t see her face, but her hand reached out and gently stroked his cheek. “There is nothing I wish to ask,” she said. “Only God can answer me, and if He will not, then that is an answer as well. Spend the night with your own, my friend. I shall be safe. Your cousin will see to that, won’t she?”
“Yes.” Solomon hung his head. “I had intended to ask her.”
“She has a kind heart,” Mondete said. “She won’t need asking.”
 
Edgar felt that he had landed on the slopes of paradise. Every one of his wishes had been granted so exactly that he suspected sorcery. The bread was fresh, the wine ambrosial, the bed curtained and blessed with linen sheets, and the bath …
Catherine ducked her head under the water, coming up again with the clean curls a black tangle over her face and neck, tresses floating around her shoulders on the water.
“I should never have unbraided it,” she said. “The comb will break in the snarls.”
“I’ll make you a stronger one,” Edgar promised, catching at the strands. He parted the net of hair and kissed her, sliding his body against hers.
“Edgar, the
estuveresse
will be back in any moment,” she protested.
“She’ll have the sense to leave quietly,” he answered.
Catherine should have thought of another argument, but she was betrayed by her own body. This tub was smaller than the one at the bathhouse at home. Here, she was able to brace her feet against the opposite side, resulting in an entirely new sensation.
Of course,
she thought as excuse,
the marriage debt is a sacred obligation. It’s my duty
—“Oh, God!” she moaned.
It was not a prayer.
 
Hubert had opted to stay at a guest house and pay for a room. Oddly, it was the same place Griselle had chosen. When
Catherine and Edgar left for the bathhouse, he watched them go with a sigh of envy. Griselle and her maid were going as well. He let his mind drift to the dimly lit, steamy cubicles, where in good weather the roof board was removed and one could lie in the cooling water and watch the stars come out.
He was marginally comforted by Griselle’s promise to dine with him when she returned.
He sat at a table placed outside in the warm evening and sipped his wine. With no relatives around to worry about, Hubert allowed himself to relax. As far as he could tell, Brother James had given up trying to convict him of murdering the monk Rigaud. Brother James. Jacob. Try as he might, Hubert couldn’t equate the older brother he barely remembered with this stern defender of Christianity. He felt no pull of kinship. As the days passed and James made no further attempt to speak with him, Hubert’s only reaction was one of relief.
It was possible, he considered, that one or both of the knights had killed their old comrade. It was just as likely that the murderer was a stranger to all of them. It was no more than coincidence that Hugh had had his throat cut. Norbert had, perhaps, been poisoned. People die all the time. The pattern of fate is not a weave humans recognize. Only fools and scholars allow themselves to become snared in the attempt to follow the threads.
After two or three cups of wine, Hubert wasn’t surprised to find Gaucher and Rufus sitting across from him, their own cups full and the wine pitcher nearly empty.
“We’ve deci-cided that you aren’t trying to kill us,” Rufus told him. He hiccoughed.
“We’re not so sure about that Solomon, though.” Gaucher was marginally more sober, but working to rectify the situation. “He’s too handy with his knife.”
Hubert had drunk too much alone with his thoughts to be cautious now. “Solomon’s not had the experience you two have had,” he told them. “No real battles, no charging at the enemy,
spear
at the ready.”
Rufus bridled at that. “I never. Sword and mace, those
were mine. Only used my spear in bed.” He leered and raised his eyebrows to be sure Hubert got the point.
“And Rigaud?” Hubert asked.
“Oh, he loved Spain,” Rufus answered. “Smooth young boys for rent in every town.”
“Rufus!” Gaucher knocked the cup away from his friend. The wine spilled down between the cracks in the table.
Rufus calmly set the cup upright and poured some more. “What’s the difference?” he asked. “Poor ol’ Rigaud is dead.”

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