The Wandering Arm (24 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

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

BOOK: The Wandering Arm
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“Yes, and from there I’m sure we go under the parvis of Notre Dame, but not all the way to the church,” Edgar said. “For one thing, the foundations there are too deep. They block off all of the old tunnels. Then there must be a left turn, or we’d be in the river. The next is a right, which is why I thought we were under the cloister, but that passage runs a long way and then there’s another left. That’s to the new workshop. For the old one, we went right again.”
John lightly scratched buildings over Edgar’s path. “What about the other route, from the river?” he asked.
Edgar slapped his forehead.
“Dwolenlic ceorl!”
he berated himself. “I’m not thinking clearly. Of course, we could triangulate on that.”
He drew a few more lines from the other side of the island. John studied them approvingly.
“So, that’s not too bad,” he said. “The workshop appears to be somewhere between the church of Saint-Pierre au Boeuf and the cloister wall.”
“There are a hundred buildings there, mostly made up of student rooms and shops,” Edgar said. “There aren’t any artisans of any sort, at least not the sort that would be creating a stench strong enough to cover that of a forge. I must be wrong.”
John disagreed. “You’ve been taking that route every day for two weeks now. You couldn’t be that far off. We’re missing something obvious, that’s all. Tomorrow, I’ll take this and follow it as best I can. I may arrive at a true revelation.”
Edgar laughed. “John, just keep your eyes open and don’t expect any visions. You aren’t the type.”
“I’ve been told that before.” John grinned. “Did I ever tell you about my first master?”
“Abelard, wasn’t it?” Edgar said.
“No, the very first, an old priest near Salisbury,” John said. “I was sent to him for reading and writing, basic computation, that was all. I was just a boy. It wasn’t until later that I realized that the old man was a magician, an alchemist, perhaps.”
“Really?” Edgar’s eyes widened. He suspected that John was playing with him. “And what did this old necromancer cleric teach you?”
“Reading, writing, basic computation,” John answered. “But every afternoon, he would set me at a table and bid me stare into this great glass full of water and then ask me what I saw.”
“And you saw … what?” Edgar prompted.
“My own face turned upside down,” John laughed. “And the room behind me distorted as a curved glass will make it seem. That was all.”
“I should have known,” Edgar said. “You are the most literal-minded man I’ve ever met. So you never learned magic?”
“No,” John said ruefully. “Not a whiff. I had fun making faces in the glass, but my master threw me out and told my father I had no talent for learning. Soon thereafter I began my studies at the cathedral school. They were more meaty, but not nearly as diverting.”
“I think you made the right decision,” Edgar said. “You wouldn’t look dignified, somehow, in a flowing robe all tattered from acid, with your sleeves tied full of mandrake root and frog’s toes.”
“That’s true, Edgar.” John smirked. “That’s more your style.”
Edgar had to admit that his clothing had suffered from his recent work. “Catherine has offered to mend them for me,” he told John. “But she does convent sewing and keeps wanting to stitch little rabbits and birds across my ass. I don’t think I’m strong enough to endure what Gaudry would say to that, not to mention my friends.”
“When will she be back?” John asked.
“Soon, I hope,” Edgar said. “She sent a message that her father was healing. She also said she’s discovered something in Argenteuil that might help us here.”
“Something about Saint Aldhelm?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t have told a messenger that,” Edgar said. “I wish she’d hurry back so we can hear it all.”
“Of course,” John said as he rose to leave. “I can’t imagine any other reason for you to want her to return.”
“Oh, there is,” Edgar said, smiling. “Catherine is better than either of us at geometry. She could triangulate the map.”
Catherine was doing her best to return to Paris. For a place that did so much trade with the city, it was odd that so few people were going that way from Argenteuil in the next few days. There were barges being hauled upriver and she might have found passage on one of those, but the Seine meandered so that it took three times as long to take that route, especially fighting the spring current.
Solomon could take her as far as Saint-Denis, but he planned to spend the Sabbath with Baruch. That would mean she would lose a day and have to travel on Sunday. It appeared that the only person in the world who was heading back to Paris was the one she most dreaded traveling with.
He wasn’t any more thrilled than she.
“But this is a way to redeem yourself, Jehan,” Hubert assured him when he offered Jehan the assignment. “I’m trusting you with my elder daughter’s safety. That’s a sign of my continued faith. You can tell Count Thibault so. It won’t delay you. She’s packing her things now. You can leave at once.”
Jehan stood by the bed, twisting his gloves with his strong fingers until the leather squeaked. Agnes sat next to her father, preferring to look out the window than at either of them. It occurred to Hubert that this mission might well be the damnation Jehan had feared.
“Will you take Catherine to Paris?” He repeated.
Jehan tried in vain to get Agnes to look at him. What did she want him to do? Was there any way he could win back her respect?
“Very well,” he said at last. “Whom do I deliver her to?”
“I imagine she’ll tell you,” Hubert said. “She’s staying near Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois. One thing,” he added firmly. “Whatever she says, don’t leave her at Bietrix’s on the Île.”
Jehan knew the tavern well, and the back room. It seemed to him a perfect place to leave Catherine. She would deserve whatever might happen to her there. However, he promised reluctantly that he would deliver Catherine to her husband.
Outside the priory, Jehan indulged in some vicious cursing before he was able to feel up to the task.
So now he and Catherine were riding down the crowded rue Saint-Denis in bright, springlike weather, surrounded by merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, peasants and occasional noblemen. The only danger they were in was from each other.
Catherine persuaded herself later that she had been unduly tempted by a loose demon of the lower ether. Why else would she have given in to the impulse to taunt Jehan? She set herself a week on bread and water to atone. Her contrition was real enough. Unfortunately, it came too late.
“Have you heard that Agnes is going to Grandfather’s keep in Blois?” she asked Jehan. Since she was riding behind him, her face pressed against his mailcoat, there was no way he could pretend not to hear her.
“To Raoul?” he replied. “I didn’t know the old bastard was still alive.”
“Very much so,” Catherine told him. “Despite the earnest prayers of half the family.”
She waited, but Jehan seemed content with his own thoughts. Later she realized she had failed her second spiritual test. She ought to have stopped talking then.
“Grandfather still has enough connections in Blois and Anjou to find Agnes a powerful husband,” she went on. Her face was tilted up to Jehan’s shoulder to be sure every word was clear. She could feel his muscles tensing. “He’ll find her someone with land of his own, a castle, perhaps a family monastery she can be patroness to.” Catherine shoved the words at him like a cattle goad. “She needs a man who can protect her, take care of her. Someone she can be proud of.”
He whipped around and pushed her so quickly that she was on the ground before she realized what was happening. As she sat in the road, staring stupidly up at him, Jehan threw her bag down on the ground beside her.
“You
meseleuse bordelere!”
he shouted.
“Engineuse! Jael! Filles d’Aversier!
You cursed woman! I’ll not go another step with you. Not if your father paid me in Venetian gold! Find your own way home. I hope you have your throat cut! You deserve worse, you
lice tornadereuse!
May you be raped a hundred times by leprous Saracens!”
Catherine was too stupefied to answer.
A priest passing by with a basket of onions stopped and tapped Jehan’s leg.
“My lord,” he began, “whatever this woman has done, you have no right to admonish her on a public road in this manner. As the Apostle says—”
“Stay out of this!” Jehan yelled, kicking him away.
The onions spilled out across the road and the priest scurried after them. There was an angry shout and a screech of wheels.
Jehan didn’t bother to see what had happened. Fury had overcome a lifetime of training. Throwing a last oath at Catherine, he set off down the road at a trot, causing those on foot to jump quickly aside to avoid being run down.
Catherine still sat where she had landed in the middle of the road. She felt soaked by invective, half expecting her clothes to be drenched in obscenities. How could he have done such a thing? He had sworn to protect her. Jehan must have gone mad!
Someone took her by the elbow gently.
“Are you all right, my dear?” It was the priest. He was holding his empty basket in one hand.
“I think so. Thank you for trying to help,” Catherine said. She noticed the basket. “Oh, he spilled your load, as well! I’m so sorry! Let me help you pick them up.”
The old man shook his head. “There’s nothing to pick up. The other travelers got them all.”
“Then I must give you something to recompense you for your loss.” Catherine fumbled about under her cloak for the bag tied around her neck. “I have only a coin or two, but you’re welcome to them.”
“Since the onions were to give to the poor of my parish, I will accept them gratefully,” the priest said.
He leaned over to help Catherine to rise. As she did so, she cried out in sudden pain. “Oh, Saint Barnabas’s blistered bunions! I’ve sprained my ankle.”
For the first time, the consequences of her impulse to torment another were made manifest to her. Apart from shock at Jehan’s storm of oaths and horror at his betrayal of his duty, she hadn’t been much concerned when he left her. It was bright daylight and only another three or four miles to Paris on a crowded road. She could have walked it easily. She had done it often before. Now, she had no idea what was to become of her.
Ahem
, her voices said smugly.
May we remind you what a haughty spirit goes before?
“No, you may not” Catherine muttered.
The priest let go her arm.
“Oh, forgive me, sir,” she said. “I didn’t mean you. Could you help me over to the side of the road? I believe that this man wants to get his cart through.”
She hadn’t actually seen the cart, just the ox pulling it. It stood peacefully blocking the road, chewing on an onion. The carter held another onion by the stalk and was also munching contentedly. Neither appeared that eager to continue their journey.
As Catherine hobbled out of the way, the man driving the cart called out to her. “Did that
avoutre
toss you out without paying?”
Catherine pulled herself up and started to make a scathing reply to this when she realized that the man wasn’t being insulting, but concerned. His indignation was for a knight who would take something without paying for it, not for a woman who would sell. Still, she felt obliged to correct the carter’s misapprehension.
“The man had agreed to take me home to my husband,” she explained. “But he changed his mind,” she ended lamely.
The man took another bite of onion. “Just as I thought,” he said. “They always do.”
Catherine sat on a Roman milestone and tried pulling off her boot without screaming. The priest pulled at the heel for her and it finally came off. The ankle was swollen to the size of a cabbage. The only thing she could think of to wrap it with was her woolen stocking. She managed to peel it off without showing too much leg, for she was acutely aware that the carter hadn’t yet moved but was watching her with the same steady gaze as his ox.
“There’s no room on the seat,” he said, when she had tied the stocking as securely as possible. “But if you want, you can ride in the back with the barrels. I’m going to my mother’s house on the Île.”
The old priest was obviously torn between getting back to his church and making sure that none of Jehan’s wishes for Catherine’s future came true.
“Perhaps I could come with you and then walk back,” he suggested.
Catherine bit her lip. She would be glad of his moral protection but didn’t want to inconvenience him any more than she already had. She looked at the carter.
He was an extremely solid man. Large, broad-shouldered, thick-necked, stolid. She wondered if he and the ox were related.
“Where on the Île are you going?” she asked.
“Near Saint-Christophe,” he told her. “My mother keeps a tavern there. My brother makes the beer for her. I take the extra to Auberville and La Villette to sell. I still have half a barrel left. You can have a cup.”

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