The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (40 page)

Agnes brushed her hands together.

“So, what do I have to do to set a trap to catch this Mandon person?” she asked.

Edgar and Brehier were making their way back through the woods up to the village walls. The fog had lifted and been replaced by brilliant sunlight. It was a going to be a lovely day. They crept as quietly as possible, praying that all of Olivier’s watchmen were busy guarding the mining operations.

“A few more yards,” Brehier whispered. “Then we’ll have to sprint for the wall and hope that our own men don’t shoot at us.”

“There isn’t one inside who doesn’t know me on sight,” Edgar said. “I’ll go first. Ready?”

There was no answer. Edgar turned and came face to face with the point of a crossbow bolt.

The day wasn’t going as he had planned.

“This yarn is stiff with dirt,” Agnes commented, holding it up with distaste.

“It’s been wound through a lot of floors,” Catherine said.

They were in Mandon’s tunnel. Agnes and Catherine had found the passage from the storeroom simply by pounding and clawing at every possible area.

“If we start at the place where she was last seen,” Catherine had explained. “We have a chance of following her back to her lair. It’s not a great chance, but it’s all we have.”

Agnes had not argued. While Catherine went to get the yarn and change her clothes, she had made her own preparations for confronting Mandon.

They had told Marie and Margaret where they were going and overridden their mild objections. When they met at the passage door, Agnes was wearing a short
chainse
with a cord belt and a cloak that came just past her knees. She had twisted her blond braids into a knot and hidden them under a flopping cowl.

Despite her anxiety, Catherine smiled.

“You make a very attractive young man,” she said.

“So do you,” Agnes said. “Although it unnerves me how much you look like Solomon. All you need is a beard.”

“There wasn’t time to grow one,” Catherine said. “Shall we go?”

This time the yarn was tied to the handle of the trapdoor. No one could untie it without being seen by those in the nursery.

They descended a spiral of stone steps that passed through the landings above ground and continued into the depths.

“This is not at all what I expected,” Agnes said, gazing with distaste at the slimy walls. “From the tales, I thought it would be draped with glittering gossamer and jewels.”

“I swear, I’m going to have strong words with the next poet I meet,” Catherine muttered.

They came to a fork.

“Which way?” Agnes asked.

“The one on the right,” Catherine answered.

“How do you know?”

“I just do,” she answered with older-sister logic.

Agnes followed, willing to trust her for the moment but ready to blame her if it all went wrong.

“I am Edgar, lord of Wedderlie,” Edgar announced quickly. “And this is Brehier of Boisvert. We demand to be brought to Lord Olivier.”

“Right,” the man at the other end of the crossbow said. “You look to me like an outlaw come out of the woods to see what he can grab.”

Edgar stood up carefully. The bow moved upward with him but shook a bit. Edgar was a head taller and he held himself like a man used to being obeyed. A sliver of indecision entered the man’s mind. He uncinched his belt and tied it around Brehier’s wrists. Then he looked at Edgar’s one hand and tried to think how he could be equally restrained. He made a decision.

“All right then,” he told them. “You! Lord Whatever! You go ahead. And remember, you try to run for it and your friend gets a hole through him.”

He kept the point of the crossbow against Edgar’s back as they walked.

“What’s your ransom value?” Edgar asked Brehier as they came closer to Olivier’s camp.

“My horse has more than I do,” Brehier answered. “But let’s hope it doesn’t come to finding out.”

Edgar had planned to make a move when the guard stumbled on the rough ground. But the bastard was part goat and soon he had brought his prize into the camp and up to a large tent with a pennant flying from its ridgepole.

He handed them to the guard at the tent flap.

A few moments later they were manhandled inside. Edgar opened his mouth to explain who he was. But what he saw robbed him of speech.

A dark young man in a crisp linen tunic, a gold brooch at his neck, must be Olivier. But Edgar and Brehier were transfixed by the man sitting next to him.

Aymon smiled at them with wicked glee.

“Catherine, if I find out that there’s a dry, clean pathway to Mandon, I will never let you hear the end of it.”

Agnes was glad that they had decided to dress like men for this. Her shoes and hose were spattered with muck. She shuddered to think what a long skirt would look like.

“Are we almost there?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Catherine admitted. “This doesn’t look like any place I’ve been before. We’re going up again; did you notice?”

“Is that good or bad?”

They went a little farther. Catherine stopped and pointed.

“I think it’s good,” she said.

At the end of the tunnel they could see sunlight sneaking in between piled-up rocks. If they were taken away, there would be a hole about knee height.

Automatically, Agnes dropped her voice.

“It must be the entrance to Andonenn’s tunnel,” she said. “We could all escape through here.”

“Unless there are guards on the other side,” Catherine said as the light flickered, as if someone had passed in front of the entrance.

“But it’s our best chance,” Agnes replied. “Let’s leave the end of the yarn here and go back to tell the others. Hermann will be so happy. He wants to go home where people understand what he says.”

“Not yet,” Catherine said. “We need to follow the way Andonenn took.”

“We have, only in reverse,” Agnes told her.

“No, when we entered this part, there was another on the left,” Catherine said. “The answers are down there.”

“You don’t know that,” Agnes said. “We should be getting back. Perhaps Edgar has returned.”

“You’re right, Agnes,” Catherine said absently. “You go back. Tell them what we’ve found. I’m going to get to the bottom of this, even if it leads straight to Hell.”

Agnes sighed. “Well, when you put it that way, I suppose I’ll have to come, too.”

Brehier stared at Aymon in disbelief.

“You murdered your own brother!” he shouted. “How could you?”

Edgar hadn’t thought of that question. In his family, fratricide was almost a tradition.

“It was clever of you to wound yourself so you wouldn’t be suspected,” he complimented Aymon. “How did you do it?”

“What do you mean?” Aymon asked. “Your blasted guards shot me. I would have been halfway to Rouen by nightfall if I hadn’t been hurt. You can’t imagine how awful it was to come to and hear my mother’s voice grating away at the psalms!”

Edgar turned his attention to Olivier.

“Lord Brehier and I request that our ransom be set, and a messenger sent to Paris so that I may raise it, my lord,” he bowed politely.

Olivier popped a ripe plum in his mouth, chewed a while, and then spat out the seed.

“Seems to me,” he said at last, “that ransom is for knights captured in battle, not spies.”

“I beg to differ,” Edgar smiled. “It is not what the man was doing when captured, but how much he can pay.”

Olivier ate another plum.

“Yes,” he agreed. “That sounds right. Unless we find this fabulous treasure Aymon insists is hidden under Boisvert, it may be all I get from this campaign.”

Brehier gave a snort.

“Treasure! You didn’t come all this way for that, did you?” he laughed. “If you believe in that, I have some excellent relics to sell. Our Lord’s sandal strap. John the Baptist’s leftover locust leaves. The miter of Saint Peter from when he was bishop of Rome. What will you offer?”

Aymon rose and punched him hard enough to knock him over.

“I hate poor relations,” he said. “You were always annoying, you and Guillaume and Raimbaut. You all said I could play hide-and-find with you, and then you never looked for me!”

Brehier struggled to stand.

“And this is what happened when I did.” Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. “You’d be dead now if Edgar and I hadn’t found you.”

“Did you also try to stop the messengers?” Edgar asked. “You only got one and he had already reached me.”

“That was the first plan,” Aymon said. “When you all came anyway, I had to think of something else.”

“And what about the bit of cloth with the strange writing on it?” Edgar asked.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Aymon answered. “Any more than that story about the outside tunnel. You’ve been listening to too many stories with a full wine flagon in your hand.”

“And Mandon?” Brehier said cautiously.

“Oh, she’s real enough,” Aymon said. “Some bastard child of Gargenaud’s, I think. She’s totally mad, but harmless. He won’t let us drive her out. She steals food from the kitchens at night, you know.”

“You
mesel!
” Brehier cried. “You made them think it was me!”

Olivier was getting bored with the bickering.

“I don’t care about your myths, or who Aymon has done away with, as long as the treasure is real,” he said. “Take these two out and tie them up well until I decide what to do with them.”

As they were dragged out, Edgar overheard Aymon say to Olivier: “It’s there, I promise. You are no more than another shovelful from breaking into the chamber. There are more riches there than in the whole town of Genoa.”

The alternate way down was much drier than the one they had taken under the keep. Bits of shiny stone sparkled in the light of the lamp Agnes carried.

In less time than they expected, Catherine and Agnes found themselves in a large cavern. On the wall hung a large version of the embroidery pieces. In the center was a table covered with a white cloth. On it was a tall silver pitcher and four silver cups.

Agnes reached out and took Catherine’s hand.

“Welcome, children,” a rich female voice greeted them. “I knew you would find the way.”

The professional prisoner trussers had had no difficulty with Edgar’s missing hand. They had simply pinioned his elbows painfully behind his back.

“This wasn’t exactly what I had intended us to do,” he told Brehier.

“It’s better than I feared,” Brehier answered. “I thought the rope would be around our necks.”

They were silent for a while, each gauging the possibility of rescue or escape.

“By the way,” Brehier said after a while. “I’ve asked Samonie to marry me.”

“Really?” Edgar said. “What did she say?”

“She doesn’t mind, if you don’t object,” Brehier said. “She thinks I asked her just because of finding out I’m Martin’s father, but that’s not it. She’s a fine woman. One to grow old with.”

“I’ll not argue that,” Edgar said. “She cooks well. . .You’re what?”

At that moment a roar of triumph came from Olivier’s army.

“What is it?” Edgar was positioned in the wrong direction.

“It sounds like they’ve broken through into the passage.” Brehier sagged. “Now there’s nothing to stop them from overrunning the keep.”

“Damn it!” Edgar struggled impotently at his bonds. “We’ve got to get out of here! Someone has to warn them!”

Andonenn’s cave. The same time.

Chi voel a fin mon contre traire

Beneois soit qui le vos conte

Beneois soit qui fist le conte

A cials, a celes qui oirent

Otroit Jhesus cho qu’il desirent
.

Now I wish to finish my tale

A blessing on the one who tells this

A blessing on the one who made the tale

To those, men and women who listen

May Jesus give them all they desire.

—
Silence
, II. 6702–6706

M
andon,” Catherine said flatly. “It’s time to stop playing games. No one is coming to save you.”

“But here you are,” Mandon said.

“Didn’t I tell you she would find a way?”

Another woman walked out of the shadows. She had combed out the hair dye and washed the lines from her face.

“Where have you been, Berthe?” Catherine wasn’t thrilled to see her. “Did it amuse you to lead me about and then abandon me? Do you know what happened to our poor mother?”

“Yes,” Berthe said. “I’m so sorry. Did you bring the other knife?”

“What? No?” said Catherine.

“Yes.” Agnes brought it out from the bag at her waist.

“At last!” Both women reached for it.

“Agnes, what are you doing?” Catherine tried to go for the knife, as well.

“Catherine, it’s all right.” Agnes pulled away from her. “Evaine told me that Mandon had asked for it.”

Mandon took the knife gently and set it on the table. Berthe brought out her knife and set it next to the one that had killed Raimbaut.

“Now we have the key,” Mandon said.

“You might have just asked for it at the beginning,” Catherine said sourly.

“Not until we knew which of Andonenn’s children was trying to destroy us,” Berthe explained.