To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (16 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

BOOK: To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery
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He didn’t go to the Cathedral. The shame of begging for his food was too great. The bells of Paris were calling the faithful to Sunday Mass. Most people were going about their business, though, preparing for the opening of the shops in the afternoon or recovering from a night in the tavern.
It was too early to go fetch Clemence, Lambert realized. She owed the nuns attendance at services in return for their kindness. He wandered aimlessly through the streets, trying to ignore the smell of fresh pastry. The few coins he had left were to care for his wife.
He was standing in the
rue des Juifs
, looking wistfully at a boy feeding a sausage to his dog, when a man stopped and asked his name.
“Lambert, of Picardy,” he said.
“Are you the one who’s been asking about Hubert LeVendeur?” the man asked.
Lambert wasn’t sure about answering. The man was half a head taller than he, with a face weathered by time, adversity and something
else that made Lambert want to cross himself. His hair and beard were streaked with white. Still, his clothes were good, and he wore the cross of the pilgrim.
“Yes,” he admitted at last.
“What’s he done to you?” the man’s eyes were avid for information.
Lambert stepped back. “Nothing,” he said. “I only sought information from him about my father who, like you, has set out to free Edessa from the infidel.”
“Why would Hubert know about him?”
“They had done business together,” Lambert explained. “My father was raising horses with Lord Osto. They bought a Spanish destrier from Hubert and his partner and sold them some of the foals each year thereafter. My father told me they were going to Paris to make some arrangements with Hubert about future trade before leaving for the Holy land.”
“I see.” The man stared at him for a moment. “But Hubert supposedly left Paris months ago.”
Lambert ignored the qualification. “So everyone tells me,” he said sadly. “I’ve had to assume that my father is also long gone.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain.” The stranger laid a hand on Lambert’s shoulder. “Have you also heard that when Hubert’s daughter arrived home from a journey she found that the house had been shut but that
someone
had left the body of a murdered knight of the Temple inside.”
“How sad,” Lambert said. “But Lord Osto had no intention of becoming a member of the Knights of the Temple, sir. My father planned to offer them his services, but he wasn’t a nobleman and would only have become a sergeant or even lower servant. He isn’t a warrior.”
“Anyone can wear mail,” the man said. “And his skill won’t be tested if he’s already dead. You say your father came to Paris to find Hubert and no one has seen him since. Don’t you think you should at least ask about the man found in his house?”
Lambert was young, frightened, overwhelmed by his responsibility to Clemence and the people of their village. He didn’t believe that this poor dead man could be his father, but even the hint of it was enough to make his heart constrict.
“Yes, thank you,” he said. “Do you know where they took the body?”
“Oh yes.” The man smiled. “I’ll take you there, myself. But first we should break our fast, don’t you think, Lambert? I fancy a meat pie. Will you share it with me?”
The prospect of food decided him. The man bought a hot pie and broke it in two, giving Lambert half.
“Now all we need is beer.” He laughed. “Don’t worry, young Lambert. We’ll find out what Hubert LeVendeur did to your father, and I’ll see that he’s avenged. Count yourself lucky that you’ve come under the protection of Jehan of Blois.”
Sunday afternoon, 15 kalends June (May 18), 1147; 16 Sivan, 4907. Feast of Saint Theodote, tavern keeper and martyr.
 
Marie as piés Nostre Seignor plora
Lava les bien, terst et oinst et baisa,
Et tout ses pechiés Jhesus le pardona …
Ma douce Dame Marie, le barnesse,
Veés con m’ame est orde et pecerresse …
Se ne m’aïes, Dame, qui m’aidera?
 
Mary you have washed the feet
of Our Lord with your tears,
wiped, anointed and kissed them.
And Jesus pardoned all your sins …
My sweet Lady Mary, the woman of ill-repute
You see how my soul is stained and sinful …
If you don’t help me, Lady, who will?
 
—Anonymous (but definitely a woman)
Prayer to Mary Magdalene
 
 
B
ertulf and Godfrey were alarmed when the summons came for them to present themselves before Master Durand. They hurried across the courtyard to the chapter at once.
“Do you think we’ve been discovered?” Godfrey asked.
“I don’t see how,” Bertulf answered. “Perhaps we’ve already managed to break one of the rules. Do I appear too proud?”
“You’ve made no mistakes that I could see,” Godfrey said. “And no man would call you proud.”
They waited nervously until told to enter by Brother Baudwin.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” he whispered, seeing their expressions as they passed him. “I wouldn’t mind an assignment like this, myself.”
Seated at a table facing the door, Master Durand considered the men standing stiffly before him.
“I understand you’re both new to the Order?” he asked. “Therefore, you haven’t been initiated into the brotherhood, nor have you yet taken any permanent vows.”
“That is correct, sir,” Bertulf answered. “But we both intend to become full members of the Temple as soon as it is permitted.”
Durand waved his hand dismissively.
“I have no doubt that you will,” he said. “Or I wouldn’t set you this task.”
He could feel the curiousity. But Durand had another question.
“You’re strangers to Paris?” he asked. “You have no friends or family in the city?”
A fraction of a hesitation.
“No,” Bertulf said. “We have no connection to Paris at all.”
Master Durand nodded.
“Good. It would be embarrassing for us if you were recognized,” he explained. “We have a problem that requires secrecy and tact.”
He explained what he wanted them to do. As he did, Godfrey’s eyes widened. He looked sideways at Bertulf, who gave him a nudge with his toe, warning him to say nothing.
“Do you understand?” Master Durand finished.
“Yes, sir,” Bertulf said. “We’ve only to keep our ears open and occasionally ask a question. Godfrey and I can do that.”
“Master,” Godfrey spoke for the first time, “we will need something in hand to buy beer with.”
Bertulf seemed annoyed by his request.
“Quite right,” Brother Baudwin said. “We hold everything in common so you assuredly kept nothing back for yourselves when you arrived. You shall have a few sous from the common purse. Don’t drink it all in the first tavern, mind you. We need you to have your heads clear.”
The two men bowed and left. When they had gone Durand lifted his eyebrows at Baudwin.
“Those two were the best you could find?”
 
Outside, Godfrey was breathing as if he’d just been chased by wolves across an open field.
“Can you imagine!” he exclaimed. “What are we going to do?”
Bertulf put a hand on his shoulder. “What we’ve been ordered to do,” he said. “We can’t be blamed if there’s no information to be found.”
“I don’t like it, Master,” Godfrey said. “Perhaps it would be better if we told the truth.”
“We couldn’t tell all of it in any case,” Bertulf reminded him. “It would ruin everything. Now we also have a real chance of finding the murderer. And I want to be the one to do it, before Master Durand, in any case.”
“You don’t like that cleric, do you?”
“I don’t like the way he looks at me.” Bertulf clenched his fists. “As if I were a horse he didn’t believe could be trained.”
“Ah, well, that’s the way these men are.” Godfrey was philosophical. “They think nothing has a use if it can’t read Latin. He likely feels the same way about that Brother Baudwin.”
 
Catherine spent the afternoon composing a letter to Abbess Heloise for Astrolabe to take to the Paraclete the next time he went there to see her. She told herself that there was no point in asking Margaret to go to the convent if all the places for students were taken. However, down deep she knew that she wanted to postpone bringing the subject up for as long as possible.
She rolled up the parchment, tied it with a ribbon and sealed the ends of the ribbon with wax. Then she went down to see what trouble her family had managed to get into.
The hall was empty and eerily quiet. No children, no servants, no clanging of dishes from the kitchen. It was unnatural.
Catherine passed through to the kichen and then to the back, where the summer oven was hot from bread baking. Still she saw no one.
“Samonie!” she called. “Margaret!”
“Down here, Mistress!” Samonie’s voice wafted up from the little orchard by the stream at the bottom of the garden.
Catherine went down to join them.
Samonie, with Edana attached to her belt by a long cord, was picking mint to use in a sauce for dinner. Margaret was helping James to climb the low branches of the apple tree.
“Careful not to knock the blossoms off,” Catherine warned. “Or no apple tarts next winter.”
“Did you need me for something, Mistress?” Samonie asked as she worked.
“No, I just wanted to count noses,” Catherine admitted.
She took another look at Samonie. The woman seemed tired today, lines of weariness tightening her mouth and eyes.
“You’ve been working too hard,” Catherine told her. “I shouldn’t
ask you to take care of the children along with your other duties. I’ll ask Edgar tonight about finding a nurse for the little ones.”
“They’re no trouble,” Samonie said. She gave a tug on the cord to pull Edana away from the river. “The last thing we need is another person in the house!”
The ferocity of her response startled Catherine.
“Very well. If you’re sure,” she said. “I don’t want to overburden you.”
The anger drained from Samonie. She gave Catherine a wry smile.
“You have never overburdened me with work, Mistress,” she told Catherine. “My family and I owe you much. Should I need help with the children, I will let you know. Unless,” she added, “you feel I’m lax in my care of them.”
“No, of course not,” Catherine answered. “Since everything is in order here, I’ll just return to my work.”
But she didn’t feel that everything was in order. Samonie had been withdrawn and irritable ever since they had returned. What was the matter? Was she worried about Willa and her new husband? Had someone threatened her? Could she possibly know something about the dead knight? If so, why didn’t she tell them? Samonie knew all their secrets; Catherine had thought they knew all hers. What would be so awful that she couldn’t share it?
Her mind full of dark speculation, Catherine tried to settle into finishing the hemming of a new
bliaut
for Margaret to wear over the hand-me-down shift. Even the simple stitch was too much for her to concentrate on. After she had stabbed her finger the third time, she gave it up.
Wandering aimlessly through the house, she wound up in the upstairs storage room where Edgar and Solomon kept the smaller, more valuable items of their merchandise. Inside were a number of caskets and barrels stuffed with straw to protect the goods. It had never occured to Catherine in her father’s day to ask why this room had no lock and the counting room did. Of course all the containers were sealed or chained shut, but it was strange that Hubert had felt his records to be more precious than his possessions.
Catherine sat down on one of the boxes, heedless of the dust.
Alone there, among the things he had left them, she missed her father as much as if he were dead. Of course, having reverted to Judaism, he was worse than dead. She knew he could never safely return to Paris.
“Papa,” she whispered, “how could you abandon us? Without you, everything is falling apart. I never realized how much you took care of me.”
She was settling in to a good, steady fit of tears when a thumping from below warned her that Edgar was back. She stood up, wiping her face on her sleeve.
“I’m up here!” she called. “I’ll be right down.”
Edgar didn’t wait for her. He came bounding up the steps, two at a time. He met her on the landing and took hold of her, as if to lift her. It was only when his empty arm touched her that he remembered. A shadow crossed his face, then he hugged her and grinned.
“Solomon and I have a commission!” he announced. “Abbot Suger has sent word that he needs good English wool for blankets for the king’s journey. He wants us to negotiate for them with the wool merchants. The profit from that and what we expect to take in at the
Lendit
this year should keep us through next winter.”
It wasn’t until she saw the relief in his eyes that Catherine realized how worried he had been.
“That’s wonderful,
carissime
!” She kissed him. “I’m so proud of you!
“Does that mean you’ll have to go back to England?” she added with less enthusiasm.
“Don’t worry, we’ll go no farther than Flanders and not until the end of the summer,” Edgar said. “The abbot will send the blankets after the army, to catch up with the king before the winter rains in the Holy Land.”
“How nice to have something to celebrate,” Catherine said, as they went down to join the rest of the family.
 
Clemence had no occasion to rejoice. She was very grateful to the sisters at Montmartre for their care of her. She knew that Paris was a dangerous city just now with so many strangers in it. She was very lucky to have a bed. Clemence knew all this and appreciated her good
fortune, but all she wanted was for Lambert to come back and tell her what was happening.
“Would you like to help us distribute alms?” one of the nuns asked, seeing her sitting alone.
“Yes, of course,” Clemence answered dutifully.
She followed the nun to the refectory, where they were given baskets of broken loaves, some soaked in sauce from the last meal.
“Don’t give more than one piece to anyone,” the nun told her. “Unless it’s very small. It’s dreadful to send people away only partially fed, but Abbess Cristina says that’s better than having to turn some away with nothing at all.”
“I understand,” Clemence said.
But when she saw the crowd of people, so many of them with children, Clemence wasn’t sure she could obey the rules. The men frightened her, unkempt, unshaven and with a look of being one step from savagery. Some of them snatched at the bread and began eating without even saying a blessing. The children had eyes too large for their faces. Most were barefoot and had open sores on their legs and faces.
“Are they lepers?” Clemence whispered, pulling back a little.
“Probably not,” the nun next to her said. “It’s mostly insect bites or scratches. We try to look for those with the spotted sickness or other illnesses that children pass to each other. But usually the beggars notice it themselves and drive the truly diseased away.”
“What happens to them?” Clemence asked in horror.
“Some are tended to at the monasteries; most die or recover, as God wills.” The nun’s tired face showed how much she would have liked to save all who came to them.
Clemence finished distributing the contents of her basket. They had poor at home in Picardy, of course. But they were the town’s poor. The monks at Saint Omer put by grain every year against famine, and she didn’t think anyone had ever starved, not in her memory.
There were still people waiting for alms.
“I’m sorry,” the nun told them. “This is all we have to spare today. Come back tomorrow. Or try Saint Genevieve. The monks there have more than we do.”
No one even protested. They simply turned from the gate and started back down the hill. Clemence noticed how many leaned on sticks or had to be carried by others.
“Sister,” she asked, “do I eat food that you would normally give to the poor?”
“Of course not,” the woman answered. “The bread you left last night went to them. You might say you added to the gift.”
Clemence was slightly comforted. She was just beginning to realize how sheltered her life had been. Her village was prosperous, so much so that Lambert’s father was much richer in gold and property than her own, even though Osto was the castellan and Bertulf merely a miller.

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