To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (31 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

BOOK: To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery
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Jehan leaned across the table and grabbed Lambert by the shoulders.
“That’s why you have the amulet with you, remember?” he whispered. “No one will even know you’re there. I had to pay the wizard dearly for that, but it was worth it. When you put it on this afternoon, you vanished completely.”
Lambert nodded. “I know. You walked right into me. But I wish I could have looked in a mirror to see for myself.”
“You mean ‘not see’!” Jehan laughed. “Between that and the darkness you’ll float through the house like a spirit. In and out before you know it.”
Lambert sighed and drank his wine.
“And you promise that tomorrow we’ll go tell the provost that Clemence is missing?” he said.
“Of course,” Jehan answered. “If we don’t find her in their clutches. I won’t leave you until she’s recovered. Even if they’ve hidden her elsewhere, once they’ve been denounced, we can force them to tell you where she is.”
“But what if they know nothing about her?” Lambert said. “Or what if they do have her and threaten to hurt her.”
“Once they’re imprisoned, they won’t be able to do anything,” Jehan said sharply. He was growing weary of Lambert’s doubts. “Come. It’s time to set out. Don’t forget your cloak.”
Lambert picked up the cloak and dropped it on the floor, his hands were shaking so much. Jehan retrieved it and made him put it on as soon as they were out in the street. He wrapped his own cloak around his shoulders, pulling the hood down over his face.
“Now we look like men with something to hide,” Lambert said.
“Any man out at this hour has something to hide,” Jehan told him. “Or else he’s a fool and will soon be dead.”
This explanation did not ease Lambert’s trepidation.
They made their way across the Grand Pont and turned right along the river road to the Grève. Lambert started at every sound and once nearly lost control of his bowels when he mistook a rooting pig
for a creature from Hell. They passed no one and came to the dark street with no other incident.
“Now, I’ve watched many a night,” Jehan said. “The door to the kitchen will be unlocked. All you need to do is avoid the guards by the creek.”
He scanned the street to be sure it was empty, then hoisted Lambert over the wall. He heard a sound of breaking branches and a muffled cry as Lambert landed in a laurel bush. Then silence.
Jehan went around to the other side of the house, where he knew a way into the garden of the grain merchant. Then he made his way along the wall until he reckoned he was under the counting-room window.
There was nothing to do now but hope that idiot boy could manage to follow the plan. Jehan sighed. It was a great risk, but at least if it failed, he could be far away by morning.
 
Lambert’s
brais
and cloak were stuck with laurel now, sending out a pungent aroma. He felt for the amulet and put it around his neck, where it rattled against his cross. Now he should be totally invisible. He just hoped no one found him by the smell.
He crept around to the back and found, as Jehan had promised, that the door was not only unlocked but ajar. This unnerved him more than if it had been closed. What if someone were waiting for him inside?
After an agonized moment, Lambert pulled the door far enough open to enter. He felt his way around the wall trying not to tip anything over until he found the stairs to the hall.
The empty expanse seemed as wide as the ocean as Lambert started across. There was a small amount of starlight shining through the windows but only enough for every shadow to appear to be an obstacle to avoid.
Was anyone sleeping here? Lambert heard no sound of breathing, but it was hard to make out anything over the pounding of his heart. Every step he made seemed to set the rushes rattling loudly enough to wake the dead.
Finally, he felt his way to the staircase. He groped along the wall
and caught a spray of dust as his hand ran into a thick wall hanging. For a moment he was sure he was going to sneeze. Only by wrenching most of the muscles in his throat did he keep it back.
He arrived at the door to the counting room in both physical and spiritual agony. He drew the key from the purse at his belt on the third try and, feeling for the lock with his other hand, managed to insert and turn it.
The door opened smoothly. The hinges didn’t even creak. He went in.
The window here was larger, and he could make out the treasure chest Jehan had told him about. Lambert knelt in front of it and, before opening it, said a quick prayer that no one would ever know he had done such a thing, no matter how pure his intentions were. He put his hands on the lid and lifted.
It didn’t budge.
Lambert pushed harder. Nothing happened.
Frantically, he felt around the edges. There, just in the center, was the loop and padlock Jehan had forgotten to tell him about.
He sat back on his haunches. What could he do now? The thought of dropping into Jehan’s arms without finding out what was in the chest was more terrifying than his fear of being caught.
In desperation, Lambert tried the key to the door. It turned, and the lock opened.
“It’s a miracle,” he breathed. “Thank you Saint Omer!”
He felt in the chest but there was no chink of gold or stolen church plate, as Jehan had told him. All he felt were books, each wrapped in cloth.
What if the books contained magic spells? He should take them to Jehan to examine. But there were too many to carry. Would one be enough?
He heard movement on the floor above him. One would have to be enough, he decided. He took the top book from the pile, closed and locked the chest and went to the window. Thank goodness no one had thought to shutter it on this mild night!
Below, he could just make out the figure of Jehan, ghostlike in his
cloak. Lambert tapped on the sill to catch his attention. Jehan looked up and held out his arms.
Lambert dropped the book from the window. Jehan caught it, falling backward from the weight. Then Lambert eased himself through the narrow window and dropped.
He landed with a thud on the ground. Before he could decide if he were hurt or not, Jehan grabbed him by the arm, yanked him up and over the wall to the grain merchant’s.
Somewhere nearby a dog started barking, setting off all the others in the neighborhood. Jehan pushed Lambert into the cover of the grain shed until it died down. Then the two men crept back to the street and, once out into the open, went as casually as they could down to the bridge and back to their room.
 
The next morning Catherine came down to find the counting-room door open.
“That’s odd,” she said to herself. “I was sure I locked it last night.”
She looked in. Everything seemed the same. The padlock on the chest was in place. She sniffed. There was a scent of laurel in the room. Strange. The bush was on the other side of the house.
Shaking her head, Catherine took the key from her belt and locked the door.
It wasn’t until the afternoon that she went up to work on the accounts and discovered that the book her father had used to keep his records had vanished.
“Edgar!” she called. “What did you do with the account book?”
His voice came back from the storeroom, where he and Solomon were making headway in the inventory.
“Nothing! Why?”
She went into the storeroom. “You must have,” she insisted. “It’s not in the chest.”
Solomon straightened from the box he was searching through.
“Perhaps you left it out,” he suggested.
“Solomon, I would have noticed if it had been lying there.” But Catherine went back to check.
“No, it’s gone,” she said when she returned. “And I never take it out of the room.”
She then told them about finding the door open.
“But the chest was still locked. How could anyone have gotten in? And why would a thief want a book in the first place?” she said.
Edgar followed her back into the counting room. He moved stiffly, his back still in pain. “We shouldn’t assume it’s been stolen,” he said. “This room is right below ours. We’d hear if someone entered it at night. When did you last use the book?”
“Yesterday,” she said. “I wanted to reconcile what I had there with the inventory. Did you make the deal for the leather?”
“Damedé!”
he said. “I’d forgotten all about it. That stone knocked it out of my head.”
“Do you suppose someone hit you to prevent your being able to stop them from breaking into the house?” Solomon asked.
“I don’t think I’m that much of a threat,” Edgar answered. “We have locks. We have guards. I can’t believe anyone could have got in. You must have just misplaced the book.”
“Edgar,” Catherine said quietly. “Look.”
She pointed to the ground under the window. There in the grass was the deep impression of two boots, toes pointed toward the house.
They all stared at the marks. Catherine shivered.
“He must have escaped this way,” she said, feeling unnaturally calm. “But how did he get in?”
They all thought the same thing, but no one said it. Finally, Solomon turned back to examine the door.
“No, we aren’t dealing with a thief who can fly,” he said. “He came in by the door and left it unlocked because he went out by the window and the lock was on the other side.”
Edgar let his breath out. “Of course,” he said. “Perfectly clear what happened.”
“Except,” Catherine said, “how did he get into the house in the first place and where did he get keys to the counting room?”
“And,” she added, “what possible use to him is Father’s book?”
 
 
Staring at it in broad daylight, Jehan was thinking much the same thing.
“Where is the treasure box?” he demanded of Lambert. “How could you mistake this for it?”
“There was no treasure,” Lambert insisted. “Just books. I thought they might contain evidence of the wickedness of these people.”
“Catherine and Edgar are too clever for that,” Jehan said. He thought about it a moment longer. “The book was locked up, just like treasure, wasn’t it?”
Lambert nodded eagerly.
Jehan sat on the bed and unfolded the cloth cover, revealing wooden boards. The pages between them had been stitched together at different times as more were needed. Cautiously, Jehan opened the cover and looked at the first page.
Lambert watched, ready to run if black smoke or a giant hand suddenly popped out of the parchment.
“Is it in French?” he asked after a moment. “Can you read it?”
“Very interesting,” Jehan said, sounding less angry. “Parts are in French, but not all by any means. You see these shapes?”
He held the book up, pointing to a long line of letters.
“That’s not Latin,” he stated. “That’s Hebrew. Sorcerers use it to call on the fallen angels by their true names. That’s how you get power over them.”
Lambert backed away.
“What does it say?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” Jehan admitted. “But the wizard might. And there’s plenty of clerics who could tell us. I have a bit of old Hubert’s writing, with these same characters on one side and French on the other. They wouldn’t believe me before, but they’ll have to now. Lambert, we have to get this book back into the chest where you found it.”
“What!” Lambert cried. “Go there again? I couldn’t. No, Jehan, I’ve done all you asked. Now I must find Clemence! You wouldn’t even let me find out if she was there!”
He fell off his stool in his anger and fear and scrambled toward the door on his knees, desperate to get away. Jehan reached over and
spun him around. Lambert looked up to see Jehan’s knife pointed at his throat.
“I’ve helped you ever since you got here, you ungrateful
mesel
,” Jehan hissed. “We’re fighting pure evil here, worse than any Saracen. They could be doing anything to your wife, right this minute.”
“I don’t believe it anymore!” Lambert said. “You aren’t heping me find Clemence. You’re just trying to get me to do your work for you.”
Jehan gave a snort. “Idiot! It’s I who’ve been helping you. What use are you to me? I can easily find a bright boy who will do what I ask with no back talk. You’re the one who’s in trouble. Remember that they may well have killed your wife’s father as well as abducting her. Don’t you want to see these monsters brought to justice?”
Lambert looked steadily into Jehan’s eyes. He was suddenly too worn-out for fear.
“No,” he said. “All I want is to find Clemence, safe. After that, I’ll think about justice.”
The knife shook in Jehan’s hand. Lambert looked away. He had thought he had reached the limits of exhaustion and despair. Jehan’s face showed him how much farther a man could go and still be this side of Hell.

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