The Devil's Door (24 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

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

BOOK: The Devil's Door
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“She’s resting more comfortably now,” Héloïse told him. “We’ve begun to hope.”
Walter left, shaking his head.
“I don’t understand why she was attacked,” he muttered. “It can’t be the land. She gave up all right to it when she entered the convent, didn’t she?”
“Of course,” Héloïse told him. “As far as the inheritance goes, she may as well have died of the fever ten years ago.”
“Then why couldn’t they leave her here in peace?”
“I don’t know,” the abbess said. Her face was as sad as his, but there was also anger. “However, it seems to me that it’s time we found out.”
Walter went out to make sure the men left by the lord of Trainel were doing their duty. Assuring himself that they all had their eyes fixed on the road and woods and not on the windows of the dorter, he began a circuit of the buildings, himself, pacing around and around the walls of the convent, thinking. And the more he thought, the faster he walked, and the faster he walked, the angrier he became. Finally, he stopped in his circumambulations and veered purposefully toward the guesthouse.
“Avoi! You in there!” he pounded on the door. “Someone’s locked me out!”
There was a scuffling from the other side, a sound like a stool tipping over, whispers turning to laughter. At last the bar was lifted and Edgar’s face peered out. He held his chainse in one hand and his pants up with the other.
“Back already, are you Walter?” he said. “How is Sister Paciana?”
Walter looked past him, to Catherine, whose bliaut was rumpled and who still hadn’t found her comb. He grinned.
“Glad to see you’ve learned le
ju françois,”
he said. “Good work, lad!”
“We have it in Scotland, too,” Edgar said mildly. “We just use other words for it.”
“I’d like to learn them, someday,” Walter said. “But not now. If you’ve got your belt tied, come out for a minute.”
Edgar finished dressing and followed Walter outside, leaving Catherine to continue her search.
“I want to see what’s so important about this piece of forest,” Walter told him, when they were out of earshot of any building. “After all, it seems my honor depends on finding the truth of this. I’m going back there, the first thing tomorrow. Do you want to come with me?”
“I would,” Edgar said, “but I don’t know how much help I’d be if we run into Raynald’s men. I’m not trained to fight.”
“It doesn’t matter, I am,” Walter said. “But I’m not trained to read or to understand things the way you do. Where did you learn about the workings of a forge?”
Edgar looked away from him, at the knights keeping watch around the convent.
“I’m interested in how things are made,” he said. “That’s all. Is it important?”
Walter shook his head. “I guess not. It just seems strange for a nobleman to care about such things. I only learned the bit I do know from watching while my horse is shod. Will you come with me?”
“What about Catherine?”
“We’d only be gone a week, perhaps less,” Walter said. “Leave her here.”
Edgar leaned back to look Walter in the eye.
“You haven’t known Catherine very long, have you?” he said.
“Look, I’d sooner go through wolf-infested forests with fresh meat hanging from my boots than travel with a woman,” Walter said. “On the main roads, with other people about, it’s safe enough, but there are ribaux who wander the forest paths. You and I might fight them off, or scare them, but we couldn’t protect her, too.”
Edgar sighed. “Yes, you’re right. Catherine will understand … perhaps. I will go with you.”
With that he squared his shoulders and went back to the guest, house, marshalling every argument he could think of just in case she didn’t understand.
Catherine didn’t look up when he entered. She had found the comb at last and her hair was unplaited, hanging like a cloud of midnight across her face and to the floor.
“What did Walter want?” she asked.
He explained.
“You will be careful, won’t you?” she said, starting to braid one side.
Edgar came over and held the unbraided hair away from her fingers.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s always gets in the way. Maybe I should cut it.”
“Not while I’m alive,” Edgar said.
She smiled. “Then I repeat, don’t try to be a hero. That’s Walter’s place. Defend your life, if you have to, but I’d rather you didn’t have to.”
“Then you don’t mind waiting here for me?” He was suspicious.
“Of course not,” she said. “Walter is quite right; I’d only be a hindrance.”
He thought about asking when that had ever bothered her before but decided that was unfair. She had never meant to be a hindrance and, at least once, she had saved his life. All the same, it wasn’t like her to acquiesce so easily.
Catherine sensed his skepticism.
“You’re just lucky it’s almost my phase of the moon,” she explained. “I don’t want to spend the next week on a horse, wandering about in the woods, wondering if I have enough clean rags to last the day out. By the time you return, it should all be over and we can return to Paris together.”
Edgar was fascinated. “It never occurred to me that such a thing would be a problem.”
Catherine laughed. “Of course it didn’t. It’s not your problem.”
Edgar and Walter left the next morning, Catherine having been granted permission to be a guest of the Paraclete until his return. When she saw him astride his horse, he looked so frail next to the ursine lord of Grancy that Catherine almost regretted letting him go.
“Remember,” she told him, “you promise to be prudent and cautious and not risk your life.”
“I’m not going on a crusade,” he reminded her. “Just a little hunting trip.”
“Just see that nothing catches you,” she finished.
Catherine waved until they were out of sight, then asked if she could speak with Abbess Héloïse.
When she was admitted, she paused for a moment, looking around the room. It was strange. Somehow, it seemed different. How could it have changed in only two weeks?
Nothing has changed, Catherine,
her voices said.
you are Looking at us differently now.
She nodded sadly. She had made the only choice she could make in good conscience, but she knew that she would never again be part of the Paraclete in the way she had once planned.
Héloïse came over and patted her cheek.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “He’ll be back soon.”
“I know,” Catherine said. “It was you I was missing, Mother.”
The abbess turned suddenly and went to the window. She took a deep breath.
“Thank you, Catherine,” she said. “What was it you wanted of me?”
“The lady Constanza is coming here soon, isn’t she?” Catherine asked.
“In the next day or two, I believe,” Héloïse answered. “Why?”
“Edgar and Walter are doing what they can to try to unravel this mystery,” she began. “I truly meant it when I said I would only delay them. But there are things that I can find out, where Edgar’s presence would hinder me. But I need your help, and Sister Emilie’s. Will you give it?”
Héloïse sat down and motioned for Catherine to do the same.
“Perhaps you had better explain,” she said. “I make no promises in the dark.”
The next day, the lady Constanza arrived to mourn her only child.
She travelled in her own sedan chair, slung between two mules. Around her rode her men-at-arms and serving maids, as well as other ladies for companionship. Her chaplain, Deol, was with her, and her cook. She had also brought her own bed, dishes, footstool and pillows, which were packed into a cart followed by three other guards. Since the pace was set by the cart and the sedan chair, the journey from Troyes had taken her over a week, instead of the normal two days.
Since Constanza presumed without question that she would have total use of the guesthouse and any other lodging she might need, Catherine was once again sent to sleep on the infirmary floor.
When Constanza and her party had settled in, she asked for a private audience with the abbess. After that, she wished to be taken to Alys’s burial place.
From the door looking out from the infirmary to the garden, Catherine watched the procession to the cemetery. Emilie peeked from behind her shoulder.
“One would think she’d refrain from dying her hair when going to her daughter’s grave,” she whispered to Catherine.
“That’s five
paternosters
for spiteful thoughts,” Catherine teased her. “We’re all supposed to believe that she was born that shade of blond.”
“My belief doesn’t stretch that far,” Emilie said. “No one in all the world was ever born with that color. It’s unbefitting to her present state as well as unbecoming generally.”
It did look odd, Catherine admitted. The countess was dressed somberly, her
bliaut
rent in several places. She wore no jewelry and her unnatural hair was down and dishevelled. Father Deol supported her as she walked. Constanza was the image of grief. Why did Catherine feel so strongly that it was only an image?
They could hear her cries and shrieks of anguish from where they stood. Despite her reservations, Catherine had to admit the sorrow sounded genuine. But then why hadn’t her mother come the short distance from Quincy to see Alys during the week she lay dying? Why had she said that Alys was flighty and not terribly pious? It was an awful thing to say of the dead. And why had she hinted that Alys had some grave sin to repent of? From Walter’s description, Alys didn’t have the backbone to sin.
There were too many questions. And there was only one way Catherine could think of to find the answers. She still wasn’t sure she had convinced Mother Héloïse of it, though.
“Emilie,” she said. “Do you think Countess Constanza can be persuaded to take me back to Quincy with her?”
“Do you mean, will I help you persuade her?” Emilie asked. “Yes, to both. But I don’t agree with Mother Héloïse. It would be better simply to recommend you to her without any deception about your position here.”
“It was for my safety,” Catherine said. “She worries that, if anything should go wrong, I might need the protection of the Paraclete.”
“But you could also cause the convent great embarrassment,” Emilie reminded her. “Please be circumspect in your actions.”
Catherine smiled ruefully.
“I think that is another reason the abbess wished me to seem a member of the community,” she said. “Concern for your reputation might keep me from acting rashly.”
“She is taking a great risk,” Emilie said, shaking her head.
“I don’t need reminding of that,” Catherine sighed.
Despite, or because of, her overwhelming anguish, Constanza only remained at the Paraclete overnight. The next morning, she met with Héloïse , Prioress Astane and Emilie and decided she would be pleased to have the boarder, Catherine, come to her for a week or two of instruction in the art of maintaining a secular household, as she was about to be married to a lord in Ponthieu and needed the sort of advice the convent was ill-equipped to give.
“It would be my honor,” Constanza told them. “I will be happy to impart to her what little I know.”
And so, that afternoon, Catherine joined the entourage as a temporary attendant of Constanza of Quincy.
“I will try to return before Edgar does,” she told the abbess. “If I don’t, you’ll explain, won’t you?”
Heloise gave her a look Catherine knew only too well.
“You will return before he does,” she said.
Catherine bowed her head.
“Yes, Mother.”
After Catherine had left, Héloïse returned to her duties. It was not until just after Vespers that she suddenly realized that Constanza had said nothing about the presence of extra guards at the convent and had never asked about Paciana, despite the scene with Raynald that Catherine had witnessed in Troyes. Perhaps grief had driven all other thoughts from her mind.
Perhaps.
Or, perhaps Constanza had always known that Paciana was at the Paraclete and was well aware that she had been recently attacked. Perhaps she believed that this time her stepdaughter was really, finally, dead.
Héloïse bowed her head over clasped hands.
“Forgive me, Lord,” she murmured. “I never should have let Catherine go. It was my own curiosity I wished to satisfy, not hers. Twice now, I’ve sent her in to danger. If they harm her, I will …”
What? What possible penance could she set herself for allowing Catherine to be put in jeopardy?
“I will leave it to you, Lord,” she continued. “I beseech you, keep her safe.”
The forest of Othe,
Monday, April 29, 1140
Ce que n’i est, ce ne pouet on trover.
One cannot find that which is not there.
—Old French Proverb
“
W
alter, I know you’re skilled in woodcraft,” Edgar said. “And I have followed you without question so far. But any human being who would make this trail has to have been deranged. We’ve doubled back on ourselves a dozen times in the last two miles. I don’t think we’re more than a few yards from where we started.”
He swatted at a low-hanging branch and winced as he realized he had also hit a clump of stinging nettles. Their first day in the forest had convinced him that there was nothing wondrous about it. It was identical to every other forest in France, except it seemed to be even more full of thorny bushes and quagmires.
Walter swore as his horse’s mane was caught in a bush thick with burrs.
“You’re right,” he said. “It’s an animal trail, deer most likely. At first it seemed to me that men had used it recently, but not this far in. Perhaps they were deceived by it also. It’s getting late; we may as well make camp.”
“I hear the river,” Edgar said. “Shall we try to find a clearing near the water?”
“Yes, but not too near, the insects are starting to hatch,” Walter said. He raised his head and sniffed the air. “Charcoal burners again. I wonder how many and how well armed.”
“Do you think it would be wise for just the two of us to approach them?” Edgar asked.
“No,” Walter said. “I’ll go alone. You wait here.”
Edgar boiled over.
“Do you think I’m a coward!” he demanded.
Walter seemed puzzled. “Of course not. You asked me a question. No, I don’t think it would be wise for the two of us to go. If there’s a band of them, with weapons, then one of us should be ready to create a diversion.”
“I see,” Edgar said. “In that case, I should go. I’m not as formidable as you.”
They argued back and forth for a few more minutes before finally agreeing that Edgar should approach the charcoal burners and Walter should stay back in the woods, his crossbow armed.
They crept carefully toward the scent of the smoke. As they drew closer, they also heard the sound of voices. Edgar motioned for Walter to stay back as he stepped out of the cover of the trees.
There were two men standing next to the charcoal pit. A felled oak lay on the ground, a worn crosscut saw leaning on it. One of the men had an axe in his belt. Beyond them, on the other edge of the clearing, a woman sat on the ground, a baby at her breast. She was stirring something in a pot as two other children hung over it eagerly. Edgar took another step. The branch under his foot cracked like thunder. Everyone in the clearing froze. Then the man with the axe pulled it out.
“Wha … ,” he began, then saw Edgar with his pale hair and skin. “Saint Eloi save us! What are you?”
“A demon, father!” one of the children cried, hiding its face in its mother’s skirts.
“No,” Edgar said quietly. He raised his hands, palms open. “I am a man, a traveller, lost in the forest. I only ask your hospitality.”
“He’s lying,” the other man said. “He’s been sent to drive us out.”
“Why would I do that?” Edgar asked, taking another step forward. “Do I look like a bailiff? It’s nothing to me what you do here. My friend and I only want company for the night. These woods are dark and forbidding. We have fresh meat, if you will share your fire.”
The two men conferred. Edgar could see that, beneath the filth, all of them were starving. Axes and broken-toothed saws don’t bring down game. The children wore only torn cloaks. He could see their naked skin showing underneath, their legs spindly and bowed. Their shoes were made of strips of bark, tied with twisted vines. He wondered how these people had survived the winter and where they had found the strength to cut down the tree they were burning.
It was the woman who made the decision.
“I don’t care if he’s a poacher or the Devil himself,” she said. “If he has meat, welcome him.”
“Where’s your friend?” the man with the axe asked. He still held it poised to throw. “What kind of meat?”
“Walter!” Edgar called without moving. “We’ve been invited to dinner.”
As Walter came into their view, the woman screamed and gathered the children closer. The man dropped his axe from nerveless fingers and crossed himself.
“Saint Salvian, protect us!” he cried. “They are monsters!”
Then he saw what Walter carried.
“May the Virgin bless and keep you in health, my lord,” he said. “Look, Eva! He’s shot a boar!”
Walter leaned back and belched in long and melodic resonance. The others responded with respectful silence.
“I’d sell my Aunt Matilda to the Saracens for a mug of beer just now,” he continued. “Nothing washes down fresh boar like beer.”
“I’m sorry, gracious lord,” the charcoal burner said nervously. “We have only water. Really, we have nothing to repay you for such a meal, unless you want to sleep with my wife.”
Walter regarded the woman. To the dirt had been added a layer of boar grease. The children lay in a heap at her feet, the baby balanced on her lap.
“I would not dishonor you so,” he smiled.
“Have you been living in these woods long?” Edgar asked.
“Since the beginning of Lent,” the man told him. “My wife, my brother and I had a plot of land near Tonnerre, but we were overrun by the lords of Tonnerre and Grancy during one of their disputes.”
Walter started. The man didn’t notice. He was staring into the past.
“In their fighting,” he went on, “they set fire to the house and killed the pigs. Their horses trampled our fields. We had nothing left. I thought I could find work in Sens, but the winter was hard. There was nothing there for a man without a trade or a relative in town. The chapter house of Saint-Stephen fed us a while, and after that, the monks of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif, but there was never enough. Then we heard that we could live in the forest, make charcoal and sell it for a good price.”
“And it wasn’t true?” Edgar asked. Their poverty was obvious.
“Oh, no, it was,” the man said. “We made enough the first week to fill two barrels. We took it to the river to wait for the buyer, but the ribaux came and stole it from us. This happened twice. Now we only make enough to keep ourselves warm. We search the forest for food. Next winter, we’ll have to live by the charity of the monks again, or starve.”
The man stared at the glowing coals.
“I always wanted to give alms, not receive them,” he said.
Walter shifted his position. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Let Edgar finish with his questions first.
“Are there many people like you in the forest?” Edgar asked.
“Too many,” the man said. “We thought we could survive here and make enough to rebuild the house, at least. There are others who were also lured by the same false promises. But most either died or joined the
ribaux
.”
“But who does this land belong to?” Edgar said. “Does no one patrol the forest for poachers?”
“I’ve seen no knights or soldiers, except you,” the charcoal burner said. “We heard that this forest belongs to the countess of Tonnerre, but she’s dead now, they say, and the count is going to give it to the monks.”
“Which monks?” Walter said sharply.
“The ones over by Lailly, white monks, they are.”
He began to smother the coals with damp earth, lest they burn to nothing. Edgar moved out of the way. He wondered where the rumor started that Vauluisant would be the new owner of the forest. He had one last question.
“Do you know who it is that’s been buying the charcoal, and what they want it for?”
The man shook his head.
“I saw the man who does the buying,” he said. “I don’t know whose service he’s in. Didn’t look like a cleric. The barge was loaded with rocks, too, reddish ones. Rocks and charcoal, it means nothing to me.”
“And they send it down the river?” Walter asked. “Where?”
“Who knows? Someone said once it was all for the mill, but I ask you, what sort of mill is it that grinds stones?”
“I don’t know,” Edgar said. “But it’s a wonder I must see.”
“Good journey to you then,” the man said. “The earth over the coals stays warm through the night. We’ve learned to sleep circled close. We’ll show you.”
“No.” Walter got up. He went over to his pack and pulled out his spare cloak. It was English wool, lined with catskin. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he also took out his other tunic and
chainse
.
“Here,” he said. “Cover your wife and children. Come to Grancy. I’ll see your property is restored to you.”
He forced the clothing into the man’s arms, then went back to the edge of the clearing. He sank down under an oak tree and leaned against it.
“Sleep,” he told them. “I’ll keep watch.”
The charcoal burner stood looking in stupefaction at the bundle in his arms.
“Is he mad?” he asked.
“Most probably,” Edgar said. “But you can believe he will do as he says. He’s also the lord of Grancy.”
Walter was unusually quiet as they made their way downriver the next morning.
“That was very charitable of you,” Edgar remarked. “Especially since one of your tunics could cover all of them with ease.”
“It wasn’t charity; it was penance,” Walter muttered.
“Same thing,” Edgar told him. “Caesarius of Aries says that alms wipe out sin, a belief that is echoed in …”
“I’m not interested in what your dead priests say!” Walter bel, lowed. “I can’t even remember why Raynald and I were fighting last year. I have always fed the poor. I do not create paupers.”
“Of course not, Walter,” Edgar said. “Do you want to go back and give them your horse, too?”
“Do you think I should?” he asked.
“Saint Walter of Grancy?” Edgar laughed, then realized the man was serious. “You must do what your conscience tells you.”
They rode on a while longer until they came to a crude quai built on the bank of the river.
“This must be where they bring the charcoal,” Edgar said. “But I think we should go on to discover where it’s taken. I want to find this miraculous mill that grinds stones into flour and then uses the charcoal to bake it into bread. That would be a way to feed all the beggars in Christendom.”
Walter didn’t answer.
“What do you think we should do?” Edgar asked. “I have the feeling that discovering what happens to the material that comes out of the forest is essential to understanding why everyone wants the rights to it.”
Walter raised his dark shaggy head and shook it, making his resemblance to a bear even more pronounced.
“I think that when we have completed our mission, I will go back to the forest and bring those people home with me,” he said. “How else can I be sure no one will harm them?”
Edgar smiled. “Walter, I believe that hermit has converted you. Next you’ll be turning your keep into a leprosarium. Is that a village ahead?”
They both looked down the river path. It had begun to widen and there were signs of recent cutting. As the trees thinned, they could see a collection of huts climbing up from the river. And, at the place where the river was fed by an inrushing stream, there was another larger building which jutted out over the water. It had a clay chimney from which acrid smoke was pouring. The creak of the turning wheel sounded above the rush of the stream.
“By all the heads of John the Baptist!” Edgar gave a long whistle. “It is a mill!”
Meanwhile, Catherine was wishing, for the hundredth time, that she had gone with Edgar and Walter, or even just stayed at the Paraclete. Her prediction had proved accurate and now she was sitting in the women’s room at Quincy with cramps from navel to knees and trying not to scream as Constanza and her ladies lectured her on the upkeep of a castle.
“Never let men above the second floor, especially if you have rugs,” Constanza was saying. “They don’t look where they step when they’re out and they track in all kinds of dirt.”
“Of course, you can just insist that they remove their boots at the bottom of the staircase.” The speaker was a relative of Constanza’s but Catherine had already forgotten her name and rank. “The duchess does that and it seems to work, except with her husband, of course.”
“But then you just have them sneaking about silently, surprising the girls at their work,” Constanza objected. “No, my way is best. Don’t you agree, my dear?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Catherine said faintly. “No boots above the steps.”
“No, my dear.” Constanza’s voice was a touch impatient. “No men above the second floor, unless you only have two floors, of course, then they don’t … are you quite well, Catherine?”

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