The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (38 page)

“Because it seems the only way to survive and return to our true lives,” Marie answered.

Agnes shook herself as if waking. She gave Catherine a be-mused smile.

“Why would we believe anything so stupid?” she said. “Catherine’s right. We’ve let Boisvert ensorcel our minds. What we should do is track down Mandon and sit on her until she tells us what’s going on and what we have to do to make things right again. Never mind these pieces of cloth.”

“Agnes, this isn’t our home,” Marie reminded her. “We can’t take such liberties.”

“Why not?” Even timid Margaret was fed up. “No one else is going to do it. Elissent is too occupied with Aymon and Briaud. . .”

She trailed off. The other three silently filled in their opinions of Briaud.

“We have to find Mandon first,” Marie said bitterly. “She seems to be able to get into the nursery no matter how many of us are stationed at the door.”

“Of course!” Catherine hit her forehead with her palm. “
Quam stulta sum!
There must be a secret opening there like the one she slipped through in the tunnel. We know the room so well we never thought of looking for a hidden door.”

As one, the women gathered up their children and headed for the nursery.

Brehier was quite certain that he was going to come back from his mission with Edgar, but just in case, there was one thing he had to do.

Martin was playing
merel
in the bailey with the stablemen. The small pile of coins indicated that the game was more to kill time than serious gambling.

“Martin!”

The boy’s head came up. He smiled.

“Yes, my lord Brehier. What may I do for you?”

“If you could come with me, please,” Brehier answered. “I need to have a talk with you and your mother.”

“Nothing here. . .ah. . .ah. . . choo!” Agnes sneezed from behind a wall hanging.

They were dismantling the nursery trying to find Mandon’s entryway.

“Where does she come from when you see her?” Marie asked Evaine.

“I don’t know, Mama,” the girl answered. “I wake up and she’s just there. I know I said I’d call you but she told me that if I did, there would be no hope of ever freeing Andonenn. Did she lie to me?”

“I don’t know,
ma douz
,” Marie answered. “But it was wrong of her to try to convince you to disobey me.”

“I’ve been all over these walls,” Catherine said, pulling a long cobweb from her braid. “If there’s an opening, I can’t find it.”

Edana had been sitting on the floor with Marie’s youngest, Mabile, both watching the search with interest.

“Are you looking for the lady?” she asked.

“Yes,” Catherine answered. “But we can’t find the door to her house.”

“We know, don’t we, Mabile?” Edana said.

Mabile pulled her thumb out of her mouth long enough to confirm this.

“You do?” Catherine knelt next to them. “Where?”

“Right under us!” Edana laughed, as if she’d just performed a complicated trick.

Instantly the girls were picked up and deposited on top of the clothes chests. The spot where they had been sitting was covered by a moth-eaten deerskin.

“I remember that,” Agnes said. “It was here when we were children.”

Catherine tried to pick it up, but the skin was stuck to the floor.

“Margaret, would you run down and see what’s below this?” she asked. “I can’t find a hook or anything to open it so it must be on the other side.”

Margaret was back in a moment.

“It’s just a room full of boxes,” she told them. “The ceiling is painted with branches and leaves as if you were lying under a tree. The paint is cracked and peeling.”

Agnes gave a quick intake of breath. “That was Mother’s room,” she said sadly. “She used to tell us about it when we were little.”

“I wonder if that was where she went to find the way to Andonenn,” Catherine said.

Marie was more interested in immediate dangers.

“Could there be some sort of trapdoor, Margaret?”

“I couldn’t see one, but with all the foliage, it would be easy to miss,” Margaret answered. “And I don’t think that was Madeleine’s way out. We went outside the keep when she was looking for it again.”

“James?” Catherine said.

The boy knew that tone. He looked guilty even though he didn’t know what he was about to be accused of.

“Where is your wooden sword?” she asked.

“Right here, Mama,” he answered, both relieved and puzzled.

“I need to borrow it for a moment,” she told him.

He handed it to her. “Are you going to fight off the soldiers? Dragon and I will help you.”

“No,” Catherine said. “I’m going back down with Margaret.
I’ll tap on the ceiling until you hear me under the skin. When you do, stomp on it to let me know.”

The room was small, with only one narrow window. It seemed to have been created as an afterthought from a corner. Two of the walls were stone and two made of wood. Catherine tried to figure out where the skin was above them. She climbed onto an oaken chest and began to tap on the ceiling with the sword.

After a few tries, there was an answering stomp.

Catherine got down long enough to put another box on top of the chest.

“Steady this for me, would you?” she asked Margaret.

Carefully, she felt around the area beneath the deerskin.

“There’s something here,” she grunted. “Oh, no, I think it’s just a knothole.”

She pulled her finger out of it and, to her surprise, the ceiling came with it. There was a squeal from above and then the opening was ringed with faces.

“Well,” Catherine announced. “Now we know how Mandon gets into the nursery. The next thing is to figure out how she gets in here.”

Samonie was out by the kitchens, trying to beat the dust out of a
bliaut
of Catherine’s. When she saw Brehier and Martin heading toward her, she dropped the beater and crossed her arms.

“Samonie,” Brehier began without preamble. “I have to leave Boisvert for a time. Before I go, I want us to explain things to Martin.”

“What things?” Samonie asked in suspicion.

“All of them,” Brehier answered. “Including some you don’t know.”

Samonie sat on an upturned washtub.

“Then I’d better start,” she said. “Martin, I met Brehier in Troyes, when I worked at the castle of the count. It was a long time ago. He had more hair then.”

“Saint Peter’s crowing cock, woman!” Brehier interrupted. He doesn’t need to know all that. Martin, I’m your father.”

Martin stared at the both of them for a while; then he nodded slowly.

“You always said he was a knight, Mother,” he said. “I apologize for not believing you. Thank you, my lord, for telling me.”

Samonie stood up and brushed off her skirts.

“If that’s all,” she said. “I have work to do.”

“No, that’s not all!” Brehier took her by the shoulders and set her back down. Then he turned back to Martin.

“I didn’t know you existed,” he explained. “I wish I had. I haven’t done much in my life to be proud of and it would have given me comfort to have been able to remind myself that I, at least, had produced such a fine son.”

Martin tried to suppress the smile, but it would appear.

“I shall try to be worthy of your esteem, my lord,” he said.

From her washtub, Samonie broke in. “Go on, Martin, say it. You know he’s dying to hear it, don’t you?”

“Father?” Martin said.

“If you’ll have me,” Brehier answered.

“Now are we finished?” Samonie tried to get up again.

“Not quite,” Brehier said. “If I should die in battle, I want you to be able to claim what little I have. It isn’t much but it, and my name, are yours, my son. I have written as much on a paper I left with Ysore. And I also want to give you this.”

He took out a small parcel wrapped in cloth. As he opened it, Martin realized that the parcel was the cloth.

“I had it from my mother,” Brehier said. “Who had it from hers and so forth. It was my great-grandmother who was of Boisvert.”

As soon as she saw what it was, Samonie snatched it from him.

“You’ve had this all along and told no one?” she asked. “I vow that each member of your family needs a keeper!”

“Would you consider taking on the job?” he asked.

For once, Samonie was speechless.

“Say yes, Mother.” Martin took the embroidery. “Don’t worry. I’ll see that cousin Catherine gets this immediately.”

“Don’t be saying that to her now!” Samonie warned. “I’d slap you, myself, for such disrespect.”

After Martin had left, Brehier smiled at Samonie.

“I was asking you to marry me,” he said.

“A fine thing,” she answered. “Both of us well past our prime and you likely to be killed tomorrow.”

“True,” he answered. “What do you say?”

“I say, come back alive and with all the important bits still attached, and I’ll consider it.”

Samonie tried to turn away, but he caught her and kissed her hard. After a moment she gave up trying to be sensible.

The fields outside Boisvert, just before dawn. Thursday

3 kalends October (September 28) 1149. Michaelmas, the

feast of Saint Michael the Archangel. 18 Tishri 4910,

the fourth day of Succos.

Trebuchet

E
dgar was glad of the fog, even though his skin was dripping and clammy and his feet were freezing. Olivier’s guards would not only have a hard time seeing him, but would also be confused as to the direction of sounds. He didn’t know why, but
he had often noticed that it was harder to locate the source of a noise in fog than in total darkness.

He and Brehier had met at the wall behind the middens and slipped over it, dropping onto the rocks below. At that point there was room enough for only one man at a time to pass between the wall and the hill. Gargenaud had felt that this, plus the noisome garbage pit on the castle side, would discourage invasion. And a spy who came in this way would be instantly smelled out.

Edgar moved carefully along the line of brush where the fields met the forest. On his left, he could make out the tents of Olivier’s army. All was silent.

He had counted on the fog to hide his movements, but it also made it difficult to locate where Olivier’s guards were stationed. He hoped they were all fairly close in.

He stepped on a loose pile of damp leaves, lost his balance, and fell with a squashy thump. His left arm flailed toward an exposed root and he cursed mightily to himself, knowing he had nothing to catch himself with. He lay at the bottom of a natural trench, dew soaking into his cloak, expecting any moment to find a sword tip at his throat.

Once he had caught his breath, Edgar pulled himself to a crouch and peered through the brush. He saw no one heading toward his position.

It bothered him that there was so little movement from the camp. Even at this hour sentries should be pacing and cooking fires started. The circle of tents seemed almost empty. Could Olivier have given up the siege and crept away by night?

Or could he be laying a trap?

Edgar wondered where Brehier was. Catherine would call him a fool for having trusted the man. He fervently hoped he’d be back within the keep before she woke. He hoped he’d get back at all. Catherine shouldn’t have to find herself a widow so soon after her mother’s death.

With a sigh he continued closing in on the camp. He was armed only with a long hunting knife and he had no intention of getting close enough to anyone to use it.

The closer he got, the more deserted the camp looked. His heart beating loudly in his ears, Edgar reached the first tent. It was empty.

So was the next and the next.

Edgar began to relax. Perhaps Olivier had received word of a relief army approaching and decided to retreat. He allowed himself to stretch to his full height.

“Get down!”

Edgar hit the ground. A few feet away, Brehier signaled from behind a tent flap. Edgar crawled toward him.

“Are you mad?” Brehier greeted him.

“There’s no one here,” Edgar answered.

“This reconnaissance was your idea,” Brehier said. “Don’t you realize that you were right?”

“Gudesblod!”
Edgar swore. “Did you see where they went in?”