“I suspect this is another relative of yours,” she told him. “And I was worried about how Edgar would react to my family!”
She turned to Solomon, who had stayed with them.
“Do you think he’s safe?” Willa asked, gesturing at the man.
Solomon grinned at her. “Not in the least,” he answered. “So don’t you think we should greet him very politely? From Edgar’s reaction, I feel fairly confident that he’s a friend.”
Willa wasn’t so sure. She had imagined magical creatures from the woods but they weren’t meant to be so big.
“What does he eat, do you think?” she asked.
“Large amounts of meat, most likely,” Solomon answered. “We’ll have to be sure he gets enough, or he may take a bite of you.”
“Solomon!” Catherine stopped him. “She’s frightened enough!”
Solomon started to apologize when Edgar came racing back to them.
“It’s my uncle!” he told them. “Æthelræd, the one I just told you about. Come meet him.”
He tugged at Catherine, who advanced slowly, Willa hiding behind her. Æthelræd started toward them, then seeing Willa’s frightened face peering around Catherine, he stopped with a laugh.
“Ic beo manne, swa swa min broðorsunnu, Edgar! Ne forhtiað
,
cild!”
Willa clutched Catherine to keep herself from running away. Even Catherine was startled by the sudden rush of alien words. The only one she understood was Edgar’s name. Æthelræd turned to Edgar.
“What’s wrong with them?” he asked. “Do I reek?”
“They don’t understand you,” Edgar explained. “French convents don’t give English lessons.”
He went over to Catherine and took the baby from her arms.
“Uncle says he’s human, just like me,” he told her. “You don’t need to fear him. He’s big but not dangerous … usually.”
Not greatly reassured, Catherine still put out her hand in greeting. To her astonishment, Edgar’s uncle bowed like a fine lord and responded in heavily accented Latin.
“In nomine Christi te saluto.”
Catherine gave a startled laugh. It was as if a trained bear had spoken. Then she blushed.
“Please forgive me,” she said hastily, also in Latin. “I wasn’t prepared to be honored with such a greeting. I thank you and greet you also in the name of Our Lord.”
It was Æthelræd’s turn to be startled. His forehead creased in his effort to follow her fluid speech. Then he grinned at Edgar.
“My informants told me she was educated,” he said. “But they didn’t say how well. Tell her I haven’t read more than psalms and charters for thirty years and can’t keep up with her refined phrases.”
Edgar translated and Catherine blushed more deeply. They picked up the bags and continued toward the hostel. As they walked, Æthelræd nudged Edgar.
“She talk like that in bed, too?” he muttered.
“You should hear her periphrastics.” Edgar leered.
Æthelræd gave a deep sigh. “You’re a lucky man, nephew. Eyes like hers and Latin phrases, too.”
Hubert was thinking of Catherine’s Latin phrases at that moment, too. He was remembering how she could decimate pompous underlings, such as the one standing before him, with a few well-chosen insults.
“I have a right to know who accuses me,” he told the man. “I’ll answer nothing until I can face those who would slander me so and receive restitution from them.”
The cleric from Notre Dame was a totally nondescript man, the sort one might imagine seeing half a dozen times a day because he looked like everyone else. It wasn’t until he opened his mouth and spoke with his grating Occitan accent that he became an individual.
“My dear sir.” The cleric waved his hands placatingly. “No accusations have been made, as yet. My Lord Bishop only asked me to investigate a rumor. Undoubtedly false, of course, but with your connections to the abbey of Saint-Denis, one that needs to be refuted completely. Nothing more.”
“I do refute it,” Hubert said. “No one among my Hebrew colleagues has ever tried to convert me to their pernicious beliefs. Our dealings have solely concerned business of mutual benefit, to us and the abbey.”
He glared at the bishop’s messenger, defying him to challenge him. The man only smiled.
“Certainly,” he said. “But Bishop Stephen feels that there must have been some, quite innocent, action on your part that started this gossip. He requests that you search your memory for what it could be and report to him next week, so that he can assure the king and Abbot Suger of the solidity of your faith.”
“He wants to see me?” Hubert repeated.
“At your convenience.” The cleric smiled again.
Hubert wished again that Catherine weren’t so far away. Her counsel would be useful in the coming week.
Catherine wasn’t thinking of rhetorical arguments just then. Her thoughts concentrated on hot water and soap. They were greeted warmly by the monks at the hostel in Berwick. Catherine was relieved to find that a number of them were French or Norman so that she didn’t need someone to go through the tedious job of repeating everything. One of them offered to take the sack of used swaddling to a nearby laundress. Another offered her some strips of worn linen to make new. The sexes were separated at the hostel, so she and Willa settled gratefully into the bed provided in the women’s room, James snuggled warmly between them. Catherine closed her eyes. For the moment sleep was all that mattered. She felt the soft breath of her son upon her neck. Outside was an alien world. But here they were safe. The monsters could roar unhindered until the morning.
Coming up only a moment later, Edgar found them all sound
asleep. He dropped the bags quietly on the wooden floor and resisted the temptation to find his own bed. His muscles ached; his eyes were red from staring into the wind and sun. He wanted to sleep for a month. Instead he went back down to the dining hall, where Robert and Æthelræd sat and waited for him. A little apart from them Solomon had joined two of the French monks and was cautiously broaching the subject of the wool trade. Edgar sat next to his uncle.
“How did you know to meet us here?” he asked without preliminaries. “We meant to land far south.”
It was almost an accusation. Æthelræd smiled.
“You know very well how,” he answered. “I’ve always been able to find you. It never bothered you until those clerics stuffed you full of theology.”
Edgar was having none of that.
“It always bothered me.” He frowned at the memory. “No matter where I hid, you always pulled me out and put me to work. I believed you could sniff me out like a wolf.”
Æthelræd laughed. “Maybe I can. You stink now of fish and stale beer. Anyone could have found you.”
“From Edinburgh?” Robert had never trusted this uncle.
“Even from Orkney,” Æthelræd answered firmly. “Or maybe I heard of your coming from our cousins, the seals.”
Edgar paled beneath his sunburn.
“Don’t you start telling those stories around Catherine,” he warned. “I’ll not have her thinking we still believe those pagan tales.”
Æthelræd laughed. “I never said we did, nephew. But there’s many who do. Your father seems to enjoy letting them think he’s not quite human.”
Robert nodded. “He glories in anything that will increase his hold on the countryside. And I’m not always sure, myself, that there isn’t a touch of something in us. Grandmother used to say she knew when trouble threatened the family. I always thought you did, too, Uncle. Until our brothers went out to die alone and unprepared.”
He gave Æthelræd an angry stare. Æthelræd set down his mug with a sigh.
“You think I could have warned your brothers of their fate?” he asked. “They wouldn’t have listened. They never did.” He paused. “I was too far away, in any case. I only knew something was wrong
and God knows that’s nothing new in your father’s household. So don’t reproach me, Robert. I’m not some damned prophet, you know.”
Edgar shivered. He wasn’t so sure. Perhaps his Gallowegian grandmother had brought with her the blood of demons. But there were saints in the family as well, at least according to the stories—abbesses and hermits, devout lords who fed the poor and only slept with their own wives. Æthelræd didn’t belong with any of them. He was vulgar and gluttonous and not known for his abstinence in anything. But his eyes, so like Edgar’s, saw far into things that only God should know. Not for the last time, Edgar wished he’d never been talked into coming back.
The next morning Catherine insisted on baths and hair washing for herself and Willa, at least. She also wanted to unpack all her clothes, shake them out and press them again.
“Catherine, that will take all day,” Edgar complained.
“Easily,” she answered. “But I’m not going to meet your father and stepmother looking like a castaway. So you can either wait or go on without me. You could use a wash and a shave, yourself.”
Edgar took Solomon and retreated to an inn. He figured his ablutions wouldn’t take long. He could make them that evening, when Catherine was finished.
“She looks fine to me,” he told Solomon. “I don’t see what all the fuss is.”
Willa understood, though and listened intently as Catherine considered which of her
bliauts
would be most impressive and still survive the ride.
“It will have to be the linen,” she decided finally. “I’ll simply have to sit very carefully and try not to get too wrinkled. What do you think, Willa?”
“I like the roses on the hem,” Willa said. “And the sleeves are so elegant, all edged in gold and the latest cut. Will you wear the gold chain belt and bracelets, as well?”
“I don’t know.” Catherine thought. “It might attract robbers. But I can’t let them think I have no jewelry. I know. I’ll put the bracelets and rings on just before we get there. My riding cloak should cover the rest.”
She and Willa soaked in a large wooden tub and then poured water over their soapy hair until it was rinsed. They then spent the
rest of the afternoon getting a comb to go through Catherine’s black curls and braiding them quickly while the hair was still heavy with water and not as apt to spring away from the hairdresser.
“There,” Catherine said finally. “What do you think?”
Willa looked at her in honest admiration.
“I think they’ll say that you’re as fine a lady as ever came from Paris, as fine as the queen, herself.”
“Oh, I hope so,” Catherine said. “Now if I can only keep my stomach steady, I may survive the meeting.”
They said their prayers and went to sleep.
The next morning they all set out for Wedderlie. Catherine rode pillion behind Edgar. Her heart was beating with anticipation. Beyond a whistle at her appearance, Edgar had made no comment on the homecoming. It was only by the pounding of his heart beneath her hand that she knew he was as nervous as she.
The ride was far too short. It seemed only a few minutes before they rounded a bend and Edgar pointed out his home to her.
Catherine looked up at the stone keep on the hill. It thrust itself out above the trees and the village in a way that seemed as if it were just the tip of something greater attempting to break free of the earth. She shook herself. That was nonsense. She was allowing herself to be affected by Willa’s fears and her own sense of being in an unearthly place. It was just a keep, probably as drafty and uncomfortable as the one her brother lived in at Veilleteneuse in France. Catherine only hoped that there would be a place out of the chill of stones where James and Willa could rest warmly.
At the edge of the town they dismounted and led the horses between the huts and outbuildings.
As they went up the path through the village, Edgar looked around in surprise. Had he been away so long or had he simply forgotten? There seemed to be more open land now, more fields of rye and barley ripening in the sun. The houses of the tenants were all in good repair, the fences mended and roofs newly thatched. What could have caused such obvious prosperity? He turned around to ask Robert but was stopped by a shout from ahead. Someone had seen the group and recognized them.
At first Catherine couldn’t understand what was happening. The people in the fields dropped their hoes and started running toward them. From the huts women appeared, some still holding spoons or spindles. They all stopped and stared. Catherine clutched James
more closely. Did these people never see travelers? What might they do next? Even a spindle can be a weapon, and these tall, sturdy women looked more than capable of wielding one with deadly skill.
Suddenly the villagers made a rush at them. Willa screamed and Catherine inhaled sharply, preparing to add her voice. There were shouts and wild, high cries. Why didn’t Edgar and Robert do something?
Edgar stepped forward and held up his hands.
“No!” Catherine shouted.
A number of things happened at once. Æthelræd roared something at the crowd that seemed to agitate them even more. James, jostled beyond endurance, began wailing. Solomon leaped in front of Catherine and Willa to protect them, thus blocking their view. And Edgar was snatched by a dozen dirty hands and pulled away from them.