The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (23 page)

“What is it?” Catherine asked.

“Some sort of embroidery,” she answered. “I’ll show you as soon as we get settled.”

“Embroidery?” Catherine echoed. “Is there writing on it?”

Marie nodded. “Mabile!” she chided her youngest. “If you hit your brother again, you’ll get no dinner!”

“I think I know what it is,” Catherine began, but Marie was too distracted.

“Good,” she said. “I can’t wait for you to tell us.”

She was swept away in a jumble of children, servants, men-at-arms, and baggage.

“Margaret, did you hear that?” Catherine asked. “Remember the length I told you Edgar and I found in the woods?”

“Do you think it has something to do with Mandon’s message?”

“I don’t know,” Catherine said. “I had the feeling that everyone was supposed to have a piece of it.”

“Maybe they do,” Margaret said. “Have you asked?”

Catherine sighed. “You have your brother’s talent for making me feel an idiot,” she said. “No, I haven’t.”

Margaret patted her shoulder. “We’ve been busy. You can’t think of everything. Ifyou did, why would you need the rest ofus?”

The banquet that night was even more elaborate than the one welcoming Catherine and Edgar. They started with lettuce wrapped around pieces of trout and went on to rabbit pie with ginger and cloves, cold mutton, a soup of dried apples and figs, and then an array of cheeses and sweets. Catherine was glad that James and Beron weren’t serving. The sugared violets alone would have been an irresistible temptation.

Beside her, Edgar only picked at the food.

“Are you still angry with me?” she asked. “If I had thought there was any danger, I wouldn’t have gone.”

“Yes, you would; I know you better than that.” He put his arm around her. “I wasn’t as angry as I was worried. Catherine, I can’t lose you.”

That shamed her more than a thousand reprimands.

“I’m sorry, Edgar,” she said, suddenly wishing that they didn’t have such a long, public evening ahead.

The musicians had been playing from the balcony all through dinner, but now they descended. As the trenchers were taken up and the hand washing bowls brought around, a group of players came in. They set up a small platform, with a wobbly painted tree stuck in it.

Edgar gave a low moan. “By the Magdalene’s bangles! Not theater!”

The players finished their preparations and the leader signaled the trumpeter, who gave a sharp blast that caused the dogs to howl and all the diners to fall silent.

Senor, Dame, oyez cancon qui molt fait a loer

par itel convenent le vos puis je conter,

I tell you no lies, each word I do swear, sir

Is as true as the Gospel, the book we all treasure

The tale of a lost knight who did take his leisure

By a spring where a fairy did come for her pleasure. . .

“It’s the story of Andonenn!” Catherine said in surprise.

“So it is,” Edgar said. “Well, Guillaume told us there was one.”

“It’s not very good,” Catherine commented. “The rhyming is very weak.”

“No one else seems to have noticed,” Edgar said.

It was true. All the others were listening raptly, except Agnes’s husband, Hermann, who didn’t understand the words. Some people were reciting along with the
jongleur
. Even Guillaume apparently knew bits of the poem.

“The story seems much as we were told,” Edgar whispered after a while.

They had finished the meeting of the knight Jurvale and Andonenn and their happy marriage. Two of the players managed to portray all the characters in dumb show on signals from the singer. They had arrived at the point where Empress Judith tries to curse Andonenn’s children. The actor playing Andonenn was wrapped in a blue mantle that they used for the Virgin in Nativity plays. This was not an accident.

Andonenn raised her hand in benediction over the assembly before her as the
jongleur
recited.

“La gentil dame Andonenn, qui fus moult preus et sage

courtoise et bele, brave and fair of face

Did bless her posterity to live in grace

That the evil empress should have disgrace

And Boisvert be safe in any case

As long as the spring flows within the place.

There was a collective sigh among the listeners. Catherine realized that every one of them believed in Andonenn, just as they did in Christ. Perhaps even more for she was their particular savior. Catherine suspected they would say it was no different than trusting in a patron saint, but the saints were merely intercessors with God. Andonenn’s power was outside Christianity.

She noticed that the priest, Ysore, seemed just as content with the story as the others. Perhaps he believed Andonenn was somehow within the faith.

The tale came to an end with Andonenn’s blessing. Gargenaud was helped to his feet as the players and musicians approached the table.

“Marvelous!” he told them. “Your best performance yet. We shall expect you here next year!” He took a silver chain from around his neck. “A small gift of thanks. My bailiff will see that you receive the usual rewards, as well.”

They thanked him effusively and departed. Catherine was preparing to depart as well when Gargenaud made another announcement.

“At last all of Andonenn’s children have come together to help her in our darkest hour,” he said. “The time has come to open the casket that Richard, our father, left for such a time. It has been passed down unopened to the eldest child for three hundred years. Seguin, will you fetch it, please.”

Seguin left the hall and returned with his cousin Odilon. Between them they carried a brass trunk. They set it on the platform the entertainers had used.

“Open it,” Gargenaud commanded, handing Seguin a brass key.

“Jurvale’s box is inside,” Seguin explained.

He turned the key. It grated in the rusty lock. Everyone craned forward to see. At last the lid creaked open. Seguin reached in.

“My God!” he exclaimed. “How can this be? Who could have done this?”

“What is it?” a dozen voices called out.

Seguin took the box out of its container. It was small, only the height and depth of two hands outspread. The wood was black with age and the silver hinges tarnished almost the same color. But everyone saw the gash where the lock had been broken.

With trembling hands, Seguin opened the ancient box.

It was empty.

In the ensuing pandemonium, Catherine slipped out. Everyone else needed to touch the box, examine it for themselves. Some were weeping and others shouting. She had to get someplace quiet to reassemble the event in her mind. How had someone managed to open the brass trunk when Gargenaud kept the key around his neck? Most importantly, what would this do to the cult of Andonenn? With the treasure gone, how could she be saved?

Perhaps these thoughts directed her to search for divine counsel. Without noticing how, Catherine found herself at the chapel.

She paused at the door to take a candle from the basket on the floor and light it from the oil lamp. It was then that she heard the keening, a high wail that pierced the thick wood.

Someone else had sought refuge here. Catherine hesitated. A chill ran through her. What if it was a very old ancestor, bemoaning their impending doom?

Perhaps she shouldn’t disturb them.

“Shame on you!”
said a voice in her mind.
“That poor soul needs comfort. Go in and pray with whoever it is.”

Although it wasn’t her original intention, praying didn’t seem a bad idea. Catherine pushed the door open.

There, kneeling on the floor was a thin old woman. Her blond hair was shot through with silver and her skin lined. Her face was distorted by tears and blood.

Catherine stared in horror. In the woman’s hand was a long
knife with a bone handle. The blade was still dripping blood. Before her lay a body. Catherine knew him instantly. It was the man who had chastised her this afternoon, her cousin Raimbaut, Seguin’s firstborn.

She stepped toward the woman with some intention of getting the knife out of her hand. As she did, the woman looked up at her. Catherine gasped. It was impossible. How had she become so old? And how had she come to this?

“Oh, sweet baby Jesus, Mother,” Catherine wept. “What have you done?”

Boisvert, sometime after midnight. Sunday, pridie nones September(September 4) 1149. Trinity Sunday. Feast of Saint

Moses, lawgiver and prophet, 1585 years before Jesus Christ. 22

Elul 4909. Not a feast of Moses in the Jewish calendar.

Onc n’est nus clers, tant soit enlatinés

Qui sache dire se puis fu retornés
,

Ne se il est ou vu ou trespassés
.

Dieu en ait l’ame! S’il est mort, c’est pités
.

There are no clerks, who may have much Latin

Who know to say if he then went back,

Nor if he is seen or come across.

God has his soul! If he is dead, then it is a great shame.

—Chevalier Ogier

W
hy was no one watching her?” Odilon demanded. “We all know she’s mad.”

He had somehow become the person in authority. Seguin and Elissent were too stunned by the murder of their son to take command. Aymon had taken one look at his brother’s body and
gagged. He had managed to get out of the chapel before throwing up into the rushes. No one had seen him since.

“There was no need to guard her every minute,” Guillaume answered. “She’s never been dangerous to anyone but herself.”

“That’s right,” Agnes said. “The nuns say she’s very gentle.”

“I agree,” Margaret added. “All the time I spent with her, she was completely docile. No one could have known she’d become violent.”

“Of course not.” Catherine couldn’t believe what they were saying. “Because she didn’t. How can you even think our mother would kill someone?”

Odilon rounded on her. “You found her, yourself, holding the knife. Raimbaut’s body was still warm. What else should we think?”

“Any number of things!” Catherine shot back.

The problem was that she couldn’t come up with any. All her mind could hold was the image of her mother kneeling in all that blood.

They had all convened in a solar room and sent the servants away. Gargenaud had been put to bed protesting that he wanted to know what was going on; he was the lord here, after all. His silent wife, Briaud, followed after him uttering soothing promises.

Odilon sat in the high-backed chair. His brother, Father Ysore, stood next to him, nervously fumbling at the silver cross hanging from his neck. Guillaume, Marie, Agnes, Hermann, Catherine, Edgar, and Margaret had fitted themselves in as best they could on stools or leaning against the wall.

Catherine couldn’t stop the tears. They just appeared in her eyes and slid down her face. Her nose was running, too. Of course she had no handkerchief and she didn’t dare use the sleeve of Agnes’s silk
bliaut
as one.

“Here, use mine.” Edgar waved his left sleeve in front of her face. She quickly wiped her face and nose.

“Now, let’s work this through.” Odilon drummed his fingers angrily on the arm of the chair.

“This horrible murder proves that the curse is gaining power,” he announced. “No one has ever died within these walls. Not for hundreds of years. We can’t blame poor, deluded Madeleine for her crime. She is obviously under the influence of some evil force.”

Edgar had had enough.

“You can’t blame her, because she didn’t kill the man,” he said firmly.

“What are you talking about?” Odilon sneered. “She was found by your own wife.”

“Catherine saw her mother next to Raimbaut’s body,” Edgar said. “Holding a knife. That doesn’t mean Madeleine killed him.”

His calm common sense washed over Catherine like a salve. She gave one last sniff into Edgar’s sleeve and stood.

“He’s right,” she said. “Mother is half the size of Raimbaut. He was attacked from the front. The knife pierced his heart. How could she have had the strength to do that?”

“Satan can pour his power into the weakest of vessels,” Ysore objected. “And he can make them seem greater than they are. Raimbaut may have thought a wild beast or a monster was upon him.”

“Then why did he make no effort to fight back?” Catherine asked. “I saw him. His hands were uncut. His clothing unmarked except by his blood.”

“Perhaps it was a more enticing form then,” Odilon suggested. “That would speak to all your objections.”

Agnes had been sitting numbly, holding Hermann’s hand like a lifeline. Now she came to life.

“Wait,” she said. “Are you saying that Mother became a seductress and lured Raimbaut into the chapel to slaughter him? That’s preposterous. And do you then believe that she also opened that box of yours and stole whatever was inside it? How
could she have even found it, or taken the key? Maybe you think that two demons infiltrated the castle? Perhaps an army of them, all shape-shifters.”

“Good for you, Agnes,” Catherine said. “Even under the influence of the Devil, I don’t see how Mother could have opened the boxes without being seen. And, if you say that it was sorcery, then there’s no reason that any of us couldn’t have been influenced as well. You could have done it yourself, Odilon, and not even know it.”