The townhouse of Rupert and Constanza of Quincy,
Wednesday, April 10, 1140
… it was an obstinate custom with such people in matters of which they were ignorant, to condemn others, without discussion and without rational inquiry.
—Robert of Melun,
Sentences
C
atherine was thinking more rapidly than she ever had in her life. What did these people know? Who was lying? Perhaps Paciana wasn’t the sister of Alys. No, of course she was. Alys had recognized her, called her by name. But, if Paciana were of that family, then some relative must have known she was at the Paraclete. It was required that each entrant be sponsored and approved. The only answer was that someone had known. But who? She remembered the knights who had tried to enter the convent and the murderous look Paciana had given her as she left. Someone had sent them and Paciana knew who. Catherine made up her mind.
“There is no
monialis
at the Paraclete named Paciana,” she said. That much was true. Paciana was a lay sister, not a nun.
“You’re lying!” Raynald took a step toward her.
“I am not!” Catherine shot back. “I’m disobedient, prideful and clumsy, but I don’t lie. You may ask Abbess Héloïse or Prioress Astane. They will tell you the same.”
“There, you see,” Constanza told him. “You were mistaken. Now you may apologize for your behavior. I’m your mother-in-law, after all, not some
fame vilaine
to abuse as you wish.”
Raynald didn’t bother to face her.
“Your daughter is dead, woman,” he said. “You are nothing to me now.”
He looked directly at Catherine and she knew that he would remember her the next time they met. She prayed that she would not be alone when it happened.
“I must go now,” she whispered. “The countess Mahaut is expecting me.”
Raynald nodded, his eyes fixed on her face.
“Go,” he told her. “I will see that you and that abbess of yours are punished for your deceits. Once they learn of your perfidy, you may be sure that none of your powerful patrons will dare intervene.”
“Yes, girl, leave. You have no more business here.” William of Nevers waved her out. Constanza and Rupert said nothing, allowing the two powerful men to usurp the authority of their home.
Catherine backed out of the room and hurried from the house. Whatever else those people were discussing, however important it might be to the Paraclete, she was not prepared to stay another minute. As she struggled to open the door, she realized that she was still holding the squashed remains of the cake she had been given. The gold of the spices had stained her
bliaut
and, most likely, Raynald’s silk surcoat. Oh, yes, he would definitely remember her if he saw her again.
She hurried down the street, past Saint-Remi, turning right at the alley that led along the swampy bed of the Seine to the gate to the old city. The southern wind carried the stench of the tanneries and the sound of shouting. There must be something happening in the square between the convent of Nôtre-Dame-aux-Nonnains and the church of Saint-Urbain. Catherine paused to listen as she neared the bridge. Perhaps it was some wandering preacher, or a troop of tumblers. If so, they weren’t being well received. The voices were angry.
The shouts were growing louder and closer. Catherine walked more quickly toward the bridge. On the other side was the palace of the count. As she crossed over, she could see the place where the waste of the palace emptied out into the dank weeds and sluggishly flowing water. Remembering her slide down the bank the day before, she was grateful that the bridge was upstream from the deposit.
As she reached the old town on the other side of the bridge, a crowd erupted from the narrow opening between Saint-Urbain and the square and poured down the Grand Rû to the canal. There was a crash as a peddler’s stall was upended into the water. Catherine looked over her shoulder and started running for the palace. One look at the faces of the people pouring onto the bridge was enough to tell her that it wasn’t a crowd; it was a mob.
The mug of beer had become two and then three. Edgar and Solomon sat outside a tavern on the Rue de la Cite, drinking, gnawing on hard black bread and trading stories of their travels.
“There’s a loch north of my home.” Edgar paused to belch. “There’s a sea monster in it as long as a
meduœrn
, longer even. They say that Saint Columba destroyed it once, but that’s not true; it’s still there. I saw its head once on a grey, misty morning, poking up out of the loch. It had a huge selkie snout and a long, black serpent neck. A
seldlic
sight!”
Solomon put down his mug.
“I can’t understand half you say,” he told Edgar. “It’s bad enough when you ramble on in Latin. At least that has the flavor of proper French, but your German words sound like you’re choking on your bread.”
Edgar laughed. “Saxon, not German. Sorry. To tell you the truth, my family doesn’t even speak good Saxon anymore. I found that out when I went to England. They complain that we garble it with Norse and Gælic.”
“And in your land there are monsters in the waters,” Solomon said. “I’ve seen no monsters, myself, but I’ve often glimpsed strange shapes in the forests here, too often in the fog. Sometimes I think there are demons wandering the earth that only can be seen when the mist hangs on them.”
He shuddered. “I’m sick to death of travelling through dark forests. All I want is to get some vines, a cottage, a few sheep, a nice wife with well-cushioned hipbones and never have to enter the wood again.”
“I can just see you,” Edgar laughed. “Solomon rusticus. It will never happen. You don’t have the soul of a peasant.”
Solomon stared deeply into his beer.
“Perhaps not,” he admitted. “But I don’t have the soul of a scholar, either. And, in my family, one either studies or trades.”
“You could convert,” Edgar suggested.
Solomon’s face hardened.
“No,” he said. “I couldn’t.”
Edgar said no more. He finished his cup and squinted at the sun.
“We should be returning to the palace,” he said. “The bells for Sext will start soon and Catherine will be impatient to get on with her commission for the abbess.”
Solomon stood, a bit unsteadily. He shook his head to clear it and then wiped his mug with the hem of his
chainse
. Edgar did the same. As they crossed the road to the palace, they became aware of angry shouting. The people in the street were scattering, trying to get out of the way of a mass of people who were shoving past the guard at the end of the bridge. Among the frightened townspeople, there was a woman in convent grey, trying to push her way through. She had almost reached the palace gate, when a man with a rack loaded with sausages knocked against her and threw her sideways. As she fell, one of her braids came loose and caught on a sausage hook. She screamed in sudden pain. Edgar and Solomon dropped their mugs and ran to her.
Edgar picked her up as Solomon unhooked her hair. The sausage man swore at all of them.
“Catherine! What are you doing here?” Edgar said as they dragged her back around the corner of the palace. “You were supposed to be with the countess Mahaut.”
“I went to question Alys’s mother.” Catherine rubbed her sore head. “What’s going on?”
The mob had reached the palace gate and were pounding on it.
“Justice!” someone yelled. “We have a murderer and we demand justice!”
“No!” a voice gasped weakly. “I killed no one. My shop! They’ve destroyed my shop!”
“Silence, you lying infidel!”
Solomon’s head came up sharply. He heard the whack as the man was hit and started forward. Edgar grabbed him.
“Don’t!” he said. “You’ll get yourself killed. Go find your elders or leaders or whatever. The countess’s men are coming. They’ll restore order. But, if there really is a charge of murder, this man will need someone to speak for him.”
Solomon took a deep breath and nodded. He edged his way around the crowd and disappeared in the crush.
By this time, people had arrived from everywhere in Troyes, curious and eager for diversion. A woman came out of the bakehouse on the corner and stopped next to Catherine.
“What’s all the noise for?” she asked, wiping the flour from her hands. “I heard someone cry murder.”
“I don’t know,” Catherine told her. “They came from the direction of the tanneries. They seem to have caught a felon.”
“Ah, the guard has opened the palace gates,” the woman said. “You’re taller than I am. Can you see anything?”
Catherine stood on tiptoe, leaning on Edgar.
“Yes, the countess has sent her men. The knights are on horseback. That will make those people think again.”
The crowd did move back as the mounted knights appeared in the open gateway, all but two men in tanning aprons, each holding the arm of a third man, whom they dragged up to the leader, Nocher of Montbard.
“This is Gershom, the Jewish butcher,” one man announced. “It isn’t enough for him that he sells his cast-off meat to us at exorbitant prices. Now he must slaughter a Christian man and hang him up just as he does his cattle!”
There was another commotion as the crowd reacted to the accusation. Nocher leaned over and said something to one of the other knights, who nodded. The woman beside Catherine cried out in horror.
“Quel aborissement
! Isn’t it enough that we let them live among us, even when they murdered Our Lord! Must they now murder us, too? Kill him!” she screamed. “Hang him now!”
Her cries were joined by others and the knights moved forward to stop the people from grabbing the prisoner and carrying out their own justice. They used their lances to separate the fainting butcher from his attackers and push him, half crawling, into the palace courtyard.
Catherine tugged on Edgar’s sleeve. He turned to her. Her face was pale with fear.
“Edgar, do you think … ?”
“Yes,” he said, “I do. Now the countess will believe your story.”
“I never had a chance to tell it to her,” Catherine said. “We must get in there. That man couldn’t be guilty. He couldn’t have gotten into the palace after dark.”
“They’ll never let us in again,” Edgar worried. “They don’t want trouble from the town and we look just the same as the rest of these people. Do you see anyone among the knights who knows us?”
“It’s hard to tell with their armor on.” Catherine scanned the dozen or so men. “Wait! Jehan!”
She started to wriggle her way through to the front of the crowd. “Jehan!” she called again. “It’s Catherine!”
Edgar followed, but reluctantly. He remembered Jehan, too. The knight was in service to Count Thibault, but was also sometimes loaned to do jobs for Catherine’s father. In their last meeting, before he and Catherine had been betrothed, Jehan and his fellow knight Sigebert had throttled him in an alley in Paris, dislocating his arm and nearly slitting his throat. He wasn’t eager to renew the acquaintance.
But Catherine forged onward, pushing around anyone in her way and occasionally jumping and waving to attract the knight’s attention. Grimly, Edgar followed.
“Jehan!” Catherine called again, when she was closer. “Jehan! Let us in!”
Finally he noticed her. The others were already through the gate, taking the unfortunate butcher and his immediate accusers with them. Hearing his name, Jehan twisted in the saddle.
“Lady Catherine!” he said. “Saint Simeon’s pillar! What are you doing here?”
“I can’t explain now,” Catherine said as they reached him. “Just let us in. We have to speak with Countess Mahaut.”
Jehan looked down on them from the back of his horse. A flash of anger crossed his face as he recognized Edgar.
“We?” he said. “Not with him. My job is to protect you from his sort.”
“My sort!” Edgar grabbed at the reins. “Does your protection include attacking an unarmed man in an alley? Come down here and face me,
questre!”
“Edgar, not now!” Catherine stopped them. “Edgar and I are married, Jehan. You owe us both protection, if you are still the count’s man.”
Jehan regarded them both. Edgar felt at a distinct disadvantage, having neither horse nor armor. His fist itched to land just one good blow straight into that
mesel
’s gut. But Catherine was right. Now was not the time.
“I have the marriage contract with me,” he said mildly, instead. “It carries Hubert’s mark. Would you like to read it?”
Edgar smiled politely. He knew that it was unlikely that Jehan could do more than make out the letters of his own name.
The knight glared at them for another moment before he grudgingly allowed them through the gate. As they passed through, Jehan signaled the guard to close it behind them. The people in the street muttered to each other, but no one dared challenge.
Inside the courtyard, the chaos was almost as great as in the street. The people of the palace, servants and guests milled about, getting and giving what little information they could find and inventing as they saw fit. Catherine and Edgar ignored them and headed for the Great Hall, where the countess would appear to judge the matter.