“Not like any I’ve ever met,” he whispered back. “I’ve known tavern keepers who spent more time alone than he does. He might as well have built his hermitage at a crossroad.”
Catherine shook her head in bewilderment. She knew now why Yehiel was so eager to come with them. He must be laughing inside this very moment at their confusion. Hermit indeed! She wondered what Saint Anthony and Saint Athanasius would think of this hermitage.
And yet, … She looked around at the hut and the goats and garden and the children. Gaufridus was carrying the smallest one on his shoulders now. It was almost sunset and the light cast an odd aura around the man and his burden.
One who gives what he has to the poor, takes in weary travellers, offers comfort and solace and suffers little children has already found the path to heaven.
Catherine sniffed. Her voices had never chastised her so softly or so thoroughly.
“Walter!” Gaufridus shouted as they reached the top of the hill.
“Walter! Walter! Walter!” the children echoed.
“Hush,” Gaufridus said. “Or no story. Walter! You have visitors!”
The oratory was no more than a pile of stones, clumsily daubed together and covered with branches and skins. A wooden cross at the top was all that distinguished it as a place of worship.
“Don’t move.”
The voice was chillingly out of place in this forest. Catherine started to turn to see who it was and then froze. The sound she had just heard was unquestionably the click of a crossbow being armed.
Gaufridus set down the child.
“Walter,” he spoke quietly, “I have not betrayed you. You should know that. These people are here to discover the truth behind the death of Alys of Tonnerre. They want to help you. Look, here’s Yehiel. He’s an old friend of mine. You’ve met him before. Put that hideous instrument down and come talk with them.”
Catherine heard every sound of the evening; birds, wind in the trees, insects, the bleating of goats and, at last, the sound of the bolt sliding and the arrow slipping out to the ground.
She turned to face Walter of Grancy, furious at having been so frightened. She was about to let him know in no uncertain terms that the pope and the Lateran Council had outlawed the crossbow last year as too dangerous a weapon to ever be used against Christians. She opened her mouth and shut it again.
In the hands of Walter of Grancy, a crossbow was a child’s toy. He held it easily as if it had no weight. He was the largest man she had ever seen. She was tall for a woman and Edgar nearly six feet, but Walter was a mountain, an oak in an apple orchard. He towered over them all and was as broad as Edgar and Solomon put together. How could such a man have anything to fear from someone like Raynald of Tonnerre?
“I had nothing to do with the attack on Alys!” Walter told the world at large.
Catherine covered her ears. His voice more than matched his size.
“We believe you,” Edgar answered. “But why would Raynald of Tonnerre try to make people think you were responsible?”
“He’s a pompous idiot, of course,” Walter answered. “Who are you to be asking?”
It took some time for satisfactory introductions to be made. When Walter was finally convinced that Catherine and Edgar both wanted to help and might have an opportunity to do so, he welcomed them both effusively.
“I’m sick of these woods,” he admitted. “I only agreed to come here because Bishop Hatto begged me to prevent the effusion of blood during Lent. The only way I could think of to do that was to become a hermit, myself. But come with me where we can sit and discuss the matter thoroughly.”
He started to lead them past the oratory to what, presumably, was his hermitage. Solomon stayed behind.
“If you’ll excuse us,” he said, “Yehiel and I would have little to contribute to this tale. We’re going back to the village for the night. Gaufridus’s sister, Ermogene, has offered us a bed and we still have the food Yehiel’s mother packed for us. Will you be ready to go on to Paris in the morning?”
Edgar and Catherine looked at each other. If they weren’t, they would have to find another party to travel with, which might take days. But what if Walter could help them sort out all of this?
“If we could convince him to come with us, we would need no other protection,” Catherine said.
“Yes, and we can’t keep Solomon waiting for us,” Edgar agreed.
“We’ll meet you in Paris,” he promised. “By the kalends of May. Tell Catherine’s family we’ll go first to your uncle’s home and wait for instructions from them.”
“That’s over two weeks!” Solomon said. “You could be there in four days!”
“We may arrive sooner,” Edgar said. “But I think we may need to return to the Paraclete first. It depends on what the lord of Grancy, here, has to say.”
“Very well,” Solomon agreed. “Is there any message for your father, Catherine?”
“Only that I’m happy,” Catherine said. “And that I love him.”
The two men left, hurrying down the path before they were overtaken by the night.
Gaufridus regarded Catherine, Edgar and Walter gloomily.
“I suppose this means you will be staying the night?” he asked.
“We have blankets in our packs,” Edgar assured him, lowering his to the ground. They had left their horse for the night in Lailly.
“We can decide the arrangements later,” Gaufridus told them. “For now, I must attend to my evening prayers.”
He disappeared into the oratory.
Walter of Grancy had been standing impatiently through this. Now he turned and continued into the darkening forest. Catherine and Edgar followed closely. They weren’t sure if there were already a trail or if Walter were simply creating one as he stepped. Both of them felt, however, that wherever he took them, they would be in no danger.
They soon arrived at a place where the trees grew so sheltering that the floor of the forest was clear of undergrowth. Walter vanished beneath a curtain of branches and, taking a breath as if about to dive into unknown waters, Catherine and Edgar followed.
They surfaced inside a natural tent. Although the darkness was now almost complete, they knew by sound and smell that Walter had brought his horse with him into his self-imposed retreat.
“I dare not light a fire here,” Walter’s voice boomed in the enclosure. “But sit where you are. I have a jug of beer we can share.”
Catherine and Edgar did as they were told. The ground was soft with centuries of fallen leaves. There was room for them to place their packs behind their backs and stretch their legs without bumping into their host.
“May we also share what we know about Alys of Tonnerre and Raynald?” Catherine asked.
There was a sigh and then a gurgle from Walter as he drank from the jug, then held it out until it touched Edgar’s hand.
“Raynald and I have been fighting for years; generations, really,” Walter said. “Our land is too close and our families have wed each other too many times. The Church is right to prohibit marriage even between distant kin. No fights as bitter as that between cousins. Look at Matilda of Anjou and Stephen of Blois.”
Catherine took a sip of the beer. It was sour, probably made from rye. She edged the jug back toward Walter’s voice.
“So you believe Raynald blamed you for the attack on his wife simply because you were old enemies?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Walter said. “It doesn’t make sense, now that I consider it. We’ve always both followed the rules; only fought each other’s serjanz no peasants slaughtered for fun, no burning of churches and no attacking unarmed parties, especially of our families.”
“You don’t believe Raynald might have beat her, himself?” Edgar said. “And then accused you to cover his deed, when he saw how badly he had hurt her?”
“Raynald?” Walter gave a humorless laugh. “He may have hit her now and again, but not repeatedly or to punish her. His anger is the cold kind that waits for perfect vengeance. And he had a hundred better ways of hurting her.”
His voice had dropped almost to a whisper.
“He didn’t love her, then?” That wasn’t the question Catherine wanted answered, but she could think of no way to ask the one she did.
“Of course not, why should he?” Walter said. “She irritated him. Poor Alys didn’t know how to handle a man like Raynald. She always looked as though she were expecting a blow, probably was, poor girl. She didn’t have the presence to be a countess and manage the land while Raynald was gone. But I don’t believe he killed her or that he would naturally blame me. Someone must have denounced me to him.”
“Do you know who?” Catherine asked.
“No,” Walter said, after a pause to drink. “It would have to be someone he trusted, though.”
“Alys’s mother, perhaps?” Catherine had not warmed to the countess Constanza. She seemed a perfect instigator.
“Hardly,” Walter snorted. “Raynald doesn’t trust her. He never forgave her for taking Alys to Paris and leaving Paciana behind to die of the fever. He did love Paciana. I think he would have married her even without her father’s land. Only sign the questre ever showed of being human.”
“So he married Alys for the land she inherited because of her sister’s death?” Edgar turned Walter away from speculation about the fate of Alys’s sister. He had already figured out who Paciana was and didn’t want Catherine tempted to break her promise.
“His father, Count William, arranged it,” Walter said. “What was it, five, six years ago? My mother had tried to get Alys for me, but Raynald has Tonnerre and is heir to Auxerre and Nevers if his brother dies and I have all the property I’m ever likely to. There was never much of a chance.”
Now Catherine had her answer.
“When did you last see Alys?” she asked softly.
There was a long sigh.
“A year ago. Holy Week. Troyes,” he said. “She was on her way from Mass and stopped to speak to me. She had that avoutre monkey on her arm.”
“I suppose it was kind of Raynald to get such an expensive pet for her,” Catherine said uncertainly.
“He heard the queen had one and thought his wife should, too,” Walter said. “She was terrified of it. The thing bit and pulled her hair out to tease her. But that’s the way she was. She’d endure almost anything for the sake of peace. So she carried that damn animal everywhere she went. I believe it was the devil, himself.”
“So, you don’t think,”—Catherine hesitated—“you don’t think she would have tried to run away from her husband, or defy him?”
“Never,” Walter said. “She knew her duty. And, so do I. Don’t be surprised. I could tell from your tone that you wanted to ask it. The answer is no, the child she lost wasn’t mine. It was Raynald’s or no man’s. Alys was a saint, you know, but not the kind that goes about preaching or fighting the infidel. She was the kind who suffers and prays and endures to the end. She is in heaven now, isn’t she?”
“She must be,” Catherine said. “I know we can do nothing more for her, besides pray, but don’t you want to help us find out why she had to die?”
“No, I don’t. But if you do catch the one who killed her,” Walter said, “I’ll be happy to slit his throat for you.”
He drained the jug.
“It’s late,” he announced. “I’m going to sleep. Do you have enough quilts with you? The nights are still cold.”
“We’ll be fine,” Edgar said.
He heard the intake of breath as Catherine began another question and quickly put his fingers over her lips.
“In the morning,” he whispered. “Trust me?”
A second’s hesitation, then she closed her mouth and kissed his fingers.
“May Our Lady protect you until the morning,” she said to Walter.
“And you,” he answered.
There was a certain amount of rustling as they arranged their beds. Then silence. But questions still darted like fireflies in Catherine’s head.
If Walter didn’t kill Alys and Raynald didn’t, then who? And what about Paciana? Remembering his voice when he saw her at the Paraclete, Catherine could well believe that Raynald had loved her, but had she loved him? If she hadn’t, that would be a reason to pretend to be dead and run away to the convent rather than face a forced marriage. But hadn’t someone said that Constanza had forbidden the match? She had apparently wanted Raynald for her own child. And yet, the property only came to Alys through Paciana. As the elder, she was her father’s heir. That would have been a good reason to kill Paciana, not Alys.
Catherine sat straight up, causing Edgar to gasp as the cold air hit him.
“Edgar!” she whispered. “We must get back to the Paraclete, as soon as possible.”
“I know,” he whispered back, pulling the quilts back over them. “Now that it’s known she’s alive, Paciana is in terrible danger.”
As she drifted to sleep, Catherine realized, with some annoyance, that Edgar had understood the situation even before they had heard Walter’s story. He had told Solomon that afternoon that they would be going to the Paraclete. She had been so involved in the hermit and his charges that she had paid no attention.