“The master would defeat Abbot Bernard easily,” Edgar said. “That’s nothing to concern yourself with. He’s bested every teacher in Paris.”
“Your words are confident, but not your tone.” Astrolabe glanced ahead at the boys, who were still wrangling over the pig. “You know what I fear, don’t you?”
Edgar dodged the pile the mule had just left in the road.
“Master Abelard and Abbot Bernard are like spring and autumn constellations,” he admitted. “They don’t belong in the same sky.”
“Yes, my father will argue brilliantly, using every rhetorical device, but only the most brilliant of his listeners will understand him,” Astrolabe said. “Bernard speaks with the mouth of a poet and the heart of a saint. He’d make the devil himself weep. Even my mother said that, on his visit to the Paraclete, he preached like an angel. How can one counter passion with logic? They have no meeting place.”
Edgar didn’t answer at first. If ever passion and logic met, it was in the person of Peter Abelard. But he was not the one to argue the point with Abelard’s son.
“So you’re going to Paris to convince him to abandon his challenge?” he said.
Astrolabe snorted. “Hardly. There’s only one person in the world who might do that. No, I’m going to ask him to accompany me to see Mother. I’ve written her about it and she agrees. She says it would be fitting for the three of us, just once, to be together at the celebration of the Resurrection.”
“Oddly enough,” Edgar said. “I was also planning on being at the Paraclete for Easter.”
Astrolabe showed no surprise.
“There are many who would come from farther than Scotland to hear my father preach an Easter sermon. And many,” he added, “who would travel even farther to silence him. I will be glad of your company.”
Edgar wrapped his cloak more tightly. Until today, all his thoughts had been for Catherine, of earning the right to marry her and then doing so with all due speed. He suddenly wondered if she had been so single-minded. This news would have been brought to the Paraclete long ago, and just as much as he, she was a disciple of Peter Abelard. Would she put aside her devotion to him and, even more, to Héloïse, just because he had finally come to claim her?
The road to Paris stretched on interminably.
Catherine had volunteered to sit by the Countess Alys for the length of the Great Silence, from Compline at sunset, to Prime. She felt that somehow the time of quiet and darkness was more dangerous than the bustle of the day. Perhaps that was why the blessed Saint Benedict had made the night office the longest. The sleeping world needed more protection from the servants of Evil, from the Angel of Death.
Despite all their efforts, a faint, nauseating scent was starting in the swollen broken arm. The bone had been snapped through the skin. There was no way to stop the infection once it had started. Catherine knew that Alys would lose the arm, if not her life. Her attacker was not a spirit sneaking through the night, though. It had been a human demon who walked proudly under the sun.
Her anger billowed inside her. On the other side of the cot, Paciana watched her. Catherine felt her gaze and looked up, blushing. Paciana raised her thumb to her lips and moved her fingers slightly, then signed three and six.
“Oh, Paciana,” Catherine said, then looked about guiltily for Sister Bertrada. She smiled and kissed her fingertips then blew on her opened palm, thanking the lay sister.
Psalm Thirty-six: “Do not fret because of the wicked …
spera in Domino et fac bonum.”
That was easy for Paciana, her faith was firm and she never did anything but good. It wasn’t so easy for someone without a natural leaning toward docility. All the same, Catherine recited the words under her breath and tried to push her anger aside.
Count Raynald had neither returned since he had left his wife six days before nor sent to know if she still lived. Alys’s mother had not come from Quincy, only a short ride away. She lay here dying among strangers.
Why does this matter so to you?
her voices asked.
Christian pity is well
and good,
but making yourself her defender and
chief
mourner is arrogant.
Catherine shook her head. She didn’t know why the plight of the poor woman had affected her so strongly. Perhaps it was her own uncertainty. She was forsaking this place of order and peace for marriage, for the world. When Edgar had been beside her, it had seemed the only choice, but now … . She tried to sign her thoughts to Paciana, but it took so long and she was so clumsy at it, she finally gave up and whispered.
“It’s only that she’s here alone, no family, no one familiar.”
Paciana shook her head, her arm moved in a circle, encompassing them all.
“Yes, of course, we all love her as one who would be our sister in Christ, but still …”
Paciana sighed and gestured again, with some reluctance.
“Me … secular … blood … sister,” Catherine interpreted. “You’re her real sister?”
Her voice had gone up. Paciana leaned across the bed and put her fingers firmly over Catherine’s lips. She looked as stern as Wrath, itself.
Her hands shaking, Catherine signed, “Then how can you forgive what’s been done to her?”
The lay sister smiled sadly and bent to kiss the countess’s forehead.
“God forgives,” she signed. “I accept. Say nothing.”
“If you wish,” Catherine nodded reluctantly.
But why not? Mother Héloïse and Prioress Astane must know already. Paciana couldn’t have been admitted to the convent without the approval of her family. It struck Catherine that she knew the background of every one of the other sisters. Many came from local families; some were part of the original group that were driven with Héloïse from Argenteuil. Abelard’s own nieces, Agate and Agnes, were here, too. Only a few were like her, drawn from farther away by the Paraclete’s reputation for learning. Paciana had always seemed so much a part of the convent that Catherine had never thought of her anywhere else. But now she wondered. She had presumed Paciana was not of the nobility. But if she were Alys’s sister, she must be, unless she were illegitimate, and that alone wouldn’t be enough to keep her from a proper place in the convent. But, if Paciana were wellborn, then why hadn’t she become a choir nun, to copy books and sing the office? Lay sisters were the drudges of the convent. They did the laundry and carried the water buckets.
The only answer Catherine could think of was that Paciana had been ordered to perform some long, hard penance.
But what could she have done? And why was she so clearly terrified of anyone knowing that she was sister to Countess Alys?
The Paraclete,
Friday, March 29, 1140
Iusto enim vita ista carcer est: mors huius carceris solutio. Nemo enim his adeo iustus est: ut perfectam possit hic cansequi iusticiam.
For the just, life itself is a prison: death is the solution to this prison. Truly, no one on earth is so just that he is able to attain perfect justice.
—Serlo of Savigny,
Sermons
H
oly Week was fast approaching; the time of darkness and fasting would soon be over. Even the weather brightened. The constant drizzle gave way to sunshowers with dazzling rainbows or brief curtains of huge, lazy snowflakes that fell glistening onto the green shoots in the garden before melting into the soft earth.
Catherine hardly noticed the world waking up around her. She moved through the patterned days, drawing comfort from the familiar prayers and duties, but her mind was always in the infirmary. Even her fears for Edgar were pushed aside for this present pain.
Paciana must know who beat Alys before,
she thought for the hundredth time.
She ought to tell us. One can bring a criminal to justice and still forgive him. It would be for the good of his soul to have him face his wickedness now, while he can still repent.
But when Catherine tried to question her further, Paciana refused even to sign. Her eyes stayed focused on her work, her hands busy sweeping or scrubbing.
In desperation, Catherine went to her friend Emilie, whose family was connected in one way or another with most of the nobility of Champagne, Burgundy, Blois and Lorraine. She would know, if anyone did. The only difficulty was that, while Catherine had been gone the previous autumn, Emilie had taken her final vows. As someone who was no longer even a novice, but more of a special boarder, Catherine had little to do with the choir nuns. The only time she was with them was in groups, in the refectory or the oratory, and in neither place was there opportunity for private talk.
Except on Saturday. That was the day for hair washing. If she volunteered to help, pouring the warm water and towelling the short curls dry, she might have a few moments to arrange a longer meeting.
“Wash hair?” Sister Bertrada pursed her lips in annoyance. “Do you even know how? You’d probably rub soap in everyone’s eyes and leave tangles impossible to comb out. The younger girls get very upset at that.”
Catherine stifled a sigh. She had forgotten about the students like herself and the novices, whose hair had yet to be cut. “I would be very careful, Sister. I have not done my share of manual labor since I returned.”
“As if you ever did.” But Sister Bertrada gave grudging, suspicious permission.
So Catherine, dressed in a shift and apron, with her sleeves tied above the elbow, spent Saturday morning being splashed with suds by squealing fourteen-and fifteen-year-olds. Despite her initial reluctance, she found herself smiling and splashing back. She and her sister, Agnes, had once played so, bent over the sink at the house in Paris, their long hair dripping puddles on the rushes. Outside, they could hear cursing as the soapy water ran down the pipe onto the boots of some passerby. A long time ago, it seemed.
The choir nuns came last, quietly as befitted their rank. It only took a moment for each shorn head to be washed. Catherine rubbed the towel briskly over Emilie’s blonde cap.
“I must speak with you,” she whispered.
It was like Emilie that she wasted no time with inconsequentials.
“After None, I will be g … grinding herbs in the infirmary,” she answered, her voice shaking with the energy of Catherine’s drying. “I think I’m d … done now. Thank you.”
The apothecary room, where the infirmarian, Sister Melisande, slept, was upstairs from the infirmary proper. On one wall were the shelves of oils and powders from distant lands that were bought each year at the faire at Troyes. Hanging from the ceiling were herbs grown and dried at the convent. On a long table in the center of the room were clay bowls and wooden pestles, as well as vials for measuring. When Catherine entered, Emilie was bent over these, grinding at something which scraped against the bowl in a way that set Catherine’s teeth on edge.
“Will you do this a while?” Emilie asked. “I’m trying to make a powder of cinnamon and eggshells to mix with fennel and pomegranate juice for Alys.”
“What will that do?” Catherine asked as she took the pestle and went to work.
“Fennel may help bring the fever down and I hope the rest will keep the bleeding from starting again,” Emilie answered. “Oh, that’s better. My arm was aching.”
“Emilie, do you know who attacked the countess?”
Emilie took down a bottle labeled πεπλισ. Catherine recognized it as one that her father had brought. She tried to remember enough of the Greek Mother Héloïse had taught her to sound out the word. Emilie opened it and sniffed before adding it to another bowl.
“Walter of Grancy, of course,” she finally answered. “Everyone knows that. He and Raynald have been feuding for years.”
“But this wasn’t the first time,” Catherine insisted. “She’s been beaten before.”
“Who hasn’t?” Emilie didn’t look up from her work.
“Not like this, Emilie.” The cinnamon shattered under Catherine’s anger. “Not over and over to leave scars, laced across each other. What do you know of her family?”
“Her father married twice,” Emilie said after a moment’s thought. “The first marriage lasted only a few years. His wife died quite suddenly. There was a child, I think, who also died. Alys is from the second marriage. After he died, Alys’s mother married again.”
Catherine sorted it out. Paciana must have been very young when her mother had died, but why would Emilie think she had died, too? She opened her mouth to ask, then held her tongue with difficulty, remembering her promise to Paciana.
“Mother Héloïse said that Alys’s property came from her father’s family,” Catherine told her. “What happened to the dower of his first wife?”
“I don’t know.” Emilie stopped stirring and closed her eyes, trying to trace out all the family connections. “Let me think. Alys’s father was a castellan of Count Thibault. He had control of several towns when he died and I’m sure much of the land was heritable. I don’t know much about the first wife. She died before I was born. I think she was some relation to Count Thibault, which was why they did so well. I remember my mother mentioning that the count gave her the tithes of five mills and a vineyard near Troyes as a wedding gift. Alys’s father may have kept them or they may have reverted to Thibault. Mother Héloïse. might know, or Sister Bietriz. She’s niece to Thibault’s former seneschal, André de Baudement, you know.”
“I had forgotten that,” Catherine said. “Perhaps I’ll ask her. It’s odd that a count like Raynald, with his connections, would marry the daughter of a castellan.”
“If enough land or money came with her, and if the connection with Count Thibault were strong enough, I don’t suppose Raynald would care.”
“No, I suppose not.” Catherine was doubtful. The count of Tonnerre struck her as a man proud of his lineage. And Tonnerre was not a poor area. Still … “I wonder what she did bring to the marriage and where it goes if she dies childless.”
Emilie shrugged. “I no longer have an interest in such things.”
Catherine bent over the mortar in embarrassment. “I’m sorry to ask you about them. It is not appropriate to your new status to be drawn into gossip.”
“Do you imagine yourself a tool of Satan?” Emilie laughed. “I will confess in chapter this week that I have been speaking idly and take my penance. But I don’t think you asked for idle reasons. And I am your true friend. I always will be. Do you think my taking the veil could change that?”
“I am leaving soon,” Catherine said. “We won’t be sisters after all. I thought it might make a difference.”
Emilie leaned across the table and gently pushed a loose curl back under Catherine’s scarf.
“We will always be sisters,” she said.
Edgar, Astrolabe and the two Norman students entered Paris on the morning of Palm Sunday and the streets were already crowded with people come to take part in the procession. All of them seemed to be heading toward the Île. The travellers pushed their way down the Rue Saint-Martin and across the Grand Pont, letting the crowd carry them along.
“Where is Master Abelard staying?” Edgar asked.
“With the monks at Sainte-Geneviève,” Astrolabe told him. “Aren’t you coming with us?”
“I have to see someone first,” Edgar said. “When do you think we’ll leave for the Paraclete?”
“Tomorrow, Tuesday at the latest. It depends on the weather and my father’s health.”
“I’ll find you this evening,” Edgar promised.
“Very well,” Astrolabe agreed. “Come along, children,” he added to his charges. “I’m going to deliver you to your new keeper.”
He did look as though he were leading a pair of tame bears. The boys, fresh from the country outside London, stumbled through the crush of people, gawking at the pilgrims, tumblers and hawkers of trinkets and not noticing where they stepped. Astrolabe drew them along behind him. In a moment, they were lost among the crowd.
The procession moved on across the Île, turning left to the churches of Saint-Christophe, then Saint-Etienne, to conclude at Sainte-Marie-Nôtre-Dame. Before the crowd turned, Edgar slipped away and went into the Juiverie. Unlike the other streets, the area around the synagogue was quiet. A few men, loaded with parcels, walked purposefully, glancing about with every step. When they saw Edgar, each faltered a second, taking his measure and judging the likelihood of his using a concealed knife. Satisfying themselves that he was harmless, they continued on their way.
It took Edgar a while to find the right door. He realized with some embarrassment that he had never entered through the front of the house, at least not while conscious. He hoped they would receive him. He hoped they were there. The whole street had the look of a place shut down for the winter, or until some great storm passed.
At first there was no response to his knock. Then he heard a swish of skirts upon the rushes and a narrow slot was pushed back. A brown eye focused on him then looked beyond, as if checking for companions.
“What do you want?” It was a woman’s voice, young but trying to sound old and brusk.
“My name is Edgar,” he said gently. “I’m a friend of Solomon, of this house, and of Hubert LeVendeur. I’ve just returned to Paris and wished for word of them.”
His stomach tightened as he spoke. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about Solomon and Hubert. Catherine! He wanted to shout it. Tell me if Catherine is safe. Tell me that everything is as it was, that we are still betrothed, and I’ll leave you in peace!
But he only stood quietly at the door as the eye examined him once again. The slot closed.
It seemed he stood there for days as other eyes watched him from slots up and down the narrow street. Finally, the door opened a few inches and a hand pulled him in.
He was suddenly smothered in a soft, maternal bosom then pushed to arm’s length. Catherine’s aunt Johannah greeted him.
“You look better than the last time you were here,” she laughed. “How’s the arm?”
“Fine,” he gasped. He had not expected to be welcomed. He straightened and bowed properly.
“May the Lord bless all who dwell here,” he said, remembering at the last minute not to go on to the Virgin and the saints.
“And you,” Johannah smiled again. “Come in, wash the road from your hands and face. I will have Dulce bring you some wine and cheese. Eliazar is out, but I expect him soon.”
It was hard to endure the customs of civilization when operating on basic feelings, but Edgar managed to survive until Catherine’s uncle Eliazar returned.
“Yes,” Edgar answered him. “It is good to see you again, also. I am fully recovered, thanks to your kind attentions. My family is well. My trip was uneventful, except … I was able to sell my land to provide a bridal gift. Please tell me, do I still have a bride?”
Eliazar leaned back in his chair and laughed, his stomach shaking. He ran a hand through his beard and his expression softened to sympathy.
“As far as I know,” he said, “my brother has not changed his mind about allowing you to marry his daughter. Of course, those nuns may give you a fight for her soul. But why don’t you simply go ask Hubert? Why come here and now, of all times?”
Then Edgar realized why the houses were all locked and barred. He had been so caught up in his own life that he had missed the obvious. This was Holy Week. Every day from now until Easter, good Christians were reminded in sermon, play and procession of Christ’s passion and death. More than any other time of the year, the ancient guilt and continued intransigence of the Jews in their midst was made apparent to them.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think …”
Eliazar shrugged. “Why should you? You are not the one they throw stones and fishheads at. Still, you could have gone to my brother’s. He has made a reputation as a good Christian. No one in Paris knows he was born a Jew.”