The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (22 page)

“James,” he called. “Come with me. Bring your sister.”

“What about Dragon?” the boy complained.

“He’ll follow us,” Edgar said sternly. “It’s Edana you need to watch out for.”

“Master?”

Martin suddenly appeared at his side. Edgar gestured to where James was resentfully tugging Edana toward them.

“I have to keep an eye on them and I need you to help me,” he told Martin. “I don’t like the way people come and go so quickly here. Is there something you wanted to tell me?”

“Yes, Master.” Martin also watched the children as if he were
keeping them safe with his eyes alone. “My mother says that Peter is sleeping. She wants to know if Lady Catherine needs her.”

“Probably not,” Edgar said. “Agnes has maids enough for a cohort of women. As long as someone is watching over him.”

The children had reached them. Edana held up her arms to her father.

“Not this time,
deorling
,” Edgar said. “You’re more than normally sticky and this is my best silk tunic.”

“Come to me.” Martin reached down to her. “I don’t need to be fine for anyone.”

Edana happily climbed into his arms.

Edgar watched Martin as he teased the little girl, all the while carefully mopping up the worst of the grime on her face with the tip of his sleeve. It dawned on him that he did have a man he could trust completely. He had been used to thinking of Martin as an odd-job boy, someone to run errands and hold the horses. Yet, on their recent trip to Lombardy, Martin had proved himself to be quick-thinking and utterly reliable.

“Martin,” Edgar said. “I need your help.”

Catherine and Margaret were rushed up to Agnes’s room and divested of their outer clothing before they could do more than give a weak protest.

“Agnes, listen,” Catherine tried as one of her sister’s maids came at her with a comb and a determined expression. “We were lost down under the keep. Do you know how many tunnels there are down there? It’s like a rabbit warren.”

“Catherine, sit still so poor Mina can try to fix your hair,” Agnes interrupted. “She may need goose grease to make it lie flat.”

Catherine’s thick, dark curls had been the despair of her blond mother. Just dividing it enough to braid took ages. It had been a relief when Catherine had been sent to the convent of the
Paraclete. When she took her vows, it would be cut manageably short.

But instead Catherine had come home and fallen in love with a British student. And her hair was as intractable as ever.

“Agnes,” Margaret tried. “Don’t you want to know what we discovered?”

“No,” Agnes answered. “Why should I care about some musty antique you stumbled over? I’m not interested in secrets or treasure. I have everything I need. My only care is for the security of my family and also that they don’t embarrass me by appearing at a banquet looking like women who’ve spent all day in a pigsty.”

She opened a large trunk. In it were silk and linen robes so elegant that even Catherine was momentarily distracted. Agnes shook out a red one, embroidered with a pattern of spring flowers.

“If I lend you this, do you think you can keep from ruining it?” she asked Catherine.

“Probably not,” Catherine answered. “I do have clothes of my own, you know. And, since you took all of Mother’s, Edgar has been giving me lovely pieces of jewelry, too.”

Margaret could see that this was about to disintegrate into a battle that had most likely started in the nursery.

“I’d like to wear the blue, if you don’t mind,” she interrupted. “I didn’t bring much from the Paraclete and nothing fine enough for another banquet.”

Agnes immediately turned her attention to Margaret, leaving Catherine to Mina’s rough efforts to tug a comb through her hair. The pain brought her back to the issue at hand.

“There’s a woman. . .down there,” she told Agnes between jerks on her head. “I saw her. . .at Viellete. . .neuse and again in the. . .forest.”

“What was that?” Agnes’s face was buried in the trunk as she searched out a pair of hose to match the
bliaut
for Margaret.

“The woman we met today,” Margaret said. “She said her name was Mandon.”

“Mandon!” Agnes rose so quickly that she hit her head on the lid of the trunk. “You say you met her?”

“Yes,” Margaret answered. “She led us astray and then showed us the way out.”

“Mandon,” Agnes repeated. “Are you certain that’s what she said?”

“Of course we are! Ow!” Catherine said. The maid released her a moment to get another comb. “Have you heard of her?”

“Of course,” Agnes answered. “I sometimes wonder if you slept through your childhood, Catherine. Mandon is Andonenn’s messenger. She’s supposed to appear to warn the family of danger.”

“This woman was real, not a legend,” Catherine said.

“Well, of course,” Agnes said. “She’s real and a legend. That proves we were right to come here. But why is she bothering with you?”

Catherine’s temper was frayed. Her head hurt from the combing. Her feet hurt from all the walking and climbing. Patience was too much to ask.

“It may be that she came to me because I’m the only one whose mind isn’t filled with stories about her,” Catherine snapped. “This woman is flesh, just like us. I don’t know what’s going on, but I felt her hand and saw her breath in the air. She is human.”

“That’s as may be,” Agnes said. “What do you think, Margaret? You saw her, too.”

Margaret looked up from a tempting selection of earrings.

“Mandon seemed real to me,” she said. “But very strange. She could be as addled as your poor mother. Perhaps everyone else who lives here knows all about her. After all, we haven’t had time to meet everyone, yet. If so, I’m surprised that she’s allowed to
wander free. Catherine says she was at Vielleteneuse and Paris. Of course, she may have escaped from her keeper.”

Catherine sighed. “I wonder if the true curse on the family is a tendency to madness.”

“Speak for yourself,” Agnes said. “Mother would be fine if it weren’t for you. You were supposed to stay in the convent and pray for her sins.”

Catherine made no retort. In part she felt that it was true.

“What about the message?” Margaret asked, once again leaping between the warring lionesses.

“Mandon gave you a message?” Agnes asked. “Why you and not me?”

“She said you already had it,” Margaret told her. “Or part of it, at least. Do you?”

“We only had the one brought from Grandfather,” Agnes said. “But that just said to come at once.”

“No, it’s more than that,” Catherine said. “It’s something she left for us, she said, something we have to interpret or solve. At least that’s what I understood.”

“So did I,” Margaret said loyally.

Agnes found the hose and handed them to Margaret. She then dismissed the woman who had managed to force Catherine’s hair into two long plaits.

“Now that you look presentable, I think you should find Seguin and tell him of your interesting adventure today. If there’s a message from Andonenn, he’ll be the one to decipher it. Now, I need to prepare myself for the banquet. I’ve taken far too much time attending to you.”

Catherine was simmering as they left the room.

“Agnes always does this to me,” she apologized to Margaret.

Margaret smiled. “I always wanted a sister,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind, but I rather like Agnes.”

Catherine bent her head. When she looked up, Margaret was relieved to see that she was laughing.

“Don’t tell anyone,” she warned. “But I like her, too. Even though she maddens me with her arrogance.”

Margaret made no comment.

When Martin had let his mother know that she was free for the afternoon, Samonie at first had no idea what to do with herself. In Paris there was never an empty hour. She thought about mending Edana’s torn tunic, but decided that could wait. Then she happened to look out the window.

The children’s room was high in one of the central towers of the keep and the view from it reached almost to Chartres. Samonie could see the fields reaching down to the forest. A few houses clustered in a tiny village near the forest and in a grove of fruit trees. As she watched, two tiny shapes dropped from one. It was a moment before she realized that the plums must be ripe enough to be worth stealing. The boys were running from a woman waving a switch.

“I came from a place like that,” she murmured. “How long has it been since I walked barefoot through rows of barley or stole a plum from the tree?”

She made her way out of the keep and through the town gates, trying not to think of the climb she would have getting back. As soon as she was outside, she took off her leather shoes.

The barley field stretched before her. In the center was a hillock, too rocky or steep to plow. It was covered with grass and bushes and crowned by an ancient walnut tree. Samonie set off toward it. It seemed the perfect spot for a summer afternoon nap.

It didn’t occur to her that someone at a tower window might be watching her.

“Excuse me,” Catherine asked. “Do you know where I can find Seguin?”

The man looked vaguely familiar. One of her other cousins?

“He’s out at the portcullis, to greet your brother,” the man answered. “Shouldn’t you be there, too?”

“I don’t think I could keep from laughing,” Catherine said before she thought.

The man’s eyebrows rose. “I see,” he said. “You find our welcome ridiculous.”

“Oh no, of course not,” Catherine tried to repair her gaffe. “It’s only in connection with Guillaume. And especially his children. I mean, I love them all but, well, you’ll understand when you see them, cousin. . .?”

“Raimbaut,” he said. “I’m Seguin’s elder son. You were presented to me before.”

“Yes, of course,” Catherine bobbed an apology. “There are so many new faces.”

“Not really,” he answered. “Perhaps if you had visited more, you would have less trouble identifying us.”

Like most of the family, he was fair and of medium height. He appeared to be in his late twenties but Catherine knew that he had to be at least ten years older than she.

“Raimbaut,” she asked. “Have I also been presented to Mandon?”

“Mandon!” he snorted in anger. “Now I know you’re mocking us. Mandon doesn’t exist. She’s a tale for children. A being who travels wherever Andonenn’s children live, who can appear young or old. Nonsense!”

“But then is Andonenn a myth, too?” Catherine asked.

“Of course not.” Raimbaut stared at her as if she were a simpleton. “She is the mother of us all. We have it written in a book.”

“Then it must be true,” Catherine said.

Raimbaut did not notice the ironic tone.

“Right. It’s all there, how she and Jurvale met and married and how she keeps watch over us,” he told her.

“Could I see this book?” she asked.

“The monks keep it for us at Saint-Benoît,” he said. “Ask them.”

The blaring of trumpets interrupted them.

“That must be my brother,” Catherine guessed. “Perhaps I should go greet him after all. Thank you.”

She left Raimbaut looking after her with an expression of distaste.

Margaret had gone in search of Edgar. Catherine found both of them doing their best to keep James and Edana from being crushed by the crowd.

“I knew Guillaume’s five children would impress them more than our paltry three,” Edgar told her.

“Edgar, has Margaret told you about what we found today?” Catherine had to shout to be heard above the cheering.

He nodded. “We’ll discuss it later.”

Margaret tapped her arm to get her attention. Catherine leaned toward her. Margaret cupped her hands and spoke straight into Catherine’s ear.

“He’s mad because we might have been in danger,” she said. “But he’s certain that the woman we met was human. He wants to go hunting for her with Martin later.”

Catherine answered close to Margaret’s ear.

“Maybe now that Guillaume is here, Seguin will tell us everything.”

“I hope so,” Margaret yelled back. “There isn’t much yarn left.”

The sound of Guillaume’s arrival reached Samonie only as a distant buzzing. She was lying beneath the giant walnut tree. The grass was cool and soft and the sunshine made gentle patterns through the leaves. She closed her eyes, reveling in the peace.

“You look as you did the day I first saw you.”

Samonie’s eyes flew open. Brehier stood above her.

She sat up quickly. “That was a long time ago.”

He sat next to her. “It was a lifetime ago. I thought then that everything in the world was mine for the taking.”

“Including me,” Samonie said.

“Yes.” He avoided her eyes. “Did I give you a choice or just come to your bed without leave? I don’t remember.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she answered. “I wouldn’t have refused you.”

“I’m glad,” he said.

He took her hand. “Would you refuse me now?”

Samonie smiled on the face so like her son’s.

“I don’t see how I could.” She lay down again, drawing him with her.

“Catherine, you’ll never guess what we found tied to the timbers of the keep.” Marie greeted her with a hug. “I have it in my purse. We could make no sense of it, but Guillaume thought you would know.”