The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (33 page)

Reluctantly, Edana agreed.

“I’m not sure how long I’ll be,” Catherine added to Samonie. “Edgar and Martin went off somewhere after they brought Aymon in. I’m hoping they’re back by now.”

“Are we really going to be besieged?” Samonie asked.

“It seems so,” Catherine said. “But I’m sure it won’t be for long. Solomon has gone for help and Olivier may give up even before it comes. Once he sees the fortifications here, he’ll realize that it’s impossible to take the castle.”

Samonie pretended that she believed this.

In the short time Catherine had been with Berthe it seemed that the atmosphere of Boisvert had undergone a definite change. It was odd, Catherine thought, that before, when only rumors menaced them, the place had felt full of lethargy and despair. Now, when there was a real threat and a murderer at large, people seemed almost cheerful. Everyone she passed was intent on their task, not rushing but purposeful. She marveled at this as she made her way to the hall. Finally, she decided that most people must prefer to have a real enemy to fight rather than rely on the whim of legend to decide one’s fate.

Catherine wasn’t sure she wanted either option. This visit had made it clear to her that, unlike Agnes and Marie, she wasn’t meant to be an aristocrat. Their rather modest home in Paris felt like heaven to her. And, at this moment, it seemed almost as far away.

Martin was in the hall, washing his hands and face at a basin. Catherine was relieved to see him.

“Where did you go?” she asked. “Where’s Edgar?”

She stopped, staring at the stains on his washing cloth. “Is that blood?”

“Don’t worry, Mistress,” Martin said. “It’s not ours. We found Aymon’s bolt hole. Some others had got there first.”

“But you’re unharmed?” Catherine asked. “Edgar as well?”

“Yes. He’s gone to ask Seguin what we should do with the prisoner.”

“Prisoner!”

“We left him with Brehier,” Martin told her. “I think he’s a spy for Olivier, but Master Edgar isn’t so sure.”

“Just where
were
you?”

Martin was saved from answering by the arrival of Edgar, bursting to tell her what they had done.

“Edgar!” Catherine was horrified when she heard. “If someone hadn’t got to those men first, you and Martin might have been killed! Copper arrows, you say? That’s bizarre. I wish we knew who your savior was.”

“I’m not sure I want to,” Edgar said. “I have an image of a Grendel-like creature lurking in the dank caverns.”

“What’s a Grendel?” Catherine asked.

“Just an English story. It’s a monster from the marshes.”

“Wonderful,” Catherine said. “Thank you, Edgar. As if my imagination hadn’t already conjured enough otherworldly beings to populate the world under the keep.”

“Now that I’ve seen it, I’m more inclined to believe your family’s tales,” he admitted. “But at least we no longer need to fear Olivier’s men attacking us from below.”

“So really, all we need to do is stay here, keep our heads down, and wait until help comes.” Catherine was satisfied to do that.

She didn’t see Edgar’s face as he said, “Yes, of course.”

“At least we don’t have to endure any more of those banquets,” Catherine prattled happily. “Agnes is putting us all on something close to Lenten rations.”

“Good, I was getting bilious from all that meat sauce,” Edgar said.

“I don’t think you understand,” Catherine teased. “That means stopping up the wine barrels, too.”

“Smart woman,” Edgar said sadly. “It will be needed. Don’t worry, I can live quite well on beer, even the way you French flavor it.”

“How shall we amuse ourselves, stuck in here for a week or more?” Catherine asked with lascivious intent.

Edgar wasn’t really listening to her. “I promised Seguin I’d see about the defense engines. The don’t even have a
brigola
in this place. I need to find Hermann. I know there were at least two at the castle in Trier. He can check my design. I’ll see you this evening,
carissima
.” He dropped a lopsided kiss on her forehead and went off in search of Agnes’s husband, Martin at his heels.

Catherine was left in the middle of the hall, purposeless again. She was about to return to the nursery, where at least she could be sure of a welcome, when Margaret beckoned to her frantically from the stairs. Catherine hurried up, glad to be wanted.

“Catherine,” Margaret said, when they met. “Please, please forgive me. Something awful has happened. I seem to have mislaid your mother.”

Out in the bailey, Edgar had found carpenters and the blacksmith. They all knew in principle what he wanted, but none of them had ever constructed a
brigola
before.

“Will it fit on the parapets?” one man asked. “The walkway isn’t that wide and you need to make the arm long enough to send the rock or whatever far enough.”

“How will we get it up there?” another worried. “The stairs twist too much for wood of any length.”

“We’ll bring it up the outside,” Edgar said.

“With arrows flying at our backs? Not likely.”

This came from a voice at the back. Several others murmured agreement.

“We’ll do as much as we can before Olivier arrives,” Edgar told them. “And the rest by night, if we have to. This is the best hope we have for protecting the houses between the village walls and the castle. Your homes, I believe.”

They showed more willingness after that. Edgar was soon assured that all the materials were available. He set the men to working immediately.

When they had scattered to their tasks, Edgar noticed that Hermann still appeared concerned.

“I know,” Edgar said to him in German. “It won’t be much if Olivier has a strong force. Do you think he’s wealthy enough to have serious siege engines?”

Hermann chewed his lip. “Even if he were, the hill is too steep for a belfry. They might try ladders, but we should be able to stop that. I’m worried about two things: fire and battering rams.”

“There’s still water enough to douse flaming missles,” Edgar argued. “And, as for the latter, the gates are strong and iron bound, even below, and the bailey has a moat around it.”

“Have you seen how the water level has gone down?” Hermann pointed out. “A man could wade it. It wouldn’t be hard to throw down some planks and push a battering ram across on wheels.”

“So, we get boiling oil to pour from the portcullis,” Edgar said.

“That would be a start.” Hermann did not sound convinced.

“Well, what would you have me do, man?” Edgar demanded. “Wait for the saints to save us, or for this Andonenn to emerge from her cave and drive the invaders out?”

Hermann smiled. “Of course not, good brother. We must do everything we can to defend ourselves. I only wish there were more we could do. I pray to the saints and the Virgin as much as any man, but in the end, who knows if he will be deemed worthy of divine aid?”

Sadly, Edgar agreed. He thought of all he loved in the world, now inside the keep. It seemed that God wouldn’t be so cruel as to let them come to harm. But he had lived long enough to know that God’s intentions and his didn’t always agree. It wasn’t enough to be good. After all, look what happened to Job.

So he set to work, doing the only thing he could to try to keep them safe.

Catherine was sure she had misheard.

“You mislaid her?” she asked Margaret. “But how? You two were left in a very small room.”

Margaret looked down at her shoes, embarrassed to meet Catherine’s face.

“Madeleine told me that when she was a girl, she had seen Andonenn. She said that she remembered the way to her home.”

“And you believed her?” Catherine asked. “You know she’s mad. She doesn’t even know her own children.”

“Yes.” Margaret looked at her. “But she’s much less confused when she talks about the past. She seemed so certain. So I took her to look for the way down. We didn’t go the way you and I did, but outside. Only once we got out there she became confused. Things were different and she couldn’t understand. I turned away for only a moment and she vanished!”

“Out in the bailey?” Catherine was incredulous. “How can that be? Someone must have seen where she went?”

“I asked everyone,” Margaret insisted. “They all said that they’d seen us come out, but no one noticed her after that.”

Catherine fought for calm. “Margaret, she can’t have vanished into the air.”

“I know.” Margaret was well into a state of panic. “But I looked everywhere. Catherine, I even got a stick and poked it into piles of hay.”

“Perhaps she slipped back into the keep,” Catherine suggested. “Have you checked the chapel or her room?”

“Yes, both of them,” Margaret said. “I just came from there. Oh, Catherine, what can we do? Your family is going to be so angry with me!”

“No, no,” Catherine said automatically. “We should be grateful to you for taking care of her so selflessly. If Agnes says one word, I’ll. . .Well I don’t know, but she’ll regret it.”

Margaret couldn’t help but smile at Catherine’s nursery behavior. It was only a flicker, though. The gravity of the situation quickly weighed her down again.

“What should we do?”

Catherine couldn’t be angry with her. She was so pathetically conscious of her failing. As if anyone could guess how a deranged woman would act. Margaret never should have been given such a responsibility. For one moment, Catherine was tempted to wait and see if anyone even missed Madeleine. She pushed the thought away in horror, but it lingered at the back of her mind, taunting her.

“We’ll have to tell the others,” she concluded. “Agnes and Guillaume should know and perhaps Seguin or Brehier or one of the others, who was a child here, might remember a hiding place she loved.”

Margaret’s shoulders sagged, but she nodded agreement.

“Where is everyone?” she asked.

“The men are in the village setting up traps in case Olivier’s army breaks through the lower walls,” Catherine said. “Agnes could be anywhere; she flits about so.”

“Is there anyone else who might have been here when Madeleine was a girl?” Margaret asked. “I can’t tell how old most of these people are, but there must be a servant who knew her then, don’t you think?”

“A servant? I don’t know.” Catherine thought. “But someone, yes. I met her a little while ago. Only I’m afraid she’s disappeared, too.”

Margaret sighed.

“People do seem to vanish here and then reappear when least expected,” she said. “I suspect that Boisvert is full of doorways into the world of fairies.”

“From what I’ve seen, there could be portals to Purgatory, or even an underground route to Rome.” Catherine was becoming as disgusted as Edgar with the enigma of the place. “No wonder people are pleased to have an army to fight.”

“No matter where she’s gone,” Margaret said, “we must find her.”

“I know.” Catherine squared her shoulders. “I’ll have to go down and tell Seguin. He may not want to spare people to search, but they were willing to do it for Aymon, so they’ll have to for Mother.”

“Aymon, I almost forgot him,” Margaret said. “How is he?”

“Samonie says he still lives but hasn’t wakened yet,” Catherine told her. “Marie thinks he might eventually. I hope he can tell us who attacked him. There’s a guard by him constantly. Seguin won’t take the chance that the murderer might want to finish the job.”

“If he wakes, he can tell us who killed his brother,” Margaret said. “Perhaps there should be two guards.”

“There were guards on Mandon at Vielleteneuse when she pretended to be dead,” Catherine mused. “She vanished from there and we know there are no tunnels under that keep. It’s practically marshland. I wonder if it’s a talent the women of Boisvert learn.”

“Or perhaps there’s a charm they recite to become invisible,” Margaret suggested.

“If so, it wasn’t passed down to me.”

Catherine went down to the village to find Seguin. Margaret insisted on accompanying her to take the blame if need be.

The houses had been stripped, even the shutters taken up to the castle. Unripe vegetables still grew in the gardens, but any bean that showed a hint of plumpness had been picked. Cows wandered the common pasture but pigs, goats, and fowl were all gone from their pens. A few dogs scavenged in the feeding troughs or growled at the many cats, which no one had tried to collect.

They found Seguin overseeing the digging of holes in the earthen road. Men had put stakes and sharp rocks at the bottom, covered the hole with mats, and then scattered dirt over the mats, hoping to hide them. On the narrow paths between the houses people were stringing trip wires and others were strewing caltrops amidst the refuse and straw. These would stick like a nail in the foot of both men and mounts.

Margaret and Catherine stepped more carefully after seeing this.

When they found Seguin and explained that Madeleine was missing, he immediately stopped what he was doing.

“Pagan,” he ordered. “Carry on with this. I’ll return as soon as I can.”

“Where were you when she vanished?” he asked Margaret as they climbed back up to the bailey.

“Between the storage sheds and the well house,” Margaret told him. “She said there was a way to reach Andonenn, but she wasn’t sure where it was.”

“Did you look in the well house?” Seguin asked, starting to run.

“Of course.” Margaret sprinted after him.

“Did you look
in
the well?”

Margaret stopped so abruptly that Catherine ran into her.

“She couldn’t have! There wasn’t time!” Margaret protested.

“I hope not.” Seguin ran over the drawbridge to the stone building that covered the well. The door was open.

“Did you leave it like this?” he asked Margaret.

“No, I’m sure it was closed,” she answered. “A woman yelled at me not to let the chickens in.”

“Dear Lord,” Seguin breathed. “Just as I feared.”

“No.” Catherine grabbed his shoulder. “What are you saying? Mother would never drown herself.”

“Not intentionally,” Seguin said. “But she was hunting for Andonenn. Don’t you see? This is the way to the source.”

Catherine felt cold all over. “This is nonsense. There are a hundred other places she could have gone.”