The Witch in the Well: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery Read online

  “Will you need more, my lady?” she asked Marie.

  “I don’t think so,” Marie answered. “She doesn’t seem to have any cuts or broken bones.”

  She looked at Samonie in amazement, not believing her own words.

  “How can this be?”

  “Perhaps Lord Guillaume was able to avoid her, after all,” Samonie suggested. “And she fainted from terror.”

  Marie shook her head. “No, that’s impossible. I saw the hoof marks on her cloak when she was carried in. They tore through the fabric.”

  She felt again all over the body of the unconscious woman. “Nothing. Not even swelling. There must at least be some terrible bruises.” She raised her voice. “Where is the girl with the candles?”

  “I’m coming, Mother!”

  Evaine entered the hall, carefully balancing a pair of candle-holders.

  “There was no fire inside so we had to go to the storeroom for the candles and then to the kitchens to light them. I’m sorry it took so long.”

  “Thank you, ma douz,” Marie said. “Give one to Samonie and the other to Catherine. Now, you two, hold them up so that I can see her better.”

  Catherine hurried over to do her part. The candles tilted as she took the holder, causing the hot wax to drip onto her fingers.

  “Ouch,” she said absently, trying to look over Marie’s shoulder. Samonie had the better view from the other side of the bed.

  After a moment, she noticed that Evaine was still there. Catherine smiled down at her niece.

  “It was good of you to bring the candles,” she told the child. “Don’t worry, your mother doesn’t think the woman is that badly hurt after all.”

  Evaine smiled. “Oh, I’m so glad. I was praying for her all the way up the staircase. Who is she?”

  “We don’t know,” Catherine answered. “She’ll have to tell us when she wakes up.”

  Marie overheard this. “Evaine dear,” she said quietly. “Perhaps you should go find your father and ask if he can come here a moment.”

  Even in the dim light, Catherine could see Evaine’s blush. “He went down to the pond with other men to wash, Mama. You told me not to. . .”

  “Yes, I did,” Marie answered hastily. “Then could you go to the doorway and watch for Father Anselm? He should be here soon.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Evaine gave a sigh and went to sit on the top step until the priest came.

  Marie waited until she had gone before uncovering the old woman’s body. Catherine bent closer, careful not to tip the candles again. “Oh, dear Virgin!” she gasped.

  In the middle of the woman’s stomach was the deep black print of a horse’s hoof. The bruise radiated out from it, an ugly purple. The stain was still spreading across her skin.

  “She must have landed directly beneath the horse.” Samonie shook her head. “I don’t see how her back didn’t break.”

  “Will she survive?” Catherine asked.

  “I doubt it,” Marie said. “We can try leeches, if any can be found in this weather, to draw out the excess blood, but that’s the only treatment I know of for such things.”

  “I think the damage is too great,” Samonie added. “The blow must have crushed her stomach and bowels. I hope Father Anselm hurries.”

  “Do you think she’ll wake?” Catherine stared in horror at the enormous angry discoloration that now covered the woman’s stomach from her withered breasts to her sparse white private hair. She wished Marie would cover the poor thing.

  “I hope not,” Marie answered. “Her pain would be horrible. I should have a numbing draught ready, though, in case she does.” At last she pulled a sheet over the woman’s nakedness. “Catherine, will you sit here with her while Samonie mixes the draught? I must go see what preparations are being made to feed the household.”

  Reluctantly, Catherine agreed.

  Except for an occasional person passing through, the Great Hall behind her was deserted. From outside Catherine could hear the servants calling to one another as they set up tables and benches in the bailey for dinner that evening. She knew the moment when the men came back from the pool by the increase in masculine laughter. It seemed that the hunting party had recovered from the shock of the accident. It was only when she heard the deep, distinctive bark of James’s dog, Dragon, that she realized that her son must have gone bathing with them. That would undoubtedly mean a number of new phrases for her to try toexplain.

  The noise was muffled by the thick stone walls that made the scorching heat bearable. The candles flickered by the bed, their light blending with the green from the window, causing it to appear as if the woman were lying under a willow tree, thin branches passing over her face in the wind. She didn’t seem to be suffering. Catherine murmured a prayer for her comfort and that of her soul. She dipped the end of one of the cloths in the basin and started to moisten the woman’s face.

  Suddenly her wrist was caught and held in an iron grip that pulled her down, almost against the woman’s face. She grabbed at the arm with her free hand, dropping the cloth.

  The woman’s eyes snapped open.

  Catherine inhaled to scream, but only a squeak emerged. Instead of the rheumy, pale eyes of age, what glared at her were a pair of glittering bright orbs, black as polished onyx.

  “Wha. . .wha. . . wha?” Catherine forced out.

  She tried again to pull free, but now those eyes held her more powerfully than the hand about her wrist.

  The old woman forced Catherine’s face closer to hers. She opened her mouth.

  “The water,” she croaked.

  “Water, yes. I have water here.” Catherine twisted to reach the pitcher.

  The hand jerked her back.

  “Water,” the woman said again.“They have dammed the spring. Monsters! The evil is coming for all Andonenn’s children. You must save her! Save her before the well is empty!”

  “What? Who?” Catherine wasn’t warm now, but freezing. This wasn’t a human being lying on the bed, but some incubus, a servant of the devil. “Domine!” she prayed. “Misereatur mei, dimissis pecatis meis, perducat me ad vitam eternam.”

  “Stop babbling and listen!” The woman’s voice was fainter now but the intensity remained. “You must release her or she will die and all her children with her.”

  “But who?” Catherine cried. “I don’t understand! Who will die?”

  The hard fingers relaxed their hold on her. The woman’s terrifying eyes lost their focus and began to close.

  “Please!” Catherine begged. “Tell me, who must I save?”

  The voice was no more than a leaf on the breeze now, a long, long exhalation that took the spirit of the woman with it.

  A moment later, Catherine straightened. The woman was still in death. Catherine couldn’t believe she had made out those last words.

  “Your mother, Catherine,” the old woman had gasped. “You must save your mother.”

  Two

  The keep at Vielleteneuse: Later that day.

  . . . si vit une peucele

  Vestue d’une purpre bise

  E d’une mut bele chemise. . .

  A une fontenine veneit

  Ke suz un grant arbre surdeit.

  . . . he saw a maiden

  Clothed in a purple coth

  And a most beautiful gown. . .

  She went to a fountain

  That gushed from under a huge tree.

  —Lai de Désiré, II. 134–136, 141–142

  I don’t understand why you don’t believe me!” Catherine said for the hundredth time. “Why should I lie about such a thing?”

  “Catherine,” Marie’s voice was edged with the effort to remain patient. “I’m only saying that it’s unlikely that the woman could have roused before she died, much less been able to speak, with her stomach crushed like that. Perhaps you were dozing. Dreams so close to the surface of waking can often seem real.”

  “Marie, I was not dreaming!” Catherine circled the small tower room, her feet c
rushing the brittle straw and dried herbs strewn over the floor. The scented dust tickled her nose.

  Marie coughed and motioned for Catherine to sit down again.

  “Very well,” she said. “Then what else could it have been? A vision? A visitation? Why? From what you’ve said, this woman told you that you have to save your mother before the well goes dry. Are you sure that’s what you heard? It makes no sense to me.”

  Catherine rubbed her forehead. “Something of that sort. She talked about a spring, I think. Perhaps not a well. I was so startled that I didn’t hear it completely.”

  “Exactly!” Marie leapt on this. “So even if she did wake for a moment before she died, she might have been babbling. You are trying to create sense where there is none.”

  Catherine remained unconvinced. Marie got up and went to the window, hoping it would be cooler there. The evening sun was still hot enough to cause dry hay to smolder. The walls in the keep below were sweating as heavily as the people. This heat even pulled water from stone. Finding no relief, Marie turned to face Catherine.

  “I can’t believe you’re giving any credence to this,” she said. “You’re the one who always tells me to think logically. On top of the fact that the poor thing was a hair from death when they brought her in, and could hardly have said anything coherent, there are many reasons why none of what you thought you heard makes sense. First of all,” she held up her thumb. “What danger could your mother be in? She is quite safe in the convent. She’s being well cared for. We received a message not six months ago saying that she’s much better. She’s become tranquil there, even content. She now believes that you and your brothers and sister are still small. She talks to you all the time.”

  Catherine bit her lip. Marie continued.

  “Second,” she held up her first finger. “A dream about a well that fails is natural at this time of year. Everything is drying up. We pray constantly for rain. The weather is making everyone light-headed. Why can’t you admit that this is what happened to you?”

  Catherine shook her head. “You don’t understand. It wasn’t like a dream or a fantasia. It was terribly real. And Marie, if the woman was delirious, then how did she know my name?”

  “Catherine!” Marie threw up her arms in exasperation. “If she actually woke and if she said anything clearly, then why wouldn’t she use your name? She may not have really been unconscious when we were fussing over her. Then she would have heard me tell you to stay with her. Now, isn’t that a better explanation than yours?”

  Reluctantly, Catherine agreed. Marie knew that common sense could shake Catherine, no matter what she thought she had seen. It was one of her more endearing faults. Catherine sighed as she got up and dusted off the back of her skirts.

  “I suppose it’s just as well I’ve said nothing to Guillaume about it,” she said. “My brother has less tolerance than you for such things.”

  “Well, I’m only sorry that you told Father Anselm,” Marie answered. “Now he’s all a dither about whether this woman can be buried in the churchyard. The villagers don’t want the people who died with their sins forgiven to resent having a sorceress buried among them. They fear that the dead will try to throw her out of her grave.”

  That made Catherine laugh. “I’ll speak to him,” she promised. “I’m sure we can arrange something.”

  “Do it now,” Marie added when Catherine didn’t move. “Even in the cellars, her corpse is ripening by the minute.”

  Catherine went down the winding stairs to the chapel, hoping that Father Anselm was taking his afternoon nap on the cool stone floor, as was his custom in the summer. But the little room was empty. She was turning to leave when she heard a scuffling noise coming from the direction of the altar.

  “Father?” she said.

  The noise stopped.

  Curious, Catherine came a few steps closer. There was something sticking out from behind the stone table. Something pale against the dark wall.

  “Hello?” she said.

  All at once she realized what she was looking at. Two pairs of feet, one mirroring the other.

  “Oh!” She backed toward the door. “I beg your pardon.”

  Catherine hurried on down to the hall, trying not to laugh. A few years ago she would have been shocked and embarrassed. Ten years of marriage had changed that. Now she only felt a touch of envy coupled with the wish that Edgar would return home soon. She was glad she hadn’t seen who it was, however. She had no interest in overseeing other people’s morals. That was what the priest was for, after all.

  The thought crossed her mind that one of the pair might have been Father Anselm, himself. That was an unpleasant image! So when she reached the bottom of the stairs and found the priest at the middle of a group of angry people, her expression was more cheerful than the situation called for.

  “Catherine!” The priest greeted her with relief. “You’ve read the Fathers of the Church. Tell them that it’s wrong to bury the poor woman in unconsecrated ground unless we are certain that she died in mortal sin.”

  “Well,” Catherine hedged. “I haven’t read all the Fathers. I know that Tertullian said that we should always assure the poor a decent burial.”

  “But not the damned!” a woman from the town broke in. “I don’t want a wicked old woman sharing the same land with my father and my children.”

  “But what if she wasn’t wicked?” The priest was clearly teetering on a theological precipice.

  Catherine felt she had to throw him a rope.

  “Shall I ask my brother if she can be put in our private cemetery?” she asked. “My own first child, baptized as she was born and died, lies there.”

  Anselm gave her a look of intense thankfulness. “Oh, yes, please do!” he said. “And, if it turns out that she was excommunicant, we can always dig her up and move her.”

  All eyes turned to Catherine for confirmation.

  “Certainly,” she told them. “They do that all the time, even to popes.”

  “Excellent.” Anselm waved the townspeople away. “Should I plan a Mass for her? Prayers at the graveside?”

  “Guillaume will have to decide that.” Catherine backed away. “Or Marie. I’ll tell them. Perhaps we could all recite Psalm Forty-two at evening prayers tonight?”

  “Quite appropriate,” Anselm beamed. “Thank you, Lady Catherine. When should we bury her?”

  Catherine inhaled. The air was rank enough with the smell of the living.

  “As soon as a grave can be dug,” she announced. “Guillaume will agree with me, I’m sure. I’ll go tell him now.”

  Her brother gave a grimace when Catherine told him what arrangements she had made, but he didn’t protest.

  “I’ll set some men to digging when the sun is lower,” he said. “Marie is rummaging through the stores for the last of the smoked meat to feed all these people tonight. I asked her what we were expected to eat this winter. Do you know what she told me?”

  “That you’d better start bringing down deer and wild boar?” Catherine guessed.

  “Humph,” Guillaume snorted. “If we don’t get rain soon, there’ll be no bread to go with the meat, supposing we shoot any.”

  Catherine suddenly realized how worn her brother looked. He hadn’t changed from his hunting leathers yet. His body was streaked with sweat and grime. His face was as tanned as his tunic and there were fine lines around his eyes. There were streaks of gray in his dark brown beard, although he was only thirty-four, five years older than Catherine. She often felt the burden of caring for her husband and children. Guillaume had a whole town to protect and the abbot of Saint-Denis to answer to if he failed.

  The dinner that evening was sparse, but adequate. It was too hot for most people to have any appetite. Catherine spotted James and his cousin finishing off a tray of honey cakes. She signaled to Marie’s oldest daughter, the long-suffering Evaine, to take the tray away from them, but from the smears on their hands and faces, Catherine predicted there would be two littl
e boys with stomachaches hanging over the chamber pots before morning. It might be wise to prepare an emetic now.

  The morning came all too soon, the sun striking leaves already curled and brown with thirst. The tolling of the chapel bell reminded everyone that there would be a funeral Mass before anyone could break their fast. For once Catherine was glad that Father Anselm tended to omit large parts of the text.

  They had just raced past the elevation of the Host when there was a shriek of terror from just below the window.

  “I told you!” The sound was shrill, yet Catherine thought the speaker was a man. “Didn’t I say she wasn’t human? Didn’t I?”

  Guillaume signaled the priest to continue. Then he jerked his head toward two of his knights to go down and find out what was wrong.

  They returned swiftly. Marie turned her head as they went over to Guillaume and spoke in low urgent voices.

  “Attend, my lady!” Father Anselm said in panic as she knocked against the chalice. “You might have spilled the Sacred Blood.”

  Marie went white with horror and took a timid sip of the proffered cup. She blessed herself quickly and returned to her place.

  “What is happening?” she whispered to Catherine.

  Catherine shook her head. “I can’t hear them. Something about the woman’s body.”

  “Oh, I hope it hasn’t exploded,” Marie murmured.

  Catherine gave her a look of consternation.

  “It happened once when I was a child,” Marie spoke close to her ear. “In a summer like this. You can’t imagine what the smell was like.”

  Catherine could, but tried not to.

  The Mass ended rapidly and Father Anselm paused to catch his breath.

  Guillaume approached the altar and turned to face the household.

  “It seems that the burial will have to be delayed.” He spoke through teeth clenched in anger. “The woman’s body is no longer in the cellar.”

  The small chapel emptied in an instant as everyone rushed to see.