Read Online To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery by Sharan Newman - Free Book Online

fortress to the view below. He saw rivers cutting through dark forest and villages full of people who wished him and all like him swept from the earth. Then he thought of Catherine, who had risked so much for him and even more, of Margaret, the child he had promised to protect.
    “Everything you say is true, Mina,” His voice was soft. “But out there, amidst all those who hate me are also the people I love most. I leave for Paris tomorrow.”
     
    In Paris, Catherine could only spare a few minutes a day to be anxious about Solomon, although she did it then with great intensity. Margaret worried enough for her. Every time they heard someone at the door, her face would turn in expectation and then fall when she saw that it wasn’t he.
    “She loves him as a daughter,” Catherine told herself, watching the disappointed slump of the girl’s shoulders. “Or a favorite niece. Nothing more.”
    But the sadness in Margaret’s eyes when no word came and Solomon failed to appear made Catherine extremely uneasy.
    It was almost a relief to be forced to study the problem of the body in the counting room.
    “How can we be expected to find out who killed him if we don’t even know who he was?” Catherine said in exasperation. “I’ve spoken
to all the neighbors and no one will admit to having seen or heard anything. They probably didn’t. Carts come and go all the time on the Grève. I don’t know where to go from here!”
    Edgar blew a strand of hair from his face. His hand was occupied with trying to set up his vises again so that he could resume work. He might now be a merchant by trade, but if he couldn’t turn the images in his mind into carved toys, boxes and inlaid jewelry, he would go mad. In Scotland, his family had been ashamed of his fascination with crafting objects. It was unworthy of his birth. But so was trading. If he had given up his place for Catherine’s sake, it also freed him to enjoy the work he loved best.
    “As soon as I’m finished here, I’ll go to the Île,” he promised. “There should be someone around Nôtre Dame from the old days who can tell me the news.”
    “But only about who is debating whom on the nature of the Trinity and which of the Masters is most popular now,” Catherine reminded him. “No one there will care about the death of a Knight of the Temple. Half the scholars we know don’t think they should even have been given permission to form an Order in the first place. Only Abbot Bernard’s support could give them respectability.”
    “Well, the idea of a monk who wields a sword does seem a contradiction,” Edgar answered. “But there are worldly men among the secular clerics. The canons of Nôtre Dame, for instance, keep abreast of events in town. I wish I knew if John were in Paris. He usually knows everything that’s happening.”
    “The pope is still here in Paris,” Catherine said. “Isn’t John attached in some way to the papal court?”
    “No, the last I heard, he was at Celle acting as secretary to the abbot, but he’s applying for a place in the curia of the Archbishop of Canterbury.” Edgar grunted as he tried to tighten the vise to the table. “I never could see him as a monk. I suppose Master Adam might know where he is or …”
    “Edgar, we could speculate all day.” Catherine was becoming testy. It was hard to watch him struggle with the tools. She longed to help him, but he hated that. He let the children hold things for him, but not her.
    He finally managed to attach the vise.
    “You want me to go now?” he asked.
    “Yes,” she urged. “Tomorrow the house will be full with Marie and Guillaume bringing their four and our two. Tonight is our best chance to have a quiet discussion with a guest.”
    “Ah, you want me to find an informant and bring him home to dine with us,” Edgar said.
    “Well, of course!” Catherine nearly pushed him out the door. “Don’t come home alone!”
    After he had gone, Catherine went over to the worktable.