Heresy A Catherine Levendeur Mystery

The black mud of the streets of Paris had become black ice. The few people insane enough to be out slipped and tripped as they made their way down the slick paths. The ice was doubly dangerous because of the hard chunks of the normal street detritus frozen into it: straw, excrement, rats half chewed by dogs, bits of broken crockery. The dung collectors couldn't be bothered to chisel out most of the leavings and were concentrating instead on the open spaces in front of the bishop's palace and the Greve, where the peddlers set up their stalls and would pay extra to have the ground cleared. So amidst the hard chunks there were also occasional steaming piles. The oaths of those who slid into these could be heard ringing through the crisp afternoon air. The beggars had left the streets and were huddled in the church porches, praying for soup and beer. Even thieves were scarce, having taken their business to the warmth of the taverns. Catherine stepped carefully through all this in her high wooden sabots, mindful of the fact that she was once again pregnant and that her balance wasn't that good even in her normal state. The wind funneled down the narrow street, catching at her cloak. She pulled it around herself more tightly, her basket of dried fish and herbs tipping as she did so. She snatched at it to prevent everything falling and barely escaped falling herself. It was the coldest winter in her memory. The weather of the past few years had been dismal, too cold in the summer and damp with many crops failing. Now famine was all around them and illness rampant as people weak with hunger found they had no strength to survive the winter agues. Added to everything else, the news from the king's expedition to the Holy Land was bad. The army had left in the early summer of 1147, blessed by the pope and Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux. Swords and armor shining, banners waving, King Louis and Queen Eleanor had led an army of pilgrims to free the city of Edessa from the Moslem invaders. Along with them had gone half the lords of France, Burgundy, Champagne, Flanders and Lotharingia. They were supposed to have met up along the way with Conrad, emperor of the Germans, and his army. But almost from the first, things had gone awry. The Germans and French had argued with each other and among themselves. The emperor in Constantinople hadn't welcomed them as expected, and Christian towns had been pillaged on the route. One lord had even ordered the burning of a monastery in retaliation for the murder of one of his soldiers by local townspeople. Then, last fall, there had been an eclipse of the sun. There were many who feared it was a sign that the expedition to the East was also to be eclipsed by the powerful Seljuk Turks. But the thing that angered those in France the most was the way King Louis kept sending back for more money. Hadn't he taxed them enough to finance the journey? Didn't he know how bad things were in his own country? What business had an anointed king leaving his land in the first place? Catherine worried about all these things as she made her way back to her home. It seemed to her that ever since this expedition had first been preached, life in France had worsened. She wasn't the only one who was starting to believe that God wasn't happy with the Christian King Louis or his people. When she arrived at the gate of her house, Catherine felt a deep relief. However dreadful things were outside, she knew that within there was love and warmth and peace. Peace, of course, could be defined according to many criteria. As she entered, Catherine deducted "tranquility" from the definition. The great hall where they ate, worked, played and fought was currently being used for all these activities. Her six-year-old son, James, was chasing the dog around the room. Or perhaps, Catherine reconsidered,Newman, Sharan is the author of 'Heresy A Catherine Levendeur Mystery', published 2007 under ISBN 9780765354686 and ISBN 0765354683.