Free To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery by Sharan Newman

that.”
    “But these people have destroyed property!” Catherine exclaimed. “Despoiled churches! Are they so dangerous that the knights of Brittany fear to attack them?”
    “I don’t know,” Astrolabe nearly shouted his frustration. “It makes no sense to me. I saw no warriors among the throng that follow this man, only poor, half-starved peasants. But, since no one seems able to stop them, I’ve come to Paris to ask the pope to send a legate to force the barons of Brittany to do their duty.”
    “Do you think this bizarre heresy might spread?” Maurice asked.
    “If no one counters it, why not?” Astrolabe answered. “The harvest has been bad the past two years, and there’s been too much rain this spring. People are hungry and desperate. Eon gives them a fantasy of some sort, an illusion of prosperity. And, perhaps he is in league with demons who have clouded the minds of those who should speak out against him.”
    They all considered this. It seemed the only plausible answer.
    “I wish we could blame the body in the counting room on demons.” Catherine sighed.
    “You have a body in your house?” Astrolabe and Maurice both blessed themselves hurriedly.
    “Not anymore,” Edgar hastened to assure them.
    He explained what had happened. Both men were as puzzled as Catherine and Edgar.
    “But if the Knights of the Temple have claimed him, it’s their problem now,” Maurice said.
    “I wish I could believe that,” Edgar answered. “Master Evrard told us that we might be of some help to him. I translate that as meaning he thinks we know more than we do.”
    “Anyway,” Catherine added, “it’s our house that’s been desecrated by this. I want to know who did it and why.”
    “Of course you do, Catherine.” Astrolabe grinned at her. “You never could pass up a puzzle.”
    “I know.” Catherine bit her lip, thinking. Then she got up and went to the kitchen to ask Samonie to have the bread brought out and the soup poured into it.
    It wasn’t just the unwelcome homecoming they had received that bothered her. That was certainly upsetting. She knew she’d be scrubbing that room for months. It was more everything around them. The whole world was unsettled. People were leaving for an expedition to the Holy Land knowing no more than that they should face the east, relying on faith to get them there and back safely. Others were turning completely from all they had been taught, believing instead in new gods invented by deluded fools. Starvation threatened all around them from the barren fields and ignorant preachers were there to addle the minds of those already weakened by hunger. Bands of ruffians were attacking Jews and forcing them to baptism or death. And her own father had turned his back on the true faith, leaving his family behind. The order of the universe had been rearranged.
    Perhaps these are the end times, she thought. The world is preparing to be swept clean for the coming of Christ.
    The idea made her shiver, and she scolded herself for falling prey to melancholia again.
    “A good dose of valerian and chamomile before bed,” she said. “That will do it.”
    “Do what?” Samonie stopped hacking a trough in the bread.
    “Nothing,” Catherine answered. “Here, I’ll take the soup pot. Has Margaret gone up already?”
    “Yes, and she hardly ate anything,” Samonie answered. “Is the poor girl ill?”
    “Just tired, I imagine,” Catherine said absently.
    She wrapped two kitchen cloths around her hands and lifted the pot, then walked carefully back into the hall, where Martin had set up a small table for the four of them.
    The three men were laughing about something when she returned. Martin leaped forward to take the pot from her, and Catherine came and sat beside Edgar.
    Her sense of foreboding vanished in the comfort of old friends. They told stories of the foibles of the masters of Paris, the debates and
the legends of students now grown into bishops. It reminded Catherine of