The Wandering Arm Read Online Free PDF

garnet in the foot is set into the filigree. The silver wire is almost as thin as a strand of hair.”
    Baruch kept his eyes on the cheese he was cutting. “Lovely, no doubt,” he grunted. “Although either of my apprentices could do better. But a pig in silk is still a pig. And no less forbidden for all its fine wrapping.”
    Hubert nodded. In his heart, he agreed. He chewed thoughtfully awhile; then something occurred to him.
    “Solomon,” he asked, “did anyone see you with this thing? Could the man you took it from recognize you again?”
    “The only one who saw me was the guard at the west gate, Maro, I think he’s called. He asked me no questions about the bag. As for the thief I stole this from, I never got a good look at his face and I doubt he saw mine. I’d know his voice again, though.”
    “Are you quite sure he was a thief?” Hubert prodded.
    Solomon squirmed on his bench. “Nearly certain,” he said. “He didn’t have the air of a man protecting his own property, but of one who feared being caught in a crime.”
    Hubert shook his head. “All the same, I wish you’d left it on the road for the first traveler of the day to pick up.”
    “Perhaps I should have let the mescrûus caiel throw me into the Croult, bash my head in and add my purse to his collection,” Solomon suggested angrily. “Or I could have taken it to Natan, instead. He would have pried out the jewels and melted the gold into bars before dawn and asked no questions.”
    “And slit your throat to be sure you gave no answers!” Hubert answered. “Don’t be a fool, Solomon.”
    “Dayenu!” Baruch raised his hands, palms out. “Enough of this arguing. Forgive my bad temper, Solomon. You acted just as anyone might, meeting a stranger alone in the dark. I was wrong to chastise you. Hubert will take the chalice away with him and we will never speak of it again.”
    Hubert wrapped the golden cup in an old sack and shoved it to the bottom of his pack. He wished he had any confidence that the matter could be disposed of so easily. It was tempting to consider taking the chalice apart and creating something else from it, something secular. Thieves did it all the time. He was probably a fool for taking it to the prior. A chalice this elaborate didn’t come from some village parish church. Somewhere there were powerful people who wanted it back—influential churchmen or robber barons or both, working together. Hubert sighed and thought fleetingly of a little house in Aries where he could sit all day and study the Law. Then he forced his attention back to reality, hefted the bag to his shoulder and set off for the abbey.

    The morning was icy. It was so cold that even the light seemed to creak as it forced its way through the slits in the windows of the women’s room.
    Catherine lay beneath a mound of coverlets and furs, but she was still freezing. And there was a numb frost that lay in her heart and seeped through her body, worse than the harshness of winter.
    Both of them could have been warmed by having Edgar lying beside her.
    That stupid woman! Did she think there was only one reason for her husband to want to share her bed? She remembered all the nights they had lain together, holding each other and whispering nonsense, laughing sometimes so loudly that a boot would bounce against the bed curtains, reminding them that others in the hall wanted to sleep.
    And now, when she needed him most, they had shut her up in a place almost as restricted as the convent, only allowing him to visit for a few minutes. They didn’t want him to worry her, they said. Idiots, every one of them! What about his worry, his grief? Didn’t they have the right to mourn together?
    Catherine?
    She opened her eyes. She didn’t look around for the person who had spoken. All the other women and children were asleep. Catherine sighed. She had never been sure if the voices in her mind were angels or demons, conscience or madness, or just the memory of all the