Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1)
Read Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Juliette Benzoni
CATHERINE:
ONE LOVE IS ENOUGH
Juliette Benzoni
Catherine Series No. 1
This edition published in 2015 by Telos Moonrise: Romantic Encounters
(An imprint of Telos Publishing)
5A Church Road, Shortlands, Bromley, Kent BR2 0HP, UK
Catherine: One Love is Enough
© 1963, 2015 Juliette Benzoni
Original title:
It Suffit d’un Amour – Book One
Cover Art © 2015 Martin Baines
Cover Design: David J Howe
ISBN: 978-1-84583-905-5
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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This edition dedicated to Linda Compagnoni Walther
CONTENTS
Chapter 2: Barnaby the Cockleshell Man
PART 1: THE ROAD FROM FLANDERS, 1422
Chapter 3: The Procession of the Precious Blood
PART 2: THE GUARDIAN OF THE TREASURE
, 1422-1423
Chapter 6: The Tavern of Jacquot-de-la-Mer
Chapter 7: Mother of a Royal Favourite
Chapter 9: The Philosophy of Abou-al-Khayr
Chapter 10: Arnaud de Montsalvy
Chapter 12: Under a Blue Silk Roof
The Prisoner
Twenty strong men shouldered the battering-ram, a huge oak beam they had taken from a timber-yard nearby. They would fall back a few paces with it, then rush forward and hurl it with all their might against the ironclad gate. The gate reverberated under these assaults like a gigantic drum, the men’s own grunted exclamations providing a sort of rhythmical counterpoint. Urged on by the fury of the watching mob, the men redoubled their efforts, and soon the palace gate was creaking and groaning under the strain. One crack was already visible, despite the heavy, twisted iron bars reinforcing the doors.
The gate consisted of high double doors of solid oak surmounted by a pointed stone arch, guarded by two stone angels kneeling, hands folded, on either side of the French royal arms, its golden lilies on a field of azure gleaming softly in the April sunlight. Higher up still, beyond the crenellated walls where archers of the royal guard took aim at the mob, the rooftops and high gables of the Palace of Saint-Pol traced their flamboyant, fantastic outlines against the sky, and great embroidered silken banners waved amid the treetops. Up there reigned the softness of a summer’s day; hot sunlight flashed from painted walls as gaudy as the pages of an illuminated prayer-book; a flight of swallows sped by … Down below, blood flowed and fury mounted, while the dust, scuffled by hundreds of feet, rose in choking clouds.
An arrow whistled past. Close to where Landry and Catherine stood, a man fell heavily, his throat pierced, the hideous scream he uttered abruptly changing to a strange, gargling noise. The young girl hastily covered her face with her hands and moved closer to Landry, whose arm tightened protectively about her shoulders.
‘Don’t look,’ Landry advised her. ‘Poor little thing. I should never have brought you with me. That certainly won’t be the last death you will see today.’
They were both perched on a stone bench that stood conveniently near the mouth of a dark, damp, winding alley between a tailor’s booth and an apothecary’s shop, now heavily padlocked. From this perch they could see everything, and they watched each charge of the battering-ram with mounting excitement. Then, quite suddenly, the palace archers began shooting in a sort of frenzy. A deadly hail of arrows and heavier arbalest shafts rained down on the mob, ploughing great gaps in their ranks, which almost as quickly filled up again. Wisely, Landry made Catherine get down off the bench, and the two of them mingled with the crowd in search of a spot out of range of the arrows.
Their weariness was beginning to tell on them both. They had taken advantage of their parents’ absence to leave their homes on the Pont-au-Change very early that morning. Their parents themselves, caught up by the fever of excitement that had been raging throughout Paris during the past 24 hours, had all gone off in different directions: one to the House of Pillars, another to help a neighbour in childbirth, and another to report to the town militia. Neither Landry nor Catherine recognised their familiar Paris in this explosive city where a thoughtless word or stray song might provoke a bloodbath at the next corner.
Their everyday world was the Pont-au-Change bridge, a narrow, busy thoroughfare lined with old houses with pointed roofs, which linked the palace with the Grand Châtelet. Gaucher Legoix, Catherine’s father, was a goldsmith whose shop was known by the Sign of the Holy Tabernacle above the door. Denis Pigasse, Landry’s father, was also a metalworker, and their two shops stood next door to each other, opposite the booths of the Norman and Lombard moneylenders lining the other side of the bridge.
Till now Catherine, on her expeditions with Landry, had never left the Notre-Dame district, with its network of sinister alleys round the great slaughterhouse. She had never ventured past the drawbridges that led to the Louvre. Landry, on the other hand, being 15, had been able to get to know much more about the town’s less reputable neighbourhoods, and by now every corner of Paris was as familiar to him as the back of his hand. It had been his idea to take his little friend along to the Palais de St Pol that Friday morning, 27 April 1413.
‘Come along with me,’ he had urged her. ‘Caboche has threatened to break into the palace today and arrest the Dauphin’s wicked counsellors. We’ll just follow him in and then we’ll be able to look round the place at our leisure.’
Caboche, otherwise known as Simon the Skinner, was employed to skin carcasses at the slaughterhouse. The son of a tripe-seller in Notre-Dame market, he was the man who had single-handedly aroused the people of Paris to revolt against the illusory power of the mad king, Charles VI, and the real and ominous strength of Isabeau of Bavaria.
The French kingdom was indeed in a sorry state. The King was mad, the Queen reckless and depraved, and the country itself, since the murder of the Duke d’Orlèans six years earlier by Jean-sans-Peur, Duke of Burgundy, given over to wild anarchy. Heedless of the ever-present English threat, the supporters of those two princes, Armagnacs on one hand and Burgundians on the other, waged a pitiless campaign against each other up and down France, pillaging and devastating the countryside unopposed.
The Armagnacs had now surrounded Paris. Within the besieged city the townspeople proclaimed their undying loyalty to that dangerous demagogue Jean-sans-Peur. It was he, aided by the powerful Butchers’ Guild, who had stirred up the present riots and troubles. Nominally power was in the hands of the 16-year-old Dauphin, Louis de Guyenne, but events had clearly got out of control. In reality, the King of Paris was Caboche the Skinner, seconded by Pierre Cauchon, the Rector of the turbulent University.
Caboche and Cauchon were both to be seen in the forefront of the mob attacking the royal palace. Caboche stood near where some burly butchers’ apprentices, still wearing their bloodstained leather aprons, kept watch over the palace guards, whom they had taken and trussed like game birds ready for the spit. From there he bellowed his commands, timing the wild charges of the battering-ram.
As Landry dragged her along in search of a place where they could observe events out of the range of flying arrows, Catherine could see Caboche’s impressive bulk looming above the press of bobbing heads. His green tunic, sewn with the Burgundian emblem, the white cross of St Andrew, strained across his mighty shoulders. His face, sweating and swollen with fury, shone bright scarlet. In one hand he held the white banner emblematic of Paris and waved it furiously.
‘Harder!’ he roared. ‘Swing the thing harder! Smash this maggots’ nest for me. God’s death, harder still! It is cracking already!’
As he spoke, a shattering crash from the gate indicated that it was about to give way. The men summoned up all their strength and staggered farther back into the crowd so as to work up greater speed as they hurled themselves forward again. Landry just had time to push Catherine behind a chapel buttress to prevent her being trampled by the crowd as it was forced back against the wall. She ducked obediently, hypnotised by the Skinner, whose commands had now reached such a frenzied pitch that they were unintelligible. She saw him suddenly tear open his tunic, revealing bulging muscle covered with reddish hair, then push up his sleeves and drive the banner-staff deep into the ground before leaping forward and seizing the head of the battering-ram.
‘Forward!’ he bellowed. ‘Forward, and may the blessing of Monseigneur St Jacques go with you!’
‘Hurrah for Monseigneur St Jacques! Hurrah for the Butchers’ Guild!’ shouted Landry in an excess of excitement.
Catherine looked at him angrily. ‘If you go on shouting hurrah for Caboche, I shall go home and leave you!’
‘But why?’ Landry asked in genuine amazement. ‘He is a great man.’
‘He isn’t. He’s a brute. My father hates him. And so does my sister Loyse, whom he wants to marry. He scares me to death. He’s so ugly!’
‘Ugly?’ Landry’s eyes widened. ‘What difference does that make? You don’t have to be handsome to be a great man. I think Caboche is a hero.’
The young girl stamped her foot angrily.
‘Well, I don’t! And if you had seen him at our house last night, shouting at my father and threatening him, you wouldn’t either.’
‘But why should he threaten Maître Legoix?’
Instinctively, though the din around them was tremendous and no-one around was likely to pay any attention, Landry lowered his voice. Catherine did likewise. In a whisper she described how, the evening before, Caboche had paid them a visit, accompanied by Pierre Cauchon and their cousin Guillaume Legoix, a rich butcher from the Rue de l’Enfer.
The three rebel leaders had crossed Gaucher Legoix’s threshold with one thought in mind: to gain his support for their movement. As an officer in the Paris civil militia, with fifty men under his command, Gaucher ranked among the most respected civic leaders: one, too, whose views were sure of a respectful hearing. This may have been because he was a gentle, peaceable sort of man who abhorred violence of any description. Though far from being a physical coward, he would faint at the mere sight of blood.
This physical horror of blood explained why this butcher’s son should have left the Guild, and the family home, in order to apprentice himself to Maître André d’Épernon, the celebrated goldsmith. He had thus at one stroke severed his ties with the whole Legoix family, who had no patience with such squeamishness.
Little by little, Gaucher’s skill had brought ease and comfort to his house on the Pont-au-Change. Beautifully wrought and chased covers for gospel books, ornamental plates, sword and dagger scabbards, massive salt-cellars and table vessels were fashioned in his modest workshop in ever-increasing numbers, destined for ever more illustrious persons. The fame of Gaucher Legoix had in fact spread throughout Paris, and the three men hoped great things from his support.
They had been met by a point-blank refusal. Quietly but firmly, as was his wont, Gaucher informed them of his intention of remaining loyal to the King and to the Provost of Paris, his former master André d’Épernon.
‘I hold my command from the King and the Provost, and I will not lead my men against the King’s palace.’
‘Your King is mad, he is surrounded by traitors,’ roared Guillaume Legoix, the butcher cousin. ‘The real King is Milord of Burgundy. He is our only hope.’
Gaucher gazed unmoved at the master-butcher’s heavy countenance, now flushed and swollen with anger.
‘When Milord of Burgundy has been anointed and crowned, I will kneel before him and call him King. Till then the only King I recognise is Charles VI, to whom may it please God to restore both health and sanity.’
These quiet words were enough to throw the three visitors into a towering rage. They all began shouting like maniacs, to the alarm of Catherine, who had been awaiting the outcome of the dispute with the rest of the womenfolk, tucked away in the giant chimney-place.
How fierce those three men looked, crowding so tall and threatening around her father’s frail form! And yet, for all his lack of inches, it was Gaucher Legoix who seemed to be in command of the situation. His face stayed composed and he did not raise his voice.
All of a sudden Caboche waved his knotty fist in Legoix’s face. ‘You have till tomorrow to reconsider your decision, Maître Legoix. You realise that, if you are not with us, you are automatically against us and must take the consequences. You know what happens to the people who side with the Armagnacs?’
‘If by that you mean you will set fire to my house, well, I can’t stop you! But you will not persuade me to take up arms against my conscience. I am neither for Armagnac nor for Burgundy. I am simply a patriotic Frenchman who fears God and serves his King. And I will never take up arms against him!’
Leaving his companions to remonstrate with Legoix, Caboche strode over to where Loyse was sat. Catherine felt her sister stiffen all over when the Skinner planted himself in front of her. It was common practice in the great houses to marry off young daughters, so Catherine quite understood the significance of the scene that followed.
Not that Simon the Skinner made any secret of his passion for Loyse. He lost no opportunity to pester her with his attentions on those rare occasions when they met by chance. Rare because Loyse scarcely ever left her parents’ home except to hear Mass at the nearby church of St Leufroy, at the other end of the bridge, or to pay a charitable visit to the recluse of St Opportune. She was a quiet, secretive girl, who at 17 had the gravity of someone twice her age. She came and went about the house quiet as a mouse, her blue eyes modestly lowered, a linen kerchief tightly bound round her pale blonde plaits. She was already, among the family, leading the cloistered existence for which she had longed since she was a little girl.
Catherine admired her sister, but she was also a little afraid of her. And she did not understand her at all. Loyse could have been pretty and attractive if only she hadn’t been so fond of mortifying herself and had allowed herself to smile sometimes. She was slim but not skinny, with a pretty, supple, lissom figure. Her features were delicate, a trifle long in the nose perhaps, but she had a pretty mouth and white, almost transparent skin. Catherine, who was always ablaze with vitality herself, who loved noise, bustle and gaiety, could not for the life of her understand what had attracted Caboche, a huge, uproarious fellow with a keen relish for the more robust and earthly pleasures, to this aspiring nun. Loyse, for her part, clearly found Caboche repulsive. In fact, she all but saw him as the Devil incarnate. As he came toward her, she crossed herself hurriedly.
