Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (20 page)

Catherine, not wishing to exasperate her sister further, hurried along as best she could, despite the slight twinge of pain she felt each time she put her foot down. They went down the short Rue de la Draperie, then turned into the Rue de Griffon, which led out of it. A moment later Catherine and her sister were crossing the threshold of Uncle Mathieu’s shop at the Sign of the Great St Bonaventure.

Ever since her return from Flanders, Catherine had been nagged by an odd feeling, as though she were living in another person’s skin that did not quite fit her. She had found it very difficult to settle down again into the tranquil domestic routine that had been so lovingly and carefully built up over the years. She felt oddly but profoundly uncomfortable in the quiet, comfortable, middle-class existence into which she had been born.

And yet it had been such a trivial thing that had set the wheels of Fate in motion, precipitating her from the tranquil monotony of her familiar world into a future the far horizons of which were still blurred and unknowable. That slap she had delivered to the Ghent furrier’s face seemed to have been the signal for Fate to step in. On the one hand it had delayed their departure from Bruges, and on the other it had all but thrown her into the Duke Philippe’s arms. Then, in its turn, that delay had led to their timely discovery and rescue of the wounded knight. For a moment it had seemed to Catherine as though the portals had been thrown open upon a dazzling, glorious future; but then, to the sound of another slap on the face, those doors had swung shut again. From slap to slap the wheel might have seemed to swing full circle, but Catherine knew that this was only the beginning. Something would happen soon to alter the whole course of her life.

To reassure herself of this, she had only to look at the gaudy parrot dozing on its gilded perch in one corner of her room near the window. It was a magnificent bird with blue plumage tipped with scarlet. A page had brought it round one morning with the Duke’s compliments. Uncle Mathieu had been sorely tempted to send the bird straight back. Catherine laughed to herself, remembering the scene of the bird’s arrival, and her uncle’s angry astonishment when confronted by this exotic creature whose round, arrogant eyes had transfixed him with a far from kindly stare.

On learning that the bird was a present for Catherine sent by the Duke himself, Mathieu had gone purple with fury. ‘Monseigneur Philippe does us great honour,’ he had told the expressionless page, who stood waiting for someone to relieve him of his burden, ‘but my niece is still a maiden and ought not to accept such valuable gifts.’

It had been difficult for him to convey his real meaning in such a way as not to offend the Duke, but the page had seemed to understand what he was getting at well enough.

‘I cannot take Gedeon back!’ he had said. ‘It would be an insult to Monseigneur.’

‘But what about me?’ Mathieu had protested. ‘Monseigneur insults me by supposing that my niece can accept his attentions. A young woman’s reputation is a fragile thing.’

It was then that Gedeon, who had been getting bored with the conversation, had added his voice to the argument. He had opened his immense red beak, which gave him a vague resemblance to Uncle Mathieu in profile, and shrieked:

‘Long live the Duke! Long live the Duke!’

Mathieu had been so astounded on hearing the bird speak that he had let the page go without making another attempt to detain him. Catherine, choking with laughter, had taken the bird up to her own room. He had still been shouting away at the top of his voice.

Since then Gedeon had become the pet, and delight, of the entire household, including Uncle Mathieu. The two of them argued furiously for hours.

Catherine smoothed her hair in front of her mirror and was about to hurry downstairs when she heard a horse’s hooves in the road below her window. She ran across to the window and looked out. The animal had stirred up a thick cloud of dust as it went by, because the streets of Dijon had not yet been paved. But soon she recognised Garin de Brazey riding slowly along between the rows of houses, where busy housewives could be seen passing to and fro behind the windows. She barely had time to recover from her surprise when the Treasurer looked up, caught sight of her and saluted her gravely. Blushing, she returned the salutation and withdrew into the far corner of her room, not quite knowing how to interpret this second meeting following so hard on the heels of the first. Had he come to buy cloth? But no, the sound of the horse’s hooves was already becoming fainter. Distractedly smoothing her skirt of almond green linen with its single band of white ribbon trimming, she went downstairs to join her uncle.

She found him in the little study where he kept his account books. He was hunched over the black oak desk, a quill behind his ear, busily entering up figures in a huge, parchment-bound account book. Next door, in the shop itself, his assistants were at work unpacking a large consignment of cloth, which had just arrived from Italy. Seeing that Mathieu was much too absorbed to pay any attention to her, she went to help old Pierre put away the lengths of new materials. There were brocades from Milan and Venetian velvets. Catherine liked nothing better than fingering these sumptuous fabrics, destined for the backs of the nobility or the rich bourgeoisie. It was unlikely that she would ever wear anything so costly herself. She was particularly attracted by a ravishing pale pink brocade interwoven with silver thread in a pattern of fantastic birds.

‘Isn’t this beautiful?’ she exclaimed, holding a length of it up in front of her. ‘How I would love to wear this!’

Old Pierre’s private opinion was that nothing was too good for Catherine, and he watched her with an indulgent smile.

‘Ask Maître Mathieu for it!’ he suggested. ‘He might even give it to you. And if I were you, I should ask him for that one over there too. You would look very well in it.’

He pointed to a Venetian cut velvet with a design of large black flowers on a glittering gold ground, and Catherine was just about to pounce on it with a cry of admiration when they heard Mathieu’s voice, scolding:

‘Leave those materials alone! They are fragile and very expensive!’

‘Oh, I know,’ said Catherine, with a sigh, ‘but, seeing as this shop is the only place where I can appreciate cloth like this …’ With a wave of the hand she gestured toward the cupboards full of neatly piled bolts of silken materials, lengths of brightly-coloured satins and soft-textured velvets. Other cupboards held large pieces of lace, fine and delicate as cobwebs, veils from Mossoul, flowered shot silks from Persia, light rustling taffetas. Still others held the wool-cloth of Champagne or England, soft white woollen fabric woven by the women of Valencienne, the supple Florentine materials, soft and almost as lustrous as satin.

Deftly Mathieu whisked the pink brocade from his niece and the black and gold velvet from Pierre and started piling them up on a large square of sturdy white cloth, adding a good selection of gold and silver cloth and several coloured satins, striped, embroidered and plain, all of which he selected from the new shipment.

‘These have all been sold,’ he explained, ‘and must be put on one side. It is an order for Messire de Brazey, which he will send for later on. As for you, my girl, go and finish adding up the week’s takings and stop daydreaming. I have to go out, and I want everything to be in good order when I get back. Oh, and you might make out the Dame de Châteauvillain’s bill, which she has asked for! And see that they measure out the length of turquoise cloth the wife of the Sire du Toulongeon is waiting for.’

With a sigh of regret, Catherine left the shop and took her uncle’s place in the cubby-hole. Those heavy tomes full of Roman numerals bored her to tears, although she found some pleasure reading about the faraway places from which the cloth had come, with their romantic, evocative names. But all too often since her return from Flanders, the image of a brown face would rise up unbidden before the huge, crackling yellow pages, and Catherine would feel near to tears. All of a sudden there seemed to be an impossible gulf between the Dauphin’s squire and the niece of a Dijonnais cloth merchant. And, besides, Arnaud hated and despised her; and then, on top of that, there was the war that put them in opposite camps. But that particular morning Catherine was not thinking about Arnaud. Dipping her quill into the ink, she set to work courageously. All she was thinking about at that moment was that beautiful pink brocade she yearned to possess. She also wondered why the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, who always dressed in sombre black, should suddenly have decided that he would look better in pink.

Despite what Uncle Mathieu had said, they did not see him again all that day. Toward dinner-time he sent word that he would not be home till supper, but supper came and he had still not arrived. When at length he returned, he summoned his sister Jacquette and they both went into his large, high-ceilinged room and remained closeted in there for hours without a word of explanation.

When she opened her eyes the next morning, Catherine saw that Sara was sat by her bedside waiting for her to wake. This surprised her. As a rule it was Loyse who woke her, giving her an unceremonious shake to rouse her in time for the early morning devotions. But this time there was no sign of Loyse and the sun was high in the sky.

‘Today is an important day, my lamb,’ the gypsy woman said, holding her chemise out for her. ‘You must hurry up and get dressed. Your uncle and your mother want to speak to you.’

‘What about? Do you know?’

‘Yes, I know, but I have promised not to tell you.’

Catherine was consumed with curiosity. But she was well aware of her power over her old friend. She began wheedling the truth out of her.

‘Is it something nice? Surely you can tell me if it is something I will like.’

‘I really don’t know. It might be and yet it might not. Why not get up and find out?’

Sara bustled about, pouring some water into a bowl and laying out a clean napkin. Catherine ignored the chemise Sara had offered her and bounded out of bed just as she was, as naked as the day she was born. People were in the habit of sleeping naked in those times. She had never felt the slightest embarrassment in front of Sara, who was a sort of second mother to her.

The tall gypsy woman had not changed a bit with the passing years. She was still beautiful, and as brown-skinned as ever. Though she was nearing forty, there was not one white hair in her mass of black tresses. She was merely a bit plumper, the easy life she had led at Uncle Mathieu’s having cushioned her lithe, feline body with a comfortable layer of fat. But her spirit was as wild as ever, and as independent. Sometimes she would disappear for two or three days at a time, and no-one had any idea where she had gone, with the possible exception of Barnaby … But he knew how to keep a secret, and in that dangerous, turbulent world where, despite Catherine’s entreaties, he had chosen to live, everyone knew how to hold their tongues.

While she rushed through her preparations with unaccustomed haste, Catherine, who generally liked to dawdle and take her time, noticed Sara gazing thoughtfully at her.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Do you think I look ugly?’

‘Ugly? You must be fishing for compliments! You know very well you don’t look ugly. Perhaps it would be better for you if you did. It’s not always a good thing for a girl to be too beautiful. As a matter of fact, I was thinking that not many men, once they’d had a look at your body, would be able to resist you. And yet someone so expressly formed for love must necessarily bring death and suffering in her wake …’

‘What do you mean?’

Sara often made strange remarks, and as often as not refused to explain them in any way. It was as though she had been speaking to herself, but out loud. That was what happened this time.

‘Nothing,’ she said curtly, handing the girl the green dress she had been wearing the day before. ‘Get dressed and come downstairs.’

When Sara had left the room, Catherine hurriedly finished washing and dressing, tied her plaits with a ribbon matching her dress and went down to the big room where Sara had told her that her mother and uncle were waiting to talk to her.

She found Mathieu sat in his chair, looking grave and anxious. Jacquette was perched opposite him on a bench, saying her beads. Neither of them spoke.

‘Well, here I am!’ Catherine said. ‘What has happened?’

They both looked at her for a moment, so attentively that Catherine had the feeling that they were seeing her for the first time.

She saw a tear shining in her mother’s eyes and ran across to her. She knelt down beside her, put her arms around her waist and leant her cheek against her bosom.

‘Maman, you are crying. What has happened?’

‘Nothing, nothing, my darling. Something that may bring you great happiness.’

‘Happiness?’

‘Yes … perhaps. But your uncle will explain.’

Mathieu had abandoned his chair and was now pacing around the immense room, which took up almost the length and width of the house. His step seemed heavier than usual and he appeared to be trying to make up his mind about something. At last he stopped in front of Catherine and said:

‘Do you remember those materials that arrived from Italy yesterday? The ones you liked so much? A pink brocade –’

‘Yes,’ said Catherine. ‘The ones Messire de Brazey has ordered.’