Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (22 page)

She had not noticed Catherine, and had she done so it would probably have made no difference, because, as the girl quickly noticed, she was intoxicated. But drunk with an intoxication in which wine acted only as the means by which Sara, gypsy that she was, could blot out the real world around her and return in spirit to her faraway tribe and savage life. Catherine listened entranced. Sara had often sung her to sleep, especially in the early days of their exile to Burgundy, but never with quite this hoarsely passionate voice, or this unbearable burden of grief …

In the woman before her, sunk into a trance-like state, Catherine saw the wild young girl Sara had once been; the child born in a nomad caravan, on the way from distant Asia. Her features alone were those of Catherine’s everyday companion and friend. She was not surprised or shocked at discovering the secret of Sara’s repeated disappearances, or at finding her here in this low place, taming these beasts with human faces, these men of Jacquot’s, with the simple magic of her voice …

A male figure stepped between her and the singer. A tall pale man, so white-faced that he looked as if his skin had been bleached by remaining a long time underwater. Once, many years earlier, Catherine had seen a drowned man’s body taken out of the Ouche. The stranger before her was exactly the same colour, and this supernatural aspect of his appearance was enhanced by a pair of greenish-blue eyes. Thick, hooded eyelids like a tortoise’s concealed these disturbing eyes most of the time. A short, loose, mouse-grey garment flapped about his bony form, on which the skin hung as amply as a sodden rag. His slow, sleepwalking gestures added to the ghostliness of his appearance.

‘Who is this?’ he asked, pointing a long, white, skinny finger at Catherine.

Dimanche-l’Assommeur’s appearance was not improved by the taper-light, which showed up his pock-marked face and the angry red weal of the executioner’s brand on one cheek. It was he who replied:

‘A little wild she-goat we found in the street. She says she wants to see you, Jacquot.’

The Cockleshell King’s long, sinuous, colourless lips stretched even wider in a grimace that was almost recognisable as the smile for which it was intended. His hand brushed Catherine’s chin.

‘Pretty!’ he exclaimed appreciatively. ‘Is it my reputation as a lady-killer that brings you here, my pretty?’

‘No,’ said the girl crisply. Gradually she was regaining her aplomb and composure. ‘I have come here because I wanted to see Barnaby. He told me to seek you out if ever I needed him. And I need him now!’

The unpleasant gleam that had appeared momentarily in Jacquot’s eyes was extinguished as his heavy lids drooped over them. Ugly, twisted little Jehan des Écus tossed back his red, elf-like locks and tattered felt hat and darted a quick look at Catherine.

‘I know who you are now,’ he said. ‘You are the niece of that donkey Mathieu Gautherin. The beautiful Catherine – the fairest virgin in all Burgundy! I don’t regret now having let you slip through my fingers, because you are destined for a greater man than I. Had I touched you I would have risked my neck.

An expressive gesture accompanied the little man’s last words. Catherine realised with surprise that, in spite of the nervous tics that contorted it, his face was finely formed, and he had beautiful eyes.

‘Risked your neck?’ she asked with genuine surprise. ‘Why?’

‘Because the Duke wants you for himself, and he will have you! Still, when all is said and done, perhaps I should have given in to my desires after all! First you, then the gallows! It might be a wonderful way to shorten one’s life! You are certainly worth it!’

Jacquot-de-la-Mer must have found the conversation growing tediously long. His hand slowly descended on Catherine’s shoulder.

‘If you want to see Barnaby, go up the stairs over there. He is in the attic at the top of the house. He is in bed, as he took a bad tumble over Chenove way three days ago. You may have difficulty getting through to him, because he must be dead drunk by now. Wine is the only medicine he believes in.’

Guided by the landlord’s hand, Catherine climbed the first few steps. As she passed Sara, her dress brushed against the gypsy’s, but Sara’s eyes were closed again and she was singing her heart out, lost in her inner world, a thousand leagues from the thieves’ den.

The attic was shut off by a rickety door made of uneven planks. Candlelight gleamed through it. Catherine had no difficulty opening it. A simple push was all that was needed, but it was so low that she had to bend double to pass through. She found herself in a dark, windowless little cell under the beams of the steep roof. A straw pallet was pushed under a massive beam, and in it Barnaby was lying, a pitcher of wine close at hand and a tallow candle spluttering and smelling unpleasantly in a pewter dish beside him. His face was very flushed but he was clearly not drunk. His eyes were quite clear as they gazed in astonishment at the girl.

‘You? But what are you doing here, my little pigeon? And at this time of night?’

He raised himself on one elbow and modestly pulled his tattered shirt over the matted grey hair on his chest.

‘I need your help, Barnaby, so I came to find you as you said I should,’ said Catherine simply, sitting down at the foot of the mattress, the straw stuffing of which stuck out through a number of holes.

‘Are you wounded?’ she asked, looking at the dirty bandage, flecked with greasy balm and bloodstains, that was bound around Barnaby’s forehead.

He shrugged indifferently. ‘Oh, it’s nothing. Some rough fellow hit me with a spade because I asked him to let me help him count up his savings. It’s almost healed.’

‘You will never change,’ Catherine exclaimed with a sigh. She was neither shocked nor surprised by this admission. Perhaps that was because of the joyous gleam in her friend’s eye, which always, magically, seemed to make everything he said quite harmless and even amusing. The fact that Barnaby was a thief, if not worse, made no difference to Catherine. He was her friend, and that was the only thing that mattered. That apart, he could do as he pleased. To salve her conscience, however, she felt obliged to add a few warning words.

‘If you don’t take care, you will find yourself at Morimont one of these days with Maître Blaigny on one side and a stout hemp rope on the other.’

With a careless wave of the hand, Barnaby dismissed this unpleasant picture from his mind. He took a good swig of wine, set down the pitcher, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and then settled back comfortably into his ragged covers.

‘Come on, now, out with it – tell me what brings you here! Though I think I already know what it is!’

‘You know?’ said Catherine, in honest astonishment.

‘I know this much: that the Duke Philippe has ordered you to marry Garin de Brazey. And in order to persuade this rich, important fellow to accept the niece of one Mathieu Gautherin, tradesman, he has settled a big dowry on you. The Duke Philippe always knows what he is about.’

Catherine’s expressive eyes were saucer-like, almost perfectly round, with surprise. Barnaby had a matter-of-fact way of putting things that made it seem perfectly natural for a beggar to know just what was going on in the Palais des Princes.

‘How do you know all this?’ she stammered.

‘I just know it, and let’s leave it at that. And one thing more, little one. You must understand that if the Duke wishes to marry you off it is only because, in a town like this where the bourgeoisie are powerful, it is better that his mistress should be a married woman rather than a young maid. The Duke is a prudent fellow and he always knows how to turn a situation to his own advantage.’

‘I just don’t understand,’ said Catherine. ‘Messire de Brazey doesn’t seem to me the type of man to be a willing cuckold.’

This was no more than the truth, and Barnaby was struck by her logic. He scratched his head and made a terrible face.

‘I see your point, and in truth I do not know why the Duke should have chosen his Treasurer sooner than another man, except perhaps that he isn’t already married. Garin de Brazey is just the man in every respect, save that he is uncommonly difficult to handle. Perhaps the Duke could find no-one more suitable among his loyal followers? It’s obvious that the thing he hopes to accomplish by this marriage is to introduce you into Court circles. I suppose you have accepted. It is not the sort of offer one turns down.’

‘You are wrong about that. So far I have refused.’

Carefully and patiently Catherine described her adventures in Flanders to her old friend. Sensing that this was not the moment to keep anything back, she told him exactly what had happened: how she had met Arnaud de Montsalvy; how, finding an old beloved memory come to life again in him, she had fallen in love at first sight; and how Mathieu’s summons had torn her from his arms just as she was about to give herself to him. She talked and talked, without effort or embarrassment, and quite frankly and openly, omitting nothing. Sat on one corner of the mattress, with her hands clasped round her knees, her gaze lost in the dark shadows of the attic, she seemed to be telling herself a beautiful love story. Barnaby held his breath so as not to break the spell. He realised that for the moment Catherine had forgotten he was there.

When the girl stopped talking, silence fell between them both. Catherine turned her gaze on her old friend again as he meditated, head sunk on his chest.

‘If I understand aright,’ he said finally, ‘you have refused Garin de Brazey because you want to keep yourself pure and inviolate for this young fellow who hates and despises you and only just prevented himself killing you because you are a woman … or, more likely, because he was wounded and couldn’t see how he would get away with it in a place like that inn where you were staying. Are you quite sure you aren’t a bit soft in the head?’

‘Soft in the head or not,’ Catherine said shortly, ‘that is how things stand. I don’t wish to belong to any other man.’

‘I should just like to hear you say that to the Duke,’ Barnaby groaned. ‘I wonder what he will think? Anyway, how do you expect to get rid of Garin? He is much too loyal a servant of the Duke’s to be shaken off easily … and besides, you are too pretty to be relinquished without a struggle. If you refuse, you will only bring the Duke’s wrath down on your head, and on the heads of your entire family. He isn’t famous for his sweet nature, that Duke of ours. So, what to do then?’

‘That’s what I came to see you about …’

Catherine stood up and stretched herself, feeling cramped by her seated position. Her slender figure seemed taller in the rosy, dancing candlelight. Her resplendent golden hair enveloped her in a sort of radiance that suddenly made the old man’s heart ache.

The girl’s beauty was almost blinding, and Barnaby, more anxious for her than he liked to admit, had a presentiment that she was one of those rare women for whom wars are fought, for whom men kill themselves, and who rarely bring happiness to the men who possess them, so dangerous is any sort of excess. It is never a good thing to stand out so far above the norm …

He drained the pitcher of wine and then threw it aside carelessly. The pitcher broke and some fragments rolled into the far corners of the room.

‘What do you expect me to do?’ he asked quietly.

‘I want you to make this marriage impossible. I know you have the means – and the men too. There must be some way of preventing the marriage without my having to refuse directly, or Garin de Brazey having to go against his master.’

‘Which he wouldn’t be prepared to do in any case, sweetheart. I see only one solution. For you or Garin. I don’t suppose you are prepared to die, are you?’

Catherine shook her head speechlessly, her eyes fixed stubbornly on her dusty shoes. Barnaby was not misled by this silence.

‘Well, that leaves him! That’s it, isn’t it? In order to remain faithful to some silly love affair, you condemn a man to death in cold blood … And probably several others with him, because you don’t suppose that once the Treasurer is dead, the Duke Provost will simply sit there twiddling his thumbs?’

Barnaby’s voice cut mercilessly into the girl’s heart with the searching precision of a surgeon’s knife. He forced her to see herself and her motives clearly, and she was ashamed of what she found. The glimpses that this strange night had given her of her innermost self were rather terrifying. Nevertheless, if Garin’s death was the only thing that could save her from a marriage that both terrified and frightened her, she was ready to accept it in cold blood. She signified as much to Barnaby, and her icy resolution astounded the old man.

‘I don’t wish to belong to that man. Do what you like, but get rid of him.’

Once again there was silence, dense and solid as a mass of earth, between the girl enclosed in her steely resolve and the beggar bewildered by what he had just discovered about her. In fact Barnaby felt closer to her now; he found her easier to understand. It was a little as though this child he loved was his own daughter instead of the daughter of quiet working folk. How could the worthy Gaucher and his devout wife Jacquette ever have given birth to this little wild animal in petticoats? Barnaby smiled inwardly to imagine their consternation had they but known. He finally smiled outright.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said at length. ‘Now you had better go home. Did you have any trouble getting here?’

As briefly as she could, Catherine described her encounter with Dimanche-l’Assommeur and Jehan des Écus and how she had finally managed to make them release her.