Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (26 page)

‘I was beginning to wonder if you had lost your voice. Really, Catherine, ever since you entered this room you have been behaving like a criminal in the dock. No, I am not seriously wounded, thank you. A slight stab wound in one shoulder and a bump on my head. In other words, nothing serious. Are you satisfied?’

Catherine suddenly felt sick at having to feign a solicitude she did not feel. She knew she could not keep up the pretence much longer. What was the point of hiding behind the convenient screen of polite sentiments when there was a man’s life at stake?

‘You said just now,’ she remarked, throwing back her head and looking him straight in the eye, ‘that I looked like a criminal in the dock, and in a way you were right. I have come here to ask you to see that justice is done.’

The Treasurer’s black brows climbed above the kerchief and single eye. His voice took on a harsher, steely tone.

‘Justice? For whom?’

‘For the man who attacked you. He did it on my orders.’ The silence that fell between the silver chair and the velvet-curtained bed was as heavy as the executioner’s axe. Garin had not blinked an eyelid, but she noticed that he had grown still paler. Catherine, with both hands gripping the crystal chimeras that finished off the arms of her chair, had not bowed her head. She simply waited, trembling inwardly at the thought of what he was about to say, of the words that would issue out of that tight-lipped mouth and stony face. The humming of a bee suddenly filled her ears, driving out the sounds of the street outside, which seemed to have grown fainter in any case, and shattering the oppressive silence of a moment before. The girl was suddenly afraid, with a child’s unreasoning fear. Garin de Brazey still said nothing. He just looked at her, and there was more intensity in the gaze of that single eye than in a thousand other looks. The girl’s body tensed itself for flight, ready to bound away. Then, abruptly, the wounded man spoke. His voice was colourless, empty of emotion, almost indifferent. He merely asked:

‘You wanted to kill me? Do you hate me so much then?’

‘I have nothing against you personally. It is the intended marriage that I hate and that I wanted to destroy. Once you were dead –’

‘The Duke Philippe would have instantly chosen someone else. Do you suppose that I would have agreed to give you my name, and make you my wife, except at his command? I scarcely know you, and you are of exceedingly humble birth, but –’

Catherine interrupted him furiously, red to the ears:

‘You have no right to insult me. I won’t allow it. Who do you think you are, anyway? Your father was only a goldsmith, like mine!’

‘I am not insulting you. I am simply stating the facts, and I would be grateful if you would allow me to finish. It is the least you can do, after last night’s incident. As I was saying, you are of poor and humble birth, but you are beautiful. I would even go so far as to say that you are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen – and doubtless that the Duke has ever seen either. My orders were to marry you, with one aim only: to bring you to Court, and to the bed of the man for whom you are destined!’

In one spring, Catherine was on her feet, standing over the sick man as he lay on his back. ‘I won’t! I refuse to be handed over to the Duke like a thing, or a serf!’

Garin motioned to her to be silent and sit down again. His hard mouth curved in a thin smile at this childish display of rebelliousness, and his voice softened a little:

‘We are all to a greater or lesser degree Monseigneur’s serfs. Your wishes, like mine,’ he added, with a trace of bitterness, ‘are quite unimportant. Let us be quite frank with each other, if you don’t mind, Catherine. It is the only thing that can stop us hating, and waging a tedious and unpleasant battle against each other. Neither you nor I are powerful enough to gainsay the Duke’s commands or desires. Now his desires, or rather his desire, is you. You must face the true facts of the matter even if my putting it so bluntly comes as a shock.’

He paused for a moment as if to take breath, picked up a silver cup that stood on a table by the bed, along with a pitcher of wine and a platter of fruit, drained it in one go and held the platter out to the girl, who automatically took a peach from it. Garin resumed:

‘If either of us refuses to go through with this marriage that is being forced on us, the result will be the scaffold for me and prison or perhaps worse for you and your family. The Duke doesn’t like people to go against him. You have tried to have me killed, for which I willingly forgive you, because you did not know what you were doing. But even if the scheme had succeeded and I had been killed by the fellow’s dagger, you would still not have been freed. Philippe would have chosen someone else to put the ring on your finger. He always does what he has set himself to do – remember that – and he lets nothing stand in his way.’

Catherine bowed her head in defeat. The future seemed blacker and more threatening than ever. It was like being caught in a spider’s web that her inexperienced hands were too feeble or clumsy to destroy; or in a slowly circling whirlpool of the kind that sometimes appear in rivers, that was sucking her slowly but inevitably into its whirling vortex … Without daring to look at Garin, she added:

‘Does that mean that you, a knight, will stand quietly by while the woman who bears your name is seduced by the Duke? Won’t you do anything to prevent that happening?’

Garin de Brazey shrugged and leant back against the silken pillows piled behind him.

‘I have neither the desire nor the power to do so. Some men might even think it an honour. Not I, I admit. And obviously if I loved you the whole business would be much more painful.’

He stopped as if searching for words. His attention remained fixed on Catherine’s face, however, and she blushed, feeling ill at ease again. She raised her head defiantly. ‘But?’

‘But I don’t love you any more than you love me, my dear child,’ he said softly. ‘So you see that you need not feel any remorse on my account. I am not even angry with you for having plotted my death.’

Suddenly reminded of the purpose of her visit, Catherine decided to take the bull by the horns.

‘Prove it then!’

‘Prove it?’

Garin’s face showed his surprise. He knitted his brows, and his pale cheeks flushed. Afraid that he might fly into a rage, Catherine hurriedly explained:

‘Yes, please! The man who attacked you is an old friend of mine, almost my only friend. He is the man who rescued us after my father’s death, and helped us flee from Paris, and brought us safely here. I owe him my life as do my mother and sister … He only did this out of love for me. He would jump into the fire if I asked him to. He mustn’t die because of my stupidity, please! Do something for him. Pardon him, make them free him. He is an old, sick man.’

‘Not as ill as all that!’ said Garin with his thin smile. ‘He is still vigorous enough. I can vouch for that!’

‘Forget him. Pardon him. You are powerful. You can save an unfortunate man from the gallows. I would be so very grateful to you!’

Overcome by her longing to save Barnaby, Catherine left her chair and flew to the bedside. She fell on her knees beside the prostrate man, raising a face wet with tears to him, and stretched out her trembling hands. Garin pulled himself up a little and leant over for a moment toward the pretty, tearful face in which huge, wet, violet eyes sparkled like precious jewels. His features had hardened, and his nose looked suddenly thin and pointed.

‘Get up!’ he said hoarsely. ‘ Get up at once! And don’t cry – I forbid you to cry in my presence!’

His voice throbbed with suppressed fury, and Catherine was so startled that she automatically obeyed, rising to her feet and stepping back a few paces with her eyes fixed on the man’s angry face.

He tried awkwardly to explain his outburst. ‘I hate tears! I can’t stand seeing a woman weep! Now go! I will do everything you ask! I will arrange a pardon for this brigand! But go! Go at once, do you hear!’

He sat up in his bed and pointed toward the door. Catherine was alarmed and mystified by Garin’s sudden display of temper. She walked across to the door with nervous little steps and hesitated for a moment before going out. Then she summoned up her courage and spoke again.

‘Thank you,’ she said simply.

Feeling greatly comforted, though a little uneasy about Garin’s odd behaviour, Catherine returned with Sara to the Champdivers’ mansion, where the mistress of the house then proceeded to deliver the expected homily on the discretion and modesty befitting a true lady and, still more, a young unmarried girl. Catherine heard her out without a murmur, inwardly happy at the turn events were taking. It never occurred to her to doubt Garin de Brazey’s word. He had said that he would have Barnaby set free, and she was certain that he would. It was just a question of time …

But unfortunately for Barnaby, the Treasurer’s request for a pardon arrived too late. The old beggar had been put to the torture to discover the motive for his deed and it had killed him. He had died on the rack without confessing. Jehan des Écus brought the news to Sara the following morning.

Catherine locked herself up in her room and sobbed heartbrokenly all day, mourning her old friend and reproaching herself bitterly for having sent him to such a cruel and pointless death. Her mind was full of old memories: Barnaby in his cockleshell cloak, selling his false relics at the entrance to St Opportune; Barnaby in his cavern in the Cour des Miracles, cobbling his clothes or arguing with Mâchefer; Barnaby leading the attack on Caboche’s house; Barnaby in the barge that took them down the Seine, his long legs stretched out in front of him, reciting poetry …

That evening Sara brought Catherine a little, carefully wrapped packet from Garin de Brazey. When she opened it she found it contained only a dagger, on the horn handle of which a cockleshell was carved. She recognised it at once – it was Barnaby’s dagger, the one which he had used to stab Garin … On the note which accompanied it, there were just three words:

‘I am sorry,’ was all Garin had written.

Catherine held the crude weapon in one hand for a long, pensive moment. Her tears had suddenly stopped. Barnaby’s death marked the end of one chapter of her life, and the beginning of another. The horn handle grew warm in her hand, just as though it had left Barnaby’s grasp only a moment before. Slowly Catherine walked across to the little coffer of carved wood her Uncle Mathieu had given her and placed the dagger in it. Then she knelt before the little statue of the Black Madonna that stood, flanked by two candles, in one corner of her room. With her head in her hands she prayed for a long while, trying to calm the agitation of her heart.

When she got up again she had taken a decision. In future she would not fight against her destiny. Since there was nothing else she could do, since everything seemed to be conspiring against her, she would marry Garin de Brazey. But no power in the world, not even the Duke Philippe, could stamp out the love that had taken complete possession of her heart. It was a hopeless but unwavering passion. She would never stop loving Arnaud de Montsalvy.

8

Madame De Brazey

Although she wore an ermine surcoat wrapped closely over her silver-blue brocade dress and had a cloak lined in the same fur thrown round her shoulders, Catherine felt chilled to the marrow and had to press her lips together to stop her teeth chattering out loud. The December cold nipped cruelly in the little Roman chapel at the Brazey château, in spite of thick carpets everywhere and velvet cushions scattered under everyone’s feet. The priest looked frozen stiff in his gorgeously glittering chasuble, and the little acolytes kept rubbing their noses furtively on their sleeves.

The marriage ceremony was brief. Catherine heard herself answer ‘Yes’ to the priest’s questions as though in a dream. Her voice had sunk to a whisper and the old man had to lean forward to catch her responses. Garin, for his part, had spoken up in a calm, indifferent voice.

From time to time Catherine’s glance strayed to this man who was now her husband. The bitter cold of this midwinter day seemed to affect him no more than the knowledge that he had just taken a wife. He stood beside her, arms folded, his one eye fixed on the altar with the oddly challenging expression that had so struck Catherine at their first encounter in Notre-Dame. His black velvet, sable-trimmed clothes seemed no thicker than usual and he was wearing no cloak over his short doublet. He wore no jewellery either, except for a large, tear-shaped diamond of astonishing brilliance that a golden leopard, pinned to the folds of his hood, held between its paws. When he removed his gloves to take Catherine’s icy fingers in his, she was surprised to find how warm his hand was. Garin had been stood so stiff and motionless throughout the Mass that he might easily have passed for one of the many statues that adorned the church.

When she got to her feet after the Elevation, Catherine felt her cloak slipping off, and she was just about to clutch at it when two swift, gentle hands replaced it quickly round her shivering shoulders. Turning a little, she thanked Odette de Champdivers with a smile. The months that had passed since Barnaby’s death had brought her one new friend; the Champdivers’ daughter had returned home.

Three months earlier the unlucky Charles VI had at last reached the end of his agonizing demise. He had died in his young mistress’s arms, in the solitude of his Hôtel Saint-Pol. Finding herself now quite alone and increasingly the target for Isabeau’s malice and ill-will, both of which seemed all the greater now that the Queen’s obesity had rendered her all but incapable, the ‘Little Queen’ had returned to her native Burgundy. A spontaneous friendship had grown up between the gentle young woman who had been the mad King’s guardian angel and the proud and beautiful creature whom she found living in her parents’ home. Odette knew why Garin was marrying Catherine, knew with what motive Philippe had decided to turn the little bourgeoise into a great lady, and she sincerely pitied her friend. She had herself known the terror of being handed over to a stranger, but heaven had at least shown her the mercy of letting her love that unfamiliar man, notwithstanding his insanity, and she had loved him far more than she could even have supposed possible.