Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (27 page)

But would Catherine be able to love Philippe, the arrogant sensualist who let nothing stand in the way of his desire? Odette, in all the wisdom of her 33 years, doubted it very much.

The Mass was ending and Garin held out his hand for his wife to lean on. The old oak chapel doors creaked slowly open, framing a winter landscape white with snow. A gust of wind swept through the church, fluttering the flames of the great yellow wax candles that stood on the altar and sending a shiver through the handful of people present at this almost clandestine marriage. A group of frozen peasants, with their noses blue and hands red and raw with cold, were standing, huddled against each other for greater warmth, outside the main door, and they all now began shouting ‘Merry Christmas!’ But without much conviction, for they longed to return to their homes. Garin plunged a hand into the deep purse he wore at his belt, drew out a fistful of golden coins and threw them into the snow. The peasants shouted and flung themselves excitedly after the money, almost coming to blows in the process.

All this had a curiously unreal, almost sinister air. Recalling the cheerful, happy ceremonies she had attended when her uncle Mathieu’s colleagues married, and the rollicking peasant weddings in the wine country, Catherine told herself that this was easily the most depressing wedding she had ever been to. Even the sky seemed to reflect the general mood. It was yellowish-grey and leaden, heavy with snow to come, and the ravens croaking as they flew by only intensified the gloom of the occasion …

Her face was stung by the icy air and it hurt when she breathed. She had to bite her lips to stop herself crying. If it had not been for Marie de Champdivers’ and Odette’s warm friendship she would have felt dreadfully lonely on this, the most important day in a woman’s life. Neither Jacquette, Loyse nor the good Uncle Mathieu had been accorded the honour of an invitation to the wedding, for all Catherine’s tearful entreaties.

‘It is impossible,’ was all Garin had said. ‘Monseigneur would object to their presence, even though he cannot personally attend. You must try to make everyone forget your lowly birth, and to do that you must start by forgetting it yourself.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that!’ Catherine had cried furiously. ‘As if I ever could or would forget my mother, or sister, or uncle, or any of the people I love! And there is something else I want to make quite clear. If you try to stop me inviting them to this so-called house of mine I shall go and see them, and nothing on Earth, not you nor anyone else, will stop me.’

Garin had shrugged wearily. ‘You may do what you like … as long as you are discreet about it.’

That time she had not even answered him. For eight days the future bride and groom had not spoken a word to each other. Catherine had been sulking. Her ill-humour, however, had had not the slightest effect on Garin, who had seemed in no hurry for a reconciliation.

It was a cruel blow to the newly-wedded bride not to have her mother and uncle there on that day. She was not impressed by the arrival of two envoys from the Duke Philippe, who had been detained in Flanders. These were the nonchalant, elegant Hughes de Lannoy, a good friend of Philippe’s, whose insolent stare did little to put Catherine at her ease, and the young but unbending Nicolas Rollin, who had been appointed Chancellor of Burgundy only a few days before. It was only too clear that both men were there only to acquit themselves of a disagreeable duty, and this despite the fact that Rollin was Garin’s closest friend. Catherine knew that he strongly disapproved of the marriage.

A banquet awaited the 12 wedding guests in the main hall of the château. This room, which was hung with Arras tapestries to keep out the storm raging outside, was not large by prevailing standards, nor, indeed, was the château itself. It might have been more accurately described as a manor house. The main part of the building abutted on to a massive tower and small turret. The table, however, which stood before a leaping fire, was covered with a silk damask cloth and laid with a sumptuous service of silver-gilt. The Lord Treasurer could not have borne, even for this modest wedding feast, to have fallen short of his usual standards of pomp and elegance.

As soon as she entered the room, Catherine went across to the fire to warm her frozen hands. Sara, now promoted to her chief maid, helped her off with her cloak. Catherine would gladly have handed over as well her tall silvery headdress, from the sapphire-studded crescent of which there floated a cloud of fragile lace. Her head throbbed with migraine. She felt chilled to the core of her being. She did not dare look at her husband.

The interest Garin had shown in her during the visit she had paid him after Barnaby’s attack had not lasted even till their next meeting on the following day. In fact, since then Catherine had scarcely seen him at all, because he had accompanied the Duke Philippe on several journeys, notably to Paris, which Philippe had visited at around the time of the sudden death of the King of England, Henry V, at the end of August. The victor of Agincourt had died at Vincennes of a fistula, leaving a child only a few months old, his son by Catherine of France. With his usual caution, Philippe of Burgundy had refused an invitation to become Regent of France and returned to Flanders without waiting for the dead King’s funeral. There he had remained even after news reached him of the death of King Charles VI; because, as a French prince, he had had no intention of being made to feel small by the new Regent, the Duke of Bedford. Garin de Brazey had stayed there with the Duke, but each week a messenger had arrived from him bearing some gift or other for Catherine: a jewel, a work of art, a book of hours richly illuminated by Jacquemart de Hesdin, and even a pair of Karaman greyhounds, famous as superlative hunting-dogs. But there had never been so much as a short note with the gift. Marie de Champdivers, on the other hand, had received regular letters instructing her as to the preparations for the marriage and rules of polite behaviour that it might be necessary to teach the bride-to-be. Garin had returned eight days before the wedding, just in time to stop Catherine inviting her family.

The wedding banquet was a sad affair in spite of efforts by Hughes de Lannoy to lighten the atmosphere. Catherine, who was sat beside Garin on the seat reserved for the lords of the manor, scarcely touched the food placed before her. She ate a morsel or two of a superb Saone pike, cooked in herbs, and a few sugarplums. The food stuck in her throat when she swallowed, and she hardly spoke a word during the meal. Garin, meanwhile, ignored her completely, as, indeed, he ignored all the other ladies present, leaving them to chat among themselves. He talked politics with Nicolas Rollin, displaying a passionate interest in the Chancellor’s forthcoming embassy in Bourg-en-Bresse, where the Burgundians and the followers of Charles VII were to try to agree terms, in accordance with the ardent wishes of the Duc de Savoie, who sincerely hoped for peace.

As the time passed, Catherine’s distress increased, and by the time the sweetmeats, consisting of bowls of preserves, pieces of nougat and sugared fruits, were brought in by valets in purple and silver livery, she felt as though her nerves were about to snap and was forced to hide her trembling hands under the tablecloth. In a few moments, when the company had risen from the table, the ladies would accompany her to the bridal chamber and leave her there quite alone, face to face with this man who now had complete power over her. At the mere thought of touching him, Catherine’s skin prickled under her silk clothes. Desperately, and with all her might, she struggled to banish the memory of an inn in Flanders, of a face, a voice and a passionate, imperious kiss. Her heart stopped beating when she thought of Arnaud and their all-too-short moment of love. Anything that Garin might do that night, anything he might say, would be no better than a pathetic parody of that most precious moment of her life. Knowing as she did, beyond any shadow of doubt, that in Arnaud she had met the real love of her life, the man for whom God had created her, how, she thought bitterly, could it be otherwise?

A minstrel was singing now, accompanying on his harp the graceful movements of a dozen or so dancing-girls:

‘My true love, my mistress and my joy,

‘Now that I must be parted from you,

‘I have only a memory to comfort me …’

The melancholy words brought tears to the young woman’s eyes. They seemed to echo her own heart’s lament so closely that it was almost as though the minstrel had borrowed her voice for a moment. She looked at the young man through a mist of tears, saw that he was very young, thin and blond, with knobbly knees and a childish face. Then Hughes de Lannoy’s mocking voice broke the spell and she hated him for it: ‘What a mournful ditty for a wedding night!’ he cried. ‘By heaven, young man, haven’t you some sprightly roundelay with which to serenade a newly-wedded pair?’

‘It’s a pretty song,’ Garin intervened. ‘I don’t know it. Where did you hear it, minstrel?’

The young singer blushed like a girl, bent his knee humbly and doffed his green bonnet where a heron’s feather fluttered. ‘From a friend of mine, if it please your worship, who heard it across the Channel.’

‘An English song? I don’t believe it,’ said Garin contemptuously. ‘Those people only compose drinking songs!’

‘If it please your worship, the song comes from London, but it is French. Monseigneur Charles d’Orlèans composes ballads, songs and odes in his English prison to while away the long and weary hours. This one became known outside the prison walls, and I was lucky enough to hear it …’

He would have gone on if Hughes de Lannoy had not drawn his dagger and vaulted over the table with his arm flung up to strike the unfortunate minstrel. ‘Who is this who dares to pronounce the accursed name of Orlèans in Burgundian country? Cursed fool, you shall pay dearly for this!’

Beside himself with rage, Philippe’s hot-blooded friend was about to strike the minstrel when Catherine rose to her feet, unable to restrain her feelings a moment longer.

‘Enough, sir knight! You are under my roof and this is my wedding supper. I forbid you to shed innocent blood here! A song must be judged on its beauty, not its origins.’

Her voice, which trembled with indignation, rang clear as a trumpet call. A silence ensued. Dumbfounded, Hughes de Lannoy let his arm drop harmlessly to his side. His eyes and those of all the other guests were riveted on the young woman. She stood very erect, her fingertips resting on the table, chin held high, still glowing with anger but clothed in such dignity that no-one present dared even to express surprise at her behaviour. Catherine’s beauty had never blazed so brightly as at that moment. All the men present were struck, in a moment of revelation, by the majesty of her bearing. The girl might come from a cloth merchant’s shop, but the imperial beauty of her face and body was worthy of a queen.

With a strange light shining in his pale-blue eyes, Hughes de Lannoy slowly sheathed his dagger, released the minstrel and approached the table. He smiled and bent one knee:

‘Forgive me, gracious lady, for having allowed myself to be carried away by anger in your presence. I crave your pardon and a smile.’

When she found all those eyes fixed on her, Catherine’s confidence ebbed again as fast as it had come. She smiled at the young man with a touch of embarrassment, and turned in confusion toward her husband.

‘It is rather to you, messire, that any apologies are due. Forgive me for having spoken in your stead. But I hope you will –’

Garin had risen to his feet, and he took her hand to cut short her apologies and extricate her from an awkward moment.

‘As you so rightly said, this is your house – and you are my wife. I am happy that you should have acted thus, because you were completely in the right. Let us assume that our friends agree, and that they now give us permission to retire …’

The blood that had flooded Catherine’s cheeks with pink as suddenly ebbed away again. Her hand trembled in Garin’s. Had the dreadful moment finally arrived? Her husband’s expressionless face certainly did not call to mind sweet feelings of love, but it was toward their bridal chamber nevertheless that he was leading her.

The guests followed behind, led by six musicians playing on flutes and viols. In her anguish Catherine looked quickly round at Odette, who was following a little way behind, escorted by Lannoy. She saw warm affection and pity in her expression.

‘The body is unimportant,’ Odette had told her while helping her to dress that morning. ‘The moment of physical union is a painful one for almost all women, even when they are in love; and yet, when they are not, it does sometimes happen that they fall in love later.’

Catherine had turned aside at that point to take her headdress from one of the maids. In spite of her close but still recent friendship with Odette, she had not yet resolved to confide in her and tell her of her secret passion for Arnaud de Montsalvy. She had the feeling, a silly one perhaps, that the moment she put her secret into words, the already shadowy, distant figure of the young man would become more shadowy still, and she would have broken the spell that bound her to that beloved enemy of hers.

‘Now that I must be parted from you,

‘I have only a memory to comfort me.’

The words of the plaintive song echoed through her mind. They seemed especially poignant now, as she saw the door before her opening to let her pass through. Soon it would close behind her. She had reached the threshold of the bridal chamber …