Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (7 page)

Loyse had not yet returned, and Catherine hesitated for a moment as to what to do next. She was neither hungry nor sleepy. The one thing she wanted to do above all else was to join Michel down there in the dark once more. Listening to him talk while she had knelt beside him on the dusty floor had been the happiest moment of her whole life. And that gentle kiss he had given her still made her heart beat faster. Vaguely Catherine sensed that such moments were rarely come by, and she was sensible enough to realise that in a few hours Michel would be a free man again, back in his own world. The weary fugitive would become the young nobleman once more, and thereby put himself far out of reach of a humble artisan’s daughter. The charming companion of a moment would soon be no more than a distant stranger who would rapidly forget the little girl he had so easily dazzled. Michel was still hers. But he would soon be gone …

Feeling suddenly desolate, Catherine ran to the street door and opened the upper half. The rain had stopped, leaving shining puddles. Water from the roof gushed down the gutters. The bridge, deserted a little earlier, was unexpectedly astir with activity. The chain had been removed and the two guards had disappeared. Groups of people, most of them lurching dangerously, were crossing the bridge, arm-in-arm, singing at the tops of their voices. Marion was clearly not the only person who had been celebrating a victory for the people. She heard sounds of singing and shouting from the direction of the Trois Maillets tavern at the other end of the bridge. The curfew bell of Notre-Dame had not yet sounded. It was unlikely that it would induce anyone to go home when it did. This was clearly a night for celebrating.

Catherine wondered anxiously what Landry might be doing and if he would have remembered to bring a rope for Michel. Over in the Pigasse house, lights passed to and fro behind the panes of oiled paper. Then her eyes fell on a band of soldiers, swaying arm-in-arm across the whole width of the bridge and singing:

‘Oh, the Duke of Burgundy,

‘God give him health and strength!’

She hastily replaced the door in position and returned to the workshop. She paused for a moment as she passed the trapdoor. She really ought to see if Landry had brought the rope. She raised the trapdoor and stooped down, calling softly:

‘Messire, it is I, Catherine! I wanted to know if Landry remembered the rope.’

She heard Michel’s voice, somewhat muffled:

‘Don’t worry, I’ve got it. In any case, there was one here already. Landry says he will come back sometime between midnight and one o’clock. He will whistle three times to show that he is waiting with a boat under the bridge. All goes well.’

‘Try and sleep a little then. I am going to bed now. I will come down again when I hear Landry whistle. My room faces the river.’

A faint creak from the floor above made her drop the trapdoor hurriedly, her heart thumping. Just then the great palace clock struck ten. Two more hours to wait.

Catherine went back into the kitchen and covered the fire with a thick layer of ashes. She placed a lighted candle on the stairs for Loyse when she returned, then headed for the stairs.

She had got no further than the bottom step when Loyse appeared. The girl looked grave. ‘Landry’s mother is not at all well,’ she said. ‘She is fast using up her strength. I wanted to stay, but Maman sent me back to look after you. Are you going to bed?’

‘Yes. But if you want something to eat …’

‘It’s all right. I’m not really hungry. Let’s go to bed. You must be tired after your day in the sewers.’

The two sisters went up to their little room and silently undressed. Loyse, after a drowsy ‘Good night’, fell asleep the moment her head touched the pillow. Catherine, however, lay down with the firm resolve that she would not even close her eyes. This proved very difficult. Once she was in bed, all the weariness that had been accumulating during that unforgettable day seemed to descend on her at once. Her heavy coverlets smelt so sweetly of bleach and bay leaves. The desire for sleep, so powerful in the very young, seemed to be weighting her eyelids with lead. But she must not give in. It was essential that she stay awake to help Landry if anything went wrong.

To help ward off sleep, she began telling herself stories. Then she went over all the things Michel had told her. And there was that kiss he had given her. She shivered as she remembered it.

Loyse’s even breathing next to her was beginning to send her to sleep. She was on the point of dropping off when an unexpected noise had her sitting bolt upright, wide awake.

A door squeaked softly on the floor above, as if it was being stealthily opened. Soft footsteps shuffled along cautiously overhead as far as the stairs, then there was the creak of a step being trodden on. Her head raised and both ears pricked, Catherine mentally accompanied the person, who could only be Marion, on her way down. Where could she be going at this time of night?

Now the footsteps were coming nearer. They stopped outside the door of their room, and there was a glimmer of candlelight under the door. Marion, obviously, was listening to make sure both girls were sound asleep. Catherine took care not to let the bed squeak as she moved. After a moment the steps started downstairs again, as stealthily as before. Catherine could not help smiling to herself. After indulging so freely, Marion was doubtless in need of fresh water to clear the wine fumes from her head. She might even be hungry. She would be back as soon as she had found what she wanted in the kitchen.

Reassured, Catherine was just about to lie down again when a new sound brought her out of bed with a bound, her heart beating so wildly she felt it might burst. There was no mistaking that particular creak. Marion wasn’t looking for water. She must have gone to get a further supply of wine from the barrel in the cellar.

Made clumsy by terror, the young girl dragged on her chemise and crept down the stairs, after quickly ascertaining that Loyse was still sound asleep. In her hurry she forgot to look where she was going and slithered rather than stepped down the last remaining stairs, almost breaking her neck. The trapdoor was wide open and she could see a light through it. A second later the quiet house shook to a howl of terror.

‘Help! Help!’ Marion bellowed. Her voice sounded to Catherine like the last trump. ‘An Armagnac! Help!’

Half dead with fright, Catherine slid down the ladder and found fat Marion in her petticoat clinging with all her might to Michel’s tunic and screaming like a maniac. Michel, ashen-faced, was struggling unsuccessfully to free himself. A combination of fear and liquor seemed to have made Marion twice as strong as usual. Catherine leapt on her like a wildcat, kicking and scratching, and managed to force her to loosen her grip on Michel.

‘Be quiet, you stupid old woman!’ she shouted angrily. ‘Be quiet, will you! Make her stop, messire! Hit her! She’ll have all the neighbours in!’

Marion only started screaming with redoubled vigour. With a violent jerk, Michel shook himself free, and Catherine nodded toward the skylight while hanging on to Marion as best she could.

‘The skylight, quick! You will have to jump through it! It’s your only chance. Can you swim?’

He was halfway through the aperture when Marion, half beside herself by now, bit Catherine viciously on the arm to make her let go and then rushed at him and seized him by one leg, still screaming at the top of her voice. In response to her screams, heavy blows sounded on the wooden shutters outside the house. Catherine reeled back against the log-pile at first, dazed with pain, but a second later she was up again, hunting frantically for something with which to free Michel. Stuck half in and half out of the window, with Marion clinging to his leg, he had only his free leg to defend himself with. An axe blade gleamed on the floor. Catherine seized it and rushed at Marion. But, alas, just then the street door gave way with a crash of splintering wood and a horde of people swarmed down the stairs and into the cellar. With their faces gleaming scarlet in the candlelight, they looked to Catherine like so many fiends disgorged from hell. The axe was snatched from her hands by one of the men.

‘He’s an Armagnac!’ Marion shouted hoarsely.

That was enough. In a second, Michel, despite his frantic struggles, was captured. During that time Marion, patches of fat thigh criss-crossed by rope-like varicose veins showing through the tears in her chemise, had slumped into a corner with a satisfied sigh. Then she crawled toward the barrel of wine and stretched out underneath the spigot to drink at her leisure.

Horror-stricken, Catherine only just managed to keep herself from falling in a swoon by clinging to the log-pile. The cellar was full of men, all hitting Michel. As each blow fell, it seemed to strike agonisingly at Catherine’s heart. In that low, vaulted room, smoky from the oil-lamps one or two people had brought down, the struggling mass of ragged, wine-bespattered figures showering vicious blows on their captive composed a scene of revolting brutality. Michel’s purple and silver tunic had been ripped half off his shoulders.

Someone cried, ‘Why, if it isn’t the pretty fellow who gave us the slip earlier tonight on the way to Montfaucon! The one who spat in the Duke’s face …’

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by a wild outcry: ‘Kill him! Kill him! Hand him over to us!’

Tightly bound, Michel was half pushed, half dragged up the ladder and out into the street, where his appearance created an uproar. There was hatred in those voices, and a certain wild excitement. Catherine threw herself blindly after him. She scrambled up the ladder and was just about to rush out into the street when Loyse, white as a sheet, moved to stop her. The house was suddenly full of people. The workshop was overrun by men, who rummaged in the cupboards and fought each other for possession of the valuable bowls and pitchers. Leaving the petrified Loyse flattened against a wall, Catherine rushed out into the street.

She saw Michel struggling helplessly in the middle of a ring of howling monsters. The crowd had blocked all access to either the Legoix’s house or the bridge itself. Lights flared at all the windows, and the narrow street was bright as day. Catherine stared in horror at all those distorted faces, their mouths ugly with hate, and at the waving fists and flashing weapons, their blades glinting ominously. At the centre of all that frenzy and violence was the prisoner. His feet were chained together. He kept his head down to protect it from the cruel blows that rained down on him. Blood streamed from his torn cheek and lip. Some terrible women, brandishing spindles, were trying to put out his eyes.

Escaping from Loyse, who was still trying to shelter her in her arms, Catherine plunged into the midst of the tumult. She ran the risk of being cut to pieces herself, but no human force could have stopped her then. She screamed, sobbed, implored and struck out with her nails and teeth, trying to carve a way through the crowd toward her friend. Something hot trickled down her cheek, followed by a sharp stab of pain. The something was blood, but she ignored it. She might have been in some sort of hell, a frail childish figure thrown to the wild beasts.

‘Michel,’ she cried. ‘Michel, wait! I am coming!’

She did actually seem to be gaining ground, inch by inch.

It was a hopeless, unequal struggle, as unequal as the struggle between the migrant bird and the encircling vultures. But somehow she kept going, miraculously sustained by courage and love. If these monsters killed Michel they would have to kill her too, and then they could both go to see Madame the Virgin and Milord Jesus together.

Michel suddenly crumpled under the relentless battering. He staggered forward, kept upright only by an astonishingly tenacious will to survive. Then he fell on his knees, deafened and blinded by the blood streaming over his face. His whole body was one bloody wound. Catherine heard him groan, ‘God … have mercy on me!’

A coarse insult was the only reply. He collapsed on the ground, at the limit of his endurance. The end was approaching. Catherine sensed this in the way the crowd pressed round eagerly as if to divide up the carcass. Then a voice rang out suddenly:

‘Make way … Make way … Here comes Caboche!’

Catherine had covered her bleeding face with her hands so as not to see any more, but on hearing this she lifted her head. It was indeed Caboche the Skinner, ploughing his way through the crowd with his massive shoulders rather like a great ship in a stormy sea. She could see her cousin Legoix and Pierre Cauchon’s long, pale face behind him. To make room for Caboche the crowd fell back, revealing the pathetic, crumpled heap that was Michel’s body. With a sob, Catherine ran toward him through the gap in the crowd. She fell on her knees and gently lifted the blond head stained with blood. His face was unrecognisable, a bloody pulp; the nose broken, the mouth torn and one eye gouged out. He moaned feebly, already half dead.

‘So you found him again, eh?’ said Caboche’s voice from somewhere above her head. ‘Where was he?’

‘In Gaucher Legoix’s cellar. Enjoying their hospitality, it seems! We’ll burn the place down round his ears for that!’

‘And the bridge with it?’ Caboche cut in coldly. ‘I am the one who makes decisions round here.’

To her amazement, Catherine felt a tremor run through the broken body she clasped so tenderly. Michel murmured painfully:

‘I hid myself in their house … They did not know I was there.’

‘That’s not true,’ Catherine cried. ‘I was the one who –’