Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (8 page)

At that point a powerful hand was clapped over her mouth and she felt herself lifted up off the ground. Caboche had picked her up and was holding her against his chest with one arm.

‘Hold your tongue!’ he whispered under cover of the din. ‘Or I will be hard put to save any of you … if that’s still possible.’

Half suffocated as she was in the butcher’s grip, Catherine stopped screaming, but she went on imploring him while the tears rained down onto his hairy hand.

‘Save him. Save him, I beg you. I would love you dearly for it …’

‘I can’t. It’s too late. Death can only be a merciful release to him in the state he is in.’

Catherine watched horrified as he kicked the bleeding body at his feet.

‘We have found him again! That’s the main thing!’ he cried. ‘And now let’s finish with him. Come here, Guillaume Legoix. Let’s see how you wield a cleaver, now you are rich and comfortable! Finish off the carcass for me!’

Cousin Guillaume stepped forward. His face was also very red, and there were splashes of blood on his rich, brown velvet robe. Notwithstanding his costly clothes, he had reverted to type and become a skinner again, with the same appetites as the rest. That was obvious from the savage pleasure he took in the sight of spilt blood, the smile on his moist, fleshy lips. He carried a butcher’s cleaver that had already seen service that day.

Caboche felt Catherine’s body go rigid in his clasp and realised that she was about to scream again. He clapped his free hand over her mouth and whispered urgently to Guillaume:

‘Hurry up. Finish him off properly … for the child’s sake.’

Guillaume nodded and stooped over Michel. In a quick, merciful gesture, Caboche moved his hand from over Catherine’s mouth and placed it over her eyes instead, completely covering them. She saw nothing, but she heard it all … the choking rattle of death, followed by a hideous gurgling noise. The crowd howled with delight. Wriggling like an eel, she managed to squirm out of Caboche’s grasp and dropped to her knees.

What she saw made her eyes widen with horror and her hands fly up to her mouth. Michel’s body, its head cut off, lay on the ground before her in a pool of blood that stretched to her knees, the lifeblood still pumping out of the severed neck. A little way off, an archer in the green uniform of the Duke of Burgundy was calmly impaling the head on a lance.

Slowly the life seemed to drain from Catherine’s bruised and weary body. She seemed to be turned to ice from head to foot. She began to scream, a thin ghastly scream that rose and rose to an intolerable pitch and hung there, curdling the blood of all who heard it.

‘Shut her up!’ Legoix shouted to Caboche. ‘It sounds like a dog that has smelt a corpse.’

Caboche bent and tried to pick Catherine up. He found that she was as if paralysed, frozen into a crouched position even after he lifted her up. Her whole body had gone stiff in a spasm of horror, her eyes were fixed and her teeth chattered, and still the unearthly scream went on. With a shaking hand, Caboche tried to force her mouth shut. She turned dull, unseeing eyes on him. Her screaming ceased abruptly, only to be replaced by the stertorous panting sound one hears from trapped animals. The child’s anguished face had gone as grey as stone. A convulsion jerked her body in Caboche’s arms. It was racked by atrocious pains, as if she were being stabbed by a thousand knives at once. There was a red mist in front of her eyes and a roaring in her ears that threatened to burst them. A crushing pain at the back of the neck made her cry out again, but feebly this time. Suddenly she went limp in Caboche’s arms. She heard someone calling out – ‘Loyse! Loyse!’ – but the sound seemed so remote it might have come from the depths of the Earth.

After that there was only a black, gaping hole, into which Catherine felt herself fall, plummeting down like a stone …

2

Barnaby The Cockleshell Man

Many days passed; long days in which dawn and twilight and night and day were all one to Catherine. She hung between life and death, consumed by a brain fever that threatened to remove her from the land of the living. She was in little actual pain, but her spirit seemed to have left her body to join in long and wearying combat with the phantoms of fear and despair. From the depths of the abyss where she seemed to lie, she continually saw re-enacted the appalling scene of Michel’s death and the distorted faces of his killers weaving a fantastic saraband around the corpse. And when, as sometimes happened, light and peace of mind seemed on the verge of returning to her, suddenly unknown and often hideous faces would appear, which the child tried with all her feeble strength to push away.

Sometimes she seemed dimly to hear someone weeping, far away down a long, dark tunnel at the end of which shone a faint speck of light. Catherine dragged herself along this endless tunnel in search of that speck of light, but the farther on she stumbled, the longer the tunnel stretched in front of her.

Then one evening the mists parted, the things around her settled into place at last and took on clearly-defined shapes. She had emerged at long last from the shadowy regions of unconsciousness. The surroundings in which she found herself were so strange that at first she took them to be merely an extension of her nightmare. She was lying in a dark, low-ceilinged room, the roof of which was a stone vault supported by rough pillars. The only light came from the fire that leapt high in the crudely-fashioned chimney. A black cooking-pot, suspended from a hook over the flames, simmered away, giving out a tantalising smell of cooking vegetables. A skinny, ragged man sat on a three-legged stool near the fire and stirred the contents of the pot with a long wooden spoon. It was Barnaby the Cockleshell Man.

Hearing Catherine’s sigh, he leapt to his feet and bounded across the room, still holding the spoon. He bent over her anxiously, but the look of anxiety faded and the two deep lines either side of his mouth cracked in a smile when he realised that the child’s eyes were not only wide open but apparently seeing clearly at last.

‘Feeling better, eh?’ he whispered, apparently fearful that he might bring on a relapse if he raised his voice.

She smiled at him in reply and then asked: ‘Where am I? Where is Maman?’

‘You are in my house. Your mother is not far away. She will be here soon. As for how you come to be here, that’s rather a long and complicated story that can wait till you are quite well again. The important thing for the moment is to rest and get back your strength. The soup will be ready in a moment.’

He went back to his cooking-pot. Stood over the flames, he cast a bizarre shadow across the smoky room, but it no longer frightened Catherine. She made an effort to work out what she was doing in this cellar and how Barnaby had come to be her sick nurse, but her head was weak still. Falling back on the bed, she closed her eyes and was soon fast asleep.

Barnaby had just finished skimming the soup when a woman appeared at the top of the flight of steps that went up to a narrow little door.

She was young and would have been beautiful had her skin not been so dark and her costume so strange. Her lithe, slender body was dressed in a sort of dress of coarse stuff, anchored by a length of material draped round her hips. This material was of red and yellow striped wool. A sort of shawl across her shoulders protected her from the cold, and her dark head was covered by a turban-like arrangement of coiled bands of cloth, one end of which passed under her chin. Two heavy plaits, dark as night and thick as a child’s arm, hung below her turban.

Once more awake, Catherine regarded this strange apparition with astonishment. Her face was so dark-complexioned that when she smiled her teeth flashed dazzling white. Catherine noticed that her features were delicate and that she had magnificent black eyes. Barnaby came with her to Catherine’s bedside.

‘This is Black Sara,’ he told her. ‘She knows more secrets than a sorceress. She has been looking after you, and right well at that! Well, what do you think, Sara?’

‘She has found her spirits again. She is cured,’ the woman said. ‘All she needs now is rest and good food.’ Her thin brown hands meanwhile lightly touched the child’s cheeks, brow and wrist, moving with the speed and delicacy of birds in flight. Then Sara sat with her arms round her knees on the ground beside Catherine’s bed and gazed at her thoughtfully. Meanwhile Barnaby drew on his shell-bedecked cloak and picked up his staff.

‘Stay a little while,’ he said to the woman. ‘It is time for Mass at St Opportune and I don’t want to miss it. All the tinsmiths of the neighbourhood are gathering for a service there, and they are sure to give generously.’

Barnaby left after suggesting to Sara that she taste the soup and give the invalid a good bowlful.

The next day, after a night of deep and peaceful sleep, Catherine heard from her mother the full story of what had happened on the Pont-au-Change after Michel’s death. The risk of fire spreading had stopped the crowd setting the Legoix’s house alight. Instead, they had looted and pillaged the building from top to bottom. Having heard what was going on, Gaucher Legoix had come hurrying back from the House of Pillars. His pleas and remonstrations had only incited the angry mob to further violence, Caboche’s departure having removed any possible restraint from them. The resentment that had been building up as a result of his cool attitude to the Butchers’ Guild had then exacted a terrible revenge. In spite of his wife’s tears and entreaties, joined with those of Landry and his father, the mob had hanged Gaucher Legoix from his own shop sign and then thrown his body into the river. Jacquette had then taken refuge with the Pigasse family, together with the unconscious Catherine, whom Landry had found and rescued. But soon the fury of the mob had seemed to threaten Jacquette too, and she had been forced to flee again, with the help of Barnaby, whom Landry, luckily, had gone to fetch. First by river, then along interminable alleys, the poor woman and her strange companion had sought the safety of Barnaby’s house in the Grande Cour des Miracles. She had stayed there ever since, tending her daughter and trying to recover from the terrible ordeal from which she had just emerged. Gaucher’s violent death had been a cruel stroke, but Catherine’s critical condition had left her little time to mourn. Her child had been in danger. To which a new anxiety had soon been added: Loyse had disappeared.

The last time anyone remembered seeing Loyse was at the moment when her younger sister had lost consciousness, at the height of her brainstorm. She had been holding Catherine in her arms. Then a forward surge of the mob had swept Catherine from her. Landry had turned up in the nick of time to rescue his friend. But Loyse had vanished in the midst of the angry crowd, which had then hurled itself on the Sign of the Holy Tabernacle and torn it apart. No-one knew what had become of her since.

‘She could have fallen into the river,’ Jacquette said, dabbing at her eyes, which seemed perpetually swollen with tears, ‘but then the Seine would have washed up her body. Barnaby goes to the morgue at the Grand Châtelet every day, but he hasn’t found her yet. He is convinced she is still alive and goes on searching for her. All we can do is wait and pray.’

‘What will we do then?’ Catherine asked. ‘Stay here with Barnaby?’

‘No. As soon as we have found Loyse we will leave Paris and go to Dijon. As you know, your uncle Mathieu is a cloth merchant there. As we are his only surviving relations, he can hardly refuse to take us in.’

Talking about her brother’s house seemed to comfort the poor woman a little. It had been her parents’, and she had spent her childhood in it and been married from it to Gaucher Legoix many years ago. It was the haven to which, in her grief, it seemed natural for her to turn for refuge and comfort. Grateful as she was to the Cockleshell Man for the generous way he had helped her, the good woman could not help regarding the bizarre world of the beggars, into which she had been so suddenly thrown, with mistrust and distaste.

Sara continued to look after Catherine. Her treatment consisted of cooling drinks and curious nostrums that she made the girl take to restore her strength. She obstinately refused to divulge how and with what they were made, though she did explain the properties of the infusions of vervain, which she made Catherine drink all the time as a supreme remedy against all ills.

Gradually Catherine and even Jacquette grew accustomed to the presence of the dark-skinned woman. Barnaby had told them her story. Sara had been born into one of the gypsy tribes that lived on the island of Cyprus. When still a young girl, she had been seized by the Turks and sold in the market at Candia to a Venetian merchant who had taken her back with him to his own country. Sara had stayed in Venice for ten years, and it was there she had learnt the secrets of herbal medicine. Then her master had died and she had been bought by a Lombard moneylender who had just acquired a house in Paris. He had been a cruel, violent man. Sara had been continually maltreated. Finally, one winter night, she had run away and been found by a supposedly blind man, Maillet-le-Loup, in a church where she had taken refuge, trembling with cold and hunger. He had taken her back with him to his hovel in the Cour Saint-Sauveur, and there she had remained in the capacity of housekeeper ever since.

Quite apart from her healing powers, which were always greatly in demand among the beggars, Black Sara could read palms. This gift sometimes led to her being summoned in great secrecy to some noble house. Moving about the town as she did and penetrating where many people never could, Sara learnt things about the town and Court. She knew endless stories too, and would spend hours at a time squatted beside the hearth between Catherine and her mother gossiping tirelessly in her soft sing-song voice, while they shared out the herb wine she made better than anyone else. Legends of some remote tribe, the latest Court scandal – all were equally grist to her mill. Almost every evening when Barnaby returned he would find the three women in their usual places, each deriving some sort of solace from the others’ company. Then he would take his seat among this odd family that chance or fate had brought him, and in his turn recount news and rumours from the outside world.

Once night had fallen and the Beggars’ Kingdom woke to its riotous nocturnal life, Barnaby’s presence was essential to calm the fears of his guests. The fact was that the Grande Cour des Miracles became a terrifying place as soon as its inhabitants returned. And Barnaby’s own corner of it was far from peaceful. From just before matins till the time when the trumpeter on watch heralded the dawn from one of the Châtelet towers and the guards were withdrawn from the gate, a sinister-looking rabble converged on the square, streaming out of their hovels and crowding along all the alleys. Then the cripples would stand upright, the blind would see and the supporting sores that touched the hearts and generosity of the charitable would be whisked off in a flash, thereby enacting the nightly miracle that had given these places their name. Then the wild, turbulent mob would pass the rest of the night shouting, singing and feasting. There were at this time some eighty thousand genuine or sham beggars in Paris.

The rule of the Kingdom of Thune was that everything found, begged or stolen in the course of the day should be consumed that same night. After all the day’s harvest had been pooled at the feet of the King of Thune, the signal was given for the feast to begin. Whole animals were roasted over roaring fires, casks of wine were broken open, and on all sides there were simmering stew-pots, watched over by old crones every bit as alarming as the witches of legend. The whole square was filled with the glare of the fires and torches, and weird shadows leapt and danced on the decaying walls all around. It was a window on a life Catherine knew of by hearsay, but had always supposed must belong to the world of fantasy.

A man sat enthroned on a cairn of stones, draped with cloths, in front of the biggest fire. A bull-neck set on massive shoulders; a triangular body poised on short, sturdy legs; a squarish head and thatch of coarse hair surmounted by a faded red bonnet; a large, drunken face in which flashed a set of astonishingly white teeth: this was Mâchefer, King of Thune and Argot, sovereign lord of the 16 Parisian Cours des Miracles, and grand master of all French beggary. A black kerchief covered his left eye, which had been put out by the public executioner, and this put the finishing touch to a nightmarish figure. He sat on his cairn with his fists on his knees, his personal banner – a haunch of raw meat impaled on a pike – planted beside him, and presided over the merrymaking of his subjects, partaking freely all the while of flagons of beer poured out by a half-naked maenad.

Every night, once she was strong enough, Catherine used to slip out of bed and creep over to the skylight. This, together with the slit window by the door, was the only source of light in Barnaby’s château. Stood there on tiptoe, drinking in every detail of the Bacchanalian, Catherine came to learn quite a few things about the laws of nature – since these feasts invariably ended in an orgy. She saw couples roll about on the ground, entwining publicly, not bothering to look for a dark or secluded corner. These sights left her strangely troubled, agitated by an emotion that seemed to spring from the innermost fibres of her adolescent body.

If Jacquette had caught her watching she would have died of shame, but meanwhile, alone in her dark corner, Catherine eagerly watched what went on. In this way she learnt about some of the stranger customs of the Kingdom of Argot and Thune.