Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (16 page)

Hurry as they might along the last part of the road, the night was pitch black, and the little band was soaked to the skin by the time the lantern above the door of the Inn of the Grand Charlemagne flashed ahead of them in the night.

An hour later they were all safely installed and the wounded man lay in the depths of a large bed, curtained in red serge. Sited as it was at an important crossroads, the inn was, fortunately, one of the best in the region.

The arrival of the wounded knight had thrown the inn into confusion, because there had been hardly anywhere for him to sleep. A caravan of merchants travelling toward Bruges had taken up almost all the rooms. Finally, however, a room had been found for him, and a bed hurriedly made up for Catherine in a small room nearby. Mathieu, for once, would have to content himself with the stable, and to sleep on the straw with his valets. ‘It’s not the first time and I doubt that it will be the last,’ he said philosophically. He was more concerned about the condition of the man they had found by the wayside. The knight was still unconscious, and his head wound, no doubt caused by a heavy blow from the weapon that had dented his helmet, was still bleeding.

Their entry into the Grand Charlemagne had not gone unobserved by the travellers seated at their meal round the table in the main room. As a result, Mathieu and Catherine received a visit shortly afterwards from a highly unusual personage. The cloth merchant had met many Muslims in Bruges and in other markets, so the sight of a turban was no surprise to him. But the man who appeared at the door of the room where the wounded knight lay was far from typical in every possible respect.

He was thin and supple, but so small that his face seemed to be suspended somewhere about halfway between his towering, voluminous red turban and his feet, which were shod in matching red shoes and pretty blue stockings. A billowing robe of indigo damask covered him to the knees. It was belted by a wide sash of fine linen draped about his waist, from the folds of which the heavily-chased hilt of a dagger protruded. But this costume, striking as it was, paled to insignificance beside the man himself. His thin and indisputably youthful face was paradoxically decorated with a long, snowy beard, above which a small, delicately chiselled nose protruded. He came forward and bowed low before the merchant and his niece, his slender hands crossed on his chest.

‘May Allah preserve you!’ he said in silky but slightly lisping French. ‘I learnt that you have a wounded man with you, and here I am! My name is Abou-al-Khayr, I come from Cordoba and I am the greatest doctor in the whole of Islam.’

The word ‘doctor’ checked the wild peal of laughter Catherine had been on the point of emitting. The immense dignity of the little turbaned man, who did not seem to be remarkable for his modesty, had something irresistibly comic about it, a fact of which he appeared quite unaware.

‘We have indeed got a wounded man –’ she began. But, raising a hand, the little doctor silenced her. He then said severely:

‘I am addressing this honourable old gentleman here. Women are not permitted to speak in our country.’

In her annoyance, Catherine reddened to the roots of her hair, while Mathieu in his turn had to suppress a strong urge to laugh. But this was no moment to discourage well-wishers.

‘There is indeed a wounded man in there,’ he answered, bowing in his turn. ‘A young knight we found by the riverbank who seems to be in a sorry state.’

‘I will examine him.’

Following at his heels by his two black slaves, one carrying a large painted cedar chest and the other a pitcher of chased silver, Abou-al-Khayr went into the chamber where the knight lay. In his red-curtained bed, which, together with the fireplace, took up all the available space, the wounded man looked even paler than he had earlier on. Pierre stood beside him, mopping at the still-bleeding wound with a pad of material.

‘This gentleman is a doctor,’ Mathieu explained to Pierre, whose eyes were popping in astonishment.

‘God be praised! He has come not a moment too soon! The wound still bleeds.’

‘I will deal with that at once,’ said the Arab, signalling to his slaves to place their burdens on the table by the bed. Raising both arms, he shook back his wide sleeves and quickly felt the wounded man’s head.

‘No fracture,’ he said at length. ‘Simply a broken blood-vessel. Go and bring me some hot coals in a pot.’

Pierre ran out of the room, while Catherine took his place at the head of the bed. The little doctor looked at her disapprovingly.

‘Are you this young man’s wife?’

‘No, I don’t even know him. But I shall stay here all the same,’ the girl said decisively. This little man, who apparently had no great affection for women, would not succeed in chasing her away.

Abou-al-Khayr sniffed disdainfully but said nothing more. He rummaged in his chest, which, now that it was opened, displayed rows of shining steel instruments and a profusion of phials and little pottery jars in bright colours; black, green, red and white. He took out an object shaped like a tiny seal, with a bronze handle superbly wrought in the shape of birds and leaves. After carefully wiping this instrument with a little pad of wool, on which he had poured a few drops of some acrid-smelling liquid, Abou-al-Khayr placed it in the pot of glowing coals that Pierre had just brought in. Catherine’s eyes opened wide in horror.

‘What are you going to do to him?’

The little doctor was clearly loath to speak to her, but he was also congenitally incapable of keeping silent when an explanation of one of his actions had been demanded.

‘Oh, ignorant woman that you are, does it not leap to the eye? I am going to cauterise the wound to seal up the vein. Your own fools of doctors also employ this practice.’

With a steady hand he grasped the bronze handle of his instrument and held the red-hot metal up to the wound, which had now been cleaned of the armour grease that had been adhering to it. Catherine closed her eyes and dug her nails into the palms of her hands. But she couldn’t shut out the wounded man’s scream or the nauseating smell of burnt flesh and scorched hair.

‘A sensitive young fellow!’ commented the doctor. ‘I barely touched the wound, so as not to leave too large a burn.’

‘If someone touched your temples with a piece of red-hot metal,’ cried Catherine, who was gazing wide-eyed and horrified at the young man’s contorted face, ‘what would you do?’

‘I would say it was an excellent idea, if by doing so a vein was sealed and my life was saved. You may now observe that he is no longer bleeding. I shall anoint the wound with a miraculous ointment, and in a few days’ time there will only be a small scar, for the wound itself is small …’

Taking from his chest a little green pot, brightly painted with fantastic flowers, he delicately scooped out a little of the ointment it contained with a gold needle and applied it to the cut. Then, with a little square of fine cloth, he crushed the balm over the wound and with fantastic dexterity began enveloping the young man’s head in an astonishing helmet of bandages to hold the compress dressing in place. It completely concealed the knight’s hair, and one end passed under his chin like a woman’s coif. Catherine watched the doctor at work with passionate interest. Since the balm had been applied to his wound, the young man had stopped groaning. A pungent and yet agreeable smell filled the room.

‘What is this balm?’ she asked.

‘We call it Matarea balm,’ the little man explained curtly. ‘It comes from Egypt. Has the young man any other wounds?’

‘I think he has a broken leg,’ said Mathieu, who had stood in silence during the last operation.

‘Let’s see it!’

Completely disregarding the young girl’s presence, the doctor threw back the coverlets and sheets, exposing the young man’s naked body. He had been undressed by Mathieu and Pierre before they placed him in the bed. The effect of this total nudity on Mathieu was to make him blush to the eyebrows.

‘Leave the room, Catherine!’ he commanded, taking his niece by the arm and directing her toward the door. The little doctor stopped him with a ferocious look.

‘What ridiculous Christian prudery is this? A man’s body, along with that of a horse, is Allah’s most beautiful creation. This woman will one day give birth to men like this. Why, therefore, should the sight of his body be offensive to her? The ancient Greeks made statues of naked men with which they ornamented their temples.’

‘My niece is a virgin,’ replied Mathieu, who still had Catherine by the wrist.

‘She won’t be for long. She is too beautiful for that! I do not like women. I find them silly, noisy and childish. But I can recognise beauty when I see it. This young woman is a masterpiece in her style … as is this young man. Have you ever seen anything more perfect than this fallen warrior?’

Abou-al-Khayr’s aesthetic appreciation, which Mathieu did not seem disposed to share, did not stop him working away as he talked, and he was now feeling the broken leg with extreme care and delicacy. Mathieu reluctantly let go of Catherine and stood looking down with unwilling fascination at the knight’s bronzed body, its skin shining faintly in the candlelight. Catherine had taken her place at the head of the bed again and watched as well. As the little doctor went on with his work, he continued to sing the praises of male beauty in his flowery and lyrical fashion. In this case, however, what he said was true. The wounded knight was magnificently built. Under his bronzed skin, long, supple muscles were outlined with anatomical precision; and his powerful shoulders, hard, narrow flanks, flat belly and thighs bulging with muscle stood out in striking relief against the white sheet. Deeply affected by the sight, Catherine felt her hands go cold, while a faint blush coloured her cheeks.

Helped by his slaves, Abou-al-Khayr seized the leg to stretch it and realign the broken bones. Then, suddenly, Catherine heard:

‘If that brute weren’t hurting me so, I might think myself in Paradise, for you are surely an angel … Unless, that is, you are the Rose herself stepped straight out of the pages of Lorris’s
Roman
?’

She saw gazing up at her two eyes of a sable blackness to which fever lent a disturbing sparkle. Now that the knight had regained consciousness and his eyes were open, the resemblance to Michel was fantastic – so much so that the girl could not resist asking him, in a voice that shook slightly:

‘In Heaven’s name, sire – tell me your name!’

The drawn face, which was sweating with pain, contracted in something that might have been a smile. It finished up as a hideous grimace, but a flash of brilliant white teeth made up for this.

‘I would rather find out who you are, but it would be churlish to make so lovely a lady ask the same question twice. My name is Arnaud de Montsalvy, Lord of the Châtaignerie in Auvergne, and I am Captain in the service of the Dauphin Charles.’

In order to see the young girl better, the wounded man tried to raise himself on one elbow, drawing a furious protest from the little doctor:

‘If you don’t keep still, my young Lord, you will be lame for the rest of your life!’

Arnaud’s black eyes, which had been fastened on Catherine, now rested with amazement on the doctor’s turban and on his two strange acolytes. He crossed himself hurriedly and tried to snatch his leg from the hands that held it.

‘What is this?’ he cried angrily. ‘An infidel dog, a Moor? How dare he touch a Christian knight without fear of being skinned alive?’

Abou-al-Khayr gave a sigh that indicated a deep weariness with this attitude. He slid his hands deeper into his sleeves and bowed politely.

‘The noble knight would doubtless prefer to lose a leg? I do not think there is another doctor in the place. Also I deeply regret having stopped the rapid flow of his precious blood a little while ago. Unworthy dog that I am! I should have left it to bleed away to the last drop!’

The half-angry, half-ironic tone of the little doctor’s voice sufficed to calm the young man. He suddenly burst out laughing.

‘They tell me your compatriots are clever men! Besides, you are quite right. I have no choice. Carry on with your work. I will see that you are royally paid for it.’

‘What with?’ Abou murmured, once more rolling back his sleeves. ‘You had nothing with you but your armour when the worthy cloth merchant found you.’

Mathieu, for his part, was beginning to think that the wounded man stared too boldly at his niece. He slid between them and began to tell the knight how they had found him by the bank of the Escaut, removed his armour and brought him to the Grand Charlemagne. Then the young man, now grown suddenly grave and thoughtful, related his own story. He had been sent as ambassador to the Duke of Burgundy by the Dauphin, and had been travelling through the countryside with one squire to accompany him when they had both been set upon and attacked on the other side of the river by a band of robbers, half Burgundian and half English, who had hurled him from his horse, robbed him and hit him over the head before throwing him into the river, where they had doubtless expected him to drown. Miraculously, despite the weight of his armour, he had succeeded in swimming as far as the opposite bank, thanks largely to an opportune sandbank. He had dragged himself up the bank with one last burst of strength and lost consciousness. As to his squire, he had no idea what could have become of him, and supposed that he must have been killed by the bandits.