Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (40 page)

‘Yet you seem to support Arnaud de Montsalvy?’

‘Because I like him very much. If he were Charles VII, I would not have the pleasure of being seated here beside you. I would be with him.’

‘The fact that he supports the King should be enough for you,’ Catherine said severely. Ermengarde signed to her to be silent.

The two knights were once more galloping headlong, and with renewed ardour, toward each other down the list. With too much ardour perhaps, because the blow misfired. The Bastard’s horse wheeled aside just as it was about to pass Arnaud’s charger. The lances missed their targets and the two combatants were carried some distance by the impetus of their charge before they could turn their horses round and return to their tents. On the way back to his pavilion, Arnaud raised his visor to breath more freely. Catherine gazed at him as he passed in front of the stands at a slow trot, urgently willing him to look back at her. She saw a faint tremor pass over the young man’s hard, handsome face as he did so, and smiled at him with all the concentrated warmth of her love. Her face shone with such radiance that Arnaud started involuntarily. He bent over and made as if to secure more tightly the blue scarf he had knotted round his arm. He had paused for only a fraction of a second but the incident, slight as it was, engulfed Catherine with joy. For the first time, Arnaud’s glance as it met hers had not been contemptuous or cold. It had disclosed a warmth of feeling such as Catherine had despaired of finding there again. But now the precious moment was over. The combat once more claimed the two knights.

The adversaries broke two more lances without much effect. Arnaud sometimes doubled up under the Bastard’s mighty blows, but he always held firm in the saddle. At the fifth charge, however, Lionel’s lance struck the young man’s helmet on the left side just at the point where the visor was attached to it. Catherine thought his head must be knocked clean off. But both head and helmet stayed where they were, apart from the visor, which slipped to one side and disclosed Arnaud’s face, now streaked with two trickles of blood.

‘He is wounded!’ Catherine cried, half rising out of her seat. ‘Almighty God!’

She felt as though she was suffocating. A scream forced its way between lips now as white as her dress. Ermengarde had literally to hang on to her arm in order to force her back into her seat.

‘You should not enter so wholeheartedly into the fray, child,’ she cried warningly. ‘Calm down, my dear, calm down at once! You are being watched!’

‘It’s nothing serious!’ said Saint-Rémy, without looking at her. ‘Just a scratch caused by the hinge as it broke.’

‘But he was wounded in the head such a short time ago!’ Catherine wailed in a voice so shaken by grief and anguish that her neighbour glanced at her curiously. Then he smiled.

‘It seems as though I am not the only Burgundian supporter to entertain hopes for the success of King Charles’s champion,’ he remarked sweetly. ‘I must remind you, as did the Countess Ermengarde, not to torment yourself unduly. The lad is solidly built. He has been through this sort of thing before.’

Arnaud wrenched off the hanging visor with an impatient gesture. Then he seized a pitcher of water that de Xaintrailles held out to him and drank it thirstily, in great gulps. Catherine saw that the Bastard was doing likewise. In the same fraction of a second, both men seized their sixth and last lance. If they were still in their saddles after this charge the combat would be continued on horseback but using battleaxes. Arnaud had the disadvantage of having no visor, so that his face was exposed. As if to emphasise this, Lionel closed his own visor with a triumphant click. The two chargers sped toward each other, sending the turf flying under their hooves. Catherine crossed herself hurriedly. The crash of splintering lances was thunderous. The Bastard had thrown all his formidable strength behind this last charge. Arnaud was struck on the shoulders, literally torn from the saddle. He was catapulted into the air and flung toward one of the barriers some five paces away from his horse, which fled snorting in terror. Meanwhile, however, the very violence of his charge had conspired to unseat Lionel, and the blow from Arnaud’s lance, although it had not strike him squarely, did the rest. He sailed out of his stirrups, and crashed heavily to the ground with a clatter of metal.

‘What an ungraceful fall!’ Saint-Rémy began teasingly for Catherine’s benefit. ‘But at least it will equalise the struggle.’

Vendôme’s fall was providential for his adversary. Arnaud sprang to his feet, lithe and agile as a cat despite the fifty pounds of metal on his back and the fresh wound in his shoulder that could be seen as the blood started spreading over his fleur-de-lys-embroidered tunic. The long points of his steel boots got in his way when he tried to walk, and he hurriedly wrenched them off before seizing the battleaxe that stood ready nearby. He was quite close to Catherine now, and she watched him creep up on his opponent with short little steps, his eyes dilated like a cat’s, his buckler on his left forearm and his axe raised to strike. Meanwhile Lionel de Vendôme was struggling to his feet. When they were both upright and facing each other, the difference in height between the two knights was much more noticeable. Arnaud was close on six feet tall, but beside the Bastard’s six foot six he seemed quite short. In Lionel’s grasp the battleaxe looked as massive as a tree-trunk below its glittering, deadly steel blade.

Without giving the Bastard time to get his breath back, Arnaud leapt upon him. He wanted to win and win quickly. His wounds, as Catherine instinctively realised, were losing blood too fast to leave him any alternative. Merely to think of Arnaud’s injuries, she found, caused her actual physical pain. But his axe rebounded off Vendôme’s armour just as the giant himself let fly. Arnaud, with a nimble movement, dodged aside to avoid the blow that would have knocked him flying. Then he closed in rapidly, raised his axe high and struck again … The sound of steel on steel was like the hollow clanging of a bell. Sparks flew. Then Arnaud dealt a second blow, which drew cheers and applause from the spectators. His axe struck the top of Lionel’s helmet and severed the golden lion crest as cleanly as if it had been made of wax, sending it tumbling in the dust. The Bastard’s bellow of rage was heard by all. He raised himself to his full height and seized his axe-shaft with both hands, intending to pulverise the insolent knave who had dared violate his crest. But his iron-shod feet were clumsy. He stumbled and almost fell, and Arnaud had no difficulty in warding off the blow with his own axe-handle.

Catherine guessed that Lionel was in the grip of a blind fury. He wanted to kill, and kill quickly! He struck out wildly in his rage. Blow followed blow in quick succession, but they were aimed erratically and succeeded only in exhausting him without achieving their real object. Arnaud, on the other hand, seemed to grow cooler with every passing second. He was waiting for the right moment. Suddenly he struck several rapid slicing blows at Lionel’s visor, which cracked open, revealing his foe’s red and sweating face. The Bastard flung out his hand to seize the young man’s axe, but Arnaud had already hurled it aside. Now he flung himself on the giant, the claws of his steel gauntlets aimed straight for the other man’s face. When Vendôme felt his opponent’s talons ploughing into his flesh he staggered back, slipped and fell heavily to the ground. Arnaud fell with him and continued ferociously savaging the face of the other knight. The latter, suddenly drained of his strength and half blinded, started bellowing like a panicky steer in the slaughter-house. They heard him cry ‘Mercy!’

Arnaud, who was kneeling on his enemy’s throat, had beenon the point of seizing his dagger and plunging it into him when he heard the cry. He replaced the weapon in its sheath, stood up, shaking the blood from his dripping gauntlets, and then spoke contemptuously:

‘God has judged!’ he cried. ‘Now stand up! The King of France’s knight does not slaughter a man when he is down. You ask for mercy and I give it to you … Duke of Burgundy!’

Without another word he turned on his heel, pursued by the enthusiastic cheers and ‘vivats’ of the crowd packed behind the barrier round the list. Catherine, as vividly as though it was her own blood trickling down into the ground, sensed him suddenly weaken. As he made his way back to his pavilion, Arnaud staggered and reeled like a drunken man. His squire and Xaintrailles ran up to catch him in their arms just in time to save him from crashing to the ground as he completely lost consciousness.

‘The lilies of France did not bite the dust after all,’ said Saint-Rémy solemnly. ‘I wonder if that is an omen.’

Catherine looked at him inquiringly, but his expression was inscrutable. It was impossible to tell whether the chevalier was delighted or dismayed by the result of the combat. Perhaps he dared not rejoice openly while tears of anger were streaming down Philippe’s stony countenance. The Duke stood there making little effort to hide his rage and humiliation from the crowd. Catherine shrugged contemptuously and stood up. Then she lifted up her trailing skirts and began moving toward the exit.

Ermengarde caught her by the arm. ‘Where are you going?’

‘You know very well where I’m going! And this time you can’t stop me! No-one can. Not even the Duke!’

‘Why should you think I would stop you?’ said the Countess with a shrug. ‘Fly away, pretty butterfly, fly away and burn your wings. When you come back, I’ll see what I can do to help you put out the flames.’

But Catherine was already out of earshot.

12

Under A Blue Silk Roof

Catherine had some difficulty pushing her way through the excited throngs of people who had surged past the line of guards and were now crowding on to the list from all directions. However, most of them fell back in awe at the approach of this dazzling beauty in her magnificent gown. The great blue silk pavilion seemed to be beckoning to her above the heads of the crowd, and she caught herself smiling at it a little foolishly. When she finally reached the entrance to the tent, the Scotsman who had been placed on guard there hesitated for a second before admitting her. But then the sight of her jewels and rich costume, all of which suggested a grand lady come to visit, reassured him, and he stepped back with a polite bow, rolling his eyes admiringly above an impressively-bushy red moustache, and even went so far as to gallantly hold back the blue silk flap that hung across the entrance so that she might go in. Then Catherine saw Arnaud …

He was stretched out on a sort of low couch while his squire tended his injuries. As Catherine entered, she only saw his black hair and the top of his head, which was propped up on a blue silk cushion. His armour, of which they had hastily divested him, lay strewn about the floor, with the exception of his helmet with its fleur-de-lys crest and his bloody gauntlets, which had been placed on a chest. It was the first time that Catherine had ever been inside a knight’s tent, and she was amazed by its size. Inside, the pavilion formed a spacious octagonal room entirely hung with tapestries and silk curtains. It was furnished with chairs, coffers and wooden chests, on which stood pitchers and drinking vessels. There were weapons and armour everywhere, and the whole place was dreadfully untidy. The squire had opened a coffer near the bed, which contained the knight’s travelling medicine chest. The scent of some medicinal balm, at once sharp and sweet, arose from it. Catherine instantly recognised it as the scent she had first come across in the Inn of the Grand Charlemagne while Abou-al-Khayr was tending Arnaud.

Nobody had noticed her arrival. The squire had his back turned to her, and was blocking Arnaud’s view. In a corner, Jean de Xaintrailles, making ready to do battle with Rebecque, was having his armour fitted by his own squire, and meanwhile singing a love song, the lyrics of which resonated curiously with the spirit of the young woman:

‘Fair lady, what thinkest thou of me?

‘What is in thy heart? Hide it not from me.

‘For even if given the gold of ten cities,

‘I would never take thou, if it were not thy desire.’

Catherine then heard Arnaud, suffering as he was being tended to, swear through gritted teeth and growl: ‘You sing off-key!’

The redheaded knight turned to deliver a retort. In doing so, he caught sight of Catherine, and the song’s lyrics changed in his mouth to a light whistle of admiration. He pushed his squire away and approached Catherine with a broad smile.

‘Fair lady,’ he said, greeting her as graciously as his suit of armour would allow, ‘such a delightful visit at the time of battle is, for any knight worthy of that name, the most precious consolation. I did not think that my prowess had attracted sufficient attention yet to draw the most beautiful of women to me even before the end of the joust. Would you do me the honour of letting me know who you are?’

Catherine smiled at him gently but hastened to disabuse him: ‘Excuse me, my Lord. It is not you whom I have come here to see, it is he.’ So saying, she indicated Arnaud, who at the sound of her voice had shaken off his squire’s hands and was now sat looking at her with a mixture of astonishment and anger.

‘You again!’ he exclaimed ungallantly. ‘Have you taken it into your head to rush to my bedside whenever I get a little bruise or cut? If that’s the case, my dear, you are going to have a busy time.’

His voice was harsh and its inflection heavily sarcastic. But Catherine had vowed to herself that she would not lose her temper. She smiled at him with winning gentleness.

‘I saw you lose consciousness, messire. And I was afraid that your old head-wound might have reopened. You seemed to be losing a great deal of blood.’

‘I have just told you I don’t require your sympathy, madame,’ said Arnaud in his surliest manner. ‘From what I hear, you have a husband of your own, and if you have any compassion to spare, I should reserve it all for your lover. The Duke Philippe needs it far more than I do!’

At this point Xaintrailles, whose sharp little brown eyes had been going from one to the other during this exchange, intervened. ‘This cantankerous bear of an Auvergnat does not deserve your solicitude, madame. You should keep it for someone worthier. ’Pon my word, I have half a mind to let Rebecque deal me some hearty blows if by that I could expect to be ministered to by such gentle hands.’

Arnaud waved aside his friend and his squire. He was still clad in armour from the waist down. Above that he wore nothing but a white linen shirt, opened wide across the chest and showing the dressing that had been placed on his wound.

‘I’ve nothing wrong with me except a few scratches!’ he said, getting painfully to his feet. ‘Go and fight now, Xaintrailles! Rebecque is waiting for you. And let me remind you that if I am an Auvergnat bear, you are too!’

Xaintrailles flexed his knees two or three times to assure himself that his armour joints were in good order. Then he slipped a silk tunic over his armour and took his helmet from the hands of a page. It was an impressive-looking thing surmounted by three towers and decorated with a coloured mantling.

‘I go, I kill Rebecque and I return!’ he announced cheerfully. ‘For the love of God, madame, don’t let this fellow’s evil temper drive you out of the pavilion before my return, so that I may have the pleasure of contemplating you once more. Some people have more luck than they deserve!’

Bowing once more, he went out, taking up the song he had been singing when Catherine entered. ‘Alas,’ he sang, ‘if you should refuse me your love …’

Arnaud and Catherine found themselves alone. The two squires and the page had gone out at Xaintrailles’ heels to see the joust. They stood facing each other, with only the medicine chest between them. It stood on the ground, where the squire had left it.

But there was something else between them, something intangible, the strange antagonism that had sprung up in them and set them at loggerheads. Catherine found that she suddenly had no idea what to say. She had longed for this moment so much and yearned to find herself alone with him again so often that the realisation of her dream left her weak and spent, like a swimmer who has battled against a storm and finally drags himself wearily ashore … She stood gazing up at him, unaware that her lips were trembling and that her tearful eyes and entire body were like a supplication to him not to hurt her. He looked back at her, not angrily but with a sort of curiosity. Bending his head a little he studied the golden-skinned face that the lace headdress set off to perfection, the round, pink, delicious mouth, the short little nose and the immense eyes, the outer corners of which slanted up slightly toward her temples.

‘You have violet eyes,’ he murmured softly, as though to himself. ‘The biggest, loveliest eyes I have ever seen! Jean is right. You are wonderfully beautiful and wonderfully desirable! Worthy of a prince!’ he added bitterly. At this his face hardened abruptly and his eyes became fierce once more. ‘Now, tell me why you came here, and then go! I thought I had explained to you that we have nothing to say to each other.’

Catherine had regained her powers of speech and her courage. His smile and the few soft words he had spoken were all the encouragement she needed to make her attempt the impossible. She was no longer afraid of him or of anyone else. There was some unseen affinity between them that Arnaud himself might not be aware of, but that vibrated through every fibre of her being. Whatever Arnaud might say or do, he could not prevent her being eternally wedded to him in the spirit as irrevocably as though he had possessed her in the flesh in the inn at the crossroads. Very softly, and without nervousness or hesitation, she said:

‘I came to tell you that I love you.’

No sooner had she said the words than she felt wonderfully carefree. How easy and simple it had been! Arnaud had not protested, or insulted her as she had been afraid he might do. He had merely fallen back a step with a hand shading his eyes, as though protecting them from a bright light. A long moment later he whispered hoarsely:

‘You mustn’t! You are wasting your time and your love! I might have loved you once, because you are beautiful and I desire you. But there are gulfs between us that cannot be bridged and that I could not cross without repugnance and shame, even if I were to let my desire triumph for a moment over my will. Now go …’

Instead of obeying him, Catherine moved still closer, till he was enveloped in the subtle, exquisite fragrance Sara had so artfully concocted for her. The delicate perfume emanating from her clothes proved more potent than the smell of medicinal balm and blood that had hitherto filled the tent. Then she took another step toward him, radiantly confident of herself and her power over him. She saw his hand tremble and he averted his face. How could he possibly escape her now?

‘I love you,’ she repeated, her voice lower and more passionate now. ‘I have always loved you since the moment I first saw you. Remember that morning at dawn, when you found me by your bedside when you woke up? All you thought of then was that I attracted you and you desired me. I let you make love to me. I was ready to surrender myself completely to you without a trace of shame or remorse. You see, I felt as though I no longer belonged to myself. I had willed myself over to you from the bottom of my heart. Why do you turn away? Why don’t you look at me? Are you afraid of me, Arnaud?’

It was the first time she had dared call him by name. He did not protest. Instead he looked her directly in the eyes with a trace of bravado.

‘Afraid? No, I’m not afraid of you, or your blandishments. Only of myself, and what I might do! What brings you here, talking of love? Do you really suppose you can fool me with your pretty speeches? They trip so smoothly off your lips, my pretty, that one would have to be a madman to believe them!’

His courage seemed to return as he spoke, rekindling the wrath that was his surest line of defence.

‘You don’t believe I love you?’ Catherine cried piteously. ‘But why not?’

‘I’ll tell you! Because words used too often lose their meaning and force. Let’s try and add up a little sum! We will assume that you have said the same words to your charming husband, and to the Duke Philippe, since he is your lover! And who else? Oh yes, that handsome young captain who chased after you to accompany you all the way back from Flanders. That makes it at least three, and then there are all the others I don’t know about.’

Despite her intention of keeping her temper, Catherine found herself provoked beyond endurance. To have one’s declaration of love treated in this flippant manner was intolerable! She flushed crimson and stamped her foot angrily.

‘How dare you discuss things you know nothing about! I told you I loved you, and I say it again – I love you! And, if you must know, I am still a virgin – my husband has never touched me!’

‘How can I be convinced that you are telling the truth?’

Catherine’s anger evaporated as quickly as it had appeared. She encompassed him with a radiant smile.

‘Oh, my sweet Lord, I don’t think that should prove too difficult!’

Before she could say another word, he took a step toward her, irresistibly drawn to the candid face that glowed softly in the dim blue light of the tent. The look on his face as he stared at her was one of naked desire, the look she remembered from that morning in the inn at Tournai. He seemed oblivious of everything but the enchanting woman’s body stood so close to him … He was hers! Without taking her eyes from his, she stepped over the medicine chest and slipped up close to him, twining her arms round his neck. Then she raised herself on tiptoe and tilted her face up toward him, waiting for his kiss. He stiffened. She felt his muscles grow tense all over as though his body were trying to fend her off, in a last effort to resist her. And a vain effort it proved to be! The supple, rounded body clinging to him acted as powerfully on him as a love potion. His self-control cracked, and at almost the same moment Catherine yielded to the passion that was storming within her, rousing her senses to madness. Suddenly they were alone in the world. The blue silk walls of the tent, the time, place, even the uproar from the lists as three thousand throats roared and cheered lustily, sank into oblivion beside the greater reality of that moment.

Arnaud wrapped his arms round her, crushing her to him with savage urgency. The hunger that had been consuming him, unappeased for so many months, at last claimed its prey. His mouth swooped down onto hers, devouring the soft, rosy, inviting lips with greedy, fierce kisses. He held her to him so tightly that Catherine, almost swooning with joy, could feel his heart beating wildly against her under her right breast. Their breathing merged into one and Catherine felt herself expiring under these hungry kisses that seemed to be sucking her very life away …

As the passion within them fused and deepened, their legs suddenly grew weak under them, and they stood locked together, swaying like two solitary trees in a bare, storm-ravaged countryside. They did not hear Xaintrailles enter the tent, crimson and panting like a blacksmith, with one lip torn from the joust. He paused for a startled moment at the entrance, his battered helmet tucked under his arm, looking at them. Then a wide grin spread across his broad face. Without hurry and without once taking his eyes off the entwined lovers, he crossed the tent and poured himself a generous ration of wine, which he drained at a gulp. Then he briskly signalled to the two squires to remain outside the tent, where they had been awaiting his orders, and began unhurriedly divesting himself of his different pieces of armour. He had got as far as the right arm-brace when Arnaud raised his head a little and caught sight of him. He let go of Catherine so abruptly that she had to cling to his shoulder to stop herself falling.