Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (6 page)

She began unfastening her dress while Loyse, still grumbling, opened a chest that stood near the hearth and took out a clean chemise and green linen dress, which she handed to her sister.

‘As you know very well, I shan’t mention this to anyone, so as not to get you into trouble, but you mustn’t do it again, Catherine. You gave me such a fright! Dreadful things have been happening today!’

The girl’s distress was genuine. Catherine suddenly felt ashamed. Loyse was paler than usual that evening and there were great dark circles round her blue eyes. A sad little line showed at the corner of her mouth. She must have been tormenting herself all day thinking of Caboche’s remarks to her the night before. Impulsively, Catherine flung her arms round her neck and kissed her.

‘I’m so sorry! I won’t do it again.’

Loyse smiled forgivingly at her, then, taking up a thick shawl, she arranged it round her shoulders.

‘I am going round to the Pigasses’ house now to see how Dame Pigasse is. She didn’t seem too well a little while back. I’ll tell Maman you are back at the same time … from your visit to your godfather! Eat something and go to bed.’

Catherine would have liked to detain Loyse a moment longer, but her sharp ears could not detect any suspicious sounds coming from the direction of the workshop. Landry had had plenty of time by then to install Michel safely in the cellar, close the trapdoor and return home. It remained only for Loyse to depart and she would be alone with Michel.

As soon as Loyse had gone, Catherine ran over to the press where bread was stored and cut off a generous hunk. She filled a bowl with the bubbling stew of saffron-spiced mutton. Then she hunted about for a pot of honey and filled a pitcher with fresh water. She would have to make the most of this unexpected solitude to give Michel something to eat. He would need all his strength during the coming night.

The thought of him so close, only a few feet below where she stood, gave Catherine a feeling of indescribable happiness. It made her feel as though the house was a sort of guardian spirit under whose broad wings she and Michel had found refuge and shelter. Nothing bad could happen to Michel so long as he remained under the protection of the Sign of the Holy Tabernacle.

She paused in front of a mirror hung on the kitchen wall and studied her little face closely. That night, for the first time in her life, she wished she looked really pretty – pretty like the girls whom the students whistled after and followed in the streets. With a sigh, Catherine patted her barely rounded bodice. Her chances of bewitching Michel seemed pretty small. She picked up the provisions she had collected together and went into the workshop.

Gaucher’s workshop was silent and empty. Stools and work tables were ranged along one wall, while the tools hung tidily from nails. The big, heavily-reinforced cabinets that stood open by day to display the gold and silver ware to prospective clients were now shut and padlocked. The only thing left out seemed to be the little pair of scales Gaucher used to weigh precious stones. The solid oak shutters were all in place, but the door by which Loyse would enter presently was only pushed to.

A trapdoor with a heavy iron ring was set into the floor. Catherine lit her candle with a hot cinder. Then she placed the food on a large platter and with some difficulty lifted up the trapdoor. Taking care not to miss her footing on the ladder, she went down into the cellar.

She didn’t see Michel at first, because the small room, which had been hollowed out of one of the piers of the bridge, was full of an assortment of things piled as high as the roof. It was there that the Legoix household stored their wood, water, extra vegetables, the salt press that held a whole pig, and the household tools and ladders. The room was long, narrow and low-ceilinged, lit by a small window just large enough for a rather skinny youth to pass through.

‘It’s me, Catherine,’ she whispered so as not to frighten him. Something moved in the far corner.

‘I’m over here behind the logs.’

Just then her candle flame flickered up and she saw him leant back against the pile of logs, with the sham pilgrim’s cloak spread under him. The silver embroideries on his tunic shone softly in the gloom, and where the candle caught them they gleamed gold. He tried to get up, but Catherine signalled to him to stay where he was. She knelt beside him and put the heavy platter, with its appetising burden, down on the ground.

‘You must be hungry,’ she said gently. ‘You will need all your strength tonight, so I took advantage of my sister’s going out to bring you some food. The house is empty at the moment. Papa has gone to the House of Pillars, Maman is at Landry’s house because Landry’s mother is having a baby, and heaven knows where Marion, the servant girl, has got to. If things go on like this, you should be able to get out of Paris tonight without any trouble. Landry is coming back at midnight. It’s ten o’clock now.’

‘That smells good,’ he said with a smile that seemed to melt the marrow in her bones. ‘I’m really quite hungry’.

He began devouring the stew, speaking between mouthfuls.

‘I still can’t believe my luck, Catherine. When they were taking me to the gallows this evening I was so convinced my last hour had come that I felt quite resigned. I had made my farewells to everything I loved. And then out of the blue you come along and give me back my life! It feels quite strange!’

All of a sudden he looked very remote. Fatigue and anguish emphasised the fine-drawn look of his features. In the dancing candlelight his golden hair shone like a halo round his handsome face. He forced a smile to his lips. But Catherine noticed in his eyes a look of despair that left her suddenly afraid. ‘But … aren’t you pleased you have been rescued?’

He glanced up at her and noticed her face cloud over. She looked so frail stood there, cloaked in the shining hair that, now that it had dried, had recovered its usual brilliance. In her green dress she looked disarmingly like some little sylvan nymph. And those enormous eyes of hers, with their liquid depths, reminded him of the young does he used to chase as a child.

‘I would be truly ungrateful if I were not,’ he said softly.

‘Well then … eat some honey. And then tell me what you were thinking of just then. Your eyes looked so sad.’

‘I was just thinking of my own countryside. I was thinking about it on the way to Montfaucon as well. I realised that I would never see it again, and I think it was that that distressed me most.’

‘But you will see it again … now you are free.’

Michel smiled and took a piece of bread, which he dipped into the honey and then chewed absently.

‘I know. But then this feeling I have gets the better of me. Something tells me I shall never return to Montsalvy.’

‘You mustn’t let yourself think that!’ Catherine said severely. ‘You are only thinking these morbid thoughts because you are tired and weak. Once you have got your strength back and feel safe again, you will find you think quite differently.’

The passing reference to his native region of France had kindled Catherine’s curiosity. Her need to learn more about this young man who had so bewitched her was irresistible.

She slid closer to him and watched him thirstily drain the pitcher to its dregs.

‘What is the countryside you come from like? Would you tell me about it?’

‘Of course.’

Michel closed his eyes for a moment, possibly to evoke more clearly the beloved images of his childhood. He had imagined them so vividly and passionately during that long gallows walk of his that now they were easily conjured up against the dark screen of his closed eyelids.

He described for Catherine the high, windy plateau where he had been born. It was a granite country, pierced with little valleys padded with green chestnuts. Around Auvergne the land was pitted with extinct craters, and it was from volcanic rock that the high-piled houses of the village of Montsalvy, crowded round the abbey, were all built – as was the family castle itself, and its little chapel of the Sacred Spring, built on the side of a peak.

His words were so eloquent, though simple, that Catherine seemed to see the fields of barley, the lilac twilight skies when the mountain peaks faded imperceptibly till they resembled a line of blue ghosts, the springs bubbling up crystal clear among smooth stones and then darkening suddenly before plunging into the heart of great lakes set about with mossy granite boulders like dark carbuncles. She seemed to hear the midday wind singing between the crags and the winter storms moaning round the castle battlements. Michel talked of the flocks of sheep that grazed the countryside, the woods haunted by wolves and wild boar, and the tumbling streams where pink and silver salmon leaped and played. Catherine listened open-mouthed, oblivious of everything in her concentration on this youth and his tale.

‘And your parents?’ she asked when he fell silent. ‘Are they still alive?’

‘My father died ten years ago and I hardly remember him. He was an old soldier, and rather grim and forbidding. He spent his youth harrying the British at the side of the Great Constable of France. After the battle of Châteauneuf-de-Randon, where Bertrand de Guesclin met his death, he hung up his sword and announced that thereafter no leader would again command his unquestioning loyalty. My mother looked after our estates and raised me to manhood. She sent me into the household of Monseigneur de Berry, our feudal lord, and I remained a year in his service before moving to that of Prince Louis de Guyenne. My mother runs our estates as efficiently as a man and brings up my younger brother too.’

These glimpses of a life so much more exalted than her own filled Catherine with respect, though they also made her a little sad.

‘You have a brother?’

‘Yes. He is two years younger than me, and he can’t wait to show how much more skilled he is at jousting and feats of arms! There is no doubt,’ said Michel with a fond smile, ‘that he will make a splendid soldier. You have only to see him leap up on one of those huge farm horses and lead all the village bumpkins in a charge. He is as strong as a Turk and thinks of nothing but glorious wounds and bruises. I am very fond of Arnaud. He starts his military career soon, and then my mother will be left quite alone. It will be sad for her, but I know she will never complain. She is too good, and too proud to do that.’ As he talked about his family, Michel’s face shone so radiantly that Catherine could not resist asking him:

‘Is he as handsome as you?’

Michel laughed and patted her head.

‘Much handsomer! There is no comparison. And there is a loving heart under his fierce manner. He is proud, generous and passionate. I think he is very fond of me.’

Catherine trembled under his caressing hand, not daring to move. Suddenly Michel leant forward and touched her forehead with his lips.

‘Unfortunately,’ he said, ‘I have no little sister to love.’

‘She would have adored you if you had,’ Catherine said warmly. Then she stopped horror-stricken as footsteps sounded overhead. She had lost track of time, and Loyse must have returned. She would have to go back up. Michel had heard the sounds too and raised his head, listening. Hurriedly Catherine snatched up some logs up to give herself an excuse for being in the cellar and started up the ladder, putting her finger to her lips to warn Michel to keep quiet. She closed the trapdoor behind her, leaving Michel in total darkness once more.

When Catherine reached the kitchen, with her candle precariously balanced on the bundle of logs, she found not Loyse but Marion, who looked at her with a mixture of surprise and anger.

‘Where have you sprung from?’

‘From the cellar, as you see,’ Catherine said smoothly. ‘I went to get some logs.’

Fat Marion cut a ludicrous figure. Her red-veined face gleamed scarlet as if it had been varnished. Her cap was askew. And she was evidently having trouble articulating clearly. Her eyes roamed vaguely about as if she found it hard to focus. None of this however prevented her from grabbing Catherine by the arm and giving her a good shake.

‘Lucky for you your parents were out the whole blessed day, you little fool! Or you wouldn’t be able to sit down now, I’ll warrant! Traipsing about like that all day, and with a boy too …’ She leant close enough for Catherine to get a whiff of her wine-laden breath.

With an impatient gesture, Catherine shook herself free. Then she set her candle down on a stool and picked up a couple of logs she had dropped. ‘What about people who spend all day in the tavern drinking with the other gossips? Do you think that’s a better way to carry on? I may be lucky, Marion, but so are you! If I were you, I should go up to bed before Maman gets back.’

Marion knew she was in the wrong. She was not a bad woman at heart, but she had had the misfortune to be born in the heart of the wine-producing Beaune country, and she was a little too fond of wine for her own good. She didn’t often get a chance to indulge, because Jacquette Legoix, to whom her mother had been wet-nurse, had kept a close watch over her since bringing her to Paris. Marion had been caught two or three times in an advanced state of intoxication, and Jacquette had finally threatened to pack her off back to Burgundy if it should ever happen again. Marion had wept, pleaded and vowed by the holy statue of Notre-Dame never to touch another drop. This relapse had no doubt been sparked off by the mood of hysteria prevailing in the town that day.

Through a fog of drunkenness, Marion was dimly aware of all this and did not persist. Muttering unintelligibly, she stumbled over toward the stairs, which soon creaked under her weight. Then Catherine heard the attic door slam behind her, and she sighed with relief.