Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (30 page)

‘If I read the signs aright, things have changed greatly,’ he noted gently. ‘You are married?’

‘Yes … a month ago.’

The little doctor shook his turbaned head. All of a sudden he seemed very sad.

It was late that afternoon when they finally met again. Catherine found she could wait no longer. She had lunched alone, because Abou-al-Khayr, on the pretext that the journey had tired him, had asked for his meal to be served in his apartment. In fact he had really wanted more time to think before his conversation with the young woman. When he came at last to her apartment in answer to a message she had sent by a page, he stood for a moment watching the flames flickering and dancing in the tall and elaborately- and finely-carved white stone chimney-place.

Catherine was at the end of her patience. ‘Talk to me, for pity’s sake! Your silence is torturing me. Please, tell me about him,’ she begged.

The Arab shrugged sadly. Actions, he thought, seemed to speak louder than words in Catherine’s case.

‘What is the point now that you are married? What difference can it make to you now what my friend does? When I first saw you together I had the feeling that you were bound to each other by an indivisible bond. I believe that I can read people’s eyes, and in yours I thought I saw a great love. But I should have remembered that a woman’s eyes are deceptive. I seem to have read wrong,’ he said bitterly.

‘No, you didn’t. You read the truth. I loved him and I still do. I love him more than I love myself. But he hates and despises me.’

‘That’s quite another thing,’ Abou smiled. ‘One could write volumes about the Seigneur Montsalvy’s capacity for scorn and contempt. When a wound cuts deep into the flesh the flesh heals, but a scar remains and nothing on earth can remove it. Take a doctor’s word for it. It grieves me very much to find you married. You women are strange creatures. You call the world to witness that you are consumed by a great love and then you calmly go and offer your body to another man!’

Catherine was losing patience. What did he mean by wasting time philosophising about the feminine soul when he knew she was pining to hear news of Arnaud?

‘I daresay the women in your country are free to choose which man’s bed they shall be placed in? It is different here. I married because I was ordered to.’

She briefly described to her guest the circumstances of her marriage. She told him about the formal command from Philippe and the motive that lay behind it. But she didn’t feel brave enough to tell him that as yet her husband had not touched her. What would be the point? Sooner or later, when Garin returned, he would claim his rights.

‘So,’ said the doctor when she had finished her story, ‘your husband is the same Garin de Brazey who accompanies the Chancellor of Burgundy to Bourg? It is indeed strange that the Duke’s choice should have fallen on him. He is as obscure as the night and as inflexible as iron. His character seems as rigid as his spine. He doesn’t suggest an indulgent husband to me.’

Catherine dismissed this comment, which recalled the one Barnaby had once made, with a wave of the hand. She had not sent for him to discuss Garin. And at last Abou-al-Khayr agreed to tell her what she longed to hear.

He had not left Arnaud de Montsalvy’s side after the incident in the Flemish inn. They had stayed together at the Grand Charlemagne until Arnaud’s wounds and injuries had healed.

‘He fell sick of a high fever after you left, and became delirious. And a highly instructive and interesting delirium it was too, but I won’t go into that now. By the time we finally set off again, the Duke of Burgundy had left Flanders for Paris. There was no question of following him there, as we would never have escaped with our lives.’

Little by little, in his high, singsong voice, the Moorish doctor told of Arnaud’s slow return to health, and eventual return, in a highly irascible frame of mind, to the Dauphin his master. Abou spoke of the Dauphin’s warm welcome of them and of the many marvels of the château of Mehun-sur-Yèvre, airiest and most fantastic of all the feudal dwellings, a lacy confection in gilt and stone that Charles had inherited from his uncle Jean de Berry, who had been the most lavish and luxury-loving Maecenas of his day. He spoke of the warm affection and loyalty that united Arnaud de Montsalvy to the Dauphin’s other captains in a knightly brotherhood-at-arms. His descriptions were so vivid that Catherine felt she could almost see these friends of Arnaud’s. First there was young Jean d’Orléans, the most attractive and knightly of all the royal bastards, whose fraternal affection for the Dauphin dated from their childhood. Then came the square, rough-hewn shape of the redoubtable Étienne de Vignolles, nicknamed the Terrible One because of his ferocity in battle, a soul of bronze in a body of iron. And next to him, his
alter ego
, a jolly but irascible fellow from the Auvergne, Jean de Xaintrailles, ruddy and solid as a chestnut. There was also another Auvergnat, Pierre de Ciac, a sly bully of a man who was said to owe his fame and fortune in war to a pact with the Devil, to whom he had sold his right hand. There were many others besides, lords from inscrutable Languedoc, doughty Auvergne, sentimental Touraine and lively Provence; all those, in short, who remained faithful to the rule of one king, one faith and one law even in adversity.

Abou-al-Khayr also dwelt rather wickedly on the charms of the pretty women who thronged the Court, describing them with what seemed like sly relish. Charles VII, who was almost as fond of women as his cousin of Burgundy, liked to fill his Court with these fresh young damsels. To hear Abou-al-Khayr on the subject one might have supposed that these delicious creatures awaited only a signal from Arnaud de Montsalvy to fall into his arms. And foremost among them was the dazzling daughter of the Marechal de Séverac, a ravishing brunette with eyes ‘as long as a night of love’.

‘You can leave that part out,’ said Catherine, exasperated by these raptures that the devilish Abou was assuming for her benefit.

‘Why?’ said Abou, with well-feigned surprise. ‘Surely it is only right and proper that a young, healthy man should employ his strength in the search for pleasure. As the poet says, “Grieve not for what is past nor fear what is to come, but enjoy the present, for that is the purpose of life.”’

‘And my purpose here, I suppose, is to hear all about Messire de Montsalvy’s conquests! Tell me what happened next!’ Catherine cried furiously.

Abou-al-Khayr smiled winningly at her and stroked his snow-white beard. ‘Then the Dauphin was crowned King, and that was an occasion to remember! There were banquets and jousts, which I watched from the window of the lodging that my friend discovered for me, where I received many visits in the course of my stay in that city, particularly from the Sire de Ciac.’

By now Catherine had reached the limit of her patience. She could feel nervous tears welling up into her eyes. ‘For pity’s sake!’ she begged, in such a tragic voice that the little doctor finally took pity on her. He rapidly sketched in the events of the past few weeks, including the jousts in which Arnaud and ‘the Terrible One’ had taken part together. Then he mentioned his appointment as escort to King Charles’s emissaries on their journey from Paris to Bourg-en-Bresse. These men had included Arnaud's relative Martin Gouge de Charpaignes, Chancellor of France and Bishop of Clermont. Finally he described the envoys’ departure, which had been followed at a discreet distance by his own.

He had naturally been unable to attend personally the delicate and complex negotiations presided over by the Duke of Savoy. But every evening he had seen Arnaud return in a slightly worse humour. As Nicolas Rollin had gone on implacably detailing the Burgundian peace terms, which had added up to a formidable list of demands, the young man’s rage had steadily increased. He had insisted that the terms were unacceptable, and day after day had had the utmost difficulty in restraining himself from leaping at the throat of the insolent Burgundian who had the audacity to insist not only on a public apology from Charles for the murder of Jean-sans-Peur, but also on a dispensation excusing Philippe from the homage that any vassal owed to his king, even when that vassal was the Duke of Burgundy. And finally he had demanded the surrender of a good half of the land that the English had not yet conquered. Rollin’s evasiveness and humiliating secretiveness had whipped to boiling-point the hot-tempered Captain’s fury – and with it his hatred of Duke Philippe.

‘He hates him,’ said Abou pensively, ‘as I have never before seen one man hate another … and I am not sure that you are not somewhat to blame in all this. For the moment, the Duke of Savoy has succeeded in obtaining a truce between the protagonists and the promise of further talks, which are to start on 1 May. But I know one person who is determined not to let this truce stand in his way.’

‘What does he want to do?’

‘To come and challenge the Duke Philippe in person. Engage him in single combat – above all in a combat to the death!’

Catherine gave a fearful cry. If Arnaud so much as challenged the Duke he would never leave the town alive! Who had ever heard of a ruling prince taking up arms against a mere knight in single combat – particularly in a combat to the death? She bitterly reproached the doctor for having deserted his friend while he was still in such a distraught state of mind. He should have reasoned with him, shown him that he would be committing suicide in trying to put such a project into action, and restrained him by force if necessary …

Abou-al-Khayr nodded his head. ‘It is about as easy to stop Messire Arnaud as to stop a stream gushing down a mountainside. He will do as he says. The reason for my coming here, on the pretext of visiting an old and very learned Jewish scholar who lives in seclusion not far from this town, is that you alone can do something to help him.’

‘But what can I do? I am all alone, without forces or power.’

‘Philippe loves you – or, at any rate, Arnaud thinks so, and with some reason, to judge by what you have just told me. Only Arnaud believes that you have been his enemy’s mistress for some while now. When he has thrown down his crazy challenge, your hand will be the only one influential enough to protect him from the fury of the Burgundians. It is hard to refuse anything to the woman one loves – especially when one has yet to make her entirely one’s own.’

‘Where is Arnaud now?’

This was the first time she had ever spoken out loud that name she had so often murmured softly to herself, for the sole pleasure of rolling its two syllables on her tongue.

‘He is still at Bourg. The envoys are about to leave. Your husband will be returning presently and Arnaud is to accompany the Bishop of Clermont to the King at Bourges. Then …’

There was no time to lose. The irascible Arnaud was not overburdened with patience. He was one of those people who, once they have decided upon a certain course of action, forge ahead without a thought for the consequences. Catherine was glad to hear that Garin would soon be returning, because it meant that it would not be long before she was presented at Court. She must have access to the Duke, and the sooner the better.

Catherine’s thoughts were broken into by Sara, who came in carrying Gedeon in his cage, which she had just been cleaning. Abou-al-Khayr jumped up with a scream of delight and rushed over to look at the bird. He started tickling him under his beak and poured out a torrent of words in his native tongue, which sounded both soft and guttural at once. Catherine was about to warn him of the bird’s fearsome beak, as Gedeon was not renowned for his patience or good manners, when, to her astonishment, she noticed that he was bobbing up and down on his perch as coyly as a girl being wooed. He swung his head from side to side, strutted up and down and cooed as softly and tenderly as a dove. The bird and the little doctor joined in a bizarre love duet. Eager, no doubt, to display the full range of his abilities, Gedeon suddenly broke off his tender aria to shout at the top of his voice: ‘Glory … to the Duke!’

Then, rolling a beady eye at his mistress, he shrieked with a touch of defiance: ‘Garin! Horrible Garin! Horrible! Horrible!’

‘Merciful heavens!’ Catherine groaned. ‘Who can have taught him to say that? If my husband hears him he will wring his neck!’

Abou-al-Khayr laughed heartily. He held out his hand and the bird hopped on to it and sat there, quite docile.

‘Give him to me! We are already such good friends. And no-one will hear him in my room. I’ll teach him to swear in Arabic!’

The parrot allowed himself to be taken away, not only without protest but apparently with considerable satisfaction. He had begun practising his scales again with renewed vigour. Watching the pair leave the room from her position by the fire, Catherine reflected that the parrot and the doctor made an unusually well-matched couple. Abou’s turban and Gedeon’s head feathers were of just the same brilliant scarlet. Just as the door was about to close behind them she asked: ‘Why should you suppose that your friends’ feelings toward the Duke Philippe have anything to do with me?’

A mocking smile wrinkled the little doctor’s face. With the parrot still perched on his wrist, he bowed slightly and said: ‘The sage wrote: “The eyes can sometimes be mistaken.” He did not mention the ears. Some men talk in their sleep. What they say is often very interesting and instructive to anyone who happens to be there. May the peace of Allah be with you, rose most fair!’

Garin returned home two days later. He seemed harassed, nervous and in a thoroughly bad temper. He greeted Catherine with a preoccupied air, dropping a hasty kiss on her brow, and then told her, as though it were a thing of little importance, that she must be ready to be presented in a very short time to the Dowager Duchess.