Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (35 page)

‘You will be presented to Monseigneur tomorrow night, during the ball that is being given to celebrate the betrothals,’ Garin had said briefly. ‘I wish you good night.’

On the following evening, the Bishop’s Palace glowed in the dark as ruddily as if it were on fire. The barrels of blazing pitch on the battlements, together with the gold and crimson light that streamed through its tall Gothic windows, cast a lurid glare over the intricately-carved white masonry of the nearby cathedral, enveloping its statues and carvings with a sort of unearthly radiance. A cascade of silken material fluttered down to the ground from every embrasure, and every pillar carried its silken banner. In the market square, where the guards were having trouble controlling the crowd of idlers and sightseers, the townsfolk could see a vividly coloured fresco unfolded before their eyes. There were lords and knights in doublets coruscating with precious gems, taking cautious steps in their absurdly elongated pointed shoes, some of which were so long that their owners wore the points fastened to their belts with little gold chains. Some of them sported great embroidered hoods or immensely long jagged-edged sleeves that trailed as far as the ground and that they flaunted with superb effrontery. The ladies wore their most elaborate finery under the airy, fantastic superstructure of their horned, pointed headdresses. These were edged by single or double rolls of cloth or fur and swathed in clouds of lace or mousseline. They too sparkled with jewels, and walked along trailing the heavy satin, velvet, brocade or lame trains of their festive gowns behind them. Separated from the crowd by a double row of guards in full armour, these dazzling apparitions strolled nonchalantly toward the celebrations in the palace like so many unknown stars glittering for an instant in the torchlight before being engulfed by the dark maw of the palace doorway. All round the market square the windows were thronged with sightseers, and it was as bright as daylight, thanks to the Duke’s liberality with torches and candles.

Catherine stood watching the apparently unending stream of guests from one of the palace windows. She had come there that afternoon with her own women and the coffers that contained her gown and jewels for the ball. The Mistress of the Robes had insisted that the responsibility of making a last-minute inspection of Catherine’s clothes for her presentation to the Duke should be hers alone. For greater security, and to ensure that Catherine did not show herself, either from boredom or curiosity, to the assembled guests before the appointed time, Ermengarde had locked her into her own room while she went off to supervise the dressing of the two Princesses. Catherine’s own toilet had been completed long before, and she stood gazing out of the window in the hope that this would make the time go faster …

‘I can’t help wondering if Madame Anne and Madame Marguerite will pardon you your beauty tonight,’ Emengarde had said. ‘For beside you I am afraid their beauty is eclipsed as are the stars beside the sun. It really isn’t done to look so beautiful, my dear! It’s indecent, almost scandalous!’

Ermengarde had looked genuinely vexed, but her praise had been no less sincere for that. For once, however, Catherine found no pleasure in these compliments. She felt unaccountably sad and weary, and she would gladly have taken off her wonderful gown to snuggle down in her white bed above the green canal waters. She had never felt so lonely.

In a little while Garin would be coming to fetch her. He would take her by the hand and conduct her to the great hall where the guests were now assembling. There she would curtsey to the Duke Philippe, to his sisters the Princesses, and to their future husbands. She would again be seeing those grey eyes, the inscrutable calm of which she had once fleetingly disturbed. She knew that Philippe was waiting to see her and that this evening was to see the fruition of his powerful, unwavering desire for her, but this thought gave her no pleasure at all. That this high and mighty Duke should long to possess her, should even love her in his own way, did not excite her in the least.

She had noticed one couple in particular amongst the many who streamed into the palace. They had seemed very young, the chevalier little more than a boy, as fair as Michel de Montsalvy had been, clean-shaven and radiant in his dark blue satin costume. He had led by the hand a ravishing girl-child, as blonde as himself, her hair wreathed with a simple circlet of pink roses as fresh as her pink moire gown. From time to time the boy had leant toward his companion and whispered something in her ear that had made her smile and blush, and Catherine had imagined the squeezing of hands going on, the sweet whispered exchanges, the ardent, hungry kisses. Those two might have been all alone in the world. The boy had not once looked at the many dazzlingly-gowned, often glowingly beautiful women who surrounded them. The girl’s mischievous eyes had not once left his face. They clearly loved each other with all the ardour of the very young, and it would not have occurred to them for an instant to hide their passion. They were happy …

Against the yardstick of that blithe happiness Catherine measured the emptiness of her own existence. A yearning but lonely heart, a travesty of a husband who dressed her in fine clothes only to throw her into the arms of another man, the lust of strangers that did not interest her in spite of the many restless nights when her whole body ached to be appeased and satisfied and the blood seemed to boil in her veins. And finally the contempt of the one man she loved … It was a sad reckoning.

‘Your husband is here, Dame Catherine,’ she heard the Countess saying behind her. She had not heard the Mistress of the Robes enter the room, but there she unmistakably was, a garish but impressive figure in a red and gold velvet gown and a headdress almost as tall as a cathedral spire. She seemed to overflow into all the space available and almost hid Garin, whose black-clad form loomed darkly near the door.

Garin stepped forward, studied Catherine for a moment and then announced: ‘Excellent!’

‘Better than that!’ Ermengarde corrected him. ‘Breathtaking!’

The word was apt. Catherine was breathtaking that night because of her calculated simplicity. Her plain black velvet dress, caught in under the bosom by a wide belt of the same material, was free of all ornament but for a flash of cloth of gold lining the long, long sleeves. In contrast to this absolute severity of cloth and cut, the daring neckline showed off her dazzling skin all the more triumphantly. It was cut low and square in front, baring her bosom as low as decency allowed and just covering the points of her shoulders. Behind, it plunged to a point below her shoulder-blades. The immensely long sleeves, in contrast, reached almost to her fingertips. There would be many women as daringly gowned, but thanks to the dark matt texture of her dress, none of them would look as naked as Catherine. The other daring touch that the Countess of Châteauvillain had thought up was that Catherine should not wear a headdress. Her magnificent mane of hair hung loose on her shoulders as simply as a young girl’s. A single jewel, but one that took the eye with its brilliance, flashed on the girl’s brow, held in place by a thin gold circlet concealed under her hair. It was a black diamond, as fascinating as an evil star. This jewel, of matchless brilliance, was Garin’s most prized possession and the most valuable in his collection. He had bought it several years before in Venice from the captain of a caravel that had just returned from Calicut. He had paid dearly for it, but not so dearly as the exceptional beauty of the stone would seem to have warranted. The sailor had seemed eager to get rid of his black jewel. He had been a sick man, and his ship had been badly damaged during its last voyage.

‘Every storm on earth seemed to be in league against us while I had this cursed pebble in my possession,’ he had told Garin. ‘I shall be glad to get rid of it. It brings bad luck! Every misfortune that could befall a ship has haunted me since we set sail – even to the plague itself, which struck us off Malabar. As a good Christian I feel it my duty to tell you that this is an unlucky stone, as unlucky as it is beautiful! I might perhaps have kept it, for I must die soon and luck matters little to me now, but the price of it will make my girl a good dowry.’

Garin had paid, and pocketed the diamond. He was not at all superstitious and did not believe in bad luck, which was exceptionally strong-minded for a man of those times. The only thing that interested him was the beauty of that incomparable jewel, which, so the Venetian captain had confessed, had been stolen from the forehead of an idol in a temple lost in the depths of the Indian jungle.

Catherine knew the diamond’s history, but she was not afraid of wearing it. On the contrary, it fascinated her, and when Sara had placed it on her brow earlier that evening she had indulged in strange fancies about the heathen statue whose brow it had once adorned.

‘The time has arrived to go into the great hall,’ said the Mistress of the Robes. ‘Monseigneur has just arrived and the Princesses will not be long now. I shall go in after them. Courage!’

Just then a fanfare of trumpets somewhere in the recesses of the huge building announced the arrival of the Duke Philippe.

‘Come,’ said Garin briefly, holding out his hand.

The great hall presented such a dazzling spectacle that one hardly noticed the magnificent Arras tapestries, representing the 12 labours of Hercules, that Philippe had brought with him and that now covered the walls. Lords and ladies thronged together on the black and white marble floor, which shone like a mirror, reflecting their sparkling figures.

Possibly because he stood out so starkly amid this bright-hued assembly, Catherine saw only the Duke as she entered the hall. He was as sombrely dressed as she was herself, still wearing the proud perpetual mourning that he had sworn to adopt over his murdered father’s body as it lay in state in the chapel of the Chartreuse de Champmol. He stood on a dais raised several feet above the floor, on which three chairs had been placed for the three reigning Dukes; that of the Duke of Burgundy in the middle, that of the Englishman on the right and that of the Breton on the left. The high backs of the chairs were embroidered in gleaming silks with their occupants’ arms, while the dais itself was covered with cloth of gold. Philippe stood out against this setting, a dark slender figure. A superb ruby necklace in a gold setting that hung over his breast lightened the starkness of his costume.

At Catherine’s entry, conversation stopped and a sudden silence fell throughout the hall, a silence so profound and unexpected that the musicians, in their gallery above the door, put down their instruments and leant forward to see better. Catherine hesitated for a second, nervously, but Garin’s hand was steadying her and urging her forward all at once. She stepped forward, her eyes downcast so as not to intercept the looks she received, surprised and lustful from the men, and surprised and jealous from the women. The whispers that had started up were already quite embarrassing enough.

Ermengarde had been right. Catherine’s beauty that night was scandalous because no woman there could stand comparison with her. She felt as though she were walking forward between two threatening walls of eyes that would not forgive her the slightest false step. One slip and the walls would close in upon her to crush and reduce her to dust. She closed her eyes for a moment, taken by a spell of giddiness. Then she heard Garin’s voice, cold, correct and controlled.

‘Your Grace, allow me to present my wife, Dame Catherine de Brazey, Your Grace’s very humble and obedient servant …’

She opened her eyes and, looking straight before her, saw nothing but Philippe’s long black legs and feet in their embroidered velvet shoes. The pressure of Garin’s hand, which had led her to the dais, now communicated to her what she must do next. She bent one knee and bowed her head, while her dress flowed out around her. Her curtsey was a marvel of slow and stately grace. As she stood up, she looked up at the same time, and saw that Philippe had descended from his throne, and was smiling at her as he took the hand Garin had just relinquished.

‘Venus alone, Madame, might have boasted of such charm and beauty. Our Court, which is already so rich in beauty, will be celebrated the world over now that it is graced by your presence.’ Philippe spoke loudly enough for all the concourse to hear. ‘We thank your illustrious husband for introducing you to us. Our mother, we know, holds you in great esteem, and it pleases us to see that to such incomparable loveliness, virtue and true modesty are allied.’

This produced a murmur in the crowd. The mention of the Dowager Duchess had had the effect Philippe had been counting on. It had raised a protective wall between Catherine and the jealousy and ill-will to which every ascending star gives birth. They would do all they could to destroy the Prince’s future mistress, but if she were protected by the formidable Marguerite, the task became more difficult.

Philippe’s pale cheeks had flushed slightly, and his grey eyes glittered like ice in the sun as he studied Catherine’s face with undisguised pleasure. His hands trembled slightly as they clasped the small fingers that had grown cold with nervousness. To Catherine’s great astonishment, a tear glistened for an instant in the Prince’s eyes. Few men alive wept so freely as he. Any emotion – artistic, sentimental or otherwise – would bring tears to his eyes, and when grief touched his heart, they gushed forth in positive torrents. But Catherine knew nothing as yet about this curious trait of his.

Just then, ten heralds, bearing long silver trumpets from which brilliant silken pennants fluttered, entered the hall. They stood in a line and raised their instruments to their lips. A silvery fanfare sounded, echoing and re-echoing against the high, vaulted ceiling in wave after wave of joyful sound. Regretfully Philippe let fall Catherine’s hand. The princely guests were arriving.