Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) (38 page)

Catherine felt herself blushing under the stout Dame’s sharp-eyed scrutiny and did not answer. She realised she had overstepped herself, but she would rather have had her tongue cut out than retract her last words. Ermengarde did not appear to be in the least offended, however. She gave a great roar of laughter and dealt her young friend such a hearty slap on the back that she almost sent her flying head first into the open coffer.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Dame Catherine!’ she cried. ‘Now that we are alone, I don’t mind admitting that I too have offered up a few prayers on behalf of this young upstart. Quite apart from the fact that I also consider King Charles to be our most legitimate sovereign, I have always liked handsome lads, especially when they are rash, headstrong and a little mad to boot. And, my goodness, he’s a fine-looking fellow, that young stallion! If I were twenty years younger …’

‘What would you do?’ Catherine asked, with amusement.

‘I don’t know how I would set about it, but I can promise you that he wouldn’t be able to get into bed at night without finding me waiting there! And, believe me, it would take more than that great sword of his to get me out again! Unless I’m very much mistaken, that lad not only has the looks of a real man but the mettlesome spirit of one. You can see it in his eyes! And I’m ready to swear he’s a past master when it comes to love-making. You can tell these things at a glance when you’ve had a bit of experience.’

Meanwhile Catherine made a great business of brushing the scarlet dress and spreading it out carefully across the immense bed she was to share with the Mistress of the Robes. This, she hoped, would allow her to hide the blushes that Dame Ermengarde’s frank and outspoken remarks had brought rushing to her face. But the Countess’s eyes were uncommonly sharp.

‘Leave that dress alone,’ she cried merrily. ‘Stop acting prim and proper with me, miss, and don’t try to hide your blushes so that I shall think I have shocked you. I have just told you what I would do if I were twenty years younger – if I were you, for instance!’

‘Oh!’ cried Catherine, outraged.

‘I’ve told you not to play the prude with me, Catherine de Brazey, and you mustn’t take me for a fool either, my dear. I’m a silly old creature in some respects, but I know enough to recognise a love-sick face when I see it. It was as well for you that your husband could see only with one eye that other night at the ball. Your love for this man was written all over your face.’

Was Catherine’s secret, then, which she had fondly supposed buried in her heart from prying eyes, so transparently visible in her face? In that case, who else had guessed it? How many other people at the betrothal banquet had fathomed the existence of a mysterious bond between the black knight and the lady with the black diamond on her brow? Garin, perhaps, which would account for his distant mood later that evening. The Duke possibly. And many of the women, no doubt, perpetually on the watch for weaknesses in their rivals that they could turn into deadly weapons against them …

‘Now don’t torment yourself,’ added Dame Ermengarde, from whom Catherine’s expressive face clearly held no secrets. ‘Your husband has only one eye. As for Monseigneur, he was far too taken up with your handsome knight at that point to notice you. And, at the risk of seeming impertinent, I must point out that while there’s a handsome gallant like this Arnaud among them, the women only have eyes for him and don’t waste their time spying on each other. Each woman for herself! Come now, don’t distress yourself like this! Not many people have made such a study of people’s faces as I have, and not everyone is as fond of you as I am. Don’t worry. Your secret will be safe with me.’

As she spoke, the constriction in Catherine’s throat gradually disappeared and her moment’s panic yielded to a feeling of profound relief. It was reassuring and touching to discover such a loyal friend in the Dame. Ermengarde de Châteauvillain was famous for the frankness with which she voiced her feelings and opinions. She had never been known to stoop to deceit or pretence of any kind, even when her life might have depended on it. Her consciousness of her high birth and rank was too strong and lively for that. But her noble birth did not prevent her being every bit as inquisitive as the next woman. She took Catherine’s arm in such a way that to refuse would have been impossible, sat her down beside her on the immense bed and then turned a dazzling smile on her.

‘Now that I have guessed half your secret, you must tell me the rest of it, my dear. Quite apart from the fact that I am longing to help you with this adventure, nothing delights me so much as a fine love story …’

‘I am afraid you will be disappointed,’ Catherine sighed. ‘There isn’t much to tell.’

It was a long time since she had felt so secure. Sat in the large, low-ceilinged room with this staunch and dependable woman at her side, she enjoyed a precious moment of respite and an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence that helped her, as she recounted her story, to express and map the secrets of her own heart. Beyond these walls lay the bustle and confusion of the town and the motley crowd who, tomorrow, would throng to watch as two of their fellow human beings tried to slaughter each other. Catherine sensed dimly that a peaceful interval in her life was drawing to a close. She sensed too that the way that lay ahead of her would be harsh and difficult, and that her hands and knees would be torn by the cruel, jagged stones of a dark path the dim outlines of which she had only just begun to perceive. What was that line that Abou-al-Khayr had quoted to her once? ‘The path of true love is paved with flesh and blood …’ Well, she was ready to sacrifice her flesh, piece by piece, and her blood, drop by drop, among the thorns along the way if she could live but one hour of love. In that one hour she would compress a lifetime’s living and feeling and devotion, all the love it was in her to give. Then a remark of Ermengarde’s brought her sharply back to earth.

‘And what if the Bastard of Vendôme should kill him tomorrow?’

At once an icy spasm of terror swept through Catherine, painfully contracting her stomach and filling her mouth with bitterness and her eyes with tears. The thought that Arnaud might be killed had not even crossed her mind. There was something indestructible about him. He seemed to be life itself incarnate, and his body appeared to be constructed of a substance as solid as his steel armour. Catherine fought with all her might to blot out a picture of Arnaud lying in the sand of the arena with the blood slowly oozing out of his broken armour. He must not die! Death should not take him, because he belonged to her, to Catherine! But Ermengarde’s words had found a chink in the stout walls of her confidence, and through it doubts and anxiety seeped in. She leapt to her feet and swiftly seized her cape and wrapped it round herself.

‘Where are you going?’ asked the astonished Dame Ermengarde.

‘I’m going to see him. I must speak to him, and tell him …’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know! That I love him! I can’t let him be killed in the joust without knowing what he means to me.’

Half distracted, she started across the room toward the door, but Ermengarde stopped her in mid-flight by grabbing one corner of her long cloak. Then she took her firmly by the shoulders and forced her to sit down on a chest.

‘Are you mad? The King’s men have pitched camp outside the town near the lists, and the Bastard of Vendôme has raised his pavilion just opposite. The Duke’s guards have surrounded both the camp and the lists, in complete accord for once with the King’s Scots, who are under the command of John Stuart, Lord of Buchan and Constable of France. There is no way for you to get through the gates of the town unless you have yourself thrown over the walls at the end of a rope. And it would be quite impossible for you to reach the camp. And, finally, even if it
were
possible, I myself would stop you from going.’

‘But why?’ Catherine cried, almost in tears. Ermengarde’s strong fingers were digging painfully into her shoulders. But she could not find it in herself to be angry with her, because she knew that under the Dame’s rough Burgundian manner there beat a warm and tender heart. Her broad red face suddenly took on a surprisingly majestic expression.

‘Because a man who is going to fight for his life has no need of kisses. A woman’s tears can only undermine his courage and weaken his resolve. Arnaud de Montsalvy believes you to be the Duke’s mistress. That thought will only make him fight the better and harder. If he comes out alive, there will be plenty of time then to win him round and beguile him with the sweet wiles of love.’

Catherine tore herself free and faced her friend wild-eyed.

‘And what if he dies? What if he is killed tomorrow?’

‘In that case,’ Ermengarde shouted angrily, ‘in that case it will be left to you to behave like a woman of spirit and show that, in spite of your bourgeois origins, you really are worthy of your present rank. You can choose suicide, if you are not afraid of God, or bury yourself alive in some nunnery with all the others whose broken hearts can never mend. All you can do for the man you love, Catherine de Brazey, is kneel down here beside me and pray, pray and pray again that My Lord Jesus and Milady the Virgin may stand guard over him and return him safely to you.’

The lists were situated outside the city walls on a large flat, expanse of land bordered along one side, the longest, by the river Scarpe. Wooden stands for the spectators, built to imitate towers, had been erected facing the river. They consisted of two long galleries, one on either side of the large box where the Duke and his sisters and princely guests were to sit. Two large tents had been put up, one at each end of the long lists, around which crowds were already gathering. These were for the two contestants, and were both under military guard.

When Catherine reached the lists with Ermengarde, she glanced quickly round, her gaze moving indifferently over the crimson silk pavilion above which was fluttering the Bastard’s banner, with its device of a lion rampant crossed by the bar sinister of illegitimacy. But her big violet eyes fastened eagerly on the other tent. Round this were grouped the Constable’s Scots in their silver armour and white heron’s feathers, whereas the Bastard’s tent was surrounded by the black and silver mail of Philippe’s guards. Catherine had no need to consult the silver shield emblazoned with a black sparrow-hawk that hung above the entrance. Her loving heart divined Arnaud’s presence behind those fragile silk walls, coloured the blue of France, too surely to have need of coats-of-arms. Every atom of her body yearned toward him. The struggle inside her was all the more painful as she pictured the intense solitude that must be experienced by a man preparing himself for the possibility of meeting death. There was considerable coming and going outside the Vendôme pavilion, and knights and pages entered and left in a ceaseless, colourful, chattering stream. Arnaud’s blue hangings, on the other hand, did not stir. The only person to enter his tent was a priest!

‘If I didn’t know the young hothead was in there,’ said a modishly nasal voice from behind Catherine, ‘I would have thought his tent was empty!’

Ermengarde de Châteauvillain, who had been making a great to-do of choosing a cushion upon which to repose her vast person, looked up at the same moment as Catherine, and they saw a young man stood there. He looked about 27 or 28 years old. He was thin, fair-haired and elegant, but there was something about him that suggested he was a bit of a ninny. He was undeniably handsome, but to Catherine’s way of thinking he seemed a little too conscious of this. Ermengarde found his remarks offensive and lost no time in acquainting him of the fact.

‘You should keep your mischievous prattle to yourself, Saint-Rémy. That young Montsalvy certainly isn’t the type to run away!’

Jean de Saint-Rémy gave her a teasing smile, then clambered unceremoniously over the back of the seat where the two ladies had installed themselves in order to place himself on their level.

‘I know that as well if not better than you do, Dame Ermengarde. After all, I was at Agincourt and had ample opportunity to observe the prodigious feats of arms performed there by this young fellow, who could only have been 15 or 16 at the time. God’s death, what a lion-heart he is! He handled his curved sword in that carnage as easily and skilfully as a peasant scything wheat! Anyway, to tell the truth, my only reason for making that remark was to get into conversation with you. I want you to introduce me to this ravishing lady whom I have been admiring from a distance these last three days. The lady with the black diamond!’

The smile he bestowed upon Catherine was so dazzling that she completely forgave him his silliness. To be precise, she had already been on the point of forgiving him when she had heard his warm praise of Arnaud. The young man seemed very much nicer all of a sudden, and less like someone who had stepped out of the pages of an illuminated prayer book in his magnificent green doublet, so densely striped with narrow gold ribbons that it looked like a wheatfield stirred by the wind.

His head was topped by a bizarre hat the like of which was not to be seen on any other man present at the lists that day – a sort of little toque crowned by a long and jaunty feather.

Ermengarde started to laugh. ‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place, instead of beating about the bush like that! You see before you, my dear Catherine, Messire Jean Lefebre de Saint-Rémy, native of Abbeville, Privy Councillor to Monseigneur the Duke, a great expert on the subject of coats of arms, labels and armorial bearings of every sort, as well as the undisputed arbiter of elegance at the Court. As for you, my dear friend, you may now greet Dame Catherine de Brazey, wife of our Lord Treasurer and lady-in-waiting to the Dowager Duchess.’