When almost everyone had gone, Armand called to Catherine. She was still sitting in the great chair, astonished at the way her expectations had been overturned.
“Well, girl, are you pleased?”
“Indeed I am,” she said. “I can hardly believe it. But Father, you said you had plans for me. What are they?”
“To care for your little brother – that’s enough for the present. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes, of course,” Catherine exclaimed in relief.
“You’re not sorry I did not let you go with those silly women?”
“I couldn’t have borne it, Father. I find them suffocating.”
“Good. I need you here.”
She looked at him in surprise then gave a hesitant smile.
“Thank you, Father,” she said.
He rested his hand briefly on her shoulder.
“Now you may rest or go for a ride – whatever you please. I have business with the Count and Lord Roland which may take some time. We shall speak later.”
He turned abruptly away, took the Count by the arm and they moved together towards where René Gilbert stood with Roland du Plestin.
Catherine hesitated. Go for a ride, he had said. She could. There was no-one to stop her. That was what she would do! She would take one of the squires – someone she liked, not that loathsome Laval or anyone of his sort – and go wherever she wished.
The courtyard was thronged again with departing lords and their men. The two ladies had either gone already or were supervising the packing of their baggage. If she was quick, Catherine could get right out of their way. She ran across to the stables and slipped inside. Rhuys le Pennec was rushing backwards and forwards, harrying the grooms and harnessing the mettlesome beasts in his care. There was no sign of Yon and it was quite clear that no-one would be at liberty for some time to find a mount for Catherine. Unnoticed she climbed the ladder to the hay-loft. Then she lay down comfortably on her stomach, watching the activity below.
It took so long before things quietened down that Catherine nearly dropped off to sleep. At length, when only the Radenoc and Léon horses remained and le Pennec had begun to sort out a pile of harness which lay tangled in a corner, Catherine sat up and began to pick the wisps of hay off her gown. She was about to call a greeting to the man below when a muffled sneeze, behind her, made her pause.
“Who’s there?” she whispered, her eyes searching the gloom.
There was a rustle and a head emerged from behind a bundle of hay.
“Yon!” she exclaimed, recognising him. “What are you doing there?”
“Has Count of Léon gone yet?” he whispered, fear showing plainly on his face as he crawled cautiously towards her.
“No. He’s talking business with my father.”
“Oh, darn it! I ain’t never goin’ to get away.”
“Why are you hiding up here? Does le Pennec know?”
“He suggested it. I had to do somethin’.”
“Why? What happened?”
“It was last night. That Count come in here, all very friendly. Asked me to carry some stuff up to his room. I was a bit puzzled, like, on account of his having squires an’ that for that sort of thing. Anyhow, when I gets to his room he starts – well – getting fresh with me, like I was a wench. ‘Just steady on,’ I says, ‘I’m a lad.’ ‘That’s right,’ he says, ‘and a handsome one too.’ Then he put his hand...well I’d better not say where, you being a lady an’ all...but I showed him I didn’t like it.”
“What did you do?” Catherine was horrified but fascinated by Yon’s strange tale.
“I kneed him in his tender parts and ran away. I’ve been hidin’ up here ever since. An’ I’m hungry an’ bored an’ this rotten hay’s making me sneeze. Is that fellow going today?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But perhaps they’ll stay on until tomorrow. My father said they’d be talking for some time.”
Yon groaned.
“Rhuys says his men are lookin’ out for me. I daresn’t show myself until he’s gone.”
“Don’t despair. I’ve got an idea. Stay here until I get back.”
Catherine slipped down the ladder, gave her instructions to le Pennec and then hurried out of the stable. A few minutes later she was back, a bundle of clothing in her arms.
“Put these on,” she called, tossing them up to him.
A short time later a strange ungainly female clambered with difficulty down from the hay-loft. Le Pennec was still sniggering as he led Lady Françoise’s placid grey mare, which Catherine had sometimes used as a mount, out into the courtyard.
“You’d better ride pillion,” Catherine told Yon. “You know, get on behind me like Lady Margot’s servant did. Can you manage?”
The boy’s own eyes were alight with laughter as he struggled to mount. He really made quite a pretty girl – though obviously not as believable as Tristan. Tristan...she hadn’t thought of him for days. Where was he now? Far away, she hoped.
She dug her heels into the horse’s flanks and guided him over to the gatehouse.
“Lower the draw-bridge,” she called imperiously.
As if it was the most usual thing in the world, the guards unquestioningly obeyed her command.
“You should be safe now,” Catherine said over her shoulder as the castle receded in the distance. “Where shall we go? Kerhouazoc?”
“Dad’ll only be vexed if I comes home – and his lordship might send ‘em to look for me there. D’you know the fisher folk at Lanhalles?”
“No.”
“Well, they’ll be right glad to meet you, Catherine. Let’s go there – they’re good friends o’ mine. D’you know where it is?”
“I think so. Now hang on to me tightly, Yon. We’re going to gallop.”
A surge of wild exhilaration ran through Catherine as the grey mare quickened her pace. At this moment she felt happy: she felt free.
Chapter Six
Once Yon had allayed their initial distrust of her, Catherine received a cautious welcome from the fisher folk of Lanhalles.
“As a rule we steer well clear of them up at the castle,” she was told by a stern-eyed woman whose hair was bound up in a vivid scarlet cloth, “but he tells us you’ve been a good friend to him and his sister and I trust his word.”
Catherine was invited to take a seat beside Yon on an up-turned barrel and a young girl brought them cider and a dish of oat-cakes. Although Yon had removed his disguise before they reached the hamlet, he regaled them all now with how he had escaped the attentions of the Count of Léon. This was generally agreed to be typical of the perverted behaviour of the nobility.
“But they’re not all like the count or the baron,” a one-legged old man commented. “I mind well when Dad an’ me helped that Lady Eleanor – she were Lord Henri, the old baron’s wife. She were a fine lady, that one. An’ right brave. His lordship wasn’t going to get the better of her, not no way.”
“You should keep mum on that,” said another old man, looking up from the net he was mending. “By rights you should never have come back here, Yves, let alone be boasting about your exploits in front of strangers. This lass is Armand’s daughter, however much Yon says she’s a good ‘un.”
“It’s all right,” Catherine said, “I won’t tell anyone. I’m not very fond of my father myself. And I certainly don’t trust him. I’d like to hear your story, sir, if you’d like to tell it. I’ve heard of Lady Eleanor before but I know little about her.”
“No, no. Le Fur’s right. I shouldn’t blab.”
“No, Yves, you shouldn’t,” said the woman with red kerchief. “Take that youngster t’other day. He were one of Armand’s by-blows, sure as the nose on your face.”
“And I’ll bet he’s got it soft up at the castle now – no more roaming the land with a pack o’ mummers.
Catherine had been looking round at the hamlet’s inhabitants – all old men, women and children. On such a sunny late summer day, the young men were all
off fishing. Now her attention was caught. They were talking about Tristan. She had made the same observation herself about his looks but he had hotly denied it. And why would they have been after him if that was who he was? As the woman said, her father’s bastards were always well provided for.
“I heard tell they was combing the district for him,” said a woman. “They didn’t find him, though.”
“By God, he was a looker, that one,” said another. “I wouldn’t have minded a bit o’ sport with him.”
“As well Jacques ain’t about – he’d go mad to hear you.”
“Jacques is far away over the sea – an’ I’m only human – so you button your lip, Anne Kerber! You’re just jealous ‘cos you was too old an’ ugly to catch his eye, that’s all.”
“Ha! I’m as good as you any day!”
“Shut it, you two,” the first woman said. She seemed to have some sort of authority in the community. “The lad’s gone an’ I, for one, ain’t sorry. There was trouble coming along with him. I could see it.”
To Catherine’s surprise, most of the listeners gestured with their fingers crossed.
“Why do they do that?” Catherine whispered to Yon.
“Edain has The Sight,” he explained.
“Well, there was trouble for that lass, for sure,” an older woman said. “They’re not celebrating Lugh’s harvest, these days. They’re bent on blood-shed an’ to feed their own foul lusts – that’s how I see it.”
“An’ you’re right too,” said Edain.
“Things were different when I were young,” Yves said mournfully, “and better still afore the Norman’s came.”
“They say that when old Barbe Torte was Duke, Breton folk was free.”
Talk drifted off into tales of bygone days – great deeds and battles between Normans and Bretons. Catherine found herself wondering where her own allegiance lay. She spoke both languages, of course – she always had, barely noticing that she spoke in one to the locals and in the other to her parents or to visiting nobles. She hoped she would never be called upon to choose which people she belonged to.
When she and Yon took their leave, the sinking sun was gilding a great shimmering path out across the sea.
“I wish I could do magnificent and noble deeds,” Catherine said as she mounted the grey mare and turned her towards home.
“But you’re a lady, Catherine,” Yon laughed, “what could you do?”
“What indeed?” she agreed with a sigh.
When she arrived back at Radenoc, Armand was still closeted with the Count of Léon and Lord Roland du Plestin. They departed so early the following morning that Catherine had no chance to bid her uncle farewell. She could only hope that he might visit again in the future.
Without their many guests the castle seemed strangely quiet. It took a few days before Catherine became accustomed once more to its tranquillity. Even so, things were not as they had been before the mummers came. Lady Francoise was gone, of course – not that Catherine had spent much time in her mother’s company. More significant was Odette’s departure. With her some of the younger and rowdier element of the castle seemed to have departed too.
Sévrine was now so involved with baby Simon’s welfare that she paid little attention to her former charge. Catherine appointed Brigitte, a village girl who was a friend of Yon’s, to wait on her. This time, however, there was no question about the relationship between them. Catherine was in command and the girl carried out her orders – and with proper respect.
To thank Catherine for protecting his son from the Count of Léon, Farzel Le Goff made her a gift. It was of silver, elaborately twined and knotted into a brooch. On the reverse, in a surprisingly fluent hand, the words ‘yours to command’ were engraved.
“My father says,” Yon told her with some embarrassment, “that if ever you need his aid you are to send it back to him again by a messenger that you trust.”
“Thank you, Yon,” said Catherine, pinning it to the shoulder of her gown.
“I can’t think why you should need his aid,” the boy continued sceptically. “He thinks we’re still livin’ in the time of dragons, I suppose.”
“You never know,” Catherine said. She hadn’t forgotten what Yves had said about Lady Eleanor. How could you know what was going to happen in the future?
While baby Simon continued to grow and thrive, Bihan, Marie’s own child remained fretful and sickly. Sévrine accused the wet-nurse of spending too much time tending him and, not surprisingly, the girl became angry and resentful. Catherine tried her best to soothe her and sympathise, rebuking Sévrine for her thoughtlessness and cruelty. Then, near the end of October, Bihan gave up his struggle and died.
With her own child gone, Marie devoted herself night and day to Simon. For a while Sévrine tried to compete. At last, not long before Christmas, the older woman asked permission to leave the castle. Apparently Jean Le Cornec, a widower living a few miles up the coast, was keen for her to go and live with him.
“But will he marry you?” Catherine asked.
“I can’t say, my lady. If I get with child, he will. But I’m not a girl any more so it may not happen. But he’s a hearty man. I’ve known him these many years and we’ve had some sport together.”
“On Melgorn, you mean,” Catherine said disapprovingly. “At these heathen festivals.”
“Aye, on Melgorn. And I’m not ashamed of it neither. There are worse things in this world, I’m sorry to tell you, Catherine. I daresay you’ll find that out yourself one of these days – though for your own sake, I hope not.”
“Well I have written to the Bishop in Rennes and told him to put a stop to them,” Catherine said grandly.
“They were innocent romps enough until your father took ‘em over. There might have been a few babes born out of wedlock, but there were no murders done!”
“That will do. Be on your way, Sévrine. I will send your coffers after you.”
Catherine refused to admit that she missed her former nurse once she had gone, but secretly she knew that she did. She set about filling her days with as many new activities as she could find.
Usually, for part of each day, she sat with her father. He taught her to play chess and she encouraged him to talk about his travels in the Holy Land. She was surprised and rather shocked when he admitted that he had deserted from the Crusader army as soon as he could. Instead he donned Muslim dress and learned the Arab language. He had then journeyed into the very heart of the Infidel’s lands – even as far as Baghdad itself. He had formed alliances with powerful lords, learned their culture and made his fortune.
“I saved Ahmed’s life,” Armand told her. “He dedicated it to me in payment.”
“I would rather not speak about him,” she said with a shudder.
In the evening of her first visit to Lanhalles – she had since been there many times – she had gone to Ahmed’s room. With the aid of two servants she had cleared it and, as Armand had instructed her, everything had been burned. Her father had asked her, some days later, whether she had carried out his orders. She suspected, by his agitation and the strange glint in his eyes, that he almost hoped that she had not. She did not reveal to him that a few weeks afterwards a foreign traveller had called at the castle asking for Ahmed by name. When she had told him that the man was dead, he had offered to trade with her instead, naming an exorbitant price for some substance whose identity and purpose Catherine did not know, but whose effects she was sure she had seen in Armand. She had sent him on his way, telling him never to return.
Catherine’s other frequent companion was Michel Gilbert. Their friendship blossomed and he appeared to enjoy the responsibility of his new position. Before the cold weather set in, Armand had been well enough to ride out on several occasions. Even in the winter his health remained reasonably good, remarkable for a man of his age. Although in the rain and gales of a Breton winter the baron himself was not tempted to take outdoor exercise, he did not prevent his young squire from do
ing so. Catherine had acquired a more spirited mount than her mother’s grey and she and Michel rode regularly, only allowing the very worst weather to keep them indoors for a whole day.
Catherine also pestered René Gilbert, Michel’s father, to allow her to learn about the management of the castle. When she married, she argued, she would have to run a household or at least oversee its running if there was a steward to direct its affairs. Although initially reluctant, Gilbert agreed – especially when Armand gave the idea his blessing. Catherine was appalled at how much the castle consumed, both in food and labour, and just how little the peasants were allowed to retain. She found herself thinking what changes she would make if ever those decisions were left to her alone.
Her greatest joy remained her baby brother. By the spring he was able to sit up on his own and would soon crawl, by the look of it. He had a happy temperament, his gurgles of laughter being far more frequent than his tears. He was stubborn, though, and very occasionally would scream with rage if his will was thwarted. Armand took a considerable interest in his son. Often Catherine would be told to take him to the solar or up to the baron’s tower room and then she would see a softer side of her father, one which she had never previously suspected of existing.
The weeks and months slipped steadily by. In May, Catherine had her thirteenth birthday. Shortly afterwards she experienced her monthly bleeding for the first time. As time went by she began to notice that her breasts were starting to develop and that she was losing the straight boyish figure which Guy de Bégard had ridiculed so cruelly. Nothing further had been heard from him and Armand had never even hinted at any other marriage plans. Catherine hoped that no-one would remind him. She had no interest at all in the subject.
At night, alone in her bed-chamber (unconventionally she had forbidden Brigitte to sleep in her room) she would make up romantic stories about Tristan. He would return, declare undying love for her and prostrate himself at her feet. She wondered what it would be like to be kissed by him – very different from the foul assault made on her by that disgusting lout de Bégard, she imagined. But gradually, over the months, her image of Tristan was fading. She knew he had green eyes and black hair but she couldn’t picture him in her mind.
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