My Brother's Crown

by Mindy Starns Clark

  Thankfully, many in their faith valued educating women, claiming passages such as the one from Galatians that said there was “neither male nor female,” that all were one in Christ Jesus. Even Jules agreed, regularly bringing home paper and ink from the shop and encouraging Catherine to practice her writing. “And your thinking,” he often added.

  Catherine and Amelie’s education included more than books. Grand-Mère had taught them needlepoint, how to manage a household budget, and how to supervise the maids. The family owned farmland west of town, and that was where Monsieur Roen had taught them horseback riding, something Catherine deeply enjoyed. Under the protective eye of whichever male family member or friend or servant was willing to come along, the two cousins had roamed the hills near Lyon via horseback throughout their childhood. Learning, creating, and exploring had been a golden time for both girls. Amelie was cousin, sister, mentor, confidante, and best friend to Catherine.

  If only they had known what a short time it would last.

  The beginning of the end came the year Catherine turned sixteen. That was when Amelie met Paul Fournier, a handsome young Huguenot pastor who soon became the primary escort for their rides in the countryside. He and Amelie fell in love and were married as soon as Uncle Edouard allowed. Sadly, Paul died less than a year later, leaving his wife a widow at just eighteen. The tragedy changed all their lives.

  Paul had been killed by some of the first dragoons in Lyon. He made the mistake of standing up to them when they threatened his small congregation on the southern end of town. The drunken dragoons beat him to death and then threw his body into the Rhône, threatening to do the same to Amelie. Reprimanded by their captain, the dragoons were ordered not to harm any more citizens—at least for the time being.

  But Uncle Edouard, afraid of losing both the business and his only child, had responded almost immediately by converting to Catholicism and sending Amelie away to a convent. In one fell swoop, their whole family had lost so much. Catherine’s own losses included her friend and in-law Paul, the companionship of her best friend and cousin Amelie, and the esteem she had always held for her uncle. She had also lost all sense of safety and security, stepping fully into adulthood with the knowledge that no amount of money or land or title could protect her or her loved ones from the king’s cruel intentions.

  A fresh sadness settling in her heart, Catherine reached the end of the final traboule and pushed open the door, stepping out of the dim light into the sunshine on the quai Romain. Adjusting her veil, she hurried north along the river wall to the stone bridge, where the reflections of the buildings on the other side shimmered in the water. The print shop was across the Saône, along the bend where the river turned for the last time before flowing into the Rhône.

  Boats traveled the Saône and the Rhône, floating down the larger river all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. Lyon had long been a transportation hub, first established by the Gauls, then developed by the Romans, and now used by all of Europe.

  The bells of the cathedral began to toll as she crossed the bridge. Feeling far too exposed, she increased the speed of her steps until she reached the other side, where she paused to take a look down quai Saint Antoine—just in time to see a roving band of dragoons coming straight toward her on their horses.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Catherine

  With a gasp, Catherine stepped back out of sight. Even though she appeared to be a grieving Catholic girl, she still did not want to be noticed or questioned by dragoons. She ducked over to the far side of the stone wall that ran along the river and continued on toward her family’s warehouse. Though she would have to leave the protection of the wall soon, she would go as far as she could before taking that chance.

  When she finally reached rue de Constantine, she glanced up the street again. Four dragoons sat astride their horses in the intersection. One spotted her. He alerted the others. She jumped down from the wall and into the grass, landing hard on her thin slippers, and then darted down the bank under the wooden bridge. Above, the thunder of hooves caused her to freeze.

  What the dragoons would do if they caught her entirely depended on their mood. They might just humiliate her. Or scare her. Or beat her. Or drag her into a dark alley. All had happened to Huguenot women she knew, although the specifics of the horrors they had endured were not discussed.

  She waited until the racket passed before climbing back up the stones, lifting herself up to the wall, and then jumping down the other side. She scraped her arm as she did and landed hard again on the street. She quickly shook out her skirts and then ran the rest of the way, her slippers pounding against the cobblestones.

  Across the river, one of the dragoons pointed and shouted at her. Running faster, she darted up the next street and then turned to the left, racing toward the warehouse. Breathless, she pushed against the side door. It did not budge. She ran up the street to the shop and turned left again. The hooves of horses thundered behind her.

  She rushed toward the main door, the beat of the horses’ hooves nearly upon her. They would not dare pursue her into the building. There would be witnesses to be dealt with. Men who would protest the dragoons’ treatment of her. A captain to be sought out and beseeched to reprimand his soldiers.

  With a last burst of speed, she made it to the door and flung it open. She fell into the office and then slammed the door shut behind her, pushing the heavy bolt into place. Gulping for air, she pressed her forehead against the wooden slats “Merci, Seigneur,” she managed to say between gasps. She tore the veil from her face and wadded it in her fist around the comb that had held it in place.

  The dragoons stopped outside. Her heart began to race even faster. Perhaps she had thanked the Lord too soon. She held her breath, terrified they would break down the door. But they must have decided against it, for after a long moment she heard the sound of their horses’ hooves slowly fade away.

  Catherine finally exhaled.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

  She turned to find her brother, wearing an ink-stained apron around his thin frame, standing in the archway to the shop. “Seigneur, aie pitié.”

  Lord, have mercy was right. And may her brother show mercy too.

  Behind him stood two men she did not recognize, one older and one younger, so similar in appearance they were surely father and son.

  “Pardonnez-moi,” she said, discreetly slipping the veil and comb into her purse. To Jules she added, “I’ve come to speak with you.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “It’s fine,” the father said. “We need to be on our way while we still can.”

  The son added, “We’ll consider your offer and—”

  “Chut,” Jules snapped, cutting him off. “Don’t discuss business matters in front of my sister.”

  “Ah, your sister.” The son stepped toward Catherine. “Mademoiselle Gillet. I’m so pleased to meet you.” He kissed her hand. “I am Monsieur Audet.”

  “Bonjour, Monsieur.” Catherine bowed.

  “We’re from Le Chambon-sur-Lignon,” he added. “It’s just a small village on the river, a good two days’ ride from here, but I believe your family has a connection with the place?”

  “Of course,” she replied, her polite smile growing more genuine. “Our mother and aunt, God rest their souls, both grew up there.” Not wanting to seem a braggart, she did not add that Jules owned property in Le Chambon, inherited from their mother’s father, or that Catherine had once visited the region herself. Then again, they may have known that already as well.

  “So you are the makers of the paper that comes from the Plateau?” she asked.

  They both nodded.

  “Merveilleux. Yours is my favorite of all the paper used here. The quality is outstanding.” She hoped they knew she was being sincere and not merely polite. Though most of the print shop’s supplies came from Grenoble, she much preferred the paper from Le Chambon when she could get it.

  Smiling, they accepted her praise even as
Jules began wrapping things up. They said their farewells, and then he escorted them out through the warehouse.

  “We’ll look for the shipment in a few days,” she heard him say as they went. “And I’ll send an answer with the rag peddler by the end of next week.”

  Wondering what her brother was up to, she stepped through the archway between the office and the shop and paused there, taking it all in. The printers mostly ignored her as they worked, except for Monsieur Talbot and Eriq—Pierre’s father and brother—both of whom waved from the far corner. She smiled and waved in return.

  The business was co-owned by the Gillet and Talbot families and consisted of the print shop in front and a warehouse behind. She’d missed the place so much since being banished. The hive-like busyness that went on nonstop. The smell of the ink. The hum of the press as the wooden arms moved up and down. The blocks of letters. She cherished everything that had to do with this place—the ink, the writing, the letter setting, the reading. The leftover paper.

  That thought reminded her they were running low on paper at home. She would need to take some with her today.

  Catherine had been writing on those leftover pieces for as long as she could remember. Notes to herself. Narratives about her day. Her feelings. She’d held onto many such pages over the years, collecting them into a journal of sorts, which she stored in a bottom drawer of her grandmother’s writing desk.

  These days, she also wrote letters. Lots of letters. As Grand-Mère’s eyes grew weaker, Catherine managed all of her correspondence.

  While Catherine waited for her brother to come back so they could talk, she turned her attention to stacks of printed pages lined up along the wall to her left, ready to be taken to the warehouse. First was a pile of Protestant Scriptures, printed in folios and needing to be folded. Next were bank notes. Then a stack of Catholic homilies.

  She stepped closer, reading the invoice and seeing that Father Philippe’s name was on it. Other Huguenots may have refused to print for Catholics, but Jules was a pragmatist. He always had been.

  The last pile was also for Catholics it seemed, a stack of thin pamphlets written by a priest, though Catherine did not recognize the man’s name, Écoute. She picked one up and flipped through it, stopping at a poem about a horse, one that dreamed of “galloping in the noble meadows by moonlight” before coming to rest “in a grand place that fits like a glove.” How odd. She put the pamphlet back. The printing was nicely done, as usual, but the poetry was abysmal, as were the drawings.

  “Catherine.” Jules had returned and was now standing in the middle of the print shop facing her, his arms crossed and eyes blazing. “Go to the office and wait for me there.”

  She obeyed, slinking back the way she had come.

  Moving into the relative quiet of the print shop’s office, her eyes went to an unusual sight atop her brother’s cluttered desk: a blueprint, held flat at its corners by a bottle of ink, a jar of feathers, and two iron paperweights. She took a closer look, tilting her head as she tried to orient herself to the diagram. It was of the warehouse. Perhaps Jules planned to make modifications? Eight years ago, when the business acquired the vacant land next door, he had drawn up the design for the large structure himself despite being just seventeen at the time. That may have been a surprising feat for others his age, but not for Jules Gillet, who had been a prodigy in both math and science his whole life. Fortunately, the design that seemed good on paper turned out to be excellent once built, a useful addition to their printing business.

  His intelligence extended to entrepreneurial matters as well. Not only did he manage the print shop, but about a year ago he had purchased a promising rag collection company, and now he had his own troop of rag peddlers out buying old cloth from both city dwellers and peasants, which he then sold to paper mill owners throughout the region. As the demand for paper increased, it took more and more old rags, the main ingredient, to satisfy the growing need.

  Now he was interested in acquiring a paper mill? Truly, his mind and interests never stopped. Ordinarily, Catherine would have appreciated such initiative, but this was a time when they should have been liquidating their holdings, not acquiring more. She did not understand his thinking at all. Unless…

  She gasped. That couldn’t be it. Surely Jules was not planning for them to relocate to the Plateau. Her mind reeled. She’d heard rumors about Huguenots seeking refuge in the elevated region known as the Massif Central, where stoic farmers minded their own business and dragoons had not yet penetrated.

  She couldn’t imagine a more miserable existence, not to mention the area couldn’t remain safe for Huguenots forever. No, only one choice remained for them, to leave the country entirely. In the end, anything less would surely condemn them to prison or death.

  Catherine’s mind was churning when Jules joined her in the office at last. As he came through the doorway, she eyed him suspiciously.

  “Why are you buying a paper mill, especially one so far away?”

  “That is not your concern.”

  “But if you’re determined to branch into yet another business, why bother to buy theirs? Why not just build a new paper mill here in Lyon?”

  He hesitated before answering. “The chemistry in the rivers is wrong. Too much calcite.”

  “But Le Chambon? It’s so far away.”

  Jules shook his head. “As I said, this isn’t your concern.”

  “My concern,” she replied, her tone verging on disrespect, “is that you are taking on new businesses when you should be doing the exact opposite. You know it’s true.”

  “Catherine—”

  “My concern,” she repeated, even more angrily this time, “is that you plan to move us to the Plateau to live. Please, Jules, tell me it isn’t so.”

  His eyes flashed. “I will not discuss this now,” he hissed, his jaw tight as he glanced toward the print shop.

  Catherine lowered her voice. “The walls don’t have ears, Jules. Surely you can trust everyone here.”

  Whether that was true or not, she could tell by the glare he gave her that she had pushed things as far as she could. Better to calm down and focus on why she’d come in the first place, in order to discuss the retrieval of their cousin from the convent. The Plateau they could talk about later, in the privacy of their home.

  Jules sighed and gestured toward the exit. “You should be going. You know you’re not supposed to be here.”

  “But that was because of Uncle Edouard. Now that he’s gone, your rule about my staying away no longer applies, oui?” She hoped the mention of the man’s name might soften Jules’s heart toward Edouard’s now-fatherless daughter, Amelie.

  “What do you want, Catherine?” Jules asked wearily.

  She exhaled slowly, gathering her thoughts. “I need your help.”

  Jules shook his head.

  “I have not even asked you yet—”

  “Whatever it is, it’s not a good idea.”

  Catherine met her brother’s dark eyes and saw a rigidity there, one that told her she no longer held sway over anything he may or may not do. Thanks to the seven-year difference in their ages, the two of them had never been very close, though they had gotten along well enough when she was younger. He had even seemed to value her opinion at times. But since their father died—thrusting Jules into the position of family patriarch, legal guardian to Catherine, and manager of all their business holdings, properties, and finances—he’d begun to shut her out. These days, barely a civil word passed between them. And the further he continued to go down the wrong path, enmeshing them within a country that was growing harsher toward Huguenots by the day, the wider their rift became.

  “Very well,” she said at last. “Then I shall ask Pierre to help me instead.” She turned and left the office. Several of the printers paused to watch as she crossed through the shop, including the oldest one, who had worked for her family since he was a boy. He gave her an encouraging smile and she nodded in return. Just as she reached the p
assageway to the warehouse, the door swung open and Eriq appeared.

  “Catherine!” Jules scolded from behind her.

  She kept going, ignoring him.

  “What is wrong?” Eriq asked. “Can I help?”

  Catherine shook her head. “Non, merci.” He was just a boy. What could he do?

  “Catherine!” Jules demanded again, his voice even louder this time.

  Behind Eriq, Pierre appeared in the doorway.

  “What is going on out here?” he asked, his brow furrowed as he looked from Eriq to Catherine to Jules.

  She gestured for him to come closer. After pulling the warehouse door shut behind him, he did as she asked, the four of them clustered there together in the passageway between the two structures, where they could speak in relative privacy.

  Keeping her eyes on her betrothed, Catherine straightened her shoulders, drew in a deep breath, and spoke directly to him in a voice that sounded calm yet determined.

  “We need to retrieve Amelie from the convent,” she whispered. “Now that Uncle Edouard has passed, there is no reason for her to stay.”

  Behind her, Jules let out a groan. “You have no idea what you are asking.”

  She turned and gave him a glare. “If you’re not willing to help,” she snapped, “at least do not interfere.”

  “You don’t understand the legalities involved. It’s not as if we can march up to the place, knock on the door, and tell them we want her back. It’s far more complicated than that.”

  Catherine’s jaw clenched. “So file a petition, or write a letter, or do whatever it takes to undo the mistake Uncle Edouard made by sending her there in the first place. It is a convent, not a jail. You are her guardian now, Jules. They cannot hold her there against your will. Surely our solicitor can help. The law must be on our side.”

  His eyes widened, and Catherine realized he was looking at her with something almost like pity, as if she were too ignorant to grasp the complexities of the situation.