Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) by Juliette Benzoni Page B

her.
    ‘Who’s that one?’ he said, pointing at her with a large, dirty finger.
    ‘Sister of the Loyse whom Caboche has got. Hands off, Mâchefer! She is what you might call my adopted daughter!’
    The Beggar King looked at the girl clinging to Barnaby’s shoulder, his face registering astonishment tinged with anger. Sara had just finished arranging Catherine’s hair, and in the firelight the braids shone like coils of pure gold. Her eyes gleamed too, and she stood with her head thrown back as proudly as a little cock, determined not to let Mâchefer see she was afraid. He stretched out a hand hesitantly, touched one of the plaits and grumbled:
    ‘Old fox! I suspect that you have tricked me. If the older sister has fulfilled the promise of the younger one she must be a proud beauty.’
    Barnaby’s gnarled hand removed Mâchefer’s.
    ‘She doesn’t look like her,’ he said curtly. ‘And this one is too young. Let’s leave it at that, Mâchefer. You had some news to tell me. Do you want a drink?’
    ‘I won’t refuse,’ said the other, lowering himself heavily onto a stool. ‘But it’s a bit of luck for you that you belong to Jacquot-de-la-Mer’s band. Otherwise I wouldn’t have thought twice about cutting your throat to get my hands on these two chickens. I like them young myself, they are tenderer then …’ One of his hands played with a dagger passed through his belt. The firelight reflected in his bloodshot eyes made him look like a demon in human shape. Catherine stepped back in terror and crossed herself. Barnaby shrugged and went on with his work.
    ‘So you go about frightening children now? Be quiet, Mâchefer. We have more important things on hand, and you know you are not as bad as you like to make out. Give him a drink, little one – some wine.’
    Not taking her eyes off this alarming personage for an instant, Catherine filled a goblet of wine from the cask in the corner. It was a magnificent Beaune wine, one of the casks that Jean-sans-Peur had distributed among his butcher friends and other allies in the flush of his demagogic zeal. This particular barrel had originally been destined for the master-butcher Saint-Yon but had somehow fallen into the hands of the wily Barnaby, who reserved its use for special occasions. Mâchefer drained two goblets straight off, wiped his mouth and clucked appreciatively:
    ‘Superb! I have nothing to touch it!’
    ‘You shall have the rest tomorrow, if we leave Paris then. You won’t even have to steal it. I will make you a present of it, and of my house into the bargain. Now, tell me your news.’
    His good humour restored by the prospect of acquiring the cask of wine, Mâchefer willingly went on with his account.
    Catherine, feeling reassured, sat on the ground between the two men.
    The day the mob had attacked the Hôtel de Guyenne and seized the Dauphin’s followers it had also laid siege to the Bastille, where Pierre des Essarts, former Provost of Paris, had taken refuge with a company of five hundred men-at-arms from his captaincy of Cherbourg. Stout and well-defended as it had been, the fortress had been attacked with such ferocity that the Duke of Burgundy had finally decided to open the gates and surrender des Essarts. Under a heavy guard, des Essarts had been taken to the Grand Châtelet, where he had been awaiting his sentence ever since. He was the last in a long line. Caboche had created a reign of terror in Paris. A visit to someone’s house would be followed by arrests, pillaging and violence of all sorts. He was harassed by fear of the Armagnac party, now entrenched around the walls of Paris, and this fear led to a new outbreak of senseless bloodshed. On 10 June, one of the men captured on 28 April had been killed in prison and then beheaded in the Halles marketplace before his body was strung up at Montfaucon. On the same day, young Simon du Mesnil, squire trenchant to Prince Louis, had been escorted to the Halles with de la Rivière