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

noticed that her features were delicate and that she had magnificent black eyes. Barnaby came with her to Catherine’s bedside.
    ‘This is Black Sara,’ he told her. ‘She knows more secrets than a sorceress. She has been looking after you, and right well at that! Well, what do you think, Sara?’
    ‘She has found her spirits again. She is cured,’ the woman said. ‘All she needs now is rest and good food.’ Her thin brown hands meanwhile lightly touched the child’s cheeks, brow and wrist, moving with the speed and delicacy of birds in flight. Then Sara sat with her arms round her knees on the ground beside Catherine’s bed and gazed at her thoughtfully. Meanwhile Barnaby drew on his shell-bedecked cloak and picked up his staff.
    ‘Stay a little while,’ he said to the woman. ‘It is time for Mass at St Opportune and I don’t want to miss it. All the tinsmiths of the neighbourhood are gathering for a service there, and they are sure to give generously.’
    Barnaby left after suggesting to Sara that she taste the soup and give the invalid a good bowlful.
     
     
    The next day, after a night of deep and peaceful sleep, Catherine heard from her mother the full story of what had happened on the Pont-au-Change after Michel’s death. The risk of fire spreading had stopped the crowd setting the Legoix’s house alight. Instead, they had looted and pillaged the building from top to bottom. Having heard what was going on, Gaucher Legoix had come hurrying back from the House of Pillars. His pleas and remonstrations had only incited the angry mob to further violence, Caboche’s departure having removed any possible restraint from them. The resentment that had been building up as a result of his cool attitude to the Butchers’ Guild had then exacted a terrible revenge. In spite of his wife’s tears and entreaties, joined with those of Landry and his father, the mob had hanged Gaucher Legoix from his own shop sign and then thrown his body into the river. Jacquette had then taken refuge with the Pigasse family, together with the unconscious Catherine, whom Landry had found and rescued. But soon the fury of the mob had seemed to threaten Jacquette too, and she had been forced to flee again, with the help of Barnaby, whom Landry, luckily, had gone to fetch. First by river, then along interminable alleys, the poor woman and her strange companion had sought the safety of Barnaby’s house in the Grande Cour des Miracles. She had stayed there ever since, tending her daughter and trying to recover from the terrible ordeal from which she had just emerged. Gaucher’s violent death had been a cruel stroke, but Catherine’s critical condition had left her little time to mourn. Her child had been in danger. To which a new anxiety had soon been added: Loyse had disappeared.
    The last time anyone remembered seeing Loyse was at the moment when her younger sister had lost consciousness, at the height of her brainstorm. She had been holding Catherine in her arms. Then a forward surge of the mob had swept Catherine from her. Landry had turned up in the nick of time to rescue his friend. But Loyse had vanished in the midst of the angry crowd, which had then hurled itself on the Sign of the Holy Tabernacle and torn it apart. No-one knew what had become of her since.
    ‘She could have fallen into the river,’ Jacquette said, dabbing at her eyes, which seemed perpetually swollen with tears, ‘but then the Seine would have washed up her body. Barnaby goes to the morgue at the Grand Châtelet every day, but he hasn’t found her yet. He is convinced she is still alive and goes on searching for her. All we can do is wait and pray.’
    ‘What will we do then?’ Catherine asked. ‘Stay here with Barnaby?’
    ‘No. As soon as we have found Loyse we will leave Paris and go to Dijon. As you know, your uncle Mathieu is a cloth merchant there. As we are his only surviving relations, he can hardly refuse to take us in.’
    Talking about her