Read Online Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) by Juliette Benzoni - Free Book Online Page A

terror, the young girl dragged on her chemise and crept down the stairs, after quickly ascertaining that Loyse was still sound asleep. In her hurry she forgot to look where she was going and slithered rather than stepped down the last remaining stairs, almost breaking her neck. The trapdoor was wide open and she could see a light through it. A second later the quiet house shook to a howl of terror.
    ‘Help! Help!’ Marion bellowed. Her voice sounded to Catherine like the last trump. ‘An Armagnac! Help!’
    Half dead with fright, Catherine slid down the ladder and found fat Marion in her petticoat clinging with all her might to Michel’s tunic and screaming like a maniac. Michel, ashen-faced, was struggling unsuccessfully to free himself. A combination of fear and liquor seemed to have made Marion twice as strong as usual. Catherine leapt on her like a wildcat, kicking and scratching, and managed to force her to loosen her grip on Michel.
    ‘Be quiet, you stupid old woman!’ she shouted angrily. ‘Be quiet, will you! Make her stop, messire! Hit her! She’ll have all the neighbours in!’
    Marion only started screaming with redoubled vigour. With a violent jerk, Michel shook himself free, and Catherine nodded toward the skylight while hanging on to Marion as best she could.
    ‘The skylight, quick! You will have to jump through it! It’s your only chance. Can you swim?’
    He was halfway through the aperture when Marion, half beside herself by now, bit Catherine viciously on the arm to make her let go and then rushed at him and seized him by one leg, still screaming at the top of her voice. In response to her screams, heavy blows sounded on the wooden shutters outside the house. Catherine reeled back against the log-pile at first, dazed with pain, but a second later she was up again, hunting frantically for something with which to free Michel. Stuck half in and half out of the window, with Marion clinging to his leg, he had only his free leg to defend himself with. An axe blade gleamed on the floor. Catherine seized it and rushed at Marion. But, alas, just then the street door gave way with a crash of splintering wood and a horde of people swarmed down the stairs and into the cellar. With their faces gleaming scarlet in the candlelight, they looked to Catherine like so many fiends disgorged from hell. The axe was snatched from her hands by one of the men.
    ‘He’s an Armagnac!’ Marion shouted hoarsely.
    That was enough. In a second, Michel, despite his frantic struggles, was captured. During that time Marion, patches of fat thigh criss-crossed by rope-like varicose veins showing through the tears in her chemise, had slumped into a corner with a satisfied sigh. Then she crawled toward the barrel of wine and stretched out underneath the spigot to drink at her leisure.
    Horror-stricken, Catherine only just managed to keep herself from falling in a swoon by clinging to the log-pile. The cellar was full of men, all hitting Michel. As each blow fell, it seemed to strike agonisingly at Catherine’s heart. In that low, vaulted room, smoky from the oil-lamps one or two people had brought down, the struggling mass of ragged, wine-bespattered figures showering vicious blows on their captive composed a scene of revolting brutality. Michel’s purple and silver tunic had been ripped half off his shoulders.
    Someone cried, ‘Why, if it isn’t the pretty fellow who gave us the slip earlier tonight on the way to Montfaucon! The one who spat in the Duke’s face …’
    The rest of his sentence was drowned out by a wild outcry: ‘Kill him! Kill him! Hand him over to us!’
    Tightly bound, Michel was half pushed, half dragged up the ladder and out into the street, where his appearance created an uproar. There was hatred in those voices, and a certain wild excitement. Catherine threw herself blindly after him. She scrambled up the ladder and was just about to rush out into the street when Loyse, white as a sheet, moved to stop