A Trap for Catherine by Juliette Benzoni

Author:Juliette Benzoni
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Manuscript Template, Public
Publisher: Telos Publishing Ltd

7: The Justice of

Arthur de Richemont

Thinking that the Lady of Montsalvy’s arrival might encourage them to abandon their angry withdrawal, Tristan l’Hermite made haste to convey the news to the men of Auvergne.

After leaving the Eagle, he went straight to the tavern called the Grand Godet, off the Place de Grève, where several of their leaders had their lodging. The bill of fare there might no longer boast roast hedgehog, cow’s udders or ‘jellied wood eels’ (otherwise grass snake), as it had during the worst of the famine, but it was still very thin of cheer. On the other hand, the dry white wine of Aunis was incomparable, and the two Roquemaurel brothers, with their inveterate companion Gontran de Fabrefort, another chip off the same block as themselves, had been not slow to discover its virtues.

In acting as he did, the Provost was aware of serving his master’s interests, in digging the rebels out of their retreat, as well as the interests of his friends the Montsalvys, by providing Catherine with a strong escort against the time when she would have to confront Richemont.

The interview was not a long one. The brief, heartfelt advice that Tristan had to deliver was decently washed down with liquid refreshment as befitting a talk between gentlemen, and when he rose to take his leave he was sped on his way by a series of genial thumps on the back from Renaud de Roquemaurel and a vast and vinous embrace from Fabrefort, who hugged him mightily and called him brother. They arranged to meet again on the following morning.

His official business completed, Tristan directed his steps toward the Hôtel des Tournelles, the elegant residence of the Dukes of Orléans, not far from the Bastille, where he paid a discreet visit to an extremely elevated person on whose support he knew he could count in the present situation. He emerged after half an hour looking much more cheerful than when he had gone in and, humming a drinking song fervently if inaccurately under his breath, turned his horse’s head at last in the direction of the Hôtel du Porc-Epic, formerly the property of the Duke of Burgundy but bestowed by Philip the Good on the Constable in place of the Hôtel de Richemont in the Rue Hautefeuille, near the Cordeliers, which had been commandeered by the English in 1425 and of which little now remained.

The result of all these comings and goings was that next morning, as the bells of St Catherine du Val des Escholiers were ringing tierce6*, Maître Renaudot began to wonder if a riot could be taking place outside his house; for, at that precise moment, a troop of spirited percherons deposited at the inn door a company of high-handed swaggering and remarkably noisy gentlemen.

They were all talking at once in deep voices accustomed to competing with mountain storms and emerging from torsos inured to grappling with bears. The innkeeper knew by their accents that all were Auvergnats. Some, indeed, had emerged from

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