Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

caught sight of the thing he had been hoping to find and gave a broad, satisfied grin.
    ‘There we are!’ he exclaimed. ‘I was hoping that there might be a few of them around with all this commotion.’
    The thing he had spotted with such satisfaction turned out to be a fine, fat pig, which came round the corner of the Rue des Prêcheurs just then, in pursuit of a juicy cabbage leaf. Pairs of these respectable animals patrolled the streets of Paris all day long, in the charge of a friar, hunting edible refuse and rummaging among the slops. Like all of the convent pigs, this one wore a blue enamelled tau cross, emblem of St Anthony, round its neck. It paused to masticate its cabbage leaf at the foot of a large carved post representing the Tree of Jesse, which stood at the corner of a house. Landry let go of Catherine’s hand.
    ‘The other pig can’t be far. You go on without me. I’ll meet you farther up the street by the Filles-Dieu convent. Condemned men always stop there for a while so that the sisters can give them a little comfort. The nuns wait by the church porch and offer them a glass of wine, three pieces of bread and a crucifix to kiss. The guard always slackens off then, and that’s the moment I shall try to take advantage of. You must be ready to make a run for it anytime I give the signal.’
    He kept one eye on the pig as he spoke. Having finished its meal, the beast was heading for the Rue des Prêcheurs, where its companion pig and the monk in charge of them would both presumably be found. Catherine watched Landry start off in pursuit. They were soon lost to sight in the darkness of the street. She set off again herself. For the first time that day, she suddenly realised the full extent of her weariness, perhaps because she had been temporarily deprived of Landry and his reassuring presence. Her feet hurt and every muscle in her legs seemed to ache. Then the torchlight flashed briefly over Michel’s golden head in the distance and she felt her spirits rise again. She even forced herself to walk faster, hurrying along at the back of the procession and then, in a sudden burst of energy, thrusting her way deeper into it.
    Pushing through this crowd of excited, struggling, agitated people, not one of whom relinquished his or her place without a struggle, was difficult and often painful, but the emotion that propelled Catherine forward was stronger than the fear of pain or blows. Somehow she succeeded in forcing her way up close behind the guard of archers. She glimpsed the prisoner’s tall figure only a few feet away between a couple of men-at-arms. He walked erect, head held high, at a slow, composed pace, looking so proud that Catherine was lost in admiration. As she stumbled and pushed her way along, she murmured all the prayers she knew, lamenting that she was not as well versed in these things as her sister Loyse, who knew the right prayers for any contingency as well as one for each of the Saints in Heaven.
    Presently they reached the Convent of the Filles-Dieu. The sisters had been forewarned of their arrival and were waiting to receive the condemned man. Gathered on the church steps, round the abbess who stood holding the crucifix, they looked like a group of black-and-white statues, all with modestly lowered eyes. One of them proffered the bread on a plate, another came forward with a goblet and a pitcher of wine. The escort halted, and Catherine’s heart missed a beat. This was the moment – but Landry was nowhere to be seen!
    Capeluche grabbed the end of the rope that bound Michel’s hands and twisted it round his wrist to lead the prisoner to the church steps. Just as the escort drew back to let the pair pass, a wild and hideous screeching filled the air. Two pigs, screaming shrilly, rushed at whirlwind speed out of a nearby alley and charged at the soldiers with such force that four of them were knocked flying. Each of the unfortunate animals had a bundle of blazing hemp tied to its tail,