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

brother’s house seemed to comfort the poor woman a little. It had been her parents’, and she had spent her childhood in it and been married from it to Gaucher Legoix many years ago. It was the haven to which, in her grief, it seemed natural for her to turn for refuge and comfort. Grateful as she was to the Cockleshell Man for the generous way he had helped her, the good woman could not help regarding the bizarre world of the beggars, into which she had been so suddenly thrown, with mistrust and distaste.
     
     
    Sara continued to look after Catherine. Her treatment consisted of cooling drinks and curious nostrums that she made the girl take to restore her strength. She obstinately refused to divulge how and with what they were made, though she did explain the properties of the infusions of vervain, which she made Catherine drink all the time as a supreme remedy against all ills.
    Gradually Catherine and even Jacquette grew accustomed to the presence of the dark-skinned woman. Barnaby had told them her story. Sara had been born into one of the gypsy tribes that lived on the island of Cyprus. When still a young girl, she had been seized by the Turks and sold in the market at Candia to a Venetian merchant who had taken her back with him to his own country. Sara had stayed in Venice for ten years, and it was there she had learnt the secrets of herbal medicine. Then her master had died and she had been bought by a Lombard moneylender who had just acquired a house in Paris. He had been a cruel, violent man. Sara had been continually maltreated. Finally, one winter night, she had run away and been found by a supposedly blind man, Maillet-le-Loup, in a church where she had taken refuge, trembling with cold and hunger. He had taken her back with him to his hovel in the Cour Saint-Sauveur, and there she had remained in the capacity of housekeeper ever since.
    Quite apart from her healing powers, which were always greatly in demand among the beggars, Black Sara could read palms. This gift sometimes led to her being summoned in great secrecy to some noble house. Moving about the town as she did and penetrating where many people never could, Sara learnt things about the town and Court. She knew endless stories too, and would spend hours at a time squatted beside the hearth between Catherine and her mother gossiping tirelessly in her soft sing-song voice, while they shared out the herb wine she made better than anyone else. Legends of some remote tribe, the latest Court scandal – all were equally grist to her mill. Almost every evening when Barnaby returned he would find the three women in their usual places, each deriving some sort of solace from the others’ company. Then he would take his seat among this odd family that chance or fate had brought him, and in his turn recount news and rumours from the outside world.
    Once night had fallen and the Beggars’ Kingdom woke to its riotous nocturnal life, Barnaby’s presence was essential to calm the fears of his guests. The fact was that the Grande Cour des Miracles became a terrifying place as soon as its inhabitants returned. And Barnaby’s own corner of it was far from peaceful. From just before matins till the time when the trumpeter on watch heralded the dawn from one of the Châtelet towers and the guards were withdrawn from the gate, a sinister-looking rabble converged on the square, streaming out of their hovels and crowding along all the alleys. Then the cripples would stand upright, the blind would see and the supporting sores that touched the hearts and generosity of the charitable would be whisked off in a flash, thereby enacting the nightly miracle that had given these places their name. Then the wild, turbulent mob would pass the rest of the night shouting, singing and feasting. There were at this time some eighty thousand genuine or sham beggars in Paris.
    The rule of the Kingdom of Thune was that everything found, begged or stolen in the course of the day should be