Katherine (22 page)

"Oh, no," said Philippa, "we wear this for the Queen, God assoil her gentle soul. The suits were given us by the King's orders," She spoke with a certain complacence, though she sighed. She had been devoted to the Queen and now had no idea where her next permanent home would be, since Geoffrey was away so much on King's business and even now must return to Dover, then report to the Duke of Lancaster at Calais.

She was fond of Katherine, but in view of what she had already seen of Kettlethorpe, she could not but be doubtful about the protracted visit Geoffrey had planned for her. The Queen had left her a pension of a hundred shillings yearly, and Philippa suspected with natural annoyance that she might have to pay board instead of living in the luxurious elegance she had imagined, while saving her income for the benefit of her long-awaited baby.

"We had the Queen's Requiem Mass today - you hear the passing bell," said Katherine diffidently. "You mustn't think we don't sorrow for her here, though we
are
so far away."

Geoffrey's bright hazel eyes glanced at the girl and softened. Ever quick to catch human overtones, he heard the wistfulness in her voice, thought that she was more unhappy than she knew and bore herself with a rather touching gallantry. It was true that she was more beautiful than ever, her cheeks like red and white daisies, her lustrous eyes grey and soft as vair; she glowed with bright health though she was slender as a birch. Despite the two children and despite her eighteen years, there was still something virginal about her.

He reflected that it was not thus he had expected Katherine to be now, when he had first seen her at court three years ago, when he had said that she had
le diable au corps
and thought her a flame to light man's lust. He had thought that there was the mark of destiny upon her. And he had been wrong. The stars had held for her, it seemed, only the fate shared by thousands of other women; motherhood, housewifery, struggle and - as he at once discovered when Hugh returned - the endurance of a difficult, ailing husband.

By the time Hugh came in from hunting, the Chaucers had been settled in Lady Nichola's old tower-room and were in the Hall awaiting supper.

Hugh made an effort to greet his guests cordially. He sent Cob to broach the last keg of ale. Little Cob, the erstwhile spit-boy, was now nineteen and had been promoted to servitor, though he was still flax-haired and undersized, also sulky, for he liked farming and loathed his kitchen duties. He brought up a flagon of ale to the Hall and spilled some, at which Hugh gave him a savage kick on the shins.

Then Hugh filled the wooden mazer, said "Wassail," drank and passed it to Philippa as hospitality demanded. She answered "Drinkhail" uncertainly before she sipped. These Saxon customs were seldom seen at court, and Philippa tightened her lips. The ale was inferior and besides, she was used to wine. If it weren't for the plague - she thought unhappily - but there was no other place for her to go, and anyway she dared travel no farther in her condition

The wassail cup passed from Katherine to Geoffrey and back to Hugh, who took a deep draught, and spat most of it out on the rushes. Swallowing started the gripes. "What news of the Duke in Picardy?" he said through his teeth to his brother-in-law. "How goes the war?"

Geoffrey shrugged. "A standstill, I believe. Our noble Duke makes alarums and excursions, but that wily Valois fox has run to earth and will not fight; his skulking
faineantise
serves France well. He has but to wait until the Prince of Wales has insulted the last of our Gascon allies, then the whole of Aquitaine will revolt against us."

"You speak thus of the
Prince?"
Hugh said, frowning.

"My dear Hugh - I speak truth. In Aquitaine they call Edward 'the Black Prince,' and not only from the colour of his armour. Since Castile he steeps himself in wrath, he plunders and kills without mercy One by one he estranges his barons there, demanding that they maintain his magnificent English court at Bordeaux and yet allowing them no positions of importance. They're proud, those Gascons, as proud as we are. Is it wonder that they turn to the honied soothing welcome of the French king?'

'Thaw!" said Hugh, "the Gascons are scurvy riffraff - like any cur, they do better for a flogging!"

Katherine had retired to a corner behind the table while she suckled little Tom, but she looked at her husband when he said this, and wondered if he thought of Nirac.

There had been a fearful scene with Nirac, after Hugh's return two years ago. The wounded reeve had lost no time in taking his grievance to his lord, and he had slandered Katherine too. Hugh had gone berserk, accusing her of whoredom with the Gascon. Her own house servants had reluctantly come to her defence, and they and poor Gibbon had finally convinced Hugh Of her innocence. But Hugh had struck Nirac a violent blow across the mouth the kicked him off the manor. Nirac had gone without saying anything except one soft aside to Katherine in French. "Adieu, madam, I obey the Duke - but I shall not
forget
your brave knight." And his black eyes had glittered like a lizard's.

Hugh had aged much since Geoffrey had seen him last. There were white threads amongst the woolly drabness of his hair and beard. He had grown thin and had lost the chunky look he used to have. His high-necked, loose-sleeved blue cote-hardie hung on him slackly; deep furrows ran from his sharpened nose down either side of his clamped-in lips; the scar on his cheek lumped purple against the pallor of his skin. He could not be over thirty, but a young man's vigour had seeped out of him. Poor Katherine, thought Geoffrey, as Hugh with a muttered oath clutched at his belly and, doubling over, stumbled out into the courtyard. The jest that Geoffrey might, at another time, have made about this most ludicrous of human ailments died as he thought of it, and instead he said, "Is it because of these attacks that Hugh has not gone to join the Duke in war service?"

Katherine wiped the baby's mouth and put him down in the cradle. "Nay, for sometimes he is well," she said slowly, buttoning her bodice. " 'Tis that my Lord Duke ordered him not to come. He wrote from the Savoy that Hugh must stay on our manor to - to care for it." Katherine coloured and looked away from Geoffrey's sharp gaze. The Duke's letter had actually said, "You are ordered to remain at Kettlethorpe to give proper guardianship and care to your lady." Hugh had been hurt and angry. He had felt himself discarded, "put out to grass," though he made only that one comment. Nor had he ever said much about the ducal visit at the time of Blanchette's birth, except to express gratification at the honour done the baby.

"We've heard nothing else from Their Graces of Lancaster all this time," said Katherine, "except that the Duke sent that hanap for Blanchette." She pointed to a silver-gilt chalice which stood on a wall bracket below Hugh's hanging armour.

The cup had been specially engraved for the child with delicate foliage and tendrils supporting the Swynford blazon; on the knob of the richly carved cover there was a cabochon emerald - Blanchette's birthstone. "Nor should we expect to hear," she added hastily not wanting Geoffrey to think her presuming.

"Of course not," said Philippa, who knew better than Katherine the constant demands, confusion and movement from castle to castle that regal living entailed; and moreover there was war and the royal mournings. "I trust you were properly grateful for the Duke's favour, Katherine," she said crossly, looking at the cup. She had never received such a gift herself, and she thought it looked remarkably out of place against the damp sooty stones of this meagre Hall.

"I - we sent back thanks by the messenger," said Katherine uncomfortably. She had tried to write a letter to the Duke but had been ashamed to send it, though she had hunted for words to copy from the psalter. Writing was very different from reading, and the priest at the convent had taught her little of the art.

"The Duchess Blanche is this week to arrive at Bolingbroke," said Philippa. "She too flees from the plague."

"Is she, indeed?" A pang, half sweet, half bitter, shot through Katherine's heart. She thought of those twelve days of Christmas she had spent with the Duchess at Bolingbroke nearly three years ago and of the sympathy between them and the joy she had felt. She had not ceased to love the Duchess, even though the Lady Blanche forgot her.

"Why don't you ride over to Bolingbroke and wait on her, Katherine?" suggested Geoffrey. "'T'would be fitting."

Hugh had come back into the Hall and crouched in his high-backed chair, his knees drawn up to ease the cramps. His dull eyes lifted now to his brother-in-law's face, and he frowned.

"By all means!" cried Philippa, having instantly seen the advantages. "She was fond of you, and once she sees you, will renew her favours - though heaven knows you were stupid enough in that regard with the Queen - God absolve her soul - but still, the Lancasters have always taken some interest, and if Hugh's out of favour with the Duke-"

"Nay, he is
not!"
cut in Katherine sharply, as she heard her husband make a sound. "What a foolish thing to say -"

"Pica didn't mean that," said Chaucer, as usual covering his wife's bluntness. "Everyone knows that Hugh fought most bravely in Castile and doubtless the Duke's giving him special consideration in return. But 'twould be courteous to wait upon our most lovely lady since she's so near. Hugh would accompany Katherine."

"No," said Hugh sombrely. "I want no truckling in women's bowers. I'll abide here till the Duke sends. Ellis can escort Katherine since you think it seemly that she go." He leaned his chin on his hand and stared into space.

It was strange that Hugh never looked at his wife, Geoffrey thought. There seemed an excessive constraint or embarrassment, though perhaps explicable by his heavy nature or bodily discomforts.

"I'd like to go-" said Katherine hesitating. She sent towards Hugh an anxious smile to which he paid no attention. "For a few days - and take Blanchette, except not yet a while until Tom is weaned - and Hugh is better again - and, too, I -"

"Oh, peace to this babbling, Katherine!" said Philippa briskly. "You shall go next Monday before the whole of Lincolnshire knows that the Duchess is at Bolingbroke and the castle's swamped with supplicants. I'll take charge here and you may be easy in your mind. As for the baby, there must be some woman in the vill can give him suck. 'Tis time
you
stopped anyway, for you're thin as a rake-handle. Blanchette is yet too young to go, besides, she'd hinder you from full attention to pleasing the Duchess. You must use your wits, Katherine."

"My wits?" the girl repeated, half amused. She saw the well-remembered zeal in Philippa's eye, and wondered what the house carls would think of the determined hand which would be laid on them.

"Your wits, of course,
p'tite imbecile
! The Duchess has given you fine gifts before - and by the rood, you could use some now. Besides, a wise wife will find way to further her husband's interests. You should plainly tell her you're in want at Kettlethorpe, that Hugh has sickness he caught in the Duke's service, and perhaps a pension - -"

"I
want
no pension!" shouted Hugh furiously, "until I fight again."

"Bosh - Geoffrey has one from the King - twenty marks a year. 'Tis clear as glass to me, you two've no more sense than a couple of sheep."

Geoffrey chuckled. "Sheep or not, you'd best listen to Pica. Always she knows whereof she speaks."

" 'Tis fortunate," said Philippa, having accepted her husband's tribute and seeing that the Swynfords made no further protest but in their separate ways looked somewhat dazed, "that Katherine had had the plague and recovered. Maitre Jacques, the Queen's leech, says that when that happens, and 'tis most rare, the Black Death never strikes again."

"Did I?" said Katherine, startled. "You mean in Picardy - I remember that I was very ill when our grandparents died of plague. But I thought children were spared."

"Most were, it passed
me
by, but you turned speckled brown as a thrush, you bled from the nose and you had a plague boil big as an apple in your armpit. I remember when it burst, for we were alone in the farmhouse, you and I - everyone had deserted us."

"Ay-" said Katherine slowly. "The pain comes back now, and the relief when the matter spurted out. You gave me milk to drink - you nursed me, child that you were yourself. My sister, you were good to me." Katherine leaned over and kissed Philippa. "But I didn't know before how brave."

"By Saint Sebastian, I knew no better," said Philippa matter-of-factly, patting Katherine's arm. " 'Tis different today. In London, I took no chances with the impure air. I stuffed my nostrils with borage and trinity flowers, I carried the bezoar stone, and Geoffrey did too."

He nodded gravely. "Few have courage when the plague bells jangle and red crosses brand the doors... Katherine, will you play your lute and sing to us? Some cheerful tune."

"I've not played for long," she said. "Do you, Geoffrey, read to us instead, for you have some books in your saddlebag?"

"That he has," snapped Philippa, "crammed so full of them, he'd no room for change of linen or a pair of seemly shoes! An ink-horn, too, he's brought - and quills!"

Katherine met Geoffrey's eyes in a smile, as she remembered how her sister had thought to cure him of his perverse reading and scribbling.

"I've been trying to English
Le Romaunt de la Rose,"
Geoffrey said with some diffidence. " 'Tis not near so good as Guillaume de Lorris's fair verses, but if you like to listen to that tale of courtly love-"

"Oh please!" cried Katherine. She gathered up Blanchette who had grown tired of playing with a blackamoor puppet the Chaucers had brought her, and settled the child comfortably in her arms.

Philippa sniffed, and seeing no help for it, picked up Katherine's neglected spindle and began to twirl yarn from the distaff.

Hugh gave a grunt of dissent, and saying that he wished to find Ellis, got up and went out of the Hall.

Geoffrey drew close-written parchments from his pouch and pulled his stool near the window light. "It begins by telling of dreams," he said to Katherine, "like this -