Katherine (27 page)

Katherine laughed, basking in the warm kindly atmosphere and the goodwife's conviction that food was life's most important matter. She turned to Hawise with girlish eagerness and cried, 'Tell all! How has it been with you, this long time?"

"Ay, but first of you," said the older girl, sobering to glance at Katherine's black gown. " 'Tis worn for the Duchess - nothing else, I pray?"

"Nay. We're all well at Kettlethorpe.
I've two babies,
Hawise!"

"And I one" - Hawise let out a snort of laughter and ran to the court calling. "Jackie, Jackie - come hither, imp - for ever playing wi' the old sow, he is - 'tis that he's but a piglet himself-" She hauled her offspring into the Hall and cuffed him gently on the ear, then wiped him off before presenting him proudly to Katherine.

Jackie was two years old and a true Pessoner, being fat, cheerful and sandy-haired. He grabbed a fistful of honey cakes and plumped himself on the rushes to enjoy them while his grandmother bent down to add a sugar bun to his hoard.

"Ay, he's Jack Maudelyn's right enough," said Hawise, seeing that Katherine did not like to ask, "and he was born in wedlock too, though only just. Father held out stubborn long, the dear old goat."

"Is Jack still weaver's prentice?"

"No prentice now, nor yet weaver neither. He went for a soldier to make us a fortune in booty, we hope. He's a fine archer, is Jack, and he joined the free companies under Sir Hugh Calverly. They fight for England now that we're at war again, to be sure."

"To be sure," said Katherine smiling. "So your man is gone, and you've come back home to wait like many another."

"Is't the same with you, lady dear - your knight abroad too?"

"Not now," said Katherine, turning her face away. But feeling that her curtness rebuffed Hawise, she made an effort and while they drank their hot pungent ale and sat close together on the settle, she told a little of what had passed with her since Hawise had waved tearful good-byes beneath the porch of St. Clement Danes on the wedding day.

In truth, there seemed not much to tell, nothing momentous at all except the recent time of plague at Bolingbroke and that Katherine slid over quickly. Yet during tile bare recital of her years at Kettlethorpe, she noted that Hawise looked at her with shrewd sympathy, and when Katherine had done, Hawise said, "Have ye no woman there wi' you save those North Country hinds?" The London-born Hawise spoke as though Lincolnshire folk might be horned and tailed.

"Well, now for a while there's Philippa too, you know," said Katherine laughing.

"In truth." Hawise gave a sceptical twinkling glance but from politeness said no more. She had seen something of Dame Philippa while Master Geoffrey still lived in London with the Chaucers, and Hawise thought that Philippa was not a woman to give over the mastery of any household she was in and wondered how it would be when Katherine went home. Again as she had when they had first met, the girl aroused in Hawise a tender feeling. Having no beauty herself she felt no envy, but only a desire to serve it, and she recognised as had no other person except Geoffrey a bitter loneliness in Katherine that muted her shining fairness as dust films a silver chalice.

She could see that Katherine had had enough of living in splendour at the Savoy, and being intuitive as well as practical, she guessed that there was some embarrassment about getting back to Kettlethorpe. She was turning the matter over in her mind when there came another rap on the door.

" 'Tis doubtless the master o' that herring ship to see Father," she said to Dame Emma as she hastened to open it.

Raulin d'Ypres stood upon the doorstep and asked in his guttural voice, "Does anyone here know uff a Lady Swynford?"

Hawise, noting the Lancaster badge on the young man's black tunic, drew back and looked at Katherine, who stood up in surprise. "I'm Lady Swynford."

The squire bowed. "Please to come vit me to the Savoy. Someone vishes to talk to you, my lady."

"Who does?" said Katherine, in surprise.

The squire glanced at Hawise and Dame Emma and the tumbling children, then back to Katherine's puzzled resistant face. "May I speak vit you alone, my lady?"

Katherine frowned and turned to Hawise, who looked troubled. Hawise reminded herself that she did not know the ways of court folk, but a blind mole could see something out of the way in this. "Shall I call Father to rid you of him?" she whispered in Katherine's ear.

Katherine looked back at the stolid squire. He met her gaze and stared down pointedly at the Red Rose embroidered on his breast. How strange, she thought, what could that mean? Most of the men in the palace below knight's rank wore that badge. "Well, come over here," she said, stepping into the empty dairy-room, and as the squire followed, she added, "What
is
this coil?"

"His grace vants you to come to him, my lady," said Raulin very low.

She lifted her head, the pupils of her eyes dilated until the greyness turned as black as her gown. "The Duke?" Raulin bowed.

"Why does he send for me in secret?" She pressed her hands tight against her breast to still the jumping of her heart, but she stood very quiet leaning against the milk table.

"Because since the funeral he has seen nobody but me, nor does he vish to, my lady, except now - you."

The colour ebbed slowly back into her face and still her great eyes stared at the squire in question, in disbelief, until he said brusquely, "But lady, hasten. It is already long since I vas sent to find you."

Katherine moved then, she walked back into the Hall and reached up to the perch where Hawise had hung her wet cloak. "I - I must go," she said to the anxious Pessoners. "But I'll see you very soon."

"Not bad news-" cried Hawise, quickly crossing herself.

"Lady, ye look so strange!"

"Not bad news," Katherine took a quick breath, smiled at Dame Emma and kissed Hawise, but it seemed as though she did not really see them. When the door had closed behind Katherine and the squire, Hawise turned frowning to her mother. "She was happy here afore wi' us. What
can
that gobble-tongued outlander've said to throw her into such a maze? 'Twas like she wandered in a fearing dream and yet feared more to wake."

"Fie, daughter," said Dame Emma, adding cinnamon and nutmeg to the hare she seethed over the fire. "Ye make too much o' naught. Do ye get on wi' the churning."

Hawise obeyed, but as she pounded slowly in the churn, her cheerful face was downcast and she sang a plaintive little song that she had heard on London streets.

Blow, northern wind, fend off from my sweeting.
Blow, northern wind, blow.
Ho! the wind and the rain they blow green pain,
Blow, blow, blow!

Katherine and Raulin rode back to the Savoy in silence until they had passed beneath the great Strand portcullis into the Outer Ward, and dismounted at the stables. Then Raulin said, "This vay, my lady," and led her towards the river-side, nearly to the boat landing. In the west corner of the court, between the barge-house and the massive wing which housed the ducal children's apartments, there was a low wooden building surmounted by a carving of a large flying hawk. This building contained the falcon mew, and one of the falconers stood always on guard to prevent strangers from entering, or any sudden happening which might upset his high-strung and immensely valuable charges.

Raulin nodded to the falconer, skirted the mew and plunged suddenly into a dark passage that lay hidden between it and a stone water-cistern. Here was a small wooden door which he unlocked. "But the privy apartments are in the
Inner
Ward," protested Katherine nervously as he motioned her up narrow stone steps that were hollowed from the thickness of the wall.

"This leads to them," said Raulin patiently. "His Grace does not vish that people see you. It vould make talk."

Katherine swallowed, and mounted the steps. They ended on the next floor in a narrow passage that ran along the inside wall of consecutive chambers and ended in another wooden door. This door was concealed by a painted cloth-hanging. Raulin pushed it aside and they emerged into the Duchess' garde-robe, a small oblong chamber.

Behind another painted hanging they entered the darkened solar; narrow chinks of light around the edges of the closed shutters showed that the vast bed had been draped with a black pall. They went through another chamber where the Duchess' ladies had used to sit and two more rooms until they turned a corner towards the river into a square tower. Here was the Avalon Chamber.

Raulin knocked on the carved oak door and gave his name. A voice said, "Enter!" Raulin held the door, then shut it after Katherine, and went away.

Katherine walked in quietly, her head lifted high, her cloak clutched around her. The Duke was sitting on a gold-cushioned window-seat gazing over the river towards the rocks and stunted trees of Lambethmoor. He did not move at once, and she stood on the woven silk rug that covered the tiles and waited.

He was clothed in plain black saye, without girdle or mantle, the tight-fitting cote and long hose moulded his lean muscular body and were unrelieved by trimming. He wore no jewels except the sapphire seal-ring that Blanche had given him. His thick tawny hair was cut short below his ears, and he was cleanshaven. This startled her, for it made him seem younger, and when he slowly turned his head towards her, she saw that his chin was square and had a cleft like her own.

"You summoned me, my lord?" she said, for he did not speak but stared at her with a remote brooding look. His skin had lost the sunbronze that it had shown when he came to Kettlethorpe, and it was stretched taut across the sharp Plantagenet cheek-bones, the narrow cheeks and long high-bridged nose. His mouth, wide-curved and passionate, was drawn thin at the corners like his father's, and his heavy eyelids seemed as though they would never wholly lift again to disclose the vivid blue beneath.

She knelt, as was seemly, and taking his hand, kissed it in homage. While she knelt, her cloak loosened and her hood fell back. He touched her curling rain-dampened hair. " 'Tis the colour of carnelians," he said, "the gem that heals anger. Would that it might heal sorrow -" He spoke as though to himself, in a low faltering voice. His hand fell back on to his thigh, and she raised her head, wondering. Through every fibre in her body she had felt that light touch on her hair.

His gaze slid slowly over her face, then rested on the cream and umber tiles which floored the chamber. "I sent for you, Katherine, that I might thank you. Old Simon of Bolingbroke told me what you did for - for her. You shall know my gratitude."

Her cheeks stung with heat. She jumped up from her knees and pulled the cloak around her. "My lord, I told you that I loved her. I want no reward - no payment!"

"Hush! Leave be, Katherine. I know you're not venal. I've thought of you much these last days, thought of how you were with her at the end - while I - on the day she died- - " He broke off and, getting up, walked to the fireplace.

The day she died, he thought, September twelfth, the day when the French had tricked and fooled him, drawn him into battle formation and then sneaked off into the night laughing at the gullible blundering English. A bootless costly mockery had been the whole campaign, and through no fault of his; but he guessed well what they said of his generalship here at home. Blanche would have known how to soften the humiliation.

"Katherine," he said abruptly, "I cannot rid me of my grief. Each day it worsens, and yet I must rid me of it and take up my heavy duties."

She looked at him mutely. She could find no words of comfort, she did not know what he wanted of her; but she felt a closeness between them that had never been before.

"Put off your cloak and sit down," he said, smiling faintly. "You stand there like a hart that scents the hunter. I think you need not fear me."

She flushed. "I know, my lord." She walked across the room and hung her cloak on a silver perch that projected from the inner wall. It was a room of beauty and luxury such as she had never imagined. Two of the plaster walls were powdered with a pattern of gold stars and tiny flowerets like forget-me-nots. The hooded fireplace was of green marble deeply carved into medallions and foliage. The elaborate gilded furniture had been made by master craftsmen in Italy, the canopied bed was hung with ruby velvet embroidered with seed pearls, and ruby glowed again with amber and azure in the blazons of the leaded window-panes. On the east wall hung the great Avalon tapestry in dark and mysterious greens. Deep in the woven forest, the Blessed Isle of Avalon rose palely, shining through a mist, and the figures of King Arthur and his queen lay bathed in a moony light. Tall and fateful in his druid's robes the wizard Merlin stood below the royal dead and pointed to far-distant hills on which there was a fairy castle floating.

"Ay-that tapestry pleases me much," John said, following her gaze. "Merlin's castle puts me in mind of one I saw in Spain, after our victory at Najera." His sombre look lightened for an instant. Always at the thought of Castile he heard the shouts of triumph and rejoicing from his men and saw the face of the messenger who had brought him news of his son's birth to augment the thrill of victory.

"You were happy in Castile?" Katherine ventured. "You and the Prince of Wales righted the great wrong done the Castilian king."

"But, God's wounds, it didn't last!" he cried with sudden anger. "Don't you
know
what happened at Montiel last March? King Pedro foully murdered by his brother the bastard, who sits again upon the throne he had no right to!"

"Who has right then, since the poor king is dead?" she asked after a minute, thinking that it might be anger was better for him than brooding grief and that this coil about far-off kings could not touch him too nearly.

"The heiress is the king's daughter, the Infanta Costanza," he answered more quietly." 'Tis she who is the true Queen of Castile." He thought of the times he had seen the exiled princesses at Bordeaux. Costanza was a skinny black-haired wench who must be about fifteen now: two years ago he had been amused at the haughtiness of her bearing and the vehemence of her Spanish as she had thanked him for the aid given to her father. "Pedro was often a cruel and crooked man," John said. "His promises were writ on water, but what matters that, for he was also the true-born anointed king - King of Castile."

He spoke the last three words with a solemnity that puzzled Katherine, as though they were a charm or incantation, and yet she thought he scarcely realised this himself or that for a moment he had forgotten his grief. He sighed and turned from the tapestry. "Merlin had many prophecies about my house," he said listlessly. "They've come down by word of mouth throughout the centuries - Blanche cared naught for such things - she cared only for the things that came from Holy Writ." He flung himself down in a chair by the fire and leaned his forehead on his hand.

"My lord," said Katherine softly, "do you remember how she looked on the day of the Great Tournament at Windsor three years ago - so golden fair and laughing when you rode up to the loge? For sure, she will look thus in heaven while she waits for you."

He raised his head and said, "Ah, Katherine, you know how to comfort! So few know that I long to talk of her that's gone. Instead they start and look away and speak of foolish things to distract me - yet here is one other that understands."

He got up and went to the table, which was littered with vellum books and official missives which he had not glanced at. He picked up a folded parchment on which the seal and cords had been broken and opened the letter. "Listen," he said, and read very slowly:

"I have of sorrow so great wound
That joy get I never none,
Now that I see my lady bright,
That I have loved with all my might,
Is from me dead, and is agone.

"Alas, Death, what aileth thee
That thou should'st not have taken me,
When thou took my lady sweet,
That was so fair, so fresh, so free.
So good, that men may well say
Of all goodness she had no meet.

"Right on this same, as I have said
Was wholly all my love laid
For certes she was, that sweet wife,
My suffisaunce, my lust, my life,
Mine hap, mine health and all my bless,
My world's welfare and my goddess,
And I wholly hers, and everydel."

He sighed and put the parchment on his lap. "The maker has said it for me and with true English words. The maker is your brother-in-law, Katherine."

"Geoffrey!" she cried.

"Ay, I too was amazed for I had thought him a shrewd nimble little man, apt on King's service but not of temper or feeling to write like this."

"Geoffrey is deep of feeling, I believe," she said, and thought that the verses had been written perhaps to soothe his own sorrow as well as the Duke's, for she remembered the look in his eyes when he beheld the Lady Blanche. "Is he back then?" she asked wondering that she had not seen him.

"Nay, at Calais on a mission. He says that he is writing more of this poem and with my permission will call it 'The Book of the Duchess,' which I've most readily granted. Katherine, you see new reason why I'm grateful to you and your kin."

"It is joy to serve you, my lord." She lifted her face and smiled at him. For John it was as though a shutter had been flung open, and the noon light had rushed in. He had never truly seen her beauty before nor had he ever seen a smile like that, compounded of a luminous tenderness in the grey eyes, and yet in the lift of her red lips, the short perfect teeth and the dimple near her voluptuous mouth there was a hint of seduction. His nostrils flared on a sharp breath and his thoughts darted hither and yon in confusion. Why had he summoned her today, who had he forgot that she had angered him back at Windsor, forgot that her eyes had once reminded him of anguish and betrayal? Why had he let her share in his grief now and kept her with him in this warm intimacy when a purse of gold would have amply repaid? Why must she sit there now in her clinging black gown that showed the outline of each round breast and the curve of the long supple waist? His eye fell on the pouch she carried at her girdle. It was of painted leather blazoned with the Swynford arms. He stared at the three little yellow boars' heads and said angrily, "Have you no blazon of your own, Katherine?"

Her tender smile faded. She was puzzled by the sudden harshness of his tone though well aware the question covered something else. "My father had no blazon," she said slowly. "He was King-of-Arms for Guienne, you know - he was knighted only just before his death."

He heard the quiver in her voice, and his anger vanished under the impulse to protect that she alone of all women had ever roused in him. He had indeed forgotten her low birth and the consciousness of the great gulf between them brought a subtle relief.

"But you may rightfully bear arms," he said in a light tone. "Come, what shall they be?" He motioned her over to the table where he sat down and picked up a quill pen and smoothed out a blank parchment. "You are too fair and rare a woman to be lost beneath those Swynford boars' heads," he added with a certain grimness. "You name was Roet, was it not?" She nodded. "Well, that means a wheel," and he drew one on the parchment. They both stared down at it. Then John said, "But stay - it must be a
Catherine
wheel, of course, since it is yours!" And he added small jagged breaks to the wheel, as it always was in St. Catherine's symbol.

Katherine watched as he started afresh and drew the shield, then placed three Catherine wheels inside it, for three, he thought, made better balance and he had much feeling for all things in art. He drew with bold vigorous strokes and took pleasure in this small creation, which made a neater play on her name than many another of the nobles' canting arms - Lucy with his luce's heads, or that fool of an Arundel with his hopping hirondelles, or martlets. For like this most blazons had been chosen, and in making an individual badge for Katherine he felt that he bestowed on her a special gift and one far more lasting than the money he intended to give her.

"The field shall be gules," he said, touching the shield lightly with his pen, "the wheels or, for those colours suit you. Lancaster Herald shall enter this in the Roll of Arms tomorrow."

"Thank you, my lord," she cried, truly delighted, as much for the interest that he had shown as for her own promotion to armiger, and as she leaned over to look more closely at the little shield, the warm flowery scent of her body assailed him. He glanced sideways, at her unconscious face so near his that he could see the separate black lashes on her lowered lids and the down on her cheeks. She moved a little, and he felt her soft fragrant breath.

He shoved the parchment, quill and sand pell-mell across the table and jumped to his feet. She turned in fear, thinking him angry again; and as she looked up into his eyes, her hands grew cold with sweat and her legs began to tremble.