Katherine (28 page)

"Jesu -" he whispered. "Jesu -" He pulled her slowly towards him and she came as one who walks through water, each step impeded, until she leaned against him and yielded him her mouth with a low sobbing moan.

They stood thus pressed together in a mindless wine-dark rapture while the last reflected light faded from the Thames outside and vesper bells rang faintly down the river. The fire died down. A log cracked in two, and flames leaped up again. She felt him lift her in his arms and her heart streamed into his. She had no strength to pit against his will and her own need, yet as he laid her on the ruby velvet bed her hand turned against his chest and she felt the sharp pressure of her betrothal ring.

She twisted from him wildly and flung herself off the bed, "My dearest lord, I cannot!" She sank to her knees by the bedpost and buried her face in her arms. He lay quiet as she had left him, and watched her, while his breathing slowed in time, and he said very low, "I want you, Katrine, and I believe you love me." He spoke her name in the soft French way - as she had not heard it since her childhood and so piercing sweet it sounded to her that the meaning of his other words came slowly.

Then she raised her head and cried with bitterness, "Ay - I love you - though I knew it not till now. I think I've loved you since that time in Windsor pleasaunce you beat off Hugh, who would have raped me, and it's for that, that I am married."

The fire hissed in the silent room, and against the wall below water lapped from the wake of a passing boat. John stirred and put his hand on her arm. "
I'll
not force you, Katrine - you shall come to me of yourself."

"I cannot," she repeated, though she dared not look at him. "Dear God, you know I cannot. Ay, I know adultery is so light a thing at court, but I'm of simple stock and to me 'tis sin so vile that I would hate myself as much as God would."

"And hate me?" He spoke low and gentle.

"Sainte Marie, I could never hate you - my dear lord, don't torture me with these questions, ah let me go" - for his hand had tightened on her arm and he bent his face close to hers. She gathered all her strength and cried, "Have you forgot why we are both in black!"

He drew back sharply and got up off the bed. He went to the fire and twisting a rush lit the tapers on the table and in the silver wall scones. He came back to her and lifted her roughly to her feet. "I scarce know what to think," he said, "except that I must forget
you,
it seems." His hands dropped from her shoulders. His blue eyes had gone hard between the narrowed lids, and he spoke with chill precision. "You have yourself reminded me that there are ladies of the court will help me to forget all manner of grief, and who will not think it shame to be desired by the Duke of Lancaster."

A spear-thrust of pain streaked through her breast, but she answered as steadily as he, "I've no doubt of that, Your Grace. As for me I must return to Kettlethorpe at once."

"And if I refuse permission - what would you say?"

"That such a thing would ill befit a man reputed one of the most chivalrous knights in Christendom."

They stared at each other in a struggle that racked them both, and she clung to the sudden enmity between them as a shield.

He turned first and walking from her to the window stood looking out at the night-darkened Thames. "Very well, Katherine, I shall arrange your escort back to Lincolnshire. You'll receive word at the Beaufort Tower. You still shall have no cause to reproach me for ingratitude."

She said nothing. Now that he no longer looked at her, her face grew anguished, she gazed at the tall black figure by the window, at the haughty set of his shoulders, the implacability she felt in his averted head. She ran to the perch and seized her cloak and was out of the door and had shut it behind her before he understood. He turned crying, "Katrine!" to the shut door. Then, staring at it, he sank down on the window-seat as she had found him. His eyes, still grim, travelled from the door to the hollow on the ruby velvet coverlet where they had lain together so briefly and where he had been shaken by a passion such as he had never known. "There's a fire been lit that's not so easy to put out," he said aloud. He got up and going to the table picked up Chaucer's poem. He gazed at it, and made a strange hoarse sound. He put the poem carefully to one side. After a moment he began to rip the seals and tear the cords on the neglected official missives, his ringers moving with sharp violent jerks.

Katherine fled through the rooms behind the Avalon Chamber as she had come, passing Raulin as he sat in a recess waiting for summons. He cried "M'lady!" but she did not hear him and he was left to his own startled thoughts.

Through the Duchess's dressing-room and down the stairs and out behind the falcon mew, Katherine ran, until in the Outer Ward she forced herself to slower steps and pulled her hood far down over her face. She went to the stables and ordered Doucette saddled. She flung herself on the mare and set forth through the great gate and down the Strand to London. The Savoy was hateful to her, nothing would induce her to return to the Beaufort Tower, and from instinct she fled back to the only warm unstressful affection she had ever known.

Hawise herself opened the door to Katherine's knock and her glad cry of welcome faltered as she got a good look at the girl's face.

"May I stay here tonight?" whispered Katherine, clutching Hawise. "Just tonight. I must leave for home at dawn."

"For sure, love, in my bed, and longer than that. Here, Mother, gi' me the wine" - for Katherine had begun to shiver uncontrollably. Hawise flung her strong young arm around Katherine's waist and held a cup to the girl's lips.

The Pessoners crowded around, kindly, murmuring. Master Guy rocking on his heels by the fireplace boomed out, "Hast seen some goblin, my little lady, that has 'frighted you? You're safe enough here, for the smell o' good fresh herrings affrights goblins!" and he chuckled.

"Hush, clattermouth," snapped his wife, and beneath her breath she said, "God's nails, mayhap 'tis some breeding cramp, poor little lass," for she had seen that dazed glassy-white look on the face of many a woman that was to miscarry of a child.

"Come to bed, sweeting," said Hawise with firm authority. "You look fit to drop and soaked through too." She marshalled Katherine up the loft stairs to the sleeping-room over the fish-shop and sharply quieted two of the younger children who poked their heads up from bed. She undressed Katherine and wrapped her in a blanket and put her in her own bed, where little Jackie slept on the far side.

Katherine sighed, and her shivering stopped. "Thank you," she whispered. Hawise sat on the bed and held the candle near.

"Can you tell me, dear?" she said, her shrewd eyes scanning the upturned face, the bruised trembling lips. " 'Tis a man?" she said. "Ay, I see it is. And he has used ye ill?" she added fiercely.

"Nay -" Katherine turned her face into the pillow. "I don't know. Blessed Virgin, give me strength - I love him - I must get home - to my babies, to Hugh - I cannot stay so near - -"

"Whist, poppet!" Hawise stroked the girl's arm. "You shall get home. Has't been arranged?"

"Nay, I'll go alone - I want no arrangements. I want nothing from him. I'll sleep in abbey hostels - they'll give me food - I must go as soon as it's light."

"And so you shall, but not alone, for I'll come wi' ye."

Katherine, distracted, beset by fear and desperate yearning, did not understand at first, then she drew herself back and looked into Hawise's face. "God's love, and would you come with me, in truth?"

"Methinks ye've
need
of a good serving-maid, m'lady," said Hawise twinkling.

"But I've no money, until I get to Kettlethorpe!"

"So I've guessed. I've silver enow put by to get us there, ye can pay me later, so ye needna look high-nosed about it."

"May Christ bless you!" Katherine whispered.

The Pessoners were all up to see the girls start out. After the first protests against their daughter leaving them, the good-hearted couple had given in, and last night Master Guy had hired a horse from the livery stable down the street and routed out one Jankin, his best prentice, telling him to make ready to escort my Lady Swynford and Hawise at least until they might catch up with some safe company that was also Lincoln-bound. Dame Emma packed a hamper full of cheese; new-baked loaves and a leg of mutton, then crammed the corners with saffron cakes before she helped Hawise make up a bundle of her own belongings. "And what o' Lady Swynford's gear?" asked the good dame, knowing that Katherine had fled to them with nothing but her cloak.

" 'Tis left at the Savoy; she said 'no matter,' there wasn't much, and she's in such a dither to be off, she'll not send for it."

So the Pessoners all stood and waved cheerily on the doorstep. Little Jackie waved to his mother as gaily as any, for Dame Emma had promised him that he should have a gingerbread man for his breakfast.

Hawise rode pillion with Jankin on the hired horse, and Katherine preceded them on Doucette, who had been well curried and fed at the livery stable. Jankin was a great gangling lad of fifteen, strong enough to hoist a hundredweight of cod on to the scales and canny enough to haggle with fishermen at the dock, and he was delighted with this expedition. He and Hawise chattered as they rode along Bridge Street to Bishops-gate, but Katherine rode in silence. Now that she was safely off, each of Doucette's hoofbeats was like a hammer on her heart. If I should never see him again, she thought, Blessed Mother, how could I live, and yet it was the fear of seeing him again which had driven her to this desperate haste. The fear that if he were there so near her she might have crept back to the Avalon Chamber, beseeching, begging - I was wrong, my darling, my dearest lord, nothing matters to me but you, forgive me, take me - -

There in the London street she winced and gritted her teeth, clenching her hands on the pommel. During the night when she had slept a little, she had thought herself in the Avalon Chamber lying in his arms with his mouth on hers, she had heard again each dark shaken tone of his voice and in her dream he told her that he loved her - each time as she wakened she saw only the coldness of his eyes before he turned from her at the end and remembered that from him there had been no talk of love, but only desire. Then shame would flood her that she had dared to dream that he spoke of love while the Lady Blanche stood there between them, and bitter shame that she had cried out to him her own love. Yet it is true, God help me, Katherine thought, and such an anguish came to her that she jerked on Doucette's reins and stopped the mare in the middle of the road while she gazed back past London spires to where the Savoy lay.

"What is't, m'lady?" asked Hawise anxiously as she and Jankin jogged up. Now that she had become Katherine's servant she thought it seemly to use respectful address before others.

Katherine started. "Nothing," she said, trying to smile. "Can you go faster? We should be past Waltham at the nooning."

For to stop again in Waltham she could not bear. The twice she had covered this North road before she had thought herself unhappy, but it had been nothing like this.

It grew colder, the sun gleamed once or twice, then dwindled. The horses' hooves rang out on the freezing road. Their fellow travellers - friars, pedlars, merchants, journeymen and beggars - all huddled themselves deep into whatever covering they wore and omitted greetings to each other.

When they were three miles short of Ware, light snowflakes drifted down and melted on their cloaks. They were hungry and the hired horse stumbled from weariness. They stopped at an isolated alestake that thrust its long bush across the highway. They hitched the horses under a lean-to shed, and Jankin stayed to see that a tattered little knave watered and fed them while the two women entered the tavern with the hamper.

"God's nails!" muttered Hawise, frowning; "have they no brooms in Hertfordshire!" The low smoky room was littered with mouldering straw which had matted on the trampled earth with strewn bones, eggshells, apple peel and chicken droppings from the hens that clucked under the one greasy table. Behind a trestle piled with kegs and flagons the alewife stood, her arms akimbo, staring malevolently. Two men sprawled at the table. They were black-bearded except where a running sore had bared the jaw of the younger one. They were clothed in sheepskin and torn leather breeches. Their feet were wrapped in filthy rags. Their heavy oak staves leaned against the wall. They had a long knife which they silently passed back and forth to cut chunks from a grey-furred loaf of dark bread they had brought. They glanced from Hawise to Katherine, then at each other. One picked a louse off his knee and cracked it between his fingernails.

"You will share our food?" said Katherine faintly. "For sure I can eat none," she whispered to Hawise. The stink of the alehouse sickened her, and she loathed these ugly evil people.

"Why not?" said he of the running sore, grabbing at the hunk of mutton Hawise held out, "for are we not all created equal in the sight o' God? Did He ordain that you s'ld eat while we go empty?"

"What manner o' babble is that?" said Hawise briskly. "If ye are beggars ye can feed at th' nearest abbey."

"Phuaw!" the man spat through his yellow teeth. "Mouldy bread and a slice o' cheese the rats won't touch, whilst the monks sit on their fat arses swilling capon."

"Come, we must go," said Katherine rising. "Leave them the rest of the food." The two men watched intently while Hawise paid the alewife for the sour brew that they had hardly touched. The men stood watching while the trio mounted. Their eyes rested on Doucette and the brass-studded leather saddle, the carved bone stirrups.

Katherine flicked the mare, they started north again at as fast a trot as the hired horse could manage. "A pack of ribauds," said Hawise. "They'd thievery in their eyes."

"Suppose they come after us, and waylay!" cried Jankin eagerly. He burned for battle, and now that the unease of the alehouse was over, he felt disappointment.

"How would they, numskull - they've no horses!"