Katherine (51 page)

"Jesus, my poor Robin - you're mad," she whispered, pushing at his chest that was covered with gilt bells. Robin held her tighter and muttered a torrent of love words against her cheek. She gave him a great terrified shove - as a voice spoke beside them.

"Here's a pretty little piece of Christmas mumming! 'Twould seem you play your parts well." The voice of stone, the eyes of murderous blue flint.

Robin's arms slackened.

She released herself and cried wildly, "To be sure, my lord - why not? The King of Misrule must be obeyed, it seems he feels most sportive, and has just told me he would kiss
all
the ladies."

"No!" cried Robin, past all caution, and still gazing at her through the mask. "I want only - -"

"The Lady Isabella," cried Katherine, seizing the arm of Edmund's fight-minded wife, and thrusting her at Robin. "Here's a king dies of love for you, my lady!"

Isabella giggled and preened herself, her voluptuous Castilian eyes gleamed at Robin. She hiccuped gently and clutched at the young squire's arm.

"My lord," said Katherine to John, moving quickly, "shall we not join the dancing?" Here at Leicester a special chamber had been built for dancing. The King and the bride already were gyrating hand in hand in the popular Pavo.

"Nay, my lady," said the Duke, "I do not feel like dancing."

"You're tired} my dearest lord, come to our solar, well rest awhile."

"I feel no need of rest." He did not look at her, the corners of his nostrils were dented white. He swung on his heels and strode under the minstrels' gallery towards the guard-room, where his men-at-arms were feasting.

Katherine ran after him in great fear. She had forgotten in these three quiet years that his eyes could look like that-

"My lord," she cried desperately, "you
cannot
be angry at a boy's tipsy yuletide kiss. " 'Tis unworthy of you."

At first she thought he would not heed, but at last he stopped by a torch-lit recess and turned on her. "Tipsy - ay! Wine makes a window for the truth. I marked well how little you resisted, no doubt because these kisses are not so unaccustomed."

Her own eyes blazed as hot as his, but she knew that Robin's safety depended on her control. "I must believe that this outrageous slur gives proof of your love," she said trembling. "If you have lived so long with me and cannot trust, then all our life is mockery."

John's fists fell slowly open. Her bitter voice spoke to his heart but yet he was deafened by the shock he had felt when he saw her in another man's arms. A new shattering pain, since never by word or deed had she given him cause for jealousy. He had seen how men admired her, but so sure had he always been of her love that no doubts had troubled him.

"If you did not welcome his kisses, why did you babble that folderol to protect him and thrust Isabella at him?" he cried. "And why didn't you strike his foul slobbering face?"

Why not? she thought. Why, because she liked Robin and love is not so plentiful in this world that one should receive it anywhere with odium. But this she could not say, so she told part of the truth.

"I spoke for fear of you, my lord. What you might do - - "

"You think you need to guard my honour?" he cried with new fury. "This yeoman churl that I hired as squire, did you think I'd challenge him to knightly combat! Indeed Katrine, 'tis your own peasant blood that speaks - 'tis perhaps the bond between you two."

"Ay - Your Grace?" said Katherine, flatly, staring at him. After a moment she continued, "I thought you would set your guards on him - though your chivalry might well breed mercy to such lowborn folk as Robin - and me."

Katherine's eyes stared into those of the Duke.

At last he sighed and dropped his head. "I'm sorry, Katrine," he said unsteadily, "but the sight of you in that ribaud's arms - -" His hands shot out. He grabbed her shoulders and yanked her towards him. He bent and kissed her savagery. "Were his kisses sweet as mine, lovedy! Did your mouth open for him too?"

His fingers dug into her shoulders until the skin sprang up livid. She gave a sobbing laugh. "You know that you are my whole life - you know it - -"

"Dear Christ, that I should love you still like this," he said through his teeth. "That I can desire you now, as much, nay, more than I did in Bordeaux - do you feed me love potions, Katrine?"

"No, do I have need to?" she whispered. They stood looking at each other, breathing as though they raced with time.

He caught her round the waist. "Come," he said, and pulled her down the passage towards the solar stairs.

"No," she cried, "we've been gone long now. What will they think? You cannot so slight the King!"

He laughed in his throat. "The King will wait on love as well as any man."

In the partially emptied Hall, the varlets stacked the trestle boards and renewed the candles. Geoffrey still sat on, warming himself at the fire. His Philippa had gone to sleep in a chair and snored softly, with her hands folded on her stomach.

Geoffrey had seen what passed between Katherine, Robin and the Duke, and made a shrewd guess as to its meaning. But he had seen something else as well - the look on Blanchette's face when Robin kissed her mother.

He was fond of his pretty niece, but she puzzled him as he knew she did Katherine, who treated the girl's dark moods with an anxious forbearance. Blanchette's marigold curls and dimples, her small delicate body, belied the intensity of her sombre slate-grey eyes. Girls of about fourteen were often flighty, but Blanchette's brooding silences, her stammering speech and unwillingness to join with other young folk in any pastime seemed stranger than the normal humours released by puberty. Throughout the banquet, Blanchette had sat next to a stalwart knight called Sir Ralph Hastings, who was cousin to the Earl of Pembroke. Sir Ralph owned much land in Yorkshire near Pontefract, he was one of the Duke's most able knights - and a widower. Recently he had become enamoured of Blanchette and had asked Katherine for her, who had told the Chaucers of it.

"A splendid marriage!" Philippa had cried. "By Saint Mary, what luck! Why, she'll have
noble
kin - she'll be cousin to the Lady Elizabeth! Speed the matter, Katherine, lest Sir Ralph change his mind. 'Tis not everyone would want a sulky little snip like Blanchette, and no heiress either."

"She has income from the Deyncourt wardship my lord granted her," said Katherine slowly, "and her share some day in Kettlethorpe. But the child says she hates Sir Ralph."

"Rubbish!" had cried Philippa sharply. "She but hates whatever you, or His Grace, tell her to do. 'Tis the very thing for her, a wise older man'll soon straighten out these dumpish moods. You humour her too much."

"Maybe - -" Katherine's smooth brow had creased in a worried frown. "My lord thinks so. Yet it twists my heart to force the child - -"

Blanchette had, however, been forced to the extent of sitting next to Sir Ralph at the banquet and sharing his cup. A comely man, Sir Ralph, with high florid colour, and curling brown beard. Blanchette sat beside him with downcast head, until Robin began to jingle and caper along the Hall between the trestles. Then her great clouded eyes had fixed on Robin and at the moment when he kissed Katherine, Geoffrey had seen the girl start back and whiten. She had left the table at once, glided out into the courtyard. Nor had she returned to the Hall.

Was that violent flinching because the girl had some special feeling for Robin? Was it because she felt her mother besmirched?

It was hard to tell what Blanchette felt. But, Geoffrey thought pityingly, there was fey quality about the girl, not sulky as Philippa and many others believed - but tragic.

On the morning after the banquet, John and Katherine lay late in bed, as did most of the castle inhabitants. The winter sun had risen to its full brilliance, and the folk of Leicester town were already out skating and sliding on the frozen Soar before Katherine awoke. She listened to the shouts of the holiday-makers on the ice, and seeing a strip of orange-coloured light through the brocaded bed curtains, murmured that it would be a fine day for the stag hunt in Leicester forest, and yawned voluptuously. In the great enclosed bed it was warm, snug as a walled garden. She lazily kissed the corner of John's jaw, and nestled against him, savouring with drowsy delight the hard strength of his muscles.

He acknowledged her caress with a smile and a gentle pinch on the satin skin of her hip, but he had been awake for some time, and thinking.

"Lovedy," he said, "Robin Beyvill must go. I'll not answer for my temperance, if I see him making calf eyes at you now, and besides there's another reason."

Katherine blinked. She had quite forgotten Robin. "Yes," she said thoughtfully, "it were better he leave here - but not in disgrace, my dear lord. He's served you well."

"Not in disgrace. But he shall go today. To the Scottish border - to my fortress of Liddel. There he may cool his ardours by taming the Scots, who are rampaging as usual. God bless them."

John chuckled. He still had affection for the violent brood that harassed the border, affection born of his early visit with his father when he was a lad, and which was incongruously enough returned. He could arrange truces with the Scots, when no one else could. Certainly not Percy, who had deliberately provoked the latest Scottish hostilities. Percy be damned, John thought. The Earl of Northumberland had taken to snorting and pawing at the Lowlands again, regardless of England's safety - and need. At last a new approach had opened towards the seizure of Castile, to the final victory over France. This was no time for enraging the ancient rival to the north as well.

Two incredibly fortunate deaths had given England her chance to strike. Last year the usurping Castilian bastard, Trastamare, had died, leaving the throne to his degenerate son, Juan. And now Charles the Fifth, the wily "avocat" who had so long plagued the English, was gone too. His successor, Charles, was but a boy of twelve, and subject to fits. Spain and France were both, therefore, virtually leaderless, plunged into turmoil. And Portugal had risen as an English ally.

"Ay," said John aloud on a note of solemn exultation,
"this
time we'll succeed. I know it."

Katherine stiffened inwardly. She had no need to ask what he meant. Nowadays he told her freely of his plans, and she had never but once requited his confidence with the intrusion of her personal fears.

That once she had said, "But what will happen to me, my lord, if you enter at last into your kingdom?"

And he had answered in surprise, "Why, you'll come too, Katrine, after Castile's affairs have settled down. There's a little castle on the Arlanzon outside of Burgos where you shall be installed."

She had said no more and tried to forget the pangs this prospect gave her, and the bitter misgivings.

As anointed Queen of a Castile which she herself had brought to John, would Costanza show the same forbearance she showed now when she was but a penniless alien in her husband's country? And already there had been a change. Philippa said that when the Duchess heard the news of Trastamare's death, she had laughed loud and shockingly. She had decreed a three-day festival at Hertford, her chapel bell had pealed from dawn to dusk and her jewel-studded statue of the Virgin was carried through the streets to the accompaniment of Spanish hymns of thanksgiving. And she had summoned the Duke to Hertford, where he had stayed a week - all matters it were better not to think of.

"Thank God, darling," said Katherine at last, sighing, "that at least you don't leave England soon. 'Tis something I couldn't bear."

He frowned. Her remark pressed on a subject of deep concern. His brothers Edmund and Thomas were to be the vanguard of the new campaign. But he himself must remain at home for a while to strengthen domestic affairs, and cope with both Scottish and Welsh disorders. Richard's council, the Princess Joan and his own judgement had concurred in this policy, though it irked him and he had little trust in Edmund's diplomacy in Portugal.

"I'd not stay here, lovedy," he said gravely, "if it weren't wiser in the long run."

"Nay," she said with a sharp laugh. "I know your love for me could never keep you here - nor should it," she added with quick penitence. "Forgive me."

He turned and looked at her: the luminous eyes between their thick black lashes, the straight little nose, the voluptuous red mouth above the cleft chin, the transparent rose of her cheeks, the tumbled bronze of her fragrant hair, and the blue veins and white curves of her firm full breasts.

"By the Holy Rood, Katrine," he said, half angry, half rueful, "I
hope
it's not you who keeps me here. That were shame indeed."

There were those who thought so; Costanza did. He had denied it furiously and with truth. No woman, not even Katherine, could turn him from his goal. As the Castilian throne drew nearer to his grasp its lure shone even brighter. But he had learned prudence in these last years, and the need for careful planning. Money must be raised for an army, and sporadic little bursts of rioting, not only on the borders, but in English shires, must be put down with a firm hand - and
then
Castile.

Katherine heard his deep breath, and knew that he was thinking of those sun-baked plains that he had shown her from their mountaintop in the Pyrenees. She understood now better than she had then why that far-away land was the summit of his dreams.

She no longer wondered that he was not satisfied with being the greatest nobleman in England and its virtual ruler. Not when he could be a veritable anointed king, king of a country nearly twice as large as England. What complete answer that would be to continuing slanders that he plotted for Richard's throne! And, thought Katherine - that other thing. The ghost of the changeling story had been laid, even his enemies had forgotten it, and John could now refer to it with no more than the passing scorn he gave to all rumours about him. But the scar was there.

The King of Castile would be far above all rumours.

Katherine reached an arm through the curtains for the hand bell which would summon Hawise and a valet of the chamber. The bell made her think of Robin, who as body squire had often answered it, and she said, "My lord, you spoke of a second reason why Robin must be sent away?"