by Anya Seton
“Are many of the royal family now at Windsor?” asked Katherine presently. She thought of them as clothed in misty glitter, King Edward and Queen Philippa, and their princely sons and daughters; vague names seldom heard at Sheppey where the talk was all of the proper observance of saints’ days, the shiftlessness of the priory serfs or the recurrent fits, perhaps divinely inspired, which afflicted one of the novices.
“Most of ‘em’ll be at Windsor for the Saint George Day’s feasting and jousting,” said Long Will, “but I don’t know just which ones. They all move so much from place to place, and now there’s this new talk o’ war.”
“War?” cried the prioress sharply. “But we’ve been at peace with France these six years.” Blessed Mary - not war again, she thought, knowing from bitter experience how war increased her administrative problems. Labour was scarce and grudging enough on the manor as it was. After the terrible Black Death in forty-nine there had been no strong serfs left at all to do the work. The nuns had laboured in the fields themselves - those of them that survived the plague - and Sheppey had nearly gone under. Godeleva had been a novice then, and too young to realise the stark anxieties of her superiors. But they had struggled through. A new generation of serfs had grown up, though not the gentle biddable types of the old days, for these new ones flocked off to war by preference instead of waiting to be called. It had been so before the Peace of Br6tigny, it would be so again if war came and no one left to labour except feeble old men and gloomy women.
“Not war with France, but with Castile, I hear,” answered Long Will. “The Prince o’ Wales, God gi’ him grace, interests himself in the matter at Bordeaux.” Suddenly bored with the women and his mission, Long Will spurred his horse and rode ahead cursing the plodding priory nags. If war came he’d not be sent on silly errands like this - herding virgins through the countryside.
“Come up, come up, my reverend dames,” he called back impatiently turning in his saddle. “I see the ferry waiting.”
Long Will’s patience was further tried by the crossing of the Swale. Bayard baulked again, refusing for half an hour either to swim or board the ferry. Dame Cicily, who was even more afraid of water than she was of horses, managed to slip off the foot-plank and was hauled out weeping, her black robes soaked and clinging to her skinny legs. And the ferryman, seeing the royal badge on Long Will’s tunic, naturally tried to extort double fares. The Queen was thrifty like all Flemings and the purse she had provided for the journey would barely cover expenses, so that the messenger had to subdue the ferryman with a rough and practised tongue.
Katherine sat on a mossy stone on the farther bank of the Swale and listened dreamily to a spate of oaths she had not known existed, while waiting for their guide to finish with Bayard and the ferryman. She was happy to be on the mainland at last, and a little frightened too. The April sun shone warm on her back, blackbirds sang in a wild cherry tree, and from over the hill on the road to London she heard the confused baa-ing of sheep and the tinkle of the bellwether.
She gazed across the Swale at the Isle of Sheppey where she had spent most of her conscious years. She could see the battlements of the unfinished castle but not the priory’s squat little minster, nor hear the bell which must now be calling the nuns to Tierce, and she thought of the first day she had heard that bell over five years ago when she had been delivered at the convent from a cart, along with a side of beef and half a tun of wine sent as gifts to Sheppey by the Queen. The Queen sent three gold nobles as well for Katherine’s keep and Prioress Godeleva had been jubilant.
True, Katherine was neither a royal ward nor a well-dowered novice, nor even nobly born; she was simply a child, like many others, for whom the motherly Queen felt responsibility; but the prioress had been elated by this unexpected mark of royal interest, for Sheppey had never before been so honoured. Usually it was large aristocratic foundations like Barking or Amesbury that were chosen.
It was because of Queenborough Castle, to be rebuilt on an old Saxon stronghold to guard the Thames, that the Queen had thought of the nearby priory - thought of it, and then apparently forgotten all about it again.
Katherine grew tall and strong; she had soon eaten up the gold nobles, and become an expense to the convent, but nothing more came from the Queen or from Philippa, Katherine’s sister, except the young squire’s message last year.
Royal personages, however kind, may be forgetful, Katherine had learned early, yet the Queen had said that she would never fail in remembrance of her compatriots and especially one who died in battle, as Katherine’s father had.
Payn de Roet came from Hainault, the Queen’s wealthy little Netherlands country, but he had married a French girl from Picardy who had died in childbed. After her death Payn had left his two little daughters with their grandparents when he followed the Queen to England. Payn had been a dashing, handsome man inclined to dress above his station and thus well fitting his nickname of Paon, the peacock.
He found favour with King Edward, who appointed him one of the royal heralds - King-of-Arms to represent the province of Guienne - then finally so distinguished himself fighting in France just before the peace in 1360 that King Edward had knighted him on the field, along with many other deserving soldiers.
Sir Payn did not live long enough to enjoy either his knighthood or the truce, for a Norman arrow pierced his lungs during a skirmish outside the walls of Paris, and he expired with an anguished prayer for the future of his two little daughters in Picardy.
Queen Philippa heard of this later when the King returned to England, and was saddened. Soon she had occasion to send a messenger across the Channel with letters to Bruges and she entrusted him with various other commissions along the way.
So the messenger stopped at the farm in Picardy and found that Sir Payn’s family was indeed desperate for help. The plague, as it returned that winter for its second great smiting, had recently struck the household. The grandparents had died of it and all the servants. No one was left but Payn’s two small daughters, and one, the younger, had been stricken too, but miraculously recovered, though she continued to ail. They were being reluctantly tended by a neighbour.
These little girls were aged thirteen and ten. The elder was named Philippa, for the Queen who had been her father’s patroness, and the younger was Katherine. Finding them thus completely orphaned, and knowing the Queen’s good heart, the messenger carried the children back to England with him on his return trip.
Of this voyage across the Channel and her arrival in a foreign country, or of the jolting ride through pouring rain to the royal palace at Eltham, and eventual reception by the Queen, Katherine remembered almost nothing. For she had been ill the whole time with a wasting fever and bloody flux.
Katherine had a dim memory of a kind fat face topped by a gold circlet, and of a thick comfortable voice speaking to her first in Flemish then French, but though her sister Philippa admonished her sharply to answer the Queen, Katherine could not, and she remembered nothing else.
The Queen had had her carried to a forester’s cottage where the goodwife, skilled with herbs, had managed to nurse the child back to health. By that time the Queen had moved to her favourite palace of Woodstock and taken little Philippa with her in her household, and when reminded that Katherine had most surprisingly recovered, she sent letters arranging for the child’s admission at Sheppey.
How unhappy I was, and how homesick, the last time I crossed this river, thought Katherine, looking down at the muddy waters of the Swale.
“Viens, Katrine - depeches-toi!” called the prioress from the road, preparing to hoist herself on to the white horse. Katherine jumped up. The prioress used French only in moments of ceremony or admonition and she spoke it with a flat Kentish twang, so that Katherine had not understood one word when she first came to the convent, but now this uncouth French was as familiar to her as the English the nuns always spoke among themselves.
Katherine jumped up behind Godeleva, and the little procession jo
gged off. Dame Cicily at the rear was still sniffling and shivering, and at intervals she called on St. Sexburga, the patroness of their convent, to protect her from more such mishaps. But the sun grew warmer, the muddy road dried, the soft Kentish air was bright with fragrance and bird-song, and when they met a flock of sheep coming towards them - a very good omen - Dame Cicily cheered up and began to look about her at the changing countryside.
Long Will was singing again - a rippling ballad of alewives and cuckoldry, the words fortunately not quite audible to his charges. Even the prioress expanded under the rare pleasure of going on a journey, and said to Katherine, “Oh, child, may Saint Mary and our Blessed Lord forgive me, and They know I would never leave my convent except for such very good reason, but it is pleasant to be out in the world.”
“Oh it is, it is, dear Mother!”
Katherine, startled by this human confession, looked affectionately down at the small black-covered head in front of her. The prioress had relaxed austerity for once and made some concessions to feminine vanity. Her wimple was glossily starched, she had directed that Dame Joanna, the chambress, refurbish the black cloak and rub cinnamon into the folds to stifle the inevitable odour of mildew and sweat. Her silver signet-ring, badge of office, had been burnished with wood ash until it twinkled like a star on her plump white forefinger, and she had made the sacrist restring her finest coral rosary with gold thread.
Godeleva usually obeyed the Benedictine rule as well as anyone, but there are practical considerations too. On this trip to court, it should be possible to pick up a well-dowered novice for Sheppey, and those who live in the world are regrettably apt to be influenced by appearance. Parents did not like to confide their daughters to impoverished provincial houses, and the competition was strong, since there were in England some hundred and forty convents besides Sheppey, and all of them anxious for benefices.
The prioress twisted around to look at her charge, and thought that Katherine would do Sheppey credit. The girl had grown beautiful. That fact the convent perhaps could not lay claim to, except that they had obviously fed her well; but her gentle manners, her daintiness in eating - these would please the Queen as much as Katherine’s education might startle her. Katherine could spin, embroider and brew simples, of course; she could sing plain chant with the nuns, and indeed had a pure golden voice so natural and rich that the novice-mistress frequently had to remind her to intone low through her nose, as was seemly. But more than that, Katherine could read both French and English because “Sir” Osbert, the nuns’ priest, had taken the pains to teach her, averring that she was twice as quick to learn as any of the novices. He had also taught her a little astrology and the use of the abacus, somewhat to the prioress’s disapproval. Useless learning is a snare of the devil and last year, when Katherine’s beauty became obvious, Godeleva had had moments of worry about “Sir” Osbert’s zeal for teaching. She had repented of her shameful doubts, however; the priest was a man, to be sure, but a very old one, and the watchful prioress eventually decided that he found in the hours he spent teaching Katherine only intellectual interest, and the alleviation of boredom.
“Drop your chin and straighten your back, child, as we’ve taught you,” said the prioress, arranging the folds of her own habit, which had become tangled in the stirrups.
Katherine obeyed as well as she could on Bayard’s jiggling rump, then leaned forward eagerly. “Oh, look, Reverend Mother - a spire over there and a castle and houses. Oh, is it London?”
Long Will heard this and let out a roar of laughter. “No more London than a rush dip is the sun. Yon’s only Rochester.”
Katherine blushed and said nothing more, but Rochester seemed to her a very great city. Besides the high spire there were at least a hundred chimneys pricking the sky above the massive encircling wall.
“They’ve a passable ordinary here, madam,” said Long Will riding back to the prioress. “My gullet’s dry, my belly empty as a tabor, and your’s too, very like. We’ll dine at the Three Crowns?”
The prioress shook her head. “Not seemly,” she said, pursing her lips. “We will go to the abbey guest house. One of my nuns, Dame Alicia, is cousin-german to the abbot.”
Long Will and Katherine were much disappointed; Long Will because he liked the ale and the serving maid at the The Crowns, Katherine because she had had quite enough of religious houses and longed to see what a tavern was like; but the little prioress was accustomed to rule. Will grumpily led the way through the city gates towards the abbey.
They aroused interest in the streets, not because of the nuns, for on this way-stop to Canterbury one saw plenty of pilgrims, ecclesiastic and secular, but because of the royal badge on Will’s tunic, and the lovely face that gazed down from behind the prioress. Katherine’s hood had slipped back, her ruddy hair sparkled in the sun and her cheeks were like apple blossoms.
The citizens of Rochester shrank against the overhanging houses to let the three horses by on the narrow street, and they were free with their comments. “God’s bones,” cried a leathermonger, spitting amiably towards Will, “have ye been raping a nunnery, Longshanks?” “Worse’n that,” answered a passing pedlar sepulchrally. “He’s taking the women to be hanged on London Bridge for treason, what else?” Guffaws greeted this sally, and a baker thrust his head through his shop window. “Their bones’ll be picked clean in a trice then, for ‘tis well known vultures like virgin meat.”
“Virgins they may be,” cried the leathermonger, “but the girl’s too fair for that. Pray don’t close her in a nunnery, madam.” He swept Godeleva a mock, beseeching bow. “Find yourself another novice, ill-favoured and snag-toothed. This fair maid must warm some lucky man’s bed.”
“A murrain on the lot of you,” cried Long Will, grinning. “The Queen herself’ll find this maid a husband. Make way, make way,” he shouted to a tangle of dogs and children playing at Hoodman Blind in the street ahead.
The prioress rode imperturbably through the chaffing. She had heard plenty of rough talk in her girlhood at Sandwich and, in fact, scarcely noticed it, being occupied with plans for their accommodations that night. If the abbey could not receive them, they must push on to the priory at Lilliechurch. But Dame Cicily was frightened; her long ferret nose quivered, her eyes grew pink, and she again regretted that she had come.
Katherine was not frightened, but she was embarrassed and pulled her hood close around her face. Can I be really fair? she thought. No one had ever said so before and there was no looking-glass, of course, at Sheppey. She had heard mention of fair women by some of the older nuns and a few of the travellers who knocked at the priory wicket. They had spoken of great beauties like Joan of Kent, wife to the Prince of Wales, and warmly admired in this her native shire; and some said that Blanche of Lancaster, John of Gaunt’s Duchess, was nearly as beautiful. But those two were blondes, with hair like gold silk and eyes as blue as the Virgin’s robe. Dame Sybilla said so. She had seen both great ladies at a tournament in Smithfield ten years ago, before she came to Sheppey as a novice. Dame Sybilla had read many romances too, before she put away worldly things, and she said the lovely heroines were always fair-haired and blue-eyed, with pursed rosebud mouths.
Katherine could see that her own hair was only of a reddish hue like a horse-chestnut, but she wasn’t sure about her eyes, so she had consulted the de Northwode novice. Little Adela de Northwode had examined Katherine’s eyes conscientiously. “A sort of speckled grey, like - like a rabbit’s fur,” she had said at last. “Or perhaps more like thin fog, just before the sun breaks through. But they are very large,” she added kindly as Katherine looked dashed, “near as large as a sheep’s” - which was not reassuring. Further questioning elicited that neither did Katherine have a tiny, pouting mouth, and she had dejectedly given up all claims to vanity.
All the same, today she had felt a strange sense of power, and she had felt this thing last year when she had met the young squire.
Katherine had plenty of time that n
ight to think about the squire, for she and the nuns stayed in the abbey’s female hostel, and after attending Compline that night they went at once to bed on pallets in the dorter, and soon the fetid air was filled with feminine snores and coughs, just like Sheppey. Moreover, the bugs and fleas which lived in the stale rushes on the floor, scenting new flesh, fastened themselves with avidity on Katherine’s tender naked body, so that between scratching and excitement she could not sleep.
It was in May, nearly a year ago, that the squire had come riding up to the priory gatehouse asking for the Damoiselle de Roet, and he brought Katherine a message from her sister at court. This was the first message from Philippa since Katherine had come to Sheppey, but the young squire explained that Philippa was sorry about that; she had not had the advantage of a convent education and could not write, so there had been no opportunity before.
Katherine had received her visitor in the prioress’s dim parlour, and she had been in such a state of confused pleasure that she had not been able to say much.
The squire’s name was Roger de Cheyne and he was one of the Duke of Lancaster’s retinue. The great Duke himself was at Queenborough that night, making a visit of inspection to the castle under construction, and Roger had obtained leave to ride to the priory and see Katherine. “Your sister, Philippa la Picarde,” said the young man, twirling his jewelled felt hat and peering at Katherine with startled interest, “sends you God’s greetings and hopes you are in health, as she is. She bids me ask you” - here he bowed and smiled charmingly towards the prioress - “if it is the Reverend Mother’s and your intent that you be now entered here as a novice.”