by Anya Seton
“Ay, so my brother of Wales thinks,” said John, smiling into the bluff, affectionate eyes of the older man. “But by Christ’s sweet blood, now they must be contented. Is it too much to hope they may even be content with me?” He looked at his friend with a sudden wistfulness.
Before the baron could answer they were interrupted by a messenger who rushed into the Painted Chamber and, throwing himself to his knees before the Duke, panted out urgent words. The Duke shook his head with a look of deep sorrow. He rose and held his hand out to still the hubbub. “Lords and Commoners all,” he said, “we must adjourn. The Princess of Wales has sent from Kennington. This time there is no hope of his rallying.”
Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince, died on Trinity Sunday, the eighth of June in his forty-sixth year. The King his father, and the Duke his brother, knelt by the bedside, and to those two he confided the care of his wife, Joan, and the nine-year-old Richard. The King and Duke kissed the Bible held out to them by the Bishop of Bangor to seal their oath.
Then the old King beat his breast and fell into a pitiable childish weeping, until the Princess Joan led him away.
The Duke and the bishop remained with the Prince until the end came, when John leaned down and kissed the brow which had been contorted with pain and was now suddenly at peace. As the Bishop of Bangor folded the gnarled warrior hands across the still breast, John left the bedside and walked into the antechamber, where the old King whimpered in his chair and stared with frightened eyes at the crucifix that was fastened to the wall.
Princess Joan knelt on a rich carpet beside her little son, holding him close and crooning to him tender mother words of reassurance. Richard’s body was stiff in her arms, his delicate girlish face was glassy from the horror of hearing his father’s last agonised cries.
“It is finished,” said John crossing himself. “God give his soul rest.” The three in the antechamber made the sign of redemption, while the Princess gave a low shuddering sob.
John slowly sank to one knee before the child. He took the icy little hand and laying his forehead on it, said, “I John, King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Lancaster, do swear allegiance to thee, Richard, who art now the heir of England.” The child’s round cornflower eyes stared down at his uncle’s bowed head. This big magnificent man had always seemed a being as godlike and remote as King Arthur.
Richard turned whispering to his mother. “Why does my uncle of Lancaster kneel to me?”
“Because you will be King of England, Dickon - when-“
She glanced at the old man humped over in his chair. “Some day.” She looked down at her brother-in-law, and her tear-blurred eyes were beseeching. “God pity us, John,” she said, “and you must pity us. Who is there but you who can protect us now that my dear Lord is dead?”
“I have vowed to protect you, my sister, and Richard shall be - by reason of his holy birthright - ever first with me and before my own son.”
“I believe you,” she said after a long moment.
For Katherine, the summer months were slow and heavy with longing. Kenilworth, scarce three days’ journey from London, was not isolated. Messengers went back and forth to the Savoy, and Katherine had the comfort of brief letters from the Duke, but she did not see him. She knew that he loved her, yet she knew too that he threw himself into whatever aspect of his life was uppermost with single-minded vehemence, and the news that came through from London made clear the enormous pressure put upon him now.
Parliament sat on until mid-July. And there were the multitude of duties and arrangements resultant from the Prince of Wales’ woeful death. And the King was ill, had taken to his bed at Havering-atte-Bower, pining for the banished Alice more than for his dead son, so the people whispered. The Duke was virtually regent of England.
Katherine strove to be reasonable. She played with her babies; she supervised the studies and games of the older children; she sat embroidering with Philippa and their women; and often they all rode out with the hounds and bows and the Duke’s foresters to hunt the roebuck. Katherine had become a fair shot herself under the Duke’s tutelage, and even Philippa enjoyed the chase.
The months passed, and Katherine lived for the receiving and writing of letters. She had mastered writing now, had practised with the children while they learned from an elderly friar. She wrote to John of the children, and frankly of her love and longing, and she wearied him with no reproaches.
At last, at the beginning of September, a messenger arrived from the Savoy and bore joyful news. The Duke summoned Katherine and some of the household down to London.
“Ma tres chere et bien-aimee,” the Duke wrote to her in French, as he always did, and told her that he could not yet leave London; but it would not be improper if she as governess accompanied his daughters on the occasion of the annual obituary service for their mother, the Duchess Blanche, at St. Paul’s. He directed that she leave her Swynford children and the two Beaufort babies at Kenilworth with their nurses, since the London air was not so healthful for little ones as that of Warwickshire; and he ended with an enigmatic little quotation which was private to them.
“Il te faudra de vert vestir” he wrote, and she finished it aloud, laughing softly, “c’est la livree aux amoureux,” thinking of the first time they had said it to each other at the Chateau la Teste when she had worn the green kirtle as they started for the Pyrenees.
“Ay, now ye’ll be merry as a popinjay again and juicy with love like a plum,” said Hawise, acidly coming into the solar with an armful of Katherine’s white silk shifts and glancing at the letter. “Well, when does he come?”
“He doesn’t. We’re going to the Savoy instead.”
“Peter! That’s a new betaking!” Hawise’s sandy eyebrows shot up. “Will it not cause talk, an ye go to London?”
Katherine’s glowing face hardened. “What more fitting than that I should pay respect to the memory of my beloved Duchess?”
Ay, you’ve no cause to fear her, Hawise thought, but what of the other Duchess? And she said, “There may be discomfortable things for ye to meet down there, sweeting.”
Katherine lifted her chin. “I must chance it. Dear God, Hawise” - she turned with sudden passion -“do you not remember how long I’ve been parted from him?”
Katherine, the two ducal daughters, Hawise and a score of household servants journeyed down to London four days later.
Blanchette cried frantically when her mother left, but Tom did not even bother to say farewell, having embarked at dawn on a rabbit-snaring expedition with one of the Deyncourt boys.
Katherine worried about Blanchette for some time as they rode along the causeway and around the mere to cross the Avon. Beside the river bridge there stood a tavern; on its swinging sign was painted the Duke’s arms. She gazed lingeringly, thinking that despite the thousands of times she had seen it this blazon never failed to give her a thrill of delight. And she forgot Blanchette.
At first the arrival at the Savoy was dismaying. She had not remembered how vast it was, how filled with people and commotion. Numerous as were the household officials, those of the chancery were greater. And, too, at the Savoy, most of the Duke’s retinue were quartered. Katherine was given a chamber to herself near the falcon mew and close to the ducal suite, but she felt nearly as remote from him as she had when first she stayed here at the Beaufort Tower seven years ago.
Hawise helped to dress her in green satin trimmed with seed pearls, and then Katherine waited two hours in her room without word before a page tapped on her door to say that His Grace wished her to come to the Avalon Chamber.
He sat writing at the well-remembered carved-oak table frowning at a private missive to Wyclif, which he did not wish to dictate to a clerk. But he flung his pen into the sand cup and jumped up to give her greeting. He held out his arms and she ran to him with a low cry of joy.
He laughed, holding her from him, looking at her so that her pulses pounded. “And so you’re wearing green, dear heart, as I asked -
and I too.” He pointed to the lining of the dagged sleeves of his brocaded robe. “We’ll do full justice to love’s colour, won’t we, Katrine!” He put his hand on her breast and kissed her avidly.
He lifted her and carried her to the great crimson velvet bed which stood by the Avalon tapestry.
Before the honied oblivion overwhelmed her, she thought of that other time so long ago when he had carried her to this bed, and she had denied him with fear and anger. How strange that she had done so. For the space of the thought’s flash she could not remember the reason. But it was because of Hugh, was it not? The answer seemed to her as flatly meaningless as a problem on the abacus. More than Hugh though, she had been full queasy of conscience in those days, a priggish child. But she could not remember what that girl had felt.
When their bodies were close they often caught echoes from each other’s minds, and John, seeing the faint shadow in her languorous eyes, said, “Ay, darling, I never thought we’d be here like this, that other time when you ran from me.” He laughed low in his throat. “Nor did I guess how hot a love my pope-holy little nun could show, though ‘tis true she has the hidden mark of Venus.” He kissed a certain small brown mole.
Quick rose dyed her cheeks, she pushed him away from her with mock anger, yet her voice trembled as she said, “You reproach me, my Lord? You would have me more coy? Maybe I should check your desire with stern looks and remind you that this is a fast day, and for conscience’ sake we must abstain!”
At this he laughed again, with tenderness. “Do you think my love could have been held so close by a cold and canting woman?” He seized her hands as they pushed against his chest and holding them pinioned wide apart, looked down at her teasingly, and then with the darkening grimness of passion until her lips parted and she ceased to struggle.
The Duchess Blanche’s Requiem Mass was to be held on her death day, September 12. A week at the Savoy had passed in a delicious haze. Taking their cue from their lord, the courtiers showed no recognition of Katherine’s actual position, but there was an undercurrent of indulgent approval of the lovers. And except for the few of the ladies who were jealous of her beauty and would have liked to enjoy the Duke’s favours themselves, she was treated with respect. It was a happy week. One day they held a fete champetre in the famous gardens. Tables strewn with thyme and loaded with simple country fare were set up beneath the rose arbours, and later the lords and ladies, glowing from the ale they had drunk, girded up their velvet robes to dance the Hey and cut other rustic capers.
On another sparkling morning the Duke ordered out his barges. All seven of them, garlanded, and canopied with tapestries, started down the Thames on a junket to Deptford. The Duke rode in his great barge of state with his two daughters, a half-dozen of his gentlemen - and Katherine. She sat on a cushion beside the Duke, her hand curled into his beneath a concealing fold of his outspread satin mantle, and dreamily watched the London banks stream by. Above the gabled houses the church spires pierced the violet sky like arrows, and the music of their bells nearly drowned out the gay songs from the minstrels’ barge.
They came to the Bridge with its load of higgledy-piggledy houses so squeezed it seemed that some must slide into the rushing current, nor was Katherine’s dreamy peace disturbed by the row of severed heads that were stuck on iron pikes along the Bridge. Though one young curly head was fresh and still dripped blood, she felt but a dim pity. There were always rotting heads on London Bridge, and she neither knew who these men were nor for what crimes they had suffered.
The sun sparkled on the water and the warm firm hand clasped hers tenderly beneath the mantle fold. Today John was relaxed and pleased to share with her his knowledge of the scene around them. He pointed out a galley from Venice, spice-laden so that the pungency of cloves and nutmeg drifted to them across the river, and an English ship, Calais-bound, with a cargo of the precious wool. Once they laughed together at a drunken monk so fat he overweighted the wherry he was crossing in, and howled with rage each time his great rump splashed in the water.
It was her last day of merriment.
That evening they returned with the tide as the Savoy chapel bell rang for vespers. They disembarked at the barge landing and followed the Duke through the arch to the Outer Ward. Katherine saw at once from the throng of horses and people that some new company had arrived, but beyond noting that they must be foreigners, for there was something odd about their clothes and she heard words in a strange tongue, she thought nothing of so usual an occurrence. Except for a pang because the arrival of important guests would necessitate prolonged entertainment and inevitably postpone the hour when she and John might be alone.
As she followed behind him she saw him start and heard him say, “Christ’s blood!” in an angry tone before he strode ahead into the crowd of new-comers.
She stood uncertainly by the bargehouse when suddenly her arm was clutched and she looked down at her sister.
“Philippa!” she cried, staring at the plump face beneath the neat white coif. “What do you do here?”
“My duty, naturally!” said Philippa shrugging. “But I expected warmer greeting after the time we’ve been apart.”
Katherine bent and kissed her sister on each cheek. “I was startled, I thought you at Hertford with - with-” She faltered, glancing towards the new-comers. Bitter coldness checked her breath.
“Ay, so,” nodded Philippa. “The Duchess is here. To visit her wedded lord. She took the notion in the night, from a dream. Her father the murdered King Pedro appeared to her and told her to come. Or so I’ve gathered from the only one of her ladies who’ll speak English to the rest of us. Faith, Katherine,” she added patting the girl’s hand, “you’re white as bleached linen. You’ll have to make the best of it. Show me to your chamber. I dare say I can sleep with you?”
“Where will the Duchess sleep?” asked Katherine very low.
“In the ducal suite, of course. She always does when she comes here.”
Katherine turned and silently led the way up to her chamber, where Hawise was drowsing by the fire waiting for her mistress. Hawise and Philippa greeted each other in the offhand manner of long but tepid acquaintanceship.
“This’ll not be easy for my lady,” said Hawise, glancing at Katherine, who had moved to the window to stare out through the tiny leaded panes at the silver Thames below.
“Bah! She needn’t fret.” Philippa hung her serviceable squirrel-trimmed mantle carefully on a perch and bent to adjust her coif in Katherine’s mirror. “The Duchess hasn’t come for bedsport, that I’ll warrant.”
“How d’ye know that?” Hawise saw Katherine’s slender back stiffen.
“Because,” said Philippa briskly, “she cannot, if she would; which sport I think was never to her liking. But since she gave birth at Ghent last winter an infirmity has gripped her in her woman’s parts.”
Katherine turned slowly, her dilated eyes were dark as slate. “Then if this is true, she will but hate me the more, as I know I would.”
“What whimsy!” Philippa had no use for morbid speculations. “I dare say she never thinks of you at all. What wonder to her that the Duke should have a leman, indeed what great noble has not?”
Katherine flinched, her nails dug sharply into her palms. She turned back to the window and leaned her cheek against the stone mullion.
“Ye shouldna’ve said that.” Hawise scowled at Philippa, who was searching in Katherine’s little tiring coffer to find a pin.
“Why ever not? ‘Tis simple truth. By the rood, Hawise - can you not keep your mistress’ gear in better order? This coffer’s like a pie’s nest. Hark - there’s the supper horn. You must hurry, Katherine.”
“I’ll not come down,” she said in a muffled voice.
But to such folly Philippa would not listen. She flattened Katherine with stern elder sister edicts. And her common sense, though devoid of imagination, was not untinged with sympathy. Katherine was here, the Duchess was here, sooner or later they must meet,
best get it over.
Katherine, hastily attired by Hawise in the splendid apricot velvet gown, accompanied Philippa down and across the Inner Ward to the Great Hall, where the chamberlain separated them and seated each according to rank. Philippa went to the long board by the door where were fed the mass of commoners: heralds, squires, waiting-women, friars, the lowlier chancery officials and their wives. Katherine, no longer entitled to her usual seat, since all room at the High Table was preempted by the Castilian retinue, was put amongst the knights and ladies at the board below the windows. She slid quickly into place but could not raise her eyes from her pewter trencher which the varlets heaped with gobbets of smoking brawn. Yet soon she was forced to notice the knight beside her, Sir Esmon Appleby. He rubbed his foot against hers, he made play of brushing her arm as he reached across her to dip into the salt, he cast sideways looks into her bosom. She moved away on the bench, though wedged as she was between him and the elderly clerk of the Duke’s privy expenses this was difficult.
Sir Esmon gripped his hand on her velvet-covered knee and whispered with wine-soaked breath, “No need to be so prim tonight, sweet burde. His Grace is occupied, pardee!”
“Leave me alone!” she said, shaking with anger.
“Nay, sweet heart,” the knight’s hand crept upwards along her thigh, “play not the virgin with me! I can show you many a lusty trick I’ll vow His Grace ne’er thought of!”
She seized the meat knife from her trencher and slashed it down across the groping hand.
“Jesu!” yelped the knight, jumping up and staring at his welling blood. The lady next him squeaked with laughter, even the old clerk snorted into his cup as Sir Esmon, dabbing at his hand with his napkin, picked up his trencher and angrily moved to a place at the far end of the board.
Katherine sat stiff and faint with humiliation, staring at her untouched food. At last she raised her head and looked at the High Table, at the great high-backed golden chair beside the Duke which had always been empty till now.