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.