Katherine looked at him thoughtfully. "I think I'll go down and listen to these gleemen's songs."
"Then I'll go wi' ye, m'lady," said the sergeant, adjusting his helm and squaring his shoulders under his padded leather hauberk. "These gleemen shouldn' been let in, 'twas that niddering gate-ward done it."
From this Katherine gathered that the sergeant was a trifle uneasy despite his denial. Travellers of all sorts, from beggars to bishops, frequently came to request a night's lodging and the gate-ward could hardly be blamed for admitting a troupe of gleemen.
She left Mab in charge of Blanchette and walked downstairs to the Outer Ward, where some thirty of the servants were gathered in the angle between the chapel and the stables. They were very quiet, listening intently to five gleemen with harps and bagpipes who were grouped around a well and singing. One of the men stood on the well kerb and seemed to be the leader. Katherine stared at him searchingly, half expecting that it might be the rebel preacher John Ball; but it most certainly was not. This was a pretty lad in a loose blue and scarlet minstrel's jerkin, and the song he sang had nothing to do with Adam and Eve. It sounded rather like a nursery rhyme.
The gleemen sang in a clear flutelike voice and his fellows hummed the melody, which was plaintive and charming:
Jack Milner asketh help to turn his mill aright.
For he hath grounden small, small, small,
The King's son of heaven he payeth for all.
With might and with right, with skill and with will
Right before might, then turns our mill aright
But if might goes before right then is the mill misadight.
" 'Tis gibberish," said the sergeant contemptuously. "No sense to ut."
As he spoke the intent crowd became aware of Katherine. There was a murmuring as heads were turned. She saw Piers, her usual servitor, the scab-headed Perkin and others. They looked at her from the corners of their eyes, and one by one began to melt away towards the kitchens and the stables.
The young glee leader on the well kerb made Katherine a little bow, and called out in a pleasant voice, "Shall we sing for you, fair lady? We know many a dainty love tune. Or shall we juggle for you? By the rood, there's no gleemen in England can do more jolly tricks than we."
"Nay, not tonight, I thank you," she answered. He was a comely youth, and she could not believe that his miller's song had any sinister meaning. Minstrels sang on many topics, and if that jingle had some political reference that escaped her, still a song could do no harm.
She found that the chamberlain agreed with her. He had been listening too from the shadow of the bargehouse and he hastened to join Katherine and the sergeant.
She spoke sternly to the chamberlain about the neglectful servants, and he stammered and begged her forgiveness while tugging unhappily at his sparse grey beard.
Katherine returned to Blanchette and at once Piers came to the chamber with her belated supper. He apologised for his attack of colic and for the stupidity of Perkin, who had come in his stead. He waited on her with his usual smooth efficiency, and Katherine felt that she had been unduly nervous. She did however summon the sergeant once more.
"Can you find out about those gleemen?" she said to him.
"I have, m'lady," answered the sergeant complacently. He had shared a mazer of ale with the young leader and found him a courteous merry-hearted youth who was even now entertaining the varlets' hall with a series of good old-fashioned bawdy songs that everyone knew, and could understand.
"They be good lads," said the sergeant with confidence. "No harm in 'em at all. They've come from Canterbury, where they played for the Princess Joan who was on pilgrimage, and they're bound for Norfolk to play at some lord's bridal feast."
"Yet I hear there's rioting in Kent, sergeant," said Katherine, uncertainly.
"Ay, m'lady, so I've heard too," he said soothingly. "But what o' that? There's no danger here at the Savoy wi' me an' me men to guard it. Them churls down Kent way'll never come to Lunnon, an' if they did they'd not come here - why should they?"
"Very well," she said with a smile. "I know I couldn't ask for a better protector. His Grace has often told me of your courage."
The sergeant flushed with gratification. A simple man was the sergeant, and passionately loyal to the Duke, under whom he had served in battles as far back as Najera. He thrust out his chest and said beaming, "Thanks, m'lady. And how's the little maid now?" He glanced at the bed where Blanchette was sleeping.
"Much better. We'll leave here for Kenilworth next week, I hope."
"Ay - ye'll be longing to see your other little ones. 'Tis a good mother ye are, m'lady, I was saying that to me old wife only yestere'en - -" The sergeant gulped and stopped, remembering his wife's pithy retort which had to do with the highly irregular status of Lady Swynford's motherhood. "I'll be off to me duties, if you please."
Katherine sat on for a few minutes in the window-seat. The chamber was cool and dark, the long June twilight had at last faded and only the watch candle burned in its silver sconce by the bed.
Blanchette stirred and murmured something, her fingers plucked restlessly at the sheet. Katherine lay down beside her and the girl sighed and grew quiet. Katherine drew her against her breast, Blanchette nestled as she had used to do long ago, the whole of her slight body lax and trusting in her mother's arms. A warm blissful tenderness flowed over Katherine and she rested her cheek softly against the clustering curls.
Suddenly Blanchette started and giving a moan, sat up and opened her eyes.
"What is it, darling?" Katherine cried. The girl's eyes were dazed, and Katherine repeated her question. Since the bursting of her eardrums, Blanchette did not hear keenly.
Blanchette licked her pale fever-chapped lips, and gave a frightened little laugh. "Dream," she said, "horrible dream - -I was drowning and you - -" She stared at her mother's anxious face and stiffened, drawing away. "By Sainte Marie, how silly to be frightened by a dream," Blanchette said in a strange tight voice. She crossed herself, then as though the familiar protective gesture had suddenly developed meaning, she said, "Mother, do you ever pray anymore?"
"Why, darling, of course I do," said Katherine much startled. "I've prayed for your recovery, I went to Mass this morning - -"
"But not the way you used to. I remember when I was little, at Kettlethorpe - it was different. And you're right: prayers do no good. I don't believe Christ or His Mother or the saints care what happens to us - if indeed any of them really exists."
"Blanchette!" cried Katherine, much shocked to have the child voice the wicked doubts that she had felt herself. "These are sick fancies - -"
She went on for some time to speak of God's omnipotence and the efficacy of the saints, giving arguments and reassurance that sounded hollow to her own ears, and saw with dismay that the shut-in look of before her illness had come back to Blanchette's face. But at last the girl spoke gently. "Ay, Mama, I know." She sighed and pulled herself to the far side of the bed. "I'm so tired - I cannot listen anymore."
CHAPTER XXIV
The next day, Monday, June 10, Katherine and Blanchette moved over to the Privy Suite. Blanchette had never before been in the ducal apartments, and despite her scruples the girl could not withhold wondering admiration when Katherine helped her to walk into the Avalon Chamber. It had been a lovely tower-room to start with, but each year the Duke improved it, spending lavish sums on its enhancement. The mantel of rose Carrara marble, brought by galley from Genoa, had been placed last month, and a master mason had taken two years to carve it with a frieze of falcons, roses, castles and ostrich feathers to embrace all the Duke's emblems.