Had it been anyone else but his Duke, Hugh would have replied with equal anger; as it was, he glowered at the ground and said sulkily, "She's naught but a sister to Philippa la Picarde, one of the Queen's waiting-women. I've not insulted her. She's cast a spell on me. Witchcraft!"
"By Saint George's spear - what nonsense! A spell of your own lust, you tom-cat. I say you've most grievously insulted this poor child and-"
"Nay, my lord," interrupted Hugh. He raised his little greenish eyes and gazed at Katherine with a dumb misery. "I wish to marry her," he said heavily, staring at the ground. "She has neither lands nor dowry, but I would marry her."
Katherine gasped and shrank closer to the Duke, but he was staring at his knight with astonishment. "Would you indeed, Hugh?" he said slowly, and Swynford bowed his head.
That changed matters. If the girl were indeed portionless, this offer was amazing. Swynford was of good blood and possessed of considerable property. To the Duke as to all his family, marriage was a commercial transaction, a peace-time weapon for the acquisition of new lands and the extension of power. Love of one's mate was entirely fortuitous, and lovable as was the Lady Blanche, the Duke might not have felt for her such keen devotion had she not brought him vast possessions.
Though like all feudal lords he concerned himself with the marriages, deaths and begettings of his vassals, he would certainly not have pursued this tawdry little incident further tonight had it not been for the girl and the curiosity she was beginning to arouse in him. He made one of his quick decisions and spoke in a tone of easy command. "Well, Hugh, go back to your tent. We can talk of this tomorrow. And you, damoiselle, come with me to the Duchess. I wish her to see you."
Swynford bowed, turned on his heel and disappeared down the path. Katherine was dazed and still said nothing. She obediently followed the Duke through the garden gate and up to the Lancaster apartments.
The Lady Blanche was sitting on a cushion in the window seat of her private solar; across her lap there lay a square of pale blue satin on which she had been embroidering trefoils in emerald silk. She was dressed in her favourite creamy white, and as she had not yet changed for the evening her pale gold head was uncovered and shone against the darkness outside.
Elizabeth and Philippa, her two little girls, played on a Persian rug by the fireplace, near a minstrel who gently twanged Ins harp and sang snatches from the Chanson de Roland.
Audrey, the Duchess's chief tiring-woman moved silently about her duties, perfuming water in a hand-basin and carrying clothes from sundry chests in the solar to the hanging brackets in the garderobe which served as antechamber to the latrine.
The room was bright from twenty wax candles and jewelled with colour. The lights glowed on the crimson and olive of the wall tapestries and twinkled off the bed hangings of silver brocade.
When the Duke strode in with Katherine, the little girls ceased playing and stared round-eyed at their father. The minstrel hushed his harp and pulled his stool into a corner, waiting for dismissal or command to continue.
The Lady Blanche rose with slow grace and smiled at her husband. "I did not expect you so soon, my lord." Her serene blue gaze rested on him tenderly. "I thought you were with the messenger from Bordeaux."
"I was," said John, "and bad news it is, too - but then I summoned some gleemen to sing for me in the garden and banish care for a while. I was disturbed-" He shrugged and indicated Katherine who curtsied nervously, conscious of the curious stares of the tiring-woman and the two little girls.
"Disturbed?" repeated Blanche. "By this child?" She put out her slender white hand to Katherine, smiling kindly, then she leaned forward. "But what's happened? Her gown is torn and there's blood on it. Audrey, fetch warm water and some wine. You're hurt, maiden?"
"Not much, Your Grace," said Katherine, very low. "My Lord Duke did save me."
"From what?" exclaimed Blanche, putting her arm around the girl.
"From rough love-making," said John, laughing suddenly. "But honourable it seems, in the end. Sir Hugh Swynford, you know the Lincolnshire knight they call the Saxon Ram, wishes to wed this young lady - an interesting idea."
"Oh, no," cried Katherine, sending the Duke a look of piteous bewilderment. "I'm sure he didn't mean it - and I couldn't, you must see I couldn't!"
"Hush, child," said the Lady Blanche, surprised that anyone should dare gainsay the Duke, whom she saw to be uncomfortable and wishful of escape. Indeed the girl, now brightly illuminated by the candles, had suddenly made an unpleasant impression on John, though he did not know why. True, many might call her beautiful, but to his taste she seemed overcoloured and earthy next to the exquisite Blanche. He disliked the flaunting profusion of bronze hair, the redness of her bruised mouth, the black abundance of her lashes, and particularly her eyes that stared at him with urgent pleading. They were too large and grey and gleamed with golden flecks in the candlelight. Her eyes disturbed him, evoking an unreasoned confusion of far-off anger and pain. For an instant he knew that someone else had stared at him like that long ago, and there had been betrayal, then the impression vanished, leaving only sharp resentment.
He turned his back on Katherine and said to Blanche, "I'll see you later, lady." He touched his little daughters' curls and strode out of the room, banging the heavy oak door behind him.
"My lord is hasty sometimes," said Blanche, noting the girl's dismay. "And he has grave matters to worry him." She was well used to John's impulsive acts, as to his occasional dark moods, and knew how to temper them, or bide her time until they passed. She hastened now to minister to the unhappy maiden he had brought her and motioned to Audrey to bring the basin and a towel Then she lifted the torn strip of violet cloth and the strands of hair from Katherine's shoulder and found rows of tiny bleeding cuts on the breast beneath. "Tell me about it, my dear," she said quietly, bathing the cuts and salving them with marigold balm.
Hugh sat in his tent on the field near the lists while Ellis his squire removed his armour, but Hugh was unaware of Ellis or his surroundings. His blood ran thick as hot lead in his veins and he suffered desire, shame, and confused torment that nothing in his life had prepared him for.
Hugh Swynford was of pure Saxon blood except for one Danish ancestor, the fierce invading Ketel who sailed up the Trent in 870, pillaging and ravishing as he went. A Swynford girl was amongst those ravished, but she must have inspired some affection in her Dane since she lured him from his thorpe in Lincolnshire to her own home at the swine's ford in southern Leicestershire, where he settled for some years and adopted her family's name.
The Swynfords were all fighters. Hugh's forefathers had resisted the Norman invasion until the grown males of their clan had been exterminated and even now, three hundred years later, Hugh stubbornly rejected any tinge of Norman graces or romanticism. He went to Mass occasionally as a matter of course, but at heart he was pagan as the savages who had once danced around Beltane's fire on May Night, who worshipped the ancient oaks and painted themselves with blue woad - a plant indeed which still grew on Hugh's manor in Lincolnshire.
He was an ungraceful knight, impatient of chivalric rules, but in real battle he was a shrewd and terrifying fighter.
Hugh's branch of the Swynford family had long ago left Leicestershire and returned to Lincolnshire beside the river Trent south of Gainsborough; and when Hugh was a child, his father, Sir Thomas, had fulfilled a long-time ambition and bought the manor of Kettlethorpe where Ketel the Dane had first settled. For this purchase he used proceeds from the sale of his second wife Nichola's estates in Bedfordshire, at which the poor lady wept and lamented woefully, for she was afraid of the towering forests around Kettlethorpe, and of the marshes and the great river Trent with its stealthy death-dealing floods. The Lady Nichola was also afraid of the dark stone manor house, which was said to be haunted by a demon dog, the pooka hound. Most of all she was afraid of her husband who beat her cruelly and constantly reproached her for her barrenness. So her wailings and laments were done in secret.