"'Tis I think, my lord," Geoffrey ventured, "because of the terror she feels for the little maid, who may be dead. She has not forgot her other children, but they are in no need."
"I am in need," cried the Duke. "She thinks not of that!"
Geoffrey, profoundly disliking this whole coil and his unwilling part in it, yet forced himself to go on. "It is because she loves you that she must give you up. Brother William told her this before he was killed. She believes it. And I, my lord, have come to believe it too. The load of sin, and now the knowledge of murder done would crush you both in the end."
John turned away from Geoffrey and looked out over the parapet into the night of shadows. So it was Swynford's murder that the martyred Grey Friar had meant in all those strange allusions through the years. Nirac, poor little rat - a monstrous sneaking crime in truth - poison - the coward weapon. Sickening. And yet - so long ago, and Nirac had been shriven of his crime by the Grey Friar. The little Gascon's soul was not imperilled. It was Katherine's and his souls that were in danger - so Katherine believed.
"By God," he said roughly, crumpling up her letter, "if fate wills it that we are to be damned, then we shall be damned. I'll not give Katherine up. Where is she, Chaucer?"
"Gone on pilgrimage, my lord."
"Ay - but to where?"
"I don't know, upon my honour. She would not tell. She doesn't wish you to find her."
"Then God help me, she may have set out for Rome - for Jerusalem even!"
Geoffrey was silent. He thought it possible that Katherine had set forth on the longest and harshest pilgrimage of all. He cleared his throat unhappily, for he had not yet discharged all of Katherine's anguished message. "Your Grace - one more thing she bade me tell you. It is not in the letter because she could not bring herself to write it." He stopped, remembering how her control had broken down at last after she had given him the letter to the Duke, how she had covered her face while the tears coursed down between her fingers.
"What is that one more thing?" said the Duke's voice from the shadows.
"She prays you, my lord - by the love you have borne her - to - to ask the Duchess to forgive her. Yes - I know, my lord," said Chaucer quickly as he heard a sharp exclamation, "but this is what she said. Matters have gone badly with you for a long time, and that is the earthly punishment for murder and adultery. The murder cannot be undone but the adultery must cease. She says that you both have wronged the Duchess - who she thinks loves you in her fashion, as truly as Hugh Swynford was wronged who loved Katherine too - as best he could."
"Blessed Jesu! Now I know you lie! Before God, Chaucer, 'tis not for naught you are a spinner of tales!"
Geoffrey stepped back quickly, the Duke had turned on him as though he would strike.
"I've not invented her letter, my lord," Geoffrey cried.
"Her letter!" The Duke's voice shook with fury, he crushed the parchment between his hands and flung the ball violently away from him over the parapet. "That I should live to see Katherine treat me like this! Dismiss me like a thieving scullion, with rantings about morality! She dares send you to prate of love that Swynford bore her! By God, 'tis late times to think of that. What has she been doing there in the south when I thought her tending to her child? She found some pretty youth like Robin Beyvill maybe to while the time away. 'Tis because of him she can turn me off so lightly!"
"My lord, my lord," whispered Chaucer, retreating farther along the roof while his palms began to sweat. "You do her terrible wrong."
"Wrong, wrong!" shouted the Duke. "All this babbling of wrong. She vowed she'd never leave me - she has broke it - as did Isolda - lies! She cozened me all these years with lies. It's plain now to see she never loved me. Ah," he said with a laugh like the crackle of burning briars, "Katherine Swynford has no need to hide from me, no need at all, for I shall never forgive this, nor try to find her."
The next morning the Duke and his retinue left Newcastle. Chaucer rode at the end of the line and kept far out of the Duke's way, knowing that it would be long, if ever, before he was pardoned for bringing Katherine's message. Geoffrey bore no ill will. It was natural that a man like Lancaster should convert the blow to his love and pride into rage, but Geoffrey had not expected so dreadful a rage and he pondered on what could lie behind it, and at the reference to Isolda that the Duke had let fall. There was no woman of that name had ever been mentioned in regard to the Duke whose fidelity, indeed, to Katherine had been remarkable. There was no doubt that he deeply loved her, the very violence of his actions proved it. And what a miserable quick-march these two ill-starred lovers had plunged into.
When they had reached central Yorkshire and the Duke's own lands, at last they approached Knaresborough, and saw the castle high on its crag above the river Nidd. While they wound through the limestone gorge with its honeycomb of caves, towards the ford, Chaucer looked up and saw a procession of eight women, amongst whom he recognised the Duchess and his Philippa, slowly wending down the twisting cliffside from the castle. The Duchess was dressed in garnet satin embroidered with flashing gold, and she wore her jewelled coronet above a flowing gold veil.
The Duke and his retinue forded the river and when they all reached the grassy bank, the Duchess came walking slowly forward, a tentative beseeching look in her dark eyes and a faint flush on her ivory face. She waited trembling while the Duke dismounted, but as he came towards her the Duchess threw herself headlong on the grass and began to sob convulsively.
The Duke leaned over and lifted her up, and she seized his hands and covered them with kisses. "Mi Corazon - -" she cried and went on in gasping Spanish, "I have been so frightened, and I thought never to see you again!"
A peculiar shuttered expression dimmed the Duke's eyes, a muscle by his mouth quivered. He bent and kissed her on the forehead. "Well, now we are together and all will be well," he answered in Spanish. "Where is our little Catalina?"
"At the castle. I kept her back, my lord. Sometimes you do not wish to see her."
The Duke bent his head, beneath his richly embroidered cote his broad shoulders sagged. "I am eager to see her."
"We may stay here a few days, may we not?" she said timidly. "But indeed where can I go now? Hertford is destroyed - ah, Sant' Iago - it was terrible - you do not know how frightened we were."
"Pobrecita," said the Duke. "Poor Costanza - -" He pulled her hand through his arm and they walked off together up the path to the castle.
Chaucer too dismounted and went over to his own wife. "God's greeting, Pica," he said, pinching Philippa on the cheek. "Here I am again. I vow we ne'er saw so much of each other in the south."'
Philippa nodded and gave him a brief preoccupied smile. "Did you give His Grace Katherine's stupid letter?" she asked quickly. Philippa did not of course know what was in the letter except that her sister had gone off on pilgrimage and would tell nobody where.
"Ay. And he was much angered."
"Small wonder," said Philippa twitching. "She's no more sense than a sheep. I've always said it. She'll lose him with this monstrous behaviour and then where will we all be! What if she was frightened at the Savoy! Now that one" - she jerked her head towards the disappearing figure of the Duchess - "she was frightened too, but it's made her softer, gentler. She's taken pains to please him again. Bathes each morning, has us rub her with scented oils, and put on silk shifts instead of that hair shirt she used to wear. I tell you, Geoffrey, since the Castilian king who murdered her father is dead, she's been changing. She thinks more about the Duke. Katherine had better not play fast and loose or she'll lose out."