"Yes, my Pica, she may," said Geoffrey in the quiet edged tone that always daunted her. "I think you must make up your mind to it. We are all out of favour with the Duke."
CHAPTER XXVIII
On the twenty-third of June, while the Duke was yet in Scotland, Katherine was housed in the pilgrim hostel at Waltham Abbey where she had limped in, sore-footed and deadly tired, two days ago. It was not for the luxury of rest that Katherine lingered these two days, but because Waltham was part of her penance. She spent hours in the abbey praying for the repose of Hugh's soul and asking his forgiveness, while she knelt on the exact spot where his sword had clattered down before the black cross. She went to the inn, The Pelican, where she had passed her wedding night, and forced herself to relive the degradation and the hatred she had felt. Worse than hatred, Katherine thought now - a smouldering secret contempt that had shrivelled in time Hugh's self-respect, and his manhood.
Remorse, guilt and punishment - Katherine steeped herself in these by day, and at night her dreams were of spurting blood.
There were no other pilgrims at the hostel; though June was usually prime month for journeying to shrines throughout the country, the revolt and its consequent dangers had quenched most folks' wish for the open road.
Instead, the hostel housed several of the homeward-bound peasants. In the dingy low-raftered hall where all travellers might buy ale and brown bread for a penny a day, Katherine heard much anxious talk.
A penitential pilgrim in widow's weeds was a common sight along the various Palmers' Ways and drew only respectfully indifferent glances, while she was plunged so deep into her own misery that she noticed nothing. But when after Mass she broke her fast on the Sunday morning when she intended to set forth again towards Walsingham, the loud troubled voices of the men around the trestle tables aroused her attention. She heard them repeatedly mentioning the King. There had been a proclamation. The King was coming here today, to Waltham.
What was he coming for? cried a blacksmith. Why, to hand out the rest of the charters of freedom, of course, answered someone against a chorus of uneasy assent. It was known that in London the King's men had punished some of the rebels: Jack Strawe had been caught, tortured and beheaded - still, that was natural, for they said he had confessed to treason. Jack Strawe's end could not affect the freedom from bondage and general pardon that the King had granted at Mile End.
"Nay," cried the blacksmith in hearty reassurance, "by this Holy Cross of Waltham here, we must ne'er forget how true a friend our little King did prove himself. He gave us his royal word: 'tis as good as Holy God's."
Katherine listened for some time without attending. She had no interest in the rebels now, though she had put to them one question on her arrival here. Had any of them taken part in the burning of the Savoy? They all said "Nay" except one Suffolk lad who proudly said that he had, and a rare fine sight it had been, too.
"Did you see anything of a little maid with close-cropped hair, a lass of fourteen in a grey chamber robe?" Katherine asked, as she had asked this so many times already.
But the Suffolk lad said "Nay" again, though there was such a mort of people running about he wouldn't know one from t'other. The maid she asked about would be one of the house carls, no doubt? 'Twas certain they had all fled long before the place was fired.
Katherine had thanked him with weary patience.
Suddenly now, at mention of the King's name, her detachment was pierced by a forlorn hope. Might it be that Richard had heard something of Blanchette? True, he had seen the girl but once, at Leicester Castle, yet there was a chance.
When the band of peasants surged from the hostel towards an open heath in Waltham forest, Katherine followed, as did a crowd of villagers. The open heath was shaded by the close-pressing greenwood with its lofty hornbeams and beeches, and the people had need of shade from the broiling sun, for they waited long, before they heard the royal trumpets and the pound of galloping hooves approaching down the forest road.
But when Richard came at last, there were no more doubts or hopeful self-deceptions as to his purpose. He galloped up like an avenging whirlwind amongst an army of four thousand soldiers. As he saw the group of peasants waiting, he shouted exultantly to his Uncle Thomas, the Earl of Buckingham, "Here's another foul nest of traitors!" And to his men cried, "Seize them! Seize them!"
Men-at-arms swarmed over the heath with spears and battle-axes. The bewildered peasants could not resist. The armoured men - who had already been at this work since dawn - grabbed them, bound their ankles with leather thongs and flung them to their knees on the trampled grass near the King.
The village women and Katherine were not harmed, though they were shoved roughly out of the way, but Katherine, as dumbfounded as the helpless rebels, presently pushed through the milling mass of soldiers, intent on speaking somehow to Richard, when she saw amongst the captives who had been caught earlier that day, the matted flaxen hair and meagre body of Cob o' Fenton. Cob's wrists were tied and he had a rope around his waist that was fastened to some soldier's saddle. He had been dragged behind the horse for several miles, sometimes on his feet, more often on the ground. His jerkin and leather trunks had been torn off him, his dirty little body, bruised and bleeding, was quite naked.
"Cob!" Katherine cried, trying to get closer to him, but one of the armoured men pushed her back and told her to shut up, adding out of deference to her pilgrim habit, "Can't ye see the King is speaking?"
She did not hear what the King had said, but he had pushed his gilded visor up and she could see a cruel half-smile on his girlish pink and white face, and she heard what one of the new captives, the blacksmith, called out from the ground. "But sire, ye gave us all our freedom at Mile End! Don't ye remember? Ye promised us we'd all be free. See, here's the charter they gave me!" The man waved a ragged piece of parchment towards Richard, who began to laugh and turning, said something to his Uncle Thomas, who also laughed. Richard backed his horse around, then, standing high in the stirrups, shrilled out, "What fools you be - what dolts - you traitorous ribauds be!" His high voice crowed with triumph. "You thought to frighten your King! You had it all your way for a time, did you not? That time is past!"
Richard spurred his horse and cantered near the bound blacksmith, he leaned over and plucked the charter from the blacksmith's hand. Richard drew his jewelled dagger and sliced through the parchment until he could tear it to a dozen fragments. He flung the fragments over his shoulder. "Now you see what use I make of your charter!" he cried. He touched his horse's flank again and rode up and down along the line of kneeling men. "Serfs you are, and serfs you shall remain till doomsday! Is that through your thick skulls now?" He tossed his head and shouted, "Some of you'll return to your own manors and whatever punishment your lords wish to mete out to you. But those of you who've dared defy me openly shall be brought to trial today - and dealt with - ah - fittingly, that I promise."
The King's words rang out into a deathly quiet, but when he finished speaking there came from the bondsmen a long sobbing gasp. Katherine saw Cob put his hands up against his face and slump forward on the rope that held him.
Her heart pounded in her throat, sweat prickled her scalp. She darted around the man-at-arms, who had forgotten her, and ran out into the open space by the King.
"Your Grace!" she cried. "Sire! A boon!"
Richard looked down in amazement at this poorly clad widow with the pilgrim scrip and staff.