By this November of the Lady Blanche's last journey, the plague had passed on. Some said that it had flown to Scotland in search of fresh victims, some that it lurked still in the wild secret mountains beyond the Welsh border, but it no longer smote England. The people gathered everywhere by the roadside to watch the Duchess's hearse, sable-draped, and drawn by six black horses in silver harness, with nodding black ostrich plumes fastened to their heads. Folk fell to their knees and wept for this disaster which had robbed them of the second lady in the land so soon after their Queen, yet from the magnificence of the black-garbed procession with its lords and ladies, chanting monks and humble varlets, many folk drew a personal solace. During the time of terror and hideous death there had been no dignity of mourning, and now in the honours done the Duchess they could weep quietly for their own dead, too.
Behind the hearse rode the King's youngest son, Thomas of Woodstock, a dark thick-set lad of fourteen whose haughty look and sulky mouth disguised his complacence at having been assigned to his first princely duty. Since Lionel was dead, and his other three brothers were fighting in France, there had been no one else of fitting rank for the King to send.
Katherine had a place in the middle of the procession behind the members of the great Lancastrian administration - the chancellor, the chief of council, and the Duke's receiver-general, all of whom had hurried to Bolingbroke after summons by messenger.
She lived much within herself during those days of the Duchess's procession. There was little to occupy her mind except the interest of the journey. She had no close contact with anyone she knew; rigorous etiquette ruled every phase of the progress and was enforced by the Duke's officers. She no longer saw the ducal children except at a distance, for they rode in a chariot with the nurses behind their young uncle Thomas and far ahead of Katherine's place in the cavalcade.
On the last night the procession stopped at Waltham, where the Duchess' coffin rested below the shrine of the black cross, but Katherine had no wish to pay her reverence to the cross this time and did not enter the church.
On the next afternoon when the procession had turned right through Islington and nearly reached the charterhouse, there was a flourish of trumpets and a long muffled roll of tabors on the road ahead. The horses were halted and word ran back along the line that the King had come out to meet them. They all dismounted and continued on foot to the Savoy.
Katherine could see little of what went on, and it was not until the Duchess had been borne into her home chapel at the Savoy and the procession was broken up at last that she saw the King. He wore a plain silver mourning crown and beneath it his lank hair shone silver too, though in his scanty drooping beard there were still some yellow traces. His lean face was deeply furrowed, his faded blue eyes were red-rimmed; as he walked with dragging steps into the chapel, no one could doubt that he felt grief, as he had felt it for his Queen so short a time ago. And yet, not six paces behind him, taking precedence of all the lords and ladies, came Alice Perrers, her head respectfully bowed, but a faint smile on her thin red lips. Her mourning robe was stiff with seed pearls, the gauzy veil on her elaborately coiffed black hair was powdered with brilliants, while the odour of musk that she exuded overlay the scent of incense from within the chapel.
Katherine watched with disgust and wondered that the courtiers seemed to take so calmly this woman's flaunting presence there.
Many things shocked her that first night at the Savoy Palace. The King and his company remained for supper and Katherine from her seat at the side of the Great Hall observed the High Table with little of the wide-eyed admiration she had felt for royalty three years before.
The supper began on a solemn enough note, the King's confessor offered a prayer in Latin, added, extempore, some remarks about the great lady they were mourning, and ended with admonitions for all to think of the state of their own souls since mortal life was fleeting. When he had finished, the Lancaster and King's heralds blew long dirge-like wails and the minstrels in the gallery above began a soft slow tune. But this seemly quiet lasted only until the first cups of rich Vernage wine had been drained. Then Alice Perrers, who sat next to the King, leaned towards him and whispered in his ear, whereupon his melancholy mouth curved in a smile. She leaned over and picked up a fluffy yellow dog which wore a gold and ruby collar. She danced the dog on the table and crowned it with a ruffle of bread, and a feather pulled from the roasted swan a kneeling squire presented to her. The King laughed outright and put his arm around Alice's naked shoulders.
At once the watchful minstrels changed to a merry tune, and a wave of ribaldry flowed unchecked along the High Table. One of the lords shouted out a lewd riddle, and all the company tried to guess it, each capping the other's sally with a yet coarser one. Katherine could not hear all the words, but she could see the laxness of their bodies as they lolled on the cushioned benches; and she could see the King and Alice drinking together from one cup, and that Prince Thomas teased the young Countess of Pembroke by dabbling wine between her breasts and tickling her plump arms with a leering precocity.
The interminable meal dragged on, and each course ended in a subtlety: triumphs of the confectioner's art cunningly contrived to fit the occasion. The first one represented the Black Death with his scythe standing above the body of a saffron-haired maiden. Death's figure was fashioned from sugar coloured black with licorice. Katherine thought it marvellous and horrible; but at the High Table they scarcely looked at the subtlety except that Alice Perrers absently broke off a piece of Death's licorice robe and sucked it as she talked to the King.
Katherine's head began to ache, her stomach revolted against the highly spiced and ornamented dishes. At last she murmured an excuse and slipped out into the cold dark night. So vast was the Savoy, such a honeycomb of buildings, alleys and courtyards that she could not remember her way back to the small dorter the chamberlain had assigned to her.
Except for the noise in the Great Hall and the bustle of servants running to it from the kitchens, the Savoy was now a sleeping city, dimly lit by a few bracketed wall torches. Katherine wandered through wrong turnings and into several dark courts before she saw anyone from whom she could ask directions. Then from a small gabled house near the state apartments she saw a tall friar emerge and knew him for a Franciscan by the grey of his habit and the long knotted scourge that dangled from his waist beside his crucifix. His cowled head was bent over a black bag. He was buckling the straps and did not see Katherine in the shadowy court until she went up to him.
"God's greetings, good Brother," she said. "I regret to trouble you, but do you know the palace?" She feared that he might beg alms 'of her as all friars did, and she had not three groats left in her pouch from the half-noble which Hugh had given her for pocket-money at Bolingbroke over two months ago. But her weariness had increased while she wandered about and she ached for rest.
The friar looked at her keenly but could see little beneath her hood. He contented himself with saying, "Yes, mistress, I know the Savoy well." Brother William Appleton was a master physician, and a savant, though he was still but thirty, and he stood high in the Duke's favour by reason of his discretion, as well as his skill with the probe and lancet.
"I've lost my way, Sir Friar," said Katherine with an apologetic smile. "I'm to lodge in the Beaufort Tower, but I cannot find it."
"Ah," said the friar, "mayhap you came from Bolingbroke today with the funeral train?"