She looked at him mutely. She could find no words of comfort, she did not know what he wanted of her; but she felt a closeness between them that had never been before.
"Put off your cloak and sit down," he said, smiling faintly. "You stand there like a hart that scents the hunter. I think you need not fear me."
She flushed. "I know, my lord." She walked across the room and hung her cloak on a silver perch that projected from the inner wall. It was a room of beauty and luxury such as she had never imagined. Two of the plaster walls were powdered with a pattern of gold stars and tiny flowerets like forget-me-nots. The hooded fireplace was of green marble deeply carved into medallions and foliage. The elaborate gilded furniture had been made by master craftsmen in Italy, the canopied bed was hung with ruby velvet embroidered with seed pearls, and ruby glowed again with amber and azure in the blazons of the leaded window-panes. On the east wall hung the great Avalon tapestry in dark and mysterious greens. Deep in the woven forest, the Blessed Isle of Avalon rose palely, shining through a mist, and the figures of King Arthur and his queen lay bathed in a moony light. Tall and fateful in his druid's robes the wizard Merlin stood below the royal dead and pointed to far-distant hills on which there was a fairy castle floating.
"Ay-that tapestry pleases me much," John said, following her gaze. "Merlin's castle puts me in mind of one I saw in Spain, after our victory at Najera." His sombre look lightened for an instant. Always at the thought of Castile he heard the shouts of triumph and rejoicing from his men and saw the face of the messenger who had brought him news of his son's birth to augment the thrill of victory.
"You were happy in Castile?" Katherine ventured. "You and the Prince of Wales righted the great wrong done the Castilian king."
"But, God's wounds, it didn't last!" he cried with sudden anger. "Don't you know what happened at Montiel last March? King Pedro foully murdered by his brother the bastard, who sits again upon the throne he had no right to!"
"Who has right then, since the poor king is dead?" she asked after a minute, thinking that it might be anger was better for him than brooding grief and that this coil about far-off kings could not touch him too nearly.
"The heiress is the king's daughter, the Infanta Costanza," he answered more quietly." 'Tis she who is the true Queen of Castile." He thought of the times he had seen the exiled princesses at Bordeaux. Costanza was a skinny black-haired wench who must be about fifteen now: two years ago he had been amused at the haughtiness of her bearing and the vehemence of her Spanish as she had thanked him for the aid given to her father. "Pedro was often a cruel and crooked man," John said. "His promises were writ on water, but what matters that, for he was also the true-born anointed king - King of Castile."
He spoke the last three words with a solemnity that puzzled Katherine, as though they were a charm or incantation, and yet she thought he scarcely realised this himself or that for a moment he had forgotten his grief. He sighed and turned from the tapestry. "Merlin had many prophecies about my house," he said listlessly. "They've come down by word of mouth throughout the centuries - Blanche cared naught for such things - she cared only for the things that came from Holy Writ." He flung himself down in a chair by the fire and leaned his forehead on his hand.
"My lord," said Katherine softly, "do you remember how she looked on the day of the Great Tournament at Windsor three years ago - so golden fair and laughing when you rode up to the loge? For sure, she will look thus in heaven while she waits for you."
He raised his head and said, "Ah, Katherine, you know how to comfort! So few know that I long to talk of her that's gone. Instead they start and look away and speak of foolish things to distract me - yet here is one other that understands."
He got up and went to the table, which was littered with vellum books and official missives which he had not glanced at. He picked up a folded parchment on which the seal and cords had been broken and opened the letter. "Listen," he said, and read very slowly:
"I have of sorrow so great wound
That joy get I never none,
Now that I see my lady bright,
That I have loved with all my might,
Is from me dead, and is agone.
"Alas, Death, what aileth thee
That thou should'st not have taken me,
When thou took my lady sweet,
That was so fair, so fresh, so free.
So good, that men may well say
Of all goodness she had no meet.
"Right on this same, as I have said
Was wholly all my love laid
For certes she was, that sweet wife,
My suffisaunce, my lust, my life,
Mine hap, mine health and all my bless,
My world's welfare and my goddess,
And I wholly hers, and everydel."
He sighed and put the parchment on his lap. "The maker has said it for me and with true English words. The maker is your brother-in-law, Katherine."
"Geoffrey!" she cried.
"Ay, I too was amazed for I had thought him a shrewd nimble little man, apt on King's service but not of temper or feeling to write like this."
"Geoffrey is deep of feeling, I believe," she said, and thought that the verses had been written perhaps to soothe his own sorrow as well as the Duke's, for she remembered the look in his eyes when he beheld the Lady Blanche. "Is he back then?" she asked wondering that she had not seen him.
"Nay, at Calais on a mission. He says that he is writing more of this poem and with my permission will call it 'The Book of the Duchess,' which I've most readily granted. Katherine, you see new reason why I'm grateful to you and your kin."
"It is joy to serve you, my lord." She lifted her face and smiled at him. For John it was as though a shutter had been flung open, and the noon light had rushed in. He had never truly seen her beauty before nor had he ever seen a smile like that, compounded of a luminous tenderness in the grey eyes, and yet in the lift of her red lips, the short perfect teeth and the dimple near her voluptuous mouth there was a hint of seduction. His nostrils flared on a sharp breath and his thoughts darted hither and yon in confusion. Why had he summoned her today, who had he forgot that she had angered him back at Windsor, forgot that her eyes had once reminded him of anguish and betrayal? Why had he let her share in his grief now and kept her with him in this warm intimacy when a purse of gold would have amply repaid? Why must she sit there now in her clinging black gown that showed the outline of each round breast and the curve of the long supple waist? His eye fell on the pouch she carried at her girdle. It was of painted leather blazoned with the Swynford arms. He stared at the three little yellow boars' heads and said angrily, "Have you no blazon of your own, Katherine?"
Her tender smile faded. She was puzzled by the sudden harshness of his tone though well aware the question covered something else. "My father had no blazon," she said slowly. "He was King-of-Arms for Guienne, you know - he was knighted only just before his death."
He heard the quiver in her voice, and his anger vanished under the impulse to protect that she alone of all women had ever roused in him. He had indeed forgotten her low birth and the consciousness of the great gulf between them brought a subtle relief.
"But you may rightfully bear arms," he said in a light tone. "Come, what shall they be?" He motioned her over to the table where he sat down and picked up a quill pen and smoothed out a blank parchment. "You are too fair and rare a woman to be lost beneath those Swynford boars' heads," he added with a certain grimness. "You name was Roet, was it not?" She nodded. "Well, that means a wheel," and he drew one on the parchment. They both stared down at it. Then John said, "But stay - it must be a Catherine wheel, of course, since it is yours!" And he added small jagged breaks to the wheel, as it always was in St. Catherine's symbol.