"Hush, clattermouth," snapped his wife, and beneath her breath she said, "God's nails, mayhap 'tis some breeding cramp, poor little lass," for she had seen that dazed glassy-white look on the face of many a woman that was to miscarry of a child.
"Come to bed, sweeting," said Hawise with firm authority. "You look fit to drop and soaked through too." She marshalled Katherine up the loft stairs to the sleeping-room over the fish-shop and sharply quieted two of the younger children who poked their heads up from bed. She undressed Katherine and wrapped her in a blanket and put her in her own bed, where little Jackie slept on the far side.
Katherine sighed, and her shivering stopped. "Thank you," she whispered. Hawise sat on the bed and held the candle near.
"Can you tell me, dear?" she said, her shrewd eyes scanning the upturned face, the bruised trembling lips. " 'Tis a man?" she said. "Ay, I see it is. And he has used ye ill?" she added fiercely.
"Nay -" Katherine turned her face into the pillow. "I don't know. Blessed Virgin, give me strength - I love him - I must get home - to my babies, to Hugh - I cannot stay so near - -"
"Whist, poppet!" Hawise stroked the girl's arm. "You shall get home. Has't been arranged?"
"Nay, I'll go alone - I want no arrangements. I want nothing from him. I'll sleep in abbey hostels - they'll give me food - I must go as soon as it's light."
"And so you shall, but not alone, for I'll come wi' ye."
Katherine, distracted, beset by fear and desperate yearning, did not understand at first, then she drew herself back and looked into Hawise's face. "God's love, and would you come with me, in truth?"
"Methinks ye've need of a good serving-maid, m'lady," said Hawise twinkling.
"But I've no money, until I get to Kettlethorpe!"
"So I've guessed. I've silver enow put by to get us there, ye can pay me later, so ye needna look high-nosed about it."
"May Christ bless you!" Katherine whispered.
The Pessoners were all up to see the girls start out. After the first protests against their daughter leaving them, the good-hearted couple had given in, and last night Master Guy had hired a horse from the livery stable down the street and routed out one Jankin, his best prentice, telling him to make ready to escort my Lady Swynford and Hawise at least until they might catch up with some safe company that was also Lincoln-bound. Dame Emma packed a hamper full of cheese; new-baked loaves and a leg of mutton, then crammed the corners with saffron cakes before she helped Hawise make up a bundle of her own belongings. "And what o' Lady Swynford's gear?" asked the good dame, knowing that Katherine had fled to them with nothing but her cloak.
" 'Tis left at the Savoy; she said 'no matter,' there wasn't much, and she's in such a dither to be off, she'll not send for it."
So the Pessoners all stood and waved cheerily on the doorstep. Little Jackie waved to his mother as gaily as any, for Dame Emma had promised him that he should have a gingerbread man for his breakfast.
Hawise rode pillion with Jankin on the hired horse, and Katherine preceded them on Doucette, who had been well curried and fed at the livery stable. Jankin was a great gangling lad of fifteen, strong enough to hoist a hundredweight of cod on to the scales and canny enough to haggle with fishermen at the dock, and he was delighted with this expedition. He and Hawise chattered as they rode along Bridge Street to Bishops-gate, but Katherine rode in silence. Now that she was safely off, each of Doucette's hoofbeats was like a hammer on her heart. If I should never see him again, she thought, Blessed Mother, how could I live, and yet it was the fear of seeing him again which had driven her to this desperate haste. The fear that if he were there so near her she might have crept back to the Avalon Chamber, beseeching, begging - I was wrong, my darling, my dearest lord, nothing matters to me but you, forgive me, take me - -
There in the London street she winced and gritted her teeth, clenching her hands on the pommel. During the night when she had slept a little, she had thought herself in the Avalon Chamber lying in his arms with his mouth on hers, she had heard again each dark shaken tone of his voice and in her dream he told her that he loved her - each time as she wakened she saw only the coldness of his eyes before he turned from her at the end and remembered that from him there had been no talk of love, but only desire. Then shame would flood her that she had dared to dream that he spoke of love while the Lady Blanche stood there between them, and bitter shame that she had cried out to him her own love. Yet it is true, God help me, Katherine thought, and such an anguish came to her that she jerked on Doucette's reins and stopped the mare in the middle of the road while she gazed back past London spires to where the Savoy lay.
"What is't, m'lady?" asked Hawise anxiously as she and Jankin jogged up. Now that she had become Katherine's servant she thought it seemly to use respectful address before others.
Katherine started. "Nothing," she said, trying to smile. "Can you go faster? We should be past Waltham at the nooning."
For to stop again in Waltham she could not bear. The twice she had covered this North road before she had thought herself unhappy, but it had been nothing like this.
It grew colder, the sun gleamed once or twice, then dwindled. The horses' hooves rang out on the freezing road. Their fellow travellers - friars, pedlars, merchants, journeymen and beggars - all huddled themselves deep into whatever covering they wore and omitted greetings to each other.
When they were three miles short of Ware, light snowflakes drifted down and melted on their cloaks. They were hungry and the hired horse stumbled from weariness. They stopped at an isolated alestake that thrust its long bush across the highway. They hitched the horses under a lean-to shed, and Jankin stayed to see that a tattered little knave watered and fed them while the two women entered the tavern with the hamper.
"God's nails!" muttered Hawise, frowning; "have they no brooms in Hertfordshire!" The low smoky room was littered with mouldering straw which had matted on the trampled earth with strewn bones, eggshells, apple peel and chicken droppings from the hens that clucked under the one greasy table. Behind a trestle piled with kegs and flagons the alewife stood, her arms akimbo, staring malevolently. Two men sprawled at the table. They were black-bearded except where a running sore had bared the jaw of the younger one. They were clothed in sheepskin and torn leather breeches. Their feet were wrapped in filthy rags. Their heavy oak staves leaned against the wall. They had a long knife which they silently passed back and forth to cut chunks from a grey-furred loaf of dark bread they had brought. They glanced from Hawise to Katherine, then at each other. One picked a louse off his knee and cracked it between his fingernails.
"You will share our food?" said Katherine faintly. "For sure I can eat none," she whispered to Hawise. The stink of the alehouse sickened her, and she loathed these ugly evil people.
"Why not?" said he of the running sore, grabbing at the hunk of mutton Hawise held out, "for are we not all created equal in the sight o' God? Did He ordain that you s'ld eat while we go empty?"
"What manner o' babble is that?" said Hawise briskly. "If ye are beggars ye can feed at th' nearest abbey."
"Phuaw!" the man spat through his yellow teeth. "Mouldy bread and a slice o' cheese the rats won't touch, whilst the monks sit on their fat arses swilling capon."
"Come, we must go," said Katherine rising. "Leave them the rest of the food." The two men watched intently while Hawise paid the alewife for the sour brew that they had hardly touched. The men stood watching while the trio mounted. Their eyes rested on Doucette and the brass-studded leather saddle, the carved bone stirrups.
Katherine flicked the mare, they started north again at as fast a trot as the hired horse could manage. "A pack of ribauds," said Hawise. "They'd thievery in their eyes."