"Suppose they come after us, and waylay!" cried Jankin eagerly. He burned for battle, and now that the unease of the alehouse was over, he felt disappointment.
"How would they, numskull - they've no horses!"
"A short cut," answered Jankin, considering. "They'd know of one through the fields; they might hide in yonder green wood and then jump out-"
"By the Mass, Jankin, you've too much fancy!" Hawise rapped him angrily on the skull with her knuckles. "D'you wish to frighten our lady?" But she frowned.
"I believe the foul creatures are runaway serfs, outlaws of some kind," said Katherine shuddering. She drew Doucette close to the others.
They entered the wood where trees grew close to the roadside. The snow, which had stopped, began to fall again in lazy, aimless flakes.
"There's something moving in th' thicket there," cried Jankin, pointing unsteadily. With fast-beating hearts they looked, then Hawise said, "Naught but a stray hound!" and kicked their horse again. They were near out of the wood when they heard noises behind them. The pound of galloping hooves. Turning, they saw four helmeted men bearing down on them full-tilt, shouting and waving their arms.
"What now!" cried Hawise. "Do they mean to run us down?" Jankin yanked their horse off the road, and Katherine swerved Doucette so hard that the little mare pranced angrily. But the men pulled up in a flurry of flying clods and jingling harness. A cold stillness descended on Katherine; on each of them she saw the Lancaster badge.
"Ho! men-at-arms, what would you of us?" cried Jankin in a high dauntless voice, while Hawise cried, "Saint Mary! That first one is th' outlandish squire came for my lady yesterday!" and new fear smote her. Katherine sat her horse stiff and straight as though she'd been carved from the oak behind her, and whatever these new-comers had in mind, 'twas plain Jankin could avail nothing against spears and swords and armoured men.
"My Lady Swynford!" cried Raulin, riding directly up to Katherine and wiping his sweating face on a corner of his surcote. "A fine race you haff run us, by my fader's soul, ve haff pounded the road since Tierce!" He spoke with annoyance. Tracking down this extraordinary young woman to Billingsgate yesterday had been simple compared to the difficulties today when he had found she was not at the Beaufort Tower.
"What is it you want?" Katherine, angry at herself for the joy she had felt when she saw the badges, spoke with extreme coldness.
"His Grace promised you escort, I belief - yet you did not vait. He sends letters too."
"Letters for me?" said Katherine faintly.
"Not for you, lady. For your husband, Sir Hugh, and for officers at Lincoln Castle."
Hawise looked sharply at the squire, then at Katherine, thinking: His Grace? The Duke of Lancaster? What is this? when suddenly she guessed the truth and was so startled she nearly fell off the horse.
"These men," said Raulin, indicating the sergeant and two soldiers behind him, "are your escort to Lincoln."
"By Saint Christopher, I'm glad to hear that!" exclaimed Hawise. She had begun to think Jankin far too slender a defence against the hazards of the road. She winked companion-ably at the sergeant, who winked back, grinning.
"Ay, we're glad of escort," said Katherine, but her irresolute heart was heavy again. He had kept his promise, nothing more. As it should be, of course.
Raulin dispatched the rest of his business quickly for he was weary of running about the country after my Lady Swynford.
He repeated the instructions to the sergeant, saw that he put the ducal letters for Lincoln safely inside his hauberk, and then agreed to take the deeply disappointed Jankin back to London with him. Raulin consigned Hugh's letter to Katherine's keeping and said, "There is vun more thing. His Grace send you this." He held out stolidly a triangle of parchment, smaller than the palm of his hand. Katherine took it and turned it over. It was the shield the Duke had drawn for her, her own blazon; the three Catherine wheels had now been painted gold against the field of scarlet.
Oh, what does it mean? she thought. Was it a special message to remind her of that contented moment when they had leaned together on the table and he had drawn this for her? Did it mean forgiveness? Or was it only that he wished to be rid of all thought of her?
She could not know, but after they had said farewell to Raulin and Jankin, and the two women rode with the soldiers on to Ware, she found opportunity to secretly kiss the shield and slipped it in the bosom of her gown.
It was on a fine sunny morning that they rode through the suburban village Wigford, then across the Witham on the High bridge and through the city walls under the great arch of Stonebow and so into Lincoln town.
"God's teeth, could they find no steeper hill to build on?" laughed Hawise, gazing up what seemed to be a perpendicular climb to the castle and the minster above. "Folk here must be goats!" All through the journey her town-bred scorn of the provinces had been leavened by a bright-eyed interest in new sights. "Bustling little place," she added approvingly. It was market day. The narrow streets were lined with booths, and thronged with chaffering goodwives, most of them dressed in the scarlet and green cloth for which Lincoln weavers were famous.
"No bustle like there used to be afore they took the staple away," said the sergeant, who had been to Lincoln before. "Couple years back there'd be a reg'lar Tower o' Babel here wi' heathen sailors from the German ocean an' traders from Flanders an' Florence all a jib-jabbering away like a hassel o' magpies. Tis quiet now."
"A deal better than those dreary fens, forsooth. Hark! There's music!" cried Hawise cocking her head. They had climbed up through the Poultry with its squawking tethered produce, past the skin market at Danesgate, and here in an open court the tanners' guild was rehearsing for its procession on St. Clement's Day. Fiddles, pipes and tabors had the tanners, and they scraped and whistled and drummed while one of their number, dressed in violet Papal robes to represent their patron saint, leaped up and down in rhythm and juggled with a large tin anchor which stood for the instrument of St. Clement's martyrdom.
At a fresh spurt from the fiddlers and a loud tattoo on the tabors, the juggler threw his anchor high and missed it as it fell. It rebounded on the paved courtyard and bounced into the fish market just ahead, clattering down beside a woman at a stall.
Doucette shied and, while Katherine quieted the mare, she heard a familiar voice raised in sharp protest. "Have care, you clumsy jackanapes! You nearly broke my toe!"
The juggler sheepishly retrieved his anchor, while Katherine leaned over the mare's head and called "Philippa!" and then seeing a tiny figure clutching at the woman's skirts, Katherine jumped off the horse. She scooped Blanchette up in her arms, and rained kisses on the little face that screwed up in protest.
The child started to cry, but as Katherine crooned love words to her, and laughed and held her close, the little pink lips stopped quivering. Blanchette put her arms around her mother's neck.
Philippa had been standing by the fish stall pinching a large glassy-eyed mackerel, while a Kettlethorpe lad teetered behind her with a wicker basket already filled with honeycombs, leeks, stone jars and leather shoes. Philippa flopped the mackerel into the basket, walked up to Katherine and said calmly, "By Sainte Marie, enfin te voila! I've been wondering when you'd get back. Don't start spoiling that child again, the instant you get here."
Katherine set Blanchette down and embraced her sister, seeing that the weeks she had been gone and lived through a lifetime of terror, death, anguish and despairing love, had been placid fast-flying routine for those at home. "And little Tom, Philippa," she said urgently, "is he all right?"
"Of course he's all right. Both babes grown fat and obedient, I've seen to that. Are all these people with you, Katherine?"