Hugh glanced at Katherine and then at the paved floor. "It is most generous of the Duke," he said.
"There's a postscript," said Stafford, tapping the parchment with an irritable finger, "which provides that whenever Sir Hugh Swynford shall be absent from home on knight's service one of the Duke's own stewards shall be appointed to ride to Coleby and Kettlethorpe to render assistance and manor supervision to Lady Swynford, the costs to be met by this office."
Ah, I have been well repaid - thought Katherine, with a bitter pang. The great powerful hand had been bountifully and negligently extended to rescue them. We're only little people, she thought, like the serfs, and what are we but serfs too? She glanced at the grim toad of a receiver. Had chivalry and justice not outweighed the anger that the Duke had felt for her when they parted - there would have been distraint, and punishment. Swynfords would have lost their horses, stock, all chattels - possibly imprisonment too, and the Duke would never have heard of it. But now they were safe.
"Tomorrow at noon," said Stafford, rising, "you will receive the moneys due you from this grant and will then pay your Coleby rent with interest. I give you good day, sir and lady."
The Swynfords walked out through the roomful of clerks and scarcely heeded when the sergeant congratulated them and took his leave to report to the constable. There was no one in the stone passage outside and before going into the court where Philippa and the others waited, Hugh suddenly stopped and looked at Katherine. His hand clenched on his sword hilt, his square face whitened. "For what of your services, my lady, has His Grace of Lancaster seen fit to bestow such reward?" he said, his voice croaking like a rook's.
Her grey eyes met his steadily and with pity, for now she knew what unanswered love was - and jealousy. "For none but what the grant said, Hugh, that I served the Duchess Blanche." She pulled her beads out from her purse and kissed the crucifix. "I swear it by the sweet body of Jesus and by my father's and mother's souls."
His gaze fell first and he sighed. "I cannot doubt you." He leaned towards her. She showed none of her inward shiver as he kissed her hungrily on the lips, but she felt sick fear. Was he then cured of the impotence that had afflicted him? Holy Blessed Mother, she thought, I could not endure it. But she knew she must endure it, if it were so. To escape from his rough grasp she made a business of putting her rosary back in her purse and saw the Duke's letter. "Here," she said quickly, "this is for you, from the Duke. I had forgot in all that trouble in there. Shall I read it to you?"
He nodded, flushing. She broke the seal and scanned the letter. "It's an official order for you to report for knight's duty in Aquitaine. You're to join the company under Sir Robert Knolles, until the - until the Duke arrives himself - ah, that gladdens you!" she cried, for his face had brightened as she had not seen it in years.
"Ay, for I've been ill content to sit at home while others fight, you know that, and I've worried much that the Duke did not want me; it seemed a slight, a punishment, for what I know not. Yet I've but a slow mind and can't follow his."
Nor can I, thought Katherine. I don't know what he really feels towards me or Hugh.
" 'Tis not that I wish to leave you, my Katherine, but see he has relieved my mind by providing proper stewardship for you - not, thank God, one quartered at Kettlethorpe like that foul Nirac was after you bore Blanchette. Ay, 'tis of his godchild that he thinks no doubt in these grants to you, his godchild named for his poor lady. 'Tis of that he thinks."
"For sure it is, Hugh," she said gently. I shall never dwell on the Avalon Chamber again, she thought - it's finished. All debts are paid, all has been decently resolved. It shall be as though it never happened.
"Come, my husband," she said smiling. "We have much good news to tell Philippa." They walked arm in arm from the passage into the sunlit court.
Part Three (1371)
"O Love, to whom I have and shall
Be humble subject, true in mine intent
As best I can, to you Lord give I all
For evermore, my heart's lust to rend ..
(Troilus and Criseyde)
CHAPTER XIII
In the dusk of Saint John's Day, June 24, 1371, three portly, middle-aged men enjoyed the freshening air in the cloisters of the Abbey of St. Andrew at Bordeaux, which was now the Duke's royal palace. Two of the men were great lords of Guienne; one, Jean de Grailly, the powerful Captal of Buch, and the other, Sir Guichard D'Angle, who owned vast tracts in Saintonge and Angouleme. They were both tirelessly loyal to their English overlord and had resisted the blandishments of the French King, though many of their fellow nobles had not. The third man was the big English baron, Michael de la Pole, whose taste for action had been well gratified since he chafed and cooled his heels while awaiting the Duke of Lancaster nineteen months ago in the Savoy.
"Fine stirring deeds of arms today at the jousting!" said de la Pole enthusiastically. "Our Duke covered himself with glory against the Sieur de Puissances, unhorsed him, pardieu!" The baron spoke in dogged Yorkshire French because it was more fluent than the Guienne lords' English.
"Aha," said the captal, belching pleasurably and rolling his tongue around a sip of wine, "he's almost the knight his brother is."
"Better, far betterl" cried de la Pole, instantly annoyed. This was an old argument. The captal and Sir Guichard had been the Prince of Wales' men and though they had obediently transferred homage to Lancaster last January when the Duke took over Aquitaine from the sick and shattered Prince, de la Pole felt that they consistently underrated him.
"Sainte Vierge!" said the captal obstinately. "Lancaster can't hold a candle to his father! Or his brother Edward, the Perfect Gentle Knight."
"Perfect Gentle Knight be damned!" cried the baron, glaring. "Look at Limoges! Was that the action of a perfect knight? Women, children massacred without mercy while the Prince lay gloating on his litter - blood, screams, tortures - the whole town slaughtered, except the few our Duke saved. What sort of knight is that?"
Sir Guichard D'Angle interposed, sighing, "Some demon seized upon the Prince, his illness is destroying him."
"And his line," said the baron solemnly. The three men were silent, each thinking of the death of little Edward, the Prince's oldest son, here last winter. After the aged King and ailing Prince of Wales, the heir now to the English throne was Richard, a child of four so fair and frail that he seemed made from gossamer.
"Lancaster is dangerously ambitious!" said the captal, following the natural train of thought. "I feel in him a ceaseless urge to rule, a lust for power greater even than the power he has - fires barely held in check-"
"Yet they are held in check," cut in de la Pole. "I know him far better than you do. On his loyalty to his brother, ay, and his nephew, little Richard, I'd stake my life and soul." He lowered his voice and, motioning the page to stand farther off, whispered behind his hand, "I believe 'tis not the English throne he covets."
"Ha-ha-ha!" Sir Guichard exploded into laughter half malicious, half indulgent. "Parbleu, man baron, do you think you tell us news! It was I planted it in his head, though the idea found fertile ground. He has thought much about Castile."
"Has he then made formal suit to the Infanta?" said de la Pole, discomfited and a trifle hurt that the Duke had withheld his confidence.
"Nenni - I think not yet. Something seems to hold him back. A moody man and broods much, unless he's fighting."
"He needs a woman," said the captal, shrugging his massive shoulders. He up-ended his gilt cup to let the last of the wine trickle down his throat. "Unhealthful to live like an anchorite, it must be months since that Norman whore went to his bedchamber at Cognac."