Gradually Hugh grew gentler, as the first shock of strangeness wore away. They slipped back into the groove inevitably worn by their five years of marriage. After they had supped and were more at ease and glowing from the delicious Gascon wine, Ellis sat by the window with his back turned to them, tinkering with some buckle on his master's gear, and Katherine curled up on the bed chattering of the babies - how lovely little Blanchette had grown and that she could sing three songs - here Hugh smiled proudly, seeming more interested than at the news that Tom could talk plainly and sit a horse alone and was near as big as his sister.
Katherine told many items of home news, particularly that the new flocks on the demesne farm were flourishing and that the Lincoln merchants, the Suttons, had been helpful with advice. She also told Hugh about the birth of Philippa's baby, proudly adding that she had done most of the midwifery herself, with Parson's Molly to assist. "But Philippa had an easy time - the babe popped into the world like a greased pig from a poke," she laughed, "not like the struggle I had to birth Blanchette."
"Ay, but you're no more like your sister than Arab filly is to plough horse, my Katherine," said Hugh gruffly, not looking at her but fumbling for her hand. He pulled her down so that her bright face rested against his coarse woolly beard: She held herself tight so as not to draw back, and thought of the three violent and unhappy nights in which he had once more claimed her during their last brief time together at Kettlethorpe when she came home from the Savoy and before he left to join Sir Robert Knolles.
Hugh thought of those nights too, and cursed the physical debility that once more unmanned him, knowing that without the vigour of drunken haste, a paralysing doubt would set in - and fear, and then he would hate her and the lovely body which he well knew he had never truly possessed.
"I thought I had got you with child, before I left," he said, releasing her suddenly.
She sat up with an imperceptible sigh of relief. "Nay," she said lightly. "It didn't happen, doubtless because 'twas, the dark of the moon then. Hugh, tell me of the fighting you've been through, tell me how you got this" - she touched the bandaged leg. "Here I prate on of silly humdrum things at Kettlethorpe while you've done many a dangerous deed of arms."
She led him on to talk of the one subject which he understood, where he felt himself always sure, and under her admiring questions he expanded, words came to him more easily, his scowl vanished, and when he started to describe a hand-to-hand encounter with a Poitevin knight, in which the latter had cravenly cried for mercy, he actually laughed.
It was thus that Brother William Appleton found them when he pushed the door open and padded in on his bare feet. "Deo gratias!" cried the Grey Friar, standing at the foot of the bed and surveying his patient with kindly surprise. "Here is betterment indeed! Truly a wife is God's gift. Benedicite, my Lady Swynford." He placed his hand on her head. "How was the voyage?" He dropped his sack of drugs and instruments on the floor and smiled at Katherine.
"We had a great storm and I was much afraid," she said, hastening to pour the friar a cup of wine, "but our Blessed Lady and the saints vouchsafed a miracle and we were saved. It was a most wondrous and humbling thing." Her voice trembled, and Brother William glanced at her keenly, thinking that though she seemed made for the pleasures of the flesh, there yet was a sense of spiritual striving about her, and a healthiness of mind and body which pleased him who spent so much of his time with the sick. "Ay, it is a humbling thing when Heaven's mercy shields us from danger" - he nodded his long cadaverous head - "and we may be sure God sends us every chance for salvation - how do you find your husband?"
"Most grateful to you, Sir Friar, he says you saved his leg and maybe his life."
"Well, well - I've some skill but 'tis not all my doing. His stars were propitious." As he spoke the-friar deftly unbound Hugh's leg, and scooping a green ointment from a little pot plastered the wound. " 'Tis made of pounded watercress," he explained to Katherine, who exclaimed at the colour. "A balm the wild Basques use in their mountains, and ignorant as they are - barely Christians - they know much of simples. I've healed many a wound on the Duke's men-at-arms with this."
"How soon do you think I can get about, Brother?" asked Hugh through clenched teeth as the friar probed and pulled back the proud flesh.
"You can hobble a bit now, since it seems your dysentery's lessening. Did you take all the bowel-binder I left you?" He peered into the clay cup on the stool and shook his head. "Lady, you must see that he takes this each time before he eats. Camphorated poppy juice alone will heal the flux."
"I'll see that he takes it. Sir Friar," she said smiling, and held the cup for him to fill it with a black mixture.
"We must have you strong and able to attend on the Duke's wedding, Sir Hugh," said Brother William, fishing a rusty lancet from the bottom of his sack and motioning to Katherine to hold the basin for the daily bleeding.
Hugh thrust out his pallid gnarled arm and said with a hint of pride, "Katherine has been appointed brideswoman to the marriage."
"I know," said the friar with a faint chuckle, "you've told me many times." He had learned that and much more during the days of high fever that Hugh had suffered after he first came to Bordeaux, and in addition the friar had served as Hugh's confessor. So there was little he did not know about this man and his groping, clumsy brain, his grossnesses and sulky angers, his inability to adjust himself to others, his superstitious fears, and yet with all this, his bitter, humiliating, pathetic love for this beautiful woman.
Poor souls, thought the friar, applying styptic and a wad of lint to the bleeding arm-cut. Yet, no doubt, they would rub along somehow, no worse off than many a man and wife, until finally all passions died, and age or philosophy would bring surcease.
"Have you seen the Infanta Costanza?" said Katherine very casually while pouring the blood from the little basin into a slop-jar. "Is she fair?"
"They say not," answered the friar. "Remember
He saw a strange little quiver pass over Katherine's mobile face, and having much observant knowledge of women, thought it came from gratified vanity and was amused, for from this foible she had seemed quite free; but he said nothing more. He gave them blessing and departed to visit another of the Duke's sick fighting men, his mind quite at ease about Hugh.
Katherine slept mat night on a straw mattress on the floor beside Hugh's bed, and Ellis slept as usual on a pallet near the outer door. In the soft grey dawn, Katherine rose and dressed to go to early Mass before the great crowds would come later. She yearned for the blissful comfort of the act of communion, when the sweet body of Jesus should enter into her own body and strengthen her, and she hoped that in the cathedral she might find a shrine to St. Catherine too. She felt great need to kneel before her own particular saint and refresh the moment of transcendent gratitude she had felt on the ship.
Hugh grunted sleepily as she told him where she was going, and she saw that he had improved in the night, his fever was gone and he breathed quietly.
In her green and gold gown, to do honour to the festival, and a fine silk-hooded mantle, Katherine slipped downstairs past the wine-shop into the cobbled street. It was hotter than it would ever be in England, but she gave thanks for the morning freshness and hurried to the cathedral, which was but a block away.