The great west doors of the cathedral were wide open, the organ tones vibrated through the still air, while a line of peasants and rustics filed into the church bearing herbs, roots and fruits for blessing at the Virgin's shrine. Two mutilated beggars lolled on the cathedral step, and waving ulcerous stumps of legs and arms whined at Katherine, "Ayez pitie, belle dame, l'aumone, pour l'amour de Dieu-" She opened her purse and cast them silver pennies, then into the extended hat of a faceless leper she flung more of her silver, crossing herself as he mumbled "Grand merci" and shuffled away, shaking his warning clapper.
The hideous mutilations of the beggars and the leper had shaken her and before entering the cathedral she paused to collect herself. An ancient Bordelaise in high fluted cap and white apron was spreading baskets of flowers on the steps and Katherine walked over to her, at once assuaged by the lovely unfamiliar flowers - gaudy peonies, jasmine, fat red roses and huge lilies, all strangely shaped and more highly perfumed than any she had ever known.
As she leaned down to buy a bunch of jasmine, she noted vaguely that a tall pilgrim stood on the step a little way off, leaning on his staff. She finished her purchase; holding the jasmine against her cheek and sniffing delightedly, she turned again towards the cathedral. The pilgrim turned too and mounted the steps. He carried a scrip covered with cockleshells, and he was muffled to the mouth in a sackcloth, his large round hat pulled down low on his forehead so that little of his face showed. Katherine, assuming that it was one of those who were en route for St. James Compostela, gave him an indifferent glance. She walked into the cathedral porch, pausing to peer ahead into the dark nave and locate the candle-seller amongst all the booths and hurrying celebrants.
She felt an urgent hand on her arm and turned in astonishment to see that it was the pilgrim who had clutched her. He raised his head a little so that she might see his eyes and said, "Katrine! I must talk to you."
"Sweet Jesu! My lord!" she cried, so astounded that she dropped the jasmine sprays all over the worn stone paving.
"Hush!" he said sternly. "Come with me, I know a place where we can talk."
She bent over and picked up her jasmine, slowly, fighting for time to collect herself and marshal her resistance.
"I command it," he said, then with a swift change of tone, "nay - I beg you, I beseech you - Katrine."
She bowed her head and began to walk, following him a few paces behind. They went down the steps, across the busy "Place" and up a street to a little inn, Auberge des Moulins. He took a key from his scrip, and unlocking a low door in the pink plaster wall, motioned her to enter. It was the small inn garden to which he had brought her. It was planted with a few flowers and many herbs and furnished with wine-stained trestle-tables and benches.
"We'll not be disturbed here," he said, flinging off his hat and loosening the sackcloth cloak, "I've bribed the aubergiste lavishly. My God, Katrine," he added with a wry laugh, "look to what straits you've brought the ruler of Aquitaine - skulking in sackcloth, bribing frowsy scoundrels for a place of assignation - like a wenching sergeant - you should be proud of your enchantments!"
"What have you to say to me, my lord?" She leaned against the trestle-table because her knees shook, but her grey eyes were fixed on him steadily and their gaze held warning, yet she thought that, in the coarse brown sackcloth, he had never seemed so handsome or so princely.
"What have I to say to you?" He broke off, biting his lips. Since before Prime he had been waiting near the cathedral, knowing that she would come to Mass, and praying that she would be alone. Yet if that dolt of a squire Ellis de Thoresby had accompanied her, the meeting would still have been managed. Since the sight of her on the ship yesterday, she had obsessed him to a point beyond reason - almost beyond caution.
He turned on her suddenly, with violence. "I love you, Katrine. I want you, I desire you, but I love you. I feel that I cannot exist without you. That's what I have to say to you."
The garden walls melted. A rushing wind lifted and hurled Katherine into a void, a wind - no, a river of fire. An agonising painful joy in the whirling and rushing of this river of fire -
He threw himself down on the bench and seized her cold hands, looking up at her white face. "My dear love," he said softly, humbly, "can you not speak to me?"
"What can I say, my lord?" Her eyes fastened themselves on the blue flower of a borage plant near his foot; she stared at the little blue star while the fiery river throbbed and scorched in her breast.
"That you love me, Katherine - you told me so once."
"Aye," she said slowly, at last, "nothing has changed since then. Nothing. And I am still Hugh's wife - however much I - I love you."
He gave a sharp gasp and bending his head covered her hands with kisses. "Sweetheart!" he cried exultantly, and put his hands on her waist to pull her down to him. She stiffened and shook her head. "Nay, but there is one thing changed since we two were in the Avalon Chamber - then you mourned a wife but lately gone, and now you are betrothed to one who will soon be yours."
"There's no love in that, it has naught to do with us. You know that I must marry again, for England - for Castile."
"Yes," she said tonelessly, "I know."
She raised her eyes and tears slid quietly down her cheeks. "I cannot be your leman, my lord. Even if for love of you I could so shamefully dishonour Hugh, yet I cannot, for I have made a sacred vow."
"A vow?" he repeated. His hands dropped from her waist. "What vow, Katherine?"
"On the ship," Katherine said, each word dragging forth with pain. "Saint Catherine saved my life, for that I made the vow-" She stopped and swallowed, looking past him at the sunny wall. She went on in a whisper, "To be true wife, in thought, in deed, to my husband who is the father of my babies."
Outside the garden, the cathedral bells began again to clang for the commencement of another Mass, while nearer from the "Place" a burst of horns and clarions heralded the beginning of the mystery play, and nearer yet inside the inn there was a shout of drunken laughter. At last John said gently, reasonably, "My foolish Katherine - and do you think the whole ship was saved because you made this vow?"
"I don't know," she answered in the same muted voice. "I only know that I made it and will keep it unto death."
Unto death. The words rang irrevocably in his ears, even while a hundred persuasions sped through his mind. Arguments that might move her, perhaps the contentions of John Wyclif, how that saints and miracles and vows were but ignorant superstitions invented by venal popes and hypocritical monks to gull the simple folk. But he loved her, so these things he could not say, for he did not quite believe these heresies ' and there was a commandment in the Bible - one the Blessed Jesus too had affirmed - and he knew well that even John Wyclif would never condone adultery. And stronger far than the new logic of the Lollards were the teachings of his childhood. Grinning fiends, devils and the obscene tortures, damnation eternal, awaited those who sinned. For himself he did not care, but her he could not endanger. He turned his head away and did not speak.
"Now you will hate me again!'' she cried on a sobbing breath. She could no longer maintain the frozen stillness of her body; though she had renounced him, she could not bear that he should never look at her again with passion - and the new tenderness. "Dear my Lord, my heart will break if you hate me, and the last time too we parted in anger-"
He shook his head. "I love you, Katherine - and while you're near me, I feel that your wish is mine." He stopped, thinking that this had never been true of him before. There had been no such testing with Blanche, nor need for conscience. "Yet I know myself -" he cried with sudden violence. "I shall not stay so tame, so conquerable-" He took a quick step towards her, then halted. "Go, Katherine - go," he said, and hot tears sprang into his eyes.