This business was proceeding when they were interrupted by a commotion near the door. The yeoman-on-guard expostulated with someone, until a shrill determined voice cried, "But it is vairy important, le duc will agree!"
John frowned and again raised his heavy lids. "By Our Lady, Nirac!" he called irritably, "what is it?"
The little Gascon slithered past the door and ran to his master. He knelt on the dais and gabbled very low, in the langue d'oc, "Brother William Appleton is here, 'e has something to tell you."
"In God's name - you little fool - do you burst in here to tell me that! - ah?" John stared down with startled question into Nirac's unwinking black eyes. The Gascon raised his brows slowly - with meaning.
"I'm sorry, gentlemen," John said, rising. "A matter I must attend to."
"But Your Grace," cried Sir Thomas Felton, "there's grave trouble in the north, Bertrand du Guesclin-"
"I'll return shortly, Sir Thomas, but I think you forget I resigned full power here. 'Tis now in your hands to administer Aquitaine, you and the captal. No doubt you'll do far better than I have." He gave the two men a cold nod and, followed by Nirac, walked out of the Council room. The men stood up and bowed as he passed them, then reseated themselves in some consternation.
"Mauvaise humeur" said the captal, chuckling. "His temper grows as thorny as the poor Prince of Wales'. Norn de Dieu - these Plantagenets! They should laugh more - enjoy life. What that one needs," he jerked his plump chins towards the door, "is a woman!"
"So you keep saying," growled de la Pole. "He's getting one, isn't he?"
"A warm complaisant wench," said the captal imperturbably, "not a yellow bag of bones who thinks of naught but avenging her dead papa. I could find him a woman; - I know a little dancer, a Navarrese - round thighs - -breasts like pillows - lips juicy as mulberries." The captal, ticking off these attractions on stubby fingers, would have continued, but the Englishman snorted impatiently, and Sir Guichard interrupted with a smile.
"Enfin, captal - no doubt she's superb, your little Navarrese. But to a determined man, all cats are grey at night.
Also Costanza is proud - mon Dieu, how proud! And jealous too, I'll warrant. If the Castilians got wind of dalliance now, it might wreck the marriage."
"A plague on the marriage!" cried Sir Thomas Felton. "The question is what are we to do about du Guesclin?"
John stood by the empty fireplace in the antechamber of his private suite and heard the Grey Friar speak in a calm and sorrowful voice the incredible words, "And so, my lord, the poor knight is dead, God absolve his soul!"
"What-" said the Duke so low that it was scarcely a whisper. "What did you say?"
"I said, my lord, that Sir Hugh Swynford suffered a violent attack of dysentery and is dead."
"But he can't be - he was getting well. He can't be!"
This cry was uttered on so strange a note and the Duke turned his back on the friar so violently that Brother William took it for anger and said humbly, "Your Grace, forgive me. I did my best. I applied all the skill God has granted me, but it was not His Will that the knight should live."
Nirac stood unnoticed near the door, his arms crossed on his chest, now he hugged them tight around himself, for he could see his master's face though the friar could not. He saw the look of dazed incredulity give way to awe, and then the blue eyes blazed wide open. The Duke repeated, slowly and in a shaking voice, "It was not His Will that the knight should live!"
"The funeral arrangements, Your Grace-" persisted the friar, puzzled by the Duke's averted back and choked speech. "I can attend to all that, but 'tis a melancholy situation for the widow, and the squire. I thought perhaps you might wish to direct your chamberlain or some other of your household officers to call?"
"The widow," said the Duke. "Aye, the widow, you said, Brother. I shall attend to that myself," and now as the Duke turned, the astounded Grey Friar saw what Nirac had seen - the face of joy - the young, eager, tremulous face of joy.
Brother William started back, frowning. "My lord, what would you of her? She is in great grief, unprotected, and I believe a truly virtuous woman-"
"I know that. And I shall not forget. But there are things you do not know." The Duke smiled with a tenderness that astonished the Grey Friar and added softly, "God has heard my prayers and given me blessing. Nay, good Brother, don't look so sour, you're not my confessor. You've done all you need. Wipe out this matter from your mind. Here, take this." He opened the purse at his belt and thrust into the friar's unwilling hand a dozen gold nobles. "For the poor, for the sick, for the lepers, for anything you like. Now leave me alone!"
For the next three days the court was mystified by their ruler's behaviour, though the younger lords and ladies were delighted. Between one breath and the next, it seemed, the Duke had thrown off all the heavy brooding and ill temper he had shown for months.
Each day he rode out hawking by the river with a party of congenial courtiers and shouted triumph when his great white gerfalcon, Oriana, brought down wild duck and heron. Each day he took part in joustings and small deeds of arms with one or another of his knights. And there was dancing and singing in the Grande Salle at night.
Amongst the courtiers, only the Captal de Buch knew the reason for this volte-face on the part of the Duke, who had consulted him on a certain matter. The captal, of course, highly approved, chuckled often to himself, but kept his own counsel as he had been told to do.
On the fourth day after Hugh's death, the Duke sent word to the Princess Isabel that he would be absent for a while and that she and Edmund were to preside over the High Table in his place.
At dusk the Duke and Nirac left the palace by the privy stair, both of them enveloped in dark grey cloaks and hoods without insignia, and though John rode his strongest and favourite charger, Palamon, the horse's trappings were simple enough to befit a plain Bordelais burgher. They rode silently through the streets past the cathedral to the Swynford lodgings, where the frowsy courtyard was deserted except for a snuffling pig and some chickens that scratched at the manure pile.
Upstairs, Katherine sat by the empty bed, staring at the note from the Duke which she had received earlier that day. Nirac had brought it and waited for her answer. "I'll be here at vesper time and will receive my Lord Duke," she had said to Nirac. "But tell him that is all. It must be farewell."
After Nirac had bowed and gone, she had sat on, scarcely moving, forgetting food and drink, as she had for days. It seemed as though someone else inhabited her body while the real Katherine still slept under the opiate the friar had given her. Her body, swathed and veiled in black, had attended the
Requiem Mass and the brief ceremony when the coffin was consigned to the cathedral crypt to await transportation home. Her eyes had even wept as her hands took off the clumsy Swynford betrothal ring and placed it in the coffin. Later she had tended Ellis, who had passed through roaring drunkenness into stupor. But no special thought had accompanied any of these things.
Even the Duke's note had not awakened Katherine, though somewhere within her there had been a shivering. Like the distortions dimly heard and seen through that yellow plague fog at Bolingbroke, life came to her muffled.
When the noise of horses clattered up from the courtyard, Ellis had been burnishing Hugh's armour, rubbing off every fleck of rust. At times when he was less drunk than others, this occupation gave him some comfort. " 'Twill do for little Tom," he said to Katherine. "Little Tom'll soon grow to it, now he must fill his father's shoes."