He spoke more kindly to Katherine as they hurried towards the palace together.
To reach the Presence Chamber they had to traverse the palace cloisters. In the central garth a crowd of lords and ladies amused themselves, some tossing a gilded leather ball, some wagering piles of silver coins on the roll of ivory jewel-studded dice. The Princess Isabel sat on a blue velvet chair in the shade of a mulberry tree, munching candied rose petals and gossiping with Lady Roos of Hamlake. Her brother, Edmund of Langley, lounged beside her chair while he tickled the sensitive nose of Isabel's spaniel with an ostrich feather.
The Princess' sharp eyes missed very little. She spied Katherine's black-robed figure as the girl approached the Great Stairs and called out peremptorily, "My Lady Swynford!"
The girl started and glanced at the Grey Friar in distress. He said, "You must go to her," with some sympathy, for he did not like the Duke's sister.
Katherine moved slowly across the turf and curtsied to the Princess, who said, "I've heard some rumour that your knight has died, God rest his soul. I see," she glanced at Katherine's gown, "that it is so. A pity. Was it not some time ago?"
"A month, madam," said Katherine faintly. Edmund having made the spaniel sneeze looked up, his mouth fell open as he stared at Katherine. He scrambled to his feet and waving the ostrich feather cried, "And where have you been since, my lovely burde? So fair a widow should not go unconsoled." He leered at her with mawkish gallantry, and Katherine looked away, stricken by the caricatured resemblance to his brother in this weak, foolish face.
"Quiet, Edmund," said the Princess as though she addressed the spaniel. "Where are you bound now?" she pursued to Katherine, her instinctive resentment sharpening her voice, though in truth she had forgotten Lady Swynford since she saw her on the boat and had no motive but curiosity.
"To crave leave of departure from my Lord Duke, madam. It - it has been arranged that I sail home tomorrow."
"Ah," said Isabel satisfied, "back to that North Country whence you came? Some village with a silly name, a kettle in it, what was it?"
"Kettlethorpe, madam," said Katherine, and stood waiting while Isabel chortled and Edmund giggled amiably and continued to eye the girl with warmth. "Have I your leave to depart now, madam?"
Isabel nodded and crammed another fistful of sugared comfits into her mouth. Katherine curtsied again and rejoined Brother William, who had been watching the way she bore herself and thinking that she was hard to condemn as wholeheartedly as his conscience bade him do for this scandalous intrigue she had plunged into while her husband lay but four days dead. As she stood before those two Plantagenets in the garden, she had seemed more royal than they and fashioned of a finer metal. Yet she was weak, debased by the sins of the flesh, and he must guard himself from excusing her because of the beauty of her flesh: a lure devised by the ever-guileful Devil.
They entered the crowded anteroom past the yeoman-on-guard, and Brother William introduced her to the chamberlain, who said that my Lady Swynford would be received in her due turn. Katherine sat on a bench between one of the Castilian envoys and a Florentine goldsmith who held on his lap a casket of jewelled trinkets which he hoped to sell to the Duke as gifts for the bride.
The Grey Friar bowed to Katherine gravely and said, "I'll leave you now, my child, and shall pray that Christ and His Holy Mother strengthen you. Benedicite."
She bowed her head.
Her head remained bowed while those ahead of her filed into the Presence Chamber: an abbess from Perigueux, a distressed knight and his lady from the Dordogne, the Castilian, the goldsmith, a messenger with letters from Flanders. At last the chamberlain spoke her name and a page resplendent in dazzling blue and grey livery came to usher her. An unknown squire received her at the door of the Presence Chamber and opened it for her to enter.
The Duke sat in a gilded canopied chair that was raised on a low dais. On his head he wore a coronet studded with cabochons, rough lumps of emeralds, balas rubies. His surcote of crimson velvet was furred with ermine and above the gold Lancastrian SS collar his face was tired and bleak.
They looked at each other, then looked away while the Duke said in his voice of chill command, "I will see this lady alone." The squire and a clerk who had been seated at a table silently withdrew.
She stood where she was in the middle of the floor, until he reached out his hand and said, "Come to me, Katrine."
She went over to the dais and kissed his hand. He drew her slowly up against him and kissed her on the lips.
"Brother William gave you my message?"
"Yes, my lord."
"You'll not refuse again, my dear one. I must know that you'll be there, waiting for me."
"I cannot refuse again," she said in a strangled voice, "for I believe I bear your child."
"Jesu!" he cried, his eyes blazed with light. "My child! My son! You will give me a son, Katrine. Another royal Plantagenet!"
"A bastard," she said, turning her head.
"But my son. He shall never suffer from it. Katrine, now you cannot leave me! I'll give you the world and all that's in it, I'll cherish you, care for you, you'll never know a hardship or a worry! You shall see what it is to be loved by the Duke of Lancaster!"
"And in return, my lord, I give you my good name - -"
"Nay, darling, it need not be. No one need know. I'll do all to protect your good name. 'Tis fitting enough that you should be appointed Governess to my daughters, they're fond of you. And everyone knows I care for my people, that your husband died in my service and that you were" - he paused - "were beloved of the Duchess Blanche."
She looked at him sadly, thinking that men saw only what they wished to see, and that it would be no easy thing to conceal their love or the fruit of it. In truth he did not realise how they would shrink from the furtive, from a prolonged course of lies and subterfuges. In that they were alike, both imbued with reckless pride.
"I cannot see far ahead, my dear lord," she said sighing, "but I'll do as you say until you return, and I'll do my best for your children.'' And mine, she added silently, for in these last days that she had been alone in Bordeaux she had thought much with painful yearning of her true-born babies, as though to reassure them that her love for them was untouched by this other all-compelling love that had come to her, nor changed by the new baby that she carried in her womb.
A nourish of trumpets sounded from outside the window. They both started.
"The heralds practise for your wedding march," she said, the words dropping like stones on a wooden dish. "Adieu, my lord."
"Katrine," he cried. He pulled her close against him. "You must be careful* you will be safe on this journey. 'Tis the best master we have, the staunchest ship. I'll have two priests pray for your safety night and day in the cathedral. Oh my Katrine, do you love me?"
The bitterness left her eyes, she put her arms around his neck, and met his hot demanding lips with a gentle kiss. "Ay, my lord, I love you," she said with a laugh that was half a sob. "I think you need not ask."
Part Four (1376-1377)
There saw I first the dark deceptions