On another sparkling morning the Duke ordered out his barges. All seven of them, garlanded, and canopied with tapestries, started down the Thames on a junket to Deptford. The Duke rode in his great barge of state with his two daughters, a half-dozen of his gentlemen - and Katherine. She sat on a cushion beside the Duke, her hand curled into his beneath a concealing fold of his outspread satin mantle, and dreamily watched the London banks stream by. Above the gabled houses the church spires pierced the violet sky like arrows, and the music of their bells nearly drowned out the gay songs from the minstrels' barge.
They came to the Bridge with its load of higgledy-piggledy houses so squeezed it seemed that some must slide into the rushing current, nor was Katherine's dreamy peace disturbed by the row of severed heads that were stuck on iron pikes along the Bridge. Though one young curly head was fresh and still dripped blood, she felt but a dim pity. There were always rotting heads on London Bridge, and she neither knew who these men were nor for what crimes they had suffered.
The sun sparkled on the water and the warm firm hand clasped hers tenderly beneath the mantle fold. Today John was relaxed and pleased to share with her his knowledge of the scene around them. He pointed out a galley from Venice, spice-laden so that the pungency of cloves and nutmeg drifted to them across the river, and an English ship, Calais-bound, with a cargo of the precious wool. Once they laughed together at a drunken monk so fat he overweighted the wherry he was crossing in, and howled with rage each time his great rump splashed in the water.
It was her last day of merriment.
That evening they returned with the tide as the Savoy chapel bell rang for vespers. They disembarked at the barge landing and followed the Duke through the arch to the Outer Ward. Katherine saw at once from the throng of horses and people that some new company had arrived, but beyond noting that they must be foreigners, for there was something odd about their clothes and she heard words in a strange tongue, she thought nothing of so usual an occurrence. Except for a pang because the arrival of important guests would necessitate prolonged entertainment and inevitably postpone the hour when she and John might be alone.
As she followed behind him she saw him start and heard him say, "Christ's blood!" in an angry tone before he strode ahead into the crowd of new-comers.
She stood uncertainly by the bargehouse when suddenly her arm was clutched and she looked down at her sister.
"Philippa!" she cried, staring at the plump face beneath the neat white coif. "What do you do here?"
"My duty, naturally!" said Philippa shrugging. "But I expected warmer greeting after the time we've been apart."
Katherine bent and kissed her sister on each cheek. "I was startled, I thought you at Hertford with - with-" She faltered, glancing towards the new-comers. Bitter coldness checked her breath.
"Ay, so," nodded Philippa. "The Duchess is here. To visit her wedded lord. She took the notion in the night, from a dream. Her father the murdered King Pedro appeared to her and told her to come. Or so I've gathered from the only one of her ladies who'll speak English to the rest of us. Faith, Katherine," she added patting the girl's hand, "you're white as bleached linen. You'll have to make the best of it. Show me to your chamber. I dare say I can sleep with you?"
"Where will the Duchess sleep?" asked Katherine very low.
"In the ducal suite, of course. She always does when she comes here."
Katherine turned and silently led the way up to her chamber, where Hawise was drowsing by the fire waiting for her mistress. Hawise and Philippa greeted each other in the offhand manner of long but tepid acquaintanceship.
"This'll not be easy for my lady," said Hawise, glancing at Katherine, who had moved to the window to stare out through the tiny leaded panes at the silver Thames below.
"Bah! She needn't fret." Philippa hung her serviceable squirrel-trimmed mantle carefully on a perch and bent to adjust her coif in Katherine's mirror. "The Duchess hasn't come for bedsport, that I'll warrant."
"How d'ye know that?" Hawise saw Katherine's slender back stiffen.
"Because," said Philippa briskly, "she cannot, if she would; which sport I think was never to her liking. But since she gave birth at Ghent last winter an infirmity has gripped her in her woman's parts."
Katherine turned slowly, her dilated eyes were dark as slate. "Then if this is true, she will but hate me the more, as I know I would."
"What whimsy!" Philippa had no use for morbid speculations. "I dare say she never thinks of you at all. What wonder to her that the Duke should have a leman, indeed what great noble has not?"
Katherine flinched, her nails dug sharply into her palms. She turned back to the window and leaned her cheek against the stone mullion.
"Ye shouldna've said that." Hawise scowled at Philippa, who was searching in Katherine's little tiring coffer to find a pin.
"Why ever not? 'Tis simple truth. By the rood, Hawise - can you not keep your mistress' gear in better order? This coffer's like a pie's nest. Hark - there's the supper horn. You must hurry, Katherine."
"I'll not come down," she said in a muffled voice.
But to such folly Philippa would not listen. She flattened Katherine with stern elder sister edicts. And her common sense, though devoid of imagination, was not untinged with sympathy. Katherine was here, the Duchess was here, sooner or later they must meet, best get it over.
Katherine, hastily attired by Hawise in the splendid apricot velvet gown, accompanied Philippa down and across the Inner Ward to the Great Hall, where the chamberlain separated them and seated each according to rank. Philippa went to the long board by the door where were fed the mass of commoners: heralds, squires, waiting-women, friars, the lowlier chancery officials and their wives. Katherine, no longer entitled to her usual seat, since all room at the High Table was preempted by the Castilian retinue, was put amongst the knights and ladies at the board below the windows. She slid quickly into place but could not raise her eyes from her pewter trencher which the varlets heaped with gobbets of smoking brawn. Yet soon she was forced to notice the knight beside her, Sir Esmon Appleby. He rubbed his foot against hers, he made play of brushing her arm as he reached across her to dip into the salt, he cast sideways looks into her bosom. She moved away on the bench, though wedged as she was between him and the elderly clerk of the Duke's privy expenses this was difficult.
Sir Esmon gripped his hand on her velvet-covered knee and whispered with wine-soaked breath, "No need to be so prim tonight, sweet burde. His Grace is occupied, pardee!"
"Leave me alone!" she said, shaking with anger.
"Nay, sweet heart," the knight's hand crept upwards along her thigh, "play not the virgin with me! I can show you many a lusty trick I'll vow His Grace ne'er thought of!"
She seized the meat knife from her trencher and slashed it down across the groping hand.
"Jesu!" yelped the knight, jumping up and staring at his welling blood. The lady next him squeaked with laughter, even the old clerk snorted into his cup as Sir Esmon, dabbing at his hand with his napkin, picked up his trencher and angrily moved to a place at the far end of the board.
Katherine sat stiff and faint with humiliation, staring at her untouched food. At last she raised her head and looked at the High Table, at the great high-backed golden chair beside the Duke which had always been empty till now.