Dear Mary Mother, she thought. The misery which had receded with Philippa's revelation in the chamber washed over her in a muddy flood.
The Duchess was small and young. She was not ugly as they had said.
Katherine, like one who cannot cease from pressing on an aching tooth, strained her eyes down the Hall. Young. Four years younger than I! Costanza was still but twenty-one. For all that Katherine had known this, yet she had resolutely pictured the Duchess as middle-aged, and big with a haughty maturity. She had not guessed the smallness.
The duchess was dressed in a sombre grey. Katherine could see no jewels except her crown and a long sparkling pendant at her neck, which must be the reliquary she wore always and which Philippa said contained one of St. James's fingers.
Katherine looked from the glossy black wings of Costanza's netted braids beneath the golden crown to the dark eyes below. Even at this distance, one could see that they were large and brilliant, and they seemed to gaze out with brooding intensity from the long narrow face, even when the little head tilted towards the Duke.
Katherine, watching in anguish, saw that they spoke but seldom together. His face that she knew so well in all its moods was set into the stern mask which she passionately told herself always hid boredom. But she could not escape noting another quality she had never seen in him - deference. The
Duke and Duchess ate from the same gilt salver, drank from the same hanap, and Katherine saw that he held back from each sip and morsel, so that Costanza might partake first, and then every motion of his body and the carriage of his head showed obeisance.
For Christ's sweet mercy - will he not look towards me once? Her fingers ripped a hunk from the soft, white bread and kneaded it like clay.
"You eat nothing, my lady?" said the old clerk on her left. He looked at her curiously.
"Nay, sir - I - I have a touch of fever." She seized her wine cup and drained it. The thick heady vernage burned in her stomach. She picked up a breast of roast partridge, dipped it in the sweet pepper sauce, then put it down again untasted. The meal dragged on.
Katherine sat and waited for the moment when she might be released. He had no thought for her, he had forgotten the sweetness of last night, of this very day in the barge. She drank more of the vernage, and her bitterness grew close to hatred. Ah, Katherine, where can you run to now, as once you ran from him? Where in the whole of England could you hide from him now, he who pretends to love you? Cold, cruel, heartless - so deep was she in her turmoil that she paid no heed to an announcement by the herald.
She caught its echo only because of the buzzing of the people around her. The Duke had commanded that all those who had not previously been presented to the Queen of Castile should come up now as their names were called.
This too, she thought - he wishes to humiliate me, to see me pay homage to his wife. And she steeled herself in anger. One by one, lords, knights, and their ladies were summoned by the chamberlain.
Then she heard "Lady Katherine Swynford." She walked stiff kneed down the Hall, her cheeks like poppies. There were snickers quickly checked, and she felt the slyness of spearing eyes.
She reached the Duchess's chair and curtsied low, touching the small cold hand extended to her, but she did not kiss it. She raised her eyes as Costanza said something quick and questioning in Spanish, and she heard the Duke answer, "Si."
The women looked at each other. The narrow ivory long-lipped face was girlish and not uncomely, but seen close like this one felt only its austerity. The black eyes glittered with a chill fanatic light. They seemed to appraise Katherine with the scrutiny of a moneylender examining a proffered trinket,' and again Costanza spoke to the Duke.
He leaned slightly towards Katherine, saying, "Her Grace wishes to know if you are truly devout, my Lady Swynford. Since you have the care of my daughters, she feels it essential that you neglect not religious observance."
Katherine looked at nun then, and saw behind the sternness of his gaze a spark of amusement and communion.
Her pain ebbed.
"I have tried not to neglect my duties towards the Ladies Philippa and Elizabeth," she said quietly.
The Castilian queen understood the sense of this, as indeed she understood far more English than she would admit. She shrugged, gave Katherine a long enigmatic look, waved her hand in dismissal as the chamberlain called another name.
Katherine quitted the Hall, walked slowly across the courtyard. Oh God, I wish I hadn't seen her, she thought; yet he doesn't love her, I know that. No matter that she is so young and a queen, it's me that he loves, and it does her no real wrong - and she doesn't care - one can see it, and she cannot even bear him a son. Yet, Blessed Virgin, I wish I had not seen her.
Throughout the sleepless night in her lonely bed, Katherine's thoughts ran on like this.
CHAPTER XVIII
The Duchess Costanza that night announced to the Duke that she wished to make pilgrimage to Canterbury at once. It was for this that she had come to London. Her father, King Pedro, in her dream had directed her to go, and also told her certain things to tell the Duke.
"He reproaches you, my lord," said Costanza to John when they were alone in the state solar. Her Castilian women had been dismissed for the night, having attired her in the coarse brown robe she now wore to bed. Her large black eyes fixed sternly on her husband, she spoke in vehement hissing Spanish. "I saw my father stand beside me, groaning, bleeding from a hundred wounds that traitor made in him. I heard his voice. It cried, 'Revenge! When will Lancaster avenge me?' "
"Aye," said John bitterly, "small wonder he cries out in the night. Yet twice I've tried - and failed. The stars have been set against us. I cannot conquer Castile without an army, nor raise another one so soon."
"Por Dios, you must try again!"
"You need not speak thus to me lady. There's nothing beneath heaven I want more than Castile!"
"That Swynford woman will not stop you?" she said hoarsely. Into the proud cold face came a hint of pleading.
"No," he said startled, "of course not."
"Swear it!" she cried. She yanked the reliquary from beneath her brown robe. "Swear it now by the sacred finger of Santiago!" She opened the lid and thrust the casket at him. . He looked at the little bleached bones, the shreds of mummied flesh and thick, ridged nail. "My purpose needs no aid from this."
She stamped her foot. "Have you been listening to that heretic - that Wyclif? In my country we would burn him!" Her shaking hand thrust the reliquary into his face. "Swear it! I command you!" Her lips trembled, red spots flamed on her cheek-bones.
"Bueno, bueno, dona," he said taking the reliquary. She watched, breathing hard, as he bent and kissed the little bones.
"I swear it by Saint James." He made the sign of the cross. "But the time is not ripe. The country is weary of war, they must be made to see how much they need Castile. They must" - he added lower and in English -"regain their faith in me as leader. Yet I think the people begin to look to me for guidance. They say that in the city yesterday they cheered my name."
She was not listening. She shut the reliquary and slipped it back under her robe. "Now I shall go to Canterbury," she said more quietly. "My father commanded it. It must be that since I am in this hateful England, an English saint is needed also for our cause. I shall see if your Saint Thomas will cure me of the bloody flux, so I may bear sons for Castile."
The Duke inclined his head and sighed. "May God grant it, lady." But if, he thought wryly, 'tis not God's will that I should lie soon with her again, I shall submit with patience.