Katherine walked forward around Dame Emma, and looked down at the fishmonger. "What has the Duke of Lancaster ever done to you, Master Guy, that you should requite him like this?" she said.
The fishmonger dropped his eyes. "What does Lady Swynford here?" he muttered, twisting his leather-shod feet beneath the settle.
"Fled here for shelter from ruffians like you," cried Dame Emma. "Would ye deny it to her?"
Master Guy swallowed, he waggled his head distractedly. At length he said, "Nay," and sighed. "Ye can put the poker down, Emma. Me blood's cooling. But wrong's been done us - great wrong. Would ye have us take these wrongs like gelded conies?" He reached to the hearth for a flagon of ale and his wife, putting down the poker, brought him a cup. He drank, then looked at Katherine. "Ay, poor lass, I've had bitter thoughts of ye, many a time, but now I've room for pity. Me blood's cooled down to be sure - but out there - I doubt they'll be slaked until they've slain your - -" The word he would have used was paramour, yet there was something in Katherine's face which checked him. "Until they've got Lancaster," he finished looking down into his cup.
Katherine shuddered, yet still she spoke with biting calm. "They'll not get him, Master Guy. For they say God is just, and will know that the Duke has suffered wrongs as much as you have."
"Brave words, my dear," said the fishmonger. "At least in this world he has you to speak for him."
"And cares not," she whispered, turning away.
CHAPTER XX
Katherine slept that night of the riots at the fishmonger's. After a few hours of exhaustion, she awoke with a jump when St. Magnus' bells rang for Prime and, hurrying down to the kitchen, was received kindly by the Pessoners, who told her the latest tidings.
Little harm had been done after all, yester eve. The Duke and Percy both had somehow escaped, said Master Guy, and here Emma made a private signal to Katherine, for she had not disclosed Katherine's part in warning the Duke.
It seemed that Bishop Courtenay himself had finally appeared and berated the mob leaders, saying that they had carried their disorders too far and that he was ashamed of his flock. So one by one they had slunk off to their homes, contenting themselves with reversing the Duke's coat of arms wherever it hung outside a shop and then pelting the blazons with mud and excrement.
"And I'm glad enough now, no harm came to the Duke," said Guy, donning his leather apron which was plastered with fish scales, " 'Twas a good night's work as 'tis, in especial that we let loose the wrongfully held prisoner from Percy's Inn. The marshal'll not try those tricks again."
"What prisoner was that?" asked Dame Emma, coaxingly pushing a dish of fried eggs towards the silent Katherine.
"Some fellow from Norwich. I didna see him. 'Twas said he was in mortal fear o' the Duke. Th' instant he was freed, he hared it off for sanctuary in St. Paul's."
Dame Emma sighed. "And think ye, chucklehead, that this is the end o' London's trouble? Can ye get it through your numskull that violence but breeds violence? D'ye think the Duke will smile and thank ye for this night's work?"
The fishmonger thrust his lip out and said stubbornly, "He should not a tampered wi' our liberties, he should not a set hisself against the Commons."
The goodwife sighed again. "Ay, Commons've no friend at court these days." She bustled over to pat Katherine's shoulder. "Ye don't eat, my lady?"
"No," said Katherine rising, "forgive me but I can't. I must get to the Savoy. God be thanked the Lady Philippa and Hawise seem to've suffered no harm. I had forgot them last night."
Ay, poor lass, you forgot all else but one man's danger, Emma thought as she said, "Ye canna go alone. Go wi' her, Guy, she'll be safe wi' you."
The fishmonger grumbled that a load of herring awaited him at the wharf, that his prentices must be chivvied to work, that there was a mess of cod to be delivered to the Guildhall, but finally he took off his apron and mounted Katherine behind him on his great bay gelding. He was a good-hearted man, and he admired Katherine's fair face, but he was increasingly convinced that Hawise's devotion to this woman was unfortunate, even dangerous. The mortal hatred aimed at the Duke might well glance off and hit those near him, as indeed it already had; and though no coward, Guy did not like certain remarks he had heard last night which reflected on his own connection with the Duke through that of his obstinate daughter.
He rode along in gloomy silence until they had crossed the Fleet bridge, then he said, "How long d'ye look to be down here, m'lady?" For he thought that since Hawise could not legally be forced to break her service indenture to Lady Swynford, and would not if she could, at least the farther away they went, the better.
"Not long," said Katherine with a cold vehemence that astonished the fishmonger. "I shall see to that, Master Guy."
"To Kenilworth, then, or Leicester?"
"No," she said, "to Lincolnshire, to my own home."
"By Saints Simon and Jude!" Guy twisted his fat neck around to stare at her. "Will the Duke allow it? Are ye not contracted to him as governess to his little ladies, as well as by other - other ties?"
"I believe the Duke will not hold me," she said, sitting stiff and straight on the pillion. "And by the Blessed Virgin, I am no serf, to be bound against my will!"
"Well-a-day!" cried Guy, thinking that the riot had very properly frightened her into caution. " 'Tis a sensible plan."
Katherine did not answer.
The gelding jogged along the Strand past St. Clement's little church. Katherine had passed the church fifty times without special notice; today as she glanced at it, eleven years slid away. She saw in the porch a priest and a knight with crinkled hair, and a girl with a wreath of garden flowers on her head. Handfasted, they stood, the girl and the knight, while the priest intoned, "To have and to hold from this day forward to love... and to cherish... till death..."
She turned away from the church and stared down the Strand ahead, then Master Guy started and cried, "By God, see what they did here!"
Katherine looked up at the gatehouse. They had wrenched off the Duke's great five-foot painted shield and hammered it back again upside down.
"'Tis what they do to traitors!" said Master Guy and chuckled suddenly. "Them leopards look mortal silly a-standing on their little heads a-waving their little legs." His chuckles grew into a rumble.
"For the love of Christ - stop it!" Katherine cried, shaking his arm. "Can't you see what you're doing to him? What man could stand the vile lies - the hatred - you know he's not a traitor. Oh, God curse the lot of you!" She jumped down off the horse.
That afternoon, unable to come to rest anywhere, Katherine went out into the Savoy gardens. It was chilly, the clipped yew hedges and the shrouded rosebushes were drenched in grey mist, but she had flung a warm squirrel-lined cloak over the grey woolsey. Nor would she have felt the cold in any case, while she paced the deserted brick paths and thought of her new-found decision.
She would leave here tomorrow. She and Hawise and the Kenilworth servants who had come down with them would return there at once. She would pick up her children and hasten to Lincolnshire - to Kettlethorpe.
John might be momentarily annoyed at her taking their two babies from the luxury of Kenilworth, but since they obviously no longer interested him any more than she did herself, his protest would be a formality. He should have no cause to reproach her for negligence in her duties to Philippa and Elizabeth either. Until he should appoint a new governess, Lady Dacre here at the Savoy would be delighted to wait upon Philippa - and delighted to get rid of me, Katherine thought. Well she knew that most of the ladies treated her with contempt when the Duke was not around. Secure in his love and protection she had always ignored these slights.