by Anya Seton
The kindly Pessoners tried to rally her spirits with sly jests and rough teasing. They were sorry for this bride who had no mother to weep with her, and no kin to dress her. Hawise indeed took over the latter rite, tending Katherine lovingly, anointing her with a fragrant essence of gillyflowers, dressing her in the Duchess’s green gown, which had been cleansed and freshened yesterday by one of the Pessoner maids. She brushed the curling dark auburn hair until it gleamed like Bohemian garnets, and left the mantle of hair to flow loose down to Katherine’s knees in token of virginity. She set a bridal wreath of garden flowers on the girl’s head, volubly cursing the rain as she did so. “But don’t ye mind, my sweeting, mayhap it’ll clear, thanks be to Saint Swithin!” Her heart ached for this still, quiet figure who allowed herself to be dressed and tended like a wax image, when yesterday she had been all rosy laughter. Bad luck, thought Hawise sadly, that it should rain, always an ominous wedding portent, and worse hick yet to be married in May. Blessed Mary grant the girl didn’t know that, being yet so unworldly, or it might further depress her spirits.
The Pessoner parish church, St. Magnus, had but just finished ringing for Tierce when there was a knock at the door. It was Philippa with Geoffrey, come to conduct the bride to St. Clement’s.
“She’s ready,” said Hawise, drawing the hood carefully over Katherine’s wreath to protect it from the rain and fastening the cloak at the neck with the Queen’s brooch.
“And a most beautiful bride,” said Geoffrey, chucking Katherine gently under the chin; but his gaze lacked its usual alertness. He had been up the last two nights with his father, who still lingered. Both he and Philippa were tired and distraught. Philippa, in fact, could scarce keep her mind on the marriage, because now Dame Agnes Chaucer had taken ill, too, with vomiting and purging, and the neighbour who had come in to tend house in their absence seemed doltish as a sheep.
It was a silent, dripping-wet little company that plodded on foot along Thames Street towards Ludgate. Hawise came with them, and Jack Maudelyn, who had sneaked off from his loom. Katherine had asked them both yesterday when the world had been joyous and gay.
When they reached St. Clement Danes they saw Hugh and Ellis on horseback, awaiting them by the lych-gate. Katherine raised her eyes once to Hugh. She saw a kind of fearing relief in his taut face, and that he was close-shaven; his stubborn beard subdued with oil, his crinkled hair, too, smoothed down and closer cut. She saw the scar across his cheek stand out purple on his flushed skin, and that his lips trembled. She saw all these things as though she looked through mist. Hugh seemed not real, she herself seemed not real, and she moved obediently and gave her hand and murmured answers like a docile child.
They stood first in the church porch, outside the iron-hinged door. There was a priest, called Father Oswald. There were vows. Geoffrey, Philippa, Ellis, Hawise and Jack pressed close, crowded under the porch to keep out of the rain. The priest then opened the door and they all went into the church. It was dank and musty and smelled of burning mutton fat from the votive candles at St. Clement’s shrine. There were two wax tapers lit at the altar. A fitful grey light came through the coarse glass windows. Hugh and Katherine knelt at the altar rail, the others on prie-dieus behind. A runny-nosed little acolyte darted out from the vestry, and the priest turned to start the celebration of Mass.
Katherine heard a commotion in the nave, the sound of footsteps on the stone floor, the clink of metal, the rustle of garments. The priest faltered and paused, he swallowed nervously, staring into the back of the church, then he went on hastily with the Mass. Katherine did not turn her head; she felt no curiosity; she fixed her eyes on the gilded dove above the tabernacle, and her lips moved mechanically.
But Hugh turned to see, and she heard him make an exultant sound under his breath. She wondered vaguely why. The Mass went on, the bridal couple communicated. It was over. The priest spread his hands and said, “Benedicite. Go in peace, my children,” then surreptitiously cuffed the altar boy who had forgotten his duties and stood staring open-mouthed into the nave.
Hugh should have kissed her then, but he did not. He still held her hand as the priest had joined them, and his grasp tightened as he pulled her sharply around and after him down the aisle.
It was the Duke and Duchess of Lancaster who stood there by the west door. They were most splendidly apparelled in crimsons and gold and jewels, and they each wore their ducal coronets, for they were going to a state banquet later. They lit up the grey church like torches.
“We’re deeply honoured, my lord and lady,” stammered Hugh, dragging Katherine after him. She pulled her hand from his and curtsied low.
The Duchess smiled. “We thought to wish you well at your wedding.” It had been by chance that she had heard of it, through the gossip of one of her ladies who knew Ellis de Thoresby, but then her interest in Katherine had revived. She had asked the Duke to accompany her to the church, since it would be a matter of a few minutes only, and been a trifle surprised that he consented so readily, but thought he had decided to reinstate Hugh as a wedding boon. Yet now he did not look at Hugh, nor return his greeting. Instead he stood staring fixedly at Katherine.
“You’ve not kissed your wife, Swynford,” said the Duke in a deep mocking voice. “It seems you need example.” He leaned over, with a certain swift grace peculiar to him. He drew Katherine into his arms and kissed her slowly, deliberately, on the mouth. Fire shot through her, and as she gasped, her lips opened under his. In mat instant she felt the hardness of his body under the velvet surcote and melting sweetness flowed through her bones, depriving her of strength. The Duke, feeling her yield, tightened his arms to support her. Then he released her, and laughed. “Her mouth tastes of honey, Swynford. Fortunate you are that you may drink your fill.”
He spoke thus tauntingly, and gazed at Hugh with careless arrogance, to hide a perplexing emotion he had felt as the girl’s lips opened under his. Not desire, nor surprise that her body should be so tender, though both these thoughts had come to him, but a strange new impulse to protect.
Hugh’s face was flushed with anger, knots stood out on his jaw, but he dared say nothing. He grabbed Katherine and gave her a rough, clumsy kiss. She scarcely noticed it. Her whole mind was bent on recovery, on controlling the trembling of her knees, and hiding tears that had stung her eyes as the Duke released her. For shame she could not raise her eyes towards the Duchess. But the Lady Blanche saw nothing out of the way. There were always kissings and sport at a wedding.
And now that they had honoured the couple, the Duchess was anxious to hasten on to the banquet which could not start until they arrived. She held her long white hand out to Katherine, kissed her on the cheek and said, “May God bless your marriage-bed, my dear, and make it fruitful. I’ll see you again, no doubt, later this year in Lincolnshire, for I intend going to Bolingbroke when my Lord Duke sails for Aquitaine.” Her gracious smile drifted from Hugh and Katherine over the rest of the wedding guests, who stood silently respectful farther up the nave. She slipped her hand through the Duke’s arm.
The Duke said “Farewell,” and bowing slightly, turned on his heel, his gold spur clinking against a stone column. He found that the thought of Katherine’s marriage-bed disgusted him. Nor did he feel as tolerant of Swynford as he had. Were it not for the need of good fighters in Castile-He snapped off these confused thoughts, and with Blanche joined their mounted retinue which awaited them on the street.
In the church porch, the others clustered around the bridal pair and offered awed congratulations. Philippa was delighted at the honour done her sister, and said so repeatedly. “Nearly as grand as though the Queen herself had come! I couldn’t believe my eyes!”
Hawise was much excited at having seen these great folk so near. “Was there ever so stalwart and fair a man as the Duke!” she cried to Jack, who did not share her enthusiasm, but scowled, and grumbled that gold, jewels and coronets would make any man look handsome to a foolish woman.
Hawise p
aid no attention to this and turning to Katherine cried, giggling, “Cock’s bones, I just wish it’d been me he kissed on the mouth so - so masterful - like he did you, my lady!”
My lady. Katherine heard her new title with shock. I’m the Lady Katherine Swynford, the wife of a knight. This is my husband. She stole a frightened glance at Hugh but he had turned his back and was conferring acidly with Ellis about a loose girth on his saddle.
Only Geoffrey made no comment on the unexpected appearance of the Lancasters. Perceptive as always, he had seen more in the Duke’s kiss and Katherine’s reaction to it than a careless gesture, and his eyes had flown in loyal anger to the Lady Blanche’s lovely unconscious face.
No, she would never suspect evil. Remote and shining as the moon, no grosser passions touched her. Yet for the first time in his long worship, Geoffrey wondered what it would be like to be mated to the moon, so cool and predictable and exalted. And then he smiled and reproved himself for harbouring foolish whimsies, because he had felt during that moment in the dingy church an odd fear, as though some turbulent, even menacing, force had been set in motion. One that none of these people, not even the all-powerful Duke and Duchess, might be able to withstand.
CHAPTER VI
Katherine’s wedding night was spent at a pilgrim inn near Waltham Abbey. Hugh had meant to go farther, but he listened to Katherine’s timid plea that she might stop and see the famous shrine of the black cross as they passed by. He was himself now willing to postpone the hour when they would be alone. Nervousness diminished his desire for her and at the thought that he would soon make her wholly his he grew afraid. She seemed to him unearthly beautiful, sitting straight and quiet on the little dappled palfrey he had given her. She had thanked him for the mare with startled gratitude, her voice soft-toned as he had never yet heard it for him. This had caused his heart to quiver and jump like a hare’s. Hugh was not in the least devout; he had never bothered to visit any shrine before, but Waltham Abbey was of some interest to him because it was no Norman shrine. It held the bones of Harold, the last Saxon king, and its miraculous black marble cross had been placed here by Tofig, a Danish thane.
As he and Katherine took their place amongst other pilgrims in the abbey, the huge shadowed nave inspired Hugh with awe, while the brass spirals on the thick round columns seemed to writhe at him like snakes. No holy feeling did they engender, but rather a superstitious shrinking that stirred the hairs on the back of his neck. And after they mounted the pilgrim’s steps, while he looked up at the black cross, a strange thing happened. Somehow the buckle which fastened his scabbard to the belt had loosened; as he bent his knee, his sword fell to the pavement with a great clatter, then rolled down the steps to the chancel floor, where it lay pointing towards the western door.
The other pilgrims shrank back, murmuring and exclaiming. It was a sign, they said, that the Holy Cross was angry with the knight. It wanted none of his worship and had flung off his sword to point in such a way that he must leave the sanctuary. And they looked askance at Hugh, wondering what secret sin he might be guilty of.
Then a fat monk hurried up from behind the shrine, and said that indeed it was a sign, almost a miracle, but they must be careful of interpretation. He deemed that the Holy Cross wished the sword offered to it as a gift, that only in this way could the knight appease divine wrath.
Hugh stood silent on the top step gazing down at his fallen sword. The scabbard was of silver-gut intricately carved, the sword itself of finest Damascus steel, the hilt encrusted with small rough emeralds. This sword had been his father’s and had saved Hugh’s own life in France and in many a skirmish since. He looked down at it with fear, feeling that in some way his manhood, too, had fallen from him, and he shook his head muttering, “I will not give up the sword.”
The people jostled and exclaimed again, whispering that hell fire would claim the knight for such disobedience, and one old crone lifted her wheezy voice to cry that she had seen a great white hand dart through the air from the Holy Cross and strike the sword off the knight’s girdle.
The monk peered into Hugh’s shut face, and finally said that there might be another way to avert wrath. The shrine had need of embellishment. The Holy Rood at Bromholme, though but a mean inferior miracle-worker, had a new cloth of woven gold, but there was none like that here. It might be that for the price of the sword the Blessed Cross would be appeased.
Hugh looked from the monk to the heavy black cross. A tiny image of the Saviour had been fastened to its gleaming surface, but the cross breathed neither of pity nor redemption. Like the stone idols his ancestors had worshipped, it towered dark and sinister above him. What portent was this for his marriage? He saw that Katherine had drawn aside from the other pilgrims and stood watching, her cheeks gleaming white in the darkness of her hood.
He opened his purse and put four marks into the monk’s outstretched hand. The monk’s splay fingers closed over them. He murmured benediction and walked quickly back behind the shrine. Now the people murmured again, some thinking the knight got off too easily, but most thought that so great a sum would surely propitiate the cross.
Hugh descended the steps, picked up his sword and strode from the church, while Katherine walked after him. She had been frightened at the shrine when the sword clattered down and the people cried it was a sign. But when she saw fear on Hugh’s face, too, she had felt a twinge of doubt. Had it been the Blessed Virgin or a saint he had somehow offended, she would not have questioned, but this lumpish black stone which contained not even a relic of the true cross seemed to her an ugly thing. Might it not have been that the sword had fallen because Hugh, hindered by his wounded hand, had not fastened it properly? And the fat monk with greedy piggish eyes, had he not been overglib in his interpretations? Yet, she realised with sudden shame, these were impious thoughts, and perhaps she entertained them only so that she need not think of the moment which was fast approaching.
They went to a mean and shabby inn, The Pelican, because Hugh had given up nearly all the money that he had, nor would he seek free shelter for them at the abbey hostel, where they would have been separated into different dorters.
The stuffy little loft-room assigned them at the inn was no fitting bridal bower. The straw was mouldy on the square box bed and hidden but in part by stained old quilts. Smoke seeped up through the rough planking from the kitchen fire below and in the dusty corners black beetles scampered.
Hugh looked sideways at Katherine, then he shouted for Ellis to bring up a flagon of strong ale, and of this he drank cup after cup in frantic haste as though he drank for a wager. He offered some to Katherine, but she merely wet her lips, and gave him back the cup. She had become very still, and stood by the tiny-window, gazing out into the twilight towards the abbey. It seemed to her like a crouching beast; the chancel was its head, the double transepts its arms and legs, the nave its massive tail. A monster, ready to spring at her through the dusk. She turned her head a moment when Hugh banged down the oaken strip that bolted the door. She saw that his face had grown dark red, and heard the sound of his breathing. She shrank nearer to the window, and her hand clenched on the sill.
He came up behind her, gripping her shoulders with furious strength. “Katherine!” he cried, his voice as though he hated her. “Katherine - -” The pain of his grip on her shoulders almost made her scream, and yet she knew that his fury was not directed at her, and through her fear, pity flickered and was gone.
In the quiet dawn light after Katherine had been weeping for many hours, she heard the nightingales singing from a thicket behind the inn. She lay and listened to their carefree bubbling song and at first it seemed to her an unbearable mockery. She eased her bruised body into a new position as far on the straw from Hugh as possible. He lay on his back snoring heavily; the room stank of sour ale and sweat. But as she listened to the nightingales, her tears dried, some peace crept into her heart, with a tough strength. She thought that no matter how her body was violated, it could not af
fect her unless she let it. She was still Katherine, and she could withdraw with this knowledge into the secret chamber where no one else might penetrate by violence. She could surround herself with an impregnable wall of hidden loathing and contempt.
As she thought this the abbey bells began to call the monks to Matins. The clangour of the great-throated bells and then the chanting of male voices drowned out the nightingales. Her hand went to her beads, and she began the Ave, but the beads slipped from lax fingers. What can the spotless Queen of Heaven know of that which befell me this night, what can Saint Catherine know, who was a virgin martyr? Leaning down from their purity, they may be gracious, but they cannot truly understand. So I am alone. I need nobody else. All that must be, I can endure alone.
Hugh stirred and murmured in his sleep. He reached his arm out as though he searched for her. She lay motionless, watching him, coldly, through narrowed lids. He looked younger in his sleep, yet his mouth drew in tight at the corners as though he suffered. His groping hand found the spilled masses of her hair and grasping a strand he pulled it to his cheek so that the jagged scar lay on her hair.
His gesture did not touch her, he was as alien to her now as had been the panting, heaving beast earlier. But she would never be afraid of him again, nothing that he did could touch her. She would be a dutiful wife, she would accept the hard lot that fate had given her, but yet she would be free. Because he loved and lusted and floundered, while she did not, she would be forever free.
Thus Katherine thought on her first morning of wifehood in the ugly loft-room of the inn at Waltham Cross.
On their way up to Lincolnshire, Hugh, Katherine and Ellis spent three more nights on the road. Katherine was neither happy nor sad. She treated Hugh in a cool, friendly enough manner, acceded indifferently to his nightly demands, and yielded nothing of her inward self. He marked with jealousy that she spoke to Ellis in the same polite aloof way she spoke to him, and that all her warmth and tender pleasure went to the little mare he had given her. She had named it Doucette, saying that it was sweet as the doucettes of cream and sugar she had tasted at Windsor, and she was forever patting its neck and murmuring little love words to it. Hugh felt hot anger at the horse, but this he tried to hide, being afraid of Katherine’s scorn.
