by Anya Seton
Her wide grey eyes fixed on him with compassion, but her tone was cool and searching as when she rebuked her children; “Of what, my dear lord, are you so afraid?”
He gasped and raised his hand as though to strike her.
“No, dear,” she said. “To hit me’ll do no good. All these last months have you not been striking out, and has it eased you? You know that it hasn’t. I believe that to speak out might ease you. I love you, John, trust me.”
He listened, looking at her and then away. “No man or woman has ever thought me a coward,” he whispered. “And now you, who say you love me - -”
“Holy Christ, my dearest, you’re no coward. I know well how you lead your men in battle, and how you’ve risked your life a thousand times, and yet there is something that you fear.”
The angry force drained from him. His big shoulders sagged, and he said in a listless voice. “Witchcraft - witchcraft - the man must die this night, for he has cast on me a monstrous spell.” He made the sign of the cross and turning, walked to the cushioned banquette beneath the window, sat down and rested his head in his hands.
“You are the strongest, the most powerful man in England, my dear lord, so can you not be merciful?”
His head twisted around and he looked at her strangely. “Isolda said that! When we vowed in the chapel. But she did not keep her vow”
Blessed Virgin, he’s drunk, she thought, trying to check her terror that this might be worse than drunkenness. “Isolda?” she questioned, as steadily as she could.
“Isolda Neumann - my foster mother.” And having said it, he sighed and added in a tone of wonder, “In all these years I’ve never spoken her name.” He reached over for the flagon and his crystal cup, poured until the rich golden wine splashed on the table and drank.
Katherine was amazed. She guessed that she was circling nearer to the answer, but what was this of his milk-nurse, and vows in a chapel, and why had he never spoken the woman’s name? She dared not question too much, fearful of rupturing this quieter mood.
She glanced frowning at the State Bed, where the Prince had died - still hung with gloomy sable mourning velvet - when John spoke again.
“The man you asked me of, the one I shall kill, is Pieter Neumann, who was Isolda’s son.”
“Ah,” Katherine breathed, still more startled and trying to understand this revelation. She ventured on what seemed at first sight to be likely. “And he injured his mother in some way? And you, loving her very much perhaps, have not forgiven?” She stopped, for as she spoke this sounded too weak, too pat.
Yet John said, “Yes,” with a peculiar quickness. “Yes, that was it.” He glanced off from the truth, she knew. What was it the Princess had said of the man in sanctuary? “Some knave that wrote placards about the Duke.” The placard on Paul’s door - the ridiculous changeling slander.
He stood up suddenly, swayed and caught at the table. “Late,” he said thickly, “must go. Don’t like your eyes - Ka-Katrine - grey eyes that lie - break vows - she said she’d never leave me but she did - she vowed something else - else - vowed Pieter had lied-” He rolled his head back and
forth as though to rid it of a weight, and stumbled a few steps.
Katherine ran to him and flung her arms around him. “Here, dear love, you must rest.”
He stumbled again and by wedging her shoulder beneath his armpit she got him to the bed. He fell prone on to the black coverlet amongst the embroidered argent ostrich feathers.
As she brought a candle to the bedstead and herself climbed up beside him, pulling her furred cape over them both, he rolled over on to his back, and he began to speak in thick disconnected sentences.
She leaned over him and listened while her heart pounded with her desperate effort to understand what he would tell her. At first she thought he did not know that she was there and that these were only drunken ramblings, but his eyes opened, and he looked at her with recognition, though his speech was so slow and heavy that she could scarcely follow the words.
Vows in the Chapel of St. George at Windsor, broken vows. He said it over and over. Isolda had betrayed him.
“How, darling?” Katherine whispered at last. “How did she betray you?” and thought she should not have spoken for he grew silent, and turned his head away, gazing vaguely at the black folds of the bed curtains.
But after a while he spoke. “She went away that night, though she vowed she’d never leave me. She died,” he added in a fainter voice. “She died of plague.”
Katherine waited tensely. This was no moment for reason, for saying that Isolda could not help her death.
“She lied in that,” said John. Suddenly he struggled up on to his elbow and staring into Katherine’s white face he said with a remote and terrible quietness, “So perhaps she lied when she denied what Pieter said at Windsor.”
“What Pieter said-” repeated Katherine. “What Pieter said?”
“Changeling,” he muttered. His lips drew away from his teeth and he fell back onto the pillow. “Jesu,” she whispered. “Jesu - now I can see-“
She twisted up on to her knees and crouching over him she cried, “And you believed it then, that you were naught but a butcher’s son? Part of you believes it now! It is this that you must prove to England - to yourself - John, look at me!”
She took him by the shoulders and shook him. “Wake up and listen! It’s the foolish frightened child in you that believes this. As your son believes that a playful calf is a werewolf!”
He gazed up bewildered at her grey eyes shining in the candlelight. They were desperate in her desire to reach him. The fog cleared a little in his mind.
“Isolda told you the truth!” she cried. “Oh, John - you who are most like the King of all his sons, so like that men say you are twin to what he was when young. How could you doubt your birth?”
He moistened his lips and gave a curt harsh laugh. “I did not know that I doubted it - until tonight.” His hand moved gropingly and caught a fold of her skirt, and his eyes closed.
She stretched herself beside him and took his head against her breast. He did not know it, though he moved as though seeking the position in which they had so often lain together. His breaths grew quiet and even.
The Duke slept nearly the clock around, and for many hours without stirring.
When the palace bells rang for morning Mass, there was a knock on the door of the State Chamber. Katherine, slipping her arm carefully from beneath John’s head, hurried from the bed.
She opened the door and held her fingers to her lips.
The Princess stood in the passage round-eyed and anxious. “Is all well?” she whispered, noting Katherine’s dishevelment: the grey gown twisted and wrinkled, the great coils of bronze hair that had tumbled on her shoulders, the white tiredness of the girl’s drawn face.
Katherine stepped out in the passage. “I hope so, madam,” she said gravely. “He sleeps.”
The Princess, enfolding Katherine in a smother of soft-scented flesh, kissed her impulsively. “Ah my dear, if you have by any means brought him out of these fits of mad revenge, God will bless you as I do.” She went down the passage towards the chapel thinking that all the rumours she had heard about John’s leman were false, and that it was a sorry shame that Katherine could not have been born Queen of Castile instead of that cold dark foreigner at Hertford Castle.
All that day, while the outer world hummed and messages went back and forth to the Savoy, Katherine stayed in the State Chamber watching over John as he slept. Robin brought food and drink to the door, and she took a little. Sometimes she rested, far on the outer edge of the bed so as not to disturb him. And she thought long and hard about this secret thing that had so deeply troubled him. She saw on what twofold foundation the whole structure of his early life had been built: Isolda’s love and the sacred privilege of royal birth. And that when to the child’s view these two had dropped away from under him together, a part of him had shattered as truly as though a mine had exp
loded at his feet.
Yet he was strong and tough as had been his father, and most of the royal Norman line; while from his mother he had staunch Flemish common sense. So time had passed and he had built his world up again, and forgotten this shock that had frightened him once - until the placard brought it back, hideously grown because now the whole of England witnessed it. Since then this buried dread had gripped him and he had fought back as a child does with blind fury. And yet because he was not a child but a man, composed by now of as many colours and shapes as a painted glass window, there had been deep-seated struggle in his soul. For he was merciful, by nature, never had he killed senselessly or maimed even in war, as his brothers had done, and of all Edward’s sons he was the most sensitive.
Katherine thought this and much else throughout the long day. She thought of the fearful power of a lie, of all evil - and she thought of her own children, and how she had believed herself capable of guiding their lives rightfully, of easily salving their hurts, and that by providing for their mind and body nurture she had fended off all harm.
Now she was uncertain, and dismayed. Little John’s misconception about the calf was minor enough, and would pass in time; but what other concealed demons might not be preying on a child?
And with a painful twisting at the heart she saw Blanchette’s stricken eyes as she had looked up from her embroidery the last day at Kenilworth. It was useless to deny that her firstborn and dearest child had lost her old happy confidence and was drawing away into some -bitter, jealous little climate of her own.
But what can I do? Katherine thought despairingly. She glanced towards John as he lay sleeping still. Her love for him had grown tenfold since he had trusted her last night with a glimpse of his naked soul. Yet yesterday she had been swamped with a resentful pride, even with the hatred that seemed welded, like the obverse of a shield, to love. What then was certain? What was there that would not shift and veer at the mercy of the winds of feeling?
Sanctity, the clergy said. Prayer. The practice of religion. The benevolence of the holy saints. The Grace of God.
Katherine rose and walked to the Prince of Wales’ prie-dieu in the corner beyond the armour. A gilt, elaborately enamelled triptych hung above the prayer desk. The centre panel depicted Calvary, the side ones snowed various tortures of the damned. These were intricately detailed: naked bodies writhed in orange flames, and from severed limbs and seared eyes dripped ruby gouts of blood. The Christ’s face on the Cross expressed only contorted agony and above the panels was written, “Repent Ye!”
She gazed at the triptych with repulsion. Here was no message of steadfastness. Here naught but warning and more fear. Her rebellion grew, and she wondered, What guidance do we truly get from the saints or even from the Blessed Mother and Her Son? Why did not they, or St. John, protect my lord from harm?
What of the vow she herself had made to St. Catherine in the storm at sea? Had the saint in truth really saved her? And this vow she now felt had had nothing to do with heavenly guidance. The necessity of faithfulness to Hugh, however bitter, had sprung from her own self-esteem, her own integrity. For I believe, thought Katherine, there is nothing beyond or above ourselves.
At once - and for an instant she was frightened - she heard plain in her head how Brother William would cry “Heresy!” in his stern tired voice. Then she forgot her painful questions and ran to the bedside, for John stirred and said, “Katrine?”
“My lord,” she whispered, bending over him.
His eyes were clear as the sky of Aquitaine, and the smile he gave was one she had not seen in long. He reached his arms up and pulling her down kissed her hard on the mouth. Then he sat up and yawned and said, “Christ, what a sleep I’ve had -” He looked at the curtained window. “Is’t dark still?’
“Again!” she answered smiling. “You’ve slept the day through.”
“By the rood! And did I then?” He scooped his hair back from his forehead and stretched prodigiously. He ran his tongue around his mouth and said, “Dry as tinder. It seems that I was drunk last night - it seems to me too that I babbled much nonsense.” He quirked his brows and looked at her half laughing.
“You don’t remember?” she said softly.
“Nay - only that you were near me, and most patient. And that I love you, sweet heart.” He pinched her cheek and grinned at her. “I shall prove it soon - but not in this gloomy bed. Lord, what a dismal room. We must get back to the Savoy.”
He got up and walked into the garderobe. She heard him whistling beneath his breath and the splashing of water. “Send for food, lovedy,” he called to her, “I’m famished.”
She picked up the handbell and rang it. There was a pause before it was answered, for the page, who stood ever ready in the passage, had been given orders.
When the door opened, it was the Princess who came in, and with her was her chief adviser, Sir Simon Burley, a grave-eyed conscientious man whose grizzled beard waggled anxiously as he said, “The Duke’s awake?”
Katherine nodded and gestured towards the garderobe. John walked out, his face and neck still aglow from the vigorous sluicing he had given them. “Good evening, Joan,” he said to his sister-in-law. “Did you think you had old Morpheus himself for guest?” He turned to Burley, “And you, Sir Simon, I see by that long face that there’s more ill news. Can’t it wait until I’m fed?”
“My lord, of course, but you should know that a deputation of Londoners have gone off to Sheen, to the King’s Grace to beg him to reconcile your quarrel with the City. They know your troops are massing at the Savoy. The-people are affrighted.”
“And so they should be,” said John with calm sternness, “and shall make just reparation.”
The Princess and Burley glanced at each other both remembering the terrible rage of yesterday, the threats of war, of violation to St. Paul’s, of murdering revenge.
“What is just reparation, my lord?” said the Princess nervously.
“By corpus’ bones, Joan! I’ll decide that when I’ve got to Sheen and heard what they offer. Certain it is our poor father won’t know what to do. My sweet sister, have your cooks all been drowned in the Thames? Or shall I roast a leg of yonder chair myself over the fire?”
The Princess laughed and called orders to the hovering page.
“My lord,” she said, her fair fat face all a-quiver with relief, “you sound yourself again. Your sleep did great good.” Impatience, arrogance and sternness he showed as always, but she saw that the wild consuming unreason had left him, and she sent Katherine a look of deepest gratitude.
CHAPTER XXI
Neither Katherine nor the Duke ever mentioned the night at Kennington Palace, though it had an immediate effect on their relationship.
His need for her deepened, he talked to her more freely about all his concerns, and he kept her with him constantly, showing her many public as well as private signs of his love.
Katherine bore herself with discretion, but all of the Duke’s meinie, and soon many others outside, grew aware of her new status. At the Savoy, her lodging was changed from the Monmouth Wing, nor was she put in the small room near the Privy Suite which she had occupied on earlier visits. She was given the Duchess’ small solar adjacent to the State Chamber, while her nights were spent with John in the Avalon Chamber’s ruby velvet bed. At the High Table in the Hall her seat was shifted to one next to the Duke, and though decorum was observed by the vacancy of the Duchess’ place to his right, it pleased John to order for Katherine a chair no less magnificent than his own, with gilt carvings, topaz velvet cushions, and her embossed Catherine wheels for a headrest.
These elevations naturally set many spiteful tongues to wagging, but they wagged in secret, not only for fear of the Duke, but because the Princess Joan made plain her tolerance of the situation and treated Lady Swynford with marked favour.
The Duke had received the frightened London deputation at Sheen and after listening to their apologies and extenuations, had exacted mild enough
punishment - a public penitential procession to St. Paul’s in which the City dignitaries should carry a candle painted with his coat of arms - and had ordered that the unnamed instigators of the disturbance should be excommunicated. When these orders had been grudgingly obeyed, he saw to it that the obnoxious parliamentary bill to curtail the City’s liberties was quietly dropped. When the people demanded a fair trial for Peter de la Mare, who was still imprisoned in Nottingham, this was granted. In the course of some weeks the Speaker of the Commons was released and rode in triumph back to London.
Against William of Wykeham the Duke’s hostility lasted longer, since he was not adverse to making an example of the bishop as a lesson to the episcopal party.
Upon finding the Duke implacable, Bishop Wykeham bethought him of another method to regain his rich temporalities, and by the promise of a colossal bribe to Alice Perrers, convinced that lady, and through her the King, of the injustice of his pitiable poverty. King Edward duly signed a bill for Wykeham’s restitution.
John when he heard this was displeased, but he shrugged and let the matter rest. This happened in June when the King was obviously failing and there was a great deal else to be thought of besides the chastisement of one fat greedy bishop.
Katherine was interested to hear of these various clement measures and gradually began to understand something of the conflicting ambitions and turbulence which made difficult any clear cut policy.
But in the matter of Pieter Neumann’s fate she felt vivid personal concern. And on this one topic, John would not speak to her. She saw that the hidden wound, though purged of its prurience and healing rapidly, yet would always leave a sensitive scar, and she forbore any mention of Pieter, though she ached to know what had been done with him.
She found out at last in Easter-tide, on Maundy Thursday after the foot-washing ceremony. On this Thursday the act of humility in imitation of the Blessed Christ was performed throughout the Christian world in palaces, monasteries and manors, and at the Savoy the line of beggars began to form in the Outer Ward directly after Mass. It was customary to number the poor by the age of the lord who would humble himself to them, but the Duke magnificently augmented his own thirty-seven years by the ages of his three Lancastrian children, thus making forty additional ragged and filthy candidates to be honoured.
