by Anya Seton
No one else took much notice of the Duke and Katherine, all eyes were turned on the Lord of Misrule, the bridal couple and the King; but Geoffrey Chaucer watched his sister-in-law with sharp interest.
By the rood, thought Geoffrey, settling back in slightly tipsy contentment, little Katherine had thoroughly tamed that fierce Plantagenet leopard! It must be nine years that she had enthralled him, and to judge by the Duke’s attitude now, his passion for her was strong as ever. That was a long time for the sweet fire to burn so bright, Geoffrey thought with a touch of envy, yet he had always deemed Katherine an exceptional woman. She had borne six children, she must be about thirty, but her beauty was undimmed, though it had acquired assurance and lost the touching wistfulness. The new quality was not brazenness, certainly; Katherine could never be that. Yet there were changes. Her gown was low-cut as that of Edmund’s promiscuous Isabella, and Katherine leaned openly against the Duke’s shoulder as she had never used to. Still, her grey eyes were clear as crystal, her high white brow smooth as a girl’s and the new-fashioned Bohemian headdress gave to her a look of shining delicacy. Though on many women the balanced crescent moon above their faces unfortunately suggested a horned cow. It was so with his Philippa.
It was a year of weddings and matchmaking. The Duke, singlehearted in all that he did, having turned his mind to domestic matters, had now married off two of his children in ways most advantageous to their prosperity if not their happiness. However, nobody expected happiness from marriage and least of all the Duke, though he had achieved it once. Even now, though Geoffrey was fat and forty, his staid heart felt a springtime thrill at the memory of the Duchess Blanche.
The Duke had procured for his Henry another great English heiress, such as Blanche had been, but the marriage of these two children promised no such felicity. Henry was thirteen and his bride twelve. Up there at the High Table, in her glittering finery, one could see the child trembling like a little white leveret. But she would return to her mother’s care tomorrow. The Duke had no intention of prematurely taxing the breeding powers that would eventually produce the next Lancastrian heir, though some less wise fathers threw the children into bed together at any age and accepted whatever consequences might arise.
“She’s an ill-tempered vixen,” asserted Philippa suddenly, enunciating with great care. “She’s scowling at me.”
“Who?” asked Geoffrey, looking around.
Philippa raised her spoon and pointed at the hawk-nosed Countess of Buckingham. “Her. Bride’s sister.”
Geoffrey said, “Nonsense!” soothingly. ” ‘Tis simply that she dislikes this wedding, scowls at everyone.”
Though it was true that Eleanor de Bohun’s angry eyes rested on Philippa’s dishevelment with disgust, her fish mouth was set in continual disapproval anyway. Thomas of Woodstock’s wife vehemently agreed with her husband, and resented the Duke’s perfidy in snatching her little sister from the convent where they had sent her to be a nun. Mary’s return to secular life and marriage to Henry reinstated her as coheiress to the vast Bohun fortune and correspondingly halved Eleanor’s share.
Only an uneasy desire to keep an eye on the proceedings, lest worse befall, had brought Eleanor to the wedding at all, and she made no effort to be civil.
“She glares at me,” retorted Philippa belligerently, “because she dares not be rude to Katherine. Oh, I heard her in the garderobe, squawking to her ladies that I’d no right to be seated above the salt. She called me a pantry wench married to naught but a scribbling wool-counter.”
Geoffrey recrossed his legs and considered with amusement the Lady Eleanor’s contempt. Scribbling wool-counter no doubt he was, but a much travelled one on the King’s secret service. Peace negotiations, royal marriage negotiations, in France, in Flanders, in Italy, he had acquitted himself well in these. Though general recognition might be pleasant, its absence was not upsetting.
“I wot myself best how I stand
For what I dree, or what I think
I will mysehen all it drink….”
He had written that in his poem on the unreliability of Fame, verses he had started at Kenilworth and never quite finished. He had abandoned it before the end since the royal “love tidings” he had meant to celebrate had not materialised. The little Princess Marie of France had died before she could be betrothed to Richard.
There were love tidings aplenty now to celebrate. He glanced again at the new-wed couple. Henry, chunky and serious in his white velvet suit, was politely trying to entertain his pop-eyed bride by carving a horse out of bread. And Geoffrey looked at the King, whose betrothal to Anne of Bohemia, sister of the Holy Roman Emperor, would soon be public.
Richard at barely fourteen still resembled a golden meadow full of pink and white daisies. His German bride-to-be, a year older, was reputed to be lumpish and brown as a nut. It was hard to fit either the flowery conceits of courtly love, or the forthright pleasures of mature mating to these dynastic marriages of children.
Geoffrey’s eyes veered to the Lady Elizabeth, the Duke’s younger daughter. Her marriage yielded even less inspiration. At Kenilworth last summer when Elizabeth was sixteen she had become the Countess of Pembroke by means of an eight-year-old husband, John Hastings, who had promptly suffered an attack of measles and returned to his mama for nursing.
There was grave doubt that Elizabeth would wait until the years should bring virility to her little husband. At this moment her cheeks were flushed, her dark eyes bright with wine, or lechery, as she lolled against John Holland and teased him with pouting lips. The King’s half-brother was no Joseph, and his repute for wenching was great. It was a wonder that the Duke did not curb his wild young hoyden, but the dallying pair were hidden from his sight behind a festoon of hanging bay-leaves, and none so easily hoodwinked as a fond father - except a husband.
There remained the Lady Philippa. Decorous as always, she sat smiling quietly at some quip made by her Uncle Edmund. Her pale hair was braided in the old manner at either side of her cheeks. She had much of her mother’s gentle dignity, but never Blanche’s beauty.
Of Philippa there had been many, abortive, love tidings. Scarcely a prince in Europe but had been mentioned for her husband, but none found to be suitable. So Philippa at twenty-one was as yet unwed, and happy that she was still virgin, Katherine had said.
Geoffrey’s eyelids drooped as he thought with sudden impatience that though poetical eulogies of royal matings often produced pleasing rewards, he no longer felt the requisite chivalric fervour to do them justice. St. Valentine concerned himself with common folk as well as courtly ones, and the saint’s influence on all folk was humorous enough to the onlooker. Yet it was no saint, nor Venus or Cupid, who moderated the affairs of love. No one but Dame Nature. And a gathering of amorous birds would serve to show various kinds of love as well as any gallant knights and languishing ladies. The turtle-dove, the falcon, the goose, the cuckoo and the eagle - he thought, much entertained with his idea - fowls of every kind, a parliament of fowls.
He started as a wand of jingling bells thumped him on the shoulder.
The Lord of Misrule stood on the inside of the board grinning down at him beneath a red-spotted half mask.
“Ho, Dan Chaucer!” shouted Robin. ” ‘Tis crime to doze when all make merry! In punishment we decree that you give us a rhyme. Come tell of love, my master! Tell us of love!”
Geoffrey laughed and rose. His loosened girdle fell off with a clatter of sword, another button popped off his surcote. “I am undone, Your Majesty,” he twinkled to Robin. “Your pardon.”
“Ay - granted - -ay,” cried the young squire, shaking his fool’s sceptre threateningly. “But sing to us of love!”
The young people on the dais ceased chattering as the King stood up, hushed the minstrels and watched expectantly. Richard had an eager appreciation of poetry as of all the arts, and though he preferred French, had read one or two of Master Geoffrey’s English translations with pleasure.
Katherine rose too, and seeing that it was Geoffrey that Robin teased, walked a few steps down the Hall and smiled at him encouragingly.
Geoffrey bowed, lifted his arm in solemn invocation, and declaimed,
“Since I from Love escaped am so fat
I think no more to be in prison lean
Since I am free, I count him not a bean…”
He sat down.
There was a startled roar of indignation. “For shame, for shame,” called Richard on a trill of his high childish laughter. “My Lord of Misrule, you cannot pass so ungentle an offence! What penance will you give him?”
Robin waved his sceptre as he considered. “By Saint Venus, I command that he shall kiss his wife!”
Philippa bridled at the shouts that greeted this, but Geoffrey promptly rose again and, seizing her by the chin, kissed her heartily on the lips. ” ‘Tis naught so great a penance,” he cried, and her indignant splutterings died away.
Then Robin’s usually level head forsook him. This brief time of power had made him drunker than the wassail. By all the rules of Christmas, no man could gainsay him, and he shouted exultantly, “Now shall each man kiss the lady of his heart!”
He whirled, and before she had the faintest conception of what he would do, Robin had covered the few steps between them and, grabbing Katherine around the waist, pressed his eager young mouth passionately to hers.
Few people saw it, because Robin’s command was being obeyed, in a whirl of fumblings and giggles and coquettish screams.
Katherine was so astounded that for a moment she could not move. She had continued to treat Robin as a boy and had come scarcely to notice the adoring looks he gave her, but this was no boyish peck. It was a man’s kiss, hot with desire, and when she finally jerked her head away, he whispered, “Three years I’ve waited for this, my heart’s life. I shall die if you be not kind to me!” and he kissed her again.
“Jesus, my poor Robin - you’re mad,” she whispered, pushing at his chest that was covered with gilt bells. Robin held her tighter and muttered a torrent of love words against her cheek. She gave him a great terrified shove - as a voice spoke beside them.
“Here’s a pretty little piece of Christmas mumming! ‘Twould seem you play your parts well.” The voice of stone, the eyes of murderous blue flint.
Robin’s arms slackened.
She released herself and cried wildly, “To be sure, my lord - why not? The King of Misrule must be obeyed, it seems he feels most sportive, and has just told me he would kiss all the ladies.”
“No!” cried Robin, past all caution, and still gazing at her through the mask. “I want only - -“
“The Lady Isabella,” cried Katherine, seizing the arm of Edmund’s fight-minded wife, and thrusting her at Robin. “Here’s a king dies of love for you, my lady!”
Isabella giggled and preened herself, her voluptuous Castilian eyes gleamed at Robin. She hiccuped gently and clutched at the young squire’s arm.
“My lord,” said Katherine to John, moving quickly, “shall we not join the dancing?” Here at Leicester a special chamber had been built for dancing. The King and the bride already were gyrating hand in hand in the popular Pavo.
“Nay, my lady,” said the Duke, “I do not feel like dancing.”
“You’re tired} my dearest lord, come to our solar, well rest awhile.”
“I feel no need of rest.” He did not look at her, the corners of his nostrils were dented white. He swung on his heels and strode under the minstrels’ gallery towards the guardroom, where his men-at-arms were feasting.
Katherine ran after him in great fear. She had forgotten in these three quiet years that his eyes could look like that-
“My lord,” she cried desperately, “you cannot be angry at a boy’s tipsy yuletide kiss. ” ‘Tis unworthy of you.”
At first she thought he would not heed, but at last he stopped by a torch-lit recess and turned on her. “Tipsy - ay! Wine makes a window for the truth. I marked well how little you resisted, no doubt because these kisses are not so unaccustomed.”
Her own eyes blazed as hot as his, but she knew that Robin’s safety depended on her control. “I must believe that this outrageous slur gives proof of your love,” she said trembling. “If you have lived so long with me and cannot trust, then all our life is mockery.”
John’s fists fell slowly open. Her bitter voice spoke to his heart but yet he was deafened by the shock he had felt when he saw her in another man’s arms. A new shattering pain, since never by word or deed had she given him cause for jealousy. He had seen how men admired her, but so sure had he always been of her love that no doubts had troubled him.
“If you did not welcome his kisses, why did you babble that folderol to protect him and thrust Isabella at him?” he cried. “And why didn’t you strike his foul slobbering face?”
Why not? she thought. Why, because she liked Robin and love is not so plentiful in this world that one should receive it anywhere with odium. But this she could not say, so she told part of the truth.
“I spoke for fear of you, my lord. What you might do - - “
“You think you need to guard my honour?” he cried with new fury. “This yeoman churl that I hired as squire, did you think I’d challenge him to knightly combat! Indeed Katrine, ‘tis your own peasant blood that speaks - ‘tis perhaps the bond between you two.”
“Ay - Your Grace?” said Katherine, flatly, staring at him. After a moment she continued, “I thought you would set your guards on him - though your chivalry might well breed mercy to such lowborn folk as Robin - and me.”
Katherine’s eyes stared into those of the Duke.
At last he sighed and dropped his head. “I’m sorry, Katrine,” he said unsteadily, “but the sight of you in that ribaud’s arms - -” His hands shot out. He grabbed her shoulders and yanked her towards him. He bent and kissed her savagery. “Were his kisses sweet as mine, lovedy! Did your mouth open for him too?”
His fingers dug into her shoulders until the skin sprang up livid. She gave a sobbing laugh. “You know that you are my whole life - you know it - -“
“Dear Christ, that I should love you still like this,” he said through his teeth. “That I can desire you now, as much, nay, more than I did in Bordeaux - do you feed me love potions, Katrine?”
“No, do I have need to?” she whispered. They stood looking at each other, breathing as though they raced with time.
He caught her round the waist. “Come,” he said, and pulled her down the passage towards the solar stairs.
“No,” she cried, “we’ve been gone long now. What will they think? You cannot so slight the King!”
He laughed in his throat. “The King will wait on love as well as any man.”
In the partially emptied Hall, the varlets stacked the trestle boards and renewed the candles. Geoffrey still sat on, warming himself at the fire. His Philippa had gone to sleep in a chair and snored softly, with her hands folded on her stomach.
Geoffrey had seen what passed between Katherine, Robin and the Duke, and made a shrewd guess as to its meaning. But he had seen something else as well - the look on Blanchette’s face when Robin kissed her mother.
He was fond of his pretty niece, but she puzzled him as he knew she did Katherine, who treated the girl’s dark moods with an anxious forbearance. Blanchette’s marigold curls and dimples, her small delicate body, belied the intensity of her sombre slate-grey eyes. Girls of about fourteen were often flighty, but Blanchette’s brooding silences, her stammering speech and unwillingness to join with other young folk in any pastime seemed stranger than the normal humours released by puberty. Throughout the banquet, Blanchette had sat next to a stalwart knight called Sir Ralph Hastings, who was cousin to the Earl of Pembroke. Sir Ralph owned much land in Yorkshire near Pontefract, he was one of the Duke’s most able knights - and a widower. Recently he had become enamoured of Blanchette and had asked Katherine for her, who had told the Chaucers of it.
“A splend
id marriage!” Philippa had cried. “By Saint Mary, what luck! Why, she’ll have noble kin - she’ll be cousin to the Lady Elizabeth! Speed the matter, Katherine, lest Sir Ralph change his mind. ‘Tis not everyone would want a sulky little snip like Blanchette, and no heiress either.”
“She has income from the Deyncourt wardship my lord granted her,” said Katherine slowly, “and her share some day in Kettlethorpe. But the child says she hates Sir Ralph.”
“Rubbish!” had cried Philippa sharply. “She but hates whatever you, or His Grace, tell her to do. ‘Tis the very thing for her, a wise older man’ll soon straighten out these dumpish moods. You humour her too much.”
“Maybe - -” Katherine’s smooth brow had creased in a worried frown. “My lord thinks so. Yet it twists my heart to force the child - -“
Blanchette had, however, been forced to the extent of sitting next to Sir Ralph at the banquet and sharing his cup. A comely man, Sir Ralph, with high florid colour, and curling brown beard. Blanchette sat beside him with downcast head, until Robin began to jingle and caper along the Hall between the trestles. Then her great clouded eyes had fixed on Robin and at the moment when he kissed Katherine, Geoffrey had seen the girl start back and whiten. She had left the table at once, glided out into the courtyard. Nor had she returned to the Hall.
Was that violent flinching because the girl had some special feeling for Robin? Was it because she felt her mother besmirched?
It was hard to tell what Blanchette felt. But, Geoffrey thought pityingly, there was fey quality about the girl, not sulky as Philippa and many others believed - but tragic.
On the morning after the banquet, John and Katherine lay late in bed, as did most of the castle inhabitants. The winter sun had risen to its full brilliance, and the folk of Leicester town were already out skating and sliding on the frozen Soar before Katherine awoke. She listened to the shouts of the holiday-makers on the ice, and seeing a strip of orange-coloured light through the brocaded bed curtains, murmured that it would be a fine day for the stag hunt in Leicester forest, and yawned voluptuously. In the great enclosed bed it was warm, snug as a walled garden. She lazily kissed the corner of John’s jaw, and nestled against him, savouring with drowsy delight the hard strength of his muscles.
