by Anya Seton
The window on the Thames had been enlarged, and deepened to an oriel. Along the top half of its three lights ran exquisite tinted scenes of the life of St. Ursula with her eleven thousand virgins, though, below, the panes had been left clear to show the river view. The prie-dieu in a corner niche was of ivory and gold, cushioned with white satin, and it had come from Castile. The red velvet bed was unchanged except that its curtains and tester had been freshened with new embroidery: the Duke had ordered that a sprinkling of her tiny gold Catherine wheels be cunningly inserted amongst the seed pearl foliage, and this had pleased Katherine mightily.
And still beside the bed hung the great Avalon tapestry, with the dark mysterious greens of the enchanted forest and the luminous figures of Arthur, Guenevere and the wizard Merlin.
Katherine never saw the tapestry without remembering what John had said of Merlin’s castle when she first came to this room twelve years ago, “It reminds me of one I saw in Castile.”
Little had she known then of how much that meant to him.
In seeking to divert Blanchette, Katherine told her a little about the tapestry, but the girl was not much interested, she preferred to sit in the window and watch the river flow by, and as Katherine had hoped, she was delighted with the finger-high ivory figurines of the saints. St. Agnes with her lamb, St. Cecilia with her dulcimer, St. Bartholomew with his flayed skin draped gracefully over his arm - all were carved with an amusing fidelity to life and were, like the little faces on the corbels of churches, obviously portraits of people that the artist had known. The figure of St. Apollonia, holding pincers and a large tooth as symbols of her martyrdom, was so realistic in its swollen jaw and twisted mouth that Blanchette laughed outright.
“Ah, poppet,” said Katherine smiling, “you’d not laugh if you’d ever had toothache; it seems ‘tis no laughing matter.”
“Have you, Mama?” said the girl, putting down Apollonia.
“Nay, I’ve been lucky, I’ve all my teeth yet. Though the Duke - -” She hesitated. But with Blanchette now, God be thanked, one no longer had to tread gingerly and avoid mention of everything that had once disturbed her. “The Duke has suffered cruelly with toothache at times, and Hawise, too - as you know.”
“Poor souls,” said Blanchette absently. She had picked up the figure of the North Country saint, Columba, who held a dove. She touched the dove’s tiny head and looked up at her mother. “What happened to my green linnet?”
“It’s well, I’ve fed it myself. We’ll send for it so you can hang it in your room.”
The girl’s grey eyes grew thoughtful, and she said, “I left the cage door open, didn’t I - the day I sickened? Didn’t it fly away?”
“No,” Katherine smiled. “But I’ve shut the door now. So you may free the bird yourself, as you love to do.”
“Perhaps it’s happy in its cage, after all,” said Blanchette slowly. She looked out of the window towards the line of trees across the river where the rooks were circling. “Perhaps it would be frightened out there.”
“It might be,” said Katherine. Her heart swelled with gladness. Blanchette was better in every way, not only recovering from the illness, but from all the strange dark rebellions that had preceded it for so long. At last, the girl gave voice to some of her thoughts, and the stammer in her speech had almost disappeared. Soon, Katherine decided she might speak frankly about Robin Beyvill and Sir Ralph, find out what the girl really felt, and help her to understand herself.
Blanchette’s pale face flushed suddenly, she looked down at the windowseat and busied herself with standing the saints carefully in a row while she said, “You’ve been good to me, dearest Mama.”
Katherine caught her breath while her arms ached to hug and shelter, but she knew that she must not force this new delicate balance. She contented herself with a quick kiss. “And why not, mouse?” she said lightly.
Tuesday and Wednesday they had a. happy time together. With windows wide open to the soft June air they passed the hours in songs and games. Blanchette played her lute, and Katherine a gittern. Katherine taught her the gay old tune, “He dame de Vaillance!” and they sang it in rondo. They played at Merelles and at “Tables,” the backgammoning game, with silver counters on a mother-of-pearl board. They asked each other riddles and tried to invent new ones. Katherine, in persuading her child to light-heartedness, found gaiety herself, dimmed only by a secret worry over Blanchette’s hearing.
Piers brought them up delicious food, Mab waited on them methodically, the chamberlain reported that all was running smoothly with the servants, and they saw nobody else. Each found rich reward in this companionship and forgot the painful disagreements that had chafed them before.
Blanchette visibly gained much strength. She could walk about their chambers without help, she was eating well, and some colour had returned to her thin cheeks. Next week they could certainly leave for Kenilworth, Katherine thought joyously - and not very long after that she might begin to look for John’s return.
On Wednesday evening the courtyard clock beat out seven strokes as they finished their supper in the Avalon Chamber. Blanchette munched on marchpane doucettes, especially made for her by the head pastry-cook, while Katherine sipped the last drops of the rich amber wine that remained in her hanap. These goblets that they were using were their own, and exceedingly beautiful.
Blanchette’s hanap of silver gilt with her cipher was the one given her so long ago as a christening present by the Duke, and Katherine’s was a recent New Year’s gift from him, a hollow crystal banded with purest gold. This hanap was called Joli-coeur, because a garnet heart was inlaid in its gold cover, and Katherine thought that the goblet always gave to its contents a savour as delicate as its name.
“Brother William hasn’t been here since Sunday,” said Katherine idly. “Maybe he’ll come tonight - though you scarcely need his skill any more, God be thanked.”
“I hope he does,” said Blanchette reaching for another doucette. “I like him. He looks ugly and grim, yet his hands’re gentle. He was like a kind father while I was ill. ‘Tis pity he mayn’t have children of his own, isn’t it?”
Katherine assented, faintly amused at the thought of the friar in a fatherly role. Certain it was that Brother William never had been a secret father, whatever irregular paternity might be indulged in by the rest of the clergy. “He’s an exceeding righteous man,” she said with some dryness. There was a knock on the door, and she called “Enter!” thinking that it might be the friar come now.
It was a page who announced that there was a tradesman below in the antechamber who wished to see Lady Swynford. A Guy le Pessoner.
“Master Guy!” exclaimed. Katherine. “Show him up, to be sure,” and to Blanchette said, ” ‘Tis Hawise’s father.”
The fishmonger came in puffing and mopped his glistening moon face on his brown wool sleeve. He bowed to Katherine, glanced at Blanchette and wheezed, “Whew! ‘Tis warm for one o’ my port to be a-hurrying.”
Katherine smiled and indicated a chair. “A pleasure to see you,”
Master Guy’s great belly gradually ceased to heave. He put his thick red hands on his knees. “Where’s Hawise, m’lady?” he said abruptly.
“At Kenilworth with my little Beauforts. She left a month ago when the Duke went north.”
“Ah!” said the fishmonger. ” ‘Twas what I be telling Emma, but she made me come anyhow.”
“Why?” asked Katherine. “Is anything wrong?”
“Nay - not what ye might call wrong” he shrugged. ” ‘Tis more that me dame’s a dithering old ‘oman.” Master Guy stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his jerkin and frowned.
These last two days there was no doubt that the rebellion had become more serious. The Kentish mob had advanced as close as Blackheath across the river, while Essex men neared
London from the north. Dame Emma had kept badgering him to go and make sure that Hawise was out of possible danger. She had heard a rumour that Lady Swynford remained
at the Savoy, though the Duke had left.
“What does Dame Emma dither about then?” asked Katherine anxiously.
“She thinks if them ribauds over on Blackheath should cross the river into Lunnon, there maught be a bad time. I tell her ‘tis folly. The King’ll calm ‘em down. All they want is to set their grievances afore the King. Besides they can’t get into town. The drawbridge’s up, and the gates all closed.” He paused. True, the gates were closed and the drawbridge up now, but there were aldermen who sympathised with the rebels. John Horn. And Walter Sibley, a fellow fishmonger who was responsible for holding London bridge. You couldn’t trust either of ‘em far as you’d throw a cat.
“I know nothing of all this, Master Guy,” said Katherine slowly, “except that there were riots in Kent. I thought the King was at Windsor.”
“He’s in the Tower now - wi’ the Princess Joan and a mort o’ the lords and Mayor Walworth. They’ve got t’ old archbishop with ‘em and Hales, the treasurer, too, which be canny, or the rebels’d’ve strung them two makers of the stinking poll tax up to the nearest trees.”
Katherine considered this with astonishment but no particular fear. So the King was in the Tower of London, the strongest fortress in England. Was this from prudence, or because it was easier from there to negotiate with the peasants?
“Has the King talked to the rebels yet?” she asked.
“Nay, he went down-river by barge this morn from the Tower to Rotherhithe, but he didn’t land. They scuttered back to the Tower again. ‘Tis said some o’ his lords turned poltroon when they saw the great mob that was awaiting on the bank.”
“The poor lad,” said Katherine, thinking of the sensitive delicate boy she had seen last Christmas at Leicester. “He’s over-young to make decisions.”
She rose and poured ale from a silver flagon into a mazer and handed it to Master Guy, saying, “Forgive me that I did not offer this sooner, but I forgot in the interest of your news. How’s Hawise’s Jack, by the by?”
The fishmonger drained his ale and cried, “Spleen! God’s wounds, but there ne’er was such a churl for grudges’n spleen. I’ve had me bellyfull o’ him. He’s still hot against the Duke, o’ course, but ‘tis the Flemings he chiefly cries out ‘gainst now.
The Flemish weavers’ve cut into his trade. I warrant he’d slice all their throats an he could. A bloodthirsty knave is Jack, I begin to think Hawise well shed o’ him.” He lumbered up out of his chair, belched heartily and said, “Well, m’lady, I’ll be off. Twill not be easy even for me to get back through Ludgate if I linger.”
He hesitated, knowing that he had not given the full urgency of Dame Emma’s message. “If Hawise be there or Lady Swynford, tell ‘em to hasten north while they yet may.” But he deemed his wife overfearful, and actually, if rumour were true, no roads were safe that led to London. There were stealthy uprisings all about. Besides, commons didn’t war on women and these two were better off here in this great walled palace than anywhere, come trouble. He salved a prick of conscience by saying, “Warn your men-at-arms to be on guard and make sure the water gates’re lowered, then ye needna have a care. I’ll warrant anyhow t’will all blow over.”
Katherine thanked him for coming and sent her love to Dame Emma. When the fishmonger had gone, she summoned Sergeant Leach and repeated Master Guy’s advice.
“Have no fear, m’lady,” said the sergeant, brightening. The possibility of a little action pleased him, though he had scant hope of gratification now. What could a handful of farmers do, armed as he had heard with picks and staves and scythes, and led by an unfrocked priest and some tiler called Wat?
He went off happily to alert his men-at-arms, to order the great crossbarred portcullis lowered at the Strand, and to check on the security of the water gates. He issued extra arms from the well-stocked armoury - maces, battle axes, swords, breastplates and shields - and instructed the assembled varlets in their use in case his bowmen should need reinforcement.
There were three barrels of gunpowder stored near the armoury and there was a small brass cannon mounted on the gatehouse, but the sergeant had no faith in either. Firearms were unreliable and in his opinion worthless. No newfangled weapon could equal an English bowman, and his men were skilled veterans of the French wars.
When dusk fell, the sergeant threw himself down to sleep in the guardroom with a mind as quiet as the evening air.
Katherine too felt secure after re-examining Master Guy’s scanty information. Blackheath was seven miles away in Kent, and by morning no doubt the King and his advisers, the Archbishop Sudbury or the mayor, would certainly have decided on some course of action, and appease or quell the rioters.
She knelt on the seat cushion and looked out of the window, up and down the river, but she could see no sign of disturbance anywhere. Water lapped softly on the stone wall below; the sundown sky above Westminster was stained with cool after-tints of lavender and saffron. Through the angled right-hand light of the oriel she could see a corner of the gardens, where fireflies shone their fitful little lamps against a bank of Provencal roses. The rose fragrance drifted up to Katherine on a lazy breeze. She inhaled deeply and turning with a smile to Blanchette quoted from the “Romaunt.”
Me thinketh I feel it in my nose
The sweet savour of the rose!
Blanchette sat up, her eyes bright and responsive. She thought a moment, then proudly added another quotation, for reading of romances had been her chiefest pleasure during the last lonely year.
Always be merry if thou may;
But waste not thy good alway,
Have hat of flowers as fresh as May
Chaplet of roses of Whitsunday!
They looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“Ah, we’re a couple of giddy queans!” cried Katherine, shaking her head. ” ‘Tis wrong of me. I should be giving you moral precepts, as the good Chevalier de la Tour Landry does to his daughters. Fie upon me!”
“Ay - Mama,” said Blanchette with the new, charming glint of pert humour that delighted Katherine.” ‘Tis naughty indeed that you don’t.”
“Well, at any rate, it’s time for bed, poppet,” said Katherine, pinching her cheek. “You’re sleepy and so’m I. You know, I believe ‘twill be fair tomorrow. We might dare your strength as far as the gardens.”
“Ay, that I’d love,” said Blanchette eagerly.
When Katherine helped the girl to bed and smoothed down the sheet, they kissed each other a warm, happy good night.
Down and across the river at Blackheath, the rebel mob had grown larger hour by hour until ten thousand desperate hungry men surged back and forth across the trampled gorse and heather. They quieted only when John Ball clambered on a tree stump and shouted to them. By daylight and then by torchlight they could see his lank figure in the russet robes, his arms upraised as he called on God to help them; and many could see the wild crusading light in his eyes.
He told them that their hour had struck at last. “John Ball hath y-rung the bell!” he cried in a great exultant voice.
All over England they were ready. The members of the “fellowship” had been travelling for weeks, they had whispered in the manors, they had sung “Jack Milner” in the Halls and village greens, and all who were in sympathy would understand.
John Ball preached his great sermon to them there on Blackheath, telling them how God had created all men equal in the days of Adam and Eve, and how there were then no rich lords or bishops - and there were no slaves.
Like the pounding of ocean surf, the couplet he had given them roared out from the thousands of throats: “When Adam delved and Eva span, who was then a gentleman?”
He waited until they finished, stilled them with a gesture. “My poor friends,” he cried in a voice that was hoarse and cracking from strain, “things cannot go right in England, nor ever will until everything shall be in common. And there shall be no more lords and vassals! How ill they’ve used us! Ragged starvelings that we be, we swink in
wind and rain that they may loll in furred velvet, warm in their snug manors, glutting their bellies. Ay, by the Holy Rood, my poor friends, we shall change that now!”
They had heard all this many times before, but never with the growing frenzied hope. Now as the fierce preacher’s voice trembled and failed him, their leader Wat, the tiler from Maidstone, climbed up on the stump and rehearsed to them their last instructions.
They had sent to the King a list of the men who must be delivered to them for vengeance - the traitors who were deluding and defrauding their little King.
They had demanded the heads of Simon of Sudbury, the archbishop-chancellor who had instigated the poll tax and who had imprisoned John Ball; of Robert Hales, Treasurer of England and prior of the hatred Templars of St. John, where sly money-grabbing lawyers were bred. They demanded the death of twelve others whom they had cause to hate - and the head of John o’ Gaunt. They all greatly feared the wicked Duke who was so bloated with lands and power, and yet who traitorously craved to be king - as everyone knew. A monster of villainy, they thought him. Like the first John who had plotted against another royal Richard and ground all England into misery.
Wat shouted out the list of heads that they had demanded from the King, and at each name the crowd roared until the doors rattled in the rustic cots along the heath. They stamped until dust rose in clouds as thick as the smoke of their bonfires and torches.
But when he named John o’ Gaunt, sharp cries mingled with their uproar. ” ‘Tis sooth, by God, we’ll have no king called John!” “Never more a king called John on English soil! We shall slay that traitor first and pull his castle down about his ears!”
