Katherine (66 page)

Cob's muscles jerked. His hands ceased moving. He peered into her face, then quickly down the shadowy glades between the beeches. In the silence, wood doves cooed, and crackling in a thicket told of a red deer that stared at them, and scampered off as Cob cried, "Ye think to diddle me, lady, wi' yet another trick! 'Tis sport for ye belike. Ay - shout ye now for King's men, sure they be near - string me up at once, and ha' done with it. See, here's the noose - all ready." He pounded his fists on the rope about his waist.

"Small wonder that you'll not believe me," said Katherine sadly. "Yet, Cob,
could
you think me so ungrateful for what you did that day the Savoy burned that I would so cruelly fool you? I've longed to thank you, was glad you had your freedom from the King. Since it seems that you have not, I give it to you, Cob."

"And if 'twere true," he cried in a shaking voice, "who'd believe it? Think ye I could go home - to Kettlethorpe, in peace, to your steward - d'ye know what
he'd
do to me?"

"Yes," said Katherine sighing and rising, "I know. You shall have a writ of manumission under my seal, and this the steward will obey."

"Another
charter-" Cob whispered. "And if it prove false as the King's - -"

" 'Twill not prove false, Cob. I swear it on the cross." She kissed the small rough crucifix that hung from her hempen girdle.

It was many hours before Cob believed, though he came with her back to Waltham under cover of her cloak; though she bought him food, ale and a long woollen smock to cover his nakedness. She inquired from the hostelkeeper where she might find some man of law, and was directed to a learned clerk who lived by the bridge on the river Lea.

The clerk was at home, standing at his desk and copying out a land grant when Katherine and Cob were ushered in. When the clerk understood that the widow had money for a fee, he pulled out a fresh parchment from a pile and shoved a Bible towards Katherine. "Do you kiss the Book and truly swear that this serf is your property? Yours to dispose of as you will?"

"I do," said Katherine while Cob shrank into the shadow behind her.

"And what disposition would you make of him?"

"I wish to free him."

The clerk lifted his scraggy eyebrows. "Is't one of the rebels? Has he been intimidating you? There's no need to fear them now the King is enforcing law and order."

"I know," said Katherine. "I wish to free him."

"For what reason? It must go on the deed of enfranchisement."

"For the brave and loyal service he has rendered me, beyond his bondage duty," she said softly.

The clerk shrugged and scribbled rapidly, asking at the proper place for names. Katherine gave hers with reluctance, but the clerk had never heard of her. He sanded the writing, watched Katherine sign her name, heated red wax and waited. She pressed the sapphire signet ring into the seal, praying that he would not recognise the Lancaster crest, though this crest made it certain that her steward would honour the writ.

But the clerk was incurious, and busy. He stamped his own notary seal beside hers, demanded his fee and thrust the parchment out to Cob, saying briskly, in the traditional phrase, "By the grace of God and your manor lord - serf, native, villein, bondsman,
this
you are no more. Hail, freeman of England!" The clerk pulled over the land grant and began to write on it again.

Cob, making a hoarse sound in his throat, stood rooted to the floor. Katherine put her arm around his shoulders and led him out of the house. "Here, here," she said smiling, "Cob - you dolt, you've dropped your writ of freedom, sure that's no way to treat it!" She picked it up and starting back cried, "Ah no - don't-" for the little man had thrown himself on the road and was kissing her muddy bare feet.

"My lady, my lady," he sobbed, "I'll serve ye till I die, I'll never leave ye. And to think I meant to kill ye, and I nearly robbed ye back there in London - and 'tis from that very money that ye paid the clerk for my freedom. Oh my lady - what can I do for
ye
-" He raised his stained wet face, looking up at her with worship.

"Pray for me, Cob," said Katherine, " 'Tis all that you can do for me."

Cob and Katherine parted that afternoon at the fork where the North road branched off the Palmers' Way to Walsingham. Cob begged to go with her but she would not let him: the penance must be suffered alone, and, too, she saw how much Cob longed for home. He spoke constantly of Kettlethorpe, of his ox and his little cot, and of a lass in Newton, a freeman's daughter that now he might wed. There was no happier man in England that day than Cob in his new smock and shoes and scarlet hood, with the fine hunting knife Katherine had given him, pennies in his pocket for the journey, and his writ of manumission sewed to his smock against his skin.

His joy could not help but lighten Katherine's heavy heart for a time, but when they had parted and she took up her pilgrimage again, night fell on her spirit as inexorably as it fell on the darkening ridges of the Essex hills. She had listened to Cob's talk of Kettlethorpe with the old shrinking distaste, a revulsion that had spread to include all the scenes of her past life. The taint of corruption had spoiled every memory from the day that she left Sheppey's convent and set out for Windsor. Self-loathing filled her, of the fleshly beauty she had fostered, of the sinful thoughts that she had refused to recognise. The past was evil, the future blank and menacing.

She had no goal but Walsingham and the miracle, when the All-Merciful Lady there would tell her how to find Blanchette, how to make reparation.

As she limped toward the hospice where she would spend the night, fresh pain tormented her. It was Midsummer Eve, the Vigil of Saint John, and through the dusk on every hill the boon fires flared against the sky as they had done on this night since the time when England was young, to placate the fairy folk and elves, in honour too perhaps of some fearsome Druid sun god who had once exacted sacrifice.

Last year this night she had been at the Savoy with John.

From the Avalon Tower they had watched together the boon fires twinkling around London, when a wild enchanted mood had come to them, born of the magic of the rose-scented June dusk and of the wine they had drunk in celebration of this eve of John's own saint's day. They had called for horses and galloped off into the country, until they came suddenly upon a hidden patch of greensward beside a brook, and a grove of silver birches.

They had dismounted, laughing, amorous, and Katherine on finding a fairy ring of mushrooms in the grove had cried that by means of this enchantment on Midsummer Eve she would bind her love to her forever, so that he might never once leave her side.

Nor had he left her that night, though a great company awaited the Duke at the Savoy. They had lain together, hot with passion, under the birches while a belated nightingale sang to them from a thicket.

Katherine stumbled on the road to Walsingham while her remembering body betrayed her with an agony of longing. My dear dear love, I cannot bear it. At once answer came, in Brother William's voice,
"Dignum et justum est."
It is meet and just that you bear it.

Katherine clenching her hand on her staff went forward along the road. "It is meet indeed and just - -" the preface to the reception of the Holy Sacrament from which she was debarred by sins so loathsome that there was no absolution. Sin that had been ever compounded and augmenting. On that carnal pagan night beneath the willow tree she had thought of nothing but her adulterous love. She had indeed kept John with her, and the next day too, though the Duchess awaited him at Hertford Castle for the solemn celebration of his saint's day which he had always spent with her in ceremonious observance.

Katherine had laughed with Hawise at this slight put upon the Duchess. God forgive me, Katherine thought, for still she was glad that he had not gone to Costanza. She stumbled on a rock that jutted up from the road, and welcomed the sharp pain that shot through her wrenched ankle.

The days and nights merged into a long grey plodding. The ankle swelled, Katherine's feet festered until she could not walk, and she lay over at a convent where the nuns were good to her. After some time her feet and ankle healed, she gave the nuns her last jewel, an emerald-studded buckle, in gratitude, and they sent her on her way again, begging that she would remember them in her prayers at Walsingham.

It was on a searing hot day that Katherine at last reached Houghton-in-the-Dale, a mile south of the shrine, and stopped as did all pilgrims at the little stone slipper chapel. Here she encountered a noisy party of mounted men and women who had left London but a few days ago, though Katherine had been weeks on the road. They were a gaily clad group of young merchants and their wives, and it was apparent from the ribald tune that one of the men played on his bagpipes, from the flask of wine that they passed from hand to hand, and from their noisy laughter, that this pilgrimage was but pious excuse for a summer junket.

Even the casual pilgrim however was required to leave his shoes at the slipper chapel and walk the last mile barefoot. Many were the little shrieks of pain, and giggles, as one by one the London wives filed into the chapel, and came out treading like cats on hot bricks.

Katherine, who had no shoes to remove, drew apart, waiting on the brink of the little river Stiffkey until she might go in and say a prayer in peace. So near at last to journey's end that she could not believe it, she dared not let herself think of the Holy Sight which lay ahead of her, nor of the miracle that she was certain would take place.

They glanced at her incuriously as they passed her by, the Londoners all bright as popinjays in their scarlets and blues and greens, and one of the men - a grocer it would seem by the scales embroidered on his shoulder badge - said crossly in a loud voice to the others, "You shall see what mummery all this'll prove to be. Hurry on, Alison, and let's be done with the bowing and scraping. By God, 'tis not the Virgin's milk I long for, 'tis good brown Norfolk ale!"

"Hush, Andrew!" cried his wife angrily. "Here's no place for your wicked Lollard talk!"

Andrew grumbled and walked on.

Katherine heard, and something in her cringed: a doubt, a fear, darted and was gone. She prayed in the chapel and was filled with exalted hope. Her lassitude and headache vanished, she sped along the sacred mile beside the river. Her skin no longer reddened under the fierce sun-rays, the soles of her feet were as tough and calloused as a friar's. She did not feel the torturing fleabites nor the sweat that bathed her body under the hair shirt and the heavy black robe, nor the sore pains in her gums and loosened teeth, pain that had lately made so difficult chewing of the coarse bread, which was all she had allowed herself to eat since starting on pilgrimage. Foul-smelling little sores had broken out on her legs but she had made no effort to poultice them. These afflictions were all sent by God to prove her true contrition, and would ensure the Blessed Lady's favour.

As she neared Wajsingham, other penitential pilgrims joined her on the road, clad in sackcloth, wearing the wide palmer's hat, with ashes on their brows. These kept their eyes fixed on the ground as Katherine did; they did not glance at the little booths which began to line the way, though the owners of these stalls cried their wares incessantly in hoarse pleading voices.

"Come, buy my Walsingham medals - all personally blessed by Our Lady!" Or rosaries, or souvenirs, or gingerbread images of the Virgin, or tin replicas of the vial that held Her Holy Milk.

The town itself was crammed with pilgrim hostels, cook-shops and taverns; by the time Katherine reached the abbey gate she was one of a great throng, amongst them many cripples, and sick folk borne on litters by their relatives. Voices hummed around her speaking in a score of accents, not only the strange dialects of remoter parts of England but in the French tongue, and Flemish, and others that she did not recognise.

Beneath a miraculous copper image of a knight, there was a small postern in the abbey gate, and one by one they filed through under the watchful eye of an Austin canon from the priory which had charge of the shrine.

Katherine's heart beat fast, she wanted to hold back, to think and pray again before entering the sacred enclosure, but she could not. Canons ranged on either side the pilgrim path hurried the folk along, while behind her new pilgrims kept pressing through the gate. They were herded first through a little chapel, where they knelt and kissed a bone, big as the shank of an ox. It was the fingerbone of St. Peter, the attendant canon told them, watching while the pilgrims put pennies in a box.

They left the chapel and went through a covered way into a shed thatched with reeds and garnished with flowers. Here on the ground there were two holy wells, side by side. The monk in charge waved the people back, for a child had been laid in the little space between the twin wells.

The child was a boy of about four, but his head was big as that of a grown man, his tongue lolled from his slack spittle-dribbling mouth, his dull- swollen eyes were mindless as a dead lamb's. The mother knelt beside him, to pull his arms apart so that one little hand should touch each pool. Her lips moved in desperate prayer while the monk made the sign of the cross over the child. The pilgrims watched, holding their breath.

The child struggled, trying to jerk his hands from the water, then let out a long sobbing animal wail.

The mother gave a great cry and gathered the child up in her arms. "A miracle!" she cried rocking the child. "For sure, it is a miracle! He has made no sound in months. Our Blessed Lady has cured him!"

While the people gasped and fell to their knees, the monk smiled, laying his hand on the boy's head. Tears ran down Katherine's cheeks, she turned away and could not look at the mother's wild hopeful face. When her own time came to kneel between the holy wells and plunge her hands in each, she could form no proper prayer. She saw nothing but Blanchette's trusting, adoring eyes, as they had been long ago.

Our Lady of Walsingham's shrine adjoined the church. It was a small chapel without windows, nor needed any, for its hundred votive candles glittered on walls lined with gold and silver offerings, while the Blessed Image, larger than a woman, was crusted so thick with diamonds, rubies, pearls and other precious stones that the eye was blinded.