When Janet eventually went back to Coleby without her, Katherine had achieved resignation much strengthened by inner certainty that she was doing right. Glimpses of the light returned to her during that Christmastide, the channel of communication which had seemed blocked ran clear again and gave her serenity.

She noticed that her three children often gathered in corners whispering, and looking at her with excited speculative eyes, but the whispers stilled at once when she came near, and no hint of their purport reached Katherine. She had no idea that, led by Harry, her Beauforts were allowing themselves an incredible hope. One so preposterous that they were ashamed of it, even while they could not help referring to it in broken phrases: "If - -"; "Could it be?" "But Blessed Christ, it's impossible - -"; "Nay, his letter was cold, there was nothing to build on. He means nothing like that." Katherine, to quiet their clamorous questions, had shown them the letter.

When a herald came on New Year's Day to announce the Duke's arrival on the morrow, Katherine was far calmer than her children. She looked at the Lancastrian arms on the herald's tabard, at the blue and grey of his trunks, at the falcon badge embroidered on his blue cap - the familiar panoply of Lancaster - and thought how long it was since she had seen it. Once she had been borne along on a raging current that all those symbols stood for, and she vowed that she would not permit that turbulent river to submerge her again.

The next morning, she was touched and a trifle exasperated by Joan's hovering anxiety. "Mother, let me do your hair, Hawise is clumsy at it! Mother, please wear the gold brooch Sir Robert left me, it looks far better than that silver thing. Oh Jesu, if you only had a new gown, he'll think you so old-fashioned in that sideless surcote, and shoes are far more pointed now in London - at least," she added slowly, "they were when I was there nineteen months ago." She sighed.

Katherine looked at the pretty dark head, the charming face that was bleak with longing, and said gently, "You shall make me as splendid as possible, darling, but truly it's of no consequence, one way or the other."

Joan picked up a vial of lavender water, fiddled with the lead stopper, and said, "It is because of his love for you, and yours for him, that we exist at all - isn't it?"

Katherine was startled and confused. "That was a very long time ago, Joan," she answered with some difficulty. "Human love dies. You must face that, dear - -" She bit her lips, for she saw that Joan was crying, quietly, proudly, big tears slipping down her pink cheeks.

Long before the court dogs began to bark, they heard the winding flourish from Lancaster Herald's trumpet as the Duke's cavalcade turned off the highway on to the manor road. At the well-remembered sound, Katherine's heart at last took up a hard-measured pounding, while Joan ran up to the tower-roof to watch the approach over the sparkling white-gold snow, down the avenue of bare-branched wychelms.

Katherine walked slowly across the courtyard and the drawbridge to stand by the old mounting block. Her two sons held back nervously in the court, where Joan joined them, saying, "Tamkin came with him. O Blessed Mary, make everything go well!" She crossed herself and lifting her beads began to whisper a rosary. Her brothers drew close to her. The three stood waiting.

The Duke reined in his black stallion when he came to the church. A watchful squire ran up and held the horse. The Duke dismounted. He was not armoured, he wore an enveloping violet-coloured mantle trimmed with ermine; an intricately draped furred hood concealed most of his face. As he advanced towards her across the trodden snow, Katherine curtsied deeply and said, "Welcome to Kettlethorpe, my lord."

He pulled off his jewelled gauntlet and took her bare hand in his. "Am I truly well come, Katrine?" he said in a harsh thick tone.

She raised her eyes to his face. Deep new lines on the forehead, lines from the nostrils of the long nose to the corners of the set, thin-lipped mouth. Grey hairs in the tawny eyebrows above eyes of a quieter blue; sad, questioning eyes. A long white scar ran from left ear to forehead and had puckered the eyelid. Dear God, so much change, she thought. Yet it was still the face she had so greatly loved.

"You are well come, my lord," she repeated evenly, though she felt the touch of his hand like a burn. "Our - the Beauforts await you most eagerly."

He glanced where she did through the gatehouse to the courtyard, where his children were grouped by the Hall door. "Ay," he said, "and I've brought Tamkin. But I should like to see you alone first."

"Why for, my lord?" she said drawing back her hand. "What have we to say alone now?"

"Katrine, I beg you!"

" 'Tis not so easy to be alone at Kettlethorpe," she said with a faint cool smile.

"The church?" he suggested. " 'Twill be empty at this hour?"

She inclined her head and preceded him through the lych-gate. The church had been decorated with holly and evergreens for The New Year; the nave, which was the village hall in winter, was still cluttered with small tables from the "church ale" and fair they had held here yesterday; the rushes were strewn with candle wax, nut-shells, crumbs. Five children stood by a thatched stable which enclosed crudely painted home-made figures of the nativity, and loudly disputed whether the Baby were smiling or not.

The Duke glanced at them, removed his draped headdress and said, "Farther up in the choir - surely 'twill be quieter." He walked around the rood screen.

Candles burned before the statue of the Blessed Virgin, and a wall painting of Saints Peter and Paul, the church's patrons. Four long tapers flickered in a small chapel Katherine had built behind the Swynford choir stall. They shone on a tomb with the brightly tinted effigy of a knight in armour.

The Duke paused by the tomb and looked down at the knight, at the boarhead crest on the helm, the shield with three boars' heads on a chevron, the bearded face, which bore little resemblance to the original since it had been carved in Lincoln from Katherine's description, only a few years ago. Slowly the Duke crossed himself. "May God comfort and keep his soul," he said, and turned to Katherine, who stood at the entrance of the chapel, her hood pulled far over her face.

"Katrine," he said, "is this to stand between us, forever?"

In the moments during which she did not answer, the voices of the children in the nave rose louder until one cried "Hush!" in a frightened voice; there was a scamper of feet and the west door banged, leaving silence.

"There is far more than Hugh that stands between us, my lord," she said into the silence.

He made a gesture, impatient, resigned, letting his hand fall slack. He left the tomb to stand beside her in the aisle. Suddenly he raised his hand and brushed back her hood, staring down at her face, into the wide grey eyes that met his steadily, without bitterness; but neither did they soften under his long gaze, they held detachment, a watchful calmness that daunted him. He reached out his finger to touch the white streaks at her temples. "Age on you has but added swan's wings to your fairness," he said wryly, "while I'm grizzled and hacked like an old badger - -"

"You do yourself injustice, my lord. Badgers are hunched, lumpy creatures, while you are still straight as a lance." She spoke in a light social tone, as he had heard her chatting with knights of his retinue long ago. She replaced her hood, and glanced down the nave towards the door, obviously checked only by the courtesy from suggesting that they leave.

In that instant, John forgot that he was Duke of Lancaster, while his last doubt vanished. From the deepest springs of his being, words bubbled to his lips, so that he stammered like a page-boy. "Katrine - Katrine - you make this so hard - my God, is there nothing left for me at all? We can't be forever thinking of the dead. We're getting old, 'tis true, but we're still alive - and if you feel nothing more for me - if too much has passed since we were together - then think of our children, for them at least it's not too late - -"

He stopped, trembling - his close-shaven cheeks had turned a dull brick-red, he was breathing fast, painfully.

Katherine swallowed, she saw his flushed pleading face through a fog and spoke with remote sad scorn. "Is some bargain still necessary between us, to aid my children's advancement? Has our age, at least, not removed incentive to further shame!"

He gasped, and stared at her. Then he clenched his fist, banging it on the wooden rim of the choir stall. "Christ, Katrine! I'm asking you to marry me!"

The dusky little church, the candlelight, the evergreens spiralled around her.

"It must have occurred to you?" he said with more control, astonished at her dazed face. "Surely when Costanza died - and now when I've summoned all our Beauforts here - Katrine, I could not come sooner - the King sent me to Aquitaine - -" He had entirely forgotten the doubts and uncertainties he had felt, how he had not been entirely sure until he saw her again.

"It did not occur to me," she said in a wooden voice. "After your Duchess died, I hoped for a word from you, then even that desire passed. I received you today for our children's sake.

There's much you can do for them - if you will-" She could not think, there was no feeling but shock, and dislocation.

"What better can I do for them, than have them legitimated?" he said, half smiling. "This, Richard has agreed to in the event of our marriage, and the Pope will confirm it."

"Legitimated," she repeated, "legitimated - I've never heard of that. Jesu - the stain of bastardy cannot be wiped out!"