Her tender smile faded. She was puzzled by the sudden harshness of his tone though well aware the question covered something else. "My father had no blazon," she said slowly. "He was King-of-Arms for Guienne, you know - he was knighted only just before his death."

He heard the quiver in her voice, and his anger vanished under the impulse to protect that she alone of all women had ever roused in him. He had indeed forgotten her low birth and the consciousness of the great gulf between them brought a subtle relief.

"But you may rightfully bear arms," he said in a light tone. "Come, what shall they be?" He motioned her over to the table where he sat down and picked up a quill pen and smoothed out a blank parchment. "You are too fair and rare a woman to be lost beneath those Swynford boars' heads," he added with a certain grimness. "You name was Roet, was it not?" She nodded. "Well, that means a wheel," and he drew one on the parchment. They both stared down at it. Then John said, "But stay - it must be a Catherine wheel, of course, since it is yours!" And he added small jagged breaks to the wheel, as it always was in St. Catherine's symbol.

Katherine watched as he started afresh and drew the shield, then placed three Catherine wheels inside it, for three, he thought, made better balance and he had much feeling for all things in art. He drew with bold vigorous strokes and took pleasure in this small creation, which made a neater play on her name than many another of the nobles' canting arms - Lucy with his luce's heads, or that fool of an Arundel with his hopping hirondelles, or martlets. For like this most blazons had been chosen, and in making an individual badge for Katherine he felt that he bestowed on her a special gift and one far more lasting than the money he intended to give her.

"The field shall be gules," he said, touching the shield lightly with his pen, "the wheels or, for those colours suit you. Lancaster Herald shall enter this in the Roll of Arms tomorrow."

"Thank you, my lord," she cried, truly delighted, as much for the interest that he had shown as for her own promotion to armiger, and as she leaned over to look more closely at the little shield, the warm flowery scent of her body assailed him. He glanced sideways, at her unconscious face so near his that he could see the separate black lashes on her lowered lids and the down on her cheeks. She moved a little, and he felt her soft fragrant breath.

He shoved the parchment, quill and sand pell-mell across the table and jumped to his feet. She turned in fear, thinking him angry again; and as she looked up into his eyes, her hands grew cold with sweat and her legs began to tremble.

"Jesu -" he whispered. "Jesu -" He pulled her slowly towards him and she came as one who walks through water, each step impeded, until she leaned against him and yielded him her mouth with a low sobbing moan.

They stood thus pressed together in a mindless wine-dark rapture while the last reflected light faded from the Thames outside and vesper bells rang faintly down the river. The fire died down. A log cracked in two, and flames leaped up again. She felt him lift her in his arms and her heart streamed into his. She had no strength to pit against his will and her own need, yet as he laid her on the ruby velvet bed her hand turned against his chest and she felt the sharp pressure of her betrothal ring.

She twisted from him wildly and flung herself off the bed, "My dearest lord, I cannot!" She sank to her knees by the bedpost and buried her face in her arms. He lay quiet as she had left him, and watched her, while his breathing slowed in time, and he said very low, "I want you, Katrine, and I believe you love me." He spoke her name in the soft French way - as she had not heard it since her childhood and so piercing sweet it sounded to her that the meaning of his other words came slowly.

Then she raised her head and cried with bitterness, "Ay - I love you - though I knew it not till now. I think I've loved you since that time in Windsor pleasaunce you beat off Hugh, who would have raped me, and it's for that, that I am married."

The fire hissed in the silent room, and against the wall below water lapped from the wake of a passing boat. John stirred and put his hand on her arm. "I'll not force you, Katrine - you shall come to me of yourself."

"I cannot," she repeated, though she dared not look at him. "Dear God, you know I cannot. Ay, I know adultery is so light a thing at court, but I'm of simple stock and to me 'tis sin so vile that I would hate myself as much as God would."

"And hate me?" He spoke low and gentle.

"Sainte Marie, I could never hate you - my dear lord, don't torture me with these questions, ah let me go" - for his hand had tightened on her arm and he bent his face close to hers. She gathered all her strength and cried, "Have you forgot why we are both in black!"

He drew back sharply and got up off the bed. He went to the fire and twisting a rush lit the tapers on the table and in the silver wall scones. He came back to her and lifted her roughly to her feet. "I scarce know what to think," he said, "except that I must forget you, it seems." His hands dropped from her shoulders. His blue eyes had gone hard between the narrowed lids, and he spoke with chill precision. "You have yourself reminded me that there are ladies of the court will help me to forget all manner of grief, and who will not think it shame to be desired by the Duke of Lancaster."

A spear-thrust of pain streaked through her breast, but she answered as steadily as he, "I've no doubt of that, Your Grace. As for me I must return to Kettlethorpe at once."

"And if I refuse permission - what would you say?"

"That such a thing would ill befit a man reputed one of the most chivalrous knights in Christendom."

They stared at each other in a struggle that racked them both, and she clung to the sudden enmity between them as a shield.

He turned first and walking from her to the window stood looking out at the night-darkened Thames. "Very well, Katherine, I shall arrange your escort back to Lincolnshire. You'll receive word at the Beaufort Tower. You still shall have no cause to reproach me for ingratitude."

She said nothing. Now that he no longer looked at her, her face grew anguished, she gazed at the tall black figure by the window, at the haughty set of his shoulders, the implacability she felt in his averted head. She ran to the perch and seized her cloak and was out of the door and had shut it behind her before he understood. He turned crying, "Katrine!" to the shut door. Then, staring at it, he sank down on the window-seat as she had found him. His eyes, still grim, travelled from the door to the hollow on the ruby velvet coverlet where they had lain together so briefly and where he had been shaken by a passion such as he had never known. "There's a fire been lit that's not so easy to put out," he said aloud. He got up and going to the table picked up Chaucer's poem. He gazed at it, and made a strange hoarse sound. He put the poem carefully to one side. After a moment he began to rip the seals and tear the cords on the neglected official missives, his ringers moving with sharp violent jerks.

Katherine fled through the rooms behind the Avalon Chamber as she had come, passing Raulin as he sat in a recess waiting for summons. He cried "M'lady!" but she did not hear him and he was left to his own startled thoughts.

Through the Duchess's dressing-room and down the stairs and out behind the falcon mew, Katherine ran, until in the Outer Ward she forced herself to slower steps and pulled her hood far down over her face. She went to the stables and ordered Doucette saddled. She flung herself on the mare and set forth through the great gate and down the Strand to London. The Savoy was hateful to her, nothing would induce her to return to the Beaufort Tower, and from instinct she fled back to the only warm unstressful affection she had ever known.

Hawise herself opened the door to Katherine's knock and her glad cry of welcome faltered as she got a good look at the girl's face.

"May I stay here tonight?" whispered Katherine, clutching Hawise. "Just tonight. I must leave for home at dawn."

"For sure, love, in my bed, and longer than that. Here, Mother, gi' me the wine" - for Katherine had begun to shiver uncontrollably. Hawise flung her strong young arm around Katherine's waist and held a cup to the girl's lips.

The Pessoners crowded around, kindly, murmuring. Master Guy rocking on his heels by the fireplace boomed out, "Hast seen some goblin, my little lady, that has 'frighted you? You're safe enough here, for the smell o' good fresh herrings affrights goblins!" and he chuckled.

"Hush, clattermouth," snapped his wife, and beneath her breath she said, "God's nails, mayhap 'tis some breeding cramp, poor little lass," for she had seen that dazed glassy-white look on the face of many a woman that was to miscarry of a child.

"Come to bed, sweeting," said Hawise with firm authority. "You look fit to drop and soaked through too." She marshalled Katherine up the loft stairs to the sleeping-room over the fish-shop and sharply quieted two of the younger children who poked their heads up from bed. She undressed Katherine and wrapped her in a blanket and put her in her own bed, where little Jackie slept on the far side.

Katherine sighed, and her shivering stopped. "Thank you," she whispered. Hawise sat on the bed and held the candle near.

"Can you tell me, dear?" she said, her shrewd eyes scanning the upturned face, the bruised trembling lips. " 'Tis a man?" she said. "Ay, I see it is. And he has used ye ill?" she added fiercely.

"Nay -" Katherine turned her face into the pillow. "I don't know. Blessed Virgin, give me strength - I love him - I must get home - to my babies, to Hugh - I cannot stay so near - -"