"I cannot speak for the Queen," he said in his soft, wooing voice. "I've not seen her for months. She suffers much with the dropsy and keeps at Woodstock, but I understood your sister to mean that whether you choose marriage or the cloister, she would endeavour, in time" - he paused, knowing well how long such matters often took - "to suggest your wishes to our sovereign lady, God give her health."

"Oh," said Katherine faintly. So after all she must continue at the convent and await the Queen's pleasure, as before. She turned, biting her lips, to stare through the tiny unglazed window towards the sea.

The squire walked over beside her and touched her bare arm, so light and quick a caress that the prioress did not see it. "Ma belle," he whispered in rapid French, "hast thou yet felt Cupid's arrows that pierce the heart with honey fire?" At Katherine's quick indrawn breath and startled eyes, he went on louder in English, "I may tell your sister, then, that you wish to be wed?"

Katherine blushed scarlet and bowed her head. She knew nothing of the stylised game of courtly love and the young man's question about Cupid and honey fire was gibberish, but a shiver raced through her veins when he touched her and spoke in the almost forgotten accents of her childhood.

"Are you not English, Sir Squire?" she asked breathlessly.

Roger de Cheyne laughed. "English enough since my grandfather came here from Artois with Isabella of France and I was born at our manor in Oxfordshire; but my mother still has lands in France, so I've spent much time there."

"And your father?" asked the prioress. She, too, was interested in this springtime breath from the great world.

"Killed at Crecy, by his own French kinsman, as it turned out," said Roger cheerfully. "My father, of course, was in King Edward's company, but he had many relatives on the other side. Well, that's war. I was born, by the way, on the same day as the battle, so I never saw my father - God rest his soul."

Katherine was counting back. The English victory at Crecy had been in late August of 1346, so the young squire was nearly twenty and born under the sign of Virgo. That meant for a man high ideals of chastity and nobility; often the natives of that sign went into holy orders, like the blessed St. Cuthbert.

She stole an anxious glance at Roger through her long lashes. He did not look like a young man inclined towards the priesthood, but then what did she know of young men and their inclinations, she thought, depressed. Nor would she find out anything now, it seemed, for the prioress had risen, holding out her hand for the squire to kiss her ring.

"It was good of you to come with your message, young sir," said the prioress far less cordially. She had suddenly realised that, charming as young de Cheyne might be, his visit had proved nothing. Katherine was apparently to remain on here as a charity boarder, her future still unsettled; besides Godeleva did not like the languishing glances the youth's bold eyes cast on her charge. There had been no seductions or scandal during her rule at the convent and there would not be - even of a secular. So the prioress herded Katherine back to the mistress of novices and personally supervised the serving of bread and ale to the squire before God-speeding him under the gatehouse.

Katherine did not see him again, but as she lay that night amongst the novices she had heard trumpets blaring from the castle, and fancied that she could also hear the voices of men singing and laughing. The Duke of Lancaster and his meinie would be revelling, and Roger de Cheyne playing perhaps on the lute that she had seen strapped to his saddle. And Katherine had cried softly for a time, stifling the sound with her hair so as not to disturb the sleeping novices.

Sainte Marie, what a baby I was, thought this older Katherine lying on the strange hostel pallet, for now that release had come at last, all past disappointments seemed trivial. I will be good and please Philippa and the Queen, she thought vaguely, quite unable to visualise either of them. Of the husband who would be allotted to her she scarcely thought at all, except that it would be delightful if he were young and handsome like Roger de Cheyne.

CHAPTER II

It took them four more days to reach Windsor, and only for Katherine were the small mishaps and adventures of the road consistently interesting. The two nuns grew weary of strange beds and food, their middle-aged bones ached, their muscles cramped from all this riding. Moreover, Dame Cicily had caught a cold after her ducking in the Swale, and her doleful sneezes grew as monotonous as the slow clop of the horses, or Long Will's increasingly exasperated oaths. He was on fire to get back to Windsor where the festivities would be already under way; the preliminary jousting in the lists, bull-baitings and cockfights by the river, while fair Alison of Egham had promised to give her old husband the slip and be waiting at the alehouse to join Will in merry dalliance. Yet by Sunday the party from Sheppey had travelled no farther than Southwark, and there was no means of hurrying them. Dame Cicily's nag limped, the prioress's cob shied and then baulked at anything which annoyed it, which meant pedlars, dogs, puddles, geese and particularly the sound of bagpipes, which they encountered with frequency while they were on the Pilgrims' Way, since most groups bound for Canterbury included amateur musicians.

So Long Will chafed and endured a journey of nearly six days, though it had taken him less than three alone. And at Southwark he would not allow his charges to cross the Bridge and enter London, which would have meant more delay.

The tired nuns did not care. The prioress had twice been to London before this, once as a girl with her family, and once on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Edward the Confessor at Westminster; as for Dame Cicily, she had reached a stage of snivelling apathy, longing only for the safe quiet of Sheppey and the ministrations of the infirmaress.

But for Katherine it was different. To be here at last by London town, which lay across the river with its teeming traffic of wherries, wine-laden galleys from Gascony and gorgeously painted private barges; to glimpse the shining walls and the stately four-turreted White Tower, the bustling Bridge hung with banners; to hear the hum and rhythm of the city below the jangling of a hundred different church bells - and to be allowed no nearer, that was a bitter disappointment. Still, she was by temperament reasonable and by training obedient, so she contented herself with a few timid questions.

That tremendous high spire to the left, so strong and up-thrust above the city? Why, St. Paul's Cathedral of course, said the prioress. And that great pile of masonry down by the water's edge? The prioress did not know, but Long Will took pity on the girl. That's Baynard's Castle, damoiselle; it belongs to the Earls of Clare. Nearly all the nobles have city houses, but the finest of all is the Duke of Lancaster's Savoy. Look -"

He swung his horse around and directed Katherine's gaze upriver, a mile or so beyond the city walls. "Can you see it?"

She squinted into the noon light and made out a huge mass of cream-coloured stone and many crenellated turrets from which fluttered tiny splashes of red and gold, and one sharp-pointed gilt spire which marked the private chapel, but she could see few details, and no premonition seized her that the great Duke's palace might ever be more to her than an object of curiosity and awe. Indeed, she passed on quickly to strain her eyes farther in the direction of Westminster, but she could not see it because of the bend in the river, and Long Will, though usually tolerant of Katherine, was hurrying them on again. They turned south to pick up the Richmond road, and tall oaks hid all the north bank from sight.

"Yes," said Will, riding beside Bayard to keep a minatory eye on the horse, and having pursued his own train of thought, "John o' Gaunt's a lucky man - lucky in bed, that is. He's naught but the King's third son, yet I vow he has more lands and castles than his father."

"How is that?" asked the prioress, sighing. It had begun to drizzle and there was still much road ahead before they reached the convent where she intended to stop that night.

"By the marriage-bed, madam," said Long Will, laughing, "and by death-beds, too. The Lady Blanche of Lancaster, bless her sweet face, brought him the greatest inheritance in the kingdom, once her father and sister were dead, may their souls rest in peace. They died of plague five years ago, both of 'em, and so the Lady Blanche got all." Katherine, mildly interested, would have questioned further, but the prioress, who had just developed a crick in her back, sharply told her not to talk so much, and Katherine subsided.

Long Will kicked his roan, which leaped ahead. He hurried them on until they passed near the royal palace at Sheen, deserted now except for a few varlets, since King Edward seldom used it as a residence, preferring Windsor, Woodstock or Eltham when he was not at Westminster. But Sheen was a small, pretty castle floating like a swan on its broad shining moat, and it put Will in a fine humour for the gatekeeper's daughter was a buxom lass, coy enough to make good sport, and she would doubtless be found at Windsor for the merrymaking.

On the following afternoon, Monday the twentieth of April, they finally reached Windsor, and during the last hour's ride, the road was so thronged they could scarcely move at all. Long Will's voice grew hoarse from shouting, "Make way! Make way for the Queen's messenger!"

From all the nearby shires, from as far away as Northumberland and Devon and Lincolnshire, the people were flocking to celebrate St. George's Day at Windsor. Weeks ago the King's heralds had galloped throughout the country proclaiming the great tournament and inviting all valorous knights to come and participate. There would be tilting at the quintain and other knightly games; there would be jousts and challenges, and there would be a climaxing tourney, or melee, for all contenders. Most of the knights had arrived at Windsor some days ago, and the lesser ones who could not be accommodated in the castle were already encamped on the plain below the walls in a bivouac of multi-coloured tents; many had brought their ladies and all, of course, their squires.