Katherine from her chamber window watched the pilgrimage move slowly from the courtyard through the gatehouse to the Strand, and her eyes shone with happy tears as she turned to her sister. "Blessed Jesu - so she's gone again! God be thanked she didn't stay for the Requiem Mass."

"The Duchess cares for no past but her own," said Philippa dryly. "Now that I've a fortnight's leave," she added considering, "I think I'll go back with Geoffrey to Aldgate. His lodging must be in sore need of my care. Last time he'd let an ale keg drip for days - ruined the floor-cloth - and the fleas!"

"Geoffrey'll meet us at Saint Paul's?" asked Katherine, but she knew the answer. He, of all people, would never fail in respect to the memory of Blanche. Katherine too thought of Blanche with loving reverence like that one gave the saints.

Later that morning, the Lancastrian procession from the Savoy to St. Paul's Cathedral was led by the Duke. They were all dressed in black and all afoot. Katherine's position was between Elizabeth and Philippa, behind little Henry, who followed his father at two paces.

Katherine and John exchanged hurried words while the procession formed. He had bent close to her and whispered, "Dear heart, we shall be together again tomorrow," and she had pulled her black veil quickly across her face to hide her unseemly joy.

As they marched across the Fleet bridge and entered the City at Ludgate, the Londoners made way respectfully. The men uncovered, many of the women ducked a curtsy as the Duke marched slowly past. There were cries of "Lancaster" and "The Duchess Blanche, God rest her sweet soul!"

At the corner of Ave Maria lane, a woman's voice somewhat thickened with drink shouted out, "Cock's bones, but the Duke's a handsome kingly wight, belike he'd be no bad ruler for us after all!"

She was shushed by a hundred whispers, but John felt a contented glow. He thought the temper of the London crowd was for him as it never had been before, and he thought that his poor brother had been right to counsel moderation in the handling of the Commons, "The Good Parliament," the people called it now. And the sacrifice had not been too great, barring the whimperings of the old King, bereft of his Alice. The imprisoned merchants doubtless had deserved some punishment, the Lords Latimer and Neville, too. The new Privy Council which the Commons had appointed to the King was harder for John to stomach, and yet here too magnanimity might be shown; for little Richard's sake it might be possible to conciliate and work with even such enemies as the Earl of March.

His softened mellow spirit deepened as he walked down St. Paul's immense nave, through the choir and to the right of the High Altar where he knelt in Blanche's chantry beside her marble tomb. His retinue filed in. The nobles filled the choir, the rest overflowed into the aisles. Philippa, Elizabeth and Henry knelt on purple cushions at the far end of their mother's chantry.

The priests in black and silver chasubles commenced the celebration of the Mass. "Introibo ad altare Dei - ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam - -"

The chanting and responses went on, but for John three words echoed and re-echoed - Laetificat juventutem meant, the joy of my youth. He looked up at Blanche's effigy, all but her face covered with a black velvet pall. The twenty-eight candles, one for each of her years on earth, illumined the serene alabaster profile. Joy of my youth - yes. But you would not begrudge me joy now, my Blanche, you know that you've lost nothing that was ever yours in this new love that has come to me.

His exaltation grew, and with it a certainty that all would go well with him from now on. His enemies would melt away, success would come in war, in peace. Castile would crumble for him like a marchpane subtlety, and he would build it up anew of strong and shining steel while all of England rang with the glory of his name, as it had once rung for Edward.

"Requiescat in pace - -"

The Mass was over, John felt exalted, cleansed, much as he had felt long ago during the sacred vigil before his father knighted him.

He walked down the nave. Throughout the vast church his people rose from their knees to follow him. He stepped out to the porch, and stood blinking in the sunlight, still bemused, and not comprehending why there was a great crowd in the walled close. Again he heard "Lancaster," and he threw his head up to smile at them, thinking they came to do him honour. He checked himself, seeing that there was no answering warmth in the upturned faces. They appeared shocked, some even dismayed, but the strongest impact from those gaping faces was a malicious curiosity.

"Make way - make way!" cried Lancaster Herald, bustling out of the church and brandishing his baton and trumpet. "Make way for John, King of Castile, Duke of Lancaster, and for his meinie!"

The crowd did not move. There were a few nervous snickers then from the midst of the rapidly swelling throng a man's voice shouted, "Fine-sounding titles, herald! But tell us why we should make way for John o' Gaunt, a Flemish butcher's son!"

John stood rooted to the pavement. The sky darkened and across the close the house roofs wavered like water. There was a roaring in his head.

Katherine with the ducal daughters had come out on the porch in time to hear a man shout, but at first she was simply puzzled like the others. Then she saw whom the crowd was warily watching: like a great collective beast of prey, uncertain of its quarry's next move. And the Duke did nothing, he stood as if some witchcraft had turned him to stone.

Katherine instinctively moved nearer to him as the vanguard of his retinue began to trickle from the church.

"Ay," cried the same taunting voice, "John o' Gaunt seems wonderstruck! He's not yet read the placard what's nailed on yonder door. The good monk there was passing, and he read it to us, my lord, so we maught all share the secret o' your true birth!"

Katherine, utterly bewildered, looked where the crowd did and saw Benedictine monks hovering near a recess of the church porch. Their faces were sunk deep in their black cowls. As she looked, the monks vanished, slipping through a side door into the church.

The crowd roared, half with laughter at the disappearing monks, half in the jeering excitement with which they would pelt stones at miscreants in the stock. Yet some were uneasy. The Duke's motionless figure was uncanny. He stared over their heads as though weird signs were painted on the western sky.

Their spokesman shouted out once more, but in less certain tone. "Will ye not read the placard, m'lord? 'Tis on Paul's door behind ye. It tells strange tidings o' a noble lord what holds his head so high!"

Katherine's heart began to pound. She noted something familiar in the voice and stood on tiptoe to peer into the crowd. She saw a broad red face, a sandy thatch of hair beneath a peaked cap, with the badge of the weavers' guild. My God, she thought, 'tis Jack Maudelyn! She glared down at Hawise's husband with some confused idea of quelling him, when Lord de la Pole rushed out on the church porch, crying, "Christ's blood, what's ado here! What's this mob?" His shrewd eyes darted over the scene, and he drew his sword, shouting, "A Lancaster! A Lancaster! Come forth to your Lord!"

Inside the church there were startled answering cries. The great doors were flung wide. The Duke's knights and squires came running out, fumbling at their sword hilts.

The crowd wavered and pressed back against the wall, then as though a cork had been drawn they poured, stumbling, scrambling, through the churchyard gates, and fled up Paternoster Lane.

"Shall we after them, Your Grace?" cried a young knight eagerly.

The Duke made no answer. He had not moved on the step while his retinue surrounded him.

De la Pole sheathed his sword. "No," he said to the knight. " 'Twould not be seemly here on this day of mourning. 'Tis no doubt some prentice prank. They've done no harm - -"

He faltered as he got his first direct look at the Duke. "God's bones, my lord - you've not been wounded?"

The Duke's face was grey as the church stones and beaded with moisture. His lips were drawn in like an old man's.

Katherine too stared at her lover's face, and she ran to him crying, "My darling - why do you look like that? They were but silly japes the man called out."

He pushed her aside, and walking to the church door, shut the half his men had opened. On the door dangling from an iron nail hung a large square of parchment. It was inscribed in English in a fine writing suggestive of the cloisters. The Duke clasped his hands behind his back and read it slowly.

Know men of England, how ye have been wickedly deceived by one who incontinently plots to seize our throne. The Duke of Lancaster is no Englishman, but a Fleming. He's none of royal Edward and Philippa's blood, but a changeling. For ye must know that in Ghent, the Queen's Grace was delivered of a son that a nurse overlay. In fear of her lord the King, the Queen did send to find another infant of the same age. It was a butcher's son, and fie whom ye now call John of Gaunt. This secret did the Queen confess to the Bishop of Winchester, on her deathbed, so it is said.

The Duke drew his dagger from its jewelled sheath. Its hilt was enamelled with the lilies and leopards, tipped with a ruby rose of Lancaster. He thrust the dagger through the parchment and left it quivering there.

He turned to his bewildered courtiers. He saw none of them, nor Katherine, nor his children. His face became one only his fighting men had seen, as his lips drew back in a terrible smile. "They shall learn whether I am Edward's true-born son."