‘No. It is God’s will. The child is a consequence of our union, and so we will nurture it. Is that not so?’

‘Yes.’

There was no other reply I could make as we stood together in the dusty atmosphere, fingers enmeshed. Until he spread his palm against my waist, and I covered it with mine.

‘How far on are you?’ he asked, surprising me.

‘Three months.’

I could see him calculating. ‘You conceived the first time we lay together at The Savoy.’ The rich tones of his laughter lifted to the roof-beams. ‘How amazingly effective our unplatonic, un-divine coming together proved to be. Perhaps it was the effect of that poor specimen of a rose after all.’ Then sliding his arm around my waist he began to lead me to the door. ‘Will you stay here?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll send you timber to stop the drips in the roof.’

And I laughed with him, in relief and in recognition of a little flame of joy that his acceptance had ignited in me. ‘It will be welcome.’

And then we were outside, where the rain had stopped and the low sun had begun to shine, coating every surface in diamond drops, and his arm fell away for form’s sake. We walked slowly back, at arm’s length, towards the hall, as if discussing the state of the local highways.

‘I’ll come when I can,’ he said as he drew back to allow me to enter before him, managing to brush his hand down the length of my arm, to brush his fingers against mine. ‘You know I’m committed to my father’s naval campaign against France.’

‘I will look for you when you can come.’ I must not be selfish.

And then, when we were standing alone in my private chamber, I became thoroughly selfish as the Duke’s reassurances, murmured against my temple as he loosed the pins from my hair, held all the power of an oath before the Blessed Virgin.

‘Although I may be far away, I will have my people watch over you. You will be constantly in my thoughts. This child will be as precious to me as any child that Constanza bears, even those of Blanche. Even my heir. You will be brave and steadfast. There is a fire in you that astonishes me.’

If I had lacked fire in those insecure days before his arrival, the Duke set it ablaze with a conviction that I loved him enough to face the stigma and the consequences. He spent the night with me in my marital bed, which proved too short for his long limbs, but no detriment to his ardour or his imagination, and then he snatched a second day to spend it riding with me and my steward around the nearer acres of the estate.

Parting was difficult.

‘Keep in good health,’ I said, with an arm’s length between us. ‘I will pray for you.’

‘And I for you. God keep you, dearest Katherine.’

The Duke in his ineffable wisdom understood that I could not bear an emotional parting. He was going to Aquitaine. His life would be in danger, so there was always that lurking fear beneath my heart: would death on a distant battlefield take him from me? But we would not part in sorrow. After he had kissed my lips and my brow, abjuring me that our child, which would undoubtedly be a son, should be given the name John, making me laugh with his cool certainty about the matter, I set myself to endure the loneliness with fortitude.

I screamed in agony.

‘Holy Virgin,’ I panted when I could. ‘I don’t remember such travail as this!’

‘You never do, once the pain is past and the child born,’ Agnes observed as she pressed a damp cloth to my forehead.

My pains started in January, on a day of winter cold and frost, the usual ripple of discomfort that deepened and lengthened fast becoming a claw of agony. I drank the wine mixed with Agnes’s tried-and-tested potion and looked for completion within the day, but this child was different, when nothing seemed to progress except a monstrous pain that gripped my body and held it in thrall. I lost count of the hours, barely noting the change from light to dark beyond my window, conscious of nothing but what seemed to be the tearing apart of my flesh and bone for the sake of this creature that refused to be born.

‘I was worried about this,’ Agnes muttered as she allowed me to grip her hands, nails digging deep.

‘Well, now you’re proved right!’ I groaned as the appalling clenching ebbed.

As if she had some premonition of my birthing difficulties, Agnes had been careful of me in recent weeks, insisting on a diet of eggs and fowl, broths of fish. She had rubbed my belly with hot goose-grease. All to no avail.

Was this punishment for my sin? For our sin?

‘Will I lose this child?’ I cried out in another fleeting lull. ‘Is this God’s will?’

‘It may be.’ Even in my extremity I heard the worry in her voice. ‘But we’ll fight for him.’

She pulled me from my bed.

‘I cannot walk…’ The muscles in my legs would hardly carry me.

‘You will, my lady, if you wish to see this child alive. But slowly…’

She led me up and down my hall, up and down the stairs. And then such tortures as Agnes inflicted on me. Frankincense wafted under my nose to make me sneeze again and again. A bitter tincture of mint and wormwood forced on me, even though I resisted.

Finally she looped the coral beads of my rosary round my neck.

‘Fetch the snakeskin from my coffer,’ Agnes growled at my diary maid. ‘We’ll need it if this child is born dead.’

‘No!’ I resisted such a thought, my hand fastening like a claw on Agnes’s wrist.

That must not be. The child—living and breathing—might cut my reputation to shreds and beyond all mending, but I would not see it dead.

I struggled to my feet and began to walk again, using the bed hangings, the tapestries, anything for support, as well as Agnes’s stalwart shoulder. Conscious only of pain and exhaustion, the cloying fumes that filled the chamber, I wept in my terror. Surely no child could withstand such a process of birth.

What was it that tipped the balance? When all seemed lost, when I could walk no more, when I could withstand no more hurt, the child, my son, was eased from my body by Agnes, her hands slick with linseed and fenugreek. She picked him up and wrapped him in linen as if he were a fine prince, not some small, wizened creature, mewling like a weak kitten.

Then silence.

I looked at her face, from where I had sunk down on the floor beside my bed.

‘Agnes…?’ Her features were tight.

‘Rest awhile…’

‘I wish to see him.’

And as she pushed the matted tendrils of hair back from my face, I reached up to take my child in my arms. Here was no fine prince. His face was suffused, eyes screwed tight, lips flaccid and scant black hair plastered to his skull. It seemed that he gasped for air. Despite the sweat and blood that covered both of us, I held him close to my breast.

‘He is so small.’

‘We should baptise him, my lady.’

She was frowning and I caught the fear, the urgency.

‘John. We will call him John.’ It was not difficult to decide.

Tears threatened, through weakness and regret, but I swallowed against them. How light he was, and I barely had the strength to hold him close. His eyes, opened now, were blue and without focus, as all babies. His features had no resemblance to John or, I thought, to myself. I spread his hands. So weak. So small. My heart, so full of hope at his birth, fell into a void as black as the wisps of hair that clung to his head.

‘Agnes…’

‘What is it, my lady?’ So full of compassion was her voice that my efforts to quell my tears failed.

‘You must tell him.’ It was all I could think of. ‘You must send a message to the Duke.’

‘And say what?’

Tell him to come to me. Tell him I am in despair and in need.

‘Tell him that he has a son.’ I would say no more.

‘And I’ll tell him more than that,’ she muttered. ‘We may not be troubled by this one long. He’d better hurry if he wants to see his son this side of the grave.’

I tried not to listen as the wet nurse, a young woman from the village who had her own healthy babe, took my son from me.




Chapter Eight

I retreated to courtly formality. I curtsied.