The Scandalous Duchess

‘Who are you?’

‘Katherine de Swynford, my lady.’

‘You are part of this…?’ She sought for the word. I had been right. Her French, heavily accented, was not good.

‘Household,’ I supplied. ‘I am part of the Duke’s household. And of yours. I am appointed to be one of your damsels.’

She stared at me. ‘One of my ladies?’ she repeated.

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘Do you also care for the Duke’s children?’

‘Yes, my lady. When it is necessary.’

‘I have not met the children yet.’ She frowned. ‘My lord has told me of them.’

‘Tomorrow you will see them.’

She lifted her arms to allow her under-gown to be removed, then stood in her shift as the maid unrolled her stockings, obediently lifting one foot, then the other. ‘I will have a son of my own,’ she announced. ‘You served Duchess Blanche?’

‘Yes, my lady.’

The shift removed, I saw how undeveloped her body was at hip and breast. Childbearing would not be easy for her. The pregnancy showed barely a roundness of her belly. I offered my hand to help her step into the tub and lower herself into the water, where she sighed with pleasure and closed her eyes.

‘Are you married?’ she asked.

‘A widow, my lady.’

‘What is that?’

‘Una viuda,’ murmured one of the women who seemed to have more French than her mistress.

‘I understand. Your husband is dead. Do you have children?’

She had so many questions.

‘Yes. I have three. My daughter Blanche is the Duke’s godchild. What is that?’ I looked at the woman who had replied before.

‘Un ahijado,’ she supplied.

The Duchess’s eyes opened, focused on me, then narrowed. ‘He—the Duke—has a regard for you.’ There was no friendliness there and I sensed a jealousy in what was obviously a question. Who should recognise it better than I?

‘For me, a little, for the service I gave to his wife. And for my husband, much more,’ I explained. ‘He died in Aquitaine last year, in the Duke’s employ. Sir Hugh was a soldier in his retinue.’

‘I see.’ She understood enough, and what was most pertinent. The resentment in her eyes cooled. ‘Your husband was a man of title.’

‘Yes. He was a knight.’

‘Ah!’ She smiled, her face suddenly lit with an inner beauty. ‘So you are Lady Katherine de Swynford.’

‘Yes, my lady.’ Status also meant something to her. I wondered how fluent the Duke was in Castilian. He would need to be, to pick his way through all these Conflicting impulses.

‘Then I have decided. I want you to be my damsel,’ she stated with all the imperiousness of the house of Castile.

‘As I will be. The Duke has appointed me.’ I explained, slowly: ‘My sister, Mistress Chaucer, will also come to care for you.’

‘Is she like you?’

‘She is very capable. She knows about children.’

The new wife stretched out her arm for the maid to wash with a soft cloth. Her glance to me was suddenly sharp. ‘I fear this…’ She spread her free hand over her belly. ‘It makes me feel ill.’

‘There is no need to fear, my lady. You are young and strong.’

‘Still I fear.’ She shrugged. ‘Were you with Duchess Blanche? When she was with child?’

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘She lost some of her babies, did she not?’

‘Yes, my lady.’ I could not lie, but I poured her a cup of warm wine and offered it, hoping to distract her. It would do no good to speak of the three little boys who had not seen the first anniversary of their birth. Or the girl, Isabella, who had barely breathed.

‘How many?’ the Duchess insisted.

‘Four,’ I admitted. ‘But she carried three who are now grown.’

She waved aside the wine. ‘Have you lost any babies?’

‘No, my lady.’

‘Then you will stay with me. You will give me your advice.’ A demand again, not a request. ‘It is…it is imperativo that I carry un heredero for Castile.’

I caught the gist. ‘Of course,’ I soothed. The Duchess Constanza needed an heir.

‘My lord will get my kingdom back for me. I will not live in England long. My lord will drive my vicioso uncle Enrique from Castile. He will kill him for me. And I will take back what is mine.’

It sounded as if she had learned the phrases. So confident. So driven. Her eyes were aflame, her hands fisted on the edge of the bath. Then she looked at me, gaze narrowed again on my face.

‘You are beautiful.’

Which surprised me. ‘Thank you, my lady.’

‘I am said to be beautiful too.’

‘Yes, my lady. The people of London filled the streets to look at you.’

Her frown deepened into a scowl. ‘Was Blanche beautiful?’

‘Yes, my lady. But fair. Not dark like you.’

‘My lord likes beautiful things.’

‘Yes, my lady. You will lack for nothing here at The Savoy.’

My soothing comment elicited a torrent of Castilian.

‘A excepción de la tierra de mi nacimiento—y la venganza.’

I looked helplessly at the Castilian damsel who had hovered at my side throughout.

‘The Duchess says: “Except for the land of my birth. And vengeance.”’

‘Vengeance for what, my lady?’

Which was answered by a flash of eye and another stream of invective, carefully translated for me:

‘My father—King Pedro—his murderers live on, unpunished. He was ambushed by assassins, paid for by my uncle Enrique. He was decapitated and left unburied to his great dishonour. His head was sent to Seville for public exhibition. Dios mio! It is my life’s ambition to have my father interred in Castilian soil with all honour and his murderers slain. That I will do before I die.’

‘Of course, my lady.’

Her flat chest heaving, extreme vexation in every gesture, Constanza surged to her feet, splashing water, the evidence of the forthcoming child clearer as she arched her body.

‘My lord will take Castile from the deplorable Enrique. We will rule it together as King and Queen. This child—this son—will rule in his own time. I will have fulfilled my destiny—and my new husband’s too. What more could he desire, than to be King of Castile?’

What more could the Duke desire? There was no path for his ambitions in England, but Castile might just provide them. A kingdom of his own, to rule in his own name, answerable to no one. For the first time I understood the importance of this marriage for him. This marriage, the promise of this kingdom, would give him his heart’s desire.

‘I am tired,’ she announced. ‘I will go to bed.’

We dried her with soft linen, combed her hair. Wrapped in an embroidered chamber robe, feet in fur-lined slippers, she was soon propped against the pillows on her bed.

‘Do you think the Duke cares for me?’ she asked.

How could he not love her? She was beautiful and wellborn, an heiress with a kingdom for the taking by a courageous man. Obvious to all, the Duke was chivalrous and caring in his first meeting with her. Of course he loved her.

‘The Duke chose you before all other ladies who wished to wed a Plantagenet prince,’ I replied, for was that not the truth? ‘How could he not care for you?’

‘Bien! I hope it is so.’ She nodded, seeming to understand.

Do you care for him? I felt an urge to ask. I had no idea. She gave nothing away. She was shrewd and sharp, and I knew it was my duty to hope that the Duke would be happy with her and she with him.

Jealousy, bitter as aloes, coated my mouth as I left her to sleep, but then the erratic leap of my thoughts forced me into a wry smile.

Beware of the wife, Mistress Saxby had warned. It’s easy to be carried away by the glamour of stolen kisses, but a wife can make your life a misery. Take my word for it.

I would indeed beware, if ever such kisses came my way. It seemed, on my first steps as a damsel to Duchess Constanza, an unlikely eventuality.

So this marriage to the Queen of Castile was of vast importance to the Duke. It was brought home to me just how critical a step it was for him when a messenger arrived from the King as the household, without the new Duchess, sat at supper in the sumptuous splendour of the Great Hall. He bowed and handed over a sealed document.

‘His Grace the King asks that you consider the contents, Monseigneur d’Espaigne. He would value Monseigneur’s advice at the earliest possible moment.’

The Duke took the packet, inviting the messenger to sit with us while he read.

Monseigneur d’Espaigne.

Already he was recognised as King of Castile in his wife’s name. I would never see him as that—to me he would always be the Duke—even if courtesy and etiquette determined that I comply, but without doubt it would colour the direction of his future life. Would Monseigneur d’Espaigne not forget everything but the road to the throne of Castile, paved with gold and bloodshed, which lay stretching in a glittering seam before him, with the bride at his side? He would take an army and begin a re-conquest of the kingdom—and then he would live there, far from England, far from me, with his wife and new family.

An excellent outcome for all concerned. All my concerns should be allayed.

But they were not.

I offered up a silent prayer for forgiveness as the Duke perused the King’s letter, and my spoon congealed in a rich dish of mammenye ryal, the minced poultry redolent of almond milk and sweet wine, while I listed my sins in silent petition before the Blessed Virgin. Lust for a man who was bound to another. Avarice, the sin of deadly excess, as evidenced by my uncontrolled emotion. Greed that made me wish for an affection that was not mine to take. Envy against the Duchess, beautiful and regal, in her rightful place at the Duke’s side and in his bed. Pride that blinded me to my own unworthiness.

All of those. The tally of them horrified me.

Can you not find evidence of Sloth, Wrath and Gluttony as well? I asked bitterly.

I was sure I could. I put my spoon down, determined to eat no more that night. I should never have come back. It was an unforgivable mistake. I should not have allowed myself to be drawn into dreams of what could never be. I had allowed myself to live, however briefly, in a magical scene in which my love was no longer unrequited. One day spent at The Savoy, absorbing the high politics of the occasion and the determination of the new Duchess, had shown me the futility of it all. The Duke would assuredly have other fish to fry.

‘Has my wife found her chamber to her liking?’ the Duke asked Lady Alice as we rose at last at the end of the meal.

‘Yes, my lord, so I understand. Lady Katherine waited on her.’

Since I was standing within earshot, he could do no other than look to me for clarification.

‘I trust she has suffered no ill effects from the journey, Lady Katherine?’

‘None, my lord,’ I replied, coolly informative and nothing more. ‘The Duchess is weary, of course. She will be strong again by the morning. I am honoured to be appointed as her damsel, my lord,’ I added.

‘I can think of none better.’

He moved on beside Lady Alice, head bent, absorbed in some household problem.

Well, that had been entirely impersonal, completely centred on the well-being of the Castilian Queen, as it should be. His smile was such that he would bestow on any one of his retinue from his most eminent physician to Nichol, the gardener at The Savoy. That briefest of conversations had made everything crystal clear. All my worrying had been futile.

Now it must be for me to put it right in my mind, to return to the calm existence of my previous service at The Savoy. It would be just like before. It would be like stepping back into my old skin, before all the upheaval. Before the Duke had said what he said, and torn my world apart.

Why did he have to do that, when it was obviously an aberration? Why were men sometimes as insensitive as a wild boar’s charge when faced with a huntsman’s lance? And there he was, entirely oblivious to the disturbance he had created, presumably concerned for nothing more than the perfect lie of the damask along his shoulders, the dramatic gleam of the gold chain against the red and black and gold of the cloth.

A little bubble of anger in my belly made me wish I had not eaten those final spoonfuls of the highly spiced dish. I regretted it even more when the Duke abandoned Lady Alice and awaited me by the door. My heart leaped, then plummeted as he raised a hand to stop my progress.

‘Lady Katherine.’

‘My lord?’

‘Are you angry?’ he asked abruptly.

We were, for that one moment, alone.

‘No, my lord,’ I reassured him quickly, smiling lightly, as I smoothed what I thought must be a particularly unyielding expression from my face. How well Queen Philippa had schooled me. ‘There is nothing to disturb me except gratitude for your kindness.’

‘I will send for you,’ he said with a shadow of a frown.

I was not to be allowed to slip into my old skin after all. His appraisal, agate-bright, was direct and uncompromising. I met it the same way, until he gestured for me to precede him from the hall, adding imperiously:

‘You will come to me.’

I opened my mouth, to refuse, or so I thought, until, fleetingly, he touched my arm. My adroitly composed refusal promptly fled, my willpower compromised by the slightest pressure of his fingers against my tight-buttoned sleeve. I think I looked at him in horror.

‘You give me no peace. Why should that be?’ he demanded.

I could find no reply at all to that.

I walked on, conscious that the Duke’s footsteps did not follow me, until a prickle of awareness snatched at my attention. I was being observed from the little knot of newcomers just arrived at the outer door.

There, muffled in furs, eyes cool and searching on my face, a cage of singing finches much like my own in her hand, was Philippa. My sister. I smiled, and kept my smile lively, even though I did not enjoy the judgemental quality of her expression. Philippa was not smiling.

In my own chamber, before she could descend on me, I put the rosary away in my coffer. Caught between sister Philippa and the Duke, I must tread carefully.

‘Where is he then, Philippa?’

‘I have no idea. Picardy, the last I heard.’

As I seated myself on my bed, my sister began to divest herself of her furs, placing them carefully over a polished settle, sweeping her hand down over the lustrous skins. She was not without means, but she took care of her possessions with a neat exactitude I recognised from our shared childhood. Her voice now, in maturity, was clipped with displeasure. ‘A military expedition, so I’m led to believe, but why he should feel the need to go when…’ She hissed her irritation. ‘I am, as usual, kept in the dark. He gave me the finches to keep me company and sweeten my mood.’

‘Very poetic,’ I observed, not daring to laugh.

‘Poetic, but useless,’ she remarked, uncharitably I thought. But then, I was not wed to Geoffrey Chaucer. I did not think that it was an experience I would enjoy, despite his erudition and clever way with words.

Philippa had arrived eventually at my chamber, leaving me much relieved that what I had thought to be a censorious stare had proved to be nothing of the sort, when she had laughed and fallen into my arms. Or perhaps she was keeping the censure for later. I knew my sister well.

‘I am so very pleased to be back here,’ she announced. After Duchess Blanche’s death, when her household was disbanded and I had gone to Kettlethorpe, my sister had taken up residence in the Chaucer family property in Thames Street. ‘It was becoming very cramped. I’ve brought the children too, as you saw.’

As I had. Elizabeth and another Thomas, their ages matching with Margaret and my own son.

Philippa’s eyes glinted. ‘Are you pleased to see me?’

‘Delighted. I’ll happily hand the Duchess over to you, and all her starchy women, while I lurk in the background. Do you speak Castilian?’

‘No.’

‘A pity.’

‘Is she like Blanche?’

‘She is nothing like Blanche.’

‘So I presume we’re going to Tutbury. Or Hertford.’

‘If Queen Constanza can be persuaded that that is where she wishes to go.’

‘So it’s like that, is it? Do you come too?’

‘I am appointed as a damsel with you. Just like old times.’

Except that it was not, and never would be, no matter what the outcome of the promised conversation with the Duke.

Philippa must have seen some shadow of my torment. ‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded.

‘Nothing.’

‘Missing Hugh?’

‘Yes.’

‘I saw the Duke being very solicitous.’

‘The Duke is always solicitous,’ I replied, more quickly than was perhaps wise.

‘To have a tête-à-tête in the Great Hall, with his wife’s damsel?’

So I had been right about the censure. Philippa had been saving her well-sharpened arrows. Perhaps, divorced from court, dissatisfied with the restrictions on her life because of her perennially absent husband, she had been storing them up for such an occasion as this. It behoved me to keep my wits about me. I might be an innocent party in this situation, but guilt had a habit of encroaching on the edges. I grimaced at the image that sprang to mind, like fat around a bowl of mutton pottage.

‘The Duke is solicitous of everyone, as you well know,’ I responded. ‘He has my eternal gratitude. Without this position, Kettlethorpe would sink beneath the floods.’

‘You look well in the role of Lady of Kettlethorpe.’ The sharp assessment was still there in her eyes. ‘I envy you.’

‘As a widow? With a ruinous estate?’

‘No one would know. You look very sleek and smart.’

I laughed, smoothing the rich fur edging. ‘I was asked to put aside my widow’s weeds.’

‘By the Duke?’

‘Yes. It would not have been appropriate.’

‘I see!’

The twinkle in her eye drove me to employ diversionary tactics. ‘Being a widow has its problems.’

‘I see none!’

‘It has still to be decided who will administer the estates. Since Thomas is a minor, and Hugh a vassal of the crown, they have reverted to the King. The wardship of Thomas could be sold to anyone. Our finances are worse than you can ever imagine. You’re lucky to have a husband with a steady income.’

Philippa found my plight of no great importance compared with her own miseries. ‘I may as well be a widow, the amount of time I spend without him.’

‘But you are financially secure. I had to come begging.’

‘Kettlethorpe as bad as ever?’

I recalled Philippa’s single brief visit there, her pointed comments and her rapid departure, and replied sharply, ‘Worse. Is Geoffrey as bad as ever?’

‘Worse.’

We laughed, not unkindly. It was an old exchange and so we settled into gossip, now that we had established our old relationship: Philippa sharp and brittle, critical of the world, I more tolerant. I was the elder by little more than a year, yet it was not always obvious. Philippa sometimes proved to be the more worldly wise.

I sat and watched her as she told me about the doings of her two children. We were close, neither of us having any memory of our mother, and barely of our father, Sir Gilles de Roet, a knight from Hainault, who had died there when I was three years old, having given us into the tender care of Queen Philippa to whom he owed his service. We had a brother, Walter, taken to soldiering like my father, dying in the retinue of Edward of Woodstock at the battle of Poitiers, and an elder sister, Elizabeth, who, a nun in a monastic house at Mons, had gone from birth to death without my knowing her.

So, to all intents and purposes alone in the world, Philippa and I owed everything to the kindly and maternal Queen: our raising, our education and our position in the household of Duchess Blanche when we were very young, as nothing more than cradle-rockers to the two tiny daughters. Without parents we had clung to each other, and although our lives had taken different directions, the closeness remained. But that did not mean that I was not careful around my sister’s caustic tongue.

‘Are you happy?’ I asked, interrupting a long list of complaints about Agnes, Geoffrey’s ageing mother, who still occupied the Thames Street house.

‘As much as I ever am. I don’t think it is in my nature to be satisfied. Perhaps if I had wed a handsome knight like you.’ A twist of bitterness curved her lips.

‘Your husband is a man of great worth.’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘His writing brings him great fame.’

‘True.’

‘You have your children.’

‘And they are a blessing. But I’ll have no more.’

I paused, considering whether to ask why she was so adamant, and decided against it. ‘Geoffrey cares for you,’ I observed instead.

‘Geoffrey is entirely indifferent to me. He has never written a poem to my beauty or my fine eyes. All he does is condemn what he calls the entrapment of marriage.’

I laughed.

‘Don’t laugh! Do you know? He owns over sixty books. He’d rather spend time with them than with me.’ She chuckled as I continued to laugh at her complaint but there was a sadness there that touched my heart. ‘I am just dissatisfied. It will be better at Hertford.’ She rose and walked to the window to look out over the Thames. ‘What about you, Kate? Do you have an eye to another husband?’

‘I have only been a widow for a matter of months.’

‘A lover then.’

‘Philippa!’

‘You’re too pious for your own good. You had not seen Hugh for—how long before his death?’

‘Sixteen months. And I am not pious.’

‘I know you better than you know yourself. You would have to say a full decade of paternosters before leaping into a lover’s bed.’

‘I would not!’

But I would, as I knew only too well, as I was thrown into a puddle of doubt. My conscience was a strong force within me, and sin was not something to be lightly cast aside, as I was finding to my cost when all my strictly held tenets of living seemed to be hanging by a thread in the face of the Duke’s campaign. If I took this step to please him, if I went to him when he summoned me, the thread would be cut as cleanly as if I were finishing the edge of a girdle. I could not hold to any pretence that it would not matter. It would. If I stepped, I must accept the guilt and the condemnation.

‘Katherine.’ Philippa nudged me. ‘Where were you?’

‘Nowhere.’ I knew my cheeks were flushed. ‘You were saying?’

‘That I could take a lover…’ Philippa mused.

‘Geoffrey might mind.’

‘Geoffrey might not even notice. So, have you set your eye on anyone?’

Another diversionary tactic was needed. ‘Speaking of Geoffrey, does he talk to you about court matters?’

‘Sometimes. Why?’

‘I’m interested in the Duke’s ambitions. He’s now addressed as Monseigneur d’Espaigne. Does he truly seek the crown of Castile?’

Does he love the Queen? That is what I wanted to know. Has he wed for love, as he wed Blanche, for the passion that was between them? Or was Constanza a pawn in a foreign alliance, a means to a political end because he saw the crown of Castile as a jewel on his horizon?

‘Geoffrey thinks so,’ Philippa replied carelessly. ‘The Duke has ambitions. It has always been so for him, to seek power. It was once mooted that he become King of Scotland. Now it’s Castile. A chance for a kingdom of his own.’ She shrugged, displaying her own lack of interest. ‘He’s an ambitious man. It’s no surprise. Why are you so interested?’

‘I am not.’

‘Well, he would not remain unwed for long, would he? He only has one son to step into his shoes. Perhaps he fell in love. Love at first sight.’

‘Perhaps he did.’

It confirmed only what I had thought.

‘Geoffrey says he gave her a magnificent wedding gift. A gold cup fashioned as a rose with a white dove on the lid. Sounds like a lover’s gift to me.’