CHAPTER TWO
The Wednesday before the Feast of the
Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(22nd December 1378)
LATE ON THE AFTERNOON that Thomas spoke with Margaret the storm abruptly died, and by dusk the sky was clear and the air calm. Lancaster ordered that provisioning be resumed immediately and continue through the night, and that the cogs be readied for departure on the dawn tide.
The channel crossing was smooth and unadventuresome, and within a week they arrived safe at Dover. Here the majority of the men and horses were disembarked, but Lancaster and his immediate party—his younger brother Gloucester, Bolingbroke, King John, Thomas and Margaret, plus a score of ladies and some two score of knights and a small number of men-at-arms—disembarked only to immediately re-embark on a stately vessel belonging to King Edward, and then sail northward along the coast to London.
On the afternoon that they sailed off the coastline of Kent, Hal joined Thomas on the deck. Both men leaned on the starboard railing and stared across the gray, choppy waves toward France.
“What is Charles doing over there, do you think?” Hal said.
“Who knows. Trying to keep Philip’s knife from his back, no doubt.”
Hal smiled, but it died almost as soon as it had formed. “I wonder if his sister managed to escape Paris when he did, or if she fell foul to Marcel’s rebels.”
“Oh, yes, she escaped. I met her when I met Charles on the road east of Pans.”
Hal straightened and stared at Thomas. “You never told me you saw Catherine!”
“I did not think it important.”
There was silence for a few minutes, then Hal spoke with a forced disinterest.
“How did she appear?”
Thomas looked searchingly at Hal. “Well enough, although thin and tired from her flight. She has an acute mind, and a biting tongue. She spat at me!”
Hal laughed. “She ever had a sharp tongue. Did you know, Tom, that my father spent almost an entire year trying to negotiate a marriage between us?”
“No, I did not. Hal, your family and hers have been at war for years! How was it Lancaster thought all could be forgotten for a marriage between you and she?”
“My father,” Hal said, “thought it would make an ideal truce arrangement.”
Hal looked as if he would say more, but he abruptly shut his mouth and turned his face back to the gray sea. After a minute or two of silence, he spoke again. “My chance for a match with Catherine is far and gone now, and she is not to be robbed of her maidenhood by one of the Lancaster men. My father now looks to good English blood for a woman I can wed and bed. He mentions the name Mary Bohun to me now and again, and I nod, and smile.”
Thomas grinned, and they chatted a little about the Bohun family, and its fortunes and estates, and what a match between the Lancasters and Bohuns might bring, and for the time being Thomas forgot about Catherine.
THEY SAILED up the Thames on a clear winter’s day, approaching London from the east on the high tide. Thomas had taken up position in the prow of the boat, excited beyond measure, not only to be in England at last, but also to be approaching London.
Although he was a northerner born and bred, Thomas loved London as he loved no other place. It was a tangled, dirty city, but nevertheless had a charm and a life that he had not encountered anywhere else.
The Thames wound through fields dusted with snow and hamlets battened down for the winter. A few hardy men braved the reed beds in flat-bottomed punts, searching for salt-tangy fish to augment the rich pork of their Christmastide feasting, and Lancaster’s ship passed five or six others sailing in the opposite direction, carrying either wool or pilgrims for the markets and shrines of the continent.
Thomas wrapped his cloak closer about him as they sailed into the straight that led to London. There! The square keep of the White Tower rose glinting in the sunshine, and… there!… the curve of the ancient Roman walls as they enclosed the city that sat on the northern bank of the river.
Thomas could not help himself—he grinned. London was awash in smoke from fires, and alive with movement and color and people. As they sailed closer to London Bridge, Thomas could see scores of people hanging from the windows of the houses atop the bridge waving pennants and ribbons. Others—approaching the southern gate of the bridge, with its constant grisly decoration of criminals’ heads stuck on pikes as a moral lesson for all London’s good citizens—stood in carts or by the side of the road, waving and shouting.
The English returned with the French king! Hurrah! Hurrah!
Thomas laughed with sheer exuberance. None of this welcome was for Lancaster— God knew the English commoners generally loathed him—but for the fact that the ship bore the hated French monarch as hostage. Nothing could have cheered the English more than having a French king captive in their beloved London where fishwives could throw cabbages at his passing, and drunkards piss on the outer walls of whatever hold King Edward placed him in.
The ship sailed under the bridge, and Thomas ducked as people threw down loaves of bread and parcels of sweetmeats for the heroic English to feast upon.
Once safely under, Thomas stood up again. Banners and pennants flew from every window that he could see, and the bells of St. Paul’s, and of every parish church within London’s walls, pealed out in melodious welcome. Not only was Lancaster bringing home the French king, but this was also Christmastide, and London was in festive dress and mood.
Thomas turned about and looked down the boat. Lancaster, Gloucester and Bolingbroke had arrived on deck, arrayed in finery and jewels, and behind them the bowed and surly figure of King John, accompanied by an escort of good English knights. Lancaster was standing looking forward with an intense gleam in his eyes.
Gloucester and Bolingbroke were standing to the side of the boat, waving at the people now thronging the riverbank.
Thomas turned back to the view opening up before him: far in the distance, so far he could only barely discern it, the Thames swung south in a great curve. Nestled on the northern, outer bank of the curve was the city of Westminster, where lay the great abbey as well as the fabulous palace and court of King Edward.
But they were not sailing direct to Westminster. Instead, Lancaster had directed the master of the vessel to dock at the Savoy Palace, his private residence on the Strand, the street that ran southwest from London to Westminster. The official reception and greeting of King John by King Edward, the two aging foes, would take place on the morrow, and for today Lancaster thought to rest himself and his party at the Savoy.
Lancaster’s palace was one of the most beauteous buildings in the London vicinity. Perched on the northern bank of the Thames, the wall of the building facing the river rose several storys high, its stone punctuated with two rows of windows and three massive square towers. Beyond the outer building, which housed supplies and Lancaster’s men, rose the palace proper, a huge building that to most eyes resembled a church with great gothic windows filled with stained glass: it was a fit place to receive the French king.
In all his life, Thomas had never been inside of it. He’d spent much of his youth with Bolingbroke, but all of that time had been either on the Neville estates in the north or on Lancaster’s own country estates.
The cold wind freshened, and Thomas narrowed his eyes against its sting. The vessel was now slowing as it approached the stairs that ran down to the water’s edge from a small gate set in the outer wall. A figure stood there, a woman of late middle years, and as the vessel moored alongside, she ran gracefully down the steps, laughing and holding out her hands.
Lancaster leaped the distant between vessel and steps, and took the woman in his arms.
“Katherine!” he cried.
FOR AN instant the entire world stilled, centering only on Lancaster and Katherine, and then movement and noise and color erupted about them. Men-at-arms, knights, squires, pages, valets, sundry servants and ladies, porters, chamberlains, diplomats, noblemen and their ladies as well as countless unidentifiable men and women spilled out of the gateway leading into the Savoy complex. King John raised a smile and a wave to the Londoners who crowded the riverbank and bridge and leaned from high windows, and then descended to the steps in regal style. Lady Katherine Swynford curtsied low in obeisance to the regal hostage and spoke a courtly greeting in a low voice that was, nevertheless, so beautifully modulated it reached above the hubbub of the crowd that thronged about.