Katherine (14 page)

And how comforting it was to see a hill again, and a town, after the miles of flatness, punctuated only by isolated hamlets. They had come to a remote world in these days of travel. London seemed to her now as far off as France, as Rome, as the fairy land of Cockaigne. Their very speech was different here - it twanged and burred so she could scarcely understand it. She felt ungladness in the people. They smiled seldom and dressed in sober hues. So the glimpse of Lincoln heartened her, and she was pleased that Kettlethorpe was near.

But it was not. The ten miles dragged like thirty. Here and northward along the vale of the Trent it had been raining since St. George's Day and the full moon tides had thundered up the downrushing swollen river in an eagre; this sinister wave, high as a man, had burst many of the earthen dykes and flooded much of the land. And though now the water had receded and lay in pools and patches on the sodden fields, the highway was a mire of sticky red mud, so deep at times that the horses slipped and floundered; their hooves sucked in and out like uncorked bottles. While they used the towpath along the side of the Fossdyke progress was not so difficult, for on this busy link of navigation the bargemasters had placed stones and branches to give their towhorses some footing, but when the road turned from the canal at Drinsey Nook it became wellnigh impassable.

Katherine's little Doucette had begun to tire, and when beneath a puddle of water its hoof caught in a deeper hole the mare gave a frightened snort and fell splashing on its side. Katherine jumped instinctively and landed unhurt beside Doucette, but covered with the cold sticky mud and near to tears.

Hugh, swearing furiously, first picked her up, then with Ellis's help tried to raise the kicking, plunging palfrey. This they could not do until Katherine spoke to the little beast and soothed it with her coaxing. Katherine would have gone on afoot, but Hugh commanded her to mount again, and finding that the water on the road came nearly to her knees, she obeyed. Hugh took Doucette's bridle and led the horse after him; Katherine clung to the pommel in sodden misery. The drenched hood and cloak no longer kept off the rain at all. She found that she had lost one leather shoe back there in the mud, but it made no difference, her stockinged foot in the stirrup was no colder than the shod one.

As they drew nearer the manor lodge the wind came up and blew the rain in their faces, but the footing improved a trifle, for now the road ran through light moorland soil and sand which comprised most of the parish. Yet it was dark when they saw upon the left a pair of tall iron gates, and a cottage just inside them.

"Kettlethorpe!" said Hugh. "We'll soon be dry and sheltered, Katherine."

But no one came to open the gate, though Ellis kicked it and hammered on it, and both men shouted. The lodgekeeper's thatched shanty remained dark, and no smoke came from its chimney.

"The devil and his foul friends take this wretched churl! I'll have him put in the stocks, I'll lop off his deaf ears!" Hugh drew his sword and dealt the old padlock a violent blow. The chain that held it was near eaten through with rust and at the second blow it parted; the padlock dangled free. Ellis pushed back the creaking gates and said in surprise, "This road has not been used for long, Sir Hugh. 'Tis full overgrown."

There was in fact, no road at all, though its place was marked by an avenue of magnificent wych-elms, tall as steeples, their branches writhing and tossing in the strengthening wind. Beneath the elms there was a tangle of weeds, bushes, long grasses and brambles that tore at Katherine's skirts. The horses baulked, twisting and seeking some easier way. Ellis had to go ahead of them on foot, beating down the thicket with his sword.

Is there no end to this journey? Katherine thought, shivering, and she noted that Hugh did not meet this new hindrance with cursing, but had fallen silent while he constantly peered ahead. She could not see his face, but she felt his uneasiness, and her own discomfort grew.

For near a mile they fought their way along the abandoned road, then suddenly Katherine saw a church on her right, a dark shape of the cross against the darker sky, while to the left there was a huddle of buildings and a squat round tower. Still there were no lights, and no sound but the wind in the trees and the slash of rain.

They rode into the muddy outer court between the church and the house, and now Katherine saw the dull gleam of a small moat and a low stone gatehouse, its wooden bridge drawn up flat against the arch.

"Ho, Kettlethorpe!" shouted Hugh. "Gibbon le Bailey! Lady Nichola! Open up!"

Still the uncanny silence held. Then it was broken by a frenzied baying from the inner court, one deep menacing note over and over like a tocsin.

" 'Tis old Ajax," cried Hugh, with unconcealed relief. "Someone's in there."

"Unless it be the demon pooka hound," said Ellis, laughing nervously and crossing himself.

"Shut up, you bloody fool. You know well it's not been seen in Swynfords' time, 'twas of the old days. Open up! Open up in the name of the Trinity!''

At this a dim white head peered out of the peephole above the gatehouse, and a peevish old voice cried, "Who is't now that makes such clamour?"

"Toby Napper, by God, what ails you all? Don't you know me? A fine welcome this for the lord of the manor and his new lady!"

The white head disappeared, the windlass began to creak, until the rickety bridge flopped into the mud across the narrow moat. The horses crossed into the inner courtyard, where the hound came bounding and growling at them. But he knew Hugh's voice, and when Hugh gave him a powerful kick he slunk into the shadows.

Then Hugh turned on the gatehouse keeper, who stood holding a wavering horn lantern, his head wagging feebly. "Where're the stableboys? Where the house carls?" Hugh seized the old man's shoulders and tried to shake wits into him.

"Naught but me, m'lord, for this year past. M'lady turned 'em out. No one sleeps in the manor but me and m'lady - and - and Gibbon."

"Ay, ay, and what
of
Gibbon? Why isn't he here?"

"Ah, he's dying, is Gibbon," said the old man unctuously. "There's a worm gnawing of his bones. They've turned limper'n eels, his bones has. He lies abed all day and will not move. A young man was Gibbon, but now he's older than I be." The wheezing voice broke into a cackle of laughter.

Hugh made an exclamation, loosing the skinny shoulders, grabbed Toby's lantern and threw open the unbolted door to the Great Hall. Inside it was as dark and dank as out. There was no fire, nor sign of any, on the central hearth. The eating trestles, planks and benches were stacked high on the far wall. Rain splashed through a hole in the thatched roof on to a corner of the lord's dais.

"Ellis!" Hugh cried. "Gallop to the village and bring me back serfs. By God's nails, we must have food and warmth, no matter what's amiss here!"

The squire ran out and mounted his horse. Hugh put the lantern on the hard-packed earthen floor. He turned his face slowly from one end of the Hall to the other, remembering it in the days of his boyhood, when there had been torch and firelight, the smell of roasted meat, and ten servants running to attend the Swynford appetites.

Katherine crumpled down in one of the window embrasures, leaning her head against the stones, so cold and weary that she could not think. Her teeth chattered, and beneath her dropped lids the flickering shadows in the Hall swayed like water.

Then through her exhaustion she heard a rustling at the door, and opened her eyes. A woman stood there staring at Hugh. She was small and thin as a stick, her black gown flapped around her in the wind from the re-opened door, and her triangular widow's coif was no whiter than her narrow face.

"Is it you - Hugh? Have you come?" She spoke in a high sighing voice in which there was no surprise, or pleasure or dismay. "I thought you'd come.
They
told me so."

Hugh had jumped back as she appeared suddenly gliding into the hall. The contempt he had always felt for his stepmother and the anger at the havoc she had obviously wrought on his manor were both checked by the unfocused stare of her red-rimmed dark eyes.

"Ay lady," he said warily after a moment, not moving towards her. "I've come home with my bride." He pointed to Katherine, who slid slowly from the window and made a curtsy. "And I mislike the welcome you give to the new lady of Kettlethorpe."

The woman turned her mournful gaze on Katherine. "A bride?" she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "A bride at Kettlethorpe?
They
did not tell me that."

"Who
did not tell you, madam?" Hugh snapped.

The Lady Nichola Swynford waved a bony hand vaguely towards the east. "The folk who live in the water, in the river, in the well. One mustn't say their name. They tell me many things."

"God's wounds," Hugh whispered, crossing himself and stepping close to Katherine. "She's lost the few wits she had."

The girl nodded and sat down again in the window niche. She looked at her husband, mud-spattered, his habitual scowl modified by the uneasy glances he threw his stepmother. He stood near the lantern, legs wide apart, his bandaged hand resting on his sword hilt. They both watched the Lady Nichola, who began to drift restlessly around the Hall. As the black-robed figure came to the water that streamed through the roof on to the dais, she stopped. She cupped her hands and caught some of the water, murmuring soft words to it as though in greeting.

Katherine shut her eyes again. A merciful blankness fell across her mind.

During the next days at Kettlethorpe, Katherine had opportunity for the exercise of many qualities she had not known she possessed. Her strong young body recovered soon from the drenching and exhaustion of her arrival; the recovery of her spirits and the acceptance of conditions so different from her imaginings took longer. Yet a sturdy common sense came to her aid. For better or worse this was now her home, and she the lady of the manor. She was child enough to feel pride in the sudden responsibilities thrust upon her. It was a little like the games of being grown-up ladies she had played with other girls at Sheppey, yet this feeling of play-acting did not preclude a hard-headed realism. She thought often of Philippa in those first days and wondered how her sister's orderly methods would have righted this muddle.

Kettlethorpe parish stood in the isolated corner of Lincolnshire at the south-west tip of Lindsey. It was bounded by the River Trent on the west, Nottinghamshire on the south and the angled Fossdyke on the east and north - a parcel of some three thousand acres including, besides the manor village, two hamlets called Fenton and Laughterton. It had formed part of the Saxon Wapentake, or Hundred, of Well, and owed feudal dues to the Bishop of Lincoln, under whom the Swynfords held this manorial right.

It had never been a populous or especially productive manor, the soil being suited only to the growth of hay, flax, hemp and such-like, and most of the land being in virgin forest for the pleasure of its lords. Earlier owners, such as the de la Croys, had had large holdings elsewhere to supplement their rents, as indeed so had Hugh's father until mismanagement had dwindled off Nichola's dowry, leaving the Swynfords only Coleby and Kettlethorpe.

Yet these two would have supported them all in sufficient comfort, were they well administered, Katherine thought. Hugh still had over sixty serfs at Kettlethorpe, man, woman and child; plenty to give him week-work on his home farms, boon-work at the harvests and inside work to run the manor.

The trouble here, of course, was twofold; the Lady Nichola's eccentricities and the mortal sickness which had attacked Gibbon, the bailiff.

Three days after Katherine's arrival she felt well again and decided to see this man who lay in a wattle-and-daub hut at the end of the courtyard between the dovecote and the bakehouse.

The weather had at last cleared and Hugh, having bullied and whipped some sulky serfs from their own fieldwork and back into the manor kitchen, had taken Ellis and ridden off into the forest to hunt for sorely needed food. He was not sorry to put off the countless tasks which awaited him. A manor court must be called, the serfs brought to punishment, their overdue fines collected, a new bailiff found. But above all the larders must be replenished; they were completely empty. Lady Nichola lived, on sheep's milk and stewed herbs which she cooked herself in an iron pot in the tower-room where she spent all her time when she was not wandering through the marshes and fields towards the river. Gibbon existed on the fitful donations of Margery Brewster, the village alewife, who felt kindly towards him, having several times shared his bed in the days of his strength, but whose tavern duties and brood of babies left her little time for charity.

Katherine had not asked Hugh's permission to visit the bailiff. Already she had learned that the mention of painful subjects induced in him an angry stubbornness which might well have led to refusal.

She waited until she saw the tip of his longbow disappear into the forest on the other side of the moat, then set herself to a leisured inspection of her domain, much irked that she still had no proper clothes except the travel-stained green gown the Duchess had given her, not even a linen coif to hide her hair and show her housewifely status. No matter, she thought, braiding and looping the great ruddy ropes neatly on either side of her face. She was determined not to be discouraged, and to meet this new life with calmness. Since there was no one to help her, she must depend on herself, and again, as it had on the morning after her marriage, this thought gave her strength.

She decided to visit the Lady Nichola first in the tower-room. She had not seen her mother-in-law since the night of arrival, but smoke and steam sometimes drifted through the arrow-slit windows and twice she had heard a not uncheerful crooning sound from up there.

The low defensive tower had been built, as had the manor, a hundred and fifty years ago, in the reign of King John. It was attached to the hall and solar, but there was no communication with these except by the outside staircase, which also served the solar. The manor plan was simple and old-fashioned. There was the thatched two-storied Hall, forty feet long, and the narrow solar where Katherine slept with Hugh was tacked high on to its western end. Beneath the solar lay an undercroft for stores. At the eastern end of the Hall there was a kitchen, and a half-loft above it where the servants slept. These and the tower with its ancient donjon and two round rooms above were all there was to Kettlethorpe. No private chapel, no spare chambers, garderobes or latrines.