"Why do you want to marry me?" said Katherine quietly, "since I bring you nothing but my unwilling body."

He looked at her startled. Certainly he had not meant marriage until the Duke interrupted them in the garden. His assertion then had astonished himself. Was it an aura cast over her by the ducal protection, was it a cool integrity in the girl himself, and the increasing effect on him of her beauty, or was it the hunter's instinct for capture and total subjection? His slow mind baulked at reasons. He knew only that his longing for her was an anguish tinged with fear. It would never have occurred to him to speak of love, so he found refuge again in the excuse he had given the Duke.

"By Saint Anthony and his temptations, maiden, I don't know. You've cast a spell on me - or slipped me a love philtre."

From weariness and futility, Katherine suddenly laughed. "I wish that I had a love philtre, so I might drink it too."

At her laugh his heavy face brightened, his little eyes sought hers in sudden pleading. "The ring, Katherine, put on the ring," he whispered holding it out to her again, "and say the vows with me."

She bowed her head and held her hand out slowly. His blunt fingers shook as he pushed the ring down her middle finger where it hung heavy and loose as an iron shackle. "I, Hugh, plight thee, Katherine - my troth, as God is my witness." He swallowed hard, crossing himself.

Katherine looked down at the ring and the square, freckled sweating hand that clasped hers. She exhaled her breath in a long sigh, "I, Katherine, plight thee, Hugh - my troth as God is my witness."

So be it, she thought. Her aversion to him had not lessened, but she found a bitter new peace in the surrender. He leaned towards her for the betrothal kiss and she yielded her cool mouth, then drew back. He let her go, finding this quiet self-possessed girl far more awesome than the one who had fought him in the garden.

"My Katherine," he said humbly, "will you come to the lists and see me joust now? I - I should like to wear your colours - - "

A sardonic voice spoke in her head. Ah yes, it said, this is what you dreamed of, little fool, those nights at Sheppey. This is the fairy tale come true - a knight who asks to wear your colours at the King's tournament.

"I fear I've nothing to give you, sir," she said flushing, "except - wait-" She looked at the Lady Blanche's brocade dress and, quickly decisive, ripped the long green silk tippet from the left sleeve. "Will this do?"

He took the bright flimsy streamer and held it as though it burned his fingers. "Thank you," he muttered. "I shall hope to do you credit. I'll send back a page to guide you to the lists." He turned stiffly in his armour and the door banged shut behind him.

Katherine sank on the window seat, staring at her betrothal ring. Her first jewel. Massive and unwieldy, it looked on her small roughened hand. It was a cabochon beryl carved with Hugh's boar's-head crest and far too large, since he had worn it himself. The beryl, like all stones, had talismanic powers, it gave victory in battle and protection to the wearer, and it had cost Hugh something to part with it, though he had other amulets to rely on.

Though Katherine knew nothing of this, she could not help but take pleasure in the possession of a ring and feel, especially now that Hugh was no longer near, a great lightening of mood.

She wound thread around her finger to hold the ring and gradually her natural optimism returned. She was honourably betrothed, she had pretty clothes to wear, and she would see the tournament after all. What excuse then for moping, and bewailing that the conditions surrounding these admirable facts were not as she had wanted them? "A bas la tristesse!" said Katherine aloud, and while she washed she hummed the gay French song she had heard in the garden. Hi, dame de Vaillance!

When she had dressed herself in the long green gown, fastened the girdle low on her slender hips and bound her hair into two silver-filleted cauls on either side of her face, much as Alice Perrers wore hers, Katherine looked in the hand-mirror and was startled, not by her beauty, which still seemed to her negligible, but by her air of sophistication. Her high white forehead and the delicate arched eyebrows looked exactly like those of all the noble ladies. If she pursed her mouth it became the two crimson cherry-halves so much admired. She could see that the miniver-trimmed surcote disclosed half-moons of bosom and clung to her long waist without a wrinkle. Even the Duchess had not so sinuous a line. I look like one of them, she thought proudly, a court lady. Except for her hands. They were yet reddened from the winter's chilblains, and the nails ragged and short, for she still sometimes bit them.

Alice Perrers had pomades and unguents as well as face paints in her chest beneath the window. Katherine brazenly rummaged in the chest until she found a rose-water cream which she rubbed into her hands, so as not to shame the betrothal ring.

Honesty compelled her to admit that it was to Hugh she owed the extent of her transformation from the shabby little girl at Sheppey, and when the page he had sent for her tapped on the door, she followed him down to the lists with eager anticipation.

CHAPTER IV

When Katherine and her guide arrived at the lists it was in the intermission before the final melee. Outside the stockades, the common folk who had not been fortunate or agile enough to find perches on top of the barrier were milling about, gulping winkles and pasties and jostling for position near the cracks between the boards where they might see something of the jousting when it recommenced.

The page led Katherine through a gilded gate and up wooden steps to the huge Lancastrian loge, as Hugh had bidden him, and he found for her a space on a red-cushioned bench far off to one side and .directly under the brightly painted canopy that sheltered the loge.

The bench to which the page led Katherine was already fulsomely occupied by two ladies connected with the Lancastrian retinue: Lady de Houghton, and Dame Pernelle, sister of Sir Robert Swyllington, who was the Duke's chamberlain at Pontefract Castle.

Both these ladies were women of mature years with a nice appreciation of their own consequence. As Katherine squeezed herself down beside them they received her flustered apologies with cold astonishment.

"Who in the world-" said Lady de Houghton to her friend, not bothering to lower her voice. Dame Pernelle shrugged, and both stout ladies, breathing heavily, for it was warm under the canopy, looked down their noses at Katherine and waited.

"Katherine de Roet, sister to Philippa la Picarde, Queen's panterer. I've - I've just come to court, my ladies," said Katherine nervously, trying to shrink into the smallest possible bulk.

"Ah-" said Dame Pernelle in a tone of enlightenment.

"The Guienne Herald's daughter, ah yes - one has heard something." She raised her eyebrows significantly and glanced down towards the dais where the Duchess sat in a carved gold armchair.

Katherine, quite aware of the disparaging emphasis on "Herald", said quickly, "My father was knighted on the field at Bretigny, my lady. Shall I move to the end of the bench - it won't crowd you so?"

Suddenly she was rescued, and in a way that silenced the ladies, though in no way decreasing their resentment. The Duchess, turning her chair to accept a cup of wine from a page, caught sight of Katherine, smiled at the girl and, seeing that she looked uncomfortable, raised her pale, bejewelled hand and beckoned.

Katherine, blushing hotly, for those on all the nearest benches craned round to see, most thankfully obeyed the summons and, clambering past the ample knees beside her, ran down the steps to the velvet-coloured platform at the front of the loge.

"Your first tournament, my dear, isn't it?" asked Blanche gently. "Sit here where you can see well." She indicated a cushion on the corner of the platform near her chair.

Katherine's heart melted with gratitude.

The Duchess was today dazzling as the southern May, having dressed to please her husband's taste, in full magnificence of jewels and ermine. Her silver-gilt hair was twined with pearls and she wore her gold and diamond coronet. She smelt of jasmine and Katherine adored her.

Blanche was accustomed to adoration, but she had the warmth of a great lady and she was drawn to the girl. She glanced at the boar-crested betrothal ring on Katherine's childish hand, saw where the tippet had been ripped from the sleeve of her gift, and reconstructed what must have happened.

She leaned down saying, "I wish you happiness, my dear," then turned quickly, her blue eyes focusing on the field as two heralds with trumpets marched solemnly towards each other. Blanche, whose famous father, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, had been the foremost knight in the kingdom, had witnessed many tournaments and appreciated each point of ceremony and honour. She listened intently to the heralds who announced a preliminary joust between John, Baron de Mowbray, and a Gascon knight, the Sieur de Pavignac.

These names meant nothing to Katherine and during the ceremonious exchange between the heralds and pursuivants on each side she had time to look around her.

The lists here at Windsor were very large, with stockades enclosing the hundred-and-fifty-yard field, and permanent loges built in tiers on either side for the spectators. The royal loge, canopied in gold and red striped silk, was in dead centre of the southern side, so that the sun might not bother the royal eyes. The King being present today, the lily and leopard flag fluttered over the canopy.

The Lancastrian loge adjoined the royal one, and Katherine had a good view of the King, who seemed in high spirits, laughing, calling out jests and drinking frequently from a gold and ruby cup presented by one of his squires.

Geoffrey Chaucer was not in evidence because, as Katherine found out later, he had not been able to attend the tournament at all. William of Wykeham, the King's architect, had heartlessly sent Geoffrey on a quick trip to London after the precious pieces of stained glass needed to finish the west window of Henry the Third's renovated chapel in time for the high ceremonial Mass tomorrow.

Nor was Alice Perrers to be seen. The Queen's chair was occupied by the King's daughter, the Princess Isabel de Coucy, and all the surrounding lords and ladies were of the highest rank.

The Queen's waiting-women were huddled together on the last bench of an adjoining loge and Katherine could not have distinguished Philippa at all except that her sister got up and waved at her, accurately expressing by means of the wave her astonishment and approval at seeing her.

Katherine's interest was jerked abruptly back to the lists as there came a roar from the crowd, a fanfare of trumpets from the heralds and a marshal waving his white baton, who shouted, "In the name of God and Saint George, come forth to do battle!" At either end of the lists the squires loosed bridles, and two great destriers thundered towards each other down the field. Clods flew from the hoofs while the riders, with lances poised to aim at the opposing shields, lowered their helmeted heads and braced themselves for the shock.

The crash of wood and metal was deafening, sparks flew from the armour, the crowd shouted approval, which soon changed to a groan of disappointment. At the moment of collision the Baron de Mowbray's charger had veered too far left, the Gascon knight's lance had thus glanced off Mowbray's shield on to his hauberk and, lodging in the joint of the iron roundel which protected his shoulder, prised him out of the saddle, while the stallion was thrown back on its haunches. The baron lay on the ground, a helpless mass of armour. The Gascon knight raised his visor and grinned complacently towards the royal loge.

"Well done!" cried the King, tossing a jewelled medal of St. George towards the victor. "A noble course."

But the crowd of peasants, servants and villeins who had hoisted themselves around the edges of the stockade were not so chivalrous. They booed the foreigner who had unseated their English baron and they booed the discomfited Mowbray, too, as his squires hoisted him on to his feet and he walked angrily off the field.

"That was bad luck for Mowbray - -his destrier is not worthy," said the Lady Blanche judicially. "The beast was frightened." Several of her entourage crowded around agreeing and discussing the best strains for chargers. Katherine listened and learned. She had wondered where the Duke was, and now she heard that he was making ready in the tents. For he was to take part in the final melee.