"You do yourself injustice, my lord. Badgers are hunched, lumpy creatures, while you are still straight as a lance." She spoke in a light social tone, as he had heard her chatting with knights of his retinue long ago. She replaced her hood, and glanced down the nave towards the door, obviously checked only by the courtesy from suggesting that they leave.

In that instant, John forgot that he was Duke of Lancaster, while his last doubt vanished. From the deepest springs of his being, words bubbled to his lips, so that he stammered like a page-boy. "Katrine - Katrine - you make this so hard - my God, is there nothing left for me at all? We can't be forever thinking of the dead. We're getting old, 'tis true, but we're still alive - and if you feel nothing more for me - if too much has passed since we were together - then think of our children, for them at least it's not too late - -"

He stopped, trembling - his close-shaven cheeks had turned a dull brick-red, he was breathing fast, painfully.

Katherine swallowed, she saw his flushed pleading face through a fog and spoke with remote sad scorn. "Is some bargain still necessary between us, to aid my children's advancement? Has our age, at least, not removed incentive to further shame!"

He gasped, and stared at her. Then he clenched his fist, banging it on the wooden rim of the choir stall. "Christ, Katrine! I'm asking you to marry me!"

The dusky little church, the candlelight, the evergreens spiralled around her.

"It must have occurred to you?" he said with more control, astonished at her dazed face. "Surely when Costanza died - and now when I've summoned all our Beauforts here - Katrine, I could not come sooner - the King sent me to Aquitaine - -" He had entirely forgotten the doubts and uncertainties he had felt, how he had not been entirely sure until he saw her again.

"It did not occur to me," she said in a wooden voice. "After your Duchess died, I hoped for a word from you, then even that desire passed. I received you today for our children's sake.

There's much you can do for them - if you will-" She could not think, there was no feeling but shock, and dislocation.

"What better can I do for them, than have them legitimated?" he said, half smiling. "This, Richard has agreed to in the event of our marriage, and the Pope will confirm it."

"Legitimated," she repeated, "legitimated - I've never heard of that. Jesu - the stain of bastardy cannot be wiped out!"

He nodded slowly. "It can." Legitimation was an unusual procedure. There had in fact never been a precedent entailing circumstances quite like these. But English law permitted it; this he had verified. "With the King decreeing their legitimacy in the temporal realm, and the Pope as Christ's vicar in the spiritual, how can anything in heaven and earth then gainsay their true birth?" he said gently.

Her face crumpled like a child's. She raised her twisted hands to her mouth and walked rapidly down to the nave, seeking to be alone - to integrate herself. This sensation was as shattering as pain, indistinguishable from it.

After a time, he came down and stood beside her. "Katrine," he said touching her shoulder, "it is necessary that we be married first, you know. I trust this is not too great a hindrance. Have you any thought for me - as well as the children?"

"I don't know yet," she said, staring at the rushes. "I can't realise. My lord - the Duke of Lancaster does not wed his paramour, and one of common stock - how could the King countenance this?"

"Well, he has," said John dryly. Richard at present would countenance far more than that to please his eldest uncle and annoy his youngest one.

"I thought you hated me," she said. "Your love was over long ago."

"You yourself decreed our parting. I hated for a while. Then I saw that you were right. I made Costanza as happy as it was in her nature to be happy, but you've never been far from my deepest thoughts. I swore once that I'd love you till I die, it seems that I'm so made, that I must keep my vow - Katrine, can you doubt this? My dear, I have had other mistresses, other bastards too, years ago - so has every noble in the land. I am offering you marriage, and the true birth of our children."

She rose slowly from the chair and looked up into his face, into the sad, questioning, eyes.

Katherine and John were married, very quietly, on January 13, beneath the stone carvings of the angels in the retro-choir of Lincoln Cathedral. A January thaw had set in during the days of waiting since the Duke had come to Katherine at Kettlethorpe, but on the marriage morning snow blew again over the fens from the North Sea and slapped softly against the cathedral's tinted windows while four junior vicars clustered around a lectern and chanted the office.

The subdean, John Carleton, celebrated the Nuptial Mass. The Duke had requested that the bishop should perform the marriage, and the bishop had refused. "For which," the Duke said with the old glinting icy look, "he will soon be exceeding sorry." His gaze rested speculatively on Harry. "Old Buckingham shall see how unchristian have been his many insults to my lady. It's high time Lincoln had a young and intelligent bishop, don't you think so, Harry?"

Harry's rapturous agreement was but one more note in the combined Beaufort joy. They lived now in bewildered glamour. A sorcery as marvellous as any of Merlin's was transforming all four of their young lives. During the ceremony while they knelt on velvet faldstools behind their parents, they were giddy with exultation. That very morning a letter had arrived from the King, who sent his blessings and said that, as soon as the legitimations were confirmed by the Pope, John Beaufort was to be created Earl of Somerset, Harry to be appointed Dean of Wells Cathedral in transit to a bishopric, Tamkin to be knighted; and as for Joan - - Already her father, upon discovering her despairing love, had opened negotiations with young Neville, the Lord of Westmorland - an excellent alliance. Without a doubt there would be another wedding soon. Joan had been ill from joy and as she watched the tall figures of her parents at the altar, there was such a shaking in her chest that she could not follow the service.

At noon the nuptial bells pealed out over Lincoln, and Katherine arose from her knees to find herself the Duchess of Lancaster. Her children, unable to contain themselves, were surging around St. Hugh's shrine, while Joan sobbed hysterically. Katherine saw the awed face of Mayor Robert Sutton, who hovered in the aisle with an alderman. She saw Hawise's massive shoulders quivering, her face buried in a new scarlet silk skirt, and as realisation came to Katherine, she swayed and caught at the altar rail. Blessed Christ, she thought, in terror. Against the triptych behind the crucifix she saw the lovely face of the Lady Blanche - and the enigmatic dark look of Costanza.

The Duke's strong hand closed on her arm. "Kiss me, Katrine," he said. She raised her mouth blindly. He brushed her lips with his and whispered, "Don't look back. We must be happy for the little time that's left."

He pulled her hand through his arm and they turned from the altar. They walked together down the steps, stood on a cloth-of-gold rug, while their children ran to them weeping, kissing their hands and their cheeks. Emotion almost too great to be borne and fortunately broken by a small, hoarse, crowing cheer.

Everyone looked around for the source of the cheer, which was Cob o' Fenton. He ran out from behind a pillar, flung himself to his knees while clutching a fold of Katherine's gown.

"Oh lady - I couldn't help cheering. Ye said the manor folk could come. Lady - that is, Your Grace - we're all here, down in the nave. Oh lady, this is a great day for Kettlethorpe!"

"A great day for Kettlethorpe?" cried Harry Beaufort, throwing back his head and gulping. "Oh in truth, by God, a great day for Kettlethorpe!" Suddenly they all dissolved in wild laughter. The Beaufort boys gasped and wheezed. They thumped little Cob on the back, who did not understand but grinned and chortled happily. The Duke and Katherine laughed.

Robert Sutton, watching from the aisle, was shocked, but the peculiarities of great folk must be tolerated. He smiled feebly and stared at Katherine as he had throughout the ceremony. A beautiful woman still, regal-looking in her green velvet and ermine and a silver-gilt veil covering her hair. "Christ's wounds!" Robert muttered suddenly to his alderman. "Do you know what this day's work makes of her? - until King Richard marries himself that little French maid in France - this makes her" - he nudged his fat chins towards Katherine - "first lady of England!" His jaw dropped while he assimilated his own discovery.

"So it does," said the alderman thoughtfully. "Well, it's small wonder she wouldn't marry you, old trout, what a comedown that woulda been!"

Master Robert did not hear, he was walking ponderously towards the ducal party, whose laughter had died down. With some difficulty he heaved himself to his knees and kissed Katherine's hand. "My homage, Your Grace," he said in a toneless, deliberate voice. "Your liegeman, in life and limb - -" Under Katherine's startled gaze he methodically completed his feudal oath due to the rulers of Lancaster.

By tacit consent, Katherine and John, for their wedding night, avoided all the places where they had previously been together. Until the snow started, they had thought to ride to his nearby castle of Tickhill, but since that was now impossible, he commandeered rooms in the constable's quarters of Lincoln Castle. The flustered constable sent his men scurrying hither and yon around Lincoln to find furnishings worthy of this occupancy, but the result at such short notice was not impressive.

" 'Tis not what I wanted for you, my Katrine," said John looking around the two small rooms, with their hastily hung arras, crude rugs, squat oaken bed.

"What does it matter?" she said softly, smiling. "It's true one should not look back too much - but I find now that I can't help remembering the hundreds of nights we've spent together - and in so many different places."

They sat at a small table before a rather smoky fire; neither had eaten of the food a squire had brought them, nor drunk of the claret.

Hawise had dressed Katherine in a plain blue chamber robe, to which John had fastened a brooch he had ordered from a Lincoln goldsmith. It was enamelled in full colours with her new blazon, the de Roet Catherine wheels impalling the royal lilies and leopards of England. Never shall I get used to that, she thought. She looked down at the brooch and shook her head. "I pray you'll never regret giving me the right to wear it," she whispered.

"I never will, lovedy."

He knew what a furore this marriage would cause in England, and in all Europe. He had weighed the disadvantages coolly enough before he saw her again; now he did not care. Since Blanche's death there had been no other woman for him - though he had tried hard enough to forget Katherine. And even Blanche - that had been different, to Blanche he owed his power, his enormous wealth, there had been loving gratitude. When he died, he would be buried beside her in St. Paul's as she had long ago requested, but now, for what time was left, he would please his heart at last. He watched Katherine as she sat across the table from him, her graceful head a little bent, gazing into the fire as she so often did, and wondered if part of the enduring love he had for her sprang from the fact that she had given him nothing but herself. She had brought him no wealth, no power, no hope of foreign thrones. Always with her, he had been the donor.

A dreamy contentment came to him, an absence of strain. But I'm happy, he thought in amazement. When have I ever been happy before?

"Come here to me, darling," he said. When she obeyed, he drew her down on to his lap, with her cheek in the old place against his shoulder. "How shocked our children would be, if they saw us," he said smiling into her soft hair. "They think us too old for this - I've thought so myself. Now I don't." He kissed her hard on the lips. "It's not like Chateau la Teste," he said, "that it can't be - there's not youth - nor the fierce heat of passion - -"

"Thank God, it's not Chateau la Teste," she whispered. "We paid for that, John - both of us - and others - -"

He was silent, his arms tight around her. The snow hissed and slapped on the horn windows; distantly from the castle ramparts the night-watch called out some challenge.

"Yet I believe you were no less my wife then, than you are tonight, Katrine," he said in a wondering voice.