Somebody was approaching.
‘Mistress Katherine! Mistress Katherine, you are needed. Both taproom and refectory are busy. Come, there’s a minstrel fresh from Outremer, or so he says.’ Dorcas, the leading chambermaid, had a trumpet-like voice that belied her size. ‘Mistress Katherine, you are to come.’
‘Mistress Katherine and her boon companion Melisaunde are to stay!’ Katherine whispered back fiercely.
She waited until Dorcas had gone, then clambered down. She crouched, peering around, but the gardens and the orchard slept under the strong April sun. She picked up the walking stick, her crutch and her help, as she mocked it, but her faithful companion to favour the slight weakness in her right leg that had dogged her since childhood. She moved swiftly and silently past the trellises and the herbers rich with periwinkle, sage, soapwort and betony. She skirted the small orchards, which provided apples and pears, cherries and plums, the air blessed with their mouth-watering flavours. The sun was still strong. Butterflies, flickering like darts of light, flitted over the garden, and the summer’s first bees competed with the growing chatter of crickets in the long grass. From the city, the tolling of bells summoned the faithful to pray.
Katherine ignored all this, aiming like an arrow for the small postern gate in the south wall, which led down to the riverside. Only once did she pause, at the high-bricked enclosure that her father called the Hortus Mortis, the Garden of Death, a special herb plot tended only by Ignacio. This macabre garden contained deadly shrubs: the soft spiky pods and shiny brown seeds of castor, friar’s cowl; the white bell-shaped flowers of mandrake; yellowish hartshorn: purple-spotted hemlock and others. Katherine and her brothers had been warned ever since they were knee-high to a cricket never to enter that herber or have anything to do with it. Raphael once asked why the herbs were grown. Father had replied that such plants could also be medicinal.
Katherine hastened by. She reached the postern gate, pulled back the three bolts and stepped out on to the scrubland that stretched down to the man-made inlet, wharves and quayside of Queenhithe. She loved coming here. The Roseblood stood on an ancient hill that swept down to the Thames. Katherine had a favourite place – she called it the Eyrie – from where she could stare out over the river and watch the great cogs of war, the full-bellied merchant craft of the Hanse, the sculls of Flanders, the woads of Picardy and the whelk boats of Essex, as well as a horde of other barges, wherries and skiffs. Sometimes, on a very clear day, she could hear the sailors singing their hymn of praise to the Virgin Mary, the ‘Ave, Maris Stella’; all except the Greeks, who were allowed to sing their Kyrie.
A flash of colour caught Katherine’s eye. She turned and briefly glimpsed a flaxen-haired woman with a red mantle around her shoulders. ‘Calista!’ she breathed.
Calista was a street girl, a prostitute, who’d often drift into the Roseblood to ogle and entice would-be customers. Now she was threading through a copse, walking arm in arm with a tall man, cowled and garbed like a friar. A priest? Katherine wondered. But she could see no more. They had turned down a trackway skirting the trees that cut between the copse and some crumbling boat sheds.
Katherine walked slowly towards the ancient ruins halfway down the hill, lost in thought about what she had just glimpsed. She recalled the taproom gossip about whores disappearing along the alleyways and runnels of the ward. Father didn’t believe that anything had happened to them; he claimed that such ladies of the night moved around the city to escape the sharp gaze and greedy fingers of the bailiffs. She entered the crumbling ruins. Monkshood, one of Father’s henchmen, a former clerk, believed that the Eyrie had once been an ancient lighthouse built by the Caesars, or even the Trojans.
‘Mistress Katherine! Mistress Katherine, you are needed. Both taproom and refectory are busy. Come, there’s a minstrel fresh from Outremer, or so he says.’ Dorcas, the leading chambermaid, had a trumpet-like voice that belied her size. ‘Mistress Katherine, you are to come.’
‘Mistress Katherine and her boon companion Melisaunde are to stay!’ Katherine whispered back fiercely.
She waited until Dorcas had gone, then clambered down. She crouched, peering around, but the gardens and the orchard slept under the strong April sun. She picked up the walking stick, her crutch and her help, as she mocked it, but her faithful companion to favour the slight weakness in her right leg that had dogged her since childhood. She moved swiftly and silently past the trellises and the herbers rich with periwinkle, sage, soapwort and betony. She skirted the small orchards, which provided apples and pears, cherries and plums, the air blessed with their mouth-watering flavours. The sun was still strong. Butterflies, flickering like darts of light, flitted over the garden, and the summer’s first bees competed with the growing chatter of crickets in the long grass. From the city, the tolling of bells summoned the faithful to pray.
Katherine ignored all this, aiming like an arrow for the small postern gate in the south wall, which led down to the riverside. Only once did she pause, at the high-bricked enclosure that her father called the Hortus Mortis, the Garden of Death, a special herb plot tended only by Ignacio. This macabre garden contained deadly shrubs: the soft spiky pods and shiny brown seeds of castor, friar’s cowl; the white bell-shaped flowers of mandrake; yellowish hartshorn: purple-spotted hemlock and others. Katherine and her brothers had been warned ever since they were knee-high to a cricket never to enter that herber or have anything to do with it. Raphael once asked why the herbs were grown. Father had replied that such plants could also be medicinal.
Katherine hastened by. She reached the postern gate, pulled back the three bolts and stepped out on to the scrubland that stretched down to the man-made inlet, wharves and quayside of Queenhithe. She loved coming here. The Roseblood stood on an ancient hill that swept down to the Thames. Katherine had a favourite place – she called it the Eyrie – from where she could stare out over the river and watch the great cogs of war, the full-bellied merchant craft of the Hanse, the sculls of Flanders, the woads of Picardy and the whelk boats of Essex, as well as a horde of other barges, wherries and skiffs. Sometimes, on a very clear day, she could hear the sailors singing their hymn of praise to the Virgin Mary, the ‘Ave, Maris Stella’; all except the Greeks, who were allowed to sing their Kyrie.
A flash of colour caught Katherine’s eye. She turned and briefly glimpsed a flaxen-haired woman with a red mantle around her shoulders. ‘Calista!’ she breathed.
Calista was a street girl, a prostitute, who’d often drift into the Roseblood to ogle and entice would-be customers. Now she was threading through a copse, walking arm in arm with a tall man, cowled and garbed like a friar. A priest? Katherine wondered. But she could see no more. They had turned down a trackway skirting the trees that cut between the copse and some crumbling boat sheds.
Katherine walked slowly towards the ancient ruins halfway down the hill, lost in thought about what she had just glimpsed. She recalled the taproom gossip about whores disappearing along the alleyways and runnels of the ward. Father didn’t believe that anything had happened to them; he claimed that such ladies of the night moved around the city to escape the sharp gaze and greedy fingers of the bailiffs. She entered the crumbling ruins. Monkshood, one of Father’s henchmen, a former clerk, believed that the Eyrie had once been an ancient lighthouse built by the Caesars, or even the Trojans.
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