The People's Queen (17 page)

The poor man, Alice thinks, trying to turn her puzzled disappointment at this lacklustre reaction into anxiety for him. His pain must be agonising. She's never had a day's illness in her life and usually she is sceptical about other people's illnesses, assuming they are exaggerating their symptoms, but not now. She has never had a headache like that so, she tells herself sternly, how can she hope to imagine the pain? More's the pity, she's sent her friar who understands medicine to Pallenswick, where she'll be sleeping tonight. But perhaps she should call at an apothecary in London, and send Monseigneur a potion. She's told him about the deal, which is the important thing. For now, he's too sick to express his appreciation. But once he's better, if she's been solicitous enough, he'll appreciate her concern almost as much as her commercial nous.

'I'm so sorry for your pain,' she says with real sympathy. But she can't leave him just yet. 'There was just one other thing.'

The Duke looks at her again with those dead-fish eyes, expecting nothing from her.

She sees she should go. But she has to say this. She knows it for another good idea.

It's Chaucer who first came up with this suggestion, for Alice has been dropping in on Chaucer fairly frequently, on the trips from Sheen to London she's been making to finalise the Lyons deal. He's so sharp-witted and so sweet with her that he's got behind her defences; she likes to sit and chat with him, as if she had nothing better to do. She finds excuses to visit him. It's years since she had a friend like him.

Chaucer doesn't know about the Lyons deal, of course. She's not telling anyone, except the Duke, till it's happened. (Even then, she's not going to tell anyone, ever, about the secret part. That's just for her and Lord Latimer and Lyons to know.) But she likes the way Chaucer worries about the public finances, like the conscientious official he is, and the way he's been talking long and honestly to her about his concerns (especially when he's a little tipsy, she's noticed; so Alice has made a point of making sure he's lavishly supplied with wine). Since Chaucer's started spending so much time with Walworth and the oligarch merchants, he's understood better than before how hard it's always going to be for the Crown to wring money out of either merchants or - if they ever dare call another Parliament - the people: the knights and small landlords. And Chaucer loves the King and the Duke, in that straightforward way that men do love the leaders who've been good to them; he's been putting his mind to helping them.

What Alice is about to suggest to the Duke is, she thinks, the best idea Chaucer's had. She smiles affectionately as she remembers the conversation. Chaucer laughing, with a bright, excited look in his eyes, as he said, 'Well, I can think of another source of money for the King...And I can tell you something for nothing: tapping that source would make the King very popular in London - or the Duke, if it was by his order...'

'What other source?' Alice said quickly.

'He should be getting money out of the Church, of course.'

Incredulously, Alice laughed back. What, go on bended knee to the Pope, or Archbishop? And come away with bags of money in your hand? She replied, 'Don't be silly, Chaucer. That's about as likely to happen as Hell freezing over.'

But Chaucer wasn't crushed by her friendly scorn. He's braver than you'd think, once he gets going with an idea. He just said, in the voice of someone who enjoyed arguing, 'Well, there are already people saying the Church should be stripped of its wealth. That it should be poor as Christ himself was...It's one of the things Stury says, for instance.' He couldn't restrain a grin at Stury's name, for it's hard to take the poetical knight's whimsical religious feelings seriously, so Chaucer rushed on, more earnestly: 'And there are people inside the Church who say the same sort of thing, too. Think of Wyclif.'

Wyclif. At first Alice conjured up the picture of Edward's chaplain without great enthusiasm. John Wyclif is a doctor of divinity at Oxford, a man in his forties, a person of indifferent, blunt, mid-height, mid-brown looks, with a chubby curve to his jaw and a fleshiness to his lower lip. He's made it his life's work to disapprove of things. He disapproves of the war, for instance; says it's vainglorious. He disapproves of monks. And he disapproves of his wealthy masters in the Church of Rome. You'd never think Wyclif attractive to look at, even when he opens his plain face to you in a smile of unusual beauty and openness - until he speaks. He has a cultured voice, a dark, rich, melancholy voice, with a tremble of tragedy never quite absent. Women turn round and go thoughtful and a little pink-cheeked at that voice. Men fall silent. Even Alice has felt its power.

People who have heard Wyclif often find themselves enthusiastically converted to, and preaching and repreaching his passionately expressed belief: that there are too many ecclesiastical foundations, on every street corner, in every field, and each of them rich as Croesus already, yet always with their hands out asking for more. He says it's time the Church gave up these ill-gotten gains, and rediscovered God.

There's a lot of that kind of talk already doing the rounds in London, a city whose walls are lined with monasteries and abbeys, and whose citizens are constantly having to put their hands in their pockets for whitefriars, blackfriars, greyfriars, pinkfriars, anyfriars. But for now, their resentful fundamentalism is quiet talk in the privacy of homes. The baleful glares of the big three victuallers - especially Walworth, who wants to keep civic and religious life pretty much as it is, doesn't like any kind of dissent, and appears at every ceremony beside William Courtenay, the Bishop of London - stop too much anti-clerical grumbling being heard in public.

Wyclif frightens Alice a bit. She thinks all that humourless magnetism dangerous.

But, as soon as she heard Chaucer say the prelate's name, she liked the inspired idea of having the Duke take Wyclif up and champion him. She liked it partly for the serious reason that Wyclif might indeed show the way to get the Crown a windfall of Church money, if he gave the Crown a template - a bit of memorable phrasing, a form of reasoning that everyone in the land would agree with - to justify merging some failing monasteries, confiscating some land and gold plate, and enjoying the profits. But Alice liked the idea most of all for its unserious side, because of the mischievous fun she also saw in it: the Duke and Wyclif collecting in money, the war coffers filling from the sale of Church property, Londoners praising the Duke's policy, while Walworth and his tame Bishop, guardians of the status quo, would have to stand crossly by with their noses well and truly out of joint. It was childish, Alice knew, but the idea of annoying them made her splutter with laughter.

She thought at once: Yes, I'll suggest that to the Duke. She knew at once, too, that she wasn't going to credit Chaucer with having had the idea.

Duke John knows it's a good idea too, as soon as she says the word 'Wyclif'.

Now the gratitude's there, all right. His eyes fix on her: rapt attention as he considers the idea; then nods; then, as the smartness of it sinks in, admiring nods. Head to one side, mouth relaxing and broadening into a smile.

He takes her arm. His headache is forgotten. Again, he gives her that warm, surprised, look, that look of intimacy, of - almost - love. It seems to Alice to say, 'You could be my future.'

But all he says is one word. 'How?' he asks.

'Oh, any number of ways,' she replies glibly. She ticks some off on her fingers. 'Have him at your side. Give him a job. At the end of the year, take him with you to the next peace talks...to Bruges.'

Duke John murmurs, 'Take him with me...have Wyclif at the talks,' as if nothing could give him greater pleasure. He mutters, 'Yes.' She sees colour stealing back into his cheeks.

How strange, she thinks, confused, that he should be so unenthusiastic about one apparently perfect idea, which is actually being put into practice, then so overwhelmed by the next, which is so much vaguer.

It's wrong-footed her, this topsy-turvy reaction. She wants to understand him. And this...well, she doesn't understand it, quite.

But after a moment's suspended breath, she lets her worry go. She tells herself it doesn't matter. All that matters is that he's pleased about one of her ideas. He understands how useful she and her ideas could be in guiding his policy. Looking at his surprise and appreciation now - for she can see he hasn't really expected her to come back with anything this good - she's surprised, too, at the warmth inside herself, the great deep breath she draws into herself and then joyously lets go.

This is just the beginning.

She bows. She knows the rules of flirtation, and, even if this relationship is more about advancement and self-advancement than love, the rules are the same. She'll go now, while he wants more. She says, 'I won't hold you up any longer,' throws him a last smile, and makes off towards the palace, almost dancing through the little gaggle of secretaries hiding behind their bush.

She can feel his eyes, warm on her back. She's not looking, but she knows he's smiling.

There is a rustle from the river side of the walkway.

John of Gaunt looks around.

A tall blonde female form is waiting, motionless, under an archway. There are roses trailing past her shoulders. Katherine Swynford has the gift of quiet. She doesn't smile. There is a happiness inside her that needs no external expression to shine out.

'Were you here all along?' he asks as he reaches her, bending his body towards and around hers. She shakes her head. She has the neck of a swan, he thinks.

She raises an eyebrow towards Alice Perrers' departing back. It is all part of the blessed peace of her that she doesn't ask unnecessary questions. 'A detail,' he explains, and his happiness grows when she nods, as if that's the end of it.

If there is one skill he does believe he is at last beginning to master, it's chivalry. He lost himself, long ago, in the long blonde loveliness of Blanche, his first wife; he'd have obeyed any order she gave, gone on any quest. He was young, then, and everything seemed simple and beautiful. But then she died. And, after that, everything else went wrong for years; there was so much more loss. His mother, gone, years ago now, while he was away in France; his father, so strange and absent-minded in age; his brother Edward, ill, and Joan, whom he used to adore, become cold and hardened by their family pain. Their tight-lipped little boy, Richard, his nephew, who hardly speaks. His own second wife, Constanza, locking herself away with the hard-eyed Castilian ladies and sallow little Catalina. Dust, ashes, ashes...

And then, one day, two years ago, with the needling Castilian in the background, a door opened, and there she was, in a shaft of sunlight: dear, familiar Katherine, who's always been underfoot, somewhere around at court, a good bit younger than him, a child. Whose loveliness suddenly looked so breathtakingly strange.

In that moment, John of Gaunt understood he'd found the meaning of his life. France, the war...everything else, in these past two years, has become distraction.

He can't be with her all the time, although in his secret heart of hearts a picture has begun to form of the two of them in a rose bower, at peace...

The reality of his life is that it hasn't been easy to be quietly together, even for a few days here and there, in the years since they found each other. She has her responsibilities, he has his. It's not just his wife, and France, that come between them. She's a war widow with four children being raised in Lincolnshire. They've taken what precious secret time together they can. It's never been enough.

He was away in France, eighteen months ago, when she gave birth to his son, christened John Beaufort, in secret, from the court at least, at her manor house in Lincolnshire. But they were both back at the Savoy in the spring. She came to London as soon as she was churched - just six weeks after being brought to bed. 'I wanted to see you,' she said simply. And everything was transformed when she was back: the very air brighter. She looked as young and slender as ever; unchanged by childbirth. How he wanted to see the child - his son. But he couldn't, of course. The baby was with a wet nurse at Kettlethorpe.

All he could do to show his love was to free Katherine from the deceit and embarrassment of her job serving his wife Constance. He gave her a separate duty, making her
magistra
to the daughters of his first marriage, giving the two little girls their own household, semi-detached from the rest of his court.

That would be a way to make it easier for him to see Katherine more, or so he thought. How wrong he was about that. By summer, he was off back to France, rushed on by the demands of the Crown, for more duty, more war, and more humiliation - nearly a year of it. By the time he finally took little John in his arms, the child was already walking; almost talking.

John's heard people make up ugly, despicable, whispered motivations for his loss of zeal for France. There's even a ludicrous rumour that he's loitering here in England, making truces with the French, because he's waiting for Edward to die, so he'll be at hand and can seize the moment to steal the throne of England from little Richard, his nephew. His lips thin at that memory. How people - merchants, those non-fighting fools of men, who have wormed their way into his father's trust with their money-bags and their sly eyes and their fat, comfortable, lives - can let filth like this into their minds, he doesn't know. How anyone who has ever talked to
him
could believe such a thing of him is beyond him. No,
this
is the real reason for his private weariness of the business of war: the armies, the expeditions, the sea passages. Not the softness of age, not the slyness of treachery. She is. Love is.

So John is grateful, in a remote way, for hints and tips and nods and policy ideas and bits of advice from these bright-eyed, busy, clever, adviser types pushing themselves forward: the Perrerses, the Latimers. They offer glimpses of possibilities which his father has never dreamed of. They have to be heard out.