The People's Queen (25 page)

Yes, possibly Chaucer would appreciate that. Especially since he isn't tormented by the memory of the Queen's trusting eyes.

But when it comes to it Alice finds she can't talk too much about the feelings that have no easy names.

Instead she says briskly, winding up her story, 'William was sent back to Ireland. And you know what happened to me.' She shrugs.

Chaucer's brow is wrinkled. Surely he can't think it was really wrong to jump at the chance of the King's bed? But she can see he doesn't like what he's hearing. Or doesn't think he's hearing the right thing. With what sounds like anguish in his voice, he counters: 'But what about the children?'

She sits up beside him. She spreads her hands. 'The children?' she says, rather bewildered by the question. What about the children? 'Well, I see them when I can. They're in Essex. I told you. I have a house there.'

'And he...William of Windsor?' he probes. 'Didn't he ever want...?'

She feels her heart twist. She makes an effort to keep her face still. That's how she knew, from the start, that William never really meant to come back. He'd have shown more interest in them, if he did, wouldn't he? It was only a young girl's naivety to hope for more. Well, she's learned her lesson. She snaps, 'No.'

Another silence.

She adds, defensively, 'They don't need him.'

Chaucer frowns. 'But children do need their parents. And if yours have no father, surely they need to be with their mother more than ever...'

Oh, so that's it. His injured family feelings again.

'They're well looked after,' she protests. But there's only more mutinous wordlessness from the other side of the bed. She senses him drawing away.

She tries to explain. 'They're going to need money in life,' she says. 'Money and land and rank. I grew up without any of that and, let me tell you, it's no fun; I don't want them grubbing around in the dirt. I want them to be properly provided for. Able to enter life with a bit of a swagger.'

'But you're their mother. How can you bear not to live with them?' Chaucer insists.

Incredulously, she thinks: He can't mean it. What, go and live at Gaines? Give everything up?

'I do my best for them. Everything I'm doing is for them,' she says, defensive again. But she knows that's not quite true, even as she says it.

She's seeing their three little dark heads in her mind as she speaks; she's feeling the shy tenderness she experiences whenever she's at Gaines, and looks at them laughing together, and holds back from interrupting their play because they look so intent on whatever they're doing, and she doesn't know enough about them to understand what they're up to. Of course she loves them. She enjoys the softness of her thoughts about them.

But that isn't the same as doing everything she does for them. Because she knows, if she's honest, that she's not staying away from Essex just to put clothes on their backs or white chargers between their little legs. She's here piling up money, buying houses and land, dancing between court and City, because she enjoys it. Because she loves being at the centre of everything. Because there's nothing so exciting as the energy and intentness she feels when she's working out some new scheme and making it happen. Because she can.

She's not going to leave Katherine Swynford to take over the court, or Lyons making new fortunes without her. Not while she still has the choice.

'And I couldn't go and bury myself in the country,' she adds flatly.

She hopes that's an end to it. But Chaucer won't give up. He's like a dog, worrying away at a bone.

'Well, why didn't you bring your children to live with
you
?' he says.

She sighs. For a moment the old, old sadness seeps back into her. 'Because I got it wrong,' she says wearily. 'Because I imagined for too long that I'd end up as William's lady wife, and by the time he went away...' She blinks. 'Well, by then,' she continues, fiercely enough to banish the sadness, 'I couldn't very well tell my new lover the King that I had a family full of someone else's babies, could I? And forgotten to mention it? And told his wife the Queen a pack of lies about my dying mother, into the bargain?'

When she sees his frown, she softens her voice before going on: 'It was too late. Don't you see? It all snowballed. I couldn't unpick the lies...'

At last Chaucer seems to be beginning to understand. He shakes his head. She thinks she sees tenderness comes back into his eyes. Or is it pity?

'And before you say anything else, it's much too late now,' she adds briskly. She doesn't want pity. 'You know that, Chaucer. Court children turn seven. They get sent away. They get educated. And mine are nine and ten. Even if I had managed to bring them to live with me at court when they were babies, they'd be too old now. I'd be putting them into some other household for a bit of polish. I wouldn't be sitting around dandling them on my knee all day long, would I now?'

Chaucer puts an arm around her and draws her close. He's not going to lecture her any more, she can see. He's looking too mournful for that. She sees he's thinking of his own family again. His pity's turning to self-pity. 'Philippa always says it's proof I'm not noble that I'm so soft about children. She says, your merchant roots are showing,' he murmurs. He kisses the top of her head. 'And perhaps she's right. Perhaps you are. But having my children near is what I want most in the world. It's the cruellest thing she's done to me, keeping them away.'

Then he turns her round so he can look into her eyes. He's having an idea. She sees his face brighten with it. 'At least with you it won't be for ever,' he says, as if he's holding out a wonderful hope. One which, he doesn't mind her knowing, is denied to him.

What does he mean? But she already thinks she knows. She sighs.

'Because after...' He pauses. He can't think of the right delicate phrase.

'After Edward dies, you mean?' she prompts patiently.

He nods gratefully. That's it. 'And when you've left court. You'll have a new life. You won't have to be separated from them any more then.'

He's so pleased for her, that he's worked it all out. He's practically bursting with happiness at the idea that she'll soon be cast out from the life she loves, with all the time in the world to spend with her children. For a moment, she's rigid with irritation. He hasn't been listening at all, has he? He's just thinking what
he
might feel like, or want to do, if he were her; not what
she
might want. She almost bursts out: 'But who says I'll be going anywhere? I might not have to...if I can go on making my way under the Duke.'

Still, she doesn't like to burst his bubble. He means well. She likes his softness. 'Let's cross that bridge when we come to it,' she adds gently. 'It's too soon to say.'

FOURTEEN

A soft breeze ruffles the papers on the table. It is golden afternoon, and peaceful, and Chaucer, who hasn't ventured away from Aldgate and the Customs House for three months or more, is smiling reminiscently over the verses under his pen.

'Fair was this young good-wife, and therewithal, As graceful as a weasel was her body small.' He likes these lines. It's her to a T. And these:

Her broad headband of silk was very high,

And for a fact she had a flirty eye.

Her eyebrows plucked into two narrow rows,

Which both were angled and as black as sloes.

She was a lovelier sight by far to see,

Than is the early-ripe pear tree.

He sighs, though this sigh is not without pleasure. He scribbles more lines.

Brighter the pink that on her cheeks did glow,

Than any new-mint coins fresh from the Tower...

Her mouth as sweet as honey mead,

Or hoards of apples laid in hay or heath.

It's only when he finds he's also written: 'She was a primrose, a sweet piglet's eye, For any lord to lure into his bed, Or else for any common man to wed,' that he begins to look anxiously at the words on the page, and lays his pen down.

A thick, speechless embarrassment has kept Chaucer to himself as the spring sets in. He can't think now what can have possessed him, in the darkness of the New Year, to do the wild, mad thing he knows he did with Alice Perrers. He's kept well clear of his wife ever since, though that hasn't been hard. Until this week she's been away at Hertford Castle with the Duchess's household; she's to visit him for the first time later this afternoon. He's steered clear of Alice, too.

Especially Alice. Through tightly squeezed eyes, he remembers the great joyous laughter that came bubbling through him, both of them, during all that thrusting and grinding he's trying to banish from his mind. He can understand, now, the pull she has on her lovers; the wish they must all share to be close again to the sheer life-energy of her. But he doesn't mind, either, that she kissed him chastely on the forehead as she left, and said, with the kindest imaginable look, straight into his heart, 'That's us, Chaucer; no more; we both know that, don't we?'

He knows she's right. He agrees. Of course it's impossible for them to be lovers again. Lovers at all. Madness, for people in their present positions: he married, and she so far from free (especially now he knows there are those children whom she'll one day want to bring back to her. Nothing about Alice is uncomplicated. Never has been). He'd do best to forget it ever happened. Still, there's no controlling his thoughts, which, every moment of every day, keep straying back to
that.
And to her. And to the carefree bliss of lying in that bed with her, that evening, laughing. And whenever he does find himself thinking of it, he can't stop smiling.

Chaucer's been sitting over this verse for some time this afternoon.

He's put in his day's work at the Customs House. He has nothing to reproach himself with. He isn't shirking duty. The working day ended early only because the merchants - Brembre and Philpot, who are at the wool office this month - excused themselves to go to a dinner.

Chaucer's intrigued by what their dinner can have been about. It wasn't the usual sort of event. Usually formal City dinners are arranged months ahead. This one came out of the blue, but was even grander than most merchant junkets. At noon, Brembre and Philpot put on their livery robes and went out to the jetty to meet the mayoral boat, coming downriver from the Prince of England's palace at Kennington on its way to the Guildhall. The boat was carrying Walworth in full mayoral fig, assorted servants, and another man Chaucer didn't know: a tall, thin, distinguished man in travelling clothes, silver at the temples, with a knightly dash to his movements, wearing a sword.

'Who's your guest?' Chaucer asked curiously, looking out through the window as the boat drew near, while he helped John Philpot struggle with his sleeves.

From inside the furred robe, Philpot's voice: 'De la Mare, a good sort...up from Herefordshire on business...do you know him, my boy?' Then: 'Brother of the Abbot of St Albans...and he'll be a county knight for Hertfordshire at the next Parliament...if the King ever gets round to calling it.'

He didn't offer any more explanations, just rushed off to be ready at the jetty before the boat tied up. There's nothing like a wealthy merchant for his dignity, Chaucer knows. So he's been left wondering. Future MP or not, Chaucer can't imagine what business a gentleman from Herefordshire would have with the Mayor of London that would require the three most important men in town to wine and dine him. Not that he minds. It's given him a free afternoon to dream his private dreams.

He's still smiling over his verse, knowing that his pleasure, and the mess, will infuriate his wife, and taking refuge in that mischievous knowledge from the guilt he might otherwise be feeling over having done...
that...
with Alice Perrers, when, bang on time, Philippa walks in.

Being with his wife sucks the sunlight right out of the air. Within moments, Philippa and he are back in the same angry discussion they were having at New Year, though he realises, as he listens in dull surprise to his own voice, that he's developed new plans and new pleas when it comes to the fate of his daughter.

'At least if she has to go to a nunnery, let her go to one near me, in London,' he finds himself asking. He doesn't like the whining, begging tone of his own voice. 'St Helen's in Bishopsgate, maybe. It's Benedictine too. So what's the difference? If she doesn't like it, she could always move to Barking later...'

Perhaps Philippa doesn't like the whining and begging in his voice any more than he does. She certainly doesn't like the look of the paper flapping under his hand. She's getting up, with lips pursed as tight as a cat's behind, nodding a small, displeased nod.

'We're going to stay with Katherine at Kettlethorpe for the summer,' she says coolly, and he thinks she's playing for time because she's can't think of a reason to refuse. 'I'll talk to Elizabeth then. She may be interested, I can't say. We can take a decision when I get back.'

'Ah,' Chaucer hears himself say, and now his voice has modulated into a mean, thin sarcasm that astonishes him. 'Kettlethorpe. So you're planning to visit Katherine's new royal baby, are you?'

He has to hand it to Philippa. She has poise. She gives him a nasty look back, for sure, but there's no fear or discomfiture in it. It's more resigned than that, more of a just-the-kind-of-low-blow-I-might-have-expected-from-you look.

'I hear we also have to congratulate your patron Madame Perrers,' she ripostes without a pause, and without deigning to answer his accusation about Katherine. 'It appears
she
has a nest full of children hidden away in the country.'

Her back is straight.

Chaucer is miserably aware that he hasn't countered her blow half as well as she did his. Too late, he composes his face.

'What?' he finds he's already blurted. He rushes to add, 'Nonsense.' After a pause for reflection, he adds a third comment: 'How do you think you know that?'

Philippa is nodding, as if he's only confirmed her worst suspicions. 'Oh,' she says with infuriating calm, 'only the way these things always come out. Some man the Flemish merchant Lyons fired, detained at a tavern...drunk, of course, after an affray. And loose-tongued from the drink.'

Chaucer flares his nostrils. 'And...?' he says.

'Apparently he was howling for revenge. Saying he'd get Madame Perrers on to Lyons.'

Maintaining his appearance of disdain, Chaucer asks, 'Why her?'

Philippa laughs, just a little, and raises her eyebrows. 'He said, because she was his sister. As close as two pages in a book, he said. He lives in her house in Essex. She trusts him absolutely. He's teaching her children to ride...or so he said.'

'A lunatic, then,' Chaucer says stoutly into the ensuing silence.

Philippa raises her eyebrows a little more. 'Certainly not the kind of kin whose existence she would want bruited abroad,' she remarks, so politely that it's almost as if she's agreeing with him.

It's that sneery politeness that is Philippa's worst trait, Chaucer thinks. He clenches his fists.

'So there we are. If we're going to start repeating tavern gossip' - Philippa delivers her final neat thrust with delicate pleasure - 'perhaps we should be wondering if
she's
not hiding a few royal bastards?'

She smiles as Chaucer feels his face - his whole self - go red and heady. Whatever Katherine's up to, skulking in the country with her babies, why would Alice hide any child of the King that she'd borne? It's not in her nature. She'd have them at court in a flash, surely, decked out in velvet and jewels. She'd be boasting and getting them advantages. It's typical of Philippa to insinuate this to try and turn the conversation away from Katherine. She knows how to get behind his defences, all right. She knows how to make him seethe and explode.

'That's pure spite!' Chaucer cries. 'Stupid, too! They're too old!'

He knows, as soon as it's out, that he's made a mistake. But he can't call it back.

Philippa's eyebrows are off up her forehead again. She couldn't look more delighted at how he's just exposed himself. 'Mmm. So you
know
about these children?' she asks, in honeyed tones. 'You
know
how old they are?'

Chaucer scuffs and mumbles, as the seriousness of his mistake is borne in on him. He's as furious with himself as he is with her. He hopes she'll take his half-shaken head to mean 'no'. But he knows she won't. She knows him too well.

Her lovely cat's-eyes are motionless on him. 'Then how can you possibly know that their father
isn't
the King?' she pursues, even more sweetly.

'Because it's William of Windsor,' he snarls. 'There. Nothing to get your claws into after all.'

She blinks, but maintains her composure. She says, peaceably enough, 'I see...and I remember now...we did wonder, long ago, about the two of them.'

I bet you did, Chaucer thinks savagely. Probably made her life hell about it, too. He remembers the viciousness of the demoiselles' talk, who better? It was one outbreak of that girlish cruelty that shackled him to Philippa for life.

Still, he wishes he hadn't said what he said. Better to have acted ignorant. Kept faith with Alice...kept her secret...He knows the ways of diplomacy. He just wishes he could be more of a diplomat with his wife.

Her voice breaks into that uneasy thought. 'And how interesting,' she adds in what sounds like a tentative exploration of a possible new front in hostilities, 'that you should be so well informed about Madame Perrers' family life.'

Again, he curses his loose tongue. He counts to three. It's time for a truce.

'Oh, well, I'm not really,' he backtracks, as soon as he's mastered himself enough to try for calm indifference. 'Just something I heard in the City. Wagging tongues. I couldn't swear to it. I should stop repeating gossip. I suppose we all should.' He manages a smile. The armies are disengaging now, the swords being sheathed.

'I do so agree,' she says with charm. 'We're all too easily led astray.' She looks at him alertly and nods several times. He understands: he will not be permitted to discuss Katherine's babies by the Duke, unless he wants to risk more marital war.

He smiles wider. He can accept those terms. 'Though I'm interested,' he adds. 'Where did you hear
your
piece of gossip?'

She doesn't mind that. She tells him, readily enough. It was at a dinner given by the Princess of England for her sister-in-law of Castile. Of course, Chaucer thinks. Someone's servant in the tavern; the rough scrap of a story picked up, dusted down and served to the court with a relish of malice. The scene floats into Chaucer's mind: the whispers spreading among the Castilian ladies; their shocked laughter behind hands; the gleeful smirking of the English. Sometimes he's glad to be away from court.

'Foolishness, of course,' Philippa says as she gets up to go. 'As you say, we should close our ears to idle talk.'

She pecks him on the cheek in the doorway. She seems glad he's understood. She even says, with a smile that's almost warm, 'I'll talk to Lizzie about St Helen's.'

When she's left, he leans against the door and breathes out.

At first, all he's aware of is his overpowering relief that she's gone off sounding so much more positive about St Helen's, and Elizabeth. It's a moment or two before he goes back to considering her story about Alice.

That could have gone much worse too, he thinks.

If only he'd known, that servant could have gone back to court with much more damaging City stories about Alice. The speculation in most London taverns these days is about where she's getting the money to buy so much new property.

In the first three months of 1375, the King of England, in the forty-eighth year of his reign, has granted Alice Perrers two new manors: Frome Valeys, in Somerset, and Brampford Speke, in Devon. Privately, her team of administrators, including John Bernes, citizen of London, William Mulsho, clerk, Edward de Chirdestoke, clerk, John de Freton, clerk, and Robert Brown of Warwick, have also taken over on Alice's behalf the manors of Southcote in Middlesex, Powerstock in Dorset, Litton Cheney in Dorset, Knole in Somerset, Lydford in Somerset, Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire, Morton Pinkney in Northamptonshire and three manors in Sutton Veny, Wiltshire. Ten new manors in all. That's a lot of rolling acres, and a lot of clinking crowns and nobles. She's coining it, somehow.

Which is strange, considering how poor the rest of England is getting. Chaucer now knows this from close up. Receipts from wool, the country's only big export, have gone on relentlessly falling, even though the loophole of special export licences for Richard Lyons and his kind has been closed off. Although a decade ago 32,000 sacks a year of raw wool regularly went overseas, Chaucer's only seen 28,000 in his first year in office. And revenues from indirect taxes on wool and woollen cloth have, likewise, dropped from levels a decade ago of over PS80,000, and the account books' last entry of PS70,000, to just under PS60,000.