The People's Queen (31 page)

Now it's back. Something Warde-the-grocer said in the City. A plot in the offing, against her and her friends. She should know. Forewarned is forearmed.

When she looks up, humbly, and her face softens into pleased excitement at his presence, he's ready to tell her.

'My lord,' she says, rising to her feet, putting aside her needlework, bowing her head. He clears his throat.

But before he can say a word, she's started talking herself. And there's something wheedling, beseeching, even, in the little smiles she's giving him as the words rush out. A favour, then. He knows that look. He composes himself, ready to nod, to listen, to understand, and, probably, to grant it. He owes her so much.

Self-preservation is urgently on Alice's mind, now she's talked to John de Stafford. When she sees the Duke come through the door, she finds herself - can't stop herself - separating him from his men, waiting till they're streaming off out of the room to wait in the corridor, so she can whisper in his ear, and ask him to intercede with Edward, and get Johnny knighted with the next crop of boys who are honoured. By that time, Johnny will be...better. And the Duke is so efficient at getting granted the favours that the King promises, but forgets. Always was.

Even before she starts, she's expecting his brow to shadow for a moment. She's expecting the fretful question, 'But whose son...?' But she's thought it all out in these last few heady minutes. He won't remember what she was before Edward. And he won't want detail. She knows that. That's the beauty of asking him. So...

'Oh, long ago,' she replies with vague charm. 'My first husband. Long before...'

She's not expecting this thunderous look deepening and darkening on his face.

There's blood pounding through the Duke's head.

Knighthood is glory, he's thinking, not just grace in the saddle and at swordplay, but courage enough to give your life to defend what you hold dear. A noble reward, for noble men. A badge of honour.

He'd never ennoble a merchant. Even Chaucer, whom he admires, but knows to be a fool on a battlefield. Not Chaucer's fault, that; just his merchant blood.

Knighthood's not for the likes of these people; for Madame Perrers' brood. He thought she knew her place. But she's overreached herself; she's as grasping as the rest of them, after all. Do these people think they can buy or steal
everything
?

Alice falters. Her eyes drop. His are so angry. She doesn't understand why.

'Madame Perrers,' the Duke says, and his voice is as steely as his gaze. 'Knighthood is a mark of nobility.'

She tries not to cringe or look crestfallen. She stares at the floor. She's given offence. Her short-lived sunny relief is replaced, instantly, by quiet dread.

So much for her power and visibility. All that's not hers, not really, is it? It's this man's, to whom she's linking her future, or hopes she is. She's just a shadow dancing behind him, not a person of the stature to bask in the light of power herself. One frown from this man, and she's back to being a crumb on the floor.

She squeezes anxious hands together till the knuckles go white and she can feel half-moons of fingernail burn into the backs of fingers.

He's being pompous, of course. She can think of half a dozen rich merchants who've retired to country estates with knighthoods; whose sons will be noble. No harm in that. Why not her, and her son?

She didn't mean anything bad. She didn't think...Surely he can see that?

But he's still staring accusingly at her, as if her words were so outrageous that they've robbed him of the power of speech.

She swallows, and then nods. Best agree. Best drop it, quick. 'I understand,' she mutters appeasingly, thinking: What can I say next, to make him forget I asked?

But he's not staying for more. He's off towards the door.

There's a game children play, cutting away flour from a heap, slice by careful slice, trying not to let the coin perched at the top of the flour fall. The loser is the one whose hands start to shake, and whose cut finally topples the coin. Alice feels she's playing that game now. She sees the thin column of flour wavering after an injudicious cut, with the coin wobbling precariously at the top. She's made a few bad plays recently.

'You made a good Lady of the Sun,' he adds bitingly over his shoulder. 'But leave it at that.'

Alice shuts her eyes. As the door shuts, she's trying to visualise that coin. It's still up there, she tells herself. It hasn't fallen yet.

NINETEEN

They're waiting for him. They're all at the Customs House, perched on the sides of the big table, companionably chatting, when Chaucer walks in.

Brembre has that muscular sun-kissed bronzed look, Philpot is bald and smooth, and Walworth, relaxed now he's no longer having to perform the daily duties of Mayor, seems taller and paler and more angelic than ever. Chaucer looks at these three, his father's friends, his own mentors, and wonders at the slight dislike in his heart.

Their eyes light up as he comes in. The big beaming smiles come out.

It makes him uncomfortable. He's spent an hour writing this morning, only remembering to rush over here when he saw how high the sun was in the sky. He knows what his father would have said about slacking, when his job is so responsible. He wishes now that he'd stopped to get his cheeks shaved, at least.

Walworth clears his throat. Chaucer sees he's got a roll open on the table.

'My dear Master Chaucer,' he says kindly, and his gold hair shimmers above pale eyes. 'We've been looking at your work. We wanted to talk to you about
this.
'

He puts a clean slim finger on the parchment. Peeping forward, Chaucer can see where it's fallen: on the name John Kent, one of the many caught trying to export wool without paying customs. Kent has had the entire cargo, worth PS71 4s. 6d., confiscated. It's in the warehouse now.

Chaucer isn't sure what he's done wrong, but he can't help it. The finger stabbing at the parchment is making him feel guilty. He feels sure they think he's done something wrong.

Anxiously he says, 'Master Walworth' - for they've settled on formality in the ways they address each other - 'we talked about this. You remember, don't you? You agreed that the cargo had to be impounded.'

Walworth looks carefully at him - the others do too - then they all begin to chuckle reassuringly.

'You misunderstand me, dear boy,' Walworth says. 'You did absolutely the right thing.'

There's a little pause. It's Walworth who breaks the silence. Still smiling, he says, 'As a matter of fact, dear boy, we were just saying how very
well
your appointment is turning out...'

Philpot chimes in: '...and how we've come to depend on you. Reliable and hard-working; quick to spot errors, like this one.'

They all nod, and twinkle. But it's Walworth who makes the offer.

'In fact,' he says merrily, 'we think it's time we offered you a reward for all your unremitting labour and diligence.'

The others nod again. Chaucer's hardly breathing.

'So we've decided. We're going to make over the value of this confiscated property to you,' Walworth finishes.

Chaucer can't believe it. Seventy-one pounds! It's more than seven times his year's pay - more than enough to pay Elizabeth's bride-price to the Church, if she does go to St Helen's, without having to dip into his savings. His heart expands in his chest until it feels he might burst.

'Thank you,' he stammers. 'Thank you.'

He senses, rightly, that there's more to come.

He wants to believe that this isn't a bribe. He doesn't think of himself as buyable. He once told Alice he'd never taken a bribe. He wants to believe they really are just thanking him for his exceptionally good work. Only he isn't sure it has been so exceptional.

So he thinks there will be more, because, if they are buying him, they'll have to explain why.

'You're a loyal man, Chaucer,' Walworth adds warmly, after giving him a moment for his piece of good fortune to sink in. 'Always have been. We didn't quite know what to expect when you came back from court, in all your glory...'

Chaucer translates in his head: 'As the protege of Alice Perrers and the Duke.' Suddenly watchful, he stands a little straighter.

'But you've done us proud. Your father would be proud of you.'

For a moment, the mention of his father's pride brings grateful tears prickling into Chaucer's eyes. But then he realises they knew that would happen. And it makes him more watchful still. He smiles, a sentimental smile, to show how he appreciates the compliment. But inside, he's on his guard.

'You understand better than most that sometimes it pays to keep your head down and your mouth closed, and just get on with the job,' Walworth finishes. He leans closer, gazing hypnotically into Chaucer's eyes, as if willing him to nod along with Walworth's own beautiful head, which is already going up and down.

'Whatever else is going on outside,' Chaucer agrees tactfully. 'Yes indeed.'

'Now,' Brembre says briskly. 'There'll be a lot of commotion for the next few months, what with the Parliament and everything else. People's eyes wandering; work left undone; who knows what trickery being swept into corners.'

Is
that
it? They're bribing me to keep quiet during the Parliament? But why, when I wouldn't have anything to do with Parliament anyway? Chaucer's puzzled. He's heard the rumours. Everyone in town is suddenly talking about how the City aldermen are about to go after the Italians over the debt scandal - and, if they can, drag Lyons and Alice and their friends at court into admitting complicity, too. He can see that these three might easily want him to keep clear of Alice while that's going on. They know Alice is his benefactor. They wouldn't want Chaucer coming up with clever defences for her.

He could understand they'd try to buy him to keep his nose out of the aldermen's courtroom at Guildhall. But why Parliament?

'You want me to keep my head down and keep concentrating on my work,' he says, and he makes his voice extra docile. 'During the Parliament.' He needs to be sure it is actually the Parliament he's being told to keep his nose out of.

Walworth laughs cosily and claps him on the back. 'Yes indeed,' he replies, all bonhomie and charm. 'Though you must do as I say, not as I do, of course, because I'll be at Parliament myself, as you know. One of the two men for London. Forgetting my normal work. Sweeping things under the carpet. You'll have to keep an eye on
me
!'

The future parliamentary representative for London laughs. They all laugh. They all clap Chaucer on the back. They leave together.

After they've gone, and he's alone with the clerks, Chaucer sighs.

He knows they're out to get Alice. He just can't quite yet see how Walworth plans to drag the case to Parliament.

It pains him, the rank injustice of it. He knows (who better than he?) that Alice is, or has been, greedy, and venal, and out for herself. But it also seems clear to him that Alice is just a symptom of all the troubles England's gripped by, not the cause they're going to make her out to be. Greed is in the air. Who doesn't take a little, or a lot, if there's no one to say no? If it's so easy that saying no seems madness? He can't think of anyone in the land who hasn't, these last years...even he, now...

If only she'd take his advice and go away. Lie low in the country. But she won't. And perhaps it's already too late. Chaucer can sense that the hungry, eager look on Walworth's features doesn't bode well for her. He doesn't want her to be the sacrificial lamb, the offering of repentance for everyone else's gluttony and avarice. He's so...
fond
, he tells himself, cautiously...of her. But he's frightened, too. He can't help thinking: what if she goes down, and he's dragged with her? He's done nothing he can be reproached with; he's taken no bribes (not counting this gift he's just been made by Walworth) and covered up no truths, but what if he's weeded out of the City job she got him, and is then too tainted by association with her to get a place back at court?

He knows that, if he were a proper knight-errant, the most honourable thing to do, in his present circumstances, would be to graciously thank the merchants and turn down their money, and then defend his lady in whatever way he could against whatever charges were laid against her. But, even if he were brave enough to defend her, whatever could he do to ward off the enemies massing on every side?

Anyway, he can't. He's a merchant's son, among merchants, in a greedy world. He needs the money, for Lizzie. And who, in this greedy world, ever takes the chivalrous course? He says to himself, out loud, trying out the words, and the thought, for size: 'I've never been a particularly brave man; why draw attention to myself now?' Then: 'What's more, how she'd laugh at my naivety if I did.'

That evening Chaucer goes to Vintry Ward and knocks at the house of Sir Richard Stury, his old friend from the wars. It's been months. Too long.

By happy coincidence, Sir Richard is in London. He's delighted to see Chaucer. He flings a long arm over Chaucer's shoulder and guides him in for supper, knightly style.

Over the first pitcher of Rhenish wine ('Can't get Gascon for less than an arm and a leg these days,' Sir Richard apologises), the knight tries to interest Chaucer in the religious theorising he's gone in for recently - a passionate support for Lollardy. 'You should come and hear Wyclif preach one day,' he says, wild-eyed and fervent. 'He talks about freeing ourselves from the tyranny of Rome, and with such eloquence...I can't begin to convey it...but you'd understand as soon as you heard him.' But when he sees Chaucer sigh and, very faintly, yawn (a gesture Chaucer realises, as he performs it, that he's borrowed from Alice Perrers) he lets that subject drop.

Over the second pitcher of wine, they talk poetry. Sir Richard fetches out the beautifully illuminated, and expensive, copy he's just bought of
The Romance of the Rose
, and, after they've oohed and ahed over it, and read a few passages, he asks Chaucer searching, intelligent questions about the verse he's been writing.

The friendly atmosphere, the refinement of the conversation, and the quality of the wine bring a not unpleasing melancholy to Chaucer's heart.

It's drizzling. It only stopped snowing a month ago, and there's been non-stop rain ever since. It's a monotonous, miserable sound, water beating on windows. 'Do you remember', Chaucer says, 'when we were young, how spring always seemed to come earlier?' And Stury laughs, as wistfully as Chaucer, and says, 'And summer seemed to last for ever? Of course I do...but what can you expect, my friend? We live in evil days.' For a few minutes, the pair of them sit, nodding gently, perfectly satisfied with the nostalgia they're sharing, nursing their wine.

After an hour or so more, as they broach the third pitcher and start to indulge in reminiscences about their days shut up together as hostages in the same castle tower all those years ago, sharing one cup of wine and half a loaf of bread, utterly cast down at the prospect of indefinite imprisonment, and then about various old friends in the King's service, and then about the fine times they've had on one trip on the King's business or another, Chaucer also finds the courage to broach the other subject on his mind.

'Old man,' he says tentatively, 'it's not that I'm unhappy with my work at the Customs House, but sometimes I have to confess I miss the old diplomatic days in the King's service, too...' He sighs nostalgically. 'Italy...'

He's thinking of the wide, smooth streets and great domes and portals of Genoa. He's thinking of the double belt of stone walls encircling Florence, and the loveliness of the great, dim, mysterious baptistry of St John, within those walls: the white and green marble; the glowing mosaics of the cupola.

He's been thinking thoughts like this, thoughts of escape, all day. He's uncomfortable with the sense of foreboding he's carrying in him through the winding streets and wooden houses of London. He'd like it to go away; but if it won't, he'd like to take to heart, for himself, the advice Alice won't hear, and go away from it. It wouldn't be ideal, of course, going back to the King's service now, when the King is so infirm, and perhaps not long for this world...but it would feel safer than sitting here waiting for whatever it is that's brewing up in the stormclouds. Putting some distance between himself and this trouble would ease his mind.

Stury laughs. 'I've been wondering how long you'd be able to bear the wool sacks, day in, day out. I won't say I'm not sympathetic. Do you really have to go in there every day?' he answers lightly, filling Chaucer's cup. 'Would you like me to put a few feelers out? See if you can't be excused from the accounts and sent back to work at the King's service?'

Carefully, Chaucer picks up the cup. He examines the wine, rolls the cup in his hands, and sniffs the rich bouquet, as his father taught him. 'A well-made wine,' he says diplomatically, before adding, with a slow nod, knowing his casualness won't fool Stury for a second, 'Well, dear fellow, of course there's no hurry...but if something came up, I'd certainly be interested in knowing.'