The Herring in the Library

by L. C. Tyler

  She proved to be a small, rather rotund figure dressed in a pale grey habit and white wimple. Tucked into her girdle was a rosary made of green beads. Attached to the beads was a gold brooch, consisting of a crowned letter A and some words that Thomas could not make out. So intent was she on what she was eating, she did not notice Thomas until he was a few feet away.

  ‘God be with you, Mother,’ he began.

  The Prioress looked up. ‘Tell you what,’ she said, ‘these honey cakes are the pilgrim’s pyjamas and no mistake. They say too many honey cakes make you fat, but with my build you can carry a few extra pounds without it showing. Also the order makes you wear dresses that look like an old sack, so there’s no point in maintaining a size VIII figure underneath it. Are you Master Thomas, by any chance?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Thomas.

  ‘Lady Catherine asked me to pray for you,’ she said, stuffing the last few crumbs into her mouth. ‘St Peter’s pastries! – I knew I’d forgotten to do something. Sorry about that. Still, no harm done by the look of things.’

  ‘I have been locked in a dungeon and threatened with torture,’ said Thomas. ‘A prayer would have been good.’

  ‘Let’s say I owe you a couple of Hail Marys then,’ said the Prioress, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. ‘Now where’s that dolted daffe with the wine?’

  And Thomas was sent to look for the dolted daffe.

  ‘So, run that past me again,’ said the Prioress.

  She and Thomas were sitting by the dying embers of the fire in Lady Muntham’s private quarters. The dregs of the pitcher of mulled wine were now only just warm.

  ‘As I said, my master, Geoffrey Chaucer, requested that I should take a message to Sir Edmund and a poem to his wife.’

  ‘Did that strike you as odd?’

  ‘No, I am often sent on errands of one sort or another.’

  ‘To Sussex in the middle of winter?’

  ‘Rarely, I grant you . . .’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I reached here yesterday morning. I found Sir Edmund about to set off hunting. I explained that I had a message for him, with the King’s seal upon it. He took it, broke the seal and read it.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Then he asked me what the message meant.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I was unable to explain. There was very little to it. Just a request to watch the coast and guard against those who would bring goods into the realm without paying the necessary duties.’

  ‘Not the most urgent of messages?’

  ‘Arguably not.’

  ‘Might have waited until the spring?’

  ‘The collection of the correct duties on wine, spices and so on and so forth is of course of the utmost importance . . . but, yes, I would have said it could have waited until the snow had melted.’

  ‘What was the exact wording of this important message?’

  ‘I don’t remember. Sir Edmund read it, then gave me the parchment to read myself, then I . . . then I tucked it inside my robe . . . and here it is!’ Thomas drew the folded sheet from inside his robe, where it had sat for a day and a night and a day.

  ‘“The King sends greetings to his trusty servant Sir Edmund de Muntham,”’ read the Prioress, who seemed to have acquired the parchment. ‘“I require you to watch well our coast of Sussex as you do value your life and chattels, and to bring to justice those that land wine or other goods without the payment of such taxes as are due unto our Royal Person.” Not much there. What did you say the Sheriff thought of the letter?’

  ‘He thought that it must be a piece of nonsense that I had concocted.’

  ‘But just you and Sir Edmund read the letter?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So how did the Sheriff know what was in it?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘And the poem. You wrote that yourself?’

  ‘No, it was Master Geoffrey Chaucer. A great poet.’

  ‘So you didn’t know what that said either?’

  ‘Yes, I read it. In fact, I tidied it up a bit as I copied it out. I can still remember the poem, if you’d like to hear it.’

  ‘Try me,’ said the Prioress, though not in the manner of one who expects a pleasant treat.

  Master Thomas coughed and began to recite.

  ‘Your bright eyes twain will slay me suddenly

  I may the beauty of them not sustain

  For they do pierce straight through my poor heart keen

  Unless your word will heal (and hastily)

  My heart’s cruel wound, while yet it is still green.

  Your bright eyes twain will slay me suddenly

  I may the beauty of them not sustain.

  Upon my oath I say (and faithfully)

  That of my life and death you are the queen

  And with my death shall truth at last be seen:

  Your bright eyes twain did slay me suddenly

  I could the beauty of them not sustain

  And they did pierce straight through my poor heart keen.’

  ‘St Oswald’s oatmeal!’ exclaimed the holy sister. ‘What tedious nonsense! Some poor pathetic male whingeing about being treated badly by his mistress. He’s probably only after one thing, and it isn’t either of her eyes. It’s enough to make you become a nun, except I am one already. You men are a bigger help to religion than you sometimes imagine.’

  ‘As you know,’ said Master Thomas, ‘the convention of courtly love is that the lover can expect nothing except perhaps one brief smile that is recompense for many years of pain and devoted service.’

  ‘And marriage?’

  ‘Well, obviously he can get married – to anybody except the lady in question, who must remain unattainable.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound much fun for anyone.’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Hold on, here’s a thought. What if the hidden message was not in the sealed document for Sir Edmund, but in the poem?’

  ‘It could have been. I hadn’t thought of that. I guess it could have been an acrostic. Or maybe the message might be hidden in a few key words. The problem with that, of course, is that I changed some of it . . . I cut a few lines that didn’t really seem necessary, for example.’

  ‘But Chaucer knew you had made changes?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘So a coded message saying: “This is to warn you that a man is coming to kill your husband,” could have got changed during your redrafting to one saying: “This man is coming to kill your husband.”’

  ‘That seems a little far-fetched.’

  ‘You’re right. Trying to send concealed messages in a poem is a really bad idea. Who would have wanted Sir Edmund dead?’

  ‘Well, the Duke of Gloucester, allegedly. And maybe the Duke of Lancaster. Possibly Simon de Burley too. The court’s a hotbed of intrigue these days.’

  ‘Tricky. Perhaps the more important question then is: Who set you up?’

  No, the only important question now is: Can I get out of here and safely back to London?’

  ‘But a murder has been committed.’

  ‘So it would seem.’

  ‘And the Sheriff seems intent on a cover-up.’

  ‘Yes, I would have thought that was likely.’

  ‘In which case, the culprit may go free and some poor innocent man will be hanged.’

  ‘The former certainly – though not necessarily the latter. I’ll need to ask for directions to Horsham. I can pick up the London road from there.’

  ‘And you are planning to let him get away with it?’

  ‘Put simply, yes, I am planning to do just that.’

  ‘Call yourself a man?’

  ‘My wife asks me the same question from time to time. Since she implies she already knows the answer, I rarely trouble her with a response.’

  The Prioress fixed Thomas with a stare. ‘Has it occurred to you that Lady Catherine may be in
danger?’

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘By St Stephen’s sausages, I fear she is! So, Master Thomas, don’t you think you should do something about it?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘We’ll find out what is going on and bring the murderer to justice.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘Let’s go back to the beginning. How exactly did all this start?’

  I scrolled back to the opening of the chapter and reread it. The Prioress was worryingly familiar. Whoever it was, however, she was not Chaucer’s Prioress. I took down my copy of Chaucer from the shelf. If this was Chaucer’s Prioress, then her greatest oath ought to be ‘by St Loy’ – these food-related expletives were innocent enough, but incongruous coming from one who was (surely?) committed to frugality and abstinence. She should also ‘let no morsel from hir lippes falle’, rather than spray honey cake in all directions. On the other hand, she definitely resembled somebody I knew.

  ‘I hope you’re keeping it simple,’ said Elsie. ‘No meta-fictional cleverness?’

  ‘Heaven forefend,’ I said.

  ‘And no poxy flashbacks.’

  ‘Maybe just the odd one,’ I said. ‘I need to know how the story starts.’

  The Flower of Cities All

  It was, thought Master Thomas, merely a question of whether the soot fell faster than the snow or vice versa. A snowfall overnight, when the fires were dead or smouldering, caused the early-morning city to appear briefly as a bride – robed in virginal white, though a little frostier than a husband might wish. But, if the snow fell during the day, it was at once mixed with bituminous smuts and was grey, even before the carts had rolled through it and the chamber pots had been emptied on top of it, and the stray dogs had pissed in whatever remained. It wasn’t a good plan to slip in the snow in London, because a lot of what was on the ground hadn’t exactly come out of the sky.

  Thomas extracted his foot from the icy puddle into which he had plunged it. Below the grey ice, the water was yellow. Unless there was a good fire at the Customs Office (which was unlikely) that foot would be wet all day. Still, at least the other one was more or less dry. It was, as Master Thomas always liked to point out, important to look on the bright side.

  And, to be entirely fair, the sun had just broken through both the cloud and the smoke to reveal an improbably blue sky, visible in thin strips above the narrow lanes of old London. He was fortunate to live in this great city, so large and populous that it could be smelt two miles away, and bound by walls so strong that only treachery (usually available at a price) could cause the city to fall to any of its many enemies. Londoners were proud people, suspicious of foreigners, of the nobility, of the King and, with good reason, of each other. They were proud of their stinking city on its stinking river, proud of its growing wealth. Thomas’s job, in the Customs Office for the Port of London, was to grab as much of that wealth for the King as he reasonably could. In return for which, the King looked after his servants as well as might be expected.

  ‘There is,’ said Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas’s superior and as close to the King as Thomas usually got, ‘no earthly need for a fire in your room. The snow is almost melting and the fire in my own room will in any case send forth some warmth into yours. I shall have more sea coals placed on my fire.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Thomas. ‘You are very kind.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Chaucer. ‘In any case, you will not be in the office long today.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed,’ said Thomas, rubbing his hands together – a nervous habit he had developed, but a useful one in an office with only indirect access to heating.

  ‘Do you know Sussex?’ asked Chaucer.

  ‘Sussex? Sussex?’ said Thomas. He had also developed a habit of repeating his words in a jocular tone, a mannerism that was beginning to irritate even himself. He rattled off his minimal knowledge of the southern counties. ‘Sussex. The seat of the Lord Bishop of Chichester. The site of some noble castles – Arundel, Lewes and so on. And some notable ports – Winchelsea, Rye, Shoreham – none of which are the responsibility of this office. Good sheep country, as I have heard. Fine sheep country. Quite exceptional—’

  Chaucer held up his hand. ‘Excellent, Master Thomas. You are the very man for the job, then.’

  ‘Am I? Am I?’ He was going to need to watch this repetition thing. ‘What job would that be then?’

  ‘To take an important message on behalf of the King to Sir Edmund de Muntham.’

  ‘Who is where . . .?’

  ‘Findon.’

  ‘And that is near . . .?’

  ‘Nowhere, really. But it is in Sussex and since you know Sussex so well, you are clearly the right person to entrust with such an important mission.’

  ‘I understand. I un . . . So, when the snow clears, and the weather is a little less harsh and the roads a little more passable, you wish me to go to Sussex?’

  ‘No. As I said, you will not be long in the office today.’

  ‘You want me to go today?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In the snow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Along dangerous and largely impassable roads?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On which I might die of cold or be bludgeoned to death by robbers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I suppose I couldn’t wait until the young sun has run half his course into the Ram?’ said Thomas.

  ‘What?’ said Chaucer.

  ‘It’s a poetic way of denoting April,’ said Thomas.

  ‘Is it?’ said Chaucer, scribbling something quickly onto a sheet of parchment and then folding it over. ‘Well, the answer’s “no” anyway. I need you to go immediately. Go home and pack and I’ll have the letter waiting for you when you return. Then piss off to Sussex. Oh, and copy out this poem first – I want you to give it to Lady Catherine de Muntham when you see her.’

  ‘Gone to his dinner,’ said Master Richard, Thomas’s fellow clerk, when he eventually returned, a small leather satchel over his shoulder and both feet now soaking. ‘The Comptroller left this for you, though – letter for some geezer in Sussex.’

  Thomas took the single sheet of folded parchment secured with its wax seal and weighed it in his hand.

  ‘At first sight, a pretty insubstantial thing to justify a man catching his death of cold on the road, isn’t it?’ said Master Thomas.

  ‘What business has the Port of London with Sussex anyway?’ asked Richard. ‘Sounds like a job for one of the Clerks of the Signet. I’d tell that fat windbag you won’t go. Not your responsibility, Master Thomas. I’d tell him: “Stuff your letter where the friars go when they die.”’

  ‘You mean up the Devil’s arse?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘No. He’d only use the metaphor in one of his poems.’ Thomas looked again at the slim missive in his hand.

  ‘Tell him you’re sick,’ suggested Richard.

  ‘But I’m not. The King is sending some customs-related message to Sir Edmund de Muntham. I suppose it must be important.’

  ‘Sir Edmund de Muntham?’ asked Richard.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘The same Sir Edmund de Muntham who narrowly avoided losing his head for treason?’

  ‘There’s probably only one of them.’

  ‘The same Sir Edmund de Muntham who had to run off to his estates in Sussex to avoid a good kicking from the Duke of Gloucester’s supporters?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘The same Sir Edmund de Muntham who has fallen foul of every faction at court?’

  ‘As I say—’

  ‘The same Sir Edmund de Muntham that it would be very risky going anywhere near, unless you wanted a good kicking too?’

  ‘The King’s messenger enjoys a certain degree of protection

  ‘Only if you can point out that’s who you are before you lose consciousness. You wouldn’t be the first King’s messenger to be beaten to death – though with luck you might be the la
st.’

  ‘That would be lucky?’

  ‘For the rest of us, yes.’

  ‘But why should anyone know I am carrying a letter for Sir Edmund?’

  ‘Thomas, this is the King’s court that we’re talking about here. Everyone will know you are carrying a letter for Sir Edmund.’

  ‘Good point,’ said Thomas, rubbing his hands together. ‘Good poi . . . I’d better get started then.’

  Fifteen

  Elsie had, for reasons she chose not to explain, gone out for a walk in the rain. I was sitting in front of my computer, nominally writing a novel but in practice mainly watching the rain run down the window.

  I had written the first chapter of the Master Thomas novel and the plot was becoming a little clearer in my head – though it might require some redrafting of Thomas’s arrest. Sir Edmund had made enemies, one of whom had followed him to Sussex and killed him – at least, that seemed likely. I needed to research this a bit more and work out which faction he might have belonged to, but there were plenty to choose from. The Merciless Parliament of 1388 would convict almost the entire court of treason, including (interestingly) a colleague of Chaucer’s and Master Thomas’s named Nicholas Brembre. Of obscure origins and staggeringly rich, Brembre was eventually hanged. He would be a good historical character to introduce. The fact that he was a financier would make his grisly end quite popular. But Brembre was a loyal supporter of the King. Did that mean that both the King and the Duke of Gloucester wanted Sir Edmund dead? And to which faction, if any, did the Sheriff owe his loyalty?

  I was so taken up with this problem that it took me a moment to realize that the noise in the background was the phone ringing. I answered it.

  ‘It’s Jane,’ said the caller.

  ‘Yes . . .’ I said.

  ‘Gerald is in the swimming pool, but he could be back any moment.’

  It seemed odd that Gerald should be swimming in the rain, though it can be raining hard in Findon but sunny in Horsham. Then I remembered that they had been about to go off on a short holiday somewhere.