While the prior went off to compline, Chaucer returned to the guest-chamber that had been prepared for him. He was conducted there by a lay brother. The chamber was furnished with a bed, a large chest, a stool and a small table set under a window, which was shuttered. Geoffrey was half amused, half irritated to see that on the table top was an array of quill pens, pots of ink and sheets of paper. Not only was the prior determined he should compose a story (about St Beornwyn) but he was even providing the tools for the job, even if he had not gone to the expense of providing proper parchment to write on.
Apart from the writing gear, the simple furnishings of the room were very different from the comforts of the Savoy Palace or Chaucer’s own accommodation at Aldgate. But he liked it in this place. Being on the far side of the river turned London almost into a foreign country. His life in the city itself was his public life. Yet, while Geoffrey’s official positions at the port of London were lucrative, as the prior stated, they were not very onerous. In the meantime his wife was attached to the Duke of Lancaster’s court and therefore better provided for than anything he could arrange for her. Philippa kept the children, Elizabeth and Thomas, with her too. He was happy to see them – and their mother – now and then. Geoffrey found himself with time on his hands. Time to write. The priory was a place where he was able to write. No doubt it was as riven with jealousy and pettiness as any place on God’s earth must be, but nevertheless the atmosphere of labour and outward piety at Bermondsey was for Geoffrey Chaucer a spur to composition.
The bed in his room was well enough equipped to have a candle fixed to a bracket, which extended from the frame. Visitors were evidently expected to read and study. Once the lay brother departed, Geoffrey stretched out on the bed, intending merely to cast his eye over the tale of St Beornwyn before settling himself to sleep. But half an hour later he was still reading, although now with much greater alertness. He couldn’t have said exactly why. The story of Beornwyn was related in a dialect with which he wasn’t completely familiar, and therefore not always to be understood straightaway. And, as he’d said half humorously to the prior, the unusual features of this life were actually quite normal, for a saint. So what gripped him? Was it the setting on the rocky coast in the north country? The butterfly veil? The image of a woman, alone and assailed by attackers rising up from the sea? Some combination of these perhaps. Almost against his wishes, he found himself becoming interested in this Beornwyn.
Eventually he put down the manuscript and lay back with his hands cradling his head. He no longer felt tired but fresh and lively, in mind at least. What could he do with St Beornwyn now? Was she really as she had been written up in this story? The virgin who rejects an arranged marriage, the pure woman who keeps company with the angels. Geoffrey thought of his sister-in-law, Katherine Swynford, another woman with a name for piety. Katherine was a young widow. She was also the lover of John of Gaunt, the third son of King Edward but in point of importance the second man in the kingdom. Given the King’s decrepit state, some would say he was first in the land. When a respectable interval had elapsed after the death of his wife, Blanche, whom he had sincerely loved, John married Constance, the daughter of an ousted (and now dead) king of Castile. By so doing, John had been anointed King of Castile, even if a rival claimant was inconveniently in possession of the throne. Though Constance was a beautiful and highly eligible bride, this was a marriage of power and expediency. Geoffrey Chaucer didn’t think that John of Gaunt’s heart was in the union, whatever his head and his father – Edward III – dictated. No, John’s heart and his other parts rested with Katherine.
Chaucer wasn’t certain when Katherine and John had become lovers but it must have been at least four years previously because there was a child of their union, a boy now rising three. He could ask Philippa, of course, but his wife might not tell him, even assuming she was intimate with all of her sister’s secrets. But whenever it was that John and Katherine began their liaison, both were widowed at the time. Now Gaunt had a queen and a mistress, the two often living under the same roof. Fortunately, the roof of the Savoy Palace was very extensive. To the outside world, Katherine had a reputation as a pious lady (the true parentage of the child was known to very few). Yet while Katherine was genuinely devout, as Geoffrey was aware, she also had a hidden passion for John of Gaunt.
He wondered if St Beornwyn had been, in truth, as pure and pious as she was painted. An unholy thought occurred to him, like a little imp darting through his head. Suppose Beornwyn were no different from most other girls and women. Suppose she had rejected her father’s choice of husband not out of any desire to lead a virginal life but because she already had a lover. A lover, whose identity or even existence had to be concealed for some reason – say, because he was low-born or came from a rival family. All speculation, of course, and probably a slander on the dead lady. But no more unlikely than the story in the manuscript that the Bermondsey prior was urging on him. In fact, if Richard hadn’t stressed Beornwyn’s virginity so much, then Geoffrey thought he might not be responding like this, with scepticism and a mischievous wish to undermine the legend. Chaucer did not disbelieve in the legends of saints. But he didn’t quite believe in them either.
Almost before he knew it, he was lighting the candles that stood on the little table, sitting on the stool, picking up one of the quill pens, dipping it in the ink-pot and scrawling a few lines on a sheet of paper. The outline of the piece was clear in his head. He would cast it in the form of a dream. The first few lines turned into a page and then several pages. The thing flowed, via his hand, from his head onto the white sheets on the desk. He must have been writing for some time for he was dimly aware of the ringing of the matins bell, a time when it was closer to dawn than to dusk. The candles burned down, and still he scrawled away. Eventually, as light was creeping back into the sky and the birds were beginning to sing, Geoffrey rubbed his eyes. Now he was tired, but he was also satisfied. He left the scrawled sheets, returned to bed and settled down to sleep.
He woke at around the hour of terce, well into the day, so far as the monks were concerned. It was a sharp morning, the wind rattling at the shutters in the window of the guest-chamber. Geoffrey returned to the desk, sat down and read through what he had written in one continuous rush during last night. Strangely, it seemed to have been written by a different person from the one who was scanning it now. The piece began quietly enough, with the writer’s inability to get to sleep after hearing the tale of the terrible martyrdom of a pure and virtuous woman. Then, when at last he begins to slumber, he starts to dream. In his dream the martyred woman is a very different being, a devotee not of Christ but of her passion for a man. She dies at the hands of the man’s rival although the rumour is put about that she perished for her faith. When the dreamer awakes he is unable to decide which version to believe.
Alas, I know not how to deem,
To trust the story or the dream?
Geoffrey yawned. The piece needed plenty of work but the basic idea was there. It would surely go down well with a worldly audience such as the one at the Palace of Savoy. He wondered what his wife, Philippa, would make of it.
Meanwhile Chaucer’s wife, Philippa, was not thinking at all of her husband, tucked away in Bermondsey Priory. If she had been thinking of him, then it would most likely have been in a baffled sort of way. For she could not understand his attraction to Bermondsey. It was a hushed, bookish spot, full of men, away from the colour and flurry of court life at the Savoy.
Like her husband, Philippa Chaucer owed her present position to John of Gaunt, and to the court service she had done for John’s mother, the late Queen, also called Philippa. Now she was nominally in service of another queen, John’s new wife from Spain. But like her husband, she found herself with time on her hands. Her duties at court were so light that they scarcely existed. She made a point of seeing her children often, but their immediate care and instruction was in the hands of others.
Philippa had just been ta
lking with Elizabeth, her ten-year-old. Every morning she ran through what the girl had learned the previous day and gave her encouragement for the one to come. Because she was not from England, Philippa was concerned that her daughter in particular should be familiar with at least the French and Dutch languages. Her son, Thomas, showed less inclination for learning and, anyway, she felt boys were better able to fend for themselves.
After Elizabeth left, Philippa remained sitting by the fire. The morning was cold, with gusts of wind rattling the windows. There was a knock at the door. She recognised this knock and called out for the visitor to enter. Carlos de Flores came in, bowing his head a little. She indicated he should sit opposite her, in the place recently vacated by Elizabeth. He smiled and sat down, all the time regarding her with his steady brown eyes.
When John of Gaunt brought his new bride home to the Savoy Palace, the Castilian princess did not come alone. Constance arrived with a retinue of counsellors, priests and servants. And there were others whose precise functions were not so well defined but who had to be found well-appointed lodgings somewhere in the rambling spaces of the palace. Carlos de Flores was one such individual. His English was near-perfect and he had the manners of a courtier.
‘I trust I find you well, madam.’
Before Philippa could reply another gust shook the panes and cold air swirled round her feet.
‘Well enough . . . considering this weather.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said the Castilian. ‘The weather. Before I came to your country I was told that, of all things, the English like to talk about their weather.’
‘That must be because there’s so much of it to talk about.’
Smiling to show that he had understood Philippa’s joke, Carlos de Flores said, ‘You show yourself a true Englishwoman by saying so, madam, yet you are from Hainault originally, are you not? You and your sister?’
Philippa wondered why de Flores was bothering to mention this. It was no secret that she and Katherine were the daughters of a knight who came from a small country snuggled into a corner of Europe. Either the Castilian was just passing the time or he was showing that he had dug a little way into their histories.
‘We come from Hainault, yes,’ she said. ‘This England was hardly more than a place across the seas where our father went to serve the Queen. Yet the weather in Hainault was very similar to here, Señor de Flores. In fact, I’d say it was worse.’
In her mind’s eye Philippa saw the great flat spaces of her childhood scoured by wind and rain. She remembered the high summers, when the ditches dried up and she and Katherine, having nothing else to do, would watch the men at work in the fields. All this time she was conscious of the Castilian’s gaze. He was stroking his hands on the arms of his chair as if they were made of fur rather than wood. His long fingers were adorned with rings.
‘You are thinking of your country?’ he said.
‘That was many years ago, in my childhood.’
‘Surely not so many, madam, to see you now.’
Despite herself she coloured slightly and said, ‘I am past my youth.’
Seeing his success, de Flores persisted. ‘We have a saying in my country. Only the owner closes the door on his youth – and its pleasures.’
I’m almost thirty, she wanted to say. I have two children and my husband has absented himself again. I know I am no beauty. If you want to compliment someone then go and talk to my sister. Her husband is dead and she is linked to one of the very highest in the land. I think you’ll find she is more apt for this kind of talk than I am.
But she said none of this.
Then she saw his brown eyes looking at her in the eager way of a dog when it wants something, a kind word, a scrap of food. Perhaps he was in earnest after all. He was about the same age as she was. Darker complexioned, of course. You couldn’t deny he was handsome, although his nose was too small for her liking. She smiled slightly at his gallantry.
‘In this country you cannot tell what season it is, but in Castile we would have put the winter and spring behind us by now,’ said de Flores, as if returning the conversation to a more innocent level. ‘Everything would be set fair for many months.’
‘You miss your homeland, Señor de Flores?’
‘I go where my duty calls me, madam. And I am surrounded by my countrymen here. Countrymen and countrywomen. There is little chance to be – how do you say it? – to be sad for the home. Besides, one may be sad anywhere. Even at home one may be sad, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Your duty, Señor de Flores? You mentioned your duty. What exactly is your duty here? I am confused, there are so many visitors to this household and they have so many functions.’
‘Mine is simple. I am here to serve the Queen of Castile.’
‘The Duchess of Lancaster, you mean.’
‘They are one and the same.’
‘But we are in England now, and so she has become a member of the house of Lancaster.’
‘Madam, it would gratify me to believe that we are on sufficiently good terms for you to call me Carlos. After all, we both serve the Duchess – however she is styled.’
‘So it is good that we at least know our functions, Carlos,’ she said.
‘Yes. And now I must take my leave . . . madam.’
De Flores half levered himself from the chair and paused as if giving her the opportunity to say that he too might call her by her given name of Philippa rather than the formal ‘madam’. But she said nothing. As he was leaving the chamber, he turned round by the door.
‘Where is your husband?’
‘About his own business.’
‘He is away for long?’
‘He too has his duties,’ she said, evading the question. ‘He’ll return when they are done.’
Carlos de Flores smiled and closed the door. Philippa went to stand by the window. No boats were visible on the river apart from a barge that was wallowing in midstream. She didn’t altogether trust Carlos the Castilian yet she couldn’t, at this stage, see what he might be after. To get to her sister, Katherine Swynford? Perhaps. It was even possible that de Flores was hoping to gain access to John of Gaunt through her. But why? And if that was his intention, the shorter route would surely have been through Constance herself since the Castilian was already a member of the Duchess’s extended entourage, much closer to her than Philippa would ever be.
There was another, more remote possibility. It was that de Flores was interested in Philippa Chaucer for herself. The notion was so far-fetched that she almost laughed aloud. Yet she remembered his attentive brown-eyed gaze, almost wistful. There’d been his remark about youth and pleasure. His query about Geoffrey’s absence. Did he somehow want to take advantage of it? Because the idea was attractive (though far-fetched of course) she did her best to crush it.
The next day they met twice. The encounters looked accidental. But on both occasions Philippa Chaucer had the sense that Carlos de Flores had been waiting to catch her.
The first time was in a public passageway. De Flores seemed on the verge of going beyond the normal pleasantries but, with his eyes flickering over the frequent passers-by, he evidently thought better of it. The second occasion was in the gardens of the Savoy Palace. It was calm and bright now. Philippa was walking by herself in one of the orchard alleys. Apple blossom strewed the grass. Carlos de Flores suddenly appeared at her side. He made some remarks about their second encounter of the day and about the change in the weather and then jokingly suggested that such a comment showed he was turning into a true Englishman. Philippa smiled. She knew the Castilian wasn’t going to be put off.
‘A beautiful day, as you say.’
‘A day for poets.’
‘I suppose so. My husband would know. He is the one who writes verses.’
‘I’ve heard great things of your husband – and of his verses. The Duke of Lancaster values him highly.’
Philippa was always slightly surprised by the esteem in which Geoffrey was held. She was not,
however, surprised that de Flores should know of her husband’s verse-writing since the Castilian seemed to have set himself the task of finding out about her and her family. They turned from one orchard alley to another. The river glinted through the trees. The gardeners, at work, scarcely looked up as the finely dressed couple walked by.
‘John of Gaunt, now, he also values your sister highly,’ said de Flores after a pause.
‘The Duke of Lancaster knows how to esteem those who do him service. He is a generous man.’
‘Service takes many forms, Philippa . . .’ said de Flores, hesitating for an instant in case she objected to the familiarity. ‘You are close to the lady Katherine?’
Philippa Chaucer stopped in the middle of the walkway, compelling de Flores to stop also. She looked him straight in the eye. She’d never had much time for evasion.
‘You ask if we are close, Katherine and I? Well, we fought as children and did not like each other very much for long periods. Afterwards our paths went in different directions. She married a knight who was like my father. I married a man who is most comfortable among his books. Even though Hugh Swynford is dead now, Katherine is . . . you might say that she is well provided for. Better than I, perhaps. Yet we remain sisters, tied by blood and memories.’
‘Thank you,’ said de Flores. ‘Your husband has written poems for her, has he not?’
Philippa laughed. ‘There you are wrong. Geoffrey wrote about John of Gaunt’s first wife, not Katherine.’
‘I apologise for my error.’
He seemed about to say more but broke off and glanced down the alley. Between the line of trees three men were advancing towards them, sombre against the blossom. Philippa recognised the person in the middle as a Castilian by the name of Luis, one of several priests in the service of Constance. This individual stood out, mostly on account of a large pectoral cross, which gleamed with precious stones. The other two, by their dress and the way they inclined their heads respectfully towards Luis, were his countrymen.
The False Virgin Page 18