‘Let us speak of some other subject, madam,’ de Flores said, pointing at the nearest apple trees. ‘Grafting, for example.’
And, as the three men passed them, de Flores talked loudly of ‘slips’ and ‘scions’. While he was speaking, he gave the merest tilt of his head to Luis, who nodded in return. The priest was touching his cross, dabbing his hand to it. He wore yet more emeralds and sapphires on his fingers. The other men looked curiously at Philippa and de Flores.
When they were out of earshot, Philippa tried to make light of things and said, ‘I did not know that you were a gardener, Señor de Flores. Slips and scions indeed!’
‘I am no gardener. But I have talked to some of those who work here. I have listened to their words. It is surprising what you learn.’
Philippa knew that he was referring to more than the gardeners’ terms about grafting. They reached another crossing-point in the garden walks.
‘I shall go this way,’ said de Flores. ‘It would be best if we parted for now. But I hope we shall meet again. These gardens are a pleasant place for walking and talking, especially in such delightful company.’
He bowed slightly and strode off. Philippa returned to the palace. She was more confused. What was he after? Why the questions about Geoffrey’s verses? She wondered why de Flores suddenly started talking about an innocent subject as they passed the priest. She thought the glances and nods that passed between the two Castilians were not just a greeting. There was something complicit in those glances and nods.
III
Geoffrey Chaucer remained at Bermondsey Priory for another ten days, enjoying the hospitality of the prior and the ordered shape of the life there. He wrote and he read and he talked with the prior and with the aged librarian. Brother Peter. When he left, it was with his work about St Beornwyn revised, rewritten and completed. He handed the original manuscript back to Richard Dunton, thanking him for telling him the story of the saint’s life in the first place. Dunton was pleased. Chaucer didn’t spoil his mood by telling him he might not be quite so glad when he eventually read the piece for it cast a not altogether complimentary light on Beornwyn.
Geoffrey returned to his lodgings in Aldgate, and greeted Joan, the woman who cooked and kept the place for him in the absence of his wife (and his wife was almost always absent). She was a good housekeeper who tended to treat his presence as an intrusion. She looked more like a grandmother than a mother but had a young son, called Thomas, whom Geoffrey was teaching to read, in a fitful way. The boy was about eight, younger than Chaucer’s own son, also called Thomas, and he was useful round the Aldgate lodgings. Once Geoffrey had attended to some customs business, he visited a copier near St Paul’s and arranged for three copies to be made of the Beornwyn poem. Two of these he would give to the more discriminating members of the Savoy Palace household. At a later date, if invited, he would recite the poem to an audience, a select one.
As it happened he’d been reminded of the Savoy Palace even before crossing the bridge back into the city. Leaving Bermondsey Priory on foot, Chaucer stopped off at the Tabard Inn. This was one of his bolt holes in Southwark, not so respectable as the priory, of course, but more reputable than some of the commercial establishments further west along the river, among which were many brothels. In fact, the host of the Tabard, Harry Bailey, was making efforts to attract a better class of customer, for example by purchasing higher quality wines. This particular location in Southwark, on the main road leading towards the southeast, was a natural gathering-place for those intending to start on the pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury. Chaucer thought he could identify a few pilgrims assembling here now, quite early on this spring morning. It was not only their travelling clothes but their expressions, somewhere between excited and smug, which gave them away.
Harry Bailey was pleased to see Geoffrey. The host was an ample, cheerful figure, naturally interested in his customers and not only for the sake of business they bought. He recommended his Rhenish – ‘New in yesterday, sir. Go down to the cellar and see the markings on the barrel for yourself’ – but Geoffrey apologetically explained that he’d had enough of good wine while at Bermondsey and ordered honest ale instead. He went to sit in a corner and watch the world go by. He was amusing himself by guessing at the professions and trades of the pilgrims gathering in a group at one end of the room when his attention was caught by a penetrating voice from closer by. He turned to look. Not all of Harry Bailey’s guests were of the pious pilgrim type, and the cluster of men crowding round a neighbouring table were what you might call old Southwark.
‘He is a changeling, I tell you! His filthy riches stink to high heaven. His white house is finer than the King’s! And his new duchess is a foreign bitch who cannot even wrap her tongue round God’s good English.’
The speaker was a man with a stubbly scalp, which showed beneath an undersized red cap. His drink sat neglected on the table in front of him as he used his right forefinger to tick off his accusations on the fingers of his left hand. The other four individuals round the table said nothing but nodded or remained still. They were sitting back slightly as if wary of these fierce words, and so giving Geoffrey a clear view.
‘How much longer must we bear this tyrant? How many more insults must we endure from the very existence of the traitor? How often will we be forced to bow the knee before this whoreson prince?’
Now the speaker was using his fist to thump on the table, emphasising each angry question. Geoffrey sighed. He glanced across at Harry Bailey but the Tabard host was busy chatting to a couple of the pilgrims. Chaucer did not think Bailey would appreciate the kind of talk coming from the next table. He didn’t appreciate it himself. Had it been overheard by someone with real authority and the desire to exercise it, then the speaker could have found himself in serious trouble. For the subject of the man’s rant was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster. The references to his great wealth, to the white house that was finer than the King’s, to his foreign wife, made it clear enough. In addition, there was the mention of John being a changeling. This was a rumour, lately creeping about London, to the effect that thirty-five years previously, Queen Philippa, the wife of Edward III, had given birth to an unfortunate girl which, like a sow, she had overlain and suffocated. Terrified of telling the truth to her royal husband, she substituted a baby boy for the girl child. To compound the insult, it was said that the boy was the son of a labourer from Ghent.
Wearily, Geoffrey Chaucer got to his feet. He moved the short distance to the table where red-cap sat among his companions. It looked as though he was about to launch on another string of insults and rhetorical demands.
Chaucer, clutching his drink, said mildly: ‘Excuse me, but I couldn’t help hearing what you were saying.’
The man with the little red cap looked up in surprise. The others round the table instinctively shifted further away on their stools, trying to dissociate themselves from their friend.
‘So what if you did hear?’
‘I have news for you,’ said Chaucer. ‘That story you were telling about John of Gaunt being a changeling . . .’ He noticed the expressions on the faces of the men. Now they were really worried.
‘Well, that is what he is,’ said the speaker, although his tone was a little less certain. ‘What is your news?’
‘Gaunt is no changeling but he is something stranger, much stranger.’
All the time Geoffrey was speaking low, as though imparting a secret. Then he leaned forward and placed his wooden mug on the table, allowing the curiosity of the men to build up, making himself part of the group. When he judged the moment was right, he said: ‘Much stranger, I say again. I have it on good authority that the Duke of Lancaster is the offspring of a dragon and a mermaid. Furthermore, he was conceived during a thunderstorm.’
‘Authority? Whose authority?’ said the one who’d claimed Gaunt was a changeling.
‘I have sources inside the Savoy Palace at the very highest level,’ said
Geoffrey. ‘I will take an oath on that.’
‘Is it true? Is Lancaster really the child of a dragon and a mermaid?’
The speaker was another young man at the table. His voice was naturally high, not only with surprise at what he was hearing. His words caught the attention of a tall, lanky fellow who was passing and who stopped for a moment to listen.
‘Yes, it is as true as I’m standing here,’ said Geoffrey, thinking that there was a kind of truth to what he was saying, the same sort of truth as in the story of Beornwyn. He could see that his quiet confidence was having an effect, not so much on the original speaker as on the others, including the tall man who was still hesitating nearby. Their glances flickered towards the red-capped man, who said: ‘It’s absurd! How would a dragon and a mermaid have congress?’
Chaucer raised his eyebrows slightly as if the question itself were absurd. ‘By asking that, you betray the limits of your understanding, my friend. The laws that apply to mere mortals do not apply to the gods – or to dragons and mermaids. No more than they apply to basilisks, griffins or unicorns. Only an ignorant individual would think otherwise.’
There were signs of agreement from the listeners round the table. The high-voiced young man was nodding his head in a sage sort of way. The tall fellow was perhaps not so convinced, since he merely raised his eyebrows before moving off. Satisfied, Geoffrey picked up his pint pot and returned to his seat. He knew not to press home his advantage. Leave the group to mull over the idea he’d planted in their heads. He had succeeded in his principal aim, which was to quieten the fiery man in the red cap. Geoffrey shifted his attention back to the pilgrims at the far end of the room. Two or three individuals more had joined since he last looked, including the tall man. Out of the corner of his eye he observed the group at the neighbouring table as it broke up until the only one left was the speaker. When he’d finished his drink he too got up to leave. On the way out he paused by Chaucer’s seat.
‘It is I who am right, my friend. John of Gaunt is a changeling, and not what he seems. Just as the house where he lives is a front for all manner of corruption and iniquity, and full of foreign filth. You say you have sources inside the Savoy Palace. Well, so do I, I tell you.’
Chaucer kept his face impassive at these last words, the only unexpected thing the man had uttered. This lack of response provoked him further. He leaned in slightly and said: ‘The day will come when all the fine folk within Savoy walls will tremble at the wrath of the common people. The day will come when that white house is reduced to a pile of grey ash.’
This was very dangerous and foolish talk. Geoffrey was losing patience but he still did not respond, simply staring calmly at the man. Finally, realising he wasn’t getting anywhere, the red-cap stalked out of the Tabard with a curious, stiff gait. Chaucer finished his own drink, giving the other time to go a distance, and then, after promising Harry Bailey that he’d try the Rhenish on his next visit, he made for the door. Standing in his way was the tall individual who had listened in on the earlier conversation.
‘A dragon and a mermaid! Ha! I would rather have said that John of Lancaster was the offspring of Mars and Venus.’
Geoffrey had to look up at the speaker, who was more than a head taller. His face was battered and scarred but he wore an amused look.
‘The child of Mars and Venus? That would turn Lancaster into Cupid, wouldn’t it?’ said Geoffrey, struggling to envisage Gaunt as a plump, mischievous child with a quiverful of arrows slung over his shoulder. Well, yes, he might have been like that once. The other man must have come to the same conclusion for he too smiled.
‘You were having trouble over there?’ said the man, nodding his head towards the place that Geoffrey had just left. ‘I saw that insolent person trying to bait you. I almost came across to give him a piece of . . . my mind.’
Geoffrey shrugged. A brawl was exactly what he had been trying to avoid. He recognised the man in front of him, recognised not who he was but rather what he was. While they were talking he’d been running his eyes over the other’s clothing. Like his face it was battered but of sound quality. His tunic, of thick fustian, was patterned with a network that looked like rust. It was the imprint of the chain mail he had been wearing. That, together with his assured voice and manner, was enough to tell Geoffrey that here was—
‘Sir Edward Jupe, at your service,’ said the man, thrusting his hand forward.
They shook hands. Geoffrey introduced himself. Sir Edward scratched his head as if he might have heard the name. Geoffrey asked if he was going to join the pilgrimage since the knight seemed to be part of the group assembling in the Tabard. Also he was aware that fighting men of Jupe’s rank often went on a pilgrimage after campaigning, either as a way of giving thanks for their survival or perhaps because they simply couldn’t settle down.
‘No, Master Chaucer, there is no pilgrimage for me. I am acquainted with a couple of the gentlemen who are on their way to Canterbury, that’s all,’ said the knight, glancing towards the company. ‘I have delayed here a moment to greet my friends. My destination is much closer. I have not seen my lady for these many months.’
And so, thought Chaucer, you show your eagerness by visiting her with your tunic unchanged and rust-spotted. It occurred to him that the marks might equally well be blood. Still, that was what some ladies liked in their men, newly returned from the wars. He didn’t ask where Sir Edward had been campaigning. There was always a war going on somewhere.
‘I hope you find her well . . . but not too well.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Sir Edward, an angry look replacing the previous good humour. ‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘Only that your lady must surely be feeling the absence of her knight, and that your return will restore her to perfect health. Nothing more than that.’
‘Ah, just so. If you’ll forgive me,’ said the knight, bowing before making to withdraw towards the group of pilgrims. Chaucer at last was permitted to quit the Tabard, and to reflect on his two meetings. The encounter with the red-capped man had not been pleasant but he knew that what the agitator said was not so different from what many Londoners believed, even if few would dare to say it out loud. John of Gaunt was unpopular not merely on account of his fabulous wealth and because he had been unsuccessful in various recent military adventures, but because he had married a foreign queen, Constance of Castile. He was thought to be over-mighty, arrogant and devious. There was some truth in all of these accusations.
Geoffrey Chaucer was pleased with his quick invention in the Tabard Inn. The claim that Gaunt was the product of a dragon and a mermaid had a kind of poetic truth to it. After all, what was Edward III in his younger campaigning days but a dragon heaping fire and destruction on his enemies? And Queen Philippa, dead these last seven years, had been in her young days a notable beauty: like a siren, like a mermaid. Thinking these things, Geoffrey felt the sheaf of papers inside his coat. The story of Beornwyn.
Once he had called at his Aldgate lodgings and visited the scribe by St Paul’s church and handed him the sheets with instructions to make three copies, Geoffrey Chaucer proceeded westwards towards the Savoy. He intended to visit his wife and children. The morning was warm and bright, and the streets crowded. He thought of the pilgrims about to set off from Southwark, and half envied them their ride away from the smoke and smell of the city. It took him about half an hour to reach the area of the palace. The Strand was paved until this point and then the paving gave up, as if the thoroughfare was not interested in anyone who wanted to travel beyond the Savoy.
The section facing the street gave little idea of the beauty and splendour that lay within. A long, fortified wall prevented passers-by from seeing or even guessing at anything of the interior. In the middle of the wall was an enormous gateway, secured by a portcullis. Since this was only raised for ceremonial entrances and exits, the usual way in was via a pedestrian gate – itself by no means small – a few yards away from the principal one. This gate was
not kept closed, because there was so much traffic in and out, but a couple of liveried members of the household kept a discreet watch on everyone.
As he was approaching this entrance, Geoffrey was surprised to see someone who looked like the irate man from the Tabard Inn walking ahead of him. And even more surprised when red-cap turned into the Savoy gate. Any doubt about his identity was dispelled when he cast a quick look behind him as he entered. Chaucer ducked his head just in time. He noticed that the man was not intercepted by the gatekeepers, which suggested that they knew him. He recalled what the man had said about having his own sources inside the Savoy. Perhaps he was speaking the truth.
Geoffrey waited a few moments. When he passed through the gate, he nodded at the gatemen, who dipped their heads slightly as a mark of deference. Geoffrey was known to them – as the husband of a demoiselle serving Queen Constance and as the brother-in-law to Katherine Swynford – but he was not important enough to merit a proper bow. He stopped and spoke to the sharper-looking of the doormen.
‘Someone came through here a few moments ago, a man wearing a red cap. You know who it was?’
‘I believe his name is John.’
‘It is John Hall, sir,’ said the other doorman. ‘I know him because I know Hugh, his brother, who is in the household. John is often here.’
That explained red-cap’s familiarity with the Savoy. Chaucer thanked them. He said nothing more to the doormen but decided to report John Hall to one of the stewards. Violent and seditious talk against the Duke of Lancaster by one who regularly visited the Savoy could not be tolerated.
Immediately inside the entrance and to the right was a chapel and a library, and beyond lay some of the extensive accommodation for the servants, as well as the stables. The bigger apartments and the state rooms were on the river side of the palace. Geoffrey made his way along passages and up and down stairs and through cloistered spaces towards his wife’s lodgings. As he drew nearer to them, the very fabric of the building seemed to grow lighter and more airy. He arrived at the ornate lobby outside Philippa’s door and was taken aback to encounter a group of men waiting there in sober silence. He recognised one of them, a steward called Thomas Banks. The others were regular members of Gaunt’s retinue.
The False Virgin Page 19