Bell Harry

by Nicholas Best

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure you’ll find another one.’

  ‘Man friend or husband?’

  ‘Whichever you’re looking for.’

  ‘I’d certainly like to find a friend,’ said Kit. She winked again as she went to serve another customer.

  Chaucer finished his lunch and set out to see the cathedral. It lay at the other end of Mercery Lane, not far away. He went up Burgate and in through the gate.

  The cathedral was crowded with pilgrims. As always, they had gone to see the Martyrdom first, and then the shrine of St Thomas. Quite a few were crawling all the way between the two, shuffling along on their stomachs and hauling themselves up the steps to the shrine as best they could. Devout pilgrims knew no better way of demonstrating their reverence for the saint.

  Chaucer didn’t bother with any of that. Stepping past the people on their hands and knees, he made straight for St Thomas’s shrine. A crowd was gathered around it, waiting for the signal to go forward together to present their offerings at the altar.

  The ceremony was performed several times a day. Chaucer was just in time for the early afternoon show. He had only just arrived when a bell rang to alert the pilgrims that it was about to start. Everyone hurried forward to make sure that they were there in time to witness the raising of the canopy above the jewelled chest containing Becket’s bones.

  Two monks worked the pulley. The canopy rose and the chest was revealed in all its glory. The pilgrims gasped at the sight of all the jewels around it. There seemed to be more every year. King Louis’ ruby was still the star attraction, but there were plenty of other gems as well.

  Stepping forward, a priest pointed out all the more important ones with a white wand and told the audience their history. When he had finished, the pilgrims went forward with gifts of their own for St Thomas. They had all brought something with them: a brooch, a silver ring, a few coins wrapped in cloth. Most of them carried candles as well as they abased themselves before the shrine of St Thomas.

  Chaucer didn’t join them. He had been to the shrine before. Leaving the pilgrims to it, he went over to see the tomb of the Black Prince. Chaucer had worked for the Prince’s brother earlier in his career. He was interested to see where the man was buried.

  He went back to his hotel after admiring the tomb. He found Mercery Lane crowded with souvenir sellers as he returned. The lane was where they set out their stalls during business hours. They all tried to sell him something as he passed.

  ‘Souvenir, sir? A pilgrim badge? A lapel pin? What would you like?’

  ‘Nothing, thank you.’ Chaucer despised the tourist trade in fake blood and pigs’ bones alleged to be sacred relics. ‘I’m not looking for a souvenir.’

  ‘You ought to have something. I’ve got a nice token of St Thomas’s murder. Or a phial of his blood, if you want. Whatever takes your fancy.’

  ‘I hardly think you have any of the Martyr’s blood, after all this time.’

  ‘It has magical properties, sir. It wouldn’t be St Thomas’s blood if it didn’t.’

  ‘Not for me, all the same. Not unless you have a piece of the True Cross.’

  Chaucer thought he was making a joke. He hadn’t gone much further up the lane when running footsteps caught up with him. A shifty-looking trader appeared at his elbow.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘A piece of the True Cross?’

  ‘Good heavens. Why?’

  ‘I could get you a piece, if you’re serious.’

  ‘A piece of the True Cross? That Our Lord died on?’

  ‘It would only be a splinter. Pieces of the True Cross are very hard to come by. But I could get one for you, if you’re serious.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Chaucer. ‘I’ll do without, thank you very much.’

  He entered the inn. People were beginning to gather for the reading. The innkeeper was delighted with the turnout.

  ‘The mayor is coming,’ he told Chaucer. ‘Most of the aldermen as well. All of Canterbury’s best people. Everyone wants to hear you read from your books.’

  The innkeeper was quite right. The room was full when Chaucer entered. Several hundred people were waiting eagerly to hear the great poet give a reading. Rapt anticipation was written all over their faces as he appeared.

  He studied the audience before deciding which of his stories to give them. As usual, the gathering was composed mostly of middle-aged women whose children were off their hands at last. Without children to look after, they had nothing better to do with their time than go to their story club every week and listen to the latest tales while having a good gossip as well.

  Chaucer was a prolific author. His books included Troilus and Criseyde, The Book of the Duchess and The Parliament of Fowls. He knew, though, that the audience at The Chequers wouldn’t want to hear any of those. There was always only one book for them. It was The Canterbury Tales every time.

  Chaucer knew exactly which tale too. The Merchant’s Tale always went down a treat with middle-aged women. They never tired of hearing about adultery in the shrubbery.

  He rose to his feet as soon as the innkeeper had finished introducing him.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Mayor, ladies and gentlemen. It’s wonderful to see you all and be back in Canterbury again. I’m going to begin this afternoon by reading The Merchant’s Tale to you. I think it’s a good place to start. After that, I shall be open to requests, if anybody has a particular favourite they’d like to hear.’

  The women leaned forward expectantly as Chaucer began to read. He skipped the first part, knowing that they only wanted to get to the juicy bit in the story where May went behind her husband’s back in the garden and succumbed to the charms of lovely Damian. A good rogering in the bushes! The women had all been there in their thoughts, if nowhere else.

  There was enthusiastic applause when he had finished. The wives of Canterbury loved hearing about Damian. Chaucer read a few extracts from The Reeve’s Tale, The Miller’s Tale, and The Wife of Bath on request and then ended the reading by calling for questions from the floor.

  They weren’t slow in coming. ‘Where d’you get your ideas from?’ someone asked.

  ‘If I knew the answer to that, I’d go there more often.’ Chaucer always got a laugh with that. ‘The ancients are a good source, and the French. And the Italians. I usually just start writing though and hope that something will come to me.’

  ‘What are you working on now?’

  ‘More of the same. I have a lot more to do before I’ve finished. I just hope I manage to get it all done in time.’

  ‘Are you looking for ideas?’ This came from a man at the back, a lugubrious-looking fellow with a long nose.

  ‘I’m always open to suggestions. I get my inspiration wherever I can find it.’

  The meeting broke up after the questions were over. Most people went home after shaking Chaucer’s hand and congratulating him on his work, but quite a few stayed behind for a post-mortem at the bar. Chaucer was surrounded by admirers as they sat down and gave their orders.

  ‘What d’you fancy, sir?’ Kit the barmaid leaned over Chaucer. She had an ample bosom in a low-cut dress. She gave him another twinkle. ‘You can have anything you like.’

  Gracious. Chaucer had been celibate since his wife died. He led the sad, lonely life of a writer, squeezing out agonising couplets by candlelight while everyone else was in the tavern. And now here was this woman, waggling a couplet of her own at him. One of the perks of fame, he supposed.

  ‘A jug of wine, please. Whatever you’ve got.’

  Chaucer tried not to think of her as she went to fetch the drink. His attention was diverted by a tourist couple who had been at the reading. They were showing off their latest purchase, a souvenir that they had bought in Mercery Lane. If Chaucer had heard aright, the man was retired from the haulage business and was doing the sights with his wife now that they had plenty time on their hands.

  ‘
Here it is.’ The man unwrapped a small piece of wood. ‘I can’t believe we’ve got this. It’s from St Peter.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s from his boat. St Peter’s fishing boat. The Sea of Galilee.’

  ‘From St Peter’s fishing boat?’

  ‘The very one. From his fishing days. This bit of wood was probably touched by Our Lord more than a thousand years ago.’

  The silence that followed was awestruck.

  ‘Was it expensive?’ Chaucer asked.

  ‘I’ll say.’ The haulier was smug. ‘Cost me a small fortune. Worth it, though. No one else has anything like this where we live.’

  ‘I know exactly where I’m going to put it when we get home,’ said his wife happily.

  Kit arrived with the drinks. The gathering broke into groups. The lugubrious man from the reading came to sit next to Chaucer.

  ‘I’ve got an idea for one of your stories,’ he told him.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’ll love it. It’s really good.’

  Chaucer listened patiently as the man told him his idea. It was a riff on The Miller’s Tale, not at all suitable for a family audience. It wasn’t funny either, despite the man’s repeated assertions to the contrary. Chaucer was glad when the story came to an end.

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to give it some thought.’

  ‘You should. I really think you could make something of it, with your talent.’

  They sipped their drinks. The man drew closer.

  ‘I saw you talking to Kit Beryn earlier,’ he said.

  ‘Is that her name?’

  ‘It is. I wouldn’t go there, if I was you.’

  It was on the tip of Chaucer’s tongue to deny any such intention, but curiosity got the better of him.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘She’s not a good woman. She isn’t what she seems.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘She’ll rob you, if she can. She just wants to take your cash without doing the business, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘How d’you know?’ Chaucer was disappointed to hear it.

  ‘I’m a pardoner.’ The man spoke in confidence. ‘It’s not much of a living, but I make a reasonable wage. I got fed up with the way they serve the food in here. The gentry are always served first, before anyone else. I hadn’t had anything to eat and I hadn’t had a drink either, because I was on my way to St Thomas’s shrine. You’re supposed to abstain from drink before you pray at the shrine.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Anyway, I was fed up, so I went to talk to Kit. She told me in confidence that she lay naked in bed at night and hadn’t had a lover since her husband died.’

  ‘Goodness.’

  ‘So I went with everyone else to St Thomas’s shrine. Stole a souvenir from Mercery Lane on the way back to the hotel. Then we all had a big party, everyone in our group. Plenty of beer and wine, now that we didn’t have to fast anymore.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘The others all went out on the town afterwards, but I stayed behind. I wanted to sleep with Kit. I’d given her some money to buy a goose first, so we could have a good meal before we went to bed.’

  ‘And?’ Chaucer wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear the rest of this.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you. The woman wasn’t alone when I arrived. She was in bed with someone else.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes. She wasn’t in the least bit embarrassed. She had a lover all along. They’d eaten my goose.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I hit the bloke on the nose with a frying pan. Really made his eyes water. Next thing I know, he’s running down the corridor yelling “Stop, thief” at the top of his voice, trying to pretend that I was a burglar. Of course everyone came out of their rooms when they heard that.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘What could I do? I had to make myself scarce. I tried to get back to my room, but the guard dog wouldn’t let me past. Great big ferocious animal standing there, growling at me and snarling. There was no way I could get round the brute, so I ended up spending the rest of the night in its basket while it lay on my bed, comfortable as anything.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Chaucer tried to keep a straight face. ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘Yes, it was. And all because of Kit Beryn. None of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for her.’

  ‘So Kit was the cause of all the trouble?’

  ‘Indeed, she was. The harlot of Mercery Lane. I’d steer well clear of her, if I was you, Mr Chaucer.’

  ‘It’s quite a funny story, though.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ conceded the pardoner. ‘Perhaps you could use it in one of your prologues.’

  ‘It’s certainly an idea,’ agreed Chaucer. ‘I’m not sure I’m the right one to do it, though.’

  Chapter Eight

  Henry V Gives Thanks for Agincourt

  Near the little castle of Azincourt, in northern France, a dreadful battle was raging. A ragged army of Englishmen – tired, dispirited, half-starved and riddled with dysentery – had been making its way back to Calais and safety, when its path was blocked by a much larger French force bent on its destruction. The battle was fought on 25 October 1415 and the slaughter was prodigious.

  The fighting did not follow the usual course. It was a well-known military maxim that the army that made the first move in a battle always lost. The army that simply stood its ground always won.

  The two sides accordingly faced each other across a field for three hours on the morning of the 25th, St Crispin’s Day, without anybody moving. The standoff continued until the French commanders grew bored at length and began to fidget. With nothing else to do, they drifted off to talk to each other or see to the horses. Their troops began to relax as well. It was then that King Henry V of England decided to rewrite the rulebook.

  Henry knew that his men would crack if they had to stand there much longer. Something would have to be done soon, even if it meant making the first move. Summoning his chaplains, he asked them to give the army their blessing before it went into battle.

  ‘We’re going to attack in a minute,’ he told the priests. ‘We want you to say a prayer for us first.’

  The holy men crossed themselves at once and obliged.

  ‘Remember us, O Lord,’ implored one of them. ‘Our enemies are gathered together and boast themselves in their excellence. Destroy their strength and scatter them. Have compassion upon us, and upon the crown of England.’

  When the priests had finished, every man in the army fell to his knees and kissed the ground in front of him before symbolically placing a piece of earth in his mouth. Then they all picked up their weapons and followed the King towards the French.

  If the soldiers had any qualms about making the first move in the battle, they kept their doubts to themselves as they went forward. They were all keen to get on with it, the archers in particular. Henry had told them quite untruthfully that the French were going to cut two fingers off their archery hands so that they could never draw a bow again. The archers weren’t having that.

  The English came to a stop within arrowshot of the French front line. There was a wood on either side of them now, so they couldn’t be attacked from the flank. The newly-ploughed ground in front of them was ankle-deep in mud and surface water, very difficult for a cavalry charge. Henry knew that because he had sent scouts out before dawn to examine it.

  The French army in front of them looked even more daunting as they came up to it. The French were much better fed, superbly equipped, armed to the teeth with swords, lances, crossbows, guns, catapults and all the engines of war. The English knew they were a sorry sight by comparison.

  But the field was narrow and the ground soggy. The French cavalry struggled as the English archers let fly. There was terrible slaughter as horses and riders fell in every direction.

  In the hand-to-hand fighting that followed, King Henry lost a fleur-de-li
s from his crown, knocked off by a Burgundian taking a swipe at him. The fighting continued at close quarters for three dreadful hours. The English had taken so many prisoners by the end that the captured French among their ranks became a threat to their security.

  ‘We’ll have to kill them,’ Henry decided. ‘We can’t have them running loose behind our lines.’

  ‘The men won’t like it, sire.’ It was against the laws of chivalry to kill prisoners, especially if they were rich. The Frenchmen had been captured because they had money and could be ransomed for a small fortune.

  ‘I don’t care. They’re too dangerous. They’ll have to be killed. All except the very important ones.’

  ‘As you wish, sire.’

  ‘Do it now. Before they turn on us. Don’t waste any time.’

  The order was given and the deed was done.

  ‘Sorry, mate.’ An archer sitting on a Frenchman in a suit of armour drew a dagger and slit the man’s throat. Others used heavy wooden mallets to club their prisoners to death. Before long, the French all lay dead and no longer posed any threat to the English.

  Henry’s men were so busy dispatching their prisoners that they couldn’t spare anybody to protect their baggage train behind the army. While their backs were turned, the wagons were being attacked and looted by French marauders who had been eyeing the baggage train for hours from a safe distance. The robbers waited until the English were fully occupied elsewhere before stealing all King Henry’s jewels, his piece of the True Cross and a lot else besides before making off with their booty.

  The French army admitted defeat soon afterwards. Those who could, ran away. The rest awaited their fate at the hands of the English. It seemed to an exhausted King Henry V, as he surveyed all the bodies on the field, that he had comprehensively won his trial by battle, so establishing in the eyes of God that his cause was just. He summoned the English and French heralds to get their opinion.

  The heralds were impartial observers, like judges at Wimbledon, who had watched the battle from the stands. Much against their inclination, the French heralds were forced to agree with the English that Henry had indeed gained the day. He had won the battle and the victory was his. It would be named after that little castle in the distance.