Pilgrimage of Death

by Sally Spencer

  ‘Yes. You could not have planned that the squire would desert your bed for the prioress’s, but once you learned that was his intention, you did not object, as most women, when spurned for another, would have done. In fact, you actually encouraged it – as long as he promised to leave the prioress’s chamber very early the following morning.’

  ‘And what did that tell you?’

  ‘That you understood very well how difficult it might be to get into your next victim’s room. The miller did not bolt his door on the night he was killed. Why should he have? He had no reason to believe he was in any danger - and anyway, he was probably too drunk to even think of it. Your friend the pardoner here did not bolt his door, because if he had, the mock attack on him could never have taken place…’

  ‘Mock attack?’ the pardoner interrupted.

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘You only sustained a slight wound, and you inflicted that yourself.’

  ‘Why should I have done such a thing?’ the pardoner asked.

  ‘Let us deal first with the matter of the prioress – if prioress she were,’ Lady Elizabeth said briskly. ‘Why should I have encouraged our hot young squire to sleep with her?’

  ‘Because if she had gone to bed alone, she would have bolted the door. And perhaps she did, once the squire was safely inside her chamber. But when he left her the next morning, she was still lying in a daze from her night of passion, and by the time she realised the danger she was in, it was already too late.’

  ‘So you had good reason to suspect Lady Elizabeth,’ the pardoner said. ‘Yet she cannot have been the only one, for when you first entered this room, you did not seem shocked to see either myself or Lord de … I mean…’

  ‘Lord de Beaufort,’ I said. ‘Now I see him without his disguise, I recognise him from court. But I do not think I have seen you there, Lord….’

  ‘Sir Stephen Oldcastle,’ the fake-pardoner said. ‘No, you have never seen me at court. But my identity is not the question here. I asked if you if, in addition to suspecting Lady Elizabeth, you suspected de Beaufort and myself.’

  ‘Indeed I did.’

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘You must have thought long and hard, before the pilgrimage ever started, about which disguises to adopt,’ I said. ‘You probably considered posing as merchants or guildsmen. But then you saw the problems that might bring you. Such people are socially acceptable, and all manner of men would not only have shown you amiability but might even have asked you questions which would have revealed your ignorance of your chosen role. I am right, am I not? You do know nothing about trade or business?’

  ‘Of course we know nothing about trade or business!’ Lord de Beaufort said contemptuously, as he eased another scab from his cheek. ‘We are gentlemen.’

  ‘By taking on the guise of the lowest of the low, you avoided such dangers of exposure,’ I continued, ‘for while we all know that cockroaches exist, we choose – unless they run across our plate - to ignore them.’

  ‘You have traced our thinking on that matter with some accuracy,’ said Sir Stephen. ‘But you have still not explained how you came to suspect us.’

  ‘I am coming to that,’ I promised. ‘At first, you carried off your deception to perfection. You were as despised and ignored as you could possibly have wished to be – the more so because you pretended that you indulged in the abomination of sodomy. Even I, observing you as fodder for my next poem, was taken in. But then you, Sir Stephen, made a mistake.’

  ‘I did?’ the knight asked, and though he was pacing back and forth as he spoke, he made sure he was always closer to the door than I was. ‘And what mistake might that have been, Master Chaucer?’

  ‘When we tell a tale, we often reveal more of ourselves than we realise,’ I explained. ‘Thus, the nuns’ priest showed himself to be a more robust, manly man than any of us had ever suspected existed beneath his habit.’

  Lord de Beaufort held up one of his scabs - as if he wished to examine it in the firelight - and then threw it into the grate.

  ‘We are not here to talk about the nuns’ priest,’ he said impatiently.

  ‘Nor are we,’ I agreed. ‘I merely give him as an example and, with your indulgence, will give one more – that of myself. I am a professional storyteller. When the host called on me, I could have spun a story which would have enthralled you all. Yet had I done so, I may as well have also confessed that I was not what I appeared to be. And so I deliberately botched it.’ I turned to Sir Stephen. ‘That is what you should have done when your turn came - but your pride would not let you.’

  ‘I was only playing the part I had assigned myself,’ Sir Stephen said defensively.

  ‘No, you were not. Or if you were, you played it too well,’ I said. ‘You should have stuck to the ribaldry and filth which was expected of you, but challenged by the franklin, you dazzled us with your tale of the three rioters.’

  And dazzled was the only word for it. I had only to close my eyes to picture the look of awe in the guildsmen’s eyes, and the tears which had flowed down the poor parson’s cheeks.

  ‘You realised your mistake the moment you saw how the other pilgrims had been affected by it,’ I continued. ‘Like the nuns’ priest, you had emerged from the shadows. You were a cockroach no more.’

  Sir Stephen nodded his head. ‘You are right,’ he admitted with a sigh.

  ‘At the time, I wondered why you had spoiled the effect of your tale by trying to sell us relics which you had already admitted were fakes. And then it came to me. To continue with your scheme, you needed to be a cockroach in the eyes of the other pilgrims once again.’

  ‘What about me?’ de Beaufort asked. ‘Did I make a mistake?’

  ‘No, my lord. It was only your close association with the pardoner which made me realise you must be part of the conspiracy. Without that, I would never have suspected you, for you played the part of the scabby summoner to perfection.’

  ‘Do you think that flattering me will save your life?’ de Beaufort growled.

  ‘A man would be foolish not to hope for that,’ I replied honestly, ‘but that does not make what I have said any the less true. The way in which you disputed with the friar, in defence of the wife of Bath, was masterful. Even I believed that you saw it as a chance of worming your way into the widow’s bed – when what I was really observing was a diversionary tactic designed solely to confuse the enemy.’

  ‘I am glad I am not a poet,’ de Beaufort said, ‘because from the way you use words, it would take longer to describe a war than to fight it.’

  ‘A good soldier must never let the enemy guess his objective,’ I continued, ignoring the insult. ‘That was why you staged your argument with the friar. You wanted to raise a smokescreen behind which the real motive for his murder could be hidden. Nor was it the first time you had employed that particular trick. You killed the miller with a red-hot iron because that would connect his death to his tale, and thus send anyone investigating the murder off on the wrong trail entirely.’

  Sir Stephen laughed with malicious glee. ‘You may be a clever man, Chaucer, but you are not half as clever as you think you are.’

  ‘Are you saying that your choice of the iron had nothing to do with miller’s tale?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Sir Stephen confirmed. ‘We chose that method for the same reason that Edward the Second’s murderers chose it - because we wished to fake a natural death. We had every hope that the quack of a doctor of medicine would pronounce the miller dead of a heart attack.’

  ‘And so he would have done, had you not interfered, Chaucer,’ de Beaufort snarled.

  ‘But once you realised that the franklin and I had made the connection between the tale and the death – and that others would also – you saw the advantage of such a belief, did you not?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Sir Stephen conceded. ‘We saw how it would confuse matters more if the prioress died in the same manner as had the child in her tale.’
r />   ‘You must have hoped that the friar would also tell a tale involving violent death,’ I said.

  ‘That would have been convenient,’ Sir Stephen admitted. ‘But since his tale did not, and since mine did, we saw the opportunity of further muddying the waters by faking an attack on me.’

  ‘But before you could stage that attack, you had to deal with the people who were watching for just such an occurrence – namely the knight’s yeoman and myself,’ I said. ‘The yeoman was easily dispatched – one of your friends, who had been following us since Southwark, crept up behind him and struck him on the head. But you wanted me conscious, so I could witness the aftermath of the attack. That is why you, Lady Elizabeth, dragged me into your chamber and pretended you wanted to bed me.’

  ‘I still do not see how you could have known that the attack on me was not a genuine one,’ Sir Stephen said.

  ‘Ah, that is easily explained. When I burst into your bedchamber, I was carrying a burning torch which lit up the whole room. Your attackers would also have needed the light of a torch – for it is a difficult task to murder a man in near-darkness. Yet there was no strong smell of smoke already in the chamber, for if a man attacks himself – as you did – he needs no more than candlelight.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sir Stephen agreed. ‘I should have thought of how the chamber would smell.’

  ‘No man can think of everything,’ I said, ‘and, in general, your planning was brilliant. For the more fanciful observers like the franklin and myself, you set up an intriguingly mysterious link between the murders and the tales. And for those with more limited imaginations, you made certain that more mundane motives for the killings were available. Thus, the reeve killed the miller because he had insulted him, and the squire killed the prioress for fear she would tell of their night of illicit passion. As for the friar, he was probably killed by a cuckolded merchant, and, if not by a merchant, then by a summoner who ...’

  ‘Why would Thomas deliberately draw suspicion on himself?’ Lady Margaret asked, teasingly.

  ‘He wouldn’t – and he didn’t,’ I relied. ‘He drew suspicion on the summoner, but once he had removed his disguise, the summoner no longer existed.’

  How do you picture this scene in your mind, dear reader? Do you see me calmly and logically expounding my argument, while the other three listened to my words in rapt admiration? If that is how you imagine it then I can only assume you to be the kind of man who would buy a three-legged horse because it came at a bargain price.

  The truth of the matter is that the more I revealed of what I had conjectured, the angrier Lord de Beaufort seemed to be growing. Nor was I within a thousand leagues of being as calm as I appeared – or perhaps hoped I appeared! For whereas before I had known the risks I was running in my mind, I was now starting to feel that knowledge churning around deep within my gut.

  But surely a resourceful man like myself – poet, soldier, diplomat and spy – had some plan to extricate himself from this dangerous situation, I hear you thinking. And, indeed, you are right. I did have a plan. My plan was to keep talking - for as long as they continued to listen, I continued to stay alive.

  Day the Fifth

  Evening (continued)

  Only a moment may have passed since my reader ran his eyes over the words which precede these. But it has been much more than a moment since I wrote them. In truth, it has been three days. Yes, three entire days!

  And why the pause, when I have already indicated that I am eager to finish this work?

  I paused because I had no choice – because, as I was describing that confrontation in the Moor's Head, my hand began to tremble so violently that I could no longer continue.

  Why this should be – why the memory is even more terrifying than living through the actual event – I know not, unless it is that my spirit has grown weaker with age. Whatever the reason, it has taken me some effort of will to return to the writing table. But I am here now – my hand less steady than it might have been, but still steady enough – so let us continue with the tale.

  I had, you will remember, just declaimed to the conspirators my theory that that they had done all within their power to lay false trails – to conceal from the world the true reason for the deaths of the miller, the prioress and the friar. Perhaps my reader is expecting that now the murderers will break down and contritely confess to their crimes. And perhaps, in the future who-hath-done-its which are born of other authors’ imaginations, that is just what will happen. But this is real life I am describing, my friend, and though my words were not without their effect – Lady Elizabeth looked amused, Sir Stephen curious, and Lord de Beaufort contemptuous – there was no gushing forth of confessions.

  ‘You seem to think you have an answer for everything, Poet,’ Lord de Beaufort said, making the word ‘poet’ sound like an insult. ‘But I would doubt you have answers for my next two questions.’

  ‘And what might they be?’ I asked, speaking nonchalantly, even as part of mind – like a frightened rabbit – scurried hither and thither in search of a hole through which to escape from my dilemma.

  ‘My questions are these,’ de Beaufort said, the smirk on his face evidence – if I needed any – that he thought I would be unable to answer. ‘Let us suppose for the moment that we did kill the miller, the prioress and the friar. Why did we kill them? And why did we seek to attach false motives to their deaths?’

  ‘Which of the two questions would you like me to answer first, my lord?’ I asked.

  A scowl returned to de Beaufort’s face. ‘Why the false motives?’ he said.

  ‘Why, that is fee simple,’ I replied, all false confidence and good humour. ‘Your task was to prevent a popular revolt, and it required nimble footwork to ensure that, while doing so, you did not cause a civil war.’

  Lady Elizabeth threw back her head and laughed unrestrainedly. ‘He has you there, Thomas!’ she said, with obvious glee. ‘You thought your plot so impenetrable that all finest brains in the kingdom combined would never see through it. Yet this one man – a downtrodden ex-servant of the crown, a nobody – has done just that!’

  We were both insulted by her remarks, but of the two of us, I would say it was de Beaufort who took it the worse. For was he not a peer of the realm, unused to even the most minor of criticisms?

  Besides, he was on shakier ground. He only hoped and suspected that he was clever, while I knew that I was. I was so clever, in fact, that I had talked myself into a situation from which I might not emerge still breathing!

  ‘So our poet has seen through it, has he?’ de Beaufort asked Lady Elizabeth. ‘Are you quite sure of that, my lady? Any fool can talk glibly of popular revolts and civil wars. That does not mean he was grasped even one ounce of the truth. I suspect that, like all poets, he is talking though his arse and hoping we will mistake his turds for bars of gold.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ agreed Lady Elizabeth, who was no longer laughing but still maintained a broad smile which showed she was enjoying her companion’s discomfort. ‘Then again, perhaps you are wrong. The truth of the matter should be easy enough to establish.’ She turned to me. ‘Tell us about this popular revolt, Sir Geoffrey.’

  ‘It will require something of a history lesson,’ I cautioned.

  ‘That is of no matter. We have the time to be instructed,’ Lady Elizabeth told me, looking once more at the scowling de Beaufort.

  ‘Very well,’ I agreed. ‘Though he did not wear the crown, England was for years ruled by my master, John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster. He ruled through necessity, for our great King Edward had grown too old and feeble to rule himself. And even when Edward died, Gaunt could not step aside, because our new king, Richard, was too young to grasp the reins of power. Time passed, and as Richard grew to manhood, so grew his desire to play the monarch. This was understandable, yet Gaunt was reluctant to give him his head because…’

  ‘Because Richard, who was a fool as a boy, had now grown into a fool of a man,’ Sir Stephen said ve
hemently.

  ‘Indeed,’ I agreed. ‘Gaunt did his best to restrain his nephew, but it was a losing battle, for when all was said and done, Richard was the king and would eventually have his way. And so Gaunt turned away from England and towards Castille, since, if he could make good his claim to the throne, he could rule as undisputed master there.’

  ‘This is a waste of our time. You are telling us nothing more than what is common knowledge in court circles,’ de Beaufort said dismissively, glancing out of the window at the gathering gloom.

  He was, I realised, calculating how much longer he could safely allow me to speak, because he knew – as I had just realised myself - that soon the potboy would appear to light the torches, and that if I was to be disposed of, I would have to be disposed of before then.

  The knowledge of how little time I had left sent a chill through my body, and I found myself incapable of speaking, even though I understood that, like Scheherazade of old, it was only my words which were keeping me alive.

  And so I stood there – mute – and would have remained so, even as the two men approached me with murder in their eyes, had not Lady Margaret spoken and broken the spell.

  ‘If you are patient, Thomas, I am sure that Master Chaucer will soon tell us something which is very uncommon knowledge,’ she said, the smile still playing on her lips.

  ‘Though John of Gaunt had learned from bitter experience that he could no longer control his nephew, there were others still at court who thought that they could,’ I continued, somewhat shakily. ‘And the most powerful of these was another of the king’s uncles, the Duke of Gloucester.’

  ‘Again, this is no more than common tittle-tattle,’ de Beaufort said, glancing at the window again.

  ‘Yet the task turned out to be not as easy as Gloucester had imagined it would,’ I ploughed on. ‘Sometimes Gloucester did hold sway, but at other times it was Richard and his favourites who had the upper hand. And so, eventually, the Duke became tired of sitting on such a seesaw and decided he would like to become king himself.’