They murmur appreciatively.
Here’s where the future will happen, Chaucer sees, as, bowing his big square head in exaggerated respect, Brembre propels him, with a large, warm, clean hand, to where he will sit, inside the Customs House, now he is comptroller.
Across the room, behind the wall of velvet-clad shoulders, stands an enormous desk. Over there, the merchants of London, every day, write down on the Roll exactly how much wool has been weighed and dispatched, and what taxes have been charged on it. Over here, but separately, at a second enormous desk, Chaucer the comptroller will keep his own independent record in the Counter-Roll. Once a year they’ll compare Roll and Counter-Roll. With all the tact at his disposal, Chaucer will have to tackle these powerful financiers over any discrepancies, and make the sums add up to the King’s satisfaction.
Chaucer takes a deep breath to calm his fast-beating heart. Bowing again to the gathering, he says, skittishly, ‘So, masters, let me try my seat for size,’ and acknowledges their rumbles of laughter with a bow as he gathers his robes in his hands and sits down behind his desk.
He’s glad to be seated while they’re standing – all those big, well-covered men with enormous hands and strong bodies that don’t notice the heat, despite their long furry gowns. They remind him of a flock of waterfowl – geese, or swans, or herons – all so large, yet so implausibly smooth in every movement. They’re tougher than their peaceable gowns make them seem. For all their puffed-up chests and dignity, he can imagine any or all of them mercilessly pecking out the eyes of any impertinent lesser bird, any duck or moorhen or coot that gets in the way of their majestic glide through the waters they rule. And how they’re devouring him with their watchful eyes, all of them, he thinks, suddenly. They’re no fools. They’re wondering if he’ll be trouble. Sizing him up.
Behind him, he’s aware of Latimer and Stury, his court friends, giving Walworth and his merchant friends the same beady looks the merchants are giving him. They’re wondering whether Chaucer will be tough enough to stand up to the merchants. They’re sizing them up.
Chaucer knows, secretly, that his court friends are right to worry about his loyalty. A part of him feels he’s come home as he looks at these smooth merchant faces. When, a moment ago, Brembre has flamboyantly presented his stout friend as ‘my worshipful colleague, John Philpot, a grocer like myself…alderman for Cornhill Ward…you may recall?’ Chaucer knows he’s only just managed to find it in him to refrain from laughing in pure delight. For of course he knows Philpot, and definitely knows of him – he knows that Philpot and Brembre are financing a fleet for the south coast, and have also just reshaped the City’s trade association for victuallers, giving it the new name of grocers and spending fortunes on setting it up grandly.
But that’s not why he’s having to struggle to keep the merry grin off his face. The grin’s because of the memory that pops unbidden into Chaucer’s head of Philpot’s smooth hand reaching out towards him, passing over a gingerbread man with a silvery crown on its head, and of that soft voice, quivering with amusement, saying, ‘Don’t make yourself sick now, my boy.’
Chaucer can’t choke off that memory altogether. He isn’t able not to pronounce the words ‘Dear Uncle John’ with a rush of real affection, or to refrain from saying, out loud, ‘Why, of course. We’re old friends.’ And even he’s surprised to find himself embracing both princes of grocers with such affection that, for a dangerous moment, he feels the mercantile deputation melt and relax, while the courtiers behind him bristle. He’ll have to get a grip: to reapply his courtly manners and his air of polite watchfulness, before any of them take him for a pushover. Forget the gingerbread. He has a job to do.
It’s only as the group walks across the City to the dinner at Chaucer’s new apartment that one of the lesser merchants breaks through the shoulders of Brembre and his friends.
‘I hope you will not be offended,’ the unfamiliar man says to the comptroller, with the heavy accent of Flanders, ‘but I have sent a small gift ahead to your new home, to welcome you to your post. A tun of Gascon wine.’
The man then bows, with a big man’s slouching-shouldered imitation of modesty, includes Chaucer in a huge rolling laugh, and introduces himself as Richard Lyons. He’s almost unnaturally large and luridly coloured, though without an ounce of fat on him. He makes Brembre look small and weak. He has thighs like tree trunks, a pink face, sly, amused eyes, pale orange hair peeping out from under his hat, and a warm, rich voice that projects without effort over everyone else’s. No grey in his stubble – he can’t be older than forty – and plenty of gold at wrist and chest.
Chaucer never met Lyons while a boy in London, but of course he’s heard his name since. Lyons has only emerged as a wealthy man very recently (and, Chaucer remembers, his father, in his latter years, wasn’t always too sure that this new wealth was very honestly acquired, though naturally that’s the kind of thing almost any Londoner will automatically say about almost any foreigner). Chaucer knows the Fleming is now very rich indeed. Even though he’s a foreigner, Lyons is about to serve as one of the next mayor’s two sheriffs – high office – which seems to suggest that the London elite walking down this street favour him, except that it’s very easy to see that, actually, they don’t want him there at all; they feel awkward around him, and are doing everything they can to keep him to the back and dilute his overwhelming presence among them.
Chaucer understands why they’d be nervous. Lyons has been biding his time. He’s stayed in the background, and kept his peace for the past hour. But he’s been the first, all the same, to get in with his charming little bribe.
‘I thank you,’ he says, bowing very politely, ending the conversation. Secretly, he’s breathing a big sigh of relief that, for the moment at least, Lyons, who’s a vintner like Chaucer’s own father, is only here for curiosity’s sake; he’s hoping that this pink-and-orange-and-red-and-gold force of nature doesn’t, in the near future, start getting tied up in the wool trade. At least until Chaucer’s got everything worked out. He can see, right off, that Lyons is a man on the rise, and a man who does things his own way, and a man who’ll always be a focus for trouble.
By the time Lyons bows and moves away, the whole procession, dignitaries, aristocrats, and the new Comptroller of Customs and Subsidy on Wool, Sheepskins and Leather in the Port of London, has passed north and east across half the City – a brisk ten-minute walk, right through the parish of All Hallows Barking, up Water Lane, over Thames Street and Tower Street, and on up Mark Lane into neighbouring Aldgate parish – and is on Aldgate Street itself, heading for the City wall and the gate. All around them, there’s the deafening crash of midday bells for sext.
The City is a democratic place. It’s too small for anything but walking, for even the greatest of men, and Geoffrey Chaucer likes the quiet freedom of strolling through the crowds. It’s one of the pleasures of London, that you can go everywhere on foot. He clings to this notion of enjoying walking, because he’s suddenly a little wobbly inside about how much he really likes London. Travelling has blunted so much of his old pleasure in his home city. Once you’ve seen honeystone Florence, you’re spoiled for ever. Afterwards, how can you feel anything more than slightly pitying affection for this twisty, stinky, thatched, wattle-and-daubed, cobbled, overcrowded, provincial old place? Of course, that isn’t a feeling to share with the men now whispering confidingly into his ear, one by one, that they’ve had a box of pepper, or spices, or fish, or cushions, delivered to his new home as a housewarming gift. True Londoners will always be proud of their White City. They call it the Ringing City, sometimes – all the church bells. It’s a place to walk endlessly through the ringing of bells. That’s one of the things I’ll be doing, from now on, Chaucer thinks, not quite happily.
The apartment above Aldgate was signed over to him last month, as part of his payment for this job. It’s a great spacious place, looking out over the cut-throat eastern slum villages beyond the City walls one way, along th
e Colchester road through to Essex on the horizon, and over the roofs and gardens of Holy Trinity Priory and teeming Aldgate Street the other way, inside the City walls.
The apartment itself is all large echoing rooms, with a solar above and a cellar below the easternmost of the six City gates. It’s the only toll-free gate, open to all, beggars included, and there are plenty of those coming from the wild, sparsely populated Essex country beyond. There’ll be people coming and going in their carts underneath Chaucer’s feet every day, cursing as they try to squeeze through the narrow arch, and the clank of the City gate closing every night at curfew. The apartment has been used as a prison in the past; this is a strategic spot. He’s had to swear to use it well and not let enemies of the City enter through the gate below; they’ve had to swear not to put prisoners in there with him and his family for his lifetime. It was a comical little City ceremony, the kind that would have made Philippa smirk. But the apartment’s prestigious enough – as good as Stury’s riverside house – so any smirking on her part, right now, is also partly a genuinely happy smile.
Alice Perrers winked when she told him she’d got him the apartment rent-free. ‘It’s not usually rent-free. But the Mayor said yes, for you.’
‘Whatever kindness the worshipful Mayor is doing, it’s to impress you, I’m sure, not me,’ he replied gratefully. It’s her kind of favour, he understands. He’s heard a lot of stories about Alice Perrers’ ruthless ways with property, exchanging influence and access to the King for favours in land and buildings, constantly obtaining new leases on still more properties, all on the never-never, feathering her own nest. The stories aren’t flattering, but they’re probably all true. It’s obvious she’s minting money. Everyone says the same thing. Chaucer knows he’s supposed to be shocked by her greed. Philippa, in particular, keeps telling him so. But he can’t help admiring the merry mischief in Alice Perrers’ eyes. He likes her for enjoying her tricks and subterfuges so much.
Philippa will have made those empty spaces above Aldgate beautiful in these past days. She’ll have hung the tapestries and scattered the cushions artfully to fill the rooms with loveliness and colour. There’ll be flowers. All their little wealth will be on brave display. She’ll understand the importance of that.
Geoffrey Chaucer finds his hands clutching at his long sleeves. He’s wearing merchant robes today, long sweeping things to his feet; he plans to dress like the merchants he’ll be living among. But he hasn’t reckoned with the heat inside the tube of velvet. He’s forgotten that, in his years of aristocratic tunics and hosen. He’s stifling. His linen undershirt is soaking. He wishes his stomach would stop churning.
If only he could be sure his wife also understands how important it is to treat these merchants like princes, and feed them like kings. If only he knew for certain that she’s understood about the dinner.
FOUR
There’s a crowd at Aldgate as the merchant procession arrives. Two donkeys, pulling a heavily laden cart, are blocking the traffic while men unload trays from it. They’re ignoring other men, who are darting in and out of the gatehouse, complaining, as well as the men on carts trying to come into the City, who are shouting and cat-calling and hooting obscenities in their rustic Essex voices from beyond the gate.
Chaucer winces. He remembers these stubborn City scraps for space so well. It might go on for hours, this slow-motion shouting. It might turn into a fight. He doesn’t want his dignitaries to be caught up in one of these spats now.
But, after a heart-stopping moment, he realises there’s no cause for concern. The aldermen are City folk too. They know, better than he, that there’s no need to mix themselves up in this competition among low-lifes. They just puff out their padded chests and glide through the fracas as if unaware of it, making straight for Chaucer’s staircase. They don’t even seem to see the shaking fists and jutting jaws all around them.
‘Warm for the time of year,’ Will Walworth opines, velvet-smooth, taking Chaucer’s arm and guiding him into the doorway. Only the glint of amusement in his eyes gives away his awareness of the little birds fighting.
It’s only when Chaucer is on the narrow stone steps, aware that Walworth has politely taken the narrower side of the spiral yet is so delicate on his long feet that he seems to be flying up the tiny treads, that the new comptroller sees that some of the men with trays are also in the stairwell, both above and below him, and that each of them is carrying a platter on his shoulder.
When Chaucer reaches the top of the stairs, and emerges into the biggest of the stone chambers, he sees, to his unspeakable relief, that it is all decked out with trestles and cushions and benches and the cupboard containing his and Philippa’s many silver-gilt Christmas gifts from Countess Elizabeth, his first employer, and both the past and present Duchesses of Lancaster, Philippa’s two employers, and Duke John too, and the King himself, each cup bearing one or other noble coat of arms. He sees, too, that the damp back wall is covered by the tapestry his mother worked, a hunting scene she deemed appropriate for his new gentlemanly station in life, and there are nosegays of sweet purple roses and clove-scented pink gillyflowers in small vases everywhere. Only then does he begin to understand what’s going on with the food and the platters.
Philippa, in a neat blue robe that she must have considered quite showy enough for City folk, is here, sure enough, with one eyebrow very slightly raised, her gaze passing over Chaucer as she steps forward, with her usual willowy formality, to bow to and welcome the future Mayor to her new home.
But behind her, supervising the men arriving in the room with their trays and platters – on which he can now see, as their coverings are removed, are cooked fishes of every description, and piles of cut oranges and pomegranates and lemons, dates and dried apricots, crumbles and jumbles, pink creamy castles of blancmange and wobbling rivers of posset, and a sugared pastry extravagance in the shape of a swan, until the table resembles nothing so much as the Land of Cockaigne – is another, less familiar, female form.
‘Over there,’ he hears, as if in a dream. ‘And this one, here, in the corner. There’s a little bit of space here still.’ She has her back to him, but there’s something about that strangely confident voice, and about that tan robe. Before the woman has finished and turned round, allowing Chaucer properly to admire the elaborate cauls in which her hair has been arranged over each ear, and the sheer veil sparkling with fine gold threads wafting around her face, he’s guessed.
‘Madame Perrers,’ he mumbles, stepping forward. Then, correcting himself from courtly French to practical English, the language of the City: ‘Mistress Perrers.’
She turns to him. ‘Chaucer!’ she says familiarly, as if he were her servant. No ‘Monsieur’ here; no ‘Master’ either. But who’s he to argue with that, when she’s saving the day, acting as though she’s his servant, bringing in food? And she looks so pleased to see him, surrounded by bowing merchants, too. She’s smiling, very warm and wide; for a moment, he thinks he sees her wink.
Now he understands Philippa’s raised eyebrow. He can see from the colours of the platters – Alice’s all of pewter, Philippa’s of a jumble of different colours of pottery and metal – that the meal his wife has laid on has been, until Alice got here with these unsolicited reinforcements, a modest affair of herring, sorrel, and strawberries. The relief that surges through Chaucer’s innards when he sees the feast now being set out by Alice’s servants is like a river flooding its banks. He’s intensely aware of the appreciative looks on the merchants’ faces, the bright, hungry eyes, inspecting the dishes with pleasurable anticipation. He can almost feel the saliva swirling in every mouth. Everything will be all right now. Except, of course, that behind her cool politeness, Philippa must be fuming at That Woman having so unexpectedly upstaged her.
Hastily, realising Philippa is watching him, as if for signs he’s conspired in the Perrers dinner coup, he bows to his uninvited guest, very formally. ‘Why, I had no idea…’ he begins cautiously, so Philippa will
understand his innocence. ‘I thought the court would be packing up today, for Sheen…if I’d realised you might be lingering in London, Mistress Perrers, of course, I would have invited…’ But then he looks up into Alice Perrers’ bold eyes, and sees the ghost of a wink in them, and forgets all his furtive married-man’s cunning, and is lost. She’s so straightforward in her mischievous do-gooding – understanding everything, saying nothing, and tremendously pleased with herself at having saved the day, all at once – that he abandons caution, takes her hands in his, bobs his head down in a sketchy bow, and says, with all the real happiness and merriment that the sight of this very welcome guest suddenly inspires in him, ‘Well, what a wonderful surprise!’
‘My modest housewarming gift,’ Alice Perrers replies nonchalantly, squeezing his hands, bowing in her turn to Philippa to include her in this circle of warm astonishment, but not batting an eyelid when Philippa’s face continues to express nothing more than the minimum of polite gratitude that etiquette demands. ‘To you both,’ Alice Perrers says, and, to an encouraging rumble of assent from the merchants, ‘to wish you health, wealth, and happiness in London.’ Then, not trying any further with Philippa, she turns to Walworth, Brembre, and Philpot, and finally to Latimer and Stury (who, Chaucer notices, have struck up a conversation with the flashing-eyed Fleming, Richard Lyons), and greets each group of them in turn with a warm look and a quiet, amusing, private word.
Chaucer notices Alice’s poise here, among the merchants, just as he’s been noticing her confidence at Westminster ever since she started taking him to meet the officials she clearly knows so well. Chaucer doesn’t think she’s the child of a London merchant family, because, if she were, surely he’d have known her as a boy? Still, she seems quite at home here – more so than at court. He thinks, vaguely: Haven’t I heard something…wasn’t she married to a merchant, right back at the start? (Perhaps, if she was, the marriage was during his years away, trotting around France and Flanders and Italy…) He can’t think who the husband can have been, though. He should find out.
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