He blinks. Slowly he rises again, and reclasps his hands around his knees, trying, with less success, to rearrange his thoughts. For the past hour, he’s felt as though, by making love with Alice Perrers, he’s taken back at least a little control of his life, just as, sometimes, finishing a well-made poem makes him feel master of all he surveys, at least for a moment. Not any more. Now life’s rushing by again, making shapes and patterns he doesn’t understand, and he’s back with that dizzying sense of freefall in the pit of his stomach.
‘What do you mean?’ he says, helplessly. ‘What children…?’
‘Oh, don’t give me that lapdog look,’ she answers slightly impatiently, though not unkindly. ‘I’m trying to tell you, aren’t I?’
For a moment, as she starts her story, he thinks: Perhaps she’s making it up. But her voice is too steady for that. No, it’s clear that what has passed between them tonight has prompted her to trust him with a secret. He should be flattered. But he can’t help it: his gut is churning.
The father of her children, Alice is saying through the blood beating its tattoo in his temples, is William of Windsor.
Now, Chaucer knows of William of Windsor. Who doesn’t? He’s the King’s Lieutenant in Ireland, a knight from Westmoreland, did well in France in the old days, became friendly with Lionel of Ulster, has been the King’s man in Ireland since Lionel’s death, has maintained extremely costly defences there against the French, is said to have treated the Irish savagely, has periodically been recalled to be reprimanded for it…Chaucer knows, too, that the man’s old – in his forties – though he can see that advanced age might not in itself bar him from Alice’s bed. Chaucer tells himself he’ll probably be able to remember all kinds of other snippets about William of Windsor too, if he thinks hard enough. But he’d have no reason to, in the normal course of things. This is because, except for the times William of Windsor’s been called home to be reprimanded – including one longish visit, several years ago, maybe ten, if Chaucer’s remembering right, the year before Chaucer’s son was born and his father died, the year when Chaucer himself went overseas, marvelling at the size and aridity of the Pyrenees – the man’s been in Ireland for the past fifteen years. Chaucer’s never met him.
But ten years ago, he thinks, and his brow furrows as the facts obstinately refuse to fall into place, Alice was just starting at court as the Queen’s demoiselle. Alice can’t have had much opportunity to meet him either, since then.
‘Good God,’ he says faintly. ‘But…how?’
Alice pulls herself up on to one elbow. She’s trying to marshal her thoughts. She’s never told anyone this story. She doesn’t have words prepared. She certainly doesn’t have words to explain that once in her life she, who prefers to think of herself as the Queen of Planning and Profit, the Queen of Heartlessness, felt…well, that tumult, that torrent of heightened emotions, something so sharp it seemed more like a sickness or a wound than a blessing, something that sent her shamelessly off down corridors and round corners in the hope of just a glimpse of those shoulders, that grizzled head. She’s never, before or since, felt that she might faint, just looking at the way a man’s fingers grew out of his hand, or at the set of his limbs on his torso.
But facts, she can tell the facts. Some of them, at least. If she tries. That she met William of Windsor at a joust, with Froissart, before she’d even come to court. That soon after the Queen took a fancy to her and gave her a job as a demoiselle, they’d developed an…understanding. She feels foolish about the gulp in her voice at that inadequate word. That she fell pregnant, but couldn’t tell anyone, because she needed that demoiselle’s job if she were to make her way at court, and she’d only been taken on as a replacement because Marie de Saint-Hilaire had conceived a bastard, and she hadn’t been allowed back, so Alice could see at once that she could never confess the truth to the Queen. So instead she made up a pitiful story about going home for the summer to a sick mother, which touched the Queen so much that she promised Alice she could come back in three months. Then Alice went away to have her baby in the quiet of the countryside…twins, as it turned out. A boy and a girl. John and Jane. The next year, she had to make another heart-rending plea to be allowed to tend her sick old mother again. And, after Joan was born, and Alice had recovered from a birth so difficult that they’d told her she’d never have children again, she went back to the Queen, and, with tears in her eyes and black on her back, said her mother, God rest her, had died. And the Queen, bless her, was so moved that she paid for Alice’s mourning robe. The best woman in the world, Queen Philippa…That then, one day soon after, some chance cheeky remark Alice had made about not being scared of the Mortality had turned the King’s eyes towards her.
‘And…?’ Chaucer prompts.
Alice has stopped again. She’s wrinkling her nose, so the constellations of freckles change their configuration, and wondering. This is more difficult than she’s realised it was going to be. There is so much in this story that makes her uncomfortable.
Will Chaucer, whose wish for self-advancement is so measured, who waits for favour to drop unexpectedly from the skies, who never actively does anything to seek his fortune, have any chance of understanding what came next? That she and William of Windsor, whose love was based from the start on recognising each other as equally hungry and driven, ready to move relentlessly forward to fill the holes and tears left in the tapestry of life by so much death and the changes it brought, both understood the promise of the King’s favour being held out to her as the biggest opportunity she might ever get in life? That, a year or two later, when the King’s son Lionel of Ulster died of plague, William got his greatest opportunity ever: promotion over the water to do Lionel’s job? That they quietly agreed, between themselves, that it would be best to put aside their relationship so she could reap the greater benefit of the King’s and he could make his fortune in Ireland? That he gave her a lump sum for the children’s care, and left them in her hands? That, because of the way they both were, neither of them could have imagined doing anything else?
She doesn’t think so. Chaucer won’t ever be able to imagine the purpose of William, though he might understand the bleakness she felt, all those years ago, when the only man she’d loved got on his horse and rode away. William said, ‘It’s not for ever, we both know that,’ and then he kissed her. A dry, regretful kiss. The words a lie; truth in the kiss. They both knew he wouldn’t be back. Sometimes, even now, she finds herself hoping that one day, after all, he just might return, and that, if he did, she might again feel…that. But she knows it for foolishness. After all these years, that hope has taken on the qualities of a much-fingered pebble; it’s become familiar, dry and warm with use, impossible to imagine as it once was, glistening and lovely with water rushing over it. She loved him. He’s gone. It’s long over.
Alice would like Chaucer’s sympathy. She thinks he might like to hear that she kept the King waiting for a while. She doesn’t like to remember how short a while it was, in reality. She stretches the time out in her mind. She tells herself that it was for many long months that she devoted herself to her kindly, trusting mistress the Queen’s ailments, the gout, the aches and pains and bed rest, and enjoyed only the flash of glances and the occasional stifled laugh at the King’s pleasantries, and that it was only when the Queen herself, in her last days, made sure that there was no one around her except her husband, and her youngest son, and one devoted handmaiden, Alice, to nurse her out of this life, and positively pushed the two of them together, as if she wanted them to love each other, that Alice finally let Edward catch her, just outside the sickroom, and…
Yes, possibly Chaucer would appreciate that. Especially since he isn’t tormented by the memory of the Queen’s trusting eyes.
But when it comes to it Alice finds she can’t talk too much about the feelings that have no easy names.
Instead she says briskly, winding up her story, ‘William was sent back to Ireland. And you know what happened to me
.’ She shrugs.
Chaucer’s brow is wrinkled. Surely he can’t think it was really wrong to jump at the chance of the King’s bed? But she can see he doesn’t like what he’s hearing. Or doesn’t think he’s hearing the right thing. With what sounds like anguish in his voice, he counters: ‘But what about the children?’
She sits up beside him. She spreads her hands. ‘The children?’ she says, rather bewildered by the question. What about the children? ‘Well, I see them when I can. They’re in Essex. I told you. I have a house there.’
‘And he…William of Windsor?’ he probes. ‘Didn’t he ever want…?’
She feels her heart twist. She makes an effort to keep her face still. That’s how she knew, from the start, that William never really meant to come back. He’d have shown more interest in them, if he did, wouldn’t he? It was only a young girl’s naivety to hope for more. Well, she’s learned her lesson. She snaps, ‘No.’
Another silence.
She adds, defensively, ‘They don’t need him.’
Chaucer frowns. ‘But children do need their parents. And if yours have no father, surely they need to be with their mother more than ever…’
Oh, so that’s it. His injured family feelings again.
‘They’re well looked after,’ she protests. But there’s only more mutinous wordlessness from the other side of the bed. She senses him drawing away.
She tries to explain. ‘They’re going to need money in life,’ she says. ‘Money and land and rank. I grew up without any of that and, let me tell you, it’s no fun; I don’t want them grubbing around in the dirt. I want them to be properly provided for. Able to enter life with a bit of a swagger.’
‘But you’re their mother. How can you bear not to live with them?’ Chaucer insists.
Incredulously, she thinks: He can’t mean it. What, go and live at Gaines? Give everything up?
‘I do my best for them. Everything I’m doing is for them,’ she says, defensive again. But she knows that’s not quite true, even as she says it.
She’s seeing their three little dark heads in her mind as she speaks; she’s feeling the shy tenderness she experiences whenever she’s at Gaines, and looks at them laughing together, and holds back from interrupting their play because they look so intent on whatever they’re doing, and she doesn’t know enough about them to understand what they’re up to. Of course she loves them. She enjoys the softness of her thoughts about them.
But that isn’t the same as doing everything she does for them. Because she knows, if she’s honest, that she’s not staying away from Essex just to put clothes on their backs or white chargers between their little legs. She’s here piling up money, buying houses and land, dancing between court and City, because she enjoys it. Because she loves being at the centre of everything. Because there’s nothing so exciting as the energy and intentness she feels when she’s working out some new scheme and making it happen. Because she can.
She’s not going to leave Katherine Swynford to take over the court, or Lyons making new fortunes without her. Not while she still has the choice.
‘And I couldn’t go and bury myself in the country,’ she adds flatly.
She hopes that’s an end to it. But Chaucer won’t give up. He’s like a dog, worrying away at a bone.
‘Well, why didn’t you bring your children to live with you?’ he says.
She sighs. For a moment the old, old sadness seeps back into her. ‘Because I got it wrong,’ she says wearily. ‘Because I imagined for too long that I’d end up as William’s lady wife, and by the time he went away…’ She blinks. ‘Well, by then,’ she continues, fiercely enough to banish the sadness, ‘I couldn’t very well tell my new lover the King that I had a family full of someone else’s babies, could I? And forgotten to mention it? And told his wife the Queen a pack of lies about my dying mother, into the bargain?’
When she sees his frown, she softens her voice before going on: ‘It was too late. Don’t you see? It all snowballed. I couldn’t unpick the lies…’
At last Chaucer seems to be beginning to understand. He shakes his head. She thinks she sees tenderness comes back into his eyes. Or is it pity?
‘And before you say anything else, it’s much too late now,’ she adds briskly. She doesn’t want pity. ‘You know that, Chaucer. Court children turn seven. They get sent away. They get educated. And mine are nine and ten. Even if I had managed to bring them to live with me at court when they were babies, they’d be too old now. I’d be putting them into some other household for a bit of polish. I wouldn’t be sitting around dandling them on my knee all day long, would I now?’
Chaucer puts an arm around her and draws her close. He’s not going to lecture her any more, she can see. He’s looking too mournful for that. She sees he’s thinking of his own family again. His pity’s turning to self-pity. ‘Philippa always says it’s proof I’m not noble that I’m so soft about children. She says, your merchant roots are showing,’ he murmurs. He kisses the top of her head. ‘And perhaps she’s right. Perhaps you are. But having my children near is what I want most in the world. It’s the cruellest thing she’s done to me, keeping them away.’
Then he turns her round so he can look into her eyes. He’s having an idea. She sees his face brighten with it. ‘At least with you it won’t be for ever,’ he says, as if he’s holding out a wonderful hope. One which, he doesn’t mind her knowing, is denied to him.
What does he mean? But she already thinks she knows. She sighs.
‘Because after…’ He pauses. He can’t think of the right delicate phrase.
‘After Edward dies, you mean?’ she prompts patiently.
He nods gratefully. That’s it. ‘And when you’ve left court. You’ll have a new life. You won’t have to be separated from them any more then.’
He’s so pleased for her, that he’s worked it all out. He’s practically bursting with happiness at the idea that she’ll soon be cast out from the life she loves, with all the time in the world to spend with her children. For a moment, she’s rigid with irritation. He hasn’t been listening at all, has he? He’s just thinking what he might feel like, or want to do, if he were her; not what she might want. She almost bursts out: ‘But who says I’ll be going anywhere? I might not have to…if I can go on making my way under the Duke.’
Still, she doesn’t like to burst his bubble. He means well. She likes his softness. ‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,’ she adds gently. ‘It’s too soon to say.’
FOURTEEN
A soft breeze ruffles the papers on the table. It is golden afternoon, and peaceful, and Chaucer, who hasn’t ventured away from Aldgate and the Customs House for three months or more, is smiling reminiscently over the verses under his pen.
‘Fair was this young good-wife, and therewithal, As graceful as a weasel was her body small.’ He likes these lines. It’s her to a T. And these:
Her broad headband of silk was very high,
And for a fact she had a flirty eye.
Her eyebrows plucked into two narrow rows,
Which both were angled and as black as sloes.
She was a lovelier sight by far to see,
Than is the early-ripe pear tree.
He sighs, though this sigh is not without pleasure. He scribbles more lines.
Brighter the pink that on her cheeks did glow,
Than any new-mint coins fresh from the Tower…
Her mouth as sweet as honey mead,
Or hoards of apples laid in hay or heath.
It’s only when he finds he’s also written: ‘She was a primrose, a sweet piglet’s eye, For any lord to lure into his bed, Or else for any common man to wed,’ that he begins to look anxiously at the words on the page, and lays his pen down.
A thick, speechless embarrassment has kept Chaucer to himself as the spring sets in. He can’t think now what can have possessed him, in the darkness of the New Year, to do the wild, mad thing he knows he did with Alice Perrers. He’s kept
well clear of his wife ever since, though that hasn’t been hard. Until this week she’s been away at Hertford Castle with the Duchess’s household; she’s to visit him for the first time later this afternoon. He’s steered clear of Alice, too.
Especially Alice. Through tightly squeezed eyes, he remembers the great joyous laughter that came bubbling through him, both of them, during all that thrusting and grinding he’s trying to banish from his mind. He can understand, now, the pull she has on her lovers; the wish they must all share to be close again to the sheer life-energy of her. But he doesn’t mind, either, that she kissed him chastely on the forehead as she left, and said, with the kindest imaginable look, straight into his heart, ‘That’s us, Chaucer; no more; we both know that, don’t we?’
He knows she’s right. He agrees. Of course it’s impossible for them to be lovers again. Lovers at all. Madness, for people in their present positions: he married, and she so far from free (especially now he knows there are those children whom she’ll one day want to bring back to her. Nothing about Alice is uncomplicated. Never has been). He’d do best to forget it ever happened. Still, there’s no controlling his thoughts, which, every moment of every day, keep straying back to that. And to her. And to the carefree bliss of lying in that bed with her, that evening, laughing. And whenever he does find himself thinking of it, he can’t stop smiling.
Chaucer’s been sitting over this verse for some time this afternoon.
He’s put in his day’s work at the Customs House. He has nothing to reproach himself with. He isn’t shirking duty. The working day ended early only because the merchants – Brembre and Philpot, who are at the wool office this month – excused themselves to go to a dinner.
Chaucer’s intrigued by what their dinner can have been about. It wasn’t the usual sort of event. Usually formal City dinners are arranged months ahead. This one came out of the blue, but was even grander than most merchant junkets. At noon, Brembre and Philpot put on their livery robes and went out to the jetty to meet the mayoral boat, coming downriver from the Prince of England’s palace at Kennington on its way to the Guildhall. The boat was carrying Walworth in full mayoral fig, assorted servants, and another man Chaucer didn’t know: a tall, thin, distinguished man in travelling clothes, silver at the temples, with a knightly dash to his movements, wearing a sword.
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