He’s got wet feet from the boat. He doesn’t want to be doing this. He loathes discomfort. He’s squelching miserably as she walks him round the sheltered gardens, the sapling orchards, the windbreak trees she’s planting to protect them better from the river winds, and pointing out the forty acres of arable land and sixty acres of pasture and one-and-a-half acres of meadow. ‘And if we come back this way,’ she prattles on, drawing him towards the cluster of buildings around the great hall, where some sort of building work is about to begin, and a pile of great oak timbers is lying covered in tarpaulins, ‘you’ll see…’ and indeed he does: chapels, kitchens, bakehouses, stables and barns, all repaired and painted, and brand-new gates leading out to the track through the woods behind.
He’ll say this for Alice. The serfs look well fed. No sunken faces and bare stick legs and quiet son-of-the-soil anger in eyes here. The fields look well tended, too. And the food that comes out of the kitchen is magnificent.
The main house, though still unfinished, will soon be elegant. There are new hangings, fresh from the workshops, lying on chests on all sides, ready for the walls. ‘If only you’d come a month later,’ Alice is saying, bright-eyed, ‘you’d have seen it finished. But for now, you’ll just have to imagine the glorious future.’
Chaucer’s forgotten everything except that he’s glowing with pleasure at her pleasure. By the time he does, finally, get a chance to talk, over a tender little suckling pig with an apple in its mouth and its side carved neatly off into slices, he’s realised how thin an excuse he’s got for coming here and what a mountain he’s made of a molehill. He doesn’t even like to mention the tavern story. It seems so inconsequential now. So he sticks to general tavern worries: about the King’s drifting; and the hash the Duke’s said to be making a hash of the peace talks, over in Bruges; and that there’s so little money…that there might have to be a Parliament…
Alice just laughs. Especially when he finishes: ‘And most of all I’m worried for you, Alice. I hear such hard things about you. People don’t like it that you’re doing so well, so obviously, when no one else is. Shouldn’t you at least think of…stepping back? Spending less…keeping a lower profile?…Or keeping away from the City?…Or even retiring to be with your family?’
‘Oh, I’m not ready to go anywhere yet,’ she says blithely. ‘You’re always fretting over something, Chaucer.’
He feels snubbed. He falls silent.
She piles more food on his platter. She refills his glass. She flashes her teeth at him. She adds, with kindness, ‘But I like it that you worry about me.’
And, when he pushes the platter away, she sweeps him excitedly up again. ‘If you’re sure you’ve had enough, then come and see. My best hanging’s just come.’
Even Chaucer has to put aside his forebodings and laugh when, puffing and dusty, they’ve finally got the stiff embroidered thing out and flat on the floor.
It’s an extraordinary piece of work. It’s Alice through and through.
Sampson, asleep on a bed of pearls, has golden hair and a long golden beard. Real gold: great, flowing locks of Cyprus thread that glitter under the dust motes.
Delilah, scissors in hand, is black-haired and blue-eyed and curvy. She has a wicked little grin as she advances on her victim, ready to cut off his hair and steal his strength. She’s wearing scarlet. For a Biblical character, her costume looks strangely like that of the Lady of the Sun.
Oh, Alice Perrers, he thinks, lost in admiration, you brave little minx. Against his will, he finds himself hoping that, somehow, she can safely hang on, picking people’s pockets and playing them off against each other and plotting and dancing around and laughing and being intoxicating, for as long as she wants. For ever.
She turns and dimples up at him. ‘Do you like it?’ she says innocently.
He nods, several times. She’s standing too close, for someone who told him, months ago, that they shouldn’t think again of…that. He’s got her rose-oil scent in his nostrils. He’s on the point of stepping back when she comes closer still, snakes herself round him until he starts to melt and harden against her. Standing on tiptoe, she presses her lips up against his, and says, ‘I’ve missed you, Chaucer.’ Again, he finds himself forgetting to breathe.
For a while, Chaucer can’t think of anything but what his body’s doing. But, as he gets his breath back, and removes his nose and elbows from the prickly gold embroidery and the bobbly seed pearls of Delilah’s scarlet skirts, and rushes to lace himself back up, and to pull down Alice’s skirts over her legs (because she’s just going on lying there, on one elbow, grinning mischievously at him), and to pick up the hat that’s fallen on Sampson’s fig leaf, he’s appalled again, shocked again, at what he’s done. Again.
‘But I thought you said,’ he mutters breathlessly, ‘that we shouldn’t…’
Her dimples show when she smiles. He wants to kiss them.
She lifts her shoulders, which are still bare and deliciously rosy, in a charmingly helpless shrug. ‘Well,’ she says, and her gesture forgives them both, ‘we just did. And it wasn’t so bad, was it? No harm done?’
He can’t help smiling back. But he has to ask, all the same: ‘So what changed your mind?’
She sits up now, and begins calmly to restore order to her own lacings, humming though her teeth as she does. After a moment, she glances up at him – an outrageously intimate look. She’s smiling, though more softly. ‘Well…back then, I was surprised it happened…and I thought I couldn’t be two men’s mistress at once…that really would be immoral, even for me. But now? I don’t know. Things just look different. Because, to be honest, I’m not really his mistress, not any more, haven’t been for a long time…and it’s true what I said, Chaucer. I missed you. And anyway, why do we always think we have to choose between things? Why not have it all?’
She stands up. Right next to him. He can see he’s supposed to react with joy. And he is joyful, of course he is, but he’s alarmed, too, that he’s come here to warn her to be more careful, but she’s only got more foolhardy. But then, what’s he blaming her for, when he was only too eager, a few minutes ago, to rush in…?
He swallows.
‘It must have cost a pretty penny,’ he says, changing the subject. ‘That hanging.’
She gives him that careful, squinty, narrow-eyed look that he’s seen from her once or twice before. She’s measuring him, he thinks; seeing if she can trust him.
He holds his breath. Whatever it is, he wants to know.
She nods. ‘Mm-hm,’ she says. She glances carefully up at him again, and then turns her attention to her sleeves, to get them just so. ‘Well, I can afford it. I’ve made some money recently.’
‘Mm-hm?’ he enquires. But something in that last look is making his stomach turn. Suddenly he’s not so sure he does want to know.
‘On the debt paper,’ she finishes carelessly. ‘A bit of speculation. Only, of course, that’s for your ears only, Chaucer, because I trust you. You mustn’t tell a soul.’ She looks up again, more boldly this time. She wants to see the effect this confession is having on him.
It’s explosive. Chaucer’s Adam’s apple is gyrating up and down his throat as he swallows, and swallows again. She’s admitted it. He feels sick. ‘But I asked you. Last year. And you said’ – he chokes – ‘you weren’t doing it.’
She isn’t bothered. She’s still looking pleased with herself, still talking. He forces himself to make sense of the carefree words coming from her mouth. She’s saying something about how, last year, she was only dabbling. It didn’t really count. She wasn’t really lying to him, back then. But after New Year she decided she could be making more exchanging debt paper. Much more.
‘…because it really struck me, over Christmas, that there might not be much longer with Edward,’ she’s saying. ‘And that the Duke might not be the kind of master I needed afterwards, either. So I thought, in for a penny, in for a pound…time to hurry up.’
Chaucer’s shocked.
Before New Year, Alice always used to sound so full of hope that she could make the Duke her future protector…mentor…patron; and she’d seemed so excited about her plan to put the war finances on a better footing, which she thought would do it. Chaucer’s always thought it would, too. He’s spent all this time trying, dutifully, to help Alice’s cause by trying to promote a better relationship between the Duke and the City, and always speaking well of the Duke to Walworth (not with that much success, admittedly, as Walworth is still deeply suspicious of the King’s son; but at least the Duke has been away for most of this year, and so, to Chaucer’s pleasure, there’ve been no actual clashes between my lord of Lancaster and the City, these last months).
Can she really have had this more criminal second plan on the go the whole time – a ‘plan’ that seems to amount to no more than helping herself from the treasury and hoping no one notices? A ‘plan’ that, when she’s caught, as she inevitably will be, will wipe out all the good her clever financial thinking has done her? And can it really be that seeing the Duke only had eyes for his mistress at Christmas has been enough to make her give up on all those earlier hopes – intelligent hopes, too – of the future she could perhaps have earned by serving him well? Can Alice be such a faint-heart?
He can’t believe his disappointment. He thought she was better than this.
Her voice is still chirruping on. ‘And now I’ve got almost all my properties rebuilt and in good order. My rental income’s going to be up substantially from now on, and I’ve even been able to buy some new places. I’m in good shape for the future.’ She beams proudly.
‘You fool,’ Chaucer says, slowly. ‘You gave up all the good you were doing and opted for stealing just out of pique? Because he’s sleeping with Katherine?’
She looks at him, as if he’s shocked her. Then she shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says, more seriously. ‘It’s not that, Chaucer. Not at all.’ She stops fiddling with her bodice. She faces him, fair and square. ‘Look, I always thought I had to choose: serve him, or steal from him. If I served him well, I’d impress him, and be able to stay on at court. If I stole from him, I’d have to leave court after Edward…but I might at least go richer. And I didn’t know which to choose. I spent all last year worrying, which would be my best course of action?
‘But after Christmas, when the Duke just wasn’t interested in knowing anything about the detail of the good work I’d done, as long as there was some vague picture of things getting better that he could enjoy (while the Duke stuffed his face with honeyed peacock and whispered sweet nothings in Madame de Swynford’s ear), I realised I’d been wrong. I suddenly saw that I didn’t have to choose. I could do both.’
She puts a soft hand on Chaucer’s arm. ‘He hasn’t stopped liking me now he’s got her,’ she goes persuasively on. ‘He still thinks I’m a good adviser, you know. I saw him again in January, on his way to Bruges, when she wasn’t there, and he was all charm and gratitude. He just can’t be bothered with detail, any more than his father can. They’re princes. They only see the big picture. They want life served up to them like a great big golden pageant. How it all actually happens, how the mock-castle bursts into flames without setting the real hall alight, how the ice swans get on the table on a hot April night – well, they leave that for the servants to worry about. So he’ll never know if I’m taking a bit on the side. Even if it’s quite a big bit. He can’t possibly find out, not for a long time, now he’s stuck at Bruges talking. And even if, when he gets back, he does find out some money’s been going, maybe even too much for any more war plans, he won’t have the eye for detail to work out where it’s gone or who’s taken it. He certainly won’t suspect me. He trusts me. I can tell him what I like. I can say, “Oh, those government clerks, always got their hands in the money-bags, nothing you can do to stop them, or check,” or, “Perhaps Master Walworth’s had a hand in it,” or anything I like, and he’ll believe me. He might even be secretly relieved if there’s not enough money for the war – he doesn’t really want to fight. He’d rather have peace, if he had an excuse that wouldn’t make him look cowardly.’
She gazes at Chaucer, with something between defiance and anxiety in her eyes. ‘So,’ she finishes, ‘I’ve seen the light. I can steal a bit, and stay. I can do it all.’
Chaucer’s lost for words.
‘Oh, Alice Perrers,’ he says, in the end. ‘You think you’re being clever. But you’re not. Just greedy. The Duke won’t need to go through the books himself to find out you’ve been stealing. You’ve got enemies all over the place. They’ll be more than willing to take care of the detail for him – point out how. And if they do catch you out, you’ll have lost him, and all your money too.’
She lifts her shoulders. He can’t dent her confidence. ‘But they won’t,’ she replies quickly. ‘They can’t. There’s no proof I’m involved.’
‘Of course there must be proof!’ he cries, and he’s astonished that she can possibly not have thought of this. Shock tingles through every careful clerkish bone in him. ‘The prices that the treasury paid for your paper will have been written down every time, in their account books. Quite openly. Yes?’
She nods, mutely. But there’s still a glimmer of impudence on her face.
‘And the prices that the Italians paid will have been written down in their account books. Also quite openly. Yes?’
She nods again. But she’s still not looking abashed.
‘So all anyone needs to do is compare the two. And see the profit you’ve made. Yes?’ Chaucer insists. He’s almost shouting, he’s so eager for her to get the point.
She shrugs. ‘But so what?’ she says carelessly. ‘They never will. No one ever does do that sort of thing, really. You know that. People are lazy. They always mean to check up, but then they just…you know…go for dinner, or something.’
‘Unless they really hate someone,’ Chaucer says lugubriously. ‘They do then.’
An indulgent smile is coming on to her face. She turns to face him and takes his shoulders. ‘You’ve been listening to too much tavern gossip. You should drink less,’ she says more gently. ‘I’m not a fool, I promise. Whatever you think. It’s all sewn up. Foolproof. All the paper that’s been redeemed at the treasury is in Latimer’s name. It was his idea in the first place; officially, he profits. And all the paper that’s been bought up from the Italians is in Richard Lyons’ name. The paper loss is in his name. So there’s no connection between them, or the two sets of transactions; and no paperwork involving me at all. Just a little bag of money, every now and then. My savings’ – she pulls her eyes down at the corners, turning her face into a comic old-woman mask – ‘for my declining years.’
Chaucer is feeling sick again. Latimer too. He’s glad he didn’t go to Latimer now. In a way, he thinks, perhaps she’s right: there’s nothing linking her to it. Still, he wishes she hadn’t told him. After all, he doesn’t want to know all this.
Weakly, he says, ‘But what if, say, someone starts investigating Latimer? Won’t he just throw you to the wolves?’
She stretches out her hands on plump little arms. She looks bewildered. ‘But why would they?’ she says simply. ‘Seriously, who would want to hurt Latimer? Don’t be naive, Chaucer. Everyone’s on the make. There’s not a soul in the royal household who hasn’t helped himself to something at some time. It’s honour among thieves. There’s no one who’d do the dirty on anyone else, in case someone came sniffing through their own dirty linen. They wouldn’t take the risk. You can always find a bit of dirt on anyone, if you dig deep enough.’
It sounds so simple.
‘No, you can’t,’ Chaucer says mutinously.
‘I reckon even you’re not too noble to have taken a sweetener every now and then.’
‘Yes I am,’ he says. But she only laughs.
‘I must go,’ he says. He’s feeling offended. He doesn’t like being laughed at, or accused of corruption.
But she steps up to him again and pulls his arms around h
er. ‘You should be pleased I’ve stopped thinking you have to choose your pleasures in life, Chaucer,’ she whispers in his ear. ‘And you don’t have to, either. You know that really. Look. Here we are, the two of us. Here you are, being offered me, as well as…’ She twinkles. ‘…whatever else you love. So are you going to turn it down?’
As she turns her face up to his, and her lips seek his out, Chaucer knows he’s not.
FIFTEEN
Peter de la Mare’s hair is greyer than before. There’s the beginning of a stoop in his back. He hasn’t got eyes for the luminous evening sky, however deliriously the birds are dipping and swooping, however sweetly the waves are lapping on the riverbank beyond the terrace at Kennington Palace.
He’s feeling discouraged.
He’s been in and around London and Westminster for weeks, on this latest visit alone. Yet he can’t find the killer facts he needs. Just rumours, so many rumours.
He can guess that the government’s money must be draining away because of some illicit connection between City and court – the two money centres of the kingdom. But that’s a hard thing to pin down. For who knows both worlds well enough to see how they might be brought together to the detriment of the kingdom? Certainly not Peter de la Mare, who knows neither world very well.
He sighs.
In the City, all they do is mutter about Alice Perrers stealing, or being behind other people’s thefts, as if every other soul in London were a model of irreproachable probity (except possibly the Fleming, Lyons; they don’t seem to like him much, either, but then who does like foreigners?). The top merchant, Walworth, can’t stop himself; he almost twitches with dislike when he hears Mistress Perrers’ name. And it’s no better at court, where Sir Peter’s met at every turn by a wall of polite, smiling hostility. They show him the account books, but they explain nothing. It’s clear they don’t want outsiders sticking their noses in.
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