The False Virgin

by The Medieval Murderers

  Joan could not remember but Thomas said, ‘Yes, Geoffrey, here and here and here.’ He indicated most of the fingers on his own hands. ‘And all different coloured stones too.’ Thomas was quite recovered by now and enjoying the attention.

  Geoffrey thought that it was probably one of the visitor’s rings that caught the lad across the forehead. But if the individual was wearing rings set with different coloured stones, then he was no impoverished thief. He was no ordinary thief either, to be going and taking manuscripts.

  Geoffrey went outside and questioned William, the porter who had a little wooden lodge on the inner side of the Aldgate arch. His job was to keep an eye on the comings and goings through the gate, which as well as being a busy entrance was a spot where various ne’er-do-wells were inclined to gather if not shoo-ed away. William’s work did not stop there. Every cart arriving with goods from the country had to pay a small fee, which went towards paving the streets. Early in the morning William removed the drawbars and swung back the great oak doors that kept the city safe during the hours of darkness, and last thing in the evening he did the same in reverse. William knew Geoffrey Chaucer, of course, the person with royal connections who lodged over his head. Geoffrey enjoyed his company and a chat every now and then. But the porter could be no help on this occasion. No, he had not witnessed a man making a hasty exit from Chaucer’s front door, let alone seen in which direction he might have gone.

  Geoffrey had not held out much hope from William and he returned to his upstairs office and started to tidy the room. The thief had been searching for something specific and only disordered the owner’s documents and books, as Thomas witnessed. Even so, it took Chaucer some time to return everything to its place, checking to see that nothing was damaged. What was missing was, as he half expected, one of the copies of his poem about St Beornwyn, one out of the three manuscripts for which he had paid the St Paul’s copier two whole marks. In addition, a clutch of his official documents had vanished, material to do with the wine and wool imports. Geoffrey kept an orderly desk and had a fairly good idea of what had been taken: lists of quantities and commissions, mostly. None of it was a proper secret and none of it would be of much use to anyone outside the office of Controller of Customs. He suspected that the thief had snatched these pieces either in a panic or as a cover for his real objective, which was the Beornwyn story.

  Well, if he was hoping to deprive the world of the fruits of Chaucer’s poetic skill then he was too late, for there were already two copies of the poem in circulation among John of Gaunt’s retinue at the Savoy. And Geoffrey still had possession of the original, which he’d penned at Bermondsey Priory.

  Geoffrey couldn’t imagine who would take the trouble to make off with a poem. The only people aware of its existence were John of Gaunt and a handful of others in the Savoy, such as Thomas Banks. Yet if anyone in the Savoy was eager to see it then he merely had to lay hands on one of the copies that Chaucer had dispatched to the Palace. The description provided by Joan and young Thomas left no doubt that the thieving caller was a gentleman, one with many-ringed fingers, someone on the King’s business – though that part must be a lie surely. But nevertheless he was a person who was well-to-do, if not noble. It made no sense.

  Then he spotted an overlooked manuscript lying in a dark corner. He picked it up. It was a scroll, fastened with an unbroken disc of red wax. The gentleman thief had arrived at Aldgate brandishing a scroll with a red seal. He must have dropped it in the rush to get away. Chaucer went over to the window and examined the seal. He thought he recognised the device imprinted in the wax, a rudimentary castle with three towers. He broke the seal without any qualms and unfurled the document.

  He stood there for some time, squinting at the unfamiliar script and scratching his head. He did not know much of the language but he knew enough to obtain a general sense of what the document contained. It appeared to be about the purchase of some plot of land, not land in England but in Castile. The thing was in Spanish.

  Despite its size the audience chamber was full, or so it seemed to Geoffrey Chaucer. He glanced round, dazzled by the wealth of candles on display, candles whose beams were intensified by their reflection in so many mirrored and plated surfaces. The candles were a sign of splendour and abundance, and scarcely needed since the evening was fine with sufficient light still coming through the ample windows to read by.

  Geoffrey was standing at a lectern, ready to recite the story of St Beornwyn. Directly in front of him, seated on a great chair, which was almost a throne, and under a canopied dais, was John of Gaunt. At a discreet distance from the Duke of Lancaster were seated Katherine Swynford and other ladies of the household, including Philippa Chaucer. Further back in the room were yet more ladies, with a scattering of gentlemen as well. Chaucer had been surprised to recognise a couple of them. One was Sir Edward Jupe, the lanky knight from the Tabard Inn. He greeted Geoffrey warmly, saying that he thought he recognised his name on their first encounter but had not realised he was addressing the illustrious poet or ‘maker’, as he put it. Standing to one side was a demure-looking lady who glanced repeatedly at Sir Edward, as he did at her. Chaucer assumed she was the one he had been racing to see, wearing his rust-patterned tunic and all. He was better dressed now, though in a style befitting a knight who has neither the time nor the resources to waste on the latest fashion.

  Thomas Banks was also in attendance, an unusual honour for a mere steward, but it confirmed that his place in the Lancaster household was more important than it appeared. A greater surprise was to see the handsome Spanish man, the Castilian, whom Chaucer had glimpsed in company with his wife. He asked Philippa who he was, pretending that it was an idle query and claiming that he had glimpsed the gentleman round the Palace. Was it his imagination or did Philippa look uneasy? She told her husband that this individual was called – and here she paused as if struggling to recall his name – Carlos de Flores and that he was part of the retinue of Queen Constance. Something in Philippa’s hesitation wasn’t convincing. As for Queen Constance of Castile, she was not in the audience chamber, of course. Indeed, she only kept company with her husband on public occasions, and not always then. There were other Castilians in the room, including a round-faced priest with a prominent pectoral cross.

  Geoffrey regarded these individuals with some suspicion. He’d come to the conclusion that the thieving visitor to his lodgings must have been someone connected to Constance. It was obvious, really. Knowledge of the Beornwyn poem was restricted to the Savoy, where almost anyone on the English side might have been able to have a sight of it since he had already dispatched two copies there. But the nest of Castilians in the palace might not have been aware of this. If they wanted to read about Beornwyn, for reasons Geoffrey couldn’t yet fathom, then the only way would have been to go to the source himself, or rather to Aldgate. More conclusive evidence of a Castilian visitor was that the legal document was in Spanish (it was indeed about the transfer of a parcel of land). Geoffrey’s belief was that the caller had simply snatched up the scroll at random to impress whoever he found in Aldgate. The red seal with the device of the three-turreted castle signified the house of Castile. When Geoffrey talked more about the robbery to Joan and Thomas he discovered that mother and son had not detected any foreign accent but, to them, he was a gentleman and all gentlemen talked differently – or oddly.

  John of Gaunt cleared his throat as a sign that Geoffrey might begin. The gentle conversations in the chamber died away. Geoffrey glanced down at the sheets before him, the version of the saint’s life written out in his own hand. He started to recite, working half from memory, half from the words before him.

  ‘God grant that all our dreams are fair,

  For certain in this life is care

  Enough without there be more strife

  From sleep than in our waking life.’

  After a while he realised that he was not receiving the response he expected. Quiet attentiveness, yes, but with an underto
ne of coldness, even disapproval. Some of the court ladies glanced at each other. When Chaucer came to the part of the story, the dream sequence, speculating that Beornwyn might not have been a pure maid after all but a woman like any other, the glances became more frequent and there was even the odd bout of muttering. All at once he understood what he should have understood before: that a saint’s life, however remote and unlikely in its details, was nevertheless a kind of sacred object, not to be tampered with. He realised too that although he had sent copies to the Savoy it seemed as though no one had looked very carefully at the poem.

  It was fortunate he concluded the poem by stressing Beornwyn’s purity, and dwelling on her butterfly cloak and other miracles. Even so, the applause at the end, led by John of Gaunt, was muted. The only individual to compliment him was – and this was most odd – the round-faced priest with the cross, whose name was Luis. He had a large, fleshy hand, which he offered like a lump of meat, the fingers weighted with rings, Geoffrey noticed.

  ‘Master Chaucer,’ he said, although he had difficulty getting his tongue round the name, ‘your fame is spread far and wide. Now with this romance of your saint from the north, her fame is spreading too. But you do not think she was such a saint, eh?’

  Geoffrey gave some bland answer to the effect that it was a story, and so something half true, half invented. He was starting to regret ever having heard of Beornwyn, although he did not say this.

  But Geoffrey’s regrets on this evening in the audience chamber of the Savoy were as nothing to his regrets a day later when the news reached him that a man had been found dead on the Thames foreshore and that, tucked away inside the corpse’s tunic, was a copy of his very own work.

  V

  It was the morning after the discovery of the body on the foreshore. Once again, Geoffrey was at the Savoy, although not in the light and luxury of the audience chamber or in the comfort of his wife’s quarters. Instead he was sitting in a chilly, cramped office that had been put at his disposal. He couldn’t help feeling that the meagre quality of the room was an implicit rebuke or even a warning. Geoffrey was out of favour with John of Gaunt, and this was a bad position to be in.

  It was not only that Chaucer had written and recited a poem that was coldly received by its listeners on account of its disrespectful, even irreverent treatment of a saint who – for God’s sake! – Gaunt had not even heard of until a couple of months ago. It was more than the fact that a member of the retinue of Queen Constance had been discovered dead by the river. Worse still, from Geoffrey’s point of view, was the copy of the Beornwyn poem that had been found on the body of Carlos de Flores. It seemed as though he was somehow being held responsible for de Flores’s death, at least in part. As far as the riverside corpse was concerned, the story was being put about that he had drowned. But the truth, that he’d sustained a vicious attack, was also starting to circulate, despite the best efforts of Thomas Banks to prevent it getting out. Furthermore, the fatal injuries had probably been made with a knife. It was not known whether these rumours had yet reached the ears of Constance but they surely would.

  ‘Our master has asked me to ask you to look into the matter, to . . . resolve it somehow,’ said Thomas Banks.

  The steward was sitting across from Chaucer in the little room. He tugged absently at his chain of office. This request from Gaunt, coming via Banks, was more of an order. And Chaucer couldn’t help feeling some involvement in the whole business anyway. He had never spoken to the dead man but he had spied on him. Geoffrey couldn’t help wondering how well his wife had known de Flores. He guessed that the copy of the poem on the body was the one that had been stolen from Aldgate. In which case, de Flores was almost certainly the thief.

  ‘You will do this, resolve the matter or clear it away,’ said Thomas Banks. Again, it was more instruction than request. ‘Our master is preoccupied, he has other things on his mind. You may have whatever you need, speak to whoever you want. Our master has put me at your disposal.’

  Geoffrey was irritated by these references to ‘our master’, as if Banks were determined to show himself the perfect, diligent servant. Yet the steward was right to say that Gaunt was preoccupied. His older brother, Edward, was very near to death, it could be only a matter of days. When that happened, and because of the infirmity of his father, John’s position in the country would be all powerful. The last thing Lancaster needed was some scandal to do with a courtier from his wife’s company of foreigners.

  Nevertheless Geoffrey tried to take things in a different direction.

  ‘Isn’t it possible that this de Flores was attacked by a stranger, by someone who has nothing to do with the Savoy Palace? Perhaps he was the victim of a robbery?’

  ‘No,’ said the steward. ‘For one thing, the only way down to the river shore where he was found is through the palace gardens. For another, not a thing was taken from his body. His rings, his jewellery, everything was there. Including this.’

  From a pocket Banks fished a thin golden chain. It was broken. There was a small ruby set in the chain. Banks laughed, a dry, humourless sound.

  ‘This ruby did not protect him from harm.’

  ‘May I have it?’ said Geoffrey. ‘I’d like to show it to someone.’

  The steward shrugged, as if to say: do what you please. Now Chaucer picked up the copy of the Beornwyn story, which Banks had earlier presented to him as if it were evidence of some crime. And it was evidence in a way. After all, there was blood on one end.

  ‘I suppose it is a coincidence de Flores had this with him when he was found?’

  ‘I do not think so, Master Chaucer.’

  ‘That’s what I was afraid of. I cannot see any reason why he should have it, though.’

  ‘Oh, I can help you there. I have a . . . witness . . . one who has a story.’

  Banks left the room. Geoffrey thought about his predicament. He would have to talk to Philippa, at some point, about the man de Flores.

  The steward returned with someone else. To Geoffrey’s amazement it was the red-capped person from the Tabard, the firebrand, the one he’d seen entering the Savoy several weeks before. He remembered now that he’d intended to report on the man’s fiery words to Thomas Banks. Not necessary now since the two were obviously acquainted. The man was just as surprised to see Chaucer. But Geoffrey seized the advantage in greeting him by name: ‘John Hall.’

  ‘Why, it is the man who says John of Gaunt is the issue of a dragon and a mermaid.’

  Now it was Banks’s turn to look confused.

  Chaucer said, ‘We have met, we two, and not under auspicious circumstances. The last time I saw you, John Hall, you were spouting seditious words against the Savoy.’

  Hall did not reply. He looked at the steward.

  ‘The words you heard should not be taken at face value, Master Chaucer. This one is in my pay. By coincidence – yes, this is a genuine coincidence – it was his brother and another man who discovered de Flores’s body yesterday. Hugh Hall is a member of this household. It gives brother John a pretext for visiting from time to time.’

  ‘I see,’ said Geoffrey, though he didn’t.

  ‘Explain yourself,’ said Thomas Banks to Hall. He returned to his seat. Chaucer had not left his. Hall remained standing. In his posture and tone was a mixture of defiance and deference.

  ‘I am in the secret employment of this gentleman here,’ he said to Geoffrey, who noticed that he used the word ‘employment’ instead of ‘pay’. ‘My work makes for strange bedfellows, whether in the Tabard Inn or elsewhere. If you want an explanation for my “seditious words”, sir, it is because sometimes the discontented and the treasonous have to be smoked out of their lairs. Pretending to be one of them is a way of doing it.’

  Geoffrey observed how, as he was saying this, Hall’s eyes darted repeatedly towards Banks. Hall was definitely a spy of some kind but Geoffrey wondered whether the steward knew the real force of Hall’s rants against John of Gaunt and the house of Lancaster. He
wondered what the red-cap actually believed, whose side he was on. The uncertainty was not cleared up when Hall continued: ‘Also, sir, I have been reporting to a gentleman in the Spanish party here in the Savoy.’

  ‘The dead man, de Flores?’

  Hall ducked his head slightly in acknowledgement. ‘Yes. His death had nothing to do with me.’

  ‘No one said it did,’ said Geoffrey.

  ‘The Spaniard believed I was telling him things even while he was telling me things, all unawares. Things that I passed on to my employer here.’

  ‘Did you get paid by the dead man for your things?’

  ‘No . . .’ Then seeing the expression on Geoffrey’s face, he said: ‘Not much anyway . . . not enough . . .’

  ‘You had a disagreement over payment. You had a fight.’

  ‘We had a falling out,’ said the man, choosing his words with care. ‘But I did not kill him, I say.’

  ‘No one said you did, John Hall. What did you learn from this de Flores?’

  ‘The Castilian was interested in causing a division here in the Duke’s court. He talked of a poem.’

  ‘A poem?’ said Geoffrey, feeling a chill that was not caused by the dank chamber.

  ‘A poem about a lady who was not what she seemed. I didn’t understand what he was talking about.’

  ‘You were not dispatched on any errands by de Flores?’ said Geoffrey. ‘For example, you did not visit a house in Aldgate to – obtain an item – through deception?’

  Either the look of bafflement on the other’s face was genuine or John Hall was a fine player. But Chaucer did not believe that he was the one who’d stolen the Beornwyn piece anyway. Nor did he seem to have any notion of why the Castilians might wish to get their hands on the poem. Geoffrey nodded at Thomas Banks as a sign that his man could go. The steward waved the spy away and Hall moved out of the room in his stiff-gaited way.

  When the door had closed, Banks stood up, arms akimbo.