“He’s just there,” someone said. I looked up to see Griven murmuring with my friend the night constable, who pointed me out. Griven approached. Short, stocky, darkened eyes still bleary beneath his cap.
“First finder, are you, Master Gower?”
I turned from the bodies. “That honor would go to your constable, I believe.”
His eyes narrowed. “You hired Shalton for a night walk, did you?”
“I did.”
“And why’s that?”
“Ask Ralph Strode.”
“I am asking you, Gower. Why were you about at night in this ward?” When I said nothing he tilted his head up in an ugly scowl. “Shalton’s saying naught, but I know you’re not as thick as that fellow. How’d you know, Gower, hmm?”
“You are parish constable, Griven, not the king’s coroner, nor a justice. I will be happy to share my knowledge at the inquest. Not before. If you are suspicious of my motives here, I ask you, again, to talk to Strode.”
He considered me for a moment longer, then blew out an annoyed sigh and turned away. The shore constable came to my side to walk me back down to the bridge, which I crossed in a dispirited state of mind. Another death, more bodies cast into the bowels of the city, a witness pursued by men willing to murder an earless child for his silence.
Chapter 28
RALPH STRODE APPEARED at my house late the following morning, a day still and cold, with lowering clouds and a struggling sun. Despite the weather I sat out in the small garden beneath the last skeletal vines clinging to an arbor, listening to the opening of the noontime office from the priory oratorium. My eyes were closed against the leaden sky, the Latin hymn circling in my ears—rector potens, verax Deus, qui temperas rerum vices—when a graveled voice interrupted the silken flow of the canons’ song.
“We pray most fervently at noon, St. Ambrose tells us, for that is when the divine light is at its highest and fullest.”
I squinted up at Strode, who eased himself onto the wooden bench crosswise from my own. “And its most clouded,” I said.
He allowed the silence to lengthen. “What were you doing out there last night, John?”
“What you asked me to do weeks ago,” I said flatly. “Looking into these killings, pulling all the needful threads.”
“John Gower, the sheriff of Southwark, panting after murderers and their traces.”
“The tracks of wolves,” I said. “It was you who set me onto them, Ralph. Why the rancorous air?”
“Seems an unlikely happenstance, doesn’t it?” he said. “John Gower, sniffing around the privy where sixteen men bedded in shit. And lo! On the one night he chooses for his illegal outing, two more show up in all their foul plenitude even as their souls mount to the celestial sphere.”
The ever philosophical Strode. I had been planning to visit him at the Guildhall that day to tell him what I had learned in Kent. Instead I told him all of it now. His shoulders fell at my description of the Portbridge gaol, the woods, the encounter with Gloucester. When I had finished, we gazed together toward the eastern span of the church, the soaring buttresses clinging to its sides like clawing hawks.
“Is all of England to end up in the Walbrook, then?” he said in a voice gruff with despair. “Are dukes and their factions to be given free license to murder and maim prisoners and carters and children, with no accountability, no hope of arrest?”
“Did Griven send you?” I said, wanting to remain with more immediate events. The constable had been riled the previous night, and I assumed he had spoken with Strode early that morning.
“Griven?” He scoffed. “Not likely. I am here at Rysyng’s request. The alderman got wind of your presence by the Walbrook from the sheriffs. He asked me to look in on you.”
“What did you tell him?” I said, wondering if Rysyng had revealed any of what he had told me.
“Little that he didn’t already know or guess. There is no burying these killings, not after all that has passed since our pleasant morning at St. Bart’s. The sheriffs are riled to the point of revolt, and the aldermen whisper of impeachment. Murder will out, despite the mayor’s efforts to keep it in.”
“Will Brembre thwart this investigation as well, then?”
“I’ve spoken to the coroner. The inquest has been delayed a week, perhaps two.”
“I’m hardly surprised,” I said, thinking of Gloucester and the night in his keep. “Delay seems to be the only constancy in all of this. Has Brembre confided in you?”
Strode fanned a hand before his face. “He grows more distrustful by the day, wild-eyed with suspicion, as if the very walls are closing in on him. First sixteen unknown bodies in the Walbrook, then the ravaged corpse of that carter, now a fisherman and a boy cutpurse. The privy channels are become a charnel house. It seems almost as if—” He stopped, his lips shutting tight, a deep frown lining his brow.
“As if someone is taunting Brembre,” I completed the thought, testing him. “Taunting London herself.” Strode, I suspected, still knew nothing about Brembre’s entanglement with the swerver, nor about Gloucester’s extortions. Perhaps Rysyng was not as careless a gossip as he seemed—or too frightened of Brembre to loosen his lips without a threat.
The bench moaned as Strode shifted his weight forward. “The crown is stepping in, John.”
“Oh?”
“The chancellor has grown alarmed at the wantonness of it all, and these suggestions about Gloucester will only rile him further. He has sent several royal pursuivants to the Guildhall, to aid in the investigations, so they claim. In reality they will serve as his ears and eyes on the city, and Brembre knows it.”
“I had thought the earl saw all of this as a London problem. What explains his sudden change?”
“That’s the reason I have come, John.” He was about to continue when several voices sounded from the house behind us. He looked over my shoulder, his face grim. “I believe your answer is arrived.”
Through the higher branches on the arbor I saw Edmund Rune coming out of my house through the kitchen door, with Will Cooper leading him toward our benches in the priory garden. Our greetings were cordial, though I was confounded by the presence of the chancellor’s secretary at St. Mary. He sat beside Strode, the two of them pressed together on the narrow bench. Rune began generally enough, discussing the state of Parliament and the current threat to the chancellor.
“The pressure is immense, and King Richard seems prepared to accede to the appellants’ wishes,” he said.
“The chancellor will step down, then?” I asked.
“Or be impeached, should the Commons approve the article.”
“What will happen after that?”
“Will they come for the king?” asked Strode.
Rune shook his head. “I think not. The chancellor’s impeachment should appease them, along with the lord treasurer’s. Beyond that—who knows? Once a predator gets a first taste of meat, no creature of flesh is safe.”
The canons began a psalm with antiphon.
“How will the lord chancellor respond?” I asked. “Is there a chance he might remain in office?”
Rune’s eyes flashed with anger. “Not without King Richard’s support, which doesn’t seem to be forthcoming, his lordship’s long and loyal service to the House of Plantagenet be damned.”
“Long as the Thames itself,” Strode put in. “The earl deserves better from His Highness.”
“His Majesty, you mean to say,” said Rune wryly. “Or so he insists on having himself addressed in recent months.”
“Let’s not plant the seeds of sedition in the priory’s garden, if you please.” I glanced toward the oratorium. Strode laughed gently.
“Perhaps you are correct, Gower,” said Rune, then breathed out a long and florid sigh. “Some things are above mere politique. Indeed that is why I have come to see you this morning.”
I watched his face, searching for purpose.
“The chancellor feels that the security of the realm is at s
take. He believes this latest news I bear merits the careful attention of the crown even in the midst of this crisis at Westminster, and despite the efforts of Parliament to depose him.”
The sentence sounded practiced, as if Rune had mouthed it several times on his way over the river. “Go on,” I said.
“There has been another massacre. A market town called Desurennes, a day’s ride from Calais.”
A bird swooped down from the near buttress, bringing memories of my last and only visit to the Pale of Calais, that ugly tongue of French land won by old King Edward some forty years ago and held as English territory since the great siege. I had traveled there with Chaucer in the first year of Richard’s reign, accompanying him on his mission to Paris for the marriage negotiations for the hand of Princess Marie of France. Despite their failure, we had spent several weeks in Paris, yet what stayed with me most were the haunted and hate-filled looks of the townspeople as we rode through the villages of the Pale, a region beaten down by its English occupiers yet still riven with dissension. Such massacres of the innocent were nothing new in the province, where dissidence and outright revolt among the native populace were constant threats. So it remained.
“Were the victims prisoners?”
“Townspeople, farmers,” Rune said. “An attack on a market day, along the town walls, and by English troops. Women and children among the dead this time, in the dozens. Those who weren’t granted the mercy to die were gruesomely wounded.”
“Guns?” I guessed.
“Handgonnes. Many of them, and longbows as well. An English company in the bright of day advanced on the town, slaughtering all before them.”
“Surely the captain of Calais will bring these men to justice. They must have been part of his garrison.”
“That will not be so simple,” Rune said. “There’s great anger throughout the Pale, with all set on bloody vengeance rather than the king’s justice. The Calais garrison already sucks up a quarter and more of the royal treasury. Even that may not be enough to hold back rebellion once it comes. Desurennes has a reputation for sedition. Well deserved, and it’s no secret that new flames are sparking throughout the Pale. Stamping them out is one of the captain’s sworn duties.”
“Though not with such methods, I hope,” said Strode.
“Perhaps not. Yet fire must be met with fire, some would avow,” he said grimly. “The whole of the Pale is a cask of powder waiting for a spark. The people fear another attack—as do I.”
The canons had moved on to the collect, intoned by a cantor whose lone voice sounded faintly across the priory yard.
“Why have you told me all this, Rune?” I asked him. “Do you suspect the two massacres are related? And supposing they are, what can you expect me to learn about this new incident in the Pale that you haven’t already learned yourself?”
My visitors exchanged a look. Ralph nodded slightly. “There is something else, John,” said Rune.
The use of my given name by the chancellor’s secretary felt uncomfortable, too intimate. I scarcely knew the man, and he was in my own house uninvited.
“In addition to the massacre at Desurennes, there are disturbing reports out of the Pale. Reports of English ships along the coast of Flanders, between Calais and Sluys, selling saltpetre to the Flemings, allies of France and Burgundy. The company appears to be trading in arms to be used against England, and just as the French fleet prepares to sail against our shores.”
“Treason,” I said, and once again I saw this whole affair as an expanding circle, drawing more and more into its noose.
“The chancellor asks that you make your way to Calais. Your ostensible purpose will be to see what you can learn about the massacre and who was responsible. You will lodge at the house of Pierre Broussard, a wool broker. French, but one of our most trusted men in the Staple Company.”
“Chaucer knows him?”
“He must, though we’ve not spoken about the affair. The chancellor requests that you say nothing to him should you see him before your departure. When Chaucer left the wool custom he bent some beaks across the sea, in Calais and Middleburgh alike, so his involvement would do more harm than good.”
All of this was moving too quickly. “Why have you come to me, Rune? This is an absurdity. I have no men in Calais, no sources in the Pale. What role does the chancellor wish me to play here?”
He fixed Strode with another look. Before either could reply I spoke. “You said my ostensible purpose is to look into the massacre. What is the real purpose of this visit? Why are you here, Rune?”
Rune tightened his lips, then said, “Reports have come to us from an informer, a man slipping in and out of Calais in recent months, journeying overland between Flanders and the Pale, keeping an eye on the French fleet at Sluys. We’ve been paying him well for his information, which has been solid and reliable. Now he claims to have proof of the identity of these smugglers. That is your second task.”
“Again, Rune, I fail to see—”
“He says he will give it only to you, John Gower, and to no one else.”
Rune’s words hit me like a slap to the cheek, drawing me to my feet. “I want nothing further to do with this.”
Rune stood with me. “He will make contact after you arrive in Calais.”
Strode struggled up as well. “John—” he began.
I held forth my hands, as if to shield myself from what he was about to tell me.
“We are here at the lord chancellor’s command,” said Rune. “He believes, as do I, that the answers are in Calais.”
The canons’ chanting had ceased with the close of the minor office. Edmund Rune spoke into the silence. “You must sail from Gravesend at the earliest opportunity,” he said. “You will travel through Calais to Desurennes, learn what you can about the massacre, then return to Calais. Our informant will contact you there.”
“This is an impossibility, Rune,” I said, my distress mounting. Strode was about to intervene when Rune cut us off.
“Enough.” His face bristled with impatience. “There is no choice in the matter, Gower. This is out of your control and ours, and it transcends the politics of the moment. Would you put your comfort here at the priory before the security of the realm?”
My face had gone rigid, and I was about to object again when he held up an appeasing hand. “You must pardon my manner, Gower. It is wearing on a man, to work so closely with a lord so admirable and good when the king and the Parliament will do nothing to support him. May I go on?”
I nodded tightly, arms crossed over my chest. Rune was all sincerity and true concern in that moment, the embodiment of all that Michael de la Pole had meant to England and its kings in years past. As the voice of the chancellor he deserved attention, perhaps compliance. Yet there was a sickening weight on my heart as I waited for the revelation to come.
“Tread carefully over there,” said Rune, now businesslike. “The captain of Calais, William Beauchamp, is Warwick’s brother, a strong ally of Gloucester’s against the king. He knows nothing about this gunpowder trade, or so we believe. When you speak with Beauchamp you must stay silent about our man and what he tells you, on peril of your life.”
“And his,” Strode added.
“Who is the informant?” The only question that mattered, though I already knew its answer.
Rune turned to Strode, who looked upon my agitation with sober and sympathetic eyes. Ralph stepped toward me and clutched my arm, fitting words of Scripture to this small calamity. “‘For this my son was dead, and is come to life again. He was lost, and now is found.’”
I stared at him, deaf to the gospel’s sweetening words. “Again,” I whispered, still unwilling to believe.
“Yes, John,” Strode gently said. “This man in Calais is Simon Gower.”
My son.
PART III
Chapter 29
A LIFT TO THE SKY, a smack in a trough, and for the third time in an hour I emptied my stomach between my feet. My eyes burned with
sickness as I clung to a post belowdecks with the barrels and bales, every surface slick with sea and pelting rain. Ropes and timbers groaning like whipped bulls, our feet pressed on the ends of bent clinker nails, the cog tossed on a river of hell, and dry land the remotest of memories though we had left hours before.
Perfect sailing weather, the crew kept insisting with a cruel kind of glee.
That crossing from Gravesend to Calais was only the third time in my life I had been aship. The first was at the insistence of my father, who brought me with him for a visit to his cousin’s manor in Brittany, years before age would teach me discomfort. The second took me on a trip to Paris with Chaucer during the marriage negotiations for King Richard. That vessel, a royal galley accustomed to ferrying kings, dukes, and earls across to France, cut the waves like a short sword through a mound of suet. I remembered a calm sea, no hint of sickness, forty oarsmen pulling at the rhythmic call of their master.
Nothing as humble as this ship, which, I learned upon embarking, had set sail from the Holy Land that summer. In Portsmouth the vessel had been pressed into service by one of the king’s admirals, and now the crew were girding themselves for war between powers, though it was hard to see where they might fit in, and on whose side. The merchant ship was a world worthy of Mandeville, fifteen swart and hearty men, heads wrapped in colorful scarves of impossible colors to match the variegated hues of their skin, which varied from sun-scorched red to nut brown to black as devil’s pitch. Though they spoke in innumerable languages they seemed to share a patchwork tongue all their own, befitting the culture of a crew gathered from the far corners of the earth, and indifferent to the nature of their cargo, whether men of war, Flemish cloth, or spices from the east.
Only two of them were Englishmen. Northerners, one of them kind enough to comfort me through my several hours of misery. “Think nowt an it, squire. Earls, duchesses, queens—why, e’en the highest bloods lase it aff Dover, and no shame in it nathah.”
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