The Knight's Tale

by M. J. Trow

  The chanted Te Deum echoed in the cloisters where the rain ran down the stone tracery and splashed onto the flagstones. Behind Hawkwood, a knight bearing Clarence’s arms rode the dead man’s horse. The embroidered bard, of velvet and gold, dragged on the ground, and the animal snickered and whinnied, unused to the chanting and unsure of a different man on his back. Chaucer walked with the Glanvilles behind the animal, glancing up every now and then to stare at the great helm with its bull crest and its mantling fluttering in the breeze. It was as though the ghost of Clarence rode behind that sad retinue, watching with envy the souls who still lived. Beneath the clatter of hoofs, the creaking of leather and the hum of the crowd, he thought he could almost hear the spirit sigh.

  Chaucer looked behind him. The Lady Violante walked alone, her brother and her seneschal a few dutiful paces back. A black veil hid her face, but her head was held high and her bearing was, as ever, superb. She looked straight ahead, though Chaucer got the feeling that, beneath her veil, her dark eyes missed nothing.

  At the priory door, circled with its Norman arch, the column halted and the prior himself, in his robes edged with black for the occasion, held up his seal. Butterfield came out of nowhere and bowed before the man, before taking it and smashing it to pieces on the step. Then he bowed to the prior again and stood aside as the monks continued into the dark chill of the church. At the end of the nave, the columns rising to God on either side, what seemed like a thousand candles blazed, their flames dazzling on the gold and silver and the many-coloured glass.

  From the walls, the painted figures looked down at the procession. The Virgin herself, highest and best, smiling at another soul due to join her in Heaven. Her Son was everywhere, lecturing to the scholars in the Temple, curing the lame and the sick, lifting Lazarus from his grave. And the older icons were there – Moses, Isaiah, Job; all the great and good of the ancients bearing silent witness to the laying of Lionel of Antwerp in his grave.

  That grave had been dug in the south aisle, where, on a good day, the sun hit the floor with the blues, reds and greens of the glass, the holy colours of Mary herself. Father Clement, crossing himself, lifted the funeral helm from the coffin and held it up to the altar, intoning in Latin the dirge for the dead. The monks laid their burden down and the prior took charge of the Mass. There was a murmur as the poor were allowed in, men, women and children in rags and filth, kneeling before the altar in something akin to terror as the prior blessed them. Then he pressed a silver coin into the hands of each one.

  ‘Nice to see somebody getting what’s due to them,’ Chaucer heard someone mutter, and turned to see the party of guildsmen he had noticed at dinner in the castle, in their various liveries, standing together and scowling at Lionel of Antwerp’s largesse. Of such, Chaucer noted, and not for the first time, are the Kingdom of Heaven.

  The rain did not stop until darkness fell. By that time, the living had left the priory church, leaving the dead behind with a solitary monk whose knees were soon numbed by the hard cold of the flagstones. When he saw the last mourners leave, he walked around the nave, solemnly extinguishing all the candles – the breath of God – until only one remained, the one that glowed dimly on the coffin lid, deep in the still-open grave.

  Up at the castle, the Lady Violante had put on a spread scarcely seen in Suffolk and the wine flowed freely. Cry for a dead man in church as his body is laid in the cold ground. Then laugh with him as you remember all the good things in his life, but most of all, because he is dead and you are not; that thought was written clearly on every face in the warm, crowded room. She looked around the hall at Clare, seeing, just briefly, her late husband wandering between the tables, shaking hands, kissing cheeks. Everyone would remember this day for the rest of their lives.

  ‘Well, Chaucer.’ John of Gaunt was still wearing his funeral black, but he had lost the uncomfortable armour and nobody was further from his mind than Lionel of Antwerp. ‘Still in the Aldgate?’

  ‘Indeed, my lord,’ the comptroller told him. ‘Many thanks to you, as always.’

  Gaunt shook his head. ‘Think nothing of it,’ he said, between mouthfuls of blancmange. ‘I know lodgings are like hens’ teeth. I, for instance, can’t build the extension I’d like to at the Savoy because of the bloody river.’

  ‘Dreadful,’ Chaucer sympathized.

  ‘I thought I could divert the Thames, build some sort of weir, perhaps, but the engineer chappies say it can’t be done. I’ll just have to expand to the north a bit, along the Strand, you know, towards Charing Cross.’

  Chaucer knew.

  ‘By the way,’ he leaned back in his high-backed chair at the top table, gesturing to the man on the other side of him. ‘You know Johnny Hawkwood, of course.’

  ‘Er … no,’ Chaucer said, apologizing for reaching across His Lordship to shake the mercenary’s hand. Suddenly, the comptroller realized that he had no idea how to address the man. Some said he had been knighted by the Black Prince himself after Poitiers; others that he had no title at all. To John of Gaunt, of course, he was just another Johnny.

  ‘Sir,’ was the best Chaucer could manage.

  ‘Chaucer,’ Hawkwood grunted. He was not the most civil of men and funerals brought out the worst in him.

  ‘I’m surprised you two didn’t meet up on that mission I sent you on. Milan. Two years ago now, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, you know how it is, my lord,’ Chaucer gushed. ‘In a busy life …’

  ‘Hmm. You don’t remember Chaucer, Johnny?’

  ‘Never seen him before in my life,’ Hawkwood growled, ‘before yesterday. I thought he was some sort of vintner; has that look about him.’

  Chaucer’s moustache bristled. He had once been the king’s squire, for God’s sake; his wife was minor aristocracy – oh, all right, gentry. But major gentry, mind you. But he found himself looking into Hawkwood’s cold, grey eyes and felt it would be unwise to ruffle this hawk’s feathers.

  ‘How is that, Chaucer?’ Gaunt wanted to know. ‘Both of you were on the same mission, I haven’t got that wrong, I know. Milan’s not that big a place, is it?’

  ‘Well, my lord,’ Chaucer was having to think quickly. ‘Bernabo Visconti was a difficult man to pin down. I seem to have spent weeks loitering outside his palazzo.’

  ‘Is that where you met Violante?’ Gaunt asked, clicking his fingers for more wine.

  ‘Er … no, I didn’t have that pleasure until the other day. She was away when I was in Milan; good works, I understand, with the sisters of Saint Eulalia.’ Chaucer had no idea whether they even existed, but it sounded plausible and John of Gaunt was a Hispanophile to his rerebrace, so he should be none the wiser.

  ‘Well, there it is,’ Gaunt sighed. ‘Funny things, missions.’

  ‘Aren’t they, though?’ Chaucer beamed.

  ‘Look,’ Gaunt leaned across to him, ‘I’d better make small talk with the sister-in-law, although, technically, I suppose she isn’t that any more,’ and he left.

  Chaucer sat back down again and found himself with John Hawkwood as a table companion, which was a little like striking up a conversation with a gargoyle; it was more of a one-versation, if Chaucer had been forced to describe it. On his left was young Hugh Glanville, all pomade and peacock beauty, but since there was a particularly gorgeous lady on his left, the comptroller was suddenly alone. Then he noticed the guildsmen at a lower table and remembered the intriguing comment he had heard whispered in the church. Excusing himself to Hawkwood, who barely noticed, he scuttled over to them.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said with a smile, ‘Geoffrey Chaucer, Comptroller of Woollens.’

  All five of them struggled to their feet. ‘Charmed, sir,’ said the first. ‘Simon Fawcett, tapicer – of the Corpus Christi Guild.’ Chaucer knew that from the man’s livery, the elegant badge embroidered on the shoulder of his houppelande. ‘This is David Ifaywer, of the Carpenters’ fraternity.’

  ‘Guild of St Anne.’ Ifaywer shook Chaucer’s hand.

&
nbsp; ‘Robert Whitlow, haberdasher.’

  ‘St John the Baptist Guild,’ Whitlow explained.

  ‘Nicholas Straits, the dyer.’

  Straits half-bowed. If Chaucer was a woollens man, these textile people must stay together. ‘Guild of St Augustine,’ he said, indistinctly to his own knee.

  ‘And last, but certainly not least, Andrew Trumpington, cordwainer.’

  ‘Guild of St Peter,’ the leatherman explained.

  Chaucer, who was very good at grips, weighed each man’s handshake in turn. Judging by the softness of them, none of them had done a hand’s turn in their chosen craft for years.

  ‘This might not be a very appropriate time, Master Chaucer,’ Ifaywer said, ‘but are you a queck man?’

  ‘A what?’ Chaucer asked.

  ‘Give it a rest, David,’ Fawcett scolded the man good-naturedly. ‘Now is not the time, what with His Grace fresh in his grave. And, anyway, queck is a Suffolk game, Master Chaucer’s from London – he won’t know of such nonsense.’

  ‘I heard you lived here as a lad,’ Ifaywer said, taking in Chaucer’s greying hair. ‘Before my time, of course.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the comptroller smiled, ‘but I’ve never heard of the game.’

  ‘Another time, then,’ Ifaywer said. ‘We’ll introduce you to it. And, believe me, once you’ve savoured the delights of the queck board, you’ll never be the same.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Chaucer beamed. ‘I was very touched, gentlemen, that you approved of the late duke’s bounty in giving alms to the poor at the Mass.’

  The guildsmen looked at each other.

  ‘That’s what the guilds are all about, Master Chaucer,’ Fawcett said, ‘looking after the poor. We provide for six widows and orphans, pay for burial services, hire chantry priests to keep souls from Purgatory.’

  ‘A worthy cause,’ Chaucer nodded, but the phrase he had heard in church sounded nothing like that. ‘It’s good of you to come and pay your respects to His Grace.’

  ‘Oh, it’s the least we could do,’ Straits said. ‘We all owe the duke such a lot.’

  And Chaucer didn’t fail to notice the smirk that passed between them.

  Across the hall, as the wine flowed and the solemnity of the occasion gave way to something approaching mirth, Lady Violante’s seneschal, Niccolò Ferrante, helped himself to Chaucer’s chair and sat sideways, staring at John Hawkwood.

  ‘Was there something?’ the mercenary asked, without turning his head.

  ‘The stiletto up your left sleeve,’ the Italian said. ‘Is that just habit, or are you expecting trouble?’

  Hawkwood still didn’t turn. ‘Only perpetually,’ he murmured.

  ‘I thought you’d made your peace with—’ but Ferrante didn’t get far with that sentence.

  ‘I did,’ Hawkwood cut in. ‘That’s over with.’

  ‘Lady Violante!’ There was a shout from the hall’s entrance and a huge man in a houppelande strode in, roughs at his back armed with staves. A dozen men were on their feet, Ferrante and the Glanvilles among them. Chaucer was already standing but he noticed the guildsmen remained firmly in their seats.

  Butterfield crossed the floor in what seemed like a single stride and confronted the man.

  ‘Have you come to pay your respects, sir?’ he asked. ‘If you have, I would ask your men to lay their weapons at the door. This is not a fairground.’

  ‘I have come to talk to the Lady Violante,’ the man said, ‘and it’s private and personal.’

  Chaucer wondered what the approach would be if it were public and generic. He bent to the nearest guildsman. ‘Who’s he?’ he said.

  ‘That’s Peter Vickers,’ Fawcett told him. ‘Has lands over Sudbury way.’

  Chaucer thought the man looked vaguely familiar, but he had seen so many new faces in the last few days. ‘He wouldn’t have a daughter called Blanche by any chance?’

  All five guildsmen looked at him. ‘How do you know Blanche?’ Whitlow asked, his face oddly crimson all of a sudden.

  ‘I don’t,’ Chaucer said, looking closely at Whitlow. ‘Although I believe several people do.’

  Richard Glanville had joined Butterfield. He stared Vickers in the face. ‘I believe the seneschal has made our views clear, Vickers,’ he said. ‘He speaks for us all.’

  ‘I only want what’s right.’ Vickers stood his ground, obviously hoping that the thugs at his back would carry more weight than this solitary knight. The arrival of an overdressed fop of a squire didn’t shift his views at all.

  ‘Hoo!’ There was a shout from the corner. ‘I am John of Gaunt,’ he announced, as if that were necessary. ‘Duke of Lancaster. As the highest ranked in the room, may I take over, Sir Richard?’

  ‘Be my guest, my lord.’ Glanville bowed and stepped to one side.

  ‘Hawkwood,’ Gaunt clicked his fingers.

  The mercenary had barely left his seat when the poignard hissed through the air to thud into the chest of the oaf at Vickers’ elbow. The knarre grunted and staggered back with the sudden impact before collapsing in a heap, his blood pumping from his chest.

  There were gasps and screams all over the hall.

  ‘I am sorry the ladies had to see that,’ Gaunt said. ‘My Lady Violante, sister, please accept my deepest apologies.’ His face, however, showed no apology whatever. Neither did John Hawkwood’s; the man had already sat back down and was finishing his drink.

  Speechless with shock and fury, Vickers spun on his heel and helped his men carry his dead tenant out of the hall.

  ‘Butterfield.’ Richard Glanville tapped the man’s arm. ‘Bring your people. Let’s see those bastards off the premises.’

  Although John Hawkwood’s display of knife-throwing was not intended as entertainment, it did change the tenor of the gathering and, one by one, people began to gather up cloaks, dogs and wives and make their way to the great double doors which led out of the hall and into the inner bailey. Soon, the click of hoof on cobble told those still within that the horses were being brought to the door; the crowd had thinned considerably. Chaucer looked around and noticed that the guildsmen had all gone; he was surprised, they had struck him as men who would stay at any table while a crumb was uneaten or a mouthful of wine unswallowed.

  As the guests began to leave, so the servants began to clear the debris on the tables. They were all but invisible as they quietly went about their work; Butterfield ran a tight ship in the castle at Clare. Chaucer looked about him for the one face he knew; Joyce would be bound to be about her work, elegant, slender, her plait swinging down her back. He found himself wanting to see her very much; although she had perhaps not been the innocent girl he had thought her all those years ago, a first time is a first time and she would always hold that place in his heart. Finally, he saw her, in her apron and simple gown, walking away from him, a basket on her hip, collecting the half-chewed crusts that guests had left in their wake, like flotsam on a shore. She reached the bottom of the table and hitched the basket up, then raised her eyes to look straight into his.

  In what seemed to be only a few strides, but what in fact was a stumbling struggle through people all heading the other way, he was by her side.

  ‘Joyce. You’re crying. Whatever is it?’

  She turned her tear-stained face to him, so trusting it made his heart turn over. ‘It’s Ankarette. She’s dead.’

  He knew the name. He just couldn’t remember who it was. Not one of her nine children, surely? Not even Butterfield could be that strict. He set his face in an expression of general sympathy, to be adjusted accordingly, depending on who the dead Ankarette was.

  ‘His Grace’s dog. The wolfhound I told you about.’

  Chaucer sighed with relief. A dead child would have been a hard thing to commiserate with in this setting. ‘I do remember, yes. Poor animal. Grief, do you think?’ He pushed his head forward, slightly turned, the classic pose of the person who sympathizes without caring one jot for the other’s loss. A dog, for the love of
God. When the whole castle was overrun with the curs.

  The woman wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand and sniffed. ‘I would have said that, Geoff,’ she looked quickly from side to side to make sure her discourtesy to a guest had gone unremarked, ‘but she seemed to be cheering up. The scullions spoiled her, she had the best food and as much attention as she could want. Yes, she missed her master; any animal will do that. But even dogs are fickle – when there is fowl and warm milk on offer, they’ll soon have a new master. But,’ she shrugged and hitched her basket again, ‘she’s dead, so I must have been wrong.’

  ‘Was she old?’ Chaucer had no idea how old dogs lived to be. Five years? Twenty? Seventy? He’d never been interested enough in one to know. When he had lived in fine houses, there were hounds of every kind everywhere you stood, but they were all just one entity of Dog, not individuals. Though he remembered Lionel often had a favourite.

  ‘No, not old at all. Well, not young, but not old enough to die of age.’ She looked around again; it wouldn’t do to be seen talking too long. ‘I felt sorry for her. When she’d lived in His Grace’s room with him, sitting under his table for meals, that kind of thing, he would pass her titbits and he would pour a little wine into her bowl. She liked a nice fruity Gascony best, but she wasn’t fussy, bless her. There was a drop or two left in a bottle in His Grace’s room, so I saved it for her. I hid it in my smoothing room and gave some to Ankarette today. It seemed only right, with her master being taken to his grave.’

  Chaucer became aware that his mouth was hanging open and he shut it with a snap. ‘There was wine? You said there was no food or drink in the room.’