The Knight's Tale

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Silly of me, of course not.’ Chaucer had found out what he needed to know. Possibly more, but a little time might erase those memories. He stood up to go, hefting his bag over his shoulder. ‘Thank you, Blanche. May I, before I go, just …’

  ‘Oh, yes, I thought I knew your sort,’ Blanche said, hauling up her gown. ‘Be quick, though. They probably wouldn’t like it if they caught us.’

  ‘No, no!’ Chaucer was horrified and pushed her hands away so that her gown fell in demure folds. ‘I was going to say thank you very much. You have been most helpful and I have just what I need.’ He scurried out of the door without looking back.

  ‘Yes,’ he heard her voice wafting down the corridor. ‘They all say that, more or less.’

  Chaucer wasn’t often drawn to the clash of steel, but he found himself standing on the edge of Clare’s new tilt yard the next morning as the sun began to warm the stones.

  ‘When you like.’ John Hawkwood stood in his shirtsleeves, his hands on his hips. A bastard sword stood in front of him, rammed into the Suffolk earth.

  Giovanni Visconti was padded in a training doublet, laced at each side and with gauntlets encasing both hands. He lunged forward, thrusting with his own bastard. He sprawled in the dust, having managed to miss both Hawkwood and his sword.

  ‘Again,’ the mercenary sighed.

  The boy, blushing crimson to his hair roots, scrambled upright and picked up the weapon. He had just begun to attack again, when Hawkwood held up his hand.

  ‘Hoo!’ he shouted, and the Italian stopped in his tracks. ‘You’re starting too far back, lad,’ he said. ‘You’ll be an old man before you reach me. Your balance is all wrong. Look …’ He straightened Visconti up and changed the angle of his grip on the sword-hilt. ‘Which leg do you lead with?’ he asked.

  ‘Er … my right,’ the Italian told him.

  ‘Do it,’ Hawkwood said and stood back.

  This time, the attack was better. Chaucer was impressed. From where he stood, Hawkwood had just told the boy how to kill him. Visconti swung the blade at the mercenary’s head, annoyed now and blinded with embarrassment. Hawkwood flicked his own sword into his hand and batted the attack aside, sending the lad sprawling to the earth again.

  ‘Better,’ he said. He thrust the sword back into the ground. ‘Next.’

  Next was Hugh Glanville, a year or two older than Visconti, taller and broader. Sir Richard Glanville was proud of his boy; Chaucer was proud of him too. He folded his arms and smiled; this would be interesting. The squire gripped his sword in both hands while Hawkwood, unconcerned, just stood there. Then Hugh screamed out the Glanville battle cry and whirled around like a deranged windmill before slashing through the morning air. Astonishingly, Hawkwood caught the hissing blade with his hand and bowled the boy over.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Hawkwood reached out a hand and helped him up. ‘All that shouting and jumping?’

  ‘Well, I …’ Hugh Glanville remembered it as something his father had taught him, but he may not have remembered it accurately enough.

  ‘First,’ Hawkwood said, ‘if you’re going to attack a man, you don’t scream at him. You might as well say “Coming, ready or not”. And second,’ he thumped the boy across the shoulder, ‘you never, ever, turn your back on an opponent. If you do, he’ll kill you. Now, again.’

  Hawkwood stood back. Hugh licked his lips and flexed his fingers. There was no shout this time, no fancy leap, just a forward charge, blade gleaming. It was fast – Chaucer didn’t see it coming. But John Hawkwood did. He stepped aside, flicking his sword upright and helping Glanville on his way to the ground.

  ‘All right.’ Hawkwood rammed his sword home again. ‘Both of you.’ He beckoned to both squires.

  Chaucer’s jaw dropped a little. He unfolded his arms. The boys could be Hawkwood’s grandsons. They were strong and fast and the Comptroller of Woollens couldn’t actually see much wrong with their attacks. This could get ugly. Visconti and Glanville looked at each other. The Englishman nodded and the Italian launched himself. Steel clashed as Hawkwood hacked the sword out of the boy’s hand. Then he threw the weapon across to his left hand and disarmed Glanville too. As a final gesture, he threw his sword down and cracked the lads’ heads together.

  ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Now get your practice in. No screams, young Glanville – and save your dancing for the ladies, Visconti,’ he held the boy at the back of the neck, ‘keep that Italian passion of yours in check, eh? All very well to get carried away in the heat of battle – I’ve known men die that way.’

  ‘You changed hands,’ Visconti whined, ever the overgrown schoolboy. ‘That’s against the rules of chivalry.’

  Hawkwood laughed, a sound that Chaucer had certainly never heard before. ‘Chivalry, my arse,’ he growled. ‘How old are you, boy?’

  ‘Sixteen,’ Visconti said.

  ‘Well, I’m nearly sixty,’ Hawkwood told him, ‘and it’s because I’ve ignored the rules of chivalry that I’m still here. Now, away with you.’ He glanced across at Chaucer. ‘The grown-ups want to talk.’ And the boys, bruised but alive, walked away.

  ‘Sir John,’ Chaucer bowed his head. ‘That was … impressive.’

  ‘Chaucer.’ Hawkwood bobbed back. ‘All in a morning’s work.’ He pulled his sword out of the ground. ‘Er … I don’t suppose …?’

  Chaucer held up both hands, laughing. ‘Thank you, no,’ he said. ‘It is a little early for me.’

  Hawkwood saw the bruises on the man’s hands. ‘Quarterstaff?’ he asked.

  ‘Tripped,’ Chaucer said, crossing himself in his head. ‘Forgot that little twist in the stairs by the chapel. Are those boys any good?’

  They looked across the tilt yard where blades banged and clashed. ‘The Italian, no, hopeless. Young Glanville, he’ll make a decent swordsman in ten or twenty years. Did you want a word?’

  ‘Er … yes. I couldn’t help noticing you chatting to the chaplain at table the other day. Do you know him?’

  Hawkwood was cleaning his blade with a cloth. ‘Clement? Not really. He attached himself to me for some reason. Rather oily, if you ask me.’

  ‘I do ask you,’ Chaucer said. ‘In what way, oily?’

  Hawkwood thought about it. ‘Slimy. Clingy. Kept pawing at me for no reason. He was lucky we were at table – I have hacked hands off for less. If I were to put a name to it, I would say he is not as other priests. Or perhaps he is; I don’t know many priests, apart from the ones whose churches I’ve burned down, of course. But they were French, so there you are.’

  ‘I am indeed,’ Chaucer said.

  ‘If that’s all, then,’ Hawkwood hooked the sword across his shoulders. ‘I’ve got likely lads to recruit.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Chaucer smiled. ‘The White Company. Good luck with that.’

  And the man was gone.

  Chaucer found himself walking the ramparts later that morning. Richard Glanville, he knew, was checking Lionel of Antwerp’s boundaries, trotting along the byways of Suffolk with his own people. The Lady Violante would be with her ladies of the Italian persuasion in her embroidery room, stitching and probably bitching in equal measure. Joyce would be up to her arms in steam, still fresh, still young, as if the years had not passed. He looked down at the paunch that travelled a little before him and sucked it in until he found breathing difficult and had to exhale.

  At first, he couldn’t make it out. Certainly, there was noise from the forge – the ring of iron on iron and the wheeze of the bellows. He took the steps down to the outer bailey and nodded to the smiths at their work, red-hot metal hissing in brackish water, muscles flexing in the heat. But there was something else; voices, angry, tempers flaring. Either the smiths were ignoring it, or they couldn’t catch it above their own cacophony; they carried on as usual.

  As he turned the corner, Chaucer was suddenly aware of the source. Seneschal wars were in full flight. Butterfield, standing like an English oak, looked down at Ferrante, the Italian cedar who wa
s poking him in the chest.

  ‘This is my castle, you Italian lickspittle!’ Butterfield bellowed, pushing the other man away. ‘I won’t have this muck in my kitchen.’

  ‘It is not muck, Master Butterfield,’ the Italian was altogether more reasonable. ‘It is called pasta. And it is delicious.’

  ‘Pasta, my arse!’ the Englishman growled.

  ‘There are many types …’

  ‘I don’t give a flying fig how many types there are. It’s all stodge – and tasteless, to boot. I’ve seen the cooks trying to cook it.’

  ‘That, with respect,’ Ferrante said, his accent getting heavier as his anger rose, ‘is because they are English and have no idea what to do in a respectable kitchen.’

  Butterfield’s face was white with rage and he grabbed the Italian by the collar of his doublet.

  ‘Hoo!’ Chaucer felt he had to intervene. He may not have been impressed by reading Dante, but he had once dined with Petrarch and felt a certain affinity with men who had once been Romans and whose language he nearly spoke. ‘Now, now, sirs,’ he said. ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘I’d thank you to stay out of it, sir,’ Butterfield snapped.

  ‘I don’t think Sir Richard would want me to do that,’ Chaucer said. ‘Still less the Lady Violante.’

  ‘What are you, Chaucer?’ Butterfield snapped. ‘A schoolboy threatening to tell the dominus?’

  Chaucer pulled himself up to his full height, still at least three inches less than Butterfield. ‘Must I remind you, knarre, that I am Comptroller of the King’s Woollens. One word from me and you won’t have to worry about what is cooked in Clare’s kitchens ever again. Now, be about your business, sir. Good morning.’

  Butterfield stood, scowling, his knuckles white, his jaw flexing. He spat on the ground near the Italian and turned on his heel.

  ‘Signor Chaucer,’ Ferrante said. ‘I fear you have made an enemy of that one.’

  Chaucer shrugged. ‘So, perhaps my bed won’t be made as neatly as it should,’ he said. ‘I can live with that, Master Seneschal. Tell me, this pasta stuff …?’

  ‘Ah,’ the Italian’s eyes lit up. ‘It will be my pleasure to cook you some,’ he said, ‘and with my signature sauce. Oh, but you must have already sampled it. Were you not in Italia recently, according to His Grace Giovanni of Gaunt, on a mission?’

  ‘Oh, ah,’ Chaucer flustered. ‘In Milan, yes. Yes, indeed. But pasta … no, I don’t think so.’

  ‘But Milano is the home of pasta,’ Ferrante insisted.

  ‘Well, there it is,’ Chaucer beamed. ‘Missions, eh? You never get to see the people you’re supposed to, or eat the delicacies you’ve always heard about.’

  ‘We’ll put that right,’ Ferrante said. ‘Tonight. And, Master Chaucer,’ the man was suddenly serious, ‘with Butterfield, you’ll watch your back, won’t you?’

  EIGHT

  Chaucer, as he ambled around Clare, making small talk with people he met, tried not to walk like a man who had been beaten as well as spending the best part of three days on a horse. It was difficult and he carried it off with varying success. He managed to avoid stairs, in the main, and as long as he was on the flat, with something to hold on to now and then, he was sometimes able to forget the pain for seconds at a time. He was ambivalent about going in to the hall for a meal. He could sit down – that was a mark on the side of the angels. But he wouldn’t be able to suddenly leap up screaming when the pain in his battered buttocks got too much to bear – and stout English oak was unremittingly hard. He hoped the meal would be short and sweet. With luck, he would be able to have a rest before he tackled Father Clement.

  Richard Glanville was already at the board when he arrived, saving him a place as always. He wasn’t to know that a wooden chair with no back was not ideal; the man’s heart had always been in the right place.

  ‘Geoff!’ the knight clapped the comptroller on the back and didn’t notice him wince. ‘Have you managed to entertain yourself? Sorry I was out. Just checking that the boundaries are intact, you know. Important now Sir Lionel has gone.’

  Chaucer thought that seeing John Hawkwood in action and then two seneschals squaring up to each other was about as much excitement as he needed in his condition, and just nodded. He looked up as he lowered himself into his place and Ferrante caught his eye and bowed.

  Glanville noticed. ‘Not like him,’ he remarked. ‘He usually doesn’t give anyone the time of day, except Lady Violante and her ladies.’

  ‘And her brother, surely?’ Chaucer had found that his left buttock was noticeably less painful than the right and was leaning over, to the distress of the woman sitting on that side, who assumed he was making unseemly advances. She flapped at him weakly with her sleeve and had to resort to her kerchief, pressed to her quivering lip.

  ‘Not really,’ Glanville said. ‘He is a bit of disappointment, I think. Violante loves him, of course. With the age gap, he is more of a son than a brother. But … well, he’s not like my Hugh, that’s for sure.’

  Chaucer smiled. He could agree wholeheartedly there. Should there be another war, Lady Violante would be mourning more than just her husband.

  ‘No, I don’t know what’s going on, Geoff,’ Glanville said, nudging him and by some miracle missing all the painful bits. ‘Ferrante is really making up to you today. Why is that?’ He peered closer. ‘What is that?’

  The Italian seneschal was bearing down on them, ushering a small boy carrying a large and laden platter. Steam rose from it and obscured the boy’s face from view and he almost walked right past them, as he could hardly see his hand in front of his face.

  ‘Boy!’ Ferrante cried. ‘Oaf. Stop.’ He leaned down to Chaucer and Glanville. ‘Gentlemen,’ he crooned, ‘here is what I promised earlier, some pasta and my signature sauce.’

  Chaucer inhaled. It smelled divine. He leaned back without noticing the pain and let the small boy decant some onto his platter. He leaned in and sniffed again. ‘Master Ferrante! This smells wonderful. What is in it, may I ask?’ He had plans to ask Alice to concoct something as near as she could manage, when he got home to Aldgate.

  The boy had dumped some of the food on Glanville’s plate and was now off down the table, trying to get rid of the rest on the drunk and the gluttonous. He hated being the pasta boy for Niccolò Ferrante; his friends all served good English fare, pigs’ feet, sheep’s head, nice nutritious things like that. This slimy stuff wasn’t to his liking at all. All the serving lads got to eat the leftovers when they got back to the kitchen, but where was the fun in that? Foreign muck, he called it.

  Glanville also leaned forward, then back, then poked it with his spoon. ‘Foreign muck,’ he announced, looking mutinous. Chaucer had scooped up a spoonful, using a hunk of bread to balance it, and his mouth was too full to speak. But his eyes said it all. He was in heaven.

  When he finally swallowed, he licked his lips and looked at Ferrante as though he were an angel come to earth. ‘This is pasta?’ he asked. ‘This is what Butterfield doesn’t want in his kitchen?’

  Ferrante spread his arms and shrugged. ‘Veramente,’ he said. ‘Truly, Master Chaucer. You can see now, as I told you, the man is mad.’ He turned slightly, as though on wheels, a movement which seemed to be unique to seneschals the world over. ‘Sir Richard? What do you think?’

  Glanville was not a man to mince words. ‘It looks like worms in vomit, Ferrante, if I’m honest,’ he said. He took a tiny mouthful and bit it gingerly. ‘But it tastes like …’

  Ferrante watched him, the smile ready to form on his face.

  ‘Yes, it tastes like worms in vomit. Not that I have actually eaten that particular dish, you know; I would just imagine it tastes like this. What in the Virgin’s name is in the vile stuff?’

  Ferrante lurched back as if he had been bitten. ‘Vile?’ He stretched out an arm to Chaucer and pointed at him with a dramatic finger. ‘Your friend Master Chaucer, Comptroller of Woollens to His Grace the King and a man of discernment, d
oes not find it vile!’

  Glanville glanced at Chaucer and, indeed, his friend seemed to be as happy as a pig at slops time. ‘Master Chaucer lives in London,’ he said, as if excusing a sin. ‘He eats slop all the time.’

  Chaucer surfaced and wiped his beard clean of the signature sauce with the corner of the table linen, offering a silent apology to Joyce. ‘Richard,’ he said, ‘this is delicious. You should try some more of it, see how you like it. Try … this.’ He held out a succulent piece of meat with oily fingers. He looked at it. ‘What is this, Master Ferrante?’

  The Italian leaned forward and turned his head this way and that. ‘Cinguettii,’ he announced, with a supercilious smile.

  Having failed to interest Glanville, Chaucer popped the gobbet into his mouth and chewed enthusiastically, smiling and nodding. ‘Delicious,’ he said, with his mouth full.

  Glanville was more suspicious. ‘And that is?’

  Ferrante shrugged. ‘It is not always easy …’

  ‘Try.’ Glanville narrowed his eyes.

  ‘I suppose … what is the word? … yes, I believe it is … chitterlings?’

  Glanville’s eyes widened again. ‘Pigs’ guts, you mean?’ He looked at Chaucer who seemed unconcerned.

  ‘Thoroughly washed, of course, and seethed in milk. Two changes of milk,’ Ferrante said, as if that made it all right.

  ‘Geoff!’ Glanville said, nudging him and causing a choice piece to bounce across the table and land in his opposite neighbour’s frumenty. ‘Stop it! Stop eating! The man’s a poisoner! He’ll kill us all!’

  Chaucer put down his spoon, for the sole reason that he had eaten every morsel and wiped the platter clean with his bread. ‘Shut up, Richard, for heaven’s sake. You’re making a spectacle of yourself.’ And it was true; from the top of the table to the bottom, every face was turned towards the pasta pantomime. ‘It was delicious. Master Ferrante, could you possibly write down the recipe for me to take home? I can’t imagine that Winter – the man who does my food at home, you know – will be able to do it justice, but just a ghost of that delicious dish will be enough.’