The Knight's Tale

by M. J. Trow

  ‘But His Grace was a man past middle age.’ Chaucer spoke kindly of his old mentor. ‘Surely, he would have avoided such things all his life.’

  ‘Assuredly,’ Alban nodded. ‘Unless, of course, he ingested the stuff without the knowledge that he was so ingesting.’

  ‘Can it be crushed?’ Chaucer asked, ‘made into a powder, perhaps and added to wine?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Alban told him. ‘You saw Roger at work with the pestle and mortar. It’s the work of moments.’

  ‘And the death is peaceful?’ Chaucer was thinking of the nightmare scene in the chapel, something he never wanted to experience again.

  ‘Indeed. If a death by poisoning could be said to be a pleasant one, then I suppose death by Conium maculatum could be said to be that. I have never witnessed an actual death, you understand, but my small experience of the condition of the deceased seems to bear that out. Quiet. Even with a smile, you might say, though some struggle against it and then you may have a face left with a grimace. But, generally, not a bad way to go.’

  Chaucer wasn’t helped by that, but even so, smiled as though he were. He nodded. ‘Smells of mice,’ he said again. He just needed to make doubly sure, to confirm he was at least partly right about the priest.

  ‘Indeed, but do not become fixated on mice, Master Chaucer. Rats, now, that’s more worrying.’

  ‘It is? Er … I mean, they are?’

  ‘Of course. They carry the Pestilence, you know.’

  ‘Oh, come now, Master Alban,’ Chaucer laughed. ‘Hemlock is one thing – I’ll go along with you on that. But rats and the Pestilence; don’t be ridiculous!’

  Chaucer had to run the gauntlet again on his way back via Callis Street. He had had his hypothesis confirmed by an expert, albeit one who had a rather pessimistic, not to say nonsensical, view of rats – Lionel of Antwerp had been poisoned by person or persons unknown, using hemlock. Chaucer had deliberately not mentioned Father Clement – that was a killing too far and, anyway, he was still concerned by the violence of his passing. He looked at the ground as he walked, slick with fat and blood near the butcher’s, slick with shed fibres and grease near the stalls selling fleeces, slick with crushed cabbage leaves near the farmers’ stalls. In short, a trap for the unwary. Chaucer was not built to fall over willingly and was hard to raise to his feet again when that happened, so he kept his eyes on his feet. He saw someone in his peripheral vision, standing foursquare in the middle of the pavement, and took last-minute avoiding action.

  ‘Master Ifaywer.’ The comptroller had nearly collided with the carpenter, who was pontificating about the rising cost of living and asking, very loudly, what John of Gaunt was going to do about it.

  ‘Oh, Master Chaucer,’ the carpenter half bowed. ‘Lured out of the castle by the exotic merchandise?’ Since both men were looking at rows of pigs’ heads and chickens’ bums at the time, that didn’t seem likely.

  ‘Something like that,’ Chaucer said.

  ‘Listen,’ the carpenter eased him to one side so that they were half-hidden by a stall, ‘about the other night …’

  ‘Other night?’ Chaucer was making the guildsman squirm.

  ‘Yes, you know, when we were all …’

  ‘… breaking into the castle,’ Chaucer finished the sentence for him, as loudly as he could.

  Ifaywer hushed him just as Whitlow the haberdasher came around the corner, three lackeys in tow carrying bales of ribbon. The fancy-goods proprietor nodded in lordly fashion to the carpenter and comptroller and made to walk past.

  ‘I was just about to invite Master Chaucer for a drink,’ Ifaywer said; his surreptitious wink to Whitlow could have been seen as far as the old town gate. ‘Care to join us?’

  ‘Er … delighted,’ the haberdasher said. ‘You lads,’ he spun to face the lackeys, ‘lose yourselves for an hour. No drinking. No whoring. Understand?’

  All three nodded and one muttered under his breath.

  ‘What was that?’ Whitlow leaned forward so that he was nose to nose with the lad.

  The boy hefted his burden up a little. ‘I said, Master Whitlow,’ he spoke in the tones of one who is on the verge of deciding that this apprenticeship is not really for him, ‘that it’s hard to do either of those things when carrying two stone of mixed ribbon.’

  Whitlow stared at him and the lad stared back. Although, as an apprentice he was the lowest form of animal life, he had seen his master’s overdue accounts from merchants all over town and knew he would struggle to survive without his fees. After a moment, Whitlow’s gaze dropped. ‘Speak to me again like that, lad, and you’ll feel the strap,’ he said. ‘Get off with you, all of you.’

  Ifaywer watched this with smug glee. He had one apprentice, his nephew, and he knew what side his bread was buttered, so kept a civil tongue in his head. Whitlow turned to the other men and sighed, shaking his head. ‘The youth of today,’ he said, sadly. ‘It wasn’t like that in our day, was it?’

  Chaucer, whose parents would have seen him dead in a ditch before sending him out as an apprentice, smiled weakly. Ifaywer shook his head in agreement; guildsmen stuck together, through thick and thin. Well, through thick, in any case.

  The carpenter suddenly remembered what they were doing. ‘Master Chaucer?’ he said, holding out an arm in the vague direction of the Cockatrice, the inn sign swaying and creaking in the breeze. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Charmed,’ the comptroller said and followed the pair into the inn.

  The place was packed, with stallholders in their coloured clothes, shepherds and swineherds up from the country, grubby and smelly in their smocks. Ploughmen had come in from the fields and had brought their families with them. Said families sat on the kerb outside, children running and laughing, women gossiping about the ones who weren’t there. Chaucer couldn’t see the greasy, flagstoned floor for the wooden clogs and pattens filling the room.

  ‘Not here,’ Ifaywer said and ushered Chaucer into a back room. The ceiling was low and the noise reverberated through the oak panelling, but there were chairs here at least and a large, heavy table. Around the walls, the arms of the Clare guilds blazed in painted gold and silver and the illustrious names of guildsmen past stood proudly below them.

  While Whitlow ushered Chaucer to a seat, Ifaywer was still on his feet, gesturing to the roll of carpenters. ‘My father,’ he said, pointing to a name. And then, higher up, ‘His father. I can trace my family back as far as Domesday.’

  ‘Fancy,’ Chaucer smiled. ‘And you’re telling me this, why?’

  Whitlow was at Chaucer’s elbow. ‘Whatever you think of us, Master Chaucer, we are not bad men.’

  ‘We just …’ Ifaywer began.

  ‘… want what’s ours,’ the comptroller finished the sentence for him. ‘Yes, I know. You told me.’

  A serving wench came in, carrying a tray heavy with tankards and ale. Chaucer noticed that Whitlow watched her closely and patted her hand as she put the drinks down. He also noted that the haberdasher’s other hand was stroking the small of the girl’s back before sliding a little downwards. She gave a start and snatched up the tray, bobbing before she left the room.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ Chaucer said, waiting until the others had sampled the ale, ‘that we do not always get our just deserts in this life. Take Lionel of Antwerp, for instance.’

  ‘What of him?’ Ifaywer asked.

  ‘Well, he didn’t deserve to die, did he?’ Chaucer took his time to swig his drink. ‘By the hand of another.’ He was watching his drinking companions closely.

  The guildsmen looked at each other. ‘What are you saying?’ Ifaywer asked.

  Chaucer opened his mouth to say it all again, only louder, when Whitlow interrupted him. ‘He’s saying, somebody murdered His Grace the Duke of Clarence,’ he said in a low voice, looking at the comptroller with hard eyes, ‘and he thinks it’s one of us.’

  Ifaywer’s eyes bulged in his head and he swallowed his ale hard, wiping his mouth where half of it had spilled.


  ‘I’ve met so many people over the last few days,’ Chaucer said. ‘It’s difficult to remember who said what but, am I right that Mistress Blanche is your niece, Master Whitlow?’

  ‘Er … that’s right,’ the haberdasher said. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I had a chat with her the other day. She sends you her affections.’

  ‘You did?’ Whitlow blinked. ‘Where was this?’

  ‘In the convent at Bures. She is a novitiate.’

  Ifaywer felt he had to step in, since Whitlow appeared to have been struck dumb. ‘Did you know about this?’ he asked. ‘You didn’t say.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t know,’ the haberdasher said. ‘I can’t deny that Peter’ – he glanced at Chaucer – ‘Vickers, my brother-in-law, the girl’s father, has threatened – that’s too strong – hinted at it once or twice.’

  ‘Not without good cause,’ Ifaywer grunted, lifting his tankard again.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Whitlow frowned.

  The carpenter looked askance at him. ‘Oh, come off it, Whitlow. We all know about your roving eye. Anything under thirty …’

  ‘You’ll take that back!’ The haberdasher was suddenly on his feet.

  ‘Are you familiar, Master Chaucer,’ Ifaywer asked, ‘with the story of Susanna and the elders?’

  ‘The book of Daniel,’ Chaucer nodded. ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘The two old men spying on a hapless girl and threatening to tell all unless she lets them have their wicked way with her.’

  ‘Ifaywer!’ Whitlow growled, but the carpenter ignored him.

  ‘Well, I’ll grant you that Blanche is not exactly hapless; come to think of it, I can’t think of anyone with more hap. And in this case, there aren’t two lecherous elders, just one middle-aged haberdasher.’

  He burst into laughter as Whitlow slammed down his tankard and left the room. Ifaywer laughed until the tears ran down his face. He dried his eyes with his sleeve and caught sight of Chaucer’s astonished face. ‘I’m sorry, Master Chaucer,’ he said. ‘It’s an unedifying sight, no doubt, when senior guildsmen air their dirty linen in public. But it’s a fact, nonetheless. Friend Whitlow harbours less than honourable thoughts about his niece. And I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but she’s not exactly the sort to mind.’

  Chaucer felt that, as possibly the only man in the inn ever to have been mistaken in the dark, by a monk, for Blanche Vickers, he was the best to judge and he nodded. ‘That’s true,’ he said, ‘but isn’t that contrary to God’s laws?’ Chaucer was a man of the world, but the complex legalities of consanguinity had always rather eluded him.

  ‘Probably,’ Ifaywer shrugged and clapped his hands for more ale. ‘But there’s not much that can’t be sorted out via an obliging papal nuncio and a large bung of cash. Whoever the pope is at the moment, he’s the best marriage-broker in the business and by far the best paid.’

  ‘Does Peter Vickers know? Come to that, how do you know? I wouldn’t have thought it was the kind of thing a man would share with even his closest friend.’

  Ifaywer spat onto the rushes. ‘I know, we all know, because he was planning the Susanna scene as his tableau in the pageant. Blanche would have been perfectly happy to be dragged through the town with nothing but her blushes, always assuming she can still blush. They do something similar in the Coventry Mystery Plays, I believe. But some of our wives found out and that was that. Shame, really, but there you are. As to Peter Vickers, who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised, myself.’ He tried to take a swig from his empty tankard and looked around vaguely for the girl. ‘Blows hot and cold, that one. Happy enough to let his little girl be squired by the squire, young Hugh Glanville, but as soon as His Grace gets involved, he comes over all holier-than-thou about it. Doesn’t make any sense at all.’

  The girl came back with another tray and was relieved to find that Whitlow of the wandering hands was not there. Ifaywer fell on his drink as if he were dying of thirst.

  ‘Anyway,’ the carpenter went on, after she had gone, ‘all this is just country matters. So you think Lionel of Antwerp was murdered?’

  Chaucer nodded, sipping his new ale. ‘It had crossed my mind,’ he said.

  ‘You … er …’ Ifaywer became confidential, peering into the froth of his ale. ‘… you haven’t any idea by who, I suppose?’

  ‘Job for the sheriff,’ Chaucer shrugged.

  ‘Old Gower?’ the carpenter snorted. ‘Fat chance of that. Man couldn’t find his arse with both hands.’

  ‘You were at the castle quite a bit,’ Chaucer ventured.

  Ifaywer frowned at him. ‘You’re not telling me Whitlow’s right?’ he said. ‘About you thinking one of us did it?’

  ‘No, no,’ Chaucer reassured him, ‘but I am a stranger here, Master Ifaywer, like a ship on an uncharted sea. Tell me, how well did you know His Grace’s chaplain?’

  ‘Father Clement?’ the carpenter sipped his ale, then looked askance at Chaucer. ‘How do you mean, did I know him?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Chaucer said.

  The carpenter crossed himself. ‘All my eye of a yarn and Betty Martin,’ he muttered.

  Chaucer knew the Latin original of that, but it wasn’t the time to pull rank.

  ‘Murdered?’ Ifaywer was barely audible.

  ‘I’d say so,’ Chaucer told him.

  The carpenter took a huge swig of ale and clapped his hands again, downing the last drop. ‘If I tell you what I know about them up at the castle, Master Chaucer,’ he said, ‘it will stay between us, won’t it?’

  ‘In this very space,’ the comptroller waved his hand between them. Then the girl was back and the room was strangely suddenly silent. Even the noise from the barroom seemed to have ceased. Ifaywer watched her go and grabbed his flagon again, taking a huge gulp before he went on.

  ‘Full of smilers, is Castle Clare,’ he said. ‘On the surface of it, everybody friendly, open, above board. Talking of which, I even played queck with them. Not the priest, of course – Clement told me it was the Devil’s game and asked me if I’d join him in the confessional. His Grace was no slouch – showed a rare skill on the Rhythm Turn. Young Hugh was a dab hand – neat as you please on the Counting Frame. Sir Richard had played before, so he knew his Deal Brush from a handsaw. Young Giovanni, the Italian boy, Her Ladyship’s brother … he’d played something similar he told me, in Milan, and he was coming on well, when …’

  ‘When?’ Chaucer had glazed over with the finer tuning of this nonsensical game, but Ifaywer had pulled up short.

  ‘Well, he changed. Oh, he’s only a lad, I know, still shitting yellow pretty much, but … he told me one night I was up at the castle he couldn’t play any more. Wasn’t interested, didn’t have the time. He just stopped playing.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Ooh, let me see. It’d be soon after Sir John Hawkwood came to stay.’

  ‘Hawkwood?’ Chaucer frowned. ‘That was only a few days ago.’

  ‘What?’ If was Ifaywer’s turn to look confused. ‘No, no, that was the second time. He’d been before. Around Christmas. I remember because there was a Yule pageant and I was the Lord of Misrule – oh, I know you wouldn’t think to look at me now, but my Misrulery is legendary in these parts, Master Chaucer. And I was coming out of the embroidery chamber, having just goosed the ladies, who all pretended to be disgusted, and I bumped into him.’

  ‘Hawkwood?’

  ‘Yes. Well, I don’t know if you know, but he’s a short-tempered bastard. Never met a joke he liked. Threatened to slit my throat if I got in his way again. Needless to say, I didn’t.’

  ‘So …’ Chaucer was trying to disentangle the guildsman’s gabble and the ale wasn’t helping. ‘It was after this that Giovanni seemed to change?’

  ‘That’s right. As I said, he didn’t get on with His Grace.’

  ‘Who?’ Chaucer was confused again.

  ‘Giovanni,’ Ifaywer said, as though to an idiot.

  ‘You hadn’t
said,’ Chaucer told him.

  ‘Hadn’t said what?’ the carpenter asked.

  ‘That Giovanni and His Grace didn’t get on.’

  ‘Well,’ Ifaywer leaned back, wiping his ever-grubbier houppelande sleeve across his mouth. ‘You know these Italians. To be honest, after Christmas, everybody seemed to be off hooks with everybody else. His Grace was growling like a bear with a sore head. Then there was Blanche and the Lady Violante. Not to mention Butterfield and his Italian opposite number.’

  ‘Ferrante.’

  ‘That’s the feller. I’m not exactly looking forward to the pageants, to be honest.’

  ‘You mentioned the pageants earlier,’ Chaucer remembered. ‘When do they occur?’

  Ifaywer looked aghast. He could hardly bring himself to believe that there was anybody in the world who had not heard of the famous Clare pageants. ‘High spot of the year, Master Chaucer,’ he said. ‘From May Day to Midsummer. Not all the time, of course, just on the saints’ days that fall within that time. Over the years, we’ve dropped some of the saints or we’d never get a day’s work done. We just do the main ones now – you know, Philip, James, Bede, Dympna – then do the big finish with John the Baptist. Strictly speaking, that’s past Midsummer’s Day, but it seems disrespectful to leave him out.’

  Chaucer didn’t think of himself as an irreligious man, but he was struggling to see how anyone could spend the best part of two months dragging carts with tableaux on them round the town. With the best will in the world, it would get a little dull.

  The carpenter was in full flow. Chaucer could see why; presumably, he and his guild members had rather a major role in making the stages and scenery. ‘My old pa must be turning in his grave,’ he said, solemnly. ‘Much bigger in his day, the pageants were. And as for his old pa! Well! Every quarter day. Easter. Advent. Christmas. Epiphany. Some of the guilds even had people just for the pageants. Didn’t know a thing about their trades, just chosen for how like Moses they looked, or the Virgin, as it might be.’ He sighed and swigged his ale. ‘I thought in view of His Grace, Her Ladyship might call them off, but no, she wants it all to go ahead in his memory, apparently. So there it is.’ He drew himself up to sit at his full height. ‘I shall be Noah again, building my Ark.’