The People's Queen (34 page)

His prayer for Alice is without words. He can only hope God will pardon his incoherence and see his sincerity.

This is what he's feared. Worse. This is the plunge into the abyss.

Chaucer sits nailed to his desk from dawn to dusk the next day, hardly daring to look up; every moment an eternity.

By the next evening, however, as he walks home, head down, he realises that the hopes of the City haters that Alice Perrers would be burned for witchcraft have faded out.

He doesn't even have to go to the tavern to find out, they're all shouting so loud about it in the street. His ears prick up; then his head perks up; then his feet go faster. By the time he reaches the first drinking spot, despite all his earlier good resolutions, he's got nothing on his mind more pressing than diving inside again.

The old friar who's been tortured has indeed brought to Parliament his pathetic tales of Alice practising black arts to bewitch the King into unlawful love. But no one could believe the obviously made-up confession. Even the knights felt sorry for the friar. When the Duke cut short the hearing by ordering the Archbishop of Canterbury to take the old man back, and keep him out of harm's way in a friary, the Prince's men, even Peter de la Mare, didn't object.

Chaucer has something else on his mind. He's buying the fat tanner a drink, trying to keep the relief off his own face. He's thinking: It's the Duke's wisdom today that's saved Alice. (Chaucer wouldn't have expected such wise restraint from my lord, to be honest. There've been outbursts of nobleman's fury, more often.) My lord got it so right; cooperate with the Commons and let their anger dissipate. There'll be plenty more false accusations and climb-downs. He must just sit tight. Because what can a bunch of country squires hope to know, really, about the high finance of the realm?

But it's Chaucer's quiet euphoria, rather than the tanner's good cheer, that dissipates as the evening wears on - as it becomes obvious to him that the crowds in the taverns haven't understood the latest hearing quite as he has.

Chaucer hunches miserably over his tankard, listening helplessly to the wolf-whistles and the cat-calls. He wishes he knew where Alice was, or that he dare send a messenger, or, at least, that there might be something hopeful to send a message about. But not this. 'Witch!' halloo the skinners and fletchers and ropemakers. 'Bitch!' roar the caulkers and the hoopers in response, punching meaty fists into the beery air.

Hating her is making them happier than they've been for years. Even now the charge has been shown to be absurd; even though she's not going to burn, they're still as ecstatic thinking of it as if they'd got Alice chained to a stake, right here, right now, choking in the smoke from the flames devouring her, and were laughing in her dying face. It's as if all the diffuse anger at the state of things that they've felt for so long has been focused, channelled, narrowed; directed at one small target. Chaucer stares at the froth on his ale, wailing, inside his head, at them all, 'But why her? She's only ever done what you've done, had the same fun you've had, helped herself here and there - just like you, only on a bigger scale, because she could. But she's no worse than anyone else. So why pick on her?'

But he knows, deep down. The penny has dropped. They're enjoying howling about Alice because they've been shown, by today's events, that she's the weakest of the high-placed people they blame for their troubles. Vulnerable. Flour on her face; scared eyes in the white. She might not be a witch and therefore easily burnable, but she's still the one Fortune's about to bring down. The victim. Her time at the top is over. Of course it's her blood they're after.

PART TWO
Regnavi
I used to reign

TWENTY-TWO

All through the opening steps of the Parliament, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, has paced in a thin fury of impotence, glaring out at the crowd in the chamber through the headache pulsing behind his eyes. This afternoon is no different. With every hour that passes, his moments of rage are getting more intense.

The stink of wet wool and greasy leather that these men give off turns his stomach. The figures of the forty-odd shire knights and coming up to a hundred burgesses swim and sway before him, and none of them with the grace to acknowledge their humbleness and the Duke's God-given might. Who do they think they are?

Ever since Chancellor Knyvett read out the Crown's first request for money, and the Commons, with the low cowardice that must be expected of such men, first drew in barons and bishops to hide behind, then pushed forward one of their number to say no on behalf of them all, and then to smear the Duke's real or imagined placemen, starting with Alice Perrers, of imaginary crimes, his rage has simmered and bubbled. Perhaps these people have been stealing; on balance, it's even probable. But that's just what people like that do, because they're merchants, officials; sneaky paper people. It's in their nature. This isn't an attack on corruption; not really. It's an attack on him.

What made him smart first was the way that the Commons simply ignored his wish when, on the first morning, he ordered them to delegate a few members to come in and hang about at the back of the White Chamber, preserve of the Lords already standing in groups or lying on rugs on the floor, to say whatever they had to say to their betters. That beakynosed brute, de la Mare, refused to speak unless all 130 of them came with him. And they just poured in. The impossible self-assurance of it infuriated him, but it rattled him too. He's never before encountered such insouciant insubordination. And they've just stood there ever since, these nobodies, staring insolently round at the Lords, scratching themselves and shaking their heads, while the debate goes on, as if just being free men, as if just having money, gives them rights that the Duke could tell them they never have had, and never will have, either. Their sheer belief that they can has silenced him, until now. He doesn't know how to counter them; how to send them scuttling in terror back to their hills and fields.

There's nothing he can see that he can do. He knows the thought at the back of every mind in this chamber. They all believe he wants to steal the throne, because his brother is dying and his brother's son is a helpless child. If he punishes their impudence - if he gives in to the desire to shake their Forespeaker like the dog he is, or throw over the furniture and draw his sword and declare their wretched gathering null and void and beat them out into the mud and rain outside - it will only confirm in them the belief that he is out for power. He has to tread carefully.

Behind him, on a litter piled high with cushions, lies the unthinkable, skeletal, gurgling, periodically stinking thing his brother Edward has become. The Prince of England, whose good fortune in war has inspired deep dread in all nations, both Christian and pagan, as if he were a second Hector, and in no one more dread and admiration than in his younger brother John, appears to have resolved to defy death for a little longer and be carried in here to watch the proceedings. But John is uncomfortably aware that his brother is really only here to watch
him.
He can feel Edward's baleful eyes boring into him from behind. That unseen gaze sends shivers down his spine.

He can see that this is a battle between brothers, and all these...
creatures...
are speaking the mind of Edward. Edward must have orchestrated this attack on him, and his people, for his brother must also believe he wants to seize power.

The shocking injustice of it is a knife in his side. He wants to rush to Edward, to throw himself on his knees before him, to seek through the wasted flesh and lines of pain and humiliation the face he's always revered, to tell his brother that no, he doesn't want the crown that's intended for little Richard's head; never has, never will; that he isn't the man they've taken him for.

But not in front of these swine, these scum, who have no place at Westminster; who have forgotten their rightful place in God's great plan.

He doesn't want Edward to believe this of him. He's always been loyal...loving. He hero-worships Edward. The very thought of Edward's suspicion agonises him.

But in John of Gaunt's head, at the same time, another thought co-exists, one that doesn't agonise him, because he doesn't let it out from the quiet, shameful place he's locked it up in, deep inside, in an entirely separate part of him. It lurks there, whispering and hissing, clanking its chains. It is this. If Edward were not here, today, or at all, if Edward had departed this life, and if the fate of England boiled down to a choice between himself - a grown man, a prince, a soldier, a statesman, experienced in the bearing of arms and the exercise of power, with years of knowledge behind him and royal blood coursing through his veins; in short, with all the attributes of a warrior prince that will be needed to save a land in the mortal danger England finds herself today - and that spoiled, capricious little boy, his nephew Richard...

No wonder his head aches, and he hates the trouble-makers of the Commons.

But at least he's persuaded Stury to ask Chaucer to attend today and stay tonight. Chaucer's bright; he knows the ways of diplomacy and argument. And he knows how to explain the ways of the sneaky paper people so a man can understand. Still, can even Chaucer...?

John sighs, and focuses his eyes again on the hated figure of the Forespeaker.

When the session ends, the Duke watches his brother the Prince leave on his litter, without so much as a nod of farewell; with his eyes shut. Then he calls his own advisers together in an antechamber. They're as shocked as he is. They crowd around, trembling, waiting to hear his will.

For a few minutes, Duke John can barely speak. His legs carry him here and there. Two paces to the left. Two to the right. A caged lion, pacing.

'What do these degenerates...knights of candle-wax...What do they think they're up to?' he bursts out in the end. He's beyond strategy. He just wants to voice the howl of rage in his soul. 'Do they take themselves for kings or princes? Where does their pride and arrogance come from?'

The advisers murmur. He sees Stury, taller than most, standing at the back, quietly shaking his head. As if Stury's warning him.

That only makes him angrier.

He shouts, 'I will appear before them tomorrow in so glorious a manner - and raise up such a great force among them - and terrify them with such severity - that neither they nor anybody like them will dare again to provoke my majesty.'

They crowd closer still, at that. There's alarm on every face. Hands start patting the air down, as if the atmosphere itself needs calming. Someone mutters, 'Sssh'. And he sees fearful glances over shoulders, as if they're wondering whether the Herefordshire man's got his ear to the door.

What's got into them all? Has their noble blood been turned to milk?

Furiously, he continues pacing. He won't be silenced. But he does, distractedly, listen when Chaucer's voice, oozing tact, murmurs, 'Lord, don't let your magnificence hide from you how strongly these knights are supported - and by whom. They have the backing of the Lords and, more important still, of Prince Edward your brother.'

At that, the Duke sees Edward's face in his mind again. Eyes shut. Heart shut too.

He stops. He looks down at the smaller man staring so beseechingly at him with his usual surprised respect. Chaucer doesn't look impressive; but, as so often, there's sense in what the man says. Chaucer's gone straight to the nub of things. No one's dared mention Edward's part in this yet, except Chaucer. John pleats his fingers together. He turns, reluctantly, to face his men. Every pair of eyes has the same imploring look that he sees in Chaucer. Be calm, the eyes are all saying. Be mild. Don't give fight.

He turns his face down in a moment of irresolution. He doesn't want to show enmity to Edward, after all...He wants Edward to know he bears him no malice. But if he doesn't retaliate against the knights Edward seems to have set on him, then how
is
he to respond? He's a nobleman. A man of the sword, not the word.

Someone else is speaking now. The Duke raises his tormented eyes again. Stury, from the shadows. Stury, who sleeps in London when the court's at Westminster. Stury, who knows what Londoners are saying, who can distil an evening of wild tavern talk into a single careful sentence. And what he's saying now, with a persuasive gleam in his eyes, is: '...Neither the Londoners or the common people will let the knights be overwhelmed with insults, or molested with injury, however slight. If these knights are insulted, they'll be driven to undertake all the most extreme steps against your person and your friends...'

Duke John thinks, incredulously: He's not saying I should be afraid? Instinctively, his fingers tighten on his sword. But he relaxes, just a little when Chaucer finishes the other man's thought, as if they're agreed (which, since they're friends, they probably are): 'Whereas, if you let them be, they'll most likely do very little.'

Chaucer watches the red on the Duke's thin cheeks. Every diplomatic nerve in Chaucer's knowledgeable body is begging the Duke: Be flexible, be courteous, let calm return, let their anger burn out. He feels this volatile atmosphere is dangerous, but temporary - unless someone fans the flames. But he knows, too, that the Duke, like his royal brother, is prone to occasional, fantastical displays of anger. In this atmosphere, one of those could be the spark that sets the whole bonfire ablaze.

He only realises he hasn't been breathing (can such a thing be?) when the Duke lets the pent-up breath out of his own body. With his sigh, the Duke seems to sag. Weakly, defeatedly, Duke John nods his head and stops pacing. He sits down. With what little dignity he can still muster, he says, 'Very well.'

TWENTY-THREE

When the Duke returns to the chamber to face Parliament the next morning, he seems a different man: smiling, affable, willing to please. There's a murmur of surprise at the gracious, modest, encouraging look on his face, even before he starts to talk to the knights of the Commons.

'I know well how honourable your desires are, as you labour to improve the conditions of the realm,' he says. 'Whatever you think ought to be corrected, you should set forth, and I will apply the remedy you choose.'

Peter de la Mare glances around, drawing his strength from the men at his back. It's clear from their faces that his knights and burgesses are no less grimly suspicious that a portion of all the money stolen from the state by the various miscreants they intend to try has, perhaps, quietly found its way into John of Gaunt's own private purse (for, as de la Mare himself has told them, why else would the Duke have condoned this state of affairs so long?). Like them, he's impressed by the Duke's speech, but not impressed enough. He soldiers on. Today is the day he's been waiting for.

Standing up, he offers the Duke thanks on behalf of the knights. But he doesn't refrain from inviting his fellow-parliamentarians, one by one, to step forward and lay the charges they have prepared.

He goes first. A good commander leads from the front. The words come sonorously to his lips as he voices his ringing accusation against Latimer, the King's chamberlain: 'That he is useless to the King and to the kingdom...has often deceived the King and been false - let me not say traitorous - to him. Therefore we most urgently petition that he should be deprived of his office.'

One by one, members of the Commons, speaking in turn at a lectern in the centre of the chamber, add their own charges and complaints. In this quieter but still tense atmosphere, more than sixty charges are laid against Lord Latimer and the vintner Richard Lyons. Alice Perrers' name is often, venomously, mentioned; but charges against her, on these counts, are not formalised.

De la Mare knows they won't be. There never has been much proof, one way or another, when it comes to Alice Perrers, and now his fool of a brother has muddied the waters with that witchcraft business. He doesn't care. She's only a woman. It's Latimer and Lyons he's after: the embodiment of corruption.

The two men are accused of making the King a loan of PS20,000 at an exorbitant and unnecessary rate of interest, and of profiting from discounted debt paper.

He can see the Duke looking sceptical, as if he's thinking: Well, anyone can make an accusation. Murmuring to advisers. They're all patting at the air around him, calming him down; no doubt telling him to sit quietly and wait for the parliamentarians to run out of steam; saying, what proof can these rustic nobodies have of anything? It's all just hot air; let the poor fools talk themselves out. De la Mare, who knows better, bides his time. Among the Duke's advisers he recognises smug Sir Richard Stury. There's another one, too, in the shadows, who looks rather like the Customs man...Chaucer. Can't be, though. Look at them: shaking their heads. Pitying him, for the fool he's about to make of himself.

But he's not. De la Mare's heart swells and sings as he rises again. The knights stir and murmur. They trust him. They know he's done his preparation properly.

'With my lord's permission, I invite Richard, Baron Scrope of Bolton, the King's former treasurer...' he begins. His lips form the final words, 'to testify', but even he can't hear them. The sound is lost in the roaring hubbub.

With quiet joy, de la Mare watches the bewildered eyes of the men around the Duke. They know he means business now, because if anyone knows the truth about the government accounts, it'll be Scrope. They just can't see how he's done it. He can almost see them saying: But Scrope's gone home. North. Hasn't he?

Scrope, when he comes in from the antechamber, is grey-faced. He flinches at the approving calls and whistles from the knights. He turns his eyes away from the Duke, too; and once he's standing by de la Mare, he keeps his gaze fixed on the floor. It's clear he's hating this. But it's clear, too, that he won't shirk his duty.

De la Mare is brief. He waits for silence. He can afford the time. All he says, once the room's quiet enough to hear a pin drop, is: 'Do the copies of the royal accounts that you have kept over the past year confirm the truth of these accusations?'

All Scrope says, in return, is: 'Yes.' Still staring at the floor as the room goes wild.

'Thank you, my lord,' de la Mare says, or mouths, through the noise.

With an awkward bow at his own feet, Scrope sits down.

Then de la Mare gets down to the detailed business of comparisons.

First he reads out from the testimony of City merchants, some of them Florentines, the values written on several Florentine debt agreements that should have been exchanged at the Crown treasury, under the terms of the deal, for half their paper value. The testimony he reads states that the holders of this paper did, as agreed, receive only half the paper value of the debt agreements: PS50 paid for every PS100 of paper debt.

Then de la Mare turns to the Crown's accounts for the past two years. In the final version of these, as approved by Lord Latimer, the Crown does indeed appear to have paid out only PS50 for every PS100 of paper debt - the 50 per cent discount formally agreed.

But in Scrope's contemporaneous version of the royal accounts, things look very different.

In Scrope's version of the accounts, a full PS100 in gold coin has left the treasury for every PS100 of Italian debt paper presented. The total of extra money which has disappeared out of the final version of the accounts, over the past year alone, amounts to many thousands of pounds.

'Who was that extra money paid to, my lord?' de la Mare asks courteously, turning back to Scrope.

The man rushes to his feet. Staring down, he says, 'I can't say, Master Forespeaker. I wasn't present on any of the occasions on which money was paid out. All I can say is that the original entries were made in my lord Latimer's hand. If you want more details, I can only suggest that you ask my lord Latimer himself. Alternatively, you might ask the London agent for the House of Bari, of Florence, who, as I understand, has also been closely involved. He may know.'

'Ah - so the House of Bari still has an agent in London, does it, my lord?' de la Mare asks in a velvety whisper. 'All these years after closing down its offices in England?' He smiles a little. An eyebrow rises delicately.

'Only an informal one, sir,' Scrope replies. 'And I don't believe he bruits the connection abroad. A Flemish merchant, sir, by the name of Richard Lyons.'

There's a stir in the room. From the throne, the Duke watches without moving, while his men buzz and whisper around him in what seems to be soundless panic.

'When did these "corrections" start being regularly made to the treasury accounts, my lord?' de la Mare resumes over the hum.

Scrope hesitates, and then screws his eyes shut and plunges on. 'Only about a year ago, Master Forespeaker...when you were first given the task of investigating losses from the treasury,' he says. He opens his eyes. 'Before that, if you go back to last year's or the previous year's books, you'll see the amounts that were actually paid out all written down, plain as a pikestaff. But those books have been lodged in the archives; down in the cellars. They're never brought out.'

'And why do you think the accounting system was changed at that time?' de la Mare asks gently, scenting sweet victory.

Scrope's face is a furious red stain; he's never been so embarrassed. But he doesn't stop now. 'I believe your inquiries must have frightened the perpetrators of this fraud, Master Forespeaker,' he says, giving his own toes a terrible stare. 'I believe they wanted to cover their tracks. But I don't believe they thought you'd do more than glance at the latest accounts. I don't think they realised how deep you'd dig.'

De la Mare lets those words sink in across the chamber. 'Thank you, my lord,' he says sweetly.

De la Mare's having a job suppressing the smile that wants to come to his own face. He's done it. He's proved his knights have the truth with them. He's got the Lords on the run. From his litter, with closed eyes, the dying Prince allows the corners of his mouth to turn up, just a little. For a moment, he even opens his eyes and glances at de la Mare. De la Mare half closes his eyelids and bows his head: the closest he'll allow himself to a celebration. A shared moment of quiet triumph.

It's only later, as the crowds start pushing out through the doors, and the tide of emotion recedes with them, that de la Mare feels his hands begin to shake with delayed emotion. Other men would feast and sing, maybe. But he's tired, so tired. He's longing to be off his feet. Tonight, he tells himself, I'll sleep soundly tonight.

The next morning, with Latimer and Lyons impassive before them, the knights try Latimer and Lyons before the lords of the land. The next morning, after a night at Stury's, Chaucer sneaks back west with him as an extra, unofficial member of the Duke's entourage.

In the chamber, Latimer is accused of all kinds of supplementary crimes, as well as stealing profits from the debt deal. He's accused, among other things, of profiting from the recent unsuccessful military campaign in Brittany by extorting excessive ransoms from a number of Breton towns whilst at the same time surrendering others to the enemy - including Becherel and Saint-Sauveur - in return for bribes. He is also accused of cruelty to the people and cities of that land.

Lyons is accused of massive tax evasion, of various forms of customs-farming skulduggery in the ports of southern England, and of trying to corner the market in imported foodstuffs - legally the preserve of the pepperers and grocers - by confiscating, stealing and hoarding enough cargoes to force up prices.

The commoners gaze at Latimer and Lyons hungrily, full of their seething commoners' resentment that the treasury's pockets have been picked by the court and the court's creatures. Peter de la Mare's phrase hangs over the commoners' heads, 'the kingdom impoverished, the Commons ruined...for the private advantage of some near the King'. Do justice to these crooks, the Commoners are all thinking, as Peter de la Mare's interrogation begins, and there'll be no need for us to pay you a tax, too.

Chaucer and Stury, likewise, gaze at Latimer and Lyons. But what the pair of them are looking for, in those two faces, is the calm knowledge that this will pass, because Chaucer and Stury are now too rattled to have confidence in what they're telling the Duke.

To Chaucer's relief, it's there, on the faces of the accused, that golden self-assurance. A little comforted, Chaucer thinks: Well, they don't look bothered, at least. He's never seen Latimer ruffled, come to that. And Lyons - it's hard to imagine
him
looking anything but smooth and smug.

It is in Latimer's silky, leonine nature to argue. With his long tawny eyes flashing in his long golden face, the noble lord growls out a demand to know what person accuses him. The Commons, who have sworn vows of secrecy and mutual support, answer, through the mouth of Peter de la Mare, that they make all their charges 'in common'.

Latimer is disconcerted. But not for long. After a moment he says, with the knowledge of triumph dawning in his eyes, 'Ah, but all my actions had the approval of the King and his ministers.'

'Ah,' replies de la Mare, with the knowledge of a different triumph dawning in his, 'but your actions nevertheless evaded the law of the kingdom, and were against the provisions of the statues made in Parliament, and statutes made in Parliament must be followed as written.' And he brings out the book of statutes he just happens to have about his person, opened at the right page to prove Latimer has broken the law, and he reads out the relevant paragraphs, to howls of approval from his men.

It is also in Latimer's nature to inspire fear by displaying his power. So, after the midday break, he sends his son-in-law, Sir John Neville, the King's seneschal, to defend him to the Commons. Grandly, Neville tells the little hedge-knights from nowhere that it's unseemly for low persons such as themselves to persecute a peer of the realm, privy councillor, and knight of the Garter.

Equally grandly, de la Mare replies, tapping the mountain of parchments in front of him, 'Cease, my lord, to intercede for others. We have not yet discussed you and your misdeeds. You may have enough to do in your own case.'

Latimer leaves the chamber when his part of the hearing is over with his usual slight smile. He looks as though nothing has gone wrong. But Chaucer, lurking in the shadows at the back of the room, is no longer convinced.

It's too much for Stury. He's outraged, that night, by the downfall of his friend Neville, who was also indicted at the end of his testimony and will have to answer charges of his own. Stury drinks himself maudlin. 'You know what this is leading to, don't you, Chaucer?' he keeps asking, looking out at the quiet of the black river with red eyes.

Chaucer keeps his peace. 'Don't take it too much to heart. We're observers, don't forget,' is all he says, in the manner of a man to a child. 'We can offer the Duke advice, if he wants it. But we're not part of it ourselves. We want to keep it that way.'

But Stury only shakes his head and pours himself more wine, and goes on muttering, 'Rebellion, rebellion; this is rebellion.' Stury's getting too close to it all, Chaucer thinks privately. Worried; distancing himself in his mind.

When Lyons' turn comes to face the knights, it emerges that bribery is more his weapon than persuasion or intimidation. He is cynical enough to believe there is no point in trying to bribe Peter de la Mare, that deluded nobody with his gassy talk of justice. Lyons goes straight to the master. He fills a fish barrel with a thousand pounds in gold coin, tops it off artistically with a few choice sturgeon, and has it sent to the Prince of England. Disgusted, the Prince sends the bribe on to the King, in his bed at Havering, to show how low the creature Lyons is. But he counts without his father's sense of humour. King Edward, who's feeling a little better now that he doesn't have to face this Parliament, is said, in the crowd, to have accepted Master Lyons' gift with amusement. He's taking the bribe, he tells his son, with a cheerful cynicism to match Lyons' own, because, after all, it appears to be money that's been stolen from him. 'He offers us nothing but what is our own', men in taverns quote him saying. With approval, too. They've always loved the King.