The People's Queen (19 page)

'I asked my friend the treasury clerk who presented the paper. He didn't know. He only knew it wasn't Lyons. No big ginger Fleming's ever set foot in the treasury office, he said.'

Alice raises her eyebrows. Coolly, she says, 'Hm. A mystery, then.'

Chaucer's heart is beating like an insane drum. 'I've got to ask you,' he says in a rush of breath, desperate to get it out and have it over with. 'It wasn't you, was it? Because if you
were
to start playing a game like that, it would be exactly the kind of thing I'm warning you about. They'd get you. The City and the court aren't as separate as you think. They all hear each other's rumours in the end. And if you were involved in some sort of bent business, and someone put two and two together...they'd all be down on you like a pile of bricks in no time, City, court, wherrymen, the lot.'

'Me?' Alice Perrers says, and now she does grin, openly, with flaring nostrils and wide-open eyes, as if she's invigorated by the cut and thrust of Chaucer's argument. 'But I haven't been near Westminster for days, Chaucer.'

She raises her eyebrows higher and spreads empty hands as if to show Chaucer there's no Italian debt paper in them. She's trying to look innocent. But she just looks absurdly pleased with herself.

'So,' Chaucer says, slowly, 'you're saying it really wasn't you? And you know nothing about it?' He doesn't believe her. But he can't help laughing at the mock-affront on her face now.

'Anyone but you who suggested such a thing, you know what I'd say?' she replies robustly. 'I'd say, "That's what you say, you old barrel-full of lies. Now prove your slander." And I'd be safe enough. They never would.'

Baffled, Chaucer nods. Of course he notices she hasn't replied directly to his question. But she's so self-assured that she's beginning to make him feel a blunderer, rushing in with his homespun advice. He thinks: Oh, who knows? Her confidence is catching. Perhaps he's just misunderstood everything. There's so much he doesn't understand about Alice.

So, tentatively, he goes in a new direction. 'Still...you lay yourself open to all these accusations...because you
are
so interested in money, and so clever about making it. More than other women. More than most men. You are, aren't you?'

She begins another easy don't-bother-me shrug, then, somewhere in the middle of it, pauses. Her shoulders stay up. Her hands are still spread. But above them, her eyes are quietly on him, and the defensiveness in them has gone.

'I suppose I am,' she says, in a different, more honest voice. 'Interested.
More
interested.'

'Why?' he asks.

She goes on looking at him, as if she's surprised by the simplicity of that question - as if she's wondering herself. Chaucer can almost hear her think.

In the end, she says quietly, 'I could tell you about where I started from. Because I didn't start rich, you know; I had to use my wits to get on. And that would be a kind of answer. But...'

He waits.

She's in her thoughts, half smiling a couple of times as she remembers things.

'...it wouldn't be the real answer,' she says after a while. Quieter still. Looking as if she trusts him. Almost. 'Not any more.'

'Not now you're so rich,' Chaucer prompts in a near-whisper. There's no need to do more than whisper, now they're standing so close.

She nods, acknowledging her present wealth. But absentmindedly. She's still thinking out her answer, the real answer.

'Other women marry...devote themselves to their children...?' he prompts.

But she scarcely seems to hear that. 'Oh, I've had husbands,' she says vaguely. Her brow furrows. 'But they're...fixed, men, they all have their station in life. Marry a merchant, and you're a merchant's wife for ever. Marry a country knight, and you get a lifetime overseeing dairymaids. No one moves. There aren't many men who could change their lives as much as you just have, Chaucer - court to City, without a quiver. Most people are too scared. But what if it's the movement itself that you've found you enjoy? The freedom to keep trying something new?'

'Freedom...' Chaucer repeats, trying the unfamiliar word on his lips, hearing its sound, heady as a rush of fresh wind, inside his mind. He likes the bravery of it - that she isn't frightened to live without the male protection most women seek. He's flattered at the way she seems to be describing him as one of the brave, too. She's right, he finds himself thinking. People don't like change, on the whole. They fear it.
My
wife doesn't like my having changed my life, even this much.

'Because that's what I've found. I'm good at moving...thinking on my feet,' she's confiding. 'It's not the point, that I've got enough money (whatever enough is). If I just sat smugly back for the rest of my days, counting my blessings, getting fat - well, what would I
do?
I'd be bored. It's not the money that counts, not in itself. It's the thinking. The truth is, I like living on my wits.'

They're practically touching. Nose to nose. 'And I suppose that's always going to annoy the people who are scared,' she adds philosophically; pityingly, almost. 'Poor things.'

Chaucer's so transfixed by her candidness, or just by her proximity, that he almost takes that last step forward to kiss her. Catching himself just in time, he steps back instead. And she looks up at him, as if remembering herself too. She grins - her old sharp mocking grin. '
You
'd like to be living on something more solid than your wits, right now, I can see,' she says in her bright, everyday voice. 'Food.'

An hour later, after meat pie and laughter and an enjoyable recitation of some more of his hangover verse ('O dronke man, disfigured is thy face! Sour is thy breeth, foul artow to embrace,' and so on), Chaucer's on the boat home.

Thinking. Because now, with his stomach full and his hangover muffled by pastry, and the river wind blowing his headache away, he's less pleased than he was, back there, about how the conversation with Alice has gone.

Whatever she says, Alice must have a hand in perverting the debt exchange, he's sure. She must be lying to him. There's no point in his hiding the truth from himself, too. For one thing, she's the only person Chaucer can think of (except perhaps Latimer, or himself) who has enough acquaintances both at court and in the City to have been able to work it. And the only one with the wit to think of it.

And if she
is
involved, he thinks, trying to focus on the disapproval he knows it's right to feel, then she's as much a glutton for money as, well, as he's been with her wine. Even if she's just piling it up, as she told him, to prove to herself that she can - in the end, what's it for, all that money? It's not as if she can take it with her to meet her Maker. Or as if she has children to leave it to.

But his disapproval won't quite stay. The hilarity that's always near the surface when Alice is in his mind keeps surfacing instead. Chaucer tries, though not very hard, to turn his thoughts from the cheerfully lewd imaginings that now crowd in, unbidden, about how she's remained childless despite all those husbands and lovers. Perhaps she's chosen it - chosen to keep the girlishness of her face and figure, which are her fortune. Perhaps she's more knowing than other women about sponges and vinegar, about counting days and calculating the cycles of the moon; or perhaps, who can say, she makes the King wear a pig's bladder while he makes love to her. He can't help chuckling to himself at the thought. You can't rule anything out with Alice Perrers.

Or perhaps her barrenness is the private tragedy in her life. Perhaps that's what set her off in the first place on her multiple marriages, and relentless self-enrichment, and general self-willed good-natured entertaining infamy.

Poor Alice Perrers, Chaucer thinks (knowing, at the same time, that he's trying to find excuses for Alice, so he can go on enjoying this friendship; knowing that he needs a bit of compassion, nice, oily, sentimental compassion, to help the bitter pill of her suspected dishonesty go down more easily).

He lets his own two children come to his mind. Whatever the problems that have started to beset his family, he welcomes the tide of tenderness that sweeps through him now at the knowledge of them, the near-drowning intensity of it. Being the father of Thomas and Lizzie is his great pride and consolation in life - more overwhelming than any love for a woman, or advancement at court, or even than the poetry he so enjoys writing.

He's happy not to be a courtier whenever he remembers that lords send their children away at seven, to be trained in the ways of chivalry and courtesy in other men's households. He can think of nothing better than to be of humble merchant stock, where, if all goes well, you keep your beloved children near you, teaching them all you know, until, in their teens, your son marries and brings a wife and, God willing, more children into your home.

If all Alice Perrers' manors and money-bags are only a substitute for the joys of motherhood, he tells himself, half relishing the mawkish twisting of his heart, then they're a poor second best.

After that he lets himself stop thinking. He leans back on the bench, and just enjoys the receding of his headache, and the wind rushing through his hair. Freedom, he's thinking, as he looks up at the circling birds, imagining what their extra dimension of movement must feel like; wishing he knew for sure.

TEN

Alice waits on the jetty until Chaucer has set off east, towards the City, in the boat he's flagged down. She waves until his receding figure turns away.

Then, once his head is only a dot on the glitter of water, she puts her own hand out and stops another boat.

She has her own business downriver, at Westminster, at noon.

She could have shared a boat with Chaucer. But she doesn't want to have to tell him where she's off to, or why. It's exactly the kind of thing that would rile him, and get him preaching again. And she doesn't like being preached to.

She's going east because, last night, after she put sweet, stumbling, apologising, pie-eyed Chaucer to bed on his bench, she got a message from Richard Lyons.

One of his employees was in trouble, said the secretary who rode down to her (and stayed in an entirely different part of the house, sharing quarters with the priest, up in the solar). The man - arrested months ago at Southampton - was finally to come up before the King's Bench tomorrow. The case was being transferred up to Westminster, to the King's own Bench, because the man was known to be employed by a London citizen, had been arrested by London men answering to Mayor Walworth, and the alleged offence had taken place in a royal port. Master Lyons was hoping that she might use her influence to get the man a sympathetic hearing.

The favour Lyons wants from her is exactly the kind of thing Chaucer thinks she shouldn't be doing: interfering with the course of royal justice. Foolhardy, reckless. Blah, blah, blah. But the way she sees it, this is a question of friendship - a matter of honour.

Alice hasn't asked Lyons' secretary the details of the charges, nor has she been told; she can guess it'll be some sort of twisting of trade regulations, but why should she care? Wanting to know too much about the detail, or the employee, wouldn't be in the spirit of the thing. She's off to Westminster to sort things out. Feeling the river run through her fingers; listening to the grunting of the boatman; watching the dance of light on the ripples.

And, as she goes, her gaze is fixed up in front, on Chaucer's little dot of a head.

The case starts, as these things always do, with a quiet word with the judge beforehand. Alice is relieved, as she flits through the hall, having quickly rearranged her own clothing and windswept hair to suggest she's just popped casually in from somewhere upstairs, rather than come up from Pallenswick especially for this, to see that the Justice today is Sir Robert Belknap.

Belknap is a portly, thick-lipped, easy-going man from her own part of the world, with a fat laugh and a younger wife and a good cook. Alice knows him well enough to know he'll do anything to get out in time for dinner. He isn't a man to be held up over the finer points of law.

'Now...about your first man,' Alice says, after they've greeted each other and Belknap has asked how the reroofing is going at her aunt's manor at Gaines (not that he's ever been near Gaines, but he's an Essex man, and sits at the Assizes at Brentwood Town, not far away, so he's heard the name; it's a friendly gesture).

Then she pauses. Perhaps she should have paid more attention to the detail, after all. She realises that she isn't even sure what Lyons' man is called. 'Tyler,' Belknap supplies helpfully. She pauses. 'Up before me for...' He looks down his roll, whistling in air through his teeth. '...extortion - demanding money with menaces? Southampton port? Head of a gang of six?' That'll be the one, Alice thinks, more certain this time. 'Apparently, also for telling his victims that the money he's taking off them is going to Richard Lyons,' Belknap adds with fat delight, wiggling his eyebrows, inviting her to share the laugh. 'The vintner. His employer, too, as it turns out; though the man Tyler's supposed to work as a debt collector, not an out-and-out thief. Still, it's not a bad cover story, all things considered...because Lyons actually does have a customs responsibility now, doesn't he? I wonder how
he'
ll feel, when he finds out?'

'I've been asked', she says, 'to put in a word.' She turns her fullest smile on Belknap, flashing her teeth. 'For that prisoner - Tyler.'

Belknap goes on watching her, with the matching smile still firmly on his face but with caution now starting to shadow the corners of his eyes. She can see he's reassessing their chat; repositioning her not as friendly acquaintance but as potential...problem? Threat? Perhaps people haven't often asked him for favours before. Perhaps he doesn't know how to respond. 'Uh-huh,' he replies, and he nods his head once or twice, pleating the lardy skin under his chin. 'I see.'

So she bows, ready to move on. If he's not going to ask more, she doesn't need to explain more, does she?

It's only when she's already passed him by, and is wafting on in the general direction of St Stephen's chapel, feeling pleased at how easy influencing people can be, that the Justice finally plucks up the courage to hrmph a couple of times, and then ask the obvious, if tactless, next question. 'If I may ask...' his fruity voice calls out. Perhaps it's because he's got his courage back and wants to intimidate her into answering frankly, or perhaps he just hasn't got control of his voice, but for whatever reason it comes out far too loudly for comfort. '...who exactly is it who...' As she turns, hastily, before he yells out to the entire royal administration in all the different corners of the hall that she's after a favour (which isn't at all the way these things are done), he lowers his voice to a normal speaking tone, but there's still a challenging look in his piggy eyes: '...wants Tyler given an easy ride?'

Alice doesn't take kindly to feeling bullied.

So she lets him wait for the answer. She can see, within an instant, that he's wondering whether he's done a dangerous thing by questioning her, or crossed a person more powerful than himself. He isn't brave by nature. He's still meeting her eyes, but he's fiddling with his feet and twitching with his fingers.

Old Alison always used to say Alice was a bit of a bully. She used to get carried away as a kid, taking the boys down a peg or two. She's certainly enjoying the awkward truculence fat old Belknap's trying to keep on his face now.

She doesn't give him the satisfaction of a reply. She leaves him with his uncertainties. She just raises a mocking eyebrow, nods, and moves off, leaving him gaping like a fish.

That would have, should have, been the end of it: the magistrate quelled, the criminal sprung. She'd never have dreamed of going to the hearing herself. That wouldn't be at all the elegant thing. It isn't how power works.

Except that, quite unexpectedly, today, as she leaves the hall, she sees that they're already bringing in the first prisoner for his hearing -
her
man. She notices the two sentries first (and notices, too, with her usual quiet laugh at fate, that the two stocky heavies look at least as villainous as the cowed man roped up between them). This must be him, she thinks. Tailor. Tiler. He'll be grateful to her in due course, though he won't know that yet. She gives way to the group passing through the doorway.

From maybe two or three feet away, she looks up, straight into Tailor-Tiler's face. He looks up, straight into hers.

He's not much taller than her, but thicker-set. He has a not unattractive face under a mess of rope-coloured hair: long, intelligent eyes, a big straight nose (slightly cauliflowered now), some strangely sweet freckles on bridge and cheeks, and a wide sensual mouth ready to turn up into a grin.

I wonder if he still winks when he grins? she thinks, before she realises she's recognised him.

Of course, Tyler. He's taken his name from the tilery, why not?

Then she says, 'Wat?'

The sentries turn, looking alarmed, thinking she's talking to them. 'What, mistress?' one says, absurdly echoing the same sound.

But Wat shakes his head at her, just a fraction.

He's recognised her too, that's obvious (though whether he knows her for the King's mistress is less clear). But his face says, Allie, listen, this isn't the time. No fuss now, it pleads, as it always used to whenever they ran into trouble on their thieving expeditions. Not while these blokes could make my life harder than it need be. Keep a low profile. Keep things simple.

She understands. She shakes her head. 'Nothing, soldier,' she says. 'Carry on.'

Still, she turns and follows them back into the hall, to hear the case going before Belknap. This isn't only a favour to Lyons any more. It's just become personal.

It's astonishing to see the back of Wat's head again - the same squarish flat-topped shape to it that she remembers; the same squared-off fingernails, too. All at once, glancing down at his hands, Alice is a girl of ten, or less, back in the long grass, giggling helplessly, while the boys hold her down and tickle her in the ear with her own long plait and Wat grins at her, winking, holding her down with those same hands, and, with the sun behind him, saying, over and over again, in a treble boy voice, 'So, do you confess?'

He's always been her favourite. They're so alike: the naughtiest of her brood, Aunty always used to say, and the cleverest too.

It's madness, of course, to go back into the courtroom now, when she's already arranged the verdict. But she has to be sure. Now she knows who the prisoner is, she's worried by the flicker of rebellion she thinks she may have detected in old Belknap's eyes.

It isn't every day that Alice Perrers feels it necessary to make use of her position of power. But she doesn't think anyone will dare try and stop her. Belknap? Don't make me laugh, she thinks. And as for Edward - well, if the worst comes to the worst, she can always tell Edward he's told her himself to interfere. He won't remember any different, poor old dear.

Instead of hovering politely on the edge of the court space, leaning against a pillar among the scurrying clerks and scriveners, allowing her influence to be felt quietly, as would have been perfectly proper, Alice, in her bright yellow, standing out against the men in black, consciously drawing all eyes to herself, sweeps out into the middle of the hall.

Holding her head high, making her back straight, she walks to the marble seat in the middle of the floor where Edward would have sat, if he were here: the actual King's bench. She's acutely aware of every footfall as she goes. So is everyone else.

They all know - better than she - that she isn't supposed to be there. But none of them fancies taking her on and telling her.

As she sits regally down on the marble bench, she can almost see the circle of indrawn breaths.

Into the hush, surrounded by O-shaped mouths, she says, 'Proceed, my lord Justice.'

Belknap's eyes are as round as his mouth. But, after a stunned moment, the voices start: the swearing-ins, the formalities. Bowed heads busy about their rituals, eyes turned timidly away, bald patches on display. Ants, below her. She can feel the blood drumming in her ears as the charge is read out.

So this is what it feels like, to be royal.

But she isn't too carried away to notice that Belknap is giving her a very sick look as he leans forward, ready to speak as the first case opens.

'New facts have come to light in this matter,' he begins. His voice is loud and hard.

Her stomach lurches. He looks so hostile - almost as if he might actually get his revenge on Alice for trying to frighten him by announcing to the court what everyone must privately already know. This is the fact that when a man called Wat Tyler is caught with a gang of heavies beating extra money out of exporters at Southampton, but also has a long-term contract as a more conventional type of debt collector with an extraordinarily wealthy vintner called Richard Lyons, he will almost certainly have been sent to do this rather dirtier job by Richard Lyons too. But his pay will have reflected the risk of his work, and his willingness to take the punishment if he's caught, and Richard Lyons' name is not supposed to come up, in any official context, now or ever. It wouldn't be at all in the usual way of business for that to be mentioned now.

Alice thinks, with sudden terror, but Belknap...just...might. Oh, God's teeth and bloody wounds. He looks so angry. He's practically bristling. Even his paunch has gone from the soft, wobbly, comfortable flab she remembers to a kind of carapace - a great curved breastplate of rage at being dictated to by her. She has a feeling that if someone put a fist into that paunch now, they'd break their knuckles.

So, as Belknap's voice gets louder, Alice leans forward too. She makes her back straighter. She makes her face harsher. And when she speaks, she makes her voice as loud as she can, to compete with the judge's professional boom.

'New facts', she projects back at him, deafening herself, 'which leave no case for the accused to answer.'

Belknap just stares, astonished into silence again. So does everyone else. Have they heard? Perhaps, in her panic, she's thought she's been shouting, but no sound has come out of her mouth?

She booms: 'My lord the King therefore orders the court to release the accused.'

Another muffled silence. It's as if the entire room has had a spell cast on it. It's as if no one can move, or speak, or do anything but stare.

She booms, louder still, addressing herself to the two soldiers around Wat this time, making energetic get-on-with-it-then-go-away gestures with her right hand as she does so: 'Go on, then. Hurry up. Set him loose.'

It's only after the two soldiers have woken up out of their appalled slumber and started hastily fiddling with knots (with their eyes firmly down the whole while) that the rest of the courtroom seems to come back to life too.

She rises to her feet as the others begin to stir around her. She goes and stands in front of the prisoner. Sternly, she says, 'Let this be a lesson to you.'

His eyes, slowly raised, meet hers. He's always had that gift of insolence. He mouths, 'Dancing Bear, Cheapside, in an hour.'

She doesn't acknowledge his words. She's staring at the familiar freckles, and wondering how he's done that to his nose. There'll be so much to catch up on. Loudly, she finishes: 'Do you hear, my man? Don't let the judge find you in his court again. It won't end well another time.'