The People's Queen (42 page)

It's only as the other members of the committee come back to their seats, and Chaucer sidles up to the nearest triumphantlooking knight for a whispered consultation, that he understands more about what will happen to Alice's property. 'The Duke wants her house in London for himself - and all her rental property along the Ropery,' the man mutters with a smug look. 'He says it's compensation for being so wickedly maligned. But he's promised to give us the first year's rent from the Ropery properties as a reward for our service here.'

Chaucer sighs, feeling sicker than ever and hopeless at the knowledge of so much human frailty. How cheap it is to buy people, he thinks in disgust; how shabby this gathering of men of supposed honour and principle.

He doesn't understand why the Duke would want to be so cruel to Alice. The Duke was once a better man, surely? A man with his heart in the right place. There must have been some terrible falling-out that he can't imagine.

Unless the Duke's enemies have been right all along...

The Duke is still talking. There's more.

'Having confirmed her guilt, the committee therefore also confirms the original sentence of banishment on Mistress Perrers,' he adds, and his voice carries effortlessly over the buzz.

The final words silence the buzz.

There's a moment's puzzled silence. Even the other committee members look surprised.

Eighteen months ago, Alice was sentenced to banishment from the King's presence. They all remember that. But it's impossible to reconfirm that sentence now, surely? Now the King's dead, Chaucer's wondering, and from the intentness of the silence many others must be wondering at the same time, where, exactly, will Alice be banished from, or to?

The war makes the whole notion of banishment unworkable - a vague but inevitable death sentence - for where can an exile be sent that isn't at war with England? What hope could an English person have, in France, of anything except murder at the hands of the French?

It's pure spite. The Duke's own, unnecessary, personal cruelty. In wonder, Chaucer looks at that handsome dark face, with its hard little smile, with the kind of automatic revulsion he normally feels only for the kind of animal you exterminate without thinking: spiders, or rats, or stoats (and, at present, for his own wife). Chaucer wonders: Whatever has become of him? And: How can he?

As the talk begins, as the implications sink in, as the volume rises, he turns his gaze to Alice. She still won't look up. But Chaucer sees her downturned face has gone paler, until it seems so grey and full of dread that it looks dead already.

THIRTY-THREE

She's being led away, down a corridor, and he's following her again, through the crowds.

She's so quiet he has to follow the determined movements of the guards, not the bobbing top of her head. Her head must be bowed. He can't see it.

They put her back in an antechamber, away from the fuss. Chaucer's still behind.

He hardly knows what he's thinking. All he knows is that the fear that has always been his constant companion, the fear that makes his gut churn and heave, and sweat break out on brow and palms and armpits, is absent. Instead, there's a welcome quiet in his body; a tautness. He's walking on air. The world he's passing through seems to be moving more slowly than usual, or perhaps it's his mind that's working faster. He can't tell, for what's bubbling up inside his head is taking shapes he doesn't even recognise. He doesn't care, either.

Alice is so quiet the men start playing cards outside as soon as they've shut the door on her. They don't bother locking it, Chaucer sees.

No one knows what to do next, it seems. Everyone's still too surprised to have thought of the next step to fulfil the Duke's order.

Except Chaucer, that is. Chaucer, with the wind in his nose, and the blue of the sky outside in his eyes; Chaucer, who for some unaccountable reason has the phrase 'it's now or never' singing inside him; Chaucer, who's wondering if the heady feeling in his heart is courage.

Chaucer gives Alice's guards fifteen minutes to relax, while the chaos of men leaving the chamber below and eddying around is at its worst.

It's not his cautious mind that's organising his behaviour any more. If you stopped him now, he wouldn't be able to tell you what he was doing. But the mysterious new impulse governing him prompts him to go quickly and purposefully to the stables, to fetch his saddlebag. It still has Elizabeth's two habits in it.

Then he goes back upstairs to the watchmen, and tells them, as if he's known all along he would say this: 'There's food in the kitchen - a celebration meal, with ale - someone go down and fetch it.'

He hears with surprise that his voice is steady. Calm. Confident. Cheerful, even, as if for some reason he, the Comptroller of Customs for the Port of London, were the natural person to be deputed to bring this news to the guards; as if he might also be enjoying tucking into this dinner for guards in a few minutes. From far away, the usual Chaucer, the careful one, thinks, approvingly: Well, of course they'll trust me. Why wouldn't they? I couldn't sound more trustworthy.

He's guessed right. They hardly even look at him, they're so pleased to have something to do. And they all pour off down the stairs, every last one of them, with expectant faces. No one wants to be the one left behind while the rest take the best of the pickings.

Chaucer opens the door.

Alice is sitting by the window, with her back to the room.

He says, 'Now.' There's no time for talk.

He's got the habit out by the time she looks round. He's holding it open.

She understands at once. He can see that from the light that comes back into her eyes. Alice isn't one to miss a trick, or waste time philosophising. It's no time at all before she's in the habit, doing up the top fastening, with the hood over her head, and they're out of the door and trotting along the corridor, very fast, feeling a couple of inches above the flagstones, almost before they've had time to breathe.

It's only when she's on his horse, and he's holding the bridle, with his belly full of fire, and they've silently negotiated the gate out of Westminster, and the fields and river and London town are visible ahead, that she seems to breathe out; that she whispers, 'We're away...' and then, looking at Chaucer with something like wonder, '...are we? Is that really it? You've got me out, just like that?'

It's a moment more before she grins - the old Alice, resurfacing, he thinks with relief - as if she's just heard the best joke she could possibly imagine. She shakes her head. A little louder, though still hoarsely, because after all she still isn't used to talking freely, she adds, 'I'd never have guessed you had it in you, Chaucer.'

Chaucer doesn't explain the nun in his apartment to the servants. She sits quietly by the fire, with her hands clasped and her hood up. There seems no need. Nor does Chaucer feel any need for thanks. He's hardly realised until he's done it that he was planning this wild moment of rebellion.

If he'd had a moment's conscious thought, he might have explained that he thinks the Parliament has gone so far in its wild burst of malice, sanctioned, encouraged even, by the Duke, that it's surprised itself. The lawmakers have no more idea than he or Alice how to implement the sentence they've just passed. They may soon be slightly embarrassed by their own vindictiveness; and, even if they aren't, they won't make any great effort to actually pursue the woman they've punished. They've had their spectacle; made their kill. They'll probably be quietly relieved that Alice has made off without forcing them to face the consequences of their action. They're more than likely just to let the whole thing drop. And now Chaucer's full of joy, and, unexpectedly, of fun, that he's managed to get Alice out so easily. He's full of fellow-feeling for her, too; full of the idea 'we're two of a kind, so we have to look after each other'. He's racing.

When the servants have gone, leaving dishes of meat and bread, and cups of wine, he says briskly: 'What we need to work out now is where can you go? To be safe?'

What property Alice might still own is unclear. So it is also unclear where she can go and take quiet refuge.

She shakes her head. She still can't bring herself to speak, or eat. She's grateful, so grateful, but all she wants to do, in practice, is look at the fire, and not have to think. But she doesn't mind Chaucer thinking for her.

Chaucer's fizzing with purpose. 'Not Wendover, obviously. Not Pallenswick. And not London. But what about...?' He starts to list the manors he remembers her having acquired without the King's help, in the past few years: Hitchin, Plumpton End, Moor End, Lillington Dansey, Frome Valeys, Brampford Speke, Southcote, Powerstock, Litton Cheney, Knole, Stoke Mandeville, Morton Pinkney, Sutton Veny...but every time she just shakes her head.

'Why?' he asks, with this brisk new energy that fills him with light. She mumbles something. He waits, until he understands that she let go rights to all but a clump of property-holdings, ten in all, before the first Parliament she was called to. She wanted to rid herself of any possessions more than a day or two's ride from London. Those ten were restored to her, later; and she's managed to move most of the cash from most of the other sales down to Gaines, too. The deeds of these properties are firmly in her name; there's nothing fraudulent about her title to them. It's all as rock solid as Chaucer told her to make it. But now, after the latest Parliament moves against her, and after seeing the Duke's open malice, she suspects that the lawmakers will make it their business to inspect every last one of the properties she's still listed as owning, and will almost certainly requisition them and everything in them - especially now she's run away. And she doesn't want a repeat of what she saw happening at Pallenswick, when the government inspectors came calling.

'Then there's nothing else for it,' he says in the end. She hasn't suggested it herself, so he can see she's reluctant. 'I'll see what I can do about finding out the status of those properties. But meanwhile, you'll have to go home, to Essex. To Gaines.'

She shakes her head again.

Misunderstanding why, he persists: 'But I remember. You made the manor there over to your son, when he was knighted. At least you were going to. Didn't you?'

That isn't why she was shaking her head, but it's a novel thought, so she stops and considers for a minute. It's true. She did do that. And that means that, technically at least, Gaines can't be confiscated (though there's no predicting whether that will hold good if the Duke decides he wants to take it from her).

Chaucer thinks he's won the argument, she can see.

If only he understood that her children don't mean to her what his must mean to him; that they are strangers to her now, the left-over human relics of a love that's long gone too. They're more Aunty's children, really. If only he understood that, to her, accepting a future at Gaines means accepting she's lost everything. She's not ready to accept that.

If only she could not think about any of it.

He's leaning persuasively forward, saying, 'You must be worried that by being there you'd endanger your children...but if you don't actually own it any more, and the Duke and his men have got the best of your property for themselves, it's remote enough that no one's going to bother looking there. Don't you see?'

She shakes her head. But she feels so dazed that she's not surprised he's ignoring her preference.

He says, 'Go there. Let the dust settle. Let the lie of the land emerge.'

He says, 'Get your strength back.'

He says, 'It's not all bad. At least you'll have your children with you.'

She doesn't understand why the mention of children makes his mouth, briefly, twist. She doesn't ask. She's too absorbed in her own problems.

But he's so insistent about sending her to Gaines that, at last, she nods her head. She does see that it might be bad for his prospects, harbouring her right here, under their noses.

When he sees her nod, finally, he puffs out a great sigh of relief. 'Good,' he says with satisfaction. 'Gaines it is. Now, let's get started.'

He's treating her like a child, not a lover. She's grateful for that. She's lost all ability to take decisions.

First, he wraps up bread and meat for her.

Next, he gives her a little bag of money. She takes it without a word. (Last time, last trial, she remembers, numbly, it was the Duke who rescued her and gave her money. How grateful she was then; but how pointless her gratitude has turned out to be.)

Thirdly he hands her a key. 'To here,' he says. 'The door here's always open to you.'

Finally, Chaucer takes her down and puts her on his own horse. She thinks: He's not a rich man. Somewhere inside, she's grateful to him again. More than grateful. It's a grey day, bitterly cold, but mercifully the sleety snow that's been threatening all day is holding off.

It's only when he's heaved her up, and walked her out through the gate, in case of questions, and settled her at the back of a late train of tradesmen making their way to Waltham, that he reaches up, puts a kindly hand on her back, and grins encouragingly at her.

'Life has so many surprises for us all,' he says, squinting up, as if trying to impart some great secret. 'You never know what you'll find at the end of your road.'

She knows he means to be encouraging. She nods, dully. She kicks on the horse. She doesn't mean to be rude. She just doesn't want to leave all this behind. If she doesn't say goodbye, doesn't freeze her feelings into words, she's thinking, it may not be for ever.

A few minutes after Alice has gone, Chaucer's hands start to shake. It's only when he's alone again, picking up the empty goblets and finding them, unaccountably, rattling against each other, that he realises how close he and Alice have been, all day, to being caught. The risks he's taken. He gives up on clearing away. He sits down, feeling suddenly cold, and wraps his arms around his knees, waiting for the trembling to pass. He's seeing, for the first time, how close bravery is to thoughtlessness.

This time, when Alice reaches the quiet road to Gaines, there are no children playing in the fields. There's just a man, with grey hair and a neat grey beard, stiffly tying up a horse at the iron ring in the wall.

She looks warily at him as the horse shakes her forward. Another stranger. She's starting to fear strangers.

He has big broad shoulders. He's very tall. He's well made. Must have been handsome in his time.

She's close, very close, by the time he turns round and gives her an equally suspicious stare from pale, pale blue eyes.

It's only then that she realises whom she's looking at. Was this what Chaucer meant by surprises at the end of the road? Could Chaucer possibly have known?

She reins in the horse. 'Will,' she says, expressionlessly, from six feet away, from high up.

He goes still. He's recognised her voice, all right. He's just not sure...

She's in her nun's garb, she remembers. She puts down the hood.

He's never been given to displays of emotion. He looks at her for a long while before he answers, even more blankly, 'Alice.'

He's never been given to displays of emotion, she reminds herself. But she's not sure she can hear the tenderness she might have wanted in her husband's voice.

What follows next is almost enough to make Alice laugh, especially when she imagines Chaucer, sitting in his mess of bits of paper, with his endless flow of talk and ideas, with his generosity of spirit, with his eyes shining, picturing her in some happy-ever-after Christmas moment, being reunited with her lost love, being hugged by clean pretty rejoicing children.

William takes her inside, takes her upstairs, unbuttons himself, pushes her down on a bed, pulls up her skirts, and makes love to her, in no-nonsense military fashion, without a word of endearment.

He smells familiar, like remembered happiness. And everything, for days, has felt so unreal anyway. And she's interested. She lets it happen. This might be the future. Why protest?

But when he sits up and starts to talk - he doesn't seem to expect a word from her, even an explanation of the nun's habit he's just unseeingly desecrated - and she sits meekly listening and watching, relearning his tics of eye and mouth and expression, remembering the timbre of his voice, recalling, now she sees it again, that roll of fat behind his ears that she never liked, she begins to realise that, though he seems a greyer, harder version of the man he was before, she might have changed more. Did she really just sit, in this slumped silence that seems so familiar, while he gave orders, before? Wasn't she ever the centre of attention, back then? Didn't he ever listen while she laughed, and made jokes, and amused him with her wit? She begins to think that the woman she's become, in the years of running things, and planning things, and jollying people along, might never be able to accept that this man - this abrupt-mannered, cold-eyed, order-issuing soldier - could ever bring her the kind of happiness she's come to want.