The False Virgin (29 page)

But there was a lanky knight sitting in a corner. Sir Edward Jupe was by himself. He was staring at a wooden pint pot on the table in front of him. He did not look up as Geoffrey approached. The
knight of the battered countenance had turned into the knight of the woeful countenance.

‘I hope I find you well, sir,’ said Chaucer, feigning surprise.

‘Who . . .? Oh, it is the maker. The poet, Geoffrey Chaucer.’ The slightest smile of recognition passed across Sir Edward’s gloomy features.

‘I last saw you at the Savoy Palace,’ said Geoffrey, as if that encounter had taken place months before rather than a couple of days earlier. He sat down on the bench by the
knight.

‘Do not talk to me of that evening, Master Chaucer. I prefer to forget it, and to forget the night that followed. It was a bad business.’

Chaucer nodded, not expecting to get to the quick of the matter so soon.

‘I wish I had stayed my hand,’ Sir Edward continued.

Chaucer wondered whether he was about to hear a confession of murder but what the knight said next left him more baffled.

‘What were those lines in your piece?’ Jupe took a swig from his pint pot before, furrowing his battered brow, he recited from memory:

It took Geoffrey a moment to recognise his own handiwork. This was a rhyming couplet – and not a very good one either – from his poem about St Beornwyn. It occurred
when the narrator was speculating that the good woman might not have been quite so good, after all. Sir Edward Jupe had seized on these unremarkable words after hearing them just once, he had
stored them in his head, and was repeating them back to their creator. In other circumstances, Geoffrey might have been flattered. Now what he felt was a creeping dismay.

‘I don’t understand you, Sir Edward.’

‘What you said about women is all too true, Master Chaucer. Nevertheless, I regret what I have done.’

‘But I do not know what you have done.’

‘Why, I put pen to paper, as you do.’

If Chaucer had been baffled before, he was now utterly confused.

‘Sir Edward, let us speak plainly so as to avoid all misunderstanding. We are talking here of a Castilian gentleman by the name of Carlos de Flores?’

‘Oh, him.’

The expression on Jupe’s face was unreadable. Was it a grimace? A sneer? A trace of guilt?

‘You were observed talking with him at the Savoy Palace. You were angry.’

‘We exchanged words, it is true.’

‘Words before blows?’

‘No blows. I did not offer him violence,’ said the knight, in a mild, almost surprised fashion.

‘But you were seen following de Flores out of the room.’

‘I did not
follow
him, Master Chaucer. I merely left shortly after him.’

‘You did not see where he went?’

‘No, and I do not care where he went either. As far as I’m concerned he may go to . . . to the lowest pit.’

‘Sir Edward, you are aware that Carlos de Flores is dead? He was found on the foreshore of the river next morning.’

This time the knight did respond. His lined face became suffused with a dull red. He fumbled with his hands on the table and knocked over his pot of ale. Liquid dribbled, unregarded, onto the
floor. This was no act, Geoffrey reckoned. Sir Edward was genuinely shaken by the news. It was some time before he said anything more, and then it was only to ask for confirmation. Briefly,
Geoffrey Chaucer described the outward circumstances of the Castilian’s death.

‘So then, the fellow is no more. You cannot think I had anything to do with it, Master Chaucer. If I had fought with that foreign gentleman, it would have been done in the open and in an
honourable manner, not using a knife in the dark down by the water.’

‘Yet you were in dispute with him over a lady?’

‘I discovered that my lady Alice had been . . . I found out that he had been pressing his attentions on her . . . and though she struggled to resist his blandishments . . .’ Sir
Edward sighed.

Chaucer waited, but when no more came, he said: ‘What did you mean about regrets then? About putting pen to paper?’

‘When I left the Savoy Palace I returned to my lodgings on this side of the river. I fear that I was not altogether in my right mind. That very night I sat down and wrote to my lady Alice
in a manner that was impetuous and foolish. I did not address her dishonourably but I believe I did not use those terms of respect and esteem that are her due. When I . . . when I came to myself
again, it was too late to recall the letter. It had already been dispatched to the Palace. I sent my squire with the thing and he put it into my lady’s hands himself. And now she has opened
it and, without a doubt, she has read my unkind words and read them again . . . and again . . .’

Sir Edward Jupe seemed to notice for the first time that he had spilled his drink on the floor. He watched the ale settling into the grooves between the flagstones.

‘Your squire can confirm all this? That he took the letter to the palace and so on.’

‘Why, yes. Simon would no more utter a falsehood than—’

The knight faltered. Geoffrey realised that he’d been about to say that he would never lie. Perhaps he thought it was too boastful a claim to make about himself. Chaucer clicked his
fingers for the pot-boy and ordered another pint for the disconsolate lover. He might as well drown his sorrows. And Geoffrey too felt a certain sorrow for Sir Edward. He did not think that the
lanky individual next to him had killed the Castilian. He was capable of killing, of course, but he would not do it on the sly.

When the fresh ale arrived, Chaucer took his leave of Sir Edward Jupe. On the way out he settled his score with Harry Bailey.

‘A good man, that,’ said the landlord, slipping the coins into his apron, and indicating the knight in the corner.

‘Yes,’ said Chaucer.

‘One of my most devoted customers too.’

Instead of returning to the Savoy, Geoffrey went back to Aldgate. There he was able to clear up at least one part of the mystery. To Joan and young Thomas he showed the ruby on the golden chain,
which the steward had taken from de Flores’s body. The housekeeper did not recognise the item but Thomas, who had had enough presence of mind after the attack to enumerate the rings that the
thief wore on his hands, said he was almost sure it was the one around the man’s neck. Geoffrey complimented him once more on his sharp eyes. Then he went into his office to think.

It was plain enough that Carlos de Flores was the one who’d stolen the Beornwyn copy from this very room. And the reason for the theft was that the Castilians in the Savoy wanted to get
their hands on the poem to see whether they could use it as a weapon in their campaign against Katherine Swynford. They must have heard something of its contents but not been able to lay hold of
one of the two copies that Geoffrey had already sent to the palace. The more he thought about the matter, the more obvious it seemed. Quite against Geoffrey’s intentions – indeed, the
notion had never occurred to him – the poem about St Beornwyn worked subtly in their interest. That is to say, it could be interpreted as being against Katherine and so in favour of
Constance.

Why else had the priest, Luis, been the only person to single Chaucer out for congratulations on the night of the reading, and why had he done so in a very public manner? The fact that Geoffrey
was Katherine’s brother-in-law might be very useful to them. See, the Spaniards could say, even the family of John of Gaunt’s mistress disapprove of her and of her behaviour. Why, the
poet Geoffrey Chaucer has penned a story about a woman who pretends to be pure but who is, in reality, driven by her passions, by her appetite for men. In itself, these whisperings would hardly be
enough to drive a wedge between Gaunt and Katherine but it all helped to spread unease and distrust in the household. Once again, Chaucer wished that he’d never heard the tale of Beornwyn
from the Prior of Bermondsey. It had brought him nothing but trouble.

But was the killing of de Flores connected to the wretched poem or not? Geoffrey had already spoken to two men, John Hall and Sir Edward Jupe, with reasons to dislike, even to hate, the
Castilian. He still did not think that Jupe had killed de Flores. He believed the knight was genuinely a man of honour. But was it not conceivable that he had pursued his rival all the way down to
the foreshore of the river and there, in a fit of drunken madness, stabbed him to death? Jupe would know where to strike quick and deep. It was the sort of violent action he could perform in his
sleep. And, by his own account, he’d been the worse for wear. ‘Not altogether in my right mind’ was his roundabout way of describing his condition while writing the fatal letter
to Alice Osterley. Geoffrey had just seen for himself that the knight was as ready to wield a pint-pot as he was a sword. And hadn’t the landlord of the Tabard called him one of his most
devoted customers?

Yet, of the two suspects, it was John Hall who seemed much the more likely to have done the deed. As a secret agent in the pay of Thomas Banks, he had easy access to the Savoy. He was also
working for Carlos de Flores, or pretending to work for him. At any rate he was being paid by the Castilian. Not paid enough, though. Suppose there had been a prearranged meeting down by the river
that night and then a row over money during which Hall stabbed de Flores? The red-capped man was capable of anger. Chaucer remembered his outburst in the Tabard.

De Flores must have had other enemies. Given his womanising reputation at court, there must be any number of husbands and lovers and suitors bearing a grudge against him. With a mixture of
amusement and discomfort, Geoffrey considered that he might even be counted among them. After all, he’d seen for himself his wife and the Castilian strolling easily in the Savoy gardens. Had
heard her laughter, seen his casual touch on her arm. Bearing a grudge wasn’t the same as sticking the knife in, but one might easily lead to the other.

It was with relief that Geoffrey turned back to some paperwork that had to do with his wine and wool responsibilities. There was something simple and clean about the lists of quantities, about
the additions and subtractions and the rates of duties and tax that was far removed from the messy, bloody world of human affairs.

The next morning Chaucer returned to the Savoy Palace, intending to see Thomas Banks and to report on his progress, or lack of it. He had it in mind to question John Hall again. But Geoffrey had
no sooner entered the cell-like chamber set aside for him, than there came a tap at the door.

He was surprised when the round-faced priest, Luis, entered and asked to speak to him. Chaucer noticed that he avoided using his name. Otherwise his English was good. Geoffrey motioned Luis
towards the only other chair in the room. But the priest shook his head.

‘Not in here, if you please, Master . . . Here there are too many sharp ears. Please come to our side.’

Curious, Geoffrey followed the black-clad figure along passages and up and down flights of stairs until they arrived at a part of the Savoy that was quite strange to him. It was probably no
coincidence that they were at the opposite end of the palace to the area where Katherine Swynford and Philippa Chaucer were lodged. For these were the apartments belonging to Queen Constance and
her retinue. Luis led Chaucer into a chamber that was as finely furnished as any he’d seen. There was an abundance of gold and silver plate, and of silk hangings. It was a room that openly
proclaimed the pious nature of its occupant. Geoffrey observed the images of the Virgin in recesses and a sculpted relief of the crucifixion set on an altar-like table. Scattered across other
surfaces, with casual deliberation, were devotional books bound in gem-encrusted leather. There was an ornamental folding screen in one corner, the wooden handiwork of which, to Geoffrey’s
eyes, looked Spanish. In the air hung a faint incense-like smell.

Luis, more at ease now that he was back in his own surroundings, indicated that Chaucer should seat himself in a chair to one side of the fireplace. He sat down opposite. For a moment he dabbed
at the gem-studded pectoral cross, uncertain how to begin.

‘You told a story in this house quite lately, a story about a saint whose name I find it difficult to get my teeth around.’

‘Beornwyn,’ said Chaucer, before adding half under his breath, ‘Beornwyn, yet again.’

‘Yes, just so. I too have a story to tell you. It is a short story, Geoffrey – can I call you that? I can get my teeth more easily round Geoffrey. Yes, good. It is a short story
about a lady. She is from my homeland of Castile. She marries a man of rank and wealth but, of the two of them, it is she who brings more to the union because her title raises him up higher. They
live together under one roof, away from her homeland.’

Chaucer sighed inwardly. Had he been brought to the priest’s chamber to listen to a tedious allegory about Constance and John of Gaunt? Some impatience must have shown on his face because
Luis waved a soft, placatory hand.

‘No, no, this is not what you think, Geoffrey. I am not speaking here of the Queen in whose service I toil. I am not speaking at all of your master, Lancaster. I am talking of someone
else. This lady, as I say, lives under the same roof as her husband. But her husband has an eye that will not stay still. Is that how you say it in English? An eye that moves all the
time?’

‘A wandering eye, you mean? He can’t keep his gaze away from other women.’

‘It is not a question of eyes only. Ever since they have arrived in this foreign land, husband and wife, he has wandered with his eyes and with more besides.’

‘Let me be clear,’ said Geoffrey. ‘We are talking here about Carlos—’

‘Hush,’ said Luis. ‘No names, no names. In the end, the lady can bear it no longer. Perhaps her position is made worse because she is dwelling in a foreign land. Her husband
will not moderate his behaviour but he becomes more shameless, more lacking in honour. One night not long ago, she finds him emerging from a chamber where he should not be. In her anger she pursues
him until they meet and they are – how do you say it? – face to face. They are by the river. Fearing he is about to do her violence, she seizes a knife, which he carries, and she turns
it upon him, like this.’