Part 16 (1/2)

Watelyng Street, Cordwainer Ward Eleanor spent the afternoon preceding her rendezvous with Tewburn away from Gropec.u.n.t Lane, taking it from a wealthy merchant down from Coventry. Joan Rugg had sent her to the man's inn at half-s.e.xt, and by Vespertime her tongue, her lips, her a.r.s.e, even her c.o.c.k ached from a day of hard use. She needed cider, and she needed it cursed soon or she might's well nail herself to the side of the stable and let every freeman of London have his turn with her corpse. She shed her dress and pulled on her breeches. It was that sort of a day.

The Painted Lion off Watelyng Street was fairly packed at that hour; seemed half the workingmen of London lined its benches, calling for ale. Edgar was able to nudge himself a s.p.a.ce on the broad hearth, where he sipped contentedly and watched the crowd.

The talk was all of labour statutes and poll taxes. He heard names and t.i.tles he recognized, all spoken in contempt. The Duke of Lancaster, the Earl of Oxford, the Duke of Dung and let him rot in his privy.

My brother Joseph, farms out Suffolk way for Sir Rillardain. What he tells me, the pollers are counting his very children. Twelve groats per to the royal coffers, if you please, and not a penny left for bread.

Where's the injustice in that, hey? Suppose if you be the mighty Duke of Lancaster you need gold to pave the steps of your new palace, the Savoy being torched and all.

Can't have our dukes goin' penniless now, can we?

Nor our good king.

Where'd our England be without the king has enough gilded hawks to hunt Waltham Forest?

And enough of our blood to spill for the sodden fields of France?

But thank St Lazarus we got the Parliament to sort it for us.

Got me there. A blessed s.h.i.+ning lot of common profit for the nonce.

A handsome statute it was, too, the poll tax. Makes a fleet of good common sense.

Your married pardoner paying twelve s.h.i.+ll, your Mayor of Chester paying forty and six, your widowed second cousin of the third son of the alderman's clerk-in-chief of Bridge Ward paying three s.h.i.+ll four why, what could be simpler than them sums to figure up in the Ex-cheker?

Edgar laughed along with them, raising his jar to the p.r.i.c.kling Pickled p.r.i.c.ks of the Poll Tax, though the men's words went right around and over his muddled head. The workings of Westminster and the Exchequer were a fathomless mystery to Edgar; no reason to start plumbing them now. For a while longer he sat with the labourers, listening to the discontented talk of tax and toll, of collections and conscriptions, until he reckoned it was time.

The Angelus bell had already sounded from St Martin le Grand by the time he turned up Soper Lane toward St Pancras. The ward watch generally left the maudlyns and their jakes alone after curfew, though he didn't want to risk further delay. He angled on to Popkirtle Lane, avoiding Joan's crew and the prying eyes of the bawd, then went through a narrow gap between storefronts and over the low wall.

Beneath a waxing moon the St Pancras churchyard could a.s.sume an unearthly cast, as if the bodies below its soil were reaching up for the ankles of those who pa.s.sed above them. Long gra.s.ses whisked at his hose. Under his shoes he could feel forgotten graves, and there was a faint musky smell carried on the churchyard air. When he reached the meeting place he stopped and leaned on a tilted slab, a stone rectangle that served well for coupling. No sign of Tewburn yet. It was a peaceful night in the parish. The gentle breeze was cool on his face and a blanket of quiet settled among these stones.

Too quiet. Normally at night, until hours after the curfew bell, the churchyard would hum with the giggles and groans of maudlyns at their labour, with catcalls from the two whoring lanes to east and west as jakes wandered their length. Even on slow nights the ladies would fill the air with a low chatter that could easily be heard in this gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce behind St Pancras. That night Edgar heard nothing.

A rustle in the gra.s.s, low and to the right. He turned and backed away, heart pounding. Only a bird, picking at something a carrion bird, at its foul work. It gave him an ugly look as he stepped toward it. He stamped the ground. The scavenger flew sluggishly away.

Edgar moved forward several feet, then retched in the high gra.s.s. He turned back and looked. Before him lay the ruined body of James Tewburn. His head had been half-severed from his neck, now a gaping valley of torn skin and blackened flesh. The skin above, pale under the quarter moon, was a ghoulish lantern, glowing brightly among the looming stones. One of clerk's eyes was already gone, the bird's easiest meal.

Squatting in the gra.s.s Edgar closed his eyes again and said a prayer. After a careful look around he stood and crept between the stones to a gap in the western wall, thinking only of reaching the safe company of his fellow maudlyns. A few more steps brought him out to Gropec.u.n.t Lane.

He shrank back with a gasp, now understanding the silence. The narrow street was abandoned, as if Joan Rugg's st.u.r.dy gaggle of maudlyns had simply fled. Doors sat askew, their hinges broken apart. A pendant-lamp lay on the pavers, its gla.s.s shattered, the frame bent. No candlelight from the stalls or beneath the eaves.

Edgar huddled against the corner of a horse barn. Sure, the mauds got their share of grief from the authorities. Once a season or so the alderman might send his men down to make a few arrests, usually at the behest of an abbot or prior. Curfew violations were a way of life, though every once in a great while there would be some trouble about it.

Yet this was more than the typical ha.s.sle from the constables. The maudlyns were simply gone. Vanished, like Agnes Fonteyn, and now James Tewburn was dead in the churchyard.

From the darkest shadows to Edgar's left a figure stole out on to the narrow lane. From his belt he pulled a short sword, the blade glistening in the moonlight. Edgar quickly calculated the distance between them. He looked over his shoulder at the churchyard. Back at the man. The stranger paced slowly forward, peering beneath the eaves.

Then, from the top of the lane, a flash from a torch. Night watchers, patrolling the ward. 'You there!' one of them shouted, seeing the man in the lane.

For a moment it looked as if the intruder would turn and run, but he decided against it, clearly not wanting the entire parish after him. If he was Tewburn's killer, Edgar thought, flight would cast immediate suspicion on him once the body was found. He discreetly sheathed his blade and approached the watchers, his hands raised. 'Just out for a bit of queynt, good fellows. Where are all the mauds?' A gentleman's voice.

The first walker clucked his tongue. 'Not here, that's sure. Popkirtle Lane and Gropec.u.n.t Lane both. Busted up earlier today, s.l.u.ts hauled away, and who knows when they'll be back.'

'How unfortunate,' said the man.

'Aye,' agreed the first walker with a rough laugh.

There was a pause. 'Sir Stephen, if I'm not mistaken?' said the second.

'The very same,' said the man, his voice taut with the recognition. Edgar heard the jangle of coins as the man prepared to pay off the walkers for their poor memories.

As the chatter continued Edgar edged backwards, away from the arc of lamplight, until he was at the end of the alley leading back to the churchyard. He took a final glance at the trio on Gropec.u.n.t Lane. At one point the stranger shook his head with a laugh, and it was then Edgar saw it.

A hook on his chin, a whitened scar. And a face he would remember. Sir Stephen. Edgar turned and made for the wall.

TWENTY-FIVE.

The palace of Windsor On the evening following the Feast of St George the palace was lit like a box of polished jewels, the guests just as gaudy. Simon and I had arrived from Southwark late that afternoon and were staying at the mill inn by Windsor Bridge, and had joined the crowd streaming through the west gate. The secretive St George's festivities on the eve and the feast day itself had been restricted to the twenty-four knights and twenty-odd ladies of the Order of the Garter, as custom dictated. Over the last four years, though, and at King Richard's initiative, an additional, much larger feast had been thrown on the morrow, largely to show off the extensive renovations at Windsor. Each of the Order's lords and ladies was permitted ten guests for the closing feast, though the size of the crowd indicated that the figure had been interpreted rather loosely.

That year and the last I had been the guest of Sir Lewis Clifford, a Knight of the Garter who had happily approved the addition of Simon to his list. Next to Gaunt himself, Clifford was perhaps Chaucer's greatest supporter in these high circles, a friend to poets of diverse quality and fortune, and it was Geoffrey who had introduced us years before during my time at the Temple. Clifford and I had an interesting history: a missing s.h.i.+pment of Lyonnaise silk, a discovered bribe, a quiet conversation about one of his crooked a.s.sociates. In grat.i.tude he became my entree to these circles, a trusted source when I needed him, and a fount of unending courtesy when I did not. When we entered the great cloister I saw him near the grange, speaking to Nicholas Brembre, Mayor of London and one of numerous royal and civic officials present at the annual gathering.

'A stew of bureaucrats and secretaries,' I mused to Simon.

'Generously spiced with aristocrats,' he said quietly.

The Windsor steward had opened up the tower at the top of the Spicery Gatehouse to the guests, who moved up and down the stairs as sconced torches lit the darkening sky. The tower commanded a vast panorama of the surrounding countryside, which was settling into dusk. Outside the walls and far below, the commons were already ankle-deep in mud, enjoying the order's bounty: casks of ale, spiced cider, roasted mutton by the score. The lower tables stretched into the night, the nearby hamlets and villages emptied of their residents as the king purchased their goodwill toward himself and the Garter. We descended to the hall for Richard's entrance. Despite the deepening factionalism in the realm, for these few days the cream of English chivalry was to set aside its squabbles and resentments and unite for a festival of prayer, unity, and reconciliation. A charade, of course, though always a useful one.

'Why are you smiling, John Gower?' Katherine Swynford, sidling up as Simon wandered off. She wore an uncharacteristically modest dress, a taffeta of deep purple cut just below her neck, an arched and almost coif-like hood covering all but the frontmost span of her hair. With her stood Philippa Chaucer, also dressed down, though where Swynford wore modesty as a peasant wears ermine, on Philippa this understated attire looked natural. Chaucer's wife had a prominent chin below a pleasant, honest face, and eyes that sparkled with a wit whose quickness she shared with her sister. 'Plotting some nasty satire, I suppose?'

I bowed to the sisters. 'Simply admiring the royal view, my lady, and appreciating the feel of the royal stone beneath my humble feet.'

Swynford tightened her lips and dismissed me, looking around for someone more important. Not difficult at Windsor. Everyone knew that Gaunt's mistress aspired to the Order, and these occasions gave her the opportunity to win favour with the knights in hopes of getting her name put before the king once Lancaster was in a position again to ask for royal favours. Swynford's attention was on the terrace doors and the duke's coming entrance. She stood several feet in front of us, showing no interest in our talk.

'You are looking well, John,' said Philippa, her soft voice patterning a warm familiarity.

I inclined my head. 'Nice to see you down from Lincolns.h.i.+re, Philippa.'

'Have you heard from Simon? How is he faring?'

I was used to hearing this question from Chaucer's wife, who had no knowledge of my son's dark past. 'Why don't you ask him yourself?'

She looked surprised. 'Simon is back in England?'

'Right there, talking with Ralph Strode.' I nodded at him, standing nearby with the common serjeant. 'Geoffrey hasn't mentioned it to you? Perhaps he hasn't heard either.'