Part 22 (2/2)

I drank slowly, considering how much to tell him. 'The only whiff of a Lollius to be found among Bury's ma.n.u.scripts came from the works of Horace.'

'”Oblivion, dark and long, has locked them in a tearless grave”,' Strode quoted Horace in Latin, his eyes dark and inscrutable slits. 'Of course.'

'That's right.' Though impressed as always by the common serjeant's prodigious memory, I felt, too, that Strode's reaction was skewed, as if I had offended propriety by bringing this book back to London.

'How did you get it, John?'

'It's a copy,' I admitted. 'Made by a friend of ours.'

He narrowed his eyes. 'Clanvowe?' At my nod he looked away. 'I thought I recognized the hand, should have suspected his role in all this. Sir John's connections among Wycliffe's minions are as deep as Lancaster's.'

'We have to take this to the mayor, Ralph, or the chancellor,' I said. 'St. Dunstan's Day is less than two weeks away.'

Strode pushed the volume across his desk and angled his frame toward the wall. 'Are you mad, John?' Closing me off.

'What?'

'I can't have anything to do with this. Nor with you, if you insist on taking this up the ladder.'

'But, Ralph, don't you see it? ”Long castle will collar”? You and I both know what this means. You have to see reason here-'

'Reason?' Strode thundered, coming to his feet. 'You speak of reason, and yet you bring this poison into the Guildhall? This work has been circulating among agents of the French, John, I told you that weeks ago. And meanwhile you've been picking at justices, bishops, clerks, coroners, Lancaster's own wh.o.r.e, threatening them with G.o.d knows what so you can find it. To say nothing of the maudlyns.'

'The maudlyns?'

'The corpses are stacking up, John.'

'What corpses? What the h.e.l.l are you tal-'

'You've heard about Symkok?'

This stopped me. 'Nick Symkok?'

'Took a header off the bridge. An accident, Tyle's saying.'

The clerk for the subcoroner, the man who'd been feeding me some of my best information for nearly twenty years. 'He knew something,' I said. I'd seen it in his eyes that day at the coroner's chambers. Why hadn't I pressed him sooner? Then it got worse.

'And my man Tewburn. Asks a few questions around Southwark and gets a slit throat for his troubles.'

'James Tewburn is dead?'

'Murdered, Gower, and left for the birds in the St Pancras churchyard.'

'Ralph, I don't know what to say. Are you sure-'

'Now I learn you've been conjuring with Clanvowe, a known affiliate of Wycliffe and his strongest voice in Richard's affinity! Why do you think the man was sent off to Wales last week?'

'Conjuring?' I protested, rising and jabbing a finger at his ma.s.sive face. 'You listen to me, Ralph. I'm the one who's been trying to keep this whole mess from exploding in our faces. This isn't even the original stolen from La Neyte. It's a copy.'

'And all the more seditious for that,' he said, giving me a breath of the half-eaten pie on his desk. 'The talk of a plot against the king is growing more feverish by the day. Now you return from Oxford, from an evening with Sir John Clanvowe, of all people, with the work that sparked it all. I don't suppose Purvey broke bread with you? I hear he's in Oxford. But not even you could be that stupid, John.'

I hesitated.

'No,' he said, backing away.

'Wait Ralph-'

'Oh for Bart's skin!' he howled at the rafters. 'Where the h.e.l.l is your mind, Gower? Our nation is on the verge of war again, and you're dallying with budding heretics?' His breath slowed, his voice laden with quiet warning. 'Let's hope those buds don't bloom, Gower, at least not until Dunstan's Day is safely pa.s.sed.'

With that he dismissed me, his stony silence and averted gaze like twin weights on my shoulders as I left Guildhall yard. The hour was late, and I was badly shaken, in no state for another appointment that evening, though it couldn't be avoided. My suspicion had sharpened since leaving Oxford with Clanvowe's ma.n.u.script, and there was one line from the prophecies rattling my skull with the racket of rocks in a jar the line I had just recited to Strode, provoking his fury. Long castle will collar and cast out the core. The 'core', I was convinced, was cor, Latin for 'heart', and signified King Richard's personal emblem, the white hart. 'Long castle' was equally obvious: longcastle, longcaster, Lancaster a young boy could make the connection, and 'Longcastel' was a spelling I had seen on more than one doc.u.ment in Lancaster's own hand.

Worst of all, I had seen this bit of wordplay before. In another poem, an elegy, written some years ago after the death of Gaunt's first wife, d.u.c.h.ess Blanche. And in the great liturgy of information and deceit, coincidence is an unknown song.

I pushed on to Leadenhall, which I took to the city's easternmost gate, still open to the few stragglers making their way into the city from Bethnal Green or Whitechapel, their features alight with the torches along the inner gate. Aldgate loomed over me like a midnight eagle from its eyrie, its single eye a lone candle high above, s.h.i.+ning through a glazed window that might have been Chaucer's parlour. The stairways and apartments climbing Aldgate created a labyrinthine ascent to the top, where I went down a quarter-stair and pa.s.sed through an arched walkway giving on to the high landing before Chaucer's apartments.

I took the heavy knocker in hand, intending to tap lightly, but the bronze lozenge escaped my grasp. A booming concussion echoed through the precincts of Aldgate. The heavy door opened to reveal the frown of a servant. The man looked me up and down, his face twisted with displeasure. I inquired after Chaucer and got a curt reply. 'Master Chaucer's away from London till Monday, sir, his affairs takin' him to port a' Dover.' Three days. I left strict instructions for Chaucer to contact me on his return.

Now over the bridge, the narrow way between shops and stalls. As I pa.s.sed the open parts of the span, the water rus.h.i.+ng darkly below, my hand moved more than once to my bag; I felt a mounting temptation to cast Clanvowe's ma.n.u.script into the Thames and be done with the entire affair.

I knew something was wrong before I reached the gate to Overey close. Will Cooper stood just outside, a sputtering lantern suspended from his fingers. When he saw me he moved in big strides up the lane. One of his eyes was blackened. A line of blood had crusted on his upper lip.

'Master Gower!'

'What is it, Will?'

'They've taken Simon, sir.'

'Who?'

'King's men, looked like.'

'Whatever for?'

'Treason's what they said.'

'Treason?' My hand went to my mouth. The counterfeiting. Someone must have slipped news of Simon's transgression to an agent of the crown, and after all this time. As I stood there I vowed revenge even on Chaucer, if he proved my betrayer. 'Did they have a warrant?'

'Not's I saw.'

But of course they didn't. The thought chilled my bones. If they'd taken Simon for treason, a warrant would be unnecessary. He might already be dead.

'We had a bit of a struggle, we did,' Will went on, 'with two of 'em having to hold me back. I got a beating, 's you can see.'

<script>