Part 27 (1/2)

'Because I'm your mouse, a little creature you can tease and claw till it dies?'

'Because-'

'Because you a.s.sume that John Gower-'

'Because I wrote the d.a.m.n thing, John!'

At last. I let his words linger. 'Say it again.'

He looked at me, eyes watering. 'Liber de Mortibus Regum Anglorum. The book is as much my invention as the book of d.u.c.h.ess Blanche, or the Parliament of Fowls.'

I sat back, a cold rage running through my veins. Then my joints relaxed, my vision starring as I stood and moved away from him. I honestly did not think he would admit it. Now that he had, I realized how keenly I had wanted it not to be true.

'John-'

'Go to h.e.l.l, Chaucer.'

'John, as your friend-'

'You are no friend. You are a curse.'

'-as your friend, John, I beg you to see all this from my angle.' From behind me I heard him rise, his shoes crackling the rushes. 'There are constraints on my position. My wife is Swynford's sister. To have revealed my hand in the composition of this work ... it's difficult to imagine the disaster that might have befallen the duke and his family.'

'And my family, Geoffrey?' I said faintly, still turned away. 'Why didn't you trust me with this information in the first place? Did you think I'd betray you to Westminster? You know me better than that.'

'As well as you know me, John.' I turned. Chaucer almost cringed; there were still things he wasn't saying.

'What about this Lollius, then? What was his role in writing the prophecies?'

Chaucer lifted a vase from a nearby shelf, wiping at the dusty bra.s.s. 'Lollius is also my invention. A Latinist of real distinction, and his stories are only now being translated into English. He's the auctor of what will be my own great work someday, a romance of Troilus.'

'Simon is missing, Chaucer,' I spat. 'Perhaps you might worry about your precious poetry some other time.'

He set down the vase, looking perplexed by his own narcissism.

'And the Lollius of Horace, the poet I chased through Oxford?'

'No relation,' he said. 'Though certainly an inspiration. To blame it all on Horace's Lollius, an unknown poet from ancient Rome? I couldn't pa.s.s it up.'

'But to write a poem prophesying the death of our king? You can't be ignorant of the treason statutes, Geoffrey. How many times have you heard them read aloud on the street? To compa.s.s or even imagine the death of our king: treason pure and plain. You know this. I cannot imagine what might have motivated you to write this sort of thing. And ”long castle”? You used the same wording in your book for d.u.c.h.ess Blanche. You might as well have signed the d.a.m.ned thing!'

Chaucer was tapping his foot. 'But I didn't ah, what can I tell you, John, that you won't discover for yourself soon enough?'

'There's more?'

'I wrote the De Mortibus in Tuscany, John. In Hawkwood's company, during that visit last year. It was a jest, an amus.e.m.e.nt that took me a few mornings. I never intended it to circulate. But then it went missing.'

'Tuscany.' My skin p.r.i.c.kled into gooseflesh. 'Simon knew you'd written it, then.'

He nodded.

'Did he read it?'

'Oh, he read it quite carefully, I should think.'

So Simon knew the De Mortibus, had known of it all this time. There was something in Chaucer's tone, though, that bothered me. 'Are you suggesting Simon stole it from you, brought the ma.n.u.script with him from Italy?'

He looked at his shoes, a gesture I took then as a sign of shame. Despite his newfound forthrightness, he was still deceiving me, protecting me from knowledge he feared would destroy me. 'The timing doesn't work. It's true that those who took Simon must have made a connection between the book, his service with Hawkwood, and his return to England. But the De Mortibus came to London weeks before Simon's arrival.'

'Suggesting what?'

Chaucer's eyes clouded. 'Suggesting there are other forces at work here, John. Larger forces, with motives far from poetical.'

'Isn't there a simple solution?' I said. 'You wrote the prophecies, after all. You can prove it, for the original ma.n.u.script is in your hand. And you have the good will of the duke. Why can't we go to him and lay bare what you've done?'

'Impossible.'

'Why?'

'It's gone too far.'

'How so?'

'Well, for one thing, there are already multiple copies circulating. This one you've brought me is in Clanvowe's hand. I a.s.sume there are others. Who would believe I wrote it, even if I were to confess?'

'So you'll let another man be quartered for your own vanity?'

'It's not so simple.' Chaucer stepped close to me. 'The knowledge of this book reaches deep into Richard's faction. Some of the most powerful men in the realm are arrayed against Lancaster. Warwick, Arundel, Oxford, Buckingham, who knows how many others, all of them convinced that the thirteenth prophecy will shatter the duke's faction, pull the king away from his uncle. If it's known that the De Mortibus was written by Geoffrey Chaucer, betraying the king's affinity on the duke's behalf, why that would be just the wedge the earls need to drive apart Lancaster and the king, breaking an already fragile truce between Richard and Gaunt. Imagine it: Chaucer and Clanvowe, scribbling seditious prophecies at the behest of the recently deceased John Wycliffe and his chief supporter, the Duke of Lancaster. A scandal of the highest order.'

'So it all comes down to politics? Factions and alliances, t.i.tle and power, government and gossip.'

Chaucer waved a hand. 'Easy for you to say, John. You're a man without a faction the one fact about you everyone knows. The reason you were chosen for this task was precisely your neutrality. Your ability to do all your dirty work regardless of faction.'

'I ”was chosen”? As if the pa.s.sive voice somehow excuses your choice of me as your tool?'

'Oh, you weren't my choice.'

I froze. 'Then whose?'

Chaucer's eyes closed.

'I am sick of your petty secrets. Who suggested to you that I be sent on this fool's errand?'

Chaucer puffed his cheeks, looked at the ceiling. 'Strode.'

Of course. 'And how long has Ralph known that you wrote the prophecies?'

'Since my return from Italy, the week before our meeting at Monksblood's. It was Ralph who convinced me I needed to recover the book. He believed it was already too late to confess I wrote it, which I was prepared to do. We needed your help, your skills. But then, when Simon returned, it was felt that you were too compromised. That you were both in danger.'

I thought again of my trip to Oxford, that earnest conversation with Strode about the allure of false propositions. Strode had been tantalizing me, then, with his own false proposition, encouraging my trip to Oxford, even going so far as to write a letter to Angervyle's keeper to help me find a book he knew I would never discover in the bishop's collection. The only factors he had not controlled were my meeting with Clanvowe and the knight's copy of the prophecies.