Vanora Bennett - The People’s Queen

‘By way of an apology,’ she adds, when the Duke still doesn’t say anything.

How anxious Edward looked, at the end of last evening, with the noise of the dance still going on below, when he came to her, with a sleepy scrivener trying to suppress a yawn bobbing respectfully in his wake. ‘I regret…’ He stumbled over the words, clinging to her hand, as if he feared she might vanish, like the Countess Melusine, leaving him cold and lonely in his last days. ‘I very much regret…a spirited woman, Joan. Too spirited at times.’ He paused. She waited. No point forgiving too fast. After a second, he thrust the letter at her: an order to Euphemia, another ex-demoiselle and now wife to Sir Walter de Heselarton, Knight, who’s lodged somewhere here too, that ‘the said Euphemia is to deliver the rubies in her keeping to the said Alice on the receipt of this our command’. Alice looked up, only half believing the words dancing on the page, straight into those pale old eyes fixed on hers, mournful, humble, imploring as a dog’s, begging for forgiveness.

She blurted, ‘You’re giving me the jewels? Really?’ This man loves me, Alice Perrers, she thought, with a sunburst of gratitude, trying not to notice the slack skin or lean neck or liver spots. His love has made me what I am.

‘Oh, only the rubies,’ Edward replied quickly, playful again, smiling with relief, but still not giving too much away. (This is why Edward’s been so good at making common ground with the merchants, she knows; because he enjoys haggling as much as they do, as much as she does. He will do till his dying day.) Forgetting the old-man’s skin, looking into his laughing, knowing eyes, she put her arms around him. ‘Only the rubies, my dear,’ he repeated, and kissed her.

That’s what she should be teaching this Duke, who hasn’t had to have dealings with merchants, who as a younger son has been left for longer in the sunlit playground of chivalry and pageantry in which princes once existed, who hasn’t had occasion to think about the realities of modern life. He’ll need to now, if he’s going to make his play for power. He’ll have to learn. Drop the ceremonials. No one owes you everything, just because of your noble blood. Pay your way into alliances, if you need those alliances. Do what you need to do. Learn to see things for what they are.

But he’s silent, still; perhaps he’s taken some terrible princely offence at humble Alice touching his mother’s jewels? Perhaps he’s too stiff-necked ever to change?

She tries again. She murmurs, with a hint of a twinkle, ‘I think your father chose the rubies for the colour of the wine.’

At last, he seems to decide it’s all right. He nods, and smiles straight into her eyes. ‘They suit you,’ he says after a moment, making her a dignified bow, and, after another pause, as if he’s looking for the right phrase, full enough of gentillesse: ‘She behaved badly. My father did right. I’d have done the same myself.’

Arm in arm, they begin stepping cautiously towards Edward. There’s a warmth inside Alice, and it’s not just from the lean warmth of the arm in hers.

‘Did you enjoy the ride through London?’ she hears him murmur politely at her side. Perhaps he’s curious. He must have heard the Londoners muttering, too, from where he was, right behind her in the procession.

She nods, as nobly as she can. Hardly thinking, she replies, ‘Of course.’ Then she stops. If they’re to be allies, she should learn to be as honest with him as she’ll expect him to be with her. So she dimples up at him and flutters her free hand. ‘Well, no…to tell the truth, I didn’t, really,’ she admits candidly. ‘They didn’t like me much as Lady of the Sun, those Londoners, did they?’

He actually shivers. It’s not just for her benefit; his revulsion for the common people of London, tramps, pedlars, fishwives, and the richest merchants in the land alike, shudders right through him, something he feels in every inch of his body and doesn’t mind her knowing. ‘Terrible people,’ he says. His voice is tight. ‘Howling like that, at a royal procession, the savages. They should be taught a lesson. Brought under control…flogged.’

God be with them all, she thinks, suddenly buoyant again (though she does appreciate the Duke’s sympathy). They’re right, in a way, those Londoners; she agrees, she shouldn’t be out here pretending to be Queen Philippa and Princess Joan rolled into one scarlet silk package. She was asking to be called grave-robber, wearing the Queen’s necklace out here. She won’t do it again, because she enjoys London. She likes the way the London merchants work: cautiously, by consensus and committee; and purposefully, without the empty showing-off of the court. She shouldn’t forget that. She won’t next time. She’s learned her lesson.

So she shrugs, and grins invitingly, twisting her head sideways like a bird on a bush to include him in her merriment. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she differs blithely. ‘They’re often right, in London. I probably should have kept a lower profile. Anyway, they’re so good at what they do – making money that can help you. You have to forgive them their outspokenness if only for that, don’t you?’

‘I can’t be doing with them,’ he mutters, shaking his head. There’s a stubborn look in his eyes, but she now thinks she sees – what, bewilderment? Interest? there too. ‘Who do they think they are?’

She murmurs enticingly back: ‘…though London, and its wealth, could be a great support to you, if you could only learn to accept the way the Londoners are.’ He turns his eyes to her. He wants to know, she sees. He just doesn’t want to admit it. She whispers, ‘I could show you how.’

He’s definitely interested now. He stops walking. So does she.

‘How?’ he says, though he can’t keep the scepticism out of his voice. ‘They don’t like me, any more than I like them.’

The idea comes on her like a flash of lightning; she hears the words drop from her lips even as she’s thinking it. ‘That’s because you need some good men who are loyal to you in the big London jobs,’ she replies quickly. ‘Londoners spend so much time talking to each other, and so much time listening. You need a talker inside the walls, who can influence them; someone who can quietly show them things from your point of view.’

This is how to repay the debt of honour she incurred last night. She’s breathless with the cleverness of it. She’s thinking of the vacant job checking that Londoners aren’t skimping on their payments of wool tax, England’s biggest export. It’s the most important government job in the City, requiring diplomacy, financial know-how and intimate knowledge of both merchant and court life.

‘For instance,’ she goes on, startling even herself, ‘You need a man you can trust in the wool comptroller’s post.’ She tightens her grip on the Duke’s arm. ‘And I know who.’

Master Geoffrey Chaucer, newly appointed Comptroller of the Customs and Subsidy on Wool, Sheepskins and Leather for the Port of London, can tell from the stillness and the shimmer on the water that it’s going to be another hot June day.

He’s early. It’s not yet properly light. But then he’s nervous.

Any minute now he’ll be joined on the jetty at Westminster by his companions for his first day in his new job – an old friend and a new. Meanwhile, all he can do is wait and listen to the bells ring for Lauds behind him in the royal village.

Soon, he knows, there’ll be pandemonium at the palace. All the servants will be up, running around, sweeping, carrying pails and boxes and bags and piles in and out of every imaginable gate and doorway, feeding horses or killing fowl for the table, smelling the bread smells rising from the ovens. The King’s court is to move to Sheen in a day or two, now that the mystery plays and celebrations of Corpus Christi are over. By St John’s Eve, not a fortnight hence, it’ll be off again, having eaten its many-headed way through the local food supplies, for a midsummer interlude at Havering-atte-Bower. Chaucer’s always liked the peace of Havering. He pulls his robe around his shoulders and steps on to the jetty, wishing he could feel more whole-heartedly happy to be leaving behind that brightly coloured wandering life.