Vanora Bennett - The People’s Queen

Hastily, realising Philippa is watching him, as if for signs he’s conspired in the Perrers dinner coup, he bows to his uninvited guest, very formally. ‘Why, I had no idea…’ he begins cautiously, so Philippa will understand his innocence. ‘I thought the court would be packing up today, for Sheen…if I’d realised you might be lingering in London, Mistress Perrers, of course, I would have invited…’ But then he looks up into Alice Perrers’ bold eyes, and sees the ghost of a wink in them, and forgets all his furtive married-man’s cunning, and is lost. She’s so straightforward in her mischievous do-gooding – understanding everything, saying nothing, and tremendously pleased with herself at having saved the day, all at once – that he abandons caution, takes her hands in his, bobs his head down in a sketchy bow, and says, with all the real happiness and merriment that the sight of this very welcome guest suddenly inspires in him, ‘Well, what a wonderful surprise!’

‘My modest housewarming gift,’ Alice Perrers replies nonchalantly, squeezing his hands, bowing in her turn to Philippa to include her in this circle of warm astonishment, but not batting an eyelid when Philippa’s face continues to express nothing more than the minimum of polite gratitude that etiquette demands. ‘To you both,’ Alice Perrers says, and, to an encouraging rumble of assent from the merchants, ‘to wish you health, wealth, and happiness in London.’ Then, not trying any further with Philippa, she turns to Walworth, Brembre, and Philpot, and finally to Latimer and Stury (who, Chaucer notices, have struck up a conversation with the flashing-eyed Fleming, Richard Lyons), and greets each group of them in turn with a warm look and a quiet, amusing, private word.

Chaucer notices Alice’s poise here, among the merchants, just as he’s been noticing her confidence at Westminster ever since she started taking him to meet the officials she clearly knows so well. Chaucer doesn’t think she’s the child of a London merchant family, because, if she were, surely he’d have known her as a boy? Still, she seems quite at home here – more so than at court. He thinks, vaguely: Haven’t I heard something…wasn’t she married to a merchant, right back at the start? (Perhaps, if she was, the marriage was during his years away, trotting around France and Flanders and Italy…) He can’t think who the husband can have been, though. He should find out.

Chaucer knows, anyway, that he’ll never feel sorry for her in this company – she’s too at ease, and too popular. Look at her charming the merchants. Everyone laughs when she whispers in their ear, and it’s genuine laughter every time. And they’re not usually like this with women, either; they’re too sober, and not given to flirting. They must take her seriously. They must be talking about trade; that’s what they do talk about. They’re treating her like one of themselves.

He’s almost laughing himself with the miracle of what she’s done for him. They’ve always said Alice Perrers can organise anything. But it can’t have been four hours since he saw her on the jetty, back at Westminster. How in the name of God has she found the time to do her hair like that, and rustle up all these splendid dishes, so far away on the other side of town, and get herself here, all in a morning? He’s heard she has a London house in Vintry Ward, like Stury, a proper liveable-in house, as well as all those other London property holdings that people talk about. She must have sent word straight away for her servants there to get to work, then come up to London herself within the hour. But still. He’s shaking his head and beaming all over his face, as Philippa seats the party around the table. He can’t believe his luck.

Somewhere deep inside, below the grateful hilarity and relief, he can feel just a hint of smugness surfacing too at his own good judgement. If all this is his reward, he thinks, just for stepping in politely to save embarrassment when Princess Joan decided to start throwing goblets of wine around at a ball, he’d better make a resolution to be just as brave every day of the week.

‘Can I pass you this dish of sorrel?’ Chaucer sees Philippa try with William Walworth at her left, and is grateful to his wife for that good intention, at least. She’s sat beside him for twenty minutes without making much effort at conversation, though she’s never done anything so obvious as to yawn, or look away. She’s just smiled. Walworth appreciates that she’s trying, too. He very daintily takes a leaf or two on the end of his knife. His appetite is sated, but politesse oblige. He takes a token nibble.

‘Have you settled in happily, Mistress Chaucer?’ he enquires, beaming virtue at her out of his pale eyes, like a lean, kindly priest. ‘Is there anything we can help you with, now you’re here? I know my wife would be more than ready…’ He pauses, full of the will to please, assessing what goods or services Mistress Chaucer might possibly need, or desire. But Philippa’s already shaking her head. Flirtatiously, though not very; but definitely.

‘Oh,’ she says. Her voice is a little too perfunctory for her polite words to sound sincere. ‘You’re too kind, Master Walworth. I’m honoured. But I think everything’s sorted out, for now…though perhaps when I’m next in London I could call on Mistress Walworth…’ Her voice trails off.

‘Ah yes,’ Walworth says, not allowing himself to sound disconcerted at the reminder that Mistress Chaucer won’t be a regular part of London social life. ‘Of course. You’re keeping your place as demoiselle to’ – and here he can’t, for all his good manners, refrain from slightly wrinkling his face – ‘my lady the Duchess of Lancaster.’

Walworth is a merchant, so how can he say the name of Lancaster without a bit of a scowl? Because, if there’s no love lost between the London rich and my lord the Duke of Lancaster, the merchants know exactly whom they blame. It’s the Duke’s fault, in their book. The Duke is so jealous of his father’s dependence on the rich men of London for loans to finance the war that he insults the merchants, whenever he sees them at court, by telling them to their faces they’re not worthy to be there. It was never like this before, he’s been heard to say; in the old days, you’d never have seen noblemen kowtowing to the servile classes. The Duke’s jealousy of the merchants’ influence leads him further still – he also talks openly about wanting to take away the freedoms that the City people enjoy: the right to elect their own leaders and try their own people in their own courts. So naturally the merchants dislike and fear the Duke, in case he destroys London’s independence; and naturally any mention of the Duke’s wife will cause a certain amount of suppressed upset in Master Walworth’s mind. He nods a few more times, bringing a wistful smile back on to his face. ‘At least, so I understand,’ he adds, with a slightly questioning note in his voice. Philippa Chaucer smiles back, but she’s blank-eyed. She’s making no further effort at conversation.

Chaucer feels so awkward at his wife’s less than enthusiastic treatment of London’s greatest merchant that he leans forward himself. ‘May I, Master Walworth,’ he says hastily, ‘draw your attention to the hanap you’re drinking from? A very gracious gift to my dear wife from my lord the King himself, for her years of service to his family?’ He feels it’s important to remind Master Walworth that this awkward independence of spirit that his wife’s showing does, at least, bring connections with the greatest in the land. ‘I’ve always admired the beauty of that tracery on the silver-gilt, look…’ He draws a finger up the chased foliage twining around the stem of the goblet.