The People's Queen Part 23

But, even now, there is no meekness in this prince's pa.s.sing. He will leave this life as superbly and as pridefully as he has lived it. It is generally considered important, when preparing for the flight of the soul from its bodily prison, for a man to ask forgiveness of G.o.d and of all those whom he has injured during his life on this earth. But not this man. For hours on end, the Prince of England ignores the requests of the bishops fluttering around him, trying to administer extreme unction, to actually say the words 'I pray pardon of G.o.d and man'. The best he can manage is a curt nod. Then a grunt. The bishops eye each other and shake their heads. Between visitors, in moments of quiet, they glide back to him and try again to make him ask for pardon for his sins. 'You must say the words yourself,' they plead. But there's no fear of his Maker in the Prince. He hasn't yet abandoned this life, and the anger that has kept him alive for so long. He purses his lips, and clenches his fists as if to beat the confessors off, and shuts his eyes.

He is almost dead when, at dawn, Sir Richard Stury comes in, wet from the river, or the rain, shrugging off the russet travelling cloak of a poor man. The sight of Stury, whom he's always treated with honour, as a friend and fellow-knight, but whose loyalty he fears lies with mylordofLancaster, skulking in the shadows there, briefly rouses him - but only to new anger. He snarls at the glistening shape before him, the shape of the man who's tried to incite the King of England to dismiss the Parliament intended to destroy mylordofLancaster, the very shape of treachery, who must be here only to gloat at the pa.s.sing of the Prince he's betrayed. Bitterly, he says, 'Come, Richard, come and look on what you have long desired to see.' He ignores the horrified hushes and the whispered I-have-always-loved-you protests. He shouts, with hatred, 'G.o.d pay you according to your deserts. Leave me and let me see your face no more.'

Stury is not there when next he opens his eyes. Just the confessors, buzzing in his ear, begging him, again, to repent, and forgive.

Forgive? He shakes his head. He looks at mylordofLancaster's set wet face. It's not in him. It's only when he sees his father's tormented face beside the clerk's - the red eyes, the white beard drizzled with the tears that flow unnoticed from them - that he feels the softness, and gives in. He still won't say the words. But he does, through gritted teeth, reply, 'I will do it.'

After the death, hours afterwards, after sunset even, the King, who's lapsed into vague torpor, ignoring every whispered request to be allowed to bring him food or drink, asks his servants to call Alice.

But the servants don't call Alice. They whisper among themselves, and vanish.

And, the next morning, the merciless Parliament reconvenes.

TWENTY-SIX.

It is dusk, or would be if it wasn't raining - slanting spears and arrows of cold dark water. Over the river the Prince is dying. Over here, creeping down a back alley off deserted, splashy Thames Street, ignoring the City's curfew bells like a bedraggled footpad, is Geoffrey Chaucer.

He knows there are soldiers at the front of Alice's house. He's seen them - half a dozen men at the gatehouse, playing cards. That must mean she's been brought here to wait out the break in the Parliament.

But there's no one at the kitchen-garden gate. Perhaps the soldiers don't know it's there.

He slips up the main path towards the house, with the river gurgling and roaring at his back. He's blinking water out of his eyes. In front of the windows is a big old apple tree, whose blossom has been dashed off it by the harsh weather - a white scatter on the ground. As he approaches, the shutters at the house's downstairs windows are closed by unseen hands, and the garden goes dark.

He doesn't mind. There's one window left unshuttered, upstairs: a square of yellow. Alice must be in her room.

He waits. There's wet seeping through to his bones. Then he climbs the glistening tree, toehold by slippery toehold.

You're always safe if you're holding on in three places. His father's voice comes into his head as he hoists himself carefully up. His father's voice comes into his head as he hoists himself carefully up. Two feet and a hand. Two hands and a foot. Two feet and a hand. Two hands and a foot. But Chaucer doesn't want to hear that kindly voice now. His problem isn't being safe enough. It's not being brave enough. But Chaucer doesn't want to hear that kindly voice now. His problem isn't being safe enough. It's not being brave enough.

Chaucer's never been brave enough. When the merchants tell him, 'Your father would be proud of you,' he knows it's not true. John Chaucer spent his life doggedly following the King around the wars, building up wealth and knowledge of the court, of course, but really just hoping that his son would benefit from lifelong proximity to n.o.bility; what he always wanted was for Geoffrey to bear arms - maybe to become a knight himself. He didn't understand when his son lost his nerve. Even today, Geoffrey Chaucer doesn't like remembering how proudly his father presented him with the sword and buckler he took to France that one time...or the bewilderment in John's eyes when Geoffrey, after not even one battle - just one ambush, and one brush with captivity - refused point blank to go back to the war, and left Lionel of Ulster's service rather than be asked. John Chaucer couldn't hope to understand the dread. He was a pure-bred merchant, not a courtly mongrel like his son. He'd never had to try to fight. Not that there were any reproaches. All the older Chaucer said, with a wistful shake of the head, was, 'Well, if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen,' and within a few months he was letting himself be consoled by the offer of marriage to well-born Philippa. Another route to knightliness, Master Chaucer must have thought. If only, Geoffrey Chaucer sometimes thinks today, his father had realised - or he'd he'd realised - how Philippa would always despise his lack of knightly skills, and how his children, almost courtiers themselves, would shy from being a.s.sociated by blood with a man in a long gown, his only weapon a quill. realised - how Philippa would always despise his lack of knightly skills, and how his children, almost courtiers themselves, would shy from being a.s.sociated by blood with a man in a long gown, his only weapon a quill.

But he's trying to prove himself now, at least. He's trying to win his spurs. He's going to tell Alice he's going to save her.

When he's got high enough to be able to peer in at the first-floor window, through the thin upper branches that crack and sway with his weight, he sees with a rush of indescribable relief that there's a small head silhouetted behind those glowing panes of gla.s.s. Alice, looking out, through the torrent, at the dark.

'Alice,' he calls, in a low voice, so the soldiers won't hear. 'Alice.'

After a moment, the head rises. Her body comes into view.

He sees her looking out at him: eyes in the rain. Her quiet gaze meets his. He thinks she recognises him.

But there is no answering smile on her face. She closes the shutters.

In the morning, people are saying Stury has been arrested leaving the Prince's palace at Kennington. By then, the pa.s.singbells have started to clang, and they also know the Prince is dead.

Every prudent bone in Chaucer's body tells him to go straight home from the Customs House. There's no point in anything else. What good can he do? He's got a cold. He's shivery. He's chilled inside and out. He hasn't slept. His cloak is still damp. His boots, too.

But instead he goes out and pays a boatman to take him to Westminster.

Honour demands it. He has to try.

They find an empty room somewhere in the warren of corridors and s.p.a.ces behind the abbey. It's not usually this quiet. But most of the Commons are out on the street, milling about, talking in hushed voices about the Prince's pa.s.sing.

Chaucer, too, has muttered 'a tragic day' and 'G.o.d rest his soul', while introducing himself as a man who, while a courtier, knows the mood of London. He's been rewarded with a single austere phrase, 'I know your work, Master Chaucer.'

From a perch in the window, de la Mare is now gazing down at him like an eagle contemplating its prey. He wastes no words. But he's listening.

Chaucer does his best to keep his breathing light and shallow. He's thought out very carefully what will impress the Forespeaker. He's not going to mess this up.

'This tragedy changes everything, including the work your men will do when Parliament reconvenes,' he begins oratorically. 'What was uppermost in the minds of the Commons, before, will count for less after today...'

After a silence, de la Mare nods.

'...while England's leading men will have new burdens to shoulder,' Chaucer pursues, encouraged.

De la Mare nods again, with the minimum possible movement of the head. He's coiled tight as a spring, Chaucer sees: white at nostril and knuckle, preparing himself for battle. The death of the Commons' royal sponsor lays the Forespeaker and his men open to attack. They must be expecting reprisals from the Duke of Lancaster. De la Mare will be terrified, yet elated, that the moment has come when John of Gaunt may even, as evil tongues have been whispering for so long, try to seize the throne. He'll have no time for anything except the showdown he feels is coming. He'll want to tie up the loose ends of Parliament.

Chaucer's praying this will mean he's lost interest in Alice.

'I speak for many in London who admire your achievements,' Chaucer goes on. 'You've swept the government clean. You've stopped the rot.'

De la Mare permits himself the smallest of smiles.

'Many in London would say your task is already completed,' Chaucer now ventures, hardly daring to breathe. 'There's only Alice Perrers left to deal with. And, with this new weight of grief and sorrow on all of us, the City may grow impatient if a trial into possible long-ago marriages is dragged out at length...'

He gasps in air. '...a trial that may now seem frivolous,' he finishes.

Silence. De la Mare raises an eyebrow.

Chaucer wishes he could tell what the man is thinking.

But he persists: 'You and I both know that it's not Mistress Perrers who's to blame for all the bad government in the land. She's only a symbol of the corruption you've - so successfully - cut out. It would be merciful - and wise, in today's sadder circ.u.mstances - to make her punishment symbolic too.'

What Chaucer dreads is that de la Mare, who only last week locked Neville up for defending Latimer, will turn to him with cold fire in his eyes and say, 'Who are you to defend the wh.o.r.e? Isn't it time we investigated you you?'

But if the Forespeaker is not a kind man, he's a just one. When, at last, he speaks, he only says, in a faraway voice, 'What did you have in mind, Master Chaucer?'

Chaucer might not know about swords, but he knows the moment to make a deal. Promptly, he replies, 'Make her agree to leave court and the King. Confiscate the properties the King has given her. Then drop the other charges - and let her go.'

Alice will have her children, at least, he thinks, hopefully. And she'll have properties stashed away, rainy-day money. She'll get by. She'll have the life she might otherwise have lived.

With growing confidence, he waits for the thoughts chasing through the other man's mind to come clear.

He can't begin to imagine the painful, sombre compa.s.sion that has been in de la Mare since he saw the King with his son in that litter. He can't imagine that de la Mare would now do almost anything to save the King further distress. That de la Mare simply needs to convince himself that his own strong instinct to heed Chaucer and spare the King's wh.o.r.e is not just the softness of grief: mercy untempered by reason, an emotion he has never allowed himself.

The silence seems to last for ever. But, eventually, the eaglehead nods. De la Mare says, 'Leave it with me.'

TWENTY-SEVEN.

There are trumpets when the new heir to the throne of England walks into the Parliament chamber. Peter de la Mare has used his temporary powers to summon the young Prince to be publicly presented to his future subjects.

The blond nine-year-old, tall for his age but still shorter by a head than the shortest man present, blinks a little at the size of the crowd. But he's poised. He's in black, but there are no obvious traces of grief on his face. He's a Plantagenet, for all his tender years. Graciously, he inclines his head. Then the eyes devouring him turn down, and every man in the room drops to his knees. There'll be no chance the Duke can say, after this, that the little Prince was a weakling, and died in his sleep, or a cripple not long for this world, or a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. The boy's strength and royal bearing have been noted. Every knight now swearing loyalty has seen.

The only man left standing, for a moment or two, is the Duke of Lancaster. His face is dark. His eyes are dark, too, and unfocused. But they fix on Peter de la Mare as the Forespeaker, on his knees, swears his public vow of loyalty to the boy, first of all the Commons of England. And there's an intensity of hatred in them that makes even the impa.s.sive knight of Herefordshire flinch.

Alice takes the crucifix. She stares at it. She's trying not to think of the eyes.

The men are all around, pressing in on her. The chamber is packed.

'I swear,' de la Mare intones.

'I swear,' she repeats, clutching the big metal cross.

They've already heard the list of her sins and crimes. She's already heard her sentence. How unreal it all seems. And how strange, she thinks, almost gaily, that getting Wat off his charge is all they can get her on in the end. Witchcraft, adultery, embezzlement...no result. But they've pa.s.sed a whole law forbidding women to interfere with the course of the King's justice. She can't quite believe they're letting her off. She isn't going to die. She's light-headed with the relief of it. She wants to finger her neck, tell it, 'You escaped.' She just can't imagine what she will do when she walks out of this door.

She wishes her cheeks weren't so hot.

She promises never to return to the King's presence. She promises to return his gifts to her.

There is no more to the ceremony. 'You may go,' de la Mare says. The eyes follow her all the way to the doors and beyond.

In the antechamber she walks into, she stretches out her hands and presses them and one cheek against the nearest bit of cool stone wall. What to do now is, for the first time, coming into focus. She has no idea whether she even has a right to ask for a horse. And she has no idea where to go. She just knows that she has to get away from the eyes. For now, she can do no more than listen to the sound of her own breathing.

This is how the Duke finds her.

He understands that spread-eagled pose; the helplessness.

He feels it too. He's grieving for a brother who he sees has died hating him. He's yelling at him in his head; he's wishing Joan didn't seem to hate him so pa.s.sionately too; and, above all, he's full of his own poisonous hatred of de la Mare for so humiliatingly demonstrating, by that public vow of loyalty, that the Commons suspect he's about to murder his nephew. And there's nothing he can do. I don't want to be King of England, he's shouting inside; I want revenge.

'Madame Perrers,' he says very softly.

She turns her head. Nothing else. She's past caring.

But when she sees it's him, she shakes her head, as if trying to compose herself, and detaches herself from the wall. She even bobs a little bow. Her cheeks are flushed.

'My lord,' she breathes, looking down at his feet.

He has a little bag of money ready.

'My father has been asking for you,' he adds. 'Let's say this is from him.'

She takes it, uncertainly.

She doesn't say anything about the King. He sees she's too overwhelmed to speak. Her silence somehow makes him feel better about his own towering, impotent rage at the gathering of rogues and fools out there. We're both their victims, he thinks. This is what it does to you.

He says, 'This will not last.' There's a promise in his voice. He hasn't sought out Alice Perrers for a long time. But he can no longer remember the anger he once felt when she rashly asked for a n.o.ble t.i.tle for her child. Now, all he sees is a kindred spirit, being mocked, defiled, destroyed, by unworthy enemies.

She raises her eyes to his - a glance of disbelief. He holds her gaze, willing her to believe it. If she does, he'll begin to believe it himself.

'No one will touch you,' he says more firmly. 'Take a horse from my stables. Go to Wendover - it's near my lands at Weston Turville and Chalfont St Peter, so you can always get word to me if need be. And wait.'

She's still looking at him, as if she doesn't know whether to believe him.

'Don't be afraid,' he adds stoutly. 'I'm going to sort all this out.'

She shakes her head. She manages a quick grin. 'Me,' she says, 'I'm never afraid.'

Then she bows her head, low, so he can't see her eyes any more. He has an uncomfortable feeling she might be hiding tears. There's a shakiness in her voice when she mutters, 'Thank you.' There's a shakiness in her gait when, brushing past him, breaching every possible kind of etiquette but without causing him any offence, she backs away to the door.

The Duke emerges from the antechamber feeling marginally better.

Not that grief isn't lashing at him with its monstrous tail; not that he's not feeling crushed by misfortune. So many misfortunes.