Authors: Bruce Holsinger
“No. It was my man More. He and Simon had arranged a meeting during the feast, supposedly in order for Simon to hand over the book and reveal everything he knew. They met in the courtyard. But Simon demanded money—lots of it—and claimed to have offered the book to the Earl of Oxford, with Sir Stephen Weldon acting as agent. I couldn’t let that happen. Simon was speaking too freely about it all. I worried that the whole thing would explode in our faces. So, once More reported back to me, we decided to bring Simon in, press him harder this time.”
“Then he was taken.”
“Weldon got to him first. Plucked him right out of your house before your return from Oxford. Took him God knows where.”
“How did he escape?”
“Don’t know. Don’t know that he did escape, or that he was even under duress. But it was clear that Simon had been lying through his teeth, both to our man in Florence, to me at Westminster, probably to Hawkwood and Oxford as well. He’s been playing us all against each other, and where his loyalties lie is anyone’s guess. Chaucer confirmed as much.”
“I thought Chaucer was ignorant of it all.” Until he discovered Seguina’s letter, at least—the one part of the whole story I had kept to myself.
“Of Simon’s role, yes. But he learned more than he wanted to about Hawkwood. It seems Chaucer was digging around in some Genoese shipping manifests, tracking sacks of English wool, when he discovered a large number of commissions from Hawkwood for transport of troops this upcoming summer. It gave him a glimmer of Hawkwood’s plans. He never confronted Sir John about it.”
I considered this. “Chaucer knows more than anyone what the man is capable of, I suppose. Hawkwood would torture his own leg if it was holding out on him.”
“Our man’s dispatch reached us a week before his return, though none of us made the connection with the prophecies and Hawkwood’s plot against Gaunt until much later. Only Simon knew all of that.” He looked at the three books, still opened on his desk. “Now you’re suggesting the king himself is the real target after all.”
“I believe so, my lord.”
“I’ll admit the timing is—harrowing. France knows Richard is weak. The Scottish border needs defending. Word is King Richard will march up there this summer, leaving London and Westminster vulnerable.” He puffed his cheeks. “You have to admire Hawkwood’s audacity. Circulate a prophecy incriminating Lancaster, get him hanged, then go for the king. Once they’re both out of the picture, swoop in and help install a new sovereign.”
“A kingmaker indeed,” I said, thinking of that line from the thirteenth prophecy, and marveling at the cold ingenuity of Simon’s poetry. I thought of Hawkwood in Florence, still believing all of this was unfolding hundreds of leagues to the north.
Then the chancellor dropped his last surprise. “Though we won’t have to worry about Hawkwood supporting an invasion, whatever happens after the truce expires.”
“My lord?”
“Simon left a little gift for Hawkwood a few days before his departure from Florence. An encrypted message, accusing one of his closest men of betraying his greater ambitions to us all along.”
“What man?”
“Adam Scarlett is his name. Hawkwood’s chief lieutenant. A number of months ago we intercepted a rather shocking letter from Scarlett to one of his associates in Paris, boasting of Hawkwood’s plans to join forces with the French following the truce. Simon was instructed to find some way of scuttling Hawkwood’s plans. In the process, he believes, he will have turned the
condottiero
against his most loyal man.”
“I see,” I said, and I finally did. “So that was the true purpose of last fall’s diplomatic mission to Italy. Chaucer’s mission.”
“Yes, though again, Chaucer was kept ignorant of Hawkwood’s plans until he discovered them on his own. In any case, Simon believes the device he created will convince Hawkwood of Scarlett’s disloyalty, and that its discovery will stem any further militant plans on Sir John’s part toward England.”
I was incredulous. “So Simon, despite all he’s done, will stay in Hawkwood’s good graces.”
“And in ours, to a point,” said the baron, with another of his pragmatic shrugs. “Our business now must be the king.”
I thought for a moment, trying to push aside all the chancellor had told me in order to focus on the plot at hand. “Can the festivities be canceled or abbreviated in some way? What if the cardinal were to process with the archbishop only rather than with the king and his retinue? I imagine you could come up with an excuse for the royal absence.”
He shook his head emphatically. “Richard won’t hear of it. He regards the abbey as his personal shrine, the embodiment of his invulnerability. You know the places his mind is taking him these days. By now he’s convinced himself his survival on St. Dunstan’s Day was a miracle. That it was God’s hand that shot the butchers.”
I pointed up. “An angel’s, perhaps?”
He scoffed. “God, an angel, royal archers—all the same to His Highness. In any case, halting the procession and mass is out of the question. We’ve just gotten through that whole Dunstan’s Day business. If Mars himself were to come hurtling at the king I couldn’t get him to change course.”
“I understand, my lord,” I said. The chancellor had higher men to please.
He leaned forward, his face lined with concern. “St. Dunstan’s Day was one thing. The attempt took place in the bishop of Winchester’s courtyard, a site easily contained and with a few hundred in attendance. But Westminster, between the abbey and the palace yard? With three or four
thousand
in the crowd—and our assassin any one of them, any
hundred
of them? That’s another matter entirely.”
I agreed.
He stood, pacing the floor on the far side of his desk. “We need to know where this originated, Gower. Does this last snatch of verse refer to a native plot, another bit of deception by Oxford and Weldon? And ‘city’s blade’—what could that possibly mean? Are the mayor’s men involved, the Guildhall? But that’s unthinkable.”
He looked a bit desperate. I had never seen him in such a state. He said, “The cardinal’s delegation arrives from Windsor this evening, and the mass is set for Sext tomorrow. We need more time. Or the answer to this damned riddle.”
I looked down at the book in question, still opened to the final prophecy and the scribbled verse. I thought of the manuscript’s recent history. Where it had been, who had held it, stolen it, read from it, peddled it. As the chancellor had pointed out, the final couplet had to have been written into the book after Clanvowe copied from it—which meant what?
I felt a twinge of something. “There may be another way, my lord.”
T
he next morning I was at the gates of St. Leonard’s Bromley at first light, though I had to linger by the almonry until the Prime office had concluded before I could be escorted into the prioress’s apartments. Coals glowed on the small hearth, despite the rising heat outside. Eventually Prioress Isabel bustled in from the chapterhouse. The sight of me brought her up short. “What is it?”
I told her, as quickly as I could, then she sent for Millicent Fonteyn. There was a sober cast to the young woman’s face when she entered the parlor. Darkened eyes, nearly expressionless below the close-fitting bonnet worn by the order’s laysisters. As I recalled from my prior visit, she was an extraordinary beauty, though I could see what a toll the deaths of her mother and sister had taken.
Wasting no time, I removed the book from my bag and opened it to the final prophecy. I turned it toward her and pointed to the peculiar couplet. “Did you write these lines, madam?”
Her deep-set eyes widened at the sight of the page. She looked at the prioress, then at me. “I did.”
“And why did you not tell me this before, when you showed me the cloth?” Not accusatory, but prodding.
“I confess I did not think it was important, Master Gower. With the prophecy of the butchers, the cloth, all the talk in the streets . . . these lines seemed a small nothing, I suppose.”
“I understand why you might have regarded the verse as insignificant, in the light of everything else.” Nodding kindly, hoping to spur her memory. “Where did you read these lines?”
She shook her head, the loose curls at her nape tossed by her vehemence. “I never read them, sir. I only heard them, spoken by my sister.”
“Agnes,” I said, recalling the name, and her mother’s sorrow. “The one killed by Sir Stephen Weldon, up near Aldgate?”
“Aye, sir.”
“When I was here before St. Dunstan’s Day you told me your sister witnessed the murder in the Moorfields, yes?”
She blinked twice. “She did, sir.”
“Is that where she heard these lines, on the Moorfields?”
She nodded.
“Tell me about it now.”
“The woman was kneeling in the dirt, Agnes said, right in the clearing. The fire was going out. He asked her some questions. She didn’t answer them, or Agnes didn’t think she did. But she couldn’t understand a word they were saying. Then he raised his hammer. That’s when she screamed it.”
“Screamed what?”
“The verse, sir. The verse I wrote in the book. Agnes swore it was intended for her, that the girl knew she was still there. She couldn’t get it out of her head. For weeks she repeated it, kept blurting it out at the oddest times. She felt sure it meant something, though to my mind we had enough trouble with the prophecies in the book, and they sounded like a minstrel’s lines, and what could be the importance of that? I wrote them there on that final leaf, just to calm her down.” Millicent paused for a well-deserved breath.
Something about her account was odd. I closed my eyes, thought it all through, then looked at her again. “You said the man was questioning the girl, but Agnes couldn’t understand a word. And yet she understood this verse well enough to repeat it to
you
days later. How do you explain the discrepancy?”
She stared at me, confused; then her face relaxed into a sad smile. “Pardon, Master Gower, I thought that part was clear. They weren’t speaking English, you see.”
“French, then?”
“No, Agnes would have said. She’d had enough Calais jakes to ear out French, that’s sure.”
“What tongue, then? Did she catch any snatches of it, any words that stood out?”
She thought for a moment, her brow knit. I felt my heart sink. Then her face brightened. “Indeed she did, Master Gower.
Doovay leebro.
”
“
Doovay leebro
?” Something shifted inside me. “You’re sure?”
“
Doovay leebro,
is what Agnes said.” Feverish nods. “
Doovay leebro, doovay leebro,
like he was singing to her. Sounded like a lullaby, is what she said, and he kept at it until he killed her.
Doovay leebro.
”
Doovay leebro.
And then, with a calm astonishment, I knew. “Where is the cheese?” I whispered. The knowledge balanced me.
“Where is the
cheese
?” the prioress barked, her voice an incredulous smear. “What on earth are you prattling about, Gower?”
“
Dov’è il formaggio?
” I said, the question a delicious taste on my tongue. The talgar at Monksblood’s, a snatch of Italian, a girl killed for a book.
Millicent Fonteyn stared at me in a kind of rapt confusion. My vision, too, had a clarity it only rarely achieved, and she was in that moment the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I could have kissed her; I could have kissed the prioress for that matter. Instead I bowed and took my leave, the life of King Richard hanging on the speed of my horse.
Westminster
E
ven if one avoids London altogether, the ride from Stratford-at-Bowe to the city of Westminster is a hard and circuitous one, and as I splashed across the Lea it struck me that I might not make it in time for the procession, set to start shortly before Sext and the mass of the day. Pushing the thought aside, I approached London on the Mile End Road at a swift gallop. Going through town, however direct the route, would slow me down considerably, so I branched off well before Aldgate and circled the city from afar, with the Moorfields to my left and the tower of Bethlem barely visible over a few low trees.
I came into Westminster from the west and posted my horse well up Orchard Street, going the rest of the way on foot at a jog, dodging around the crowds moving to the palace yard. The announcement of the papal delegation had stirred Westminster, London, even Southwark, hundreds of citizens boating up and walking over for a glimpse of the foreign officials. The crowd thickened as I neared the palace, then slowed as dozens crammed through the last feet of the lane.
The wide expanse between the palace yard and the abbey was a churning sea, a great plain of bobbing heads, lifted caps, shouts and cheers. The whole area had been cleared of hucksters and peddlers, all but a few of the fires extinguished. It appeared that the king and the cardinal had not yet left the palace, where a private service was being held in the St. Stephen’s upper chapel, though judging from the anticipation in the air the procession would begin at any moment.
The chancellor would be in his chambers off the hall. He avoided processions like the pestilence. My work, he would always say, is best done out of view, a sentiment I shared.
Two doors, then the lesser hall and the chancellor’s rooms. My face must have registered my fear, for when he saw it, Sir Michael de la Pole, usually cool, stood at once. With him was Edward More, his secretary and fixer, a man I had dealt with many times. Broad-chested, commanding, with a head and beard of shining white, More had a reputation for ruthless partisanship and calm under pressure. “What?” the chancellor demanded.
“It’s Hawkwood,” I said breathlessly, my words barely a wheeze. “He has a man, in the papal delegation.”
“How do you know this, Gower?”
“There’s no time to explain, my lord.” A deep breath, holding my side. “But believe me, my information is good.”
“Who is he, Gower?” More asked.
“We’ll know him when we see him, I suspect. A trained assassin. Hawkwood wouldn’t take any chances with a middling knife. One of the cardinal’s guards, would be my guess.”
The chancellor went to a position by the outer door of his chambers, ducking his head to look out to the palace yard. “We can’t stop the procession. They just left the palace. We’re too late.”
“Then we catch them,” said More, belting on his short sword. “Even if it takes us to the abbey altar, we catch them.”
“Very well,” said the chancellor, arming himself as well. I followed them out of his chambers and across the hall, which was nearly empty as the procession got going from the palace. De la Pole summoned a clutch of pursuivants idling on the west porch, and we all sped together from the hall toward the royal procession, now making its slow way through the palace yard to meet the crowd still pouring in through the abbey gates, overwhelming the guards at the gatehouse.
As I saw immediately, the king and cardinal were on foot rather than mounted, as they would have been on the longer processions from the Tower, and it was nearly impossible to see them over the masses between their position and ours. The crowd was at least twenty ranks thick, all elbows and indignation as everyone fought for position. With the chancellor, Edward More, and the pursuivants we were ten men strong, though against so many moving hundreds we could hardly hope to force our way through. The noise was deafening, too, and our shouts could not be heard over the din. The pursuivants headed straight into the crowd, angling toward the king’s position. I bobbed along behind the outermost rank of spectators, taking short leaps into the air, feeling useless, attempting to get a glimpse of the principals and those clustered around them.
I stopped for a moment and took in the scene from afar, imagining myself atop the Wardrobe Tower at the far corner of the yard, or the bell tower opposite, and picturing the next few minutes in my mind. I reasoned that the attack, when it came, would happen before the abbey’s west entrance, where the procession would bottleneck to move through the great doors. If I could get well ahead of the principals I would have a better angle on any potential attacker, though it wasn’t clear to me what I could do about it. I pushed my way toward the abbey and gave two boys a shilling apiece to give up their spot on a column base.
I was now elevated two feet above the yard, but that was enough. Pockets of commotion everywhere, hard to tell what represented danger and what did not. I saw More. He was leading the chancellor and the small wedge of pursuivants toward the rearmost line of the procession. His focus was on the cardinal’s guards, a rank of ten Italian soldiers, dressed for the occasion in livery and flounce, with banners and flags held above as they marched. The guard had accompanied the prelate all the way from Rome. Despite the procession’s gaudiness these were seasoned, well-armed men. Any one of them would be capable of assassinating the king without a thought.
Yet even the closest of them was nearly forty feet from Richard. It would take a great effort to clear the distance, especially with the royal rear guard positioned where they were. For the first time since leaving Bromley I felt a twinge of doubt.
My gaze moved forward, along the intermediate ranks between the cardinal’s guard and the principals. Most of them were clergy, separated by order and office. In the rear walked monks of the abbey, a dozen of them in two close ranks. Next came the friars, six Franciscans and a lone Dominican, the seven of them forming a single rank. Before the friars marched five bishops: Wykeham; Braybrooke; William Courtenay, the archbishop of Canterbury; and two Italians, all of them grand with their caps and mitres in various bright hues.
In front of them, forming one rank behind Richard and the cardinal, walked the king’s guard. Twelve hardened knights, a squat rectangle around the royal person and the papal delegate. Their heads swiveled at every step, looking for threats. My eyes swept back again, over the lines of clerics, back to the cardinal’s guard, then forward once more, looking for something, anything that might indicate—
There.
A face, standing out against the others. A friar. One of the Italian Franciscans—no, the Dominican, his black robe stark against the grey favored by the other order. The balance of the clerics—canons, monks, friars, and bishops alike—had pious, beatific looks on their faces, all pretending not to be enjoying themselves as the citizens of Westminster and London showered the company with spring flowers and words of praise.
The Dominican was different. His features hard, his frame lean, his stance taut as he walked, coiled, ready to spring. His eyes two slits of malice, measuring distances, reckoning angles. The ripple of his robes, loosely cinctured, obscured his hands, which seemed at the moment to be tucked behind him as he walked.
The procession was nearing the abbey door. The frontmost rank of guards would soon start to slow. I looked for More and the chancellor. The pursuivants were still too far away. I looked back at the friar. He was making his move. A flash of steel, and his knife was out, held against his chest, partially obscured by his hands. No one near him had noticed.
“
The friar!
” I shouted into the deafening roar, waving from my position at the column. “
More, More! It’s the friar!
” The Dominican, oblivious of my shouted warnings, started to move, pushing gently through the row of bishops in front of him.
“
The friar!
” I shouted again. More didn’t hear me either. I might as well have been screaming into a bucket sunk in the sea. But just as I had that thought the chancellor looked up at the abbey door and saw me pointing wildly. He pulled on the sleeve of the pursuivant immediately ahead of him. They both gaped at me. On an impulse I clasped my hands together, bowed my head in mock prayer, and pointed urgently to the cluster of friars pressed against the king’s guard, which had now slowed to a near crawl. The abbot of Westminster prepared to welcome the king and cardinal at the abbey door, less than twenty feet in front of King Richard.
I mock-prayed again, pulled on an imaginary hood. The chancellor’s eyes widened. He understood.
A friar,
I saw him mouth to the nearest pursuivants.
With a surge of forgotten strength the aged lord chancellor pushed ahead, taking Edward More and two pursuivants with him. They were fifteen feet from the friar, twelve, eight. Then, with a snakelike precision, the Dominican, sensing movement behind him, leapt forward, slashing at the necks of the king’s guard, intent on his target. But one of the guards had heard More’s and the chancellor’s shouts. His sword was out. It slashed at the friar in a protective arc. The friar ducked, and it took another swipe to halt his lethal progress toward the king. Two of the chancellor’s pursuivants had finally reached the spot. There was a brief but furious melee, arms and swords and knives flying about.
It ended quickly. By the time the king and the cardinal bothered to glance over their shoulders the threat had been neutralized, the friar sliced to a bleeding mess. The principals exchanged a few words with the abbot, received the blessings, and pressed forward through the doors, the seemingly minor nuisance behind them. Only the bishops looked somewhat flustered. Braybrooke, two ranks behind the king, gave me a dark look, which I returned with a low bow and a hidden smile.
The crowd surged against the abbey’s west façade, all craning for a last glimpse of the king. The pursuivants dragged the friar against the tide of the commons, and few bothered to glance at them. Soon they had him hoisted on their shoulders, a trail of blood spattering the pavers in their wake. Walking behind the chancellor, Edward More turned to look back at me from the abbey’s northwest corner. He gave me a small nod. The pursuivants, with the dying assassin, disappeared. More followed them.
Two groats to the abbey guard got me into the nave, where I watched the procession conclude before the altar. All was calm, disconcertingly normal after the madness outside. St. Peter’s nave glistened, gemlike, the clerestory windows casting mottled sun on a large crowd of nobles and clerics of all orders finding their places. The grand service began, an elaborate introit in five voices echoing to the vaults.
Not feeling prayerful, I decided not to stay for mass, angling instead up the nave and into the south transept along the narrow passage past the chapterhouse. There I paused for a moment before a painting of St. Thomas I had always loved. Not St. Thomas Becket, nor St. Thomas Aquinas the philosopher, but St. Thomas the Apostle. The great doubter, his unbelief perpetually etched in his face at that precise moment before he touches Jesus’s side: his gaze cast down, his finger bent over his savior’s open wound. This Thomas, I think, has always been my favorite occupant of the canon of saints. The patron saint of doubt and suspicion, of verifiable information, in whatever form it comes.