The Invention of Fire (22 page)

T
HE COURT OF CHIVALRY
moves about England like a lamed plowhorse thinking itself a charger. Though occasionally hearing appeals of treason or desertion from the military ranks, the earl marshal’s court spends most of its time plodding through matters of heraldry, deliberating on such subjects as which knight should be allowed to emblazon what kind of lion on his shield, or what magnate may be permitted to display a certain length of unicorn horn on his faction’s badges. Presiding over this peripatetic body—in name, at least—were the lord high constable and the earl marshal: Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, and Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham, though these two lords would rarely condescend to show their faces for the court’s routine proceedings. That duty fell to lower men such as Sir John Derwentwater, who sat uncomfortably on a monk’s narrow council chair in the abbey’s refectory, glaring at his latest deponent, Geoffrey Chaucer, as his clerk inked along at a nearby desk.

I could well understand the knight’s hostility. It was now the fifteenth day of October, and for months Derwentwater and several other knights of the court had been appointed to travel around deposing the cream of English chivalry in hopes of resolving the long-standing dispute between Sir Richard Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor. Assembled in the refectory that morning were over a dozen men, most of them knights, all of them aggrieved to have been summoned from
their gentler parliamentary duties while in Westminster for an interrogation at the hands of the court: Sir Maurice de Bruyn, Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, Sir Robert Clavering, Sir Richard Waldegrave, Sir John St. Quintyn, Sir Bertram Mountboucher, Sir Thomas Sakevyle, Sir William Wingfield, and several others I did not recognize. The depositions had whisked by, all of them from men who supported Scrope, and nearly all identical in their recollections of the baron’s arms in years past. Though King Richard had expressed sympathy for Grosvenor, it was known that Woodstock supported Scrope, and in the constable’s own court there was little doubt as to the ultimate outcome. Even a higher knight was well advised to avoid entanglements over heraldry not his own.

Chaucer, the day’s final deponent and lowest in rank, was sitting on a lone chair in the middle of the chamber. Derwentwater looked at him with an air of fatigue. A long finger was pressed into a pocket of flesh above the knight’s cheek, which he pushed up to close his right eye and released to open it, a slow rhythm that marked his own boredom with this procedure he had been enlisted to oversee.

“Did you ever have occasion to witness Lord Richard, Baron Scrope, bearing the arms in question?” he said.

“I did not, Sir John,” said Chaucer.

A quick ripple through the knightly throng, which had expected Chaucer to rehearse the identical testimony provided by the day’s other deponents. Perhaps the proceedings would yield a twist after all.

Derwentwater’s finger stilled on his cheek. “Yet you were called here as a witness based on your knowledge of the baron’s right of claim to azure, a bend or. Do you remain confident in this knowledge?”

“I do, Sir John.”

“Yet you just told this court that you saw his lordship bearing the arms in question.”

“Not in question.”

“Pardon?”

“He bore the arms not in question, my lord, but on his shield.”

I smiled. A discerning knight somewhere to my left chortled through his nose.

“What’s that?” said Derwentwater, his finger still paused.

“The azure a bend or, Sir John. On his shield.”

“You saw this.”

“I did.”

Derwentwater’s finger continued its nudging work. “When were you first witness to the Baron Scrope bearing such arms?”

Chaucer looked off to the right. “My earliest memory of the Scrope arms comes from my time in France. With the Earl of Ulster.”

“Prince Lionel,” said Derwentwater.

“Yes. This was shortly before my imprisonment, some twenty-five years ago. We were encamped about the town of Retters. Monsieur Henry Scrope was a great presence in the camp, as he had been the victor in a tournament held for King Edward a few weeks before. No one sat higher on his horse, no back was straighter in the king’s army. This was in Lord Scrope’s pre-baronial days, you understand, before his summons to the lords. He was Yorkshire stout and Yorkshire strong, a knight of the shire with a fresh new wife and a scare of mistresses cawing for his cock.”

This drew titters from the knights.

“And what were the precise circumstances under which you witnessed Lord Scrope bearing azure a bend or?”

“I distinctly remember the occasion.” Chaucer glanced up at his questioner. “Though it is rather an involved story, Sir John.”

Derwentwater sniffed and crossed his arms. “Tell us the short version, if you please.” A few mumbles of protest. “Well . . .” Derwentwater looked up, haplessly shrugged. “The moderate.”

“With pleasure, Sir John.” Chaucer was off, and over the next quarter hour spun a complex and ingenious tale involving Lord Scrope’s entanglement with a grocer, a maudlyn, a tinker, and an apprentice, all unfolding on the lanes of Retters and ending with a sober homily by the baron himself on the origin and meaning of his family’s venerable arms.

Chaucer could pull stories from his mind like groats from a purse, and as I looked around the refectory I could see the tale’s balming effect on these roiled gentles. If I dealt in coins and cunning, Chaucer
dealt in words and figures, which he mingled, cooked, and distilled with the adept mastery of an alchemist. Nor was such invention a ritual of idleness or waste. Every knight in the room would remember the story told that morning, delight in its twists and perversions as he recounted it for his wife, his consort, his men, his lord. Yes yes, it was Chaucer himself who told it to me—no, not one of his poetical fancies, mind, but a true and real account of the baron himself, so Chaucer said; well, the fellow was under sworn oath to the very earl marshal’s Court of Chivalry, so who’s to doubt the truth of it?

Even Derwentwater sat as if tarred to his chair, his finger at rest on his cheek, his gaze fixed on the face of our yarning bard. When Chaucer had finished, the knight stirred and glanced over at his clerk. “No need to transcribe that last part, Roger.”

“Aye, sire,” mumbled the clerk, who hadn’t bothered, and thus another of Chaucer’s numberless tales faded to oblivion.

The deposition resumed with a turn to the other party in the dispute. “Have you ever witnessed or heard of any claim or other such interruption made by one Sir Robert Grosvenor or his ancestors, or by someone else acting in his name, against Sir Richard or any of his rightful ancestors?”

“I did not. Though—well, not so much a claim as an affront, as I would call it.”

“Go on,” said Derwentwater.

Chaucer cleared his throat. “Last year, on a Tuesday in September it was, I found myself walking about on Friday Street, minding my affairs, when I saw the arms in question on a new sign, hanging fresh-painted from a hall. ‘Why, Sir Richard Scrope is within,’ I thought to myself. So I asked a fellow standing there, ‘What inn is this, that’s taken to hanging out the Scrope arms? Has Lord Scrope purchased a new house in London?’ The fellow looked at me with the most peculiar frown. ‘Why, those aren’t Scrope’s arms put out there, my good fellow, nor Scrope’s arms painted on that sign. Those, my good fellow, are the arms of a great knight of Chester, name of Sir Robert Grosvenor.’ I must admit, Sir John, that this was the first time in my life that I had ever heard mention of the name Sir Robert Grosvenor, or his
ancestors, let alone his family’s ancestral right to azure a bend or. And those, I believe, are all my relevant memories on the matter.”

Chaucer was dismissed, and that day’s hearing shortly neared its predictable end. Derwentwater was just speaking the obligatory formulas of closing when the refectory doors burst open and the Duke of Gloucester strode into the chamber with two pages in his wake. All the seated knights rose and bowed as Gloucester went over to Derwentwater and whispered something in his ear.

“Yes, Your Grace,” we heard Derwentwater say. Woodstock walked to the clerk’s desk and took up a position behind the quivering man, clearly unused to the disquieting thrill of a duke inspecting his scribal work. From my angle I could see the transcript, a loose sheaf of double-sheet parchment on which he would record a rough copy of the proceedings before inscribing them for permanent record on the court’s official rolls. The duke leaned over the clerk’s bent back, tracing a finger along the transcripts of the day’s depositions, murmuring in the clerk’s ear.

“Very good,” Gloucester said, and stood to his full height. His gaze swept the refectory. “You have all performed according to your duty. I am glad to see that the peerage has been supporting the Baron Scrope’s rightful claims to the arms. Who is our next deponent, Sir John?”

Derwentwater looked at the clerk, who consulted his list. “Our next deponent, sire, is to be . . . Sir Nicholas Brembre, knight and lord mayor of—”

“Knight,” Woodstock scoffed. “Sir Nick the Stick is no more a knight than my left buttock.” He clutched at the muscle in question, and a ripple of flattering laughter swept the refectory.

“He is arrived, my lord,” said Derwentwater, a warning in his voice.

The laughter died quickly as all heads turned to the refectory’s north doorway, which the mayor now filled. He looked at each face in turn, not a mote humiliated or angered by the duke’s childish pronouncement, and most of the knights visibly flinched beneath his gaze. Though hardly a peer, Brembre commanded enormous respect
among the lords of the realm. He was the richest merchant of London and a close confidante of King Richard’s, with an unrivaled power over the life and well-being of any man who set foot within the city’s walls.

“My lord,” he said to Woodstock, and gave the duke a proper bow.

“Lord Mayor.” Woodstock looked over at the knights with a knowing smile.

Brembre’s face was set as he stepped fully into the chamber and addressed Derwentwater. “I am summoned, Sir John?”

Derwentwater looked nervously from mayor to duke. “Sire?” he said to Gloucester.

The duke tilted his head just slightly back toward the door. “Your deposition is no longer required in this court, Lord Mayor.”

Brembre paced slowly along the first row of knights—away from the door—his eyes fixed on the duke’s. “I received a summons from the earl marshal, and under his seal. It was delivered to me not three days ago.”

“The summons did not come from me,” said Gloucester. “Nor is Nottingham the lord high constable.”

“Is he in Westminster today?”

“I have no idea.”

“Is he aware that Your Grace is sifting deponents in his court?”

“
His
court?” Woodstock sniffed. “Chivalry is the lord high constable’s jurisdiction, and only secondarily the earl marshal’s.”

“An interesting perspective, your lordship. One I won’t hesitate to share with Mowbray when I see him next.”

“Do so at your pleasure, Brembre,” said the duke. “What you won’t be sharing is your testimony in the case of Scrope and Grosvenor.”

The two men were now mere feet from each other, of the same height and compact build, the small space between them crackling with hostility. I feared the confrontation would come to blows even there, in the abbey’s refectory.

“You would forestall my testimony in the face of the earl marshal’s direct request?” said Brembre.

“I would.”

“You are countermanding his summons, then.”

“I am.”

“Yet I have pertinent information to share with this court.”

“Perhaps you might share it with your wife,” said the duke softly. “Though impertinent information seems more her strength, wouldn’t you agree?”

The mayor flinched, and suddenly the air seemed to go out of him. His jaw loosened, his arms dropped, his spine visibly sagged. “There is no call to bring Lady Idonia into this, Your Grace.”

“No?” said the duke, enjoying himself now. “Yet Lady Idonia brings herself into everything she can. Who are we to deny her own wishes and inclinations, Lord Mayor?”

Brembre, recovering his composure, straightened his back and raised his chin at the duke. “You will regret this, Woodstock.”

Murmurs from the knights, for addressing such words to a duke.

“Ah, regret,” said Gloucester, unruffled. “The sentiment of the loser and the fool. It’s not an emotion I am accustomed to.”

“That can change, your lordship.”

“Perhaps,” said Woodstock, with a little nod. “Though not today, I’m afraid.”

Brembre, deciding not to push nor to threaten further, bowed shallowly and turned for the door, striding with confidence from the refectory.

The proceedings were shortly to conclude, though Chaucer discreetly excused himself, and I followed him from the refectory through the door to a side passage and out of the abbey.

“I must ask you for something, Geoffrey,” I said in a low voice.

“And I you.” He gave me a dark look. “Westminster has many ears. Let’s cross over the yard to the market.”

We left the abbey grounds, traversed the great yard before Westminster Palace, and entered the Parliament market through the close at Lords Way. When we had a decent amount of space between ourselves and any potential eavesdroppers I took his arm in mine, slowed our steps, and said, “I need you to get me Pinkhurst’s ear.”

“Master Adam?” he said with amusement. “What could you want with our pied scribe, John?”

I switched to French. “You spoke with Brembre several days ago. That afternoon along the river.”

“Yes.”

“How did you find him?”

He looked to the side. “Honestly, John, I’ve never seen him more distracted or distressed. He put on a brave face for you and Ralph, but once we were alone he could scarcely put his words together.”

“He is being threatened over the Walbrook killings.”

“Threatened?”

“By Gloucester,” I said softly as we passed the booths of the cheese sellers. “The duke has pressed Brembre into thwarting an investigation in his own city. The mayor won’t move against him, despite evidence that points to his involvement.”