We’re old friends.’ And even he’s surprised to find himself embracing both princes of grocers with such affection that, for a dangerous moment, he feels the mercantile deputation melt and relax, while the courtiers behind him bristle. He’ll have to get a grip: to reapply his courtly manners and his air of polite watchfulness, before any of them take him for a pushover. Forget the gingerbread. He has a job to do.
It’s only as the group walks across the City to the dinner at Chaucer’s new apartment that one of the lesser merchants breaks through the shoulders of Brembre and his friends.
‘I hope you will not be offended,’ the unfamiliar man says to the comptroller, with the heavy accent of Flanders, ‘but I have sent a small gift ahead to your new home, to welcome you to your post. A tun of Gascon wine.’
The man then bows, with a big man’s slouching-shouldered imitation of modesty, includes Chaucer in a huge rolling laugh, and introduces himself as Richard Lyons. He’s almost unnaturally large and luridly coloured, though without an ounce of fat on him. He makes Brembre look small and weak. He has thighs like tree trunks, a pink face, sly, amused eyes, pale orange hair peeping out from under his hat, and a warm, rich voice that projects without effort over everyone else’s. No grey in his stubble – he can’t be older than forty – and plenty of gold at wrist and chest.
Chaucer never met Lyons while a boy in London, but of course he’s heard his name since. Lyons has only emerged as a wealthy man very recently (and, Chaucer remembers, his father, in his latter years, wasn’t always too sure that this new wealth was very honestly acquired, though naturally that’s the kind of thing almost any Londoner will automatically say about almost any foreigner). Chaucer knows the Fleming is now very rich indeed. Even though he’s a foreigner, Lyons is about to serve as one of the next mayor’s two sheriffs – high office – which seems to suggest that the London elite walking down this street favour him, except that it’s very easy to see that, actually, they don’t want him there at all; they feel awkward around him, and are doing everything they can to keep him to the back and dilute his overwhelming presence among them.
Chaucer understands why they’d be nervous. Lyons has been biding his time. He’s stayed in the background, and kept his peace for the past hour. But he’s been the first, all the same, to get in with his charming little bribe.
‘I thank you,’ he says, bowing very politely, ending the conversation. Secretly, he’s breathing a big sigh of relief that, for the moment at least, Lyons, who’s a vintner like Chaucer’s own father, is only here for curiosity’s sake; he’s hoping that this pink-and-orange-and-red-and-gold force of nature doesn’t, in the near future, start getting tied up in the wool trade. At least until Chaucer’s got everything worked out. He can see, right off, that Lyons is a man on the rise, and a man who does things his own way, and a man who’ll always be a focus for trouble.
By the time Lyons bows and moves away, the whole procession, dignitaries, aristocrats, and the new Comptroller of Customs and Subsidy on Wool, Sheepskins and Leather in the Port of London, has passed north and east across half the City – a brisk ten-minute walk, right through the parish of All Hallows Barking, up Water Lane, over Thames Street and Tower Street, and on up Mark Lane into neighbouring Aldgate parish – and is on Aldgate Street itself, heading for the City wall and the gate. All around them, there’s the deafening crash of midday bells for sext.
The City is a democratic place. It’s too small for anything but walking, for even the greatest of men, and Geoffrey Chaucer likes the quiet freedom of strolling through the crowds. It’s one of the pleasures of London, that you can go everywhere on foot. He clings to this notion of enjoying walking, because he’s suddenly a little wobbly inside about how much he really likes London. Travelling has blunted so much of his old pleasure in his home city. Once you’ve seen honeystone Florence, you’re spoiled for ever. Afterwards, how can you feel anything more than slightly pitying affection for this twisty, stinky, thatched, wattle-and-daubed, cobbled, overcrowded, provincial old place? Of course, that isn’t a feeling to share with the men now whispering confidingly into his ear, one by one, that they’ve had a box of pepper, or spices, or fish, or cushions, delivered to his new home as a housewarming gift. True Londoners will always be proud of their White City. They call it the Ringing City, sometimes – all the church bells. It’s a place to walk endlessly through the ringing of bells. That’s one of the things I’ll be doing, from now on, Chaucer thinks, not quite happily.
The apartment above Aldgate was signed over to him last month, as part of his payment for this job. It’s a great spacious place, looking out over the cut-throat eastern slum villages beyond the City walls one way, along the Colchester road through to Essex on the horizon, and over the roofs and gardens of Holy Trinity Priory and teeming Aldgate Street the other way, inside the City walls.
The apartment itself is all large echoing rooms, with a solar above and a cellar below the easternmost of the six City gates. It’s the only toll-free gate, open to all, beggars included, and there are plenty of those coming from the wild, sparsely populated Essex country beyond. There’ll be people coming and going in their carts underneath Chaucer’s feet every day, cursing as they try to squeeze through the narrow arch, and the clank of the City gate closing every night at curfew. The apartment has been used as a prison in the past; this is a strategic spot. He’s had to swear to use it well and not let enemies of the City enter through the gate below; they’ve had to swear not to put prisoners in there with him and his family for his lifetime. It was a comical little City ceremony, the kind that would have made Philippa smirk. But the apartment’s prestigious enough – as good as Stury’s riverside house – so any smirking on her part, right now, is also partly a genuinely happy smile.
Alice Perrers winked when she told him she’d got him the apartment rent-free. ‘It’s not usually rent-free. But the Mayor said yes, for you.’
‘Whatever kindness the worshipful Mayor is doing, it’s to impress you, I’m sure, not me,’ he replied gratefully. It’s her kind of favour, he understands. He’s heard a lot of stories about Alice Perrers’ ruthless ways with property, exchanging influence and access to the King for favours in land and buildings, constantly obtaining new leases on still more properties, all on the never-never, feathering her own nest. The stories aren’t flattering, but they’re probably all true. It’s obvious she’s minting money. Everyone says the same thing. Chaucer knows he’s supposed to be shocked by her greed. Philippa, in particular, keeps telling him so. But he can’t help admiring the merry mischief in Alice Perrers’ eyes. He likes her for enjoying her tricks and subterfuges so much.
Philippa will have made those empty spaces above Aldgate beautiful in these past days. She’ll have hung the tapestries and scattered the cushions artfully to fill the rooms with loveliness and colour. There’ll be flowers. All their little wealth will be on brave display. She’ll understand the importance of that.
Geoffrey Chaucer finds his hands clutching at his long sleeves. He’s wearing merchant robes today, long sweeping things to his feet; he plans to dress like the merchants he’ll be living among. But he hasn’t reckoned with the heat inside the tube of velvet. He’s forgotten that, in his years of aristocratic tunics and hosen. He’s stifling. His linen undershirt is soaking. He wishes his stomach would stop churning.
If only he could be sure his wife also understands how important it is to treat these merchants like princes, and feed them like kings. If only he knew for certain that she’s understood about the dinner.
There’s a crowd at Aldgate as the merchant procession arrives. Two donkeys, pulling a heavily laden cart, are blocking the traffic while men unload trays from it. They’re ignoring other men, who are darting in and out of the gatehouse, complaining, as well as the men on carts trying to come into the City, who are shouting and cat-calling and hooting obscenities in their rustic Essex voices from beyond the gate.
Chaucer winces. He remembers these stubborn City scraps for space so well. It might go on for