I meet your father?’ I asked with interest. ‘Is he in London?’
‘I believe so. He usually lets me know if he is travelling to France.’
‘And will your aunt be there? The one your sisters wish was not?’
He gave me a worried look. ‘Yes, but I hope you will not make any mention of that,’ he said. ‘I probably should not have told you.’
I smiled reassuringly. ‘I promise I will be the soul of discretion. It is extremely kind of you to offer me lodging. I hope your aunt will not be put out by it.’
He looked as if the thought had never occurred to him. ‘I cannot think why she should. We have plenty of room. Anyway, you can have my chamber if there is any problem and I will sleep in the hall with the servants. It would not be the first time.’
I did not pursue the subject, but nevertheless felt a stab of misgiving. His original description of his aunt had not encouraged me to think that she was an easy-going woman and I feared my arrival might rouse her ire.
‘Well, I will be very grateful not to have to take a room in a strange inn,’ I said. ‘The prospect does not appeal to me.’ Catherine had suggested I seek lodging at Westminster Palace, but I suspected that when the royals were not in residence such a place would be cold and eerie and, anyway, I wanted to be closer to the shops and workshops in the city.
We waited less than half an hour in the queue to pass through the wall and immediately began to plod up a hill on a narrow roadway lined with tightly packed half-timbered houses whose overhanging gables almost grazed our heads, obscuring the setting sun and trapping the acrid odour stirred by our horses’ hooves. Behind us the Compline bell began to ring from a nearby abbey, tucked into the corner formed where the London wall dipped down to the river bank.
‘Blackfriars Abbey,’ Walter revealed. ‘Of the Dominican order. Their bell denotes the start of curfew. We only just made it through the gate.’
At my request we had been speaking English all day. I was getting more fluent and needed the practice. I had discovered that learning the language led me to understand the English character better and it was becoming clear to me that although many of them were descended from Normans, they displayed very different characteristics from their continental cousins. I found them more phlegmatic, less quick to anger and generally more straightforward in their attitude to life.
Walter leaned from his saddle to speak above the clanging sound of another bell which began to ring out from a large building silhouetted at the top of the hill. ‘That is St Paul’s,’ he said, ‘the greatest church in London. In the churchyard you’ll see a big cross where many a famous sermon has been preached. Crowds block the street to hear them, especially in times of trouble.’
When we reached the elevated churchyard it was just possible to see over the patchwork of tiled rooftops down to the river Thames, its brown and turgid waters transformed by the reflected sunset into a golden highway dotted with boats and ships. London seemed smaller than Paris, crammed tightly within its walls and, judging by the miasma of smells that assailed our nostrils, afflicted with the same city problems; waste, ordure and disease. It also radiated all the excitement and opportunity that resulted when people massed together in the right location for trade, industry and creativity.
We had stopped to let our horses draw breath after the climb and to allow me to admire the view. Walter was eager to share his pride in his native city, ‘The river looks magical in this light, does it not? The Vintry is this side of London Bridge,’ he said, indicating the higgledy-piggledy line of buildings on the many-arched bridge I remembered crossing the day before Catherine’s coronation. ‘Our house is in Tun Lane, off Cordwainer Street. Ten minutes’ ride. I hope supper will be ready!’
When we reached the Vintner house it was already shuttered against the night, but the street gate quickly opened in response to Walter’s rat-tat-a-tat-tat coded knock. A grizzled servant emerged first from a narrow passage at the side of the house and took our horses, while seconds later down some steps at the main entrance tumbled two young girls, laughing and exclaiming as they came.
‘Walter! Walter! It’s you at last!’
Light spilled out a welcome from lamps burning in the inner porch and Walter returned the enthusiastic embraces of the two whom I assumed to be his sisters before shushing them and ushering me up the steps towards the warmth of the interior.
‘Now calm down and show your manners to my guest,’ he admonished gently. ‘This is Madame Lanière, who is Keeper of the Robes to Queen Catherine and deserves your greatest courtesy. Madame, may I present my sisters? This is Anne, the eldest and this hoyden is Mildred, although we call her Mildy because she does not deserve such a saintly name.’
I received the solemn curtsies of the two girls with a grave nod. ‘I am enchanted to meet you,’ I said in French and saw that they understood immediately. Some of the education Walter had received had clearly also been afforded his sisters. They were very like him, blue-eyed, open-faced and handsome rather than pretty, dressed plainly in brown woollen kirtles and practical unbleached linen aprons, their hair hidden under neat white coifs.
‘I hope you have not eaten all the supper,’ their brother said, pulling them aside to allow me to mount the inner stair to the first floor. ‘Madame Lanière and I are very hungry. We have been riding all day.’
‘We have not started,’ Anne revealed. ‘Father is here. He came back from the Temple only an hour ago.’
So far there had been no mention of the aunt, but when we entered the hall at the top of the stairs a lady was waiting at the hearth who was obviously she. Walter introduced her as Mistress Elizabeth Cope. My first impression was of a strict disciplinarian; a wimpled lady with a thin face and dark features, unrelieved by the grey and black of her widow’s weeds. She greeted me civilly but without warmth, and I felt instantly that there was no joy in her. However she made no comment about me being an unexpected guest and an extra place was soon being laid at a table set before a good fire, which gave me hope of a clean and comfortable bed later.
‘We have very few visitors, Madame Lanière, so I hope you will not find our hospitality wanting,’ Mistress Cope remarked in her surprisingly deep voice. ‘Try as we might, our standards are hardly likely to measure up to those of the royal household.’
‘I have sometimes found the greatest of palaces draughty and cold, Madame,’ I replied in hesitant English. ‘Courts are not always lodged comfortably.’
She did not respond to that, hardly seeming to have heard because a door opened in the inner wall of the hall to admit a well-set man in a fur-trimmed black gown and a lawyer’s coif that hardly seemed able to contain his thatch of springy silver-threaded brown hair. The atmosphere of stiff formality instantly lifted. Master Geoffrey Vintner was about as similar to his sister as wine is to vinegar. Where she was narrow, he was broad, where her brow was furrowed, his was smile-lined and where she looked coldly down her nose, his good-natured expression burst through a full set of dark, gingery whiskers. If I had nursed a stereotyped image of a stern, pompous lawyer, it was instantly expunged by the presence of this pleasant, warm-spirited man.
When Walter introduced me, his reaction was genuinely cordial. ‘It is a privilege to welcome you to our house, Madame,’ he declared in perfect French. ‘I am honoured to have a member of the queen’s household under my roof.’
I returned his smile and his bow in equal measure, surprised to find myself wishing that I had been able to remove the dirt and dishevelment of the road before meeting him. He must have read my mind for he immediately called for warm water and ushered me to a place at the table nearest to the fire. ‘Come, Madame, let me take your cloak. Sit down and my maid will bring the bowl and towel for you to wash your hands. Walter, you should have offered Madame Lanière these comforts as soon as she crossed the threshold. Where are your manners, boy?’
I saw Walter’s cheeks flush with embarrassment and felt bound to spring to his defence. ‘Truly sir, there has not been time and Walter has been the most attentive escort all day.