he’s puzzled. The subtext of everything he’s been told in the past few weeks of briefings is that his job in London will be to stop these three men expanding their interests beyond what is proper, and taking for themselves what is rightfully the King’s. Yet, in this deep, comforting, familiar voice, he already hears a note of appeal. as if William Walworth and his friends fear that their own rightful interests are being eaten into.
Walworth’s saying: ‘Ever since I’ve held office in the City, we merchants have been complaining to the King that he was selling Italians too many special licences to export wool from England without paying customs to you’ – he bows at Chaucer the Customs Comptroller – ‘as all Englishmen have to. We’ve complained long and loudly. And, it seems, he heard us. For at least two, maybe three years, no more licences have been granted to Italians.’
Chaucer has to half jog to keep up with Walworth’s stride. He puffs, ‘Yes?’
‘But someone else has been granted a special licence.’ Walworth turns and arches an eyebrow. He wants Chaucer to guess who. It’s a test of Chaucer’s wit.
‘Lyons,’ Chaucer puffs, suddenly seeing it all – exactly how Lyons has become so rich, and why the merchants, who so obviously dislike and mistrust the Fleming, are nevertheless cautiously trying to bind him closer, and buy his loyalty to them, by giving him a post in their City administration. And why they’re smarting.
Walworth nods. He looks pleased with Chaucer’s quick response.
‘We arrested some men at Southampton a week or so ago,’ he confirms. ‘They were loading cargo there. Sacks and sacks of wool, on a ship bound for Flanders. No stop at London or Middleburg planned, where they would have to pay customs. Naturally we tried to confiscate the cargo. My wool investigators are allowed to, even outside London, whenever they find contraband (and we’d had a tip-off that that’s what this would be). But we couldn’t, with this cargo, because there was nothing illegal about it. The men had a licence. An absolutely official licence, all green sealing-wax and royal stamps, straight from the King’s administration. Made out to Richard Lyons.’
Chaucer wishes he could catch his breath.
‘The King…wrote…Lyons a licence?’ he pants. ‘Himself?’ He doesn’t want to believe the King would have done down the merchants if he’d promised them not to sell any more foreigners any more special licences. Like everyone in the King’s service, and in the country, he adores the old man. But he’s heard about too many slips – and seen that fleeting, amused look in the royal eye too often – to know that loving the King and trusting him, at least with money, can’t always be quite the same thing.
The whole business with special licences has always been pure foolishness, in any case. In principle, the King is cheating his own royal coffers – and therefore himself – by selling foreigners the right not to pay England’s wool tax. But for a King who’s always short of money, right here, right now, who’s constantly scrabbling around for the coin to put down on that war-horse, or castle wing, or costume, on top of all the war expenses…well, in practice, it’s tempting, any offer of a bag of actual gold, in the hand, no questions asked. Of course it is. Chaucer understands that. And as for the King breaking his royal word to Walworth and the other merchants, well, Chaucer can imagine how the King might finesse that, too. He can see Edward telling himself, with a bit of a grin, that even if he’s promised not to sell any more licences to Italians, if it’s a Fleming who comes along, offering the right price, why, that’s quite a different matter…
There’s resignation in Walworth’s laugh. ‘Things are never that simple with my lord the King,’ he says. ‘No, he didn’t write the licence himself.’
Chaucer’s panting, and guessing, ever more wildly by now. ‘A forgery?’ he says, trying not to sound too hopeful. He’d rather it was that.
Walworth shakes his head. ‘Not that, either…the licence was signed’, he says sadly, ‘by Baron Latimer. It was quite legal. He’s the chamberlain. He’s authorised to sign on the King’s behalf. The King’s hand wasn’t on it, but he must have known.’
‘But then…’ Chaucer is utterly out of his depth by now. So the licence was legal, and the King just slyly hiding behind his servant’s signature. That much he’s got straight, now. But what he can’t for the life of him see is how Richard Lyons ever met the King to do this private deal in the first place? Flemish merchants don’t go running around at court without an introduction, and Walworth, who is sometimes received at court, would obviously never take along a chancer like Lyons. Someone else must have taken him to the King. But who?
It is only now that the other, separate, picture Chaucer woke up with today comes back into his mind. Latimer looking at Lyons, and Lyons looking back across Chaucer’s table, groaning with all that food provided by Alice Perrers. And Alice in between them, eyes darting from one to the other, and a little smile on her lips…
‘…Mistress Perrers,’ he says flatly. Of course. He’s known all along, really, bar the details. It will be Mistress Perrers who’s introduced the foreign merchant to the King, or simply made the deal for him without an introduction. She likes money, and she likes stirring things up, just for fun. She enjoyed putting Philippa’s nose out of joint with her feast, Chaucer saw yesterday, as much as she enjoyed making sure that the merchants were being properly fed. She’ll be taking a cut from this, just as Latimer will be. She has fingers in every pie, doesn’t she?
He shakes his head in reluctant admiration. You have to admire Mistress Perrers’ sheer audaciousness. Suggesting to him that he should be keeping watch on Walworth and his men, while all along she knows that if there’s mischief in the City, it’s happening somewhere entirely different; somewhere much closer to her own good self. No, there are no flies on her…
Chaucer’s almost smiling at this new insight into his new patron when Walworth interrupts his reverie by grunting with satisfaction and squeezing his arm.
‘You were always a bright boy,’ he says. Then, more hesitantly: ‘Of course, I can’t swear this is true, but they do say that the house Mistress Perrers got in the City last year was a gift from Master Lyons…’
He stops walking. He’s going to turn left down Thames Street, while Chaucer’s going to go straight over. The thoroughfare is crowded with salesmen shouting their wares. Elbows and baskets and carts knock into both men as the streams of human traffic part and sweep on past them. But neither Walworth nor Chaucer notice. Their eyes are locked. Walworth isn’t quite ready to bow farewell.
‘And of course, what really worries me is who might be behind Mistress Perrers, trying to undermine…’ Walworth pauses, searching fastidiously for the right word, then settling for, ‘…us.’ Chaucer understands him to mean us narrowly: the trio of merchant princes with power in the City. It doesn’t actually include him. Still, he’s flattered to be honoured by Walworth’s confidences so soon in their adult relationship. And he wants to know more, of course. He wants to know why Walworth thinks Alice Perrers has gone to the trouble of putting Chaucer in the City, and of sending him off on this wild-goose chase of suspecting the top merchants are dishonest, while they nurse their own quiet fears about her.
Chaucer waits for Walworth to go on.
But then the future Mayor looks down at him, and, almost regretfully, puts his lips together. He begins gently to shake his head, as if wondering at himself. With a visible change of mood, he says, much more briskly, ‘Listen to me, gossiping away like a Billingsgate fishwife – and you hungry and looking forward to your dinner. Age, dear boy, age. You’ll have to forgive me.’ He turns, and, smiling gaily over his shoulder,
