EIGHTEEN.

They come face to face in the King's antechamber, Alice and the Duke.

Alice has dressed for the occasion of coming accidentally across the Duke again (dark, modest clothes; no jewels). She's picked her moment: a quiet early afternoon, after Council's over and done with, when he's just coming in to see his father out of filial devotion and has nothing in particular on his mind. To him, meeting her is happenstance. But when she sees the tension in his body, she realises, all the same, that he's thought about this moment too.

They approach each other watchfully.

In the Duke's eyes: fear that she'll know what his father has said about him and how he's handled the peace talks, at times when the old man's been more lucid than he is now - and that it won't be approving.

In Alice's eyes: nervousness that he'll have found out she's been stealing. And that he won't be happy.

So they're both scared, and both trying to pretend they're not. Brazening it out. As she steps closer, Alice sees that the Duke looks older, with grey dusting his dark hair. Sadder, though of course he'd be sad. Never mind the French, and the Parliament. He's just buried the baby son his wife gave birth to at Ghent, before the peace talks. So they say.

You don't grieve publicly for a child so young. Condolences would be wasted.

But Alice puts her hands in his, as she rises from her swoop of a bow, trying to convey mute comfort. He's become so bleak, so bloodless, so lean. The skin on his hands is papery. With a flash of compa.s.sion she hasn't expected to feel, she murmurs, 'How glad I am, we are, to see you back...After all those months of tireless work...The whole of England is grateful...We've missed you...I know my lord the King has missed you.'

She wishes she'd done better by him. The way he looks wrings her heart. He's a good man, put upon by Fate. Still, it's best not to dwell on that now. A few gracious words are enough, for the moment. Just sit tight. She's comforted by the brief, grateful look the Duke bestows on her, in return.

She'd like to say she saw only warm friends.h.i.+p in his face, of course. That's not exactly true. There are lines of bitterness and disappointment drawn all over it.

Not for her, though. And that's what counts.

She gestures him towards Edward's bedchamber. 'He's awake.' She indicates, with a brave, sad expression, that the King is not going to be capable of much in the way of talk. 'If you want to go in...'

The Duke is relieved that Alice Perrers is sidling up to him like this, with her round little face so eager and full of intelligent understanding, her hands so warm.

He breathes more easily. He can see loyalty, and the wish to please, s.h.i.+ning in her eyes. He sees now that she she won't have been criticising his every step at Bruges, from his negotiating style to his hospitality bills. won't have been criticising his every step at Bruges, from his negotiating style to his hospitality bills.

He's had enough of that, from the savaging he got at Council last week to his trip to the City this morning to meet the fat, insolent new Mayor, Warde the grocer. His coats of arms were hung along Chepe beforehand in what was supposed to be a mark of respect. But by the time he rode by they'd all been turned upside down: the mark of a traitor. He could see idlers by the roadside smirking all over their downturned faces at their practical joke. The dishonour of it made his flesh creep and his hackles rise...the malice. But when he strode in and furiously told Warde to have someone flogged for it, the Mayor only smirked too, until his flesh wobbled, and said, far too indulgently, and with an edge of malice of his own, a hint of criticism, 'Dear me, some wag...some scallywag...of course there's been bad feeling about the truce, but this is disrespect...I'll look into it.'

It took the Duke's breath away. It wasn't for Warde-the-grocer to comment on his truce, and as for the beggars of Chepe...Who do these City n.o.bodies think they are? That's the trouble with merchants. No one born without blue blood in their veins has any conception of what a fighting n.o.bleman has to do, and risk, to keep them safe in their counting-houses. They've no idea of honour, any more than a rat in a granary does. Yet they've got so puffed up with pride, just because my lord father has allowed them to contribute money to the war, that they've taken to thinking they can dictate to a prince of England how to conduct relations with England's enemy.

At least Perrers knows her place, the Duke's thinking approvingly as he steps through the curtains and approaches his father's bed. She's enjoyed her clothes and her jewels and her parties in the past, true; she interests herself in politics. She's quietly stacked up money, too, he knows. (He's heard them blame her money-making for half the country's woes, in the City, since he's got back, though he's ignored all that; he's actually inclined to think the better of anyone whom those thieving granary rats criticise...which he suspects that they're only doing to cover their own trails of stolen grain anyway.) What he enjoys about his father's mistress is that, gifted though she obviously is at handling men and money, in all his his dealings with her, she's never presumed to know better than him, never criticised, and never carped at his princely choices or underestimated the princely burden he carries on his shoulders. She's not the type to get ideas above her station. He likes it, too, that she's gone on sitting here quietly nursing my lord through his twilight years. A change from the gaiety of before. Sad sort of life. Other women might have married, or retired from court. He values loyalty. dealings with her, she's never presumed to know better than him, never criticised, and never carped at his princely choices or underestimated the princely burden he carries on his shoulders. She's not the type to get ideas above her station. He likes it, too, that she's gone on sitting here quietly nursing my lord through his twilight years. A change from the gaiety of before. Sad sort of life. Other women might have married, or retired from court. He values loyalty.

His father is propped up on a mound of pillows. The sour smell of old age hangs in the air. Duke John leans down, kisses his father's familiar forehead, and looks into the beloved eyes. He's expecting a stranger's eyes: no recognition. But they light up. For a moment, the Duke thrills at that pleasure. 'Edward,' the King says, with weak joy. 'My dearest boy.'

Gently, the Duke shakes his head. 'John,' he says with sinking heart, sitting down on the bed, taking his father's hands. 'I'm John.' Hoping the excitement won't go out of those pale old eyes. Knowing it will.

Once John has gone in to his father, Alice stands quiet for a moment, letting the waves of relief pour through her as she remembers how trustingly Duke John looked at her.

He's not angry, after all. She can rely on him. He's still her best hope for the future.

Then she turns her attention to the Duke's entourage. She shows the men the wine and cakes prepared for while they wait, whisking off the muslins that have kept the baked goods fresh, letting the smell of them rise invitingly into the air. Out of sheer relief, or perhaps just to remind herself that she can, she smiles invitingly up at the steward John's brought - the same awkward Leicester gentleman she once wheedled information about Katherine Swynford's children out of, she sees - and pats the stool beside hers as she sinks back down and takes up her needlework.

The man sits down with her, looking bashful but flattered to be singled out. John de Stafford, she remembers he's called. Dark, big, perhaps shy behind his muscle. She can see he's got a soft spot for her, or is ready to have.

'Now, Monsieur de Stafford,' she begins, and puts down her needlework again, and serves him wine and cake herself, with a rush of hospitable housewife talk about the saffron and fruit in the creamy buns, as if she'd baked them with her own hands. He chomps appreciatively as she nods at the goblet to make him drink up. 'And how have you been up in Leicester, and how is my lady Swynford?' she twinkles at him, reminding him of the private moment they shared at Christmas. He shakes a rueful head back. She can see at once he still doesn't like La Swynford. It took only those few words to make them fellow-conspirators, ready to whisper pleasurably together, even flirt a little, maybe, because, after all, life's not all fear and fretting.

So she's surprised when, after a moment of blus.h.i.+ng and nodding and agreeing with everything she's saying, he leans right over to her and mutters in her ear, worriedly, without a trace of the bashful flirtatiousness she's just seen on his face, 'Madame Perrers, may I tell you what I heard with my master in the City this morning?'

'Of course...?' she breathes back, looking encouragingly into his eyes.

As the story comes hesitantly out - he feels uncomfortable repeating other people's conversations, she sees, but he does, suddenly, terribly want her to know - she feels so overwhelmed, so close to shaky, that she's glad she's seated.

For what John de Stafford has to say is this. Warde, the Mayor, made it clear this morning during his meeting with the Duke that he's getting a City plot going against Alice Perrers. Apparently the man's managed to get the London merchants to forget their usual squabbles with each other over money and join forces in a financial investigation. On the face of it, it sounds like just the usual London viciousness towards foreigners - the grocer said they were planning to bring a legal case at the Guildhall against the Italians who'd been benefiting from getting part of their loans repaid. For usury, he said (as if they weren't all usurers themselves). But Warde was half mad with excitement - far too excited for an everyday bit of Italian-bas.h.i.+ng. Rubbing his hands, gleeful looks: 'I can tell you right now, my lord, that it's not going to end well for anyone who was involved in setting up the debt swaps, either.' When the Duke asked, 'And who do you mean by that that, Master Warde?' Warde wriggled with pride. 'Well, the trail leads to Richard Lyons, for one thing...' he said happily, as if he really thought the Duke would care, one way or another, whether the money-grubbers of London turned on a money-grubber from Flanders. Then he fixed Duke John with a still more significant gaze: 'It may even lead to court, and formal punishment. For him. And for others too.' The Duke knows, of course, that Alice Perrers thought up that debt exchange; he's been grateful to her for the past year for her clever idea. His household knows, too. So he asked, 'You're not suggesting...' and: '...Madame Perrers?' There was no answer direct, just more noddings and excited wrigglings. And John de Stafford can't swear to it, but he thinks that, for a moment, the City man even had the unspeakable temerity to wink.

'They want to destroy you,' he says sadly, shaking his head. 'They really do. You should watch your back.'

Alice shakes her head too. The shock's pa.s.sing, and with it the cold dread. After all, she's known for so long there's something brewing. Some attack, some ambush. This confirmation is - almost - a relief.

'But why?' she wonders aloud, allowing herself to sound helpless. She wants a little comfort from this man with strong shoulders; a little rea.s.surance.

John de Stafford, who's better at accounts books than he is at the human heart, is naive enough to think Alice might genuinely not know the answer to her rhetorical question. 'Because you're so powerful,' he says earnestly. 'And because you've made your own power, and your own money. They don't like someone beating them at their own game. Especially a woman.' He's embarra.s.sed himself now. Hastily, he adds, sketching a little bow, 'Especially a beautiful woman.'

Slowly, she nods. It's the comfort she wanted.

Yet how strange it is, she's thinking as she gives the anxious man at her side a pitiful wounded-lapdog look. She still so often thinks of herself as small, an ant or mouse or shadow, some unnoticed creature s.h.i.+fting crumbs no one sees or needs off to its hole. It was only the other day, at Gaines, watching her family laughing at things she can't find funny any more, that she got a first real inkling of how far she's moved from her early days of insignificance. She's part of a bigger landscape now, and a bigger beast in it. It's hard to grasp, even for her, how close to power she is, and should continue to be - look at her just now, murmuring together with the King's son, who may become the next ruler of the land, who eats out of her hand...It's difficult to realise how large she seems to loom, especially since she's never been one for t.i.tles and visible attempts at grandeur. Yet there it is. People notice her. Perhaps they've been noticing her more than she realises for years. And oh, what an irritant she must be to all those who'd like the world to have stayed the way it used to be, with people in their proper places. Or those who'd like to have done what she's done, but don't know how.

After all, no one, and certainly no woman, has ever climbed as high as she has, from a starting place so low (not that any of them know quite how low she started). She's got more energy than any of them. She's a winner: queen of the climbers, and a queen from the humblest of the people, too.

So perhaps she can understand why Walworth's merchants, no strangers to self-enrichment themselves, would hate and envy her, just like the Princess, and half the court; why they'd all want to bring her down.

Suddenly feeling tough, invincible, almost, she dimples mischievously up at the worried John de Stafford. 'Well, I'm not going to let them beat me,' she says with utter calm, a.s.surance. 'You're very kind, but you mustn't worry. They're not going to win.' She means it, she thinks as she picks up her embroidery again, and says, with composure, 'Now do tell me about the Duke's wonderful building project at Kenilworth...'

She's not going to let them bring her down, and stop her enjoying the fruits of her success.

She's not going to let them stop her children enjoying those fruits either, she thinks a moment later. That's what it's all been for, hasn't it?

The Duke doesn't stay long with his father. What would be the point?

He comes quietly back into the antechamber, soundlessly moving the curtains aside.

Alice Perrers has been busy in his absence. She's given his men refreshments, and they're standing around looking pleased and licking cake crumbs off their fingers. And there's a steaming bowl of food on a table, and a flagon of drink waiting for the King. She's sitting by it, head bowed dutifully over her sewing. Waiting, as a good royal servant should.

The sight of this modest virtue cheers him a little.

It also reminds him that loyalty obliges him, too. He'd meant to warn Madame Perrers about something earlier, but he'd been thinking mostly about how his father would be, and it slipped his mind.

Now it's back. Something Warde-the-grocer said in the City. A plot in the offing, against her and her friends. She should know. Forewarned is forearmed.

When she looks up, humbly, and her face softens into pleased excitement at his presence, he's ready to tell her.

'My lord,' she says, rising to her feet, putting aside her needlework, bowing her head. He clears his throat.

But before he can say a word, she's started talking herself. And there's something wheedling, beseeching, even, in the little smiles she's giving him as the words rush out. A favour, then. He knows that look. He composes himself, ready to nod, to listen, to understand, and, probably, to grant it. He owes her so much.

Self-preservation is urgently on Alice's mind, now she's talked to John de Stafford. When she sees the Duke come through the door, she finds herself - can't stop herself - separating him from his men, waiting till they're streaming off out of the room to wait in the corridor, so she can whisper in his ear, and ask him to intercede with Edward, and get Johnny knighted with the next crop of boys who are honoured. By that time, Johnny will be...better. And the Duke is so efficient at getting granted the favours that the King promises, but forgets. Always was.

Even before she starts, she's expecting his brow to shadow for a moment. She's expecting the fretful question, 'But whose son...?' But she's thought it all out in these last few heady minutes. He won't remember what she was before Edward. And he won't want detail. She knows that. That's the beauty of asking him. So...

'Oh, long ago,' she replies with vague charm. 'My first husband. Long before...'

She's not expecting this thunderous look deepening and darkening on his face.

There's blood pounding through the Duke's head.

Knighthood is glory, he's thinking, not just grace in the saddle and at swordplay, but courage enough to give your life to defend what you hold dear. A n.o.ble reward, for n.o.ble men. A badge of honour.

He'd never enn.o.ble a merchant. Even Chaucer, whom he admires, but knows to be a fool on a battlefield. Not Chaucer's fault, that; just his merchant blood.

Knighthood's not for the likes of these people; for Madame Perrers' brood. He thought she knew her place. But she's overreached herself; she's as grasping as the rest of them, after all. Do these people think they can buy or steal everything everything?

Alice falters. Her eyes drop. His are so angry. She doesn't understand why.

'Madame Perrers,' the Duke says, and his voice is as steely as his gaze. 'Knighthood is a mark of n.o.bility.'

She tries not to cringe or look crestfallen. She stares at the floor. She's given offence. Her short-lived sunny relief is replaced, instantly, by quiet dread.

So much for her power and visibility. All that's not hers, not really, is it? It's this man's, to whom she's linking her future, or hopes she is. She's just a shadow dancing behind him, not a person of the stature to bask in the light of power herself. One frown from this man, and she's back to being a crumb on the floor.

She squeezes anxious hands together till the knuckles go white and she can feel half-moons of fingernail burn into the backs of fingers.

He's being pompous, of course. She can think of half a dozen rich merchants who've retired to country estates with knighthoods; whose sons will be n.o.ble. No harm in that. Why not her, and her son?

She didn't mean anything bad. She didn't think...Surely he can see that?

But he's still staring accusingly at her, as if her words were so outrageous that they've robbed him of the power of speech.

She swallows, and then nods. Best agree. Best drop it, quick. 'I understand,' she mutters appeasingly, thinking: What can I say next, to make him forget I asked?

But he's not staying for more. He's off towards the door.

There's a game children play, cutting away flour from a heap, slice by careful slice, trying not to let the coin perched at the top of the flour fall. The loser is the one whose hands start to shake, and whose cut finally topples the coin. Alice feels she's playing that game now. She sees the thin column of flour wavering after an injudicious cut, with the coin wobbling precariously at the top. She's made a few bad plays recently.

'You made a good Lady of the Sun,' he adds bitingly over his shoulder. 'But leave it at that.'

Alice shuts her eyes. As the door shuts, she's trying to visualise that coin. It's still up there, she tells herself. It hasn't fallen yet.

NINETEEN.

They're waiting for him. They're all at the Customs House, perched on the sides of the big table, companionably chatting, when Chaucer walks in.

Brembre has that muscular sun-kissed bronzed look, Philpot is bald and smooth, and Walworth, relaxed now he's no longer having to perform the daily duties of Mayor, seems taller and paler and more angelic than ever. Chaucer looks at these three, his father's friends, his own mentors, and wonders at the slight dislike in his heart.

Their eyes light up as he comes in. The big beaming smiles come out.

It makes him uncomfortable. He's spent an hour writing this morning, only remembering to rush over here when he saw how high the sun was in the sky. He knows what his father would have said about slacking, when his job is so responsible. He wishes now that he'd stopped to get his cheeks shaved, at least.

Walworth clears his throat. Chaucer sees he's got a roll open on the table.

'My dear Master Chaucer,' he says kindly, and his gold hair s.h.i.+mmers above pale eyes. 'We've been looking at your work. We wanted to talk to you about this. this.'

He puts a clean slim finger on the parchment. Peeping forward, Chaucer can see where it's fallen: on the name John Kent, one of the many caught trying to export wool without paying customs. Kent has had the entire cargo, worth PS71 4s. 6d., confiscated. It's in the warehouse now.

Chaucer isn't sure what he's done wrong, but he can't help it. The finger stabbing at the parchment is making him feel guilty. He feels sure they think he's done something wrong.

Anxiously he says, 'Master Walworth' - for they've settled on formality in the ways they address each other - 'we talked about this. You remember, don't you? You agreed that the cargo had to be impounded.'

Walworth looks carefully at him - the others do too - then they all begin to chuckle rea.s.suringly.

'You misunderstand me, dear boy,' Walworth says. 'You did absolutely the right thing.'

There's a little pause. It's Walworth who breaks the silence. Still smiling, he says, 'As a matter of fact, dear boy, we were just saying how very well well your appointment is turning out...' your appointment is turning out...'

Philpot chimes in: '...and how we've come to depend on you. Reliable and hard-working; quick to spot errors, like this one.'