A Burnable Book

Oxford had now turned his back on de la Pole, suggesting that he had taken the chancellor’s kind gesture toward me as an insult to him. Sir Stephen Weldon, chief knight of the earl’s household, noticed his lord’s vexation and excused himself. I set my face for the encounter. This took some effort, for Weldon’s most distinguishing characteristic was a crescent scar on his chin, a jagged curve of whitened skin. Whenever I saw it I imagined a line of Oxford’s wretched tenants hooked by their necks, swinging in the wind.

‘Gower.’

‘Sir Stephen.’

‘Our fine town should consider itself gilded indeed whenever John Gower deigns to abandon Southwark to tread Westminster’s humbler lanes.’

‘Even as these avenues acclaim your own passings through with their every voice.’ How I hate this man.

Weldon assessed me, a peculiar glint in his eyes. ‘You look awful, Gower. I’d thought it was your wife who was sick.’

I stared at his scar. ‘Sarah died last year. The week of Michaelmas.’

He raised a hand to his mouth. ‘I’d not heard.’

I said nothing.

‘You must forgive me, John,’ he insisted. ‘It is inexcusable.’

‘Though unsurprising, Sir Stephen.’

His eyes narrowed. He was about to say something more, then thought better of it. They usually do, even the higher knights. He inclined his head, spun on a toe, and rejoined the cluster around Oxford, leaving me wondering why the man had approached me in the first place.

Someone coughed, stifled it. Katherine Swynford was descending from the abbot’s chambers, given over to Gaunt for the duration of his stay. Her skin glowed with the duke’s recent departure, the cut of her gown too low by a coin’s span, her hood trimmed in a silk brocade that matched her emerald eyes. Stretching her compact frame, she looked about until her gaze settled on me. With a subtle toss of her head she directed me to the wide oratorium off the summer hall, where a group of five other ladies sat at their embroidery.

‘Why did you want to see me, John?’ she said when I joined her. She glanced over her shoulder, already impatient.

I recalled Chaucer’s anxious state at Monksblood’s. You can’t be direct with her about it. I opted against obedience. ‘Apparently Geoffrey thinks you might know about a book he’s seeking.’

She let me stand in silence, leaning over to correct a companion. ‘Unravel that. Less of an arc, more of a triangle. Lovely. Then pin out the roet.’ Dame Katherine never failed to amaze me in those days, commanding the duchess’s ladies-in-waiting as if they were already her own.

At length she gave me her attention. ‘Always on the lookout for the next little book, isn’t he?’

‘Too true.’

‘What’s special about this one?’ She took up a narrow strip of cloth of gold, which she proceeded to pick apart from the edges.

‘It’s – delicate,’ I said, hiding my ignorance behind a veil of discretion.

‘Well of course it is, John, or it wouldn’t be you standing before me but my own brother-in-law!’ She continued to pick. ‘What a worm.’

I silently conceded the larger point. Gaunt’s subtle favouritism toward Chaucer was well known and had been ever since Geoffrey composed an elegy upon the death of Duchess Blanche some years ago. Katherine viewed him as an unworthy rival for the duke’s attention. The current duchess certainly wasn’t getting much of it, despite Gaunt’s vow after the Rising to forsake his mistress in favour of his marriage. The duke had seen the rebellion as a warning from God to put away his long-standing consort, and indeed for several years the two had succeeded in avoiding one another’s presence, even as the duke plied her from afar with luxurious gifts, properties, and pounds. Now, by all indications, things were boiling up again, their liaisons increasingly out in the open, as they had formerly been for so many years.

Yet I remained one of Dame Katherine’s greatest admirers, both for her restraint and for her admirable fortitude in the face of so much calumny from her detractors. Despite what must have been nearly irresistible pressure from Lancaster, she had never broken her vows while her husband lived, even when Sir Hugh Swynford was abroad. That Lancaster was now breaking his own was the duke’s problem, not hers. She seemed determined in those years to see him through another duchess, whatever the cost to her reputation and prospects.

‘So … what makes him think the book is here?’ she said, giving me a look.

‘He heard it indirectly from one of the duke’s hermits, so he says.’

‘Oh? And did he bother to say which one?’ She swept an arm toward the terrace doors. ‘Lancaster has hermits to spare. Richard of Chatterburn, John of Singleton, Gregory of Bishop’s Lynn – David of the Ditch, Tom of the Tavern, Peter of the Privy, as common as friars. Dozens of them, popping their heads out of their holes like rabbits, sniffing for nobles whenever Gaunt opens his purse.’

‘He didn’t say.’

Her gaze lingered for a moment. ‘Will you play cards, John?’ From a side table she removed a stack of parchment ovals.

‘Cards?’

‘You haven’t played such games?’ She spread the cards across the table at her knees, and I marvelled at the colourful shapes: blue swords, golden hawks, red plums, and purple thistleflowers, all arranged in differing numbers and patterns. ‘They are quite popular in Paris, though this pack comes from Florence. A gift from Chaucer, and now it’s my second.’ She pointed to another deck, stacked neatly on the table, and to all appearances identical to the one she held.

I asked how the game was played.

‘There are many games of cards; it seems I learn a new one every week.’ There were four suits, she explained, each numbering thirteen. Pips from one to nine, then the four faces in each suit: the Prince of Hawks, the Duke of Plums, the Queen of Swords, the King of Thistles, and so on.

‘Fifty-two cards in all, then,’ I calculated.

‘Plus the trumps, a dozen of them.’ She laid out another row. ‘The Wheel of Fortune, the Magician, the Bleeding Tower, and this is the Sun.’ An exquisite rendering of Apollo in full splendour.

‘What part do the trumps play?’

‘They wrestle with the pips and one another in various ways, depending on the rules of the particular game.’

Like the queen in chess, I observed.

‘Though the queen has worthy rivals.’ She laid out more trump cards. ‘Fate, the Devil, the Fool – and, most powerful of all, Death.’ A skull, leering at the viewer, the skeleton mounted on an emaciated horse. She explained the rules to a simple game involving points doled out for each pip and face card, with the trumps acting as foils. For some time we played in silence, and I noticed her agility with the parchment shapes, a sleight of hand that involved a deft use of her palms and knuckles to deal and reposition the cards in play. Eventually, as I learned the rhythm, I relaxed back into the conversation.

‘Perhaps the Earl of Cambridge might know something about this book?’

Swynford raised a shoulder. She caught me looking at her bare skin, didn’t seem to mind. ‘Our dear Edmund Langley?’ She played the Four of Hawks, a shrewd move, evidently.

‘The Infanta and her sister are at court this month, I’ve heard.’ The wives of Gaunt and Langley, the eldest of Edward’s surviving sons. I went to take her four but flubbed my draw. She smiled as she swept the table clean in one movement and laid out a new play.

‘Ah yes, the hermanasespañol. Those dark bitches are my little hell.’ Swynford looked up with a worried smile. ‘What a tangled web you spin for me, John Gower. Are you here to torture me or amuse me?’

‘Your choice.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Let’s have a different game, a simpler one.’ She picked up the cards again and laid ten of them face-up on the table. ‘Choose one. Any card at all.’

‘What determines my choice?’

‘Merely the condition of your soul.’

Feeling mischievous, I leaned forward and tapped the Devil.

She puckered her lips. ‘But that is Chaucer’s card.’

We shared a laugh as she gathered the cards into a loose pile, though just as quickly her face clouded. ‘I know something about this book.’ She looked across the hall to the humming circles of gentry. ‘There have been whispers of a theft. A strange manuscript, stolen from La Neyte last week.’

‘Silver I could understand, or plate. But who would steal a book?’