A.D. 1400 Geoffrey Chaucer vanishes out of history. Did Henry IV have him disappeared, as he probably murdered Richard II? Or did something altogether other happen in Greenwich around March 1400?
“Hadde a wyf that heild, for countenance,
A shoppe, and swyved for his sustenance”
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Cooks’ Tale
He was exactly what I was looking for. I had spent a fruitless and discouraging morning, surveying the man-whores of Greenwich. Simpering misses, plastered with paint. Not suitable for my purpose, and dim-witted beside. The search was interesting in that I would never again assume that someone wearing a woman’s gown was, in fact, a woman. But the last pouting madam had sent me here, to the Stew Pot, to find Perkyn Reveller. And he was perfect.
Thin, small, somewhat bruised for other men’s sins. His hose were more hole than stocking but still valiantly red. He wore the short gown of a boy. His long brown hair had been elaborately curled. His dark eyes, however, were a hundred years old.
He was leaning in the doorway of a small hutch, in which a hag was stirring a cauldron. God alone knows what was cooking. It smelt like horses’ hooves, beans and root vegetables gathered from the gutter. Ten day’s starvation would not have made me touch it. The harridan lifted her wooden spoon and swatted at the boy, who dodged easily.
‘My lord wants...?’ He asked me in a clear, musical voice. He scanned me swiftly, summing up what fee he could demand, and how much he could, subsequently, steal. I am prosperous, well dressed, and not unsightly. I smiled at him.
‘Perkyn Reveller? Will you come with me?’
‘Willingly,’ he assented. I drew him aside.
‘I have an engagement for you. Will you come to my house?’
That assessing stare again. Then he held out his hand, palm up. I dropped a silver penny into it. He closed his fingers, in token of a deal, then flipped it to the old hag, collected a satchel and fell in behind me. Whores do not walk beside their clients. They trail behind, to be denied if noticed.
I let him follow me to my house. We needed to talk. I needed to assess his intelligence, and how much of his allegiance I could buy. For I had a great matter in hand, and time was running out. If I did not act soon, a great wrong would be perpetrated. I drew the boy inside and shut the door.
‘My name is Mattias Greenlefe,’ I told him.
‘Master Greenlefe,’ he bowed sketchily; impudent as a sparrow.
‘This is Mistress Padgett, who will wash and clothe you for your task,’ I told him. ‘Then, if you please, you might dine with me.’
‘My lord Greenlefe,’ he bowed a little deeper. He was graceful. I wondered what was in that satchel to which he clung so jealously. My housekeeper collected him and took him away.
She brought Perkyn back an hour later. I almost did not know him. His hair was combed and tied back. His skin was rosy with soap and water. Even his fingernails were clean. It must have been a labour of Hercules. She was a woman of stern purpose, my Mistress Padgett. Perkyn wore the shirt and short gown of a schoolboy, with the split hose of childhood. From behind he seemed just so, a young boy. In front he was looking at me as though he was disappointed in me. I waved a hand.
‘No, no, not I! This show is not for me, Master Reveller. I have a deed to do, and I hope you will help me achieve it. I shall pay you well.’
‘My lord,’ he said warily.
My butler showed him to a bench, and seated him as though he was a guest. He blushed a little at that. The servants laid out the food, poured the wine, and then left. I raised my cup and he did the same.
‘To Chaucer,’ I offered a toast.
‘Greatest poet in England,’ he answered, and drank.
Better and better! ‘You know Chaucer’s work?’ I asked.
He opened his satchel and showed me a badly written, much blotted script of the Prologue and the Wyf of Bath’s tale.
‘You can read, Master Reveller?’
He turned to the first page and began
‘Whan that Aprille with its shoures soote, the droghte of March hath perced to the roote...’
I laughed.
‘Wonderful! Master Reveller, for the first time I believe that my scheme may resolve happily. How came such a flower of scholarship to the Stew Pot and your profession?’
I was intruding. He caught his lower lip in his teeth, took a calming breath, and answered, ‘My father was a poor scholar, but he died. They all died, in the fever. My Aunt is my only relative. She took me in and set me to... sell what skills I had. I am,’ he said taking a gulp of wine and wetting his lips ‘very good at what I do.’
‘So I have been told. And your years?’
‘Eighteen, but they prefer me to be younger.’
‘So they do. Have some ham? Some beef? Would you mislike living otherwhere but here?’
I was greatly taken with this young man, and I suddenly didn’t want to leave him behind; possibly in danger.
He sighed wearily. ‘What have I here, but Henry IV? He’ll be burning heretics soon, and after that it’s always the sodomites, the Jews and the witches. And soon I shall be too old for my trade. The ones who like little boys pay well – then and after. Some of them are powerful men, and they would be happy enough if–’
‘You were gone?’ I asked. “Then and later”. I wondered how much they had paid for his silence, and how much they would pay if it could be forever. Perkyn Reveller played a dangerous game. And he was right about Henry IV. Richard II had been peaceable, artistic and civilised. Not so the religious fanatic who had murdered him. First the heretics, then the sodomites and the witches, indeed. As good a time as any to get out of England. I had my house in Brittany. I had my good ship, the cog Maudelayne. I knew many ways of getting out of the realm, every creek, every little inlet. That was my trade. And I too, was very good at it.
‘I am a ship’s master,’ I told my guest as he ate, daintily but greedily. ‘I am minded to close this house and move to my house in Bretagne. I would take you with me, if you please.’
He raised an eyebrow.
‘In exchange for–’
‘In exchange for seducing and distracting a guard who likes little boys.’
‘And when you cast me off in Brittany, Master, how shall I manage? Or will you just drop me into the Channel?’ he asked evenly, spiking up bits of ham with his knife.
‘I shall not do so,’ I said. ‘By what should I swear? Or I can leave you here, and you can go back to the Stew Pot.’
I was hurt that he did not believe me, which was beyond foolish. Other men had made him other promises, and broken them. He gave me that close, cool, inspecting stare again. Then he sipped some wine and spoke.
‘I would know why you want me to seduce this prison guard. Who is his prisoner?’
‘Geoffrey Chaucer. The new king wants him dead, and those whom the king wants dead–’
‘Die,’ he whispered. ‘Like the last man called a king. The poet? By Gods’ dignity! Can you rescue him, Master Greenlefe?’
‘I believe so,’ I told him. ‘I haunted the taverns around the palace, and found where my poet is caged: a small house, not a dungeon, and only one guard. They do not expect him to escape. They say he is melancholy and despairing, his works all burned. This guard is called Ranulf.’
Master Reveller’s regard sharpened.
‘I know of this Ranulf. He likes to hurt. If I can lure him away–’
‘And steal his keys. I am sure that cutting purses and picking plackets are another of your skills, are they not?’
He grinned at me. He still had all his teeth. It was the first natural expression I had seen. He was very attractive. Ranulf would melt like butter in the sun.
‘As my lord Greenlefe says,’ he agreed. ‘Then how do you get him away?’
‘I have two stout sailors and a stretcher. We put the poet on the stretcher, you and I walk on either side, we say that he has the fever and we take him back to the ship. It’s not above a hundred paces. Then you can come with me or go home, and I will reward you richly, Master Reveller.’
‘And then, what will you do with Chaucer?’
‘I’ll carry him to Hainault, where his wife Philippa waits for him. I shall return to Brittany. England is not going to be amusing for our kind, Master Reveller, not this reign.’
He thought about that statement as he ate precise slices of apple.
‘You are probably not a witch. You have been eating ham, so you are not a Jew. Therefore–’
‘Exactly. Will you accept this engagement, Master Reveller? You are free to refuse.’
‘I could walk out of here and inform on you to the nearest priest,’ he said slowly.
‘So you could,’ I agreed.
He put out his very clean hand and laid over mine. His eyes sparkled.
’I am your man, Master Greenlefe,’ he said.
‘After this,’ I raised our joined hands to my lips, ‘you will never sell yourself again.’
He flinched, but recovered. Someone else had said that to him. But I would not prove untrue.
‘Of course, we may just be sharing the same scaffold,’ I added. ‘Forswear me, if we are caught. You never met me, you don’t know me, you were just carrying out your trade with Ranulf. You’ll get off with a flogging and a penitence.’
He blinked. ‘As you say, master,’ he said. ‘But you will not pay me for this task.’
‘I will not?’ I asked, surprised.
‘Not for this,’ he emphasised. It was clearly important to him, so I said nothing more. Instead I offered him apple snow and almond fantasies to go with the sweet Portuguese wine. We had quite a merry meal.
In the end the rescue was not difficult. I left my bearers on the path as I strayed into the park, as though looking for a place to piss. I walked toward a small grove of trees, next to a small house. There was a brush screen before it. A hand abruptly stuck through it, holding a ring of keys. I took them and opened the door.
The great poet was crouched before a meagre fire, hands over his face.
‘They burned them,’ he was whimpering. ‘They burned all my work.’
I stood him up, draped him in a cloak, tied the hood over his head, and led him out. He came with me quite unresisting.
‘Come, Master Chaucer, we must away,’ I said. ‘Be quiet, now, just lie down and be quiet, I beg you.’
He did as I bid him. The sailors took up the stretcher. Where was Perkyn?
I bade the sailors carry my Chaucer towards the ship. Then I went back to the small house and the brush screen. I heard a short, gurgling cry, and dived through the fence. I grabbed the guard by the slack of his tunic and hauled him up. Both his hands were round my Perkyn’s neck.
I struck Ranulf a shrewd blow on the back of the head with the butt of my knife and he collapsed. Then I pulled Perkyn into my embrace. He dragged in painful breaths, spat and choked. He tried to speak and failed.
‘I can’t understand what you are saying, but come,’ I told him. He clutched me close and wept. I shook him gently, and he recovered himself. ‘We must away!’ I urged.
He paused only to order his clothes and to cut Ranulf’s purse. I should not have minded if he had cut Ranulf’s perverted throat.
We overtook the stretcher and proceeded without incident to the ship. We carried Chaucer belowdecks and sat him down in my cabin with a cup of wine. I heard them casting off mooring ropes. Maudelayne began to move as we rowed out into the Greenwich Roads, en route for the Low Countries.
Chaucer seemed bemused. But he was sipping his wine. I sat Perkyn down to examine his throat. Red marks which would be bruises, but he seemed to be breathing easily. He was tough. I had seen men killed by a grip like that. He was still shaking so I got us all some more wine. Perkyn was weeping like a fountain, silently. I wiped his face with my kerchief. He turned his head into my chest and I held him close.
‘Where are you taking me?’ asked Chaucer. He did not sound like he cared about his destination.
‘Hainault,’ I said, gentling Perkyn against my shoulder. ‘You have friends there.’
‘And not here?’ he observed. He smiled at me, a tired smile from wise eyes. ‘I have seen you before, Master Greenlefe. Thank you for my rescue. I fear I am discourteous. You have ventured much for me and I cannot repay you. I was mourning my poems, you see. My work is all gone. I will be forgotten.’
‘Never,’ I told him. ‘There are too many copies, in too many places, for that cold-hearted bastard to burn them all. Too many people know your work. My boy Perkyn here - he was a victualler in the poorest part of Greenwich - has only one treasure. Will you show the poet, my Perkyn?’
Still unable to speak, Perkyn opened his satchel. Chaucer looked at the scrawled copy. Then he began to weep, as well.
Later, after the poet had repaired his humours with beef and bread – his captors had been starving him, and rumour says that’s how they killed the king, as well – and I had put him to bed, I took my silent Perkyn up on deck. It was a fine night, and a ship has little privacy belowdecks. He was clinging to me, always within touching distance, but he had not spoken. I was puzzled.
‘Perkyn my boy, speak to me,’ I urged. ‘What ails you? Do you want to go home?’
He kissed me fervently, suddenly, with full devout attention, as a man kisses a holy relic. I had never had such a kiss. Then he nestled close to me, under my watch-cloak, warm as a small bonfire against my bosom.
‘You came back for me,’ he whispered. ‘And I will love you till I die.’