faced, lecherous, hot-eyed court official, he sat on a stool tapping his fingers against the long Welsh stabbing dirk in its scabbard on his belt.
Master Chaucer felt the tension. A mystery play was being staged behind the veil of this long spring evening. Ghosts were gathering. People were doffing masks and donning others. Chaucer, dry-mouthed, watched the haberdasher holding his crotch; the man moved swiftly out of the taproom towards the latrines. Immediately the summoner followed, his hand on the hilt of his knife. Chaucer rose to his feet and pursued both men. The haberdasher was walking across the lawn to the lattice fence with the summoner on his heels. Chaucer saw the glint of shimmering steel. The dagger was drawn. Mischief was afoot. The haberdasher paused by the fence, admiring the wild tangle of roses. The summoner, soft-footed, dagger out and hanging by his side, made to follow. Chaucer coughed loudly. The summoner’s dagger disappeared beneath the folds of his robe. The haberdasher turned, his burly face flushed and slackened by wine. He forced a smile and continued on around the lattice fence. The summoner strolled back to Master Chaucer. The court official did not look so bumbling but purposeful and deliberate. He paused beside Chaucer and grinned in an array of jagged, yellowing teeth.
‘The dagger?’ Chaucer queried.
‘Nothing.’ The summoner simply tapped the coiled hilt of his knife. ‘Even here, Master Chaucer, in the midnight garden of a Kentish tavern, one should be very careful.’ He brushed Chaucer on the shoulder, attempting to pass him by. He tensed as Chaucer grabbed his arm. The summoner’s hand reached again for his dagger.
‘Peace, peace,’ Chaucer whispered. ‘The physician tells a tale yet there are strong echoes of it here amongst some of our fellow pilgrims.’
‘Some stories,’ the summoner retorted, freeing his arm, ‘never finish and never will, even if all the souls who throng that tale lie cold in their graves. Remember that, master poet.’
The summoner walked back into the tavern, while Chaucer waited for the haberdasher. The bulbous-eyed individual came from the latrines beyond the fence; he appeared nervous, fumbling, trying to tie the points on his hose. He walked falteringly, his swollen belly full of wine. He staggered by Chaucer and stopped, swaying on his feet. ‘What are you looking at, sir?’ he slurred.
‘I was wondering that myself,’ Chaucer quipped. ‘Who are you really, sir? Do you not realize that our physician’s tale has stirred memories amongst our companions?’
‘Has it now, has it now?’ The haberdasher put his face in his hands. ‘Oh, God,’ he murmured, ‘the demons still pursue us.’ He took his hands away. ‘This hunt will never finish. I recognize the summoner now.’
‘Master Chaucer?’ The physician stood in the light of the taproom door. ‘Come,’ he beckoned. ‘Come!’ he repeated. ‘And bring your friend.’ The physician’s voice was tinged with sarcasm. ‘My tale is set to resume.’
The Physician’s Tale
Part Five
Stephen tried to forget the grisly horrors of Rishanger’s macabre house. Anselm and Beauchamp busied themselves about the removal of the remains to the city cemeteries. Stephen, on the other hand, now free of the Carmelite rule, settled into his life at The Unicorn. He came to love that warm, welcoming tavern with its sweet- smelling taproom, kitchen garden, scullery, buttery and large stone kitchen. Minehost Master Robert allowed Stephen the free run of the hostelry before deciding that he was best suited to the kitchen. He was soon instructed into the mysteries of that great, stone-flagged cooking chamber with its yawning hearth, furnished with a spit, side ovens, grid irons and what the cook called his ‘sizzling pans and cauldrons’. Stephen was shown the various knives, stone mortars with their wooden pestles, the vivarium for fish, the hooks for fleshing, the skillets and different bowls. He watched the cooks and spit boys prepare a wide range of dishes: fillet of cold boar glazed with honey; capon braised with sweet wine stock; sole in yellow onion sauce. He embraced the world of chopping, smoke, steam and a host of delicious thick smells which tickled his nose, watered his mouth and teased his stomach.
Master Robert also used him to fetch stock from the different markets: meat from the blood-puddled stalls under the grim hulk of Newgate; chicken and geese from the fowl sellers along Poultry as well as the produce from the various herb and vegetable markets of Cheapside. Alice went with him. She was merry — even shameless — in her flirting. She seized his hand, making Stephen run along with her through the lanes, breathlessly pulling him into some shadowy nook to kiss him full on the lips. Stephen was, in both heart and soul, much taken with her. Every day was an adventure. He would rise early in his small garret, try and recite some prayers, then visit the nearby chapel of St Frideswide, as Anselm had told him to stay well away from St Michael’s, Candlewick. After he had attended Mass, recited an Ave before the Lady chapel and lit a taper for the soul of his mother, Stephen was caught up in the hurly burly of the day, which he thoroughly enjoyed. Alice, impetuous and passionate, chattered as merrily as a spring sparrow on the branch. Neat and clean, she greeted him every day with a smiling face and brushed hair, always dressed in an immaculate smock and apron. She adored her father, Master Robert, who proved to be a genial host. He was fair and honest, making the tavern scullions and servants work hard but paying and feeding them well, ensuring they had safe and comfortable lodgings.
Alice explained how her father’s family had owned two such taverns on the outskirts of Bristol with a similar holding on the Old Roman Road near Bath. On the death of his wife Master Robert had sold all three, moving to Dowgate in London with Alice and her younger sister Marisa where, Robert had vowed, they would manage the best tavern in the city. Stephen was caught up in all the runnings of this, be it the purchase and import of food or Master Robert’s determination to extend the tavern gardens and produce his own vegetables for the kitchen. The Unicorn was certainly popular, the favourite choice of tradesmen, tinkers, ermine-robed lawyers, scarlet-cloaked serjeants, dark-garbed clerks and sailors from nearby Queenhithe as well as the citizens of Dowgate.
Stephen worked hard from daybreak until noon. Once the Angelus bell sounded, Alice would take Stephen into what she called her ‘secret bower in the greensward where they could sit like Robin and Marion in Sherwood’. In truth, that part of the tavern garden was overgrown, a mass of tangled bushes and climbing sturdy flowers. A former owner had built the bower by twisting saplings together and allowing an array of wild roses to overgrow it. Inside stood a high turf seat and a rickety old table for pots of flowers. The only fly in the ointment, as Alice observed, was her baby sister, Marisa. Alice’s mother had died giving birth to her and Master Robert believed the life force of two souls was trapped in that little body. Marisa was a vivacious handful: six to seven years of age, she was a bundle of energy with a rosy face framed by yellow curls and a constant gap-toothed grin. She was, as Stephen came to realize, a sprite in all her ways. Marisa needed very little sleep — merry as a robin, she rose early to seek him out. From the start, Marisa had decided that if her sister liked Stephen, so would she and she acted accordingly. Where Stephen and Alice went, Marisa always followed, their noonday meetings being no exception.
Alice tried to ignore her younger sister, more concerned about the dire events in Dowgate. ‘Margotta Sumerhull and I would often come here after the Angelus,’ Alice declared as she made herself more comfortable, placing the linen napkins containing cold meats and fresh bread on the table. She took the tankards of ale from Stephen and placed them down, turning to grasp his hand firmly, her loving eyes now solemn. She would always lean forward and kiss him roundly on the mouth, then draw back. Stephen sometimes wondered if Alice was slightly fey; he had never met a young woman like her — demure but direct.
‘We always met here,’ Alice continued, parcelling out the food. ‘We would discuss meeting our perfect gentle knight as the troubadours say we should. Well,’ she pushed a piece of bread between Stephen’s lips, ‘I have met mine. I took to you, Master Stephen, as soon as I met you in the street with Brother Anselm.’ She smiled. ‘You looked so innocent, so trusting, despite all the commotion at the church. You are the young man I decided I should marry.’
Stephen gulped what he had eaten. ‘But I am a novice,’ he replied, ‘entrusted to the Carmelite order.’
‘But you have only taken simple vows, not solemn ones,’ Alice declared blithely. ‘I have checked that. Brother Gilbert — you know, the Benedictine who sells us his produce from the orchard at Westminster?’ She didn’t wait for Stephen’s reply. ‘Well, I have asked him. He explained the difference. He knows about you and Brother Anselm. He says you visited Westminster.’ Alice cut a portion of meat, neatly diced it with a sharp, curved knife, picked up the pieces and popped them into his mouth. ‘You see visions, don’t you? Are you seeing them now?’
‘No!’ Stephen exclaimed with a fervour which surprised even himself. ‘No, I am not — not since I came here.’
