The Knight's Tale by M J Trow

Author:M J Trow [M.J. Trow]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2021-03-23T16:00:00+00:00

NINE

Chaucer didn’t know what to expect when he tapped on the door of the Lady Violante’s room. He knew she was attached to her confessor, but didn’t know whether she liked him – the two were completely different things. He had heard that she had defended him when Lionel of Antwerp had wanted to get rid of him, but that really told him nothing. The woman was an enigma.

One of her women let him in. She was older than Violante and dressed in a sober gown. Her butterfly wimple was fitted tightly across her forehead and the eyes beneath it were expressionless.

‘May I see Lady Violante?’ Chaucer asked, waiting to be invited in.

‘Perché no? E’ venuto uno venire tutto, se me lo chiedete.’

As always, Chaucer was frustrated by Italian. It was so like Latin and yet somehow … not. He got the definite impression that she wasn’t that happy to see him but went inside anyway.

Violante was sitting in the window seat, her back against an embroidered cushion to stave off the cold of the stone. The late afternoon sunshine gilded her hair and outlined the curve of her cheek. She was looking down on Sir Richard Glanville, who knelt at her feet and was holding one hand in a gentle caress. Chaucer was glad to see that her faint smile did seem to have some love in it; though he could never see them as a happy couple wandering off into the sunset, he didn’t want his old friend’s heart to be broken.

The lady looked up and, seeing Chaucer, disentangled her hand from the knight’s grasp and held it out to him. She and Chaucer both tactfully looked away as Glanville regained his feet; it wasn’t as quick and lissom a task as it once had been.

‘Master Chaucer. Thank you for coming. Sir Richard has just been telling me what … what you found. It must have been most unpleasant for you both.’

‘But far more unpleasant for Father Clement,’ Chaucer pointed out. ‘We’re sorry to bring such grim news.’ He looked at Glanville, who had now taken the other end of the seat and was surreptitiously massaging his knees. ‘I must tell you both, I have had it suggested to me that he may have taken his own life.’

Violante was immediate in her protestations. ‘Father Clement! He simply wouldn’t do anything so wicked. He was the most devout man I have ever known, and, don’t forget, I have spent many years in Rome, surrounded every day by the most senior men of the Church.’

Chaucer was not impressed. In his experience, the more senior, the less devout, but he let her make her point.

‘He was absolutely,’ she stabbed at the cushion with a finger, ‘but absolutely set against anything which was not in the teaching of the Church. He was …’ she dropped her eyes for a moment, to collect herself. ‘He was so angry with Lionel when he took up with Blanche. He argued with him all the time. Lionel was going to be rid of him, I could tell.

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