This Passing World: A Novel About Geoffrey Chaucer

By Michael Herzog

It is 1398, and all of Europe is abuzz about the duel to be fought in September between Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, and Thomas Mowbray , Duke of Norfolk, to settle the question of which one has committed treason against King Richard II. Geoffrey Chaucer, courtier and well-known poet, is unexpectedly drawn into the intrigue surrounding the impending duel and compelled to perform an act so heinous that he is shaken to the core. The journal Chaucer begins and keeps for the remaining two and a half years of his life chronicles his unlikely rise as the son of a middle-class wine broker to become not only the pre-eminent poet of his age but the brother-in-law of John of Gaunt, uncle to the king, at times the most powerful man in England and, with his three wives, the ancestor of every ruler of England since the year 1400. This novel provides a fascinating look into life in late 14th century England, the women and men Chaucer loves, the intrigues of the Richardian court, and what compels someone who holds some of the most important jobs in the English bureaucracy to spend his nights writing poetry that is still being read and studied 600 years after his death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Will Dreamly Arts
• Release date: Oct 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781734138313

Michael Herzog

Michael Herzog, a retired brigadier general in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), is the son of Chaim Herzog and an Israel-based Milton Fine International Fellow of The Washington Institute. Over the past decade General Herzog has held senior positions in the office of Israel's minister of defense under several administrations. His published work at the Institute included the study, Iranian Public Opinion on the Nuclear Program: A Potential Asset for the International Community and the influential Foreign Affairs article "Can Hamas Be Tamed?". He currently divides his time between Israel and Washington, DC.

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Acknowledgements

Some Cultural Idiosyncrasies of 14th

Century England

The Western Middle Ages were socially stratified and very class-conscious. Clothing (style and color), the length of an individual’s hair, the kind of weapon one could carry, food that could be eaten on certain days, the kind of work one could do, etc., were all regulated in various ways by law and custom.

Although Parliament is assembled at the pleasure of the king and can be manipulated significantly by the crown and the nobility, it becomes increasingly powerful during Chaucer’s time. There is an extensive and complex legal system, and the English bureaucratic system is known and admired throughout Europe for its perceived efficiency.

By Chaucer’s time, the spoken language (Middle English) is the Anglo-Saxon that has survived the Norman Conquest, has absorbed much French vocabulary, and undergone significant grammatical change from the time of Beowulf (Old English). The language of scholarship is Latin and the official language of the court system (until 1362) is French. By writing in English only, Chaucer is both betting on the survival and primacy of English and helping to shape it through his writings. Compared to our own times, the language is in flux and changes very quickly, undergoing major changes in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation that make it dramatically different from the language of Shakespeare, 200 years after Chaucer’s death.

While there was an extensive legal system, pervasive public violence made day-to-day survival uncertain. The idea that all are equal under the law is an ideal rather than reality. The rich and powerful essentially have their own police systems, paying for private protection from random violence that commoners experienced as a daily reality; on one occasion, Chaucer himself is legally charged with beating a friar. With the continuing disputes between the rulers of England and France over who owns large tracts of Europe, and whether Ireland and Scotland are meant to be ruled by English monarchs, not to mention forty years of papal schism (two warring popes each claiming to be the only true spiritual head of Christianity), Chaucer’s life time is filled with uncertainty and violence, public and private, personal and international.

Wealth was largely land-based, and there were enormous discrepancies between the ultra-rich and the inordinately poor. Wars are fought over land, and victory was generally measured by how many survived on each side to take control of the disputed land. An elaborate ransom system made war lucrative, in that captured combatants would be exchanged for large sums of money (sometimes regulated and stipulated by law). Thus nobles were more valuable alive than dead; royal captives would be treated like cherished guests, provided with all of the luxuries they would have enjoyed at home, including the elaborate and costly ritual known as the medieval hunt.

Because water was often unsafe to drink, as streams around towns and cities tended to be toxic from human and animal waste as well as dyes used by tanners, adults and children alike imbibed considerable alcohol, including various forms of beer and wine. Diners normally used their hands to pick up food and, when eating with others, tended to share a "trencher’ (large slab of bread used like a plate), wiping their mouths on their sleeves.

Privacy, as we know and value it, was rare. Most people slept in the nude in a common room with the other members of the household. All human activities were practiced in these common rooms, making the sexual taboos with which we are familiar, quite impractical. Children were exposed at a very early age, to the realities of life and death, as they were sheltered from neither. Consequently, Chaucer and his contemporaries minced few words, referring to body parts and bodily functions in ways that even in our modern liberated society would be considered crude and inappropriate.

Flowers, spices, and perfumes were heavily relied on to cover the odors of a population that rarely bathed; also, spices generally both inhibited the growth of bacteria in foods and made foods more palatable.

Medical treatment was limited, and physicians were generally distrusted. They tended to rely on extensive folk treatments, and astrology played a significant role in training and practice. Many people still believed in witchcraft and interpreted religious and secular signs and omens. Medieval physicians believed that humans were governed by four elemental body fluids, illness being both symptom and result of imbalances among these four elements. These four humors correlated to the four seasons, to the four elements that were believed to make up all of creation, to four age periods, to four basic human qualities, to four major organs and to four human temperaments.

Bleeding, i.e., opening a vein to vent bad humors or allow an excess of particular humors to escape the body, was a common treatment for anything from fractures and stomach aches to fever and flesh wounds. Undoubtedly many patients died simply from needless blood loss. A sophisticated knowledge of natural medicines garnered from the wild, or intentionally grown, led to the development of a wide range of potions not unlike our contemporary medicinal drugs.

Time-keeping was based on the canonical hours governing the times of prayer prescribed for religious communities.

London could be entered only by a limited number of gates that were closed and locked at night. London Bridge provided the only permanent crossing of the Thames, but the river itself would have teemed with boat traffic of all sorts, ferrying individuals and goods across the river or up and down its length.

During daylight hours, London was extremely noisy, with the sounds of primarily horse-drawn traffic, the shouts of vendors, and the nearly constant peeling of bells from the many churches that marked intermingling parishes. City gates would be closed at sundown and curfews were enforced, no doubt to help control rampant crime.

Although London had an extensive sewer system (Chaucer was actually responsible for it for a time), chamber pots and kitchen wastes were often emptied into the street, combined with horse and other animal droppings; this made navigation through narrow and dark streets and alleys a never-ending challenge in keeping clean.

Cast of Relevant Characters / Individuals

Referenced

Relevant Genealogy and History

* biological children of John of Gaunt

This simplified family tree shows the curious and unlikely path by which Geoffrey Chaucer becomes the brother-in-law to John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III, nephew of Richard II, and father of Henry IV.

Chaucer is commonly assumed to have been born sometime between 1340 and 1344, and he dies on October 25, 1400 (in medieval England only death records were kept accurately). His parents were John and Agnes Chaucer, and the family business was wine-brokering. In early teenage, Chaucer becomes a page at the court of the Princess Elisabeth de Burgh, the spouse of Prince Lionel of Antwerp, who is the third son of King Edward III. Chaucer becomes a very successful courtier and beaurocrat, and serves on various diplomatic missions during his life; he also holds multiple important jobs, such as being in charge of the extensive sewer system of London, restoring portions of Windsor Castle, overseeing the London wool customs, being in charge of various forests, and even being a member of Parliament. He becomes an even more important poet, however, known and respected throughout England and France while he is still alive. He also, rather incongruously for as stratified a society as is medieval England, eventually becomes the brother-in-law of John of Gaunt, who is uncle to King Richard, the wealthiest man in England, and the ancestor of rulers of England and Scotland from 1400 to the present day.

Gaunt and his first wife, Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, are the parents of Henry Bolingbroke, who becomes Henry IV after he usurps the crown from his first cousin, Richard II. For a quarter of a century, Gaunt keeps Katherine de Roet as his mistress and then marries her after the death of his second wife, Constance of Spain. Their four children are then legitimized by Act of Parliament under the family name Beaumont. Geoffrey Chaucer, for his part, married Philippa de Roet, Katherine’s sister, some considerable time before that, so when John marries Katherine, Chaucer becomes Gaunt’s brother-in-law.

Until very recently, the British line of royal succession required that the oldest male child of the king succeed as king and, as this family tree suggests, Edward III should have been succeeded by his oldest son, Prince Edward. However, Prince Edward dies a year before his father does, and when Edward III himself dies a year later, in 1376, Prince Edward’s oldest serving male child (his first child died) is crowned as Richard II. Because Richard is only ten years old at the time, he has official advisors and regents whose official task is to help him rule. The early years of Richard II’s reign are historical times of great unrest, including upheavals such as the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381.

In 1386, three Lords Appellant: Thomas of Woodstock (Richard II’s uncle; also known as the Duke of Gloucester), Richard FitzAlan (Earl of Arundel and Surrey), and Thomas de Beauchamp (Earl of Warwick) relying on an old law which allows them to appeal the King’s rule, force Richard to allow the creation of a Commission that, in fact, rules in the King’s name. These three nobles are joined by Henry Bolingbroke (Richard’s first cousin; son of John of Gaunt; Earl of Derby; future King Henry IV) and Thomas de Mowbray (Earl of Nottingham). For several years Richard is no more than a figurehead ruler, as these five Lords Appellant prosecute and execute various supporters of Richard and anyone else standing in their way.

But Richard slowly regains power and, by the late 1390’s, has managed to eliminate the three original Lords Appellant: his uncle, Thomas, Duke of Woodstock, dies in prison; the Earl of Arundel is executed; Warwick is banished. Henry Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray, on the other hand, are — temporarily — rewarded for services to the Crown by being elevated to be the Duke of Derby and Norfolk, respectively. For example, there is reasonable evidence that Mowbray, formally in charge of the imprisoned Woodstock, has him murdered at Richard’s command. Whatever the case, Mowbray and Bolingbroke have reason to be nervous: Richard has not forgotten how his friends and supporters were killed and this rule curtailed in 1386-89 and he is likely to get even with these last two former Lords Appellant, as well.

In the last years of the fourteenth century rumors swirl about plots by Richard and this follower against John of Gaunt and his family members, including Bolingbroke, John’s oldest son. But everything comes to a temporary halt in 1398, when Bolingbroke reports to Richard that Mowbray has invited him to join in treason to overthrow Richard. Faced with this charge, Mowbray swears that the opposite occurred: that Bolingbroke asked him to join in overthrowing Richard. Repeated efforts by Richard — and even Parliament — to settle this dispute fail and, as a final resolution, a trial by combat — a duel — is agreed to in order to settle the argument. The belief, in the fourteenth century, is that God will identify the man who is telling the truth by letting him be victorious in hand-to-hand combat.

This is how we come to the duel between Henry Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray, scheduled to take place at Coventry on September 16, 1398. Most Historian agree that neither the dukel itself nor its possible outcomes would have benefited Richard, as it would simply have strengthened the victor. This is, of course, the last thing Richard desires — hence the efforts by his henchmen (as depicted here in Chaucer’s journal) to prevent the duel from occurring.

Works Consulted

Alleyn, Susanne, Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders, 2012.

Bronson, B. H, In Search of Chaucer, 1960.

__________ The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd ed., ed. by F. N. Robinson, 1987.

Brewer, D.S, Chaucer. 1973.

__________ ed., Chaucer and Chaucerians: Critical Studies in Middle English Literature, 1966.

__________ Chaucer in His Time, 1973.

Cawley, A.C., ed., Chaucer’s Mind and Art, 1969.

Coulton, G. G., Chaucer and His England, 1998.

Crow, Olson and Manly, Chaucer Life-records, 1966.

Cummins, John, The Hound and the Hawk: The Art of Medieval Hunting, 2003.

Esch, A, ed., Chaucer und Seine Zeit, 1968.

French, R.D., A Chaucer Handbook, 1947.

Gardner, J., The Life and Times of Geoffrey Chaucer, 1973.

Gies, Frances and Joseph, Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages, 1988.

Given-Wilson, C, The Chronicle of Adam Usk, 1377-1421, 1997.

Hallam, Elizabeth, The Plantagenet Chronicles, 1986.

Hermann, J.P. and Burke, J. J., Jr., Signs and Symbols in Chaucer’s Poetry, 1981.

Hulbert, James Root, Chaucer’s Official Life, 2012.

Huppe, B. F., Robertson, D.W., Jr. and Hermann, J. P., Fruyt and Chaf: Studies in Chaucer’s Allegories, 1963.

Kenyon, Sherrilyn, The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the Middle Ages, 1995

Koch, J., The Chronology of Chaucer’s Writings, 1972.

Koonce, B. G., Chaucer and the Tradition of Fame: Symbolism in The House of Fame, 1966.

Lewis, Brenda Ralph, Life in a Medieval Castle, 2008.

Lewis, C. S., The Allegory of Love, 1958.

Leyerle, John, Chaucer, A Select Bibliography, 2015.

Lumiansky, R.M., Of Sundry Folk: The Dramatic Principle in The Canterbury Tales, 1955.

Muscatine, C., Chaucer and the French Tradition: A Study in Style and Meaning, 1965.

O’Toole, Shenanchie, Medieval Cuisine, 2013.

Pantin, W. A. The English Church in the Fourteenth Century, 1980.

Payne, R.O., The Key of Remembrance: A Study of Chaucer’s Poetics, 1981.

Robertson, D. W. Jr., Chaucer’s London, 1968.

Rose, H., New Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism, 1981.

Saul, Nigel, Richard II, 2008.

Speirs, J., Chaucer the Maker, 1960.

Strohm, Paul, Chaucer’s Tale: 1386 and the Road to Canterbury, 2014.

Sumption, J., Pilgrimage: an Image of Medieval Religion, 1975.

Taylor, John, and Childs, Wendy, The St. Albans Chronicle: The Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham, Volume II, 1394-1422, 2011.

Translator’s Note

In the summer of 2015, The London Times reported the discovery of a large bundle of manuscripts near the foundations of Westminster’s Lady Chapel, where reconstruction of a damaged wall had been preceded by the archeological investigations that have become a routine element of modern construction in London. The manuscripts had been carefully wrapped in and tied up with multiple layers of cloth and other manuscripts. Though some of this protective covering was badly deteriorated and had, in places, crumbled away completely, only a few of the outer layers of the written materials were damaged. It was quickly determined that these documents constituted a collection of standard medieval philosophical texts and religious treatises, written in a variety of hands and without discernible thematic relationship. However, literally buried (or perhaps more accurately, sheltered) in the very center of these texts, there resided a double miracle: two manuscripts unlike anything modern scholars have ever seen.

One was a completed version of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a work known up to now only as a fragmentary collection of what might have been: about twenty completed and four unfinished tales of what should have been at least thirty, possibly as many as one hundred and twenty. But here, in all its glory, was a finished version of the work, a possibility scholars have only dreamed of, as it has been the accepted canon of literary history for six hundred years that Chaucer did not finish his masterpiece.

This alone would have been the beginning of a revolution in medieval literary studies. However, there was a second manuscript, perhaps even more astounding, as its entire content and, in fact, its very existence, was new to us. In some ways even more incredible than the complete Canterbury Tales, this work was undeniably produced by the actual hand of Geoffrey Chaucer, as it purports to be the personal narrative record of a person who identifies himself as Geoffrey Chaucer, poet and courtier in the reigns of Edward III, Richard II, and Henry IV. Although we call it a journal, in the Middle Ages, terms like that refer to prayer books meant to support religious contemplation. Chaucer never calls this material anything but a record or a chronicle; nevertheless, journal in our modern sense seems closest to what Chaucer has produced here.

Of course the first manuscript mentioned here is undergoing scrupulous study by every Chaucerian scholar in the known world. A fully authorized version of The Canterbury Tales (reflecting unusual cooperation among critics, in that the best-known and most-widely respected of them have agreed to produce one collaborative work that will be the definitive, edited text of the future for Chaucer’s magnificent, transcendent poem of the late Middle Ages) is currently in production and will be released as soon as it has been completed.

The text before you now, however, will no doubt be only the first of many efforts to translate Chaucer’s own chronicle. While the very existence of this text is astonishing, and its very form in the poet’s own hand constitutes a gift of unparalleled value, it will undoubtedly result in serious reconsideration of previously-held positions by scholars, attended, of course, by all of the intellectual pushing and shoving, preening and jockeying for position that too often marks the advancement of learning among academics. The simple reality that this manuscript appears to be in Chaucer’s own hand calls for a major shift in critical perspective. Scholars have generally believed that Chaucer dictated his writings; certainly any manuscripts we have seen up to now are copies of whatever the originals may have been, as this was the only way to reproduce written work at the time. Chaucer even wrote a caustic little poem to his scribe, Adam, berating him for his errors and suggesting that Adam caused Chaucer more work than he saved him, as the poet complains of having to rub and scrape mistakes out of the manuscripts produced by the hapless Adam. There has been general agreement, in addition, that the earliest manuscripts of Chaucer’s work that have survived postdate his death by a decade or more, meaning that there could not have been extant work by the poet’s own hand. But suddenly we have just such a work; and it turns out to be a mixed blessing, as Chaucer’s hand is a most difficult one to decipher, marked with idiosyncratic abbreviations and shortcuts. Thus, the current version of his chronicle, which you have before you, should be considered a first draft that will no doubt be corrected in the future, either by this editor or by others. Chaucer’s journal, unlike the Canterbury Tales, has not benefited from a multilateral agreement to produce one authorized version, as pirated bits and pieces of it have mysteriously (and filled with egregious inaccuracies) surfaced on various websites around the world. The current work then is simply an initial rendering of this journal, containing the entire text of the manuscript in a format easily accessible to modern audiences. Your translator/editor will only be pleased by any future scholarly efforts to correct or amend his efforts, as time passes and international experts tear themselves away from their work on The Canterbury Tales in order to devote themselves to this intriguing project.

No one can attempt to translate or restate any works by Geoffrey Chaucer without being tempted to imitate Chaucer’s own traditional disclaimers, appropriate here particularly for those readers who meet this great poet for the first time. The narrators in Chaucer’s poems generally disport themselves as mere channelers (translators or tellers of stories they have gotten from others — or from their own dreams — and would never consider changing, altering or adjusting) all the while engaged in doing precisely those things. Occasionally Chaucer’s narrators also apologize for specific content: language which they claim they must report as they heard it if they are to be truthful or consistent with their sources. In that spirit then, let me lay claim also to the classic disclaimer of the narrator in The Canterbury Tales: Don’t blame me for what you read here. Remember that Chaucer is a pre-Puritan and pre-Victorian poet, a man who lives in an age whose taboo words (the words that offend or may not be said in polite company) occur not when one describes normal bodily functions having to do with defecation, urination or sexual activity but, rather, when one uses the name of God in vain. Of course, Chaucer tends to be ironic even in this context, as he obviously does not find anything offensive, except ignorance and closed-mindedness.

While the discovery of the two manuscripts has, predictably, and will, no matter how great the efforts to avoid it, lead to further controversy about Chaucer, his life and his poetry, this is a process which will no doubt continue at least as long again as the 600 years these two collections of Chaucer’s words have rested in their unlikely sepulcher. It must be noted, however, that not one of the legion of experts who have so far examined these materials briefly or at length has raised the least doubt as to their authenticity. Their carbon dating and the unusual and consistent hand in which they are written, the reference to Chaucerian works we know (as well as some that did not survive), the manuscript’s style and form of expression, and the form of preservation which the (two) manuscripts were accorded: everything points to the unwavering conclusion that this is indeed the personal work of Geoffrey Chaucer, the journal being indisputably produced over the last two and one half years of his life. Experts fortunate enough to have examined the works firsthand are unanimous in this judgment: that the outer texts had as their sole function the protection and, in the case of the chronicle, just as importantly the, at least temporary, concealment of these writings.

Leaving, then, the newly-found completed text of the Canterbury Tales to those scholars who have the astounding opportunity to scrutinize it, it is this translator’s intent to introduce and share with the world this remarkable 600 hundred year old treasury: Geoffrey Chaucer’s personal account of public events and his role in them between May of 1398 and his death thirty months later, in October of 1400. In recording this story, Chaucer provides a unique autobiographical exploration of his entire life, as he interlaces in the historical narrative an absolutely fearless, probing exploration of who he is, how he has come to be the man he uncovers in himself in his last months and years and, perhaps most fascinatingly of all, what his art — the poetry to which he devoted so much of his time and energy — meant to him.

The journal chronicles a time of great public turmoil, as these last years of the 14th century are the setting for the deposition of Richard II (the end of the Plantagenet Kings of England) and the succession of Henry IV (the first of the House of Lancaster and thereby the indirect cause of the incipient Wars of the Roses). But it also presents us with the hitherto unknown personal trials Chaucer suffered in this historical context, as we become privy to the unlikely and surprisingly significant role Chaucer played in events that would affect English history for centuries to come.

In presenting this work, your translator has attempted to cast this material in a modern idiomatic style, remaining as faithful as possible to Chaucer’s content and seeming intent. Thus, what you read here is a direct translation from the Middle English of late 14th Century London; but, in an effort to capture the immediacy Chaucer lends to his story, it is put down here in language that is intended to speak to contemporary audiences. For those who have mastered Middle English, Chaucer is the most accessible of poets on a literal level; in order to capture something of this quality, the translation readily appropriates our contemporary idiom and diction, language that would not come into English usage for centuries after Chaucer’s death. As a consequence, it is the hope of your translator that the window we have been privileged to discover and through which we peer today will be a transparent glass that neither distorts nor calls attention to itself as it allows a greater insight into a complicated historical time and a complex human being whose artistic works gain enormously in depth and comprehensibility through this record.

One difficulty inherent in a manuscript such as this is that 21st century readers are unfamiliar with many of the details of cultural history or the assumptions embedded in the narrative that are background for Chaucer but at best exotic for us. For example, dates and times of day are likely to be given in terminology rooted in historical religious practices long given up; major characters in the narrative will be referred to by two or three or even more names or titles that mean little to us; and appropriate relationships among men and women are governed by dramatically different conventions (for example, the king in whose reign Chaucer is born, Edward III, is sixteen, and his bride, Philippa of Hainault, who is fourteen when they marry, bears her first child at the age of sixteen and bears eleven more children by the time she is forty-one.) To assist with these complexities, the text will include the occasional footnote, and your translator begs understanding for missteps taken in the effort to manage the tension between essential information and narrative disruption.

Medieval manuscripts are generally untitled, and so I have taken the liberty of naming this work: THIS PASSING WORLD, words taken from the end of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, where the narrator advises the young folk in his audience on love, suggesting that our lives unfold in a world that passes as quickly as the fading flowers. Chaucer is ever conscious of time, and often manipulates it to suit his narratives (in Troilus and Criseyde, for example, a portion of the story progresses in two different places governed by two different time schemes). This record of Chaucer’s final years of life contains much thought about the passage of time and how it shapes our experience. It is itself a time-controlled narrative, as it is structured by days, weeks, months and years. The phrase this passing world suggests both the importance of time and the awareness of our inability to control it. This is consistent with the usual tone of Chaucer’s works, which is accepting of how time governs our lives even as it questions and explores all aspects of that experience.

With all this in mind, we begin then with Chaucer’s personal chronicle of the last thirty months of his life, from May, 1398, to October, 1400, ever-guided by the most Chaucerian of sentiments expressed in the well-known Retraction that is frequently appended to The Canterbury Tales: I would gladly have said it all better, if I had only had the ability.

THE JOURNAL OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER

May 3, 1398, A.D.

May your flea-bitten rotting carcasses swelter in a French dungeon until the devil welcomes you home into his befouled bosom.

Would that you were sunk into a cesspool filled with the mash of your own shit and piss so that you choke on it, world without end.

You should be castrated over and over again by the fathers of the scores of young men and women you have debauched in your slimy lives.

God grant that I will never again have to look upon the scum that covers your faces in the perpetual world of darkness and sin you inhabit or should inhabit if there were justice in the world.

That’s what I wanted to shout at them, to yell before I left them, sweating and glistening in the obesity that over-flowed their leather-covered chairs, to scream at them until their ear drums were pierced by the shrieks that emanated unceasingly from my furious lips.

But of course I could not do that.

For one, because one does not yell epithets and insults at the king’s men and, for another, because I know that this is neither who I am nor how I act.

I was angry enough to do it, and God knows I wanted to so badly that my lungs hurt from the air I had to embrace rather than to expel, screaming inwardly, even as I appeared, doubtless, to them as just another old man slowly making his way out of the room.

Better that way.

But here, in my chamber, I continue to curse them.

May God damn their contemptible non-entities to chew on their own vermin-infested carcasses for an eternity of eternities!

May all three of those miserable ass-kissing bed warmers of his pimplyroyalshitproducingarse choke on his putrefying farts!

Damn, goddamn and double-damn them all! May each and every one of them and their leprosy-riddled offspring be covered with burning frog-slime, forever and goddamn forever!

Through all eternity.

DAMN THEM!

A prayer of sorts, I suppose — my only prayer these days, reduced as I am to being merely a despicable passive spectator of my own life, today especially, surveying the wreckage of what used to be my favorite day of the year. Senseless, futile and not even very imaginative cursing. I must resign myself to swilling this horrible excuse for wine while I search my memory for the most vile and insulting curses there have ever been, failing miserably even at this simple, perversely daunting task.

Goddamn and goddamn again!

What was once the day on which most of my love poems begin has become a day of shit, a day on which the whole world is brown — and red — besmirched with the blood and gore of a thousand slain soldiers, smothered by the careless grazing of millions of vultures and settling slowly into an oozing bog under an imagined sun that has stopped shining or spreading any warmth. The day that has always marked for me the fresh, invigorating onset of the year’s best times has become toad piss. What was a day for celebrating with good friends, good food, better drink and good conversation is nothing but a foul taste in my mouth.

Would that I could blame all this on lack of sleep or even on the godforsaken bone-chilling mock-spring weather that envelops us with its clammy fog, welling up from the Thames and choking the senses, as it shrouds buildings, muffles sounds, distorts smell, and dulls touch and taste. How I wish I could fault the pitifully small number of the normally countless chirping starlings that crowd around the cathedral in this season. Even the human inhabitants of this shivering city who venture out are wrapped in multiple cloaks while they curse the weather and implore their maker for cherry blossoms and budding lilies. The lanes are ruled by ridiculous stray dogs that chase and bark at the random passing strangers emerging from and retreating again to what must be warmer places, as the dogs retreat to pick their frosty fleas. But I cannot blame them — blame anyone or anything — dogs or random strangers or God or the king or even those three flattery-vomiting, flatulent toadies who want to be admired for fouling themselves and their miserable progeny forever with their mindless, ignorant, destructive shaming of themselves in what they call the service of the king.

In truth, when my anger temporarily wanes, I know all too well that I have only myself to hold accountable for feeling that the world is a mindless dung heap, stretching as far as the mind can imagine, ruled by scavenging crows and vultures from the darkest hell.

Alright!

Stop!

ENOUGH!

It does me no good, and I cannot carry on like this. Instead, I must attempt to think clearly rather than to let my mind continue to dwell in the sewer that is the habitat of my wretched antagonists. At times it seems that the anger coursing through me somehow seeps into the room and empowers the small fire that crackles and smokes, struggling to soften the chill of this stone chamber; sadly it does not warm the ink sufficiently to make it flow on the page, and my hand scratches against the paper as noisily as does the quill; nevertheless, inspired by choler and aided by the fire, I am at least able to write.

I have produced thousands of lines of poetry, from passionate love songs to witty epitaphs — or so I meant them to be — but never before have I had either the desire or the need to keep a record of daily events, something I have always thought of as tedious work best left to those who could write nothing else. Today, for the first time in my life of nearly sixty years I am compelled to write down what is happening as it happens — all the while tortured by dread of what is to come.

For more than four decades I have served the crown in one form or another, at times holding what are perceived as influential posts; traveling through foreign lands and enduring the perils of wind, water, storm, and marauder; engaging reluctantly in war; nearly always escaping the delicious traps set by wily — and often enough beautiful — women; and surviving the vicissitudes of ruthless nobles, the ambushes of envious peers, and the chronic inability of the royal record-keepers to ensure my rightly-earned payments. Throughout this life I have rarely felt endangered. Wherever or whatever it was, the borders of the battlefield were simple to identify, my enemies’ intentions were evident, and their allegiances were clearly marked; the women were intriguing but persuadable; the goals were readily discernible.

But since early this afternoon, when the letters of royal protection I am to receive were spelled out for me and the reality of the foul mission that has been thrust upon me could not be avoided, I have felt a deep uncertainty — no, call it what it is: fear — shocking, icy, numbing fear at the absolute unpredictability of what is to come. For the first time in my life I do not feel up to the task; I doubt that the cunning that has enabled me to dodge real or imagined attacks is enough to carry me through this — this spider’s web that has so suddenly spread over and around me, with its fine hairs of unexplored meaning and bewildering possibilities, all seemingly rooted in treachery that leads only to other forms of betrayal. The familiar ache in my stomach that has become constant over the past few months keeps step, suddenly more persistent, more nagging, less avoidable. There is the occasionally sharper pain that rudely seizes me as I peer out a window, or shocks me into raw consciousness out of the shallow sleep that has become the only rest I am able to find. Worse, a persistent urge to search for attackers hiding in the shadowed nooks of empty hallways, or to anticipate messengers who arrive on horseback or foot to pound on my door or to pull me into secret openings in dark cloisters. I fight down with great effort the need to soothe myself by saying out loud that I am too old for this; that I have done my service and have met too many such messengers in too many similar shadows; that younger, more brutal men should be drafted for such duties.

But I know all that is vain, for any attempt to avoid this task will surely be seen and treated as treason, with predictable and permanent results. And, if the truth be known, I cannot argue against such an interpretation of any reluctance I might show.

The documents I have been promised as protection will be issued in the name of Richard, King of England, the Second by that Name, and they are carefully worded to allow me broad geographic, as well as practical, latitude. They state that I can go anywhere I want in the realm and do whatever I wish, all under the direct protection of the King. What should fill me with security and a sense of enormous power merely portends debilitating jeopardy. Surely, letters guaranteeing that sort of complete security also portend the likelihood of utter peril.

But instead of collecting my resources, determining whom I can and cannot trust, conniving an as yet unimagined escape from the trap — instead of all that, I invest myself in shaping this record because the one thing I feel certain of is that this will most assuredly end badly and, since that is the inevitable outcome, I want at least a small chance of warranty that someone may someday know the truth.

Ah yes, the truth, that elusive chimera I have chased, shaped, recreated, abused, though always — or so I have told myself — for the greater good, and always because I love it more than power, respect, women, health or wealth, poetry — since even poetry must serve it and it alone if it is to have worth. And it is truth I seek to capture in these pages, one more time before I discover whether there is a final truth beyond this life or whether God, the ancients, and true believers have simply drawn me into their stories, precisely as I have attempted to seduce so many into mine. The possibility that a truth could outlive me, could right the record and somehow save me — not my reputation, but me, me, myself — has become a startling and bewildering, yet oddly comforting, idea! And as I commend all this to some unknown posterity, I grasp only too well that ink and velum cannot guarantee my safety, so that once again truth eludes me even here, as I must acknowledge that what I state as justification cannot be the reason for writing this down. It must be, then, because here, committing words to paper, I feel the only safety I have ever felt, because I have never known a relationship or even a conversation that could sufficiently contain what I wanted to or needed to express. No one, not Walter, or Philippa, or Gaunt, not even Cecily, although she came the closest, has ever been able to guarantee that safety I have felt in my writing, that certainty that must surely reside in an unassailable truth, should I ever find such a thing.¹

And so I resort again to doing what I have always done: speaking to the paper. I write because I am a writer — though the lie that resides in that statement is all too painfully obvious particularly to me, a writer who has not written for far too long. But clearly this writing I can do, seemingly the only writing I can execute, spurred perhaps by what has always impelled me: danger — in the past, the danger of suffocation in the life I saw before me without writing — now, a more visceral and essential danger, one that reaches inside me, grasping my very bowels and refusing to let go even as I shriek inwardly with the terror only our own imagination can create. I don’t know how often or how regularly I will be able to confide in these pages, but I am constrained to do what I can to make this record as complete as possible. No doubt I should make certain of its delivery to someone — Walter, perhaps, or Gaunt himself — no, if I mean to tell the truth here, it is not the truth John would want to hear — even if he outlives me and has time to absorb it. No, it must be Walter — in no position to help, though he is the only one I think I can trust. Perhaps when this is ended I will ask him to guard these pages and to use them as he will, after the actions they describe have lead to my destruction. Ah yes, the vaunted power of the quill — more powerful than the sword, surely — and yet, finally, just as pathetic and unavailing?

This most bizarre chapter of my life, that has spawned these fears dominating my thoughts, began this morning, about prime, when I was summoned to appear in the private official chambers of Sir William Bagot, one of the foremost of the King’s Men, as they have become known to a few of us who use that phrase with scorn and disdain. With him were Sir Henry Green and Sir John Bushey. All three have served in Parliament more than once, and it is more than a rumor that Bushey was hand-picked as Speaker of the Parliament by the King himself. The command I received — it could not have been mistaken for a request — took me by surprise even at its delivery. Of course I know Bagot and he knows who I am, but there has been nothing to suggest that he, or Green and Bushey, would have any reason to arrange a meeting with me, an old man known to have given up the intrigues of court and wanting only to live out his days in peace.

The meeting took place here in Westminster,² in one of the rooms maintained for Bagot and others like him, sparsely-furnished and dimly-lit, near the Great Hall. Although I had no obvious reason to fear, I felt even before we met as if I were pushing a great wave ahead of me through those familiar gray corridors, attending a meeting I had no desire to be part of, dreading something that was as yet unspoken but deeply foreboding. At the same time, I was certain that what was about to occur would make me wish to be far away, on some specific business for Gaunt or even King Richard, not imagining how distasteful such a task might come to feel when it took real form. The room I entered had a heavy table at its center and a long bench in front and behind it; my summoners were seated behind the table, Bagot at the center, Green close to his right and Bushey on the left, near the edge. As soon as I entered, unseen hands swung the heavy door shut behind me, leaving me feeling helpless and hopeless.

Bagot, a bloated pig bladder of a man, ostentatiously (as he does everything) wearing the royal colors, rose — a bit too eagerly — but made no move to meet me. Ah, Master Chaucer! How good of you to come. He indicated for me to take a place on the bench facing the table and the loathsome trio. Acting as if we did not know each other, he continued: I am Sir William Bagot. He extended a hand toward Green, a man almost as large as Bagot, apparently unprepared to acknowledge my presence with anything more than a deep frown or at least unwilling to be distracted from paring his fingernails with a knife of significant size. This is Sir Henry Green. And this, with a slight bow in the third man’s direction, is, of course, Sir John Bushey. Wrapped in a great dark cloak, Bushey was staring at a steaming cup of something before him, flickering quick glances at me with steady distrust filtered through contempt. Everyone played along with this odd little game of introductions; I bowed and gave appropriately submissive responses, expressing my unexpected pleasure at the unacknowledged, though clearly greater, oddity of this meeting. Sit, please sit, Bagot continued. You are as punctual as your reputation has it, even at a somewhat early hour. Might we offer you something — anything at all?

Of course I declined, following the unspoken rules we had all adopted without prior consultation, and he proceeded.

No doubt you are wondering why I — we — have asked you here. He wrinkled his nose, something I had noticed on other occasions when I had had the opportunity to observe him; Walter had already pointed out to me at a session of Parliament that the wrinkling usually preceded a lie, expanding his observation into a quick syllogism: if Bagot wrinkles his nose whenever he lies, and Bagot regularly wrinkles his nose, Bagot must regularly be lying. Fortunately oblivious to my insulting thought, and without waiting for me to answer, Bagot continued. We are all busy men, so I will come to the point at once. I could only wish! You are known as His Majesty’s willing and obedient servant and have demonstrated your loyalty on many occasions over a lifetime. I am told that one of your poems was received particularly well by King Richard, something even the three of us might have found amusing — something about Parliament … birds … a parliament of birds? I bowed, suppressing a smile at the memory of how ridiculous I had attempted to make Bagot and his ilk look in that poem, even as I registered Green’s audible articulation of scorn. Well, be that as it may, my point is that you are known as a loyal subject who would no doubt be pleased to perform his King some small service.

Of course, Sir William, I answered, ever more puzzled even as I felt the familiar surge of humors I knew so well from other moments when I had to be clear-headed and on guard at the innocent-looking writhings of some other human viper, not unlike the one before me now. I was also taken aback a bit at this description of my contact with the king in these formal terms, as I have presented a number of my works to my sovereign and his court and have found him to be quite forthcoming and gracious to me on multiple occasions.

Good then. We are all only too aware of the troubles that have arisen in the past few months, since Henry, Earl of Derby and son of His Majesty’s uncle, John of Gaunt, and of late, by his Majesty’s Grace, the Duke of Hereford, openly laid various serious charges of conspiracy against Thomas Mowbray, also recently elevated at the pleasure of His Majesty and, by His well-known generosity, to Duke of Norfolk.³

Indeed, attempting to mask my surprise at the topic of conversation. I dare say that there are few—

Please bear with me, Master Chaucer. No doubt you know all I am going to say, but nevertheless I deem it necessary to review events that have brought us to a most unfortunate moment. Green scowled at me and then studied his knife and his hands, slowly shaking his head in disgust. Bushey rolled his eyes and sighed audibly. Bagot was not to be deterred. He plowed on, wrinkling and un-wrinkling his nose with nearly every heavily drawn breath.

We know, he turned to stare briefly at Bushey and then at Green, before he stared at me again, to pontificate: we know of the many rumors abroad, rumors that cast these deplorable events in, shall we say, less than fortuitous light and raise much unrest among the king’s good subjects, causing our royal liege lord great consternation and alarm. Of course, we are aware of how these many falsehoods have been spread— a loud throat clearing by Green, yes, well, no need to pursue that now … but what we must pursue is precisely how relevant actions occurred and how we have come where we are—Bushey interrupted angrily: and what it is we require of Master Chaucer! Yes, of course, of course, Bagot blustered, glaring at Bushey even as he continued to speak to me. We will begin with what we know. Again he glared in turn at each of his companions, successfully creating the gap of silence he seemed to need before he could commence in a manner he deemed appropriate to the occasion. Nose wrinkling spasmodically, he relished the moment, a wrinkle turning into a sneer: so that we may discard what is false and establish what is true! Ah, yes, the truth, again — always the elusive truth — whose truth, this time?

Begot’s intonements were doing nothing to answer my questions, although I had calmed my anxiety a bit by imagining the three creatures before me as actual birds from my poem: a blustering owl (Bagot), a gluttonous cormorant (Green), and a strutting peacock (Bushey), wishing I could think of sillier or more insulting possibilities. But I needed to engage in this living chess game that my three opponents and I were taking our positions in, so I grudgingly moved from mockery to wariness. What Bagot was so flatulently drawing out was that it was the looming and nervously anticipated combat between the two dukes that was to be the topic of conversation — though my connection with it remained enigmatic.

I refocused my attention on the drone of his words.

So much false information has been bruited about, much of it by those who would profit from lies and slander, with the direct intent of muddying the waters and of besmirching the reputation and character of their royal liege lord, King Richard, as I say, so many calumnious lies have been spread, that I believe we must begin by recalling what was called for and intended to be a secret meeting of certain members of our nobility, all of them ill-willed toward our sovereign Lord and King, Richard. This conspiracy occurred some nine months ago, and at this reunion of certain individuals and peers of the realm there was conceived, Bagot’s wrinkled nose twitched, as he could not help but seek acknowledgement of what he seemed to think a very clever play on words, now repeated, lest they be missed: conceived, as I said, some nine months ago, a plan that could only be considered treason against His Majesty. Last August, at Arundel Castle, there met: Richard FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, and the earl’s brother, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, along with the king’s uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and, according to his own report, Thomas de Mowbray — not yet elevated to be the Duke of Norfolk. Finally, some say while others deny, that also present was Henry Bolingbroke, now Duke of Hereford, the heir to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, whom, and this was expressed with a nearly audible sneer, of late, you, Master Chaucer, call brother-in-law!

Certainly, Bagot meant the smirk accompanying his final words to express his utter contempt, both for me and for Gaunt, but I offered what I hoped was an angelic smile and a slight bow in response, deflecting the mockery I would — under different circumstances and with other individuals — myself have joined in most heartily. So, at heart, Bagot may have been right in making formal introductions when I entered this chamber, since he obviously did not know the real me, the Geoffrey Chaucer who would be the first to acknowledge and ridicule the absurd circumstances, not to mention the individuals and their personalities and impulses, that have elevated me to the outrageous implausibility in which I, Geoffrey Chaucer, son of a London wine broker, am now the legal brother-in-law of the one and only John of Gaunt, uncle of the king, Lord Seneschal of England, oldest surviving son of the late King Edward.

Bagot, no doubt disappointed by my refusal to take his bait, continued. At the meal these lords enjoyed at Arundel, there was open talk of conspiracy against the very person of King Richard, reported to the king by Thomas de Mowbray himself, resulting in the arrests of the Lords Arundel, Earl Warwick and the Duke of Gloucester, and the subsequent trial of these principals before parliament.

With Warwick pleading for his life and weeping like a muling baby! Bushey interjected with a nasty, self-satisfied chuckle.

Bagot scowled at him and said: Indeed, and Master Chaucer was present at parliament when the trials occurred; nevertheless, for the record, I must reiterate the events so that we may all be clear on why we are here today. And reiterate he did, rehearsing events all of us in that chamber remembered quite vividly. He noted that the Archbishop of Canterbury had been stripped of his position and banished. That his brother, the Earl of Arundel, absolutely defiant, was sentenced by John of Gaunt himself, to be hanged, drawn, disemboweled, beheaded and quartered, his innards to be burned — all of it, in the King’s great mercy, graciously commuted to simple execution. That the Earl of Warwick, in absolute contrast to Arundel, begged for his very life and offered up proofs of Gloucester’s guilt as barter and, for his betrayal, was allowed to live, exiled to the Isle of Man. Gloucester, though summoned for trial, did not appear; instead, it was announced that he had died in prison, at Calais, under the command of his former companion, Thomas de Mowbray.

Of course, Bagot did not mention that most believed Mowbray himself to have been responsible for the murder of this, his fellow-conspirator, the king’s uncle — that would have been one of the lies Bagot was so strenuously correcting with this version of events. Gloucester’s unexpected demise had the added benefit of saving my brother-in-law, Duke John, as Seneschal of England, from the onerous task of formally condemning his own younger brother to death; so, Richard and John had both gained an advantage from the fortunate demise of Gloucester before parliament could try him. Gloucester’s confession, read aloud to the assembled members of parliament, served to legitimize the proceedings against him. In his recounting of these events, Bagot did not choose to observe that the generous elevation of Mowbray and Bolingbroke to be the Dukes of Norfolk and Hereford, respectively, was reward for whatever roles they played in bringing to an end the lives and fortunes of the Lords Appellant, other than themselves. This was the final punishment for those who had undercut Richard’s power a decade hence, humiliating him ultimately beyond his ability to stomach it. Privately he had born it long enough to make certain that he had amassed the power to strike with impunity those who had once made him look foolish and powerless.

But everything he had proclaimed so far had been merely prologue to the main event for Bagot, who now launched into more immediate particulars that I devoutly hoped would be of direct relevance to my invitation into this august circle of these three king’s toads.

And this, Master Chaucer, is where things get a bit murky, no doubt contributing to all of the lies and false claims floating about to this day. Shortly before parliament was to convene in late January of this year, your esteemed brother-in-law’s son — or should I refer to him as your nephew? — another sneer, the newly elevated Duke of Hereford, Henry of Bolingbroke, recounted to King Richard — on the claimed direct advice of his father, John of Gaunt — a narrative in which Thomas de Mowbray, newly elevated Duke of Norfolk, had told him, Henry Bolingbroke, that King Richard meant to exact his final full measure of revenge on the Lords Appellant who humiliated, demeaned and shamed him, some ten years ago now, by forcing him to accept their governance and rule in a manner too disgraceful to forget and forgive. In that recounting, Bagot intoned as if he were placing formal charges before the members of parliament instead of just the three of us in that murky chamber, Bolingbroke reported that Mowbray suborned him to treason against the person of the King.

He paused for effect.

Of course, as we all know, this was most fulsomely denied by the thus charged Duke of Norfolk when he was given the chance to speak before His Majesty. In fact, he counter-charged that it was Hereford who had attempted to enlist him in some foul nefarious plot against their royal liege. And yes, he hurried on, intent on preventing any response by me, apparently expecting me to bring up something that he wanted to prevent and exert control over by dealing with it first, yes, it is a fact that I myself was drawn into this shameful set of events, being perfidiously accused of plotting against the person and family of John, Duke of Lancaster … your brother-in-law, the by-now inevitable lip-curling sneer, "in denial of which, before God and man, I have sworn oaths and indemnified myself on several occasions, so as to make clear that as His Majesty’s loyal servant, who would do nothing to impugn his royal personage, I