The Midnight Man

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Murder, Master Geoffrey Chaucer of the Custom House, London, reflected, and mystery were two invisible chains which seemed to link all his fellow pilgrims as they wandered down the old Roman road towards Canterbury. Strange, Chaucer continued his musing, that Becket, whose blissful bones these pilgrims hoped to venerate, was the victim of both murder and mystery. Did Henry truly order the killing of his archbishop during those Christmas days over two hundred years ago? Some claim it was the work of his Queen Eleanor. .

‘Master Chaucer, you like this tavern?’

Chaucer broke from his reverie and smiled at the physician sitting next to him. He then gazed around the taproom of The Strong One of Jacob, a spacious, well-endowed hostelry with its lush gardens and lofty stories of open galleries, each with their own narrow guest chambers. Chaucer pointed to the window-shutters, flung back to allow in the warm scent from the herbers. ‘The day is fading,’ he murmured. ‘Darkness will fall and all these passageways and entrances will fill with dancing shadows.’

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