A Play of Treachery (41 page)

Likewise, there is record from early in that year of a female spy for the English reporting the Bretons would soon attack Normandy. It’s one of those frustratingly tiny pieces of information about which one would like to know so much more but probably never will.

As for the books read to the duchess and her ladies, a version of Reynard the Fox’s adventures that might be close to what they heard can be had in
The History of Reynard the Fox,
translated from the Dutch original by William Caxton and edited by N. F. Blake for the Early English Text Society, 1970. There are numerous medieval works about Alexander the Great; the one they heard here could be related to
The Prose Life of Alexander
, edited by J. S. Blake for the Early English Text Society, 1913. The poem Joliffe was reading in Chapter 2 is by Thomas Hoccleve (or Occleve) who was writing poetry in Middle English in the early part of the 1400s. There are various editions of his works, and selections of his poetry can be found in various anthologies of Middle English poetry.

The maps Joliffe is set to memorizing would hardly be recognizable by modern eyes as guides to anywhere, but medieval maps are a delightful study, revealing a relationship to the world sufficiently different from our own that the shift in thinking needed to move from our modern perception of geography to a medieval one is an excellent exercise in seeing what different ways there are for relating to the world around us.

The detailed examination of the murder victim’s body is not an anachronism. Medieval coroners were advised not only to make close observation of crime scenes but of wounds and any other circumstances around a murder that would give details toward understanding what had happened. In fact, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word
investigation
was used as early as 1436 in the sense of “making search or inquiry, systematic examination, careful and minute search.”

On a minor note, the university at Caen, mentioned in Chapter 13, was indeed founded by John, duke of Bedford, and still exists, the one thing that has lasted from his long struggle to bring peace and return prosperity to war-destroyed Normandy.

As for what came of the scandal-marriage between the duchess of Bedford and Sir Richard Wydeville—or Woodville, as it is often spelled now—first was a heavy fine to the English government for marrying without permission, then at least thirteen children, and eventually a secret, royal marriage that made their eldest daughter queen of England, a grandson briefly king of England, a grand-daughter queen to the first of the Tudor kings, and a great-grandchild into King Henry VIII.