By Giovanni Costabile
“When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.” (John 6:15 KJV)
In the year of Our Lord 1397, in the late night on January 5, King Richard II received three special guests in his secluded throne room, where he sat on the high throne in the only company of his Royal Guard and his close retinue, composed by his uncles the Dukes of Lancaster and York, his cousin the Duke of Aumerle, the Duke of Norfolk Thomas de Mowbray, and Richard’s favorite, Sir Henry Green, Justice of the Peace. Richard’s second wife, Queen Isabella of Valois, was only seven years old, so she had already gone to bed.
The first guest to pay his tribute to the King was a mysterious Jew called Rabbi Zohar. Not only were Jews banished from England for more than a century, but this special Jew was like a phantom whom everybody sought and none could find. Rumors had it that he was 500 years old, that he was the responsible for the Hundred Years War, that he had caused the plague, and even that he had personally prevented the Crusades to achieve the final Christian dominion over Jerusalem. Any sensible Christian ruler would have felt compelled to execute the man without letting him utter one word, and instead Richard not only would spare his life, but he had personally requested an audience with the Rabbi. It was the Jew who was coming to Richard, but it was the King who needed the Rabbi.
“I have what you seek, Your Majesty,” Zohar said, and he handed out a pouch from under his cloak. The Rabbi was old indeed, almost bald, with only a few strains of long white hair flowing down from his head like rivulets from Roman fountains. His eyes were blind, entirely white, and his skin was dry, smooth, only slightly wrinkled, as though some inner strength still preserved the bark of an old secular tree. The pouch was then brought before the King by two guards.
“Is it real, Rabbi?” the King asked, uncertain.
The Rabbi produced himself in a disquieting smile. “As real as the Messiah, Your Highness.”
Richard frowned. “We have different ideas about the Messiah, you and I, Rabbi.”
Zohar smiled. “Indeed.”
Richard raised a finger and the two guards unsheathed their blades.
The laughter of Rabbi Zohar filled the throne room, but, as the two Royal Knights advanced towards him, he excused himself. “Indeed we have different ideas about the Messiah, and yet we both are assured He is real.”
Richard ordered the guards to halt. “Suppose I believe you, Rabbi. What is your price again?”
It was Zohar’s time to shrug once more. “You do not have to pay me, Sovereign. You will have to pay God the Almighty.”
“What does it mean?”
“You asked for the Wisdom of the Heart and you have it. Now prepare yourself to pay Solomon’s price.”
“Idolatry? Adultery? How dare you?”
The Rabbi laughed once more. “It is told that once upon a time Alexander the Great asked Diogenes the Cynic why did the latter live in a box, and do you know what was Diogenes’s response?”
“What was it?”
“Move aside from there: you are covering the sun!”
Richard was wroth this time. “Seize that man!”
“Do, King, kill me. Indeed, I am dead already. And yet I live, because I know the secret you too shall now be a part of. Burn the precious alchemical library you inherited from your father Edward, Richard, burn the Almagestus and the Secretum Secretorum! They avail of nothing, compared to my gift!”
The guards were uncertain whether to carry out the last order, and Richard told them to let Zohar go. “My best regards, Your Majesty,” he said, bending his knee, before leaving.
John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, said, “Why are you letting him live, Richard?”
The King shrugged, then got up from his seat to personally collect the pouch the Jew had left. “You do not know what you say, Uncle. We should raise the Ban on Jews for what Rabbi Zohar just brought me.”
Richard’s cousin, Edward of Langley, inquired curiously, “What is it, cousin? What is it?”
Richard smiled. “This…” he started, but he was interrupted by the announcement of the second guest in that late night, a hooded man accompanied by none other than the Poet Geoffrey Chaucer.
The hooded man was silent, but Geoffrey announced him. “This, Your Highness, is the Poet from the West-Midlands I told you about. He composed three magnificent sermons in verse on the subjects of Purity, Patience, and Hope. He would rather keep his name and face unknown, though.”
Richard was curious. “And why is that?”
The hooded man did not reply.
Geoffrey looked at John of Gaunt. “John,” he said. “You can tell the King why.”
Richard’s uncle sighed, then he explained. “Richard, this man was a priest, but he broke his vows and fathered a child with a woman he had fallen in love with. Then he lost his child, and made a vow never to show his face nor to speak to the living soul. He only communicates through his writing.” Richard was impressed: “May I hear some?” Chaucer looked at the hooded man, who silently nodded. Then Geoffrey recited, in the original West-Midlands dialect of the unknown Poet:
Pearl of delight that a prince doth please
To grace in gold enclosed so clear,
I vow that from over orient seas
Never proved her I in price her peer.
So round, so radiant ranged by these,
So fine, so smooth did her sides appear
That ever in judging gems that please
Her only alone I deemed as dear.
Alas: I lost her in garden near:
Through grass to the ground from me it shot;
I pine now oppressed by love-wound drear
For that pearl, my own, without a spot
The King bade Chaucer to continue reciting, until he declaimed the whole poem. Richard was very pleased to hear how his initial impression that the pearl was the Poet’s lost daughter was confirmed, and that the Poet had dreamed of her afterlife, thus being reassured in his own faith
The hooded man bowed to the King in sign of thanksgiving.
Then Richard said, “You are the right person to whom I can commission a poem. I want you to write a romance about Sir Gawain, based on the existing legends, that may work as a warning against adultery and a praise of marital fidelity. Geoffrey already wrote on this subject, and so did John Gower. Your own work would be highly appreciated, but make sure that Gawain’s sign on his shield is Solomon’s Pentangle instead of that stupid lion that some minstrels assign him.”
The Poet nodded his assent, then knelt before the King, followed by Chaucer. “By your leave, Your Highness.”
Thomas de Mowbray said, “Your Majesty, I highly recommend not to admit the third guest in Your esteemed presence. The man is a rebel and a rascal, and such scum should not be allowed to dwell in Your proximity even for the best reason on this earth!”
Richard said, “The Kingsguard will protect me, I trust.”
At these words, all the twelve knights surrounded the King’s retinue. At that point, the third guest was introduced. He was none other than Henry Bolingbroke, the head of the Lords Appellant, the rebels who had tried to overthrow Richard’s reign eight years earlier.
Henry made his defiant entrance without bowing to the King and even spat on the ground. “Surrounded by spears, Richard? Are you so afraid of a single man that you cannot hold your water?” Then he laughed, challenging the Court.
Richard said, “I could have you killed in the blink of an eye, Bolingbroke. But that is not the reason why I summoned you.” “And what is that?”
“I want you to know that it is I who found it, as I was destined to be.”
“That is not possible,” said Henry, “for I am in possession of the original Ring of Solomon!”
And, by saying so, Bolingbroke put a ring on his finger, declaring, “I am already the King in the eyes of God.”
Richard bit his lip, then he said, “I do not know what will happen to England after tonight, but I want you to know what will happen to me.”
Bolingbroke laughed.“Are you going to finally let go of your bowels?”
Richard said, “Let us just say I have a little treasure too. Why do not we try and see which one is real? Are you not curious?”
The rebel considered the offer, then declined. “It is surely a trick to steal my ring!”
Richard came forward, commanding the guards to step aside.
“Look, Bolingbroke,” he said, extracting his own ring from the pouch where Rabbi Zohar had kept it. Richard put the ring over a brazier and let it fall into the fire. The flame turned blue, then green, then violet, then it went off.
Richard collected the talisman. “It is perfectly cold.”
Bolingbroke frowned. “Well…” he started, then he put his own ring over another brazier, and let it fall there. The flame burned as usual, and when a guard collected Bolingbroke’s ring from the brazier, what remained was only a melted piece of metal.
John of Gaunt, the father of the rebel, said, “Why do you not resign from your purpose to seize the crown, Henry? You are going to divide England in two factions!”
Bolingbroke was furious. “There have always been two Englands, father, at least since William the Conqueror set his foot on this ground! Or maybe it was Joseph of Arimathea who divided us when he told the Druids that we should worship a crucified man! But I will unify England, and there will be no rebels under my rule!”
Richard then spoke. “Bolingbroke, it is I who is going to resign. But you will have to win the Kingdom by force all the same.”
Everybody was flabbergasted.
“What are you saying, Richard?” shouted Gaunt.
His son inquired, “Yes, what do you mean, Your Highness?”
He had spoken this last word as though it was an insult. Richard brought forth the Ring, so that everyone could see it, and he explained.
“The Ring of Solomon holds every power on this earth. There is nothing that a man cannot do by wearing it, since herein is inscribed the true Name of God, the Endless Knot that is Solomon’s. And I have one use only I can think of for such a power.”
“Why not to end the Hundred Years’ War?” asked Edmund of Langley, the Duke of York, who had remained silent until then.
“Why not restore Jerusalem to Christianity for good?” asked Richard’s cousin.
The King sighed, then said, “Because I am the King, and I am called to defeat. Such is my fate, whether I want it or not. Bolingbroke will be the next King. For within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king, keeps Death his court. Or so will write a future Poet. But I am going to do something different, something that will ensure the survival of our Monarchy long after kings have become memories.”
“What is that?” all asked in unison.
Richard smiled. “I will walk into the Mists of Logres with my dead wife Anne of Bohemia, and watch over our Kingdom from the Once and Future Kingdom, where King Arthur lies in waiting. One day, I shall return with him and his predecessors, and those few among the Kings who came between us who partook of the same secret.”
“Why?” asked Bolingbroke. “What is the secret?”
Richard said, “Only a few chosen Kings become King of Logres. You will kill the changeling I will leave here behind me, but you cannot get into Logres. The way is closed for those like you!”
And, having said so, Richard was caught by a violent seizure. Even Bolingbroke was sorry for him, by seeing how the King was suffering. Eventually, though, the moment passed, and Richard opened his eyes once more, while the court physician inspected him.
“Green, my dear,” Richard said, looking at his favorite. “What is Bolingbroke doing here?”
What everybody thought to be appalling was that the fabled Ring was nowhere to be seen anymore.
Nobody ever heard again about Zohar the Jew, but the hooded Poet completed his commission and is today known as the Gawain-Poet after his most famous work, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Bolingbroke did become the next King by the name of Henry IV, and the rest is history. Still, some say that even today, on the eve of the Epiphany, that is also the birthday of Richard, late in the night it happens to the current monarch to gather profound insight on some matter by listening to the wind blowing, and they call it “Richard’s blessing from Logres,” even when listeners do not understand what that means.
This piece and others previously appeared in the Fellowship & Fairydust issue Happy & Glorious: A Royal Celebration.