The King of Thieves: (21 page)

‘The man was staring at me as though he … no. No, you are right, Sir Baldwin. It is nothing to do with him. It is my concern.
The Queen will make my life here as difficult as possible. And yet I must remain, for I have a duty to the King’s son.’

Bishop Stapledon clambered tiredly from his horse and began to wander towards the guest rooms, a bent man, suddenly showing
his age.

It made Baldwin sad to see him so downcast.

Vigil of the Feast of the Archangel Michael
^*

Louvre, Paris

All through the night and for much of the morning it had rained solidly, and Baldwin, as he walked from the small chamber
in which he and Simon had been installed, felt glad that the weather had warmed a little with the rain. Yesterday, when they
had been riding here from Vincennes, it had been cold enough, so Sir Richard said, to freeze the teeth in a man’s mouth.

He had appeared to be a little out of sorts recently. Certainly he had been a great deal quieter for the last few days, and
if he had been unknown to Baldwin, the latter might have uncharitably assumed that the man was hung-over. The knight was usually
such a loud, rumbustious soul, but he had to Baldwin’s knowledge told only four jokes during the ride to Paris. It was clearly
the effect of the news about Sir Henry de Beaumont. If that knight was now in the Queen’s purse, it would make their positions
more difficult. All of them were aware that the Queen was gathering about her a group of loyal men, and the little group charged
with the defence of the Earl was growing so tiny in comparison with the hosts at the command of the French King and his sister,
Queen Isabella,
that at any time an attack against the Bishop must succeed, just as an assault against the Earl of Chester to take him into
the protection of the French King, for example, could not fail. Baldwin, Richard and Simon could not on their own protect
either of their charges.

There was a fine spitting rain again, and Baldwin began to hurry his steps towards the hall, where he hoped to find Simon
and the Bishop. They were to meet there.

On the way, he saw a dapper man of about his own age, standing staring at the gateway with a perplexed frown. It took Baldwin
a moment to recognise Jean de Poissy. Jean looked as though he was concentrating so hard, he would not have heard the thunder
of a cannon shot.

Baldwin walked past him, debating whether to reintroduce himself, but finally decided against it.

He had been to the French castles many times when he was younger, because as a Templar, and one who was at a moderate level
in the hierarchy, he had often travelled to deliver messages or join in diplomatic discussions, but he had still not lost
that sense of awe at the great entrance to this castle. He passed under the massive archway, and into the broad open space
within.

The castle had, so he recalled, been built as a bastion against the English and Normans under King Richard. Perhaps it was
a memory of the perpetual warfare that was conducted in those days which had led the French King to seek to obliterate all
the English territories held by him. In future, King Charles IV could hope to reign over a single, united country. Not that
it would last for long. The kingdom was so riven by disputes between rival barons, that it must inevitably collapse. The more
the French King sought to enforce his will on his powerful magnates, the more likely it was that France would suffer from
a similar fate as England, where King
Edward had recently crushed resistance. But to attempt such a bold move here in France carried more risks. In England the
rebels knew that internecine warfare was illegal, and all hesitated to raise a banner against the King. In France, Baldwin
was less certain that a rebellious mob would be so easily quashed.

For now, though, he could revel in the beauty of this great white giant just outside the greatest French city.

He was making his way to the hall, when he heard a shout go up from a large building in front of him. There was a shriek,
then a series of shouts, and a pair of young boys came pelting out, rushing past Baldwin and out through the main gate. He
had little time to wonder whether their rapid disappearance was due to an errand, or whether it was a proof of some infraction,
but the expression in their eyes had seemed to speak of terror.

A moment or two later, they were back, this time with Jean panting slightly in their wake. The three ran on to the hall, which
Baldwin now recalled was the kitchen.

Intrigued, he followed them.

The kitchens gave out a blast of heat like no other. Four enormous fires roared, and it was only the height of the ceiling,
and the pointed roof with its own chimney in the centre, which saved all the kitchen staff from suffocation. The hole at the
top allowed the worst of the heat to escape.

All the staff were at the back of the room, surrounding the figure of Jean, who was crouching down and peering at something
on the floor. Nearer Baldwin, a large, pink man stood wiping his hands on his apron mechanically. He had a long knife in his
belt of cord, which led Baldwin to assume he was the master cook, and now he drew it out and began to systematically cut up
some fruit, muttering to himself the while.

‘It is not my fault. How can I be blamed for something like this? What did I do? All I did was threaten the little brute.
Yes, I threatened him – so what? We all have to chivy and chide. It is the way of things.’

‘Friend, is there some problem here?’ Baldwin asked, as Wolf entered behind him and expressed an enthusiasm to get to know
the carcasses of meat rather better. Baldwin prodded him away with a toe.

‘Who’re you?’ the cook demanded, his knife gripped tightly, the point turned slightly in Baldwin’s direction.

‘Just a man who is worried that you may need some help in here,’ Baldwin said, craning his neck to see what was happening
behind.

‘Why should we need help? I already have the city’s Procureur with me!’

Hearing the voices, Jean looked up, frowning, and then recognised Sir Baldwin. ‘Ah! The knight from the journey yesterday.
I am glad for your offer of help, but this is nothing, merely a kitchen knave who has died.’

The man was firm in his speech, but his eyes told the lie. He was desperately sad at the death of the boy. It was endearing.
Baldwin had seen too many dead bodies in his time, and he thought that this Jean looked like a man who felt much the same.
Then Jean’s eyes moved away from Baldwin and down to the small figure at his feet.

In front of Baldwin the cook’s knife had not wavered. Baldwin said, ‘I am sorry, my friend. Even knaves can be affectionate
and all too greatly missed.’

‘You think I miss one of my knaves?’ the cook said. He looked up at Baldwin, and Baldwin saw the tears in his reddened eyes.

‘When an accident happens and a young friend dies, it is not wrong to mourn.’

‘This was no
accident
, knight. You want to see what happened to poor little Jehanin? My little Jo? Come!’ He threw his knife down on the board
in front of him.

The cook took Baldwin to the space in front of Jean and pointed down. The other kitchen workers were all about there, some
few with their aprons held up to their mouths, some openly weeping.

In front of them was a large chest, and inside it lay a young boy. He was dead – Baldwin could see that at a glance. It was
the colour, the greenish paleness of the face, the darkened flesh where the blood had sunk, the swollen belly and body where
decomposition had set it. All this he took in and noted. Yet it was the sight of the leather thong about the boy’s throat
that shocked him. And the way that the man had to prise it away, where it had sunk into the flesh of the neck.

‘In my land I have been known to seek murderers,’ Baldwin said. ‘I am what we call a Keeper of the King’s Peace. I have the
responsibility to hunt down those who threaten the realm and the rule of the law.’

‘My name is Jean, as you know, and I am the Procureur here, the prosecutor. I investigate crimes and seek those responsible,
and then challenge them in court,’ Jean replied. He stood, feeling his old legs protesting. ‘This is a terrible thing. Such
a shame, to see so young a life snuffed like a candle.’

‘But a candle may be relighted,’ Baldwin agreed, staring down at the boy. ‘He has lain here some while.’

‘Yes. You may tell from the degree of swelling of the body. I had to work hard to remove this thong from where the flesh had
engulfed it. Also there is the odour. It is sweet,
non
? Like old pork that has not been salted correctly.’

‘Yes. What was he doing in the chest?’

‘That is something the chef and his boys must tell us,’ Jean said with determination. He looked up at Baldwin, and there was
a degree of challenge in his eyes now. ‘I shall go and enquire of them.’

Baldwin found himself quickly removed from the kitchen, dismissed. It was a novel experience.

Later, walking through the darkened streets, Jean ruminated on all he had seen. There was no one apparently who could tell
him when the chest had been last opened. It was used to keep certain expensive spices locked away, but they had not been used
in some while. The chest had only been opened today because the King had returned. In the days before his arrival, it had
remained locked.

Jehanin had been a conscientious little fellow for the most part. A gullible lad, he was keen enough most of the time, and
a danger to all at others, for he would go into a daydream about his old home or his mother at regular intervals, and then
he would be perfectly capable of making a gravy with arsenic, or a jelly from red lead, without thinking. There was no malice
in him, and whenever the cook had seen others trying to lead him into misbehaviour or fighting, he had robustly refused. If
Jean had not known the cook to be a more than usually forthright man with maids in the area – for he had checked on his inclinations
after meeting him that first time – he might have believed him capable of pederasty, but there was no evidence to support
this.

And so, it would appear that a man had managed to kill the boy, and then threw him into the chest in the kitchen when no one
was there. It would be easy enough, the cook had said. Any time of the night up until the later watches when the bread-makers
arrived, the kitchen would be empty.

‘And the chest? Would it have been locked?’

‘Why, yes. But I sleep in the side room there, and someone could have come and removed my keys from beside my bed without
waking me.’

‘You do realise how this makes you look, Cook?’ Jean had said sternly.

‘What? Me sleeping there, me having the key to the chest, me being the one who shouted at him most, that sort of thing?’

Jean had grinned slightly at that. ‘Well, yes. Why should I not think you guilty of this crime?’

‘First, if you can find a single man to say that I beat the boys more than they deserve, the man’s a liar; second, do you
think I’m stupid enough to kill a boy and then hide him for some days, only bringing him into my own place of work when no
one had already found him?’

‘You mean he wasn’t there for long?’

‘I don’t know. But he wasn’t there when the King was still here. The chest was in use all the time until the King left the
castle to go to meet his nephew. Ask any of the kitchen staff, they can all confirm that.’

‘I thank you. I shall do so,’ Jean had said.

And now he reflected on all he had heard. There was a great deal to absorb, though, and as the rain began to fall again, he
started to hurry his steps.

Since the arrest of Nicholas the Stammerer, he had for some days walked cautiously with Stephen behind him, but in the last
few days his caution had left him. Stephen was behind him, he knew, and that knowledge in itself was enough to make him confident.

Jacquot saw him approach from six hundred yards away. His hearing was not good, but his eyesight was adequate to recognise
a man by his gait and bearing from many yards away, and today he recognised his quarry.

He eased himself out of sight in among some shadows at a doorway. The street was becoming quieter as men hurried home to avoid
the curfew, and now he saw the Procureur’s servant striding along. A strange man, this, with his vacant expression and loping
walk, because Jacquot had heard him talking to his master, and there was clearly a good brain in his head. He probably enjoyed
leading others to assume he had little in his skull.

There was no point in killing him. Jacquot’s main ambition was to remove him as a threat. He couldn’t allow him to prevent
his assault on the other man, nor to cry out or alert him.

Jacquot waited silently as Jean walked past, head down, and it was not until Stephen passed by him that he sprang out. In
his hand was a small leather sack with a clod of earth inside. Jacquot cast a look about him for anyone watching, and then
took three swift steps and swung.

At the last moment, Stephen turned and saw him. He was about to shout – he got so far as to open his mouth – to warn his master,
when the clod of earth struck his head. His legs wobbled and he toppled.

Jacquot did not stop. He had removed the guard, now his attack was safe. There was a bend in the lane coming up, and he dropped
his chin, hurrying his pace, eyes fixed upon the target. Jean was a dark blur in the distance. A torch was alight at the corner,
where a tradesman felt anxious about waylayers in the entrance to an alley, and the Procureur walked around the light, staring
into the alleyway, aware of dangers.

There was another torch at the next entry, and Jacquot hurried his steps, bouncing high to reduce the sound of his approach.
Jean appeared to pay no attention, but as they came close to the next alley, he walked away from the entrance again, staring
in for any danger there.

He would never have seen Jacquot, who slid in between his back and the opposite wall, never have noticed the quick flash of
the blade, and possibly, very possibly, he was dead before his brain had realised that the blade had been thrust home so expertly.
All he knew was that a hand had grasped his breast for an instant, and then the sliver of steel, darkened over a candle flame,
pressed down, and there was a sharp pain in his shoulder, his muscles, and then his heart … and Jacquot gripped his body
as it collapsed, easing it gently into the shadows. The blade was released, the knife wiped twice, briefly, on Jean’s shirt,
and Jacquot muttered the
Pater Noster
as he watched the trembling of the corpse, listened to the rattling of the heels and heard the snoring of the last breath.