The King of Thieves: (26 page)

Paris

Jacquot walked from the tavern as the sun rose to noon, but today he was sober enough. He had only returned here for a morning’s
reviver.

She was a trim little tart, that much was true. Amélie’d wagged her tail at him, and made her intentions clear enough. If
Jacquot was to kill her man, he could have her for himself. Not the best proof of fidelity a woman had ever given to a man,
but for all that there was a harlot’s good faith behind it. Which meant the bitch would be happy with him for a while, for
exactly as long as he satisfied her cravings and desires. Let him fail in that duty, and she would undoubtedly rush to hold
the same conversation with another likely fellow with brawn in his arms and little in his head.

That was going to be a problem – the fact that he, Jacquot, had too much going on in his head; he was no slow-thinking churl
like the others. As soon as she sensed that he was capable of thinking for himself, her desire for him would wane. Ach, he
had known too many women like her since he’d come here to Paris. They were all out for the same things: money, security, control.
And if you gave it to them, they just wanted more. There was no future for a man like him with a woman like her.

Once, he had planned to get back to the little village where he had been so happy with his wife and family, but that was
when he had first set out on his career as a killer. He had thought then that he would kill a few people, gradually increasing
his fee, until he had earned enough to be able to go back home, find another wife, start afresh. It was a beguiling notion.

As were all dreams. No. He had learned while still a young man that there was nothing that God had given that He couldn’t
take away again. So he would remain here. One day, perhaps, when he had gone on a bender for a week or more, his heart or
his brain would give out, and he would discover the wonderful solace of death. No heaven for him. He would be there in purgatory,
so he believed, and maybe his soul would be dragged down to hell. When he was drunk, he didn’t care. He ranted and raved at
the skies when he was in his cups, because he didn’t give a sou for a God Who could ruin him in this way – and for
what
? To see whether he, Jacquot, was good enough? Sweet Jesus, he
would
have been good enough, if God hadn’t stolen his entire family.

His thoughts returned to the woman, Amélie. She wanted him to kill the King and allow her to run all the King’s activities.

He would be best served to kill
her
instead, Jacquot considered. Yet to take over the King’s demesne was an attractive notion …

The three men were studying the Procureur’s body, which had been washed and lay in his chamber.

Sir Baldwin and the Coroner were intent on their task; Simon less so. To the Bailiff, the corpse was, and only ever could
be, a man who had died unnecessarily.

True, he, Baldwin and Sir Richard shared a common purpose. They tried to impose a little order on the world. That was what
a dead man was, after all. He was a disturbance. To
the King’s Peace, to the natural order of things. He was a father removed, he was a son taken away from a doting mother. He
was an emptiness where there should have been noise, laughter, joy. Even tears on occasion.

Simon had not come to this conception early. It had taken the death of his first-born son to make him realise that there was
more to life than merely walking through it easily. Sometimes a man needed hardship, but dear Christ, Simon did not want to
have any more. He couldn’t bear to lose another child.

The loss of his boy, the original Peterkin, had left him befuddled and sad, and it was only the exercise of his intellect
in different investigations, he now realised, which had given him a fresh purpose. He needed the excitement of seeking a killer,
a robber, a draw-latch. But most of all, he needed to find the killers.

Sir Richard was formed of similar clay, although he was far less bothered by any personal, emotional motivations. In essence
he was a simple soul. He had a firm belief that those who broke the King’s Peace should be hunted down. A man who was prepared
to break the rules was a man who was a threat to all others, so far as he was concerned, and he would do all he might to challenge
and punish them.

Of them all, Simon knew that Baldwin had the strongest urge to find murderers. Having been Knight Templar, Baldwin had an
abhorrence of any form of injustice, and that worked as strongly in him for those who were the victims of crime as for those
who were innocent, but found themselves convicted of crimes they did not, indeed, often
could
not have committed. Baldwin hated to think that an innocent man could be punished.

‘Hah! Damn strange to be starin’ at a body like this without a clerk to hold my hand,’ Sir Richard commented. ‘Most of the
time they’re less use than a tarse at a convent, but just every so often there’s something handy they come up with.’

Baldwin nodded his understanding. ‘That is why it is often so useful to study a body with another man. Two pairs of eyes see
more than one alone.’

‘And I see that this fellow was stabbed bloody efficiently. God’s ballocks, will you look at that? A very fine, narrow blade,
that was. But long, to reach down to the man’s heart, wouldn’t ye say?’

Baldwin peered closer. The wound itself lay atop the shoulder, a small, diamond-shaped cut, perhaps a half-inch in length,
that had entered the triangular hollow between neck, collarbone and shoulder blade. But the depth would have to be some nine
inches, he guessed, to puncture the heart. ‘The one blow. It was deep, clearly. You can see the blue beginning of a bruise
where the cross struck the man’s shoulder. For a man to use such a point for his attack is surprising, though. Most would
merely slip the knife up from the front, or under the shoulder blade … the risk of missing the heart and having the victim
struggle and fight would put most men off delivering the killing blow this way.’

‘It was done by a man well-used to such attacks, then.’

‘I would think so.’

Baldwin remained staring at that stark body, the wound standing out so clear on the pale flesh. ‘It’s tempting to find a twig,
or a glass rod, if there is such a thing to be had, just to measure the depth of the wound.’

‘But the age …’

‘Yes. It’s been such a long while since the man was killed, the clots will be deep in the wound already. It’s one thing to
test a dagger thrust in a man’s belly, but another to look at this kind of stabbing. Still, we’re looking at a narrow blade,
not much more than a half-inch in breadth, and long enough to
puncture a heart from above. It gives us an idea of the type of knife that was used.’

They remained a little longer, making sure there was nothing of importance they had missed, before leaving the little chamber
with its grisly inhabitant.

Outside, Wolf lay happily panting, tongue lolling, great forepaws widely spaced. Seeing the three return, he lumbered slowly
to his feet, shook himself, and padded softly to Baldwin.

‘Look at this fellow. Gentle, mild-mannered, loyal, even though he scarcely knows me … and then consider the men who infest
our world. Men who will kill for money or lust, for the sake of an argument or a wager. Yet we’re told that this poor beast
is the failed creature.’

‘What do you mean?’ Simon asked, pulling the door to behind him.

‘Man is made in the image of God, Simon. That is what we are told. And yet think of it. No dog would murder because it coveted
another’s blanket or bone. It would fight to defend its master without reneging just because some other offered it money.
Some dogs will guard their master’s body even though he has been dead for an age, and the dogs will die trying to continue
to defend it. Such loyalty, such devotion. But the vicars would have you believe that a beast like Wolf here can never pass
the gates of heaven because he is only a dog. They would say that he can have no soul. And yet the meanest of men with the
lust of a demon, and the greed of Despenser, can get to heaven if he will only ensure that he dies in a state of grace. I
tell you, it makes no sense to me. If God is so committed to accepting only humans to His gardens of paradise, and will not
let dogs in, I am not sure I want to go there. I would prefer to remain in purgatory with the soul of a brute like Wolf here,
and my old Uther, may he rest in peace, and all the other hounds, mastiffs, alaunts and raches
which I have known and loved in my life, for all eternity. Better that than risk meeting with some of those I have known who
walked on two legs,’ he added. The thought of Guillaume de Nogaret had not left him. The idea that de Nogaret might be in
heaven was so appalling, it almost made him want to reject his soul’s salvation.

‘Baldwin,’ Simon said, eyeing him with perplexity, ‘what has brought all this on?’

Sir Richard was also watching him askance, although in his case, it involved looking at Baldwin from the corner of his eye,
tilting his chin upwards, and drawing the corners of his mouth down. Catching sight of him, Baldwin gave a weakly smile.

‘It is nothing, only that the poor man inside there is dead, and appears to have been a kindly soul. There was nothing about
him to cause offence except to the law-breakers. He was good, by my measure. And yet he is dead now, and if his killer is
shrived and dies in a state of grace, the two may well meet in heaven, while this good soul Wolf will not. Well, a pox on
that!’

Simon exchanged a look with Sir Richard. He was nonplussed. He had never heard Baldwin swear, to his knowledge. That was his
own preserve. And it was most unlike the knight to complain about anything, especially not any religious matters. For Baldwin,
although the memory of the Popes was dubious at best, and the behaviour of the French King Philip IV was painful in the extreme,
he had never made a negative comment about God, so far as Simon was aware.

It was a hard time, to be sure. Others Simon had known had lost their faith in God, as they buried their children or wives
after watching them gradually fade away and die after the atrocious weather a decade ago, that brought crop failure and famine.
Towns and cities lost hundreds or thousands of inhabitants. Simon had learned that there was a city in the far
north of the French kingdom called Ypres that had lost one tenth of its people to the famine in one month alone. The famine
had continued to ravage the lands of all Christians for two years and more. How could men
not
lose faith? Simon’s own beliefs had been staggered and bruised when his little boy died, for it was hard to understand how
a kindly God could take away a little angel like that.

Sir Richard cleared his throat. ‘Did I ever tell you about my wife, my Hannah? No? She was my love from my earliest years.
Met her when I was seven, when I was just being shown how to fight with a sword two-handed. She was daughter to a local cowman.
I thought then, I would marry her. Eh? And you know what? I did. Happily married we were, for twelve years. Never had children.
Just never happened for us. A sadness, but we had enough pleasure.

‘Well, one day I was away from my home. Left the demesne in the hands of my wife and my steward – a thieving little scrote
by the name of Jack of Lyme. I trusted him, but he repaid me by killing my wife and robbing me of all my treasure. He stabbed
her …’

The knight looked away from them and swallowed. For the very first time Simon heard the sadness that lay at Sir Richard’s
core.

‘Aye, he robbed me of all I held dear. Still hold dear, in fact. Just one thing, though. I had a monstrous great brute. Mastiff,
he was, a tan devil named Bill. Well, Bill must have heard something in there, because he went in, and he saw Jack in the
room with my wife. And Bill bowled in to see what was up, found her dead, I think, and went for Jack. Damn near took his arm
off. Jack killed him, poor old Bill, but Bill put paid to his escape. We caught him less than ten miles distant, pleading
with a peasant for some aid for his chewed arm. I didn’t wait for the law that day, I fear.’

He turned slowly back to Baldwin. ‘This is not a perfect world, my friend. We both know that. But I tell you now, Sir Baldwin,
God would not refuse my Bill in heaven. And if Jack got there, probably by trying to bribe Gabriel at the door, Bill would
chase him out in a moment.’

There was a sudden firmness in his voice, and now he spoke in more his usual manner. ‘And if Saint Peter himself tried to
tell me to cast me old Bill out through the gates, I’d black his eye for him.’

Baldwin smiled. ‘Sir Richard, you are a good, kind, and generous soul. My apologies for my black mood. I have not earned the
right to be melancholy.’

‘Hah! We’re all here, ain’t we?’ Sir Richard said. ‘But there’s little need for sadness. We’re on the brink of war, in the
city of our enemies, with the estranged wife of our King, surrounded by men who’re apparently deserting the King to lend succour
to his wife, and trying to learn why someone has killed a good and decent man whom we never got to meet in a tavern. Plenty
there to celebrate, I’d say!’

Paris, near the River Seine

The King wiped at his nose again, still feeling the fury that had swept through him when the mother-swyving son of a whore
had left last night. The bleeding wouldn’t stop.

Amélie had tried to soothe him, but the bitch was no good with potions and bandages. All she was capable of was pouring a
fresh cup of wine, and when his mashed lips had touched the liquor, it stung so much, he threw the cup at her, swearing when
he missed. She had walked from the chamber after that, and hadn’t returned until now.

It took an age for the bodies to be taken out. Luckily the King had a shed next to the river, so all the men had to do was
cart the fellows out at night and drop them into the water. Even that had proved a problem. The river was low, apparently,
and one of the bodies fell into the thick mud at the water’s edge. Matters weren’t improved by the fact that he wasn’t entirely
dead and began to wail. Probably came to as the cold water hit his face. Old Peter the peasant clambered down a rope and cut
his throat for him before he could bring the Watch, and then half-dragged, half-slid the body to the water, where he pushed
the fool off. Then Peter himself almost drowned in the mud and had to be rescued. The whole thing was a farce. And it was
not made any better by the reflection that bloody damned Jacquot had bested them all.

You had to be impressed. The man was ancient now, and yet
he could fight and win against several men at a time. The King was not keen to see his forces whittled down any farther, but
there was a matter of pride at stake here. There were those who would hear of the incident and might form the opinion that
the King’s crown must be slipping. And a crown, once fallen from a brow, could be picked up by any with the power and strength
to carry it. There were many in Paris who felt sure that they had just that authority.

Curse Jacquot. He was the best man the King had ever had. But there was no doubt, he would have to die.

‘Where were you?’ he growled at Amélie. ‘I wanted you last night.’

‘You made no sign of it. I thought you wanted me to go, so I went.’

There was an indifferent note in her voice that made him want to hit her again. ‘Come here,’ he said.

‘Why?’ she asked as she crossed the room.

He reached out and grabbed her hair, twisting his fingers in it and drawing her nearer. ‘Where did you go last night?’

‘To a tavern. Why?’

‘Looking for a dog to cover you?’ he sneered.

‘Looking for a man, perhaps.’

‘You dare seek to make me wear the cuckold’s horns?’

‘Did you marry me, then?’ she hissed.

‘You cow! You strumpet! You craven, shitty little slut! You want some of this?’ he snapped, and drew his knife. The point
had just touched her chin, when he felt something poke at his belly, and looked down to see her own knife at his groin.

‘Kill me, and you’ll be paunched, little rabbit,’ she said with icy calm.

‘I can kill you in an instant.’

‘Yes. And I can gut you so you die over days, in agony,’ she said.

And she was right. He had seen the exquisite torture that a knife in the guts could bring. There was no cure. Not when a man’s
bowels had been spilled. It was enough to make him respect her again – if not trust her. He didn’t trust any woman.

He shoved her away and rammed the blade back into its sheath before demanding more wine. At least his mouth was healed enough
for that now. Meanwhile, she walked away and lay on her flank on the skins that made up his bed in the corner. Christ’s arse,
but she was beautiful. Wild, dangerous and lethal as a hawk. What she wanted, she would take.

‘You are lucky I didn’t kill you then,’ he said.

‘Am I?’

The King usually killed his women because they were too dull. This one would have to die soon because she was too unpredictable.
She made him nervous.

Yes, Jacquot first, and then her. But Jacquot’s death would take careful planning. Whom could he set upon his assassin?

Paris

Vital eyed the men and shook his head.

‘I do not think that they know very much, Pons,’ he said.

‘I think you may be right, Vital.’

‘Will you release us, then?’

The speaker was a short man, with a face that appeared to have been burned by acid when he was a child. One eye was milky-white,
although his hair was still unmarked by the frost of age. He was probably only some two-and-twenty years, Pons thought to
himself. And already an expert in so many aspects of thieving and murder.

All these men had been swept up by the watchmen of the city in the last day. There were some forty or more in different gaols
all about the town. Some were wanted already, and one was destined for Monfaucon, to be broken on the wheel for his
offences, but most were like this little man: idiots who had so little ambition and intelligence that their crimes were obvious
to all. However, they were useful, since they were likely to know more than most about the men who were capable of killing
a Procureur.

‘Please? You have nothing against me.’

Pons and Vital exchanged a look. ‘No,’ Pons said. ‘You will remain here until we are satisfied that there was no collusion
between you and others to murder the Procureur.’

‘But we know nothing!
Nothing!
’ The man swore as Pons and Vital nodded to the gaoler, and the heavy door swung shut with a dull thud. The keys rattled,
the bolts slid into their niches in the wall, and the gaoler began to lead the way up the damp staircase.

‘Wait!’

Pons turned. ‘You want something else?’

‘You must realise you cannot keep us here for long?’

‘My friend, King Charles himself has demanded that we take all measures to ensure that the killer is found. You have no rights
in this. You will remain until we remember you and consider letting you go free.’

‘But we …’

‘
Bonjour, mon ami
.’ Pons smiled, and set his face to the steps again.

Les Halles, Paris

Jacquot rested, watching a bear baiting, then wandering idly along with the crowds, viewing other entertainments.

The city was such a vast place. Cut in half by the great swirl of grey river, the islands in the middle where the cathedral
and King’s main courts were based, this was the centre of Christendom now that the Holy Land was lost. Men and women congregated
here, for Paris held all hopes, all desires,
within its walls. Jacquot had arrived looking upon Paris as the place where he could find a new life, and it had given him
that. However, in return it had taken all he had. All his honour and integrity had been eroded until there was now only this:
a husk of a man, full of self-loathing, desperate for salvation but not having any idea how to achieve it.

If he had found just a fraction of love, of friendliness, he might have been different.

Walking about this area, he studied others now. They drew his eye as they had not for many years. Men and women, smiling,
laughing. Children at their sides, gambolling and capering in the thin sunshine. Men buying flowers and sweet-meats for their
wives. One man bellowing with laughter, throwing his son into the air, while the lad screamed with delight.

It reminded him of another time. Another life. When he had his own children, when he had hurled his boy up into the sky. But
now, all he could remember was the same boy’s face, blue-grey, peering up sightlessly from the winding sheet as Jacquot wept
and threw soil into those dead eyes. Up in the air, then into the ground. It made a fist in his breast, a fist that clenched
about his heart.

Jacquot was lost. He was in the city’s market and he was lost. He recognised nothing. Panic was his sole companion as he span
on his heel, desperate to be away, to be anywhere other than this. He wanted to run, to pelt off in the direction of his rooms.
Or a tavern. Anything. Anywhere. Panting, he felt like a wolf in a trap, frantic with the urge to flee, but utterly incapable
of doing so. His legs would not obey.

And then, the horror of his loneliness in the midst of all this joy left him, and he was calm again. He felt the fist open
in his chest, his breathing return to normal, the cool sobriety return. There was nothing here for him to fear. The only danger
for him was the King.

Last night Jacquot had felt secure. Now, he knew he was in grave danger. The King would have to eradicate him just to prove
that he was still the King. Thus, Jacquot had two choices. He could leave, or he must fight.

He would fight, then. It was not in his heart to leave this whore of a city. He had run all the way here ten years ago. He
wouldn’t be forced to run away again.

The King was past his time – Amélie was right about that. The King must go, and perhaps Jacquot would take Paris in his place.