The King of Thieves: (9 page)

‘You call honour and the Crown silly? You dare to speak of them with such contempt? Truly, Sir Hugh, you will live to regret
such disdain.’

‘You think so? Old fool,
you
will regret your presumption in trying to threaten me!’

Louvre, Paris

The Procureur was a clearly recognisable figure as he scurried from the front gate of the Louvre and out into the lane that
led from the King’s greatest château to the city’s gates.

It was an inviolable rule that a bastion of defence like the Louvre should always be secure from the city which it was set
to defend. In any city there were occasional uprisings, and the castle must stand impregnable.

These were the last thoughts on the man’s mind, though, as he followed after the Procureur.

The follower, Jacquot, was a slender man, his frame permanently weakened after the famine ten years before. He had not been
able to rebuild his health after that. In fact, sweet Jesus, it was a miracle he was alive at all. All the others were dead,
may their souls rest easy. Poor darling Maria, and Louisa, Jacques and little Frou-Frou, all had died. Only he remained out
of his entire family.

It was only a matter of luck that he had survived. Jacquot had been on the road from Albi, trudging miserably northwards in
the rain, when he had come across a pair of bodies. At that time, there were bodies all over the place. Men and women simply
sank to their knees and died, no matter where they were. They’d topple over in the road, and people would barely give them
a glance. No one had the energy to help them, and no one cared for them. What was one more
man or woman’s pain and misery to someone who’d already lost everything? So bodies were left where they lay, unless they were
fortunate enough to die in a city which still had a little respect for itself and hoped that the famine would end.

Jacquot had at least seen to the burial of his own. They had all been installed in consecrated ground, his wife being interred
under the supervision of the priest. Sadly, by the time Louisa died, the priest himself had expired, and from that moment,
Jacquot himself dug the graves and set his children inside, one after the other, all at the feet of his wife’s body. After
burying Jacques, there was no point in remaining. He had taken his staff and left the cottage, not even closing the door.
There was nothing to be stolen. He had nothing.

But on that road he had seen the two bodies, and found himself studying them as though seeing corpses for the first time.
It made some sort of connection with his soul. His own children and wife were dead, and now these two sorry souls lay before
him. Suddenly, without knowing why, he began to sob. Great gouts of misery burst from his breast like vomit. The convulsions
would not leave him. He was reduced to standing, leaning on the staff and bawling like a babe.

And then, when it was done, he found he could not move on. It was hard enough to walk on the level, and impossible to think
of lifting a foot so high that he might step over them. At the same time his starved brain could not conceive of passing around
them. Instead he stood, transfixed. And gradually a degree of determination returned.

If the King could not provide food, it was up to him to find food for himself. If God would not provide food, it was up to
him to seek it. He had been a decent, fair man in his life. When he had money, he had been generous. All those whom he loved
had felt the advantage of his largesse. But now he was brought to his knees. There was nothing for him to do but die, unless
he took life in both hands and wrung a living from it. There was no point meandering onwards, hoping to find some food. Even
the monasteries had little enough to share amongst the thousands who clamoured at their gates.

This conclusion had just reached him when he saw a small building not more than a few hundred yards away. Without quite knowing
why, he made for it. Beyond, he saw a wall, and in the wall was a broad gate. He found it was unlocked. Inside was a small
farm, with a woman toiling in the fields. The rain was falling in a perpetual stream, and her ankles and calves and thighs
were beslobbered with mud as she strained with a harrow, pulling it in place of her beasts. The rain washed over her body,
flattening her linen tunic over her breasts, and he stood a while and stared.

Speaking had seemed pointless. The hunger that drove all made throats sore and voices rasp, so he stood silently as she heaved
on the rope. And then he walked past her to the door of her cottage and sought food. There was nothing. When she entered,
later, he said nothing, and she appeared heedless. For her supper, she had a little pottage made thin, with grasses and some
seeds boiled until they almost had some taste. There were no cabbages, no onions or peas to provide ballast to an empty stomach,
and bread was a long-dreamed of impossibility. Still, they foraged in among the hedges and fields for what they might find,
and somehow both lived for a while.

Then, one morning, he woke to find her cold beside him in the bed. Her eyes were still open, staring at the ceiling sightlessly.
He fancied that there was a smile playing about her mouth.

He had left the area and made his way north again. And a few miles later he found himself at a convent. But here the local
population had decided to take what they could. He
approached to the smell of burning, the sounds of rioting, the crash and thud of buildings being broken systematically.

Two men tried to prevent him from joining in, for he was a stranger here, but either he was slightly better fed, or his desperation
was the more potent, for one he knocked down and the other he would have slain, had he had a knife to hand. Instead, though,
he took part in the sack of the convent, and within a short space he had joined the people.

It was enough to allow him to survive those two dreadful first years, but he was still scarred by those experiences. And the
aftermath, when he had taken to capturing women on the road, waylaying any who appeared to have money about them. Several
he simply throttled, stealing their clothing and money; others he took to cities to sell, until by degrees, he made his way
here to Paris.

In the past he had been working on his own, but now he had the companionship of a whole class of similar men. These were the
dregs of Parisian society, but they gave him their friendship and to a degree he reciprocated it. He began to have a life
again.

It was a skewed life. Jacquot embarked on it with two men he met in a tavern. All three drank heavily, and when a whore offered
herself, they went with her to an alley, and there, after they had all used her, he himself cut her throat and stripped her
naked. The body they threw into a midden, while her few and paltry belongings they took to another innkeeper’s wife, a woman
they all knew, who washed the clothing and sold it to their profit. It was the beginning of his criminal life in Paris.

Now he was with a brotherhood. The three had become many, all working for the man they called ‘The King’. It was said that
no matter what the business, if you wanted an act committed within the boundaries of Paris, The King could provide the service,
so long as it was paid for.

Jacquot knew perfectly well what the service was this time. There were many amongst his friends who were reluctant to cut
a throat, but not he. No, he was happy to release a soul from this pit of misery that was life. And this time there was a
good target for his blade.

Jean de Poissy, the Procureur, walked on along the darkening streets. He came and went by the same route each morning and
evening when he had to visit the castle of the Louvre, for he was secure, he knew. The Procureur was a powerful man in the
city of Paris. He was the leading investigator of crimes, the chief prosecutor of those who were engaged in murder, pick-pocketing,
breaking and entering, and any other offence. None would dare to harm him. He might not be invincible, but with the authority
of the King and the city behind him, he came as close to being invincible as a man could become.

There was a strong odour of faeces from the slaughter houses as he continued east. The smell hung about here at all hours
of the day, but it was just one of the normal, everyday manifestations of life in a city.

He continued past the rising mass of the buildings on the Île de la Cité, and on along the river until he came close to the
eastern wall, where he began to head north. Three lanes up here, he took a turn to the east again, and fumbled with the latch
to his door. It was dim in the lane here, and he had to concentrate hard to find it and open it wide. A man passed by, but
the Procureur ignored him, even when he stopped and turned back.

Jean de Poissy merely assumed it was a beggar, and swore at the man briefly. He had enough on his mind already without worrying
about lowlifes.

Jacquot smiled as the Procureur pulled the door wide. So this was where de Poissy lived. A pleasant house, he had here. Unlike
other lawyers, in their expensive chambers, this Procureur lived cheek-by-jowl with tradesmen and artisans. Strange, but no
matter.

Jacquot’s knife was ready in his hand, and as he shifted his weight, ready to lunge, the Procureur himself took a sudden sidestep.
Jacquot felt alarm thrilling through his body at the idea that his quarry had realised his intention. His first thought was
to stab the man and make a bolt for it, and then he realised that it was only the Procureur’s servant, come to the door to
let his master in.

Sighing with relief, Jacquot made a mental note of the address and slouched off back the way he had come.

The Procureur could be killed whenever he wished.

Tuesday before the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
^*

Furnshill, Devon

‘Dear Christ in chains!’ Baldwin burst out as he read the letter.

‘Husband!’ Jeanne expostulated.

‘Don’t think to remonstrate, Jeanne,’ Baldwin said. ‘I’m to go to France again, in God’s name!’

Paris

Jacquot entered the little brothel and strolled over to the barrel in the corner of the room.

It was a foul chamber. Straw lay on the floor, but it was ancient, and reeked of piss and stale wine. He poured a good measure
of wine from the barrel into a cup and drained it. As
he did so a wench came running into the room, her skirts up about her hips, her chemise gone, and her breasts bouncing merrily.
Behind her was a skinny young man with a mop of sandy hair. He had lost his left ear: the proof that he had had a short interview
with the law. Seeing Jacquot, he grinned, then hared off after his prey once more.

If the room was foul, the next few were worse. Each was smaller than the previous one, and held little in the way of furniture,
but for a medley of palliasses and blankets piled higgledy-piggledy on the floor. There had never been an attempt to clean
the place. The sort of men and women who lived here had little need of hygiene.

In the last room, Jacquot entered more cautiously. This was the room where the King rested. It was dim and airless. Candles
illuminated the men standing about: some six or seven, two with the split lips that spoke of an executioner’s punishment.
These were the guards, the men who would fight anyone to protect their leader, who now reclined on a thick bed of cushions
on the floor at the point farthest from the entrance. When he spoke, all was silent in the room.

The King of Thieves was a quiet, sullen man, with the dark hair of a Breton. He had thin features and close-set eyes, which
fixed upon one with a strange intensity. No one who had felt those black eyes upon him would forget the sensation. It was
like being watched by a snake.

He wore a plain linen shirt and hosen made of good quality wool. His belt had an enamelled buckle, and there were gold rings
on each finger of his left hand. At his side was a girl, clearly a new one, recently brought here to the brothel. Jacquot
didn’t know where she came from. She was only very young, from the look of her, and while the King mused and spoke, his hand
played over her breast and stomach, then lower, while she stared fixedly away from him, watching
Jacquot or the wall; anything other than the man who fiddled with her body as another might play with a quill or a knife.
She would not complain. Not if she knew the kind of man he was.

‘You didn’t kill him when you were asked,’ the King said.

‘I couldn’t. There were too many others about.’

‘What do they matter? We’ve been paid.’

Jacquot was not about to contest the money, although he had seen nothing of it as yet. There was a firm belief in the company
that all money was to be shared sensibly. For an important commission like this assassination, the money was paid to the King,
and when the job was done, Jacquot would receive his share. Not the full amount, for the larger part would remain with the
King, but he would take some livres, and with them he could enjoy himself for a while, gambling, drinking and whoring.

‘I will kill him within the week,’ he stated softly.

‘Good. I look on you as my barber. You shave the unnecessary from Paris, as a barber shaves my chin. He removes my hair, you
remove the people who aren’t needed. I don’t want another failure.’

Jacquot nodded. He looked at the girl. The King had set his hand on her groin, and Jacquot saw a little shudder of revulsion
run through her frame, as though she had felt a man walking over her grave. Perhaps fourteen summers old, she already had
tracks of pain and hardship etched into her soft cheeks and brow.

Fourteen summers. That was the age of his little girl, when he buried her nine years ago.

Suddenly disgusted by his life, he turned and stumbled out. It took three large mazers of wine to help him recover his equanimity.

Furnshill, Devon

The letter was almost apologetic in its tone, but there was neither comfort nor sympathy in the brief text.

It was an order which had come to him from the Sheriff’s offices at Rougemont Castle in Exeter. There were many words on the
paper, declaring the King’s position, his authority over the British, his overlordship of Guyenne and all the other territories,
but these were irrelevant to Baldwin just now. All he saw was the simple command at the bottom:
The King would have you travel with him to Paris as a member of his guard of household knights. Meet him at Langdon, near
Dover
.