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The Moneylender of Toulouse

Page 8

by Alan Gordon


  “Thanks,” I said, unrolling the bedroll. “Let me tell you about today.”

  He nodded and looked at me expectantly. I told him everything, from the court proceedings through my transactions with Father Mascaron. When I was done, he looked thoughtful, then held his arms over his head, curving them and bringing his hands together so that they outlined the shape of a miter.

  “I don’t know how much the Bishop is involved in this yet,” I said. “Mascaron could be following his orders, or taking the initiative in protecting him. Certainly, they were working together when Mascaron tried to loot Borsella’s office.”

  He pretended to read something.

  “I don’t know what’s in that book,” I said. “I doubt that it’s merely an account of secret debts owed by the Bishop. That hardly seems worth the trouble that they are going to. A brazen burglary is the mark of desperation.”

  He pointed to me, then rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

  “Yes, hiring an untrustworthy lowlife like me seems even more desperate,” I agreed. “And it’s very convenient that he is employing me to find something that would help me in my own mission. But I don’t think he really hired me because he wants me to find the book.”

  Pelardit looked at me quizzically, then his eyes widened in comprehension.

  “Right,” I said. “He hired me so that he could keep an eye on me.”

  He stood and walked a few steps. Then one of his legs was yanked into the air by an invisible rope.

  “That occurred to me, too,” I said. “It could very well be a trap.”

  CHAPTER 5

  As I came up through the trapdoor into our rooms, a trio of small, unidentifiable objects came flying at my head. I caught them, one after the other, and juggled them in a basic pattern until I recognized them as fresh biscuits. I started taking bites out of each, still juggling them as I did.

  “Good morning,” said Claudia. “We have some grape compote to go with them.”

  “Compote is too hard to juggle,” I said. I caught the half-eaten biscuits and carried them over to our table. She placed the compote before me, and I spread some on the biscuits.

  “Much better,” I said.

  “How was your evening?” she asked.

  “Eventful,” I said, and I recounted it to her.

  “Some men do get killed over debts,” she said when I was done. “Maybe that’s all this is. Not the Bishop, necessarily, but some other secret debtor.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Although I wouldn’t put it past Mascaron to have it done. Or to do it himself, for that matter.”

  “Only then he wouldn’t have been searching for the book afterwards,” she pointed out. “He would have had the key to the drawer, and gone right to it.”

  “True enough,” I said. “But if it was some other secret debtor, I would assume that he would simply destroy the book.”

  “Unless he saw a way to use it for profit,” she said. “A man desperate enough to kill for a debt might commit other crimes for money. He could have seen all of the names as an opportunity for extortion.”

  “So we would need a list of secret debtors who are now candidates to be extorted,” I said. “Which means our best leads are the Borsella household and those of his brothers. Where’s Helga, by the way?”

  “Already gone to Milon Borsella’s house,” said Claudia. “She said Evrard went straight there after the inquest and waited upon the widow for the rest of the day. The two brothers escorted Béatrix home, stayed for a few minutes, then went their different ways.”

  “Why don’t you pay your respects to Béatrix?” I suggested. “Bring your lute, offer to provide some comforting music.”

  “All right,” she said. “Where are you off to?”

  “I am going to poke around Bonet Borsella’s life,” I said. “Maybe track down Armand and get him drunk and talking. He probably has a head start on the first part.”

  “How was Pelardit last night?”

  “He did fine. He’s going to trail me again today. I am glad that you got him rather than Jordan.”

  “I thought that a silent man would be a better shadow than a noisy one,” she said. “Be home for dinner tonight.”

  “I will,” I promised. I swallowed the last of the biscuits and left.

  * * *

  Bonet, as the inheritor of the bulk of his father’s estate, lived in a fortified château near the Montardy Square. While it lacked the tower that showed true wealth along with the fear of suddenly having it taken away, the house was still impressive, looming over a row of street-level shops. The shops here sold silks and spices, high quality merchandise that must have brought in a nice bit of change, although they weren’t doing much business when I walked by them.

  The courtyard gate was closed, and a single guard stood in front of it, leaning on a spear and trying to look alert. I approached him.

  “Is your master at home?” I asked.

  “Not likely,” he said. “No money to be made at home.”

  “It depends on your business, I suppose. If he is not here, where am I most likely to find him?”

  “Lately, he’s been spending all of his time at the new sawmill,” said the soldier. “Just finished building it, and he runs to it every morning when a sensible man of wealth would be looking to his mistress.”

  “A man of wealth who looks to a mistress rather than his business will usually end up without wealth, business or mistress,” I said. “Where is this new sawmill?”

  “At the Bazacle dam,” he said. “You can’t miss it. Just listen for the sound of trees screaming their last.”

  I thanked him and left, passing by Pelardit, who was engrossed in examining some silks at one of the shops.

  At the northern end of the bourg, where the walls reached the river, the Garonne makes a dogleg to the left, sending part of its waters coursing through a channel between an island and the banks. It was shallow enough at that point that you used to be able to walk across, but thirty years ago the millers built a dam across it. They said it was the longest dam in Christendom, and I believed them. A double row of pilings, smeared with pitch and filled with rubble. The river butted its head against this wall over and over again, surging with frustration, seeking a way through, finding itself at the beck and call of the puny two-legged creatures who clung to its shores and reined it in.

  And once they had enslaved the river, they forced it to do their bidding, diverting it through sluices and canals, spinning waterwheel after waterwheel, their shafts turning complicated arrangements of gears, cams, belts and millstones. Freed from the uncertainties of their floating counterparts, the millers ground grain for flour, bark for the tanners, and most importantly, what made me kneel before them and give my most fervent blessings for their existence, malt and beer mash for the brewers.

  The new sawmill was perched on the mainland, near the top of the island. On the other side of the sluice gates, barges carrying denuded trees floated gently to a wharf, where teams of burly men waited to wrest them onto land, after which several boys would simply roll them through the last leg of their journey.

  The sawmill itself was a giant shed, open at both ends. The roof at the far end projected over a pair of waterwheels, one set lower than the other to tax the water a second time as it charged through the mill run. The upriver one was twenty feet high, the second maybe fifteen, and they both turned lengthy oak trunks, each bedecked with several large gears that spun smaller gears that were attached in turn to saw-wheels, bright spinning steel discs that spat yellowed dust through the air as they screeched through the logs.

  The men who shoved the logs into the saw-blades were large of limb and short on fingers. I found myself doing a quick count of my own, and was relieved to find exactly ten, neither more nor less. Either of the latter results would have proved disturbing.

  At the end closest to me, other sawyers were shaping the planks with two-man blades or planing them to more uniform smoothness, activities I found enj
oyable to watch, especially since I didn’t have to do any of them. I have nothing but respect for those lumbering men who reduce logs to more manageable shapes. During my last sojourn at the Guild haven in the Black Forest, I had taken my turn with those who were building the new Guildhall. We had no waterwheels turning blades, so were forced to make do with two-man saws. Several days of that made me grateful that my regular profession just involved falling on my face, juggling knives and avoiding the occasional death threat.

  Bonet Borsella was down by the lower waterwheel, supervising a pair of men who were constructing a curious contraption. A vertical gear linked to a horizontal one that turned a stout pole. Mounted at the top was another wheel that had short rods projecting diagonally from it. The two men were trying to wrestle a pole of young, green wood into a bent position just below the upper wheel. I went over to get a closer look. Despite their best efforts, it kept springing back upright.

  “I was like that when I was young and green,” I remarked to Borsella.

  “Weren’t we all?” he said. “Make yourself useful and help them.”

  I went over and added my weight to the pole as the other two brought it carefully down.

  “Over to the right,” directed Borsella, and we eased the end of it to a point just under the upper wheel on the vertical shaft.

  “Good,” he said.

  He took a rope and looped it over the end of the bent pole, then tied it to a metal hook set into the floor. One of the other men wedged a prop under the spring-pole and secured it.

  There was a hole, about two inches in diameter, bored through the upper end of the spring-pole. The two men picked up a straight saw-blade that had a long wooden handle at one end. They raised it vertically and slipped the handle through the hole, then fastened it in position with pegs. The handle poked about six inches through the other side of the spring-pole, and the blade was now dangling freely underneath.

  “Carefully now,” said Borsella.

  He and one of the men held onto the rope holding the end of the spring-pole while the other one loosened it. They allowed the spring-pole to rise until the handle of the saw came up against the upper wheel.

  “Right there! Tie it off quickly,” said Borsella.

  The other man retied the rope at the hook, then stood back expectantly. Borsella and the man holding the ropes let go.

  As the upper wheel turned, the projecting rods forced the saw-handle down. When the rod passed, the handle was released, and the spring-pole snapped back to the upper limit of the rope, putting the handle in line for the next rod to repeat the process.

  In other words, as the wheel turned, the saw-blade moved back and forth in midair without the aid of a single man.

  “Marvelous,” I said, applauding. “If you were a Roman emperor, you could justly say, ‘Veni, serra secavi, vici’ at this moment.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Bonella.

  “I came, I sawed, I conquered,” I replied.

  “We’ll see,” said Bonella, smiling. “I saw this arrangement at a mill up north. I am not convinced that it’s stable enough to be of use, but it looks worth the experiment.”

  “I am for anything that takes the place of me doing actual work,” I said.

  “Since you don’t actually work here, your desires have been achieved,” said Borsella. “Thank you for your assistance, but who are you?”

  “My name is Tan Pierre,” I said. “At the moment, I am an unemployed jester waiting for Christmas.”

  “And you’ve come looking for employment to tide you over?”

  “Not in a sawmill,” I said. “But I am a musician and singer as well. I have come to offer my services for your brother’s wake. My condolences, by the way.”

  “It is not my family’s custom to have music at the wake,” he said. “I am afraid that you have wasted your time. But if you need help—it is the season, after all.”

  He reached for his purse. I held up my hand.

  “Please, Senhor, I do not seek charity,” I said. “I ask for honest pay for honest work, and nothing more.”

  “Well said. Forgive me for my impertinence,” said Borsella. “Let me walk you out.”

  “On the contrary, I thank you for your intended kindness,” I said. “Now, if you would like entertainment during the Twelve Days, or anytime after, we are available. That is, if the period of mourning will be over by then—I do not know the local custom as to that.”

  “You are not from Toulouse,” he observed as we left the mill for the sunshine.

  “No,” I said. “I had heard that a jester here had passed away, and thought there might be some opportunity.”

  “Balthazar,” said Borsella. “Funny man. So he dies, and you try to move in on his territory. My brother dies, and you try to pry some silver out of my hands. You are quite the scavenger of the dead, aren’t you?”

  “Every profession has its competitors, Senhor,” I said. “You are trying to outdo other sawmills, I am trying to outdo other jesters. Should I mock you for employing these wonderful wheels that take the place of a dozen men? As for prying silver from your hands, if it is the expense that concerns you, l will make you a better offer. I will perform at your house gratis.”

  “You will?” he said in surprise. Then his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What favor would you request from me?”

  “Only that your favor fall upon me,” I said. “We are new to your town, and seek the influence of the mighty. To have the patronage of a consul and a wealthy businessman such as yourself would be most advantageous.”

  “I see,” he said. “My brother is dead but two days, and you are here turning this sad occasion into a business proposition.”

  “No disrespect intended, Senhor,” I said. “His death does not stop you from attending to matters in your own profession.”

  “I should have my men throw you out on your ear,” he said.

  “That’s not where I usually end up landing,” I said. “Why, just yesterday, when I was thrown out of that bordel in Comminges, I did a most elegant pair of somersaults at the far end of my trajectory.”

  He looked at me, his eyes suddenly widening in recognition.

  “Of course, we all mourn in our own way,” I said. “I know many who have sought comfort in such establishments after the loss of a family member. Usually in the arms of women, but I do not judge you for your particular tastes.”

  “You were the man who was breaking down doors looking for his wife,” he said. “Or was that just a ruse?”

  “Not my concern if two men have to meet in a bordel to satisfy their illicit lust for each other,” I continued. “I had a cousin who was that way, and still just the nicest man…”

  “I should have cut you down on the spot,” he spat. “So your true purpose in coming here is to offer your silence for sale.”

  “Gossip is a sin,” I said. “Among the vast panoply of sins, one of the lesser, but still one that I indulge in. I am seeking to mend my ways, but it’s difficult.”

  “You are wasting your time, Fool,” he said. “That man and I are not lovers.”

  “There, see how a simple misunderstanding can cause so much trouble?” I said. “I am glad to hear it. No doubt that there was a perfectly legitimate reason for the two of you to be meeting in a bordel, and you have nothing to fear from such knowledge being let loose.”

  “It was about a business arrangement,” he said carefully.

  “Then that clears up everything,” I said cheerfully. “Who would doubt that a man like you would not want to have a business relationship with a man like him in a place like that? Why, I am certain that the baile investigating your brother’s death would have no interest in your clandestine business arrangement with the man who supposedly witnessed it.”

  “How did you…”

  “So much idle time for a jester during Advent,” I said. “Having nothing better to do, I seek what entertainments this town has to offer during this holy season. I attended the inquest, and
saw Armand’s performance. Unconvincing, I thought, but I am a professional, so I tend to judge amateur theatrics harshly. Lucky for him his audience had lower standards. It certainly bodes well for my success once I start up again.”

  “You have a vivid imagination, Fool,” he said. “To suppose that anything between Armand and myself had anything to do with my brother’s death…”

  “I do have a vivid imagination, Senhor,” I said, “but a man of none, say, for example, our esteemed baile, would still be struck by the coincidence.”

  “What would it take to prevent him from being struck?” asked Bonet.

  “Your patronage would go a long way toward soothing my restless mind,” I said. “And if you have any influence over the Bishop, I would dearly love to see the Feast of Fools restored.”

  “I am a man of business, not religion,” he said.

  “In Toulouse, the men of business approach business with religious devotion, while the men of religion run the Church like a business,” I said. “I have heard that you are not without influence in these matters. A younger brother who is a Benedictine, yes?”

  “A monk at Saint Sernin,” he said begrudgingly. “But Saint Sernin and Saint Étienne are two different worlds. The Bishop takes his orders from Rome, not from my brother.”

  “He doesn’t take his orders from the order? Pity,” I said. “All I can say then is that a church that is more favorably disposed to fools will find this fool more amenable to amending his sinful behavior.”

  “Will that be all, milord?” he said with a sneer.

  “Now that you mention it, could you spare a bag of sawdust?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “All this talk of silence put it in my mind,” I said. “I have use for it, and you do provide it, do you not?”

  “You are a strange man,” he said.

  “I have been known to act irrationally upon occasion,” I admitted.

  He went inside the mill, then returned a few minutes later with a sack about the size of a loaf of bread. He tossed it to me.

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Helping bend that pole is worth a bag of sawdust,” he said. “Consider us even.”

 

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