The Moneylender of Toulouse

by Alan Gordon

  With Vitalis remaining with the family, there was only one burly monk to distinguish from the pack. As the monks followed a path that took them to their dormitorium, I trotted over to the side to watch the black parade. Sure enough, one monk detached himself from the line and drifted through the cloisters and walked west. It was Donatus.

  Monks are even easier to follow than self-important merchants. The cowls block their peripheral vision. I could have walked at his side unobserved. While juggling cats. Reluctant cats, ones who are naturally averse to being juggled. But lacking any such flying felines, I chose to tail him from a distance.

  He passed by the Fountain of Gatlepa, another display of too much money set by a crossroads. His path seemed to be taking him toward Saint Pierre des Cuisines, and I wondered if he would pass the tanner’s pit where our recently buried moneylender had met his end. But the monk skirted the tanners’ quarter by a wide margin, passing on the other side of the brick church instead.

  He turned north once he reached the river, passing through the Bazacle Gate. A meeting at the sawmill, I guessed this time, but he fooled me again, marching steadily like the soldier he had been, veering from the river road only when the Château Bazacle came into view.

  This was more of a small castle than a château, not deigning to partake of the bourg life. It had not existed when I was first in Toulouse. I had the vague memory that this had been grazing land for cattle then, but I couldn’t be sure. It had been built very high very fast, that much was clear, probably with money so new that it made the new money in the bourg seem ancient. It was surrounded by walls that rose about twenty feet, and described an immense octagon in shape. They were built of sandstone, and looked impressive, but were maybe a foot thick. Not that I could get through a foot of stone, despite my wife’s general assessment of my thick skull and its abilities, but they were not built to withstand a lengthy assault by a decent trebuchet.

  And it was to this fortress that the monk made his pilgrimage. He pounded on the wooden gates, then said something to whoever was on guard. The gates swung open to admit him, then closed behind him. And at that point, it didn’t matter how well I had followed him, because there was no way I was going to get through those gates without a good-sized battering ram and a good-sized army to go with it. I waited a couple of hours for him to come back out, then I gave up and walked back to the Bazacle Gate.

  There was a cluster of inns and taverns just inside the wall, catering to the trade and pilgrimage coming from the north as well as the mill workers and tanners who worked at this end of town. I decided to scout out a few to see where we might be able to pick up some work for our jesterial side. At least, that’s what I tell myself every time I go into a tavern.

  There was one called the Tanners’ Pit that sounded like it had some life to it despite its being midday. I walked in to find a decent crowd, many of them tanners if the smell was anything to go by. A competing stench rose from a foul-smelling fish stew simmering in a cauldron at the end of the bar. Not wanting to eat anything that swam near where the tanneries discharged, I settled for some bread, some cheese, and a pitcher of ale, and carried the lot over to a bench by the wall.

  Tanning is a profession that allows for drinking, I observed. You prepare the hides, shove them into the pits, weight them down with stones, and leave them to their fates. When they are ready, you pull them out again. I suppose there is more to it than that, but here were all the tanners, pouring wine down their gullets as if the constant exposure to tannins had made each of them into a wineskin. I spotted the one who had pulled Milon from his pit, downing one cup after another, regaling his comrades with tales of his night in chains, the experience becoming more absurdly ghastly with each recounting.

  Having upon occasion spent considerably longer periods of time in considerably worse prisons, I was less than impressed with his story, but it was not the right time for me to be competitive.

  The door opened and Armand staggered in. It was clear that this was not his first stop of the day. He looked blearily about the room, then lurched up to the bar and pounded his fist on it.

  “A pitcher of ale!” he bellowed.

  “Let’s see your coin first,” said the barkeep.

  Armand dug into his pouch, then started patting his clothes.

  “I’m out,” he said. “Give me one on credit.”

  “Not a chance,” said the barkeep.

  “Anyone buy a decent Christian a drink?” shouted Armand to the assembly.

  “If we ever see one, we might,” someone shouted back, and the room erupted into laughter.

  Armand looked back and forth, trying to locate the offending voice. Then his gaze came to rest on the tanner whose stories had been interrupted by the drunk’s entrance.

  “You,” muttered Armand. “You should buy me a week’s drinks. Wasn’t for me, they might still think you did Milon.”

  “No one thinks that,” said the barkeep, and there was a chorus of agreement.

  “I owe you nothing,” said the tanner. “I am an innocent man, and I hope to Christ will always be so. It was my faith that protected me.”

  “Your faith,” sneered Armand. “If they couldn’t go chasing after Cathars, they would have made you swing for him, faith and all, then sold your guts for relics.”

  “And you think you’re such a God-fearing man, selling out the Cathars like that,” spat another man. “What have they ever done to you?”

  “I know what I saw, and I did my duty,” muttered Armand.

  “You saw nothing!” shouted the man. “You’re a fool, and your drunken ramblings are going to get people killed!”

  “Maybe you’re one of them Cathars,” snarled Armand. “Maybe I should be telling the baile about you.”

  “You son of a bitch!” roared the man, hurling himself on him.

  Armand, despite being drunk, put up a pretty good fight, and the two of them were quickly on the floor, rolling around and pummeling each other. Others joined in, whether out of principle or for the love of fighting, I could not say. The barkeep came around the bar with a club in his hand and started laying about the group, finally reaching the original parties. He grabbed Armand by the scruff of his coat and pulled him up.

  “You. Out,” he growled. “You are banished from my establishment until you show me something round and shiny to assuage my humors. Now, go!”

  He shoved Armand out the door, then turned his attentions to the other man.

  “Pay your bill now,” he said. “All of what you owe me. I don’t want them throwing you into prison owing me money.”

  “I’ll settle that bastard,” said the man.

  “You’ll settle with me first,” said the barkeep. “When Judgment Day comes, there will be a great reckoning, but until then, you pay the gods of ale and wine or you will never see Paradise.”

  The man handed him some coins.

  “Te absolvo,” intoned the barkeep. “Go and sin no more. Go scrape a hide, or something.”

  That seemed to be a general signal for the tanners to return to work. I finished my meal and joined the crowd filing out.

  Armand was standing in the middle of the road, a lost look in his eyes. I walked over to him.

  “No money left?” I asked.

  “What’s it to you?” he asked me.

  “Just surprised, that’s all,” I said. “I would have thought Bonet had paid you enough to last you for a while.”

  “What do you know about that?” he whispered, looking around hurriedly.

  “I know lots of things,” I said. “I would like to know more. Maybe you could help me with that, and I could help you with a few coins. How much did he pay you?”

  “Not enough,” said Armand. “I owed people. I still owe people.”

  “Shall we go somewhere quiet to talk?”

  He looked at me cagily, then glanced around.

  “I talk better when I’m drinking,” he said.

  “We could be brothers, we are so alike in th
at regard,” I said. “Where?”

  “Not here, not now,” he said. “Too close to the sawmill. You know the Miller’s Wheel?”

  “In Comminges.”

  “That’s the one. Meet me there after sunset.”

  Another night in Pelardit’s room in exchange for this, I thought.

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  He walked away.

  * * *

  I found Jordan in the tavern near his house. He waved when he saw me, still in high spirits from our successful audition of the previous day.

  “Cat’s piss for my friend,” he shouted, pounding on the table.

  The barkeep ladled out a healthy dose of ale into a mug and handed it to me. I took it over to Jordan’s table and tapped it against his.

  “To our wives, who are pretty enough,” I toasted.

  “To our wives, who deserve better than us but are too good to complain about it much,” he said. “How go your inquiries?”

  “I ask questions, and receive more questions in response,” I said. “What do you know of the Château Bazacle?”

  “Belongs to Arnaut Guilabert,” he said. “He built it almost ten years ago.”

  “Who is he?”

  “The richest man in town outside of the Count,” he said. “Everything that goes into the Bazacle mills or comes out of them, he gets a piece. And the tolls from the river traffic, and the northern road.”

  “And no title to go with the money?”

  “He was a miller’s son,” said Jordan. “But he saw the future.”

  “A seer?”

  “A speculator,” explained Jordan. “When the millers banded together to build the Bazacle dam, they sold shares in the mills to raise the funds. People who owned the shares could resell them if they needed money, or thought they could make a profit. Guilabert started buying up as many as he could, and when the project was finally completed, he was in control of the whole thing.”

  “And it was that profitable?”

  “Beyond what anyone but Guilabert dreamed, which is why he was able to buy so much.”

  “How rich is he?”

  “You saw all of the new money maisons around Saint Sernin? Each bigger than the next? He decided that they were all mere trifles, and that the only way to show everyone up was to build a castle instead.”

  “Too much to dust if you ask me,” I said.

  “He didn’t ask you,” he said. “He doesn’t ask anyone anything anymore. He tells them.”

  “Is he connected to the Borsellas in any way?”

  “Well, he was a consul for a couple of years, so he knows Bonet,” said Jordan. “Guilabert basically bought his way into the consulate. I guess he was bored just collecting money all day, but he found consul matters even more boring, so he didn’t run again. I’m sorry he didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, with the last election, the bourg seized the balance of power, and they’ve been dragging Toulouse from one war to another ever since. They’re taking over the countryside, town by town. Guilabert thought that was a waste of time and money. So did the Count, for that matter, but the consuls ignored him. Why the interest in Bazacle?”

  I told him about Brother Donatus, and he frowned.

  “I can’t think of any likely reason for it,” he said. “It could simply be a matter of private religious instruction. Rich men still want to get into Heaven at the end of the day. But it bothers me, no question. Donatus, Donatus—there’s something about that name. Former soldier, you said?”

  “That’s what Mascaron told me.”

  “Balthazar mentioned him once,” said Jordan. “But I can’t remember about what.”

  “If you think of it, let me know,” I said. “All right, I’m off.”

  “Regards to the wife,” he said.

  “You may see her before I do,” I said. “I’m going drinking with Armand tonight. The Miller’s Wheel after sundown.”

  “Don’t get competitive,” he warned. “He’s a consummate consumer. Do you think he might let his guard down?”

  “He seems to want to,” I said.

  “May I come along?” he asked. “You haven’t had me doing anything other than collect gossip. I’ll be your watchdog.”

  “I accept,” I said, pleased.

  “Let me just tell my just pretty enough for everyday purposes wife that I am galloping off into danger,” he said. “That way, when I safely return, her relief will turn into amorous appreciation.”

  “See? You’ve discovered the hidden benefits of being a true jester,” I said.

  Martine was in her shop. I stayed outside and waved while Jordan went up to her, his face serious. He knelt before her and took her hand between his own. She immediately looked worried. He whispered something in her ear and she looked horrified. He swept her into his arms, kissed her long and hard, then came back to me.

  “Come, my friend,” he said in stentorian tones. “Let us go bravely into the night, though it be our last!”

  We marched away.

  “I might have oversold it,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Maybe a little,” I said.

  “We have a fair amount of time until sundown,” he said, looking at the sky. “Good. We can walk off the last drink in readiness for the next. Frankly, I could use the exercise if I’m going to be keeping up with you. How would you like a tour of the old money?”

  “It would be very useful,” I said.

  He took me around the town, pointing to fortunes kept and fortunes lost, towers built and towers crumbling.

  “Do you think the bishopric could be shifted over to Saint Sernin?” I asked as we passed the cathedral.

  “That would be up to Rome, I suppose,” he said. “But the counts of Toulouse have always prayed at the cathedral, even though the abbey has that fancy entrance on the side just for their personal use. The current bishop does enjoy the current count’s favor, so that should keep him safe for a while.”

  “Except from us,” I said. “The sun is starting to set. Let’s get to our meeting place.”

  We came up along the riverside, downstream from the Comminges quarter. There was a line of waterwheels on the bank by us, turning without purpose now that the millers had left for the day, spinning like toys for a giant child. Except for one, which was stuck in position, shifting slightly back and forth.

  “Looks like that one got jammed,” observed Jordan. “Something must have drifted into the sluice.”

  I glanced where he was pointing, then took off at a dead run.

  A man was floating facedown in the sluice, his head caught under one of the blades of the waterwheel, which kept mashing it into the riverbed over and over.

  “Call for the guards!” I shouted to Jordan.

  I jumped into the river and waded into the sluice. He was heavy, his clothing waterlogged, and as soon as I pulled him back, the freed wheel started turning again, the river loosed around me. I felt my boots skidding along the muddy bottom as the current pushed me toward the wheel, the wooden blades slicing through the water ahead of me. I tried to heave him onto the bank, but he slid back against me. I lost my footing, and suddenly found myself sliding toward the wheel.

  A hand clamped down on my shoulder, grabbing a handful of cloak.

  “Hold on!” shouted Jordan. Other men were clambering down the bank, holding ropes which they looped around the body. One of them was kind enough to throw an end to me, and he and Jordan managed to haul me up.

  “No guards when you need them,” Jordan gasped, more winded than I was. “Found some mill workers.”

  “I don’t find it in my heart to be choosy at such moments,” I said.

  They succeeded in getting the other man out of the sluice and rolled him onto his back. The waterwheel had played havoc with his face and head, but there was enough left to recognize him.

  “It’s Armand,” said one of the mill workers.

  “Always knew he’d come to a bad end,” said another.
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  “Cathars got him, I’ll bet,” said a third.

  “Let us go bravely into the night,” muttered Jordan, “though it be our last.”

  CHAPTER 7

  We stood in a line, our backs against the city wall while Calvet the baile stood over Armand’s body, deep in thought.

  “His usual method of investigation involves a dark, damp cell,” muttered Jordan. “Moldy bread and filthy water.”

  “One night won’t kill you,” I said.

  “The moment he asks who found the body, we’re done for,” he moaned.

  “Who found him?” asked Calvet.

  “We did,” I said as Jordan winced.

  He stood in front of us, giving me a thorough once-over while barely giving Jordan a second glance.

  “I know this fool,” he said to me, “but I don’t know you.”

  “Tan Pierre,” I said. “Also a jester, recently arrived.”

  “How did you happen to find Armand?” he asked.

  “We were walking around, preparing the routines that we are to perform at the Count’s dinner on Monday,” I said. “As we—”

  “The Count?” he interjected.

  “Count Raimon the Sixth?” I explained. “Count of Toulouse and about thirty other places, I can’t remember them all. Why, do you know him?”

  “Of course,” he barked. “Don’t be impertinent!”

  “My apologies, it’s what I do,” I said. “Anyhow, we were walking along the river, and Jordan said, ‘That’s curious,’ and I said, ‘What’s curious?’ Didn’t I say that, Jordan?”

  “Those exact words,” said Jordan. “Or words to that effect. Certainly, you have the gist of it.”

  “And he said, ‘That waterwheel—something’s jamming it,’ and I went to take a closer look and saw that man in the sluice, so I did what any good Christian would do and jumped in to help him.”

  “Jumping into a mill-run is quite dangerous,” said Calvet. “Near suicidal, in fact.”

  “Well, I know that now,” I said. “But I am not from here. I didn’t think, I just jumped, which is a bad habit of mine. I’m only sorry that I couldn’t save him, but my guess is he was murdered before he went into the river, so there wouldn’t have been anything I could have done, anyway.”