The King of Thieves:

by Michael Jecks

  Baldwin gave a smile and apologised. ‘We are sorry if we gave you offence, Richard. The simple truth is, we are both out of sorts. We would infinitely prefer to be ensconced in our homes with our wives and children about us. This trip – it is just one more lengthy journey which we would fain have left to others.’

  ‘But the Earl himself asked for you both. He felt happier with your company.’

  ‘He barely knows us,’ Simon said with a bad grace and turned his back to lean on the bar.

  ‘True. But he knows his mother’s opinion of you both, which is very high. And he knows something of your characters because I have been teaching him how to understand men. What’s more, he is well aware that you are no favourites of the Despenser.’

  ‘Sir Hugh le Despenser is a close friend of his father’s, though,’ Baldwin said lightly.

  ‘Let us not mince words, Sir Knight,’ Richard said, his voice dropping. ‘Despenser is an evil cancer in the heart of the realm. You two are known to be hated by him. Yes, even here people can receive messages of such a sort. And yes, the Earl is happy to have men with him who will be less devoted to Despenser.’

  ‘What do you want from us?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘Just this: that you keep an eye on the Bishop. He is dedicated to the destruction of the Earl’s mother, and Earl Edward will not allow that. It is your task to …’

  Simon turned back, eyes narrowed. ‘Are you suggesting that we should spy upon him? Bishop Walter has been a friend to me for longer than I can remember.’

  ‘I am glad for you. To others, the good Bishop may not appear so kindly. One such person will become your King. Remember that, Master Bailiff!’

  ‘Richard, we are grateful to you,’ Baldwin said sharply. ‘We will do all in our power to protect your student.’

  He watched as the clerk nodded and walked away. ‘I think, Simon,’ he sighed, turning to his old friend, ‘this could become a strangely dangerous mission.’

  ‘May he swyve a goat!’

  Gate of the Grand Châtelet

  The body lay at the rear of a small, dark alleyway.

  Jean stood with the Sergent while a physician studied her, concluding his examination with a grimace and a muttered, ‘Whoever did this was in real earnest.’

  Jean could see what he meant. Despite the lack of light, he could see that the girl had been stabbed many times. Her torso was punctured with lots of little wounds, each about an inch in length, one even penetrating a nipple.

  For that was the other thing: this young girl, and she could scarcely have been fifteen, was entirely naked. It was a sight that made old Godeaul’s breath rasp in his throat. As Jean knew, the Sergent had three daughters of his own. The man was gripping his staff with whitened knuckles.

  ‘Who did this, Godeaul?’

  ‘If I knew that, Procureur, his body would already be in the river!’ the old fellow said hoarsely. ‘I would not allow a man who could do this to a young girl to live.’

  Jean nodded and peered closer, crouching down at her side. The bones of her right hand were crushed; blood was clotted all over her, and smeared across her belly in two lengthy sweeps. That was, he thought, where her murderer had wiped his blade clean after thrusting it into her. And it had been a frenzied attack – he could count twenty stab wounds quite easily, but there would be more, all over her upper body: her breasts, belly, shoulders, throat and head. One had ripped through her right cheek and laid the teeth open to view.

  He felt ashamed of himself for subjecting her poor naked body to this close study, but he knew that he must make sense of her position, her wounds, even the choice of this alley for her resting place, if he was to find her killer.

  And find her killer he must. As Sergent Godeaul had said, the man who was capable of this sort of attack should be found and slain like a rabid dog before he could kill again.

  Langdon, Kent

  They had left the bar, and were making their way back to their beds when Simon heard a quiet call. Wolf turned and growled, a low, deep rumble.

  ‘Baldwin!’ Simon hissed, his hand going to his sword.

  ‘There is no need for that, Bailiff,’ said the Bishop as he approached.

  ‘Bishop Walter, I am sorry,’ Simon said.

  ‘Walk with me, both of you. I have need of a little contemplation, and your heads will aid me.’

  They followed him as he paced along the grassed lawns, his head bent.

  ‘Bishop, is there something you wish to ask of us?’ Baldwin said after some minutes.

  The Bishop sighed. ‘Yes, there is. It grieves me to say it, but we have too many men on this journey. I am content with Sir Richard de Welles. He is a stout-hearted man, and has experience of reading how other men will react, from his position as Coroner. And I believe he will stick true to his oath.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You will, too, I know. There is nothing you would do to harm me,’ the Bishop continued, as though he had not heard Baldwin. ‘It is the others. You know, I am wary even of Sir Henry de Beaumont.’

  ‘Why? Sir Henry is a man of good reputation.’

  ‘Yes, he is. But a good reputation is only as good as the last man who reported it.’

  ‘What do you fear, Bishop?’ Simon asked bluntly.

  ‘It is not my fear,’ Bishop Walter said quietly, ‘but I am anxious, that if I die, then the Earl’s life could be in danger, and the realm with him.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Wednesday before the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary*

  Paris

  The Procureur had three mysteries to consider now, where one alone had taxed him before. There were the two corpses, and the matter of the thefts, as the King called it. The only positive aspect was that at least the second death had nothing to do with the King. The first, the death of the young lad, must take precedence, because it was an embarrassment to the Crown. Jean had spent all the previous day trying to find out more. But without success.

  On the day that the man had arrived, he had been taken to the chamber where he was presumably murdered by a servant. This same servant was no longer at the Louvre, Jean had discovered. He had been despatched to the King’s special hunting ground at Vincennes, one of the servants sent ahead to prepare the little palace for the vast numbers of guests shortly due to arrive. Meanwhile, three others stated that they had seen the man in conversation with the castellan, Hugues – but he had denied all but a fleeting contact with him.

  This morning he had made a decision, and sent a messenger to Philippe at the Louvre. The boy was rebelling against these constant investigations, but Jean had demanded, and received, the support of the head cook, and now Philippe was seconded to his service. Jean had ordered the lad to watch the castellan and report any visitors to him. It was likely that the castellan was merely involved in some form of corruption and trying to conceal that, rather than being a murderer – but at this stage of the investigation, anything was possible. And yet the witnesses were all convinced that Hugues and the stranger had greeted each other like old companions.

  Anyway, to Jean the dead woman was a worry of a more immediate sort. He was not at all happy to have a madman walking the streets of Paris who could slash and stab a defenceless young girl so viciously. Once she had been cleaned up, he had counted sixty-three wounds on her. An appalling number. Her hand was crushed, too. But not by a single massive injury; there had been several different blows: one to each knuckle, one to each finger, one to the bones of the hand, and so on. The blows had been rained down on her to inflict maximum damage or pain.

  He was walking from the Grand Châtelet’s chapel, in which he had viewed the corpse again where it lay before the altar, and now, recalling that poor little body, he stopped and wiped a hand over his eyes. She was so pretty, so young and innocent looking. He could feel hot tears rising at the memory of how she had been forced to suffer.

  But tears wouldn’t bring her back, nor erase the memory of her suffering.

&n
bsp; If only there was something, anything, which could give a hint as to who she was, and who her killer might be.

  There was a natural assumption that an unknown girl like her, found dead in an alleyway, was more than likely a prostitute. Women like that were five to a sou in Paris. They came in from miles around to the city here: girls who had argued with their parents and fled the home; girls who were threatened with rape by local men of influence, and needed to escape; girls who met persuasive young men who told them of the life they could enjoy together in the city, and who then sold the girls … So many young women, so many victims. There were few indeed who would survive here to make a life for themselves.

  But there was one woman who might be able to help him find out who she was. Hélias was one of those who knew everything that went on. She could always aid a man – in so many ways …

  He mustn’t think of her, though. There was too much to be done.

  And then he stopped. He was in the middle of the main street which ran west from the Grand Châtelet. Shops and stalls lined the sides, and people wandered and mingled all about. Women in gaudy colours strolled among the stalls where merchants and haberdashers plied their trades. The dressmakers called to them, the cloth-sellers held up bolts of material, the wine sellers extolled their wares, as did the girls with baskets of small, sweet pastries, and the boys trying to sell honeyed thrushes and ortolans – and over them all was a haze of dust rising all the while. The sun was warm on his face as Jean looked up at the sky. Here the road was wide to allow the passage of wagons, and he could actually see the sun up in the sky. Its brightness made him wince.

  He was Procureur. There was a responsibility on him to investigate any murder when the King demanded it, but there was also a need to protect the public of this city. He had two bodies. So far, he had got nowhere with either of them. He did not even know who the dead man was, nor why he was in the castle. Meanwhile, here was a young girl. It was possible that he might be able to find out who she was, why she had died there in the demeaning little passageway. And if he could, to hell with everything else.

  Tomorrow he would see her. Hélias. The whore who knew all.

  Louvre, Paris

  Cardinal Thomas rose from his praying and crossed himself reverently before leaving the little church.

  The Procureur was asking all sorts of questions, which was good. Soon he would discover the identity of the dead man. It was fortunate that Thomas had been able to prime three servants to let de Poissy know that the castellan had seen the dead man that morning. After all, Sieur Hugues had told him that he’d seen the fellow. Hugues knew him, all right, and had made sure that he’d been taken to the chamber in which he’d been invited to wait for the Cardinal’s arrival. Of course, when Cardinal Thomas did arrive – the poor fellow was dead as a nail.

  The Procureur would soon make the connection. Cardinal Thomas for one would be glad to see the castellan taken away in chains. It would serve the man aright for his attempt at blackmail.

  It was only a shame that Cardinal Thomas could not himself give the castellan, Sieur Hugues, to the Procureur as a gift. But to do that would inevitably leave him open to danger, and the possible extortion of even more money. So it was best to leave matters as they stood, and hope for the best.

  Thursday before the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary*

  Paris

  Hélias lived in a small building on the other side of the city wall, a little north of the Château du Bois, in a filthy area that was close to collapsing into a bog. The soil here was always damp, as though the Seine had inundated it. But no, it was just some freak of the area. No one knew why it was.

  There were many who lived down there among the grim little hovels. They were the people who had not been born inside the city walls; those who had, had an immediate advantage in life. They were the ones who would form the aristocracy of the city when they grew up. The merchants, the members of the guilds and fraternities, they all rose to their elevated positions as a result of the location of their birth, not merely by dint of effort. If hard work entitled a man to wealth, position, power, Paris would be ruled by the poorest, Jean thought.

  Perhaps this would happen in the future. For the present, the city was ruled by those who already had money. And those lesser beings whom they needed – to clean the streets, to sweat and toil and die while others took advantage of their efforts – existed here in these dank streets.

  Hélias was sitting on a stool in front of her little house when Jean de Poissy arrived. He could see her there as he strolled up the reeking street, avoiding the puddles of rainwater, of urine and of worse. The city employed men who would scrape up every piece of dogs’ faeces to be sold to the tanners of leather, but here outside the city the men weren’t paid to come, so the place was about as wholesome as a … as a tanner’s yard, he supposed.

  She was a large woman now. Still handsome in many ways, although at nearly forty years she was long past her best. Yet, for a woman to have survived so long in her chosen trade, that was a marvel. And for her to have saved enough from lying on her back to buy this little place and fill it with other young hopefuls, was nothing short of miraculous. For her to have remained unbowed and proud was still better.

  The figure which had tempted so many men when she plied her trade in the streets was sadly worn. Her large breasts sagged, and her belly was swollen like a mother ready to be confined, while her face, which had once been so soft and full of promise to the young men who came to be entertained by her, was bloated with wine and the inevitable effects of too many hours lived at night rather than day.

  And yet yes, she was still handsome. Her eyes had the gleam which could make a man stop and look again. There was a liveliness in the set of her head, an overt manner of licking her lips as she considered a man, a brazen manner of staring at his cods when she should have been meeting his eye, which still set a man’s blood boiling.

  ‘I don’t often see you up here, Procureur,’ she said. ‘You wanting wine? Or something else?’

  ‘What else could a man seek at your door, Hélias?’

  ‘Ah, you smile now, naughty man. There was a time when we were both in our twenties when you wouldn’t have waited and smiled, though, wasn’t there? Then you just took me by the hand and led me to the nearest bed. It’s true!’ she added more loudly, in case her neighbours hadn’t heard.

  ‘Hélias, I don’t deny it.’

  ‘No. But you’d still prefer one of the younger fillies now, rather than this old jade, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I would prefer the practised to the student, every time. And I doubt me not that you have the most practised rump of all the wenches in Paris, Hélias!’

  ‘I don’t deny that. If you have a skill, I always say, you should use it. Some can sew, some can knit. Me, I was built for other purposes!’

  ‘True enough.’

  ‘Not that I need to do any of that now. Hey, come and sit with me, Procureur. It’s too hot to be standing and talking. Sit and have some wine.’ She bellowed in through the open door behind her. ‘I’ll have a girl bring you something. Not the usual piss I feed the gulls, either. Real stuff.’

  Her house was adequately equipped as a tavern, for a madam needed the drink to aid the clients to fetch off swiftly enough so her girls could charm another. ‘There is no point having stock waiting on a shelf,’ she was fond of saying.

  ‘So, then, naughty man. What do you want? A blonde, a red-head? I have a fresh girl from the south, if you like. Black hair like a …’

  ‘You know which girls turn up in the city, Hélias. I have one. Killed.’

  Her eyes dimmed a little, but then they hardened. She took a long pull at her cup of wine. ‘How old?’

  ‘Entirely fresh, I would say. Perhaps fifteen?’

  ‘Hair? Eyes?’

  Jean gave her a full description, and as he spoke, she frowned in concentration.

  ‘There are many of that age. They appear at all times of the yea
r, although more so in the summer and autumn. I think they are less keen to test themselves against the snows if they can avoid it. No clothes, you say? Then it’s possible she was new here, and didn’t realise a whore could die for stripping in the wrong alley. There are all too many men who seek to protect their territory and their investments by killing any little draggle-tail who seeks to make use of their bit of land. Money paid to a new wench is money taken from their own, they reason. But this sounds less like a cock-bawd protecting his money. He’d just cut her throat – get the job done. The idea that he should stab so often … that sounds more like a madman.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, Hélias. If he isn’t found, he may do this again. That is what worries me.’

  ‘I’ll let the girls know. All of them. Meanwhile, where is this chit? I’ll go and see her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To see if I know her, of course. And to pay for a Mass too. No one should die without a decent send-off. Don’t care if she’s one of mine or someone else’s, she ought to have a service.’

  ‘Good, Hélias. You do that. And I should be off.’

  She looked up at him, and there was that deliberate set to her head again, an evaluation in her eyes. ‘Do you need to go?’

  ‘What are you offering me? A second-rate trainee, or the real thing?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be satisfied with a student, would you?’

  ‘And you’d see to me for free?’ he asked, wide-eyed.

  She gave a throaty laugh. ‘Get away, you villein! The day I offer my arse for free is the day you leave the city to live in the countryside.’

  Lydford, Devon

  Margaret, Simon’s wife, was out with the milkmaid when the sound of hoofbeats reached her ears. She set the maid to work with the butter churning, and then hurried out to where Hugh, Simon’s servant, stood with a staff close to hand, scowling at a pair of riders. The priest had not yet arrived to take over, and she had not packed or prepared for the move to Furnshill. She had wanted to finish all the main tasks about the house and farm first, like seeing to the harvest of the fruit and nuts, the slaughter of the pigs and the careful threshing of grain and its storage. All was nearly complete now, but there were still many jobs to be finished, and her back was breaking under the effort.