The King of Thieves:

by Michael Jecks

  ‘No,’ she said. She rolled a little to study him more closely. He could look along the length of her body, and she saw his gaze, lifting an arm to make her breast tighten, an invitation. She was breathing faster, but it was not fear, he saw. No, rather it was a sexual excitement. She had been thrilled to see the men fighting. Women like that made Jacquot feel sick.

  ‘She says I should keep my money,’ the King said.

  Jacquot glanced about him, then gripped his knife more tightly, and stepped on the King’s foot. ‘Then I’ll cut off each toe. That will be payment enough for now.’

  He set the blade at the first, the little toe of the right foot, and began to press.

  ‘All right, you bastard! Yes, you can have it, but let me go!’

  He pointed to the man furthest from the door out. This was not one of his protectors, but one of his counting-men. The King maintained several who were escaped clerics, renegades who sought to avoid a life of boredom by joining his little group. The sad fact was, few if any realised what a life of excitement might entail. This fellow was a youth of only some two-and-twenty summers. He was about the age Jacquot’s son would have been, had he lived.

  Dropping his foot and walking to the lad, Jacquot held out his hand. It still held the dagger, and he realised it made him look intimidating. He did not care. The mace was a dead weight in his hand, so he tossed that to the wall, and reached out with his left hand for the purse the boy held.

  He saw the movement in the boy’s eye. It was tiny, just a fleeting glimpse of a reflection, but it was enough to send him diving to his left, and the weapon missed him completely.

  At the floor, he rolled swiftly, and just missed the second blow. It was a war-hammer, an evil tool, with a great square lump of steel on one side, a four-inch spike on the reverse, and a sharpened blade protruding from the head for a good six-inches which held a razor-edge. The man wielding it was, short, but heavy, and his eyes were quick and alert. This wasn’t one of the King’s young drunks, but a wary and competent opponent.

  Jacquot sprang to his feet, regretting his confidence in reaching for the money. He should have been more cautious. The blade waved in front of him, the two edges of steel catching the light as it moved. Each had a quarter inch of rebate where the man had whetted it, and it held Jacquot’s attention like a snake as it wove from side to side, in and out. And stabbed.

  Close, so close. He had only just moved in time. And now he was running out of space to reverse further. The hammer was set on a long shaft, and gave the man an extra three feet of reach. Jacquot needed a weapon with similar length, or some other means of attacking. He was not near the door, and all about him were the bodies of the men he had beaten off. Their groans were dismal in his ears, making him wonder if his own would soon join theirs.

  No. He was not ready to die. Not yet. He felt a foot slip, and could smell the odours of death about him. There was the tinny, metallic scent of blood, the foulness of faeces where death had relieved one of the contents of his bowels. Without glancing down, he knew that the floor was dangerous here.

  Without considering, he took a couple of quick steps back, and allowed the hammer-man to chase him, and then reversed his dagger quickly, letting it flick up in the air, before catching it by the point. Then he drew his hand back and let it fly straight at the man’s groin.

  Some would flinch to see a blade whirling towards his face. Many would duck or slip to the side – but there was no man who could prevent himself from trying to avoid a weapon aimed at his manhood. This fellow was no different. His hammer was pointing at Jacquot, but when the dagger was released, the hammer was withdrawn as he tried to knock it away with the shaft nearer his right hand. The hammer was away, and Jacquot did not wait to see where his dagger struck, or even if it did. He sprang at the man, grasping the shaft too. Their feet scrabbled on the bloody floor, and then the fellow was forced back, his legs flew away from him, and he landed badly on his back. His dagger was on the floor, but Jacquot still had his thin blade. Except he couldn’t reach it while also holding this shaft. And if he released it, he was sure the man would kill him in an instant. All he could do was fight. He head-butted the man, he kicked, kneed, bit and butted again. The man was not going to relinquish the hammer, but neither would Jacquot. In the dark, lying among the blood and the shit, the two scrambled for the better purchase, both desperate to win control, both knowing that the one to weaken must die.

  And then his knee hit something. It was his dagger. With a last convulsion that felt as though it must tear all the muscles of his back and shoulders, Jacquot heaved at the hammer. The shaft moved up just slightly, enough, and Jacquot bent his legs, and then leaped with them as high as he could. He came down with both knees bent, pulling against the hammer’s shaft to bring himself as hard as possible into the man’s belly.

  It worked. There was a foul gasp of agony as his knees hit the man’s lower gut and groin, and then he gave a keening shriek while trying to protect himself.

  Jacquot didn’t care. He snatched up his blade, and now thrust it twice, thrice, four times, into the man’s upper chest. There was a long, rattling noise, a harsh hacking that seemed to tear at the man’s breast, and then nothing.

  ‘You seem to have destroyed all my guards,’ the King said.

  Jacquot hefted the hammer in his hands. It would have been easy to kill him, but there was no point. It would prove nothing. It would not even make him any safer. As soon as the King was known to be dead, Jacquot would become one of those who would never be trusted in another gang, a man who was safer if eradicated. The King would not waste good money on killing him. There was no profit in it. But if the King was dead, others would likely decide to dispense with Jacquot as well as his services.

  He walked to the cleric who watched him with eyes made luminous with terror. Gently he eased the purse from the boy’s fingers, and hefted it. ‘I hope it’s all there,’ he said grimly. He surveyed the floor. ‘You really should think about cleaning up this place. It stinks in here.’

  ‘Tell the lad on the door, Peter the peasant, to get in here and clean this lot away,’ the King said without interest. He was already fondling his wench, who writhed under his hands with a passion Jacquot had not seen her exhibit before.

  Jacquot nodded. And then he kicked the King as hard as he could in the face. He heard the woman gasp, and it was not from horror.

  ‘Never try those tricks on me again, King. And never renege on a business arrangement again. Next time I will give you so much pain, you will wonder that the life has not left your body.’

  The King tried to speak, but his mashed lips would not respond. He bent and spat out a shard of tooth. And then, as Jacquot stepped back to leave the room, he saw the wench gentling the King and licking at the blood on his lips with a smile on her face.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Louvre

  ‘Where did he die?’ Baldwin asked.

  The short man was called Pons, he had learned, and now he and Simon were ensconced on a large bench while Pons and his companion, who turned out to be a quiet, self-effacing man called Vital, sat on stools at the other side of the table at the little tavern near the Louvre’s gates. Sir Richard had joined them as soon as he heard of the accusations against the Bishop, while Sir Henry de Beaumont had been asked to stay with the Duke and keep His Highness close to the Queen and her guards. The Bishop himself was remaining in self-imposed solitude in his chamber, away from the gaze of those who accused him with their eyes.

  ‘The Procureur was struck down a few streets north and a little east of here.’

  ‘His purse?’

  ‘Still on his belt.’

  ‘And witnesses?’

  ‘None whatever. At least, none who admit to seeing it.’

  ‘He was alone?’

  ‘No, he had his man with him, but the evil son of a Basque whore managed to have the man knocked on the head before killing poor Jean.’

  ‘His servant is alive?’
r />   ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Perhaps he will remember something?’

  ‘When he can see straight and stop vomiting, perhaps,’ Pons said, permitting himself a faint smile.

  Baldwin nodded. ‘This was no random attack, you think?’

  ‘No. It was premeditated. I am sure of it.’

  Now Vital spoke up. He had a soft, singsong quality to his voice. ‘Jean was a most effective prosecutor. The city knew him well, and especially all those who live in the twilight. You know? The men who live and work and struggle in the alleys and cellars and rarely come up into the daylight.’

  Baldwin looked at him briefly. There was a poetical turn to the man’s speech. ‘An assassination, then?’

  ‘It is how it looks,’ Pons said. He looked at his companion, then at Baldwin with a vague shrug. ‘There are few enough who’ll help us to seek out the killers.’

  ‘And yet you accuse a good Bishop whose sole offence is that he was in the same city?’

  ‘No. I will seek out and question all those who have ever shown any dislike for Jean. Any man who has had a dispute with him recently, any who has shown him disrespect, and any who has been arrested or found himself on the wrong side of Jean in recent years – all will be questioned.’

  ‘I wish to speak with his servant,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘That can be arranged,’ Pons said.

  Jean le Procureur’s house

  The rooms to which they brought Simon and Baldwin were set in a rougher part of the city, over towards the eastern gate.

  Simon had never been to this part of Paris before. He was made to feel quite at home with the close-built dwellings, their jetties reaching out overhead just as they did in London. However, this was not an area of wealth and easiness. There were on every side the signs of people striving and failing to earn enough to live on. The doors were of timber that was rotting; hinges were rusted or bent; windows had broken shutters; the roadway itself was lacking many cobbles, and the path was puddled and filthy with shit and the stench of urine.

  Yet for all that, there was a certain atmosphere among the people who lived there. Women shouted and cackled, young urchins ran barefoot, giggling and shouting, and even the men seemed to be cheerful enough.

  ‘Ha! Not a bad part of the city,’ Sir Richard considered. He stood looking about him with a satisfied smile, thumbs in his belt. His eye was drawn like a bee to honey to the small tavern only a few doors away.

  ‘It is not as poor as some districts,’ was Pons’s comment. ‘There are people here with a reasonable income. They may not be so rich as the merchants down nearer the river, but they are better off than many others.’

  ‘This was his?’ Simon asked when they stopped outside a house and knocked.

  ‘Yes. This is where the Procureur used to live,’ Vital said shortly.

  ‘His servant is here?’ Baldwin asked.

  It was Pons who responded. ‘For now. I don’t know where he’ll go when he’s better.’

  A watchman opened the door, a surly, ill-favoured man with a cast in his eye and a developing hunch-back. He took them up to a clean, bright solar where they found the servant. He was clearly not going to be leaving any time soon.

  He lay on a good bed, and Baldwin assumed that in the absence of his master, the servant was installed in his master’s bed.

  This Stephen was a very tall man, and well built. That much was obvious from the way that his feet were close to overhanging the bottom of the bed while his head rested on the wall. However it was clear that he had not always been known for his honour and integrity. His upper lip was split – a common enough punishment for criminals in Paris, Baldwin knew.

  ‘You were the servant to the Procureur, I hear?’ he began his questioning.

  ‘There was no one else would take me, Sieur.’

  ‘You were guilty of some offence here?’

  ‘Yes. I was a successful felon, I fear. However, Master Jean rescued me.’

  ‘How so?’ Baldwin said.

  ‘He met me in the street and beat the living daylights out of me. From that moment I thought it was preferable to work for him, than against.’

  ‘It didn’t help him two days ago, friend.’

  A cloud passed over the servant’s face. ‘No.’

  ‘What do you remember?’

  ‘Of that evening? We were walking back as usual. My master often had me walk with him, because this is a dangerous city, just as any other.’

  ‘You were at his side? A little behind him? What?’

  ‘I was some thirty paces behind. My master was concerned because some short while ago he was almost killed by a man in the street. He felt sure that his life was at risk. And for that reason he wished me to remain some way behind him, so that if I saw a man try to assail him, I would have the space to attack, but the assailant himself might not realise that I was there.’

  ‘And yet the assassin clearly did know you were there – that was why he knocked you down so swiftly.’

  ‘It may be so.’

  Sir Richard fixed the man with a steady gaze. ‘Did you see the assailant? Did you recognise him?’

  ‘No. I neither saw nor recognised him. If I did, there is nothing would keep me here in my bed,’ Stephen said.

  ‘Then can you tell us who it was your master was afraid of?’

  ‘Sieur Jean was working on a strange affair at the Louvre,’ Stephen said, and explained about the body of de Nogaret. ‘After that, his wife’s body was also found, and my master believed that there was some connection between the two deaths. When we started to investigate, a man began to follow my master – a thin man, wiry. Like one of those who had been forced to starve and never won enough food afterwards – you know?’

  Baldwin kept his face carefully empty of all emotion, but he could not help a slight grunt at that name. Guillaume de Nogaret. A man so steeped in villainy, even the devil might refuse his companionship.

  If the dead man was that same de Nogaret, Baldwin himself would have been happy to slit his throat.

  Sir Richard glanced at Baldwin, hearing his intake of breath. ‘You all right?’

  ‘I was thinking of the famine,’ Baldwin said shortly. ‘Too many on our streets look like that – emaciated.’

  ‘Aye.’ They all knew of men like that, who had starved and been marked by it during the famine years. ‘A sad time.’

  ‘Tell us all you can about what happened,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘The fellow tried to attack my master twice, he thought, so after that he had me follow him wherever he went. He hoped to catch the man. As it was, he found another trying to kill him, a fellow known as Nicholas the Stammerer. We caught him and learned all we could, but then he was found dead. Someone had killed him with a thin blade slipped down from here,’ he finished, touching his finger just above his collarbone.

  ‘Not a normal place for a killer to strike, eh, Baldwin?’ Sir Richard commented.

  ‘Hmm? Not that I have seen, no,’ Baldwin said. It amused him to see how Sir Richard had immersed himself in this affair. Clearly it was possible to take the Coroner out of England, but not the urge to investigate from the Coroner himself. From his point of view, the name of the dead man was more intriguing.

  ‘Interesting,’ Sir Richard said. ‘So you had this other fellow, and he died, and yet the first one was not caught?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did you learn from the one you did catch?’

  ‘He was a felon who worked with a small gang, so he said. There was a man who sought the services of a killer, and he said that another was sent to fulfil the contract, but failed. My master and I believed that this failure was the man we both saw originally. And so later this Nicholas was given the contract instead. He took over when the first failed.’

  ‘And died in his own turn,’ the Coroner said. ‘You say it was while he was being questioned?’

  ‘Yes. The assassin murdered him while he was hanging in chains in the interrogation chamber.
’

  Sir Richard gave a low whistle. ‘That shows some balls, eh? Wandering into a torture chamber and slaying the felon there.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘What can you tell us that will help us find the murderer?’

  Stephen looked at Sir Richard, then over at Pons and Vital. ‘If I knew anything, I would use it to find the man myself. All I know is, the Stammerer told me that the gang had received payment for the murder. So find the Stammerer’s men, and you may find the killer. Then, perhaps, you could find the man who killed my master as well as killed the Stammerer himself.’

  ‘I will, friend,’ Pons said. ‘If he is in Paris, I shall find him and deal with him.’

  He nodded to the others and he and Vital left them alone with Stephen.

  Baldwin saw a spasm pass over the wounded man’s face. ‘Would you like some wine?’

  ‘I just want to sleep and to wake to learn this was all a foul dream,’ Stephen said bitterly. ‘All I ever wanted was to serve my master. Without him, I do not know what I can do.’

  ‘There is one thing you may do,’ Baldwin said, leaning against the wall. ‘You can tell me all you know of your master’s investigation.’

  ‘That is easy. His notes are all there,’ Stephen said, pointing to a large chest in the corner of the room.

  Baldwin walked to it and lifted the lid. Inside were a number of scrolls, each covered in a neat, delicate script. ‘All these?’

  ‘Only the one at the top. My master used to keep notes on all the crimes he investigated.’

  Baldwin found one with ‘De Nogaret’ clearly marked at the top, and removed it. ‘I thank you, friend. This will aid us. Is there anything more?’

  ‘No,’ Stephen said, sinking back on his pillow, a pasty, green colour returning to his face. ‘All you need is in there.’

  Tavern near the eastern wall by the River Seine

  Jacquot slipped along the alleyway until he reached the little doorway. There was an ancient crone in the corner, and he nodded to her as he passed by, dropping a couple of sous into her bowl as he went.