The King of Thieves:

by Michael Jecks

  Stapledon gaped in shock. ‘But … he could not! There could be no justification for such an act.’

  ‘Absolutely right. There is no justification. And yet it happened. Curious, no? So, you see, Bishop, I will not aid you to have the Queen sent back to the land where her position and person are held in such low esteem. I would deem that an act of deplorable cruelty.’

  ‘I … I shall have to consider matters further.’

  ‘Do so. I would suggest that you make your peace with her, Bishop, for she is a calm, sensible lady. All she requires, I believe, is the money the King promised her for her upkeep while she was here in France looking after her son. Their son. And you hold the purse. You can release the money.’

  ‘The King ordered me to hold on to it until she agreed to return to England,’ Bishop Walter said wretchedly.

  ‘Then I fear you are gripped on the horns of a dilemma. I do not envy your position.’

  ‘There is no choice. I am a servant of my King,’ the Bishop said firmly. ‘I will obey my King’s commands. I would prefer to make peace with the Queen, but if I may not, I may not.’

  ‘Then go in peace, Bishop. I will pray for you.’

  The Bishop nodded, but then his attention was drawn to the goblet. ‘What a marvellous piece of workmanship. May I look at it?’

  ‘Yes. It is one of a kind, I think. You like such trinkets?’

  ‘I have seen its like only once before,’ the Bishop said absently.

  ‘Where was that?’

  ‘I used to be the chaplain to Pope Clement V. He had a pair like this. I remember them clearly.’

  ‘Made by the same man, I have no doubt,’ the Cardinal said shortly. He took his goblet back, weighing it in his hand with pleasure. ‘I have had this for these twenty years past. Those which you saw are probably the ones which I myself gave to him. Clement was always a shrewd and kindly man to those who respected him.’

  ‘Yes,’ the Bishop said. But he could recall the terror of the destruction of the Templars, wrought largely at the instigation of Clement. That was still a matter of shame, he thought.

  The Bishop had a short walk to his chamber, and he marched quickly with a couple of boys holding lanterns. Ever since the murder of Walter de Lechelade in Exeter Cathedral Close some forty-five years before by the Dean’s men, the Bishops of Exeter had been made aware of the dangers of walking about at night in the dark without aid.

  He paid little attention to the way, for he was still smarting at the Cardinal’s attitude. It was remarkable to him that a fellow striver in the service of God should be so unhelpful. If he himself had been asked to assist a man like the Cardinal, he would have done all he could to support him. To be thus ejected, almost as though he was some form of beggar at the door, was humiliating in the extreme. He was a Bishop, in God’s name, not some humble penitent who deserved a flea in his ear.

  The door to the passage that led to his rooms was just here. He thanked the boys, gave them a few coins for their trouble, and entered.

  He felt exhausted. Travelling here to France had unnerved him in the first place, because he knew how unpopular he had become. But to arrive here and have that harridan the Queen rail at him before everyone in the French court, that had brought home to him how fragile his position was. If possible, it had been made even more so by the effect of the French official’s death. To have people accuse him, to actually believe that he was capable of such a vile attack – that was repellent! And meanwhile he still had little idea how on earth he could make his way homewards, for he dare not return to the King without Queen Isabella, or at the very least, some kind of promise from her that she would soon follow him.

  The passage was lit by occasional candles, set widely apart. He walked along, careful to avoid stepping too close to them. It would not be the first time a man had accidentally brushed against a candle and either scorched a great hole in an expensive robe, or even had a smudge of molten tallow stain his sleeves.

  Her behaviour was intolerable, he told himself. How the woman could think that she …

  He was at a narrower part of the corridor when a hand reached about his throat, yanking him off his feet and drawing his body over a large chest. The man had been hiding in the shadows beyond the chest, and by pushing the Bishop over it, Stapledon could not defend himself in any way whatever. His legs were taken away by the chest’s lid, and his head fell back to crash against the wall behind, giving him a sickening sensation.

  ‘Bishop Walter, I am so glad to see you,’ a voice hissed.

  The Bishop looked up, but it might have been a demon who gripped him for all he could see. All he was aware of was a blackness, as of the cowl of a hood with nothing inside. It was a terrifying sight. He grabbed for his crucifix, preparing to jab it upwards, when suddenly he felt a prick at his throat. A knife!

  Strangely enough, this made him less fearful. He was petrified at the thought of a devil, or any minion of hell, but a man was a different matter. Now, he could see the glitter of reflected candlelight in his attacker’s eyes. They looked familiar – but from where?

  ‘Release me, churl,’ Bishop Walter said.

  ‘Silence! Call me churl? You’ll be buried here in a pauper’s grave if you are not careful, Bishop. The Queen just wants her money, but there are plenty of others here in Paris who would like nothing better than to skin you alive and feed your body to the crows. You have dispossessed so many, robbed so many – you have enemies everywhere.’

  ‘It is a lie!’

  The dagger pressed upwards a little. ‘You dare to contradict me? Before God, you craven, quaking thing! You will die here unless you unbend. Perhaps it is too late already. You should fly from France. Remain here, and you will soon be dead.’

  Bishop Walter felt the hand gripping his throat thrust forward, and it was only by flinging his arms wide and latching his fingers on to the lid of the chest that he stopped himself from falling. Sitting up shakily, he kissed his crucifix as he gazed first one way, then the other. The corridor appeared empty.

  It was some moments before he could stand. His legs were unharmed, but he was uncertain whether they might support his weight or not. When he put his hand on the chest lid, his arms began shaking and he sat there, looking down, nausea washing over him, until a servant hurried past, checking the candles.

  ‘Are you all right, Bishop?’ he asked.

  ‘I am perfectly well, I thank you,’ Bishop Walter said.

  The boy tutted to himself. ‘Someone’s snuffed all these candles. They will keep doing that. I’ll soon have them ready again.’

  With a spill, he brought a flame from another set of candles further along the corridor, and relit those in the candelabra nearest the chest. ‘Are you sure you are all right, Bishop?’

  ‘Yes. I am fine,’ Bishop Walter said, and now his voice was fully under control. ‘You came from that direction?’ he asked, pointing back towards the Cardinal’s rooms.

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  ‘Tell me – did you pass a man as you came this way? A tall man, strong, with a hood over his head?’

  The boy considered. ‘There’s no one about at this time of day,’ he said after a moment. ‘Was there someone you wanted to see?’

  ‘No. That is well, I thank you,’ Bishop Walter said. If the man had not gone that way, he must be along this corridor – but if he was, there was only the Bishop’s own chamber at the end. The man must have gone the other way, surely.

  His voice … it had sounded more English than French, he realised suddenly. Conversing had been easy. And the voice had been oddly familiar.

  He stood, gripping his crucifix again, and made his way to his rooms.

  And then his legs began to shiver and wobble as though they could no longer support him. He had never before felt so fearful. Someone had been here, in this corridor, an Englishman, someone who had cause to detest him, and someone who had been able to fly away like a wisp of smoke, and just as silently. He might have been a ghost, were it
not for the sore bruising the Bishop felt at his neck.

  Bishop Walter stood at his door, and then shot a glance behind him, almost scared of what be might there. He half-expected to see that looming shape again.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Thursday after the Feast of the Archangel Michael*

  Louvre

  Baldwin was still considering the sad tale of the cook the next morning when the summons came for him to hurry to the Bishop’s chamber.

  ‘What ails him now?’ he muttered.

  ‘He is prey to fears of a natural kind,’ Simon said more graciously.

  ‘Aye, well, if he is that keen to see us, we would be churlish indeed not to go. And then, on the return, the bar may be open,’ Sir Richard said hopefully.

  They found the Bishop sitting on a large chair facing them as they walked into his room. There was a clerk at his side holding a slate board, while two others sat at a desk behind.

  ‘Sir Baldwin, Sir Richard, Simon, I am very grateful that you could come so swiftly.’

  ‘It was our pleasure, my Lord Bishop. The Duke is being entertained by his tutor for a little, and then will go to his mother. Sir Henry is with him, so we have our morning free,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘That is good,’ the Bishop said. He then stood and paced before turning and facing them. ‘I am very anxious,’ he blurted out. ‘I fear an attempt may be made upon my life.’

  ‘My Lord Bishop, I am sure you need have no such alarms. There is no one here who could wish you harm,’ Baldwin said, and he felt irritation that the Bishop had called them to him for such a foolish reason.

  ‘Look at this, Sir Baldwin,’ the Bishop said, and drew down the collar of his robe.

  There, at his thin neck, the flesh somewhat pale, rather like a plucked chicken, there were four large bruises on his right side, one on the left.

  ‘Dear Jesus!’ Baldwin hissed. ‘Sir Richard?’

  The Coroner joined him. ‘A goodly-sized fist, that man’ll have, if I’m any judge. A good, great paw to mangle you in that manner, me Lord. Who was it?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ the Bishop said. ‘I was attacked in the dark. And yet there was something familiar about the man’s voice. He was English, I think.’

  ‘Has anyone else tried to warn you away from here?’ Baldwin asked.

  Almost everyone, the Bishop thought to himself sadly. ‘No one for certain, no. But I think that all would prefer to see me gone. I am an embarrassment to the Duke, an irritant to the Queen, and a shameful beggar in the eyes of King Charles. No one wishes me here, and yet I may not go home. All I want is to return to Exeter and rest my weary bones, but I must remain here until the Queen concedes that her place is with her husband. What may I do?’

  ‘First, you should be better guarded,’ Baldwin said firmly. ‘We do not want you harmed, my Lord Bishop. Second, I think that King Charles should be informed that your life has been threatened. The King has accepted you as his guest, and safe-conducts have been issued. If you are harmed here, it will reflect most disastrously upon the French King.’

  ‘That is true,’ the Bishop murmured.

  ‘But that fact alone makes me wonder who’d be stupid enough to try to threaten Bishop Walter,’ Sir Richard said.

  Simon shrugged. ‘There are any number of Frenchmen who dislike the Bishop for his diplomatic efforts.’

  ‘Aye, and some English, too,’ the knight grunted.

  Baldwin smiled. ‘We know where the threat may lie, but the important thing just now is to make sure that the Bishop is protected. We will have to mount guard ourselves, and also see whomsoever else we may enlist to help us.’

  Paris, near the River Seine

  Vital shrugged his cloak around his shoulders. Here in the alleyway, no sun could reach them, and it felt as though they were living in a perpetual chill.

  ‘I hope he’s not just testing our cupidity.’

  ‘More likely he is looking to see how to get himself out. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d thought we’d bring him along without chains, and he’d try to run for it,’ Pons said.

  Vital gave him a sidelong look. His companion was dressed all in shabby brown, like a worker along the shores. It was only the sword which made him stand out, and that was mostly hidden under his cloak.

  ‘Bring him up here!’ Pons suddenly barked behind him.

  There was a small force of five-and-twenty men, all armed with good polearms and long knives, all picked carefully for the task ahead. In their midst was Le Boeuf, and now he was manhandled up to meet Pons and Vital. ‘These chains, can’t you—’

  ‘No,’ Pons said. ‘If this is the genuine place, and your work brings this matter to an end, then I personally will release you. If there’s nothing there, you will go back to the cell, and I will tell all that you tried to sell me the King, but failed.’

  ‘But they’d flay me, if they thought I’d done that!’

  ‘Then you had best hope that he is in there and that we capture him, eh?’

  Le Boeuf stared at him with his one good eye, and then peered over his shoulder. ‘It’s that one, the third door, the one that looks like it’s only got one hinge. That’s where he lives.’

  ‘Good,’ Pons said, and issued his instructions quickly. The men separated, with one smaller force of eight running off to the rear of the building, at the river’s edge. Meanwhile, Pons and Vital waited, watching and muttering, Pons counting to four thousand, which was the amount of time the second force would need to get into position.

  ‘Time’s up,’ he announced quietly. ‘Good luck, boys – good luck, Vital. Mind your nice cloak, eh?’

  ‘You mind your moustaches, old friend,’ Vital murmured, and then the two gripped their scabbards in their left fists and ran lightly over the road.

  There was no sign of life inside. Pons leaned down to peer in through a gap in the timbers of the door, but could see nothing. No lights, no people, just a mess of broken planks and refuse of all kinds. A rat scurried, suddenly alarmed.

  Pons looked over, and Vital shrugged. ‘Doesn’t look very lived in, eh?’ and then he beckoned.

  The men rushed over the road and ran at the door. There was a loud crack and splintering as the door gave way, and then they were all inside, pelting up the narrow corridor, up some rickety stairs, men fanning out in all directions, shouting and screaming at the tops of their voices, slamming weapons against closed doors, thundering about up in chambers overhead.

  Vital looked down at his feet. ‘I think he was wrong about this place, don’t you?’

  Pons was about to respond, when there came a shout from outside, at the rear of the building.

  ‘There’s a body here!’

  The King swore and slammed a fist into his cupped hand. ‘Who betrayed us? Who dared to tell the officers about us, about our home?’

  Amélie was still curled on the bed of furs, and now she stretched, lithe as a cat, curling her fingers over, and staring along the length of her arms and hands with satisfaction. ‘Perhaps it was the poor assassin you tried to double-cross? Or one of your men who deserves more money than you paid?’

  ‘Shut up whore! If I need the advice of a bitch like you, I’ll ask for it,’ the King spat. He returned to the window out over the Seine, watching as the men floundered through the thick river ooze to the figure which still lay out nearer the water.

  ‘It is the dry summer this year. Apart from the rains in the last couple of weeks, it’s been dry,’ his clerk said nervously.

  The King made no comment, but stared silently at the work outside. ‘They should have carried him further out,’ he hissed. ‘The river was dropping already when they put the men out there.’

  ‘We didn’t know,’ said Peter the peasant. He wasn’t going to whine. He’d done all he could, sliding down the rope to kill that man on the flats to stop the officers being called.

  ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘It wasn’t our fault if the bastard didn’t get washed away like all the oth
er refuse from the city. Anyway, a man found out there could have come from anywhere. Didn’t have to have been thrown from here.’

  ‘There is much which is interesting about this. First is the stupidity of a man like you leaving a corpse out there for anyone to find. Then there’s the way you left it there for three days so the officers could come and find it. But worst of all, there’s the incredible dimness of a man like you who can’t see that these fellows were told where to go. They walked right in through the house we used to deposit the bodies in, didn’t they?’

  Peter shrugged. ‘It was the nearest house to the body. Where else would they have gone?’

  The King nodded and then, in a fluid movement, he turned, drew his knife and slashed it across Peter’s face. It left a fine red line that began at Peter’s right cheekbone, missed the hollow near his nose, then marked over the nose, to the left cheek, running right across it almost to the man’s ear. The line remained until Peter’s mouth opened in a shocked bawl, and then a fine spray burst from it.

  Peter’s hands came up to his face, and his eyes stared down in horror at them as they were bedewed with his blood. He drew a breath to cry out, but by then the King had reversed his blade. His hand snaked out and gripped Peter’s neck, suddenly pulling his sergeant towards him. The sobbing man had no time to scream before the knife stabbed upwards three times, two to the lungs, the last to the heart. He was dead even as his body slumped on the blade.

  ‘Take that tub of lard away. I don’t want to see his face again,’ the King said with cold dispassion. He wiped his knife on his sleeve, unheeding, as two of his men pulled the twitching form out of the room. ‘We move from here tonight. We’ll go to the rooms near Saint Jacques.’

  Amélie pouted. ‘But I don’t like it there. It stinks of dead animals all the time.’

  ‘You will get used to it or you’ll die,’ the King said matter-of-factly. He felt his broken teeth with his tongue.

  This was the result of being slack. He had been enjoying his life too much. There were times to take leisure, but not when a man dared to defy you. The fool Jacquot had killed his men and brought this on to him, and he wouldn’t take it. Whether or not Jacquot had sent the men over there to try to catch the King and his men, he didn’t know. Probably not, because Jacquot would have directed them to this, his main residence, not the other house. In the past the King had called that chamber his ‘courthouse’, because it was where he had his men go when they were accused of some misdemeanour. If they were said to be keeping too much of their whores’ money, if they were not declaring the full contents of a purse they’d stolen, if they ‘forgot’ to mention a gambling game that had paid well, they were taken to the courthouse so that their case could be heard. And then justice was administered according to the King’s whim. Sometimes the accused was confirmed as guilty, sometimes the accuser was declared to be at fault, and more often than not, the two were forced to fight to the death to determine the outcome.