The King of Thieves:

by Michael Jecks

  ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were guarding the Bishop,’ Simon said.

  ‘Well, I was, but the Queen’s man came and fetched him. Lord Cromwell was there, and if I know Lord John, he’ll not see any harm come to the fellow while the Bishop’s in his charge.’

  ‘What did the Queen want with him?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘To talk about money and the like, I think. Poor Walter groaned and sighed to himself when he heard the summons, but when all’s said and done, she is the Queen, and he is her legal guardian while she’s here, so he had little enough choice. Now, how about some capon? The man here cooks damn well – are you a thigh man or a breast man, ha ha, eh?’

  Although he had little desire for food, at least Sir Richard’s company was a distraction from the concerns which assailed him at present, Baldwin decided. He sat down and stabbed a lump of breast with his small eating knife.

  Sir Richard smiled broadly. ‘Excellent! I always knew you’d prefer a good sizeable breast! So, Sir Baldwin,’ he continued, finishing a leg and throwing the bones towards a cat who sat, purring loudly, on a wall nearby. ‘What d’you reckon to this story of the Bishop? As much moonshine as saying the castle’s mastiff did for the fellow, I’d guess. Yes?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Baldwin said. ‘I can see no justification for suspecting the poor Bishop whatever. He would not know how to find this assassin, he would not have had the time to find the man and give his orders in the time available. He is an important guest here, after all. His time has been bound up in visits to others or to chapel.’

  ‘Quite right. That’s what I thought too. So I was musin’ as I wandered about the castle, whether there was someone else who could have a reason to kill the Procureur. Did you know he was the city’s leading prosecutor of felons? You did? Oh. Well, it just occurred to me that surely the man’s worst enemy is goin’ to be the one who sought his death – and that must mean that there was an affair the fellow was looking at which could have embarrassed someone enough for that someone to pay someone to have the fellow killed. Eh?’

  Baldwin half-closed his eyes as he tried to differentiate between the ‘someones’ and the ‘fellows’. ‘Yes,’ he said at last.

  ‘Good. Glad you said that. Did you know that in the days before he was murdered, this Jean fellow had a talk with the King himself, and was told to get his finger out of his arse and find the killer of a man at the Louvre?’

  ‘Yes. Jean’s servant told us: it was the man de Nogaret,’ Baldwin said flatly.

  ‘Perhaps we should search for him, then?’ Simon said. ‘The man who had this fellow de Nogaret killed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ye’ll pardon me, Sir Baldwin,’ Sir Richard said rather reproachfully, ‘if I observe that you don’t seem all that bothered to find the fellow’s murderer.’

  Baldwin looked at the ground, then back to the building behind him. ‘I do not think that it is our place to find the killer of de Nogaret.’

  It was Simon who glanced at Wolf, pacing so near. ‘Baldwin, if a man were to harm Wolf, you would seek his killer no matter whom it might be. Do you really mean to tell us that you wouldn’t try to do the same for a man you have never met?’

  For the very first time in their long friendship, Baldwin could not hold Simon’s gaze. As Sir Richard protested that, ‘Of course if Sir Baldwin had met the fellow, it would make a difference,’ Baldwin looked away.

  ‘You may think what you like of the father, Baldwin,’ Simon went on steadily, ‘and you can allow that to colour your feelings towards the son, if you want. But think on a moment. If a man killed the son to avenge some crime, that was unjust. The boy had nothing to do with his father’s offences. And think further – the same fellow, perhaps, killed the son’s wife. What did she have to do with any of those crimes? She was at two removes from the father’s offences. It’d be like Despenser punishing me by killing my daughter and her husband. Is that to be borne?’

  ‘No,’ Baldwin muttered. He could not curb his loathing for the family name of de Nogaret, but Simon was correct. The idea that the son and his wife should be slaughtered for the father’s offence was disgusting.

  ‘And there is another aspect to this. If I am correct, the Bishop is standing to suffer punishment because he is suspected of the killing of the Procureur, when the true culprit is the man who killed him to silence him about the de Nogaret murders. By allowing the killer of that couple to escape, you are aiding a man to put all the blame on to our Bishop. Can you stand by and permit that?’

  ‘No. No, you are quite right, Simon,’ Baldwin said quietly.

  ‘Ha! Glad to hear it,’ said the Coroner, and belched long and loud. ‘Don’t know what in God’s name you two are muttering about, but if you’re both content to stop blathering and come and help prove the Bishop’s innocence, that makes good hearing to my ears!’

  ‘So, what do we do?’ Simon asked.

  Baldwin frowned. ‘On the day that the Bishop had his argument with the Procureur, it was inside the main gate of the castle, was it not? The Procureur was apparently standing and staring at the gate, which was enough to make Bishop Walter think he was staring at him. But what else might he have been gazing at?’

  ‘The gate itself?’ Simon hazarded.

  ‘Aye. Or the people at it,’ was Sir Richard’s contribution.

  ‘One or the other, certainly. I feel we should begin to think about these deaths there,’ Baldwin said. He took a bite of the chicken breast, then watched as the pale, anxious-looking cook walked on by.

  ‘What is it, Baldwin?’ Simon asked, noting the expression on his face.

  ‘That cook. You remember the dead boy? Yet another murder in this castle. Is no one safe?’

  They had all three surveyed the main gate to the castle after finishing their capon, but after the fourth muttering of ‘God’s faith!’ from Sir Richard, even Simon had to admit that there was little to see. Only the steady inrush of men and a few women, while a number left by the same route.

  ‘Baldwin, this is pointless,’ he muttered.

  ‘Perhaps. And yet there was something which the Procureur thought was important enough for him to spend much time right here, watching,’ Baldwin said distractedly. ‘What could it have been?’

  ‘Maybe he was just gazing into the distance? Men do when they’re thinking about tough questions,’ Simon hazarded.

  ‘He was not that sort of man, I think,’ Baldwin said slowly. ‘Surely a man with a brain like his, shrewd and quick, would not have stood here idly. There would have been a good reason, I am sure.’

  ‘Well, aye, that’s possible, but then again,’ Sir Richard said, his thumbs hooked in his belt and glowering about him like a bear waiting for the mastiffs, ‘he may have been staring into thin air, like Simon said. Perhaps he’d been invited to a lady’s chamber? Eh? Or challenged to a fight? There’s any number of innocent distractions.’

  Baldwin threw him a despairing look. Neither sounded particularly ‘innocent’ to him. ‘What if we—’ He checked himself and frowned. There, in the gateway, he could see the furious face of the porter. ‘Wait a moment. I shall speak with the gatekeeper.’ And in a moment he was stalking towards Arnaud.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  House near the Seine, east Paris

  Jacquot was aware that the King would have placed a price upon his head, but there were other considerations just now. With the King and his main cohorts in gaol, and perhaps some of them already dangling on the King’s everlasting tree at Montfaucon, there was work to be done if he was to guarantee his position as the King’s successor.

  The first essential was to ensure that any rivals to the King were dissuaded from attempting a full takeover of the city. After the years of the King’s rule, there were not many who stood in any position of authority, but some could try to ease themselves in on the prostitution, or the thief-taking and fencing businesses. Jacquot was not happy to see the efficiency of the group being degraded.

 
This chamber was the undercroft and storeroom to a tavern over near the eastern wall. He sat on a barrel as the four men walked inside. All were from high up in the King’s organisation. All were well-known to Jacquot.

  ‘You are here with me because the King is dead,’ he announced.

  ‘How do you know this?’ demanded a heavy-set man with a scowl of suspicion blackening his face. He was known as ‘the Gascon’ for his birthplace, but Jacquot only thought of him as ‘the bastard’. He was unreliable, short-tempered, and full of malice. He would be the first to be removed when Jacquot’s position was secured.

  ‘He is in the Temple and has been for over a day. You think he’ll be happy and content in there?’

  ‘Then what’s going to happen?’ This was a taller, languid-looking man with a round face and deceptively smiling eyes. Called the ‘Avocat’ within the gang, he was the one who kept his eye on the money. He would be a useful ally, Jacquot knew.

  ‘I am taking over. If there’s a delay, other gangs will move in and cause trouble. All of you will be thrown out and be found floating in the Seine later. This way, all continues as before. It’s better for everyone.’

  ‘For you, perhaps,’ the Gascon said, and spat. He moved around to Jacquot’s flank. Jacquot ignored him.

  ‘You can wrangle and fight, if you want. But if you do, it will put an end to the whole group, and there will be no gang to rule. You will lose everything. You want to carry on as it is now? Then fall in with me. I’ll keep the money coming.’

  The Avocat was smiling, looking more like a benign old priest than ever. ‘And you can promise this?’

  ‘There are not many who will dare to resist me,’ Jacquot said. ‘I have a reputation.’

  ‘So did the King,’ said the Gascon, and drew his knife.

  Jacquot’s dagger was already out and resting on the barrel before him. He snatched it up, and the tip rested within the hollow of the Gascon’s throat. ‘I could kill you now, but I won’t. If I do that, it will spark internal fighting, and I need you around to squash all feuding like that. You are in charge of discipline, Gascon. Your money will be increased by a fourth, and I will have you as my own Sergent. But only if you are loyal to me now.’

  The Gascon looked down the length of the blade, and then he nodded.

  Within an hour, Jacquot had his oaths of loyalty from all four.

  Louvre

  Arnaud looked at the tatty knight with ill-concealed disdain. ‘You want to know about the Procureur? You should ask the Bishop of Exeter. He is the man who had him killed. Even the felon admits that. You know of him? He was arrested, and he—’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, I know of this man and his testimony,’ Baldwin said irritably. ‘However, it was not only the death of the Procureur that concerned me. I was thinking also of the murder before that. The Procureur stood here and appeared to be much taken with something, and I feel sure that it had something to do with his death or the death of de Nogaret. Did he say anything to you about the threat to him, or the other death?’

  ‘No. Nothing I can think of. Only that he was interested in the way that the man de Nogaret arrived that day. He kept asking who’d taken him up to the chamber where he got himself killed.’

  ‘Could you help him?’

  Arnaud shrugged. ‘It was a boy – a cook’s knave called Jehanin. He was here and took the man from the gate to the room.’

  Brothel, west of city wall, Paris

  Hélias could not weep any more. She had gone to the funeral as a mark of respect for her old friend, but it had given her no consolation. It only reinforced her urge to seek revenge.

  The surprise arrest of the King had made many of her whores gasp with shock. No one had thought that the King could be removed so easily; he had appeared to be untouchable. And today there was a set of rumours flying about: a man from outside town was to take over from the King – a man who was even more ruthless than his predecessor. That idea was enough to send some of the wenches into fits of the vapours.

  ‘Calm yourself,’ Hélias said yet again as little Katérine dissolved, petrified that one of her most profitable punters, a ‘planter,’ who supplied false jewels to the unwary, would never come to see her again. The idea that he might be killed now that there was a new master trying to impose his rule, made the girl realise the transient nature of life’s little delights.

  ‘He’ll clear off out of Paris, and then I won’t get the bolt of wool he promised me!’ she wailed, until Hélias caught her a smart cut across the rump with a riding switch she kept handy for that purpose. ‘Ow!’

  ‘Shut up! Go and find another fellow and stop that whining, you slut! You want to be thrown from my home? Find yourself another room somewhere else? Just now, when your favourite punters may disappear into the Seine? Eh? Then be still and leave me alone to think!’

  There were few of the strumpets on whom she could rely, but one was Little Bernadette, the girl from whom she had first received the news about poor Jean.

  It was rare for Hélias to be sensitive when it came to men. Jean had initially been just another one of her clients important to her only for as long as he kept paying – but then as she grew to know him, the usual sense of contempt which Hélias felt for her customers began to peel away, and in its place was a feeling of warm companionship. Jean had not been coming to her to slake his natural desires for quite some while, in truth, and yet the times when he did visit were usually more enjoyable for the lack of sex. Instead they would discuss the city, the law, affairs of corruption or moral degeneracy, without rancour or irony. And then they would laugh as they raised their glasses. She would miss him hugely.

  And he would be avenged.

  ‘Bernadette? Has your man heard anything about Jean’s murder?’

  The man, one of the girl’s regular clients, was a known thief-taker. He would work to find men guilty of specific crimes for a bounty, handing them over to the city’s law officers when the cash was ready for him. Often that was an end to the business, but on some occasions there could be better profits. Sometimes the King would pay handsomely for a man to be brought to him – either because the man was to be released, or because he was guilty of an offence against him, in which case the Seine would claim him. At other times the King would merely point to those who were his enemies. There were many who wanted to set up business in Paris. So much easier for the King and his comrades if such people were removed. All the better if they were removed by King Charles’s Sergents.

  ‘Yes, he’s been here,’ the girl said.

  ‘And?’ Hélias prompted, reaching into her purse for a coin.

  Bernadette shook her head and made Hélias put the money away. ‘Not for this. I want Jean’s killer as much as you. My man said that the new leader was probably the one responsible. There are rumours about him trailing after Jean for some days, so most think he did it.’

  ‘On his own?’

  ‘There was a contract between an unknown man and the King.’

  ‘Find out who it was. I want to know who put the money on Jean’s head. Once he’s found, we can arrange for him to be made to regret his decision.’

  Louvre

  Simon and Sir Richard walked along after Baldwin, crossing the courtyard and peering inside when they reached the kitchen.

  Baldwin had to search for the cook. The kitchen had all the fires roaring, and the heat and noise was appalling. The boys lay on the floor, winding the great handles that kept the spits turning, or stood preparing vegetables and stirring pans full of stews and pottages. The flames were like small demons teasing new souls into hell, and the bellowing of the cooks and thin, reedy responses of the knaves, the clatter of pans and bowls, the roars of anger at failures, the snapping and crackling of twigs blazing in the ovens, all combined to create a cacophony so intense that Baldwin felt his head must burst.

  Eventually he saw the cook. He was over at the farther end of the room, clouting a boy about the head for some misdemeanour, and when he noticed Sir Bal
dwin, he came straight over.

  ‘You again,’ he said with resignation.

  Baldwin nodded. ‘Has anybody learned who could have killed your kitchen boy?’

  ‘No. Who cares about a nonentity like him? Poor little monster.’

  ‘You were fond of him?’

  ‘Of course I was! I thought of him – I think of most of the knaves in there—’ he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, ‘as my family. There’s not one of them I wouldn’t fight for. Not one.’ He fingered his heavy cook’s knife as he spoke, a faraway look in his eye that told of his feelings about the boy’s killing.

  ‘There was another man who was killed here,’ Baldwin said gently.

  ‘Yes. The man found in the Cardinal’s room. That was the same day poor Jehanin went missing.’

  Baldwin looked at Simon. The Bailiff had not missed the relevant comment.

  ‘So,’ Simon said, ‘if the lad disappeared that same day, what part of the day was it? Morning? Afternoon?’

  ‘It was the same time as the body was discovered. That man, de Nogaret, was found just as I was bellowing for Jehanin. I was trying to find the scallywag, because he was supposed to be back, not off skiving somewhere.’

  ‘Where had he gone?’ Simon pressed him.

  ‘I had a need of some ortolans, and sent him to the poulterer, but the lad never returned.’

  ‘Did he get back to the castle?’

  ‘Well, Arnaud was certain he had at first. Told me he remembered little Jehanin walking in – but, then I wondered if he was right. After all, if Jehanin had returned, why hadn’t I seen him?’

  Baldwin wore an expression of dawning realisation. He explained: ‘Because as soon as he came into the courtyard, he was asked to take a man to a room, intending to deliver him to a meeting, as had been planned, but that meeting was to be a murder . . . and your Jehanin was slain in order to ensure his silence.’