by Alan Gordon
“If the killer is inside the abbey, then I would do better to stay here,” said Theo. “You’re in danger. All of you.”
“No,” said the abbot. “I can take care of things here. Seek elsewhere for your prey.”
“You might want to consider resuming your Guild exercises,” said Theo. “You’ve slowed down.”
“I blocked you, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but I’ve slowed down, too,” retorted Theo. “I recommend, my holy shepherd, that you start watching your flocks by night.”
“Go with God,” said the abbot. “Go with God now.” He walked back to the abbey without a single glance back.
“You’re not that slow, normally,” said Helga.
“I didn’t want to hit him, child,” said Theo in exasperation. “I just wanted to put the fear of God back in him. Let’s go.”
“Where?” I asked.
“To the past,” he said, putting Portia’s cradle in the wain.
“Which way is that?”
“South.”
We rode on until we were out of sight of the abbey.
“So that was Folquet of Marseille,” I said.
“Please, it’s Folc now,” he said in perfect imitation of the man. He grimaced.
“What was the message?” I asked.
“‘Folquet: Cold is the hand that crushes the lark.’”
“The lark is a songbird,” I observed.
“Yes, it is.”
“As was Folquet…”
“Folc.”
“As was Folc, once upon a time.”
“Yes, he was.”
“That certainly sounds like he’s being threatened,” I said. “Yet here we are, running away.”
“We can’t exactly sneak into a Cistercian abbey,” he said.
“We have sneaked into better places,” I pointed out.
“They know everyone there,” he said. “And they know me.”
“Then let me do it,” I said. “I could disguise myself as a man, get hold of one of those hideous robes—”
“Wash it thoroughly,” added Helga helpfully.
“And join. They wouldn’t know I was a woman until it came time to bathe. That would give me months to investigate.”
“Terrible idea,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because it would take you away from me,” he said simply, and he put his free arm around me and drew me to him.
“Why are we going south?” asked Helga.
“Because we are seeking someone from his past,” answered Theo.
“How do you know?”
“Because the message was for Folquet, not Folc,” said Theo. “He hasn’t been Folquet in years. So, we look to his past to find where the threat comes from.”
“Marseille,” I said.
“Exactly,” he replied. “Damn!”
“What?”
“Brother Antime still has my knife.”
“We can’t go back for it.”
“No, I suppose we can’t,” he said, suddenly moody. “That’s my favorite knife, too.”
And we continued our journey with at least one jester in a bad temper.
“What do you know of Folc?” I asked that evening. Helga had volunteered to cook dinner, and Portia was asleep in her cradle, bless her, so we had a rare moment alone inside the tent.
“Not much more than what Father Gerald told us,” he said. “He grew up in Marseille, son of a Genoese merchant. Talent for singing showed up early, then for composing songs and poems. The Guild recruited him when he was about thirteen. We persuaded his father to send him to the University in Bologna, and from there, it was easy enough to sneak him off to the Guildhall for training during the breaks.”
“But what was he like? When you knew him?”
“I knew him for a week,” he said. “I knew of him, knew people that knew him, but I only spent a week in his company, and just parts of that week at that.”
“Was he this dour a man?”
“Not at all,” he said. “Quite a cheerful, lively fellow. He had a nice wife and two young boys, a thriving business that he inherited from his father, and a voice that could make angels laugh and devils weep.”
“Did he have enemies in Marseille?”
“Couldn’t say. I didn’t get around the city that much.”
“Although no doubt you could find every tavern there in the dark, blindfolded.”
“It’s a gift,” he agreed happily.
“What kind of merchant was he?”
“Whatever could be shipped out of Marseille, he shipped, and whatever could be shipped in from anywhere else, he also shipped. He rode the troubadour circuit from Marseille to Montpellier, which was his main function for the Guild.”
“Could his Guild activities have stirred anything up?”
“That’s one thing we’ll have to find out,” he said.
“The beans are ready!” called Helga. “Are you done?”
“Done doing what?” I called out.
“Done doing what I spent all this time cooking dinner for so you could do it,” she called back.
Theo and I looked at each other ruefully.
“So that’s why she volunteered,” he said. “A missed opportunity.”
“Next time, we’ll know,” I said. “Let’s look like we actually did so she won’t be disappointed.”
We emerged hastily adjusting our clothing as Helga arched an eyebrow in perfect imitation of my husband.
“She’s doing your look,” I said.
“I don’t look like that,” he objected.
“Yes, you do,” I said. “And I’m the only one who can see both of your faces, so that makes me the expert.”
Helga ladled out the beans, and we dug in.
“What’s the plan when we get to Marseille?” I asked when we were done.
“Look up the local fool and find out what he knows,” said Theo.
“You mean gossip, rumors, old stories distorted by constant retelling, passed on by one drunken jester to another?”
“Something like that, yes,” he said. “You make it sound so unreliable.”
“What about Folc’s family?” I asked. “Where are they?”
“He told me his boys are at the abbey in Grandselves,” he said.
“But his wife is still in Marseille, isn’t she?” I asked.
“Outside the city,” he said. “With a community of women who serve the Bishop.”
“She’s a nun?”
“I don’t know if it’s quite that formal. It’s not a convent.”
“Where is this group of non-nuns?”
“In Gémenos. They watch the cattle for the Church.”
“They serve the Church by watching cattle?”
“They watch them religiously.”
“I see,” I said. “I think we should talk to her first. She’ll know more than a fool would.”
“If something happened while he was a Guildmember, then the other Guildmembers would be more likely to know about it.”
“But if it happened while he was married, then she would be our best bet,” I insisted.
“Not necessarily. Wives know only what their husbands choose to tell them,” he said haughtily, his eyebrow arched.
“Husbands only think their wives know only what they choose to tell them,” I replied. “But wives in truth know much more than their husbands think they do.”
“I assure you that there are vast expanses of my life of which you are ignorant,” he said. “And you should thank God that you are, considering the depths of depravity to which I sank before I met you.”
“I have secrets in my past as well,” I said, fluttering my eyelashes mysteriously.
“I have more.”
“Only because you are so much older than me,” I said.
“Ouch.”
“I was but an innocent flower, barely in bloom, when I was plucked from my maiden bed by this reprobate,” I explained to Helga who had been following the conver
sation wide-eyed.
“Actually, she had been plucked quite a few times by the time I got to her,” commented Theo. “I am her second husband, after all. And when I say, ‘after all,’ I mean after all of the other—”
“Sir, you are no gentleman!” I interrupted.
“Which is why you married me, I believe.”
“Is she your first wife?” asked Helga.
That caught him up short for an instant. Then he recovered and played the fool again. “Why, I have a veritable harem of them scattered about,” he said, grinning lewdly. “Most are recovering, still in bed.”
“And some took vows, and some have fled, and some do live, and some are dead,” I chanted derisively. “I care not who came before. I am his last wife, because I will hunt him down and kill him if he ever betrays me.”
“And thus does fear keep our marriage intact, and that’s a conclusion,” he said. “All right.”
“All right what?”
“All right, we’ll go visit his wife first.”
* * *
I hate traveling in a wain. I had a very nice mare named Hera who had carried me from Orsino to Constantinople, then back and across the Alps to the Black Forest where the Guild was hiding out—half that journey with Portia when a newborn—and nothing contented me more than to be astride that gentle, intelligent creature, moving to her rhythm. But riding on anything with wheels being pulled by Zeus meant that you felt every bump at the base of your spine. He bitterly resented being in harness, and took it out on us by single-mindedly seeking out the worst ruts and rocks to pull us over. I think the Guild made us use him because none of them wanted him.
We traveled by a route through the mountains that must have been first made by either a madman or pilgrim, not that there is much difference. It snaked through the massif, coiling and doubling back upon itself so that we would frequently find ourselves after an hour’s ride back at the same place, only a few hundred feet higher. The clouds bumped against the upper slopes just enough to make the whole business dangerously slick.
After three days of this, we came through a pass. On either side, the mountains were capped with white ridges, the limestone forming strange and wild shapes, like shrines for some pagan mountain gods. A small stone chapel had been set up by the road for pilgrims, whether to give thanks for safely arriving at this point or to pray that they would make it down this last descent unharmed, I don’t know. It was deserted. Below us stretched a green valley, a tiny village at the base of the mountain we had just skirted.
“If our directions are correct, then we’ve just come through the Eagle’s Pass,” said Theo. “And that makes this the Valley of the Eagle below us.”
“That village is Gémenos?” I asked.
“Barely big enough to be called a village,” he said. “Now, all we have to do is find a large number of cows with a small number of women minding them.”
“And then what?”
“And then you will go talk to his wife.”
“I will?”
“I can’t go into a community of religious women,” he said, looking slightly shocked. “Think of the scandal, not to mention the temptation. On both sides.”
“Can’t have that,” I agreed. “All right. Sounds like a job for me.”
“Her name is—”
“Hélène, I know,” I said.
The trip down from the pass took longer than I thought. At many points Theo jumped down from the wain and guided Zeus through the turns, gripping his bridle while I held the reins so tightly, my knuckles were whiter than my face. Portia slept blissfully throughout.
We passed through the forest clinging to the massif, enormous oaks and slender beeches giving way to dogwood, hazel, and linden as we neared the valley floor, their scent permeating everything. We emerged near sunset, so we pulled the wain over by a stream that had joined us after first cascading over a stone outcropping to our left. The water was cold and delicious.
“Nothing like being the first to taste of a stream,” I said. “It’s so much better than city water. You never know what has polluted it by the time it gets to you.”
“That’s why I prefer wine and ale,” said Theophilos. “There’s a farm up ahead. Let’s see if they’ll let us spend the night.”
The astonished faces of farmers seeing fools emerge from the forest is one I always enjoy. We have been mistaken for fairies, or worse, devils, but it didn’t take long for us to win their friendship, especially when they saw Portia. We soon were sitting at their table, trading songs for soup.
I woke in the morning to hear a chardonneret singing, a good little jester bird with a motley of red, white, and black on its face. I walked out of the stables where we were sleeping and spotted it trilling at the top of a yoke elm. We looked at each other curiously; then it shot into the air. Before I could figure out why, a sparrowhawk swooped out of the sky and sank its talons into the little bird’s neck.
I must have cried out, because Theo was at my side in an instant, dagger in hand, looking everywhere. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“It was just a bird,” I said. “A pretty little thing. A hawk killed it.”
“Oh,” he said, slipping the dagger back into its scabbard. He glanced behind him and nodded approvingly. “Everything’s fine, Apprentice.”
I looked to see Helga lowering her bow.
“Being a fool means that you are jumpy everywhere,” I observed.
“If you want to live to be an old fool, yes,” he said.
Our hostess was out, feeding the chickens. She smiled as I walked up with Portia, who was looking everywhere.
“She looks like a mischief,” said the woman.
“She comes by it honestly,” I replied. “Do you know of a community of women who serve the Bishop of Marseille here?”
“Certainly,” she said. “Over that end of the valley, about two miles. They’ll be bringing the cattle up to pasture about now. You’re not joining them, are you?”
“Hardly,” I laughed. “I know one from earlier times. I want to see her since I’m in the area. Hélène of Marseille.”
“Oc, I know her,” said the woman. “One of the older ones, but she does a full day’s work.”
“Don’t we all?” I said, patting the baby, who burped and caused a minor panic among the chickens.
We gathered our gear, thanked our hosts, and rode south. Eventually, we saw a herd of cattle in the distance, grazing on the lower slopes of the mountain, a group of women tending to them with a pack of small dark dogs dashing about.
“You’re on,” said Theo. “Do you want to ride Zeus? It would be quicker.”
“Not if my life depended on it,” I said, jumping down from the wain and stretching my legs. “No offense,” I said to the beast, patting him on the neck as I walked by. He craned his head around and snapped at my hand.
The walk was pleasant but uphill, and despite the cool air, I was sweating heavily by the time I reached the women, who were resting in the shade of a solitary oak. They had seen me approaching for some time, of course, and their expressions were curious but not unfriendly.
“Greetings, good ladies,” I said. “I am Domna Gile, a jester. I seek Hélène of Marseille.”
One of the women rose. “I am Hélène,” she said.
She was brown from so much time in the sun, and the skin around her eyes was cracked and slightly spotted. The eyes themselves were sharp, focusing intently on mine. She wore a simple gray woolen robe, much like those of the lay brothers at Le Thoronet. The hair peeking out from under her scarf was gray as well. I knew that she had to be close to Folc’s age, but she looked twenty years older.
“May I have a private word with you, Domna?” I asked.
She looked at another woman there who nodded.
“Very well,” said Hélène. “Come with me.”
As she walked, a pair of dogs bounded up to her sides. They came over and sniffed me, then went back to their mistress.
“Is my hu
sband dead?” she asked softly as I joined her.
“He lives and is well,” I replied. “How did you know this concerned him?”
“He was a troubadour of the Fools’ Guild,” she said. “And here come a flock of jesters, something rarely seen here. I could see your motley for miles. I thought it must be bad news.”
“I apologize,” I said. “We did not mean to cause you unwarranted distress.”
“What about warranted distress?” she asked, smiling ruefully.
“You are too quick for this poor fool, Domna,” I said. “We have come in his behalf. He may be in danger from some old enemy. We seek any information about his former life that might help us.”
“Tell me,” she said, sitting on a large rock and beckoning to me to join her.
I quickly recounted the details of the murder and the message left on the walls of the library.
She gasped in horror during the telling, and looked faint when I had done. “Tell me what I can do to help you,” she said immediately.
“We thought the ‘lark’ might have been your husband,” I said. “Was that ever his nickname?”
“Not that I knew of,” she said. “Folquet was the name he used when performing. His real name is Folc.”
She stopped to give a brief command to the two dogs, who promptly darted off to retrieve a cow that had wandered off from the herd. The beast lumbered back, looking mildly perturbed, then lowered its head and grazed again. The dogs bounded back to us, and she patted them on the head.
“They mind you well,” I said.
“Yes, they do,” she said fondly. “They are named after my boys. Something to remind me of them.”
“They have become monks, too, I understand. Your sons, I mean, not the dogs.”
“They have,” she said with pride. “I hear from them once in a while.”
“When did you last see them?” I asked.
“In 1195, when my husband decided to devote our lives to Christ,” she said. “Eight—no, nine years ago. They would be eighteen and twenty, now. I miss them. You never stop being their mother.”
I felt a sharp pang of sympathy.
“Tell me, what enemies did your husband have before he joined the order?”
“Enemies,” she mused, frowning slightly.
“Either from his commercial dealings, or his Guild activities,” I added. “Someone who might carry a grudge to the present day.”
