Michael Jecks - The King of Thieves

Gatehouse, Louvre, Paris

Arnaud watched her walking away on those long legs of hers with a feeling of real misery. She’d been so bright and enthusiastic in his room, it was as though a ray of the sun had dropped in to speak with him, and illuminated his entire existence for those moments.

The only thing that had dimmed her smile had been the mention of the dead man.

‘I knew someone like him,’ she said. ‘I met him in a tavern not far from here in the days before he was killed.’

‘You know who he was? You must tell someone,’ Arnaud protested.

The smile was there still, but now there was a brittle quality to it, and she looked at him very directly. ‘You think so? I met him and his woman. They said that they were here to take money from the Cardinal. You hear that? The Cardinal himself. He stole money many years before, they claimed, and they wanted to blackmail him. Get some of it for themselves. I don’t know about you, but I’d be wary of mentioning that to anyone. Cardinal Thomas would make a bad enemy, so I’ve heard. He could resort to a knife.’

‘But if you know the man’s name …’ Arnaud began but quickly stilled his mouth.

‘I do not. Why should I? He was only some fellow I got chatting to in a tavern, nothing more. I think he said his name was Guillaume, but I can’t be sure. All I do know is, he wasn’t Parisian.’ She shook her head. ‘Terrible, to think that a man could come all the way here, and be struck down almost at once. So sad.’

Westminster

It was a full hour of the day later that Despenser stepped through the doors and out into the passage to the Great Hall.

‘Proud of yourself?’ he spat.

Walter Stapledon looked at him with an eye that glinted with anger. ‘You dare ask me that!’

‘You will see the King leave here and go to France?’

‘I would see the King behave as a King, just this once. Edward must go there. If not, his son must. One or other. It matters not a whit.’

‘You think that I shall be killed if he goes, don’t you?’

‘Sir Hugh, whatever happens to you is supremely irrelevant to me. This is a matter of feudal honour and the Crown.’

Despenser glanced about them, and then suddenly gripped the Bishop’s robes with both fists. He shoved Stapledon back against one of the massive pillars in the hall, his face so close the older man could feel the breath that rasped in his throat.

‘You think you’ll be safe when I’m dead? I swear to you, Bishop , I shall live longer than you, and you will die in the gutter, missed by no one, mourned by no one. You’ll regret this decision for the rest of your days, if you don’t get him to think again!’

Stapledon was unimpressed. ‘You have threatened and blustered so often in my presence, Sir Hugh, that your words no longer make me tremble,’ he said coldly. ‘In future, try to persuade yourself to emulate me and see to the benefit of the realm and others before you look to your own advantage.’

‘I swear I’ll-’

Stapledon raised his eyebrows, and then he spoke with a calm, quiet certainty. ‘I know that excommunication holds no terrors for you, Sir Hugh, but I swear on the Gospels, that if you continue to attempt to block the only sensible course for our poor King, I will definitely seek your excommunication, and then I shall also lay a curse upon you of such virulence and authority that all the saints will be unable to raise it from your putrid, stinking soul. You will leave me alone, Sir Hugh, or I shall destroy you utterly.’

‘Go, then!’ Despenser said, turning and releasing him, raising his hands from the Bishop’s robes as he did so, as though fearing that they might have been contaminated. ‘You go, old man, and we shall see who wins this battle. It will be a struggle, though, I warn you. I do not intend to see myself captured by my enemies and destroyed just because you seek to promote your own silly little cause.’

‘You call honour and the Crown silly? You dare to speak of them with such contempt? Truly, Sir Hugh, you will live to regret such disdain.’

‘You think so? Old fool, you will regret your presumption in trying to threaten me!’

Louvre, Paris

The Procureur was a clearly recognisable figure as he scurried from the front gate of the Louvre and out into the lane that led from the King’s greatest château to the city’s gates.

It was an inviolable rule that a bastion of defence like the Louvre should always be secure from the city which it was set to defend. In any city there were occasional uprisings, and the castle must stand impregnable.

These were the last thoughts on the man’s mind, though, as he followed after the Procureur.

The follower, Jacquot, was a slender man, his frame permanently weakened after the famine ten years before. He had not been able to rebuild his health after that. In fact, sweet Jesus, it was a miracle he was alive at all. All the others were dead, may their souls rest easy. Poor darling Maria, and Louisa, Jacques and little Frou-Frou, all had died. Only he remained out of his entire family.

It was only a matter of luck that he had survived. Jacquot had been on the road from Albi, trudging miserably northwards in the rain, when he had come across a pair of bodies. At that time, there were bodies all over the place. Men and women simply sank to their knees and died, no matter where they were. They’d topple over in the road, and people would barely give them a glance. No one had the energy to help them, and no one cared for them. What was one more man or woman’s pain and misery to someone who’d already lost everything? So bodies were left where they lay, unless they were fortunate enough to die in a city which still had a little respect for itself and hoped that the famine would end.

Jacquot had at least seen to the burial of his own. They had all been installed in consecrated ground, his wife being interred under the supervision of the priest. Sadly, by the time Louisa died, the priest himself had expired, and from that moment, Jacquot himself dug the graves and set his children inside, one after the other, all at the feet of his wife’s body. After burying Jacques, there was no point in remaining. He had taken his staff and left the cottage, not even closing the door. There was nothing to be stolen. He had nothing.

But on that road he had seen the two bodies, and found himself studying them as though seeing corpses for the first time. It made some sort of connection with his soul. His own children and wife were dead, and now these two sorry souls lay before him. Suddenly, without knowing why, he began to sob. Great gouts of misery burst from his breast like vomit. The convulsions would not leave him. He was reduced to standing, leaning on the staff and bawling like a babe.

And then, when it was done, he found he could not move on. It was hard enough to walk on the level, and impossible to think of lifting a foot so high that he might step over them. At the same time his starved brain could not conceive of passing around them. Instead he stood, transfixed. And gradually a degree of determination returned.

If the King could not provide food, it was up to him to find food for himself. If God would not provide food, it was up to him to seek it. He had been a decent, fair man in his life. When he had money, he had been generous. All those whom he loved had felt the advantage of his largesse. But now he was brought to his knees. There was nothing for him to do but die, unless he took life in both hands and wrung a living from it. There was no point meandering onwards, hoping to find some food. Even the monasteries had little enough to share amongst the thousands who clamoured at their gates.