Michael Jecks - The King of Thieves

But there was one woman who might be able to help him find out who she was. Hélias was one of those who knew everything that went on. She could always aid a man — in so many ways …

He mustn’t think of her, though. There was too much to be done.

And then he stopped. He was in the middle of the main street which ran west from the Grand Châtelet. Shops and stalls lined the sides, and people wandered and mingled all about. Women in gaudy colours strolled among the stalls where merchants and haberdashers plied their trades. The dressmakers called to them, the cloth-sellers held up bolts of material, the wine sellers extolled their wares, as did the girls with baskets of small, sweet pastries, and the boys trying to sell honeyed thrushes and ortolans — and over them all was a haze of dust rising all the while. The sun was warm on his face as Jean looked up at the sky. Here the road was wide to allow the passage of wagons, and he could actually see the sun up in the sky. Its brightness made him wince.

He was Procureur. There was a responsibility on him to investigate any murder when the King demanded it, but there was also a need to protect the public of this city. He had two bodies. So far, he had got nowhere with either of them. He did not even know who the dead man was, nor why he was in the castle. Meanwhile, here was a young girl. It was possible that he might be able to find out who she was, why she had died there in the demeaning little passageway. And if he could, to hell with everything else.

Tomorrow he would see her . Hélias. The whore who knew all.

Louvre, Paris

Cardinal Thomas rose from his praying and crossed himself reverently before leaving the little church.

The Procureur was asking all sorts of questions, which was good. Soon he would discover the identity of the dead man. It was fortunate that Thomas had been able to prime three servants to let de Poissy know that the castellan had seen the dead man that morning. After all, Sieur Hugues had told him that he’d seen the fellow. Hugues knew him, all right, and had made sure that he’d been taken to the chamber in which he’d been invited to wait for the Cardinal’s arrival. Of course, when Cardinal Thomas did arrive — the poor fellow was dead as a nail.

The Procureur would soon make the connection. Cardinal Thomas for one would be glad to see the castellan taken away in chains. It would serve the man aright for his attempt at blackmail.

It was only a shame that Cardinal Thomas could not himself give the castellan, Sieur Hugues, to the Procureur as a gift. But to do that would inevitably leave him open to danger, and the possible extortion of even more money. So it was best to leave matters as they stood, and hope for the best.

Thursday before the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary *

Paris

Hélias lived in a small building on the other side of the city wall, a little north of the Château du Bois, in a filthy area that was close to collapsing into a bog. The soil here was always damp, as though the Seine had inundated it. But no, it was just some freak of the area. No one knew why it was.

There were many who lived down there among the grim little hovels. They were the people who had not been born inside the city walls; those who had, had an immediate advantage in life. They were the ones who would form the aristocracy of the city when they grew up. The merchants, the members of the guilds and fraternities, they all rose to their elevated positions as a result of the location of their birth, not merely by dint of effort. If hard work entitled a man to wealth, position, power, Paris would be ruled by the poorest, Jean thought.

Perhaps this would happen in the future. For the present, the city was ruled by those who already had money. And those lesser beings whom they needed — to clean the streets, to sweat and toil and die while others took advantage of their efforts — existed here in these dank streets.

Hélias was sitting on a stool in front of her little house when Jean de Poissy arrived. He could see her there as he strolled up the reeking street, avoiding the puddles of rainwater, of urine and of worse. The city employed men who would scrape up every piece of dogs’ faeces to be sold to the tanners of leather, but here outside the city the men weren’t paid to come, so the place was about as wholesome as a … as a tanner’s yard, he supposed.

She was a large woman now. Still handsome in many ways, although at nearly forty years she was long past her best. Yet, for a woman to have survived so long in her chosen trade, that was a marvel. And for her to have saved enough from lying on her back to buy this little place and fill it with other young hopefuls, was nothing short of miraculous. For her to have remained unbowed and proud was still better.

The figure which had tempted so many men when she plied her trade in the streets was sadly worn. Her large breasts sagged, and her belly was swollen like a mother ready to be confined, while her face, which had once been so soft and full of promise to the young men who came to be entertained by her, was bloated with wine and the inevitable effects of too many hours lived at night rather than day.

And yet yes, she was still handsome. Her eyes had the gleam which could make a man stop and look again. There was a liveliness in the set of her head, an overt manner of licking her lips as she considered a man, a brazen manner of staring at his cods when she should have been meeting his eye, which still set a man’s blood boiling.

‘I don’t often see you up here, Procureur,’ she said. ‘You wanting wine? Or something else?’

‘What else could a man seek at your door, Hélias?’

‘Ah, you smile now, naughty man. There was a time when we were both in our twenties when you wouldn’t have waited and smiled, though, wasn’t there? Then you just took me by the hand and led me to the nearest bed. It’s true!’ she added more loudly, in case her neighbours hadn’t heard.

‘Hélias, I don’t deny it.’

‘No. But you’d still prefer one of the younger fillies now, rather than this old jade, wouldn’t you?’

‘I would prefer the practised to the student, every time. And I doubt me not that you have the most practised rump of all the wenches in Paris, Hélias!’

‘I don’t deny that. If you have a skill, I always say, you should use it. Some can sew, some can knit. Me, I was built for other purposes!’

‘True enough.’

‘Not that I need to do any of that now. Hey, come and sit with me, Procureur. It’s too hot to be standing and talking. Sit and have some wine.’ She bellowed in through the open door behind her. ‘I’ll have a girl bring you something. Not the usual piss I feed the gulls, either. Real stuff.’

Her house was adequately equipped as a tavern, for a madam needed the drink to aid the clients to fetch off swiftly enough so her girls could charm another. ‘There is no point having stock waiting on a shelf,’ she was fond of saying.

‘So, then, naughty man. What do you want? A blonde, a red-head? I have a fresh girl from the south, if you like. Black hair like a …’

‘You know which girls turn up in the city, Hélias. I have one. Killed.’

Her eyes dimmed a little, but then they hardened. She took a long pull at her cup of wine. ‘How old?’

‘Entirely fresh, I would say. Perhaps fifteen?’

‘Hair? Eyes?’

Jean gave her a full description, and as he spoke, she frowned in concentration.

‘There are many of that age. They appear at all times of the year, although more so in the summer and autumn. I think they are less keen to test themselves against the snows if they can avoid it. No clothes, you say? Then it’s possible she was new here, and didn’t realise a whore could die for stripping in the wrong alley. There are all too many men who seek to protect their territory and their investments by killing any little draggle-tail who seeks to make use of their bit of land. Money paid to a new wench is money taken from their own, they reason. But this sounds less like a cock-bawd protecting his money. He’d just cut her throat — get the job done. The idea that he should stab so often … that sounds more like a madman.’