Michael Jecks - The King of Thieves

‘So you succeeded, Jacquot. I congratulate you.’

Jacquot walked along the room until he stood before the King. ‘You should trust me more. He was a pathetic copy of me. He would never have made the mark.’

‘Perhaps so,’ the King said. He put his head to one side, staring at the woman’s black hair. It gleamed as though oiled, and he set his hand into it. ‘It’s good that you’ve removed the little stammerer. Yet you have still not managed the first commission. The Procureur is still alive.’

Jacquot smiled without humour. ‘It will be done.’

‘Good. Go to it, then.’ The King motioned idly with his hand and the man turned and left him.

He was the only one who dared do that. The others all gave him some sign of respect, limited in a few cases, it was true, but they still gave him some proof that they accepted him as their natural leader. Not Jacquot, though. He was always the loner, the one who was watching, never involved.

Soon a couple of watchmen were due to come and see him. There was always business. Never a moment for rest. The King let his hand sweep down the flank of the Galician girl, then smoothed his palm over her upper thigh to the soft, inner flesh. He always loved this part of a woman. So free of blemishes, so lovely and sleek. He had a few minutes, surely. His hand rose to her, and her head turned to him, lips slightly open, eyes dull and staring into the distance.

Oh, the bitch had ruined the moment. He drew his hand away and clouted her hard on the rump, making her squeal. Women were so stupid. They didn’t understand what a man wanted. Not a real man like him. His anger flared, and he punched her in the mouth, jerking her head away from him.

And then he saw her turn back to him. There was a trickle of blood at her mouth, and she wiped it, then smiled and licked it away. And in her eyes there was a pleasure he had never expected to see reflected. It was like looking into his own eyes. She pinched him, and he felt his heart begin to pound.

Yes, he’d keep this one at his side.

Bois de Vincennes

The King of France stormed from his hall, pulling off his gloves as he went and hurling them at an unfortunate servant. ‘Well? What do you have to say?’ he snarled at Cardinal Thomas d’Anjou. The latter had that look on his face, the self-righteous one that was so infuriating, and the King enjoyed a brief vision of the Cardinal bending over the figure of some wench, that same bloody expression on his face, as though he wasn’t a man like all others.

‘It was a most unfortunate display — and yet may well play to your advantage.’

‘Oh, yes ! Much to my advantage, this. My sister, Queen to Edward of England, refusing to obey his order for her to return. It is bad enough that she is here, consorting with any men who are disinclined to accept their own King, her husband, as though set on reminding me that I used to wear the cuckold’s horns. Now she wants it to escalate into a full-scale political dispute or war!’

‘It would be a war you would win, my Liege.’

‘But it would be hellishly expensive, and I have other affairs that demand my energy. She has antagonised that fool the Bishop.’

The Cardinal smiled. ‘Did you see his face? Like a man who’s bitten into a juicy pear to discover it tasted of wormwood! Hah! That was worth the seeing.’

‘Yes. It’s true, that was worth a chest of treasure, just to see the bile in his face! Stapledon is one of those who has caused shame beyond measure to me and my sister. The man thinks he can insult me with impunity and then come here on a diplomatic mission! Well, he is safe from me, but if he was threatened here, I don’t think that the Queen’s supporters would lift a finger to aid him. Except for Sir Baldwin, perhaps.’

He knew that Sir Baldwin and Stapledon were friendly. It was one of the Cardinal’s own spies who had brought that information to him.

The Cardinal smiled and nodded.

He was a strangely self-possessed man, the King thought. Charles had known him for many years, both as a diplomatic and a legal adviser, and had only rarely found him to fail. His spies were everywhere — they were probably only marginally less effective than the King’s own, although nothing like so speedy and accurate in their information as those of, say, the Bardi family. But then bankers always had the best of everything. They could afford it.

No man in the world was indispensable — but the Cardinal came very close to being so. For the King he was the most competent adviser on every aspect of Church politics, he was shrewd when planning about England, astute on Scottish affairs, and utterly objective and ruthless in the pursuit of French interests.

‘What would you do now that the fool of a Bishop has forced Isabella’s hand?’ King Charles asked after a moment’s consideration.

‘My Liege, it is very hard to know what to recommend. Naturally the King of England is entirely within his rights to demand that his wife returns — but he is not in a position to ask that you force her to comply. She is still a free woman, and a Princess of France. However, it would be of no service for others to believe that you assist a woman against her husband. And were you thought to be plotting to remove a neighbouring monarch, that would not enhance your reputation.’

The King nodded. He beckoned a servant, took the goblet of wine and drank. ‘So?’

Cardinal Thomas watched as the servant walked away before answering. It was a measure of his caution that he would not even speak in front of the King’s servants. Foolish, in the King’s view, since a servant would know that he would have his tongue cut out, and his nails removed before having his limbs broken on the wheel if he opened his mouth at the wrong moment and caused any embarrassment to the King. They were more careful than the King himself about not divulging anything.

‘My Liege, you do not want any hint of complicity in planning the downfall of your brother-in-law, so I advise you to make it clear to your sister that her presence is an embarrassment to you. She will understand.’

‘So I should exile my sister from her own country,’ King Charles said. This was dispassionate advice at its best. The Cardinal had a heart as cold as a toad’s.

‘Not exile, no. But remove her from your immediate orbit. Otherwise the King of England might end up with a case that justified his own actions. Your sister wouldn’t wish for that.’

‘What do you mean by “his own actions”?’

‘Her lands, her treasure, her income,’ Cardinal Thomas shrugged. ‘All have been sequestrated by the King. If she were to plot here, the King of England’s spies will soon hear of it. And then he could declare all her possessions forfeit. If she were to wander away, to a place such as Hainault, where the English King is less likely to have spies in place, she may be safer. And so may her son.’

‘Yes. That is fair,’ the King said. He motioned to the Cardinal to leave him, and stood a while in splendid isolation in the middle of the great room.

His sister must go, that much was certain. Apart from anything else, her behaviour was growing tedious. The repetitive complaints about her husband, the whining, the sidelong mentions of her lack of funds — it was all getting on his nerves. And then there was the matter of Sir Roger Mortimer, and his sister’s relationship with the man. Mortimer had been arrested, left to moulder in the Tower of London, and then engineered an escape a matter of days before he was to be executed. But this man had been the King of England’s best warrior! He was the King’s own General in Ireland, the man who had managed single-handedly to halt the warfare out there, and therefore the one man whom the King of England most feared. As for the Despenser — he and Mortimer had a feud that went back to the time of their grandsires, since Mortimer’s grandfather had slain Despenser’s on the field of war.