Michael Jecks - The King of Thieves

Paris

He knew what the ‘King’ was thinking, half the time.

Jacquot stood in the shadow near the gate of the Louvre, watching the crowds passing by, waiting for a sight of the Procureur, musing over the ‘King’s’ behaviour.

He was growing ever more irrational. When Jacquot had first arrived here, the ‘King’ had been greedy, but wary. No one could survive with immoderate demands at all times. It was necessary for a man to be sensible. The ‘King’ had known that. He had become the main gang-leader in the area because he had the ballocks and brains for the job. Over the years, two rival gangs had ruled the city. One controlled the northern part of the city, the other the south, the river forming a natural boundary for them. And for many years this was an adequate separation. There were tens of thousands — perhaps hundreds of thousands — living in Paris, and a number were devoted to a life of crime.

All operated under the aegis of one or other criminal ‘family’.

Jacquot had arrived just as the situation was changing. It was impossible for him to earn money, except by robbery, and when he fell in with others in a similar position, he took the same attitude to his victims as he had in the past to animals while living on the land. There was a duty to make any necessary killing as swift and painless as possible. That was his creed, and he stuck to it.

However, others were less humane. The ‘King’ was one such.

Jacquot met him once, swaggering about the lanes with a woman at his arm. He was about seventeen then, and life had been good to him. He had been a cutpurse for a while in the southern family, and progressed to breaking locks. But for him the small beer of the southern half of the city was no good. He wanted more. Always more.

So the ‘King’ began to make inroads into sections of northern Paris, striking up relationships with the thief-takers and Sergents, making little advances to test them every so often. Once a man had taken a small bribe from him, it was harder for them to return to the northern family and denounce him, and the ‘King’ was very shrewd. He took care which men he over-used.

His genius lay in his new idea. While all the others were content with their lot, making a few sous a day and wallowing in wine and women at night until all was gone once more, the ‘King’ saw that a more amenable approach to his income would be to take the royal shilling. So he became a thief-taker himself. Only a lowly one, naturally, but the position and the royal staff that went with it were both enough to guarantee him an easier passage about the city when he wanted. And in that position he could take more stolen goods and trade them on his own behalf.

There had been a bloodbath when the two families realised someone was taking their business. For weeks, corpses were found lying in the streets or thrown into the river, to be discovered further downstream. And then, when the two old families were so weakened by internal wrangling and the loss of so many of their men, the ‘King’ appeared to take over, with a new group of hard men, men who were keen to impose their own rules on the city. From that moment the north and south were united in the one large band, and where the rivalries had threatened their business, now they controlled all. It was the beginning of the ‘King’s’ reign.

Jacquot had watched all from his own distance. He had no need of the ‘King’s’ aid, nor did he want to become associated with a group of men who could well prove to be entirely untrustworthy. The idea of becoming involved in a group which then sold him to the law, or perhaps thrust a knife into his back when he didn’t expect it, had little appeal. It was only when he realised that it would grow ever more dangerous to work on his own, and that unless he had the support of the ‘King’ he could be turned over to the Sergents, that he chose the easier route of joining the ‘King’ and becoming a loyal servant.

Not that he was entirely committed, of course. A man should always look to his back when he lived as a felon.

Bois de Vincennes

Baldwin had enjoyed a good morning out in the woods. Although he had no falcons, it was enough to watch others sending their birds high into the air, then observe them plunging down to break the backs of the rabbits set loose for them.

The only hair in his soup was his brute Wolf. As soon as he saw the birds, the beast was determined to be off after them, and when the game was killed, he would try to lunge free.

‘You should tie the blasted thing to a tree and leave him until we’re done,’ Simon said at one point. ‘Better still, leave him there permanently.’

Baldwin stroked Wolf’s head. ‘Do not listen to him, old fellow. The good Bailiff feels grumpy this morning.’

‘So should you, hearing that there’s little chance of our returning homewards any time soon. Do you think we could speak with the Duke? Perhaps he would release us …’

Baldwin glanced at him seriously. ‘True. He might. And then, consider: what if he came to some mishap while he was here, and we were safe at home? What would the King say to us then? Would he understand how you and I had left his heir alone with a reduced party to protect him? Or would he hang us from the gates of Exeter City for all the world to laugh and jeer at?’

‘Baldwin, my wife is troubled …’

‘So is Jeanne, Simon. And both are many leagues distant. So the best course we may take is to serve our Duke and pass our time sensibly until we may take ship again — for it will happen. Perhaps we can raise the subject when we speak next with the Queen.’

The two friends spent the rest of the morning with the Duke and the King of France, and later, when the hawks were resting in the Mews, they ate a hearty midday meal with the second service. For while the King and Duke were eating with the Queen, Simon and Baldwin stood behind the Duke on guard. Only when the higher nobles had eaten their fill and left the tables were fresh mess-bowls brought in for the likes of Simon and Baldwin.

It was after they had eaten, and when Simon had suggested a walk about the old hunting lodge that they came across Sir Richard.

‘Ha! You look like a man who’s eaten a hog by yourself!’ the knight declared, poking Simon’s belly with a finger as hard as a staff of oak. ‘You’re a trencherman after my own heart!’

‘I doubt it,’ Simon muttered, but the knight was already looking at Baldwin. ‘I think there may be a problem here for us, Sir Baldwin. Care to come with me on a walk, both of you?’

Louvre, Paris

Now, at last, he was beginning to see the story.

Jean the Procureur sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers over his breast. It was an affectation, but the fact of keeping his fingers perfectly still helped him from being distracted.

‘The man was de Nogaret’s son. His wife was with him. Within a few days of arriving here, he visits the Louvre, and there he is killed. A short while after that, his wife too is slain. Most viciously.’

Hélias, when asked, had cheerfully confessed to knowing seven assassins in the city. They were occasional clients of hers. One apparently preferred men, so he had never visited her establishment, but she wasn’t going to try to persuade him otherwise. There were plenty of men with hot blood in the city without seeking new clients.

According to Hélias, the common view was that de Nogaret’s wife had simply been unlucky and met a cut-throat on her way along a quiet street. There was no more to it than that. Jean himself, however, had seen plenty of deaths in his time, and to him, this one had all the hallmarks of a crime of passion, not of some random robbery and killing. If the husband had died in a similar manner, with bloody wounds all over his torso, that would be significant, but he hadn’t. His death was clearly a great deal more professional. As was the despatch from this earthly realm of Nicholas the Stammerer.