Michael Jecks - The King of Thieves

Tavern near the eastern wall by the River Seine

Jacquot slipped along the alleyway until he reached the little doorway. There was an ancient crone in the corner, and he nodded to her as he passed by, dropping a couple of sous into her bowl as he went.

‘ Merci, m’Sieur ,’ she muttered.

Madame Angeline had been here for as long as anyone could remember. In the past, a long time ago, she had been the leading attraction of the brothel which had stood here, but that was before her third babe and the infection in her womb which had all but killed her. It was said that after that baby she had felt so much agony in her belly that she could never service her men again. The brothel had turfed her out, and she had remained there on a little box, begging from all those who had once used her, never threatening to tell wives or lovers, but merely sitting mutely, hoping for money to support herself. Her babes died one by one as the famine struck the city, just as so many other youngsters did, but she seemed ever more determined to remain here where she had known happiness, laughter and fun in her youth. The brothel closed, reopened, closed again, and now was a tavern where some women offered themselves, but only on an unofficial level. They paid a commission to the tavern-keeper.

He had to clamber down a steep staircase to the undercroft where the barrels of wine were racked. The place held that warm fug of sour wine, piss and smoke that was the odour of drinking to any man. He snuffed the burning applewood with appreciation, thinking again of the days of his youth. In those days, with a large orchard nearby, he had often taken old boughs for his own fire, and the scent was like the smell of his childhood.

Here the wine was not the cultured flavour of the more expensive vines in the south and west, but the stronger, peasant wine of the small farms outside Paris. For some, they were too powerful, smelling so strongly that many would turn their noses up at it, but not Jacquot. The weaker wines and more cultivated grapes could be left to the rich, to the knights and merchants who liked to discuss the different tastes they said they could discern. For Jacquot, the purpose of drinking was to recall happier days.

There were rushlights and a few foul-smelling tallow candles which added their own pungency to the reek, and he took a quart of wine to a barrel and leaned on it, while he supped the wine and felt its urgent heat slipping in through his veins. This was the best of times — the moments when blessed oblivion started to rush towards him, when pain and grief would slip away and he could feel the wonder of forgetfulness. Forget his intense loneliness.

The King shouldn’t have tried that. It was a shameful act, to try to kill him for merely demanding the full reward for his efforts. Sure, he had been slow to achieve the original aim, but that was because he was a perfectionist. He had to know his target in extreme detail before he could think of launching any form of attack. And usually, of course, he was desperate for the money to allow him to return to a little hovel like this one, in which the bad memories could be erased and good ones revived by the use of suitable quantities of red wine. Now he had his money, he could remain here for a full week, he reckoned, sensing the weight of the purse at his belt.

‘Hello, Killer.’

His reactions were a little blunted, but even if he was sober, he wouldn’t have immediately drawn a knife — not with a low, sultry voice like that. ‘What do you want with me?’ he asked.

The King’s woman was taller than he’d realised. This was the first time he had seen her either fully clothed or standing. She was a better-looking wench than he had thought before. There was a feline elegance to her, in the way that she walked, in the way she gestured with her hands and arms while talking, and in the measuring gaze of her dark eyes. Her lips were full, soft and red, and he wondered what they would taste of, were he to crush them under his own. As he looked all over her, he saw her little tongue flick out and wet her upper lip in an unmistakeable invitation.

‘I want you, Jacquot the Killer. Amélie wants you.’

He gave a dry chuckle. ‘So you can take me to the King’s men? The King sent you, did he?’

‘The King is the old King. There is always a new King waiting in the wings,’ she said, leaning forward and running a long forefinger down the side of his face, tracing a line from his temple to his jaw, and then down, under his chin.

‘I am no King.’

‘But you could be. With my brain, you would make an excellent King. All who opposed you could disappear, while you took over the King’s income.’

‘And then, when you found another more suited to you, you would leave me for him?’

‘I have no interest in others,’ she said, and licked her lips again before biting at her bottom lip and smiling.

He drank off his horn of wine and poured himself more. ‘I have no need of you or of money or power. All I seek is here,’ he said, lifting the horn again.

‘Then you are a lucky man. Most men want something,’ she said.

‘I have already had all, and lost it,’ he snapped. ‘I know that the pain of loss is stronger than the pleasure of possession. Much stronger.’

‘So it’s better not to have anything? Just in case you lose all again? That is no recipe for happiness,’ she said slyly.

‘Go and lie with a goat, you whore. You want me for some sick passion based on blood.’

‘Yes — I want blood! You give me blood, and I’ll give you my body. But take me and you can have all Paris at your feet. You know it’s true. The King is stupid. He thinks he can hold everything together by the exercise of his will. He thinks, the fool, that if he wishes everything to remain the same, it will do so. But it will not! The world changes. The world moves on. Kings live … and then die.’

‘And you think this King is due for retirement?’

She smiled lazily, and then dipped her finger in his wine, before bringing it to her lips and gently sucking it. ‘I think he is soon to lose his throne. Don’t you?’

Simon and Baldwin’s chamber, the Louvre

‘Well?’ Simon asked at last.

Baldwin was sitting in a window seat, making the best use of a pair of candles and the very last of the dying sun to read the fine writing, squinting to make sense of the small characters. ‘Eh?’

‘What does it tell you?’

‘That the man de Nogaret was found dead in a chamber where he ought not to have been. The Procureur postulated that the room was deliberately chosen, since it was far from all the daily work at the Louvre, so no one would hear the murder. Second, that Cardinal Thomas d’Anjou was brought there by the same servant who had led de Nogaret there. The Cardinal was in his chamber, but went straightway with the messenger to the room, where they found the body. The messenger was a man called Raoulet, apparently. And the Procureur was aided in his investigations by a kitchen boy called Philippe. Hmm.’

‘Not a lot there, then. Is that all?’

‘He mentions a woman helping him — someone called Hélias.’

‘Interesting, but hardly enough to help us to resolve that crime or to prove the Bishop’s innocence in the matter of the Procureur’s death.’

‘No. Clearly we shall have to search elsewhere for aid,’ Baldwin said.

Morrow of the Feast of the Archangel Michael *

Louvre, Paris

The Cardinal was standing at his fire when Bishop Walter entered, warily.

‘I am most grateful for your time, my Lord Cardinal.’

‘Bishop Walter, please, take a seat and let me help you.’