Michael Jecks - The King of Thieves

‘Are you all right, Baldwin?’ Simon asked.

‘Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘It’s just that since yesterday, when we saw the dead man’s servant, you’ve been more than a bit withdrawn.’

Baldwin eyed him closely. Then he sighed and said. ‘The fellow who was found dead here at the castle? It was Guillaume de Nogaret. A man of that name was the one who drew up all the accusations against the Templars. He was the King’s lawyer, the architect of the full terrible injustice of those times. Simon, I think he must have been the father of the dead man.’

‘Not the man himself?’

‘No. Guillaume senior died some years ago.’

‘So now the son and his wife have been slaughtered,’ Simon mused.

‘And it is nothing to do with us,’ Baldwin said with brutal certainty.

‘Because we are in France?’

‘No. Because the man was a liar and a perverter of the truth. I would have nothing to do with him, alive or dead, nor with his son. Why should I aid his descendant, after he caused the destruction of an Order which was so far above his comprehension?’

‘Hah! Thought I’d find you two here!’ Sir Richard bellowed, in what he optimistically considered to be a quiet tone.

Baldwin felt Simon stiffen at his side. ‘Would you care to join us, Sir Richard? We are taking a little wine.’

‘No such thing as “a little wine”. Wine should be drunk in profuse quantities, Sir Baldwin. Move over, Bailiff. Give a man a little space. Hey, did I tell you the joke about the young squire who was about to inherit? Eh? He was forced to think about marriage, and then met a lovely wench: you know the sort, eh, Bailiff? One with thighs that could crush a destrier between ’em. Bubbies like great soft puddings, and the sort of face that would tempt Saint Gabriel himself to come and-’

‘I think we get your drift, Sir Richard,’ Baldwin interrupted smoothly.

‘Eh? Oh, right. Well, he met this girl with lips that could suck the worms from an oaken beam, you see, and he said to her, he said …’ Sir Richard began to guffaw at the joke as he approached the end. ‘He said: “Maid, I may not look much now, but in a year or so, my father will be dead, and then I’ll be as rich as grease, so how about you marry me?” And you see, she was very taken with him, and she asked for his name, and all his details, and then, two weeks later, he learned she was his new stepmother. Eh? Eh?’

Baldwin smiled in appreciation of the pain on Simon’s face. ‘You seem wonderfully recovered, Sir Richard. You were not content when we saw the chasm open between our Queen and Bishop Stapledon.’

‘No, but I reflected hard, Sir Baldwin. You see, there is nothing I can do about that. Ach, I’m no diplomatic man. To be good at that, you must be an expert at dissembling before others. And that’s not my way. No, I know what I am good at, though, and that is keeping the King’s Rolls on sudden deaths. Yes, I can investigate a murder without trouble. You know that. You and I, we’ve looked at a few corpses together, haven’t we? Well, that’s why I’m in better spirits now.’

‘Because of the murder?’

‘Aye. If there’s a dead man about, I can help to find the killer. And if it means I’m helping Bishop Walter at the same time, then I’m happy.’

‘Is there more for us to look at?’ Simon asked. ‘I had thought that the others, Pons and his friend, were set to find the killer of the Procureur.’

‘Where there’s a corpse too many, there’s work for others, is what I say,’ Sir Richard said.

Simon looked at him blankly, and then gazed at Baldwin, who shook his head. ‘No, Simon, I can freely confess that I have not the faintest idea what he is talking about.’

‘Well, there is the Procureur, whose killer we must discover if we may, to help our Bishop, who is suspected of the crime, but since we know so few people about here, it’s not easy without any sort of assistance. But we could perhaps help if we could take a view of the body.’

‘You’ve a means of allowing us to see his body?’ Simon asked with a marked lack of excitement. In all his years as Bailiff and since, he had never enjoyed the sight of a dead man.

‘Aye,’ Sir Richard said, but he was looking meaningfully at Baldwin, not Simon. ‘Someone told me once that if you want to find a man’s killer, you should always look at the corpse first, because he’s the last witness to the murder. And if you can get him to talk, you’re half the way to finding the assassin.’

Paris

Jacquot walked from the tavern as the sun rose to noon, but today he was sober enough. He had only returned here for a morning’s reviver.

She was a trim little tart, that much was true. Amélie’d wagged her tail at him, and made her intentions clear enough. If Jacquot was to kill her man, he could have her for himself. Not the best proof of fidelity a woman had ever given to a man, but for all that there was a harlot’s good faith behind it. Which meant the bitch would be happy with him for a while, for exactly as long as he satisfied her cravings and desires. Let him fail in that duty, and she would undoubtedly rush to hold the same conversation with another likely fellow with brawn in his arms and little in his head.

That was going to be a problem — the fact that he, Jacquot, had too much going on in his head; he was no slow-thinking churl like the others. As soon as she sensed that he was capable of thinking for himself, her desire for him would wane. Ach, he had known too many women like her since he’d come here to Paris. They were all out for the same things: money, security, control. And if you gave it to them, they just wanted more. There was no future for a man like him with a woman like her.

Once, he had planned to get back to the little village where he had been so happy with his wife and family, but that was when he had first set out on his career as a killer. He had thought then that he would kill a few people, gradually increasing his fee, until he had earned enough to be able to go back home, find another wife, start afresh. It was a beguiling notion.

As were all dreams. No. He had learned while still a young man that there was nothing that God had given that He couldn’t take away again. So he would remain here. One day, perhaps, when he had gone on a bender for a week or more, his heart or his brain would give out, and he would discover the wonderful solace of death. No heaven for him. He would be there in purgatory, so he believed, and maybe his soul would be dragged down to hell. When he was drunk, he didn’t care. He ranted and raved at the skies when he was in his cups, because he didn’t give a sou for a God Who could ruin him in this way — and for what ? To see whether he, Jacquot, was good enough? Sweet Jesus, he would have been good enough, if God hadn’t stolen his entire family.

His thoughts returned to the woman, Amélie. She wanted him to kill the King and allow her to run all the King’s activities.

He would be best served to kill her instead, Jacquot considered. Yet to take over the King’s demesne was an attractive notion …

The three men were studying the Procureur’s body, which had been washed and lay in his chamber.

Sir Baldwin and the Coroner were intent on their task; Simon less so. To the Bailiff, the corpse was, and only ever could be, a man who had died unnecessarily.

True, he, Baldwin and Sir Richard shared a common purpose. They tried to impose a little order on the world. That was what a dead man was, after all. He was a disturbance. To the King’s Peace, to the natural order of things. He was a father removed, he was a son taken away from a doting mother. He was an emptiness where there should have been noise, laughter, joy. Even tears on occasion.