Michael Jecks - The King of Thieves

‘Well, one day I was away from my home. Left the demesne in the hands of my wife and my steward — a thieving little scrote by the name of Jack of Lyme. I trusted him, but he repaid me by killing my wife and robbing me of all my treasure. He stabbed her …’

The knight looked away from them and swallowed. For the very first time Simon heard the sadness that lay at Sir Richard’s core.

‘Aye, he robbed me of all I held dear. Still hold dear, in fact. Just one thing, though. I had a monstrous great brute. Mastiff, he was, a tan devil named Bill. Well, Bill must have heard something in there, because he went in, and he saw Jack in the room with my wife. And Bill bowled in to see what was up, found her dead, I think, and went for Jack. Damn near took his arm off. Jack killed him, poor old Bill, but Bill put paid to his escape. We caught him less than ten miles distant, pleading with a peasant for some aid for his chewed arm. I didn’t wait for the law that day, I fear.’

He turned slowly back to Baldwin. ‘This is not a perfect world, my friend. We both know that. But I tell you now, Sir Baldwin, God would not refuse my Bill in heaven. And if Jack got there, probably by trying to bribe Gabriel at the door, Bill would chase him out in a moment.’

There was a sudden firmness in his voice, and now he spoke in more his usual manner. ‘And if Saint Peter himself tried to tell me to cast me old Bill out through the gates, I’d black his eye for him.’

Baldwin smiled. ‘Sir Richard, you are a good, kind, and generous soul. My apologies for my black mood. I have not earned the right to be melancholy.’

‘Hah! We’re all here, ain’t we?’ Sir Richard said. ‘But there’s little need for sadness. We’re on the brink of war, in the city of our enemies, with the estranged wife of our King, surrounded by men who’re apparently deserting the King to lend succour to his wife, and trying to learn why someone has killed a good and decent man whom we never got to meet in a tavern. Plenty there to celebrate, I’d say!’

Paris, near the River Seine

The King wiped at his nose again, still feeling the fury that had swept through him when the mother-swyving son of a whore had left last night. The bleeding wouldn’t stop.

Amélie had tried to soothe him, but the bitch was no good with potions and bandages. All she was capable of was pouring a fresh cup of wine, and when his mashed lips had touched the liquor, it stung so much, he threw the cup at her, swearing when he missed. She had walked from the chamber after that, and hadn’t returned until now.

It took an age for the bodies to be taken out. Luckily the King had a shed next to the river, so all the men had to do was cart the fellows out at night and drop them into the water. Even that had proved a problem. The river was low, apparently, and one of the bodies fell into the thick mud at the water’s edge. Matters weren’t improved by the fact that he wasn’t entirely dead and began to wail. Probably came to as the cold water hit his face. Old Peter the peasant clambered down a rope and cut his throat for him before he could bring the Watch, and then half-dragged, half-slid the body to the water, where he pushed the fool off. Then Peter himself almost drowned in the mud and had to be rescued. The whole thing was a farce. And it was not made any better by the reflection that bloody damned Jacquot had bested them all.

You had to be impressed. The man was ancient now, and yet he could fight and win against several men at a time. The King was not keen to see his forces whittled down any farther, but there was a matter of pride at stake here. There were those who would hear of the incident and might form the opinion that the King’s crown must be slipping. And a crown, once fallen from a brow, could be picked up by any with the power and strength to carry it. There were many in Paris who felt sure that they had just that authority.

Curse Jacquot. He was the best man the King had ever had. But there was no doubt, he would have to die.

‘Where were you?’ he growled at Amélie. ‘I wanted you last night.’

‘You made no sign of it. I thought you wanted me to go, so I went.’

There was an indifferent note in her voice that made him want to hit her again. ‘Come here,’ he said.

‘Why?’ she asked as she crossed the room.

He reached out and grabbed her hair, twisting his fingers in it and drawing her nearer. ‘Where did you go last night?’

‘To a tavern. Why?’

‘Looking for a dog to cover you?’ he sneered.

‘Looking for a man, perhaps.’

‘You dare seek to make me wear the cuckold’s horns?’

‘Did you marry me, then?’ she hissed.

‘You cow! You strumpet! You craven, shitty little slut! You want some of this?’ he snapped, and drew his knife. The point had just touched her chin, when he felt something poke at his belly, and looked down to see her own knife at his groin.

‘Kill me, and you’ll be paunched, little rabbit,’ she said with icy calm.

‘I can kill you in an instant.’

‘Yes. And I can gut you so you die over days, in agony,’ she said.

And she was right. He had seen the exquisite torture that a knife in the guts could bring. There was no cure. Not when a man’s bowels had been spilled. It was enough to make him respect her again — if not trust her. He didn’t trust any woman.

He shoved her away and rammed the blade back into its sheath before demanding more wine. At least his mouth was healed enough for that now. Meanwhile, she walked away and lay on her flank on the skins that made up his bed in the corner. Christ’s arse, but she was beautiful. Wild, dangerous and lethal as a hawk. What she wanted, she would take.

‘You are lucky I didn’t kill you then,’ he said.

‘Am I?’

The King usually killed his women because they were too dull. This one would have to die soon because she was too unpredictable. She made him nervous.

Yes, Jacquot first, and then her. But Jacquot’s death would take careful planning. Whom could he set upon his assassin?

Paris

Vital eyed the men and shook his head.

‘I do not think that they know very much, Pons,’ he said.

‘I think you may be right, Vital.’

‘Will you release us, then?’

The speaker was a short man, with a face that appeared to have been burned by acid when he was a child. One eye was milky-white, although his hair was still unmarked by the frost of age. He was probably only some two-and-twenty years, Pons thought to himself. And already an expert in so many aspects of thieving and murder.

All these men had been swept up by the watchmen of the city in the last day. There were some forty or more in different gaols all about the town. Some were wanted already, and one was destined for Monfaucon, to be broken on the wheel for his offences, but most were like this little man: idiots who had so little ambition and intelligence that their crimes were obvious to all. However, they were useful, since they were likely to know more than most about the men who were capable of killing a Procureur.

‘Please? You have nothing against me.’

Pons and Vital exchanged a look. ‘No,’ Pons said. ‘You will remain here until we are satisfied that there was no collusion between you and others to murder the Procureur.’

‘But we know nothing! Nothing! ’ The man swore as Pons and Vital nodded to the gaoler, and the heavy door swung shut with a dull thud. The keys rattled, the bolts slid into their niches in the wall, and the gaoler began to lead the way up the damp staircase.

‘Wait!’

Pons turned. ‘You want something else?’

‘You must realise you cannot keep us here for long?’