Michael Jecks - The King of Thieves

‘My friend, King Charles himself has demanded that we take all measures to ensure that the killer is found. You have no rights in this. You will remain until we remember you and consider letting you go free.’

‘But we …’

‘ Bonjour, mon ami .’ Pons smiled, and set his face to the steps again.

Les Halles, Paris

Jacquot rested, watching a bear baiting, then wandering idly along with the crowds, viewing other entertainments.

The city was such a vast place. Cut in half by the great swirl of grey river, the islands in the middle where the cathedral and King’s main courts were based, this was the centre of Christendom now that the Holy Land was lost. Men and women congregated here, for Paris held all hopes, all desires, within its walls. Jacquot had arrived looking upon Paris as the place where he could find a new life, and it had given him that. However, in return it had taken all he had. All his honour and integrity had been eroded until there was now only this: a husk of a man, full of self-loathing, desperate for salvation but not having any idea how to achieve it.

If he had found just a fraction of love, of friendliness, he might have been different.

Walking about this area, he studied others now. They drew his eye as they had not for many years. Men and women, smiling, laughing. Children at their sides, gambolling and capering in the thin sunshine. Men buying flowers and sweet-meats for their wives. One man bellowing with laughter, throwing his son into the air, while the lad screamed with delight.

It reminded him of another time. Another life. When he had his own children, when he had hurled his boy up into the sky. But now, all he could remember was the same boy’s face, blue-grey, peering up sightlessly from the winding sheet as Jacquot wept and threw soil into those dead eyes. Up in the air, then into the ground. It made a fist in his breast, a fist that clenched about his heart.

Jacquot was lost. He was in the city’s market and he was lost. He recognised nothing. Panic was his sole companion as he span on his heel, desperate to be away, to be anywhere other than this. He wanted to run, to pelt off in the direction of his rooms. Or a tavern. Anything. Anywhere. Panting, he felt like a wolf in a trap, frantic with the urge to flee, but utterly incapable of doing so. His legs would not obey.

And then, the horror of his loneliness in the midst of all this joy left him, and he was calm again. He felt the fist open in his chest, his breathing return to normal, the cool sobriety return. There was nothing here for him to fear. The only danger for him was the King.

Last night Jacquot had felt secure. Now, he knew he was in grave danger. The King would have to eradicate him just to prove that he was still the King. Thus, Jacquot had two choices. He could leave, or he must fight.

He would fight, then. It was not in his heart to leave this whore of a city. He had run all the way here ten years ago. He wouldn’t be forced to run away again.

The King was past his time — Amélie was right about that. The King must go, and perhaps Jacquot would take Paris in his place.

Louvre

Baldwin was still in a pensive frame of mind when he and the others returned to the Louvre. Once inside, he looked down at Wolf and said to the others, ‘We should remain here, I think. There is no point in making ourselves unpopular with Vital and Pons when our task is to do all we can to protect the Duke. It is his safety that we are here to ensure.’

‘Aye, true enough,’ Sir Richard said. ‘But if the Bishop is accused of complicity or worse again, it’s best that we know the details, so far as we can, of the investigation.’

‘I suppose so,’ Baldwin said. He looked up at the massive white walls of the castle.

‘Something wrong, Baldwin?’ Simon asked. He was growing quite anxious for his friend. It was unlike him to be so introspective.

Baldwin turned to him with a lift of his eyebrows. ‘Should there be? No, Simon, I was merely reconsidering my priorities. There are times when it is absolutely right for a man to leave his duties to investigate a matter such as this death of the city’s prosecutor, but there are other things which demand our attention, as good Sir Richard has reminded me. Our place — my place — is here, in this castle, ensuring that the Queen and our friend Bishop Walter do not come to blows, and seeing to the defence of the Duke of Aquitaine. It is not my place — our place — to investigate the deaths of men in this castle. Come — let us find the young Duke now.’

The Queen felt utterly contented, in a manner she had not known for months, sitting in her chair, her son at her side in a similar seat, listening to the bickering of her musicians as they debated amongst themselves what they should play next.

‘Mother, do they always argue like this?’

‘No, I feel that it may be your presence which has caused them this additional pressure,’ she returned. As she said this, she bent her head a little in the direction of the gittern player. The musician swallowed, and hurriedly struck up some chords. Around him, the other men gradually followed his lead. While they played, the Queen turned her head towards the little huddle of ladies-in-waiting.

‘My Lady?’ whispered her maid, Alicia.

The Queen nodded, and Alicia began to usher guests, servants and hangers-on away, to give the Queen more space. Of the two ladies-in-waiting who were moved, Lady Alice de Toeni looked quite shocked; beside her, though, Lady Joan of Bar gave the Queen a slight wink.

‘She is happy to tolerate your foibles, I see, Mother,’ the Duke said. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’

The Queen smiled. He was not yet thirteen, and yet he had the observant eye of a man a great deal older.

‘I feel better now that those people have been removed. I thought I was to be crushed when they all came in behind us.’

‘But why include the ladies-in-waiting?’ he wanted to know.

‘I do not trust them all. If you need to converse with me, my darling, you should always try to do so through Alicia. She is my friend and dearest companion. Do not speak with Lady Alice de Toeni.’

‘She’s a creature of my father’s?’

‘Yes. And not to be trusted,’ the Queen said, scarcely moving her lips.

It was true. When King Edward had sent the Queen here as his emissary, so he had fenced her about with his own people. Among her ladies-in-waiting, the only one in whom she could confide when she left England was Alicia, a sweet child who knew, moreover, that her own happiness depended entirely upon the Queen. She adored one of Isabella’s guards, Richard Blaket, and that gave the Queen a certain control. Alice de Toeni, by contrast, was utterly devoted to the King, and the Queen suspected that she was a spy.

Lady Joan of Bar was a different proposition. Formerly the wife of the Earl Warenne, some ten years or so ago she had managed to leave her vile brute of a husband.

‘If the matter is urgent, you may be able to trust Lady Joan,’ the Queen added.

‘Her? But wasn’t she selected to join you by Sir Hugh le Despenser?’

‘Yes. But she suffered so much from her husband, I think she now feels sympathy for me and remorse for accepting the task of coming to spy on me. She will not harm me, I believe.’

‘That is good. I will bear these women in mind.’

‘What of you, my darling? What news is there?’

‘I have heard that the Despenser is in another panic just now. He fears that at any time the Lord Mortimer will arrive on our eastern shores to overrun the country with a ragtag and bobtail host of Hainault mercenaries. He writes to all the Admirals warning them, I hear.’