Michael Jecks - The King of Thieves

It took them only a short while to confirm that the Bishop had indeed left at first light.

‘Hmm. A shame. When Bishop Walter was here, a man could always lay his fist on a good pint of wine. What will we do now? Perhaps we’ll even have to resort to buying our own barrel or two.’ With that thought, the knight’s mood lightened considerably, and he began to look about him with a great deal more interest. Not from any desire to see more of the splendid city in which he found himself, Baldwin was convinced, but more from a wish to spot the first wine merchant’s building with a view to ordering as much stock as he could.

They were soon outside the city’s northern walls, and before them loomed the great blank-sided towers of the Temple. There was one towering donjon, with four turrets about it, so far as Simon could see, and the whole was clad in a dark grey stone that dominated the sky all about here, while also intimidating the city itself. It lay in the midst of wild swamplands, with tussocks of greying grasses and bright reeds. Occasional tufts of white showed where the reeds had grown their beards, just like Raybarrow Pool in Simon’s Dartmoor, the landscape where he felt most at home.

This was no soft undulating landscape. Here was the great Templar castle; further along was the hill of Montfaucon, where the French King had erected his magnificent gallows, on which he could hang sixty-four felons simultaneously. It lent a grim, lowering air to the whole area.

Simon was not surprised to see that his friend Baldwin was growing more and more tense as they approached. This was the place in which the Templars had been arrested on that fateful Friday, and in which so many had been tortured, some so brutally that they died of their wounds or were forever crippled. It was mere good fortune that he himself was not present in the Preceptory on that day, and thus evaded the arrest and subsequent punishment.

The walls were tall and strong, much like those Baldwin had described in the Holy Land, all built to the glory of God and for the protection of pilgrims, but Simon felt no easing of his spirit as he walked in through the main gate. No, he was aware only of a heaviness of spirit, as though the souls of all those who had died in here were calling out to him.

Pons was sitting on a bench near a stable-block. He sat up at the sight of them, tipping his broad-brimmed hat back over his head, and rose to welcome them. ‘You are earlier than I’d expected.’

‘We have much to do today,’ Simon said.

‘Where is the man?’ Baldwin demanded more bluntly.

‘Follow me,’ Pons said. He took them around the main tower and out to a smaller series of chambers at the northern wall. A door opened into a dingy little staircase that wound downwards. ‘I would have kept him in the same room as normal, but since the murder of the Stammerer, I’ve been reluctant to stick to the old rooms.’

Simon was not particularly scared of narrow spaces, but that journey was one which would remain with him a long time. There was a lingering damp chill to the air, and the sound of drips. He had enough experience of lands like this to know that the water was seeping through the walls from the marshlands beyond. Foul eruptions of sodden vegetation stood in every available crack. Puddles pooled on the ground, and where there were lanterns flickering with candlelight, water gleamed from every surface. The cold was deadening to the body, but also to the soul.

It was with great relief that he saw Pons had stopped. The man was opening a door that gave onto a new corridor — and this looked more like the passage between gaol cells. On either side were doors, and Pons strode down until he reached one on the left, roughly halfway along. He took out a key, inserted it, and opened the door. ‘Here, masters, is the man you wanted to see: Paris’s own “King of Thieves”.’

Bare-chested, the prisoner sprawled on the floor, his hands yoked to a beam that lay across his shoulders. A scabbed beard marked his jaws, while his right eye was blackened and swollen, the cheek beneath grotesquely deformed where a blow had broken his cheekbone. Blood marked his thighs and breast from a multitude of wounds where tiny squares of his flesh had been systematically cut away, and now all wept in unison.

‘No more! No more! You swore!’

‘No,’ Pons said calmly. ‘You begged. I didn’t promise anything, King.’

Baldwin was frozen in horror at the sight. It was as though he was seeing for himself — and for the very first time — the result of the attacks on the Templars themselves. The knights had been held in rooms like this, in all probability, and tortured before each other in the same way, so Baldwin had heard tell, just as the Muslims had tortured, mocked, and executed their predecessors at Safed.

‘Release him,’ Baldwin said, in a voice like death itself.

Street near St Jacques la Boucherie

Jacquot was aware of them as soon as he left his room. Used to following others without detection, he was perfectly aware when someone else was trailing him.

There were three of them — that he was certain of. Two behind and one up ahead on the left. This lane was narrow, little more than an alley, really, and he could have sworn at himself for being so careless. He’d thought himself safe enough, but now he realised his error. The bitch Amélie had put them on to him and he had walked merrily into her trap. Not again, though. This was the last time she would seal a man’s death warrant.

He would have to escape these three first, and the very first thing to do was bunch them up so he knew where they all were.

There was a short alley back behind him, which led up west to the Grande Rue; he would have to get to it somehow. Turning, he marched swiftly towards the two. One displayed no interest in him, but the other was younger, less experienced. Jacquot was surprised Amélie didn’t pay a little more and get a more competent set of men. Be that as it may, he had a good look at both, committed their faces to his memory, and then swiftly turned again and shot up the little alley.

Behind him there was a cry, then a patter of boots on the filth of the alley. He threw a quick look over his shoulder, already feeling the pain in his chest from shortness of breath. He was too old for this sort of activity. She would pay for this .

Louvre

Hugues was not up early. The discussion with the Cardinal had taken some while, and by the time the man left him, Amélie had disappeared. Probably returned to her little pit in the city itself. No matter.

Today, though, he had business. He would have to trail after the Bishop and wait for a suitable opportunity to kill him, but that wouldn’t be too hard. Even if his assassination was seen, the King himself wanted the troublesome priest out of the way, so it was likely that witnesses would hold their tongues.

The large block allocated to the guests and their servants was to the west of the main castle, inside the enormous curtain walls, and he walked along the building idly, keeping an eye open for the Bishop. Surely this was the time he would be returning from his morning prayers in the chapel? But there was no sign of him as the people poured from the little church. After some while, Hugues went to the door to peer inside, but there was no one there, and when he asked the priest inside, he was told that the Bishop had not appeared.

Cursing to himself, he wandered back to the block and leaned against a wall, prepared to wait, glancing up at the sun every so often.

Temple

The King of Thieves turned out to be quite a young man, perhaps only five-and-twenty years old. He may once have been mannerly, from the way in which he tried to bow when the yoke had been cut away from him, but all he could achieve was a vague flourish of the hand, before his legs buckled beneath him.