Kate Sedley - The Dance of Death

‘And now you’ve told me.’ Philip sounded bitter and I realized guiltily that by doing so, I had possibly endangered his life as well as my own.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But you must see for yourself that I’m in desperate need of some help. Finding a former English soldier who, after forty years, most likely speaks French like a native, in a city the size of Paris is a near-impossible task. Added to which, there’s no positive evidence that this Robin Gaunt lives here at all.’

‘Oh, that sort of thing’s only to be expected,’ my companion snorted savagely. ‘Our lords and masters issue their orders, no matter how impossible they may be, and we poor underlings are expected to carry them out. And woe betide us if we fail!’

‘I don’t think the duke would-’ I was beginning, but Philip interrupted me.

‘Princes, nobles, officers, gentlemen, they’re all the bloody same if you ask me! I never met one who was any different. But all this jabbering ain’t going t’ solve your problem.’ He chewed a dirty fingernail. When I would have spoken, he raised an equally grimy finger and wagged it under my nose. ‘Bide quiet a minute, can’t you, and let me think. Mind you,’ he went on, ‘after what you just told me, I’m buggered if I can think proper. You’re dabbling your fingers in treason here, Roger. And so’s Prince Richard.’

‘Depends if it is treason,’ I argued. ‘Depends on what I find out.’ I glanced over my shoulder, then whispered, ‘Maybe His Grace is already the rightful king. Maybe he has been since the execution of Clarence. And maybe Brother George was rightfully king before him, and that’s why he had to be got rid of.’

Philip clapped one of his hands over my mouth; it smelled of smoke and garlic. ‘Will you keep your great gob shut? Just to please me!’ He started chewing his nail again, nodding his head up and down and staring vacantly into the distance before suddenly coming to a conclusion. ‘Best thing you can do-’

‘We can do,’ I corrected him.

He ignored me. ‘Best thing you can do,’ he continued, ‘is to enquire around the inns and taverns if anyone knows of an elderly Englishman married to a French wife. An old soldier, someone who might once have been part of the occupying forces forty years ago.’ He stopped, giving vent to a rusty, reluctant chuckle. ‘O’ course, you could just ask if anyone knows a man called — what was it? — Robin Gaunt.’

It was so good to hear him laugh again that, for a moment, I joined in his merriment, but other considerations soon had a sobering effect. ‘It sounds like excellent sense, Philip, except that it overlooks one thing: I can’t speak French. And neither can you.’

His face fell; then he rallied. ‘It’s surprising how much you can make yourself understood if you try hard enough. Just keep repeating the name Robin Gaunt and tell ’em he’s English, Anglais. Femme française . Do you know them? If so — by some miracle — where do they live? Keep saying things long enough and loud enough and something’ll get through to somebody. Provided, of course, there’s someone somewhere who knows something. Which I very much doubt.’

‘No, wait!’ I said. ‘We’ve forgotten Jules. John told us where to find him. Le Coq d’Or in the Rue de la Jui- something or other. Anyway, the street that runs from a bridge on the south bank to the Pont Notre-Dame. I know where that is. Eloise and I crossed it earlier today. We’ll go and find him.’

Philip’s mouth set in familiarly stubborn lines. ‘No,’ he said.

‘What do you mean, no?’

‘I’m not dragging Jules into this.’

‘Why not? John told me-’

‘I don’t trust him. That’s why not.’

I was astonished at Philip’s vehemence. ‘Why don’t you trust him?’

He hesitated for a moment or two, searching for an answer. Finally, he came up with, ‘He’s a Frenchie, ain’t he? That’s reason enough.’

‘Not in this case,’ I argued. ‘It was John’s suggestion, and he said Jules wouldn’t be interested in anything I might be up to. And, indeed, why should he be? All we need is for him to ask a few questions for us. If by any chance he should evince any curiosity, we’re just trying to find an old friend who might have settled in Paris. Surely that should satisfy him.’

‘No,’ Philip repeated even more forcefully than before. ‘If you want to ask Jules for help, you’ll go on your own. Try and force me to go with you and I’ll kick up such a rumpus that you’ll have half of Paris crowding round. I mean it, Roger. We do this alone or not at all.’

I was puzzled as well as annoyed. ‘You can hardly know Jules,’ I said. ‘He’s obviously one of John’s French agents, but you can have seen very little of him, I should have thought. Why do you mistrust him so?’

Philip avoided my gaze, or, at least, it seemed to me that he did. I convinced myself that I was mistaken.

‘I’ve told you,’ Philip muttered sulkily. ‘He’s a Frenchie and I wouldn’t trust a single one of ’em with my name and direction, let alone a secret of this magnitude.’

‘But he won’t-’

Philip rounded on me furiously. ‘Look, Roger,’ he hissed, seizing my arm and digging his nails in so violently that I could feel them even through the material of my sleeve, ‘I ain’t coming with you if you confide in that there Jules and that’s my last word. So it’s him or me. Take your pick.’

I finally accepted that he was serious. There would be no changing his mind and I had to choose between one and the other. The sensible choice was Jules, who could speak a little English as well as fluent French, whereas Philip’s knowledge of the latter was non-existent, like mine. So why was I hesitating? But I knew Philip of old; we had been friends for years, and some of his distrust of the Frenchman had begun to convey itself to me. I knew it was foolish to let myself be influenced, particularly when Philip’s attitude seemed to have nothing to give it substance, but there might be some reason behind it that he wasn’t telling me. In the end, the devil I knew was better than the one I didn’t.

‘All right,’ I agreed. ‘We won’t bother Jules. We’ll leave him to enjoy his ale in peace.’

Of course it was inevitable that, entering the Rue de la Juiverie from a side alley, we should find ourselves almost directly opposite Le Coq d’Or at the precise moment Jules was leaving the inn. Moreover, he was not alone. John Bradshaw was with him, glancing up and down the street as though expecting momentarily to see someone he knew.

Philip hauled me back into the shadows of the overhanging houses and the noisome filth of the little lane, where a dead dog was rotting alongside a sheep’s head — both crawling with maggots — and piles of other decaying rubbish that did not bear too close an inspection.

‘Jules,’ he hissed.

‘I know. I saw him,’ I answered irritably. ‘And John’s with him. He’ll have warned Jules to look out for us, so we might as well-’

Philip shook his head. ‘I told you, I don’t trust him. Just wait here a moment, quiet, like, until they’re gone.’

I sighed. ‘And if they decide to come this way? We shall look a right pair of fools skulking around in this cesspit.’

‘Well, they ain’t coming this way,’ Philip said. ‘Look!’ The two men had indeed turned towards the south bank and the Petit Pont. Philip grabbed my arm. ‘Quick!’ he grunted and dragged me across the street, bumping into several irate citizens and narrowly missing being run down by a couple of carts, into Le Coq d’Or. ‘Last place they’ll think o’ looking for us, for a while at least.’

And so we started on a long round of the Paris inns, ale houses and drinking dens, trudging from the Île de la Cité to La Ville and back again, then across to the Université, where we accidentally entered a whorehouse and were set upon by one of the ugliest madames I had ever seen, determined that her girls should avail themselves of our services on what was obviously a slack afternoon. The discovery that we were English added to our charms for once, the ladies being intrigued by the prospect of men with tails, and we only made our escape by the skin of our teeth and a swift backhander to the madame to call off her bevy of beauties.