The King of Thieves

Chapter Twenty-Seven

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.’

‘He is a frantic fool,’ Queen Isabella snorted. ‘And the sooner he is removed the better.’

‘He is my father’s friend, Mother.’

She noticed the sudden use of the personal. ‘You are quite right. And yet he rapes the whole nation. Your father’s friend treats it as his own private plaything. How many more loyal servants of your father must be dispossessed and exiled because of Sir Hugh le Despenser?’

‘Sir Hugh has the right to protect himself. Mortimer would have seen him hanged.’

‘It is a mutual ambition.’

‘Perhaps so,’ he said. But there was no answering chuckle in his tone. He looked listless and fretful.

‘Darling, you are worried?’

‘Mother, I have seen the effects of the wars on you and the King, as well as on my friends in the household. Good men are dead because of the squabbling between the Despenser and the Marcher Lords. I would not have any more good men die.’

‘What of the realm?’

He glanced at her, and suddenly she saw a man in those shrewd blue eyes. ‘I feel I should be asking you that, Mother!’

She smiled, turning back to the musicians. Putting out her hand, she took his, but only for a moment. There was no answering pressure from his fingers. It was not a lack of love for her, but the mere reminder that she was not his only parent, and that he had loyalty to his father too.

‘Mother?’

Ah, she thought, here it comes.

‘Mother, Bishop Walter has asked me to speak with you, to request that you meet with him. Will you do so?’

‘What does he want with me?’

‘I think, only to speak. He is deeply worried, too. He wants to see if he can heal the rift between you, he says.’

‘Oh, really?’ she spat. ‘Will he return to me my tin mines? My estates? My children? My money? What of the men of my household, the ones exiled by his advice, the others held in English gaols? All guilty of the atrocious crime of loving me and wishing to serve.’

‘He is a different man from the arrogant Treasurer of a year ago, Mother. Now he sits quietly. I think he realises his treatment of you was not fair. And he is terribly fearful of the matter of the man who was killed.’

‘I had heard something of that,’ she said. ‘But you think that he is malleable now? He will be honourable in his dealings with me?’

‘I hope so.’

She smiled. ‘Hope is so misjudged a commodity, do you not think?’

‘I feel sure that the Bishop is better acquainted than I.’

‘So I should speak with him again. That is well. I shall, you may tell him.’

‘I will ask Richard of Bury to see him.’

‘This Richard … you are content to keep him?’

‘He is a good tutor, Mother. He is diligent,’ the Prince said with a slight droop of his mouth. ‘Too diligent on occasion, when the sun is warm and the deer waiting to be hunted. But he teaches well, and forces me to consider the importance of a martial spirit and love of the arts. I have learned all about Alexander, about the Romans, about King Arthur. I sometimes feel I must wade and wallow in their history all my days.’

‘So long as he is loyal.’

‘I think he is the most loyal of all my servants.’

‘Good. We will have need of loyal men before long.’

‘What shall I tell the Bishop?’

‘That I will be pleased to see him in two days. I will let him know where and when. And now, let us give ourselves up to the music.’

‘Very well.’ He listened silently for a moment or two. Then: ‘Mother? Where on God’s clean earth did you find these men?’

Wednesday after the Feast of the Archangel Michael^*

Paris

Stapledon stood licking his lips in the antechamber to the Queen’s rooms, keen to get on with the interview, and yet fearful of it. It would not be a meeting of minds, of that he was sure.

‘Bishop? Please follow me in here,’ a servant called from a doorway, and Bishop Walter rose from his bench and glided after the man, his heavy robes concealing his feet.

‘My Lady, I hope I see you well?’

‘Dispense with the pleasantries, my Lord Bishop. You and I know each other well enough to realise they mean nothing. What do you want?’

‘My Lady, I fear for your safety,’ the Bishop said. ‘It is one thing to return to a beloved country, to visit a brother, to see all the places which have appealed so much, but at this time it is dangerous. War is still possible.’

‘You have little faith in my diplomacy, then.’

‘It is not that, it is the value which you hold. You are too important, my Lady, to be left here in Paris.’

‘Oh, that is not a matter of concern, my Lord Bishop. Since you refuse me my own income from my estates in Devon, and since you also now will not extend to me the money which my husband allocated for me, I am forced to live away from Paris for much of the time. The King, my brother, is not so parsimonious as to see me resort to beggary to keep myself fed and clothed.’

This was a pointed comment, and the Bishop flinched. ‘My Lady, all I did, I did for the good of the realm. It was my duty, and I discharged it as I thought best. I am very sorry if any action of mine was enough to disturb you.’

‘Not for long, my Lord Bishop. I was a little discommoded to have all my children sequestrated, I confess, but what is that for a woman, compared to your mature judgement.’

‘My Lady, let me …’

‘No, my Lord Bishop. Let me explain to you. I want the money which the King my husband sent with you. I want it in my coffers, because that will allow me to fulfil my duties to him. It will also permit me to ensure the safety of my son. I and he will not be here forever, and we must leave a good impression. That means largesse, feasting, entertaining. Have you ever known an impecunious ambassador? Yet you insist on making me one such. It is not satisfactory.’

‘My Lady, I would gladly, but the King was most insistent. He said that you must return.’

‘I say I wish to have the money first.’

‘Your Royal Highness, sadly-’

‘So you will refuse. That is a great shame. You know, of course, that the French court blames you for the death of the Procureur?’

‘That was nothing to do with me!’

‘Really? All say you were seen quarrelling violently with him. And all Frenchmen know how argumentative the English are. And how prone they are to grabbing weapons and attacking.’

‘But on the day he died, I was-’

‘I am sure you have a perfect alibi, Bishop. However, it will not suffice. A man with your wealth can easily afford an agent to do your bidding.’

‘My Queen, will you not please consider returning home?’

She looked at him, and now allowed a small smile to stretch her mouth. ‘Of course I will. As I said in the court, just as soon as that pharisee is gone, I will be happy to go home.’ She rose. ‘I will not return to my husband until Sir Hugh le Despenser and his father are gone from the kingdom forever.’

Temple

Pons returned to the gaol alone when the message reached him. Vital was asleep, and there was little need to wake him, so far as Pons could see. There had been many similar messages in the last day or two, and always it was a whining cur of a peasant demanding to be released.

The streets here were crowded about with tall, timber-framed buildings, but as he approached the river and the Île de la Cité, the streets broadened suddenly, and the walls about him became stone. The gaol where this man was kept was at the northern gate to the Île, the Grand Châtelet. Here, Pons nodded to the guard, and was soon inside.

Walking down the circular staircase was treacherous in the extreme. The water was a constant sound here, with droplets falling from the ceiling, and green slime clinging to the stonework all around. Pons was sure that if he was to be left here for any time, he would be driven mad. The sound of water dripping, the wash of the river, the clanking of chains, the constant smell of faeces from the buckets in the little cells, all would contribute to a feeling of intolerable despair.

‘What is it?’ he said.

‘I want to speak to you, master.’

It was the youngster with the white eye, he saw. The lad had his face to the grating in the wooden door, like a man trying to escape by forcing his way through the ironwork. His lips were outside the cell. Perhaps that was it, he wanted to be free so desperately that merely pushing his lips to the free air outside was enough.

In the glittering torchlight, the man’s one good eye rolled with anguish. Of course, Pons thought, the others in the cell would be interested to know what the boy thought he could sell … and if he was to betray another, his life would not be worth a brass sou.

In the last few days, many of the prisoners gathered up by the Watch, were already so desperate to escape their cells that they were calling Vital and Pons to relate any snippet. So far, none of it had been of any use whatever. If there had been much chance of a breakthrough, he would have woken Vital, but now, seeing this man’s yearning to be free of the cell, he was glad he had not done so. This was another useless dead-end, if he knew anything.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘They call me Le Boeuf.’

‘Well, Boeuf, if you get out of that cell because you tell me you know something, and then I learn you don’t, you’ll be straight back inside — and next time you ask to see me, it’ll be a week before I come down here. Got that? I dislike having my time wasted, and looking at you, I have to ask myself: “What can this piece of shit know that can possibly help me?”’

‘Please!’

Pons studied him a moment longer, wearing his ‘dicing’ face. An expressionless face was particularly useful when gambling with some of the sailors at the riverside, but now Pons was using it to intimidate. Making a decision, he span on his heel and was off up the stairs, the guard hurrying behind him, while Le Boeuf screamed after them.

‘That man, you know him?’ Pons asked the guard as they reached the street level.

‘He’s just a low-life. I suspect him of cutting a few purses, pocketing a few trinkets, perhaps. But mostly he’s just a nuisance because of his attempts at begging. I’ve seen him before now, with a patch over his good eye, pretending to be blind, grabbing at any matron who passed.’

‘So it’s hardly likely he has anything of use,’ Pons said.

‘I doubt it,’ the guard agreed. He was a large, broad man with swarthy features and a face that had been scarred badly by a sword or dagger blow many years before. The scar tissue had marred his face, a great horizontal mark that reached from one cheek almost across to the other, breaking his nose on the way. His face was enough to scare Pons, let alone the men downstairs.

‘Have you had any deaths in that cell yet?’

‘No. But there’s a couple who’re coughing badly. Could be they’re getting the prisoners’ disease.’

Pons reflected. ‘Ach, we had them all taken so that we could listen to their tales. I may as well learn what I may. Bring him up here to me.’

‘Sieur.’

The man called Le Boeuf had been punished before, Pons saw. His right ear had been heavily clipped. The entire lobe and much of the rear of the ear was gone. That was good. He knew what he might suffer, then.

Pons said nothing for some moments, considering the man. Le Boeuf had great manacles on his wrists, and the heavy chain dangled almost to his groin. At his ankles were more chains, hobbling him most effectively. The blood was staining his bare feet where the metal bands chafed his flesh.

Apart from that, he had only terror in his eyes. It was there in the way that his eye avoided Pons’s own, the way that he kept looking longingly over Pons’s shoulder towards the daylight outside, but also in the wideness of his eye and his panting. This was no ordinary terror. Perhaps he suffered from that fear of small, dark spaces which afflicted so many?

‘Well?’ Pons said sternly. ‘You said you had something to tell me.’

‘Will you release me from that cell if I tell you all?’

‘If you can tell me who killed the Procureur, I will have you freed and see that you are well rewarded too.’

The young man glanced over his shoulder as though stiffening his resolve by reminding himself what the alternative was.

‘Then I will tell you. There is a group in Paris which runs all the crimes.’

Pons lifted an eyebrow.

‘It is true, Master. The man in charge, he is called the King, and he has many men at his command. Those who cut purses or rob, or the others who break into houses, they all have to pay him. He takes what they steal and sells it for them, and they receive a part for themselves. If they steal money, they must pay him. If they have whores, they must pay one-fifth of their takings to him. All the crimes in Paris are to his profit.’

‘You tell me that the thieves of Paris have a King?’ Pons said cynically. ‘Guard! Put this man back with the others!’

‘No! He lives in rooms near to the eastern wall, down by the river. The thieves go to him at night. Those who disappoint him are taken to a warehouse at the river itself, and their bodies thrown in.’

‘I suppose he kills them himself?’

‘No. He has his own executioner, just like our King Charles. It was that executioner who slew the Procureur.’

Pons felt his breath stilled in his breast. ‘This executioner killed the Procureur? How do you know?’

‘I saw him. I was in the alley when it happened.’