The King of Thieves: Read online

  Paris

  He knew what the ‘King’ was thinking, half the time.

  Jacquot stood in the shadow near the gate of the Louvre, watching the crowds passing by, waiting for a sight of the Procureur, musing over the ‘King’s’ behaviour.

  He was growing ever more irrational. When Jacquot had first arrived here, the ‘King’ had been greedy, but wary. No one could survive with immoderate demands at all times. It was necessary for a man to be sensible. The ‘King’ had known that. He had become the main gang-leader in the area because he had the ballocks and brains for the job. Over the years, two rival gangs had ruled the city. One controlled the northern part of the city, the other the south, the river forming a natural boundary for them. And for many years this was an adequate separation. There were tens of thousands – perhaps hundreds of thousands – living in Paris, and a number were devoted to a life of crime.

  All operated under the aegis of one or other criminal ‘family’.

  Jacquot had arrived just as the situation was changing. It was impossible for him to earn money, except by robbery, and when he fell in with others in a similar position, he took the same attitude to his victims as he had in the past to animals while living on the land. There was a duty to make any necessary killing as swift and painless as possible. That was his creed, and he stuck to it.

  However, others were less humane. The ‘King’ was one such.

  Jacquot met him once, swaggering about the lanes with a woman at his arm. He was about seventeen then, and life had been good to him. He had been a cutpurse for a while in the southern family, and progressed to breaking locks. But for him the small beer of the southern half of the city was no good. He wanted more. Always more.

  So the ‘King’ began to make inroads into sections of northern Paris, striking up relationships with the thief-takers and Sergents, making little advances to test them every so often. Once a man had taken a small bribe from him, it was harder for them to return to the northern family and denounce him, and the ‘King’ was very shrewd. He took care which men he over-used.

  His genius lay in his new idea. While all the others were content with their lot, making a few sous a day and wallowing in wine and women at night until all was gone once more, the ‘King’ saw that a more amenable approach to his income would be to take the royal shilling. So he became a thief-taker himself. Only a lowly one, naturally, but the position and the royal staff that went with it were both enough to guarantee him an easier passage about the city when he wanted. And in that position he could take more stolen goods and trade them on his own behalf.

  There had been a bloodbath when the two families realised someone was taking their business. For weeks, corpses were found lying in the streets or thrown into the river, to be discovered further downstream. And then, when the two old families were so weakened by internal wrangling and the loss of so many of their men, the ‘King’ appeared to take over, with a new group of hard men, men who were keen to impose their own rules on the city. From that moment the north and south were united in the one large band, and where the rivalries had threatened their business, now they controlled all. It was the beginning of the ‘King’s’ reign.

  Jacquot had watched all from his own distance. He had no need of the ‘King’s’ aid, nor did he want to become associated with a group of men who could well prove to be entirely untrustworthy. The idea of becoming involved in a group which then sold him to the law, or perhaps thrust a knife into his back when he didn’t expect it, had little appeal. It was only when he realised that it would grow ever more dangerous to work on his own, and that unless he had the support of the ‘King’ he could be turned over to the Sergents, that he chose the easier route of joining the ‘King’ and becoming a loyal servant.

  Not that he was entirely committed, of course. A man should always look to his back when he lived as a felon.

  Bois de Vincennes

  Baldwin had enjoyed a good morning out in the woods. Although he had no falcons, it was enough to watch others sending their birds high into the air, then observe them plunging down to break the backs of the rabbits set loose for them.

  The only hair in his soup was his brute Wolf. As soon as he saw the birds, the beast was determined to be off after them, and when the game was killed, he would try to lunge free.

  ‘You should tie the blasted thing to a tree and leave him until we’re done,’ Simon said at one point. ‘Better still, leave him there permanently.’

  Baldwin stroked Wolf’s head. ‘Do not listen to him, old fellow. The good Bailiff feels grumpy this morning.’

  ‘So should you, hearing that there’s little chance of our returning homewards any time soon. Do you think we could speak with the Duke? Perhaps he would release us …’

  Baldwin glanced at him seriously. ‘True. He might. And then, consider: what if he came to some mishap while he was here, and we were safe at home? What would the King say to us then? Would he understand how you and I had left his heir alone with a reduced party to protect him? Or would he hang us from the gates of Exeter City for all the world to laugh and jeer at?’

  ‘Baldwin, my wife is troubled …’

  ‘So is Jeanne, Simon. And both are many leagues distant. So the best course we may take is to serve our Duke and pass our time sensibly until we may take ship again – for it will happen. Perhaps we can raise the subject when we speak next with the Queen.’

  The two friends spent the rest of the morning with the Duke and the King of France, and later, when the hawks were resting in the Mews, they ate a hearty midday meal with the second service. For while the King and Duke were eating with the Queen, Simon and Baldwin stood behind the Duke on guard. Only when the higher nobles had eaten their fill and left the tables were fresh mess-bowls brought in for the likes of Simon and Baldwin.

  It was after they had eaten, and when Simon had suggested a walk about the old hunting lodge that they came across Sir Richard.

  ‘Ha! You look like a man who’s eaten a hog by yourself!’ the knight declared, poking Simon’s belly with a finger as hard as a staff of oak. ‘You’re a trencherman after my own heart!’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Simon muttered, but the knight was already looking at Baldwin. ‘I think there may be a problem here for us, Sir Baldwin. Care to come with me on a walk, both of you?’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Louvre, Paris

  Now, at last, he was beginning to see the story.

  Jean the Procureur sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers over his breast. It was an affectation, but the fact of keeping his fingers perfectly still helped him from being distracted.

  ‘The man was de Nogaret’s son. His wife was with him. Within a few days of arriving here, he visits the Louvre, and there he is killed. A short while after that, his wife too is slain. Most viciously.’

  Hélias, when asked, had cheerfully confessed to knowing seven assassins in the city. They were occasional clients of hers. One apparently preferred men, so he had never visited her establishment, but she wasn’t going to try to persuade him otherwise. There were plenty of men with hot blood in the city without seeking new clients.

  According to Hélias, the common view was that de Nogaret’s wife had simply been unlucky and met a cut-throat on her way along a quiet street. There was no more to it than that. Jean himself, however, had seen plenty of deaths in his time, and to him, this one had all the hallmarks of a crime of passion, not of some random robbery and killing. If the husband had died in a similar manner, with bloody wounds all over his torso, that would be significant, but he hadn’t. His death was clearly a great deal more professional. As was the despatch from this earthly realm of Nicholas the Stammerer.

  Oddly, Hélias had not been able to help him over that death. Sweet Mother of Christ! It had made the Procureur furious to learn that the security up at the Temple was so lax that a man might walk in off the street and commit murder with impunity. The two executioners must have been bribed, but it was not so easy to puni
sh them, as men with their lack of scruples and their minute moral flexibility were hard to find.

  Still, the death of Nicholas the Stammerer had been clean and tidy: a simple thrust down with a terrible, thin blade. It would have to be a long blade, too. There were some who said that to break open a man’s heart it would take only an inch and a half of metal from the front. More, apparently, from the back – but from above? He wondered how long the blade would have to be: six inches? Ten? But all men carried blades as a matter of course. There was little point attempting to look at the methodology, except to consider the manner of death. The two men killed cleanly with a single blow: the woman slaughtered in a frenzied welter of blows.

  ‘Are you sure you know no more about the married couple?’ he had pressed Hélias. He would ignore Nicholas the Stammerer for now.

  ‘What can I tell you? The pair of them seemed pleasant enough, although desperately hard up. They did keep talking about how much easier their lives would be soon, but never told anyone why, nor how much they would be improved.’

  ‘No mention of gaining money directly, then,’ Jean mused. ‘But who would, in a tavern in a strange city? That would be to invite death.’

  ‘Then perhaps they did confide in someone, eh?’ Hélias had said shrewdly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said now. ‘Someone was told. Someone knew what was going on.’

  He frowned up at the ceiling, considering all the different aspects of the matter, and it was only when he thought again about the footsteps of de Nogaret, that the frown deepened.

  If he had arrived here in the castle, he would have requested some help to find the chamber where the Cardinal would meet him. And Jean had already decided that the chamber was perhaps selected for de Nogaret by his assassin, because it was far enough away from everything and everybody.

  The first person he had considered for the murder was the messenger who brought the Cardinal to the body. First the man took de Nogaret to the chamber, and then he slew him, before going to fetch the Cardinal.

  Except there would have been blood. The messenger was seen by many, and all admitted that he was clean. So that was the first mark against him.

  ‘Second,’ he murmured, closing his eyes, ‘we have the problem of the servant killing him for no reason. Why do that? The man appears to be perfectly normal, so far as I can see.’

  If he had wished it, the boy could already have been dangling from the meat hook in the Temple, but there was little to be gained by harming a lad of decent birth. It wasn’t the same as torturing a fool and knave like the Stammerer. And at the present, he had no reason to suspect the servant of anything other than working correctly in his post.

  ‘So, servant finds visitor at gate; servant takes visitor to a remote chamber; servant fetches the Cardinal; Cardinal and servant return to the room and find de Nogaret dead. Why? And why in that particular room? And slain by whom?’

  It was a foul, confusing mess, and the more he considered it, the less confident he felt about learning the truth.

  There was no point in remaining here. The dark was beginning to fall. He must leave the castle and find his way home. Perhaps while he slept, a partial solution might occur to him; some little detail he had missed.

  He closed his door behind him, locked it, and crossed the court to the gate – and then, as a man entered, he stood a little aside.

  ‘Friend, do you know where I can find the exchequer of the Duke of Brabant?’

  Jean was tempted to snarl, ‘Do I look like a servant?’ but then he spotted a young knave from the stables. ‘I think you will find this boy an excellent guide,’ he said, and was about to turn away, when he realised what he had just done. The visitor thanked him and walked away, casting a curious look at him, as though wondering whether he was moon-struck.

  It was his own foolishness that made Jean swear quietly and lengthily. He had seen it only a few days ago. When a visitor arrived, if he knew little about the castle and the people in it, he would automatically ask a mere boy to show him the way. A knave from the stables, or one from the kitchens, either would suffice.

  Surely that was what de Nogaret had done. A newcomer to Paris, overawed by the city itself, then by the great palace of the Kings of France, he would have gazed about him with fear, anxious that he might make himself appear foolish. And so he would have turned to someone who was lower in the social scale at the castle: a knave.

  Jean cast a look about him as the dusk began to settle. He would hurry homewards, and then consider this. Perhaps, he thought, the solution was approaching him after all.

  Bois de Vincennes

  ‘Are you sure of this?’ Baldwin asked.

  Sir Richard set his head to one side and didn’t respond.

  ‘I am sorry, Sir Richard. I forget you too are a Justice.’

  ‘I am used to questioning men, and I know when they are lying to me, Sir Baldwin. Trust my judgement here. Sir Henry de Beaumont is no more an independent guard of the Duke than I’m a tailor. The man is up to his eyes in something.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as plotting to support the Queen while she’s here, I should think, Sir Baldwin. The woman’s as cunning as a fox, and will use her wiles to protect herself and her son. Now, this means that it’s only you, me, the Bailiff here, and the Bishop who are independent of the Queen. It’s not enough to serve the Duke as he should be served. I think we ought to warn him. Maybe leave France.’

  ‘I do not think so. We have no need to fear the King,’ Baldwin objected. ‘He will not harm his sister or his nephew. No, we are safe.’ Then a thought occurred to him: it was one thing for them all to be safe, but quite another for the Bishop of Exeter. He was hated throughout France for the stand he took against Isabella. And she would be unlikely to do much to help him.

  Simon was nodding to himself, but his expression was glum. ‘If we cannot trust to Sir Henry, we have to look to ourselves. But perhaps that is the Queen’s ambition, to force each of us to take her part, and then leave no one here independent to protect the Duke. Perhaps keep him here, away from his father.’

  ‘At least the King’s traitor, Mortimer, is not here,’ Baldwin said. ‘But no matter. I suggest we should remain together, all three of us, as much as possible – just to ensure that our own lives are not threatened. And we must tell the Bishop as soon as is possible.’

  ‘Yes. That makes perfect sense,’ Sir Richard said. He cast an innocent look upon Simon. ‘Perhaps we should visit the castle’s bar and take a little wine to settle us after this unpleasant shock, eh, Bailiff?’

  Simon threw a look of mingled horror and disgust at Baldwin. His belly was only recently recovered after his last visit to a tavern with the iron-gutted Sir Richard.

  ‘I think that would be an excellent idea,’ Baldwin said, and left the chamber with a fixed grin on his face.

  Cardinal Thomas d’Anjou was enjoying his visit to the Bois de Vincennes since his discussion with the King about the Queen of England and Bishop Stapledon. It was not always the case. He had been one of those who struggled to get on with King Charles and his companions. Not surprising, perhaps, bearing in mind the fact that the King’s friends were all of exalted rank, and his own family were little better than peasants.

  Yet in France there were some who looked beyond the position of a man’s parents. In Thomas’s life, that guardian angel had been the kindly priest of his tiny parish church. Some priests had so little learning themselves that they were not merely unwilling, they were unable to spot the brighter children, but not Père Hugo. He had noticed the young Thomas’s facility with numbers and with a pen, but rather than pick him out and thus ostracise him from his circle of friends, the priest made a point of speaking with all the boys, and occasionally holding small parties for them, at which he would let them play with slates and chalk.

  But it was Thomas who had the ability. There was no doubt about that. And when he was praised for his efforts, he began to want to continue, to learn more. Reading he f
ound difficult, but writing was a joy. He loved to make curling letters spread over a tablet or sheet of parchment, the patterns a delight to the eye. To elevate his work to a higher level he would add pictures: dragons breathing fire, boars snorting steam in the winter, horses rearing with a knight in the saddle. Later, when his tutor saw these works, he had scowled and beaten Thomas for inventing things which would be unpleasing to God.

  ‘He has made this marvel of a world for us, His people, and you spend your time inventing new worlds? Make yourself more complete, boy, by studying His works, by copying His creatures.’

  The beatings were regular, of course. All boys learned how to cope with the pain. But it did not dissuade the young Thomas, and as soon as he could, he had announced to his Vicar that he would like to be educated as a priest himself. And a priest he became after some little while, but he did not remain a priest for very long. Soon he was studying again in the Vatican. And he came to the notice of the Pope.

  In those days, the Papacy was a shoddy organisation. Not enough piety, too much avarice. And yet to be there, to be living with the Pope, that was an enormous honour, and one which he was unwilling to give up lightly. He rose through the ranks, crowning his career with this position of Cardinal, here at the court of the French King, as adviser to King Charles, diplomat, and spy on behalf of the Pope.

  It had been a good life. And now, with all fortune, perhaps he could see a long-hoped-for peace. The bitter rivalry between the two Crowns of England and France would be set aside at last, and maybe a new Crusade could be launched, against the heretics who’d stolen the Holy Land. That was an aim devoutly to be desired.

  The Queen of England’s position was difficult, though. Her being here could prove to be an embarrassment before long. There was enmity between herself and her husband, the kind of bitter dispute that could end a marriage. And while her presence in France could be a thorn in the side of the English King, it was infinitely worse for the King of France, for it was a constant reminder of the matter of the silken purses. The last thing which the King wished for was any reminder of that horrible affair …