The Lark's Lament: A Fools' Guild Mystery Page 17

  Only for us, it wasn’t random.

  “Helga’s asleep,” said Theo softly. “In spite of everything, she can sleep.”

  “She’s still a child,” I said. “And she didn’t see the body.”

  “Right,” he said.

  We lay silently for a few minutes.

  “This is embarrassing,” I said.

  “Extremely,” he said. “Bad enough that we’ve been followed by one man ever since we left Le Thoronet without spotting him.”

  “But to be followed by two is shameful,” I said. “Father Gerald would have us back in class with the beginners. Antime must have been a very good soldier in his time.”

  “Good enough to follow us, but not good enough to watch his back,” said Theo. “And now his time is over.”

  I shivered suddenly, and he pulled me close and held me.

  “The rats will be at him by now,” I said. “Maybe the dogs. And the crows will be out at daybreak.”

  “It’s hours before dawn,” said Theo. “I must say, I’m not impressed with the watchfulness of the watch.”

  Then there was a shout, and a flurry of footsteps. A horn blew, was answered in the distance. More footsteps, more shouting, then shutters being thrown open, cries of anger, surprise, fear. Boots tramping up the street, doors struck with mailed fists, protests of ignorance and innocence.

  Theo got up.

  “Too much noise to feign sleep,” he said wearily. “I’ll open the door and wonder what’s going on.”

  He poured some water in a basin and quickly scrubbed his whiteface off. I did the same, then mussed my hair so it looked slept in. He pulled open the door, looking tired. A soldier was just getting to Grelho’s house.

  “What’s going on?” asked Theo as I peered around him, squinting as the torchlight hit my eyes.

  “Someone’s been killed,” said the soldier.

  “Killed?” I gasped, crossing myself. “Where?”

  “Down at the next street,” said the soldier. “Far as we can tell from the blood, he got stabbed in the chest, fell, then managed to pick himself up and get as far as here before he collapsed and rolled back down the hill.”

  “Who was he?” asked Theo.

  “Don’t know,” said the soldier. “Nothing on him. Must have been a robbery. Want to take a look, see if you recognize him?”

  “If it will help,” said Theo. “Shall I wake Grelho? That might not be easy. He had a lot to drink last night.”

  “Oc, if you can,” said the soldier. “We’re running everyone in the neighborhood past the corpse just in case.”

  “I’ll get him,” I said, and I went upstairs.

  “The watch is here,” I whispered.

  “I know,” said Grelho. “I’ve been listening. Give me a minute.”

  I came back down.

  “He’s on his way,” I reported.

  “Thanks, Domna,” he said.

  Grelho stumbled down the stairs and caught himself before hitting the wall. “Jacques, is that you?” he said, shading his eyes. “What’s this about someone getting killed?”

  “Take a look,” said the soldier.

  We trooped down to where a small crowd of people had joined seven of Jacques’s companions who stood in a circle facing away from the body, their spears held horizontally to form a barricade.

  “Anyone know him?” asked a sergeant. “Anyone see anything? Hear anything?”

  We all shook our heads. I don’t know who there besides us was lying.

  “Of course,” grumbled the sergeant. “We’ll catch the bastard who did this. And if it turns out any of you was in on it, we’ll make sure we have lots of fun before you swing. Go back to your safe warm beds while we do our jobs.”

  “If you were doing your jobs, he wouldn’t be dead,” snarled someone in the pack.

  The soldiers rattled in anger, but no one saw who had spoken. The crowd slowly dispersed. We went back to Grelho’s. I checked on the baby, who had slept through everything, then kissed Helga on the forehead. The older girl shifted uneasily in her bed, muttering something that was too garbled to understand.

  “In the morning,” yawned Grelho, and we all went back to our beds.

  Outside, we could hear the search progress, then recede. Finally, there were just the sounds of the night, the wind through the shutters, a solitary dog barking somewhere. The snoring of my husband.

  “Damn you for a cur without conscience,” I muttered, including both dog and husband in my curse, but the dog kept on barking and the husband kept on snoring. I sighed, and stared into the darkness. Eventually, I fell asleep.

  * * *

  “Folquet sends you on this investigation,” said Grelho. “Then he sends his bodyguard—”

  “Cellarer,” corrected Theo.

  “His giant to follow you,” said Grelho. “What’s his game?”

  “He wants to know what we’ve found out,” said Theo.

  “Or he’s worried about what we’ve found out,” I said. “Maybe he had second thoughts about sending us. Maybe there’s something he doesn’t want us to know about.”

  “So he sends the giant to do what, exactly?” asked Grelho. “To stop you? To follow you and report back to him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Theo. “He wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information.”

  “Which brings me to my main concern,” said Grelho. “Our late giant was strong enough to take a fatal wound and still climb the hill to pound on my door. He was sneaky enough to follow two experienced fools without being caught. Yet this strong and sneaky fellow was stabbed to death practically on my threshold, which means that whoever killed him was even stronger and sneakier. And that even stronger and sneakier man is on our collective tail right now. That unnerves me.”

  “Brother Antime might not have been following us,” I said.

  “How do you figure that?” asked Theo.

  “Maybe something occurred to Folc after we left,” I said. “He might have remembered something that was here in Montpellier. He couldn’t know if we would come here, so he sent Antime directly.”

  “And Antime learned of our arrival, and sought us out,” concluded Theo. “That conjecture pleases me, mostly because it means that I did not fail to see a giant following us.”

  “No, you only missed the man who killed him,” said Grelho.

  Theo fumed silently.

  “Why was he killed?” asked Helga, who had followed the conversation while bouncing Portia on her lap.

  “He must have learned something,” I said. “And someone killed him to keep him from telling us what he learned. Which means that there is one positive note in all this.”

  “Forgive me for not seeing anything positive here,” grumbled Theo. “What is this glorious ray of sunshine?”

  “We’re in the right place,” I said. “Whatever there is to be found is in Montpellier.”

  “Hooray,” said Grelho. “I hope you live to find it.”

  “Which brings me to my next thought,” said Theo. “Claudia, I want you, Helga, and Portia to leave the city and go back to Marseille.”

  “What?” cried Helga.

  “Are you mad?” I shouted.

  “It’s too dangerous here,” said Theo. “That monk killed at the abbey was a chance encounter. Bad luck for him, but there was no reason to think we were potential targets. But now, we know the killer is on our trail, and he has no compunction about spilling more blood to stop us.”

  “I’ve seen blood spilled before, as you very well know,” I reminded him. “I’ve spilled some myself, usually while saving your foolish noggin. Or have you forgotten our journey to Constantinople?”

  “I’ve forgotten none of it,” he said. “You are the most courageous and resourceful woman I have ever met, no argument. But things are different now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we have a baby,” he said. “And I will not put her in harm’s way. Let Folc’s abbey burn to the ground and the Guild be scattered
to the four corners of the world, but I will not risk our daughter.”

  “I see,” I said. “So, to keep us safe, you would send us back to Marseille.”

  “Yes.”

  “There I’d be, a solitary woman traveling with a twelve-year-old girl and a baby, with a dangerous killer dogging us for the entire distance.”

  “The killer would be in Montpellier, trying to stop us,” said Theo.

  “Unless he thought we had already learned the great secret, and were on our way back to Folc with it.”

  “That’s a nasty thought,” commented Grelho.

  “There we are, on the open road, four days and five rivers,” I continued. “Lacking your manly protection. One less fool for keeping watch, one less fool for fighting off predators. But if you are so concerned for your daughter’s safety that you must insist upon us making this perilous journey, then by all means, husband, send us back to Marseille.”

  Theo sat there, trying to think of some retort, and failing miserably.

  “I think this is the part where you concede,” said Grelho.

  “You’re not helping,” said Theo.

  “We can’t go back to Marseille,” said Helga. “Not now.”

  We turned to look at her.

  “Why not?” asked Theo.

  “I’m not old enough to marry Pantalan yet,” she said. “I need a couple of years.”

  “Well, then that settles it,” said Theo. “It was a stupid idea. Whose was it, anyway?”

  “Yours,” we all said.

  “Then don’t let me have another,” said Theo. “Good. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s move on to our day. You three are off to the palais royal?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then Grelho and I will poke around and try to find where Antime was staying,” he said. “We’ll meet you after the noon meal and go find this de la Tour woman.”

  “Very well,” I said.

  “One more thing,” said Theo. “From now on, none of us goes anywhere alone. Not to the market, not to the stables, nowhere. We watch each other’s backs.”

  “Antime was stabbed in the chest,” pointed out Grelho.

  “Again with the not helping,” said Theo.

  “I could watch your chest,” offered Grelho.

  “That will make a nice change,” I said. “You’ve been staring at mine often enough.”

  “And I’ve got nothing to stare at,” complained Helga.

  “A watched pot never boils, Apprentice,” I said.

  “Enough,” said Theo. “Let us escort the ladies to the palais.”

  We walked up the main road to Peyrou, a small parade of motley. Helga cartwheeled and flipped ahead of us, Theo juggled, and Grelho greeted everyone he saw by name and had a quip for each one of them.

  I carried the baby.

  When we came to the gates of the palais courtyard, Theo and Grelho stood at either side and mimed holding heraldic trumpets, sounding a triumphant fanfare that might have been more impressive had it not been done by them blatting raspberries as loudly as they could.

  “It’s like walking through a gauntlet of farts,” I said.

  “Good-bye, O manly men,” said Helga, waving. “We’ll put in a good word for you at the palais.”

  I walked over to Theo to let him kiss Portia.

  “Be careful in there,” he said.

  “We’re the ones inside the fortifications,” I said. “You be careful. And that was a lovely speech about letting Folc’s abbey burn down. Only one problem.”

  “What’s that?” he asked as we ladies passed through the gates.

  “It’s made of stone!” I called.

  Léon, still surly with us, led us to the Countess. Guilhema wanted to play with Portia, so the three girls went off with a maid, leaving the two of us alone with some good wine. Marie had a near-empty cup in her hand.

  “You have started without me, milady,” I scolded her.

  “It is the prerogative of the privileged,” she said grandly, tossing back the rest of it and holding her cup out.

  I filled it, along with one for myself.

  “Your health, milady,” I said, raising my cup.

  She nodded graciously. “What gossip in town?” she asked.

  “Did you hear about the murder?” I replied, leaning forward.

  “No,” she exclaimed. “Where? Who was it?”

  “Not a hundred paces from my doorstep,” I said excitedly. “Some large bald man was stabbed in the street in the middle of the night. The guards were everywhere, banging on doors and looking for the killer, but I don’t think they found him. Didn’t your captain tell you?”

  “No, and I will have a word with him about that,” she said sternly.

  I had the sense that this was indeed news to her. Not that I truly suspected Marie of being involved in Antime’s death, but it never hurts to be alert to any possibility.

  At the moment, I was alert to the fact that our cups needed refilling. I took care of that immediately. Marie held her cup before her eyes, looking intently at the glimmering wine.

  “Whom shall we toast this time?” she asked.

  “To our daughters,” I said. “May they rule the world.”

  “Our daughters!” she cried, gulping it down. “Sing me a song about daughters.”

  I sang a ballad of two heroic sisters who set off on a journey to rescue their kidnapped mother from a sultan’s harem. After many verses and many adventures, they succeed. Marie applauded when I was done.

  “How you managed to memorize all of that, I don’t know,” she said, slurring her speech slightly.

  “Part of my profession,” I said, bowing. “Here’s another one.”

  I sang one about a mother cat and her kittens that had the Countess mewing along with the chorus by the end. Then I sang a paean to the Virgin Mary.

  “How many songs do you know?” she asked, massaging her belly absentmindedly.

  “Oh, maybe a hundred and fifty by this point,” I said.

  “So many!” she exclaimed.

  “Not when you think about it,” I said. “Merchants know their stock, priests know their prayers, jesters know their songs and jokes. My husband, when he’s not drinking, knows far more songs than I. He knows so many that he has forgotten how many he knows.”

  “Does he write them himself?”

  “Some,” I said. “Most of our songs we learn from each other, or from passing troubadours along the way. That last one I sang was an old one from Marseille.”

  “Marseille,” she said, frowning slightly.

  “Yes, by a troubadour called Folquet,” I said, prattling on as if I hadn’t noticed. “Never met the man; apparently he went into holy orders, but he was quite the songwriter in his day. They say he was a marvelous singer as well. He—is something the matter, milady?”

  She was pulling away from me, her teeth bared. “How dare you?” she growled.

  “Excuse me, milady, in what manner did I offend you?” I asked.

  “To say that name in my presence,” she said, practically spitting.

  “Who? Folquet?”

  She shrieked.

  “Milady, a thousand pardons. I had no idea,” I babbled. “I am in Montpellier but a few days. No one told me that I was never supposed to say Folquet, oh, I beg pardon, milady,” for she was shrieking again. “That slipped out by accident. It’s the wine talking, not me. I would never do anything to cause anyone grief, especially one as gracious as you. But surely it was the job of your steward to advise me of subjects that were forbidden.”

  “Léon did not tell you?” she said.

  “He never did, milady,” I said. “And that is the steward’s duty when a new fool comes to court. Why, when I was with the Byzantine court—”

  “You were in Constantinople?” she said in astonishment.

  “Well, surely I was the fool to the Empress Euphrosyne, wasn’t I?” I said. “Your steward must have told you that. Didn’t he look into my past before pas
sing me along to you?”

  “Yes, of course he did,” she said. “He did mention something about the Byzantine court, come to think of it.”

  “Then you would know, naturally, that a fool must be prepared if she is to perform before royalty. Oh, there can be so many nuances of behavior and preference to account for. Why, I was given two full days of instruction by the Empress’s steward before I even plucked one string of my lute before her.”

  Actually, I barged in and made myself at home in seconds, but this was a better story.

  “You know, I am related to the Imperial Throne of Byzantium,” she said in her most regal tones.

  “Well, of course,” I said. “Your mother was of the Imperial family, was she not?”

  “She was,” said Marie. “I am related to both Euphrosyne and Alexios. It was terrible what happened to them, to be forced into exile like that.”

  “Yes, it was,” I said. I did not think it politic to comment on my role in their overthrow. “It must have been difficult for your mother, leaving Constantinople for a foreign marriage. Did she speak langue d’oc before she came here?”

  “She did not,” said Marie. “She spoke only Greek when she first married my father. He used to say he liked her a lot better when he couldn’t understand her.”

  “She must have been very lonely,” I said.

  “And she was never comfortable speaking langue d’oc,” she continued. “She spoke to me in Greek when no one else was present. She would regale me with stories about Constantinople. Tell me, what was Euphrosyne like?”

  “Oh, mad but magnificent,” I said. “Prone to sudden fits of anger, but then generous to a fault, and at all times with a sense of grandeur and style like no one I have ever seen. She must have had a new pair of earrings for every day of her life while she was Empress.”

  “Earrings,” sighed Marie. “I do love them so. And you were her fool!”

  “Yes, and she appreciated the value of having a fool at court,” I said.

  “I appreciate having you,” she said.

  “You do, and yet you don’t, milady,” I said.

  “How don’t I?”

  “Any noble worth her salt knows that a proper fool can and will say anything at any time,” I said. “Not just in private, but for all the world to hear. It shows that her master, or mistress, is unafraid, and why should anyone be afraid of things that are merely spoken by a fool? The more the fool says, the more confident is the face shown to the world by the fool’s master. Or mistress.”