The Lark's Lament: A Fools' Guild Mystery Page 23

  “Or to Le Thoronet, if she wants to properly finish the job,” said Grelho. “Maybe you should be going straight there.”

  “If it is her, and if that’s where she’s going, then she has a day’s lead on us,” I said. “I warned Folc to keep guard until I returned. He’s smart enough to guard himself.”

  “Rocco had advance warning,” pointed out Grelho. “Look what happened to him.”

  “Rocco was alone, and an idiot,” I said. “Folc, at least, has his Guild training and a company of monks under his command.”

  “Then let us go to Marseille,” said Claudia. “That’s where the next piece of this story will be found, I warrant.”

  “Your instincts have been good so far,” I said. “I’ll follow your lead.”

  “As well you should,” she said, inordinately pleased with herself, in my opinion.

  We spent the evening packing our gear. Grelho disappeared with Helga while we did; then the two returned bearing a covey of roasted capons and more of that good Syrah.

  “We should leave more often,” I said as we plowed through the best meal we had had since we left the Guildhall.

  “You really should,” said Grelho. “But the cause of this celebration is twofold. Your departure, and the arrival of a new jester in Montpellier.”

  “And who might that be?” asked Claudia.

  “Me,” he said. “Grelho the Fool has been born anew, and I have all of you to thank for it. I crawled into my cave to bewail my fate when I was kicked out of the palais, and I would have stayed there until Doomsday if you hadn’t shown up. You have rescued me from the depths of mopery, my friends, and you have my eternal thanks for it.”

  “And now, there is nothing that you cannot do,” said my wife, lifting her cup in salute.

  “On the contrary, there are many things that I cannot do,” said Grelho. “But that won’t stop me from trying to do them.”

  “Spoken like a true fool,” I said. “To Grelho!”

  “To Grelho!” chorused Claudia and Helga.

  “To the Guild,” he replied, and we drank.

  We turned in after dinner, hoping to get an unjesterlike early morning start on our journey. Portia, after emitting a belch that rattled the shutters, fell asleep quickly, and Helga, who wasn’t used to that much wine, followed soon after.

  My wife cuddled into me, resting her head upon my chest. I watched her face as it rose and fell with each breath I took. In repose, with the whiteface scrubbed off, she was still as beautiful as when I first saw her. First saw her as a woman, I mean, although she had been disturbingly attractive as well as completely convincing disguised as a man.

  Could Lady Mathilde have pulled a similar impersonation off that successfully? Could she have done it after so many years of imprisonment and torment? She was no actress, no fool with Guild training. As strong as she must have been, she still had to have been a broken woman on her release. And to travel all that distance …

  An idea bobbed to the surface of my swirling thoughts, a tiny thing, but it wouldn’t go away. Finally, I eased my wife off my chest and quietly got up from the pallet. Then I crept softly up the stairs to Grelho’s room, taking care to knock so that he wouldn’t wake straight into a knife-throwing stance.

  “What is it?” he asked groggily.

  “It’s Theo,” I said. “I have a question for you.”

  “This had better be worth interrupting the dream I was having,” he groaned, but he sat up. “What’s the question?”

  “If you were coming to Montpellier from Le Thoronet, would you go through Marseille?” I asked.

  “Let me think,” he said. “If I were coming here directly? No, I don’t think I would. I’d take the road that goes through Aix and Arles. Marseille would take me miles out of the way to the south.”

  “That’s what I thought. Thank you.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Stupid question,” he muttered, curling up under his blanket.

  “What was the dream?” I asked.

  “The Countess Marie needed a new consort,” he said sleepily. “Needed him real bad. Guess who it was?”

  “Go back to sleep, Grelho,” I said. “I hope you pick up where you left off.”

  “That never works,” he said, drifting off.

  I went back to where Claudia lay sleeping. Or so I thought, but then I saw the dagger in her hand.

  “It’s me,” I whispered, and she relaxed and slid it back into her sleeve.

  “What is troubling you?” she asked softly.

  “A new theory,” I said. “One we will have to put to the test.”

  “When?” she asked.

  “Soon,” I said. “Until then, let’s get some sleep.”

  She had her eyes closed, already ahead of me. But she usually is.

  * * *

  Grelho walked with me down to the stables to collect Zeus and our wain. The horse reared several times as we wrestled him into harness.

  “I do not envy you, traveling with this monster,” said Grelho.

  “He’s meant to be galloping with a single captive rider,” I said. “It’s not fair to put him in harness like this, but nobody else in the Guild wants him.”

  “I can’t understand why,” said Grelho. “What will you do with him when you finally reach Toulouse?”

  “We’ll keep him,” I said. “I’ve had to leave places in a hurry before. He’s good at that.”

  “You do tend to stir up trouble,” noted Grelho.

  “I am trying to settle down,” I said. “It doesn’t come easy.”

  “It did for me,” said Grelho. “Maybe too easily. Well, you have inspired me, Brother Theophilos. Tonight, I perform at the barracks, and I will kill.”

  “Convey our regrets,” I said.

  “I shall make them forget you ever existed,” he said. “Competition is good for sharpening a fool’s skills.”

  “They didn’t need to be sharpened,” I said. “Merely awoken. How long do you think it will take to worm your way back into the palais?”

  “Not long, now that Marie knows I’m more than a fool,” he said. “She’ll want me back just for the intrigue.”

  We reached his door, where the others awaited us, our gear packed. We loaded the wain quickly.

  “Give my regards to Pantalan,” said Grelho. “Tell him to visit sometime.”

  “Will do,” I promised. “Be careful. You won’t have us watching your back anymore.”

  “Or your chest,” added Claudia.

  “I am a fool,” said Grelho. “I know how to protect myself.”

  “We don’t,” said Claudia. “Tell us your secret.”

  “If things look dangerous, I run and hide,” he said.

  She laughed and hugged him hard. Helga followed suit; then he lifted Portia up and brought her to his face to nuzzle gently.

  He turned to me and thumbed his nose. I returned the gesture.

  “Take good care of these three,” he said.

  “I was counting on them to take care of me,” I said.

  We embraced.

  “That cave you were in is one I know well,” I whispered to him. “Try and stay out of it.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he whispered back.

  Grelho helped the ladies onto the wain while I held Portia. Once Claudia was settled, I handed our daughter up and vaulted onto the seat by them.

  “See you someday,” I said to Grelho.

  “I hope so,” he said.

  I flicked the reins, and Zeus hauled us up to the main road. When we got to the gate where we had entered, we paused to see if Reynaud was on duty. He was not. The baker manning the gates waved us around them. A short time later, we crossed the bridge over the river Lez, and Montpellier became a memory.

  There is always something dispiriting about a return journey, and there was little chatter among us. Even Zeus lacked his usual orneriness, pulling us down the center of the road with no attempts to take us ove
r its worst ruts and bumps. We did not make the best time, and toward the end of the day we found ourselves in a deserted stretch of forest, with no prospects of a roof in sight.

  “Looks like we’ll be camping tonight,” I said. “That clearing over there looks promising.”

  “Suits me,” said Claudia. “I just want to get off this damned wooden seat.”

  The clearing was about forty feet wide, more than enough to allow us to hobble Zeus at one end and set up our tent at the other. A loose ring of stones on a blackened bare patch of ground let us know that we were not the first to camp here. While Claudia and Helga erected the tent, I ranged around to collect firewood, finding enough to keep the wolves away all night. I dumped it into the ring of stones and got the fire going.

  “What’s for dinner?” called Claudia from the tent.

  “I have sausages from town,” I said. “I thought I would fry them up and save the beans for tomorrow.”

  Helga came up to Claudia, looking pale and serious. She whispered something in my wife’s ear. Claudia whispered back, and Helga nodded.

  “Theo,” called my wife. “Helga’s not well. I’m going to take her inside for a while.”

  “Anything serious?” I asked.

  “A woman’s affliction,” said Claudia, smiling ruefully. “I thought that might happen to her on our journey.”

  “I leave her in your hands,” I said hastily. “I will call when the sausage is done.”

  They disappeared inside the tent, bringing Portia with them. The fire was soaring, almost to my height. I put the sausages into a pan and rested them on the edge of the flames. As they began to sizzle, I picked up an ax and started hacking at some fallen tree limbs I had dragged over for feeding the fire later.

  A branch cracked somewhere behind me. Without turning, I called, “Good evening, Sieur Julien. Come warm yourself by the fire, if you like. It must be cold crouching in the woods.”

  Footsteps came toward me, then stopped about ten feet away. “Good evening, Tan Pierre,” he said. “Or is it Theo? Your wife called you that.”

  “Tan Pierre is the name under which I perform,” I said, turning to face him. “Theo to my friends. But I have a feeling that you are not one of them.”

  He stood at the edge of the firelight, his eyes dark, set back in his doughy face. Julien Guiraud, Folc’s brother-in-law, smiled at me, but there was no warmth in that smile.

  “Not your friend? What makes you say that?” he asked.

  “The sword in your hand, for one thing,” I said. “Are you any good with it?”

  “Good enough to kill a fool,” he said, holding it up. “Would you mind tossing that ax away? I think it’s making my men nervous.”

  “As you like,” I said, flipping it behind me. It landed on the other side of the fire, the ax-head embedding itself in the ground with a thud.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Will you and your men be joining us for dinner?” I asked. “I could put on some more sausages.”

  “Very kind of you, I’m sure,” he said. “But there is no need to put any extra on.”

  “Well, if you will excuse me, I think they need turning,” I said, and I stooped and turned them with a stick so they would cook evenly. When I turned back, Julien was flanked by four men. The two directly next to him had crossbows pointed at me. The outer pair had drawn swords.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” I said to them. “Are you here for the food or the entertainment?”

  “The entertainment,” said Julien. “And you will be providing it. How did you know it was me?”

  “Ah, storytelling,” I said. “One of my best talents. But before I perform, we must negotiate my fee.”

  “You are hardly in a position to make demands,” he said, laughing.

  “Sieur, as a merchant, you must surely understand that value must be exchanged for value,” I said.

  “Your answer to my question is of little value,” he said. “I merely wanted to satisfy my curiosity.”

  “But that is all I want as well,” I said cheerfully. “If I answer this, will you answer an inquiry of mine?”

  “Very well,” he said.

  “Then we have a bargain, Sieur,” I said, clapping my hands together. “Well, it all became a matter of my faith in myself. I did not think that anyone could possibly follow me from Marseille to Montpellier without my knowing about it. It’s a matter of pride, you see.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Julien.

  “Now, right there is the difference between a jester and a merchant,” I said. “I would have said in response, ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow you.’ You see the clever play on words there?”

  “Get to the point,” he said.

  “As you wish,” I said. “So, if no one followed us immediately from Marseille to Montpellier, then it meant that whoever was in Montpellier killing people had either come there before us or after us. My wife thought that our suspect had traveled there from Le Thoronet, but if that was the case, then that person should have taken the direct route through Aix and arrived a few days before us. But the killings began a few days after we arrived, which meant that the killer must have arrived after we did. So, I thought, what if someone in Marseille knew we were coming here? He wouldn’t have to follow us to see where we were going; he would just have to show up later. After that, it wouldn’t be so hard to pick up our trail. We are blindingly obvious in our choice of garment and makeup.”

  “You certainly are,” said Julien. “But again, how did you know it was me?”

  “Because only three men knew we were coming here,” I said. “Pantalan, but I trust him. Laurent, the Viscount’s seneschal, but he wanted me to come here so I could deliver a letter from him to the Countess. Then there was you. You learned on the morning that we left that we were going to Montpellier. And what occurred to me last night is that you tried to send us in the opposite direction to Toulon to find that ruined merchant. I have a feeling that that would have been a completely futile pursuit. Montpellier was exactly where we needed to go to get to the beginning of this puzzle, yet you tried to keep us from coming here.”

  “It would have been better for you if you hadn’t,” he said.

  “So it would seem,” I said ruefully. “It was you who killed that poor monk and used his blood to paint the line from Folc’s song, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” he said. “I would have happily used a bucket of whitewash for the purpose, but he ran into me and I had to kill him before he raised the alarum. And then I thought, why not put him to use? And that is answer for answer.”

  “Hardly,” I said. “Mine was much longer. Besides, I knew yours, so I haven’t gained equal value yet.”

  “The successful merchant always comes out ahead in an exchange,” he said.

  “There you are,” I sighed. “Another reason why you’re a merchant and I am only a fool. I am left to guess at why you did all this. Avenging your sister, I suppose, for Folc’s tawdry little habit of deceiving her. But to follow it up by killing, just to keep me from finding out the truth? That seems excessive, to say the least.”

  “Saying the least is not one of your talents.”

  “Now, that’s something a fool would say,” I applauded. “There’s hope for you yet. I think that you somehow found out that Lady Mathilde still lived, and that you’ve been looking for her to kill her for her part in destroying your sister’s happiness. And each man you killed was to keep us from following your path to her.”

  He smiled again. “No more,” he said.

  “You never married, did you?” I said.

  “What?”

  “This devotion to your twin sister,” I continued. “There’s something unnatural about it. Folc took her away from you, didn’t he? Twice, now that I think of it—once when he married her, and a second time when he put her in orders. That must have killed you.”

  “Enough!” he barked. “No more tales. Tell your wife and that girl to come out.”
>
  “Why should I?” I asked. “You have come to kill all of us.”

  “Tell them to come out, and I will make a quick death for them,” he said. “Resist, and I will give them to my men first.”

  “That is your best offer?” I asked quietly.

  “This is not a seller’s market,” he said. “Tell them to come out, and without weapons. Do it now, or we will put a few bolts into that tent and see what we hit.”

  “Very well, Sieur, we have a bargain,” I said.

  I turned toward the tent. The crossbowmen were aiming at the entrance.

  “Come on out, ladies,” I called. “Everything is all right.”

  A pair of arrows whistled out of the woods behind me. The crossbowman on the left went down, clutching his thigh and screaming. The one on the right fell with an arrow through his throat. He didn’t scream.

  That left Julien and the other two swordsmen. They came at me quickly, leaving me nowhere to go but the fire.

  So, I jumped through the fire.

  Julien skidded to a halt just short of the ring of stones. I grabbed the ax that I had thrown to this side and hurled it with all my might back through the flames. Distracted by the fire, he didn’t see it coming until it buried itself between his eyes.

  Claudia charged screaming out of the woods like an avenging angel, her sword reflecting the fire, her face a white mask of fury. The ruffian on the right might as well have been facing Saint Michael for all the good his sword did him. She took his head off with one swing.

  The fifth man turned and took to his heels, an arrow barely missing him. He vanished into the darkness. Then we heard galloping hoofbeats receding into the night.

  The only sounds for a moment were the moaning of the man Helga shot and the crackling of the sausages in the pan. Then the moaning ceased. I walked over and pulled the sausages away from the fire.

  “I am afraid they’re burnt,” I said.

  “That’s all right,” said Claudia, sinking to her knees. “I’m not hungry.”

  Helga emerged from the woods, holding Portia in her arms. Her bow was slung behind her. “The other one got away,” she said.