[Fools' Guild 08] - The Parisian Prodigal Page 8

  “And if I had killed her, I would accept that fate,” he said.

  “If you had killed her?”

  “You sound as if you had no doubts in the matter,” he said.

  “Not my call if I did,” I said. “But I don’t, so there’s an end to it.”

  “What reason would I have?” he asked.

  “Reason had nothing to do with it,” I said. “I have seen acts of depravity in my life, the very description of which would frighten reason right out of the room. To make love to a woman, then kill her, then sleep soundly the rest of the night next to her bleeding corpse—that takes a special kind of man, Senhor Baudoin. I don’t know what you were thinking, and I don’t care to know.”

  “Do you really believe that I would do that?” he asked. “That I am that wicked?”

  “I’ve known you for less than two days,” I said. “I cannot tell what manner of man you are, except by what I have seen.”

  “You did not see me kill her,” he said.

  “No, but..

  “And, putting aside the depravity of the act, do I strike you as a man so stupid as to stay with the woman he killed so that he could be captured so easily?”

  “You haven’t struck me as a smart man,” I said.

  “But you are one,” he said.

  “I am a fool,” I said.

  “But fools, they know things,” he insisted. “They know people. They see through pretense and lies.”

  “You overrate us,” I said. “I haven’t seen through you yet.”

  “I am transparent,” he said. “I have been stripped of all rank, all hope, all dignity. There is nothing left but the truth.

  I did not kill her.”

  “That is not for me to decide,” I said.

  “Someone is trying to set me up,” he said. “I arrive, I announce myself, and somehow become a threat. Or a pawn, a way of embarrassing my brother.”

  “Oh, you’ve become much more than an embarrassment,”

  I said.

  “Please, Senhor Pierre,” he whispered. “I have no other recourse.”

  “What about him?” I asked, nodding at Hue.

  “I know no one here,” said Hue. “Nor will anyone speak with the companion of Baudoin while Baudoin is here.”

  “I will pay you, if that would help,” said Baudoin.

  “Get stuffed,” I said. “I am the count’s fool. Do you think my loyalty is so worthless?”

  “I am prepared to be as loyal to him as any man alive,” he said. “Can a brother do more?”

  “I’ve seen brothers gouge each other’s eyes out, and their blood was even more noble than yours pretends to be,” I said. “I’m not impressed.”

  “Then I am doomed,” he whispered.

  “That’s about the size of it,” I agreed. “I will come by for another visit, though. This is on my rounds.” I walked back toward the stairs.

  “Fool,” he called after me.

  “What?” I said without turning.

  “If they hang me for this, an innocent man dies, and a murderer goes free,” he said. “Is that the justice you seek?”

  “What I seek is a roof over my head,” I said. “I seek a full belly, a warm fire, a loving wife, and happy children. Most of all, I seek laughter that I have brought into existence. I am not in the justice game, senhor. But I certainly hope it finds you.”

  I climbed back to daylight and sought out the gates. As I passed through them, Sancho fell into step beside me.

  “What did he have to say?” he asked.

  “I thought you were going to find me at my usual place,” I said.

  “I was, but then I thought since I left you that message, you would probably go somewhere else, just out of spite.”

  “You could have followed me.”

  “In which case, you would have spotted me with your customary skill and lost me within two streets. So, I have dispensed with all my cleverness and cunning and have approached you directly.”

  “Good plan.”

  “What did he have to say?” he repeated.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Me,” he said.

  “But are you only you, or are you someone else right now? We are inside the walls, so you are no longer the count.”

  “I am the man who is about to buy you a drink if you tell me what Baudoin said.”

  “Why didn’t you say that in the first place? I’ve been looking for you.”

  It was late morning, so the tavern he chose was relatively empty. He paid for a pitcher and a loaf of bread from his emergency purse, then poured two cups and slid one to me.

  “Spill it,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t dream of wasting wine like that,” I replied.

  “I mean, tell me what he said.”

  “He said he didn’t kill her.”

  “Right,” he snorted. “Well, there’s a load off my mind. I was worried sick about that poor bastard being guilty. What else?”

  “He wanted me to find who did it.”

  Sancho stared at me. “That’s taking a bad joke too far, if you ask me,” he said slowly.

  “I told him to leave the bad jokes to professionals like myself, but you know how those murderers are. No sense of proportion.”

  “The gall of him,” said Sancho. “And what else did you tell him?”

  “What else?”

  “You’re not planning on investigating this, are you?”

  It was my turn to stare. “Is that what you wanted to ask me?”

  “It is now.”

  “Good God, Sancho. I work for the count, for one thing. And for another, as the baby fox said to its mother when she told him to kill the tortoise, what’s in it for me?”

  “Then why did you go talk to him in the first place?”

  “Curiosity, my dear Sancho. Which has now been satisfied.”

  “Fine,” he sighed. “I suggest you keep it suppressed. I have a hunch it will only lead you into trouble. Sorry. Not working on much sleep at the moment. I had to go back there and make sure everything was quiet.”

  “Was it?”

  “There were no other customers,” he said. “The Abbess has the girls in line. They’re going to bury La Rossa tomorrow, and that will be an end to it until the count hangs Baudoin.”

  “Thus ends our mutual assignment.”

  “Until the next pretender shows up,” he said. He knocked his cup against mine. “To bastards everywhere.”

  “On their behalf, I thank you,” I said, returning the toast.

  * * *

  “What are you doing back already?” asked Claudia as I came through the door.

  “Put the crossbow down and I will tell you,” I said.

  By the time I was done, she and Helga were at the table, the girl with her chin resting on her folded hands.

  “Poor woman,” said Claudia.

  “No one ever dies of old age in a bordel,” said Helga softly.

  We looked at her. She was expressionless, but tears were trickling down her cheeks.

  “Something my mother used to tell me,” she said, running her sleeve across her face. “Excuse me, I’m going to go check on Portia.” She got up and ran upstairs.

  “Damn,” I said. “Thoughtless of me. It’s getting to the point where I can’t even open my mouth without upsetting one of the women in my life.”

  “She’ll be all right,” said Claudia. “She can’t live her life without hearing about things that remind her of the past. Nobody can. What happens now?”

  “I expect Baudoin will hang. The count believes in making examples of people.”

  “Good,” she said. “Justice for La Rossa.”

  “There’s only one problem,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I think he may be innocent.”

  She could have questioned me, or given a cry of astonishment or outrage, or merely picked up the crossbow and put a bolt through my stupid head. But she knew me, knew me better than anyone, save p
erhaps one blind old man in the Black Forest, so she just looked at me thoughtfully and asked, “Have you gone completely insane?”

  “Years ago. Thought you would have noticed by now.”

  “What makes you think he didn’t do it?”

  “Nothing tangible. Just my gut telling me he was telling the truth.”

  “So that’s where you do all your thinking.”

  “You thought it was my brain all this time?”

  “No. Considerably lower, considering you’re a man.”

  “Speaking of which, if he was set up, someone in the bordel probably knows about it.”

  “Could someone have come in from the outside?”

  “Maybe. But Sancho was in the front parlor the whole evening, and two of his men were watching from the outside.”

  “Is there a back door?”

  “To the kitchen. It was barred from the inside. I noticed that when I fetched the retching, wretched Hue.”

  “But someone inside could have barred it afterwards,” she mused. “Oh, hell, you’ve got me thinking it’s possible. Did you tell Sancho you were going to investigate this?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to. And that bothered me.”

  She gnawed absently on her lower lip. “This could be coming from somewhere high up, in other words,” she said.

  “Baudoin stirred things up. Someone could have panicked.”

  “You said the Count of Foix was there.”

  “Yes, he was just leaving. He …” I stopped, trying to remember. “He specifically recommended La Rossa to Baudoin.”

  “Interesting. And he’s part of Raimon’s inner circle.”

  “I should return to the scene of the crime.”

  “No. You shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a bordel,” she said. “That makes it a bad idea.”

  “Because I am a married man.”

  “More to the point, because you are a married man whose wife happens to be me,” she said. “Therefore, you going into a bordel is a bad idea.”

  “Then how do I find out what

  “Simple,” she said. “I’ll go.”

  Chapter 5

  You live with a man for years, perform together the bawdiest of acts with the raunchiest language in the seediest of taverns, romp with him in bed with abandon, and still, he thinks you know nothing.

  My husband looked at me in astonishment, then began to splutter. “You can’t go there,” protested Theo. “No matter what people may think, you still have some semblance of decency.”

  “Abandoned long ago,” I assured him.

  “And what makes you think those women will talk to you?”

  “Because I am a woman,” I said.

  “And that gives you an advantage in a bordel?”

  “Well, for one thing, I am less likely to succumb to their charms than you are.”

  “I did not succumb to anything,” he said indignantly. “You must think me a complete and utter—“

  “Which one had the talented feet?” I interrupted.

  “Feet?”

  “Come now,” I said. “You come home from a bordel and immediately give me a footrub. If you think that I haven’t seen the connection there—“

  “I thought you liked the footrub,” he said, looking wounded.

  “I loved the footrub,” I said. “If you gave me a footrub like that every night, I would be the happiest woman in Christendom. But you don’t give me a footrub every night. In fact, I cannot even recall the last time you gave me a footrub. So tell me the truth, husband. Which of them had the talented feet?”

  “The Abbess was barefoot,” he said guiltily. “But I didn’t—“

  “Were they pretty feet?” I sneered.

  “They were all right,” he muttered.

  “Prettier than mine?”

  “I have never really compared women’s feet before,” he said. “Yours are very nice.”

  “Mine are worn and rough from dancing and tumbling and walking for hundreds of miles on Guild business,” I said. “They have calluses and cracked nails, and they are usually swollen by the end of the day. Tell me again how they compare to those of one whose living depends on the roundness of her heels.”

  “I did not sleep with her, or anyone else there, or any other woman since I have been with you!” he shouted.

  “Not even Thalia when we were in Constantinople?”

  “For the last time, I declined all opportunities on that front.”

  “It was a very tempting front,” I said. “Not all saggy from nursing your one and only child, or—“

  “All right, if I have to prove it to you,” he said, and he swooped forward and kissed me hard.

  “I’m not that easy,” I said after we caught our breath. “No, you’re not,” he agreed, and he kissed me again.

  “I haven’t forgiven you yet,” I said at the next interval. “Then I shall continue doing this until you do,” he said. Helga came down the steps in the middle of it and picked up Portia.

  “I’m taking her for a walk,” she announced. a^Toe-oRe
  “Really? Why?” I gasped.

  “Because I know what’s going to happen next,” she said. The door opened and closed behind them. My husband and I looked at each other.

  “Upstairs?” he suggested.

  “I’d rather not wait that long,” I said.

  * * *

  The room was in shambles, and Theo was sprawled across our table while I searched for my sewing kit.

  “Found it,” I said, and I began working on the splinter that had lodged itself in his buttock. “I can’t believe you didn’t feel this.”

  “I was distracted,” he said. “There was a—Ouch!”

  “Hold still,” I admonished him. “Almost done. There was a what?”

  “A voracious woodland nymph attacking me,” he continued. “She—damn you, woman! Did you have no training in surgery when you were young?”

  “I had people do that for me back then,” I said. “Before I was reduced to this life of squalor and debauchery. Really, you are being such a baby. No, worse. Portia would just watch the operation with unholy fascination.”

  “I would watch as well,” he said, trying to look over his shoulder at my handiwork. “But I have no clear view of the—Ow! Please tell me you got it this time.”

  I held it in front of his nose.

  “I thought you said it was a splinter, not a plank,” he grumbled.

  “You squawk so much about a splinter, yet you once took a crossbow bolt through your leg with equanimity.”

  “I thought I was going to die then. This time, I thought you were going to kill me.”

  “Still might,” I said, wiping off the blood. “There. Get your motley back on, Fool, and let’s discuss this calmly.”

  He pulled it on quickly, then looked at me and grinned. “You’re like this table,” he said. “Rougher than you look.”

  “But, like the table, sturdy,” I replied.

  “We proved that well enough,” he said, slapping me playfully on the rump.

  “Do that again, and I will respond in kind,” I warned him. “And you wouldn’t like that in your present condition.”

  “Right,” he agreed, hastily backing away. “So, what were we talking about before the distraction?”

  “Me going to the bordel.”

  “Right. And I was against it, so you used your powers of seduction to change my mind.”

  “Crafty of me, wasn’t it?”

  “You caught me in a weak moment. My defenses were down.”

  “It was all too easy. You see why I fear for your virtue going back to a place like that?”

  “But do you see why I fear for yours? Why, with skills like those that you have just demonstrated so ably, you would be recruited in an instant.”

  “What, and leave jesting? Never.”


  “The money’s better,” he said.

  “How much better?” I asked.

  “Depends on how many years you keep at it,” he said. “Longevity is an issue in both professions,” I said. “Especially given your penchant for getting us into life-threatening situations.”

  “Me?”

  “You. Although poor La Rossa might not agree with us at the moment.”

  “True enough,” he conceded. “All right, see what you can find out. I’ll start poking around the Count of Foix’s faithlessness

  “Seems like a place to start. How much do we know about him, besides that he’s one of Raimon’s inner circle?”

  “Not enough,” he said. “But I think Balthazar had one or two mentions of him in his notes. Helga, stop listening at the door and come back inside.”

  The door opened, and the two girls came in, hand in hand.

  “How did you know?” asked Helga.

  “The base of the door doesn’t fit tight,” said Theo, pointing. “I saw the shadow.”

  “Have to remember that,” said Helga.

  “How long were you there?” I asked her suspiciously.

  “We came back a minute ago. You were talking about the Count of Foix.” Her face was devoid of guile, but I saw her eyes dart toward the table, then at my husband, and the faintest trace of a smile lurked at the corners of her mouth.

  “May I come with you to the bordel?” she asked.

  “Why?”

  “I want to see how you play it,” she said.

  “I was thinking of wounded wife,” I said.

  “I am the one with the wound,” said Theo plaintively.

  “Shut up, husband,” I said consolingly.

  “Wounded wife would work better with children in tow,” said Helga. “Makes it all the more pathetic.” She let her eyes grow wide and suddenly looked ten and frightened.

  “Take her,” pleaded Theo. “Take them both. I can get some reading done in quiet.”

  “Fine,” I said, taking Portia from her. “Come, girls, let’s go visit a whorehouse.”

  “Hooray!” said Helga.

  “Where is it, exactly?” I asked Theo.

  “It’s the one behind the leper house outside the Villenueve Gate, right?” said Helga.