by Alan Gordon
“Brave words to a condemned woman,” she said. “Stop wasting your time with me and go help us.”
She didn’t look up as I left.
Jordan was in a larger cell that he shared with two other men. He came forward to the bars enclosing it when he saw me and gripped my hand tightly.
“Thank God,” he whimpered. “I didn’t know when they’d let you see me. The boys?”
“Safe in our care,” I said. “I brought cheese and sausages.”
“Oh, bless you,” he said, grabbing it from me and tearing into it greedily. “The fare here is, well, below my usual standards. Have you talked to Calvet?”
“You saw what he did,” I said. “But we have made some progress. I am hopeful that I will be able to exonerate you. And if Calvet won’t listen, I will go to the Count himself.”
“Thank you,” he said fervently.
“There is only one thing I need,” I said.
“What’s that?” he asked, tearing off another piece of sausage with his teeth.
“Balthazar’s notes,” I said.
He nearly choked, finally spitting the half-chewed sausage onto the floor.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said finally.
“Oh, that wasn’t convincing at all,” I said. “Had a chat with Hugo over at the Yellow Dwarf. Excellent fellow. Makes a lovely ale. You know him?”
“Of course,” said Jordan weakly.
“He talked quite fondly about his late tenant, Balthazar. Fond memories of seeing him up late, writing his notes down. One of the duties of a Chief Fool is to send reports back to the Guild. I’ve done it throughout my career. So, I was curious as to what happened to those notes of his. I checked his room, found his hiding place, and all I found was a torn piece of parchment that someone had left behind when they were taken.”
“And you suspect me?” he protested. “Why not Pelardit?”
“I suspected both of you,” I said. “But we already searched Pelardit’s place and found nothing. Which leaves you. I know you didn’t murder Milon and Armand, but if I am going to clear this mess up, I’ll need every scrap of information I can lay my hands on. I am certain that you have the notes, and no doubt failed to turn them over because you still have ambitions to be Chief Fool here.”
“But—”
“I could take the time to find out what I need to know on my own,” I said. “It might be better for you if I’m thorough rather than quick. I don’t think they’ll get around to trying the two of you until after Twelfth Night, so there’s some leeway. Of course, you’ll be sitting here. You might want to pace yourself on the cheese and sausage—it’s all I’m bringing you.”
“Please, you can’t leave me here.” he begged me. “I’m sorry. It was a stupid, selfish thing to do, I see that now.”
“The notes,” I said. “I will tear your place apart until I find them, but it would be quicker if you told me the exact location.”
“In my wife’s shop,” he said. “In the back, there are several bolts of cloth. The notes are rolled up inside the dark green one at the bottom. Pelardit has an extra set of keys.”
“By this time tomorrow, either you will be walking out of here, or I will be joining you,” I said. “Pray for all of us.”
He went down to his knees immediately. I turned and left him, but as I glanced back, he wasn’t praying. He was scrabbling through the straw on the floor for the piece of sausage he had spat out.
* * *
It was Sunday. Saint Stephen’s Day, in fact, and I remembered that with a pang of regret for poor Zeus, languishing in his stable instead of going to the cathedral for the blessing of the animals. The petty betrayals of those you care for while pursuing the greater good add up over time. I decided to get him a few bushels of dried apples as a belated present.
Assuming I didn’t get killed over the course of the day, which seemed like a real possibility.
I made some arrangements, then went to visit Pelardit. I knocked, using the pattern we had set up beforehand. He opened the door a crack, one hand concealed behind it, then opened it wider when he saw that I was alone. I entered. He sheathed the knife that he was hiding.
“Sleep well?” I asked him.
He shook his head. I looked over at Evrard and Audrica, who stared at me in terror.
“Good morning, lovebirds,” I greeted them cheerily. “I apologize for the accommodations. I hope to have something a little more appropriate for you shortly.”
This didn’t seem to improve their spirits much, but I didn’t particularly care at this point.
“Have you got Jordan’s spare keys?” I asked.
He nodded and took them from a hook on the wall.
“Good,” I said. “Your relief should be arriving shortly. When they do, I want you to go to our place. Check in with Helga and make sure she and the children are all right, then keep watch from somewhere outside. We’ll be back by noon.”
He nodded. I beckoned to him, and he drew closer.
I leaned forward to whisper, “I’m asking you to protect my child. Do you understand the level of faith that I have in you?”
He nodded, a look of resolve on his face.
“Thanks,” I said. “See you later.”
I walked quickly to Jordan’s house, then looked around for Claudia. I didn’t see her. I sighed.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I sang.
She emerged from a rubbish heap that I swore would not have concealed a mouse.
“Jordan has Balthazar’s notes,” I said, holding up his keys.
“You are starting to be right a lot lately,” she observed, smiling. “Let’s hope it continues.”
We unlocked the padlock on Martine’s shop and went inside, closing the door behind us. In the back were the bolts of cloth, just as Jordan had said. We took the dark green one and unrolled it. At its core were five sheaves of parchment, rolled tightly together and secured with red ribbons. We untied one and separated the leaves. There had to be fifty pages, each covered in cramped, spidery handwriting. The other sheaves looked to contain the same.
“This is going to take a while,” said Claudia.
“Good thing you know how to read,” I said.
“In almost as many languages as you,” she said. “What am I looking for?”
“Anything about the people we’ve been dealing with,” I said. “Especially Guilabert.”
The first page I looked at was dated September of 1179. I skimmed through the sheaf as quickly as I could, scanning for names.
“Hey, I found your visit to Toulouse,” said Claudia. “You were still calling yourself Droignon then, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“‘He comes across like a drunken idiot,’” she read. “‘I sense that the idiocy is an act, but the drunkenness is all too real. I wonder what he saw in Beyond-the-Sea that drives him to this excess, but his time here was too brief for me to learn what it was.’”
“Sounds like me back then,” I said. “This one goes too far back to be useful today, I think. I’m going to try a more recent one.”
I pulled out another sheaf and started thumbing through it.
“Here’s something about Donatus,” she said. “‘Captain Donat showed up with returning contingent from Acre. While others boasted of battles and slaughter, he was reticent, yet I sensed that he had seen more than any of them. One particularly rowdy soldier drew his knife in anger over nothing, and Donatus moved with frightening speed and strength to disarm him before anyone else could react. Upon seeing who did it, soldier quailed noticeably.’”
“Keep looking for him,” I said.
I worked my way backwards from the most recent entries.
“Balthazar mentions the rumors of the conspiracy against the Cathars here,” I said. “He was friendly with their leaders. He was looking into it, but didn’t come up with anything solid.”
“Donatus next shows up supervising the construction of the Bazacle dam
,” she said. “‘He is quite the brutal taskmaster. Rumor he nearly beat man to death for not keeping pace as example for the rest. I have seen him talking many times with Arnaut Guilabert, one of the millers behind project.’”
“Interesting. Follow that up.”
She flipped through the pages rapidly.
“‘Spoke with Clermont about why he’s leaving,’” she read. “‘He sold his shares to Guilabert at low price. Frightened, but won’t say why.’ Here’s something else. ‘Two more millers sold shares to Guilabert. Someone getting to them. On a hunch, mentioned Donat’s name to one, and he looked around fearfully and told me never to say name again. Guilabert must have lion’s share of Bazacle by now. If he guessed right, stands to make a fortune.’”
“Guilabert certainly guessed right.”
“Why didn’t Balthazar try and stop him?”
“The Fools’ Guild has enough on its plate trying to keep the peace,” I said. “This is about markets, not something that would concern us. If it turned out that Guilabert was acquiring all of that wealth and using it to foment war, that would be a different matter, but—”
We looked at each other.
“My God, Theo,” she breathed. “What if that was it? What if this was about power?”
“But whose power?” I asked. “Certainly not the Count’s. It would be madness. He has an army.”
“Which is spread out over the Toulousain trying to maintain all of the recent conquests,” she pointed out. “And those conquests were made at the behest of the consulate, not the Count. He was fine with the way things were before.”
“And the consulate started those campaigns only after the recent elections tilted the balance toward the bourg,” I mused. “And all of the bourg consuls derive their wealth in some manner from the Bazacle mills, so are beholden to Guilabert. We saw many of their names in the book. But why Donatus and the Bishop? There must be something about them in particular.”
I went to the beginning of the sheaf in my hand. The entries were about four years old.
“‘Donat has become a Benedictine,’” I read. “‘Puzzles me. Never saw man more unsuited to life of peaceful contemplation. Yet there he kneels, bull with tonsure amidst flock of timid sheep. Of them, Vitalis Borsella might have balls to stand up to him, but only if saw him as threat. But why would he? Why should I? Yet I do, though cannot fathom it.’” I flipped through more pages. “Here’s something else. ‘Don’t know why never occurred to me before. Donat and Guilabert—something worth looking into there.’”
“Keep going, Theo,” said Claudia.
“‘Checked into Donat’s past. Born north of here, but no one knows family. Must take trip. Annoying.’ He leaves a month later. Here we go: ‘Found village where Donat born. Mother had gone to Toulouse, fell on hard times, prostitute. Banned from city, came back dishonored, with child. Told neighbors boy’s father was married miller who promised to take care of her. Occasional visits from lover, usually cloaked on horseback. She died when Donat was small. Lover came to claim him. Baptized in village church, priest remembers mother giving him name of Donatus Guilabert! Dates are right—Arnaut’s brother! Explains connection, but not why Benedictine.’ And that seems to be it for Brother Donatus.”
“An illegitimate Guilabert,” she said.
“A bull among sheep,” I said. “When we set the fire, he was the one who took charge. He may not be the abbot, but he runs Saint Sernin.”
“But not the Bishop,” she said. “The cathedral’s not part of the Benedictine order.”
“But Raimon de Rabastens was elected by the canons,” I said. “Half of them are from Saint Sernin, half from the cathedral parishes. Brother Peire, the legate, said it was a close election. What if the Guilabert brothers bought the bishopric for Raimon, just like they bought the consulate?”
“Except the Bishop’s an ally of the Count,” she pointed out.
“The Count thinks so. But what has the Bishop been doing lately? Preaching against the Cathars. Brother Peire was surprised to hear he’s doing that—he wanted him to sound the alarm about them a year ago.”
“And what would preaching against the Cathars accomplish? Seizure of their lands by the Count? How would that increase the coffers of Bazacle?”
“I don’t think the Count would go that far,” I said. “He has allies among the Cathars as well. He wouldn’t come down on them just because the Church tells him to.”
“But if the Bishop of Toulouse and the Abbot of Saint Sernin both decree that he must, and he refuses?”
“Then he could be excommunicated,” I said. “He’s wriggled out of that before. But if this collection of names means a long-term plan by Guilabert to take control of Toulouse, then maybe the Bishop’s a recent acquisition. And if the Count is weakened by another excommunication, Guilabert’s forces will be ready to seize power.”
“Did I just hear you agree with me?”
“You knew I would, sooner or later. Sometimes it takes me a while to catch up to you.”
“Well, good,” she said, rolling up Balthazar’s notes and retying them. “Enough reading. Time to act. Where shall we start?”
“We need some proof of all this to take to the Count.”
“Where do you propose we get it? I didn’t notice any shops with evidence for sale.”
“From Vitalis,” I said. “He’s been hiding the book instead of coming to the authorities. We are going to get him to tell us all about it.”
CHAPTER 15
The bells rang for None, and once again we watched the ants scurry into the anthill.
I pointed out our quarry to Oliver, who stood holding tightly onto Helga’s hand.
“The big one, second from the end,” I said. “Do you mark him?”
“Yes,” said Oliver.
“As soon as the final hymn ends, you give him this and then you leave immediately,” I instructed the boy, handing him a small scroll. “Don’t speak, don’t answer any questions. Can you do it?”
“Yes,” he said firmly.
“Good boy,” I said, patting him on the back. “Now, go.”
He walked across the square to the church and went inside.
“You know what to do?” I asked Claudia and Helga.
They nodded.
“Good luck,” I said.
Helga vanished. Claudia turned to me.
“We still haven’t figured out who killed Armand,” she said. “I forgot about him in all the rush.”
“I haven’t,” I said. “But there are things to do first. I will see you later.”
She gave me a quick kiss, then left. I watched her walk away until she disappeared around the curve of the street. Then I turned and walked toward the river, muttering and humming the Office of None. I turned upriver as I passed Saint Pierre des Cuisines. Sunday afternoon, and the tanners’ pits loomed on my right, their toxic waters seeping into the skins of dead things while their minders were at prayer or rest. I went through the gate. Guilabert’s fortress glowered at me, but that was not my destination. I passed Bonet Borsella’s sawmill, which was quiet except for the groaning of the wheels.
A stone bridge, wide enough for two wagons to pass each other without touching wheels, connected the bank to the island. I crossed it unchallenged. One mill after another lined both sides of the channel, but there were no millers at work. At the far side of the island, the Bazacle dam stretched across the Garonne. There was a single sluice gate right by the shore. It was open since the mills weren’t in operation, and the water poured through in a torrent, spreading back out across the shallow riverbed. A small footbridge crossed the sluice to the dam proper. I walked over it, stepping carefully from piling to piling until I was about twenty feet from shore. The Garonne surged against the dam, occasionally sending up some frigid spray. I wrapped my cloak tightly around my motley and sat facing upstream. I watched the river as the sun set to my left, taking what little warmth there was with it.
I sensed his approach without he
aring it, I’m not sure how. His footsteps made no sound, yet there was a disturbance in the world, a vast amount of air displaced by a massive body of a man. I glanced over my shoulder to see him standing at the other end of the footbridge, his face hidden in the shadows of his cowl. I looked back at the river.
“I have been thinking about water, Brother Vitalis,” I said, not giving him another glance. “Where it comes from, how it gets here. It’s so clean when it begins its journey, whether from the mountains or raining from God’s Heaven above. It travels in brooks and streams, then small rivers, then large. And in each place where men touch it, it becomes more defiled.”
I cupped my hands and dipped them into the Garonne, then sipped from them.
“This still isn’t too bad right here,” I said. “This is the last point before the city captures it. And just two miles downriver, I wouldn’t drink it if I was dying of thirst. It becomes rank, filled with death and decay, all because it has come to Toulouse. Does that happen to people when they come here? Do they start out as pure as a mountain stream or Heaven’s rain, then become corrupt when they come to this city?”
“Mountain streams aren’t pure,” he said.
I started, quickly getting to my feet. It wasn’t Brother Vitalis’s voice.
“Bears piss in them,” he continued. “So do wolves. But they drink from them anyway. They have no choice. We do. We come to the city, knowing the dangers, expecting to be corrupted. We drink the water. It’s our choice.”
“Brother Donatus,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Apparently not,” he said, pulling down his cowl. He held up the scroll I had given Oliver. “This was misdelivered. That child must have been told to take it to the large monk. That happens to Brother Vitalis and me frequently. We usually get a laugh out of it.”
“I’m surprised anything makes you laugh,” I said.
“Nothing from you has done so,” he said.
“Then I have failed in my profession,” I replied. “Forgive me.”
“I took the liberty of reading it,” he said. “‘I have what you lost. Meet me at the dam after sunset.’ It looks like you have something that doesn’t belong to you.”