The Lark's Lament: A Fools' Guild Mystery

by Alan Gordon

  “Sounds like a worthy target for a man of your holiness,” I said.

  “Do not mock me,” he said furiously. “I am not meat for your japing.”

  “I am sorry,” I said. “I was speaking to Folquet. But you are not Folquet.”

  “Not anymore,” he said.

  “When is the last time that you sang your songs?” I asked.

  “The Cistercian Order forbade the composition of nonreligious songs five years ago,” he said.

  “You must miss it,” I said.

  “No,” he replied. “I gave up my old life with a willing heart when I came here. The world is a wicked place, Theophilos, but here one finds respite. Here one finds God.”

  “Here one finds a tomb,” I said. “I prefer to participate in the world. Among the living.”

  “You made your choice,” he said. “I made mine. And there’s an end to it.”

  He stood and offered his hand. I took it.

  “You have a family now, I see,” he said as he walked me to the entrance. “I must confess my surprise. You never struck me as a fool who would settle down.”

  “My family is quite unsettling,” I said. “They suit me fine. And what became of your sons when you joined the Order?”

  “My sons are in the abbey at Grandselves,” he replied. “My wife is with a community of women in Gémenos who serve the Bishop of Marseille. I do not hear from any of them much.”

  I walked outside, then turned. “We may not win this fight,” I said.

  “Then I will pray for your souls,” he replied, and he closed the door in my face.

  * * *

  I walked across the low bridge over the stream and back to our camp. Claudia had a fire going and beans cooking in a pot. Helga was playing with Portia, who was crawling around the clearing at a rapid pace, giggling.

  “How did it go?” asked Claudia.

  “He refused,” I said.

  “You thought that he would,” she said.

  “Yes, at first.”

  “But you believe that he will come around?”

  “Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a week.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I appealed to his ambition,” I said. “Something he keeps trying to push down. But it’s still there.”

  “Do ambitious people become monks?”

  “They must. Because it takes an ambitious monk to become an abbot.”

  She stirred the pot, then tasted it. “Done,” she said. “Tell me, husband. What do ambitious fools become?”

  “There are none,” I said. “Being a fool means that you have achieved your highest ambitions already.”

  After our dinner, Claudia tutored Helga in Arabic while I played with Portia. She could not quite walk yet, but had mastered sitting on my soles as I lay on my back with my feet in the air. I bounced her up and down gently, then brought my knees past my head until they touched the ground behind me. Slowly, I curled my way through the somersault while my daughter sat unperturbed on her perch.

  “Must you do that where I can see you?” complained Claudia. “You know how it unnerves me.”

  “I haven’t dropped her yet,” I pointed out.

  “It is the ‘yet’ that’s discomforting,” she said. “All right, Helga. Music time.”

  “Let me teach you one of Folquet’s,” I said as we picked up our lutes. “It’s called, ‘Singing will reveal my faithful heart.’”

  “How lovely,” said Helga.

  We strummed away as the sun began to set. I wondered if Folc could hear us. I turned so that my voice would carry toward the abbey.

  “I’ll take first watch,” said Helga after we were done.

  “Two hours,” I said. “Watch the stars to know when to wake me.”

  We crawled into our tent and went to sleep.

  A sleepy apprentice shook me awake on time, and I sat outside, listening to an owl hoot somewhere in the distance, wondering if my words had reached Folc. Or, better, if they had reached Folquet.

  * * *

  Roosters at the abbey sounded the coming of the dawn. And with the dawn came trouble. Helga spotted it first, and came flying into the tent to shake me awake.

  “Master,” she whispered urgently. “Monks are coming from the abbey. Many of them. And they have staves.”

  I came outside in a trice. Sure enough, ten monks were filing into the clearing, surrounding us. Brother Antime approached me, carrying a club larger than Helga.

  “Come with us, Fool,” he said.

  “Time for morning prayers?” I asked.

  “Now,” he said.

  “Husband, is everything all right?” came Claudia’s voice from inside the tent, and I knew from the tone of it that she had an arrow nocked.

  “Everything is fine,” I reassured her. “I will be back soon. Get the wain loaded.”

  “Fine,” she replied.

  I bowed to Brother Antime. “Lead on, my friend.”

  To my surprise, instead of taking me to the entrance again, they led me around to the west entrance to the church. There were two doors on either side leading in, a pair of long, narrow windows with semicircular tops between them, and a large round window above everything.

  Brother Antime suddenly shoved me against the wall and searched me quite thoroughly, removing my knife from my boot.

  “I can have that back when I leave, right?” I asked.

  “Inside,” said Brother Antime, indicating the door at the left.

  Folc was standing at the foot of the steps inside the door, his face distorted with rage. “How dare you come to this house of God and defile it!” he shouted.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” I asked.

  Brother Antime came up behind me and knocked me to the floor. Folc squatted in front of me. “There will be judgment for this, Fool,” he hissed.

  “For what?” I said; then I rolled to one side as Brother Antime’s foot thudded into the floor where I had just been. I kicked his legs out from under him, and as he toppled, I snatched the club out of his hands. The rest of the monks edged forward, nervously clutching their staves.

  “Tell them to stop,” I said to Folc.

  “Hold, my brothers,” he barked.

  They held.

  “Now, I don’t have a clue as to what I am supposed to have done,” I said. “But, in good faith, I am surrendering. Here.”

  I held the club out to Brother Antime, then offered a hand to help him up.

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “But you are really not supposed to hurt people inside the church. I saved you from committing some kind of sin.”

  “Arrogance,” muttered Folc. “Come with me, and we will see what sins have been committed here.”

  The church was without decoration inside. The nave was maybe sixty feet high, with galleries on both sides, the right one raised a few steps. The chevet and apses were semicircular, which was unusual. The Cistercian churches I had been in before were flat and rectangular, but whatever builder had come here had some beauty in his heart.

  Folc turned left just before reaching the transept and led me down a flight of steps. He opened a door and stepped out into the corner of a gallery that enclosed an irregularly shaped cloister. Off to the right, a low doorway split by a column revealed a small room, maybe ten feet square. He went inside. I had to duck to avoid cracking my head on the lintel, and found myself in a librarium.

  “There.” He pointed.

  On the floor on the other side of a wooden bench lay the crumpled form of a monk, his white robe soaked in dark crimson. His head rested near an oaken bucket.

  Someone had splashed his blood over the books and scrolls on the shelves that lined one wall. On the stones above it, the killer had painted the words, FOLQUET: COLD IS THE HAND THAT CRUSHES THE LARK.

  “What do you have to say about that, Fool?” demanded Folc.

  “Looks like the world wants you to know it’s still there,” I said.

  TWO

  You are the jester
of this courtyard.

  —SUZANNE VEGA, “GYPSY”

  “Husband, is everything all right?” I called from inside the tent, kneeling with my bowstring back at my right ear. Helga knelt to my left and back a step, her bow steady in her hands. For now.

  “Everything is fine,” he called as the giant monk with the giant club beckoned. “I will be back soon. Get the wain loaded.”

  “Fine,” I shouted back.

  Portia whimpered behind me.

  “Hush, little fool,” I whispered to her. “Everything is fine.”

  We held position until we counted all the monks leaving, my man in motley at the van.

  “Stay here,” I whispered. I put my bow down at the edge of the tent and stepped cautiously outside. I saw no one.

  “Fine,” I said, and Helga emerged. She was trembling now that it was over. I gave her a quick hug of encouragement. “You did well, Apprentice,” I said. “Which one were you aiming at?”

  “The one to the left of the leader,” she said.

  “Good,” I said. “I had the one on the right. If anything happened, Theo would have taken on the giant, but the two closest were likely to be the most proficient in battle. And the signal?”

  “If he said, ‘all right’ instead of ‘fine,’ then we attack,” she said.

  “And how do we attack?”

  “I stay in the tent shooting for as long as I can while you come out with your sword, screaming like a deranged harpy.”

  I looked at her sternly. “I would prefer avenging angel, Apprentice.”

  “Yes, Mama,” she said, grinning.

  Portia started crying at being left alone. I fetched her from the tent, and she settled in to suck. I sat on a tree stump.

  “Where were you aiming?” I asked as Helga began to break down the tent.

  “At the body,” she said. “That’s the nice thing about shooting at monks. No armor.”

  “You can’t assume that,” I said. “They might have been rogues, or bandits dressed as monks, but armored underneath. Go for the throat if he’s standing still. Otherwise, aim for the thigh. It’s a big target on a man, and it will take him out of battle right away.”

  “Yes, Domna,” she said. She looked out at the abbey. “Will he be all right?”

  “Don’t worry, he’ll wriggle out of it. He can talk the very Devil into selling his soul.”

  “What if he has to fight his way out?” she asked.

  “Theo against eleven monks?” I laughed. “No contest. You’ve never seen him fight, and I hope that you never do, but he’s quite deadly when need be.”

  “Have you ever killed anyone?” she asked me.

  “Yes,” I said, shifting Portia to the other breast.

  “More than one?”

  “Yes. But I don’t like to talk about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because then it becomes a story,” I said. “Then I become someone in a story named Claudia, and that makes it less of me. And I don’t want to ever become complacent about it. Does that make sense to you?”

  “A little,” she said. “It will make more sense when you tell me what ‘complacent’ means.”

  We loaded the wain, keeping our bows handy, then waited. It seemed like an eternity, but then we saw my husband walking cheerfully toward us, the giant monk with a firm grip at his elbow.

  “Hello, family,” he called. “Did you miss me?”

  “For a little while,” I said. “But then I thought, here I am, the only adult woman for miles, and dozens of bachelors at hand. My fortune is made!”

  “I could leave,” he offered. “Or join. It’s very quiet and peaceful in there. I think it’s the absence of women that causes that.”

  The giant may have cracked a smile for a second, but it vanished. Maybe I imagined it.

  “Oh, this is my new friend, Brother Antime,” Theo said. “Cellarer, and former sergeant with the army of Philippe Auguste. Turns out we had some friends in common in Acre back in our younger days.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Brother Antime,” I said, doing him courtesy. He nodded. “Will you be requiring my husband’s elbow any further?”

  The giant released him, then leaned over him menacingly. “That little trick of yours won’t work the next time,” he growled.

  “Then I’ll use a different one,” said Theo pleasantly. “Peace be with you, my friend.”

  Brother Antime glared, then walked back to the monastery.

  Theo waited until he was out of sight, then started rubbing his elbow. “Ow,” he sighed. “Quite a grip for a holy man.”

  Portia looked at him, her lip quivering.

  He smiled at her. “Papa’s fine, see?” he said, whirling his arm around. He kissed her on the nose. “Kiss Papa on the nose?”

  She did.

  He looked at me impishly. “Kiss husband on the nose?” he said, leaning toward me.

  I kissed him hard on the mouth. “Damn, missed again,” I said.

  “All better,” he said. “Although that always makes me a little wobbly.”

  “Will you teach me how to kiss?” Helga whispered to me.

  “If I teach you how to lie, and she teaches you how to kiss, then you’ll be the most dangerous woman alive,” said Theo sternly. “Everything ready? Good.”

  “Are we leaving?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid so, and quickly, before Folquet changes his mind,” he said. “There’s been…”

  He stopped. A monk was approaching us.

  “Yes, Abbot? Is there something we can do for you?” asked Theo.

  I stared at the man. By this time, I had met hundreds of jesters and troubadours, thanks to our sojourn at the Guildhall in exile. I had even met several who had taken vows, and every one of them was filled with life and good humor. But this stick figure in robes had had his vitality sucked out of him. He was a very wraith, and part of me wanted to invoke some ancient spell to ward him off.

  “This is your family?” asked the abbot.

  “My wife, Guildname of Claudia,” Theo said. “Helga, our apprentice. And our daughter, Portia.”

  The abbot looked at us, then nodded abruptly. “It seems unlikely that you would travel with your family all this way just to commit this despicable act,” he said.

  “But you haven’t even seen our act,” I protested. “Really, the storyline is quite entertaining, and once we bring out the cooking utensils—”

  “Enough,” he said wearily. “I had all too much of the Guild when I was in it.”

  “Well?” said Theo.

  “I know that you are capable of killing,” said the abbot. “But you’ve never stooped to murder. Not to make a point like this, anyway.”

  “Murder?” I exclaimed.

  “It’s not my way,” agreed Theo. “And I shouldn’t think that the threat of violence would have any effect on you whatsoever.”

  “Excuse my simple feminine curiosity,” I interjected. “Was someone murdered? I would like to know more about it, if you don’t mind.”

  “A monk,” said Theo. “What was his name again?”

  “Brother Pelfort,” said the abbot.

  “Had a habit of sneaking into the wine supply when nobody was looking,” explained Theo. “This time, somebody was looking. His throat was slit and his blood drained into a bucket.”

  “A bucket?” squeaked Helga. “Why?”

  “He used the blood to paint a message for our former colleague here,” said Theo. He turned back to the abbot. “Are you satisfied that it wasn’t me?”

  “Satisfaction is hardly the word for the occasion,” said the abbot.

  “The librarium faces the cloister from under a covered gallery,” said Theo. “And the dormitorium is directly above it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And does everyone in the abbey share the dormitorium?”

  “The lay brothers sleep in the barn and the workshops.”

  “Which are also out of view of the cloister?”

  “Y
es,” said the abbot.

  “So, a lit candle in the librarium in the middle of the night would not be visible to anyone,” mused Theo. “Do you maintain a regular watch at night?”

  “We never felt it necessary,” said the abbot. “It would have been easy enough for you to slip in unseen.”

  “Me, or anyone else,” said Theo. “Why would I do something to annoy you when I want you to do something for me?”

  “That’s an excellent point,” I said to Helga, who nodded furiously.

  “When have you and logic ever shared company?” asked the abbot.

  “Also an excellent point,” I said to Helga, who nodded even more furiously.

  The two men looked at us, and the abbot smiled slightly. “Unsettling, I believe you said,” he remarked.

  “Very,” replied Theo. “But I have grown attached to them in my dotage. Look, if it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t, then there are two other possibilities. Either it came from an enemy from without—”

  “Or one from within,” finished the abbot. “Do you really expect me to believe one of my own did this?”

  “There are dozens of men living in close quarters here,” said Theo. “Brother Pelfort may have had some enemy among them unbeknownst to you. Much more likely than me showing up out of the blue after so many years just to kill him.”

  “Unless you were leaving that message, and he stumbled in on you,” said the abbot.

  “And you think that I would find it necessary to kill under those circumstances?” protested Theo. “I’m more resourceful than that.”

  The abbot looked at him, then sighed wearily. “My heart, if not my reason, says that it wasn’t you,” he said. “But reason must prevail if the Guild wants any help from me. Prove to me that you didn’t do this.”

  “How could I possibly do that?” asked Theo.

  “Father Gerald didn’t choose you because he thought this was going to be easy,” said the abbot. “Find whoever is responsible, and I will consider Father Gerald’s request. If you do not, then the Guild can burn in Hell for all I care. I might even send a letter to my good friend, the Pope, to expedite the process.”

  He turned to leave. Theo suddenly swung his fist at him. The wraith moved more quickly than I would have thought possible and managed to block it. The two stood frozen, glaring at each other.