The Lark's Lament: A Fools' Guild Mystery

by Alan Gordon

  “Did he leave town before Folquet did?”

  He thought for a moment.

  “I think it was a year or two after,” he said. “Folquet was last here in ’87. I remember being surprised that Rafael left the one place where he had enough of a reputation to keep himself in bread and wine, but I didn’t give it that much consideration.”

  “Did he write ‘The Lark’s Lament’?”

  “He wrote nothing,” said Grelho. “He was an idiot with a glorious voice. Troubadours would hire him to sing their work, and other people passed songs along to him. I taught him a few myself.”

  “Who wrote it, then?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” he said. “It had a brief vogue, and then Rafael vanished, and the song vanished with him.”

  “Any idea who the Lady Lark was?”

  “None,” he said. “Sounds like a private name for someone by whoever wrote it, but that’s obvious. I never heard it used to describe anybody around here. Maybe there’s something in the second verse that could help you.”

  I stared at him.

  “What?” he asked nervously.

  “There was a second verse?”

  “I’m certain there was.”

  “By Balaam’s ass, why didn’t you tell me that before?”

  “You were the one who knew the song,” he said. “I just assumed you knew the whole thing.”

  “Tell me you don’t remember it.”

  “It’s a lament!” he protested. “I’m a jester. I’ve never had a need for laments. At least, until lately, and that’s for my own pitiful existence, no one else’s. And that song was so specific—you couldn’t really adapt it for other occasions. How many Lady Larks are going to drop dead and require this particular song to be sung over their graves? Even Rafael only sang it a few times. You don’t get drunks buying you drinks for dirges.”

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s go. I’m tired of sitting in the dark.”

  “Go where?” he asked.

  “What’s a good market for local gossip?”

  “Any of them, although you don’t want to be going by the fish market this late in the day. I’ll watch the baby while you change out of your motley.”

  I grabbed my kit and pushed the door open. “I’m not changing,” I said.

  “You’re going out in motley?”

  “That’s what we do,” I said. “The town already knows we’ve arrived. It would be stranger if we didn’t perform. Why don’t you get yours on and join me?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Let me hold your daughter while you work. I might as well do something useful.”

  “Then you’ve become nanny for the day,” I said, handing Portia to him. “I’ll juggle, you see what you can find out.”

  “And when the Viguerie take you away, I’ll be able to inform your wife,” he said. “Unless she’s already been thrown into a dungeon.”

  “In that case, raise my daughter with foolish values,” I said. “Come on, you spineless coward. All you have to do is chat up the ladies.”

  He followed me, Portia clinging to him placidly.

  “She resembles you, I think,” he observed. “Although I haven’t seen you with your makeup off.”

  “I haven’t seen you with yours on, so that’s a fair trade.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” he grumbled. “I’m not the one who banned me from court.”

  “No, but you took it lying down,” I said. “What kind of a jester lets that happen? When they threw you out the door, you should have hit the ground tumbling and rolled right into the markets to make fun of them.”

  “I would have been kicked out of town.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re a jester. The town would have been on your side. You should have kept popping up all over the place, and sooner or later the Countess would have given up bothering you. She might still let you back in. I would work on her daughter. Appear at some of the other great houses to amuse their children—Guilhema would get wind of it and demand a private performance.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Here’s the Orgerie. That’s as good a place as any.”

  “Good,” I said, pulling my clubs out of my bag. “Find some knowledgeable women. Use my daughter as an introduction—she enjoys being the center of attention.”

  The Orgerie was the grain market, where farmers and merchants displayed both unmilled grain and flour in huge burlap sacks, the open ones containing their most presentable products, the rest sewn tightly shut. God help the careless housekeeper who purchased a closed sack without inspecting it first.

  I started with three clubs. Any fool can do three clubs. In fact, many people who are not fools can juggle three clubs, but you have to start with the basics. I had them spinning easily, and began tossing them behind my back and under my legs. Then my nose itched, so I tossed all three of them with one hand and scratched my nose with the other. The itching persisted and spread across my body, and soon my hands were frantically alternating between juggling clubs and clawing at increasingly inaccessible parts of my body, some of which required me to fold into strange contortions while still keeping the clubs aloft. I grabbed a fourth club and used it as a backscratcher, but when that proved ineffective, I began literally beating the itch to death with the club, each blow causing me to stagger and the tossed clubs to spin in ever more chaotic patterns.

  All of this to try to attract enough people for Grelho to do his part. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him chatting up some women, but they seemed uninterested in sharing much conversation. Indeed, there was a general lack of response in the whole area, whether to my performance or to each other. The haggling by the grain-sellers was listless; deals were closed without ceremony; women hurried in to get what they wanted, and hurried out again, rarely making eye contact with anyone else. I launched into my patter, but it might as well have been a crowd of deaf-mutes for all the reaction I got.

  After an hour of this, I caught all my clubs and bowed to scattered applause from the grain sellers. A few pennies came my way, but nothing like I am used to.

  “Thank you, kind people!” I shouted. “I am Tan Pierre, of the Fool Family. We are available at reasonable prices for your entertainment. Come let us bring joy to your homes.”

  I walked over to the edge of the square. Portia reached out to me eagerly, and I took her from Grelho.

  “Tough crowd,” he said.

  “I disagree,” I said. “There were not enough of them to be a crowd.”

  “That’s the way things have been lately,” he said as we walked back to his place. “Everyone’s afraid. With so many of the great houses in ruins and new people taking over, no one knows what’s happening anymore, who to depend on, who to bribe, who to trust. All because Marie felt slighted and Pedro needed money.”

  “Any useful gossip?”

  “No gossip of any kind,” he said. “I couldn’t even get a smile from the maids I flirted with, and I am a damn good flirt. Used to be, anyway.”

  “You used to be a lot of things,” I said.

  Portia pointed at everything she saw, saying, “Ooo?” at each one. I named them as we passed by.

  “Smart little girl,” said Grelho.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “The older one, what’s her story?” he asked. “She’s not your daughter.”

  “No,” I said. “She was born in a whorehouse in Swabia. She’d be working there right now, but her mother smuggled her to us. Father Gerald says she’s the best pupil he’s had in years.”

  “He must hold you in high regard to make her your apprentice,” he said. “Unless he did it so she’d learn from your wife. Where is her mother now?”

  “Died a month after saving her,” I said. “Helga doesn’t know.”

  “I bet she does,” he said. “Somehow, children always know.”

  We ran into Claudia and Helga at the top of his street. Portia squealed and squirmed, and her mother came over to take her.

  “You haven’t b
een juggling the baby, have you?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Not with anything sharp,” I replied. “Any luck?”

  “Not for me, but our apprentice mined a small nugget of gold,” she said. “Let’s go inside.”

  We sat down and listened to Helga give an account of her day, complete with imitations of everyone she saw.

  “Good work, Apprentice,” I said, and she beamed.

  “A caged lark from one of the banished houses,” said Grelho. “That’s the best lead we have?”

  “It’s more than we had before,” said Claudia. “And Marie knows something about it, I’m willing to bet.”

  “You know all of the families who were evicted since Marie’s ascension?” I asked Grelho.

  “Of course,” he said. “I used to … Yes, I know them.”

  “Then you’ve just become our local spy,” I said. “See if you can find out if the Lady Lark was with one of them.”

  “We are talking about a dozen families, most of whom have been banished or scattered,” he said. “That’s a lot of work.”

  “Then it is well that you have so much time on your hands,” I said. “It will be good for you, getting out of this stuffy dark hole and into the open air.”

  “And what will you be doing while I am doing all this work?” he asked.

  “He’ll be going to Maguelone,” said Claudia.

  “Yes, I’ll be going to Maguelone,” I agreed, then I turned to her. “Why am I going to Maguelone?”

  “Because there is one other person who has inside knowledge of the goings-on at the palais royal,” she said. “The last Guilhem.”

  “That’s why I’m going to Maguelone,” I said. “I knew there was a good reason. How do I get there?”

  “Go through the Lattes Gate, ride out a mile, then it’s a straight shot south,” said Grelho. “You can see the cathedral from the roof of the house at the top of this street. You can get there and back in one day on a decent horse.”

  “Then Zeus can have you there and back by noon if you get up at dawn,” said Claudia.

  “I am not getting up at dawn,” I said. “I plan to sleep off tonight’s performance.”

  “We’re performing? Hooray!” cheered Helga. “Where? I hope it’s a tavern.”

  “Maybe she really is your daughter,” said Claudia. “Where are we performing?”

  “In a tavern,” I said.

  “Which one?” asked Grelho.

  “Where do the guards like to go drinking when their watch is over?” I asked.

  “The Cormorant, up near the Tanners’ Quay,” said Grelho. “How did you manage to get invited there?”

  “I don’t have an invitation,” I said.

  “You plan to barge into a tavern full of drunken soldiers and tanners without permission?” he asked. “That’s akin to suicide.”

  “Well, if we have to die tonight, at least we’ll know that we’ll be in good company,” I said. “You’re coming with us.”

  He winced.

  We could smell the Tanners’ Quay long before we saw it. It was north of the town, on a small river that fed the Lez to the east.

  “Where’s the tavern?” I asked.

  “There, about fifty paces upstream,” said Grelho, still in his civilian attire. “If it was downstream from the tanners, no one would live after drinking their beer.”

  “Unless they had leather insides,” said Claudia. “I’ll stick to wine, undiluted and unpolluted, thank you very much.”

  The tavern was a two-story wooden structure raised up from the ground several feet so that drinking could continue unabated during times of flood. As we drew nearer, we heard a constant roaring from inside. A crude carving of a cormorant adorned the roof over the entrance. The roar increased suddenly, and we heard a bottle break. Then someone came flying through the front door, missing the steps neatly to land facefirst in the mud near us. Claudia considerately turned his head to the side so that he would not drown, then stepped over him daintily.

  The three of us in motley ascended the steps first, with Helga in the middle.

  “On three, we go in,” I said. “The usual tavern routine.”

  As I spoke, I reached behind Helga to tug on my wife’s elbow. She nodded slightly.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “Ready,” said Helga.

  “Ready,” said Claudia with a slight smile.

  “One, two, three!” I counted.

  Then Claudia and I stood there as our young apprentice barged into the tavern by herself. Grelho came up to join us.

  “You didn’t just do that,” he muttered. “Not here.”

  “Let’s watch what happens,” I said.

  Helga stood in the middle of the tavern, blinking uncertainly as she realized she was alone. That is, alone except for a couple of dozen soldiers and other rough-looking sorts, who all looked at her and licked their lips.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I’m looking for my father.”

  “And who might he be, little girl?” said the tapster, leaning over the counter to leer at her.

  “Well, knowing my mother, it could be any one of you,” said Helga, which brought astonished laughs and a few worried looks from the men. “But the man she tells me is my father is a disreputable foul-smelling lout who consorts with the worst sorts of men in the worst sorts of places. Naturally, I came straight here.”

  “Impressive,” said Grelho, as the men caught on to the joke and began laughing.

  I nodded at Claudia, and she bustled in.

  “There you are, you little scamp,” she scolded Helga. “I have been in every tavern in this city looking for you.”

  “I was looking for father,” she said. “He’s already been to every other tavern. He’s bound to show up here.”

  “Only if he can still walk,” said Claudia.

  With that cue I fell through the doorway. I grabbed my shoulder with one hand and pretended to pull myself up with it. Then I stared at Claudia and Helga. “Wife, daughter,” I said in surprise. “Good, then I must be home. What’s for supper?”

  “You missed supper,” said Claudia icily. “You missed the last three suppers.”

  “They were quite delicious,” piped up Helga.

  “Where were you?” demanded Claudia, pulling out a club and slapping it menacingly against her palm.

  “I wasn’t with you?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I scratched my head, puzzled, as she pulled out more clubs. Helga had hers out as well.

  “Then who was that woman?” I asked her.

  The clubs came flying at me from both females, and I caught and returned them as fast as I could, my feeble protests ineffective against the invective of my good wife. Duchess she may have once been, but she could outcurse any sailor when she was in character, and the combination of clubs and obscenities flying out of her had the men in the room guffawing and cheering within seconds.

  Grelho slipped in unobtrusively and took a seat by the front door, watching us. I caught one club and, instead of returning it to Helga, flipped it over my shoulder in his direction. He was holding Portia in the crook of his right arm, so he caught it with his left hand.

  “My pardons, Sieur,” I called to him. “Would you be so kind as to toss that back to me?”

  He didn’t look happy about having any attention directed his way, but did his best to appear like a casual onlooker and threw it clumsily in my direction.

  I sent it back, then sent another one right after it. He caught each in rapid succession, and returned them as Portia bounced happily. I now held three clubs in my left hand as I kept returning the ladies’ throws with my right. I grinned at Grelho.

  He sighed. “Hold this,” he said, handing Portia to a soldier sitting by them. Then he stood up with a grimace and beckoned to me with both hands. Claudia and Helga tossed me their remaining clubs so that I had a total of eight. I tossed four to Grelho.

  “First one to drop buys,” I said.

  “You�
��re on,” he replied, and the game began in earnest. Around us, men were frantically betting. The clubs went back and forth between us in a blur. He was good. He was very good. Too good, in fact. I lost after about fifteen rounds.

  “The great Grelho!” I cried, holding up his hand in triumph. “And we are the Fool Family!”

  There was applause; there was drinking. I bought Grelho his first, but that was the last coin to leave our pouches that evening.

  “Grelho, where have you been hiding yourself?” asked a captain of the Viguerie, coming over to our table to slap him on the back.

  “Oh, you know what it’s been like lately,” said Grelho. “I didn’t think there was much call for my services.”

  “Ah, don’t let that bitch and her new man get you,” said the captain. “We missed seeing you. Where’s the makeup and costume? I didn’t even know it was you until this other fool introduced you.”

  “Well, I—,” began Grelho.

  “Part of the act,” I interrupted. “Sieur Grelho kindly agreed to play an innocent member of the crowd.”

  “Quite generous of him to share the room with us,” added Claudia. “Always a privilege to work with a master fool.”

  “Stop, you’re embarrassing me,” said Grelho, pleased in spite of it.

  “We’ll have you at the barracks Saturday,” said the captain. “It’s payday, and we always have a party. Bring your friends. That little girl is a pip.”

  We celebrated with our new friends until midnight, then staggered back to Grelho’s place. He continued carrying Portia, putting her up on his shoulders and galloping about as she shrieked in laughter and terror.

  “Apprentice,” I said when we arrived. “Front and center.”

  She stood before us.

  “There are a number of tests you have to pass before becoming a jester in full,” I said. “You passed one tonight. Congratulations.”