The Lark's Lament: A Fools' Guild Mystery

by Alan Gordon

  “Did Folquet ever ride with him?” asked Claudia.

  “Folquet ride to hunt?” laughed Grelho. “Far too dangerous. He would watch the parade of virility trot off, serenading them as they passed the gate, and be waiting for their return with a flagon and a song at the ready. But in between, while the Hawk and his companions pursued their prey in the forests, Folquet pursued his prey in town. A hunt would last for an entire day, plenty of time for an assignation. Even two.”

  “The Hawk had a wife,” I said.

  “The Lady Mathilde,” he said. “A quiet woman, which made her stand out among the gabbling geese of the court back then. In the whole time that I saw her here, I don’t think that I heard her speak more than a dozen sentences. But when she did speak…”

  His eyes grew dreamy and far away.

  “She had a voice that would turn a man’s head toward her with such violence that he’d be lucky it didn’t snap off,” he said. “Melodious, mellifluous, melancholy Mathilde. She was not a woman whose beauty you would see at first, but hear her speak once, and Cleopatra would seem a shrill scold by comparison.”

  “Where was she from?” asked Claudia.

  “I never knew her history,” said Grelho. “She was already married to Landrieux when I came to Montpellier, and Landrieux, as I said, was not one to have a jester over to entertain.”

  “How about a troubadour?” I asked. “Was she one of Folquet’s successes?”

  “That’s the thing—I don’t know for sure,” he said. “I never heard of anything between the two of them. If Folquet did love her, then she was someone he kept quiet about. And that would have made her the only one.”

  “Interesting,” said Claudia. “Could it have been true love? If such a thing was possible from such a philanderer.”

  “She appeared in all respects to be a virtuous wife and mother,” said Grelho. “She did not participate in the contests of flirtation that were the principal hobby of the ladies of the court. And her husband, for all his brutish ways, was devoted to her.”

  “When he was home,” said Claudia.

  “When he was home,” said Grelho.

  “You said she was a mother,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Grelho. “A boy, Philippe, was born in ’85. Joy abounded at the Landrieux household. It lasted for two years. Then, one day, the house was draped with black cloths. Mathilde had died.”

  “How?” asked Helga.

  “A fall down a flight of stone steps,” said Grelho. “Tragic, for one to reach the end of her tale so young, leaving a grieving husband and a bewildered toddler behind.”

  “In ’87,” I said. “That was the same year that Folquet left Montpellier for good.”

  “If good was what he left it for,” added Claudia.

  “As I said, I never knew for certain that there had been anything between the two,” said Grelho. “He left a few days before she died. I never thought to connect the two events until now.”

  “He left before she died?” I repeated.

  “Yes,” he said. “At the time, I just assumed that was part of his regular business. It wasn’t the leaving for Marseille that was strange. It was his failure to return.”

  “What happened to his business here?” I asked.

  “He sent a subordinate to take over as his agent. He confined his Guild duties to Marseille, claiming that the traveling had affected his health, and that he wanted to be with his wife and sons more. It was sudden and inconvenient, but not so startling a decision. After a period of scrambling, the Guild found another troubadour to take over that route, and we were back to normal.”

  “If he left just before she died, then how—?” I shook my head. My thoughts were muddied, and the wine wasn’t helping. “Did you go to her funeral?”

  “Why would I?” asked Grelho. “They never had me entertain them in life. The talk of her death lasted a few days, then some other topic moved in, and that was the last I thought of her until now.”

  “Could her husband have killed her?” wondered Claudia. “Could the Hawk have threatened Folquet to find out the truth, and then kill his own wife after the rage became too much to bear?”

  “It would not have been out of character,” said Grelho. “In fact, he would have taken her to the woods, given her a head start, then hunted her for sport. But I never heard anyone suggest that anything untoward had happened. He observed all of the proper mourning, and never said a word against her after.”

  “His family was one of the ones dispossessed by Marie, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Grelho.

  “Do you know where he is now?”

  “I do,” said Grelho. “I will take you to see him in the morning. He isn’t far.”

  “I wonder,” I started, then stopped.

  “Wonder what?” asked my wife.

  “I wonder if Folc killed her,” I said.

  * * *

  A stupid random thought that popped up unasked for, then refused to leave. Just like we had with our host, I thought. Served me right. But if this was some long-delayed vengeance for a death, then the Hawk might be our man. Or maybe his son—he would be nineteen. Nineteen is old enough to kill.

  I was thirteen the first time I did it.

  * * *

  Claudia looked at me with concern when we emerged from Grelho’s house in midmorning.

  “Are you all right?” she asked softly while Grelho put Portia up on his shoulders and chatted with Helga.

  “I had trouble sleeping,” I said.

  “That hasn’t happened in a while,” she said.

  “Some old memories came up. You know.”

  “I know,” she said, taking my hand and squeezing it for a moment.

  “This way, fools,” called Grelho.

  He led us south, to the gate that led to the Béziers road.

  “Didn’t Landrieux keep his house in town?” I asked.

  “He used to,” said Grelho. “But he resides in the faubourg de la Saunerie now. That’s this neighborhood. Not quite as fashionable as his old place, but things change.”

  “This is where he settled after being dispossessed by Marie?”

  “No, he settled here some time before that,” said Grelho. “His family was dispossessed more recently.”

  “He left his family to come here? Why did he do that?”

  “I don’t think he had much choice in the matter,” said Grelho. “Ah, here we are. Show proper deference, fools. We are about to see a great man.”

  We were standing before a small church.

  “Welcome to the parish of Saint-Barthélemy,” said Grelho.

  “Another one for the priesthood,” groaned Claudia. “This is getting to be a veritable plague of religion.”

  “No, he’s just as damned as he ever was,” said Grelho. “We don’t have to go inside the church if you don’t wish it. He’s around back.”

  “I see,” I said, finally understanding the fool’s riddles. “Lead on.”

  We walked around to the rear of the church. There was a graveyard there, filled mostly with simple headstones, but with a couple of large mausoleums. He brought us to one, built like a small Roman temple. On the lintel, the name LANDRIEUX appeared. On its roof perched a marble sculpture of a hawk, scanning for prey.

  I had the eerie feeling that it was looking right at us.

  “When did he die?” I asked.

  “Take a look,” he said, pushing open the door.

  There were three large sarcophagi in the center of the room, and lesser relatives were stacked against the sides, with shelf space available for future tenants. The sun shone through a circular window at the back, enough for us to read the name and dates on the central sarcophagus. The Hawk had ceased flying in 1195.

  “Nine years ago,” I said.

  “I guess he is no longer a suspect,” said Grelho. “Unless you think the dead walk among us. That might explain the lack of reaction to some of your jokes the other day. Or maybe they just weren’
t funny.”

  “If not the Hawk, then who?” I wondered aloud. “And why now? He dies in 1195.…”

  I stopped.

  “What?” asked Grelho.

  “That’s the same year Folquet renounced the world and put his entire family into holy orders,” I said. “That cannot be a coincidence.”

  “Yes, it can,” said Grelho. “Folquet has not been seen in this town since ’87. Why would the Hawk’s death have any effect on him whatsoever? Much less plunging him into monasticism.”

  “Someone else,” I said. “Someone connected to the Hawk, to his family. His son? His son, in 1195…”

  “Would have been nine or ten,” said Grelho. “Hardly a threat, even if he was a precociously violent person, which he wasn’t, by the way. Nice young man in all respects. Took after his mother.”

  “Where is she?” asked Claudia, who had been looking at the other vaults.

  “What do you mean, where is she?” asked Grelho. “She’s dead.”

  “But she’s not here,” said Claudia. “Every one of these has a name, and I don’t see Mathilde Landrieux anywhere.”

  “But I know she’s dead,” said Grelho. “Everyone knows she’s dead.”

  “You didn’t go to her funeral,” said Claudia. “You didn’t see her body.”

  “Well, no,” he replied. “But—”

  “Then you can’t say for certain that she’s dead,” concluded Claudia triumphantly.

  “Found her!” called Helga from outside.

  Grelho and I looked at Claudia.

  “So I got excited,” she said, shrugging.

  We trooped out to the open air. Helga was standing by a grave about ten feet from the mausoleum, a simple stone at its head. The engraved words read, MATHILDE LANDRIEUX. 1163–1187.

  “I told you she was dead,” said Grelho. “Now, back to the question of—”

  “Why isn’t she in the family mausoleum?” asked Claudia.

  “I don’t know,” said Grelho, exasperated. “Maybe wives didn’t get in because they were only related by marriage.”

  “There were four Landrieux wives in there,” said Claudia. “And space for several more family members. The Hawk had her buried here, where that bird could watch her until Judgment Day. No loving sentiments on the marker, no biblical inscriptions. Not exactly the most affectionate interment I have ever seen. I thought you said that he showed nothing but tender affection during her life and proper mourning after her death.”

  “To my eyes, yes,” said Grelho. “I admit, this puzzles me.”

  Claudia slowly walked around the headstone, looking back and forth at the sculpture of the hawk and frowning. Then she squatted down and peered at the headstone more closely.

  “Come here,” she said.

  “What did you find?” I asked as we gathered around her.

  She pointed to the back of the headstone. Someone had scratched a crude design into it.

  “Looks like some kind of bird,” said Grelho.

  “It’s a lark,” said Helga. “Isn’t it?”

  “Could be,” I said.

  “I think it is,” said Claudia. “Who do you think put it there?”

  “Whoever wrote ‘The Lark’s Lament,’” I said. “Grelho, you know every troubadour who passed through this town. Consider this lament. Whose style is it most like?”

  I knew the answer as soon as I asked the question. Grelho looked down at his feet.

  “Folquet’s,” he said. “I thought that as soon as I heard the second verse.”

  “Because of the Hawk?” asked Claudia.

  “No,” he replied. “All of that business about the branch on the high tree, and how he was unable to climb it. That was one of his favorite metaphors when he was wooing a wealthy woman. Cheap flattery from a cheap climber, I thought, but it worked for him, so he used it often. Beat it to death, really.”

  “Speaking of Death,” said Helga. “Isn’t that him coming right now?”

  A gaunt old man in a black tunic was shambling toward us, carrying a scythe in his right hand. What kept his appearance from being completely spectral was the spade and hoe he carried in the other. He stopped upon seeing us, as puzzled by our manifestation as we were by his.

  “Did some fool die that you’ve come to arrange the funeral?” he asked in a screechy voice.

  “My friend here has some failed jokes he’d like you to bury,” said Grelho, pointing to me. “Are you the sexton?”

  “Oc, that I am, going on fifty years now,” said the man. “You’re Grelho the Jester, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” said Grelho. “Forgive me for not knowing your name. I don’t recall seeing you in town.”

  “Don’t go there much,” said the sexton. “Got my tending to do, and my legs hurt from the walking, so I save the hurting for here. My name is Otz.”

  “This is a lovely graveyard,” said Claudia politely. “You have kept it beautifully.”

  “I thank you for that, Domna,” he said, bobbing his head. “It keeps me up, so I keep it up. Might as well be married to it these days.”

  “You’re a lucky man, having such a quiet and well-behaved spouse,” I said.

  “Oh, she’s not so quiet as all that,” he said. “I hear her speaking to me, especially at night.”

  “You live here?” I asked.

  “I sleep in the back of the church,” he said. “Father Aimerie’s got one room; I got the other.”

  “At least you have someone living to talk to,” said Grelho.

  “Oh, we don’t talk, the Father and me,” said Otz. “He’s new. He thinks he can save me because I’m around all the time, but he’s just the latest one to try. They all move on eventually, and I’m still here.”

  “You hear her speak,” said Claudia, indicating the graveyard. “Have you ever heard her sing?”

  “Sing?” repeated Otz, scratching his head idly with the tip of the scythe’s blade. “No, can’t say I have. Only singing I’ve heard is over the graves, not from inside them.”

  “Ever hear anyone sing by this one?” I asked.

  “By Lady Mathilde? That was a troublesome grave,” he said.

  “How so?”

  “I had to bury her twice, didn’t I?”

  “Now, that sounds like an interesting story,” I said, pulling out the second wineskin from the previous evening. It was half-full. “I propose a fool’s trade: share your story, and we’ll share our wine.”

  “But I’ve got my tending to do,” he protested feebly, eyeing the wineskin with interest.

  “We can take care of that while you talk,” I said. “Helga, ever wanted to learn how to use a scythe?”

  “Oh, ever so much,” said Helga. “Where shall I start?”

  “Anything that looks too tall, cut it down,” said Otz.

  She held out her hands, and he gave her the scythe. She took it and trudged past us. As she did, she glanced up at me. “You’re tall,” she muttered, hefting it speculatively.

  “That patch there could use some of your loving care,” I said, pointing helpfully. She headed over to a clump of weeds and beheaded them, grumbling.

  “Shall we sit here?” I asked. “It looks comfortable enough.”

  “If I sit on the ground, I won’t be able to get up again,” said Otz. “There’s a bench yonder.”

  We accompanied him to a weather-beaten wooden bench. He sat down slowly and beckoned for the wineskin, which he then upended for a good long time.

  “That’s as good as I’ve had in many a year,” he said when he emerged, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “What were we talking about?”

  “Burying Lady Mathilde twice,” I prompted.

  “Oc, that was the one,” he said. “Well, I had to bury her twice.”

  Then he sat there, blinking, while we waited.

  “There is more to the story, isn’t there?” asked Claudia finally.

  “Not really,” he said, and blinked some more.

  “How was it that she cam
e to be in need of a second burial?” she asked.

  “Ah, well, someone dug her up,” he said. “Two nights after she was buried, so the ground was still loose.”

  “Grave-robbers?” I said. “After her jewelry?”

  “Don’t know that she was wearing any,” said Otz.

  “Surely you could have seen if the body was disturbed in any way,” said Grelho.

  “Oh, the body was disturbed all right,” said Otz. “They disturbed it right out of the graveyard.”

  “They took her body?” shrieked Helga from across the graveyard.

  “Good ears on that one,” said Grelho. “Not to mention lungs.”

  “Why do you suppose she was taken?” I asked.

  “Who knows?” he said. “Maybe one of them schools where they pretend to teach medicine. Maybe a trick. Maybe, well, they say she was a pretty lass. Maybe they wanted her for something else.”

  Claudia shuddered.

  “Do you remember the condition of the body before she was buried?” I asked. “Were there any signs of violence?”

  “I never saw the body,” he said. “I usually don’t. They bring it into the church and do their praying while I’m out here digging the hole. Then they bring the coffin out and drop it in, and I cover it up.”

  “Who came to her burial? Do you remember?”

  “Well, there was that Landrieux fellow,” he said, considering. “Two of his men, one named Berenguer, he’s the one who paid me, and the other was a big fellow, limped a bit—”

  “Rocco?” guessed Grelho.

  “Oc, that was him. And the priest, that was Father Firmin back then. Nice man. Him, I talked to.”

  “And that was it?” I asked. “No one else came?”

  “No,” he said. “The two men brought the coffin out on a cart, lowered it into the grave, Father Firmin said a few words, we got paid, and I buried her. Then I had to do it again, and I didn’t get paid for that one.”