The Lark's Lament: A Fools' Guild Mystery

by Alan Gordon

  “Tell them to put their weapons away,” he said.

  “Please do it,” I said, and the knives vanished.

  “Hold the candle over your head and turn away,” he said. “If I don’t see all of you when I step through, she dies.”

  I complied, then gasped as I felt the bolt poke me in the small of my back.

  “Now, we’re going to walk together to the rear door,” he said. “She’s last the whole time. Stay bunched so I can see all of you.”

  We walked carefully together to the servants’ door. Helga unbolted it and opened it a crack, peering outside.

  “It’s clear,” she said.

  “Step outside, one by one,” he said.

  Helga stepped outside, followed by Grelho and Theo. Before I could follow them, Rocco clamped a hand on my shoulder and put his mouth by my ear.

  “Maybe I should keep you here as a hostage,” he whispered. I could feel the flecks of spittle hitting my cheek. “Wouldn’t mind having a pretty lady like you spending the night.”

  Through the door I could see Theo staring at us intently. I knew he was judging whether he could throw his knife past my head into Rocco’s throat without having the crossbow do any damage.

  “Don’t you have enough people wanting to kill you?” I asked.

  He chuckled deep in his throat. “Drop the candle,” he said.

  I dropped it. As I did, he shoved me hard into the street and slammed the door behind me, ramming the bolts into place.

  I still hadn’t seen his face.

  * * *

  “All this time, trapped in that dungeon,” moaned Grelho as we walked back to his place. “No light, no air, no hope. How could she have survived?”

  “She must have been tremendously strong,” said Theo.

  “How old would she—? How old is she now?” I asked.

  “She was twenty-four when she died,” said Grelho. “I mean, when she was buried … when she was put in that dungeon. She’d be forty-one now.”

  “But where did she go when she was freed?” asked Theo. “Was there nothing about an imprisoned woman being released when the Landrieux clan was turned out of the house?”

  “I heard nothing,” said Grelho. “The evictions were carried out by Léon, Marie’s seneschal. He would have needed only a few men he could trust. We’ll never get anything out of them.”

  “Then we will have to go over his head,” I said firmly.

  * * *

  It was Friday, and I had a job to do.

  About two dozen women filed into the great hall, where a large table had been set up. The younger women wore gowns that looked new and showed off their figures to the fullest advantage, although there were no men about except for the servants. Of course, women have been known to compete with each other even when the prize is in another room.

  It was the older women who interested me. These were the survivors, I guessed, the ones who had not incurred the displeasure of the Countess and her new king. Not yet, anyway. Each of them as she entered looked uncertainly about the hall, both to see who was there and, of more concern, who wasn’t. While the younger women chattered enthusiastically, the older ones were cautious and quiet. No doubt they had chattered when they were younger. Now, they were wondering if they had said too much.

  I strummed my lute and sang, choosing my songs at random, letting my eye wander across the table. Marie was in her element. I noticed that in company, she drank much less, the better to make her own observations. When she spoke, she said little but still managed to turn the topics of conversation to those that intrigued her, and she was quite content to listen, filing away the information she gleaned for later use.

  At one point, she turned to me and said, “Domna Gile, sing for us that song you sang the other day, the one by that troubadour from Marseille.”

  “As you command, Domna,” I replied.

  Love was falling, Love was sinning

  When it moved into my heart.

  Lacking Mercy from the start,

  Soon, my sorrows were beginning.…

  As I sang, I noticed that the younger women were puzzled, but the expressions on the older women ranged from apprehension to genuine shock. A few whispered explanations to the younger ones, and they in turn whispered to each other.

  Marie presided serenely over the table as if nothing at all unusual had occurred. When I finished, she applauded, and the other ladies followed her lead.

  Ah, the joys of a captive audience! I bowed, then played something that was purely instrumental.

  At the end of the meal, which is to say at the end of the gossiping, the ladies left and the servants cleared the table. One placed a plate of food by me. I was ravenous and dug in.

  “An excellent performance, Domna Fool,” said the Countess as she returned to the room.

  I stood hastily and bowed. “Thank you, Domna,” I said. “And if I may be so bold, your performance was excellent as well.”

  She nodded at the compliment, a slight smile on her lips. She sat at the head of the table and bade me take a place on the bench to her left. I did so, bringing my plate with me. Léon came into the room and whispered something to her. She nodded.

  “I would like to speak with you about a matter,” she said. “I have just been informed that my guards have taken your two daughters into custody.”

  I started, and she held a hand up in warning.

  “They are unharmed,” she said. “You need not worry on their account.”

  “Have they misbehaved in some way?” I asked. “Whatever offense they gave, I shall take it upon myself to punish them severely, milady.”

  “The offense is yours,” she said.

  “Then let the punishment be mine as well. Please, the children are innocent.”

  “Their fate depends upon your cooperation,” she said.

  “I swear, milady, if anything happens to them—”

  “You’ll do what?” she snapped. “Amuse me to death?”

  I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself.

  “Your offense is that you have mistaken our relative positions and thought me the fool,” she continued. “You forget that I have Byzantine blood in me.”

  “Not in the least, milady.”

  “Report,” she said to Léon.

  He cleared his throat. “You and your colleagues have been observed near the scenes of three murders,” he began.

  “Three?” I exclaimed.

  “Tuesday night, a stranger was killed,” he said. “The blood came as far as the house belonging to the fool Grelho, where you and your family are residing.”

  “Yes, I told you about that, milady,” I said.

  “Be silent,” commanded Léon. “Yesterday, a man named Berenguer, a clerk with the Lambert clan, was killed in his house. You and your band of fools were seen asking about it.”

  “We passed by, saw the crowd, and asked what happened,” I said. “It was mere curiosity.”

  “If you interrupt again, I will tell my men to cut off your elder daughter’s hands,” said Marie placidly.

  “Yesterday afternoon, you were seen looking at the château once belonging to the Landrieux clan,” continued Léon. “This morning, a group from the Viguerie saw that the padlock had been opened. They went inside to investigate and found the body of a man named Rocco, a guard at a warehouse belonging to the Conque clan. That makes three.”

  The two of them looked at me. I looked back at them as defiantly as I could.

  “Your appearance in this city is not by chance,” said Marie. “You have found your way to my inner circle quickly and deliberately, which shows your wit and resourcefulness. Your advice has been thoughtful, for which I thank you, but it has not escaped my notice that you have been seeking information about me. It is clear that you and your husband are spies. I want to know why, and for whom.”

  “We have not been spying on you, milady,” I said. “Although I agree that would be a seeming explanation for our conduct. But in truth, we s
eek something else, something we thought long in the past.”

  “Go on,” said Marie.

  “What do you know of the Lady Lark?” I asked.

  The two of them glanced at each other.

  “Who was the Lady Lark?” she asked.

  “Mathilde, wife to Antoine Landrieux.”

  “She died long ago,” said Marie. “What does she have to do with anything?”

  “We are here because of her, and because of Folquet,” I said. “A threat was made to him. My husband is an old friend of his, so he asked us to help him. These deaths came about because we are searching for the truth about the Lady Lark, and someone wants to stop us and keep the story from coming out.”

  “Who was the dead stranger?” asked Léon.

  “A monk of Folquet’s order,” I said.

  “He was working with you?” asked Marie.

  “Not with us, not against us,” I said. “But looking for the same information.”

  “And what did you learn about her?”

  “That she did not die when Antoine Landrieux said she did. That an empty coffin was buried. That she was instead held in a dungeon for years by Landrieux.”

  I would have thought these tidbits would bring about a more sensational reaction, but they merely nodded.

  “Berenguer and Rocco were Landrieux’s men,” said Léon to Marie.

  “I am aware of that,” she said. She looked at me, considering. “If I tell you what I know, what will you do with the information?”

  “Stop the murderer,” I said.

  “And when you do, you will leave Montpellier,” she said.

  It wasn’t a question. I nodded.

  “I am not sure that I want this murderer stopped,” she said, smiling cruelly.

  “What is he to you, milady?” I asked.

  “Someone with justice,” she replied. “The men who imprisoned and tortured this poor woman deserved death, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But Brother Antime did not. Nor does Folquet.”

  “That’s debatable,” she said. “He has been the bane of my existence, and who knows how many others? But truly, the only stories I know are my own, and that of poor Lady Mathilde.”

  “I beg that you tell me,” I said.

  “I will tell you, and then I will decide whether or not to let you leave this palais alive,” she said. “Or you could leave now, take your family, and no harm will come to you.”

  “Without the knowledge we seek, harm will hunt us down no matter what,” I said. “I will listen to your tale, and I accept your conditions.”

  “Brave woman,” commented Léon, and I saw respect in his eyes for the first time since I had met him.

  Marie held out her cup, and he filled it. She took a healthy swallow, then sighed.

  “My father adored me,” she began. “And I loved him above all things. I was his only child, his heir, his little princess. Then, one day, I saw him speaking to the Hawk. I crept into the room to listen, hiding behind a curtain. They were talking about Folquet, and his attentions to Lady Mathilde, and to my mother. ‘I’ll put her away,’ my father was saying. ‘Somewhere where she’ll never know the sight or touch of a man again. You could do the same with yours.’ ‘Oh, I have a better plan than that,’ said Landrieux, and he bent over and whispered something in my father’s ear. I couldn’t hear what it was, but my father laughed, and it was a laugh that I never heard come out of him before. It frightened me, and I started crying. He heard me, and hauled me out of my hiding place. He looked at me, and I didn’t see my father anywhere in him. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Kiss your mother while you can.’ I fled.”

  “How horrible,” I said.

  “He put my mother in a convent,” she said. “A wretched, bone-chilling, rat-infested place. Then I heard that Lady Mathilde was dead. I said nothing. My father remarried, and once my brother was born, I became an exile in my own home. I saw no one, never was allowed to the court, to the dinners, to the parties. I didn’t know why, only that Folquet was somehow the cause of it. It was a relief when my father finally sent me off to marry Barral. But look who was in Marseille. Folquet.”

  “And when Barral died…”

  “Folquet made sure that my child would not inherit Marseille. Once again, dispossessed of a throne by this greasy songbird. It took me a long time to crawl out of that particular grave.”

  “Yet you did,” I said.

  “I did,” she said. “And since I came to power here, every family that spread its poisonous gossip about my mother has been paid back, the Landrieux clan most of all.”

  “But Antoine Landrieux was dead,” I said. “Why take your revenge on his son?”

  “Why should the son profit from the father’s sins?” she asked. “Yes, he was innocent. So was I.”

  “Did your father know of Lady Mathilde’s imprisonment?”

  “I don’t doubt it,” she said. “He was Philippe Landrieux’s guardian. I assume it’s why he kept Berenguer there as the steward.”

  “What happened to her when the Landrieux clan was evicted?”

  She looked at Léon.

  “When we cleared them out, we searched the place thoroughly,” he said. “We thought there might be hidden storerooms with money somewhere. We found a cell, deep underground. A wraith of a woman was chained inside, pale like a bone, completely insane. She kept singing some song about a lark, over and over.”

  “Lady Mathilde,” I said.

  “Lady Mathilde was dead,” he said sharply. “We didn’t know who or what this woman was. We turned her over to Philippe. His house, his prisoner as far as we were concerned.”

  “Where did they go?” I asked.

  “They were last seen leaving for Marseille,” said Léon.

  “Four days, five rivers,” I muttered.

  “What was that?” asked Marie.

  “I was thinking how long the journey back would take,” I said.

  “Is that what you intend to do now?” she asked.

  “By your leave, milady, it is,” I replied.

  “What will you do when you find them?” she asked.

  “I will learn the next part of the story,” I said. “See if there’s an end to it.”

  “And if it turns out that this is Lady Mathilde, that she took her revenge upon Berenguer and Rocco and is now going after my old friend Folquet, what will you do with her?”

  “I honestly do not know, milady,” I said. “But I suggest you have the Viguerie look for her here as well. Let your own sense of justice decide what is best if you find her.”

  “Justice and I have never been on close terms,” she said bitterly. “Very well, go. Your children are in the courtyard. Guilhema is going to miss her playmate.”

  “I am sorry for it, milady,” I said. “And I am sorry that I was not completely honest with you.”

  “Nobody is completely honest with anyone,” she said. “You have been more honest than most.”

  “It’s because I am a fool,” I said. “We seek the truth.”

  “That is a fool’s quest,” she said.

  I stood and bowed to the two of them, then walked to the door. Then I turned back. “Milady?” I asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you believe that Lady Mathilde is seeking her revenge?”

  She smiled. “I would, under the circumstances,” she said. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, milady,” I said. “I would.”

  TWELVE

  It’s a new joke now and I’m your grinning jester.

  —GRAND THEFT AUDIO, “STOOPID ASS”

  “Marseille?” I said in disbelief. “Did you just say Marseille?”

  “I did say Marseille,” said Claudia.

  “You say, I say, we all say Marseille,” chanted Helga.

  “Stop that, Helga,” I said. “It’s very irritating.”

  “Did a group of smelly guards grab you while you were peacefully playing with dolls today?” asked Helga.

  “No,
but—”

  “Have you recently been tied up and threatened with rape and dismemberment if you didn’t tell them everything?” she continued, her lower lip trembling slightly.

  “No,” I said.

  “And I told them nothing!” she shouted.

  “I am sorry, Apprentice.”

  She stuck her tongue out at me. “You say, I say, we all say Marseille,” she chanted again.

  “I am starting to feel sorry for those smelly guards,” remarked Grelho. “Well, I guess you’ll be leaving in the morning. Unless you feel it is a matter of sufficient urgency for you to leave immediately. I’ll help you pack.”

  “Do you really think Lady Mathilde is behind all of this?” I asked Claudia.

  “It would certainly explain everything,” she said. “She had the motive and, more importantly, she knew the song. Don’t forget that the song is what started all of this.”

  “Peire Vidal knew it,” I said. “Pantalan knew the first line. De la Tour’s sister. Others may have heard it.”

  “But of them, who knew to connect it to Folc? Or that it would cause him that amount of distress?”

  “But that would mean that she would have to go to Le Thoronet, leave that cryptic message, then come all the way back here just to kill Berenguer and Rocco,” I said. “That doesn’t make any sense to me. Besides, it’s been a man following us in town.”

  “Says who? Brother Antime?” she replied. “He could have been mistaken. She could have been in disguise. Women have been known to disguise themselves as men quite successfully, as you may recall.”

  “True enough,” I said.

  “Or it could have been a man working for her,” added Grelho. “Or, to raise the obvious possibility, Philippe Landrieux, avenging his mother. It would be a matter of honor for him once he learned who she was and what had been done to her.”

  “Unless he thought she had betrayed his father,” I said. “In which case, honor would go the other way.”

  “Fine,” said my wife in exasperation. “The point is that there is nothing more to be learned in Montpellier. Marie will have the Viguerie looking for Lady Mathilde and Philippe. There is no reason for us to duplicate their efforts. If they catch her, we will hear about it from Grelho sooner or later. But if there are no more guilty parties here to satisfy her vengeance, then she’s likely to be heading back to Marseille to join her son.”