The Lark's Lament: A Fools' Guild Mystery

by Alan Gordon

  “In what way?” he asked calmly.

  “You knew that message was from a song,” I said. “One that you had composed to mourn the death of your lover, Mathilde. The Lady Lark. Had you owned up to it immediately, we could have gone straight to Montpellier to learn the truth. Instead, you left us in ignorance, and our investigation set off a chain of violence and revenge that has yet to reach its conclusion.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Folc.

  “We started by speaking to your wife,” I said. “Then to her brother, Julien. He’s the one who painted the bloody words, by the way.”

  “Julien?” he exclaimed. “Why would he do that?”

  “He was merely the brush,” I said. “Hélène was the artist. It was a love note from her to you, Sieur Folquet. A little message to tell you that she had triumphed over her greatest rival. She had finally killed Lady Mathilde, the supreme love of your petty life.”

  “This is pure fantasy,” said Folc. “This Lady Mathilde you speak of—I remember her vaguely, but she died years ago.”

  “That’s what everyone was meant to think,” I said. “The truth was something uglier, something profoundly evil. Her husband faked her death, but kept her alive and imprisoned. He tortured her every day for her dalliance with you. She remained in darkness for seventeen years, Folquet. Then, when she finally regained the sun, cruel Fate sent her to Gémenos for the final act of vengeance. Your wife killed your lover.”

  “This cannot be!” he screamed. “It is some vicious trick of yours. Have you come all this way merely to throw this in my face?”

  “No, I came here to save your life,” I said. “Although I am beginning to have second thoughts about that.”

  “Save my life? Who seeks it?” he demanded.

  “Vengeance,” I said. “Vengeance is coming, Folquet, trudging through the mountains, crawling through the forest, on bloodied feet by now, but coming nonetheless. A long time ago, you betrayed your wife. A short time ago, you lied to me. Had you told me the meaning of the song, then Julien and Hélène would never have known why we were searching, and would never have killed to prevent us from finding the answer.”

  “Julien is coming to kill me,” he said.

  “Julien is dead,” I said.

  “What? How?”

  “Because he tried to kill me!” I shouted. “Because he tried to kill my wife and child, not to mention this extremely promising apprentice of ours. Because you lied, my family was put in danger, Folquet. Because you lied, we were forced to kill. And Vengeance still comes. I wonder if she is here now.”

  “Hélène,” he said in disbelief.

  “Hearing of her brother’s death was the last straw,” I said. “Although I think that her reason deserted her years ago. You took everything from her. You were her husband, her only desire, but you cheated on her for years, then abandoned her for this pile of dry stones. You took her children away, her friends, her life. What did you give her in exchange?”

  “God’s love,” he said.

  “Looked like a bunch of cows to me,” I said. “But I am not the expert on God’s love that you are.”

  “You can’t prove any of this,” he said.

  I was tired. I was sore. I lost my temper, I confess it. I simply stepped forward and struck him, knocking his thick skull against the thicker stones.

  “I am not here to prove anything,” I said angrily. “My mission was to get you to come to Toulouse, nothing more. Now, if you will excuse me, I have had a long journey, and am weary to the bone. I am going to sleep. I suggest you double your guards.”

  I opened the door and walked out. I sensed a rustling of cowls in the darkness as whichever monks were eavesdropping scurried back to their pallets. I found one that was unoccupied and collapsed on it.

  I felt as if I could sleep for a month, yet my eyes would not close. Every sound, both within and without, carried with it an unseen threat. Every breath taken in that room of sleeping monks was Hélène, watching in the night, waiting to make her move.

  * * *

  When the cock crew, the monks rose as one and filed into the church. I followed. Folc stood in the nave, counting them, like a farmer with his chickens. A young lay brother came up and whispered something that caused him to frown. I went up to them.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Someone left a body for burial in the enfeu,” Folc said. “That’s a niche in the outside wall for such purposes.”

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “I did not look,” said the lay brother, shocked at the idea. “The body was shrouded.”

  I gave Folc a glance.

  “Go look at the face,” he ordered. “Take Brother Olivar with you.”

  “Very well,” said the lay brother.

  He beckoned to another, and they left the church. A minute later, we heard shouting, and they burst back into the church.

  “It’s Brother Calvet!” one shouted. “Someone’s attacked him!”

  “Is he alive?” asked Folc, moving quickly to the door.

  The members of the order streamed up the two stairs to the outside of the church, stumbling over each other in their haste. Folc had gotten out ahead of the pack, and it cost me a minute to shove my way through them to the outside.

  A crowd formed around the enfeu. One of the monks, presumably the infirmarian, knelt by the victim, who was bleeding from the head.

  “He lives,” said the monk. “Three of you help me carry him.”

  I scanned the crowd of robes until I found Folc at the center of it. As the three monks and the infirmarian gently lifted Brother Calvet from the enfeu, the shroud fell away. He was naked.

  Someone has his robe, I thought.

  I started through the crowd toward Folc. Then I heard a short shrill whistle from behind me, followed by shouts from outside the abbey wall. A sound of rumbling, growing, coming ever closer. Then the gates to the fields crashed open, and a dozen cattle surged into the abbey grounds, rushing in a blind frenzy in all directions, bowling men over right and left. A lean pair of dogs raced about, nipping at the animals’ heels, scattering them. Another whistle, and the dogs turned their attentions to the monks, attacking them.

  Men in white and brown robes were everywhere, running for cover, dragging injured brothers from the paths of the stampeding brutes, or simply screaming in panic.

  Folc stood twenty feet from me in total disregard of the danger of his position, barking directions, trying to bring some order to the chaos swirling around him. I leapt up onto the shelf of the enfeu and looked toward where I first heard the whistling, but all I could see were identical robes and cowls running back and forth.

  Except for one who walked calmly through the midst of it all, striding purposefully toward Folc, hands concealed in the sleeves of the robe.

  Her feet bloody.

  I reached for my knife, but that had been surrendered at the door. Shouting, I launched myself toward Folc. An onrushing cow clipped me and spun me around, but I kept moving. Folc looked at me, then turned in her direction and froze in shock as he saw a knife coming from inside her sleeve. I summoned all my strength and launched myself at her, tackling her midbody and bringing her to the ground. She slashed at me, slicing across my left arm before I could stop her. Folc seized her wrist, twisted hard, and wrenched the knife from her.

  One of the dogs charged us. Folc instinctively threw the knife, hitting the beast square in the chest. It thudded to the ground, limbs splayed, then lay still. The other was in a bloody heap nearby, trampled to death by one of the berserk cattle. Hélène craned her head to see them. Then an unearthly scream erupted from her.

  With the dogs dead, the fury of the cattle subsided. They slowed to a walk, seeming astonished to be inside the abbey walls for the first time in their lives. There was grass on the ground. They started to graze.

  Hélène continued to scream. A few of the lay brothers came over, confused to see a woman there.

 
“Find some rope,” Folc commanded them. “Bind her fast.”

  They looked at him stupidly.

  “Rope! Now!” he shouted, and they ran.

  He sat down next to us and looked sorrowfully at his wife’s face. “I am so sorry, Hélène,” he whispered.

  Her face contorted in rage, and the screams changed to a stream of profanity. He bowed his head and accepted it. The lay brothers returned with a coil of rope. Folc and I held her as they bound her wrists behind her back, then wrapped the rope several times around her, securing her arms to her sides.

  “Put her in the storage room,” said Folc. “Both of you stay with her. Give her food, water, whatever she needs, but under no circumstances untie her.”

  They nodded and took her away, while she continued to curse her husband.

  He looked at me. “You’re bleeding,” he said.

  “It’s not too bad,” I said.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  He led me through the cloister to the lavabo, a small octagonal building where they washed their hands. He carefully peeled off my tunic, then poured water from a ewer over the cut. It was long, but not deep.

  “Stay here,” he said.

  He left, then returned with a needle, thread, a piece of cloth, and a wineskin.

  “We keep this for special occasions,” he said, handing the last to me.

  “To your health and fast work with a needle,” I said, drinking it.

  It wasn’t great wine. I didn’t care.

  He handed me the cloth, which I put between my teeth; then he sewed up my wound, adding a bandage when he was done.

  “Nice job,” I said.

  “I hope it didn’t hurt much,” he said.

  “It stung like the Devil, but it was over quickly,” I said. “The real pain is yours. Shall we go see her?”

  He washed the blood from his hands and wiped them on his robe. “Let’s get it over with,” he said.

  She sat with her back against the wall, gazing unblinking as we entered. The two lay brothers stood before her, staves at the ready.

  “Leave us,” said Folc.

  They glanced at him, then each other. One of them held his staff out to me. I took it. They left.

  Folc knelt before her. “Forgive me, Hélène,” he said.

  “You apologized before,” she said hoarsely. “That’s all you do, apologize and apologize. You apologized when you told me about her the first time. You wept and begged for my forgiveness, and dragged me off to church to pray with you. You put your head in my lap and cried like a baby, and swore to me by all that was holy that it was over, that she was dead, and that you would always love me, only me, and I cried and stroked your hair and forgave you. Do you remember that?”

  “I remember,” he said.

  “Then you drove me from Marseille,” she said. “And you apologized, but you wouldn’t tell me what you were sorry for that time. You left me in Gémenos and took my boys away forever. You never told me why.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Stop that!” she shouted. “Stop being sorry! It does nothing. It’s just another lie. She wasn’t dead. She came to Gémenos, just when the pain was finally beginning to ease. I didn’t know who she was, just another lost woman come to join the community. So quiet in the beginning, but one day, she started to sing. And I knew the song. The words were new, but the music—”

  She started to weep.

  “It was my song, the one you wrote for me, the one you sang to me and me alone,” she sobbed. “And it was coming out of that filthy whore’s mouth. You gave her my song, you heartless bastard. She had such a beautiful voice, and I have this ugly croak, no wonder you loved her. ‘Cold is the hand that crushes the lark.’ That’s how it goes, isn’t that right, husband? There she was, the woman who destroyed my happiness, brought to me by God for punishment. I stopped that lovely voice, stopped it forever.”

  “No more, Hélène,” whispered Folc.

  “Only it didn’t stop,” she shrieked. “She’s still singing that damned song. I can’t make her stop singing, no matter what I do. Make her stop!”

  And the screams came again. Folc put his hands over his ears and ran from the storeroom. The lay brothers came back in. I handed back the staff and followed the abbot.

  He staggered like a drunken man toward the church as monks and lay brothers watched him without moving. He pushed the door open and vanished inside. I was the only one to follow.

  He was kneeling before the altar when I came in. The church was otherwise deserted. I thought he was praying, and quietly sat on a bench to let him do it undisturbed. But I was wrong. Suddenly, his voice came pouring forth.

  Cold is the hand that crushes the lark.

  Cold is despair unending.

  Cold is the rain that douses the spark,

  And cold is the grave uncomprehending.

  Sweet Lady Lark, why will you not fly?

  Fie on a fate so unsparing.

  Where lies the voice that made lovers sigh?

  And where lies the grace beyond comparing?

  High flew the arrow, missing its mark.

  High was the tree unbending.

  High was the branch and smooth was the bark

  That kept this poor creature from ascending.

  Sweet Lady Lark, why flew you so high,

  Tempting the Hawk with your daring?

  Ta’en in his claws and pluck’d from the sky

  While all passed below and watched uncaring.

  Gone is the sun, slipped down from its arc.

  Gone is the love offending.

  Gone is the hand that struck in the dark,

  And ended a life well worth commending.

  Sweet Lady Lark, my love was no lie.

  Know that my heart was unerring.

  Yet, in the end, e’en true love must die,

  And vows lovers all will be forswearing.

  The last note echoed through the space and died out. I cleared my throat, and he stood quickly and faced me.

  “Good acoustics in here,” I said.

  “Is that all you can say?” he asked.

  “Well, I thought of two things,” I admitted. “The other was that you once committed an act of adultery with a woman whose husband found out, beat you, and drove you out of town, then imprisoned and tortured his own wife until she went mad, and that pretty little song won’t make up for that, no matter how well you sing it. That was the other thing I was going to say, but it was awfully long, so I thought I would just keep it to the comment about the acoustics.”

  He was silent.

  “I didn’t know the third verse, by the way,” I continued. “Quite lovely. It is your work, isn’t it?”

  “I never knew she was alive,” he said. “I heard she had died in a fall, and thought that Landrieux had murdered her. I watched from the woods as they buried her, and I wept. Then I found a singer—”

  “Rafael de la Tour.”

  “Yes. Rafael. I paid him to sing the lament. I told him never to sing it again.”

  “He was a simpleton. You couldn’t expect him to remember anything that wasn’t a lyric. He sang it in a tavern, and the Hawk got wind of it. He made him sing it to Lady Mathilde in her cell. Rafael was killed later, probably at Landrieux’s orders, but we’ll never know for certain. Tell me, why did you flee to the Cistercians?”

  “You’ve guessed so much,” he said. “You tell me.”

  “You joined the order in ’95,” I said. “That was the year the Hawk died. Did you try to go back to Montpellier when you heard he was no longer there to threaten you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I wanted to see her son. Our son.”

  “But the Hawk wasn’t your only enemy in Montpellier,” I said. “Guilhem still had it in for you because of your dalliance with Eudoxie. I take it he threatened you?”

  “He told me that if I didn’t abandon the world, my life would be forfeit,” he said. “Mine, and Hélène’s, and our sons. I was terr
ified. I came here. I have been atoning for my sins and praying for forgiveness ever since then.”

  “How’s that working out for you?” I asked harshly.

  “I thought that God had absolved me,” he said. “I thought I had been punished enough. I was arrogant to presume that.”

  “Hélène was right. You do apologize too much.”

  “She has gone mad,” he said.

  “That’s what you want to call it,” I said. “So be it. What will you do with her?”

  “There is a place I know where people who are so afflicted may live,” he said. “Where holy people will watch over her and pray for her.”

  “Good, another cell for a woman who loved you,” I said.

  “Would you rather I handed her to the authorities for punishment?” he asked.

  I took a deep breath. “No,” I said. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

  He sat on the bench next to me. We were silent for a long time.

  “The world is a dangerous and evil place, Theophilos,” he said finally.

  “Not all of it,” I said. “Not all the time.”

  “This is what you fight against, isn’t it?”

  “On my good days,” I said.

  “Maybe it’s time for me to take part in it again,” he said. “Toulouse, you said.”

  “Yes.”

  “They already have a bishop, and Count Raimon hates me,” he said. “Do you really think that you can pull this off?”

  “I won’t know until I try,” I said.

  “When you succeed, send for me,” he said, standing up. “I will be ready.”

  He walked up the steps to the dormitorium. The door closed behind him.

  I was alone in the church. I stood, snapped my fingers one time, and listened to the reverberations. Then I left.

  * * *

  I had promised Zeus two days of rest. I decided to leave the abbey and find somewhere else to do that. An accommodating farmer let us rest and heal in his stables in exchange for some help with the haying and a dozen songs and stories. On the morning of the third day, we followed the road back over the massif.

  I had a pair of blankets this time, a gift from the abbey. One for me, one for Zeus. I kept the fires going at night, and kept our pace reasonable by day.

  Two days later, we came to the Eagle’s Pass. I stopped to offer a brief prayer of thanks at the old chapel, then rode Zeus carefully down the switchbacks and through the forest, stopping to drink at the same stream where we stopped when we first came this way, eons ago.