The Lark's Lament: A Fools' Guild Mystery (8 page)

“What is that tune?” I asked. “I’ve never heard it.”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “It popped into my head this morning. I can’t remember all of it, and I don’t know the words, but I can’t shake it. Does that ever happen to you?”

A sudden memory of a man lying on the ground, my dagger in his throat.

“All the time,” I said, and I started humming something happier to clear my mind. Pantalan joined in with the counterpoint; then we started singing in earnest, bouncing the song off the walls, sending it around corners and up to Heaven, just in case God needed some cheering up.

The Hôtel de Barral was a three-story stone building, with an entrance gate set in a stone arch facing a large wharf. Beyond it, the Saint-Jean fort squatted at the entrance to the harbor, the great chain dangling from its windlass, its length resting peaceably at the harbor floor. The lowest level of the château doubled as a warehouse for whatever was coming in or going out, but there was no activity at the moment. There were large windows on the second story, smaller ones at the top, but all of them were shuttered tight. A pair of bored-looking guards stood in the shade of the entrance, their attentions directed toward the château rather than at the street.

“Greetings, Arnaut, Matieu,” said Pantalan, startling them.

“What’s going on?” said the guard nearer to us. “And who’s the other one?”

“Entertainment is going on,” replied Pantalan. “A colleague has come for a visit, so I thought I would introduce him to the Viscount, just so he could brag to his family about it. This is Tan Pierre.”

“Not much to brag about,” said the guard. “Welcome to Marseille, Fool, and good luck entertaining His Solemnity. It’s like a tomb in there.”

“Nothing like a pair of fools to rouse the dead,” said Pantalan cheerfully. “May we pass?”

“Sure, why not?” said the guard. “Wish we could watch the show.”

“We’ll be at the Green Pilgrim tonight,” said Pantalan. “It will be worth the visit just to see this fellow’s wife. Prettiest thing in whiteface you’ve ever laid eyes on.”

“But married,” I said hastily.

“More’s the pity,” said Pantalan.

“Green Pilgrim it is,” said the guard, and we went inside.

An underworked seneschal eyed us dubiously but nevertheless led us up a grand staircase to the second level, then through an immense set of oaken doors into a large empty room. Tapestries depicting various ancestors of the Viscount in chivalric settings hung around us, but the room was too dark for me to see them in detail.

“The parties this room would see when Barral was alive were something,” murmured Pantalan. “There would be hundreds of guests and as many servants, dozens of musicians and entertainers. Now, this.”

“Where is your lord?” I asked the seneschal, who was taking a cloth cover off an ancient pair of chairs carved from wood darker than the room.

“At prayer,” he replied. “He has a private chapel. It gets more use than any room here.”

“How long will he be?” asked Pantalan.

“Until his prayers are answered,” said the seneschal.

“I don’t know if we can wait that long,” said Pantalan.

“I don’t know if anyone can wait that long,” I said. “Could you tell him that a pair of fools have come to visit?”

“Yes, let him cease his prayers for a while,” said Pantalan. “God could probably use the break.”

The seneschal grimaced and shuffled off.

“There’s something missing here,” said Pantalan. He walked over to the large windows at the far end of the hall and threw the shutters open, one by one. “Let there be light!”

And there was light, which illuminated the dust that had collected on every surface in the room. The tapestries’ colors were dull and faded, and the wooden floor was pitted and stained.

“Servants’ day off has lasted a good twelve years, I’d say,” commented Pantalan.

“Which may have been the last time you set foot in this place,” said a man standing in the doorway opposite.

“Viscount Barral, a pleasure to see you,” said Pantalan as we both bowed.

“What brings you here?” said the Viscount, blinking rapidly as he stepped into the light.

“I would have come sooner, but I was waiting for you to throw a party,” said Pantalan. “I sat by my door, listening for the footsteps of your messenger bearing my invitation. People would come by, urging me to give up, to entertain elsewhere, at the very least to partake of some meager sustenance, but I never lost hope. ‘No, no!’ I would cry. ‘What if my lord sends for me and I am not here to rush to his side and lighten his heart with a song?’ Finally, I decided to come myself and find out when I could expect it.”

“When Hell freezes over,” said the Viscount.

“But that happened just this morning,” I said. “We put on our skates and came immediately.”

He looked at me for the first time, and I looked back at him. I saw a man I would have taken for a monk, albeit a more affluent member of the order. His robes were white, but trimmed with ermine, and he was nervously fingering a large gold pendant that would have been out of place in an abbey. He was balding, which gave him the effect of being tonsured.

“Who is this?” he asked Pantalan.

“A fellow fool, come to visit Marseille,” said Pantalan. “His name is Tan Pierre, and he is of abundant talent.”

“Tell him to take it to someone who needs it,” said the Viscount. “Tell him to—”

“Roncelin, my lord, is this any way to behave to your guests?” scolded a woman coming into the room.

“They aren’t guests. They are fools,” he replied ungraciously.

“Even better,” she said, beaming at us. “Much more entertaining than your relatives.”

“Domna Eudiarde, how delightful to see you,” said Pantalan, winking at her as he bowed.

She simpered happily, then turned to me. “And who is this tall fellow?”

“Tan Pierre, at your service,” I said, bowing deeply. “A visitor to your fair city.”

She was a robust woman with black hair that was coiled into a pair of elaborate braids on either side of her head. She wore a gown of the vivid red cloth that was a specialty of this city. That, combined with her olive complexion, managed to make her husband look even more corpselike by comparison. She posed in a manner that was meant to be grand, but swayed like a boat in bad weather.

“Two fools, two of us,” she said. “I have an excellent fancy, my lord husband. Allow me to show this visitor the splendor of your house while you and Pantalan catch up on old times.”

“Take both of them and leave me in peace,” suggested the Viscount.

“Nonsense,” she scoffed. “He’s just what you need right now. Well, you need to have a cup of wine more than anything, but start with the fool. I would like to see you smile once this year.”

“But—”

“Husband, will you do me this small favor!” she shouted.

Her voice echoed faintly about the room, muffled quickly by the dust-ridden tapestries. He looked down at his feet and nodded.

“Thank you,” she said. “Sieur Pierre, if you will?”

I offered her my arm, and she took it greedily. I caught a look of warning from Pantalan as I escorted her out of the room. She was tottering unsteadily despite her death grip on my arm, and when we reached the top of the stairs, she looked at them with trepidation.

“I must beg your indulgence, Fool,” she said. “Will you put your arm around me as we descend? I am so fearful of falling.”

“Of course, Domna,” I said.

She leaned into me heavily as we negotiated the steps, and did not immediately relinquish my hold as we reached the bottom. I gently dislodged her, and she pouted for a moment. “I must apologize for my husband’s behavior,” she said. “He was the baby of his family, and has never truly grown up. Sometimes, one must treat him as the child that he is.”

“There is no need for a noble lady such as yourself to apologize for anything,” I said.

“That’s true, isn’t it?” she replied, brightening. “I often think that the world owes me an apology or two. Laurent! Fetch me wine, and bring it to the garden!”

“Yes, Domna,” came a faint voice from somewhere in the château.

“The garden is lovely this time of year,” she said. “Would you care to see it?”

“Of course,” I said, and she latched on to my arm again and pulled me toward the interior courtyard.

The garden was not all that lovely. Whoever had planted it must have had a mind for the spring and summer only, but this late in the year, little was in bloom and much was dry and brown. An elderly gardener, also dry and brown, was trimming back some bushes, a pile of sackcloths by him to wrap them for the winter. The stoppered neck of a wineskin poked out from beneath the top cloth, no doubt having been shoved there just before our entrance.

“We’ll walk about the perimeter, shall we?” she said. “It’s my only exercise. It is precisely eighty-seven steps around if I go to the right, but only eighty-six if I go to the left. I’ve never understood why.”

“You know your garden well,” I said as we began walking.

“I know the exact dimensions of every place in this prison,” she said. “Château, I mean. I know over which point the sun will emerge on every day of the year, and which stars will pass over each night. I should become an astronomer.”

The seneschal emerged with two large cups of wine and a pitcher. She motioned to him impatiently, and he brought them to us. She snatched one from his hand, saluted us briefly, and downed it in one gulp. She held it out, and he refilled it, then placed the pitcher on a low table and left us. I sipped mine slowly.

“I know the life history of every servant here,” she continued. “And of every soldier that keeps us inside.”

“And that of your husband?”

“I know him, and I know him not,” she said, glancing up at me slyly. “You’re a tall fellow.”

“Only from the feet up,” I said, and she giggled girlishly.

“I like tall men,” she said. “I once was courted by a tall man.”

“What happened to him?”

“Oh, the family wanted to keep a foothold here,” she said. “I am that foot.”

“Of course, you’re of the royal family of Aragon,” I said. “That explains it.”

“Explains what, Fool?”

“The source of your beauty. The women of Aragon are legendary for it.”

Her mouth hung open for a second; then she quickly filled it with wine and swallowed.

“Now, that was wonderful!” she exclaimed. “That is how a compliment should be paid. Just try and find some courtly behavior in this giant market that passes for a city. None! And along comes a fool, and he’s got more manners than anyone here.”

I bowed.

“Have you ever been to Aragon?” she asked, her eyes misting.

“I’m afraid not, Domna,” I said. “The closest I have come was Barcelona. But had I known that you were in Aragon, I would have made the pilgrimage.”

“There, you see? That’s how it’s done!” she said, almost crying. “You must give my husband lessons. Do you speak Catalan?”

“I do, and I understand Aragonese. I know a few of your songs.”

“Oh, would you sing one? I haven’t heard my tongue sung in ages.”

I unslung my lute and sang an alba by Giraut de Bornelh. It was a favorite at the Guildhall, and when I was done, she sighed and dabbed at her eyes with her kerchief.

“I cannot remember the last time I heard anyone sing in this house,” she said.

“Your husband does not care for it?”

“He cares for nothing but God,” she said.

“A very pious man,” I said carefully.

“What good is a pious man to his wife?” she said, holding her cup out.

I refilled it, and some of it slopped over the lip onto a rosebush as she rushed it to her lips.

“A libation,” she said. “Let its sacrifice be not in vain.”

“To whom do you make sacrifice?”

“To the old gods,” she said. “To anyone listening. Am I truly beautiful?”

“The most beautiful flower in this garden,” I said.

She glanced about uncertainly, and I hoped that there was something nearby in bloom to which she could compare herself. Fortunately, some faded pansies lingered in a corner, and she nodded, satisfied.

“I was only beautiful enough to be bartered for this man,” she said. “He is the viscount of a great city, they told me. He’s been living in an abbey for years, they told me, and he’ll be on you like a thirsty man diving into a desert oasis. To seduce a monk, what could be simpler, I thought? But he prefers the desert, and I am the one left parched.”

She was thirsty, I observed as she spilled the dregs of the pitcher into her cup.

“What does he pray for?” I asked.

“Release,” she said. “Release from care, release from responsibility, release from duty. Release from this house, and from me.”

“He must be bitter indeed to wish to escape such a lovely warden.”

“Bitter doesn’t begin to describe him,” she whispered. “He cries out for punishment and for vengeance. He lashes himself.”

“My goodness!”

“I have offered to help him with that part,” she said, giggling again. “For charity’s sake.”

“You are indeed a virtuous lady, Domna,” I said. “You said that he prays for vengeance? Surely that is not a proper subject for prayer.”

“But our God is a wrathful god,” she argued. “If He has wreaked His vengeance on so many people so many times, then that must be something we can pray for, don’t you think?”

“I think that God’s vengeance is His alone,” I said. “But I am merely a fool. These philosophical debates I leave to great ones such as yourself. Do you know who your husband wishes God’s wrath to visit?”

“Just about everyone here,” she said.

“Have his prayers ever been answered?”

“Oh, every now and then some merchant or nobleman dies, and Roncelin starts dancing with glee, claiming his plan is working. But it always seems to be a death from old age, or illness, things that happen in the natural course of events. And it’s never someone I’ve heard him single out. I shouldn’t be saying all of this, but I do so enjoy talking to you. I haven’t had a good, old-fashioned gossip in such a long time.”

“I enjoy listening, Domna,” I said. “Did he ever mention a man named Folquet in his prayers?”

“Among others,” she said. “I remember him. Handsome man, voice like an angel.”