[Fools' Guild 08] - The Parisian Prodigal (5 page)

We ended the lessons around noon. Hue had the food and wine set up on a bench on the side of the courtyard farthest from the stables. The three of us sat and ate, enjoying the warmth of the sun overhead.

“Have you been to Paris?” asked Baudoin.

“More than once, but not in years,” I said.

“I think I would have remembered you,” he said.

“There are many fools there,” I said. “I don’t know that I would have stood out. And I never performed at the court, so you wouldn’t have seen me there, would you?”

“I suppose not,” he replied.

There was no hesitation in that response, so the idea of being a regular at the French court did not strike him as anything out of the ordinary. Or he had that part of the lie ready.

“What fools were popular in Paris when you left?” I asked.

“There was one called Horace,” he said. “Very funny fellow.”

Hue nodded in agreement, a smile on his face for the first time since I had met him.

“I have heard of him,” I said. “Never saw him perform.”

“Wonderful juggler, and quite a flirtatious fellow,” he said. “The ladies adore him. Do you juggle?”

I took three rolls and did a quick routine. One-handed.

“A fool who does not juggle is like a soldier without a sword,” I said. “It is one of the fundamental skills of our trade.”

“Is it a trade?” asked Baudoin. “I would have thought you would describe it as an art.”

“Art doesn’t pay,” I said. “I’ll stick to trade, thank you very much.”

Sancho ambled into the courtyard, squinting in the sunlight like a man who had just gotten up. He saw us and gave us a wave.

“Good morning, good soldier,” called Baudoin in langue d’oe.

“Well, good morning to you, senhor, and well done,” returned Sancho. “Although I think it is afternoon now. Unless that was meant to be a sarcastic joke at my expense, in which case, well done again. Sarcasm is very much the coin of the realm around here.”

Baudoin looked blankly at most of this while Hue murmured the translation in his ear, then nodded.

“This fellow is a wise one,” he observed in langue d’oïl. “What did he say?” asked Sancho.

“That you have wisdom,” I said.

“Most perceptive,” said Sancho. “I am to show you the city today. You fancy churches or the houses of the rich?” Baudoin made a sour face at the mention of churches. “Right, I should have expected that,” said Sancho. “Let’s go look at some towers.”

I tagged along, just in case there were any pertinent comments in Baudoin’s native tongue. Sancho took him to some of the wealthier neighborhoods in the old city first, where the buildings were so crammed together that the wealthy were squeezed upward in brick towers that competed mostly in height rather than in beauty. Sancho had limited commentary outside of naming who the owners were, and Baudoin had few questions.

At one point, as we walked through the old wealth near Montardy Square, I saw Hue nudge Baudoin, and the other man nod slightly. We were passing by a house that stood out among the surrounding affluence. Not because it surpassed them—just the opposite, in fact. It must have been grand once upon a time, but the time had long since vanished. Brick rose two stories from the street, with a third floor that had partially collapsed, making a home for a flock of rooks that flew in and out, screeching. The front gate was old with rust, and the padlock securing it looked like it would shatter at the insertion of a key, if key there still existed. Grass had taken root in the cracked and broken stones of the courtyard visible from the street, and the wooden shutters had rotted away, stripped of whatever colors had once protected them from weather’s onslaughts.

Baudoin whispered something to Hue, who tapped Sancho on the shoulder.

“Why does this horrible eyesore stand amidst such beauty?” asked Hue.

“Don’t know,” said Sancho. “I suppose whoever owned it left no heir. Or maybe he went off on Crusade and hasn’t come back yet. Not my business, so I pay it no mind. Now, if you want to see some real fancy houses, we have to go into the bourg.”

“What is that?” asked Hue.

“That’s the north part of town built past the old walls,” said Sancho. “New money, new families with the new money, and bigger towers for all of them. I’ve picked out one for myself if God ever sees fit to let the dice roll in my favor about a thousand times in a row.”

“That would truly be a miracle,” I said. “One that would have the baile taking both you and your dice to jail.”

“Oh, I expect the Dicemakers’ Guild would be on me long before the baile,” laughed Sancho. “They guard their own.”

“There is a Dicemakers’ Guild?” asked Hue in amazement. “Well, you wouldn’t want dice made by just anyone, would you?” asked Sancho. “For all my complaints about the dice around here, I can’t say for sure that they have ever rolled untrue. The dice are my vice and my punishment, so I accept how they come up as God’s will.”

“If that is your only vice, then that is not such a great stain on your character,” commented Baudoin once Hue had translated Sancho’s remarks.

“Oh, would that were the only one,” sighed Sancho when he had Baudoin’s response.

“Ah, now I am beginning to be fascinated,” said Baudoin. “What are the others? Wine? Women? Cockfighting?”

“Can’t say I’ve ever gone in for cockfighting,” said Sancho. “And I prefer beer to wine. But women, there you have me. I’ve got years to go before I can leave service and settle down, you see. And we’re on the march half the year, escorting the count through his holdings, which means I really have no time for a regular sweetheart. So, I spread my love about.”

“And the women of the Toulousain are grateful for it,” I added.

“I do my best,” said Sancho modestly.

“The best possible motto for a soldier,” I said. “Speaking of which—Sancho, tell them the story of why you became a foot soldier.”

“Because I didn’t have a horse,” said Sancho.

There was a momentary delay as Hue translated. Then Baudoin broke into laughter and slapped him on the back.

“I like you, friend Sancho,” he said. “My brother is a fortunate soul to have men like you about him. I had thought at first that he chose you as another means of insulting me, as he did this fool here, but I see now that he could not have made a better choice.”

“My thanks, I think,” said Sancho.

“None from me,” I said.

“Now, show us to an establishment that serves some of that Toulousan beer that you like so much,” said Baudoin. “What do you think?” Sancho asked me.

“It’s afternoon, so the decision is all yours,” I replied.

“In that case, where should we take them?”

“In the bourg? I would go for the Tanners’ Pit.”

“That sounds disgusting,” said Hue, wrinkling his nose. “They get their beer from a brewery that’s upriver a ways,” I said in langue d’oi’l. “The water is much cleaner than what’s used by the breweries inside the walls, so the beer is better.”

“You have convinced me,” said Baudoin. “Take us to this blessed spot.”

I preferred the brew at the Yellow Dwarf to anything in miles, but that was the jesters’ special place. I didn’t want to share it with outsiders.

Sancho took us the long way, through the gaudy clump of houses near the abbey of Saint Sernin. This had the added benefit of skirting the cluster of actual tanners’ pits that stank up the area north of Saint Pierre des Cuisines. We came to the group of taverns and inns that crowded around the Bazacle Gate at the north end of the bourg by the river.

It was late afternoon, which meant that the tanners, never shy about cutting their work short, were well into the drinking portion of their day. As we came up to the doorway of the tavern, two of them came flying out, their hands on each other’s necks, and began rolling about in the mud as several of their fellows followed from inside and began cheering them on. No one favored either party as far as I could tell—it was for the spectacle of the fight itself that they offered their support.

“Looks promising,” commented Baudoin, stepping around the combatants.

Once inside, we commandeered a table that had been upended by the recent fracas and ordered a pitcher of beer and a bowl of eel stew. We all dug in to both the meal and more conversation. Hue and I alternated as translators, depending upon which of us had his mouth full at any given moment. Considering that someone else was paying for the meal, it was more often me who was prevented from speaking.

“Not bad at all,” pronounced Baudoin, dipping some bread into the stew. “And the beer is more than satisfactory.”

“I suppose you’re used to much finer fare than this at the King’s court,” said Sancho.

“I have had epic meals on tables longer than battlefields, where the servants outnumbered any army I have ever seen,” declared Baudoin. “And I have picked through the leavings of the worst taverns after the diners had collapsed into a drunken stupor.”

“Quite the range,” I commented. “Which was the more satisfying meal?”

“The one you get when you need it the most,” he replied.

“Food always tastes better when you are hungry,” I agreed. “Drink, too.”

The tavern maid came by, replacing our empty pitcher with a full one while planting a quick kiss on the top of Sancho’s head. She scampered away, smiling over her shoulder.

“I would have enjoyed that more if I wasn’t wearing my cap,” grumbled the soldier.

“One of your irregular sweethearts?” I asked.

“A gentleman does not tell,” he said.

“Gentlemen always tell,” I said. “Gentlemen brag about their conquests at length.”

“But a soldier doesn’t need to brag,” Sancho said, winking at Baudoin.

Hue was watching her wistfully as she glided about the room.

“Do you fancy her?” Baudoin teased Hue. “I could find out her price.”

“She’s not that pretty,” said Hue. “It would be a waste of money.”

“Food tastes better when you’re hungry,” said Baudoin, nudging him. “It has been a while since we’ve eaten properly.”

“What are they going on about now?” asked Sancho.

“I think he’s about to ask you where the nearest bordel is,” I muttered.

“Friend Sancho,” slurred Baudoin, the beer starting to take effect. “In exchange for the location of that house of wondrous women I will send you to in Paris, what say you take us to an equivalent establishment here? I need to find my friend Hue someone prettier than this tavern wench.”

“What do you think?” Sancho asked me.

“It’s evening, which is an extension of the afternoon and therefore still in your bailiwick,” I said. “I am responsible only for the mornings.”

“In that case, where to go, where to go?” he pondered. “The Comminges quarter is too public, but there aren’t any good places in the bourg—wait, yes, there is one, right outside. You know the house up past the Villeneuve Gate? With the red shutters?”

“That’s a leper house.”

“Right,” he said.

“You want to take them to a leper house? That’s carrying the initiative a little too far.”

“The leper house is in front of the bordel,” he said. “You’ve never gone there? In your performing capacity, of course.”

“Of course, and no, I haven’t.”

“Then you ought to come along. Might be a useful connection for your line of work. And you might see a lady you like.”

“Got one I like already,” I said. “A regular sweetheart.”

“Lucky you,” he said. “Good thing you’re not a soldier.” Oh, but I am, I thought.

“Fine, let us go see this house of shame behind the house of woe,” I said.

Baudoin paid for the meal, and we resumed our tour of the bourg. I casually sidled up to Sancho.

“We are being followed,” I muttered so that the Parisians could not hear.

“Damn well better be,” he said.

“They’re yours?”

“Think I would be taking these two around alone?” he asked. “I’m just the visible watchman.”

“Got it,” I said. “Carry on.”

The Villeneuve Gate was on the eastern wall of the bourg, not far from where it met up with the original city wall. The leper house was on the outside of the wall, of course. The sun was setting, which meant that the gates were closing, but Sancho had no difficulty talking the guards into letting us through. I imagine that they had a steady secondary income in bribes from wayward patrons returning in the dark.

There was a small cluster of shops and taverns outside the gate, taking advantage of the lower rents to undercut their city competitors. The road into the gate was not one of the major routes, so the traffic was light, mostly farmers returning home with whatever goods they had been unable to unload at the markets.

The leper house sat in isolation beyond the shops. At least it must have, but all one could see was the high brick wall surrounding it, keeping the gawkers out and the contagion within. The upper story was visible, as were the red shutters that marked it, but they were all closed. There were five such houses scattered around the outside of the walls of Toulouse. I did not know what charity ran this one.

Sancho walked past the far corner of the house, then turned left like a man who had done this before. A narrow path ran between the brick wall and the fence of the adjoining farm, leading to the rear of the house.

The brick wall was lower in back, and the shutters were not so well maintained, but that did not matter. What drew us on was another two-story house, hung with many lanterns that glowed with a welcoming promise even as the sun was setting on the other side of the bourg. There were bursts of laughter, mostly women’s, escaping into the evening, and someone was sawing away passably at a viol.

“This is the place,” said Sancho.

“If the women here are as good as the beer in the Tanners’ Pit, then we are in for a rare treat,” said Baudoin.

“No woman is as good as that beer,” said Sancho. “But they’ll do.”

He walked up to the door, nodding at the large man who sat by it with a serious-looking club resting against his thigh.

“I vouch for them,” said Sancho, and the guard looked us over, then opened the door and beckoned us through.

There was a copper lamp suspended from the center of the room, its leaves hammered and punched into a delicate filigree that cast undulating webs of shadow on the walls. Red cushioned chairs rested against the walls, and in front of them was a low table covered with a cloth embroidered with scenes of Greek maidens in varying states of undress fleeing from satyrs who were not dressed at all. The maidens did not appear to be trying that hard to flee. The viol player must have been playing outside one of the ladies’ workrooms, for the music floated down from somewhere farther into the interior of the place.