The Lark's Lament: A Fools' Guild Mystery (18 page)

“Which ones shall we play with?” she asked me.

“You pick,” I said.

“All right,” she said, taking down several. “Let’s make a wedding. I can read and write, can you?”

In five languages so far, I wanted to say, and Claudia was teaching me Arabic. But Father Gerald’s voice echoed in my head again:
What you know is a weapon, and what they don’t know you know is a better one. When people think you can’t read, they may leave something worth reading in front of you.

“No,” I said. “Someone showed me once how to make my name.”

“That’s the most important thing,” she said. “Here’s the Princess. Should she marry the brave knight, the monk, or the pirate?”

“I don’t think monks can get married,” I said.

“But he’ll be a greedy evil monk who really wants to be Viscount,” she said. “So he’ll quit being a monk just to get married to do that.”

“All right.”

“I think I’m going to marry a king someday, just like Maman.”

“That’s a very good idea.”

“Only I don’t want to marry other people first like she did. Do you want to marry a king?”

“I don’t think I can,” I said. “I’m not noble like you.”

“Who will you marry?”

“I had a proposal just last week,” I said.

“You did! How exciting! What’s he like?”

“A fool,” I said. “Like everyone else I know.”

We played for a while. I actually enjoyed it. Then she decided we should go see her mother, and we ran down to the room where I first saw the Countess. I could hear Claudia singing as we came to the door. I held a finger to my lips and we stood silently by the door and listened.

Claudia is a wonderful singer, and the smartest woman in the world, and had a wonderfully romantic marriage to a duke, and then her husband died and she met Theo and became a fool because she loved him so much. All the girls at the Guild kept looking at Theo and wondering what was so special about him, because he wasn’t a very handsome man, but when he came back from Constantinople with Claudia and Portia and taught some classes, we could see what a good jester he was. Father Gerald said he was one of the best when he was sober, and Father Gerald didn’t say that about just anybody. I listened to Claudia sing and thought Theo must really be something if he had Father Gerald’s praise and Claudia’s love, and how lucky I was to be apprenticed to them.

We said our good-byes, and Guilhema asked if I could come back, which pleased Claudia, I’m sure. We left, and the seneschal paid us, and we bowed and thanked him.

When we were outside the courtyard, Claudia turned to me and asked, “Well, how was it?”

“I have something to tell you,” I said, grinning.

EIGHT

There are three degrees of bliss

And three abodes of the Blest,

And the lowest place is his

Who had saved a soul by jest

And a brother’s soul in sport …

But there do the Angels resort!

—RUDYARD KIPLING, “THE JESTER”

“Let me get this straight,” said Grelho when he returned from escorting my wife and apprentice. “You have traveled a hundred miles to track down an obscure song that may contain an obscure reference to an obscure someone who is probably dead because an obscure someone else killed another obscurity so he could splash some blood on some books.”

“Yes,” I said. “Although when you put it like that, it seems like a waste of time.”

“No, that’s fine,” he said, shrugging. “I just wanted to make sure you had a good reason for all of this. I still haven’t heard the song from either of you.”

I sang it to him, and he started nodding by the second line.

“I know that song,” he said when I finished. “‘The Lark’s Lament,’ I remember hearing it.”

“When and where?”

“When? Who knows? It was a long time ago, and there have been a lot of songs,” he said. “But where and who, that I can tell you. It was in a tavern near the Blancaria that has long since burned down, and the singer was—”

“Rafael de la Tour.”

“Well, yes,” he said, crestfallen. “You shouldn’t step on a fellow jester’s punch lines like that.”

“Tell me about him.”

“A simpleton, barely capable of keeping himself alive,” he said. “But with one amazing gift that made his fortune. He could hear a song once, then sing it forever, and with a better voice than any troubadour in the Guild, including Folquet and Peire Vidal. When all of our other entertaining was done, we would repair to this tavern and listen to him sing into the early morn. We would take visiting Guildmembers to hear him, and their mouths would hang open the entire time. Then one day he disappeared from Montpellier, and nobody knew what had happened until we heard about his death in Saragossa.”

“Did he leave town before Folquet did?”

He thought for a moment.

“I think it was a year or two after,” he said. “Folquet was last here in ’87. I remember being surprised that Rafael left the one place where he had enough of a reputation to keep himself in bread and wine, but I didn’t give it that much consideration.”

“Did he write ‘The Lark’s Lament’?”

“He wrote nothing,” said Grelho. “He was an idiot with a glorious voice. Troubadours would hire him to sing their work, and other people passed songs along to him. I taught him a few myself.”

“Who wrote it, then?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” he said. “It had a brief vogue, and then Rafael vanished, and the song vanished with him.”

“Any idea who the Lady Lark was?”

“None,” he said. “Sounds like a private name for someone by whoever wrote it, but that’s obvious. I never heard it used to describe anybody around here. Maybe there’s something in the second verse that could help you.”

I stared at him.

“What?” he asked nervously.

“There was a second verse?”

“I’m certain there was.”

“By Balaam’s ass, why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“You were the one who knew the song,” he said. “I just assumed you knew the whole thing.”

“Tell me you don’t remember it.”

“It’s a lament!” he protested. “I’m a jester. I’ve never had a need for laments. At least, until lately, and that’s for my own pitiful existence, no one else’s. And that song was so specific—you couldn’t really adapt it for other occasions. How many Lady Larks are going to drop dead and require this particular song to be sung over their graves? Even Rafael only sang it a few times. You don’t get drunks buying you drinks for dirges.”

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go. I’m tired of sitting in the dark.”

“Go where?” he asked.

“What’s a good market for local gossip?”

“Any of them, although you don’t want to be going by the fish market this late in the day. I’ll watch the baby while you change out of your motley.”

I grabbed my kit and pushed the door open. “I’m not changing,” I said.

“You’re going out in motley?”

“That’s what we do,” I said. “The town already knows we’ve arrived. It would be stranger if we didn’t perform. Why don’t you get yours on and join me?”

“Sorry,” he said. “Let me hold your daughter while you work. I might as well do something useful.”

“Then you’ve become nanny for the day,” I said, handing Portia to him. “I’ll juggle, you see what you can find out.”

“And when the Viguerie take you away, I’ll be able to inform your wife,” he said. “Unless she’s already been thrown into a dungeon.”

“In that case, raise my daughter with foolish values,” I said. “Come on, you spineless coward. All you have to do is chat up the ladies.”

He followed me, Portia clinging to him placidly.

“She resembles you, I think,” he observed. “Although I haven’t seen you with your makeup off.”

“I haven’t seen you with yours on, so that’s a fair trade.”

“What am I supposed to do?” he grumbled. “I’m not the one who banned me from court.”

“No, but you took it lying down,” I said. “What kind of a jester lets that happen? When they threw you out the door, you should have hit the ground tumbling and rolled right into the markets to make fun of them.”

“I would have been kicked out of town.”

“No,” I said. “You’re a jester. The town would have been on your side. You should have kept popping up all over the place, and sooner or later the Countess would have given up bothering you. She might still let you back in. I would work on her daughter. Appear at some of the other great houses to amuse their children—Guilhema would get wind of it and demand a private performance.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Here’s the Orgerie. That’s as good a place as any.”

“Good,” I said, pulling my clubs out of my bag. “Find some knowledgeable women. Use my daughter as an introduction—she enjoys being the center of attention.”

The Orgerie was the grain market, where farmers and merchants displayed both unmilled grain and flour in huge burlap sacks, the open ones containing their most presentable products, the rest sewn tightly shut. God help the careless housekeeper who purchased a closed sack without inspecting it first.

I started with three clubs. Any fool can do three clubs. In fact, many people who are not fools can juggle three clubs, but you have to start with the basics. I had them spinning easily, and began tossing them behind my back and under my legs. Then my nose itched, so I tossed all three of them with one hand and scratched my nose with the other. The itching persisted and spread across my body, and soon my hands were frantically alternating between juggling clubs and clawing at increasingly inaccessible parts of my body, some of which required me to fold into strange contortions while still keeping the clubs aloft. I grabbed a fourth club and used it as a backscratcher, but when that proved ineffective, I began literally beating the itch to death with the club, each blow causing me to stagger and the tossed clubs to spin in ever more chaotic patterns.

All of this to try to attract enough people for Grelho to do his part. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him chatting up some women, but they seemed uninterested in sharing much conversation. Indeed, there was a general lack of response in the whole area, whether to my performance or to each other. The haggling by the grain-sellers was listless; deals were closed without ceremony; women hurried in to get what they wanted, and hurried out again, rarely making eye contact with anyone else. I launched into my patter, but it might as well have been a crowd of deaf-mutes for all the reaction I got.

After an hour of this, I caught all my clubs and bowed to scattered applause from the grain sellers. A few pennies came my way, but nothing like I am used to.

“Thank you, kind people!” I shouted. “I am Tan Pierre, of the Fool Family. We are available at reasonable prices for your entertainment. Come let us bring joy to your homes.”

I walked over to the edge of the square. Portia reached out to me eagerly, and I took her from Grelho.

“Tough crowd,” he said.

“I disagree,” I said. “There were not enough of them to be a crowd.”

“That’s the way things have been lately,” he said as we walked back to his place. “Everyone’s afraid. With so many of the great houses in ruins and new people taking over, no one knows what’s happening anymore, who to depend on, who to bribe, who to trust. All because Marie felt slighted and Pedro needed money.”

“Any useful gossip?”

“No gossip of any kind,” he said. “I couldn’t even get a smile from the maids I flirted with, and I am a damn good flirt. Used to be, anyway.”

“You used to be a lot of things,” I said.

Portia pointed at everything she saw, saying, “Ooo?” at each one. I named them as we passed by.

“Smart little girl,” said Grelho.

“I think so,” I said.

“The older one, what’s her story?” he asked. “She’s not your daughter.”

“No,” I said. “She was born in a whorehouse in Swabia. She’d be working there right now, but her mother smuggled her to us. Father Gerald says she’s the best pupil he’s had in years.”

“He must hold you in high regard to make her your apprentice,” he said. “Unless he did it so she’d learn from your wife. Where is her mother now?”

“Died a month after saving her,” I said. “Helga doesn’t know.”

“I bet she does,” he said. “Somehow, children always know.”

We ran into Claudia and Helga at the top of his street. Portia squealed and squirmed, and her mother came over to take her.

“You haven’t been juggling the baby, have you?” she asked suspiciously.

“Not with anything sharp,” I replied. “Any luck?”

“Not for me, but our apprentice mined a small nugget of gold,” she said. “Let’s go inside.”

We sat down and listened to Helga give an account of her day, complete with imitations of everyone she saw.

“Good work, Apprentice,” I said, and she beamed.

“A caged lark from one of the banished houses,” said Grelho. “That’s the best lead we have?”

“It’s more than we had before,” said Claudia. “And Marie knows something about it, I’m willing to bet.”

“You know all of the families who were evicted since Marie’s ascension?” I asked Grelho.

“Of course,” he said. “I used to … Yes, I know them.”

“Then you’ve just become our local spy,” I said. “See if you can find out if the Lady Lark was with one of them.”

“We are talking about a dozen families, most of whom have been banished or scattered,” he said. “That’s a lot of work.”

“Then it is well that you have so much time on your hands,” I said. “It will be good for you, getting out of this stuffy dark hole and into the open air.”

“And what will you be doing while I am doing all this work?” he asked.

“He’ll be going to Maguelone,” said Claudia.

“Yes, I’ll be going to Maguelone,” I agreed, then I turned to her. “Why am I going to Maguelone?”

“Because there is one other person who has inside knowledge of the goings-on at the palais royal,” she said. “The last Guilhem.”

“That’s why I’m going to Maguelone,” I said. “I knew there was a good reason. How do I get there?”

“Go through the Lattes Gate, ride out a mile, then it’s a straight shot south,” said Grelho. “You can see the cathedral from the roof of the house at the top of this street. You can get there and back in one day on a decent horse.”