The Moneylender of Toulouse (29 page)

“Thank you,” he said. He stood up slowly, keeping his breathing shallow, then moved behind his desk and sat.

“What side are you on in all this?” I asked.

“I am not sure how many sides there are nowadays,” he said. “But I stand for the Church.”

“And the Bishop?”

“As long as he stands for the Church, I stand for him,” he said. “But I don't know where he stands anymore.”

“What made you think this book had anything to do with him?” I asked him.

“When we were walking back after our confrontation with the Borsellas, he asked me what had happened. He knew that I had gone to look for the will, but he came in after the brothers accused me of stealing this book I had never heard of before.”

He grimaced.

“When I told him about it, he turned paler than I had ever seen him before, and said, ‘The Book of Names stolen! Then we are doomed.' I asked him what he meant by that, but he refused to speak further on the subject. I have endeavored to learn what I could since then. I think that Milon Borsella stole that book from someone. Someone powerful. And it was his discovery of my master's name in it that turned him against the church again.”

“That would certainly do it,” I agreed. “It's a pity that you did all that good work converting him, only to have it destroyed by the man you did it for. To think I was helping you protect the good name of your church all this time. I feel much more virtuous now. I even feel mildly remorseful about hitting you so hard. Forgive me.”

“Forgiveness comes easily to me,” he said. “I have a feeling that you are not quite the ruffian that you first appeared to be, either.”

“Oh, I am quite the vicious fellow,” I said. “Nor do I feel so warmly toward you that I am ready to trust you entirely. But I think that we may part without killing each other for now.”

“That's a start,” he said. “What next?”

“Depends on what I find out,” I said.

“Where did you find the book?” he asked.

“Not yet,” I said, shaking my head. “How did you know what it looked like if you had never seen it before?”

“I had seen it. I just didn't know what it was,” he said. “When I was in Milon's office once before, I saw him put it in that drawer and lock it. I didn't know it was anything significant at the time, but I remembered enough about its appearance to give you a description.”

“I'll accept that for now,” I said. “Well, I have abused you enough for one evening. See you at Mass tomorrow. Oh, and a happy Christmas to you.”

“May we all live peacefully until the next one,” he said.

“Speaking of which, this is yours,” I said, tossing his dagger onto the desk.

“Out of curiosity, what would you do if I made a sudden move toward it before you got out that door?” he asked.

“Normally, I would kill you,” I said. “But now that we're such good friends, I'd only pin your hand to your desk with my knife.”

“Good night, then,” he said, putting his hands together in prayer.

I left the cathedral, trying to sort my thoughts into useful little piles, but they kept toppling over into an incoherent muddle. My instincts were to believe Father Mascaron as far as what he said. But he hadn't told me everything. He specifically refused to tell me one thing. Something that came between Milon and Vitalis. Yet Vitalis was the one who ended up with the book. Had he stolen it from Milon after Milon stole it from Guilabert? Or had Milon entrusted him with it?

I thought back to the confrontation in Milon's office between the surviving Borsella brothers and Father Mascaron. Bonet was the one who accused him of stealing the book. Which meant that Bonet knew about it before then. Was his signature on one of the missing pages?

And Vitalis had let his brother's accusation go unchallenged. Indeed, he had encouraged it, helping his brother upend the priest, all the while knowing that the book was safely hidden in his closet. Which meant that Vitalis didn't trust Bonet.

Nice family.

*   *   *

Hugo was cleaning up when I returned to the Yellow Dwarf.

“You're out late,” he said. “And without your getup on.”

I shrugged.

“Your own business, of course,” he said. “Will you be requiring a drink before bed?”

“A pint of something to clear my thoughts,” I said.

“You want them cleared or erased?” he asked.

“Just cleared,” I said.

He dipped a cup into a barrel and handed it to me. It went down nicely.

“Good night, good Hugo,” I said.

“Good night, Senhor.”

Claudia was up, nursing the baby, while Helga slept, curled up on a pallet in the corner.

“You look befuddled,” she said.

“Then unfuddle me,” I said.

I recounted my conversation with Father Mascaron, and she shook her head in disbelief.

“I don't like it,” she said. “He still has some game we don't know about.”

“Agreed. But assuming what he did say was true, what confessed secret do you think could be of such enormity that it caused a rift between Milon and Vitalis? And was it healed before Milon was killed?”

“The confession had to have come from Vitalis,” she said. “Milon hadn't fully returned to the church, from what you described, so he wouldn't have been up to confession yet. And it makes sense that a Saint Sernin monk would go to confession at the cathedral instead of his own abbey to keep things truly private. It must have been an old sin, for him to … I wonder.”

I waited while she thought.

“An affair,” she pronounced. “That must be it.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Vitalis and Béatrix,” she said. “It was right in front of me all the time. He was so solicitous toward her. The intimacy between them, it was more than just him comforting a grieving widow. They must have been lovers once.”

“That would explain his behavior at his brother's grave,” I said. “Interesting. I wonder if you could winnow it out of the widow.”

“Theo,” she said, looking unhappy.

“What?”

“This makes her more of a suspect in her husband's death.”

“To conceal her affair? I suppose it's possible.”

“I was thinking about the will,” she said. “If it meant she would be disinherited in favor of the cathedral, she could have done it to protect herself. And her children.”

“Got rid of her husband, got rid of the new will, and inherited under the old one. Very plausible. But what about Armand? Did she kill him as well?”

“Maybe he really did see Milon's murder, and was trying to get her to pay him to be silent,” she said. “Except he was killed the day of Milon's funeral, wasn't he? That means she couldn't have done it. She was surrounded by comforting witnesses the entire time. I give up.”

“Let's sleep on it,” I suggested. “Big day tomorrow. Our very own Feast of Fools. Oh, and Christmas. We'll stir this town up proper.”

“And when the dust settles?”

“We shall see.”

I roused Helga for her turn at watch and nestled beside my wife. My thoughts continued to swirl around my poor beleaguered mind, but eventually, I fell asleep.

*   *   *

“Christmas!” hollered Helga, louder than any rooster. “Time to celebrate the First Fool in all His glory. Up, up, up!”

“Up, up, up!” cried Portia, and Helga put her on her shoulders and whirled around the tiny room.

I rolled out of bed and opened the shutters. The sun was just above the horizon.

“What happened to my turn at watch?” I asked Helga.

“That was my Christmas present to you,” she said. “You looked exhausted last night, so I let you sleep.”

“Very kind of you, Apprentice,” I said. “Thank you. Hey, wife!”

I shook Claudia awake.

“What is it?” she asked, yawning.

“Time for your present,” I said, handing her a small bag.

She opened it to find a jar of hand cream. She opened it and smelled it.

“Lavender,” she said, sighing. “How lovely!”

“And for you, my girl, I have this,” I said to Portia.

I reached into the bag I had carried back from Martine's shop and pulled out a doll that was nearly as big as my daughter, with buttons for eyes and yarn for hair. Portia gabbled excitedly and clutched it to her.

“Where did you get that?” asked Claudia.

“I had it made,” I said. “Stuffed with sawdust fresh from the Borsella mill.”

“Lucky girl,” sighed Helga. “I wish I had a doll like that when I was little.”

“If you're too big for them now, then I have misjudged you,” I said, pulling a larger one out and giving it to her.

She looked at it, then at me.

“I am twelve, you know,” she said. “Almost thirteen.”

“Shall I take it back?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” she said, hugging it like Portia was hugging hers.

“I remember you telling me how your only doll was destroyed when you were little,” I said. “You shouldn't go through life thinking that will be the last doll you'll ever have.”

“Thank you, Theo,” she whispered. “I love it.”

“And now for you, my husband,” said my wife, reaching under the bed.

She pulled out a thin wooden box and handed to me. I opened it to find a knife, with a steel blade honed to a sharpness that could have sliced through sin. I took it out and balanced it on the tip of my finger, then flipped it and caught it.

“It's beautiful,” I said.

“Toledan steel,” she said. “I thought you could use a new one after you lost your favorite back in Le Thoronet. I bought it off a mercenary who had several. He claimed he could take an ear off from thirty paces with it. He offered to show me his ear collection, but I declined. Oh, and here's the sheath.”

It was made from a soft, thin leather that wrapped around my ankle and fit nicely inside my boot. I slid the knife in and out a few times for practice.

“Thank you, my love,” I said, kissing her. “I hope that I never have to use it, but I'm glad that I have it.”

“I'm glad you have it, too,” she said.

“Right,” I said, clapping my hands. “Downstairs for exercises. Then on with our makeup and motley and off to Mass.”

“You want to wear motley and makeup to Mass with the Feast of Fools banned?” asked Helga.

“Now more than ever,” I said. “The Feast may be banned from the cathedral, but fools aren't yet. And let's sing loud enough to drown out that wretched choir. The First Fool ought to have some decent music for His birthday, don't you think?”

Oh, the stares as we took our bench inside the cathedral. Stares of rage from the Bishop and his priests and deacons. Stares of amusement from the Count and his retinue. And stares of what I thought was hope from the rest of the assembly. Did they expect us to start the Feast right then and there? Parade a boy bishop in on an ass and sing parodies of the service? Truly, we could have not made the service any worse had we done so. The Bishop stammered through one inconclusive homily after another, interspersed with more incoherent denunciations of the Cathars; the choir sang halfheartedly despite our best efforts to help them. Oddly enough, we caused more distraction by simply showing up and participating enthusiastically in the service than we would have by bringing in the once-usual mayhem.

But the Feast still lived within me, within my wife, within our apprentice, and no doubt within our child. The moment the mass had ended and my feet hit the first step leading out, I seized a trumpet that had been hanging inside my cloak, put it to my lips, and sounded a clarion call that could have wakened the dead in the cemetery before us. Claudia joined in with one of her own, and I continued playing the horn with one hand while pounding on a side drum with the other. Helga danced in front of us, occasionally turning cartwheels or soaring into flips, while Portia rode my shoulders and clapped her hands.

We started marching from the cathedral, the congregation pouring out behind us. I glanced back to see the Bishop standing on the top step, turning nearly apoplectic. I waved and sent one particularly wet blat in his direction, then continued on.

From off to the left, another trumpet sounded, and we turned to see Pelardit on his stilts, a drum at his waist. He started whistling a melody that danced around our trumpet calls. A few streets later, we came up against a raucous crowd that surrounded Jordan, who rode with immense dignity on a small, sullen ass. He hailed us in a pure tenor voice that echoed through the streets, singing something that somehow sounded like Latin while being absolute gibberish.

“To Montaygon Square!” I shouted, and we turned east and headed that way.

There was no market on Christmas Day, of course, so the square was ours. Martine and the boys had wheeled a cart with all of our props there in advance of our arrival. We set up quickly as the crowd surrounded us. Then I stood in the center and swept my arms around grandly.

“The Feast of Fools has been banned from the Church!” I shouted. There was booing, and I held up a hand in admonition. “No, my friends. If the Pope decrees it, then it must be so. But there is no ban on folly, either within the Church or without. Folly cannot be banned. It is everywhere, in all of us. When the Church allowed the Feast of Fools, it kept the folly contained in one place where the Pope could keep an eye on it. But now, he has loosed it upon the world!”

There were cheers.

“Hear me, good citizens of Toulouse!” I cried. “I am Tan Pierre, and for the next twelve days, I am the Lord of Misrule!”

I stripped off my cloak and flung it onto the cart, revealing my full motleyed glory. Then I bowed to the crowd and did a back flip.

And we were off.

They knew the songs, and sang them with us, sending them up to God with more power and devotion than they had any paltry psaltery. They knew the routines and rituals as well as they knew their liturgy. They welcomed the hoariest of gags as if they had never heard them before, and roared at the new ones as if they were revelations of Paradise.