The King of Thieves: Read Online Free Page B

‘Very well. I shall come to find him,’ he said eventually, and rose. ‘There is still some little while before
     the King and his lady arrive. I shall go to see this man, and then you can take him back to the gates again – yes?’
    He waved the servant onwards, and the man led the way along the high corridor, and into a tower. They descended by spiral
     stairs to the ground floor and turned left, past the kitchens and storehouses, where the din of clattering pans and dishes
     mingled with shouted commands to the kitchen staff and one hoarse bellowing voice demanding to know where on God’s earth his
     kitchen knave had gone. The Cardinal also saw the black-haired whore who was Hugues’s latest favourite, sitting and combing
     her hair with slow, wanton deliberation near the horse troughs. No doubt she’d been washing away her sins, the Cardinal thought
     sardonically.
    At a door near the great gate, the servant stopped, waiting for a sign. The Cardinal nodded, his eyes closed. ‘Be quick!’
    The servant opened the door for the Cardinal, and stood back.
    Cardinal Thomas entered. ‘What on … Man, there’s been a murder! Call the guard at once!’
    ‘Sir? I—’
    ‘
GO!
’
    As the servant hurried away, his feet silent on the sanded ground, the Cardinal crouched by the side of the man on the ground.
     The fellow was only twenty or so. Not much more, certainly. He had a strong face, but resentment showed in the narrow set
     of the eyes. There was much you could tell from a man’s face, the Cardinal thought; this one had lived with bitterness. ‘Where
     you are going, all bitterness will be gone,’ he muttered gently, and pressed his fingers to the man’s throat, feeling for
     a pulse. There was nothing. Just the coolness that was unnatural in a living man.
    Sighing, Cardinal Thomas knelt and began to recite the
Pater Noster
, then the
Viaticum
, as he glanced about him at the room where the fellow lay.
    ‘What a place to die, eh? What a place.’
    Château du Bois, Paris
    Queen Isabella of England stood with her back to the window as she held her arms out for her ladies to clothe her. All must
     be perfect, after all. She was a Queen.
    Yet even a Queen had concerns. For Queen Isabella it was hard to know what to do for the best. If she were weaker in spirit,
     she would have given up her embassy and returned to her husband. There was so very little money remaining now. That was a
     permanent worry, because her grasping, miserly spouse had not entrusted her with sufficient funds when he sent her here to
     Paris to negotiate with her brother. No, instead he had taken away all her revenues, as though she herself might become a
     traitor. All because she was French.
    Perhaps there was no actual malice in it. Edward was not generally malicious. Or hadn’t been before his mind had been poisoned
     by that murderous devil, Sir Hugh le Despenser.
    When they had first been married, he had treated her withscant respect, but she had been so young compared with him. He was four- or five-and-twenty, while she was just twelve. It
     was not surprising that he preferred the company of others, of older men. And women, of course. She was wise enough to know
     that. It was four years before she would be able to give birth to their son, Edward. Adam had been the King’s firstborn son,
     although poor Adam had died in Scotland on one of the King’s adventures to pacify that cold and wet province.
    Still, he had appreciated her when his great companion, Piers Gaveston, had died, murdered by his most powerful barons. They
     had
dared
set themselves against their lawful King! That was something a French baron would never have thought to attempt, but the
     English were ever truculent and rebellious. Even the people of London would revolt at the slightest opportunity and rush through
     the streets causing mayhem and murder as they went. It was a land that demanded a mailed fist to control it.
    At that time she had done all in her