|
|
It was Christmas morning, 1471, and Olivier Darbois was dead.A fine piece of news to wake up to, grumbled Clopin Trouillefou. For at least twenty-five years, old Olivier had kept the Goose and Grapes, a dank and grimy excuse for a tavern, but one that was always open to the gypsies who populated the Court of Miracles, their safe haven deep beneath the twisted alleys of the neighborhood. A drunkard, a glutton, an avid gambler and a shameless cheat, Olivier was one of the leading citizens of the community. Clopin hesitated to call the man a friend, but he had always felt he could trust him -- to the extent that he was willing to trust any outsider. And now, here it was, Christmas morning, snow on the streets, Olivier dead and the tavern locked up tighter than the dungeons beneath the Palais de Justice. And again Clopin snorted and muttered to himself, "A fine piece of news to wake up to!"
Authorities -- Clopin winced at the very word -- authorities of every stripe swarmed in the alley. He knew they would have loved to nab themselves a murderer or two, especially one with dark skin and black hair, but the old man had simply been snuffed out in his sleep by a lifetime of bad habits, and there was little anyone could do to put a criminal face on the matter. Jacques Crousette, the landlord, a pleasant man but too scatterbrained for Clopin's comfort, ushered the intruders in and out of the house all day long. No one else was seen in the street. The neighbors had sense enough to stay out of sight.The disruption of the neighborhood was a brief one, thankfully; over as soon as Olivier's bones were disposed of. Of course, the most popular topic of discussion was what would become of the now-deserted tavern. For some, the question was merely a matter of inconvenience, as they grumbled about having to walk an extra street or two over to find a drink. For Clopin, it was more than that. The Goose and Grapes was always one of his first stops upon arriving in Paris. It was a link, not the only one, but an often used one, between the gypsy community and the rest of the city; a place where gypsies and Parisians could safely meet on neutral ground to do business; a place where Romani new to the city could count on finding brothers and sisters ready to welcome them into the hidden Court of Miracles. If nothing else, it had always been a place where a customer of any caste or color could buy a drink and a meal without being turned away roughly at the door -- as often happened at many other Paris establishments. Squalid as it was, the tavern was a necessity to him, and Clopin chafed at seeing the place locked up.
One afternoon, he was lucky enough to chance upon Lucie, Jacques Crousette's servant girl -- still called a "girl" in the alley because she looked no bigger than ten, although she was probably three times that by now. She was sweeping the snow out of the steps that led down to the tavern, when she wasn't pausing to swing her broom at the urchins who kept teasing her, as if trying to lure a crab out from under a rock.
"Lucie!" Clopin greeted her warmly, opening his arms to her as if she were a sister he hadn't seen in a year or two.
"What do you want, Clopin?" she cocked a sharp eye up at him.
"Nothing, nothing, pretty child." He called her this because he knew the irony of it annoyed her. Venturing down into the well of steps, he tried to peer past her into the dark cellar that had been the tavern. "Just a little homesick, I fear."
"Get out!" she smacked the broom at his shoes, but he leapt nimbly out of her reach and laughed.
"Not as quick as you used to be, are you, my petite angel? Aah!" he sprang back as she darted up into the street, whacking at him with the bundle of sticks. As soon as Lucie emerged from the stairwell, a huge, sloppy snowball exploded against the back of her head and she let out a shriek. A mite of a boy, no more than five, squealed with delight and ran away as she chased him. The instant her back was turned, Clopin darted into the darkness of the old tavern and vanished. Just as he expected, within a minute or two, Lucie came down after him.
"Clopin!" she squinted, her eyes adjusting to the light. He watched her stalk furiously around the room, a scrawny smidgen of a shadow in the darkness, and held his breath. When she didn't find him on the first go round, she slowed her pace and began to creep more thoughtfully among the furniture. It was all he could do to stifle his laughter, watching the little creature hunt for him. At last, she came within range, and he waited until she bent over to peep under a table, carelessly holding her broom behind her in one hand...
Clopin sprang from his hiding place. On the first leap, he landed behind her, laying hold of the broom and twisting it out of her grasp before she had time to turn around. By the time she was upright, he was standing on the table above her, with the broom resting on his shoulders, laughing his head off at her as she stamped her feet and fumed. "Now, perhaps, you'll talk to me!" he suggested.
"Give me my broom, you thief!" She tried to climb up after him, but he brushed her off with his foot like the little beetle she was.
"Sit down, Lucie. This won't take long. I want you to tell me a story." Clopin sat down cross-legged on top of the table, but clutched the stolen weapon tightly in his hands, and warned her off again with a flick of his foot.
"I don't know any stories," she snapped, making another grab for him and getting her face slapped with the long toe of his shoe.
"I'll tell you one, then, shall I? It is the tale of a beautiful castle, home to a generous monarch. Every night, the jovial old monarch would host a great banquet for all the vagabonds in the land, and everyone was happy." Clopin, having no success in settling down his restless audience, decided to cut things short. "Until Christmas morning when the old man met his maker, and the castle was locked up, and the poor vagabonds found themselves with nowhere to go. And so now I ask the gentle fairy left to guard the castle: what is to become of this place?"
"If you wanted to know, you should have just asked," Lucie snipped at him. She had a voice like sugared toadstools, and she wasn't afraid to use it. "But, no, it has to be ‘Lovely Lucie, let me tell you a story, let's play a guessing game, let's ring round the rosie...'"
"All right then," Clopin conceded the point. "What's Crousette going to do with the tavern?"
"Nothing," she answered curtly, folding her arms over her chest.
"That's not much of an answer," Clopin frowned, fondling the broom as if he were considering using it on her.
"There's nothing he can do. This doesn't belong to him, it belonged to old Maitre Olivier. Ask me what he did with it, if that's what you want to know."
"Very well, what did the old man do with the tavern?"
"Left it to his brother. There's your answer, and it took you enough work to get it," she sniffed.
"A brother, eh?" Clopin considered. "I didn't know there was a brother..."
"Now give me back my broom and get out."
"What sort of brother?"
"How should I know? He's from the country somewhere. He probably won't even want the place."
With a pensive frown, Clopin descended from the table and left the tavern, but he still had enough of his wits about him not to return Lucie's broom until they were both in the street. As he walked away, the question stuck in his mind: What sort of brother...?
The new year was rung in, the Feast of Fools came and went, so did the rest of January, and still the tavern sat empty. February was nearly half over before Olivier's brother at last arrived.
His name was Guillaume Darbois, and he had come from Mantes-sur-Seine; he looked like another Olivier, but one raised on fresh air and sunshine in place of wine and filth. That was all anyone knew of him. Even after he had moved into his brother's old lodgings in Jacques Crousette's house, the tavern remained tightly closed. The neighbors were wary of the stranger from the country, and Clopin gave orders for the gypsies to keep their distance until he could determine whether Olivier's brother was friend or foe. There was another new figure there, as well; one he quickly associated with Guillaume Darbois. It was small and feminine; plump, as well, although he couldn't tell how much of that was her and how much was the thick woolen cloak she always wore when she ventured out. Muffled against the winter chill, her face and age remained a mystery to him as he observed her from a distance. His first assumption, of course, was that she must be Guillaume Darbois' wife. She had a brisk step for an old woman, though, and a strong arm as well, he noted, judging by the ease with which she toted huge baskets of goods home from the local markets.
Four days after the arrival of the tavern's new owner, Clopin entered the Court of Miracles to find a knot of gaily chattering children hunched over something on the floor. "Clopin! Clopin!" one saw him and held out a sticky handful of something toward him. "Look! Look what the tavern keeper gave us!" It was an enormous pastry, stuffed full of apples and spices. Apple syrup and pastry crumbs adorned every young face turned toward him. "Come and have some!" the children beckoned. Stripping off his gloves, Clopin knelt among them and took a piece of the pie. "The old man gave you this?" he asked. "No, no!" they laughed. "The woman!" "Madame Darbois!" "She caught us climbing over the wall into the yard behind the tavern," one of the older children confessed. "We thought she was going to beat us," another added. "But she didn't!" interrupted a third. "She said she'd give us something good if we would help her wash some dishes--" "And not break any--" "And we did--" "And we didn't--" "And she gave us a pie!" the communal story was concluded. And the pie was delicious, Clopin would have added, licking his fingers. "You shouldn't have been climbing over the wall," he tried to frown at them, reaching for another piece.
"Nothing happened," one of the boys scoffed at his concern.
"But, we don't know anything about this Madame Darbois..."
"She has a gypsy amulet," piped up a pretty voice. It was La Esmeralda, who had been too busy with her share of the pie to speak before now. "She showed it to us," the girl answered Clopin's look of surprise.
Perhaps, he thought, Guillaume Darbois' wife was worth a visit.
Taking the children's suggestion, Clopin scaled the wall into the cramped, stone-paved yard outside the back door of the tavern. The door, which led into the kitchen, was open, but there was no sign of life, and he quietly slipped inside. An enormous kettle was boiling over the fire. Wrinkling his long nose at the noxious steam rolling out of it, Clopin wondered what witch's brew the tavern keeper was concocting for supper, but once he took a look, he saw that it was only her washing. Unable to remember having ever seen a clean piece of linen on the premises, he found himself not so surprised at the smell.
The door between the kitchen and the tavern proper was open as well, and as he drew near, he heard a voice, humming a lively old country tune, accompanied by the rhythm of a scrub brush and an occasional splash of water. The voice belonged to the woman he sought and, seeing at a glance that her back was to him, he entered the doorway and observed her as she worked away on hands and knees, vigorously scouring the stone floor. Reaching the end of her song, she blew out a deep breath, pushed back the frayed ends of brown hair straying from beneath her cap, and sat back on her heels to evaluate her progress.
Clopin cleared his throat. Startled, she glanced over her shoulder at him. "Madame Darbois?" he ventured into the tavern.
"I'm sorry," she puffed a bit, getting to her feet, "we're not open. You'll have to come back next week--"
"I'm not here to buy anything. I only wished to welcome you to the neighborhood," he made her a gallant bow.
"Well, in that case," she looked him over as if he were a goose in the marketplace she had half a mind to purchase, "you're very kind. I'm Therese Darbois."
"Clopin Trouillefou."
"A regular customer, I hope," she remarked, with a dimpled smile. Madame Darbois was much younger than he had expected, only halfway through her twenties, he would guess, although her rosy cheeks added to her youthful appearance. A bright-eyed, sturdy little thing she was, indeed running a bit to plumpness. Clopin always eyed a new woman with curiosity, being something of a connoisseur and, while he would not have applied the word pretty to her, he did find her rather charming.
"So," he came a little farther into the room, "Olivier and your husband were brothers, I think." Even a less observant man would have seen the odd frown that crossed her brow at the mention of her husband. What nerve have I struck here? he pondered, as he explained, "Olivier Darbois was the brother of your husband, Guillaume Darbois, was he not?"
"Oh!" she exclaimed, with a laugh that washed away the frown more easily that the scrub brush was clearing the grime from the floor. "Guillaume is not my husband," she shook her head with a look that said she found the notion ridiculous and not at all flattering.
"What is he, then? If you don't object--"
"My father in law," she answered promptly.
"Ah," Clopin nodded; "then his son is your husband."
"Was," she corrected him, just as abruptly as before.
"My most compassionate sympathies, Madame," Clopin respectfully bowed his head. "It always saddens me, a widow so young."
"Did you want something?" Her expression was pleasant enough, but there was a snap in her voice that said he was plucking that nerve again. "Other than to welcome me to the neighborhood?"
"Well, I was curious as to when you planned to open the tavern again. I am a regular customer, you see, and..."
"I wish I knew," she grinned apologetically as she looked around at the disarray. "As soon as it's cleaned up, I assure you, we'll be back in business."
It was already cleaner than Clopin had ever seen it. "A day or two, then?"
"A day or two!?" exclaimed Therese. "I haven't even begun to paint the walls!"
"Paint!" he laughed. "Madame, in case you haven't noticed, this is not the Louvre--"
"That's no reason it needs to be a rathole," she retorted. "If it's a jug of wine you're so anxious for, I'll sell you that right now."
"No, no," Clopin defended himself, "no need for that. I had no intention of offending you."
"And I didn't mean to snap," she conceded in turn. "But I won't be the proprietress of a rathole, and that's that."
"I thought your esteemed father in law was the owner of this place." It did occur to him now, however, that he had been seeing more of Therese than Guillaume coming and going in the street.
"Half owner," she said. "The other half is mine, and I expect I'll be left with the whole of it within a fortnight. Guillaume doesn't like the place," she explained. "He misses his inn in the country; he doesn't want to stay."
"And you do?" This surprised him. He had begun to sense something about her, her fastidiousness, a touch of pride in her manner, that said she was used to better places than this.
"I must admit," she looked around at her rathole again with a philosophical chuckle, "it's not what I would have chosen. But, I've spent most of the last two years cooking for Guillaume, and learning the business from him, and I'm ready for something to call my own."
"Something else I wished to ask you," he began. "You gave a pie to some children."
"Well, it was more than I could eat," she smiled. "And they earned it."
"One of them mentioned an amulet."
"This?" She drew from inside her dress an intricate medallion worked from leather and beads. "I would have shown it to you before, but you didn't seem to require it. A gypsy woman gave it to me. She said it would serve as an introduction if I ever needed it." The tavern keeper must have understood the look on his face. "You recognize it?"
Clopin nodded slightly, drawing near to examine it more closely. "The woman who gave you this -- who was she?"
"An acrobat in a roving carnival. A few years older than I was, I think. Her family befriended me once when -- when I was traveling."
"Let me guess," he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "She had five young children."
"Four children. And a half," Therese corrected, looking at him curiously.
"Near enough. And a husband who could lift a horse."
"Yes," she looked intrigued by his powers of intuition.
"And her name was--" He pressed a gloved hand to his forehead as if trying to envision it, then slyly opened one eye to sneak a glance at her.
Madame Darbois laughed at the gesture, and volunteered the answer. "Josette Grillon."
Clopin's face broke into a broad smile when she spoke the name. "Madame," he seized her by the shoulders and bestowed a kiss upon her rosy cheek, "you are welcome here, indeed! Any friend of my favorite sister is most assuredly a friend of mine."