Paris: The Novel

Cygne.
    “Master Villon is fine, is he not?”
    “I agree.”
    Le Sourd gazed around the room, and nodded to himself thoughtfully, then shrugged.
    “This is our life,” he said quietly, almost to himself. Then, after another sip of wine, he turned to his guest and the matter still in hand. “So, Monsieur de Cygne, let us return to the question of your missing pendant. Can you describe it to me?”
    “It is gold. There’s a design upon it, from Byzantium, I believe. My grandmother always told me her father got it in the Holy Land.”
    “I cannot tell you where this pendant is, monsieur,” said Le Sourd, “but if I make inquiries in this quarter, I may find the man who has it. But theft is like war. Whoever has your pendant will want a ransom before he yields it up.”
    “I can offer a hundred francs,” said de Cygne. When one of the king’s new francs was officially the same as an old-fashioned livre, a pound of silver, it had once been a lot of money. But time and devaluation had done their work. A hundred francs was now a modest sum.
    “I should think it’s worth more than that,” said Le Sourd.
    “It may be, but that’s all I can afford.”
    “Well then,” said his host, “I promise nothing, but let me see if I can recover it for you. I have influence in this quarter. Would this be agreeable to you?”
    Guy de Cygne gazed at him. He wasn’t deceived. This rogue probably knew where the pendant was at this very moment. But if courtesy was the way to get it back, then so be it.
    “You are very kind,” he said. “I should be in your debt.”
    “Then let us drink to that,” cried Le Sourd, suddenly cheerful. “Will you raise your goblet with me, as a man of honor? I know that this place is not where you would normally come, monsieur, but”—he looked around the room and spoke the words clearly so that every man in the place should hear—“you are welcome at my table anytime, and from this day, all men here are your friends.” He paused and looked at de Cygne in a way that indicated that he too, in his own way, was a man of honor. “Should you ever be in trouble in the streets of Paris, monsieur, tell them that Jean Le Sourd is your friend, and you will never be harmed.”
    This grandiloquent statement was probably true. Even the thieves in the other quarters of the city would respect the protection of a powerful chief like Le Sourd. And had Guy de Cygne been a native of Paris, he would have understood that he had just been given a gift worth far more than his golden trinket from the Holy Land.
    But he raised his goblet of wine all the same, and thanked his host for his hospitality and friendship. And Le Sourd glanced at his son, and then looked around the tavern like a satisfied monarch, and told himself again that the kings of the feudal world were, after all, nothing more than himself writ large—in which belief, it must be said, he was entirely correct.
    “My son, Richard, will accompany you to where you are staying so that we may know how to find you,” he said. And although Guy wasn’t delighted by the idea of taking Le Sourd’s son to the house of his father’s friend, it seemed the only way to get his pendant back. So after renewed expressions of mutual esteem, he and Richard set off.

    He met the girl the next day. The Renard family lived in a fine house on the Right Bank near the river. She wasn’t so bad. Her name was Cécile. She had red hair and a pale oval face. Some people would have thoughther beautiful. His father’s friend, who knew the Renard family well, came with him, and on their way back he told Guy: “She likes you. So did her parents. It’s up to you now, young man.” And his tone of voice said: “If you turn down this dowry, you’re a fool.”
    “Does she want to live in the country?” Guy had asked.
    “Of course she does.”
    “She didn’t say much, but her family talked about Paris a lot.”
    “Naturally. That’s all she knows. She’ll love the country when she gets there.” His father’s friend smiled. “You might as well say an unmarried girl’s a virgin, therefore she won’t enjoy being married.”
    He was quite surprised when they returned to find Le Sourd’s son, Richard, awaiting them. He came forward and made a polite bow with his shaggy black locks. As he looked up at de Cygne, he smiled.
    “I have good news, monsieur,” he said. And he held out his hand. “Is this the one?”
    It was. So the rogue had had it all the time,