He didn’t know Villar, only of him. Had actually read a few of the man’s verses—when someone brought a copy of one poem to him, demanding he arrest the poet for blasphemy. There were many who disliked this Thierry Villar, it had emerged then. Some with rank.

De Vaux had found the poem (and others he’d ordered brought to him) amusing and harmless, unless you were the one being pilloried in rhyme, which was not his affair. He knew Villar’s stepfather slightly. Ambroise Villar was a cleric of middling rank. Associated with a small sanctuary near the one to be robbed tonight. If Lambert Maar was to be believed.

Not especially pious of the cleric’s adopted son, Robbin de Vaux had thought. Had the thieves gone through with it, or even not, they could hang for this night’s plot—he hadn’t lied to Villar. There were the usual tangles of clerical law versus civil law, battles of jurisdiction, but he’d negotiated those before.

He’d decided to proceed differently with this man. Clever men could be useful as well as troublesome. And he knew he’d need access to whatever the citizens of Orane might know, or have heard. Or hear now. Most of it would be nonsense, it always was, but he’d judge that, and also have a chance to assess the small poet with his small beard and the cleric’s tonsure he wore as a university graduate.

Of course if civil war broke out this would move far beyond such things. And there could be other killings in or around the palace. Even tonight. He made the sign of the sun disk to avert the evil of that possibility.

Had another thought, though. He called over a serjeant and sent him back to the Châtelet. He ordered fifty men posted on guard outside the royal palace, and he wanted the king’s guard put on notice of danger, with more information to come. It might unsettle people, but it needed to be done. He considered doing the same for the other senior dukes and their guards, but decided not to. They were careful men, generally.

A door opened just along the street. A woman stepped out. She clasped her hands in front of her and offered an awkward obeisance. “We have a fire we can light, my lord, if you want to be inside,” she said. “It is a bitter night.”

The kindness of ordinary people, even amid their own sorrows and hardship, Robbin de Vaux thought. Not for the first time.

He wondered if she knew who he was, or was just reacting to the horses and perhaps orders overheard. She’d be aware of the dead man. The dead men.