01 - Murder in the Holy City (14 page)

“Be careful, my friend,” said Hugh. “If Loukas was a spy, then the Greeks are hardly likely to admit it, and they will do all they can to prevent you from finding out.”

“We should go,” said Roger, glancing up at the dark sky. “The curfew bell will sound soon.”

The three knights left the garden, said their farewells to the taverner who allowed them to use it, and made their way back to the citadel. Roger bellowed the password for half of Jerusalem to hear, and the guards let them through the wicket gate. As soon as they were inside, a small man scurried toward them, his face streaked with grime and his eyes wide with fear.

“Sir Geoffrey?” he began in a querulous voice, looking at the three knights. Geoffrey raised a hand. “I am Brother Marius,” the man said shakily, “one of the scribes employed by the Patriarch to investigate the strange deaths that have been occurring recently. Brother Dunstan, who worked with me, has been murdered.”

CHAPTER FIVE

T
he three knights stared at the trembling scribe in horror as he announced the news of Brother Dunstan’s murder.

“How?” asked Geoffrey eventually.

“I did not dawdle to make a thorough investigation, but he looked to have been strangled. It must be something to do with these murders. Perhaps the killer thinks we have sufficient information to solve the mystery, and wants us dead before we can work it out. I am afraid, Sir Geoffrey! Where can I go where I will be safe? How do I know that even now the killer is not watching my every move?”

Marius’s voice began to take on the edge of hysteria, and Geoffrey interrupted brusquely. “You are safe in the citadel.”

He wondered whether this were true, especially given that a dagger and a pig’s heart had been placed so easily in his own chamber. He stared at the frightened monk as he tried to imagine who might have put such a grisly warning in his room. A common soldier would be unlikely to gain access to it without being challenged, so whoever left the dagger and heart had to have been a knight. Yet all the knights at the citadel were under the command of either the Advocate, Bohemond, or Tancred. But both Tancred and the Advocate had asked Geoffrey to investigate the murders, and they would hardly have asked him, knowing his reputation for tenacity, to do so if they were involved themselves. Meanwhile, Bohemond was in his own Kingdom of Antioch in the north, trying to secure his lands.

Geoffrey brought his whirling thoughts under control. “Where was Dunstan killed?”

“At his own desk in the Patriarch’s scriptorium,” the monk answered miserably.

“Did you see anyone there running away or hiding in the shadows?”

Marius blanched, but shook his head. “No. Dunstan missed his meal, you see, and I was concerned that he may have been ill. I looked for him in the dormitory, in the gardens and in the chapel, but he was not there. I could not imagine why he would be in the scriptorium after dark—we need daylight in which to work—but it was the only other place I could think of. The door was open, whereas it is usually locked, and I sensed something was wrong. I entered, and there he was, lying across his desk with the rope tight around his neck.”

“What did you do?”

“Do? What do you mean?”

“Did you examine the body? Did you loosen the rope? Did you shout out?”

Marius looked confused. “I cannot recall. I think I took his hand in mine, but it was cold. Then I ran for my life.”

Geoffrey turned to one of the guards and sent him to fetch Tom Wolfram to saddle their horses—he had walked to the Patriarch’s Palace the night before, but in view of the fact that he had been followed then, he considered it was probably safer to ride and to keep to the wider, more public streets.

Hugh gestured at Marius. “I will see him safely installed in the chapel. No one will harm him in a church.”

“No,” said Geoffrey. “Take him to my chamber. Leave the dog with him. Although the mutt might be useless in any kind of confrontation, his barking might prove a deterrent if the killer desires stealth.”

“I can do better than that,” said Hugh. “I will stay with him myself. I have had rather too much of that excellent wine, but a Norman knight drunk is still worth ten sober Lorrainers, or Hospitallers, or whoever else might come.”

“Careful,” said Geoffrey warningly, seeing fear break out on the monk’s face. He took Hugh’s arm and led him out of the scribe’s hearing. “Talk to Marius. See what you can discover. See if there is anything he did not write on that scroll Tancred gave me that he may have considered unimportant at the time, but that may be relevant now.”

Hugh nodded, but looked uneasy. “Be careful, Geoffrey. If you have not returned by dawn, I will send out a rescue party for you.”

Roger gestured for the guard to open the gates, and they rode out. Wolfram had brought a lamp, and Geoffrey suppressed a sigh of resignation.

“That lamp will provide an excellent target for an archer,” he said, riding next to the young sergeant. “And I see you are not wearing your chain mail again.”

Wolfram glanced at him guiltily and quickly doused the lamp. “I only thought we might need it to see where we are going.”

“Trust your horse, lad,” bellowed Roger from behind. “And learn to read shadows.”

“Read shadows?”

Geoffrey suppressed his impatience. He had been through this lesson with Wolfram before, but the young man was slow to learn.

“Listen to the sounds about you,” he began. “Attune yourself to the noises of the night, so that you will know if they are not right. Feel the mood of your horse. If she is skittish, it might be because she senses a danger you cannot.”

Wolfram nodded, and Geoffrey allowed Roger to take over the lesson while he spurred his horse ahead. The streets were pitch black, for the night had become cloudy and the moon was covered. Someone had been watering a garden, and the smell of wet earth was pungent in the air. Somewhere around his head, an insect sang in a high, whining hum, and further down the street, a cat sat on a high wall and yowled soulfully. Geoffrey thought he heard running footsteps in an alleyway off to the right, and strained his eyes in the darkness to see, but there was nothing.

They reached the Patriarch’s palace without incident and banged on the front gates to be allowed in. The doors were opened almost immediately, and sleepy-eyed Arab boys were roused to take care of the horses. The guard seemed surprised when Geoffrey told him why he had come, and sent for his captain. The captain looked disbelieving, but obligingly led the way to the scriptorium. Geoffrey supposed that Marius had made his discovery and simply fled through an unguarded side door without telling anyone what he had found.

The palace was a fine building set around a large, square courtyard. On one side lay a small chapel and the Patriarch’s sumptuous public rooms, while his private rooms and the accommodation of his retinue were opposite. The scriptorium and the monks’ quarters lay between them, a three-storied building with a refectory on the lowest floor, a dormitory above, and the scriptorium on the top floor, built with large windows to provide maximum daylight.

The captain led Geoffrey and Roger up creaking stairs to the upper floor, past the refectory with its smell of stale grease and the monks’ dormitory with its smell of stale sweat. The scriptorium was in blackness, and obligingly Wolfram kindled his lamp. Geoffrey took it and entered. It was a simple rectangular room with two long rows of desks positioned to take best advantage of the sunlight. Lining the walls between the windows were shelves bearing great brown-edged books and neatly stacked piles of scrolls. The metallic smell of ink pervaded, and the pale wooden floor was alive with multicoloured splashes where it had been spilled.

Draped across one of the desks toward the rear of the room was Brother Dunstan, like a huge black slug with a great arched body. His head flopped down almost to the ground, while his legs stuck out at an angle. The captain gave a sharp intake of breath and muttered that he would have to report this to the Patriarch. Geoffrey waited until his footsteps had faded, and sent Wolfram to prevent anyone else from entering until the Patriarch came. The captain’s incautious flight across the wooden floor had woken the monks in the room below, and already crabby voices were demanding to know what was happening. It would be only a matter of time before they came to investigate, and there were things Geoffrey wanted to do without an audience of monks.

Roger helped him lift Dunstan’s body from the desk and lay it on the floor. Quickly, he opened the storage box on the side of the desk and rummaged through it. In it was a jumble of used scraps of vellum to be scraped clean and used again, old and broken quills, leaking ink pots, and a neatly wrapped parcel of the sickly sweet Greek pastries that Geoffrey detested.

“He will not be needing these any more,” said Roger, leaning past Geoffrey to grab the package and slip it down the front of his surcoat. “Knightly plunder after violent death,” he added in response to Geoffrey’s silent disapproval. “And no different at all to what you are doing,” he concluded, watching Geoffrey stuff the scraps of used vellum down the front of his own surcoat. Geoffrey replaced what he had taken from Dunstan’s box with a handful of scraps from another desk, while Roger watched with raised eyebrows.

Next, Geoffrey knelt by the body and inspected the red weal around the scribe’s neck. The rope used to strangle him was still attached, and it coiled onto the floor around him. Puzzled, Geoffrey frowned, and Roger squatted down next to him.

“What is it?” he whispered, casting a glance toward the door. Out in the courtyard, a commotion had broken out, and there were shouts and the sound of running footsteps.

“This rope,” said Geoffrey, picking up the end and twirling it in his fingers. “It is very thick for strangling, is it not?”

“It did its job,” said Roger soberly.

“I would not use rope like this to strangle someone,” said Geoffrey, studying it intently.

“What peculiar things you say sometimes,” said Roger. “Perhaps the killer did not have time to select something more to your approval. Perhaps it was the first weapon that came to hand.”

“And I would not tie a knot in it,” said Geoffrey, staring down at the corpse. He took Dunstan’s head in his hands and moved it about. “His neck is broken! Look at how his head moves on his neck.”

Roger leaned over him, fascinated. “God’s teeth, Geoffrey! He was hanged, not strangled at all!”

They looked at each other in puzzlement, before turning their attention back to the corpse.

“Come on,” said Roger urgently. “The Patriarch will be here any moment. What else can you tell?”

Geoffrey looked at Dunstan’s hands. “His wrists are unmarked, so his hands were not tied, and his fingernails are unbroken. Thus, he did not struggle against the rope around his neck.” He looked at the end of the rope he still held. “And this has been cut.”

A thunder of footsteps on the stairs heralded the arrival of the Patriarch and his officers.

“Anything else?” asked Roger urgently. “The Patriarch might not want this investigated in too much detail. Who knows—a man killed in his own scriptorium? Dunstan might even have been killed by him.”

“He has not been dead too long, or he would be stiff.” Geoffrey rose as the Patriarch entered.

The Patriarch, Daimbert, was a tall man, slightly stooped, with a cap of pale silver hair smoothed neatly into place with scented goose grease. His expression was perpetually kind, and he always held his hands clasped in front of him in a way that Geoffrey imagined bishops should. Yet, behind his beneficence was both a will of iron and remarkable energy, and there seemed little he would not do to secure power and lands for the Church. Even his friendship with Tancred—who entered the scriptorium in Daimbert’s wake—was in the interest of the Church, for Tancred’s allegiance to the Patriarch weakened the Advocate’s authority.

There were, however, rumours about the Patriarch that were far less flattering. It was said that he was vain, ambitious, and not entirely free from corruption. Two years previously, he had served as papal legate to the King of Castille, and there were those who wondered how many of the gifts that the King had sent to the Pope had actually reached His Holiness, and how many had remained in Daimbert’s personal coffers.

Now Daimbert looked down at the dead monk and began to mutter prayers for the dead. He did not look especially moved, but the Crusaders had murdered and massacred themselves a bloody path through a huge chunk of the world, and death was nothing new to any of them. The gaggle of monks behind him crossed themselves and began their own prayers, a disjointed babble of voices, some shocked, some sincere, others merely curious. And one, perhaps, guilty, satisfied, or relieved?

When Daimbert’s prayers were completed, he raised his silver head and looked questioningly at Geoffrey.

“Brother Marius came to us,” the knight explained. “He said Dunstan had been killed, and we came to investigate.”

“On whose authority do you come?” queried Daimbert softly. Only the Advocate had the authority to burst unannounced into the Patriarch’s Palace—Bohemond and Tancred, despite their allegiance to Daimbert, certainly did not. It did not take an astute man to detect that an illegal invasion of his property would not be tolerated by the Patriarch, and Geoffrey sensed he was on dangerous ground.