01 - Murder in the Holy City (18 page)

Geoffrey heard the clash of steel, and saw Roger and d’Aumale already engaged. Roger lunged forward with a blow that knocked the smaller man backward, forcing him to retreat before the onslaught, while d’Aumale defended himself with quick, short jabs that just kept Roger at a distance. Geoffrey felt the whistle of steel slice past his face, and realised Warner meant to kill him, armed or not. He whipped the dagger from his belt, and jerked backward, away from a savage swipe that missed him by a hair’s breadth.

Warner was white with fury, and Geoffrey realised he must have angered the man more than he had guessed, for his expression was murderous. Armed only with a dagger, Geoffrey could not hope to win a fight against Warner, a superb swordsman. The best he could do was to try to stay out of reach, and tire his opponent by luring him to hack and sweep. When Warner grew weary from wielding the heavy weapon, Geoffrey might be able to dart through his defences and attack him with his knife.

The sword hacked down, and the tip caught against Geoffrey’s mail shirt, slicing through it like a knife through butter and throwing him off balance. He scrambled away and ducked behind a pillar. Warner’s sword struck it so hard that sparks flew from the blade, leaving a deep gouge in the smooth white stone. Warner swung again and again, and Geoffrey felt him gaining ground. He ducked and weaved, and dodged this way and that around the pillars, but Warner was relentless. Then Geoffrey was hard up against the back wall of the church with nowhere else to go. Warner’s eyes glittered in eager anticipation, and he tensed his arm, ready for the fatal blow.

While Warner prepared to strike, Geoffrey dived at him using every ounce of his strength to drive him off balance. He saw Warner’s sword swing round, and felt the upper part of the blade crunch into his ribs. And then the momentum of Geoffrey’s lunge sent them both sprawling, scrabbling at each other like a pair of wildcats. Warner fought like tiger, abandoning his sword, and pummelling Geoffrey with his mailed fists. Geoffrey, stunned by a dizzying blow to his temple, felt Warner gaining the upper hand, and with a spurt of strength that verged on the diabolical, Warner heaved himself upright and fastened his hands around Geoffrey’s throat.

Warner’s strength was prodigious, reinforced by his clear loathing of the Norman. Geoffrey felt his head begin to swim from lack of air, but with calm presence of mind he swung his arm upward and brought the point of his dagger to Warner’s throat. Warner gazed in disbelief at the weapon and then at Geoffrey, who could now dispatch him with ease despite Warner’s superior position. With a groan of frustration and anger, Warner let his hands go slack, and Geoffrey found he could breathe again. He struggled out from underneath Warner, still keeping the dagger firmly at the Lorrainer’s throat and fought to regain his breath.

“Stop this outrage!”

All four knights turned at the sound of the furious voice. Godfrey, Duke of Lower Lorraine and Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre, stood in the doorway of the chapel and glowered at them. For a moment, they were frozen in a guilty tableau of violence, but then weapons were dropped and put away, and the four climbed warily to their feet.

“Are there not Saracens enough to fight that you need to squabble with each other?” shouted the Advocate. “And in a church of all places?”

“We were provoked,” said Warner sullenly. “They attacked, and what else were we to do than defend ourselves? They heaped insults upon Lorraine and Burgundy!”

“Which was it, cousin?” asked the Advocate with menacing calm. “Did they attack you first, or did they provoke you to attack them with their insults? You cannot have it both ways.”

“We did not …” began Roger.

“Silence!” barked the Advocate. “I know you serve Bohemond, and you,” turning to Geoffrey, “serve Tancred. But they hold their territories under my liegeship. And while in this citadel and in this city, you are responsible to me! I will not have brawling among the knights. What hope do we have of maintaining peace among the troops when you set this kind of example?”

He scowled at each of them in turn. Behind him, in the gaggle of monks and knights who were in constant attendance, Courrances watched with detached amusement, a small smile playing at the corners of his thin lips. Geoffrey watched him. He knew that a few sibilant words breathed into the Advocate’s ever-listening ear would absolve Warner and d’Aumale from blame and bring it all firmly to rest on the shoulders of Roger and him. But Courrances preferred to watch from the sidelines, knowing he had the power to intervene if he felt so inclined, but enjoying the display of disunity between the Normans and the Advocate’s men.

The anger went from the Advocate as quickly as it had come, and he raised his hands in a gesture of despair. He fixed Warner and d’Aumale with his faded blue eyes. “Wait for me in my quarters,” he said wearily. “I must go to Jaffa again, to conduct negotiations with the merchants from Venice. I want you to organise a guard that will protect me and impress the Venetians, but that will leave sufficient troops here to defend Jerusalem.”

Warner and d’Aumale bowed and left, and outside Geoffrey could hear the cheers and laughter of their fellow knights congratulating them on the fight. The Advocate dismissed his retinue with a flick of his hand. No one moved, and it was Courrances who began to usher people out of the chapel. In moments, the chapel was empty with the exception of the Advocate and Geoffrey, while Courrances lurked among the shadows of the pillars, far enough away to be discreet, but certainly close enough to hear what was being said.

“Sir Warner is a hotheaded bully,” said the Advocate. “But his loyalty and courage are invaluable to me. Please bear that in mind when you pick a fight with him next time.”

Geoffrey met his eyes evenly and said nothing. The Advocate was the first to look away, and Geoffrey noticed how tired and ill he looked. The Advocate’s previous visit to Jaffa had ended when he was struck with a mysterious fever—rumours that he had been poisoned were rife—and had to be brought back to Jerusalem to recover.

“What news have you for me about the deaths of the two knights and the monks?”

Geoffrey rubbed his chin, which reminded him he had not shaved for some time, and realised he had very little to tell the Advocate. He outlined what he had learned from interviewing the witnesses the day before, omitting reference to Jocelyn’s ambiguous role, and described the death of Marius. The Advocate grew more pale.

“A monk murdered within the citadel, and a knight knocked senseless,” he breathed. “This cannot go on! This business is affecting the very roots of our hold on Jerusalem.” He pulled hard on the straggling hairs of his long, blond moustache. “So what do you deduce from all this? Do you agree with my brother that the Jews are behind it, with Courrances that the Arabs are responsible, or with me that the Patriarch knows more than he is telling? Or have you an alternative hypothesis?”

Geoffrey did not, and he felt that the evidence to support any theory was weak, to say the least. There was clearly a Greek connection: Loukas was Greek, possibly a spy; John was found dead in the house of Melisende Mikelos, a Greek widow; Dunstan had poisoned Greek cakes in his desk; and the three men who had followed him after his meeting with Tancred had spoken Greek. However, the death of the double agent Jocelyn implied that the business had something to do with the Patriarch, while all three knights—Guido, John and now Hugh—had been in Bohemond’s service. Geoffrey decided there was nothing to be gained from telling the Advocate about Jocelyn, and certainly nothing by highlighting Bohemond’s connection. He outlined his suspicions that there might be a Greek dimension cautiously, unsure as to how the Advocate might react.

“The Greeks,” said the Advocate grimly. “We were foolish not to have slaughtered every last one of them when we conquered the city. Now we have nurtured a viper at our breast.”

“Possibly,” said Geoffrey, “but this smacks more of the actions of a few individuals, perhaps even one, and not the entire community.”

“I suppose I have time to arrange a massacre before leaving for Jaffa,” said the Advocate, discouraged only by the effort and time it would take. “If we slaughter the lot of them, we will be certain to kill these individuals of yours, and that will be the end of the affair.”

The slaughter of hundreds of innocent people to ensure the execution of a few would definitely not be a prudent political move, thought Geoffrey, frantically scrabbling around for reasons to stay the Advocate’s hand. The Advocate, no matter how much he disliked the Greeks, needed their labour and their services, and without them, the city’s fortunes would decline.

“This killer is clever,” said Geoffrey hastily. “I do not believe killing the entire Greek community would serve to rid you of him—he might adopt a disguise and escape. And I am sure the Patriarch would not condone a massacre.”

“The Patriarch does not rule here—I do!” snarled the Advocate, and Geoffrey saw he had touched a raw nerve. “I do not care what the Patriarch condones or does not condone! I am a military leader, and he is a frail churchman bound to the apron strings of the Pope.”

The Patriarch was certainly not frail, and Geoffrey doubted very much if Daimbert were tied to the apron strings of any Pope. If the Advocate underestimated his opponents so blithely, he was bound for a fall. Perhaps the murders were aimed against this weak, vacillating ruler after all, thought Geoffrey. Jerusalem needed a powerful leader in these uncertain times, and the Advocate was proving he was not up to the task.

“I may be mistaken about the Greeks,” said Geoffrey. “I will investigate these poisoned cakes this morning, and I will try to ascertain who Dunstan was trying to blackmail. We do not have sufficient information to justify massacring the Greeks.”

“You have enough information for me,” growled the Advocate. “But, very well, I might be prepared to wait a few days to see what else you might uncover. But do not dally. I could grow impatient.”

With these decisive words, the Advocate turned on his heel and stalked out of the church. Geoffrey heaved a sigh of relief, and hoped fervently he had not sown a seed of paranoia in the Advocate’s mind that might lead to some violent act against the Greek community. He wondered whether the stress of leadership might be too great for the man, and whether he might be losing his sanity. To suggest a massacre on the grounds of a few unproven suspicions was scarcely the act of a rational man—even a Crusader.

Courrances materialised from behind a pillar and glided over to Geoffrey.

“You do not really believe the Greeks are behind this, do you?” he asked.

Geoffrey shook his head. “But I do not know who is.”

Courrances put a limp hand on Geoffrey’s shoulder, and Geoffrey heard the clank of a weapon under the soldier-monk’s robe as he moved.

“You are in a vulnerable position, my friend,” said Courrances, so softly that Geoffrey had to strain to hear. “It is difficult to serve two masters, and if you fail to uncover who is behind these deaths, the Advocate will believe you have betrayed him. Even if you do uncover a plot, who knows whether he will believe your findings or not? It depends at whom you will point your finger.”

And you were the one who put me in this position, thought Geoffrey. He was suddenly angry with himself. He had allowed himself to be fooled by Courrances, who probably guessed there was something more sinister afoot than a Saracen plot as he had claimed. Courrances was right: who knew where Geoffrey’s investigations might lead him, and, even if he did uncover the identity of the killer, who was to say the Advocate would believe him? What if it were Warner? The Advocate had already told Geoffrey that his cousin was invaluable to him: there was simply no way the Advocate would accept Warner’s guilt.

Courrances removed his hand, but Geoffrey imagined he still could feel the man’s corruption oozing through his armour. The warrior-monk gave Geoffrey a smile that reminded him of the wolves that slunk around soldiers’ campfires in the desert, and slid noiselessly out of the chapel. Geoffrey waited a moment before following, his mind teeming with questions and worries.

After a breakfast of flat, dry bread and pickled olives, the most immediate task was to visit the scriptorium, to ask questions about Dunstan and Marius. Roger and Hugh were already practising their swordplay in the bailey, observed by a crowd of soldiers who formed a circle around them. Geoffrey watched them for a moment, admiring Roger’s decisive movements and massive strength pitted against Hugh’s resourcefulness and speed. Then he went to don his own armour, and set off through the streets to the scriptorium, with Helbye and Fletcher at his heels and the dog slinking behind them.