01 - Murder in the Holy City (5 page)

Geoffrey looked at him sharply, wondering whether this intelligent, perceptive young man was aware of his misgivings about remaining in Jerusalem. Most of the Crusaders had gone already—either back to their homes in the West or to richer pickings in lands more prosperous than the parched, arid desert around the Holy City.

He raised his hands in a shrug. “Perhaps it is time to be thinking of returning home.”

“Home?” echoed Tancred. “Home to what? Your sheep-farming brothers, who regard you with such suspicion, because they think that you have come to wrest away their meagre inheritance with your superior fighting skills? To those monasteries and their dusty books?”

“Why not?” asked Geoffrey, irritated that the younger man should be questioning his motives. “I am tired of trudging around baking deserts weighed down with chain mail looking for phantom Saracens. I would not mind sitting in the cool of a cloister reading mathematics or philosophy.” He paused. “And I miss England. I find myself longing for the green of its forests, and the heather-clad hills of autumn.”

Tancred gaped at him in disbelief. “My God, man!” he breathed. “Have you become a poet all of a sudden? Where is your manhood?” He gestured with his hand. “There are riches for the taking in this land, and you hanker after the wet trees and flowers of England! You have not even lived there for twenty years!”

Geoffrey felt his temper begin to fray. He was tired from his patrolling, and his reasons for embarking on the Crusade had already been well and truly aired by Hugh that evening. He had no wish to be ridiculed a second time within the space of an hour.

“I do not want riches, and I grow sick of the slaughter here.”

Tancred made an exasperated sound. “And here we reach the nub of the issue: the slaughter. You were always squeamish about such matters. I have heard how you declined to slay the infidel when we took Jerusalem.”

“The infidel we found were mostly women and children,” objected Geoffrey hotly. “And, besides, not all who were slain were infidels—many were Christians. In the frenzy of killing, even some of our own monks and soldiers were slaughtered. The massacre was so indiscriminate that it included anyone unable to defend himself. What man would want to take part in so foul a business?”

“Most of your colleagues,” said Tancred dryly. “Why not, when the rule of the day was that plunder belonged to the man who killed its owner?”

“It is exactly that kind of lawlessness that I find repellent,” said Geoffrey wearily. “Perhaps you are right, and I have lost my spirit. But I have had enough.”

“Come, Sir Geoffrey,” said Tancred dismissively. “You are a knight, trained to fight since childhood. What else would you do? There is nothing for you on your father’s manor in England—that is why he sent you away in the first place, is it not? Where would you go? Despite your monkish tendency toward books and scrolls, you are too independent a thinker to become a priest. You would not survive for a week, before you were thrown out for refusing to be obedient. Look at you now, questioning me, your liege lord!”

Guiltily, Geoffrey looked away. He was fortunate that Tancred tolerated his occasional bouts of insubordination. Bohemond certainly would not have done so. In his heart of hearts, Geoffrey knew Tancred was right. If he forswore his knighthood, there was little else he could do. He was too old to become a scholar, and he had no intention of taking a vow of chastity to become a monk.

Tancred walked to the table and picked up the scroll Geoffrey had been reading. “This is a treatise on why shooting stars can be seen at certain times of the year and not others,” he said, changing the subject. “By an Arab astrologer. Are you familiar with his work?”

Geoffrey nodded impatiently. “I have read his theories on shooting stars,” he said. “But I believe them to be fatally flawed. These heavenly bodies are seen in the summer months, but not in the winter, and I think it must have something to do with heat.”

“You believe the Earth can influence the movements of the heavens?” queried Tancred. “Archbishop Daimbert would say that is heresy, Sir Geoffrey. The heavens are ruled by God, not the Earth.”

Geoffrey sighed. “I did not say the Earth causes the stars to fall only in the summer,” he said, trying not to sound patronising. “Perhaps they fall all year, but conditions on the Earth are such that we can only see them in the summer.”

Tancred chewed throughtfully on his lower lip. “That is an interesting concept,” he said, smiling suddenly. “You are among very few here who possess scholarly knowledge.” He raised his hand to preempt Geoffrey’s objections. “Oh, the priests are educated and know all manner of things, but they do not think as you do. And they do not speak the languages that you can—French, Italian, Latin, and Greek. Do not think of returning to your sheep yet, Geoffrey. I have need of you here. Helbye tells me you are learning Arabic?”

Geoffrey frowned, discomfited that his men should be telling stories about him. “It is a way of unlocking some of the secrets of Saracen knowledge,” he answered carefully. “They are far ahead of us in so many ways: medicine, astrology, mathematics, architecture …”

“I understand your admiration,” said Tancred sharply, “although I do not share it. But by your own admission, there is much with which you can satisfy your insatiable yearning for knowledge here, especially if you master Arabic. Stay and learn—I will release you from desert patrols if it makes you happy. And while you learn, you can solve a riddle for me.”

“What riddle?” asked Geoffrey suspiciously, anticipating a trap.

“The deaths of these two knights,” said Tancred. “And three priests. I thought perhaps you had solved the case when you brought that Mikelos woman here earlier today, but even as I questioned her, her innocence was being proven, as a fifth victim was killed using these carved daggers. Thus, the killer could not have been her, and it seems she is what she says: an honourable widow whose house was chosen at random for John of Sourdeval’s murder.”

He perched on the edge of the table and looked solemnly at Geoffrey. “I know I often ask you to do things well beyond any obligation, but our comradeship has benefitted us both at times. And now I need you again. These two knights—Guido and John—were in my uncle Bohemond’s service. Their murders represent an attack against the Normans in Jerusalem, and that includes both you and me. You are good with riddles—you solved the mystery of those thefts back in Nicaea when all the priests and scholars were at their wits’ end. That shows that you can get to the bottom of affairs such as this. You can be subtle, wily, and dare I say, even devious, to find out what you need. I would like you to serve me again and to solve these murders.”

Geoffrey ran a hand through his hair. He could hardly refuse Tancred—despite his reluctance to undertake such duties, he was still in Tancred’s service and would be until Tancred agreed to release him. He was vaguely amused to note that Tancred was asking, rather than ordering, him to help. In this way, Geoffrey would be his willing agent, not merely a hired hand, which would eliminate any resentment that might have interfered with Geoffrey’s solving of the case. He smiled suddenly, out of respect for Tancred’s transparent, but effective, cunning.

“What do you know of these murders?” he asked.

Tancred grinned back, aware that Geoffrey had seen through his ruse, but also aware that he had won his former mentor’s cooperation. He sat on a stool and gestured for Geoffrey to sit next to him. “Little, I am afraid. Five men have died in similar circumstances so far: the two knights and three priests. The three priests seem to have been murdered with a weapon identical to that which was used to kill the knights.”

He paused for a moment and chewed at his thumbnail. “The first victim was Sir Guido of Rimini, whose body was discovered about three weeks ago under a tree in the gardens of the Dome of the Rock. The second was a Benedictine monk, Brother Jocelyn from France. He died two days after Guido, and his body was found
inside
the church at the Dome of the Rock. The third was a Cluniac, Brother Pius from Spain, who was found dead in the house of a Greek butcher. His body was discovered the same morning as Brother Jocelyn’s. Then there was John of Sourdeval—a friend of yours, I believe—whom you found in a house in the Greek Quarter earlier today. And news came a short while ago that a Greek priest named Loukas has been killed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. So, the priests are not from the same Order, not from the same country, and not even from the same Church, because Loukas is Greek Orthodox and the others are Latin. But both knights were in Bohemond’s service.”

“Surely the Patriarch is investigating these priest’s deaths?” asked Geoffrey. “After all, they are under his jurisdiction—not yours, not the Advocate’s, and not Bohemond’s.”

Tancred’s eyes flashed briefly at this impertinence, but his temper cooled as quickly as it had flared. “The Patriarch is having no success at all. I discussed this business with him tonight, after news came of the last killing. I see the murders of these men as a direct attack on our authority here. How do we know it is not a diabolical plan to expose our vulnerability in Jerusalem and to incite our enemies to attack us? We are surrounded by hostile forces, and yet we are so full of factions and rifts that, if struck in the right place, the fragile alliances with our fellow Christians might shatter like glass. And then we will all die, ripped apart by an enemy who is watching constantly for such holes in our armour. There is more at stake than the deaths of two knights and three monks: I believe this business might affect our very survival in the Holy Land, let alone the possibilities of establishing other kingdoms.”

And there we have it, thought Geoffrey. Young Tancred—who only a few short months before had become Prince of Galilee—wanted a kingdom of his own. And Tancred could never have a kingdom unless Jerusalem was safe.

Unaware of Geoffrey’s reservations, Tancred continued. “Since the first victim was killed, the Patriarch has had two clerks investigating, but they have come up with nothing. I have acquired a copy of their report, so that you might study it at your leisure.” He handed Geoffrey a scroll. “You may question the clerks further if you wish. Their names are Brothers Marius and Dunstan, and they work in the Patriarch’s scriptorium.”

Tancred rose, and sensing the interview was at an end, Geoffrey also stood. Tancred gave another sudden smile, one that made him look even younger than his twenty-three years, and gently touched Geoffrey’s shoulder.

“I am grateful to you for doing this,” he said. “I believe it may be more important than either of us can know.”

For some reason, his words struck a feeling of cold unease in the pit of Geoffrey’s stomach.

His mind teeming with questions, Geoffrey made his way back through the deserted streets to the citadel. He had not gone far when he thought he heard a noise behind him, and he immediately sprang into the deep shadows of a doorway, dagger drawn, to wait. He stood immobile for several moments before thinking he must have been mistaken, and cautiously eased himself out into the road again. He looked carefully in both directions, but the street was as silent and still as the grave, and not even a rat disturbed it. Forcing himself to relax, he walked on again, faster this time, and with his dagger still drawn.

Moments later, he thought he heard a sound again—the soft slither of leather soles on the parched, dry dust of the street. He turned abruptly into one of the many narrow alleyways that turned the city into a labyrinth, and he cut sharply left, then right, and waited. Sure enough, there were footsteps behind him, running, desperate to catch up with him before he became invisible in the complex catacomb of runnels. He listened hard, eyes closed in concentration. Not one set of footsteps, but two, or possibly three. Who could be following him so intently in the middle of the night? It could not be casual robbers: first, his padded surcoat with its faded Crusader’s cross sewn on the back identified him as a knight, a trained warrior whom robbers would be hard pushed to best in hand-to-hand conflict; and second, his pursuers were being remarkably persistent for a chance attack.

Still listening, Geoffrey weighed his options. He was armed with a short sword and a dagger, and he was skilled in the use of both. He also wore a light mail shirt under his surcoat, and so was reasonably well protected, while still able to move unhindered by heavy body armour. He was in no doubt that he could take on three opportunistic thieves, but not three knights trained like himself. He decided caution was the order of the day, and sank back further into the shadows.

Within moments, three men shot past, fleet-footed and confident. One skidded to a halt so close that Geoffrey could have stretched out his hand and touched him. The man glared up and down the empty alleyway as if just by looking he could tell which way Geoffrey had gone. The others, seeing their quarry lost, came back shaking their heads, panting hard, and bending over to regain their breath. Geoffrey held his, afraid even the soft sound of his breathing might give him away, and he felt his heart begin to pound in protest.