Sword of Justice (White Knight Series) (19 page)

Not believing he was being straightforward, haltingly she said, “Well then, since you ask, I took instruction from the nuns at Fontevraud Abbey.”

“Ah.” Fontevraud Abbey was known for taking in lasses in trouble. Sometimes those same lasses took the vows of a nun. Other times they went home with the babe. “Was it interesting, then, Tilda’s journal?”

“More than interesting.” She propped the manuscript on his chest and turned to two noteworthy sheets.

* * *

As the bells of laud rang, Drake arrived on foot at the side entrance of Hogshead Tavern. Sunrise was hours off, but profuse starlight showed the way. Struggling to stay upright, he braced a hand against his back. The door was barred. Stephen’s sword dispatched the latch. Drake climbed to Tilda’s eagle nest. A sputtering cresset lamp sent him ducking into an alcove. The chambermaid, skulking along the gallery, tried her mistress’s door, and when it didn’t open, tapped lightly. Languid groans emanated from within. The girl quietly slipped away, perplexed and ignorant.

The chamber was dark when he let himself in with the key. Weary to the bone, Tilda moaned. Her eyes tracked him as he moved about the chamber and lit lamps. When he removed the gag, she sensibly did not yell the house down. He poured some wine, raised her head, and grimacing tightly, held the goblet to her lips. Licking her wetted mouth, she took in the dried bloodstains on his tunic, the tightness of his jaw, and his twinges of pain.

“Who was the Peeping Tom? Graham? Come to gaze upon his Lady Godiva?” When she didn’t answer, he figured he had guessed right. After emptying the goblet, he reached over with a groan and untied one of her wrists. Then he dragged himself around the bed and released the remaining tassels. She stiffly sat up as he stiffly sat down. Aveline’s poppy juice was taking hold but not in the way he hoped. He was fighting off drowsiness while the pain was worsening. “Does Graham have an open invitation to your bed?”

She disappeared behind a dressing screen. “Graham de Lacy deems me his one worthy love and fully expects to rescue me from iniquity one day.” One by one she threw items of clothing over the partition.

Drake crawled onto his belly and hugged a pillow. “What does he know about Mat?”

She emerged wearing a dressing grown embroidered with colorful popinjays. “Naught. And you’re bleeding.”

 “Leave it.”

She put a reassuring hand on his arm before slipping out of the chamber. The next he knew, Tilda was undressing him. Since he was an old hand at this, Drake knew where to turn and shift as her deft fingers removed the stained chainse and disposed of the leaking bandages. Breath whistled past her teeth. “Graham did this?”

“He’s not in his right mind. I don’t think he meant to kill me.”

“Even if not, he did a poor job of wounding you.”

“Thanks be to God.”

“Who’s the seamstress?”

“Aveline Darcy,” he mumbled into the bed covers.

He heard water being poured into a basin. Drake let his mind drift with the opiate. The tribute, the gambling debts, the murders … he was too tired to let any of it matter. He opened his eyes and felt as if he had slept for hours. The silk bandages were clean and stiff. He wore a dressing gown much like Tilda’s. A light meal waited. Making a pretty pair, they sat side by side against the bolsters and shared the food tray.

“Now you know,” she said.

“You own the lords of the manor … barbican, keep, and oubliette.”

“I wouldn’t go spreading it about.”

“Our little secret. Oh, and the lords named in your black book.”

As it turned out, the kind of perverted man who invested in gambling establishments and bawdyhouses like Hogshead Tavern was a nobleman. Not just one, but dozens. Not solely in Hampshire but in counties as far-flung as Cornwall and Kent. Many had surnames as familiar to Drake as Drake’s own. Nearly all had free-spending sons who, over the past months, had diced away their inheritances.

“Credit is easy to come by, I take it,” he said.

“To select patrons.”

“At fifty percent?” He whistled. “Some would call that highway robbery.”

“When there’s no other game in town ….” She let the truth speak for her.

“And when they signed away their fathers’ fortunes, perhaps a drop or two of wine spilled onto the pledges.”

“Good Auxerre wine.”

“Poor memories the morning after.”

“And several morns thereafter.”

“Until payment comes due.”

“Surprise, surprise!” She had a wicked sense of humor.

So did he. “And quicker than a fast whore on a slow night.”

“Or a slow … knight.” He got the gist but failed to see the humor.

“I take it the alliance does not share in the profits of these exorbitant interests.”

She smiled coyly.

He was sucking on a chicken wing covered in honey and saffron sauce. “One name isolated itself from the rest by its very absence.”

“Oh?”

“Gervase des Roches.”

“Who?”

“Clerk of the Royal Winchester Treasury.”

Another of her coy smiles told him she already knew that.

“And when payment is past due?” he asked.

Tilda didn’t need to answer. She was a woman of small words but big deeds. In a few short months, several penniless lords and sons of lords were going to be walking the streets of towns near and far, holding out begging cups.

Tilting his chin with the crook of her finger, she reached forward and kissed him on the lips.

“Aye,” he said, “you’re a clever woman, more so than the rest of us poor beggars.”

She cleared away the tray and left it outside the door. Resuming his spread-eagle position, he turned his head this way and that, admiring how the wooden beams had been painted with the constellations of the zodiac. She turned the key in the lock, sealing his doom. Blowing out all the lamps save for one, she shed the dressing gown on her way back to bed. It fell in a graceful heap on the floor. Delicate fingers tickled open his robe. Her head bent down.

“God’s eyes!” he proclaimed.

“And other parts of His anatomy,” she allowed.

Chapter 16
                  
 

“WHAT YOU TOLD ME THE
other day wasn’t the complete truth, was it?” Drake said. “You left something out.”

“Not entirely,” the Jew answered as one who has much at stake. Yacob ben Yosel’s amicable manner did not sway. “You look worse for the wear,
mon ami
.” Nor was he troubled by Drake’s accusation or the tone of his voice. He brought out the ever-ready flask of wine. “To wash away bitterness between
bon amis
. Sit, I beg you.”

Drake awakened in Tilda’s bed to bright sunshine. He was alone. Sexte was ringing. His back was sore but the throbbing had subsided. Food waited on the sideboard. He quickly ate, dressed, and made straight for ben Yosel’s dwelling. The wine did not wash away the bitterness between
bon amis
but did bring to mind Tilda’s talented tongue. Drake spoke slowly, thinking it out as he went along. “The only way a lender … of local and substantial resources … can get away with moneylending practices … that is, hide it from knowing eyes and
skirt the Church’s edict against usury … is to use a Jew like yourself … perhaps many Jews like yourself … in other towns and villages … who have close business ties and mutual interests.”

Yacob took a thoughtful sip. “You are a surprising man. Not boy. Man.”

“You’re the first to make the distinction.”

He waved a dismissive hand. “Only because you have recently stepped over the line. You’ve matured in a matter of days.”

“And Gervase des Roches? What are your dealings with him?”

“Ah, you’ve made further inquiries.” He took another sip and set the tumbler down.

“The Jews,” Drake continued, “act as beards, do they not? Buffers who stand between the church and the king, and hide what is really going on. The money passes through you, and your backing is …?” He wanted ben Yosel to finish the conjecture.

“The Royal Winchester Treasury. There. It is said.” He got up and returned the flask to its perch. “When King Richard visited the treasury less than a fortnight ago, he found it woefully depleted and took with him a paltry sum: less than forty-thousand marks in silver.”

“Forty-thousand marks is by no means paltry,” Drake said.

“But is to a king sparing no expense on a lavish coronation while mounting an ambitious crusade. Unfortunately, Richard took away with him the major portion of said backing. Gervase des Roches owes this particular beard, as you say, rather a lot.”

His concussed head spinning and his back aching, Drake contemplated the wine at the bottom of his cup. When he glanced up, the Jew’s mellow eyes met his. “Then you’re in danger of your life.”

“I rather think murder the best expedient to wipe out a considerable obligation. That … or expulsion … or imprisonment.” His voice said the statement impersonally, but his expression said otherwise.

Drake’s eyes took in the sparse furnishings of the front office while his mind’s eye recalled the comfortable compartments above, where a young family prospered.

Ben Yosel’s thoughts visited the same images, his eyes filling with unshed tears. He lifted the palms of his hands in a helpless shrug. “Ours is a precarious position. When a man finds himself short of funds, we Jews are the only ones with a compassionate ear and an open purse. Yet, in time, that same man comes to hate us for answering his call. Moreover, the king believes us to be repositories of unlimited wealth that can be tapped at will. Only last year, King Henry took a fourth of our chattels to finance the Crusade while taking only a tenth from our fellow Christians. When we reach the end of our short lives … ah then … then our belongings are wholly forfeited to the Crown, leaving nothing for our wives or children. But what can we do? We rely on the favor of the king for our safety and our livelihood. And we rely on our Christian neighbors for understanding and tolerance.”

Drake studied the goblet in his hand, now empty.

“Have you never met Monsieur des Roches?” ben Yosel asked. Drake shook his head. “You must. You must always know your enemy. Before he sends you to your Maker.”

* * *

To reach the inner sanctum of the Royal Winchester Treasury—housed within the walls of Winchester Castle—meant passing several sets of sentries, climbing up and down two sets of spiral stairways, entering and quitting two guard turrets, and crossing a windy rampart.

Shown through a massive wooden door, the kind used to imprison enemies of the king, Drake was ushered up one last wheel staircase to finally arrive inside the remote tower that housed the office of the treasury.

“The sheriff cautioned me I would soon have a visit from your illustrious self,” were the first words Gervase des Roches said to Drake.

After courteous introductions and the discreet withdrawal of Drake’s escort, Gervase offered him an uncomfortable stool. His words were more than courteous, but the concentrated gaze of his sulfurous eyes unsettled Drake.

“Which sheriff would that be?” Drake asked.

“Why, Randall of Clarendon, of course,” he answered evenly.

A collection of antiquities—a veritable treasure trove of armor, weapons, and devices of torture—covered the wall in a pleasing array meant to startle and impress.

“Ah, the acting sheriff,” said Drake, gawking at a hangman’s noose. “Does that mean our former sheriff, Bishop of Ilchester, was dipping into the till as well?”

The saffron eyes proved difficult to read. “Bishop of Ilchester died April last.”

“And the new one will continue the tradition?”

A bead of sweat, just one, popped up on the clerk’s upper lip. “You have lost me, I fear.”

“Godfrey de Lucé will soon be elected bishop of Winchester, or so the whispers say, and shortly thereafter, named our new sheriff. For that he will need ready resources to pave the way.”

“I still do not follow.”

“Do you not?”

Unable to dismiss out of hand Drake’s pointed insinuations, Gervase des Roches broached the subject. “But if, perchance, you are obliquely referring to our outside interests …?”

Drake smiled affably. “You have found your way.”

“It’s the usual practice of this office. The Bishop of Ilchester personally informed me of each arrangement, but only after receiving approval from the Upper Exchequer in Westminster. And of course, the treasury provides funds only to those of impeccable backgrounds and sound qualifications, where return is assured.”

Surprised at the clerk’s frankness, Drake conjectured that the old bishop had given his sanction after all. Perhaps trafficking in the coin of the realm was legal and justifiable. Then again, perhaps Yacob was mistaken and Drake was not yet a man. “The Church forbids usury.”

Gervase took umbrage. “My dear boy, when the archbishop of Canterbury requires funds to rebuild the grandest cathedral in all of Christendom, where the martyrdom of St. Thomas is celebrated by thousands upon thousands of devoted pilgrims every year, and when, in return for the temporary disposition of such spiritual largess, Archbishop Baldwin returns those funds with a modestly inflated value … well … one does not scorn a gesture as grand and noble as that.”