01 - Murder in the Holy City

by Simon Beaufort

  “And then there is the matter of the heart,” said Roger, looking ruefully at its gnawed remains on the floor between the dog’s protective paws. “And of who followed you last night. Speaking Greek, you say.”

  “There is your answer,” said Hugh, snapping his fingers. “Words of wisdom from fools and children. The only clue you have so far is that your would-be assailants are Greek. One of the victims was Greek, also. Begin your investigation with the Greeks.”

  “The woman you arrested was Greek, too, you say?” said Roger, glancing up at Geoffrey.

  “But she was released because another victim was killed while she was being questioned by Tancred,” said Geoffrey. “Tancred is quite an impressive alibi. She was telling the truth after all.”

  “Maybe,” said Hugh. “But perhaps her confederates staged another murder while she was being questioned, specifically to show she was innocent.”

  “They would have to have acted very quickly,” said Geoffrey. “And it would have had to have been perfectly timed.”

  “Well, so it was,” said Hugh. “Do you think it odd that so much time lapsed between the first three murders—Guido, Jocelyn, and Pius—but the next two—John and Loukas occurred on the same day?”

  Geoffrey considered. But there seemed to be no kind of pattern to the murders at all, and Hugh’s point about timing might prove very misleading.

  “The first step is to check the information we already have,” he said, considering the terse sentences written by Tancred’s scribes. “We need to visit the places where these men died, talk to the people who found their bodies, and make enquiries among their friends regarding their habits and acquaintances. That includes questioning the woman I arrested yesterday ourselves. We will see what new information that might bring to light, and if all else fails, we can begin to investigate the Greek community.”

  “I do not like the sound of this ‘we,’” said Hugh disapprovingly. “Do not include me in all this, Geoffrey. Hunting down petty thieves in Nicaea was a far different matter than this sinister business. Nicaea was fun; this sounds like suicide. Hell, Geoffrey, you had not even begun your enquiries before a pig’s heart was pinned to your wall by a dagger that looks like the murder weapon, and a group of villains followed you through the street intent on mischief. I am sorry, but there is a limit to the obligations of friendship, and this is it. I will be more than happy to discuss and advise within the safety of these four walls, but count me out of seedy investigations in squalid houses in the company of murderers.”

  “I had no idea you were so sensitive, Hugh,” said Roger, grinning. He uncoiled himself from the bed, his bulk belying the underlying grace in his movements. “I will accompany you around the hovels, Geoffrey. I am not afraid of squalor and murderers.”

  “I am sure you are only too well acquainted,” said Hugh, surveying Roger’s dirty tunic and baggy hose with cool disdain. “Since you hail from the wild lands of the north, I am not in the least bit surprised. And I did not say I was afraid. But it is a poor soldier who rushes headlong into battle without considering his enemy. You two have no information on your enemy to consider.”

  “Hugh is right,” said Geoffrey, although he had a feeling that he knew exactly what he was letting himself in for, and it struck a chill note inside him. “I cannot involve you in this, Roger. You are not even Tancred’s man.”

  “But I am Bohemond’s, and until uncle and nephew become enemies, by serving one, I serve the other,” said Roger with uncharacteristic insight. “If Courrances is afraid for the Advocate, then I am afraid for Bohemond. And it will be no secret in this hive of bees that we have been closeted here for so long together. Your mission for the Advocate will already be common knowledge, and I do not imagine people will think we have been discussing the quality of the food all this time. I am with you, Geoffrey.”

  Geoffrey smiled, trying to hide the unease he felt as Roger’s words sank in. He had been foolish. It was not easy to gain friends as loyal and trustworthy as these two men, and he should have stopped to think before he involved them. And even if Hugh did have nothing to do with any further investigations, there would be few who would believe him ignorant of the affair, regardless of the truth of the matter.

  Hugh leaned Geoffrey’s lute carefully against the wall and stood, brushing imaginary dust from his immaculate tunic. Roger stood next to him, slightly stooped, his massive hands dangling at his sides, and his huge size making Hugh, who was slight of build, look like a fragile fair-haired boy. They were chalk and cheese: the one always neatly dressed, clean-shaven, seldom acting without due thought; the other dark and coarse, scruffy, and impulsive. Hugh had been given an abbey education, but Roger, despite his ecclesiastical ancestry, could not even read. Geoffrey knew he could trust these two men with his life—and had done so many times in battle.

  He sighed and stood from the window seat. The dog rose from the floor, anticipating an excursion where there might be chickens to chase or people to bite, and wagged its feathery tail eagerly.

  “I will oversee your sword drill,” said Hugh, “while you go about your dangerous business.”

  “Oversee mine too,” said Roger. “A few hours among the hovels does have a certain appeal after watching my inept crew savaging the art of swordplay.” He rubbed his hands together and gave Hugh a leering grin.

  Hugh shook his head, laughing, and went to collect his armour. Geoffrey, reluctantly in view of the heat, donned his chain-mail shirt and hauled his surcoat over the top of it. He strapped his sword to his waist and put his dagger in its sheath, calling for Sergeant Helbye and Ned Fletcher to ready themselves. Hugh was right to be cautious, and after the incident of the night before, Geoffrey had no intention of beginning his investigation without armed guards.

  He clattered down the stairs, the scabbard of his sword ringing as it struck the walls. Although Norman knights usually rode, Geoffrey preferred to walk within the city. Many of the streets were too narrow for horsemen, and he disliked being forced to ride in single file, feeling it made him vulnerable to attack. Unlike most Normans, Geoffrey was as good a fighter on foot as he was in the saddle, and so the notion of walking did not fill him with the same horror as it did many of his colleagues.

  Roger met him in the bailey, similarly clad in chain-mail shirt, surcoat, and leather helmet. Geoffrey’s surcoat had seen better days, but it was spotless compared to Roger’s, which was so stiff with dirt and grease that Geoffrey wondered if it could walk by itself. They watched their soldiers thrusting and parrying for a few moments, booted feet kicking up clouds of the yellow-white dust that seemed to cover everything in the city.

  Hugh walked among them, his few biting criticisms achieving far more than the empty bluster of Helbye. One of Bohemond’s most trusted knights, Hugh had been left in charge of a small garrison to guard Bohemond’s interests in Jerusalem, while Bohemond himself fought for a kingdom of his own in the north. Fiercely loyal, Hugh took this trust seriously, only too aware that his and Roger’s men combined were pitifully few compared to the ranks of those loyal to the Advocate. Tancred had fewer still, most protecting his lands in Galilee, with little more than the small contingency of English soldiers under Geoffrey representing him in the Holy City. While Geoffrey and Roger believed most power would be won and lost in the political games played at the Patriarch’s palace and the court of the Advocate, Hugh was uncertain, and he wanted his men ready to fight, should the occasion demand. Geoffrey and Roger humoured him by keeping their own men busy with drills and expeditions out into the desert too.

  “Where is your chain mail?” yelled Geoffrey to Tom Wolfram, his youngest sergeant at arms.

  “It is too hot …” began the inevitable protest.

  Geoffrey cut him off abruptly. “Would you care to practice with me without your armour?” he asked, unsheathing his sword.

  The young man blanched and took an involuntary step backward. “Oh, no …”

  “Are you afraid that I might injure you wit
h my superior skills?”

  Wolfram nodded miserably. Others had stopped their practice and were watching the exchange with interest.

  “Then you are even more foolish than I thought,” said Geoffrey, putting his weapon away. “You are in far more danger from these hacking amateurs than from me. I would not injure you deliberately, but one of them might well do so by accident.”

  The young man blushed scarlet, and Geoffrey felt uncomfortable at berating him in front of the men. Wolfram was not the first soldier to practice in his shirt sleeves, preferring the risk of injury to the intense discomfort of wearing the heavy, stifling chain mail that would protect him. But Geoffrey had warned the young man on several occasions that practising swordplay without armour was not permitted, and yet Wolfram still persisted. Trained soldiers were becoming increasingly scarce, and no knight could afford to lose one through a stupid, wholly avoidable accident.

  Leaving Wolfram glowering resentfully, Geoffrey set off with Roger toward the gates, Helbye and Fletcher in tow and the dog worrying about his heels. As always, the gates were closed, and they waited while the soldier on duty hauled the thick bar from the wicket gate to let them out.

  Geoffrey and Roger squeezed through the gate and began to walk down David Street toward the Dome of the Rock, where the bodies of Brother Jocelyn and Sir Guido had been found. It was late morning, and the heat was already intense, seeming to encompass the city in a bubble of sizzling silence. Geoffrey’s dog slunk after them, dodging back and forth across the road to take advantage of the scant shade. Distantly, the sound of monks chanting Nones rose and fell, giving the city an air of serenity that was far from real.

  David Street ran into Temple Street, the road that led to the Dome of the Rock. It was wide and lined with flat-roofed houses that were once a brilliant white, but now the paint was fading and stained. Since the Crusaders had come, it was the practice of the local population to keep their doors locked, whether the occupants were in or not, but the window shutters on the upper floors were thrown open, revealing intricate patterns on the wood in bright colours. Then Geoffrey and Roger passed a mosque, its once-proud minarets cracked and leaning dangerously, and its horn windows smashed by stones.

  Toward the Dome of the Rock, Temple Street grew narrower, and the houses seemed taller, looming upward so that the sky appeared as a tiny strip of blue high above. It meant the road was shady, and cooler than the furnace of David Street, and the soldiers stepped forward gratefully. Merchants had their wares on display outside their shops, but their restful positions changed to watchfulness as Geoffrey and his men passed.

  Ahead of them, sunlight slanted between the houses, opaque with dust, and creating dark shadows on the walls. Geoffrey smiled to himself. Despite the conflict, the unease, and the fact that a soldier was ill-advised to wander alone in many parts of the city, Jerusalem was a beautiful place. He thought the Dome of the Rock was one of the most splendid buildings he had ever seen, perhaps even more than the fabulous Church of Santa Sophia in Constantinople.

  Geoffrey and Roger reached the wall that surrounded the Dome and its gardens, and were allowed in by a Hospitaller. Then they were at the foot of the great Dome of the Rock itself, a massive cupola atop walls of breathtaking blue and turquoise mosaics that dominated the city from its position at the summit of Mount Moriah. Geoffrey stood still, as he always did, to gaze at the gilded dome and the decorative glazed tiling of the walls. Helbye, not anticipating his abrupt stop, bumped into him and exchanged a look of long-suffering incomprehension with Roger.

  “We could learn so much from this,” said Geoffrey softly, staring at the dome glittering gold against the deep blue of the sky. “We have nothing like this in our own country.”

  “That is because we are not Mohammedans,” said Roger, taking him firmly by the arm and ushering him through the door. He looked around and shuddered dramatically. “And even though this is said to be a church now the Saracens have been ousted from it, it still feels like a heathen temple to me.”

  Inside, the Dome was cool and cavernous, and somewhere a monk was chanting, his voice echoing serenely through the forest of pillars. Geoffrey stopped again and gazed around in admiration.

  “But the Church of Santa Sophia is domed, very much like this,” he said, disengaging his arm and moving to inspect one of the slender white marble columns that supported delicate arches. “Yet we do not use architecture of this type in England or Normandy.”

  “You mean that big, gaudy church you dragged us round in Constantinople?” asked Roger, remembering the excursion with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “Aye, lad, but think how ridiculous a contraption like that dome would look on Durham Cathedral.”

  Helbye and Fletcher nodded wisely, and Geoffrey could think of no appropriate response. He followed them through the entrance porch, and into the inner part of the building, where a bare patch of rock was said by the Jews to be the place where Abraham had almost sacrificed Isaac, and from where Moslems believed Mohammed had risen to Heaven. Geoffrey stared down at it—an ordinary lump of rough rock similar to that in other parts of the city—and wondered if the stories were true. Lost in his flight of imagination, it took a hefty push from Roger to bring him back to the present.

  “This here is the man who found that monk-Brother Jocelyn,” said Roger, obviously for the second time. “Three weeks ago.”

  Geoffrey saw a small man wearing the habit of a Benedictine. He had the whitest skin Geoffrey had ever seen, and he wondered if the monk ever went outside.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  The man glanced around nervously, and then looked back at Geoffrey with an ingratiating smile that did not reach his eyes. “There is really nothing to tell. It was nearing dawn, and I was lighting the candles for Prime. I saw a man sitting at the base of a pillar, leaning up against it, with his legs out in front of him. It looked dissolute, to be frank, so I went to tell him to go away. When I drew nearer, I saw it was Brother Jocelyn, and I saw a knife protruding from his back. I pulled the knife out to see if I could restore some spark of life to the man, but he was dead. I ran then to fetch the Prior, but by the time I returned, someone had stolen the knife.”

  “What was this knife like?” asked Geoffrey.

  “Oh, a lovely thing,” said the monk with a wistful sigh. “All silver and adorned with jewels. I should have kept it when I went for the Prior. To hand to the Patriarch’s men, of course,” he added quickly, but unconvincingly.

  “How well did you know Brother Jocelyn?”

  “Not well, really. He was a secretive man, who seldom spoke. He had occasional duties as scribe for Lord Bohemond on account of his writing being so fine, but most of the time he spent here.”

  That was interesting, thought Geoffrey. Perhaps being in Bohemond’s service was the link between the monks and the knights: Guido and John had been Bohemond’s men.

  “How long had Jocelyn been a monk here?”

  The monk shrugged. “The same length of time as the rest of us,” he said. “None of us were here before Jerusalem fell to God’s soldiers.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about Jocelyn’s behavior before he died? Did he meet anyone or disappear without explaining where he had been?”

  The monk shrugged carelessly. “No, I do not think so.”

  “Are you certain? The Advocate will not be pleased to hear his investigations have been hampered by lying monks,” snapped Geoffrey, growing impatient with the man’s complacency.

  The monk glanced at Geoffrey’s sudden change of tone. “I did not see him meet with anyone …” he stammered.

  “But you noticed absences?” pressed Geoffrey.

  “Yes, well … perhaps he was called away by Bohemond to do some scribing. I do not know. He did not sleep in his bed the night he died. He … he was nervous and irritable the day before. He shouted at me for letting the inkwells dry out. It is not my fault. Ink dries like water on hot steel in this country …”

  “What is goin
g on here?” came a sibilant voice from behind them. Geoffrey spun round, disconcerted that he had not heard the man’s approach. Roger’s dagger slipped silently back into its scabbard as he recognized the Benedictine Prior in charge of the Dome of the Rock.

  “We are making enquiries into the murder of the monk, Jocelyn,” said Geoffrey. “The brother here was helping.”

  “It sounded more like an interrogation to me,” said the Prior, looking down his long, thin nose at Geoffrey and his men. He nodded at the monk, who scurried away gratefully. “Perhaps I can help you. On whose order do you enquire?”

  “On the Advocate’s,” replied Geoffrey, thinking that it was not such a bad thing to be able to cite such an authority after all. He wondered whether Tancred’s name would evoke as much help.

  “Our Patriarch has also been investigating,” said the Prior, “and I have already spoken to his men. But I will tell you what I told them. You see how empty the church is now?” He gestured round at the great vacant expanse. “It is always like this, except when our community come here to pray, and even then, we are only ten men. It would be easy for anyone with evil intentions to enter unobserved, and hide among the pillars. When I was called, I found Jocelyn dead, and no sign of a weapon. We made an immediate search, but there was no one here.”

  “What can you tell me of Jocelyn?”

  “Nothing much. He performed certain clerkly duties for Bohemond, because his writing was so fine. He was a librarian before he came on Crusade.”

  “Where?”

  “He was an oblate at Conques in France, but he learned his script at Rome when he worked in the library of our Holy Father.”