01 - Murder in the Holy City

by Simon Beaufort

  “Melisende!” exclaimed the Patriarch in pleasure, rising to greet her.

  “Uncle,” she responded, with equal warmth.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Seeing them embrace, Geoffrey was surprised he had not noticed the resemblance before: the haughty expression, the olive complexion, the ruthless way in which they dealt with people. So that was it, he thought, trying to stir some life into his numbed brain. Uncle was no Greek merchant, but Daimbert the Patriarch, who stood holding his niece’s shoulders in a fatherly way as he listened to her speaking in rapid Italian. Geoffrey had spent a number of years in Italy with Tancred, so he understood the conversation.

  The Patriarch became aware that his niece had not come alone, and his eyes widened in horror as he recognised Geoffrey.

  “Melisende,” he said, aghast. “What have you done to my agent?”

  “Your agent?” she said in confusion, looking from the Patriarch to Geoffrey. “You are mistaken, Uncle. This is Geoffrey Mappestone, a Norman knight from the citadel, who is in the pay of the Advocate.”

  “And also the man I chose to investigate the murders for me,” said Daimbert, a little irritably. “Anyway, he is Tancred’s man, not the Advocate’s. I draughted him into my service recently.”

  “But we have been at odds!” protested Melisende in dismay. “He might have been useful to me! Why did you not tell me?”

  “I did not think you needed to know,” said the Patriarch. “Sir Geoffrey is in a dangerous position—ostensibly serving the Advocate, but also working for me. And doubtless passing information to his real master, Tancred, too,” he added dryly. “I wanted to protect him as far as possible.”

  This was too much, thought Geoffrey. The Patriarch may indeed have wanted to protect him, but it would not have been for Geoffrey’s sake, but to ensure he completed the task for which the Patriarch had commissioned him.

  “The ring!” exclaimed Melisende. She reached into a small pouch that dangled at her waist, and drew out the gaudy bauble. “You gave him your ring!”

  “I did indeed,” said the Patriarch. “I assumed he would wear it since it is such a fine thing, and that those of my people who saw it would guess he was in my employ.”

  “I guessed he had stolen it,” muttered Melisende. “That is why I brought him to you. Celeste wanted to kill him where he stood, and I was hard pushed to come up with a reason why he should be spared. You are too obtuse, Uncle.”

  The Patriarch smiled and turned his attention to Geoffrey. “Well? Have you unravelled this mystery yet?”

  Geoffrey felt a twinge of unease. He had almost convinced himself that Melisende and her men were the killers, aided by Roger. But in the light of the knowledge that she seemed to be a much-loved relative of the Patriarch, he was uncertain. Was this what Courrances knew? That the killer was a person close to the Patriarch? And did he know that this knowledge might cause the Advocate to turn against the Patriarch, and plunge the city into civil war? Geoffrey needed time to think, and he was certainly not about to discuss his findings with Daimbert and his niece before he had consulted with Tancred. He temporised.

  “The evidence is mounting,” he said cautiously. “But I still need the answers to certain questions.” Such as what you are up to, he thought. And do you know your niece might be a killer?

  Daimbert smiled paternally. “So there is some progress?”

  Briefly, Geoffrey outlined his reasoning that Dunstan had committed suicide—blaming Marius, not Alain, for tampering with the evidence, since Marius was dead anyway and he had felt sorry for Alain. He mentioned his discovery that Dunstan was blackmailing someone, possibly the murderer, omitting any mention of Roger’s role in the affair, but describing how someone had locked him in the burning stable. Daimbert listened carefully, his dark eyes never moving from Geoffrey’s face. Melisende also listened attentively, her forehead crinkled in a slight frown. When Geoffrey finished, the Patriarch nodded slowly.

  “So how will you proceed now?”

  Geoffrey considered, trying to force his numbed brain to think clearly. “I plan to make further enquiries in the citadel among the friends of Guido and John,” he said finally. He had already done this, and had been told nothing useful, but in view of the fact that it was probably Melisende’s men who had followed him from his first meeting with Tancred, he was reluctant to reveal too much about his future movements. What he really intended to do, after he had slept, was to concentrate on Dunstan’s movements for his final few days and to try to ascertain to whom he had sent the fatal blackmail note.

  The Patriarch pursed his lips. “I suppose you know the best course of action,” he said ambiguously. “Unfortunately, my niece has put me in something of an awkward position. You now know about my small foray into the world of trade, and you will have established that it is because of the black market—run by me—that the Advocate is forced to make debilitating deals with the Venetian merchants. That you know all this makes me feel somewhat vulnerable.”

  Not as vulnerable as me, thought Geoffrey, meeting the Patriarch’s dark, unreadable eyes with a level gaze. The Patriarch continued.

  “I am forced to make a choice. I can either let you go to continue your investigation for me. Or I can keep you here to ensure my secret is kept.” He tapped his teeth thoughtfully with a long forefinger.

  “Sorry, Uncle,” said Melisende. “I did not envisage you would be faced with such a problem. I thought you would want to question him because he had stolen your ring, and I did not want Celeste or Adam to murder him in the streets.”

  “Really, Melisende,” said Daimbert, without rancour. “Your loyalty commends you, but your logic does not. What if he had stolen my ring? Then you would have presented me with a thief who knows all about our little operation. What would we have done with such a man? Would you have had me kill him?”

  Melisende had clearly not thought of anything beyond presenting her uncle with a thief, and she regarded Daimbert in horror. Geoffrey watched her closely. She was intelligent and quick-witted, but she was also impulsive and did not bother to consider the implications of her rash actions. She glanced at Geoffrey and then back to the Patriarch, and Geoffrey had the impression that she did not really wish to bring about his death. Perhaps she just wanted him under lock and key in her uncle’s dungeons, so that she could come and go at her leisure and they could argue and insult each other, and so continue their relationship the way it had begun.

  “Well,” she said finally, still gazing at her uncle. “You had better keep him alive if he can be useful to you. He can be reasonably discreet if he wants, and can probably be trusted to keep our secret.”

  “Probably is not good enough,” said Daimbert. He turned to Geoffrey. “However, I know you will maintain your silence because of your loyalty to Tancred. If I lose my authority in Jerusalem, so will Tancred lose his. If you report the location of our supplies to the Advocate, you will strengthen the Advocate’s position in Jerusalem, and so weaken mine and Tancred’s. I do not for an instant trust you for my sake, but I know I can trust you for Tancred’s. Therefore, it is in my interests, to let you go to continue your investigation into these murders. I hope the false trail that has led you here has not inconvenienced you too greatly?”

  “Not at all,” said Geoffrey dryly.

  The Patriarch eyed him appraisingly. “You look quite dreadful. My niece is not always as gentle as most of her sex.” He took Geoffrey’s arm and turned him so that he could see him more clearly in the gloom. “Perhaps you will allow Melisende to prove she can be mannerly if she pleases, and stay for some refreshment before you leave?”

  Geoffrey started to shake his head, wanting to be away from the Patriarch and other members of his corrupt family as soon as possible.

  “Good,” said the Patriarch, donning his paternal smile and clasping his slender hands in front of him in his bishoply way. “Now, if you will excuse me, I leave for Haifa later today to join Tancred, and I have much to do. I will, of course, c
arry a missive from you to Tancred should you wish to report your progress to him.”

  Geoffrey was sure he would, and considered writing Tancred a message that would deliberately mislead the Patriarch. But these were powerful men, and Geoffrey did not want to spend the rest of his life waiting for a knife to be slipped between his ribs because he had fed the Patriarch false information. He declined Daimbert’s offer to act as messenger on the grounds that he had written to Tancred the day before.

  Melisende led the way out of the Patriarch’s room to a chamber nearby, where she offered Geoffrey wine and gestured that he should sit on one of the wide benches that ran round two of the walls. Instead, he walked across to the window and threw open the shutters as far as they would go, breathing in the warm morning air as deeply as he could. Melisende watched him.

  “I have met others who have a fear of underground places,” she said quietly.

  “I am not afraid of them,” said Geoffrey, twisting around to feel the first rays of the morning sun on his face.

  “Yes, you were,” she said. “If I had known, I would not have forced you down there.”

  Not much! thought Geoffrey, but said nothing. The horrors of the underground caves were already receding, and the sun flooding into the room was easing the chill from his bones. He leaned his elbows on the windowsill and watched the scribes walking across the courtyard to the scriptorium opposite.

  “We should talk,” said Melisende, coming to stand next to him and reverting to speaking Greek. “There is probably much we can tell each other.”

  “I am sure there is,” he said without enthusiasm. “But why would you tell a Norman anything?”

  She cast him a sidelong look that oozed mischief. “I had to ensure my true identity was concealed,” she said. “By professing a profound dislike of Crusaders, no one would ever guess my ancestry is as western as yours.”

  “So you only pretend to be Greek?”

  “Yes. Uncle was horrified at what he saw when he arrived in Jerusalem. The Greek population had been so maltreated, that it seethed with unrest. Uncle needed someone to infiltrate that community so that he could be informed of their plans and thoughts.”

  “Is it not dangerous for you? What if you were caught?”

  “I almost was,” she replied with a grin. “By you. When you arrested me, you very nearly undid in an instant what it had taken me months to establish.”

  He turned to face her. “Hence all the antagonism?”

  She smiled again. “That was partly for the benefit of the Greek community, but partly genuine. I was furious to think that your senseless arrest of me might expose me as a spy.”

  “Your disguise is very convincing. How did you learn to speak Greek so well?”

  She turned to stare out of the window. “In Rome, where I lived with my uncle, I had a Greek nurse. Uncle insisted she speak Greek to me so I would grow up knowing that language as well as I do Italian.”

  “Really?” said Geoffrey in surprise. “Did Daimbert anticipate he might need a Greek-speaking spy so long ago?”

  She whipped her head around to glare at him. “He did not insist I learn it for that reason! He wanted me to learn simply for the sake of my education!”

  “Then would Latin not have been a better choice?” reasoned Geoffrey. “Surely there are many more Latin texts in Rome from which to learn than Greek?”

  “My education is none of your business!” snapped Melisende, but her outburst lacked the conviction of her earlier outrages, and Geoffrey guessed she might have been wondering along the same lines herself.

  “Are you a widow?” he asked, to change the subject. “Or is that a part of your disguise?”

  “I was married while I was still a child—to a Norman, actually,” she said. “He owned rich estates in the south of France, and several castles. Uncle arranged it. It was a good marriage for me, and since my husband was more than sixty years old when I was fifteen, I did not have long to endure the match.”

  “And I suppose when this wealthy Norman died, Uncle, as your guardian, took control of these estates and castles?” asked Geoffrey with an innocent expression.

  Melisende looked at him through narrowed eyes. “What are you saying?” she said coldly. “Do you imply that Uncle was using me to improve his own fortunes? I can assure you, that is quite untrue.”

  But Geoffrey strongly suspected otherwise, and from the way Melisende refused to meet his eyes, guessed that she thought so too. So, loving Uncle Daimbert had used his niece to amass a fortune for himself in the south of France, and then he had insisted on her learning Greek so that she might be his eyes and ears to aid him in the growing schism between the Latin and the Greek Orthodox churches. Perhaps Daimbert envisioned himself as Pope one day, and knew he would need an interpreter he could trust. Whatever his motive, it was obvious that Melisende’s personal development had little to do with it.

  “How did your uncle come to put you in the dangerous position you hold in the Greek Quarter?” he asked, curiously. “Did you travel to Jerusalem specifically to be his spy?”

  “No! Of course not! I travelled here of my own free will with Uncle. When he was made Patriarch, he expressed a concern over the unrest in the Greek Quarter. I volunteered to act as his agent.” She sniffed, and faced him with a haughty expression. “I like to use my talents as much as you like to use yours.”

  He shrugged. “But I am not a spy. I am exactly as I appear—a knight investigating the murders of two of my comrades and three monks.”

  She turned away again. “But women cannot become knights. And in many ways, I am better suited to my work than a man would be. Who would suspect that I am the Patriarch’s niece? You did not, and you are more astute than most. Maria helped me in that respect. She got it into her woolly head that my professed dislike of Normans was because I had a brutal Norman husband.”

  Geoffrey said nothing, and Melisende shook her head in amused disbelief.

  “How could Maria think that I, of all people, would flee some brainless thug! I would be more likely to send him off on Crusade while I stayed at home! Anyway, people seemed to believe her gossip, and I let them think I had witnessed the slaughter when the Crusaders took Jerusalem. It took a little while, but they accepted me in the end. With Brother Celeste’s help, I was able to recruit a small group of men who assist me—chiefly they carry messages back and forth between me and Uncle.”

  “Like that loutish Adam?”

  “Yes, he is one of them. I have about ten in all. But we have been talking about me. How did you become involved in all this?”

  “Uncle made me an offer I could not refuse,” said Geoffrey, leaning further out of the window and inhaling deeply. “I have a penchant for big, gaudy ruby rings.”

  “Really?” said Melisende flatly. “Then why did you not ask for it back when Uncle took it away with him just now?”

  So he had, Geoffrey recalled. Crafty old Patriarch! He began to laugh. Melisende watched him bewildered, and for a while, neither of them spoke.

  “So what do you know about the murders that unsettled Uncle sufficiently to employ me?” asked Geoffrey eventually.

  She continued to look out of the window. “Very little. I have asked questions in the Greek Quarter until I am blue in the face, but I have ascertained nothing at all. The culprit lies elsewhere.”

  “The night I arrested you, I was followed as I returned to the citadel from here. When they lost me, I heard them speaking Greek. Was that Adam and his motley crew?”

  She nodded with a sigh. “When the body of that knight appeared in my house, I just assumed it was someone making a covert threat against Uncle—making a statement to him that they knew who I was and what I was doing in the Greek Quarter. Uncle’s main opponent in the city is, of course, the Advocate, for whom you work. As soon as I was released, I ordered Adam and the others to follow you wherever you went. I should have known better. They lost you on the first journey, and now it seems as if you even overheard them. Th
ey are quite worthless!” she concluded with a disgusted sigh.

  “Yes. You would do better with a few Normans.”

  She glanced at him sharply and then laughed. “True. With a handful of men like you, I could take the city myself!”

  “Then Uncle had better be grateful he set you to infiltrate the Greek Quarter and not the citadel.”

  She laughed again, but then became serious. “I still have no idea why that poor knight should have met his end in my house.”

  “Were you really shocked to find him?”

  “You are damned right I was shocked!” swore Melisende vehemently. “You probably thought all that horror was an act, but I can assure you it was not.”

  “Why so? You must have seen worse sights on your journey here.”

  She shook her head. “Not at all. I travelled with Uncle, and he tends to keep well away from battles and slaughter, and although his men usually join in the looting, they do not fight themselves. We had plenty of supplies and travelled very comfortably, although I understand it was different for most.”

  It certainly was, thought Geoffrey, recalling days of marching across the searing floor of the desert with no water, and weeks when food was so scarce he had been able to think of little else.

  “So, you see,” she continued, “I really saw very little on our journey to distress me. That dead man in my bedchamber was the first body I had ever seen. I have not been able to sleep in that room since.”

  Geoffrey regarded her intently. “But if you are so adverse to violent death, why did you not try to stop the crowd outside your house from attacking me? And you seemed quite happy to deliver me into the hands of Uncle when you thought I had stolen his ring.”

  “I had no choice!” she protested. “If I had tried to save you from the crowd after you had arrested me, they would have suspected I was not all I seem. And I did try to stop them, if you recall. I told them if they attacked you, more of them would die. And as for handing you to Uncle, it was a choice between letting Adam kill you in the alleys, or bringing you here. I assumed Uncle would just lock you away until it was safe to release you again. He has others similarly incarcerated. It did not cross my mind that he might kill you.”