Murder in the Holy City

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, carry 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. They 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.”

Geoffrey supposed what she said was true, although he wondered what other false impressions she still harboured about her ambitious, scheming uncle. He said nothing and watched bald Brother Alain the scribe trailing disconsolately across the courtyard to begin his day of scrivening.

Melisende continued talking. “I still have nightmares about the body of that young knight. When I pulled the dagger from him, his hand moved, and I thought he was still alive. I bent to look at his face, and I saw his expression! He looked so shocked! And so young!”

Geoffrey refrained from pointing out that being stabbed in the back came as a shock to most people, and settled for saying, “He was twenty-two. And a friend of mine.”

“Oh. I am sorry.” She looked genuinely sympathetic, but Geoffrey was not about to lose sight of the fact that Melisende came from the same stock as Daimbert and might well have inherited, or learned from him, his superb acting abilities and innate cunning.

“Do you have any notion as to who killed Loukas, the Greek who was murdered at the Holy Sepulchre while you were under arrest?”

She shrugged. “No more than I know who is killing the others. It was fortunate for me that the man died when he did. Uncle would have been obliged to hand me back to the Advocate when he returned, and time was running short.”

Hugh had suggested that one of Melisende’s people had killed Loukas to “prove” she was not guilty of the other murders. It would, of course, have been in Daimbert’s interests for her to be released, so that she could go on spying for him. But did Melisende know that a death had been arranged so that she might go free? On balance, he decided it had probably not crossed her mind: her improbable illusions of Uncle’s essential benevolence went too deep. He thought also that she had seemed genuinely shocked when the Patriarch had suggested Geoffrey should die for what he knew, and reluctantly conceded that she had had no direct hand in Loukas’s death.

She continued. “The rumour in the Greek Quarter is that the Advocate is killing Bohemond’s knights to prevent an uprising against him. I was confused, though, why you should be investigating for the Advocate if that were true. Meanwhile, I was worried about Uncle. He has allied himself with Bohemond, and the attacks against Bohemond’s knights are, indirectly, attacks against him. If I had known you were working for him, I would have warned you not to waste time looking in the Greek Quarter, but to concentrate elsewhere. As it was, I thought you were working for the Advocate, so I was only too pleased to see that you were wasting your time with the Greeks.”

“What about Dunstan? Did you know him, or not?”

She shrugged. “What I told you in the market was true. He bought cakes from me.”

“Maria told me he came to your house many times.”

“What? But that’s ridiculous! Why should he do that?”

“Because he knew your real identity, and was threatening to tell?”

She frowned. “You have asked me before if this Dunstan was blackmailing me, so, I think I can assume from this that Dunstan was a blackmailer. But you must believe me, Sir Geoffrey, when I say that I would never allow some fat, slimy toad like Dunstan to come between me and my work in the Greek Quarter! He would not have left my house until Uncle had been told exactly what he was about!”

Looking at her flashing eyes and determined chin, and bearing in mind his own experiences of her temper and abilities, Geoffrey had no doubt she was telling the truth. So the partial note Geoffrey had found in Dunstan’s desk demanding money for secrets kept had not been intended for Melisende, but someone else.

“Did you know Dunstan worked for your uncle?”

“Did he?” She seemed startled, and Geoffrey wondered whether the Patriarch deliberately kept his niece in the dark lest she be uncovered by the Greeks: what she did not know, she could not tell potential enemies.

“So was Maria lying about Dunstan’s numerous visits to your home?”

“Well, yes. She is very … impressionable. She probably imagined it.”

“But you used her to spy on me.”

“What? Maria? Are you serious? I could not possibly use her! She is far too unreliable. She would manage to concentrate for a few moments, and then she would be off with some man. She is an excellent cakemaker, but short on wits.”

“What about her sister, Katrina?”

Melisende raised her hands. “You seem to know more about her from her job at this horrible brothel than I do as her employer. I did not know she had a sister. She told me she was Akira’s only child.”

“Did you discuss Dunstan’s poisoned cakes with her last night?”

She looked surprised. “Yes, I did.” Her eyes narrowed. “You were eavesdropping on us!” When he did not respond, she gave him a withering look and continued. “She told me you had been asking questions about me, and I told her some of our cakes had been poisoned and sent to Dunstan. We sat together trying to work out who might have done such a thing.”

“I think we may have gravely underestimated Maria,” said Geoffrey after a moment. “I think there is more to her than she lets on.”

“Maria? Not a chance!” said Melisende dismissively. Then she looked at Geoffrey appraisingly. “But tell me why you think so.”

“Akira for a start,” said Geoffrey. Melisende looked blank. “One of the five murdered men appears in the house of Maria’s much detested father, and another in the house of her employer, who makes no secret of the fact that she considers Maria a witless wanton.”

“Are you suggesting that Maria killed those men and put them in our houses for malice?” asked Melisende in disbelief.

“Yes. I am not sure if she killed them herself, but it is certainly possible it was she who arranged for them to be slaughtered in those particular locations.”

“But that is …” She faltered into silence. Geoffrey waited. “I had a note that afternoon. From Uncle, wanting to see me. But when I arrived here, Uncle said he had sent the note several days before, and that he had been wondering why I had not come sooner.” She looked up at him, her honey-brown eyes blazing. “Maria must have found the note and kept it, so that she could send it later and get me out of the house when it was convenient for her! She betrayed me!”

“She probably feels the same way about you,” said Geoffrey reasonably.

“What are you saying?” she demanded.

“Come on, Melisende! You are an Italian noblewoman who has infiltrated the Greek community in order to pass their secrets to the Patriarch! How is that different from what she has done to you?”

Melisende was silent.

“I suppose she uses Abdul’s Pleasure Palace as a means of gaining information from the knights,” he said, reflecting. “Even Roger told me he liked Maria because she could speak his language. So the chances are that the knights talk to Maria, and who knows what secrets they might tell her?”

“She came with recommendations from Father Almaric at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” said Melisende. “And he is a saintly man whose loyalty to Uncle is absolute.”

“Well, she fooled him too,” said Geoffrey, recalling the benign, rather bewildered old Benedictine he had spoken with about the death of Loukas. “But what about these cakes? The poisoned ones that were sent to Dunstan? Do you have any idea who might have tampered with them?”

She shook her head. “It was not me. It must have been Maria. When she got back from the fight at this … Abdul’s”-she gave a shudder, and Geoffrey suppressed a smile-“she told me that you said you have evidence that it was me who poisoned these wretched cakes.”

“She told you that? I can assure you, I have no such evidence.”

Melisende looked sombre. “So it is Maria who is behind all this! Silly, empty-headed, flirtatious Maria.”

Geoffrey said nothing, but gave a huge sigh, dispirited by all the intrigue and lies. It had been a long night, and it was beginning to take its toll. He ached all over, felt tired and battered, and wanted nothing more than to return to his chamber in the citadel and go to sleep. He made his excuses to Melisende and agreed to meet her the following day.

As he left, she took his hand and smiled at him beguilingly. He wondered what Tancred would say if he knew his most trusted knight was already looking forward to his next encounter with the Patriarch’s devious niece. He took his leave, striding gladly through the warm, dusty air, and breathing so deeply of it trying to eradicate the last vestiges of the underground atmosphere from his lungs, that he made himself dizzy.

He approached the citadel with relief and made his way to his own chamber. Hugh was waiting for him and leapt from the window seat with a grin of relief. The dog opened a disinterested eye, and went back to sleep. Geoffrey imagined that someone must have risked life and limb to feed it, or it would not be greeting him with such bored lethargy.

“Thank God!” said Hugh, rising to thump him on the shoulder in a comradely way. “We have been worried sick about you. Where have you been?”

Geoffrey told him, briefly, as he began to remove his armour. Hugh gave a whistle.

“Hell’s fires! Daimbert plays a dangerous game.”

Geoffrey tugged off a boot, releasing a thin stream of water onto the floor, and then removed the other. “So do we all.”

Hugh looked at him strangely. “What do you mean?”

Geoffrey was inutterably weary and longed only to rest. But he could not, in all countenance, sleep while Hugh remained in danger from Roger. He did not want to embark on a long explanation there and then outlining his reasons for Roger’s guilt, and he settled for an explanation that would satisfy Hugh, but that would put him on his guard too.

“I think I know the identity of the killer,” he said. “And it is not one of the Advocate’s men. Be careful, Hugh. I will not be long in exposing the murderer.”

Hugh looked as if he would ask questions, but Geoffrey pushed him firmly from his room and closed the door. He rummaged around for a dry hose and lay on the bed. After a moment, he rose and dragged the heavy chest across the floor to block the door. Then he unsheathed his dagger and lay it on the bed near his hand, and was asleep the moment his head touched the covers.

Later, the handle of the door began to turn slowly; the door eased open with the same deadly care. And then it stopped. The killer pushed a little more, but the door would not budge. He pushed harder still, and the chest gave a protesting crack. Through the partially opened door, the killer saw Geoffrey stir in his sleep, and noted the dagger near his hand. He grimaced. Time was running out: he had already failed to kill Geoffrey with the arrow fired at him at Abdul’s Pleasure Palace the previous night; Geoffrey had survived the attack by Greeks in the old Saracen Quarter; and now he would live because the killer could not enter his room without the heavy chest giving him away. But there would be other opportunities.

Meanwhile, the dog watched curiously, then went back to its dozing.

The angle of the sun slanting in through the window told Geoffrey it was late afternoon and that he had slept most of the day. He heaved himself stiffly off the bed and went to the garderobe, where he splashed water from a jug over his head and body, and shaved quickly. The dog came to slather expectantly, nudging Geoffrey toward the box in which unpleasant tendrils of dried meat were stored for occasions such as this. As he had done hundreds of times before, Geoffrey yet again earned the dog’s eternal devotion-an eternity that would last until it finished whatever morsel it sat chewing noisily. Geoffrey excavated a fresh shirt from an untidy pile on a shelf, poured himself a goblet of wine, ignored the dog’s whines for more food, and sat down to think.

He went over the facts he knew for certain. The knight, Guido, and the monks, Jocelyn and Pius, had been killed within four days of each other. Guido had been bereaved and had taken to walking alone near the Dome of the Rock; he was also having doubts about the morality of his knightly duties and was considering a monastic vocation. Meanwhile John of Sourdeval was a serious young man, who perhaps spent too much time philosophising. So each in his own way was vulnerable. Guido, it seemed, had discovered something that prompted him to contact the Advocate’s scribe Jocelyn. Jocelyn had probably written whatever it was down for him because Guido was illiterate and the monk had then been in a state of nervous agitation from the time Guido’s body was discovered until his own death two days later. After his death, Guido had been sent a letter from the Advocate that had been addressed to Brother Salvatori, which meant that, in all probability, what he had dictated to Jocelyn had been a letter to the Advocate, and the Advocate had acknowledged his letter by responding to the name Guido planned to choose when he took his monkish vows.

Pius, the third victim, had been murdered in the house of Maria Akira’s father, but had no known connections with the Patriarch or anyone else in power. Could his death have been a mistake then? Or a random killing to take attention from the fact that there had been a very good reason for the deaths of Guido and Jocelyn? The more Geoffrey thought about it, the more that seemed to be plausible. He had been told from the beginning how random the murders seemed to be: the three priests were not the same nationality, not from the same Order, and seemed to have no connection with each other.

Except the daggers. Geoffrey had seen the carved dagger that had killed John, and he had been told that similar weapons had been used to kill the other victims. Some witnesses had considered the weapon beautiful, others gaudy, depending on their taste. But all five weapons had disappeared, either at the scene, or later, so that Geoffrey could not compare them with the one that had been used to pin the pig’s heart to his wall.

And the last victim, poor Loukas, had been conveniently dispatched while Melisende languished in the dungeons of her uncle. It was perfectly clear that Loukas’s death had been arranged, as Hugh had said from the beginning, to prove Melisende’s innocence. Loukas was killed in the Holy Sepulchre, and was a poor madman whom nobody would mourn-the most readily dispensable of the monks at the Church and the one selected as a sacrifice for Melisende. The body was found by Celeste. And Geoffrey now knew that Celeste worked for the Patriarch and was deeply involved in his black-market business. Celeste would probably also know-from the Patriarch himself-about the kind of dagger used by the murderer. But Geoffrey only had Celeste’s word that such a dagger had been found on Loukas: the body had been covered with a blanket before the other monks had come, and Celeste claimed the dagger had later disappeared.

So, there was the killer of Loukas, thought Geoffrey. Nasty Brother Celeste, working possibly under the Patriarch’s instructions so that Melisende could be freed to continue her work in the Greek Quarter. It also explained why Loukas was so different from the others-he had merely been available when Celeste had needed a victim in a hurry. So did Celeste kill the others too? Geoffrey thought back to the bodies in the Holy Sepulchre. He had made a rough measurement of the wounds in John and Loukas, but they had not been the same. The wound in Loukas had been bigger, which Geoffrey had attributed to tearing. But it was equally possible, even likely, that it had not been caused by the same kind of weapon.

He considered his list of suspects. At the top was Celeste, whom Geoffrey was now certain had killed Loukas. Yet, it seemed Celeste did not actually have a dagger that would tie Loukas’s death to the others, and he had simply pretended that Loukas had been killed with one. So, it was possible that Celeste was not the murderer of the others. Geoffrey compared the lame monk to the victims: illiterate Pius, who did the shopping for his brethren, including braving Akira’s slaughterhouse; and the two knights, trained in combat from youth. The Crusade had not been an easy journey, and those knights who had survived it owed their lives to their superior fighting skills and finely tuned instincts. Stabbing men in the back required no great strength, as Geoffrey himself had pointed out to Hugh when they discussed Melisende’s possible guilt, but it might well require speed. Having followed Celeste down the tunnels under the city, Geoffrey knew he was not a speedy mover.

The next suspect was Melisende, the aggressive, single-minded niece of the Patriarch. If Celeste had killed Loukas, then had Melisende killed the others? Perhaps Celeste genuinely believed Melisende’s guilt when he had murdered Loukas to free her. Geoffrey rubbed his sore eyes. But was that really necessary? Why could the Patriarch not simply release her? But the answer to that was clear in the light of Melisende’s revelations in the palace that morning: the Greek community would have been rightly suspicious of an unexplained release, and she would not have been able to carry on passing their secrets to Uncle to the same extent. Loukas’s murder was a sufficiently spectacular and public statement of her innocence to allow her release without question.

Geoffrey thought hard. The third potential culprit was the Patriarch himself. But then Daimbert would hardly have released Geoffrey to continue his investigation when he had been presented with an ideal opportunity to rid himself of him-especially since Geoffrey now knew about his black-market dealings. Reluctantly, Geoffrey crossed the Patriarch off his mental list of murder suspects, although he remained unconvinced that his involvement was entirely innocent.

And then there was Roger. Geoffrey knew the big knight well enough to know that he would not have had the patience or deviousness to plan all these deaths. If he had committed the murders, then it would have been under the orders of another. But whom? Celeste? Melisende? Geoffrey already had ample evidence that Roger could have killed Marius, and perhaps Eveline. Yet, the big Englishman had saved Geoffrey’s life by helping him escape from the stable. Roger would know that the chances of Geoffrey uncovering the identity of the killer increased with every day he was alive to investigate, So, if Roger were guilty, why had he saved Geoffrey? Why not let him die?

Unless he were innocent, of course. Geoffrey rubbed his eyes again and moved on to Courrances, who had urged him to investigate for the Advocate and then locked him in the burning barn. Courrances was devious, and he would certainly be capable of laying false trails and leaving misleading information to make Geoffrey stumble around. He would also love to see Geoffrey fall from grace. The warrior-monk would kill monks or knights without compunction and would probably have had the opportunity to murder Guido, John, Jocelyn and Pius.

There were also, of course, Warner de Gray and Henri d’Aumale. But if Roger were responsible for killing Marius inside the citadel, then Geoffrey could think of no reason why the Lorrainers should be involved and, like Roger, neither had the cunning or intelligence to plot with such deviousness. Based on Roger’s claim that d’Aumale was unconscious after the riot at Abdul’s Pleasure Palace, Geoffrey was not yet even sure if d’Aumale was still alive. Reluctantly, Geoffrey dismissed the unsavoury pair as suspects.

And finally, there was Dunstan and Marius, scribes in the pay of the Patriarch, like Jocelyn. Perhaps Dunstan was the murderer and had then committed suicide in remorse? But Dunstan was a blackmailer, and blackmailers were not remorseful people. So why had he killed himself?

Geoffrey had to admit to himself that, even with all he knew, he was still as far from learning the identity of the killer as he had been when he started. He had a fine assembly of possible culprits, but no evidence. He could hardly go to the Patriarch or the Advocate with a list of suspects-one of whom was a trusted scribe of the Patriarch and one of whom was the Patriarch’s niece, while another was the Advocate’s most valued adviser-and tell them to take their pick. And if he did, he knew they would chose Roger simply because it would be the solution that would cause the least damage. Geoffrey took a sip of wine, leaned his elbows on the table, and began to despair of ever finding an answer.

There was a thump at the door, and the dog gave a deep-throated growl.

“Are you in there? Let us in, lad!” Roger’s peeved tones must have been heard all over the citadel. Reluctantly, Geoffrey stood to move the chest, but such an object was of no substance to Roger, who heaved at the door until he could squeeze through. He saw the chest and nodded approvingly. “Good idea, lad. You cannot trust anyone these days.”

Hugh appeared in the doorway and eased himself lithely past the chest.

“What have you been doing?” Hugh asked Roger, as he settled himself comfortably on the bed, “while the phoenix and his vile dog have been sleeping the day away?”

Geoffrey shuddered involuntarily at this reminder of his near escape from the fire, and sat down abruptly. Roger also sat on the bed, grinning smugly at Geoffrey. “Well, ask me how I got on?” Geoffrey looked blank, and Roger was disappointed. “With what you sent me to do yesterday.”

“Oh, yes.” Geoffrey had quite forgotten his ruse of the night before to rid himself of Roger while he followed Melisende. “What happened?”

“You can ask Maria yourself,” said Roger proudly. “I brought her here.”

“You brought a whore to the citadel? Are you mad? She will never get out alive!”

“Not to the citadel, to the prison.” Roger preened himself. “I have solved the mystery for you,” he said with infuriating smugness. “I know who killed those priests and knights!”