01 - Murder in the Holy City (13 page)

“Did he have any particular acquaintances?”

Almaric shook his head. “Not that I am aware. He could not speak, and he could not hear. The brothers here treated him kindly, but he had no particular friends, or even family.”

Geoffrey turned to Celeste. “Please tell me what happened when you found Loukas dead.”

Celeste looked annoyed. “I have already told the Patriarch’s men all I know. Ask them.”

“I am asking you,” said Geoffrey with deceptive mildness, wondering why so many people were proving to be unhelpful, and beginning to find it aggravating.

Celeste glanced at the benign features of Father Almaric and relented. “It was dark. I was walking around the Church as I always do to make certain all is secure, when I saw someone lying on the floor. It was Loukas, and he had been stabbed in the back.”

“Stabbed with what?”

“With a knife,” said Celeste heavily. “Like the one you see fit to bring within these holy walls.”

“Like this one?” asked Geoffrey in surprise, drawing his dagger and holding it out to Celeste. Celeste gave a sharp, indignant intake of breath, and Almaric intervened.

“Put your weapon away, Sir Geoffrey,” he said gently. “Celeste is correct in his disapproval. We do not like weapons in this house of God.”

“But was the knife that killed Loukas like this one?” insisted Geoffrey, holding it so that Celeste could see the plain hilt and straight blade.

Celeste glanced at it in exaggerated distaste. “No, I suppose not. It as different somehow. The handle was coloured, and it was bigger.”

“What of the blade?” aked Geoffrey. “Was it like this, or different?”

“I could not see much of the blade,” said Celeste heavily, “when it was embedded in poor Loukas. But it seemed to be bent, rather than straight like yours. I covered the poor man with one of the blankets we keep ready lest the pilgrims are taken ill—which they often are on entering this holy place after such long journeys—and I called for help. Other monks came, and I went personally to fetch Father Almaric.”

“So, someone has been with Loukas’s body from the moment you found it until …?”

“Until now,” snapped Celeste. “When death strikes so suddenly, the soul is in grave danger. We began a vigil for him immediately.”

“And who removed the knife from his back?”

Celeste frowned. “Now there was an odd thing,” he said. “The Patriarch’s scribes also asked about that. After Father Almaric had finished giving last rites—it is always possible the soul might remain with a corpse for a while and might be saved by granting it absolution, even after death—I went with the body to the chapel to supervise its laying out. When we unwrapped it, the knife was not there. It had gone.”

“Did you see anyone remove it?”

“Of course not,” said Celeste. “I did not even think about it until the Patriarch’s scribes pressed me on the matter.”

“So, where is the knife now?” persisted Geoffrey.

Celeste and Almaric exchanged a glance of incomprehension. “I really have no idea,” said Almaric frowning. “Oh, dear me. I hope you do not believe it to be stolen. What a terrible crime that would be in this most holy place.” He crossed himself quickly and turned to Celeste. “Will you ask among the brethren to see if anyone has seen this foul thing or has some idea what might have become of it?”

“Did you know a monk called Jocelyn?” asked Geoffrey, changing the subject to curb the old man’s agitation. “Like you, he was a Benedictine, but he spent his time at the Dome of the Rock.”

Father Almaric frowned, racking his brains. “You mean the monk who was murdered at the Dome?” he asked eventually. “No, I do not recall meeting him, although my memory for names is poor. What did he look like?”

Geoffrey had to admit he did not know. He had never seen Jocelyn, dead or alive.

“I knew Jocelyn,” mused Celeste. “He came here on occasion. He had curious eyes—one brown, one blue. You knew him Father. He came to you for confession some weeks ago.”

The elderly monk looked taken aback. “Did he? Heavens! I must be more feeble-witted than I thought. Curious eyes, you say? I must say I cannot recall anyone of that description.”

“What can you tell me about him?” asked Geoffrey of Celeste, leaving the old monk to sit back in his chair looking perplexed.

“Nothing much. He spent most of his time at the Dome of the Rock and came here occasionally to pray. I never spoke to him myself.”

“When did you last see him?”

“I really cannot remember,” said Celeste. “Not recently, but then he has been dead for three weeks, so that can come as no surprise. Even a knight could work that out.”

There was a silence. Father Almaric looked admonishingly at his evil-tempered monk, while Geoffrey studied Celeste intently to see if he could ascertain whether his unpleasant demeanour was usual or whether something in Geoffrey’s questions had touched a raw nerve. Almaric attempted to make up for Celeste’s rudeness with pleasantries.

“You are Normans from England, are you not? I went to England once, to the shrine of St. Botolph at St. Edmundsbury. It is a Benedictine House, you know. What a beautiful place! So endowed with tranquillity and peace.”

“You should see Durham,” broke in Roger. “Now there is a house fit for God. Strong too, like a fortress. I could hold it against the Scots easy!”

Almaric looked bemused. “Do you miss it? England, I mean? The cool rain, and the mists, and the great green forests?”

Geoffrey nodded. “I miss it very much,” he said softly. He looked away, out of the small window, through which he could see only a wall of baked yellow earth. “If Tancred gave me leave, I would return there tomorrow. I have grown weary of all this heat and dust.”

“I miss the ale,” interrupted Roger enthusiastically, eager to join in. “And the wenches. These Greek and Arab women are all right, but I prefer a lass who understands what I am saying.”

Geoffrey was surprised Roger indulged in conversations of any kind during his frequent bouts of womanising, but saw the monks look shocked and decided Roger’s taste in women was hardly a suitable topic to be discussed with two monks in a church.

“Is there anything more you can tell me?” he prompted politely, addressing the monks.

“Nothing,” said Celeste, still fixing Roger with an expression of disgust. “I spoke with the other monks, and none of them saw or heard anything that might give a clue as to why Loukas was murdered. Most of the brethren had already retired to bed—it was dark, and there is very little monks can do in the dark except sleep or pray. We are not knights who carouse and entertain women to all hours of the night. And that is all we can tell you about this matter.”

He stood pointedly and opened the door for them. Almaric shot him another mildly admonishing glance for his rudeness.

“Celeste is right,” he said. “I regret we cannot tell you any more. None of us really knew Loukas. I will think, though, and if I can come up with any more information, I will send word to you.”

The knights took their leave of the Benedictines and began to walk back to the citadel. Geoffrey frowned.

“We have learned nothing about Loukas to make matters clearer. But we have our connection between Guido and Jocelyn. The Canon we spoke to earlier said the Benedictine who hung around Guido had eyes of different colours, and now Brother Celeste informs us that Jocelyn had such eyes. The two men spent time in Guido’s room at the Augustinian Priory, writing. Guido was killed two days later, and Jocelyn seemed to have learned of his death while hovering outside waiting for him to return. Jocelyn, nervous and irritable, returned to the Dome of the Rock, where he too was murdered.”

“But Brother Pius did not visit Guido,” Roger pointed out. “He would have been useless anyway, since he could not write.”

“So he would,” said Geoffrey, “if his Prior was telling us the truth about his illiteracy. But the Prior did tell us that Pius had trouble sleeping at night. Who knows what he really might have been doing while his brethren slept soundly, believing him to be praying in the church?”

Geoffrey, Roger, and Hugh sat together in a shady garden watching the last rays of the sun fade away in a haze of orange. Somewhere in the distance, the mournful wail of a Moslem call to prayer rose and fell, quickly joined by a second and then a third. The garden had a little waterfall, and its pleasant gurgle mingled with the muezzins’ voices in a sound that Geoffrey thought he would associate with Jerusalem for as long as he lived.

“Damned caterwauling,” grumbled Roger.

The dog lifted his head and uttered a dismal answering howl to the singing. Roger attempted to drown out the dog and the call to prayer by slurping noisily from his tankard of ale.

“The ale is weak, the music appalling, and the women scarce,” he complained. “What a place to be!”

Geoffrey looked up to where bats flitted to feast on the clouds of insects that gathered in the trees above. A gentle breeze turned the leaves this way and that in a soft whisper, and wafted the strong scent of blooms around the garden. Geoffrey was reminded suddenly and irrelevantly of his home in the castle at Goodrich, so many thousands of miles away, and of a glade near the river that was always peaceful at dusk. He closed his eyes and inhaled, trying to recall the distinctive aroma of home: wood fires, wet grass, copses of spring flowers. But the memory eluded him, and the familiar smells of Jerusalem pervaded: huge flowers—the names of which he did not know—and dust.

He was jolted to alertness with a start as Hugh splashed a handful of water over him from the fountain, and Roger rocked with laughter.

“Welcome back,” said Hugh. “We have been talking to you for at least five minutes, imagining you were doing us the courtesy of listening, only to find you are not at home.”

“Sorry,” said Geoffrey. “I was trying to remember what it is like in England.”

Hugh and Roger stared at him mystified.

“Well, we were discussing what you had discovered today,” said Hugh eventually. “You learned that Brother Jocelyn worked occasionally for Bohemond as scribe, and that he was nervous the day before he died. Brother Pius was not a scribe, but was brave enough to shop for meat at the salubrious premises of Akira, where he was dispatched while the redoubtable butcher slept. And Loukas was not a priest at all. It does not seem that there is a link between these three men.”

“Loukas sounded short of a few marbles,” said Roger, with a significant tap to his temple with a grimy forefinger.

“That may well have been an act,” said Geoffrey, “to secure him a position working at the Holy Sepulchre while all the other Greeks were banned. He may well have been a spy for them, pretending to be harmlessly insane to lure them into speaking their secrets when he was around.”

“In which case, he may have been killed by someone at the Holy Sepulchre who discovered what he was doing,” mused Hugh. “And Jocelyn may have been killed for something he learned while in the employ of Bohemond.”

“But it does not fit together,” said Geoffrey. “And this dagger business is curious: the same knife, or similar ones, were used for each victim. The monks at the Dome of the Rock and Akira wanted to steal the ones that killed Jocelyn and Pius, but they were too slow on the uptake, and the daggers had disappeared by the time they looked for them. Brother Celeste said he had covered Loukas’s body with a blanket when it was discovered, and it was surrounded by a crowd of monks praying for him the whole time. But by the time the body was moved to the chapel, the knife had gone.”

“While your woman …” began Hugh.

“Melisende Mikelos,” put in Roger.

“While Melisende Mikelos took the knife from John’s body, and carried it outside with her—just as I suggested she may have done,” said Hugh smugly. “And it was stolen when she dropped it in the street. What of the dagger that killed Guido?”

“That was brought to the citadel with his body. I asked to see it, but for some reason it was not kept. No one seems certain what might have happened to it, but you know how soldiers are with valuables. I imagine one of them realised he might be able to sell it, and stole it on the basis that no one at the citadel was likely to want the weapon that had killed a knight. I began to question the men who brought Guido back, but it appears the body was left unattended for some time in the citadel chapel, and anyone could have stolen the weapon then. And the same is true of a letter thought to have been from the Advocate, brought to the citadel by that unpleasant Canon from St. Mary’s Church. Guido’s friends say there was no letter among his belongings and claim he was unlikely to have one anyway, since he could not read.”

“What a mess,” said Roger in disgust. “Nothing clear, everything muddled. A priest must be behind all this, because a soldier would never stoop to such subterfuge!”

“So, what will you do tomorrow?” asked Hugh, a smile catching at the corners of his mouth at Roger’s remark. “You learned precious little from your enquiries today, except a few facts that confuse the issue more.”

Geoffrey sighed and leaned back in his chair, studying the way the leaves were patterned black against the dark blue sky. “I suppose I will go to speak to the Patriarch’s scribes to ask about Brother Jocelyn. Then I will attempt to discover where in the marketplace these daggers are sold, and perhaps try to find out more of Loukas from the Greek community.”