01 - Murder in the Holy City (9 page)

“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 going 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.”

“Jocelyn worked for the Pope?” queried Roger.

“Our Holy Father means the Pope, yes,” said the Prior with sickly condescension. “And Jocelyn learned his fine hand from the best copyists in the world.”

Geoffrey was beginning to dislike the arrogant Prior. Jocelyn was one of the man’s brethren, yet the Prior seemed remarkably casual about his murder. How was Geoffrey to solve the mystery of poor John’s untimely death if the witnesses were as complacent as was the Prior?

“And what of Sir Guido, who was also found foully murdered within the lands under your jurisdiction. How do you explain that away? Be careful how you answer: the Advocate does not like liars.”

The Prior looked sharply at Geoffrey, and some of the haughtiness went out of his manner. Although the Prior came under the protection of the Patriarch, there was no point in making an enemy of the Advocate. And, the Prior decided, there was something more to Sir Geoffrey Mappestone than to most of the unruly, illiterate bullies at the citadel.

“I found the dead knight three days before Jocelyn died,” he replied. “I often walk the grounds here early in the morning—they are cool and silent, and I like to reflect on the pleasures of God’s paradise in Heaven.”

More like the pleasures of God’s paradise on Earth, thought Geoffrey, noting the Prior’s handsome collection of rings and his fine robe of thin silk.

“And what did you find, as you so reflected?”

“I saw a man lying under one of the trees behind the Dome. I thought he was yet another of your number sleeping off a night of debauchery, but then I saw there was a knife in his back. I called for help, but there was nothing we could do. The man was quite dead. The Advocate’s soldiers came with a cart and took him away.”

“And the knife?”

“They took that too. It was a great ugly thing with a wicked curved blade and ostentatious jewels in the handle. I asked my monks if they had heard or seen anything during the night, but none of them had. I have no idea how the knight—Sir Guido—came to be killed here or why.”

“Had you seen him before?”

The Prior hesitated. “No.”

“If you do not want to tell me the truth here, we can always discuss it at the citadel,” said Geoffrey, keeping his face devoid of expression. He had no authority to threaten one of the Patriarch’s priests with arrest, but it seemed the Prior did not know that. The man paled, glanced at Roger, and flicked his tongue nervously over dry lips.

“I am not certain you understand,” he said, putting a beringed hand to his breast, “but I think he came here on occasion to walk. The Dome is very fine, and the courtyard and gardens here are most pleasant in which to stroll.”

“And how many times did he come?”

The Prior gave him an unpleasant look. “Recently, two or three times a week.”

“Did he meet anyone here. Did you ever see anyone with him?”

The Prior shook his head. “Never. He was always alone. He looked … bereaved.”

Guido
had
been bereaved. Geoffrey, being one of a mere handful of knights who were literate, had read a letter to Guido two months before telling him his wife had died after a long illness. So, if the Prior was telling the truth, which Geoffrey thought he probably was, Guido came to the peace of the Dome of the Rock to mourn, away from the raucous atmosphere of the citadel.

“Do many knights come here?”

The Prior shook his head. “Not really. Perhaps they feel it is still too mosquelike to be a church.”

In view of Roger’s words moments before, Geoffrey imagined that must be true, although attending any church—mosquelike or otherwise—was not a high priority on the entertainment lists of most knights.

“It is a pity it is underused,” he said, looking up at the delicate latticework around the gallery. “It is a very fine building. Peaceful, too.”

The Prior softened somewhat. “It is peaceful. Much more so than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. That is said to be the holiest place in Christendom, but it has the atmosphere of a marketplace.”

Geoffrey had to agree. They spoke a while longer and took their leave, stepping out from the cool of marble into the blazing heat of midday that hit them like a hammer. The light reflected from the white paving stones around the Dome and almost blinded them. Eyes screwed up against the glare, they walked back the way they had come and headed for the market near St. Stephen’s Street, where Brother Pius had died in the house of a butcher.

“That first monk we spoke to was scared to death,” said Roger. “Still, at least you persuaded them both to tell the truth in the end.”

Geoffrey began to assess what the Prior had told them.

“So Brother Jocelyn went missing the night before he died—he did not sleep in his own bed. And he was nervous and irritable all that day. It sounds to me as if he knew he was in some danger. Which means he also knew why.” Deep in thought, Geoffrey drummed his fingers on the hilt of his sword as they walked. “So he was obviously involved in something sinister. Perhaps something he learned from his duties as scribe.”

“Perhaps he had planned to go whoring the night he died, and was nervous and irritable the day before because it was a risky thing for a monk to do,” suggested Roger practically.

It was possible, Geoffrey supposed. But it did not explain why Jocelyn had died. Unless his killer was a prostitute who went round murdering knights and monks using daggers with jewelled hilts. He sighed, and thought about their next visit—to the scene of Pius’s murder in the house of a butcher in the Greek Quarter.

“Brother Pius, the third to die, was a Cluniac from Spain. As far as is known, he had never been to France, had nothing to do with John or Guido, and did not work for Bohemond.”

“Here! Wait a minute,” said Roger aggressively, stopping in his tracks and spinning round to face Geoffrey. “What are you implying? Just because you are Tancred’s man, doesn’t mean to say …”

“Easy!” said Geoffrey, raising his hands against Roger’s tirade. “I am not saying Bohemond is responsible, only that it is possible that these deaths might be an attack against him—John and Guido were in his service, and now we know Jocelyn occasionally acted as scribe for him.” He took Roger’s arm and began walking again. “It is the only real clue we have so far. We must look into it.”

Roger conceded reluctantly, and they walked the short distance to the Greek market. Trading in the street dedicated to selling meat was beginning to slow down in readiness for the usual period of rest during the heat of the afternoon. The air was black with the buzz of flies, and the smell of congealing blood and sun-baked meat was so powerful that Geoffrey felt he dared not inhale. He tried to breathe through his mouth like Roger, but this meant he could taste the foulness in the air as well as smell it, which made it far worse. They located the stall of the goat butcher who had discovered the corpse of Brother Pius easily enough: Tancred’s scribes had written that Yusef Akira’s shop was the one with the oldest, blackest bloodstains in front of it, and possessed the filthiest canopy. It was not difficult to identify.

Resisting the urge to wrap a cloth around his mouth and nose, Geoffrey entered the shop. It was little more than a windowless cave, with several ominous hooks in the ceiling above a gently shelving floor with a hole in the middle. Geoffrey thought his eyes were playing tricks when the floor seemed to move, but a closer inspection indicated that it was crawling with flies and maggots feasting on the drying blood. Fletcher, who had followed him in, beat a hasty retreat, and even Roger stood only in the doorway and would not enter. Geoffrey shifted his feet uncomfortably and longed to leave. He saw his dog chewing on something enthusiastically, and hoped whatever it was would not make him ill. The dog was not pleasant when it was unwell.

In the midst of the filth, a man sat on a stool with his back against the wall to draw on its coolness. He snored softly with his mouth agape, oblivious to the flies that crawled across his face. Geoffrey kicked gently at the stool and watched Yusef Akira return slowly to the land of the living, accompanied by some of the most disgusting noises known to man. Akira drew a grubby hand across his jowls and eyed the knights blearily.

“What do you want?” he slurred in Greek. “Bit o’lean meat? I got some nice stuff round the back.”

“No,” said Geoffrey quickly, also in Greek, not wanting to venture farther into Akira’s domain. “We need information about the death of Brother Pius.”

“Oh, that,” said Akira, turning sullen. “It’ll cost you.”

“It will cost you if you do not answer our questions,” said Geoffrey, hooking one foot under the leg of Akira’s stool and tipping it over. Akira tumbled to the floor and then leapt to his feet with his hands balled into fists. He took one good look at Geoffrey’s chain mail and sword, made a quick and prudent decision, and became ingratiating.