Faithful Dead (21 page)

‘Just supposing,’ Josse went on, ‘that the Lombard got wind of some magical jewel given to Geoffroi of Acquin. For all we know, it might have been all round the camp; maybe everyone was whispering and muttering about it. So perhaps the Lombard goes a step further and thinks it would be a good idea to work on making friends with the man. I do not wish to undermine their affection for one another, which might well have been perfectly genuine. But I think it entirely possible that, because he was forewarned and looking out for it, the Lombard managed to spy on Father on one of those occasions on the journey home when he used the Eye. And after that, he couldn’t give up till he’d achieved his end.’

Yves was frowning. ‘He knew of the Eye – at least, he knew Father had
something
. So he kept close to him, all the way home, and watched out to see if he could catch a glimpse of whatever it was. He managed to do so, and whatever it was that he saw convinced him that he couldn’t turn for home till he’d stolen it from Father.’ A pause. ‘From his
friend
!’

‘I know,’ Josse said gently, ‘it’s not what you would do, honest fellow that you are.’

‘Nor you!’ Yves cried hotly. ‘Nor any decent man!’

‘Hush!’ Josse glanced around him, but there was nobody within earshot. ‘But my speculations do not end there, Yves. I’m thinking that, if we are right and the Lombard did steal the Eye, then perhaps he, too, realised he had gravely offended against his friend. Perhaps, as he grew old and sick, he made up his mind that there was one thing he must do before he died.’

‘He travelled back to Acquin to return the Eye!’ Yves finished for him. ‘Only to find that Father was dead, so he tried to take it to you instead.’ His excited expression faded. ‘Except he didn’t get to you. He died, right here at Hawkenlye, before he could reach you.’

Josse was watching him. ‘Not entirely bad, was he?’ he said gently. ‘He was sorry for what he had done, and he died in the very act of trying to make amends. We should not judge him too harshly, Yves.’

‘Hmm.’ Yves did not sound completely convinced. He sat frowning, chewing on his lip, for a while, then said musingly, ‘We can give him a name, now. The Lombard was Galbertius Sidonius.’

‘Aye.’ Josse, too, was frowning. There was something . . . something had been nagging at him yesterday, when he and young Augustus had been talking to the Abbess. Augustus had made some remark – about not everybody in the world being Christian – and a thought had half formed in Josse’s mind, only to be overwhelmed with everything else that had been going on.

It was still nagging now, whatever it was, and it concerned the Lombard. Or Geoffroi. Or probably, Josse thought with a flash of frustration, both of them.

There was silence between them for some time. Then Yves said, ‘What should we do now, Josse?’

Josse looked at him with deep affection. I wonder, he thought, just how many times I’ve heard him say that. From when we were tiny, and trying to decide where to run away and play, to as recently as last year, wondering what to do about the field at Acquin that always floods with heavy spring rainfall.

He reached out and clasped his brother’s arm. ‘I don’t know yet,’ he said with a smile, ‘but just give me time, and I’ll come up with something.’

Sooner than he had expected, he broke the contemplative silence again. ‘You recall I told you that Prince John came to see me, using the excuse of trying to extort rent for New Winnowlands out of me?’

‘Aye, I do.’ Yves smiled. ‘Hardly something I’m likely to forget, when a prince of the realm honours my brother with a visit.’

‘He has a certain charm,’ Josse mused, ‘and, for all we hear tell of his cunning, conniving ways, I cannot help but like him. But, to return to the point, Yves, he came looking for Galbertius. Remember?’

‘Aye. And you ask yourself how it comes to be, that Prince John is going to considerable efforts to find the very man who came north to seek Father and you.’

‘I may well ask myself,’ Josse said, ‘but I give no answers.’

‘What exactly did the Prince say?’

‘He asked if I had news of a stranger, Galbertius Sidonius, and to be sure to send word if I came across him.’

‘And the old man, John Dee, did he add anything to that when you went to see him?’

‘No, I can’t say that he did.’ Josse scratched his head, thinking hard. ‘He confirmed that the Prince and his party had gone to London, and he informed me that Sidonius was not a young man, and so could not be the victim found here in the Vale.’

‘And?’ Yves was looking at him expectantly.

‘I think that was all.’

‘Yet you still appear to be racking your brains over something.’

‘Aye, I am, but it does not concern my visit to John Dee. No, all that he said in addition to what I have just told you was that he seemed to know how and when Father died.’

‘He’s a sorcerer,’ Yves said with calm acceptance. ‘People like him are meant to know impossible things. Ordinary men do well not to question the ways of sorcerers.’

‘Quite,’ Josse agreed. ‘He also said that the stranger would come to me – I suppose he meant Galbertius – or someone who represented him.’ He tried to think, but the image was unclear. ‘It’s all rather vague – it was almost as if he had put me in a trance.’

‘That’s sorcerers for you,’ Yves said knowingly, as if he knew dozens and was familiar with their little ways.

‘And he confirmed that he is descended from the John Dee that Father used to talk about – you know, the magician in the court of the first William and his sons, Rufus and Henry.’

‘I recall being frightened out of my wits when Father told tales about him,’ Yves said in a hushed voice. ‘There was one about him going out by the light of the full moon to collect the silver berries of the mistletoe from a great oak tree, a golden knife in his hand and––’

‘The knife!’ Josse shouted.

‘The knife? It’s only a fable, Josse, an old legend to entertain the children round the fire!’

‘Not
that
knife.’ The elusive fragment had returned to Josse. ‘The knife that was found in the corpse discovered down there’ – he waved an impatient hand – ‘had a curved tip. It was young Augustus saying not all folk were Christian that did it!’ He grinned broadly at Yves.

‘Did what, Josse?’

‘Made me remember, of course! Father had a knife like that – I only saw it the once, when Mother was going through his things after he died. It wasn’t the sort of knife he’d have had much use for – too small – and Mother probably refused to let him give it to us boys to play with in case we accidentally cut our own fingers or each other’s ears off. It had a curved tip.’

‘So?’ Yves sounded bemused.

‘He brought it home from Outremer!’ Josse cried. ‘It was a Saracen knife.’

Enlightenment dawned on Yves’s face. ‘Which was why the lad’s comment about people not all being Christian made you think about it! Father met Muslims – met and fought them – and brought home one of their weapons as a souvenir.’

‘And a very similar weapon has recently been used to kill a young man here at Hawkenlye,’ Josse finished. ‘Just what, Yves, are we to make of that?’

‘You think it is important?’ Yves whispered.

‘I do, although I cannot yet say why.’ Frowning, Josse got to his feet. ‘A man from Lombardy steals a precious Outremer jewel from our father, dies trying to return it and, at the same time, another man is murdered with a knife that gives every appearance of being of Saracen origin. Aye, Yves, I
know
it is important.’ He strode over to the doorway. ‘Are you coming?’

Yves hastened to join him. ‘Where are we going?’

Josse gave a brief sound of annoyance. ‘I am sorry, Yves, I forgot. You do not know her as I do.’

‘Her?’

‘Aye. We’re going to talk to the Abbess Helewise, if she can spare us the time. We will tell her of all our conjecturing, and ask her to turn her considerable mental powers on to the problem and give us the benefit of her opinion.’

‘And that will help us?’

Josse gave him an almost pitying look. ‘Oh, yes, Yves. Undoubtedly it will.’

Helewise had been expecting a visit from Josse and his brother, and she managed to find space in her busy day to receive them.

Studying them as they stood before her in her room, she noted both the similarities and the differences between the two men. Yves had his elder brother’s dark eyes and thick brown hair, and there was the same suggestion of lurking humour in his face. But he was built altogether on a smaller scale than Josse: he was shorter (but then most men were) and less broad framed.

But Josse had begun to speak. ‘My lady Abbess, we wish to share with you our thoughts concerning this Galbertius Sidonius and what compelled him to seek out the family d’Acquin, if you would hear us?’

‘Gladly,’ she replied, as, tucking her hands away in the opposite sleeves of her habit, she settled to listen.

When they had finished – Josse had been the main speaker, although, as he gathered confidence and lost his apparent awe of the novel surroundings in which he found himself, Yves had increasingly joined in – she said, ‘You have worked long and hard on this mystery. And the fabric that you weave out of these many disparate strands is sound, I think.’ She paused and, into the brief silence, she heard Josse murmur, ‘Thank you.’

Then, expressing a thought that had struck her as they told the tale, she went on, ‘This theft of the Eye of Jerusalem by the man he knew as the Lombard may be, perhaps, why your father always seemed sad when he spoke of how the jewel was lost. Because he suspected – but could hardly bring himself to believe – that his friend had stolen it from him.’

Yves, meeting her eyes, said, ‘He was a kind, honest, man. Perhaps he was too willing to look for the good in people and not see the bad.’

Helewise studied him. His earnest, slightly bashful expression suggested he might be a little ashamed of his late father’s naivety and, wishing to comfort him, she said, ‘Would that we were all made that way. It is a noble fault, if, indeed, fault it is.’

He gave her a brief bow, and she saw a faint flush colour his cheeks. Then, looking from one brother to the other, she said, ‘One question, however, you do not appear to have addressed.’

Josse grinned. ‘Only one? I fear there are many more than that.’

She smiled back. ‘The matter that I have in mind is this: where, do you think, is this precious jewel now?’

There was a silence. She guessed, from the look that passed between them, that it was a question they had not thought about at all.

Since neither brother appeared to have anything to say, she spoke instead. ‘You were asked by Prince John, Sir Josse, to inform him if you heard tell of Galbertius Sidonius. Yes?’

‘Yes.’

She indicated Yves with a slight inclination of her head and a lift of her eyebrows; Josse, understanding, added, ‘Aye, I’ve told him all about the Prince’s visit, and my own journey to speak to John Dee.’

‘Very well. I am thinking that, now that we believe we have identified Galbertius as the old man who died here in August, should you not go to the Prince and inform him?’

Again, she observed, there wasthat exchange of glances between the brothers. Then Josse said, ‘I am not entirely convinced of the wisdom of that, my lady.’

She thought she could guess why. But nevertheless she asked, ‘And your reason for that lack of conviction?’

Josse had the grace to look abashed; he was, after all, speaking of a man of royal blood. ‘Er – because I fear that Prince John’s interest in Galbertius may not have been so much in the man himself as what he bore.’

‘Ah,’ she said softly. ‘The Eye of Jerusalem.’

‘Quite so.’

‘The Eye that belonged to your father and is now rightfully yours.’

She saw a brief flash of cupidity at war with the genial expression of open, honest decency that he habitually wore. And he said, after a moment, ‘Er – aye.’

‘Sir Josse,’ she said quietly, ‘at present an old man with no name lies in our graveyard. If a visit to the court of Prince John can help us to identify him with a further degree of certainty than we already have, should you not make that visit?’

‘But––’

‘Besides,’ she interrupted craftily, ‘as we established earlier, the present whereabouts of the Eye is unknown. The Prince, you speculate, is greatly interested in this jewel and knew, so it seems, that Galbertius had some connection with it. Is it not possible that he may have some idea where the Eye is now?’

Josse said, ‘My lady, if we are right in assuming that it was the Eye that Prince John came seeking when he asked after Galbertius, then surely it can only be that he heard tell of it from rumour, from crusader gossip. And I cannot think that, other than the one whispered name, he can possess any more details than––’

Abruptly he broke off. Yves, turning to him, said with slight anxiety, ‘Josse?’