Simon Beaufort - Murder in the Holy City

“I do not know,” said Hugh wearily. “He must have had his reasons.”

“And when we know what they were, we will be closer to solving this,” said Geoffrey. He watched his dog pawing adoringly at Roger, who kept pushing it away.

“What is the matter with this thing?” Roger snapped, glaring at it.

“He can smell the cakes you stole from Dunstan’s desk,” said Geoffrey, leaving the window seat and going to sit at the table. He wanted to write their findings down so that he could consider them logically, but he was afraid that the killer, who had broken into his room twice now, might find any records he made. He remembered the scraps of vellum he had taken, and pulled them out to study them. It was unlikely a clue would emerge from such an obvious source, but he had precious little to go on, and the matter was becoming dangerous. A man had been murdered in his room, surrounded by a fortress full of knights. The killer he was hunting had shown himself to be a formidable force, and Geoffrey could afford to overlook nothing.

Roger’s face lit up, and he retrieved the package from his surcoat, smacking his lips in anticipation. The dog drooled helplessly, and its eyes became great liquid pools of temporary adoration. While Roger unwrapped and the dog slathered, Hugh hunted about for some wine.

“I cannot stomach that sweet stuff with nothing to drink,” he said. “Geoffrey, do you have no wine in this pit you call home?”

“You must have had it all already,” said Geoffrey, looking up from where he was reading.

Roger gave a dramatic sigh and stood to fetch wine from his own supply. The dog weaved about his legs in a desperate attempt to ingratiate, and almost tripped him.

“Greedy, useless beast,” he muttered. He saw the dog’s glistening eyes fixed on the unwrapped cakes on the bed, and moved them to a high shelf. Relenting, he broke a tiny piece off and dropped it to the floor, where the dog fell on it frantic with avarice.

He returned moments later holding a bottle, and hunted around for the cups without the fungus growing in the bottom. Elbowing Geoffrey to one side, he rummaged around the scraps of parchment with big, hairy hands. The sound of violent retching filled the room, and he and Geoffrey spun around to look at Hugh in alarm. Hugh, startled, stared back. The sound came again, from under the bed.

“It is that revolting dog!” said Hugh, beginning to laugh. “It has been in the refuse pits again.”

Roger disagreed. “It must have been that pig’s heart he had. Or whatever nasty item it was gorging itself on at Akira’s charnel house.”

Geoffrey rubbed his chin, and peered under the bed as the dog retched again. “I do not think so,” he said, straightening slowly. “I think it was the cake.”

Hugh and Roger watched in fascinated disgust as Geoffrey forced milk down the dog’s throat. The dog struggled, but then accepted the ministrations with soulful resignation. Eventually, all the milk had been drunk or spat over Geoffrey, and the dog curled itself into a ball to sleep off its brush with death.

Geoffrey stroked its head with a caring he rarely felt for it. It had been with him so long, he could barely remember being without it, yet it was usually more a problem than a friend. He had found it eight years before as a puppy, abandoned in a ditch. He took it to young Tancred, having named it Angel due to the halo of dried mud on its head. Tancred had shown scant interest in the fawning creature and had finally tried to rid himself of it by throwing it into a well. Geoffrey had rescued it, but the dog-which had quickly and deservedly lost the name of Angel-had shown little loyalty to him except when hungry, and there was rarely much between them that could be called true affection. Since then, Geoffrey had fed and housed the dog, which had, in turn, graced him with its presence, except on those occasions when there appeared to be a better option.

Roger retrieved the parcel of cakes from the shelf and poked at them dubiously with his dagger, as if he imagined they might leap out of the wrappings of their own accord and strike him dead. Geoffrey came to peer over his shoulder.

“That should teach you not to steal a dead man’s food,” he said.

Roger shuddered. “I have never had a problem with it before. Are you sure it was the cakes, and not something else? That foul dog has always got something unsavoury in its mouth.”

Geoffrey shook his head. “There is an odd smell about those cakes, and, from the dog’s reaction, I think there must be a fast-acting poison in them. He is lucky you are mean, and only gave him a little. Had he, or you, eaten a whole one …”

“So, the mystery thickens,” said Hugh. “Were these cakes sent to Dunstan to kill him? Was he aware that attempts were being made on his life, and he became so frightened that he decided to save the killer the trouble? Or had he had these cakes prepared as a gift for someone else-Marius perhaps?”

Geoffrey took Roger’s dagger and poked at the wrappings. The inner ones were a kind of parchment specially designed to absorb grease, but the outer one was of the type used in the market near Pharos Street in the Greek Quarter. The cakes, too, were distinctive, and bore an unusual pattern of crystalised sugar on the crust. Geoffrey thought that it should not be too difficult to trace which of the bakeries near Pharos Street produced the cakes, and perhaps even when. The point at which the poison was added would be more difficult to determine, especially since it might even have been put there by Dunstan himself. But they had to start somewhere, and the bakeries seemed as good a place as any.

He glanced out of the window, and saw that the sky was beginning to lighten. It would not be long before the bakers opened their stalls for business, and he could begin his enquiries. He sighed and stretched, and then turned back to his study of the scraps of parchment from Dunstan’s desk. He wished he could have raided Marius’s desk too, but he did not know which one had been his, and it would have looked suspicious to have asked.

“What are you doing?” mumbled Roger, half-asleep in what looked to be an uncomfortable position on the wall bench. Hugh was already slumbering on the bed.

“Seeing if there is anything to be learned from the scrap vellum in Dunstan’s desk.”

“I do not hold with all those squiggles and scrawls,” said Roger drowsily. “They only serve to get you into trouble.”

Spoken like a true illiterate, thought Geoffrey. As if talking did not have its disadvantages in that way. He peered at one scrap in the yellow light from the lamp, and then put it to one side when he saw it had only been used to clean dirty quills. The next one was a list of scrolls relating to business dealings with a cloth merchant, and the next was a list of loot stolen from a house in the Jewish Quarter. Yet another contained a selection of meaningless words and phrases in a variety of styles, as if Dunstan had been seeing how many different ways he could write. Was this relevant, Geoffrey wondered? Daimbert had praised Dunstan’s writing, so perhaps the man had been able to mimic the handwriting style of others. It might be a useful skill for the Patriarch to draw upon.

Geoffrey was becoming sleepy himself, lulled by the soporific flicker of the amber light of the lamp. Then he jolted back into wakefulness when he realised what he had just read. The text was incomplete because the parchment had been torn, but there was enough left to give him the gist of what had been written. And it was in Greek, and so was probably incomprehensible to most, if not all, the other scribes in the Patriarch’s service.

“… you will agree … not … for others to know … damage … be irreparable … but … minimal sums … left … of the Holy …”