Simon Beaufort - Murder in the Holy City

Melisende led them through yet more streets, until Geoffrey was completely disoriented. He glanced up at the stars to gain some sense of direction, and he knew they were moving generally in a southeasterly direction, but it did him no good, since he did not know exactly from where they had started. He wondered where Roger was: Geoffrey had made what was now an obvious error of judgement in assuming it had been Roger who was following him, and he was angry with himself for not paying more attention.

Finally, Melisende halted in front of a shabby house and opened the door with a key. Inside, she kindled a lamp, opened a door that led to some damp stairs, and led the way down. The first flight was wooden, then they turned and descended another of stone. Soon, they stood in a cellarlike room with walls that glistened with water and green slime. To one side lay a long tunnel that sloped downward at a sharp angle. At its steepest points, there were rough steps hewn into the rock, but for the most part it was smooth. At the sight of its black, gaping maw, Geoffrey felt a cold sweat break out all over him, and he was seized by a rising panic.

Melisende lit two more lamps, handed them to her men, and gestured for Celeste to precede them down the tunnel. Geoffrey swallowed hard and clenched his fists to prevent his hands from shaking. He recalled nightmares from his childhood of dark tunnels like this, swelling to fill the entire room and sucking everything down to a bottomless pit. And he remembered even more vividly helping to dig a tunnel to undermine the walls of a castle in France. The walls had collapsed while Geoffrey was inside the tunnel, and he still had nightmares about the long hours spent in the dark, with water rising steadily around him and the air turning foul. He would wake after these dreams feeling weak with a helpless terror that was never equalled by the anticipation or aftermath of even the most ferocious of battles.

Celeste had already disappeared, and the others were waiting for Geoffrey to follow. He contemplated the chances of success if he grabbed the weapon of the nearest swordsman or simply ran back up the stairs, but Melisende seemed to read his thoughts. She seized a dagger from Adam, and waved it at Geoffrey with a menace her swordsmen could never achieve.

“Down you go,” she said.

He swallowed again and forced himself to move his legs, deliberately avoiding meeting her eyes lest she saw the fear he was sure was apparent. At the mouth of the tunnel he faltered, unable to help himself. Melisende gave him a hard poke with the dagger, and he inched forward, walking stiffly, so that he stumbled twice before he was even out of sight of the cavern.

“Where are we going?” he asked to break the eerie silence.

“Have you not heard of the caves and tunnels under the rock on which Jerusalem stands?” she asked. Geoffrey had, of course, but had certainly never entertained the notion of visiting them. “We use them for all sorts of things-communication between different parts of the city, storage, even dungeons.”

Geoffrey’s heart turned to lead. Not that, he thought, not left in a tiny cell thousands of feet below the ground in the pitch blackness, with water rising higher and higher, and the air becoming thin …

“What is the matter? Afraid of the dark?” sneered Melisende, and the contempt in her voice steeled his nerve. He made himself unclench his hands, and used them for balance against the walls. He tried not to think about the great weight of rock pressing down on the tunnel roof, nor of the fact that the cave seemed to be becoming narrower as they descended. It was growing lower too, so that he could feel the rock brushing the hair on the top of his head, and once he cracked his skull painfully.

The water dripping down the walls became an ooze and then a trickle. It lapped around his ankles, seeping icily into his boots. Then it was up to his calves, while the height of the tunnel forced him to walk hunched over. He wondered how there could be enough air to breathe with seven people in such a tiny space, and he began to cough uncontrollably.

“Stop,” said Melisende, catching his arm. “What is wrong with you?” She peered at his face as if looking for weaknesses, and he pulled away angrily to begin walking again. He tried to take long slow breaths to control the trembling in his knees, but he felt as though the atmosphere was growing thinner. However deeply he breathed, he could not seem to draw enough air into his lungs.

The water rose sharply; the bottom of the tunnel dropped away completely; and then the water was over his head, enclosing him in total blackness. The chain mail weighed him down, and he felt himself sinking, down and down in black water that was shockingly cold. Hands grabbed at his hair and the scruff of his neck, and he was hauled gasping and spluttering to the surface by Melisende and the archer, to find the water reached only to his waist. Melisende and Adam exchanged a grin of amusement.

“If you had been watching Brother Celeste,” said Melisende, “you would have seen he did not plough through this pond like a great ox, but took the path that curves around the edge of it.”

Geoffrey began shivering uncontrollably. When, earlier that night, he had decided to take baths more frequently, he had not intended that it be within hours. He sloshed out of the pool and along the path that Melisende had indicated, realising that she had known perfectly well that he would fall in the water without a warning. Well, perhaps that repaid him for the terror he had imparted to her when he had provided her with an escorted visit to the Patriarch’s dungeons. And she clearly had had good cause to be terrified then, since Geoffrey knew she was guilty of something untoward, even if it were not the murders.

On the other side of the pool, the tunnel was little more than a hole, and Geoffrey realised he would have to crawl on his hands and knees. Celeste’s light had already disappeared into the darkness, and there was nothing but an impenetrable blackness. Keeping his eyes firmly closed Geoffrey dropped to his knees, and made his way along the tunnel, feeling it grow smaller and smaller until it forced him to lie on his stomach. He felt a rising panic as he opened his eyes and could see nothing at all-no light ahead, and none behind-and the cold realisation came that they had tricked him into entering a blind alley. Melisende would now block the open end with stone, and he would end his days where he was, in a thin tube with the great mass of rocks pressing down from above, with water trickling in to fill it, and the air becoming more and more difficult to breathe. He stopped and tried to catch his breath, and could not stop coughing.

“Hurry up!” shouted Melisende impatiently from behind him. “I do not like this part, and I resent being holed up here while you mess about.”

Geoffrey never thought he would be so relieved to hear a human voice again. Still coughing, he edged forward and found that the tunnel suddenly expanded so that he could stand. He hauled himself upright and tried not to lean against the wall in relief. One by one, Melisende, the swordsmen, and the archer emerged from the crack and stood brushing themselves down. Experience had taught them where to tread so as not to get wet, and so none were as sodden and bedraggled as Geoffrey. Shaking with cold, he began to think wistfully of the searing heat of the desert.

Melisende urged him on again, and he rounded a corner that led into a vast cavern, like a huge cathedral, lit with torches around the edges. At one end, a number of crates were stored, along with bales of cloth, great boxes of nails and tools, and barrels of wine. The unmistakable aroma of spices bit the cold air too, along with the sharper tang of fruits. Some of the goods bore Greek letters, while others had Arabic script. Here, then, were the illegally imported goods, sold without taxes in the seedier parts of the city. It was this black market that was undermining the Advocate’s power in the city, forcing him to make crippling trade agreements with the Venetian merchants in Jaffa. The Advocate, thought Geoffrey, would give his eyeteeth to see these mountains of illegal imports.