Simon Beaufort - Murder in the Holy City

“Are you a widow?” he asked, to change the subject. “Or is that a part of your disguise?”

“I was married while I was still a child-to a Norman, actually,” she said. “He owned rich estates in the south of France, and several castles. Uncle arranged it. It was a good marriage for me, and since my husband was more than sixty years old when I was fifteen, I did not have long to endure the match.”

“And I suppose when this wealthy Norman died, Uncle, as your guardian, took control of these estates and castles?” asked Geoffrey with an innocent expression.

Melisende looked at him through narrowed eyes. “What are you saying?” she said coldly. “Do you imply that Uncle was using me to improve his own fortunes? I can assure you, that is quite untrue.”

But Geoffrey strongly suspected otherwise, and from the way Melisende refused to meet his eyes, guessed that she thought so too. So, loving Uncle Daimbert had used his niece to amass a fortune for himself in the south of France, and then he had insisted on her learning Greek so that she might be his eyes and ears to aid him in the growing schism between the Latin and the Greek Orthodox churches. Perhaps Daimbert envisioned himself as Pope one day, and knew he would need an interpreter he could trust. Whatever his motive, it was obvious that Melisende’s personal development had little to do with it.

“How did your uncle come to put you in the dangerous position you hold in the Greek Quarter?” he asked, curiously. “Did you travel to Jerusalem specifically to be his spy?”

“No! Of course not! I travelled here of my own free will with Uncle. When he was made Patriarch, he expressed a concern over the unrest in the Greek Quarter. I volunteered to act as his agent.” She sniffed, and faced him with a haughty expression. “I like to use my talents as much as you like to use yours.”

He shrugged. “But I am not a spy. I am exactly as I appear-a knight investigating the murders of two of my comrades and three monks.”

She turned away again. “But women cannot become knights. And in many ways, I am better suited to my work than a man would be. Who would suspect that I am the Patriarch’s niece? You did not, and you are more astute than most. Maria helped me in that respect. She got it into her woolly head that my professed dislike of Normans was because I had a brutal Norman husband.”

Geoffrey said nothing, and Melisende shook her head in amused disbelief.

“How could Maria think that I, of all people, would flee some brainless thug! I would be more likely to send him off on Crusade while I stayed at home! Anyway, people seemed to believe her gossip, and I let them think I had witnessed the slaughter when the Crusaders took Jerusalem. It took a little while, but they accepted me in the end. With Brother Celeste’s help, I was able to recruit a small group of men who assist me-chiefly they carry messages back and forth between me and Uncle.”

“Like that loutish Adam?”

“Yes, he is one of them. I have about ten in all. But we have been talking about me. How did you become involved in all this?”

“Uncle made me an offer I could not refuse,” said Geoffrey, leaning further out of the window and inhaling deeply. “I have a penchant for big, gaudy ruby rings.”

“Really?” said Melisende flatly. “Then why did you not ask for it back when Uncle took it away with him just now?”

So he had, Geoffrey recalled. Crafty old Patriarch! He began to laugh. Melisende watched him bewildered, and for a while, neither of them spoke.

“So what do you know about the murders that unsettled Uncle sufficiently to employ me?” asked Geoffrey eventually.

She continued to look out of the window. “Very little. I have asked questions in the Greek Quarter until I am blue in the face, but I have ascertained nothing at all. The culprit lies elsewhere.”

“The night I arrested you, I was followed as I returned to the citadel from here. When they lost me, I heard them speaking Greek. Was that Adam and his motley crew?”

She nodded with a sigh. “When the body of that knight appeared in my house, I just assumed it was someone making a covert threat against Uncle-making a statement to him that they knew who I was and what I was doing in the Greek Quarter. Uncle’s main opponent in the city is, of course, the Advocate, for whom you work. As soon as I was released, I ordered Adam and the others to follow you wherever you went. I should have known better. They lost you on the first journey, and now it seems as if you even overheard them. They are quite worthless!” she concluded with a disgusted sigh.

“Yes. You would do better with a few Normans.”

She glanced at him sharply and then laughed. “True. With a handful of men like you, I could take the city myself!”

“Then Uncle had better be grateful he set you to infiltrate the Greek Quarter and not the citadel.”

She laughed again, but then became serious. “I still have no idea why that poor knight should have met his end in my house.”

“Were you really shocked to find him?”

“You are damned right I was shocked!” swore Melisende vehemently. “You probably thought all that horror was an act, but I can assure you it was not.”

“Why so? You must have seen worse sights on your journey here.”

She shook her head. “Not at all. I travelled with Uncle, and he tends to keep well away from battles and slaughter, and although his men usually join in the looting, they do not fight themselves. We had plenty of supplies and travelled very comfortably, although I understand it was different for most.”

It certainly was, thought Geoffrey, recalling days of marching across the searing floor of the desert with no water, and weeks when food was so scarce he had been able to think of little else.

“So, you see,” she continued, “I really saw very little on our journey to distress me. That dead man in my bedchamber was the first body I had ever seen. I have not been able to sleep in that room since.”

Geoffrey regarded her intently. “But if you are so adverse to violent death, why did you not try to stop the crowd outside your house from attacking me? And you seemed quite happy to deliver me into the hands of Uncle when you thought I had stolen his ring.”

“I had no choice!” she protested. “If I had tried to save you from the crowd after you had arrested me, they would have suspected I was not all I seem. And I did try to stop them, if you recall. I told them if they attacked you, more of them would die. And as for handing you to Uncle, it was a choice between letting Adam kill you in the alleys, or bringing you here. I assumed Uncle would just lock you away until it was safe to release you again. He has others similarly incarcerated. It did not cross my mind that he might kill you.”

Geoffrey supposed what she said was true, although he wondered what other false impressions she still harboured about her ambitious, scheming uncle. He said nothing and watched bald Brother Alain the scribe trailing disconsolately across the courtyard to begin his day of scrivening.

Melisende continued talking. “I still have nightmares about the body of that young knight. When I pulled the dagger from him, his hand moved, and I thought he was still alive. I bent to look at his face, and I saw his expression! He looked so shocked! And so young!”

Geoffrey refrained from pointing out that being stabbed in the back came as a shock to most people, and settled for saying, “He was twenty-two. And a friend of mine.”

“Oh. I am sorry.” She looked genuinely sympathetic, but Geoffrey was not about to lose sight of the fact that Melisende came from the same stock as Daimbert and might well have inherited, or learned from him, his superb acting abilities and innate cunning.