Simon Beaufort - Murder in the Holy City

Roger bristled. “Lord Bohemond would not stoop to such depths,” he declared, although everyone, including Roger, knew perfectly well that he would. Bohemond stood to gain more than anyone from the Advocate’s demise. And Tancred would benefit too, and the Patriarch, and possibly even the Advocate’s brother Baldwin, away in the Kingdom of Edessa.

“I imagined the Greeks were behind it all,” continued d’Aumale urgently, ignoring Courrances. “Meanwhile, Courrances believed it was a Saracen plot; Warner, who is in the hospital with a fever, thought the plot had to be Bohemond’s or Tancred’s. And then, who should begin asking questions and be seen in curious places-but you two and Sir Hugh.”

“Hugh was never with us,” said Roger. “Geoffrey and me went alone.”

“I saw Sir Hugh several times in the Greek Quarter,” said Courrances. His face became sharp. “He has gone, hasn’t he-to Jaffa? He is on his way to murder the Advocate!”

“The evidence is far from clear,” said Geoffrey, wanting time to think it out. Helbye gave a shout to say that all was ready. Geoffrey took the reins and wheeled his horse round to face the gates, raising his arm to order his men to prepare to leave.

“Wait!” said Courrances. “We are coming with you!”

The four Hospitallers and d’Aumale, like Courrances, were already fully armoured. They prepared to follow.

“Not a chance,” said Geoffrey, pulling on the reins to control his restless horse. “We do not want to be found in compromising positions with dead whores in brothels, or killed in burning stables.”

Courrances blanched. “I was mistaken.”

“You were indeed,” said Geoffrey, standing in his stirrups to cast a professional eye over his troops as they arranged themselves in a thin column, two abreast.

“I drew a conclusion based on the evidence presented. I was wrong to have accepted it so readily,” said Courrances, lunging and grabbing Geoffrey’s surcoat. “Several days ago, while you were in the desert, Hugh told me that he was concerned that you were involved in something that might prove detrimental to the Advocate. He told me you were working in league with the Patriarch. I made enquiries and found it to be true-both you and Roger are in the pay of the Patriarch. Hugh was plausible-acting as a grieving friend who was deeply shocked at a betrayal of loyalties. I took him at face value and arranged the business at Abdul’s when he told me you were planning to go there. As it turned out, the entire thing was a fiasco, and d’Aumale could have been killed when he was knocked down by one of the horses you let out, which was racing down the street. I have apologised to him, and now I apologise to you. But Hugh duped me every bit as much as he did you.”

“Not quite,” muttered Geoffrey bitterly. “And was it you who left the dagger and pig’s heart in my chamber?”

Courrances nodded. “I had to make you feel as though it was in your own interests to investigate the murders for me. Had you declined to take up the case, I had planned to leave similar items in the rooms of Roger and Hugh. But you agreed-far more readily than I had expected-so readily, in fact, that I became suspicious, and began to entertain the notion that you were the killer. After all, no one was murdered in the two weeks you were out on desert patrol. Then the minute you step back in the city, John was killed. And then Hugh came, and told me his reasons for suspecting you …”

His voice trailed off. “But a pig’s heart?” said Roger, with a shake of his great head.

Courrances shrugged and then gave a rare smile. “To begin with, I thought all this was the work of Moslem fanatics. I left a pig’s heart to point you in their direction, since the pig is considered unclean by them.” He saw Geoffrey’s bemused expression. “Too obscure, I see.”

Geoffrey’s men were ready, and the horses, sensing the excitement, were restless and prancing. The bailey was filled with low clouds of dust kicked up by their hooves, and already Geoffrey was beginning to bake inside his armour. He donned his metal helmet, with the long nosepiece, and signalled for the men to begin filing out.

“We must come with you!” Courrances insisted, watching the mounted soldiers ride past. “I saw Hugh’s force when it left earlier. He has at least twice the men that you have. You need us!”

Geoffrey made a quick decision; it was in Courrances’s interest to save the Advocate, and the Hospitaller was right in that Hugh probably had a considerably larger force than had Geoffrey. The addition of Courrances, his Hospitallers, and d’Aumale would provide much-needed reinforcements to his small army.

“Come on, then!” he yelled, clinging with his knees as his horse reared, impatient with the delay.

Roger looked at him aghast. “What are you doing? We do not want Hospitallers with us!”

“First, it is better to have Courrances where we can see him,” said Geoffrey in a low voice, watching the warrior-monk run to his own mount and give terse orders to his men. “And second, we are going to need all the help we can get. If Hugh succeeds, Bohemond will be held responsible whether Hugh is acting on his orders or not. And I suspect he is not, because Bohemond is too far away to take advantage of an empty throne if Hugh strikes now. If Hugh murders the Advocate, we will need to combine all our forces to prevent the city from plunging into civil war. And if we fight among ourselves, the Saracens will be on us in an instant. Believe me, Roger, we need Courrances just as much as he needs us.”

The horsemen thundered down the winding path that led down through the Judean Hills to the coastal plain and Jaffa, a prosperous city that was some thirty miles distant as the crow flew. The predominant colour of the countryside around Jerusalem was a pale buff-yellow, which became deeper when bathed in gold by the setting sun. It was midmorning, but the heat was intense, making the scrubby hills shimmer and shift. Here and there, small desert plants eked a parched existence from the arid soil, providing a meagre diet for the small herds of goats that roamed the area with their Bedouin masters.

Dust rose in choking clouds under the horses’ feet, so that the soldiers not at the front of the cavalcade were blinded by it. Geoffrey felt it mingling with the sweat that ran down his face, and forming gritty layers between skin, chain mail, and surcoat. The dust worked its way into his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, so that his whole world seemed to comprise nothing but the thud of hooves on baked soil and the bubble of rising grit that engulfed him.

He spurred his horse, so that he rode level with Roger, screwing up his eyes against the glare to squint ahead for any sign of Hugh. They reached a tiny oasis, where gnarled olive trees huddled around a shallow pool of murky water, churned to mud by the feet of the animals that came to drink. Curious Bedouin watched the horsemen from the shade of the trees, and exchanged looks of mystification as to what could be so important as to warrant such frenzied activity in the desert heat. With bemused shrugs, they went back to their storytelling and their gossip.

Beyond the oasis, the path sloped upward and rounded a bend, providing a view of the countryside that stretched like a blanket ahead. Geoffrey reined in, clinging with his knees as his agitated horse reared and kicked. An excited bark from below told him that the dog had followed them, although how the fat, lazy beast had kept up, Geoffrey could not imagine.

“There!” he yelled, pointing.

Far in the distance was another group of horsemen, strung out in a long black line across the yellow floor of the desert. There were, Geoffrey estimated quickly, at least a hundred of them, riding toward Jaffa. Hugh had no reason to suspect that Geoffrey had escaped and raised a counterforce, but he must have missed Roger from his troops, and was making good, but not furious, time on his journey.