The son’s eyes flashed with guarded anger. “Why would I? If I’d found proof, I would have gone to my father!”
“I wonder that you did not suggest to your cousin that he could pay for your own silence about his involvement.”
“Despite your poor opinion of me, I own some sense of honor. I looked for more answers in the cave and found nothing. Some night I thought to spy on the men unloading the boats.” He glared at the knight. “If I had discovered the leader, I would have omitted any mention of my suspicions about my cousin.”
“You didn’t slip into his chambers and search his possessions for proof of his involvement?”
“Like some common thief?”
Hugh nodded.
“I have never met you before this visit,” a man said, “yet I believe you did go through his room for evidence.”
Startled, Sir Hugh instinctively gripped his dagger as he turned to face the speaker.
Brother Thomas smiled, then gestured at the baron’s son. “You argued well for the innocence of your father, took good measure of your brothers, and described your cousin as a master of semblance. Why not conclude that he was the chief smuggler, a task that requires just such careful stealth? Having pondered the question, I believe that you did think him guilty and most probably searched his room for proof. Greed may not be your favorite vice, but protecting yourself is your main strength. Roger had died unexpectedly and under questionable circumstances. Gervase soon followed him. You would have grown wary.”
Turning pale, Raoul stared at the monk.
“Had I been you, I would have waited for a chance to look through Leonel’s possessions.” Thomas folded his arms and waited.
“Why? I thought my cousin was a good man who served my father well. Now you suggest that I believed him guilty of murder as well as smuggling?”
“Only a fool would not have feared it to be so, and you are possessed of a clever mind. Even if the smuggling and deaths were unrelated, a wise man would not dismiss the connection too quickly until he was convinced otherwise.”
Raoul began to deny the accusation again but chose not to dispute further. “Although I did not conclude he was guilty of more than gaining coin from the smuggling, I did search his room.”
Hugh looked at both monk and Raoul with amazement.
“What did you find?” Thomas spoke gently.
“Naught that pointed to my cousin’s involvement in either transgression. I was both relieved and disappointed.”
The monk considered that response. “I hear hesitation in your reply. You found something.”
“An oddity, nothing more.”
Thomas reached into his pouch. “Something like this?” He pulled out a roughly rounded and flaky lump, cupped the dark object in his palm, and extended it so Raoul could see.
The baron’s son touched it and nodded. “I did not know what that was and thought little more about it.”
Hugh asked to see the thing, then sniffed and studied it for a moment. “I recognize it,” he said. “This explains what he meant by his reference to the Old Man of the Mountain and those who so willingly died after killing others.”
“Hashish.” Thomas took the lump back.
Hugh’s eyes widened. “You have knowledge of it?”
The monk shook his head. “A soldier from Outremer told me that the substance intoxicates and expels all fear of death. Before I found this in the dead priest’s belongings, I had never seen it. Events kept me from revealing my discovery before Leonel’s death, but Master Gamel has since identified it.”
“Leonel must have brought the hashish back with him from Acre,” Hugh said. “Perhaps he took it himself to gain the battle courage he did not otherwise own. And then he used it to slaughter the innocent in order to inherit his uncle’s lands and title.”
Raoul frowned. “I do not understand how.”
“If he slipped hashish into a spiced wine,” Hugh said, “the peppery taste would be disguised and all reason would not flee until some time later. By that time, Leonel would be elsewhere with witnesses to confirm his innocence. I suspect he persuaded Roger that the infusion would cure his fear of the sea and urged him to stand on a cliff edge to prove it. Unsteady and incautious, he fell to his death.”
Raoul shifted uncomfortably.
“You know still more than you have told?” The monk gently urged Raoul to explain.
“Roger visited me the night before he died and confided he would soon prove his manhood to our father. As I did his tales of swyving women, I took this boasting lightly. He was drunk. I was impatient to reclaim my solitude and refused to hear more of it. Blame rests on me for my selfishness. I might have saved him, Brother.” The young man looked like he was about to weep. “He brought a wineskin with him. A gift, he said, but refused to share it when I was rude. I drank a small cup with him, but the wine was my own.”
Thomas took pity. “Do not put the burden of this death on your soul and be grateful you were so bad-tempered. Had you drunk from this wineskin, the gift might have been the undoing of two sons instead of one.”
Raoul was little comforted. “What of Gervase? What caused him to leap from the window in front of both our mother and cousin?”
“You said that he was to meet with you over a questionable debt.” Hugh remained unsympathetic.
“I neither met with my brother nor did I understand the accusation. I was innocent.”
Blunt skepticism was evident in Hugh’s eyes.
“I believe you are,” Thomas said. Leonel must have tried to implicate Raoul in each death. Perhaps the nephew knew that the youngest son was least likely to fall into his devious traps, the monk thought. Leonel’s purpose would have been well-served if Raoul became the primary suspect in the deaths.
“You are pensive, Brother.” Raoul looked worried.
Dispelling the young man’s unease, Thomas finally remembered a discrepancy between the two stories told about Gervase’s death. There was a detail from Lady Margaret that was missing from Leonel’s version of the son’s fall.
According to Prioress Eleanor, the lady had mentioned the nephew’s remark about angels being angry if Gervase did not show manliness. From the description of his actions, this son was probably drunk, and Leonel must have laced the wine with hashish. Had Leonel suggested that he might prove the strength of his faith by leaping into the arms of angels? Was this the oath Grevase swore?
Thomas could establish nothing and chose not to speak his thoughts. “I fear that no one will ever know exactly what happened to Gervase,” he said.
“As he promised, Leonel took many of his secrets with him.” Hugh’s expression betrayed acute frustration.
“And returned them to his true liege lord, the Prince of Darkness, along with his soul,” Thomas replied.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Master Gamel directed those entering the baron’s chambers to the places where they might safely stand.
Baron Herbert sat in a chair against the far wall, his head covered by a hood and his face in shadow.
Waiting near the open door, Eleanor leaned close to her brother. “Did you visit Raoul and Umfrey earlier today? I have not gotten word on their health,” she whispered. “Sister Anne and Brother Thomas were still with the patients when I was summoned here.”
“Both continue to thrive. Master Gamel said the danger of festering is now slight, and they will surely live.”
Acknowledging the physician’s gesture, Hugh led his sister to their assigned places. The fortress commander bowed as the couple passed.
“You had little cause to fear,” her brother continued. “Your priory healer has used so many foul-smelling concoctions that even the Devil would flee the stench. Master Gamel, on the other hand, looks upon her work with such a pleasant expression that I imagined him in a sweet-scented meadow. What odd creatures these healers are to find pleasure in so many strange potions.” He chuckled but quickly turned solemn. “Sister Anne and Master Lucas should meet one day.”