The crowd parted to let them through, but Geoffrey sensed a resentment that had not been there earlier. A small child darted forward and tried to press a knife into Melisende’s hand. People became ominously silent, and Geoffrey was aware of his soldiers preparing themselves for a fight. Here and there, a flash of steel caught the sunlight as men in the crowd drew an odd assortment of concealed weapons from their clothing-kitchen knives, sticks, and even a discarded horseshoe. The silence of the crowd was now a tangible thing, sinister and menacing.
“Let me go,” said Melisende in a low voice to Geoffrey. “It is because you are taking me that these people are angry. Let me go, and you will be allowed to leave unmolested with your men.”
“If you are innocent of this knight’s murder, as you claim, then you have nothing to fear,” said Geoffrey, not slowing his pace.
The woman snorted in derision. “Who at the citadel will believe me?” she said. “You do not.”
This was true, Geoffrey reflected: he did not. One of his men gave a sharp yelp and put his hand to his head.
“Keep moving,” said Helbye in a calm voice to the jittery soldiers. “They are only throwing stones. You are wearing mail; they cannot harm you.”
“Not much!” muttered the soldier with the bleeding head, but he kept walking. Geoffrey handed Melisende to Ned Fletcher, a slow but reliable soldier in his forties, and drew his sword. The crowd was following them along the street, hurling a hail of stones and other missiles after them. As the soldiers rounded the corner, the throng broke into a trot, and Geoffrey yelled for his men to run. His dog, true to character, had sensed the menace in the onlookers and had long since fled. Several of the soldiers fumbled to fit arrows to their bows, but Geoffrey ordered them to stop. Such an incident could turn into a bloodbath within moments, and he had no wish to be responsible for a skirmish that would cause the deaths of the women and children he could see among the crowd, or of his men.
A stone struck him hard in the chest, and a roar of approval went up from those at the front of the advancing mob. His chain mail and padded surcoat protected him from injury, but the force of the throw made him stagger. He collided with Helbye, who was close behind him, and before he could right himself, his leather-soled boots had slipped in some of the figs that had fallen from the cart, and he was down. With a howl of delight, the mob rushed forward, and Geoffrey struggled in vain to clamber to his feet. He yelled to Helbye to run, but saw him stand firm with his weapon drawn, preparing to protect his fallen leader.
Geoffrey closed his eyes in despair. What a stupid way to end his life, after the trials and torments of the gruelling three-year journey to Jerusalem from England! He did not usually dwell on the manner of his death, but on the few occasions when it had come to mind, he imagined himself falling in battle or dying peacefully in bed in his dotage. That he would be ripped from limb to limb by a horde armed with sticks and stones after he had slipped on some figs had never occurred to him.
The sun was blocked out as the furious citizens converged on him, but just as quickly returned. Geoffrey felt, rather than heard, the thud of horses’ hooves on the beaten earth of the road, and the street erupted into chaos. Yells and screams combined with the terrified whinnies of war-horses as the crowd and the mounted monk-knights of the Order of St. John Hospitaller clashed. Geoffrey covered his head with his hands to protect it and tried to stand, but was knocked down again by a man racing to escape the Hospitallers’ whirling swords and maces.
As quickly as it had started, it was over, and the commotion faded away. Geoffrey felt someone take a firm hold on the back of his surcoat and haul him to his feet. Dusty, bedraggled, and deflated, he was not pleased to find himself face to face with Edouard de Courrances, a man Geoffrey detested above all others. Courrances was trusted adviser to the Advocate-the man who had been crowned as official ruler of Jerusalem the previous year.
“My men?” Geoffrey gasped, peering through the clouds of settling dust to try to see whether any were injured.
“Running away, as ordered by their leader,” replied Courrances nonchalantly, sheathing his sword. “You were lucky we happened to be passing, or you would not now be alive to rally your motley gang together.”
Geoffrey said nothing, irritated that it had been Courrances of all people who had witnessed the ignominious skirmish and who had effected his rescue. The monks of the Order of St. John Hospitaller ran the great hospital in Jerusalem for needy pilgrims, but recently, some of the monks had abandoned their policy of nonaggression and had taken up arms to protect themselves and their property. Over his monastic habit, Courrances wore a surcoat of black with a white cross emblazoned on the back, and Geoffrey had seldom seen him without the arsenal of weapons he carried. Ten or so similarly clad warrior-monks were with Courrances now, mounted on sturdy war-horses and armed to the teeth.
Geoffrey glanced about him and saw that several of the mob lay dead or injured, and were being carried away by friends and relatives. One was the small boy who had tried to press the knife into Melisende’s hand. The Hospitallers sat astride their restless horses, their weapons still unsheathed, clearly itching to fight again. The crowd gathered their fallen comrades and slunk away, hatred and fear burning in their eyes.
“These were unarmed people,” protested Geoffrey, turning to Courrances angrily. “We are under orders to maintain the peace, not massacre civilians!”
“Oh, well said, Sir Geoffrey,” responded Courrances with maddening serenity. “Would you rather I let them kill you? And let us be honest about this-you had antagonised them into rioting long before I arrived on the scene, so do not seek to blame me for the deaths of these people. If anyone was at fault, it was you.”
Geoffrey scowled, aware that Courrances was right. He should have let Melisende go, and then sent soldiers for her later when there was no crowd to witness her arrest.
“John of Sourdeval has been murdered,” he said, changing the subject and squinting against the sun to look Courrances in the eye. He was gratified to see the soldier-monk blanch. “Stabbed in the back. That is how Sir Guido of Rimini died three weeks ago, is it not?”
“A second knight murdered?” asked Courrances in a low voice. He drummed his long, well-kept fingers on the pommel of his saddle. “This is grave news indeed.”
“Did you see Guido’s body?” asked Geoffrey, watching as his men, under Helbye’s direction, began to reassemble on the opposite side of the street. Fletcher still had Melisende in tow, and John was still wrapped in his blanket on the cart. The fig seller was nowhere to be seen, and Geoffrey felt sorry: the cart was probably all the man owned, and its loss would have serious consequences for him. Geoffrey’s fat, cowardly dog, back again now that the danger was over, began to gorge itself on the unattended fruit.
“I saw it,” said Courrances. “And I am told that the weapon used was a great carved dagger with a jewelled hilt-you know the kind I mean? Wicked looking things, but cheap and gaudy. They can be bought in the marketplace.”
Geoffrey rubbed his chin thoughtfully and looked at Courrances. “Almost as if the murderer did not want to use his own weapon?”
Courrances gazed back at him. “Quite. As if he wanted to ensure that there was nothing that could connect him to his victims.”
“I trust you were suitably grateful to Edouard de Courrances for his timely arrival,” said Sir Hugh of Monreale, settling himself more comfortably by the small fire in Geoffrey’s quarters. It was not cold, even within the dank, thick walls of the citadel, but Geoffrey liked a fire when he was in his chamber: it provided him with light should he want to read, and it offered some degree of homeliness in a room devoid of most comforts.
Geoffrey snorted in disgust. “He killed unarmed people.”