Hugh nodded. “I was on Bohemond’s business in Germany at the time. But when I heard the Pope’s call, I knew Bohemond would rally to it. I hastened to him as fast as I could get a horse to carry me, and we were off toward the Holy Land within the month. But you are being obtuse with me, Geoffrey. Why did you follow Tancred? Surely he would have agreed if you had asked to be left behind in Italy?”
Geoffrey gave him a look of disbelief. “He most certainly would not! When young Tancred left his home in Italy, he knew he would never return. It is his intention to carve out a kingdom for himself in the Holy Land-just as Bohemond means to do and Tancred wants me with him. And I was willing enough, because I had read a little of Arab philosophy and medicine, and I saw it as an opportunity to learn more.”
“So that was your motive?” asked Hugh. “Learning and books?” He smiled suddenly. “I had guessed as much, knowing you as I do. And have you discovered what you hoped to find?”
“I have not!” said Geoffrey vehemently. Hugh looked startled at the force of his words. “I have found bloodshed, massacres, disease, flies, dust, and hatred. And we are so concerned with the basics of our survival here that there is little time for learning.”
“Come now,” said Hugh, still smiling. “It is not so bad. You are learning Arabic, I heard, so you are at least achieving something! But we are growing maudlin here, by your fire. We need some diversion. Continue reading your father’s letter. That should suffice.”
Geoffrey dragged his thoughts back to the home he had not seen for years, and tried to concentrate on his father’s disjointed letter. “He has hanged three Welshmen who he believes were stealing his sheep. Lord help us, Hugh! The man is a fool! I doubt very much he has the real culprits, and he is likely to bring the fury of the hanged men’s relatives upon himself with such a rash act.”
“And what would you have done?” asked Hugh, stretching his hands toward the fire, although the room was not cold.
“Tried to parley with the villages I believed were stealing,” said Geoffrey. “Or set a better watch over the sheep during vulnerable times to prevent the thefts in the first place.”
Hugh snorted in derision. “Your father was right when he sent you away from his flocks! You are far too soft to be the lord of a manor!”
“And now we come to the real purpose of my father’s letter,” said Geoffrey, ignoring Hugh and reading on. “He observes that I am careless for riches, but asks that I remember that Goodrich Castle is in sore need of stone walls, and there is a fine ram in the next village he would like to own.”
Hugh laughed softly, while Geoffrey crumpled the letter and thrust it into the fire. It hissed and sizzled, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. Geoffrey leaned forward to prod at it, while Hugh replenished their goblets with the sour wine that Geoffrey had begged from the citadel’s cellars. Hugh allowed his long, graceful body to recline on the hard bed, and sipped carefully at the wine.
“Devil’s brew!” he exclaimed, wincing at its sharpness. “Do you have nothing better?” He eyed his friend resentfully and placed the goblet on the floor. Geoffrey’s dog padded over to it with interest, but walked away in disdain after the briefest of sniffs. Hugh watched it, his fair hair flopping over one bright blue eye. “So, what did you do with this woman you arrested this afternoon? You were far from kindly with her!”
Geoffrey shrugged, still poking the fire. “She seemed too shocked at Courrances’s murderous tactics for further conversation with me. I handed her over to the Advocate’s men. But then the Patriarch asked to question her because apparently two monks were murdered at the same time as Sir Guido three weeks ago. The Patriarch seems to believe that they may be connected. Since the Advocate is away in Jaffa, Melisende Mikelos was transferred to the Patriarch’s palace for questioning, and she will be brought back here to the citadel when the Advocate returns.”
The Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre was the impressive title adopted by Godfrey, Duke of Lower Lorraine, who had been the leader of one of the Crusader armies that had left France to reclaim Jerusalem; now he was in overall command of the city. Meanwhile, the Patriarch-an ambitious Italian called Daimbert-was the head of the Latin Church in the Holy Land. There was a constant power struggle between these two men and their supporters, and knights like Geoffrey and Hugh often found themselves drawn into their disputes. Geoffrey’s lord, Tancred, and Hugh’s, Bohemond, both powerful leaders themselves, were firmly allied to the Patriarch, a fact that made the Advocate wary of knights like Geoffrey and Hugh, who lived in his citadel.
“Why did you arrest this woman at all?” asked Hugh, breaking into Geoffrey’s thoughts as he, too, poked at the fire. “No one arrested the monks at the Dome of the Rock who found the body of Sir Guido of Rimini.”
“I had the impression she was not telling the truth,” said Geoffrey with a shrug. “And poor John lay dead on the floor in front of her. Would you wish his murderer to go free?”
“Of course not,” said Hugh soothingly. “You knew John much better than I did. But you must not allow friendship to cloud your judgement. What was he doing in her house anyway?”
Geoffrey had been wondering the same thing, but said nothing.
“You may have condemned her to death,” continued Hugh idly. “It is possible she had nothing to do with the death of John, as she claimed, but she may pay the price regardless.”
“She was holding the murder weapon, Hugh. What woman would stride over to a dead knight-according to her an unexpected and most unwelcome guest on her bedroom floor-hoist the dagger from his back, and run outside with it?” Geoffrey stood abruptly and began to pace in the small room. As he walked, he was aware that his legs were tired and stiff from his exertions on desert patrol, and he knew that he should rest. He was exhausted by the constant need for vigilance and the sheer physical grind of walking in the heat wearing chain mail and surcoat. Most knights rode, but Geoffrey found horses unsuitable for patrolling in the ferocious heat, and so he usually walked with his men.
“You are too inflexible in your thinking, my friend,” began Hugh. Anticipating a lecture, Geoffrey sat down and closed his eyes wearily.
Hugh, undaunted by his friend’s clear lack of interest, continued. “You say she had been out visiting her uncle, and she had only arrived back a few moments before she discovered the corpse. This means that she had walked across the city at the hottest time of day. She would have been sticky and tired. She said she drank wine and bathed her feet before going to rest. She must have been telling you the truth, because what woman admits to a man such personal details as washing her feet?
“Now, imagine her wearily climbing the stairs, longing to lie down in the coolness of her sleeping chamber, and what does she see? A bloodied corpse on the floor! You are a soldier used to such things, but she is a young woman who is not. Her reaction would have been one of disbelief. She would have touched the body to make certain her long walk in the sun had not made her hallucinate, and she would have touched the dagger. She did not say she hoisted it from his back: that was an assumption you made with no evidence to support it. Perhaps the dagger was lying on the floor next to John. So, she picked it up from its bloody pool in horror at her discovery, and then fled outside. You heard her scream. She then flung the knife from her when she realized that she still held it after you began to question her.”