He raised his hands in a shrug. “Perhaps it is time to be thinking of returning home.”
“Home?” echoed Tancred. “Home to what? Your sheep-farming brothers, who regard you with such suspicion, because they think that you have come to wrest away their meagre inheritance with your superior fighting skills? To those monasteries and their dusty books?”
“Why not?” asked Geoffrey, irritated that the younger man should be questioning his motives. “I am tired of trudging around baking deserts weighed down with chain mail looking for phantom Saracens. I would not mind sitting in the cool of a cloister reading mathematics or philosophy.” He paused. “And I miss England. I find myself longing for the green of its forests, and the heather-clad hills of autumn.”
Tancred gaped at him in disbelief. “My God, man!” he breathed. “Have you become a poet all of a sudden? Where is your manhood?” He gestured with his hand. “There are riches for the taking in this land, and you hanker after the wet trees and flowers of England! You have not even lived there for twenty years!”
Geoffrey felt his temper begin to fray. He was tired from his patrolling, and his reasons for embarking on the Crusade had already been well and truly aired by Hugh that evening. He had no wish to be ridiculed a second time within the space of an hour.
“I do not want riches, and I grow sick of the slaughter here.”
Tancred made an exasperated sound. “And here we reach the nub of the issue: the slaughter. You were always squeamish about such matters. I have heard how you declined to slay the infidel when we took Jerusalem.”
“The infidel we found were mostly women and children,” objected Geoffrey hotly. “And, besides, not all who were slain were infidels-many were Christians. In the frenzy of killing, even some of our own monks and soldiers were slaughtered. The massacre was so indiscriminate that it included anyone unable to defend himself. What man would want to take part in so foul a business?”
“Most of your colleagues,” said Tancred dryly. “Why not, when the rule of the day was that plunder belonged to the man who killed its owner?”
“It is exactly that kind of lawlessness that I find repellent,” said Geoffrey wearily. “Perhaps you are right, and I have lost my spirit. But I have had enough.”
“Come, Sir Geoffrey,” said Tancred dismissively. “You are a knight, trained to fight since childhood. What else would you do? There is nothing for you on your father’s manor in England-that is why he sent you away in the first place, is it not? Where would you go? Despite your monkish tendency toward books and scrolls, you are too independent a thinker to become a priest. You would not survive for a week, before you were thrown out for refusing to be obedient. Look at you now, questioning me, your liege lord!”
Guiltily, Geoffrey looked away. He was fortunate that Tancred tolerated his occasional bouts of insubordination. Bohemond certainly would not have done so. In his heart of hearts, Geoffrey knew Tancred was right. If he forswore his knighthood, there was little else he could do. He was too old to become a scholar, and he had no intention of taking a vow of chastity to become a monk.
Tancred walked to the table and picked up the scroll Geoffrey had been reading. “This is a treatise on why shooting stars can be seen at certain times of the year and not others,” he said, changing the subject. “By an Arab astrologer. Are you familiar with his work?”
Geoffrey nodded impatiently. “I have read his theories on shooting stars,” he said. “But I believe them to be fatally flawed. These heavenly bodies are seen in the summer months, but not in the winter, and I think it must have something to do with heat.”
“You believe the Earth can influence the movements of the heavens?” queried Tancred. “Archbishop Daimbert would say that is heresy, Sir Geoffrey. The heavens are ruled by God, not the Earth.”
Geoffrey sighed. “I did not say the Earth causes the stars to fall only in the summer,” he said, trying not to sound patronising. “Perhaps they fall all year, but conditions on the Earth are such that we can only see them in the summer.”
Tancred chewed throughtfully on his lower lip. “That is an interesting concept,” he said, smiling suddenly. “You are among very few here who possess scholarly knowledge.” He raised his hand to preempt Geoffrey’s objections. “Oh, the priests are educated and know all manner of things, but they do not think as you do. And they do not speak the languages that you can-French, Italian, Latin, and Greek. Do not think of returning to your sheep yet, Geoffrey. I have need of you here. Helbye tells me you are learning Arabic?”
Geoffrey frowned, discomfited that his men should be telling stories about him. “It is a way of unlocking some of the secrets of Saracen knowledge,” he answered carefully. “They are far ahead of us in so many ways: medicine, astrology, mathematics, architecture …”
“I understand your admiration,” said Tancred sharply, “although I do not share it. But by your own admission, there is much with which you can satisfy your insatiable yearning for knowledge here, especially if you master Arabic. Stay and learn-I will release you from desert patrols if it makes you happy. And while you learn, you can solve a riddle for me.”
“What riddle?” asked Geoffrey suspiciously, anticipating a trap.
“The deaths of these two knights,” said Tancred. “And three priests. I thought perhaps you had solved the case when you brought that Mikelos woman here earlier today, but even as I questioned her, her innocence was being proven, as a fifth victim was killed using these carved daggers. Thus, the killer could not have been her, and it seems she is what she says: an honourable widow whose house was chosen at random for John of Sourdeval’s murder.”
He perched on the edge of the table and looked solemnly at Geoffrey. “I know I often ask you to do things well beyond any obligation, but our comradeship has benefitted us both at times. And now I need you again. These two knights-Guido and John-were in my uncle Bohemond’s service. Their murders represent an attack against the Normans in Jerusalem, and that includes both you and me. You are good with riddles-you solved the mystery of those thefts back in Nicaea when all the priests and scholars were at their wits’ end. That shows that you can get to the bottom of affairs such as this. You can be subtle, wily, and dare I say, even devious, to find out what you need. I would like you to serve me again and to solve these murders.”
Geoffrey ran a hand through his hair. He could hardly refuse Tancred-despite his reluctance to undertake such duties, he was still in Tancred’s service and would be until Tancred agreed to release him. He was vaguely amused to note that Tancred was asking, rather than ordering, him to help. In this way, Geoffrey would be his willing agent, not merely a hired hand, which would eliminate any resentment that might have interfered with Geoffrey’s solving of the case. He smiled suddenly, out of respect for Tancred’s transparent, but effective, cunning.
“What do you know of these murders?” he asked.
Tancred grinned back, aware that Geoffrey had seen through his ruse, but also aware that he had won his former mentor’s cooperation. He sat on a stool and gestured for Geoffrey to sit next to him. “Little, I am afraid. Five men have died in similar circumstances so far: the two knights and three priests. The three priests seem to have been murdered with a weapon identical to that which was used to kill the knights.”
He paused for a moment and chewed at his thumbnail. “The first victim was Sir Guido of Rimini, whose body was discovered about three weeks ago under a tree in the gardens of the Dome of the Rock. The second was a Benedictine monk, Brother Jocelyn from France. He died two days after Guido, and his body was found inside the church at the Dome of the Rock. The third was a Cluniac, Brother Pius from Spain, who was found dead in the house of a Greek butcher. His body was discovered the same morning as Brother Jocelyn’s. Then there was John of Sourdeval-a friend of yours, I believe-whom you found in a house in the Greek Quarter earlier today. And news came a short while ago that a Greek priest named Loukas has been killed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. So, the priests are not from the same Order, not from the same country, and not even from the same Church, because Loukas is Greek Orthodox and the others are Latin. But both knights were in Bohemond’s service.”