‘Brother Wardard hopes to meet you today, but I hope you will not distress him with sacrilegious remarks. He is a good, honourable soul and will not appreciate heresy.’
‘Very well,’ said Geoffrey, suspecting there was no point in trying to rectify the misunderstanding. Thinking it might be a good time to look at the body of the man Bale had killed, he asked where the charnel house was.
‘Why?’ asked Aelfwig nervously. ‘Who told you that several of my other patients lie there?’
‘No one,’ said Geoffrey, supposing he had been right to refuse the herbalist’s raspberry tonic. ‘I want to look at the body of the man Bale killed, to see if I recognize him.’
‘He is to be buried this morning,’ said Ralph, ‘so you had better hurry. It is over there.’
He flapped vaguely with his hand, then both monks hurried away. Ralph’s directions had encompassed at least three buildings, and the first one Geoffrey tried was a small hut, apparently used as an annex dormitory when the hospital was full. It was dark inside, because the window shutters were closed, and he was surprised to see Juhel inspecting documents by candlelight. Juhel moved quickly when he saw Geoffrey, but not quickly enough to conceal what he had been doing.
‘I see you are better,’ said the parchmenter with an unreadable smile. ‘I am glad. None of us expected you to survive such a violent fever.’
‘I was saved by water, topaz, gold and the good auspices of King Harold,’ said Geoffrey, stepping inside the hut, trying to see what the man had been doing. ‘They counteracted the poison.’
Juhel regarded him uneasily. ‘Poison? Surely not!’
‘Magnus suffered, too, although the effects wore off him more quickly.’
‘I suspect you swallowed too many medicines in an effort to heal yourself. Some compounds react violently with each other, and you should have taken nothing else with my salve.’
‘That is what Bale told me. So did Breme.’ Fingar had, too, he thought. Or had he dreamed it?
‘I imagine you would have been well sooner if that herbalist had not dosed you with his remedies. I told Roger as much.’
‘What are those?’ asked Geoffrey, nodding at the documents Juhel had pushed under his blanket. ‘The parchments from Paisnel’s pack?’
Juhel regarded him with narrowed eyes. ‘How do you know what was in his bag? Did you rifle through it?’
‘No, but you did, after he died. You were seen.’
‘He was my friend. It was my duty to take charge of his belongings.’
‘But you hurled most of them into the sea. You were seen doing that, too.’
Juhel came to his feet fast, and Geoffrey saw there was a good deal of power in his squat limbs.
‘I have nothing to hide,’ said the parchmenter, smiling wryly when Geoffrey’s hand dropped to his dagger. ‘Come, see for yourself that you have no right to question my actions.’
Alert for hostile moves, Geoffrey pushed aside the blanket with his foot. The documents lay underneath. He hesitated, not wanting to bend and make himself vulnerable to attack. He indicated that Juhel was to pass them to him. Juhel gave one of his unreadable smiles and obliged wordlessly.
There were two bundles of documents. The first comprised the same gibberish Juhel had written for Edith. Geoffrey looked hard at the symbols in the light of the candle, but they were nonsense, although they would look like writing to an illiterate. They were tied with red ribbon, and the seals convinced him they were the ones he had seen Paisnel studying.
The second batch was slightly damp, with ink that had run. They were far too badly damaged by rain or seawater to be legible; it was impossible even to tell whether they had been real missives or the same meaningless scrawl of the others.
‘Can you read these?’ Geoffrey asked, indicating the second batch.
‘No,’ replied Juhel shortly. ‘They have been wet too many times. Still, if I dry them, I may be able to reuse the parchment. It is expensive, and I do not have money to waste.’
‘What about the dry ones? Can you read those?’
‘They are in the language of the Danes. Do you know it?’ Juhel looked superior when Geoffrey shook his head. ‘I thought not. The Danish alphabet is different from ours, like Arabic and Hebrew.’
Geoffrey was sceptical. He had never seen Danish written, but there was no reason to suppose it was different from Latin or French. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. These are runes, which are often used to convey Danish in official documents. Would you like me to translate them for you?’
‘Please.’
Juhel took a sheet and went to the door, where the light was better. He rested a grubby finger at the top right, then moved it left, as Geoffrey had learned to read Arabic. The knight was mystified; he had believed only the Semitic languages ran counter to Latin.
Juhel began to speak. ‘ The Bishop of Ribe holds this manor. It was always in the hands of the monastery, and before there were fifty hides, and then it answered for thirty-eight hides; now for twenty-eight. Land for thirty-three ploughs. In lordship, five ploughs and fifty smallholders. There is meadow of fifteen acres, and woodland of forty. Would you like me to continue, Sir Geoffrey? There is a good deal more, and it gives a detailed account of the entire diocese, if you are interested.’
Geoffrey took the document from him, trying to see a pattern that would allow him to confirm the translation, but he could make neither head nor tail of it. Juhel retrieved it with a smirk.
‘Why do you have it?’ asked Geoffrey, still not sure Juhel was telling the truth about his literacy. For all he knew, the man was simply reciting something from memory and the so-called ‘runes’ were exactly what they appeared – gibberish.
‘That is none of your business. However, as I do not want you to start spreading tales about me, I shall answer. Paisnel was a clerk, and these are his documents. I took them from his pack after he died, so I can return them to the Bishop of Ribe. It is what he would have wished.’
‘Why did Paisnel have them in the first place? It strikes me that these are deeds that should be in Ribe, not being hauled all across Ireland and England.’
‘When he left Denmark after his last visit, Paisnel had a great chest of writs with him. But when he arrived in Ireland, he discovered these were included by mistake. He was returning them, in his capacity as the Bishop’s counsellor.’
Geoffrey frowned. ‘You told me earlier he was a clerk.’
Juhel licked his lips. ‘He was, but-’
‘If you lie, you must be blessed with a good memory,’ interrupted Geoffrey. ‘And you are not. Was Paisnel a clerk or a counsellor? Or would it be more accurate to call him a spy?’
‘You pay too much attention to those women,’ said Juhel, attempting nonchalance as he gathered up the parchments.
‘He was a spy,’ said Geoffrey, sensing his unease. ‘I imagine that is why you threw his pack overboard. You wanted to destroy any items that might incriminate him.’
Juhel’s face was white, and Geoffrey did not tell him he had been seen heaving Paisnel’s body into the sea as well, afraid it might incur a violent reaction – and he was not yet certain of his own strength. The Breton suddenly clapped both hands over his face and scrubbed hard.
‘All right,’ he said tiredly. ‘There is no point in denying it, when even those stupid women saw through Paisnel’s clumsy subterfuge. Yes, he was a spy, although not a very good one. I threw his pack in the sea, because I did not want to be accused of treason should his materials be found. I kept only these manorial rolls, which I know are innocent. Are you satisfied?’
‘Who was his master?’
‘Lord Belleme.’ Juhel gave a weak grin when he saw Geoffrey’s astonishment. ‘Even Philippa guessed that – but you thought the notion so outrageous that you did not believe her. Paisnel’s father holds his Norman estates from Belleme, who often calls for favours. This time, Paisnel was charged to look at England’s coastal defences, because Belleme is considering invading.’