Saphira’s toilet was complete, and she turned to face William. This was a new experience for them both. In Oxford, they were a little more discreet, and Falconer always returned to Aristotle’s Hall and the care of his students before daybreak. She liked their present intimacy, and wondered if she could somehow persuade him to take time away from Oxford more often. Probably not — the university and the boys were his life. She sighed, and Falconer’s face creased up into a worried frown.
‘Why are you looking at me like that? What’s wrong?’ he asked.
She waved aside his concerns. ‘Nothing. I was just thinking how far the cult spread, and if it survived the death of Heliogabalus. I mean, it has been a thousand years, but the bishop comes from a town that was once Roman Narbo.’
Falconer waved an admonitory finger. ‘Now don’t you go jumping to conclusions without any evidence. I have enough trouble trying to convince the King he must stick to collecting truths, without you going out on a limb.’
‘You are right. Let’s go and see if we can help His Majesty solve his murder case.’ She paused. ‘It would go some way to explain the bishop’s odd behaviour, though, wouldn’t it?’
Falconer growled and strode out of the room.
When they once again sat with the King in his bedchamber, he was dressed. Though he looked a little pale, and his physicians were in attendance, he was eager to continue their conversation from the middle of the night. ‘I have something important to tell you.’
But before he could continue, Master Roger Megrim stepped forward. ‘Majesty, I must protest at this unnecessary strain. You have sustained another relapse, and you should be bled again. You have a worrying excess of melancholy.’
Henry’s pale face quivered, and he spat his words out through clenched teeth. ‘You will not take any more blood from me. I would be surprised if you found any, after all you have taken. I would prefer any treatment you wish rather than bloodletting.’
Megrim smirked, as though he had always intended working his patient into a corner.
‘Then I recommend the use of the properties of magnetic stones. Pulverized magnetite and milk is a remedy against breathlessness I learned from Albertus Magnus himself. I have it already prepared.’
He produced a small glass vial and pewter mug from his capacious pouch and unstoppered the vial. Having poured the contents into the little mug, he proffered it to the King. Grimacing, Henry tipped the mug up and swallowed the vile concoction. Satisfied, Megrim backed away from the King, then ushered his colleagues out of the room ahead of him. Henry wiped his whiskery face with the back of his hand, then spoke.
‘Now at last I can tell you who I think killed Ralph. You see, I spoke to my new wardroper this morning.’
The King had felt peevish that his usual wardroper was not present to attend to him. This new one, a callow youth, had dug him in the ribs as he changed out of his sleeping gown. Now he was all thumbs as he attempted to tie the shirt ribbons across the King’s sunken chest.
‘Where’s Ralph?’ whined Henry, thinking to sack the lazy man who had failed to come at his call. Then it all came back to him. He remembered that the man was dead, and why he had wanted to speak to his replacement.
‘Tell me, boy, what is the opinion among Ralph’s fellows? Who do they think murdered him?’
The substitute wardroper, a natural gossip, could not resist the invitation. He was inexperienced in protecting the royal personage from unpleasant facts, and he blurted out the truth as he saw it.
‘It is said that Ralph was dallying with Marjorie, the usher’s wife. Sir Thomas is ready to clap Godric in chains, apparently. Of course, since Ralph’s son took ill, his wife has had precious little time for him. She devoted all her efforts to caring for the boy. And though Ralph was worried, too, about his son, he resented coming second. Hence the tales of his straying away from her. They say the boy will not live, and that cannot be good for a marriage. But still, despite his son’s state, no one really liked Ralph, my lord. He gave himself airs and claimed to know many a secret of the bedchamber. So it could have been any one of many who did for him…’
Suddenly, the youth remembered to whom he was speaking and paled in horror. What if the King now asked him what secrets Ralph had passed on about the King? Fortunately, Henry was too preoccupied with all this new information and dismissed his new wardroper from his mind.
‘So, you see, it was Godric killed Ralph, because he was playing him for a cuckold.’
Falconer grimaced. ‘And do you have any proof for this allegation, Majesty? Have you ascertained where Godric was the night Ralph was murdered?’
Henry’s face darkened. He was not used to being contradicted or questioned in this way. But he contained his temper. ‘If you do not like that idea, then how about the servant who envied Ralph’s position, or the potboy who owed him money? I can bring you several possible murderers, and a little torture would be guaranteed to loosen their tongues.’
‘And no doubt that will result in several confessions as the pain becomes unbearable. Which one will you choose then?’
The King flapped his bony hand disdainfully in the air, as if that were not a problem. ‘Then I would execute them all, and that way be sure of retribution falling on the true killer.’
Falconer and Saphira exchanged worried looks. If this was the King’s way of dealing out justice, then heaven help the innocent. Falconer tried another tack. ‘Majesty, you have cleverly winkled out several possible truths here. Perhaps you could leave it to myself and Madam Le Veske to verify them, while you continue to examine the larger scheme of things.’
Henry smiled broadly, glad to have his own superior cunning acknowledged in the presence of this Oxford master. But still he wasn’t sure how to proceed as Falconer had suggested. What other possibilities were there? He had to plunder the master’s brain without revealing his ignorance. ‘If you were me, what other people would you suspect?’
‘Anyone present in the palace at the time must be a suspect. Sir Thomas, Roger Megrim, John Rixe, Brother Mark…’
Before he could stop her, Saphira eagerly added to Falconer’s list. ‘And Pierre, Bishop of Narbonne.’
Henry snorted in amusement. ‘And Master William Falconer and Madam Saphira Le Veske, too.’
Falconer nodded gravely, agreeing with the King’s assessment. ‘As Your Majesty wishes. But we can vouch for each other’s innocence, if you take my meaning.’
For a moment Saphira felt that Henry’s eyes, boring into her soul, had taken on his legendary lynx-like stare. She blushed and looked down at her feet. When she looked up again, the look had once again faded into a clouded blue. But the King’s quiet smile showed he knew exactly what Falconer had meant by his profession of their lack of involvement in the murder. He turned his gaze slowly on to Falconer.
‘I shall speak to all those you have mentioned.’
Hastily, Falconer interposed with a bit of advice. ‘May I suggest you do it as part of your normal daily proceedings? Truths often emerge when suspects are lulled into believing they are above suspicion.’
Henry chortled, wiping away the saliva that had dribbled from the corner of his lips and down his jutting and whiskery chin. ‘You mean to say that I should not subject any of them to torture. I wonder what would happen to our relationship with Philip of France if it emerged I had put one of his bishops on the rack. Of course, I have often thought of applying torture to my three physicians in return for all they put me through. Especially as I have often heard it said that doctors should have three qualities: to be able to lie cleverly, to seem to be honest and to be able to kill without caring.’