‘But it weren’t a lot. Only pennies. Not enough to kill over. I was in bed, I swear.’
Although he protested greatly, Falconer could see the sweat prickling on his brow. But then, was his interrogation any easier on the boy than the threat of torture Falconer himself disdained? Both were equally scaring in the circumstances. Saphira saw his fear too, and intervened.
‘Tod. It will go well if you are honest with us. The truth is your best friend, and no one-’ at this point Saphira stared hard at Sir Thomas, who still hovered in the doorway ‘-will punish you, unless you truly killed Ralph.’
Tod’s freckles stood out even more as his face turned green. ‘No. No. I wasn’t in the brewhouse.’
‘Then where were you on the night of Ralph’s murder?’
Saphira’s tone of voice was low and coaxing.
Tod hung his head. ‘I was playing at dice with some other lads. I done it before. That’s why I needed Ralph to fund me, ’cause I was losing.’ He looked up, his eyes wide and tearful. ‘I won’t tell you who the others was.’
Saphira patted his arm. ‘That is not necessary, Tod. Now you can go. But stop gambling — it will only get you into trouble.’
The boy nodded and shambled out of the room, avoiding looking into Dalyson’s eyes as he passed. Falconer and Saphira exchanged glances. They both tacitly agreed that the murderer still may have come from among the servants, but it now looked unlikely. Saphira leaned over towards Falconer in order to speak without Dalyson hearing.
‘It’s the bishop.’
Falconer grinned. ‘Care to bet on it?’
‘What did I just say to Tod about gambling?’
Later that evening, Sir Thomas Dalyson told them that the King wished to see them urgently. He also said that they were not to look shocked when they saw Henry. He was sinking fast, and only the quest for the murderer seemed to be keeping him alive. So William and Saphira were in a sombre mood when they entered the King’s chamber. Henry was already in his nightclothes and in bed, his ashen face almost the colour of the yellowish linen pillow he lay back on. But his eyes glittered. When he saw the pair, he roused himself, struggling to sit up. Saphira hurried over to his side and helped him up. She instinctively grasped his hand, as she would any invalid. Under her fingers she felt a large ring that had not been there the last time she had comforted him. He noted her reaction and smiled weakly.
‘That is the great seal ring of the monarch. All my documents have its impression in wax at the bottom to confirm their authenticity. Now tell me what you have found out about my servants. Who is the one I am to have executed for theft and murder?’
Falconer grimaced and sat next to Saphira on the bedside. ‘I am afraid all of your servants who had reason to have killed Ralph claimed to have been elsewhere. Either in bed with their wives or with other servants.’
He refrained from exposing Tod’s little gambling ring. Henry’s wan face grew a little flushed, and he shook his head impatiently. ‘But they may have been lying.’ It was not a question but a bald statement that still spoke of a desire to seek the truth with torture.
Falconer pressed forward, trying to persuade the King to follow logic and the assembly of truths rather than those older methods of testing guilt.
‘Your physicians — did you find out anything about them?’
‘Any one of them could have stolen my stone. They have the freedom of the palace at all hours and have cause to resent the efficacy of the sky-stone.’
He settled back on his pillow and began to tell Falconer and Saphira what he had learned from Rixe and Brother Mark. And finally from Roger Megrim, who he felt was his chief suspect.
Henry was frustrated by the way his interviews with the apothecary and the Dominican had gone. He was determined to do better with Master Roger Megrim of Cambridge University. The man was his chief physician, and the one who would be most embarrassed by the way the sky-stone had caused him to rally. Henry resolved to try his hardest to avoid the sort of direct questions that had thrown the other two quacks into confusion. Megrim was a clever man and would be hard to bamboozle. He finally called the Cambridge master to his chamber, and, when Megrim entered, it was obvious he was perturbed by the other two having been asked to attend on the King before he did. Henry tried to set him at his ease.
‘I am feeling unwell still, master, and your colleagues have failed to apply a cure for what afflicts me.’
Megrim nodded wisely, a feeling of relief and pleasure crossing his stern features. ‘Well, naturally, Majesty, they do not have the learning that seven years at Cambridge have instilled in me.’
Henry refrained from commenting that most of that study would have been of theory, when Megrim’s head would have been stuck inside books and ancient texts. Precious little time was devoted to practical work such as a surgeon might get on the field of battle. Instead, the King smiled and asked the master his opinion on the current state of his health and what might have an effect on it.
‘Could the sky-stone have had any effect in truth?’
Megrim prevaricated, not wishing to contradict the King.
‘That is difficult to say, Majesty. Now, if you were speaking of magnetic stones, I could state categorically that beneficial effects are proven. Aristotle himself has recorded the therapeutic benefits of natural magnets, and Galen used magnets to relieve pain. He also recommended their external use to draw out evil humours, and noted that lodestones had aphrodisiacal powers as well as being a cure for melancholy.’ He sighed. ‘But then the sky-stone is not magnetic, is it?’
Henry looked at Falconer triumphantly. ‘You see? How could Megrim know that the sky-stone is not a magnet unless he had stolen it and tested it?’
Falconer was not sure if the King had found out an important fact. Had he said anything about the properties of the stone in the presence of the physicians? He would have to think about that. But in the meantime he assumed the King had a point. Megrim could have been the perpetrator of the crime. Though another idea had already begun to niggle at the back of his mind, revolving around something Saphira had observed about the King. It was an idea that turned the connection of the theft of the sky-stone and the murder on its head.
Saphira, meanwhile, was pursuing her own theories. ‘Where is the bishop? I have not seen him recently.’
Henry chuckled, though it came out a wheezy struggle for air. ‘You still think that Narbonne is our killer? He certainly coveted the stone, and there is something of the heretic in him. He hinted to me of the connection between the Feast of the Nativity and the worship of the rising sun.’
‘Sol Invictus,’ murmured Falconer, looking towards Saphira. But her look of triumph was shattered by what Henry said next.
‘But it could not have been him who killed Ralph. He was here at my bedside when all the clamour started. And you haven’t seen him because he has gone back to France.’
Falconer stood up and took a surprised Saphira firmly by the arm. ‘Majesty, we have two more people to see, and then we can present you with all the truths. You will then be able to work out for yourself who the murderer was.’
The King waved a weary hand and let his eyes close. ‘Very well. Go and collect your truths. But I want this settled by the end of the day.’
‘Two more people? If the bishop has disappeared, who else is there to see?’
Saphira was buzzing with curiosity. She knew William, and he rarely made such statements unless they were completely accurate. Falconer smiled enigmatically.
‘The bishop may no longer be in London, but there is someone who can tell us something about his actions before he left. When we went to see Ralph’s body, who did we see hurrying away?’