01 - Murder in the Holy City by Simon Beaufort Read Free Book Online Page A

unbuckled his surcoat and removed the chain-mail shirt, hanging them carefully on wall pegs. No warrior who valued his life failed to take good care of the equipment that might save it. He tugged off his boots and, clad in shirt and hose, wearily flopped down on the bed.
    And immediately leapt up again.
    “God’s teeth!”
    Pinned to the wall above his head was a heart, dark with a crust of dried blood. And it was held there by a curved dagger with a jewelled hilt.

    In the cold light of morning, Geoffrey could see quite clearly that the dagger was not the same one that had been used to kill John of Sourdeval in the Greek Quarter the previous day: the blade was chipped and bunted, and the hilt was adorned with roughly cut pieces of coloured glass rather than jewels. But it was similar, and its message was clear: someone knew exactly where Geoffrey had been that night, and what he had been told to do. It was a warning that he should not meddle. But it also told him that someone in the citadel was involved in the murders. Security was tight at the Advocate’s stronghold, and no one was allowed in unescorted. And certainly no one was allowed in the knights’ rooms on the upper floors. What little cleaning that took place was performed by foot soldiers, not by local labour. The only people who could have gained access to his chamber, therefore, were Crusaders.
    But what of the heart? What was its significance? Geoffrey frowned as he poked at it with his dagger, turning it over to try to gain some clue as to its origins. The dog watched with greedy attention, licking its lips and salivating on the floor.
    “The kitchens,” announced Hugh, eyeing dog and heart distastefully from the window seat. “Where else could it have come from?”
    “It looks like the heart of a pig,” said Geoffrey, still prodding it. “Pigs are not common here. The Moslems and Jews consider them unclean, and we have learned by bitter experience that their meat becomes tainted quickly in the desert heat. There are simply not many pigs around.”
    “Well, go to the kitchens, and ask whether a pig has been slaughtered recently,” said Hugh, becoming bored by the conversation. “You will probably find that they killed one to make blood pudding or something, and parts of the carcass were left over.”
    Geoffrey shook his head. “That is unlikely. Food is not so abundant in this wilderness that we can afford to discard it carelessly. I imagine all parts of any animal slaughtered will be used, even the bones to make soup.”
    Hugh rose languidly from the window seat. “All this talk of food is making me hungry. It must be time to eat.”
    Abandoning the grisly warning, Geoffrey followed Hugh down the spiral stairs that led to the great hall on the second floor of the Tower of David, with the dog at his heels. On the way, Hugh banged hard on the door of Sir Roger of Durham, an English knight who had elected to stay in Jerusalem after the rest of his contingent had left. The remainder of the knights, about three hundred in all, were mainly Lorrainers in the pay of the Advocate; however, there were also substantial numbers of Normans who were in the retinues of Bohemond—like Hugh and Roger—and Geoffrey’s lord, Tancred.
    Roger emerged from his chamber, and followed them down the stairs. He was a huge man with cropped black hair and a brick-red complexion, and was the illegitimate son of the powerful Prince-Bishop of Durham. Roger was a simple man, blessed with a north country bluntness that Geoffrey assumed he must have inherited from his mother, who had been the Bishop’s robe-maker. Roger had no time at all for the politics and intrigues in Jerusalem, and was always the first to volunteer for expeditions where he would be able to use his formidable fighting skills. Roger’s prodigious strength and honesty, coupled with Hugh’s lugubrious cynicism and Geoffrey’s quick intelligence, made them a force to be reckoned with in the citadel