The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 3 (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Mike Ashley

  There was a murmur of agreement from the men.

  Hildegarde faced the man.

  “Your brother workers condemn you,” she said. “Have you nothing to say for yourself? You know that, if it is proven that you caused Albrecht’s death, you will hang.”

  “I did nothing!” Embrich drew himself up. “It’s true that I lied to be hired on here, but not to stop the building, at least, not like that.”

  “Yes, I know,” the prioress sat on the folding chair one of the servants had brought. “You are here because of my daughter, Trauchte.”

  Embrich’s jaw dropped. Hildegarde continued.

  “You will not win her, no matter how unhappy she is here,” she informed him. “She is a professed nun. Your soul would be forfeit if you stole her away. Does her father know about your disguise?”

  “No, my lady,” Embrich’s shoulder’s drooped. “I overheard him telling a friend that Trauchte hated Rupertsberg and he was going to get her. I thought that might mean that she would consider me again.”

  “Foolish man!” Hildegarde shook her head. “She is pledged to a Heavenly Bridegroom who will care for her in this world and the next. What have you to offer her to compare with that?”

  As Embrich was hunting for a response, Sister Richardis came from the guest house. She leaned over and said something softly to the prioress.

  “Good,” Hildegarde told her. “Bring him here.”

  A few moments later Peter and Margaret arrived, escorting a man who looked as if he would rather be anywhere else. Embrich took one look at him and blanched.

  Hildegarde gave him a withering look. “Lord Gerlac,” she said. “If you wished to visit Trauchte you could have applied at the gate.”

  “She feared that you wouldn’t let me see her,” Gerlac answered. “My lady,” he fell to his knees before her. “I only wish the best for her. She is not meant for conditions such as these.”

  Hildgarde regarded him with loathing. “Good fruit comes only from good seed. Your seed is full of tares. By appealing to you, Trauchte has shown herself unfit to associate with my daughters here. Her soul, and yours, may only be saved by deep penitence.

  “Take your daughter,” she ordered. “Trauchte is mine no longer.”

  Lord Gerlac stood. “It is not God but Satan who speaks through you, Woman! I’ll make sure no girl is ever entrusted to you again.”

  He turned to go.

  “Lord Gerlac!” Hildegarde called after him. “Take your servant, as well.”

  He turned around slowly.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “Ludwig.” The prioress beckoned to him.

  The master mason looked in terror from Gerlac to Hildegarde and back.

  “What madness is this?” he asked. “My lady, I am a master mason!”

  “That you are,” she said. “And your last assignment was the chapel at Lord Gerlac’s family monastery.”

  She turned back to Gerlac.

  “You hired him to see to it that I abandoned God’s plan to establish a house here,” she accused him. “You are equally guilty of his crimes. I shall be writing to the archbishop to inform him of your deeds. I’ve no doubt that he will feel obliged to report them to the emperor.”

  “This is nonsense,” Gerlac sputtered. “I know nothing of this man or his crimes.”

  “I’ve done nothing!” Ludwig insisted. “It was Embrich; you know it was. He wanted the convent to fail so he could rescue his beloved.”

  Hildegarde shook her head. “As you have often said, Embrich doesn’t have the skill to hammer a nail. He wouldn’t know how to create such perfect ruin. Lord Edgar?”

  “My lady,” Edgar bowed. “As you bid me, I examined the materials that had been damaged. The work was skillfully done to cause the most disruption. The only exception was the board that broke under the worker, Albrecht. I think it was intended only to crack but he must have landed on it harder than anticipated.”

  Ludwig started to protest once more. Edgar held up his hand.

  “I couldn’t be certain that you were doing it,” he said. “But, when my wife fell, I watched you. Others came to help her. You ran to retrieve the hide she slipped on. You had greased it, hadn’t you?”

  “Of course not!” he shouted. “You can’t lay this on me. My lord!” He appealed to Gerlac.

  “I don’t know this man,” Gerlac put on his gloves. “What ever he has done is of his own design.”

  “You bastard!” Ludwig screamed.

  Lord Gerlac eye’s dared Hildegarde to try to detain him. She considered him a moment, then waved him away. “Heaven will see to your punishment,” she stated confidently. “Go.”

  When Lord Gerlac and his weeping daughter had left and a still sputtering Ludwig been locked in the gatehouse to await the judgment of the bishop, Hildegarde summoned Catherine, Edgar, Margaret and Peter to the gatehouse.

  “I am grateful for your aid,” she told them. “I had suspected Ludwig for some time, but needed someone from the outside to create a situation that would allow me to accuse him. Lord Gerlac may have hired him, but the abbot of St Disibod recommended him. If I had dismissed him it would have been an insult and relations between us are difficult already.”

  “It was little enough to do, Magistra,” Edgar said. “A bit of play-acting.”

  “I thought I fell quite realistically,” Catherine added. “I’ve had practice.”

  Edgar took Margaret’s hand. “I am ready to give you my treasured sister. I know she will blossom here.”

  Margaret was trembling, but nodded agreement.

  Hildegarde shook her head.

  “She is not meant for the convent,” she said. “I have seen her standing in the breath of the north wind, struggling to overcome its force. I have seen the warm wind of the south wrap itself around her in protection. I have not seen her reciting the Divine Office.”

  “But, but . . .” Catherine was totally taken aback. “Do you think her unworthy?”

  “No, my child,” Hildegarde sighed and held out her hand to Margaret. “You are bright and pious and obedient, all I could wish. I fear that your life would be easier if I took you in, but the Living Light has another path for you. I am sorry.”

  Margaret couldn’t believe it. “But I must marry,” she said. “If not Christ, then whom?”

  Behind her, Peter’s face shone with hope.

  Hildegarde kissed Margaret’s cheek. “Have faith, my child,” she said. “An answer will present itself. You have done me a great service. When the north wind beats against you, send word and I shall pray for the south wind to find you. This I promise.”

  And with that, Margaret had to be content.

  The Jester and the Mathematician

  Alan R. Gordon

  By day, Alan Gordon is a veteran attorney with the New York Legal Aid Society, with a hundred criminal trials to his credit. By night, though, he is the author of the Fools’ Guild series, featuring the characters in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which began with Thirteenth Night (1999), and now runs to five books and several short stories. Gordon has also joined the Lehman Engel/BMI Musical Theatre Workshop as a lyricist, and has adapted Roald Dahl’s “A Lamb to the Slaughter” as a fourteen-minute musical.

  The following story introduces us to the great Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci, who lived in Pisa, but who was acquainted with the studies of the Arab world. This story is in fact set only a few years after the events described in Philip Boast’s story and shows again the impact between the Arab and Catholic worlds. We have Fibonacci to thank for the fact that we now use Arabic numerals rather than Roman. But it could all have been so different had it not been for the Fools’ Guild.

  My wife returned from the town with a new sheaf of paper for me, which means that I no longer have any excuses for putting off writing. I had no idea that I would live long enough to qualify as a historian, but nowadays, long life seems to be the only qualification.

  My wife,
bless her, is quite the pitiless taskmistress. She came to Folly later in life than I, but, as a convert, embraced it with a fanaticism rivalling that of our good friends of the Inquisition. She is adamant about having me record everything.

  “While you still can,” she usually adds acerbically. “Lord knows you’re too old to do anything else around here. And the Guild has been asking whether or not you’re still alive. What should I tell them?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind yet, dearest.” What a blessing it is to have such a helpmate late in life!

  The Fools’ Guild relocates periodically. As they have no need of my services as a jester anymore, they generally don’t bother letting me know where they are. Nor can I rely on the old troubadour routes, not since so many troubadours were wiped out for suspected heretical sympathies during the horrors of the Albigensian Crusades.

  So, we sit in this pleasant little hostel funded from the usual mysterious sources and wait upon passing pilgrims. Once in a blue moon, a familiar Irish lilt will greet my ears, and we will clandestinely meet our contact and turn over my latest jottings. It was on the latest such occasion that he brought me some sad news.

  “Fazio died last month,” he said. “Peacefully on his farm. I thought you might want to know.”

  “Poor Fazio,” I said. “He’d been with the Guild even longer than I had. I must be nearly the oldest now.”

  “You’re up there,” he jibed. “You certainly look older than anyone I’ve ever seen. I only keep coming back hoping for a chance with your widow.”

  “Really?” my future widow exclaimed, perking up.

  “Shall I call you out at dawn?” I huffed.

  “You’re up at that hour anyway, old man,” he retorted. “Why not?”

  “Now, now,” she chided him. “Don’t let him waste his energy. He has more of the Guild’s history to complete. Let him be.”

  He grinned and retired to his room.

  “I’m sorry about Fazio,” she said, kissing me gently. “Was he a close friend?”

  “Not close. An acquaintance and a respected colleague. At least he can stop worrying now.”

  “What did he have to worry about?”

  “It’s a long story. I might as well write it down and let you read it. No point in doing things twice at my age.”

  She kissed me again and placed my quill and ink within reach. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Good night, my love.”

  She lit a single candle and placed it by my writing stand. Father Gerald used to say that any story that cannot be told by the time a single candle has burned down is too damn long, and I have lived by that advice ever since. I thought back some thirty-odd years.

  It was the spring of 1198, and I had finally made it back to the Guildhall from Apulia after an unexpected delay in Assisi. I was hoping for a little rest and recuperation from my journey, but no such luck. Father Gerald was actually standing in the courtyard glaring in all directions at once. I espied some of the younger novitiates hiding in the doorway of the stables, fearfully peering at our peerless leader. I assumed, having hid in that same doorway looking at that same man with that same look when I was their age, that some practical joke had gone painfully awry, but my assumption was quickly proved wrong.

  “Theophilos,” he barked.

  “Hail, Father,” I intoned. “I have returned in triumph. Prepare the feast, slaughter the fatted calf, and throw in the skinny one, too. I have walked for leagues and have a powerful hunger.”

  “We expected you a week ago,” he said, ignoring my speech.

  “You haven’t been standing here waiting all that time, have you?” I asked, concerned. I heard some suppressed giggling from the stables.

  “Well, there’s no help for it,” he said. “You’re off to Pisa.”

  My feet screamed in horror.

  “Um, exactly why am I doing that?”

  “Because I need to get a message to Fazio as soon as possible. Things are heating up with the Genoese, and we have to get the Pisans talking to them again. Which means we have to first get the Pisans talking to each other again.”

  “But isn’t that on a troubadour route?” Back then, jesters generally stayed in one place while the troubadours travelled a regular circuit, collecting information and passing on the Guild’s directives.

  “It is,” snapped Father Gerald. “And the preening oaf who rides it is lying in an upper room with his leg in a splint. Tantalo got drunk last night and decided to demonstrate his balancing skills on the local rooftops.”

  “Oh, dear. We used to tell him that if he had any talent for tumbling, he would have made a fine fool.”

  “His timing isn’t worth a damn, either. I’ve just sent out all my available people. The only ones I have left are the novitiates, and they can’t go to Pisa. They couldn’t even find their way out of town if I was kicking their sweet behinds every step of the way . . . which I may very well do!” This last was directed at the top of his lungs in the direction of the stables. There were some muffled shrieks inside. He turned back to me and winked.

  “I’m truly sorry, Theo,” he continued. “The fatted calf will keep until you get back. We’ll fatten it up a little more.”

  “Could I at least have something to ride this time?” I asked.

  “Brother Dennis!” he shouted.

  Our hostler emerged from the stables.

  “An ass for my gallant fool, if you please. Are those children still hiding there?”

  “What children?” replied Brother Dennis innocently.

  “Yes. Tell them that if they’re late for class, they’re on kitchen duty for a month, and that class begins the moment I get back to the hall, but that I’m old and I walk slowly.”

  “Certainly, Father. Come on, Theo. I’ll give you Tantalo’s ass. He knows the route better than his master, and drinks less.”

  And so I was off to Pisa.

  The trip was uneventful. The ass was a good-natured beast who knew not only the route but all of the spots with the most succulent grasses. Nevertheless, we made good time and a few days later found ourselves just north of the town.

  We were passing by a farm when the ass greeted a patch of clover with a bray of joy, as if he had been reunited with a long-lost friend. It was as good a place to stop as any, so I rummaged through my pouch for some bread and cheese.

  My wineskin was empty, which was not surprising. There was not a wineskin made that would last me through a journey, at least not one that could fit on an ass. Sadly, I was forced to seek water.

  There was a brook running beside a low stone wall that marked a pasture. The water was cold and clean. I took a long drink, then reapplied my make-up to make my entrance into the town. I looked up to see a young man seated cross-legged on the wall, gazing dreamily into the field. He was wearing a bright green and yellow cloak with the hood down. The breeze kept blowing his hair into his eyes, and he would sweep it back without any real success.

  Curious, I walked up to him to ascertain the target of his gaze, but all I saw was empty pasture. He started upon my approach, then did a very creditable double take, for an amateur, upon seeing my make-up and motley.

  “Forgive me, Signore,” I said, bowing. “I did not intend to cause you alarm. I was intrigued by the object of your perusal.”

  He smiled. “Nothing to warrant any interest. I was merely counting rabbits.”

  I looked out upon the pasture again. “Let me assist you. There aren’t any rabbits.”

  “Not now.”

  “Were there rabbits before?”

  “No.”

  “Are you expecting rabbits shortly?”

  “Not really.”

  I pulled my cap and bells off my head and held them out to him. “I think, Signore, that perhaps these truly belong to you.”

  He laughed. “Well met, fellow fool. My name is Leonardo, son of Gulielmus Fibonacci.”

  “I am Forzo, the Fool.” It was a name. I’ve had many.

  “I was thinking abo
ut rabbits,” he continued. “What would happen if you placed a pair in a field such as this, and in a month they produced another pair, then that pair reaches maturity in another month while the original pair produces another, and so on?”

  “I myself enjoy counting sheep, but only when I am stretched out on a pallet somewhere. Why on earth do you wonder about this?”

  “The sequence of numbers interests me.”

  “Ah. You’re a mathematician, then.”

  “Would that I were. No, merely a merchant’s son, plying his father’s trade. I came in on business from Bugia, but now that the business is completed, I await the changing of the winds to travel back across the sea. Having nothing better to do, I came out here to count invisible rabbits.”

  “A worthwhile hobby, and an inexpensive one as well. Tell me. Signore, what if the first pair produces a litter of three?”

  “Then the third doesn’t get to join the party. Who will it breed with?”

  “Poor little runt. Still, the problem with your conjecture is that the stock will weaken unless you breed them with some outsiders. Otherwise, your series of rabbits will peter out in the long run.”

  “You’re being far too practical for a fool.”

  I offered him my cap again. “Perhaps we should trade lives.”

  He sighed. “Sometimes I wish I could. It would make my life simpler. I’ve been thinking about writing a book of mathematics, but who would read it?” He hopped off the wall. “Are you heading into town?”

  “I am, and would be glad of your company. I seek an old colleague of mine.”

  “That would be the Great Frenetto?”

  “The very one indeed.”

  “I know where he lives. Come, good fool.”

  So, my ass having had his fill, we ambled amiably onwards, and soon the towers of the city rose before us. It had been several years since I last set foot there, and I was eager to see how it had changed. Since the routing of the Saracens from Sicily, the trade had poured in, and the town had grown fat and prosperous. They had been working on a baptistery and a campanile to join the cathedral. I inquired as to their progress.

  He gave me an amused look. “The baptistery is a fine building. All they need to finish is the dome. The campanile – well, I’ll tell you about it when we get there.”