The Bishop's Brood

by Simon Beaufort

  ‘Oh, Geoffrey!’ cried Eleanor, her face dissolving to a heart-wrenching hurt. ‘I believed you when you said you had nothing to do with this. You lied to me!’

  ‘No!’ said Geoffrey, dismayed to think she should doubt his word. ‘We did not burgle Alice’s house last night, and that is the truth.’

  ‘Will you swear you had nothing to do with it?’ pressed Eleanor, her face pale. ‘Will you take a sacred oath that you have not stooped so low as to attack the home of a vulnerable widow?’

  ‘She is not vulnerable,’ said Roger, casting Alice a wary glance. ‘And why are you taking her side against us, Ellie? You know what we are up against here.’

  ‘What does he mean?’ demanded Alice immediately.

  ‘Nothing that warrants him behaving like a common criminal,’ said Eleanor. She stood facing Geoffrey, hands on hips. ‘Roger has always been easily led, so you must have persuaded him to indulge in thievery. You are a wicked man, who has led my sweet brother into evil ways!’

  If it had not been Eleanor making the accusation, Geoffrey might have found the situation amusing. It was grossly unfair that he should be blamed, especially given that it was invariably him who urged moderation on Roger, not the other way around. Geoffrey was not the one whose saddlebags were full of other people’s property.

  ‘It is not funny!’ Eleanor snapped, scowling at Roger when he showed less self-control and started to grin. ‘You think you are on some boyish adventure – like the Crusade – and you do not care who you hurt while you have your fun.’

  ‘I told you it was them,’ said Alice spitefully.

  Eleanor went to Alice and took her hands. ‘I was wrong, and for that I apologize from the bottom of my heart. I will never believe a word these two tell me again.’ She turned on Geoffrey and Roger, her eyes as hard as steel. ‘I want you to give it back right now.’

  ‘Give what back?’ asked Geoffrey, determined that if they were to part with the map, he would force Alice to admit that she knew exactly what it was, and so prove to Eleanor that her role in the affair was far from innocent.

  ‘You know,’ replied Alice coldly. ‘If you do not give it to me, I shall tell the under-sheriff what you have done, and he will arrest you for larceny.’

  ‘Tell us what you want, and we will see whether we have it,’ said Roger, thus intimating that they had in fact burgled her house – a slip that was not lost on Alice, who turned to Eleanor in fury.

  ‘You see? It is obvious they are guilty, yet they still try to deceive us. If they do not return it by the time I reach the door, I will go to Cenred, and then they will not think this is such a lark.’

  She began to storm out of the solar, although Geoffrey thought she did not walk as quickly as she might have done had she seriously been considering a visit to the castle. Eleanor turned to Roger and took his big red hands in her slender white ones.

  ‘Give Alice her things, Roger,’ she pleaded. ‘I do not want this to bring my home into ill repute.’

  ‘But you run a brothel,’ Geoffrey pointed out before he could stop himself. He closed his eyes, horrified. He was not usually given to making offensive remarks to women he wanted to impress.

  ‘Ignore him, Roger,’ said Eleanor, giving Geoffrey a look of disgust. Yet again, he realized that Eleanor was becoming a lot more dear to him than was wise, although the events of the morning were hardly serving to make the feeling mutual.

  ‘Yes, ignore him, Roger,’ said Alice, still inching towards the door. ‘You are no evil, grasping Norman, but an honourable man with Saxon blood. If Eleanor had any sense, she would eject Geoffrey from her home and let him stay with those vile louts at the castle, if they will sink so low as to admit him into their fold.’

  ‘I might,’ said Eleanor. She cast Geoffrey another glance full of hostility and then turned her attention to Roger. ‘Give Alice back her jewellery.’

  ‘Her what?’ asked Roger, bemused. ‘What jewellery?’

  Alice abandoned her ultimatum. ‘Do not play the innocent with me. You know what was stolen.’

  ‘But I do not,’ said Roger, and his bewilderment was sufficiently genuine that Geoffrey saw Eleanor having second thoughts.

  Alice, however, was unconvinced. ‘Then I shall list the missing items for your benefit. I want my rings, including the one I wore on my wedding day; I want the silver necklaces that belonged to my mother; and I want the ruby pendant my husband gave me last year. You can keep the silver bangle. If you are so desperate for money, I will not deny you that.’

  ‘Jewellery was stolen?’ asked Roger, astonished. ‘But why would he steal jewellery?’

  Geoffrey’s mind was working more quickly than Roger’s. Was that why Burchard had been so long inside Alice’s house? Because he was not only looking for the map, but taking advantage of an opportunity to swell the abbey’s coffers with a little unexpected plunder? Or was he planning to keep it for himself? It explained why he was slow to look for the map after he had dropped it – he was probably checking first that he had not lost any of Alice’s baubles.

  ‘Please, Roger,’ said Alice, standing next to the big knight and trying a different approach. Her blue eyes softened, and her face took on an angelic quality that Geoffrey saw through, but that had Roger scratching his head and shuffling in agitation. ‘These things are not worth much, but they are all I have to remember my mother and my husband. I do not want to lose them.’

  Geoffrey did not think her memories of Walter Jarveaux were especially fond, but it was a clever tactic to use on the soft-hearted Roger.

  ‘But we do not have them,’ said Roger, dismayed. ‘Really, we do not. Burchard must have them.’

  ‘Burchard?’ asked Alice, startled.

  ‘I think you had better tell us the truth,’ said Eleanor, leading her brother to sit next to her by the fire. ‘No, do not look at Geoffrey to tell you what to do. Speak for yourself.’

  Roger opened his mouth to confess all, despite Geoffrey’s instructions that he was to say nothing. Geoffrey knew he had to prevent him from revealing to Alice that they planned a foray to Finchale that day, but did not know how. Desperately, he floundered around for a solution. The mild headache that had started with Alice’s screeching became worse from the tension, and he raised his hand to rub it.

  ‘Lord! My head hurts,’ he muttered.

  And then a solution came to him. Alice, Eleanor, and Roger glanced up just in time to see him collapse on to the floor.

  ‘Geoffrey, speak to me!’ cried Roger, distraught and tugging at his friend’s surcoat to try to shake him awake. ‘What is wrong with him, Ellie? I do not understand what is wrong!’

  ‘Calm down,’ said Eleanor sharply. ‘Panicking will do no good, so pull yourself together. Alice can stay with him while you fetch the physician; I will bring water to bathe his head.’

  ‘He is dying!’ whispered Roger in a choked voice. ‘That snow killed him.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Alice brusquely. ‘He will be perfectly all right in a few moments. Summon the physician, if you want to help him.’

  ‘No!’ yelled Roger, clutching Geoffrey protectively. ‘You fetch the physician.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Alice reluctantly. ‘But we should loosen his clothes first. Let me do it. I know how these things are done.’

  ‘You can search him for your jewellery later,’ said Eleanor in a cold voice, as Alice’s expert hands began to feel around the inside of Geoffrey’s surcoat. ‘He is hardly in a position to abscond with it now, and it is not honourable to take advantage of him when he is insensible.’

  Alice sighed. ‘He is a common thief. As far as I am concerned, he no longer merits the kind of treatment we would afford honest men.’

  ‘He is not a thief,’ shouted Roger, tugging at the buckles on Geoffrey’s surcoat. ‘See? There is no jewellery. If you knew him at all, you would know he is not interested in riches anyway. If you had claimed a book had gone missing, then I might have my suspicions, but he has never been fond
of gold or precious stones.’

  ‘All right,’ said Alice frostily, apparently satisfied that her jewels were not on Geoffrey’s person. ‘I will go for the physician, but I am coming back. Just because he does not have my belongings with him does not mean that he has not stolen them. He has hidden them somewhere.’

  She stood and Eleanor followed her out. Their voices faded away as they clattered down the stairs, so Geoffrey opened his eyes and sat up.

  ‘That was close,’ he said. ‘You were about to tell them everything we know, and I specifically told you to keep quiet.’

  Roger gaped at him. ‘I thought you were a dead man!’

  ‘So I might have been had you told Alice we have the third map and can pinpoint where the treasure is hidden,’ said Geoffrey, climbing to his feet and going to look out of the window to make sure she had left. ‘What were you thinking of? Have you no sense at all?’

  ‘You are alive!’ cried Roger. ‘I thought the time you spent in the snow must have done something dreadful, then Alice saw that bruise …’

  ‘That was dirt. And it would take more than a few moments in the snow to do me serious damage. But you were about to do something that might have proved dangerous for Eleanor, and I could think of no other way to stop you.’

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ said Roger slowly. ‘All that fainting was just to create a diversion, so I would not tell Alice about the treasure?’

  Geoffrey grinned. ‘It worked rather well, did it not? It was Alice herself who gave me the idea. She swooned in the marketplace when the situation became uncomfortable, thus extricating herself from an awkward position and buying time to think of answers to my questions.’

  ‘Her swooning was an act, too?’ asked Roger wearily. ‘It was the talk of the city yesterday, and everyone assumed she had fainted from grief.’

  Geoffrey gave a wry smile. ‘Hardly! But I have seen a number of women swoon when it suits them, and I have always wanted to try it myself. I will have to remember it for future use.’

  Roger put his head in his hands. ‘Then please tell me in advance next time, lad. I thought you were done for. Remember Richard de Blunville, who received a head wound during the fall of Antioch? We all thought he would recover when he regained his senses the following day, but he dropped down dead within a few hours.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Geoffrey soberly. He had liked Richard de Blunville. ‘I am sorry if I alarmed you, but something had to be done. We do not know Alice’s involvement – perhaps she is innocent, but the odds are against it.’

  ‘I am sick of this gold!’ declared Roger, suddenly vehement. ‘You were right about it from the start: it is evil, and evil people want it. I am inclined to grab our horses and ride away from here right now. I am tired of all these deceptions and accusations. Even you are doing it – pretending to be ill so that things happen the way you want them to.’

  They sat in silence for a while, each wrapped in his own thoughts.

  ‘Do you believe her?’ asked Geoffrey eventually. ‘Do you think someone stole jewellery from her house last night? Or do you think what she really missed was the map?’

  ‘Lord knows!’ sighed Roger. ‘What a mess! The bursar might be a crafty, lying fellow, but he is still a monk, and monks do not usually steal.’

  ‘I think the salient word there is “usually”. I would not put a little opportunistic fortune-raising past that man.’

  ‘Nor would I, I suppose,’ said Roger wearily. ‘After all, the man does read, so who knows to what depths the Devil might lead him to stoop?’

  ‘The question is: what do we do now? You told Alice it was Burchard who broke into her house, and she is the kind of woman to storm up to him, accuse him of theft, and demand her treasure back. Burchard will deny everything, and we both know Alice will not go meekly back to her house and accept her loss.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Roger. ‘It does not matter whether she wants this jewellery or the map; she will not rest in peace until she has it.’

  ‘I cannot decide whether she is party to Flambard’s plan or not,’ said Geoffrey. He rubbed his head. ‘She was Jarveaux’s wife, and he may well have confided in her.’

  ‘Here comes Ellie,’ said Roger, as footsteps sounded on the stairs. ‘Lie down and try to look poorly, or she will suspect she has been hoodwinked – and then you will be a dead man for certain.’

  Geoffrey was startled to hear from the physician that he had narrowly evaded death, and that he should avoid eating meat for a month so excessive blood should not build up, cause a superfluity of choler, and bring about a relapse. Eleanor fussed about him, bringing cushions and goblets of watered wine, so he wondered whether she repented her accusations, and did perhaps harbour a small liking for him. Nevertheless, it was not pleasant to be the centre of such attention by means of a deception, and he began to feel uncomfortably guilty.

  Alice did not care whether he lived or died. She stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips, and demanded to search his belongings. Eventually, Eleanor eased her out of the house, although she was reluctant to go, then sat grim-faced while she listened to Roger’s account of the previous night’s escapade. Whether she genuinely believed his many protestations that they knew nothing about any jewellery, Geoffrey could not tell, although neither knight had the courage to admit that Geoffrey had pretended to faint to prevent Roger from speaking earlier.

  ‘Right,’ he said, when Eleanor finally left him to rest, ostensibly watched over by Roger. ‘We should go to Finchale while the weather holds. The more I think about it, the more I like your notion of presenting Turgot with the treasure and not merely the map.’

  ‘I know I would rather have a chest of gold than a bit of parchment,’ said Roger with conviction.

  ‘I am sure you would. But, as more of this plot unfolds, I find myself questioning the prior’s role in it. Perhaps he is what he seems – an ambitious and competent man building what will be a powerful Benedictine foundation – but perhaps he is not. So, let’s go.’ Geoffrey buckled his surcoat. ‘The day is wearing on.’

  ‘It is too late,’ said Roger, glancing out of the window. ‘We do not want to be at Finchale when night falls. We wasted too much time with that physician.’

  ‘And whose fault was that?’ demanded Geoffrey archly. ‘But I am not staying here all day: there is too much to do and too many questions remain unanswered. And, more importantly, we cannot be certain no one saw you collect Burchard’s map from the snow.’

  ‘I do not think anyone saw me,’ said Roger, although he sounded less certain than he had done.

  ‘What about Mother Petra?’ asked Geoffrey. ‘Supposing she did?’

  Roger sighed. ‘I did not look at the house. I only watched to see what the monks and Weasel were doing.’

  ‘I want to know who Weasel is working for,’ determined Geoffrey. ‘And why Flambard gave his maps to Turgot, Durnais, and Jarveaux, of all people. None of them strike me as honest, especially Durnais, who is probably digging up half of the county, even as we speak.’

  ‘But we know why he chose three men. It was so they would be forced to collaborate to get the treasure, and therefore not be able to steal it for themselves.’

  ‘I can understand one being Turgot – he is overseeing the work on the cathedral, and will probably see that most of the hoard goes towards its construction – but why the other two? Why the goldsmith and the sheriff?’

  ‘Because they represent civil authority and merchants?’ suggested Roger with a shrug. ‘Those are the most powerful agencies in the land – Church, State, and Commerce.’

  ‘All very neat, but why bother with State and Commerce at all? Why not use three monks?’

  ‘Perhaps there were not three he could trust.’

  ‘It is a large abbey, with perhaps a hundred monastics and as many laymen. It is a poor state of affairs if there are not three among them who can be trusted to see their cathedral built.’

  ‘You know what monks are like,’ sa
id Roger. ‘Would you trust them with your Holy Land loot? Or in your case, your Holy Land books?’

  Geoffrey considered. He would certainly not trust Burchard, and from what he had seen the previous night, he could not trust Hemming, either. But Eilaf seemed an honest man – certainly honest enough to pass a piece of parchment to a prior without demanding something for himself. He rubbed his head, more convinced than ever that there was something oddly sinister about Flambard’s plan.

  ‘I would like to know how the second map came to be under your brother’s table, and I would like to know exactly where Durnais is.’

  ‘If you are right, and Odard gave him a false map to test his honesty, he could be anywhere.’

  ‘Except Chester-le-Street,’ said Geoffrey. ‘We know he is not there. When the weather clears, we can search for him in some of the more remote and inaccessible areas. Odard will not have sent him to a village or a town, where other folk would learn what he was doing and start their own treasure hunts.’

  ‘Here,’ said Roger, as a thought occurred to him. ‘Three men were supposed to get these maps, right? Of these, Jarveaux is dead and Durnais is missing. Ergo, the prior must have killed them, because he is the only one left.’

  He looked pleased with himself, and Geoffrey did not have the heart to tell him that he had already considered that possibility and discounted it.

  ‘I do not think Turgot would have poisoned Jarveaux without first learning where the last map was.’

  ‘Perhaps Durnais fed him toxic oysters, then,’ said Roger. ‘We have assumed he is digging up the county with a false map, but he might be hiding somewhere, biding his time.’

  ‘He may be biding his time,’ agreed Geoffrey. ‘But I do not see why he should feel the need to go into hiding to do it. But we need to do something, not stay cooped up here while time passes by.’