The Bishop's Brood

by Simon Beaufort

  ‘When Turgot ordered Algar to investigate Gamelo’s death, you offered him advice,’ said Geoffrey, recalling Hemming lingering to speak to the anxious secretary. ‘You were not being kind to a man who had been given a task he did not know how to complete; you really wanted him to be successful.’

  ‘Does this mean you hired Brother Gamelo to follow us in Southampton?’ asked Roger, bewildered.

  ‘He was ordered to watch anyone who visited Flambard in prison,’ replied Hemming. ‘When Flambard escaped, he followed him to Southampton. He overheard the three Hospitallers plotting, and knew about the maps. He killed the youngest in the hope that he himself would be appointed as the third courier, but then you arrived.’

  ‘We witnessed the murder of Gilbert Courcy,’ said Roger coldly. ‘And Gamelo killed that witless lad – Peterkin – with his red-stained arrows.’

  ‘That was Gamelo’s attempt to make you refuse Flambard’s quest,’ said Hemming. ‘He assumed you would be reluctant to go north when men were dying with unusual arrows embedded in them.’

  But Gamelo had not anticipated Roger’s willingness to serve his father, thought Geoffrey. The scarlet bolts had warned them to be alert, but had not made Roger think twice about helping Flambard.

  ‘Gamelo was afraid of you,’ continued Hemming. ‘He said that coming with me to Jarveaux’s house to make sure Burchard did not run off with the missing map was the last thing he would do for me. Unfortunately, someone ensured that was true.’

  ‘But not you?’ asked Geoffrey.

  Hemming shook his head. ‘Obedient men are hard to come by. I would not have harmed Gamelo.’

  ‘Did you poison Jarveaux’s oysters?’

  Hemming raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that what happened to him? Well, do not blame me for that. I am no poisoner.’

  ‘But you strangle,’ said Geoffrey quietly. ‘You killed Xavier. And I know how and why.’

  ‘Do you indeed?’ asked Hemming harshly. ‘Well, I am not interested in your nasty speculations. Give me that parchment. If you refuse, you will be shot and I will take it from your corpse. It is your choice.’

  ‘You will kill us anyway,’ said Geoffrey, making no move to comply. ‘Why should we make matters easier for you?’

  ‘We do not need to slay them,’ said Burchard generously. ‘We can take them back to the abbey and let Flambard decide what to do. After all, it was his treasure they tried to steal.’

  ‘Now just a moment,’ objected Roger, addressing Burchard angrily. ‘We had an agreement. You are on our side, not his.’

  ‘Circumstances have changed,’ said Burchard archly. ‘And I am trying to save your skin, so you will keep quiet if you have any sense.’ He appealed to Hemming. ‘There is no need for bloodshed.’

  ‘Are you asking me to spare them?’ asked Hemming, amused. ‘You never fail to astonish me, Burchard. I thought you were just an insensitive oaf, and now I learn you are capable of compassion.’

  Burchard glared at him. ‘I cannot stand by and watch men slaughtered.’

  Hemming laughed. ‘You are deluded, my friend! Do you think we will shoot these men, then saunter back to the abbey together with Flambard’s pennies? We will not, because you will die with them.’

  ‘Me?’ exclaimed Burchard, appalled. ‘But we have known each other for years.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Hemming dryly.

  So, Roger had been right after all, thought Geoffrey, watching Burchard gape at Hemming. He had seen Hemming move towards Burchard with murderous intent at Jarveaux’s house. Hemming had lied when he said he was going to toss Burchard his knife to free his sleeve. And on reflection, Geoffrey saw he had been foolish to believe him. It had been dark. How could Hemming have seen Burchard’s sleeve? Hemming had devised his excuse later, when he saw the rip in Burchard’s habit.

  ‘But I do not understand!’ wailed Burchard. One of the archers raised his bow. ‘Wait! Perhaps we can come to some arrangement.’

  ‘I want nothing from you,’ said Hemming in disdain. ‘You Normans think you can buy anything with your filthy money. Well you cannot buy Saxon honour.’

  ‘Is that what this is about?’ asked Geoffrey. ‘Saxon honour?’

  ‘What else? The Normans marched into Durham, dissolved the ancient Church of St Cuthbert, and established their abbey in its place. We are the Haliwerfolc – Cuthbert’s chosen. What right do you have to displace us?’ Geoffrey’s heart sank when he saw the fanaticism in the man’s eyes. There was no reasoning with a zealot. ‘I have plans for this money, and they do not involve Normans. I intend to build a new shrine – a Saxon shrine – for Cuthbert on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.’

  ‘You plan to take him from Durham?’ asked Roger, aghast. ‘But he will not like it!’

  ‘He does not want to stay here,’ argued Hemming. ‘Why do you think the foundations of the cathedral keep cracking?’

  ‘Unstable bedrock?’ suggested Geoffrey.

  Hemming glared at him. ‘That is a typical Norman response! You mock our Saxon saints and their wishes. Well, not for much longer. I will take this list, and use it to raise money for a beautiful Saxon shrine. Now, if you do not hand it to me by the time I count to three, Roger dies. One … two …’

  Geoffrey moved his hand towards his scabbard. Two of the three archers had their bows trained on him, and he knew he would not be able to draw his weapon and rush them before they shot him down. Such an act would be futile in the extreme.

  ‘… three,’ said Hemming. ‘Your time is up.’

  ‘It has slipped,’ said Geoffrey, shaking the scabbard. ‘If you want it, I will have to draw my sword.’

  Hemming smiled. ‘Nice try. Put your hands in the air. One of my men will remove it.’

  Obediently, an archer stepped forward, slinging his bow over his shoulder, while the remaining two kept their weapons trained on Geoffrey, Roger and Burchard. When the man reached for the sword, Geoffrey stepped behind him, so he formed a human shield. As the man extracted the weapon, the parchment caught on the blade and fluttered to the ground. All eyes were fixed on it.

  Hemming shouted a warning to his archer at the same moment that Geoffrey dropped to one knee, reaching for the dagger that was tucked in his boot. He snatched it out and stabbed the man in one swift, decisive movement. Too late, the man tried to duck away, but his grimace of pain turned to shock when an arrow fired by one of his colleagues thudded into his back. Geoffrey hurled his dagger at the others. The throw went wide, but it was enough to make one drop his weapon in alarm.

  Roger acted quickly. Snatching up a handful of snow, he dashed it into Hemming’s face, then raced at the surviving archers with a roar that reverberated around the desolate countryside. Both were too shocked by the speed of the attack to do more than turn to face him before they were bowled over. One snatched up a sword as he scrambled to his feet. With a diabolical smile, Roger drew his own and prepared to make a swift end to him. Geoffrey headed for his colleague.

  ‘Please do not kill me!’ the archer shrieked before Geoffrey had done no more than take a few steps in his direction.

  ‘Do not blubber, John,’ howled Hemming, rubbing the snow from his eyes. ‘Fight him!’

  ‘But I do not have a sword,’ wailed John in terror.

  ‘Shoot him, then,’ yelled Hemming in furious desperation. ‘Call yourself a Saxon? Use your—’

  His words stopped abruptly as Burchard swung a hefty punch that connected with his chin and sent him reeling back on to the stump of the beech tree. Trusting the bursar to cope with Hemming, Geoffrey turned his attention to the frightened archer.

  John, however, had taken the opportunity afforded by the distraction to grab a sword. An innate sense of preservation warned Geoffrey to duck, and the blow sailed clean over his head.

  ‘Oh, no!’ muttered John, seeing it would have been better had he just surrendered. The look in Geoffrey’s eye told him his wild swing had not earned him any favours.

  ‘Who are you?’ Geoffrey a
sked, holding his own sword loosely in both hands. To anyone who did not know him, he appeared unready for an attack. ‘Are you a monk?’

  ‘A soldier from the castle. Brother Gamelo hired us.’

  John misread Geoffrey’s relaxed posture and lunged. Geoffrey parried the blow easily, sending him staggering back. John, it seemed, was better with a bow than a sword.

  ‘You will die if you continue to fight,’ warned Geoffrey. ‘So, surrender.’

  ‘If I disarm, you will kill me for certain,’ said John, licking dry lips. ‘And anyway, Hemming told me I am too deeply involved now. The only way to escape will be if you all die. That is what he said.’

  ‘He is preying on your fears,’ said Geoffrey, side-stepping as John made another clumsy swipe and giving him a deft kick so he stumbled to his knees. Geoffrey could have killed him then, as he knelt on the ground, but he did not. ‘What have you done that is so terrible?’

  ‘Murder,’ said John unsteadily, scrambling to his feet and turning to face Geoffrey. ‘An old man.’

  ‘Stanstede?’ asked Geoffrey. ‘You shot him, did you?’

  John nodded, his face white and strained. ‘Hemming should have let us kill you while we had you in our sights, and there would have been none of this messing around. The Littel brothers said we should not underestimate you. I told Hemming so, but he would not listen. He says all Crusaders are stupid, bloodlusting louts.’

  ‘For the most part, he is right,’ said Geoffrey. More facts clicked into place in his mind, now that he knew some of Gamelo’s men came from the castle. ‘Hemming came to Finchale a few days ago, did he not? He met Durnais here, but the sheriff and his servant both died from putting their hands inside the tree, and Hemming was left not knowing what to do.’

  ‘A week ago,’ acknowledged John, wiping sweat from his eyes. ‘He paid me five shillings to find out where Durnais had gone. Pike’s mother told me they had come here. They had been digging for buried treasure. You cannot see it now, with all the snow, but they made a terrible mess.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Hemming had copied two maps owned by Turgot, and worked out that the treasure was in the tree. Durnais said we could all share it, but I do not think Hemming was interested in sharing. Durnais was not quite sane from his digging, and was ready to believe anything. We stood around the tree, and I told Pike that there might be a snake in it, but he was mazed, too. He shoved his hand in the trunk and screamed when something bit him. Durnais pushed him out of the way, so he could try himself. He was more careful, but the snake had him, anyway.’

  ‘And they both died.’

  ‘Not immediately, but in hours. Durnais blundered off, and we found him drowned in the river. Hemming ordered me to look inside the tree, but I refused.’

  ‘Very wise,’ said Geoffrey. ‘And since no one dared investigate further, you all decided to go home and try again later. As you reached the main road, thinking it would be empty so near dusk, you met others using it – Stanstede and his companions.’

  John nodded again. ‘He saw us. The women and the grooms were too engrossed in their singing to look into bushes at the side of the road. But Stanstede was not, and he saw us …’

  ‘So you shot him,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Because he recognized you.’

  John’s hands were unsteady and his face was white. ‘It was only a matter of time before Durnais was found, then Stanstede would have remembered who he had seen: he would have told everyone I had done it.’

  ‘Did you kill the Knight Hospitaller and his squire, too?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘They came after us, and the knight recognized Hemming from the abbey. He said he had been to Chester-le-Street looking for Durnais, whom he believed was going to steal the treasure. Hemming hit him on the head with a stone. I shot the squire when he tried to run for help.’

  ‘But Xavier was wearing a helmet,’ said Geoffrey, recalling the dent in the man’s bassinet. ‘And the blow only stunned him.’

  ‘Hemming strangled him as he lay on the ground,’ John whispered. ‘Then he ordered us to shoot the body, so it would look like outlaws had killed him, but we refused. He did it himself, but he had never fired an arrow before, and his shot was weak.’

  And that explained why the arrow had barely penetrated Xavier’s armour, Geoffrey thought. An experienced archer would have driven the shaft deep into the knight’s chest, but Hemming’s feeble attempts to master archery under pressure had resulted in the superficial wound that had alerted Geoffrey to the odd nature of Xavier’s death in the first place.

  ‘Geoffrey,’ called Burchard. ‘Stop dancing around with that Saxon peasant and come here.’

  ‘Put down your weapon,’ said Geoffrey to John, ignoring Burchard’s peremptory command. ‘I have had enough of this, and I do not want to kill you.’

  John declined, so Geoffrey charged at him and sent the weapon skittering from his hand. Then he grabbed his arm and hauled him over to where Roger had made short work of his opponent, and hovered near the bursar.

  ‘I have just heard Hemming’s last confession,’ said Burchard, glancing around at him. ‘He fell on the poisoned barbs when we were fighting, and will die like the sheriff.’

  Hemming was indeed dying. He lay on his back while the poison coursed through his veins, gradually depriving him of his senses. First he complained he could not feel his legs, then he lost all sensation in his hands, and gradually breathing became difficult. He said he could no longer see, and his mind began to wander between recent happenings and events from years ago. His ramblings became increasingly incoherent as time passed, although some of his mumbling confirmed John’s story. Geoffrey and Roger moved away, so they could talk without being overheard by Burchard.

  ‘What a waste,’ Roger said to Geoffrey in disgust, as the sounds of Hemming’s laboured breathing filled the clearing. ‘The hoard was worthless, but it caused so many deaths. I cannot say I will grieve for the likes of Hemming and Weasel, but they should have died for treasure worth having.’

  ‘As Hemming said, the real value of Flambard’s “treasure” lies in the information contained in this document,’ said Geoffrey, staring at the parchment in his hand. ‘There is a fortune to be made in extortion money, and Flambard knew Turgot, Burchard and Hemming were the kind of men to know how to reel it in.’

  ‘But they were on the blackmail list, too,’ said Roger, bemused. ‘They would have been victims, just as much as the apothecary or Stanstede.’

  Geoffrey rubbed his head, wondering whether it was his question about Hemming’s liking for cock fights that had forced him to act. Perhaps if he had not been mentioned on Flambard’s list, the sub-prior would have allowed them to go home, to tell Turgot that Flambard’s treasure comprised clipped pennies and a scroll to blackmail local dignitaries. And then Hemming would still be alive and so would two of his men.

  ‘So, who are the villains in this?’ asked Roger tiredly. ‘I am confused.’

  So was Geoffrey, and it was good to go through what had happened, to clarify matters in his own mind. ‘Jarveaux’s map was delivered first, by Xavier. Instead of immediately visiting sheriff and prior, Jarveaux kept it in his house. I think Burchard was right: he was going to wait until he had seen and noted the information given to the others and then go to Finchale alone.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘He had ordered horses for the day Eleanor and I went to visit Alice,’ said Geoffrey. ‘She was angry because the groom forced her to pay, even though they were not going to be used.’

  ‘But Jarveaux was dead by then. How could he have used horses if he were dead?’

  ‘Because he expected to be alive – and to be in a position to look for the treasure himself.’

  Roger sighed. ‘All right. So much for Jarveaux. The second man to get his map was Durnais, delivered by Odard.’

  Geoffrey nodded. ‘Flambard chose his messengers well. You, Xavier and Odard all did exactly what you were instructed to do, and none of you
tried to look for the treasure yourselves.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Roger. ‘We are all honest men. It is a pity the recipients were not of like mind.’

  ‘But Odard was not as trusting as Xavier. He suspected Durnais would look for the treasure – we know Durnais took bribes for the legal cases he heard, so Odard probably knew he was not an honest man. He decided to set up a test. He forged a map and waited to see what would happen. Durnais left at first light, according to Ida the Witch, while Odard was still sleeping. He probably did not anticipate the sheriff would snatch the opportunity quite so quickly.’

  ‘So, why did Xavier go to Chester-le-Street when Odard’s false map sent Durnais to Finchale?’

  ‘Because Xavier and Odard travelled separately to Durham and did not meet once they arrived. Both knew what they were doing was dangerous, and neither loitered in the city once they had fulfilled their missions. Xavier would not have known that Odard had sent Durnais on a wild goose chase to Finchale, and would have listened to the story originating with the sheriff himself: that he had gone to Chester-le-Street.’

  ‘Meanwhile, Durnais and Pike stayed here for a week, digging and driving themselves insane with dreams of gold.’ Roger seemed oblivious to the fact that he also liked such visions.

  ‘Durnais must have been desperate, thinking he would never find it. When Hemming arrived with the other two maps, he willingly agreed to share, and together they established that Flambard had hidden his hoard in the beech tree. Pike died first, and Durnais next, believing they had been bitten by snakes. Hemming lost heart, and returned to the Durham road with his men. There they encountered Stanstede and Xavier.’

  ‘Knowing Xavier would later connect Durnais’ corpse with Hemming’s appearance nearby, Hemming killed him. What are you going to do with that?’ Roger pointed to the scroll Geoffrey still held.

  ‘I do not think the prior should have it,’ said Geoffrey. ‘We do not want to be held responsible for half the county being blackmailed by the abbey. We should destroy it.’