01 - Murder in the Holy City by Simon Beaufort

lands under your jurisdiction. How do you explain that away? Be careful how you answer: the Advocate does not like liars.”
    The Prior looked sharply at Geoffrey, and some of the haughtiness went out of his manner. Although the Prior came under the protection of the Patriarch, there was no point in making an enemy of the Advocate. And, the Prior decided, there was something more to Sir Geoffrey Mappestone than to most of the unruly, illiterate bullies at the citadel.
    “I found the dead knight three days before Jocelyn died,” he replied. “I often walk the grounds here early in the morning—they are cool and silent, and I like to reflect on the pleasures of God’s paradise in Heaven.”
    More like the pleasures of God’s paradise on Earth, thought Geoffrey, noting the Prior’s handsome collection of rings and his fine robe of thin silk.
    “And what did you find, as you so reflected?”
    “I saw a man lying under one of the trees behind the Dome. I thought he was yet another of your number sleeping off a night of debauchery, but then I saw there was a knife in his back. I called for help, but there was nothing we could do. The man was quite dead. The Advocate’s soldiers came with a cart and took him away.”
    “And the knife?”
    “They took that too. It was a great ugly thing with a wicked curved blade and ostentatious jewels in the handle. I asked my monks if they had heard or seen anything during the night, but none of them had. I have no idea how the knight—Sir Guido—came to be killed here or why.”
    “Had you seen him before?”
    The Prior hesitated. “No.”
    “If you do not want to tell me the truth here, we can always discuss it at the citadel,” said Geoffrey, keeping his face devoid of expression. He had no authority to threaten one of the Patriarch’s priests with arrest, but it seemed the Prior did not know that. The man paled, glanced at Roger, and flicked his tongue nervously over dry lips.
    “I am not certain you understand,” he said, putting a beringed hand to his breast, “but I think he came here on occasion to walk. The Dome is very fine, and the courtyard and gardens here are most pleasant in which to stroll.”
    “And how many times did he come?”
    The Prior gave him an unpleasant look. “Recently, two or three times a week.”
    “Did he meet anyone here. Did you ever see anyone with him?”
    The Prior shook his head. “Never. He was always alone. He looked … bereaved.”
    Guido
had
been bereaved. Geoffrey, being one of a mere handful of knights who were literate, had read a letter to Guido two months before telling him his wife had died after a long illness. So, if the Prior was telling the truth, which Geoffrey thought he probably was, Guido came to the peace of the Dome of the Rock to mourn, away from the raucous atmosphere of the citadel.
    “Do many knights come here?”
    The Prior shook his head. “Not really. Perhaps they feel it is still too mosquelike to be a church.”
    In view of Roger’s words moments before, Geoffrey imagined that must be true, although attending any church—mosquelike or otherwise—was not a high priority on the entertainment lists of most knights.
    “It is a pity it is underused,” he said, looking up at the delicate latticework around the gallery. “It is a very fine building. Peaceful, too.”
    The Prior softened somewhat. “It is peaceful. Much more so than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. That is said to be the holiest place in Christendom, but it has the atmosphere of a marketplace.”
    Geoffrey had to agree. They spoke a while longer and took their leave, stepping out from the cool of marble into the blazing heat of midday that hit them like a hammer. The light reflected from the white paving stones around the Dome and almost blinded them. Eyes screwed up against the glare, they walked back the way they had come and headed for the market near St. Stephen’s Street, where Brother Pius had died in the house of a