household-did not raise his spirits all that much.
John soon returned, beckoning abruptly to Justin and Durand as he strode toward the stairwell. By the time they reached the solar abovestairs, he was pacing back and forth impatiently, a rolled parchment in his hand. “It seems,” he said, “that I’d have done better to keep you both here in Paris. For certes, it would have saved me a fair sum of money!”
“It is early in the day for riddles, my lord,” Durand said. “I assume yours has something to do with that letter you hold.”
“Indeed it does.” John brandished the parchment like a processional torch. “I’ve finally heard from the one man I’ve always been able to depend upon. The Breton got the last message I sent, thanks to Emma’s assistance. Not surprisingly, he took action straightaway, learning more in a fortnight than the two of you could in a twelve- month. And,” John said, triumphantly, “he has obtained what you two could not-proof that it is a forgery!”
CHAPTER 20
March 1194
PARIS, FRANCE
Petronilla’s great hall was a scene of superficial domestic tranquility. Most of the trestle tables had been taken down after supper. A fire burned in the central hearth. John was absent, having gone off soon after dusk to meet the Breton at the cemetery of the Holy Innocents. Petronilla and Claudine were listening to a harpist while chatting and doing the needlework that was the lot even of women of rank. Emma was reading. Her young knight Lionel was playing chess with a knight of Petronilla’s household. Rufus and Crispin were hunched over a game of queek, others occupied with merels, but most of the men in the hall were wagering on a raucous dicing game of raffle. Ursula was reclining in a cushioned window seat, idly petting the small lapdog that was a recent gift from John, apparently oblivious to the admiring male glances being cast her way. Morgan had disappeared after supper, but Justin and Durand were seated at a table, gazing gloomily into half-filled wine cups, looking as frustrated as they felt.
They were not in John’s favor at the moment, as he’d made abundantly clear by not taking them as part of his escort that evening. Now that he no longer needed their services in proving his innocence, he’d felt free to berate them for their failure to prove the letter was a forgery, complaining that he’d paid Lupescar “enough to ransom the Pope,” and had gotten little to show for it. While he’d exercised enough restraint not to blame them for Arzhela’s death, they knew he did. Anger was an easier emotion to deal with than grief, and the hunt for scapegoats was a favorite pastime of the highborn.
Justin should have been pleased with the turn of events, for if John could produce proof of the conspiracy, he ought to be free, then, to return to England. But as much as he yearned to see Aline, as much as he detested being yoked to Durand, and as much as he’d disliked taking orders from John, he felt oddly unsettled and dissatisfied with this outcome. He knew John would do all in his power to find and punish Arzhela’s killer. He’d hoped, though, to play a part in that reckoning. He owed it to Arzhela.
Pushing his chair back from the table, he encountered resistance. He’d befriended one of Petronilla’s pampered greyhounds and as he glanced down, he expected to see its sleek brindle body stretched out behind him. But it was Yann, curled up in a ball like a cat, sound asleep. Justin looked pensively at the boy, who’d been trailing after him all day as faithfully as his absent dog, Shadow. Shadow was motivated by affection, though, Yann by fear. The Breton orphan was the proverbial fish out of water, stranded on unforgiving Parisian shores.
After making sure that Yann was sleeping, Justin said quietly, “I would to God I’d thought to leave the lad with the Earl of Chester at St James. The Welsh do not do well when they are uprooted from their native soil. I fear that the same may be true for the Bretons.”
“Well, you can always wed the Lady Claudine and adopt the boy.” But Durand’s mockery was habitual, not heartfelt; he had too much on his mind to enjoy tormenting Justin. “No man could be as good as the Breton claims to be. I know the stories told about him-that he comes and goes like a phantom in the night, that few men have even seen his face, that he is as elusive as a fox and twice as sly. Mayhap he did find proof positive that the letter is forged, but I’ll need to see it with my own eyes ere I’ll believe it.”
“It sounds as if your nose is out of joint, Durand,” Justin said, mildly amused. “For all we know, he has blood-kin at the Breton court, spying on his behalf. If he were able to tunnel under the walls whilst we had to assault the outer bailey, that would give him a huge advantage.”
Durand grunted. “No one knows for sure if he is even a Breton.”
“If he’s not, that would play havoc with my theory,” Justin conceded. “He might well be the bastard spawn of a Granville pirate, for all we know.”
The corner of Durand’s mouth twitched in what was almost a smile. “I’ve never laid eyes upon the whoreson. That is a select brotherhood. John has met him. So has the queen. I am not sure if Richard has. Emma did, years ago with her brother, the old king, who knew him well, mayhap the only one who did. We can probably add the French king to the list and the Counts of Toulouse and Champagne and Flanders. Our master spy travels in rarefied circles, does not care to deal with underlings.”
“Underlings like us.” Justin took a swallow and made a face, wondering how long it would take his taste for wine to return. “We are still confronted with two crimes, the plot against John and Lady Arzhela’s murder. The Breton may have found out who is behind the forgery, but what of her killing?”
“I thought Simon settled that with his grand dive over the table at Fougeres. Damn, I wish I’d seen that!”
“Something about this still does not fit,” Justin insisted. “We assumed that Canon Robert is the killer because of Simon’s action. But why, then, did she say ‘Roparzh’ with her dying breath?”
Durand shrugged. “Mayhap she was no longer lucid. Mayhap she was back in time and Roparzh was the name of the squire who’d taken her maidenhead twenty-some years ago. Or a fond name for her second husband. Or her favorite dog.”
“No. I saw her eyes, you did not. She knew she was dying and she was trying very hard to tell me her killer’s identity. I am as sure of that as I’ve ever been of anything.”
Durand shrugged again. “So who is Roparzh? We’ve been over this again and again, de Quincy. We met no one at the Breton court with that name.”
Before Justin could respond, a small voice piped up behind his chair. “Yes, you did.”
They both swung about to stare down at Yann. “What do you mean, lad?”
Yann sat up, yawning. “I was half asleep, heard you talking…” His words trailed off, for he was becoming aware of their tension. “I was not eavesdropping on purpose!”
“That does not matter, Yann. You said we knew someone named Roparzh. Who?”
“That canon you were talking about,” Yann said warily, still not sure he wasn’t in trouble. “Robert and Roparzh… They are the same name.”
Durand let out his breath. “You are saying that Roparzh is Breton for Robert?”
Yann grinned, gaining enough confidence to add impishly, “No, Robert is French for Roparzh!”
There was a long silence as they took this in. “This still does not make sense,” Justin said slowly. “She was trying to tell me who her killer was. Why did she not say ‘Robert,’ then? Why the Breton form of his name? If she’d called him Robert, we’d have thought of the canon straightaway. Why Roparzh?”
“She was dying, de Quincy. She was Breton-born, so why would she not be thinking in Breton at the last?”
“I suppose it is possible,” Justin said, not convinced. “She was so intent upon telling me-what? If she used the name Roparzh, it must mean something.”
“Let me know if you figure it out.” Durand picked up his cup, saw that it was empty, and reached over to claim Justin’s. “I think I’ll stop torturing myself with riddles and go win some money at raffle.” But although he glanced across the hall toward the dice game, he did not move, no more able than Justin to let go.
Yann looked from one to the other, yearning to help. If only he’d not left the Lady alone. She’d paid with her life for his greed, for those few coins he’d filched from the sleeping poacher. “If the Lady called him Roparzh,” he ventured, “mayhap he was Breton.”
