held three. To the men, it looked as if half of Paris was ailing. Splitting up, they began walking along those crowded aisles, but they searched in vain for a patient with blue eyes, golden beard and hair, and bloody hands.
They did not give up, though, primarily because they had no other viable leads, and from the Hotel-Dieu, they returned to the Right Bank and visited the Hopital des Pauvres de Sainte Opportune, and the Hopital de la Trinite. Justin even girded himself to check the leper hospital of Saint-Lazare north of the city gates; Durand balked and waited outside the wattle-and-daub fence. After that, they ran out of hospitals.
Upon their return to Petronilla’s, they found John in a foul mood, Morgan still unconscious, and Garnier’s men in need of sobering up, for Paris seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of taverns to search. The weather had turned on them, too, and a cold, sleeting rain poured from lead-colored clouds, a last gasp of winter that plunged their spirits even lower. But as they shivered around the hearth in John’s bedchamber, they received aid from an utterly unexpected and unlikely source.
They’d been relating the day’s futile hunt to John, doing their best to shrug off his sarcastic asides, when his beautiful bedmate drifted over to complain of their presence. Neither Justin nor Durand was surprised, for they’d been around Ursula long enough to realize that nothing ever pierced her cocoon of self-absorption. She displayed so little interest in the rest of the world that they’d sometimes wondered why John put up with her; they could only conclude that in bed she must set the sheets on fire.
John brushed off her objections with the unconcern born of long practice. “If you need a task to occupy yourself, Ursula, you can fetch us wine from the table over there.” Glancing back at the men, he said, “I understand why you think de Lusignan may have been wounded. Why are you so sure, though, that he did not sicken and die on the road to Paris?”
“Every time we stopped to water the horses, to eat, or to pass the night, we asked about a flaxen-haired stranger riding through in a tearing hurry. Twice we found people who remembered Simon. But we found no one who’d nursed him and no one who’d buried him.”
“Your wine, my lord,” Ursula said sulkily. When she returned with wine for the other men, she made no attempt to hide her resentment, shoving the cups at them with such calculated carelessness that liquid slopped over the rims and would have splashed their clothes had they not anticipated her bad behavior.
“Thank you, darling,” Durand said, smiling at Ursula with poisonous politeness, and she looked sorry she’d not overturned the cup in his lap. The men returned to their discussion of Simon de Lusignan’s whereabouts, and John paid Justin a barbed compliment, saying his idea had been a good one, if only it had worked. It was then that Ursula made her contribution to the conversation.
“If I were hurting,” she said, “I’d not wait till I reached Paris. If I were sick enough to need a doctor’s care, I’d find one as soon as my pain worsened, even if it meant veering off the main road. And if I thought I was being chased, I’d be all the more likely to seek a safe burrow to lick my wounds.”
They all turned to stare at her, surprised both by the sense of her statement and the realization that she paid more heed to her surroundings-and their conversations-than they’d thought. After a moment to reflect, though, Justin shook his head doubtfully. “We know he did not seek help on the Paris road. And how many hospitals would he be likely to find out in the countryside? Other than the lazar houses, they are always located in towns.”
John sat upright in his chair, his eyes gleaming in the lamplight. “I can think of one,” he said.
For more than six centuries, the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres had reigned over the open country south of Paris. Within twenty years, it would be absorbed by the encroaching city suburbs. But on this March morning, the abbey rose above the meadows in isolated, fortified splendor, a citadel of God keeping the world at bay with the walled, moated defenses of a secular stronghold.
The church was surrounded by the abbey buildings: two cloisters, the refectory and dormitory, the abbot’s lodgings, the kitchen, the barns and stables, the gaol, a chapel devoted to the Virgin Mary, and a large, well- equipped infirmary. Although not as spacious as the salle at Hotel-Dieu, it was still a good-sized hall, with both an infirmarian and a physician in residence to treat ailing monks, pilgrims, and travelers. After Durand concocted a plausible story, they were allowed to enter in search of a missing cousin.
In the middle of the hall, people were clustered around a frail, gaunt figure lying on the bare floor. He was clothed in sackcloth, and ashes had been sprinkled over his emaciated body. At first, Justin thought he was looking at a corpse, but then he saw the feeble rise and fall of the man’s chest, and realized they were witnessing the last hours of an aged brother of the Benedictine order. Such dramatic deathbed abasement was seen as atonement for past sins of pride and arrogance, although Justin wondered how many opportunities an elderly monk could have had for prideful fits of temper.
About a dozen beds were occupied by patients, several of them shielded by screens. It was in one of the latter that they found Simon de Lusignan, sleeping peacefully and so soundly that he had to be shaken awake. They were tense, anticipating resistance, but he merely gazed up at them, his face impassive, his thoughts masked.
“Are you going to come with us quietly?” Durand asked, low-voiced. “Or will I have the pleasure of dragging you behind my horse?”
“Still holding a grudge for that kick in the ballocks, are you?” With an effort, Simon propped himself up on his elbows, and as the blanket slipped, they saw the Breton’s handiwork: his ribs were tightly bandaged. “Where are we going?”
“I think you can guess. Where are your clothes?”
Simon pointed to a nearby coffer, and when Justin tossed his clothes onto the bed, he struggled to pull his shirt over his head, wincing but offering no protests. “You’re being very cooperative,” Justin said suspiciously, and he smiled tightly.
“I hear that all the time.” By now he’d gotten his tunic on, although the exertion had obviously taken its toll. “I’ll need help with my boots,” he said, and Justin reached for them with a sigh, knowing Durand would let him walk barefoot back to Paris before lending a hand. Once Simon was on his feet, he looked from one to the other. “I do not suppose you’ll believe this, but I was planning to seek your lord out as soon as I was on the mend.”
Justin did not care to hear John described as his “lord,” and he felt a sudden nostalgic pang for those bygone days when he could identify himself as “the queen’s man” and take pride in it. He knew nothing was likely to be so simple or straightforward once King Richard was free and back in England. For better or for worse, it would be a different world.
Their arrival with Simon de Lusignan created a gratifying commotion, and Justin and Durand were both amused when Claudine strode over and slapped her abductor across the face. Justin was not so amused, though, when Simon gallantly kissed the hand that had struck him, vowing that he’d never have harmed one so beautiful. There was good news about Morgan; he’d awakened briefly and seemed lucid before falling asleep again. But John showed none of the jubilation they’d expected, tersely instructing them to join him abovestairs in the solar. Simon was exhausted after the ride back to the city. He knew better than to object, however, and did as he was bidden. The sangfroid he’d shown at the abbey infirmary was beginning to thaw and he was regarding John with the wariness of a small prey animal in the presence of a much larger predator.
Emma accompanied them, taking it as her just due, and when John did not object, so did Claudine. Simon asked meekly if he could sit down. Hotheaded or not, he had clearly taken John’s measure. The queen’s son gestured abruptly toward a stool, but chose not to sit himself, pacing back and forth with such smoldering, restless energy that he unsettled them all.
“I’ve seen corpses with better color,” John said, studying Simon with a noticeable lack of sympathy. “So de Quincy was right, then, and you had a close encounter with the Breton’s ever-handy dagger.”
Simon blinked. “You know about the Breton?” His head swiveled toward Justin and Durand. “Ah… so you figured out what Roparzh meant. Clever, very clever,” he said softly, and they were not sure if he meant Arzhela’s stratagem or their deduction. Simon swallowed, glancing toward a nearby wine flagon, but no one took the hint. “My lord count, I am here for justice.”
“Well, you’re a bold son of a bitch; I’ll give you that.”
“Not for me, for the Lady Arzhela de Dinan. I tried to avenge her, but I failed. It is my hope that you can do better.”
“I have no interest whatsoever in your hopes, de Lusignan. We know the Breton killed Lady Arzhela. What we do not know is how this pretty conspiracy of yours was hatched. Whose idea was it to hire the Breton?”
