moment.’
The King looked at him with suspicion written on his face. ‘Strange things? What strange things?’
Dalyson took a quick decision to change his angle of attack concerning the woman. ‘There has been a murder.’
Falconer’s eyes lit up, and he looked closely at the chamberlain. ‘A murder? Who has been killed, and where?’
Dalyson chose to ignore the meddling master, and addressed the King. ‘Majesty, I regret to inform you that your wardroper, Ralph, has been drowned.’
The King stirred weakly in his bed. ‘Ralph? Damn the man for a fool; he knows I prefer him dressing me. He doesn’t pull me about like the others.’
Henry made it seem as though Ralph had committed a treasonable act by allowing himself to be murdered, and thereby depriving his King of one of his little comforts in life.
Falconer ignored the man’s petulance and pressed Dalyson for more information. ‘Is there no hue and cry? I hear nothing.’
Dalyson smirked. ‘There was no need. The killer was found immediately and is imprisoned already.’
‘Who was it?’
Once again, Dalyson turned his back on Falconer’s question, speaking only to Henry. ‘Majesty, I regret to inform you that the woman, Le Veske, is the killer.’
To Dalyson’s astonishment, the King suddenly screwed up his face, which was already turning bright red, and spat a command at his chamberlain. ‘Do not be stupid, man. It could not be her. Go this instant and release her. And when you have apologized to her, bring her to me.’
Humiliated, Sir Thomas Dalyson scurried out of the room to do the King’s bidding.
Meanwhile, Henry, calm once more, turned to Falconer and winked. ‘Now, regent master, how are we to solve this little murder case of mine?’
Once Saphira had been restored to the bedside of the King, Falconer relaxed a little and coached the King in how he might pursue the case. He began with asking about the hours around the time Ralph was last seen alive.
‘I remember Ralph was in the room when I gave you the stone. Right up to the point when the bishop called it a sacred stone. Was that the last time you saw him, Majesty?’
‘No, no. Of course not. Who do you think undressed me last night? He left around compline, as I couldn’t sleep.’ The King seemed to drift off for a moment, then sat up. ‘I still had the stone then.’
‘Oh, yes, the stone. So that disappeared after Ralph had left your chamber?’
The King nodded. ‘Do you think its theft has something to do with Ralph’s death?’
Saphira answered the King’s question. ‘William does not believe in coincidences, Majesty. One event is more often than not connected with the other.’
Falconer was quick to throw in a word of caution. ‘Even so, we should not rush to simple conclusions. Remember the syllogism. Many small truths, when seen all together, can add up to a larger truth not previously imagined.’
The King slapped the surface of the bed beside him in impatience. ‘But what are these truths that we must gather? How can we tell what is significant and what is not?’
‘That is the problem, Majesty. You never know an important fact from an insignificant one until you have accumulated them.’
Falconer could see that the King didn’t appreciate the meticulous nature of deduction. He posed Henry a question. ‘Did anything else unusual happen yesterday?’
‘Well, you were here when some supplicant tried to wheedle his way into my presence. Does that count?’
‘It depends. What do you recall of the occurrence?’
Henry tried to marshal his thoughts.
He was agitated and frustrated. He had now been confined to his bed for weeks, and none of the doctors would look him in the eye when he asked what ailed him. But they were all fools, because he knew anyway — the infirmities of age were catching up on him. More fool him for paying good money to doctors for not telling him this obvious truth. What frustrated him most were the gaps in his recollection of events. Only the other day he had lost his seal ring, and without it he could not endorse any of his edicts.
And had he not summoned the archbishop before sext, and was it not now nearly nones? He could have died unshriven in the time it took for that fat oaf to get to his bedside. He shuddered at the prospect of not reaching the kingdom of heaven, after all the money he had poured into the abbey and St Edward’s tomb. The only crumb of comfort was the arrival of this Oxford master with the sky-stone. It now lay comforting and heavy on his stomach, reminding him of its presence. For the first time in ages he was taking an interest in his surroundings. He wanted to know more about William Falconer. And his pretty whore, the Jewess. Suddenly, he was aware of everyone in the chamber staring at the stone, including Ralph, his wardroper, still fussing with his linen as though reluctant to leave. That was when he ordered everyone out of his chamber save the master and his woman.
The commotion had begun just after he was beginning to enjoy their company. One voice was unfamiliar, but the other was clearly Sir Thomas Dalyson’s. Both voices were muffled by the trusty oak door that protected the King’s person, but for a moment the man’s voice rang out loud and clear. He remembered what was said.
‘The King is being duped.’
Then the stranger’s voice was suddenly stifled. Dalyson had entered his bedchamber, and whoever it was had been seen off.
‘Duped?’ asked the curious master.
The King eased his bony frame against the cushions whose softness seemed to have turned to stone. ‘I’m always having hangers-on questioning my decisions.’
Saphira then asked the question that had been on Falconer’s lips. Both had been recalling the scene they had witnessed yesterday. ‘Sir Thomas whispered something to you when he first came in.’
The King looked a little furtive briefly, then passed off the whispered exchange as unimportant. ‘It was nothing more than what he then said out loud in your presence. The intruder was someone whose lands I had transferred to another, and he had come to petition me. The man must have committed some serious crime to warrant the loss of his lands. Though be damned if I can remember what it was.’
He sighed, and his eyes glazed over as once again he drifted off towards the other world that beckoned him. Anxiously, the regent master leaned forward to ensure that Henry was doing no more than merely dozing. It would not do to have the King of England expire in the presence of a renegade Oxford master and a Jew. Henry’s breathing was shallow but regular, and Falconer silently beckoned Saphira to follow him out of the room.
Once outside, he whispered to her. ‘Show me where you found the body. And then I would like to take a look at Ralph for myself.’
The Bishop of Narbonne waited until the wife of the dead man had left the little side chapel where Ralph’s body lay. Events had overtaken his seeking out Dalyson and had led him to the corpse. Now he did not want anyone to know what he intended to do. The newly widowed woman spent what seemed like an interminable time with the skinny little corpse, weeping and touching him. She straightened his wet hair and tidied his robe, which was still clinging wetly to his frame. She appeared oblivious to the water that dripped off the edge of the slab on which Ralph lay. It pooled at her feet, and the hem of her dress got wetter and wetter as the woollen material soaked the water up. Finally, she gave up her vigil and, pulling her wet skirts around her ankles, hurried off.
Pierre de Montbrun took his chance and slipped out of the shadows. He wanted to finish what he had begun earlier in the night. But he could see instantly that the stone was not on the body. Ralph’s clothes clung so tightly to him that there was no possibility the stone was hidden in them, and he had no purse about him. Maybe the wife had removed it. Instinctively, he turned and dashed away in the same direction as the stout lady with the wet hem. On the way, he almost bumped into the Oxford master and his delectable companion.
Once he had mumbled an apology and departed, Saphira offered an opinion. ‘I would not have expected the great bishop to have been mourning at the bier of a lowly servant.’
Falconer tended to agree with Saphira’s assessment. ‘Perhaps he was here for another reason.’
He looked closely at the body on the slab but could see no sign of interference with it, other than his hair being tidied. Narbonne had not searched Ralph, or done anything to disturb the body. Neither could Falconer see
