After one glance at Justin's ashen face, the serjeant unhooked a wineskin from his belt. "You look like a man who badly needs a drink." Tossing the wineskin casually in Justin's direction, he straddled the cottage's only chair. "I hear you found Gilbert the Fleming."
"I suppose that is one way of putting it." Justin sat down on the bed and took a swig from the serjeant's wineskin; he suspected he was going to need it.
"Of course it would be more accurate to say he found you." Jonas gestured and caught the wineskin deftly when Justin sent it spinning toward him. Taking a deep swallow, he said, "I've been trying to decide what I ought to marvel at the most — your remarkable luck or your astounding recklessness."
That was the nastiest sort of barb, the kind that held too much truth to shrug off. "When you're tallying up my mistakes," Justin snapped, "be sure to include my listening to your advice to seek out Pepper Clem!"
"Pepper Clem can wait. Let's start with the Fleming and that bloodletting in the stable. The farrier said there were two of them. Could you identify Gilbert's murderous friend?"
"I am not sure," Justin admitted. "He was the one who slipped the noose around my neck, and I was too busy after that to get a good look at him. He was young and sturdy and he had curly brown hair. But that is about all I can tell you. At the time, I was devoting all of my attention to Gilbert's dagger."
"That description could fit half the cutthroats in London," Jonas said regretfully. "So… back to Gilbert. Suppose you tell me how he tracked you to that smithy."
"I'd agreed to meet Pepper Clem at a Southwark tavern, but he never came. They must have been lying in wait. Not in the tavern itself; I'd have recognized Gilbert for certes. Mayhap across the street or at the bathhouse. When I gave up on Clem, they just followed me back into London. The streets were crowded at that hour and they knew what they were about. I never saw them, not until it was too late."
"I figured as much." Jonas flipped the wineskin back toward the bed. "You were a bloody fool to let your guard down. But you already know that. In your favor, you were able to keep them from killing you straightaway, which is more than most of Gilbert's victims could say."
"What puzzles me is why they bothered with the noose." Justin's fingers crept up to his throat, tracing the bruises left by that leather thong. "Would it not have been easier to thrust a dagger up under my ribs?"
"I can tell you why. They wanted answers from you first, and the noose is a most effective way of getting them. Cut off a man's air until he passes out, and when he comes around, tighten the cord again until he'll beg to tell you whatever you want to know. If you miscalculate and kill him in the struggle, no matter, for you'd have killed him afterward, anyway."
"A friendly town, this London of yours," Justin said sourly, and Jonas smiled mirthlessly.
"Be thankful you had information Gilbert wanted, or you'd have been carved up like a Michaelmas goose ere you even knew what was happening. Do you know what he wanted to find out from you?"
"I was a witness to a murder he committed, and he might well have decided to make sure I'd not be able to testify against him. But first he'd want to know why I was hunting for him."
"I'd not mind knowing that myself. Your connection to that sheriff's deputy seems sort of murky to me. But I do not suppose you'll be telling me. For now, it is enough that we both want to see Gilbert hanged. So we'd best start planning how we're going to bring that about."
"You're going to help me? But what of the Lime Street fire and that aggrieved alderman?"
"There is not a sheriff in Christendom who'd heed an alderman over a queen. It seems you forgot to mention that you have friends at court. The sheriff was summoned to the queen's presence last night, and she made it very clear, indeed, that she wants Gilbert the Fleming caught as soon as possible — preferably yesterday. So… it looks like you and I will be going a-hunting."
Justin was grateful for Eleanor's intercession. Jonas might be more prickly than a hedgehog, but he welcomed the serjeant as an ally. Send a wolf to catch a wolf. "I suggest we start this hunt by tracking down Pepper Clem."
"That is just what I had in mind." Jonas caught his wineskin again, took a final pull, and then got to his feet. Whilst you are healing, I'll see what I can dig up."
"Good hunting. Pepper Clem has a lot of explaining to do."
Jonas had reached the door. Glancing back over his shoulder, he said with chilling certainty, "If he has the answers we want, he'll give them up." But then he chilled Justin even more by adding, "Assuming, of course, that he is still alive."
12
LONDON
February 1193
Eleanor beckoned Justin toward the closest light, a tall, spiked candelabra. "Come here so I can get a better look at you. Ought you to be up and about so soon? What did the doctor say?"
"I thank you for your concern, madame, but I am truly on the mend. It has been nigh on a week, after all. As for the doctor, we had a falling-out. He wanted to bleed me and I thought I'd been bled more than enough already. In truth, my lady, I've never understood the logic behind bloodletting. How does losing blood make a man stronger? It seems to go against common sense, does it not?"
"It has been my experience, Justin, that when the doctor comes in the door, common sense goes out the window. I always thought it fortunate that doctors are barred from the birthing chamber, else mankind might have died out centuries ago. But if you say you are well enough to be on your feet, I shall take your word for it. Where are you staying now? Are you still at that farrier's cottage?"
"Yes, madame, I am. I told Gunter — the smith — that I'd not feel comfortable staying at his house unless I could pay him, and he reluctantly agreed. I had no other choice, for I did not want to go back to the alehouse, not until we've caught the Fleming."
"That cutpurse you were supposed to meet… do you think he betrayed you to the Fleming?"
Justin had been pondering that very question all week long. "I do not know, my lady. He may have. Or it may be that he was clumsy, too heavy-handed in his search for the Fleming. And if Gilbert did hear he was sniffing about and confronted him, we can be sure that he'd blurt out all he knew — and much he did not!"
"And has the sheriff been helping you to track this man down, as I instructed?"
"He was heedful of your wishes, madame, and dispatched his best man to assist in my hunt."
A frown shadowed Eleanor's brow. "Just one?"
"This particular one is more than enough, madame. He is a very — "
There had been several interruptions in the course of their conversation, but they'd been circumspect; a squeak of the door hinges, a light step in the rushes, and a retreat. This time the door banged jarringly, and without waiting to be announced, Will Longsword burst into the chamber. Will looked far more disheveled and agitated than the last time Justin had seen him, in the gardens at Westminster. His bright hair was wind whipped and dusted with melting snow, his face so reddened and chapped by the cold that his freckles seemed to have disappeared. Moving hastily toward Eleanor, he dropped to his knees before her.
"Madame, I was too late. By the time I reached Southampton, John had already sailed."
Eleanor half rose from her seat, then sank back again. "I know you did your best, Will."
Justin glanced at Will, then at the queen. "My lady… where did Lord John go?"
"To France," Eleanor said, and although her voice was dispassionate, a muscle twitched faintly in her cheek. "To the court of the French king."