Sword of Justice (White Knight Series) (12 page)

He went on, spinning the tail with hand gestures and dramatic delivery. “The goblins wanted to turn me into one of them and entreated me to join them in their secret caves, but I refused. They were insulted, and so they cast a spell and mottled my face like theirs as a lesson to other folk who traveled their way.”

“Then they did not hit you to make you look so?” said the smallest girl, whose curls bounced when she spoke.

“
Non
,
ma petite
. This face changes daily. One day, the green is over here. Next day, it is over there. And the purple appears wherever it pleases.”

The child began to cry.

Arms folded over his chest, Yacob ben Yosel was beside himself with mirth.

Drake raised a helpless brow, then knelt beside the girl and encircled his arms around her birdlike shoulders. “Do not cry, little one. I am happy with my fate. Besides, the coloring fades a little every day. Soon I will be my old ugly self.”

The little girl lifted a tentative finger and stroked his jaw. The tiniest smile came to her cherubic lips.

“Let that be a lesson to you all,” said their mother, “to accept who and what you are, no matter how others may jeer and taunt.”

“Amen,” intoned the father.

The meal ended. The old woman and the children took up other pastimes while Rachel cleared the table. Another tumbler of wine was put into Drake’s hand. He thanked the mistress kindly, and she went off to her kitchen.

“May I ask,” he said to his host when at last they were alone, “how a moneylender gets by?”

”
Alors
, perhaps you believe we Jews hoard rubies as others hoard bread.”

“I see no evidence of boundless riches.” While the ben Yosel abode was clearly crammed with sundry furniture, precious heirlooms, and numerous leather-bound books, it was also clear those treasured belongings had seen many years of use, traveled over countless miles, and been packed and unpacked countless times.

“It seems,
mon ami
, you are brighter than first impressions inform.”

“Others,” Drake said, thinking of a surly brunette, “think me duller.”

“Intelligence is relative according to the viewpoint,
c’est vrai
?” He took a sip of his wine. “It is true. Independently I do not have the means to conduct a trade such as mine without backing from several sources.”

“Others lend to you?”

“I would not use that term, as it is forbidden by your religion whereas it is not forbidden by mine. But your churchmen often come to us. And the richest of your merchants can sometimes circumvent the prohibition against lending at interest for important concerns and large transactions.” The mischievous twinkle of his eyes appeared once more.

“Let me put it another way. Others … invest … in your enterprise … for a profit.”

“Shall
I
put it another way. Let us say I receive support from my fellows. Barter is a common enough method for sidestepping currency along with pawning personal property as security. And, when the need is great and immediate, a lender of local and substantial resources steps forward.”

Because Yacob let the last statement stand without elaboration, a tangible ghost stepped in like an unwelcome guest.

“Local and substantial?” Drake contained his surprise. “You’re trying to tell me something.”

The Jew did not respond.

“Surely …” To go on was to tempt fate. “But surely …?” Drake could think of only one lender of local and substantial resources.

“Some advice?” interrupted Drake’s host. “And I offer this as one persecuted soul to another, in all good charity. Otherwise, you understand, I would not have stirred the, shall we say, already muddied waters. You might be killed for such casual inquiry. I half suspect that is why you … and your brother … have been put upon of late.”

“For something we cannot begin to understand?”

“Yet managed to get caught up in,
oui
, along with your compatriots.” Yacob refilled his tumbler. “Let me shed a pale light on your dark quandaries. I make the assumption, forgive me, that your brother acquired two debts. One to me and the other to Mat.”

“The owner of Hogshead Tavern?”

“The same invisible character. Mat is not a moneylender
per se
. He lends neither silver nor gold. Instead he extends credit in exchange for a promised return, either in coin or property. He’s not particular. A slight twist of usury to get around your Church’s prohibition. Unlike my trade, Mat’s rate of return is exorbitantly high and the term of repayment short.”

“How high is high?”

He named a number. Drake whistled. Yacob said, “No one who goes into debt with Mat ever gets out, or if he does, is beggared.”

“Who backs him? That is, when the need is great and immediate? Surely he cannot get by on parchment and promises.”

The moneylender answered in a roundabout way. “Stephen accumulated excessive gambling debts. He did not know any better. Nor did his friends. In the blink of an eye, they found themselves with purses wanting for coin and no means of replenishment.”

Drake set down his empty tumbler and did not refill it. “Is that why they were attacked?”

“It would seem an incautious act, and rather severe given the circumstances, as well as counterproductive. All I know is that they came to me one by one, as did your brother, except for one of their number.”

Drake arrived at the logical conclusion. “Graham de Lacy.”

Yacob assented with a gesture.

“Could be they found another source of income.”

Curious, the Jew cocked his head.

“The tribute money they were collecting from the barons,” Drake explained.

“Ah, yes, the scutage,” he said, “to pay for the crusade against the infidel. To fight a war, King Richard needs knights like you and your brother, but he also needs money. And who better to go to with hand extended than the barony, where men like your father must sacrifice sons as well as fortunes.”

Drake took a steadying breath to quell the sickly feeling in his gut. Yacob ben Yosel was getting too close to home for comfort.

“I’ve heard the grumblings. The barons are none too happy. But I’ve also heard the coffers of Winchester are dry, and there is no other choice than to go to the well yet again and dip. Kings think only of war. The rest of us think only of food. And what better way for your friends to line their pockets doing the duty of their king.”

 “And Mat? How does he fit in?”

“That I do not have direct knowledge of, but I suspect your friends approached me only when Mat’s generosity reached a proscribed limit. That is usually the way it goes.” The moneylender took a drink of his wine before speaking further. “Earlier I let you believe a falsehood regarding your father. He did not settle your brother’s debt. Someone else did.”

“Graham did,” Drake said, instinctively knowing. “Stephen is beholden to Graham.”

Chapter 11
                     
 

DRAKE FOUND HIMSELF
BACK AT
the London Way Alehouse, packed of a Saturday evening. Not up to mixing or trading stories or getting intoxicated, he chose to sit by himself, lick his many wounds, imbibe a moderate intake of ale, and watch. He watched for a while, long enough to sip through two tankards of ale at the slowest pace he remembered ever sipping through two tankards of ale.

An average-looking man entered and cast an inquisitive eye over the hall. Drake would not have noticed him were it not for the unnatural quiet that took hold. Open talk instantly hushed into whispers, and easiness became infected with disquiet. The stranger stopped to talk to Aveline. When she slanted her eyes in Drake’s direction, the stranger moved off to a corner table. As though it were a breeding ground for pestilence, the immediate vicinity was instantly quarantined. The occupant didn’t notice, or if he did, didn’t care.

Randall of Clarendon half-consumed a tankard of ale by the time Drake gathered enough courage to join him. Older than Drake by at least a decade, he looked as if he owned twice those years in excess maturity. Stretching long legs before him, he ran a hand through colorless hair that matched equally colorless eyes. He looked nothing like his brother Maynard, but Drake recognized him by the way other men stayed clear of him. None but a sheriff or an acting sheriff would receive worse treatment, surpassing even that of the twin brother of a murderer and mutilator.

Though Drake never formally met this man, since Clarendon was fencing words with Nelda in her kitchen while Drake was suffocating in her undercroft, the sheriff welcomed him without rancor or suspicion. He examined his face with interest before saying, “Looks like you opened one too many doors the hard way.”

It was easy to like the man, provided he wasn’t the sheriff or the brother of the man Drake was accused of murdering. Drake asked, “You’re drinking alone?”

“Wherever I go.” He nodded toward the patrons. “Men of leisure avoid the pleasure of my company. And since I’m not as pretty to the lasses as I once was … not to say the reverse, mind you … you can see what I’ve become: a pariah in my own town.”

Drake took a seat and signaled Aveline. Now was the time for some serious drinking. “Why not resign your position?”

“I resign every other day, and see where it’s gotten me. The king won’t hear of it.”

When Aveline brought over a fresh tankard, Drake sent her a smile of thanks. She was unwilling to return the smile but more than willing to dispatch a lethal glance in the sheriff’s direction. Rand’s gray eyes admired Aveline as she sidled away, and then turned their penetrating gaze back to Drake. “I hear tell you had a nasty altercation with one of my sergeants. Is he responsible for all that?” He circled a finger at Drake’s face.

“The yellowing marks are his. He wasn’t on duty at the time.”

“Considerate of you to make the distinction, but I knew that already. When it’s official, Drogo prefers to inflict punishment of the invisible kind.”

“That came a night later.”

“He takes a particular liking to you, ’twould seem.”

“Since childhood days.”

“And the rest?” he asked, admiring Aveline’s embroidery.

“Three goons who said they belonged to Yacob ben Yosel.”

Content that the worst of the damage did not come under his auspices, he nodded. “Mat’s your man.”

“So I gather.”

Rand took a long draught of his drink. “Your brother is a one-man killing force. Ordinarily I wouldn’t trouble myself over who kills who or hacks off which body parts, so many other duties to oversee.”

Acutely aware of which body parts the sheriff meant, Drake shifted in his chair.

He took in Drake’s reaction and went on. “Ah, if only you knew the extent. The entire weight of the shire’s administration falls on the sheriff’s office. And seeing that we haven’t had an official sheriff for several months and won’t for several more to come—the king selling off all the sheriffdoms in the kingdom one by one to the highest bidders—I am the unfortunate recipient of that considerable weight.”

He rubbed his temples one-handed, thumb massaging the right and fourth finger messaging the left as he rattled off a memorized list: “Collecting the royal dues, enforcing the king’s peace, dispensing justice, acting as the local retainer for carrying out royal orders, accounting for revenues, collecting taxes, repairing and garrisoning the castle, arranging transportation for the king and queen, procuring cloth, horses, jewelry, food, wine, you name it. In short, being a lackey for everyone else’s needs.” He let the wall at his back support his weight. Curiously, he looked more haggard than when first he entered. “Made all the worse by a meager monthly income, and there you have it.”

He capped off his miseries with a gulp of ale and looked about the place with eagle eyes, the product of practice and habit. “Never got along with Maynard, him being an afterthought on my mother’s part, though not necessarily my father’s. Especially after getting himself embroiled in pastimes that portended unhealthy outcomes. But blood is blood, no getting around it. My mother, though not my father, would never forgive me if I turned my back on bringing his killer to justice.”

Drake lifted the tankard unsteadily to his lips but did not drink. “Unusual for a sheriff to apologize for defending the family honor, grudging as it is.”

“Not that it stops me from hunting down the truth, you understand. Ah, I see you do. In that case, I have a question to put, and this is it. Why had Maynard made an enemy of your brother?”

Drake gave the only answer he knew. “Rumor had it Maynard was cuckolding him.”

“
You
don’t believe it?”

“Not from the first.”

“Then someone contrived the rivalry, which confirms my suspicions. But who? Geneviève de Berneval herself?” He was testing Drake again, his eyes pinning him to the same wall his bench was propped against. “I’ve known her father for many a year. Henri de Berneval.”