Free Dead Man's Secret by Simon Beaufort

it was something of a shock. I am sorry if my agitated cries distressed you.’
    â€˜Oh, they did,’ said Henry. ‘Especially when I learned poor Eudo was the reason for them. So why was he down here? I thought he had plenty of work to keep him busy in the Chapter House. God knows, enough of my court have complained about delays and hitches.’
    â€˜He has been missing for several hours,’ said Pepin, rather tearfully. ‘We have been worried, because he never leaves us alone when there is important business to be done.’
    â€˜Well, obviously he does,’ snapped Henry. ‘Because here he is.’
    â€˜He spoke to me just after dawn,’ said Ralph. He crouched next to Geoffrey, peering into the dead man’s face. Then he reached out to touch it, although he withdrew his hand quickly and immediately crossed himself. ‘It is now mid-morning. It looks to me as though he has been dead for two or three hours at least.’
    Geoffrey wondered how he could tell, although his own experience with corpses made him suspect the sacristan was right. Eudo was cold, but not yet stiff, and he could not have been dead for long – especially if he had been seen not long after dawn.
    â€˜Do any of you come down here?’ asked Henry, gazing around at the assembled mass. ‘To escape the hurly-burly of court life?’
    There was a chorus of denials and a lot of shaken heads.
    â€˜Then did you see anyone else setting off in this direction?’ pressed Henry. ‘Think carefully, because Eudo was useful to me, and I am not pleased by his untimely demise.’
    â€˜I may have seen him, sire,’ said Sear in a low voice. ‘At least, I saw someone hurrying in the direction of the ponds, but it was misty just after dawn, so I may have been mistaken.’
    â€˜And he was on his own?’ demanded Henry.
    Sear coloured. ‘I am sorry, sire. As I said, it was misty. He may have been alone, but he might equally well have been following someone who was already invisible in the fog.’
    Henry turned to Ralph. ‘You seem to know about corpses. Tell me how he died. Was the knife in his back fatal?’
    â€˜Well, it would not have done him any good,’ hedged the sacristan uncomfortably.
    â€˜He drowned,’ said Geoffrey. He saw the King’s raised eyebrows and pointed to the foam that frothed from the clerk’s mouth and nose. ‘Only drowned men ooze so, and the knife wound is not in a place that would be instantly fatal.’
    â€˜You are right,’ said Henry, leaning forward to look. ‘It is too high to have been mortal so quickly. So it seems he was stabbed first and then pushed in the pond.’
    â€˜And churned mud and broken reeds suggest it happened there,’ said Ralph in an effort to redeem himself, as he pointed to a spot some distance away. Geoffrey was inclined to believe him, and went to look. Sear and Delwyn followed.
    â€˜This is not your affair, monk,’ said Sear haughtily to Delwyn. ‘Mind your own business.’
    â€˜It is not yours, either,’ flashed Delwyn.
    â€˜It is – I am one of the King’s favourites,’ snapped Sear. ‘He gave me Pembroc Castle, so he will be interested to hear my opinion on this matter.’
    While they sniped at each other, Geoffrey knelt and inspected the ground. There were footprints, but they were too smudged to be of any use, and some were likely to be Eudo’s anyway. There was also a smattering of blood on several reeds, which suggested that Eudo had indeed been stabbed first and then pushed in the pond to drown. Water had splashed into the footprints, and Geoffrey wondered whether the killer had followed Eudo into the pond and held him under until he was dead.
    The only other thing was several silver pennies that had apparently been dropped during the struggle. Trailed by Sear and Delwyn, Geoffrey returned to the body, where a brief inspection