“May I ask how you acquired him?”

“He ran away. My foster father found him on a street in Alexandria and brought him home to Salerno. My father specializes in acquiring the lost and abandoned.”

Stop it, stop it, she told herself. Why this wish to inform? He is nothing to you; he may be worse than nothing. That you have just spent the time of your life with him is nothing.

A moorhen clooped and rustled in the reeds. Something, a water rat, slid into the water and swam away, leaving a wake of moonlit ripples. The punt entered another tunnel.

Sir Rowley’s voice sounded in it. “Adelia.”

She closed her eyes. “Yes?”

“You have contributed all you can to this business. When we reach Old Benjamin’s, I shall come in with you and have a word with Master Simon. He must be made to see that it is time you went home to Salerno.”

“I do not understand,” she said. “The killer is not yet uncovered.”

“We’re closing on his coverts; if we flush him, he’ll be dangerous until we can bring him down. I don’t want him leaping on one of the beaters.”

The anger the tax collector always inspired in her came hot and sharp. “One of the beaters? I am qualified, qualified, and chosen for this mission by the King of Sicily, not by Simon, and certainly not by you.”

“Madam, I am merely concerned for your safety.”

It was too late; he would not have suggested that a man in her position go home; he had insulted her professional ability.

Adelia lapsed into Arabic, the only tongue in which she could swear freely, because Margaret had never understood it. She used phrases overheard during Mansur’s frequent quarrels with her foster parents’ Moroccan cook, the one language that could counteract the fury Sir Rowley Picot ever inspired in her. She spoke of diseased donkeys and his unnatural preference for them, of his doglike attributes, his fleas, his bowel performance, and his eating habits. She told him what he could do with his concern, an injunction again involving his bowels. Whether Picot knew what she was saying or didn’t was irrelevant; he could get the gist.

Mansur poled them out of the tunnel, grinning.

The rest of the journey passed in silence.

When they reached Old Benjamin’s house, Adelia would not let Picot accompany her to it. “Shall I take him on to the castle?” Mansur wanted to know.

“Anywhere, take him anywhere,” she said.

THE NEXT MORNING, when a water bailiff came to tell Gyltha that Simon’s corpse was being delivered to the castle, Adelia knew she had been swearing as their punt passed his body where it had floated, face down, in the Trumpington reeds.

Ten

Is she hearing me?” Sir Rowley asked Gyltha.

“They’re hearing you in Peterborough,” Gyltha said. The tax collector had been shouting. “She just ain’t listening.”

She was listening, but not to Sir Rowley Picot. The voice she heard was that of Simon of Naples, clear as clear, and saying nothing significant, merely chatting as he’d used to chat in his light, busy tenor-actually, at the moment, about wool and its processes. “Can you conceive of the difficulty in achieving of the color black?”

She wanted to tell him that her difficulty now was of conceiving him to be dead, that she was delaying the moment because the loss was too great and must therefore be ignored, a life removed revealing a chasm that she had not seen because he’d filled it.

They were mistaken. Simon was not the sort of person to be dead.

Sir Rowley looked around Old Benjamin’s kitchen for help. Were all its women poleaxed? And the boy? Was she going to sit and stare into the fire forever?

He appealed to the eunuch, who stood with folded arms, staring out the doorway at the river.

“Mansur.” He had to go close so that their faces were level. “Mansur. The body is at the castle. Any minute the Jews are going to discover that it is there and bury it themselves. They know him to be one of their own. Listen to me.” He reached up to the man’s shoulders and shook him. “There’s no time for her to mourn. She must examine the corpse first. He was murdered, don’t you see?”

“You speak Arabic?”

“What do you think I’m speaking, you great camel? Wake her up, make her move.”

Adelia put her head on one side to consider the balance that had been maintained, the sexless affection and acceptance, respect with humor, a friendship so rare between a man and a woman that such a one was unlikely to be granted to her again. She knew now something of what it would be like to lose her foster father.

She grew angry, accusing Simon’s shade of culpability. How could you be so careless? You were of value to us all; it is a deprivation; dying in a muddy English river is so silly.

That poor woman he had loved so much. His children.

Mansur’s hand was on her shoulder. “This man is saying Simon was murdered.”

It took a minute, then she was on her feet. “No.” She was facing Picot. “It was an accident. That man, the waterman, told Gyltha it was an accident.”

“He’d found the tallies, woman, he knew who it was.” Sir Rowley clenched his teeth with exasperation, then began to speak slowly. “Listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“He came late to Joscelin’s feast. Are you hearing me?”

“Yes,” she said, “I saw him.”

“He came to the top table to make his apologies for being late. The marshal showed him to his place, but as he went by me, he stopped and patted a wallet on his belt. And he said…Are you listening? He said, ‘We have him, Sir Rowley. I have found the tallies.’ He spoke low, but that’s what he said.”

“‘We have him, Sir Rowley,’” Adelia repeated.

“That’s what he said. I’ve this minute seen his body. There’s no wallet on his belt. He was killed for it.”

Adelia heard Matilda B. squeaking with distress, Gyltha uttering a moan. Were she and Picot speaking English? They must be.

“Why should he tell you that?” she asked.

“Great heavens, woman, we’d been attending to it together all day. It was inconceivable that the only debt tallies were those that were burnt. The damned Jews could have laid their hands on them any day if they’d only realized it; they were with Chaim’s banker.”

“Don’t you say that about them.” She had a hand on his chest and was pushing him. “Don’t say it. Simon was a Jew.”

“Exactly.” He caught her hands. “It’s because he was a Jew that you must come with me now and examine his body before the Jews get hold of it.” He saw her expression and stayed remorseless. “What happened to him. When. From that, with even more luck, we may be able to deduce who. You taught me that.”

“He was my friend,” she said. “I cannot.” Her soul rebelled at the thought, and so would Simon’s-to be exposed, fingered, cut, and by her. Autopsy was against Jewish law in any case. She would defy the Christian Church any day, but, for Simon’s dear sake, she would not offend the Jewish.

Gyltha stepped in between them to peer carefully into the tax collector’s face. “What you’re saying. Master Simon was killed by him as killed the children? Is that right?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And she can tell from looking at his poor corpse?”

Sir Rowley recognized an ally and nodded. “She might.”

Gyltha addressed Matilda B. “Get her cloak.” And to Adelia, “We’ll go together.” And to Ulf, “You stay here, boy. Give the Matildas a hand.”

Between them, with Mansur and the Safeguard following, Adelia was hustled through the streets toward the bridge. She was still gabbling her protest. “It can’t have been the killer. He only attacks the defenseless. This is different, this is…” She slowed as she tried to think what it was. “This is everyday awfulness.”