A Head for Poisoning (16 page)

“The second son was killed when he fell from his horse in the New Forest many years ago,” she continued, as though he had not spoken. “The third was Rufus, to whom the Conqueror bequeathed the Kingdom of England, and the fourth was Henry, who was left no land, but plenty of silver.”

“Which he increased considerably by his shady business dealings,” added Walter hotly. “The man is a grasping thief as well as a usurper.”

“That is treason!” yelled Henry, stabbing an accusatory finger at his brother. “Henry is our rightful King! He was born in the purple—born when his father was King. Of course he is our rightful monarch!”

“You would think that!” drawled Stephen laconically, “since it fits your own claims so cosily.”

“If Henry was the rightful heir, then why did he make such an undignified dash to Westminster to have himself crowned?” demanded Walter. “Why did he not wait, and secure his older brother's blessing?” He appealed to Geoffrey. “Henry was crowned King three days after Rufus's death! Three days! You call such speed the act of a man with a clear conscience? Henry knew the throne rightfully belonged to the Duke of Normandy! Tell him, Geoffrey!”

Geoffrey did not want to be drawn into a debate fraught with such dangers. As a former squire of the Duke of Normandy, he felt a certain allegiance to him, strengthened by the fact that Rufus and the Duke had signed documents, each naming the other heir. The Duke's claim to the English throne was legal and even moral. But Henry was the man who had been crowned King in the Abbey at Westminster, and he was the man who held the most power in England. Henry also had reliable ways of discovering who was loyal and who was not, apparently, since he already knew about Walter's lack of allegiance to him. Geoffrey had no intention of taking sides in an issue that could be construed as treasonable.

“The Duke has enough to occupy him without attempting to rule England too,” he said carefully. “Normandy is not peaceful, and there are many rebellions and uprisings that need to be brought under control. It is better that King Henry holds England, and the Duke holds Normandy.”

“But the Duke does not hold Normandy,” pounced Henry immediately. “Luckily for Normandy! When he decided to go gallivanting off on Crusade, he sold Normandy to Rufus. It is now part of King Henry's realms.”

“The Duke did not
sell
Normandy to Rufus!” protested Walter indignantly. “He merely pawned it to raise funds for his holy Crusade. And he pawned it only on the assurance that he could reclaim it on his return.”

“But unfortunately, Rufus is no longer here to sell it back to him,” observed Stephen, looking from Walter to Henry, as if he were amused by the dissension between them. “And anyway, the Duke cannot buy it back, because everyone knows he has no money.”

“Nonsense!” spat Walter. “The Duke made a profitable marriage, and has plenty of money to purchase Normandy.”

“He does not,” shouted Henry triumphantly. “He has squandered it all already. The Duke may be a fine warrior, but he is a worthless administrator, and he would make a worse king.”

Voices rose and fell, Henry's loudest of all. Geoffrey shivered, and stretched his hands out to the fire. He was still damp, and no one had bothered to stoke up the fire since the servants had retired to bed. He was also hungry, but the food laid on the table looked greasy and stale, and anyway, he had not been offered any.

He flexed his aching shoulders, and cursed himself for ever considering something as foolish as returning to Goodrich after so many years. He looked up from the flames to the door at the end of the hall, thinking that if Caerdig had not ambushed him and Aumary had not died, Geoffrey would not have been charged by the King to investigate the mysterious happenings at Goodrich Castle, and he would have no reason at all not to stride down the room, fling open the door, and escape from his family once and for all. Even the dangers of travelling alone on the forest roads would be nothing compared to the battleground his family had created. He wished fervently that he had never set eyes on Aumary.

He tuned out the quarrelling voices, and thought about Enide, imagining how unhappy she must have been, trapped among their schismatic siblings. No wonder she had taken a lover! Had she seen Caerdig as a way to leave Goodrich, aware that her days there were numbered when someone had begun to poison her? Could Geoffrey believe Henry's claim that the poachers had confessed to her murder, or was there truth in Walter's belief that Caerdig may have hired them? Or had Henry hanged two innocent men for some sinister reason of his own?

Geoffrey stared into the embers of the dying fire, and let the sounds of dissent wash over him. He closed his eyes, and tried to imagine what Enide might have looked like. But he was tired, and almost immediately began to doze. He awoke with a start when he became aware that the hall was silent, and that everyone was looking at him. Since he had not been listening to them, he did not have the faintest idea what he was supposed to say. He smiled apologetically, and took a deep breath to try to make himself more alert.

“See?” said Henry, favouring his younger brother with a look of pure loathing. “He does not even do us the courtesy of paying attention to what we say!”

“No matter,” said Olivier, coming to sit on a stool near Geoffrey, and slapping the younger knight's knee in a nervous attempt at camaraderie. “I merely asked whether you had managed to do much looting while you were in the Holy Land.”

“We heard there was looting aplenty to be had once Jerusalem fell,” said Walter eagerly, his argument with Henry forgotten. “And we heard that the knights had the pick of it.”

There was another expectant hush as Geoffrey looked from face to face. “I took very little,” he said eventually. “I do not particularly enjoy looting.”

There was yet another silence. A barely glowing log on the fire collapsed in a fine shower of sparks, and the dog snuffled noisily in the rushes, sniffing out an alarming array of unwholesome objects that it ate with a gluttonous relish.

“But there was not just Jerusalem,” said Bertrada eventually. “There was Nicaea, too, and Antioch. You must have looted some of them.”

Geoffrey shook his head. “Not really. These were not abandoned cities, you know—there were people living in them. In order to loot houses and shops, their owners first had to be slaughtered, and I did not feel especially comfortable with that notion.”

“But you are a knight,” said Olivier, clearly mystified. “You are supposed to slaughter people. What do you think knightly training is all about?”

“I have no problem with fighting armed men, but I do not like the idea of killing the defenseless.”

“How curious,” said Olivier, turning his puzzled gaze to Walter.

“You always were a little odd,” said Walter, folding his arms and looking down at Geoffrey with a mixture of curiosity and unease. “But you have something in your saddlebags, because I felt their weight. They certainly do not contain your spare shirts!”

“Unfortunately not,” said Geoffrey, thinking of the shirts” theft that afternoon. He suspected that the chances of begging a spare one from anyone at Goodrich were likely to be minimal.

“Well, what do they contain?” pressed Bertrada. “You must have some treasure, even if you were too squeamish to loot for yourself. Surely the knights shared such riches between them?”

“I have some books,” said Geoffrey, unable to suppress a look of disbelief at her bizarre suggestion that Holy Land knights would share anything at all, but especially loot. “And three Arabian daggers.”

“Books?” echoed Henry. He threw back his head and roared with laughter. “There go your hopes for funds to build a new hall!” he said, jabbing a finger at Walter. “And you, Stephen, will have to raise your own cash to buy that hunting dog you have been boring us with details of for the past six months! So little brother Geoffrey returns empty-handed from what was reputed to be some of the easiest looting in the history of warfare!”

“I have heard enough from you tonight, Henry,” said Stephen, rising from where he had been kneeling near the fire. “I am going to bed.” He turned to Geoffrey and smiled. “Despite what Henry says, it is good to have you with us again. I hope we can talk more in the morning.”

He walked towards the narrow, steep-stepped spiral staircase, and they heard his footsteps receding as he climbed.

“Did you bring nothing else?” asked Walter pleadingly, ignoring Henry's renewed gales of spiteful laughter. “No jewels or golden coins?”

“I have enough to travel back to Jerusalem,” said Geoffrey, although that was only because Tancred had declined to let him leave without ensuring that he had sufficient funds to return again.

“And that is it?” insisted Bertrada. “Enough coins for your passage to the Holy Land and a sackful of worthless books?”

“They are not worthless!” protested Geoffrey indignantly. “At least one of them is almost beyond value—a tenth-century copy of Aristotle's
Metaphysics
. Let me show you.”

He rummaged in his bags for the text, and brought it out. Walter took it warily, as though it might bite him, and inspected the soft covers.

“Interesting,” he said, despite himself. “This is not calfskin, as I would have expected. Perhaps it is goat, or some animal I have never heard of. I am told there are strange beasts in the Holy Land.”

Bertrada snatched it from him impatiently and opened it. “Very nice,” she said with disinterest. “How much will we be able to sell it for?”

“It is not for sale,” said Geoffrey, watching her turning the pages and holding the book upside down. He had forgotten that he and Enide alone had been the literate members of the family. “Such a book could never be sold.”

“Why not?” asked Olivier, looking over Bertrada's shoulder. “It is a pretty enough thing. Some woman might like it for her boudoir, or perhaps a wealthy monk might buy it.”

“Well, I would not give good money for it,” said Walter, watching as Bertrada handed it to Hedwise to see. “I do not see the point of owning such a thing, even if the covers are nice.”

“Not just the covers,” said Geoffrey, although he knew he was fighting a battle that was already lost. “Look at the quality of the illustrations and the writing. It must have taken years for someone to produce such a masterpiece.”

“What a waste of a life,” muttered Walter. “He would have been better breeding sheep out in the fresh air, not cooped up in some dingy cell all his days.”

“It is beautiful, Geoffrey,” said Hedwise softly, touching one of the illustrations with the tip of a delicately tapering finger. “I can see why you cherish such a thing.”

Henry looked at her sharply and then tore the book from her hands when she returned Geoffrey's smile. Geoffrey's quick reactions snatched the precious book from the air as it sailed towards the fire. He replaced it in his saddlebag, and slowly rose to his feet. Henry took several steps backwards, and Geoffrey was gratified that even the simple act of standing could unsettle his belligerent brother.

However, once Geoffrey had demonstrated that he was going to make no one rich, his family lost interest in him, and he was abandoned to fend for himself when everyone else went to bed. He took some logs from a pile near the hearth, and set about building up the fire. He hauled his surcoat over his head and set it where it might dry, but when he came to unbuckle his chain-mail, he hesitated, recalling Henry's glittering hatred.

Easing himself inside the hearth, as close to the fire as possible, Geoffrey settled down to sleep, resting his back against the wall with his dagger unsheathed by his hand. Perhaps Henry would not risk murdering his brother as he slept, but Geoffrey was not prepared to gamble on it. His chain-mail remained in place.

When a rustle of rushes brought him to his feet in a fighting stance with his knife at the ready, it was morning, and pale sunlight slanted in through the open shutters.

“And good morning to you, too, brother,” said Walter, jumping away from the weapon's reach. “Tomorrow, you can fetch your own breakfast!”

He handed Geoffrey a beaker and a bowl of something grey. Geoffrey was about to thank him, when the sound of shouting came from one of the chambers above. Walter made a sound of impatience.

“That is Stephen,” he said. “He will wake Godric if he carries on so.”

The shouting was followed by a clatter of footsteps on the stairs, and Stephen emerged into the hall.

“Come quickly!” he yelled. “Godric is breathing his last!”