A Head for Poisoning (26 page)

“He told us that you were killed by a boar,” agreed Stephen, raising his eyebrows questioningly at Olivier, who had nervously followed Geoffrey into the keep.

“We should have known better to have listened to that snivelling coward,” said Henry, slamming a pewter goblet down on the table in an undisguised display of bitter frustration as he glowered at Olivier. “I thought it was too good to be true!”

“Well, I am pleased to see you alive and well,” said Hedwise, casting a defiant glance at her husband. “Come and sit by the fire and dry your wet clothes.”

Avoiding her outstretched hand, Geoffrey sat on a stool near the hearth, where Bertrada sullenly handed him a beaker of scalding ale, her resentful looks a far cry from her attempts to ingratiate herself with him a few nights earlier, when she had believed that he had been loaded down with loot. Making no attempts to disguise their blighted hopes at his unexpected return from the grave, his relatives ignored him and he sat alone, sipping the bitter brew and listening to Olivier tell Stephen about the massive boar they had encountered, which had escaped Olivier's sword by the merest fraction. The tale was so far removed from events as Geoffrey recalled them that he began to wonder if they had even shared the same experience.

Geoffrey's brief moment of ease did not last long, because Godric began clamouring for him, claiming that someone had tried to suffocate him while he slept. It took a long time to calm him, and the sick man only agreed to rest when Geoffrey promised not to leave.

Later that evening, Geoffrey was awoken from where he dozed restlessly next to the fire by the sound of his father's voice.

“They killed Enide, you know.”

Godric was wide awake and regarding him with bright eyes. Geoffrey must have been more deeply asleep than he had thought, for his mind was sluggish. He gazed uncomprehendingly at Godric, wondering whether he had misheard him.

“They killed Enide as well as poisoning me,” said Godric. “And they killed Torva. All for this—for Goodrich! I wish that I had never set eyes on the place! Old Sergeant Helbye's sons do not cluster round him like vultures waiting for his corpse—because he has nothing to give them. It was after Enide was murdered that they began to poison me in earnest. She knew how to keep the family in order, and when she died, they turned on me more viciously than ever.”

“It is late,” said Geoffrey, refusing to be drawn into that kind of discussion. “You should not be saying such things, or you will give yourself bad dreams. Go to sleep.” He stood stiffly, and stretched.

“You will never make a good knight,” said Godric critically, changing the subject as he did when conversations were not proceeding as he intended. “Look at the state of you! Your chain-mail will rust if you do not look after it and keep it dry.”

“How can I keep it dry in England?” asked Geoffrey. “It rains all the time.”

“I wish I could see your destrier, Godfrey,” said Godric, suddenly wistful. “The cowardly Olivier informs me that it is a handsome beast.”

“He is handsome enough,” said Geoffrey, pulling off his surcoat and hanging it on the hooks in the garderobe passage to dry. “But perhaps a little too independent-minded.”

“He should suit you very well, then,” said Godric. “But you are trying to distract me. I was telling you about Enide. I thought you said you were fond of her.”

Geoffrey paused as he unbuckled his chain-mail, but did not reply.

“Why they should kill her is beyond me,” mused Godric. “You have some loose links there, Godfrey: you should mend them before you next go out. The castle was a much more pleasant place when Enide was in it.”

“There are vile rumours about her death,” said Geoffrey. “Ingram told me that Caerdig had killed her.” He stopped, and rubbed the bridge of his nose, disgusted that he had allowed himself to embark on speculations about Enide's death with his father after he had determined that he would not do so. Such a conversation would scarcely lead to a peaceful night's slumber for Godric, and would only serve to make the old man more paranoid than ever.

“Perhaps Caerdig did kill her,” said Godric. “Someone did—she did not cleave her own head from her shoulders.”

Geoffrey sighed. “But Henry assures me he hanged the culprits.”

“So he claims,” said Godric bitterly. He made a sound of exasperation. “Stop fiddling, Godfrey, and come and stand where I can see you. Now, I know you do not believe that I am being poisoned, and I accept that. I am beyond caring for myself, but Enide I loved dearly. Find who killed her for me, Godfrey, and I promise that I will never ask anything of you again.”

“If you will make another will and leave me out of it, I will do what I can,” said Geoffrey. “Meanwhile, I am wet. Can I borrow a shirt? I have lost all mine.”

“Then you can buy some new ones,” snapped Godric, his wheedling tone instantly superseded by his customary evil temper. “Just because you think I am about to die does not mean that you can have the clothes from my person. You are just like the others—all clamouring for the dagger that the Conqueror gave me. Well, they shall not have it. None of you shall. I have hidden it away, and no one—not a single living soul—knows where I have put it. And you shall not have the clothes from my poor body until I am gone.”

“I do not intend to walk around the castle in your nightshift,” retorted Geoffrey, eyeing the garment that Godric's “poor body” wore. “I want to borrow a shirt. I only have one, and it is wet and probably needs to be washed.”

“Yes, it does,” said Godric, eyeing him distastefully. “What do you mean by coming into your poor father's death chamber wearing a dirty shirt?”

“Can I borrow this one?” asked Geoffrey, holding one of the ones stored in the chest at the end of the bed.

“I suppose so,” said Godric reluctantly. “And take some clean hose, too. Yours are really quite disgusting. Hedwise will wash them for you. But in return, will you do what I ask? Enide did not deserve to die, and her death must not go unavenged. She was being poisoned too, but the villain responsible decided he could not wait, and struck off her head as she came out of the church. I envy her in a way, for I would rather die from a sword blow than by slow poisoning.”

“Even if you are right,” said Geoffrey, “what can I do now? I have asked questions, and discovered nothing.”

He dropped his sodden shirt onto the floor, and pulled the dry one over his head.

“I will provide you with a list of suspects that you can interrogate. First, there is Henry, who hated her as he hates you—because you are more clever than he is. Then there are Walter and Bertrada. It was Enide who discovered Walter was illegitimate. I would have kept it from him, just for a peaceful life, and—”

“How could Enide discover such a thing?” asked Geoffrey, startled. “And anyway, I do not believe that Walter was born out of wedlock. Someone would have mentioned it long before now, if it were true—especially you.”

“I have a chest where I store old documents,” explained Godric. “I cannot read, so I had no idea what was in it. Enide was sorting it out for me one day, and she found the evidence.”

“What evidence?” asked Geoffrey tightly, sensing that Godric was about to make him very angry.

“A writ giving Walter's birthdate, and a certificate with details of my marriage to your mother. The dates do not tally. And there are also documents that prove I was away at the time of Stephen's conception, so that I could not possibly have sired him without supernatural help. Enide came to tell me what she had learned. While I was explaining—perhaps more loudly than I should have done—my other villainous whelps overheard.”

“And so poor Enide had information thrust upon her that made her a danger to Walter and Stephen?” said Geoffrey coldly. “No wonder you think she has been done away with! How could you have kept such documents? Why did you not burn them?”

“Easy for you to say!” snapped Godric. “You can read—you would know which ones were which. There are important writs in that chest. How could I be certain that I was not destroying one of those?”

“You could have asked Norbert,” said Geoffrey, unappeased. “Your clerk. That is why you employ him, surely? To read and write for you?”

“I could not trust
him
with such delicate information!” said Godric, appalled. “He would have used it to his own advantage.”

“Unlike you,” pointed out Geoffrey bitterly. “What a mess all this is. Where are these documents now?”

“Enide destroyed them,” said Godric.

“But by then everyone knew of the existence of these writs and their contents anyway, so technically, Enide should not have been a greater risk than anyone else,” said Geoffrey, trying to reason it all out. “So that still does not explain why someone chose to kill her.”

“You will have to work that out for yourself,” said Godric. “I cannot tell you everything. And do not leave Joan and Sir Fearful out of your reckonings, either. Poor Enide's head was severed with a sword, so perhaps that snivelling coward performed the foul deed.”

Geoffrey's thoughts whirled with confusion. Was there even the most remote grain of truth in what Godric had just told him? Or was it simply a ploy to make Geoffrey remain at Goodrich and take on the manor? He rubbed his head where his helmet had chafed it, and went to the heavy pitcher that stood on the floor for some wine. He slopped some into a cup, and took a gulp. He resisted the urge to spit it out again: seldom in his life had he tasted anything so bitter and vile that was not medicine.

He looked dispassionately at Godric, who lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling. He raised the cup to his lips again, but even the smell of the powerful brew was too much. He slammed it down on the windowsill, and fought the desire to snatch up his sword, and race down to the hall to dispatch the whole lot of them.

G
eoffrey awoke with a start to see Hedwise towering over him. His momentary consternation that she had come for him was relieved when he realised she was only bringing breakfast to Godric.

“That is fine. Now go,” Godric said forcefully as Hedwise set a tray on the chest at the foot of his bed. Hedwise glowered at him and then gave a soulful look to Geoffrey before pulling the door shut behind her.

“You will have to beware of that vixen today, lad,” Godric said with a leer. “Henry has gone off hunting with Olivier and his friends, so she will be on the prowl and you just might be the prey.”

Geoffrey felt groggy and sluggish and was concerned that Hedwise had been able to enter the room without waking him. In the Holy Land, any knight who slept so deeply would risk never waking at all, and Geoffrey prided himself on his ability to snap awake, to be alert and ready for a possible attack. The fact that it was Hedwise who had managed to slip past his defences made it just that much more potentially problematic.

He did not relish the prospect of spending an entire day indoors with his father, but given the alternatives—Hedwise unrestrained or his family still inflamed by Godric's changed will—he decided to continue his cleaning of the paintings, while hoping to glean some information from Godric that might help solve the mystery of Enide's murder.

As it turned out, it was Geoffrey who did most of the talking, entertaining—and at the same time disappointing—his father with tales from the Crusade.

“It seems to me that you have fallen in with the wrong crowd, Godfrey,” his father mused in some disgust that evening. “You say this Tancred of yours actually tried to protect those people on the Dome of the Rock? It was lucky that the Duke of Normandy and Bohemond and the others were not so womanly, or the whole Crusade might have turned back before it reached Constantinople.”

Geoffrey was not sure if that would have been such a bad thing. He was about to say so when the door burst open and Walter strolled in, Bertrada and Olivier at his heels. Behind them were Stephen and Hedwise, walking rather more closely together than was usual for a man and a woman not married to each other. Walter made himself comfortable by the fire, while the others clustered around the bed, eyeing Godric speculatively, assessing whether the old man was continuing his remorseless decline in health, or whether the worst had happened and he was rallying. Godric eased himself up onto his elbows, simultaneously gratified by and uncomfortable with the attention.

“What do you lot want, and what is all that racket?” he complained, as through the window came the sounds of shouting from the courtyard below, mingled with the snorting of horses and the jangle of weapons. Walter threw open the shutters and leaned out.

“It is the Earl of Shrewsbury!” he exclaimed in surprise. “What is he doing here?”

Everyone looked at Olivier. “His visit has nothing to do with me,” said the small knight defensively.

“Joan,” said Walter heavily, still peering out of the window. “Joan is with him. She must have told him that Godric was near his end. Is that true Olivier?”