A Head for Poisoning (50 page)

“You are right,” said Stephen. “We need something better than livestock.”

He dropped back, deep in thought, as Geoffrey urged his horse forward again. The knight glanced behind at him. Stephen and Henry had three of the guards from the castle with them, all mounted and well armed, although Geoffrey had seen nothing to suggest that they were competent. And Geoffrey had Helbye and Barlow. He imagined that they should have no problem with Caerdig, should he make an appearance. Geoffrey had bested him once before with three fewer men than were with him this time—although, of course, none of them had been the slippery Stephen, the hateful Henry, or the incompetent gatehouse guards.

He reached a fork in the road and slowed. To the right lay the long route back to Goodrich; to the left lay Caerdig's lands.

“Go right,” called Helbye. “Lann Martin is right.”

Geoffrey gazed at him askance, and wondered whether the sergeant genuinely did not know, or whether he was merely attempting to prevent Geoffrey from riding into what promised to be a dangerous situation.

Ignoring the sergeant's protestations, he urged his horse down the left-hand track. It was steep and muddy, and liberally scattered with rocks, so that Geoffrey was forced to slow his speed, or risk ruining his horse. The path meandered through some boggy forest, and then went straight as an arrow across a patch of heathland, swathed in a gloomy pall of mist.

“The King is a fool to come hunting in this,” mumbled Barlow, wiping away the rain that dripped from his long hair into his eyes. “He should be indoors, wenching next to a roaring fire.”

“Quiet, Barlow,” said Geoffrey sharply. They were drawing near to Lann Martin itself, and Geoffrey had no intention of walking into a second ambush. “Listen!”

He reined in his horse and sat still, closing his eyes to hear the sounds of the forest. A gentle wind whispered through the bare branches, and raindrops splattered down onto the litter of dead leaves below. A bird sang a few piercing notes and then was silent, and Stephen's horse pawed at the ground. And then he heard it. In the distance, came the faraway voices of men shouting. He opened his eyes and looked at the others, wondering if they had heard it, too. Were they shouts of alarm, claiming that the King had been shot and lay dying in some scrubby glade? Or were they simply the sound of the beaters driving the forest animals to where the King and his entourage waited with their bows and arrows?

He unfastened his shield from its bindings, and slipped it over his arm. Drawing his sword, and checking that he would easily be able to reach his dagger, he rode towards the noise.

“My God, Geoffrey!” breathed Stephen, watching his precautions with unease. “There is no one here. The place is deserted. I expect all the villagers of Lann Martin are out acting as beaters for the King. He pays handsomely, I am told.”

Geoffrey said nothing, but jabbed his heels into his destrier to urge it to move faster. When Stephen began to say something to Henry, Geoffrey silenced him irritably. At the far end of the clearing, the path disappeared again between two dense walls of trees. Geoffrey eased his way along it, listening intently, and watching for even the slightest movement in the trees ahead that might warn him of an ambush. Gradually, the sounds of shouting grew louder.

Geoffrey's fears were somewhat allayed. It was not the clamour of alarm that was echoing through the woods, but the meaningless yells of the beaters, walking in a long line with their tufter hounds, and making as much noise as possible to drive the beasts of the forest towards the waiting hunters.

The shouting grew louder still, and Geoffrey tensed as a flicker out of the corner of his eye showed where a small deer had darted, frightened by the increasing clamour. He slowed his destrier, angrily quelling the impatient whispers of his brothers behind him with an urgent gesture of his hand. Rufus had been slain by a stray arrow during exactly the same circumstances, and Geoffrey had no intention of falling that way, too. And there was also the possibility that the king-killer was there, lurking somewhere in the trees to await the right moment. He might well loose an arrow at Geoffrey and his companions if he thought they might interfere with his purpose.

The path cut to the left, and then to the right, emerging into another clearing. The noise of the beaters was very close now, and Geoffrey was aware that the glade in front of him might well hold archers in the King's party, waiting for animals to be driven past. There was a flurry of movement, and a hare appeared, heading for a sandy bank on the opposite side. With a yelp of delight, Geoffrey's dog was after it, snaking through the grass in a blur of black and white. Then Geoffrey heard a snap, and saw an arrow arch high in the air.

At the same time, a man with a bow stood from where he had been kneeling behind a bush on top of the bank, and fired another arrow, which sped upwards to cross the first.

“No!” yelled Stephen, thrusting Geoffrey out of the way to gallop forwards.

As the arrows reached their zeniths, two stags burst from the forest at the far end of the clearing, pursued by Caerdig, who was wielding a stick in the air and screaming in Welsh. More arrows flew as the stags tore towards Geoffrey. Henry's horse, panicked by the terrified beasts bearing down on it, whinnied in panic: it could not escape the way it had come, because that route was blocked by Helbye and Barlow, so it charged from the shelter of the bushes and bolted at right angles to the stags, with Henry clinging to it for dear life.

More archers appeared from nowhere, and arrows hissed through the air, aimed at anything that moved. Geoffrey spotted the stocky figure of the King standing near the bank where the hare had run. Simultaneously, Geoffrey saw a dark shadow on the opposite side of the clearing nock an arrow in a bow and point it directly towards the monarch.

With a piercing battle cry learned from the Saracens, Geoffrey exploded out of the forest and bore down on the indistinct figure of the archer. He felt as if his horse were moving in slow motion. He watched the archer falter as he saw Geoffrey thundering towards him, but then saw him straighten with resolve, and fix the King once again in his sights. Geoffrey spurred forwards desperately yelling to the King to duck, although he knew the King would neither hear nor have time to act.

The arrow was loosed. Geoffrey did not look to see where it fell, but continued to bear down on the archer. The figure in black nocked a second arrow to his bow, and aimed again, this time at Geoffrey. Instinctively, Geoffrey raised his shield, and heard the arrow thud into it, splitting the wood, so that the point emerged on the other side, a hair's-breadth from his arm. Geoffrey hurled the damaged shield from him and leapt from his saddle as the figure abandoned his bow and began to race away. Geoffrey landed badly and stumbled, losing vital moments.

He smashed through the forest, heavy footed and encumbered by his chain-mail and surcoat. The figure ahead of him clambered over a fallen branch, and zigzagged through the trees. Who was it? Geoffrey strained to recognise the figure that dashed this way and that, but his movements were unfamiliar. Was it Enide? Had she acquired the skill of archery through the years as she had changed from his much-loved sister into a Mappestone? But her hand was withered, so how could she hold a bow? Or was that story simply another lie told to mislead him?

Geoffrey thrust all thoughts from his mind other than the running down of his quarry. He was losing the man. Geoffrey was simply too slow in his armour, and Norman knights were not designed to chase assassins through the forest on foot. He fell heavily, and rolled down a bank until he crashed up against the trunk of a tree that stopped him dead. Gasping for breath, he righted himself and staggered on, seeing the figure dart through the trees ahead.

Then the archer tripped, too, legs ensnared in a mass of bindweed that grew across a shallow depression in the ground. He struggled frantically, kicking against the fibrous plants, and trying to regain his footing. Geoffrey was almost on him. The archer thrashed his way free of the last few tendrils and scrabbled to his feet. Geoffrey hurled himself full length, and succeeded in gaining a handhold on the man's ankle. The man kicked with his other foot, trying to dislodge Geoffrey's grip, but Geoffrey held on grimly. The force of the kick made the archer lose his balance, giving Geoffrey time to grab the hem of his cloak. Although the archer was lighter and faster, he was no match for Geoffrey once he had been caught. Pinning the man beneath him, Geoffrey wrenched the hood from the bowman's face.

“Norbert!” he exclaimed in astonishment.

But there was no time for analysis. Norbert seized on Geoffrey's momentary surprise to land a hefty blow with a piece of wood that his groping fingers had encountered on the ground. Stunned and dizzy, Geoffrey felt the clerk sliding out from his grasp, and fought against the lights that danced in front of his eyes to lay hold of him again. He struggled to his knees, and grabbed the clerk a second time. Norbert struck out with his branch, but this time Geoffrey blocked the blow with an upraised arm. And then Norbert collapsed on top of Geoffrey in a spurt of hot blood.

Startled, Geoffrey gazed at him. From Norbert's chest protruded the shaft of an arrow. Abandoning the dead clerk, Geoffrey looked around him wildly. How could he hide? He had been grappling with Norbert and so had no idea from which direction the arrow had been fired. He flinched instinctively as another thumped into a tree a few inches from his head, and he dropped full-length into the weeds. He knew now!

Wriggling forwards on his stomach in a way most Norman knights would never consider, he reached the trunk of a thick oak tree, and edged around the back of it. Raising himself to a crouch, he drew his dagger and listened.

There was nothing, except distant, excited shouts from the clearing. Was the King dead? wondered Geoffrey. Had Norbert succeeded in his mission? He risked peering out from the tree to look around. Norbert's body lay where it had fallen, but otherwise, there was no movement.

A sharp crack from behind him made him spin round, but there was nothing to see. He looked back to Norbert. Even from a distance, Geoffrey could see that the arrow that had killed the clerk was smooth and straight—it was an archer's arrow, not something that a villager might own with which to shoot hares or birds. And it was almost exactly the same as the one that had slain Aumary, fired with a good-quality bow that had the power to drive it through chain-mail. Had it been otherwise, Geoffrey would have risked bursting from his hiding place and running, trusting that his armour would protect him. But he knew chain-mail would be useless against the kind of weapon that his assailant held.

Another sharp crack sounded, this time to his right. Geoffrey frowned. Was someone throwing stones to mislead him and coax him from his hiding place, or did Norbert have more than one assistant hidden in the forest? But Norbert's accomplices would not have killed Norbert, reasoned Geoffrey; they were supposed to be on the same side. So who had?

Geoffrey winced as an arrow hit the trunk of the tree so close that it all but grazed his ear. He leapt to his feet, and started to run in the opposite direction, only to find himself hard up against the sword of Sir Drogo, the Earl of Shrewsbury's sullen henchman. Geoffrey backed away, but to his left was Sir Malger, armed with a fine bow and a good quantity of pale, straight arrows. And to his right was a woman, stepping out from behind another tree and smiling enigmatically.

“Geoffrey,” she said, coming towards him. “So we will meet after all! I did not think I would have the pleasure.”

Geoffrey did not need to be told the name of the woman who smiled at him so beguilingly in the forest clearing. He would have recognised her even if she had appeared in the Holy City with a troop of jugglers, for she looked very much like Geoffrey himself. With sudden clarity, he recalled the face of the child who had said a tearful farewell to him twenty years before—a face that had grown shadowy and indistinct through time, but now blazed in his mind as clearly as if it had been yesterday.