A Head for Poisoning

by Simon Beaufort

  He shook himself irritably. Such speculations would do him no good at all. He was tired and cold, and he needed time to work out who was who in his family, and how much they had changed. There was no point beginning to ask questions about Enide’s death, or about who was poisoning his father, until he had allowed himself some time to become at least superficially reacquainted with his relatives. After all, he was a stranger to them, and there was no reason why they should trust him either: if there were anything untoward about Enide’s death, interrogating them about it would serve only to put them on their guard.

  A burly, balding man had picked up Geoffrey’s saddlebags, and was testing their weight with an acquisitiveness he made no effort to hide. Geoffrey shivered again, noticing that a frost was settling, turning the churned mud of the inner ward to a rock hard consistency. The woman who had brought him the welcoming cup—Bertrada, Geoffrey had assumed—took his hand solicitously.

  “You are frozen. And wet, too. We should be ashamed of ourselves! You return to us after so long, and we keep you in the cold.” She led him up the steps to the keep. “How was your journey?”

  “Relatively uneventful,” Geoffrey replied.

  He felt unaccountably nervous at being the centre of attention among so many people he did not know, and was not inclined to mention Caerdig’s ambush or the death of Aumary until he was certain that one of his family was not responsible.

  Bertrada laughed. “Oh, come now, Geoffrey! You travel from Jerusalem to England, and you describe the journey as ‘relatively uneventful”? You must have more to say than that. You have not spoken to us for twenty years.”

  “Would that he had not for another twenty,” muttered one man, eyeing Geoffrey with rank dislike.

  Henry, thought Geoffrey immediately, regarding his third brother with interest. Henry had changed little, although he now wore his brown hair long and tied at the back in the Saxon fashion. He had not grown much—Geoffrey still topped him by a head at least. He studied Henry closer and saw a curious mixture of health and debauchery. Henry was sturdy, and looked fit and strong, but the red veins in the whites of his eyes and the purple veins in his cheeks suggested that the wine fumes that Geoffrey detected on his breath were nothing unusual.

  A beautiful woman with tresses of pale gold and a delicate, almost frail figure pinched Henry’s arm in a gesture of warning, and turned to Geoffrey with a warm smile.

  “We are pleased to welcome you back after so long. How long do you plan to stay?”

  “That miserable cur has just bitten me!”

  Geoffrey did not need to look around to know which was the miserable cur in question. With alarm, he saw it had slipped its tether, and was on the loose. Fortunately, it appeared as bemused by the gaggle of people as was Geoffrey, and had not strayed too far from its master’s protection. Geoffrey leaned down and took a secure hold of the thick fur at the scruff of its neck, feeling a soft buzzing under his fingers as it growled at the back of its throat. Luckily, his relatives were making sufficient noise with their questions for the dog’s feelings about them to be drowned out.

  At the top of the stairs, Geoffrey was ushered into the large hall, which had a hearth at the far end. He paused, noting that new tapestries had been hung, although the rushes on the floor did not appear to have been changed since he had left. A sleepy kitchenmaid was stoking up the fire, and it was beginning to blaze merrily. Those servants who usually slept in the hall had been roused from their repose and sent to the kitchens, while others scurried about setting up a table and throwing together a meal. Geoffrey was offered a large chair near the fire, and provided with another cup of scalding wine. Again, it had been overfilled, and the hot liquid spilled over his fingers and onto the dog, which leapt to its feet with a howl of outrage.

  “Unfriendly animal, that,” remarked the man who had been bitten, twisting round to inspect his ankle. “Where did you get it? Is it from the Holy Land?”

  “From Italy,” said Geoffrey, thinking back to when he had found the dog as an abandoned puppy some years before. There were times when he was grateful for its somewhat irascible company, although most of the time it was more menace than pleasure.

  “Ah,” said the bitten man, as though Italian origins explained perfectly well why a dog might bite. “If you like dogs, I have a new litter of hunting hounds. You are welcome to take one.”

  Geoffrey wondered how long a puppy would survive the jealous jaws of his black-and-white dog, but nodded politely, thinking he could find some excuse to decline later. The last thing he wanted was another dog.

  “I would like to see our father,” he said, looking round at the assembled faces, and trying to assess which one was Walter. “I hear he is unwell.”

  “I bet you have!” Henry sneered. “So, that is why you are here. You heard about his will and came running.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence, during which Geoffrey regarded Henry with dislike. He turned to Bertrada.

  “Perhaps I could see him now? And then I will be on my way.”

  “You cannot leave us so soon!” cried the balding man. “You have only just arrived and you have told us nothing of your travels. Stay with us a while. Ignore Henry.” He gave the surly Henry a brief look of disapproval, which Henry treated with a contemptuous stare of his own.

  “You cannot see Sir Godric tonight, Geoffrey,” said Bertrada. “He is already asleep, and he needs his rest these days. You can see him tomorrow, when you will both be fresh.”

  “That is a fine destrier you have,” said Sir Olivier, his display of faint-heartedness at his first encounter with Geoffrey clearly forgotten—by Olivier at least. He flicked his elegant cloak behind him, and perched on the edge of the table, swinging a well-turned leg. “Was he very expensive?”

  “I imagine so,” replied Geoffrey. “He was given to me by Tancred.”

  “Tancred de Hauteville?” asked Bertrada, exchanging a look of confusion with the balding man. “Why would he do that? I was under the impression that you were in the service of the Duke of Normandy.”

  “I was transferred to Tancred’s service nine years ago. It is by Tancred’s leave that I came here. Did Enide not mention it? I wrote to tell her.”

  “I suppose she may have done,” said the balding man, scratching at the few hairs that lay across his greasy pate. “I really cannot remember.”

  “She did mention it,” said Olivier. He turned to Geoffrey and smiled. “You were in Italy for a number of years with Tancred, and there you also fought on the side of Bohemond, Tancred’s uncle.”

  Geoffrey was startled that Olivier d’Alençon, whom he had never met, should be better informed about his career than the rest of his family, and was about to say so when Henry spoke.

  “And why have you come back?” he demanded. “What do you want from us after all this time? I can assure you that there is nothing for you here—despite what you may have heard.”

  Geoffrey resented the hostility in his brother’s tone, and wondered how Henry had managed to survive all these years without a dagger slipped between his ribs if he were so habitually offensive.

  “I had a curious hankering to see you all,” Geoffrey replied sweetly, smiling round at the assembled residents of Goodrich Castle. “And I thought perhaps I might challenge Henry to one of the fights that once gave us so much pleasure.”

  That should shut him up, thought Geoffrey, resting his hand casually on the hilt of his sword to add an additional threat to his words. It did. Henry glowered at him, and then strode away to sit gnawing at his finger-nails on the opposite side of the room—away from the main group, but still close enough to hear what was being said.

  Geoffrey watched him go. “And I thought I might visit my manor at Rwirdin,” he said, to test Caerdig’s notion that it formed part of Joan’s dowry. “I have never seen it, although it has been legally mine since our mother’s death fifteen years ago.”

  There were several furtive glances, and Geoffrey had his answer.
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  “Yes, go,” called Henry nastily from across the room. “It has a nice church. You will be able to sit in it and read about womanly things, just like you used to do.”

  “But you must stay here a while, first,” said Bertrada, glaring at Henry. “You cannot leave us so soon after you have arrived.”

  There was a silence. The balding man was still regarding Geoffrey’s saddlebags with impolite interest; the bitten man’s attention was on Geoffrey’s dog; Henry made no secret of the fact that he could not have disagreed with Bertrada more; while the golden-haired woman regarded Geoffrey with an expression he found difficult to interpret. Meanwhile, Geoffrey had reconsidered his initial hope that his visit might pass without unpleasant incidents, and was heartily wishing he was elsewhere.

  Geoffrey’s family stood around him as he sat in the fireside chair. He felt ill at ease as they hovered over him, and wondered whether any of them noticed how his hand rested lightly on the hilt of his dagger. Although he did not anticipate anyone—even Henry—being so rash as to attack an armed knight in as public a place as the hall, he did not feel entirely safe in their presence. He glanced down at the hot wine in his cup, noticing that no one else was drinking any. Perhaps, he realised, he should be expecting an attack from a less obvious source—especially given that his father claimed that he was being poisoned.

  “What is the name of this animal?” asked the bitten man, his voice loud in the still room. He inspected Geoffrey’s dog with the eye of an expert. “Is it some little-known Italian breed?”

  “He does not have a name,” said Geoffrey, feeling foolish. “And he is no special breed as far as I know.” He hoped not: he would not like to think that there were other creatures in the world with the same unappealing traits as those exhibited by the black-and-white dog.

  The bitten man nodded slowly. “Perhaps I can mate him with one of my bitches. His kind of aggression would be good for the dogs we use to patrol our boundaries. I am willing to wager that your hound is an excellent guard.”

  “Not really,” said Geoffrey, uneasy at the notion of his savage dog being let loose on potentially valuable animals. “He only bites people he does not fear, and he flees at the first sign of trouble. He even—”

  He had been about to say it had even fled when Caerdig had ambushed them, but then remembered his resolve to say nothing until he had discovered more about who might have killed Sir Aumary.

  “He even what?” asked the balding man, curious.

  “What happened to Enide?” Geoffrey asked abruptly, ignoring the question. “No one told me the details. I only know that she died.”

  There were some covert glances. “We will tell you what you want to know tomorrow,” said Bertrada, standing quickly. “You have journeyed from Jerusalem to England and that is a long way, Geoffrey. I am sure you are weary.”

  “I have not travelled the entire distance today,” said Geoffrey, not needing to be told that the mileage he had covered was considerable. “And I would like to know about Enide now.”

  “That is perfectly understandable,” said Olivier gently. “But it is a sad tale, and one that would better be told in the morning, when you are rested.”

  Geoffrey made a sound of exasperation, and came to his feet fast. As one, his family took several steps backwards. He regarded them in puzzlement. Were they nervous because they were guilty of something, or because the presence of an armoured, potentially hostile Crusader knight in their hall was something that would make most people less than easy?

  Henry released a malicious burst of laughter. “You are all afraid of him! Well, I am not too timid to tell him what he wants to know. Enide was murdered by two poachers, brother. I caught them in the forest. They confessed to her killing, and I hanged them. And that was that.”

  “Are you certain these poachers were the culprits?” asked Geoffrey doubtfully. “What was their motive for killing Enide?”

  “What do you think?” Henry sneered. “Enide was an attractive woman, and she was out alone early one morning to attend mass. When they had finished with her, they cleaved her head from her shoulders.”

  “But if their intention was rape, why did they kill her?” pressed Geoffrey. “And why in that manner? It is not a common mode of murder.”

  “I am not familiar with the way criminals think,” said Henry coldly. “So I could not say. What does it matter anyway? The poachers killed her and they died for it.”

  “We suspected that Caerdig of Lann Martin might have been responsible at first,” said the bitten man casually, as though he were discussing the weather and not the callous murder of Geoffrey’s favourite sister. “We thought he might have hired the poachers to kill Enide. He had been asking to marry Enide in a feeble attempt to use her to protect his miserable estates, you see.”

  “Those ‘miserable estates’ should have been mine,” snapped Henry, turning on him. “It galls me to see a snivelling coward like Caerdig trying to run them. Our mother left me Lann Martin, just as she left Geoffrey the manor of Rwirdin.”

  “But Lann Martin was not hers to leave,” reasoned Olivier gently. “The arrangement that was signed by Ynys and Sir Godric all those years ago said that it would only revert to you if Ynys named no heir. And Ynys made it very clear that he wanted his nephew Caerdig to succeed him.”

  “Did he now?” demanded Henry, taking a few menacing steps towards Sir Olivier, who immediately retreated behind Bertrada. “It is easy for you to dismiss my rights so glibly. You would not be so smug if it were Rwirdin that Caerdig stole. That is why you married Joan, is it not?”

  Olivier opened his mouth to speak, but he hesitated and his chance to respond was gone.

  “If Joan had married Caerdig when he asked, none of this would have happened,” said the woman with the golden hair who had tried to restrain Henry earlier. “It is Joan’s fault that Henry lost Lann Martin and that Geoffrey has lost Rwirdin.”

  “Did Caerdig ask Joan to marry him, as well as Enide?” asked Geoffrey, bewildered by the mass of information that was coming to him in disconnected bursts.

  The bitten man nodded. “Joan first, then Enide. He was determined to have peace at any cost. Personally, I would prefer a state of perpetual war to marriage with either of those two!”

  “Was Caerdig Enide’s lover?” asked Geoffrey before he could stop himself. He realised too late that it was not a prudent question to ask out of the blue.

  The bitten man did not seem surprised or offended by the enquiry, however. He mused for a moment. “It is possible, I suppose, although I would have thought it unlikely. Enide had better taste than to take Caerdig to her bed—he always smells of leeks!”

  “Are you satisfied that Henry killed the right men for her murder?” asked Geoffrey of the bitten man, as the others started to argue among themselves about whether Enide was or was not sufficiently desperate to succumb to the rough attentions of the leek-scented Caerdig.

  The bitten man shrugged. “They confessed to the crime.”

  “Yes, they confessed!” shouted Henry, pushing Bertrada out of the way as he stormed over to where Geoffrey stood. “Do you think I would have extracted vengeance from innocent men?”

  Geoffrey said nothing.

  “Enough of this!” said Bertrada firmly, as she grabbed a table to regain her balance after Henry’s rough passage. “The events surrounding Enide’s death were dreadful, but they are all over. Let us talk of more pleasant things tonight.”

  “Caerdig, of course, spread rumours that one of us was responsible,” said the bitten man, ignoring her. “But they fizzled out once Henry had hanged the poachers.”

  “Enough!” shrieked Bertrada.

  Her voice shrilled through the hall, and silenced even Henry, who had been about to add something else. She gave Geoffrey a hefty shove in the chest to make him sit again, and fought to bring her temper under control.

  “There is something else I would like to know,” said Geoffrey. Bertrada glowered at him. “I am sorry, bu
t it has been a long time, and I do not know who most of you are. Henry I recognise, but …” He stopped and shrugged.

  The balding man smiled. “Of course. And you, too, are unfamiliar to us, although you look so much like Enide that no one could ever doubt who you are. However, you have changed from the boy we saw off to Normandy twenty years ago.”

  He paused and studied Geoffrey carefully, so that it was obvious that he regretted his comment about family likeness, because he realised it had lost him the opportunity to disclaim Geoffrey as an impostor. Evidently, the others thought the same, for Geoffrey suddenly found himself the object of some intensive scrutiny.

  “You have changed,” said the bitten man, eyeing him speculatively.

  “Do not try to fool yourselves,” said Henry heavily. “It is obvious he is exactly who he claims. Look at his eyes—it is Enide staring at you! And on his chin is that small scar I made with Walter’s sword when we were young.”

  There were reluctant murmurs of agreement, and then Bertrada began with the introductions.

  “I am Bertrada, and this is Walter—my husband and your oldest brother.”

  She indicated the balding man with a wave of her hand, and continued.

  “Joan is away at the moment, but we are expecting her back in a few days. Her husband is Sir Olivier d’Alençon.”

  Geoffrey rose to return the bow that served more to display Olivier’s courtly manners than civility to his visitor.

  “Olivier is a kinsman of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and so we are deeply honoured to have him in our family.”

  Bertrada’s tone of voice was odd, and Geoffrey looked at her sharply, detecting undercurrents that he did not yet understand. But he certainly understood her reference to the Earl of Shrewsbury. It seemed that he could go nowhere without encountering reference to the infamous baron.

  “I trained under the Earl,” said Olivier, not quite nonchalantly enough to prevent him from sounding boastful. “I entered his service when I was fifteen, and was a knight by the time I was twenty—which you will know is very young. The Earl taught me everything I know.”