A Head for Poisoning

by Simon Beaufort

  CHAPTER NINE

  Once Geoffrey’s squabbling relatives had left Mabel to her business and she and Geoffrey were once more alone in Godric’s chamber, Geoffrey went to examine his father’s body. The wound in the stomach was small, although deep, and had penetrated an area that Geoffrey, who had seen many battle injuries, knew would be fatal because of the great veins there. But the wound to his chest was larger, and Geoffrey could come to no conclusion other than that it had been made by the one Arabian dagger that the Earl of Shrewsbury had declined to appropriate. The smaller wound, however, had not. Geoffrey made a search of the room, but could find no other weapon. He sat back and considered, watching as Mabel carefully combed Godric’s hair and beard.

  It seemed clear to Geoffrey that whoever had stabbed Godric in the stomach was probably not the same person who had knifed him in the chest after he had died—it was unlikely that someone would wait at the scene of the crime before attacking him a second time with a different knife—and the physician’s evidence implied that the second injury had been inflicted later, after Godric had taken some time to die from the wound to his stomach.

  So, was the person who had poisoned Geoffrey the same as the person who inflicted the fatal wound on Godric? Or did that honour go to the person who had stabbed the already-dead Godric after his death with Geoffrey’s dagger?

  Geoffrey rubbed his head, and then went to open a window, leaning out to inhale the fresh, cool air. As he leaned, he saw a deep, red stain on the outside wall that disappeared into a tapering tail on the grey stone. He inspected it closely. It was wine, and a good deal of it. Geoffrey could only suppose that it was the wine that had been in Godric’s massive jug, and that someone had tipped the stuff out of the window to make it appear as though Geoffrey had drunk it before, after, or during the murder of his father. It was also possible that the ergot-tainted brew had gone the same way.

  So, that explained one mystery, he thought with satisfaction, before returning his attention to the murder of Godric.

  Geoffrey knew he had dragged the chest across the floor to the door, so that anyone entering the room would have made sufficient noise to awaken him—and he would have woken had he not been drugged when the killer had appeared to kill his father. Meanwhile, his dog, which would have growled at a night intruder, had been whisked away by Stephen. During the night, someone had moved the chest back to its usual position at the end of the bed. Was Walter responsible for that, lying when he claimed to have slept the whole night undisturbed? Or was he telling the truth, and had heard nothing?

  But Walter would need to be an unnaturally deep sleeper not to have been awoken by the sound of the chest being moved. Geoffrey chewed his lip. But perhaps Walter was a man who could sleep through anything—he had not woken when Geoffrey had put the box there in the first place, and there was the fact that he had been very drunk.

  Or was the culprit Stephen, who had brought drugged wine for Geoffrey to drink, and who had made sure the dog would not cause a disturbance by taking it to his own room for the night?

  Or was the killer Hedwise, who had provided Geoffrey with the rank fish soup? Geoffrey rubbed his chin. Not Hedwise—the chest was heavy, and he doubted that a woman of her slight build would have had the strength to move it, at least not without considerable effort.

  And who else knew about Godric’s secret passage? Despite Mabel’s claim that she was the only one in the castle who knew of its existence, Geoffrey was not so sure. He suspected that once he knew the answer to that question, he would have the solution to his father’s murder. He looked around the gloomy room, wondering what he should do first. He supposed he should see to the safety of Rohese, and explore the passageway to see if she were hiding there. But even the thought of entering the slit of blackness brought him out in a cold sweat.

  As soon as he had helped Mabel to wrap Godric in the grey sheet she had brought, he left her to complete the finishing touches to her handiwork, and poked his head around the room of the door opposite. This was the chamber that Enide had shared with Joan when Geoffrey had been a boy. He had assumed that Enide would have had it to herself once Joan had married Sir Olivier—although Godric had suggested that she had shared it with Rohese.

  Geoffrey rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Bits of the mystery were beginning to fit together: Enide had occasionally slept in Godric’s room—in Godric’s bed—and she was said to have been poisoned, too. Therefore, it was the bed that had made both her and Godric sick. Geoffrey himself had only felt ill after he had spent some hours in Godric’s chamber—after the insidious poison had been given enough time to work on him.

  No one was in Enide’s old room. Judging from the clothes that hung on pegs along the walls, Joan had reclaimed it, and was currently sharing it with Olivier. Geoffrey ducked back outside to the stairs, listened hard for a few moments, hearing the inevitable cacophony of raised voices in the hall, and felt reasonably confident that everyone else was otherwise engaged. Then he went back to Joan’s room and softly closed the door.

  He looked around. Godric had apparently been to work on Joan’s room, too, because the walls were decorated with an aggressive swirl of greens and yellows. On closer inspection, Geoffrey saw that the design was a vine that sprouted vivid golden flowers and supported a veritable host of insects and birds. Joan—or someone—had made an attempt to hide some of the mural by adding new pegs for clothes, and one wall had been whitewashed. But Godric had intended his decorations to last, and the fanciful beasts could still be seen through the new paint, giving the impression that they were being observed through a heavy mist.

  Realising that the longer he stayed, the more likely he was to be caught red-handed snooping in Joan’s chamber, Geoffrey went quickly to the bed. Making as little noise as possible, he heaved the straw mattresses away to reveal the bare stones behind. He crouched down, and began to poke about with his dagger. Many years ago, he and Enide had prised a stone out of the wall when they had been bored and restless one winter afternoon, and behind it they had hidden their treasures—small, childish things that they did not want Henry to steal.

  Geoffrey smiled when he saw that no attempt had been made to seal up the hole again, and that the stone slipped out as easily as it had so many years before. The gathering of dust on the floor in front of it suggested that it had not been used for some time, and he began to think that he might have been wrong after all, and that Enide had discovered some new hiding place for her secret things.

  He lay flat on the floor, and thrust his hand into the hole as far as it would go. He grimaced in disgust when a dead mouse was the first thing his fingers encountered, but then he felt something else—something that had the unmistakable crackle of parchment. Carefully, he drew it out, and then groped in the hole again, this time discovering a small leather pouch. When he was satisfied that there was nothing else, he slid the stone into its place, and shoved the mattresses back against the wall again. Slipping his findings—other than the mouse—down inside his shirt, he opened the door a crack, and listened carefully.

  Voices were still raised in bitter dispute in the hall, some of them almost screaming. The debate was sufficiently loud that Geoffrey did not hear the soft step of a leather shoe on the stairs below. He was just closing Joan’s door behind him, when he came face to face with Hedwise.

  “Sir Geoffrey!” she exclaimed, smiling impishly. “Were you looking for something particular among your sister’s belongings?”

  “Nothing particular, no,” he replied, angry with himself at being caught after all his precautions. “But my father told me that I should admire the wall-paintings in Enide’s room, and I thought I should view them before Joan hides them with whitewash.”

  “Yes, Joan does hate those murals,” said Hedwise, still smiling mischievously. “Sir Godric was all set to decorate the hall with his version of the Battle of Hastings, but Joan would not let him.”

  That was probably a blessing, thought Geoffrey.

  “Well,”
he said, making to step around her, “I think she was wise.”

  “I think so, too,” said Hedwise, moving slightly so that Geoffrey was obliged to rub against her as he tried to slip past. “But what is this? What do you have here?”

  One slender arm darted out to grab what Geoffrey had hidden in his shirt. He was quicker, and had caught her hand before she could pluck out the documents he had discovered.

  “Hedwise!” Olivier’s shocked voice echoed around the confines of the narrow stair well. “What are you doing?”

  “I was just talking to the brother I have recently met,” said Hedwise, turning her seraphic smile on the diminutive knight.

  Olivier melted before her onslaught of charm, and grinned stupidly at her. Geoffrey made to walk away, but Hedwise quickly stepped in front of him again.

  “Perhaps you will consider a walk with me in the meadows below the bailey,” she said, smiling beguilingly at him. “It seems that the castle is always so full of arguing and fighting that we never have the chance for normal conversation.”

  “Good idea,” said Olivier immediately. “I will just fetch my cloak.”

  Geoffrey rubbed his hand over his mouth to prevent Hedwise from seeing his amusement. “I have a lot to do,” he said. “Enjoy your walk with Sir Olivier.”

  “If you do not come with us, I will tell Henry that you have stolen documents from Joan’s room,” she said in a low, careful voice. She gazed at him, and Geoffrey found himself staring into a pair of hard blue eyes in which lurked no trace of the angelic quality they usually exuded.

  “Tell him,” said Geoffrey with a shrug. “But he will not be able to take them from me.”

  “He always said you were a brute,” she said, pouting at him. “I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it appears as though I should have trusted his judgment after all.”

  “Perhaps you should,” said Geoffrey, shoving past her and making his way towards Godric’s room.

  Hedwise’s ambiguous attitude toward her husband’s determined efforts to have Geoffrey hanged for murder made Geoffrey very uneasy. Goodrich Castle seemed to ooze an atmosphere of menace, and Geoffrey, although not a man easily unsettled, felt vulnerable. He pulled his boiled-leather leggings over his hose, and struggled into a light chain-mail tunic—not the one that reached his knees, which he used for travelling and battles, but one that might nevertheless deflect a blade aimed at his back. Over this, he drew on his padded surcoat, and buckled his sword to a belt at his waist.

  Mabel sat next to Godric’s body and watched him.

  “That passageway is narrow,” she said eventually. “You will never get down it with all that on. You will get stuck.”

  Geoffrey was unable to prevent a shudder. “Where did you say this tunnel comes out?” he asked, thinking that the entrance to the other end might not be so hideous, and that he might yet avoid entering the sinister black slit.

  “Down by the trees near the river. But you will not find it unless you know where to look. Godric could not have kept it a secret for so long if its exit was obvious.”

  In his heart of hearts, Geoffrey knew this was true, and it was becoming increasingly apparent that he was not going to be able to escape exploring the tunnel. He wondered whether Julian might go, but the girl had kicked up such a fuss when she had seen Godric’s corpse that Geoffrey was sure that she would be inconsolable if she stumbled upon the body of her sister down there.

  But Geoffrey had other things that he needed to do, and was thus able to postpone the unpleasant task of investigating dank and poky tunnels until later. He knew he should read the documents he had found in Enide’s hiding place, and he wanted to ask the physician to test the bed for poison before the killer removed all traces of it—just as he had with the fish-soup bowl that had been wiped clean, and the bottle of wine that had replaced the one that Geoffrey had sipped from. And Geoffrey knew that he should send a message to the King, informing him that he had failed in his duty, and that the Earl of Shrewsbury now had Goodrich manor to add to his domains.

  With Enide’s documents still tucked inside his shirt, he clattered down the stairs intending to visit the physician first, and then to look in the woods near the river to see if he could find Rohese—if she had escaped the Earl by running away down the tunnel, the woods at the other end seemed as good a place as any to start a search. He deliberately did not allow himself to admit that the tunnel itself was probably a better point to begin looking.

  He reached the hall, and collided with a servant who was scurrying to carry a basket of bread to the trestle tables that were being set up for the mid-day meal. Geoffrey’s dog made an appearance as the bread scattered, and by the time the agitated scullion had retrieved the food from the filthy rushes, the basket was considerably emptier than it had been.

  “Geoffrey!” called Bertrada from the far end of the hall. “We are about to dine. I am sure you would like to join us.”

  Geoffrey was sure he would not, and gave an apologetic wave of his hand before striding towards the door. He was intercepted by Stephen, coming in from outside and bringing a brace of pheasants with him.

  “My hunting hounds got these,” he said proudly, slinging them onto a bench. As quick as lightning, Geoffrey snatched them up again, and his dog’s expectant jaws snapped into thin air.

  “I will take him with me next time I go,” said Stephen admiringly, leaning down to ruffle the dog’s thick fur. “He is quick and he learns fast. He would make an excellent hunter.”

  “But you would never benefit from it,” said Geoffrey, handing the pheasants back to Stephen. “You would never see anything he caught, and it would be more than your life is worth to try to wrest it from him.”

  “Give him to me for a week,” said Stephen, smiling a challenge. “I will prove you wrong.”

  Geoffrey had serious misgivings. He did not want the animal to acquire any further skills that would render it more difficult to control, and he was certain that Stephen would be unable to quench the hard spark of self-preservation and greed that guided the dog in all things. Stephen draped his arm around Geoffrey’s shoulders in a friendly fashion, and gestured to the table at the far end of the hall.

  “Please, eat with us,” she said. “If the Earl was serious in his command for us to pack up and leave Goodrich in a few days, then this might be one of the last meals we have here together.”

  “No, thank you,” said Geoffrey. “I have a great deal I need to do.”

  “Such as what?” asked Stephen. He eyed Geoffrey’s chain-mail and surcoat. “Does this mean that you are thinking of leaving us?”

  “I plan to leave as soon as I can,” said Geoffrey.

  “Then you should spare a few moments to dine with your family,” said Bertrada, walking down the hall to take his arm. “You have scarcely seen us at our best since you returned, and we do not want you harbouring an unfavourable impression until you visit us again after another twenty years.”

  It was a little late for such concerns, but Geoffrey had questions he very much wanted to ask certain members of his family—such as whether Walter had heard anything during the night of Godric’s murder and, if he could manage to do it discreetly, who were the people who might have access to ergot and poppy powder. Geoffrey yielded to the insistent tugging of Bertrada’s hands on his arm, and followed her back down the hall.

  The Mappestone family dined at the table near the hearth, at the end of the hall farthest from the door. As Godric’s youngest son, Geoffrey’s place had usually been far distant from the centre of power in the middle. This had suited Geoffrey well, for he had not wanted to be overly close to the irascible and unpredictable Godric, and being set apart from his siblings had meant that he and Enide had been left pretty much to their own devices and conversations.

  But Bertrada had decided differently, and Geoffrey found himself placed between her and Walter in the seat of honour. He glanced at Henry, wondering how he would take such an affront to his dignity,
but Henry merely met his eyes and then looked away. Geoffrey was immediately on his guard. They wanted something from him.

  Walter passed him a tray containing lumps of undercooked meat, first spearing a piece for himself with his hunting knife. Geoffrey took a smaller portion, supposing that, unless the entire tray were poisoned, it would be safe to eat. The same was true of the bread, although Geoffrey was mildly concerned about the tumble it had taken in the lice-infested rushes that lay scattered on the floor.

  While Walter fell upon his meat as though it were the last he would ever devour, Bertrada entertained Geoffrey. She told him about the successful harvest the previous year, and a little about the uneasy relations with the landlords whose estates bordered their own.

  “It is all the doing of the Earl of Shrewsbury,” said Henry, from where he sat farther down the table. “Before he came to power, relations were strained, but not so vicious.”

  “I do not think so,” said Walter, gesticulating with his meat and splattering grease across the table. “He is trying to ensure that all the landowners in these parts unite with a common purpose, and so he wants them to be friends with each other, not enemies.”

  “And what might that purpose be?” asked Geoffrey. Defence against the Welsh, he wondered, or consolidating the border lands ready to fight for the Duke of Normandy against King Henry?

  “It is not yet forty years since the Conqueror took England,” said Stephen. “But despite all the castles he built and the fact that virtually all positions of power in the country are held by Normans, the kingdom remains uneasy. And it will do for a generation yet.”

  “But the problems of a kingdom are not concerns of ours,” said Bertrada, bored. “What is our problem, of course, is the fact that we have lost Goodrich.”