A Head for Poisoning

by Simon Beaufort

  He tried again, but the missile went wide, falling harmlessly in a bed of nettles. Observing his appalling skills, Geoffrey was suddenly very grateful that Henry had declined to shoot Drogo when they had been struggling in Godric’s chamber.

  Enide grabbed the reins of the second horse, impatiently gesturing for Ingram to help her mount.

  “But what about me?” Geoffrey heard him protest. “What do I ride?”

  “Help me up!” Enide screamed. “Stupid boy! Help me!”

  Ingram hesitated and Geoffrey saw the flash of a blade.

  “Ingram!” he yelled again. “Get away from her!”

  His warning came too late. Ingram fell to the ground and the horse, alarmed by all the shouting, began to buck and prance.

  “The Devil take you, Geoffrey!” Enide screeched, abandoning the animal, and turning to continue to race along the river path.

  But someone else was on the path, too: Father Adrian had seen everything. Enide tried to dodge round him, but he dived full length and pulled her to the ground. She fought, kicked, and screamed, and Adrian only just managed to hold her until Henry was able to reach him to help.

  Meanwhile, Geoffrey crouched next to Ingram, inspecting the wound that Enide had inflicted.

  “I need a priest,” the soldier gasped. “Get me one, fast! I am dying!”

  Geoffrey called for Adrian, who left the spitting Enide for Joan and Henry to hold. The priest knelt next to Ingram and began to recite the prayers for the dying. Geoffrey wondered how many more times he would hear Adrian’s requiem before he was able to escape from Goodrich. As he listened, he saw something protruding from Ingram’s hauberk.

  “My chalice,” he said, reaching out to take the handsome silver cup that Tancred had given him.

  Adrian caught his hand. “Would you rob a dying man?” he asked reproachfully.

  Geoffrey was about to point out that he was a knight, and that most knights had gone on a Crusade to do exactly that, when Ingram pulled it from his hauberk himself. He thrust it at Adrian.

  “This is for your church if you will say masses for me. I confess to killing Francis the physician. Absolve me, quick, before it is too late!”

  “This is not yours to give, Mark,” said Adrian. “Anyway, I do not need to be paid for the masses I will say for your soul. But I cannot absolve you unless you repent. Are you sorry for murdering Francis?”

  “Yes, but she told me to do it,” Ingram said breathlessly, glancing to where Enide still struggled in the arms of Henry and Joan. “I did it for her, and his blood is on her hands, not mine. She dragged me into all this, even though she is my mother!”

  “Who is your mother?” demanded Geoffrey. Realisation dawned suddenly. “Enide? You claim that Enide is your mother?”

  “She is; she told me,” said Ingram. “And it makes sense that I am the son of nobility—I have always known I was different from the rest. She said Goodrich was rightfully mine, and that she would help me get it as soon as you lot were out of the way.”

  “You are different,” said Geoffrey coldly. “I have never met such a worthless, snivelling snake as you. And I can assure you that you are certainly not related to me!”

  “Geoffrey!” snapped Adrian. “Either be quiet or leave. Continue with your confession, Mark.”

  “She told me the truth about my ancestry when I got back from the Holy Land. I gave her all my treasure, so that she could help me take Goodrich. She needed the funds, you see, to hire lawyers and to petition the King.”

  “I knew you were gullible,” said Geoffrey in disgust. “But I did not think you were insane! What were you thinking of? How could you part with all your treasure, just like that? What about your family?”

  “She is my family,” said Ingram fiercely.

  “You are distressing the boy,” said Adrian, standing and glaring at Geoffrey. “I must ask you to leave.”

  “Willingly, Father,” said Geoffrey. “Get up, Ingram. You are not dying. Your wound is only superficial. If you had ever fought a battle in the Holy Land, instead of skulking in some dark cellar until it was time to come and join in the looting, you would know this very well. Fortunately for you, the chalice deflected the knife, and your mother’s blow was not a fatal one.”

  Astonished, Ingram sat up, poking at himself doubtfully. “I will not die?”

  “Not yet,” said Geoffrey. “Although you have the physician’s murder to answer for.”

  “Give me the cup,” said Ingram, making a grab for it. “I will need it to hire lawyers.”

  Geoffrey caught his wrist. “You gave it to Father Adrian for his church, and that is where it will stay. If you steal it, I will hunt you down and chop your hands off.”

  Ingram paled.

  “You are a fool,” said Geoffrey, wearily. “And that is your best defence. How could you believe that Enide is your mother? Plead insanity to the judges, Ingram—tell them that you believed that a Norman lady gave birth to you when she was only eight years old, and yet managed to keep the secret so that only she knew; tell them that you gave her all your wealth in order to become lord of the manor at Goodrich; and tell them that you had a tiny scratch on your arm and you made a confession to the priest because you believed you were dying.”

  From where she was being held in Henry’s tight embrace, Enide laughed bitterly. “Greed, my dear brother. People will believe all manner of insanities for wealth and property.”

  “Enide!” said Father Adrian, turning shocked eyes on her. “What evil have you done now? You used me, you used Ingram, and you have killed. Confess now, before the Devil comes to claim you.”

  Enide sobered suddenly and went limp in Henry’s arms. “You are right,” she said softly. “I will make my confession. You can let me go, Henry. I will not try to escape.”

  “No, Henry!” yelled Geoffrey, as Henry released her.

  Freed from his grip, Enide spun round, and kicked Henry hard in the shins. As he staggered, she shoved him hard, so that he fell backwards into Joan, who was advancing purposefully. Both went tumbling to the ground. Henry bellowed in pain and fury, while Joan spat some ripe curses. And then Enide was off again, tearing along the river path with almost impossible speed.

  “After her!” shouted Joan, although Geoffrey was already running. “Father Adrian, stay with Ingram. And do not let him escape, or you will have even more on your conscience.”

  Clever Joan, thought Geoffrey as he ran. Adrian was already wracked with guilt over his unwitting role in Enide’s plotting—Joan’s statement would ensure that Ingram would not escape him.

  Enide managed a remarkable pace, although Geoffrey knew she would be unable to sustain it for long. She disappeared around a corner and, afraid that he would lose her in the forest if he could not see her, Geoffrey ran faster. He tore blindly round the bend, expecting to see her running ahead of him on the path. His mind registered that she was not there at exactly the same time that the branch swung towards his ankles and he lost his balance, stumbling to his knees. He saw her dagger glint, and heard Joan scream behind him. As Enide brought the dagger down, aiming for his unprotected neck, Geoffrey took a hold of her legs, and pulled her off balance. Then they were both rolling down the bank and into the brown, churning water.

  For a moment, all Geoffrey could do was to struggle wildly, trying to claw free of the choking water and of Enide who clung to him. Then he felt the soft bottom of the river-bed under his feet, and he fought to stand upright.

  “Take my hand!” yelled Henry, sliding down the bank towards him.

  Geoffrey reached out, but then Enide was on him, dagger flashing as, even in the dire peril of being swept down the river, she tried to stab him. He lost his footing, and they were both away, gasping and struggling as the current caught them and dragged them farther from the banks. Geoffrey wanted to shout to stop her, but his mouth was full of water, and he knew she would not listen anyway. Enide was doomed, and she intended to take Geoffrey with her.

  She lashed
out wildly with the dagger, stabbing at him when he tried to push her away. Her frenzy was more than he could combat, and he felt himself losing ground. He tried to hold the arm that brandished the knife, but his own hands were cold and clumsy, and he did not possess her demonic strength. He kicked away from her, and saw her disappear from his sight. Thinking that she must have been swept away, he turned, and tried to strike out for the bank.

  He had made some headway when he felt his legs grabbed from underneath, and then his world was nothing other than the roar of water and filthy brown bubbles. He kicked loose, but felt Enide’s one good hand clawing at his stomach, gaining a hold on his belt. He wondered whether she had risen from the dead after all, for whereas Geoffrey was growing weaker and was struggling for breath, Enide did not seem to need any.

  She ducked him under a second him, putting her arm around his neck like a vise. He bit her as hard as he could, and felt himself released momentarily. Then a floating branch caught him on the side of his head, and he felt his senses darkening. He began to feel as though he no longer cared: the intense, numbing cold of the water passed and the burning sensation in his lungs began to recede.

  Then she had him again, fastening her good arm around his chest, and dragging him through the water. But at least he could breathe. He looked up at the sky above, and wondered distantly whether it was blue or just dark grey. Then his feet were touching the river-bed, and he was aware the current no longer dragged and tore at him—and he realised that the arms around his chest were supportive rather than bent on his destruction.

  Strong hands reached out to haul him and Joan from the water, both coughing and gasping.

  “I almost lost you both!” cried Henry, horror in his voice. “The current was so strong!”

  Geoffrey saw what they had done. Joan had tied a rope around her waist and had gone into the water to catch him as he drifted past. Henry had hauled them both out again. Geoffrey could not have imagined such trusting co-operation occurring a week before, when the most important thing in their lives was the inheritance of Goodrich.

  He sat up, still gasping for breath.

  “Geoffrey! Are you all right? She was trying to drown you!” yelled Henry, pounding his younger brother vigorously on the back.

  “I had noticed,” said Geoffrey, raising an arm to fend him off. “But you saved my life.”

  “I do not know why,” Henry muttered. “I suppose I did not want that witch to deprive me of doing something I have been longing to do for years.”

  “Thank you anyway, both of you,” said Geoffrey, scanning the water for Enide. It was brown and flat, and there was no sign of her.

  “She is dead,” said Joan softly. “She was swept past me when I was reaching for you. Her eyes were open, but she was dead.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Geoffrey doubtfully.

  “Of course!” said Henry. “No one could survive that. You would not have lasted much longer yourself. Look at that current! I wager you it will only get stronger as you go downstream.”

  “So, I leave Goodrich as I arrived,” said Geoffrey, wiping the water from his eyes. “Soaking wet after a dip in the river.”

  “You are leaving, then?” asked Joan.

  “Yes,” said Geoffrey. “Today or tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow, then,” said Henry decisively. “Or even the next day. Give yourself time to dry out.”

  “And will you visit us in another twenty years?” asked Joan, looking away down the river.

  “Perhaps before,” said Geoffrey. “And I will write regularly.”

  Joan smiled at him suddenly, and he smiled back. Henry looked from one to the other mystified, and then helped haul both of them to their feet.

  “She has gone,” he said in satisfaction, making his way back up the bank. “Things will be different from now on. Goodrich is mine, as it should be, and there will be no brothers and no Enide and Hedwise to poison our lives. Bertrada will leave soon, but Joan and Olivier can stay on and help look after my estates. It is just that it has worked out this way, and the only good that will disappear with the evil is that wonderful fish soup.”

  Joan and Geoffrey exchanged a knowing glance and stood side by side a moment longer, looking down the river where Enide had disappeared. Just as he was about to follow Henry, Geoffrey caught the faintest glimpse of white some way down the opposite bank. He peered at it, but there was nothing to see. He decided that he must have been mistaken, and that his imagination had run away with him. Then he glanced at Joan, and saw her staring at the same spot.

  “Did you? …” he began.

  “I cannot be sure,” she replied hesitantly. She shook her head. “No. There was nothing there. I must have imagined it.”

  They exchanged a look in which the uncertainty of both was reflected, before following Henry up the slippery bank to head back to Goodrich Castle.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  In September 1087, William the Conqueror died, leaving three sons to fight over his kingdom. The eldest was Robert, who was to inherit the Dukedom of Normandy; the second was William Rufus, who hastened to the French coast so that he could be in England to seize the English throne; and the youngest was Henry, to whom the Conqueror bequeathed a quantity of silver, but no land. Another son had been killed in a hunting accident some years before.

  Rufus had much of the strength of character that made his father such a powerful king. His thirteen-year reign was reasonably successful and, as time passed, his grip on the crown became ever more secure. Some historians have suggested that Rufus dabbled in the black arts and that the fact that he never married indicates that he was a homosexual. There is no incontrovertible evidence for either claim, and the accounts that were written immediately after Rufus’s death were penned by monks, who had good reason to blacken his name: Rufus’s dealings with the Church were violent and unscrupulous, leading many churchmen to disclaim him as an agent of the Devil. Whether he was “hated by almost all his people and abhorrent to God,” as attested by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, is still a matter for debate among historians.

  Relations with Rufus’s elder brother, Robert, Duke of Normandy, were never easy, since the Duke did not take kindly to his younger sibling claiming the larger part of their father’s dominions. But in 1096, the Duke heard Pope Urban’s call for a great Crusade to set the Holy Land free from the Infidels who ruled it. Rashly, the Duke pawned Normandy to Rufus to raise funds for the adventure. A document was also signed by Rufus and the Duke to the effect that if either were to die childless, each would succeed to his brother’s estates.

  For three years or so, Rufus ruled both England and Normandy, while Henry, still landless, frittered away his time at court. Then news came that the Crusade was over, and that Jerusalem had been wrested from the control of the Saracens and was in Christian hands. The Duke began his return to Normandy. The journey took some time, since the Duke, never one to decline enjoyment, was persuaded to remain for several months as the honoured guest of the rich and powerful Geoffrey of Conversano. The Duke married Geoffrey’s daughter, and the dowry she brought him was ample to pay off the mortgage and reclaim Normandy from Rufus. Circumstances were looking bleak indeed for Prince Henry: one brother was firmly entrenched as King of England, while the other was returning to reclaim Normandy, complete with a wife who would doubtless provide him with an heir. The birth of a son to the Duke would take Henry yet one step further from his dreams of lands and power.

  On 2 August 1100, while staying at his manor of Brockenhurst, Rufus decided to go hunting. It is difficult to distinguish between legend and truth about the events on the day that Rufus died, but accounts say that Rufus was ill, and the hunting expedition that was due to leave in the morning was postponed until the afternoon. Several noblemen were in the company of the King’s little party, including Prince Henry; Sir Walter Tirel, the Count of Poix; and Earl Gilbert and his brother, Richard, of the large and powerful house of Clare.

  As was the custom, the party split to hun
t, and Rufus and Tirel found themselves together. One account maintains that a fletcher made a gift of fine arrows to Rufus before the hunt, and Rufus generously presented half of them to Tirel, reputedly a good shot. As evening drew in, the beaters began to herd the deer towards the forest glade in which Rufus and Tirel waited. What happened next will never be known for certain. The story goes that as the frightened stags were driven into the clearing, Rufus fired and missed; Tirel’s arrow was said (by the chronicler Oderic Vitalis in 1135) to have “shaved the hair on the animal’s back, sped on and wounded the King standing beyond.” Rufus pitched forwards and drove the arrow farther into his chest. Tirel promptly fled the scene of the crime and headed for France. Years later, he swore an oath to the saintly Abbot Suger of Paris that it was not his arrow that had killed Rufus, and even that he was not in the same part of the forest.

  Prince Henry immediately rode for Winchester, where the royal treasury was held, reaching it that evening. He demanded the keys to the treasury, and, within three days, he had been crowned King of England. Rufus’s body was taken to Winchester the day after his death, where he was buried. In 1107, the tower of Winchester Cathedral collapsed, and some sources suggest it was because such an evil man lay in a sacred place. The chronicler William of Malmsbury, however, notes that the structure of the tower was inherently unstable long before Rufus was buried under it.

  Meanwhile, there is no evidence that Walter Tirel ever gained from his alleged part in the killing: he received no manors and no favours from the new King. The powerful Clare family, however, went from strength to strength. Earl Gilbert’s brother, Richard, was one of the first to gain from Henry’s largesse, and he was made Abbot of the wealthy monastery of Ely before Christmas that year. It should also be noted that Tirel’s wife was Alice Clare, and that some historians consider the possibility that Tirel may have been a scapegoat in the hands of his powerful relations.

  It is impossible to say whether Rufus’s death was a tragic accident or the result of a carefully executed plan. However, the one person clearly to gain from Rufus’s sudden death was Prince Henry. Henry acted quickly and without hesitation, and was crowned before many people in England even knew that Rufus was dead. And there was also the Duke, riding back to reclaim Normandy. Had Rufus died in October, it would have been too late for Henry to benefit: the Duke would have taken the throne based on the document in which Rufus had named him heir in the event of his death. In the words of the eminent historian Christopher Brooke: “It is impossible to avoid altogether the suspicion that Rufus’s death was the result of a conspiracy in which his younger brother and successor was involved. … If Rufus’s death in August 1100 was an accident, Henry I was an exceptionally lucky man.”