A Head for Poisoning

by Simon Beaufort

  “I do not understand,” said Geoffrey.

  He shook his head as Adrian offered him some ale. The priest took a deep draught from the beaker, and offered it a second time. Somewhat sheepishly, Geoffrey accepted, for his throat was dry and he was even more thirsty than he had been at times in the desert.

  “How did the knife move from his stomach to his chest?”

  “Well, it did not do it on its own,” replied Francis facetiously. “The wound in the chest had been inflicted after Godric had died. I can tell such things by the amount of bleeding—wounds bleed little or not at all after death, and there was virtually no bleeding from the injury to Godric’s chest, unlike the gash in his stomach.”

  “So someone killed my father with a fatal, but not immediately effective, wound in the stomach, and then stabbed him in the chest after he was dead?” asked Geoffrey doubtfully. “That does not sound very likely.”

  “Likely or not,” said Francis haughtily, “that is how it happened. Now, the blood was still sticky although the body was cool. I estimate that Godric died sometime around dawn, or, more probably, a little earlier.”

  But that did not help Geoffrey very much at all, because it did not tell him whether his father had died before or after Walter had risen and left. If he had died after, then Walter was probably as innocent of the murder as was Geoffrey. But if he had died before, then there were three possibilities. First, Walter, like Geoffrey, was drugged in some way to make him sleep through it—although he had not seemed ill that morning; second, Walter had killed Godric while Geoffrey slept, and had left Bertrada to discover the corpse; or, third, Walter had not killed Godric, but was complicit in his murder at the hands of another. And, despite Francis’s claim, Geoffrey could not see how the physician’s evidence proved that Geoffrey was not responsible.

  Francis appeared to read his mind, for he smiled, and leaned across to dilute Geoffrey’s ale with water from a jug from which Julian had been drinking.

  “Avoid wines and strong ales for a day or two—the body will need time to recover. But you are interested in proving your innocence in all this, I see. Very well, then. I am almost certain that the poison used on you was some kind of poppy powder mixed with a tiny amount of the juice of ergot. You were not given enough to kill you, although whether by design or chance, I cannot be certain.”

  “Chance would be my wager,” said Helbye with conviction. “Someone does not want you at the castle, lad. Whoever poisoned you wanted you dead, not sick.”

  Geoffrey was thoughtful. Someone had gone to some trouble to ensure that his dagger was used to kill Godric, and that he was still in the room when the body was found. Was it because—as the Earl had claimed—someone had wanted him accused of his father’s murder? Or was Helbye right, and the poisoner had actually wanted him dead? He sighed, not knowing what to think, or where to start looking for answers.

  He turned to Francis. “Were the wound in Godric’s stomach and the wound in his chest caused by the same implement?”

  Francis’s hitherto smug expression faded. “I did not think to look. How could I have forgotten to test for something so obvious?”

  “No matter,” said Geoffrey. “I can look myself.” He drank more of the watered ale. “But you still have not explained your reasoning that the murderer was not me.”

  “Next to the hearth was an opened bottle of wine and an empty bowl. Both contained the unmistakable aroma of poppy and ergot. You have already told me that you consumed something before you slept and, judging from your condition when you came to me, you could not possibly have been in a fit state to kill Sir Godric before dawn. The poppy would have had an effect almost immediately, and you were still under the ergot’s influence when you came here this morning.”

  Geoffrey did not consider Francis’s logic to be without its flaws, especially since the bowl was empty because he had tipped Hedwise’s broth down the garderobe shaft, and he certainly would not wish to hang his defence in a court of law on such a fragile thread. But at least it served to gain him another ally—two, if he included the priest Adrian, and, in a place like Goodrich, allies might mean the difference between life and death.

  He rubbed his eyes, and tried to make some sense out of the evidence Francis had provided him. “So both the wine and the broth were treated with ergot?”

  “Not just ergot,” said Francis pedantically. “There was poppy powder, too.”

  “Why bother with two poisons?” asked Geoffrey. “It seems that the poppy powder would have served its purpose alone.”

  “There are a number of possibilities,” said Francis. “Ergot in large quantities is fatal, but the poisoner probably did not want you wandering about the castle waking everyone as you died publicly—hence he or she added the poppy so that you would slip away quietly. Or perhaps each was the preferred compound of a different poisoner.”

  “You mean that two people at the castle tried independently to poison me last night?” queried Geoffrey incredulously. “I know I am not popular with my brothers and sisters, but I do not think anyone but Henry holds genuine murderous intentions.”

  “I think you overestimate your claim on your family’s affections,” said Adrian sombrely. “I heard in the village this morning that Godric presented a copy of his latest will to you, naming you as his sole beneficiary. You have been away, so you cannot know the importance to which the inheritance of Goodrich has soared among your brethren. Walter, Bertrada, Stephen, Henry, Olivier, and even Joan and Hedwise would not hesitate to kill to get Goodrich.”

  The priest’s words were far from comforting, and it was with some gratitude that Geoffrey accepted Helbye’s offer of a bed by his hearth that night. The knight huddled near the embers, twisted slightly to one side to avoid the drips that came through the roof from the rain outside, and thought about what he had learned. There was no question whatsoever in his mind now that Enide had been the victim of some foul plot, the prize of which was the inheritance of Goodrich. She had known about the documents that proved Walter’s illegitimacy and that claimed Sigurd, not Godric, was the father of Stephen. The poachers Henry hanged had been innocent.

  Godric claimed that Enide had burned the documents. Had she? Or had she kept them for some reason of her own? If the latter were true Geoffrey knew exactly where she would have hidden them, and resolved to look the following day. Was that why Adrian noticed that she had been distracted the morning of her death, or was her lack of concentration because she had arranged to meet someone—Caerdig perhaps? And why did someone poison her, but not fatally, if the intention was to secure her silence?

  He rubbed his head, and took another sip of the water Helbye had left him. He was horrified at the notion that two members of his family would try independently to poison him the same night. After all, he had been to some pains to convince them that he did not want Goodrich. Of course, they had not believed him, and had even concocted some distorted story about him bribing Ine to return from the Holy Land to poison Godric.

  Geoffrey frowned in the darkness. The physician had said that he had detected ergot in both the wine and the broth. Geoffrey tried to remember what little he knew about ergot. It was a fungus that poisoned crops, and prolonged or large doses caused gangrene. Godric had no gangrene, so did that mean that the person who had poisoned Godric was different from the person or persons who had poisoned Geoffrey?

  A dim memory also told him that ergot was supposed to have a fishy flavour. The fish broth had certainly tasted fishy, and the smell had made him feel sick. But then, he recalled, so had the sip of wine that he had taken afterwards. So, had someone wanted him to take the poison sufficiently desperately to tamper with both broth and wine? Was it Stephen, who brought the bottle? Was it Hedwise, who made the broth? Was it Walter, who had insisted Geoffrey finish the broth or risk offending Hedwise? Or was it someone else, knowing that wine and broth would be taken to Geoffrey, and using Stephen, Hedwise, and Walter as innocent participants?

  Geoffrey remembe
red Rohese. Perhaps she might have seen or heard something, assuming that she had remained in her hiding place, and had not emerged to kill Godric in his sleep. But that would mean that she probably also poisoned Geoffrey, and he was only too aware that she had had other, far more immediate, matters on her mind than taking the time to indulge in poisoning and murder. And in any case, if Rohese were going to poison anyone, it was far more likely that it would have been the Earl.

  And how did the Earl fit into all this? Geoffrey could not imagine that Godric had made a will citing the evil Shrewsbury as sole beneficiary, and he did not believe that Godric would accept an annulment of his marriage without mentioning it to his children—it would have been exactly the kind of revelation he would have relished making. And if that were true, then the will that the Earl had flaunted earlier that day was a forgery.

  Geoffrey shivered, and moved nearer the fire. Was King Henry right, and the Earl had taken part in the killing of King William Rufus for some dark purpose of his own? The Earl openly professed to be a supporter of the Duke of Normandy—as long as it worked to his advantage. Perhaps King Henry was right, and Shrewsbury was indeed aiming to consolidate his holdings on the Welsh border so that he could aid the Duke to take England.

  He yawned. It was very late, and he sensed he would make no further sense from his thoughts that night. He drew the rough blanket round his shoulders and lay down, still watching the flickering flames.

  During the night, it had rained hard, and the ground outside Helbye’s house was thick with mud. Declining the sergeant’s offer of company, Geoffrey walked up the hill and hammered on the gate to the barbican. The guard let him in, and watched him walk towards the inner gatehouse. It was still early, and the guard in charge there was still asleep. Thinking that he would never tolerate such laxness in a castle surrounded by hostile neighbours, Geoffrey scrambled over the wooden gate and dropped lightly down the other side. Malger had been right to put his own soldiers around the castle walls the night the Earl slept in Goodrich.

  Geoffrey’s dog appeared from nowhere, and came to snuffle round him, greedy for its breakfast. A little guiltily, for he had forgotten to feed it the day before, Geoffrey found a large soup bone in the kitchens. The dog wrapped slathering jaws around the stinking delicacy, narrowly missing Geoffrey’s fingers, and slunk away to gorge itself in peace. Geoffrey was in the act of taking a piece of cheese from the pantry when he remembered the ergot, and decided against it.

  “It is all right,” said someone behind him, so close that it made him jump. “I had some of that last night, and I am still here.”

  At first, Geoffrey could not see from where the voice came, and thought that someone was playing a game with him. Either that, or the ergot had hallucinatory qualities that the physician had failed to mention. He bent to peer under the table.

  “Julian? What are you doing there?”

  The girl emerged slowly, her eyes red and puffy from crying, and went to cut Geoffrey some cheese. She sniffed wetly, and rubbed her nose on her hand before using it to pass Geoffrey the cheese. Geoffrey hesitated a moment before taking it, but supposed he had eaten far worse during his years as a soldier, and anyway, he was hungry. Julian disappeared into a storeroom, and reappeared with some stale bread and a pitcher of milk.

  “Milk?” asked Geoffrey dubiously. “That is what children drink. Is there no ale?”

  “I expect so,” said Julian. “But it will be sour, and at least I know this cream cannot be poisoned, because I have just milked the cow myself.”

  That was enough to satisfy Geoffrey. He swallowed his prejudices along with the milk, and even decided it was preferable to sour ale, and certainly not so hard on a stomach still sore from the abuses of the previous day. The bread was gritty and made from cheap, poorly ground flour, but the cheese was surprisingly good—smooth, and yet with a pleasant, tart flavour.

  “So, what is wrong?” Geoffrey asked of Julian as he ate. “Has Sir Olivier declined your services with his splendid war-horse again?”

  Julian shot him a nasty look. “I cannot find my sister,” she said. “I think they may have killed her and hidden away her body.”

  Geoffrey looked up sharply, slopping the milk over his leg. Realisation came slowly to him. “Oh, Lord,” he said in horror, his breakfast forgotten. “Rohese?”

  The girl nodded. “She was your father’s chambermaid.”

  That was one way of putting it, thought Geoffrey. He abandoned the bread and cheese to the dog, which, having secreted the bone somewhere sufficiently foul for no other living thing to want it, was on the look out for something else. Geoffrey burst out of the kitchen and raced across the yard. Reaching the door to the keep, he slowed, opening it quietly. The servants still slept, or were beginning to wake, and were talking among themselves in sleepy voices. No one paid him any attention as he walked across the hall and ran up the stairs, Julian at his heels.

  “Stay there,” he ordered as he reached Godric’s chamber, closing the door to keep her out. He did not want Julian to see what he was afraid he might find. He went to the bed and gazed in horror.

  Godric still lay as he had done the previous day. Dry blood stained his nightshirt and the bedclothes, although Geoffrey’s Arabian dagger had been removed, and lay on the bed next to the body. Geoffrey raised a shaking hand to his head. Until now, the death of Godric had seemed unreal, for his brief glimpse of the corpse the day before was only a hazy memory in his drugged mind. He had credited Walter and Stephen, and even Joan, with some degree of decency, and had not imagined that they would leave their father unattended for an entire day.

  He took a deep breath, and forced anger to the back of his mind. His fury at his siblings could come later, but Rohese could not wait—assuming she had not suffocated already. He hauled up the mattress tentatively, half expecting to find yet another corpse to add to Goodrich’s death toll. It was with considerable relief that he saw the bed was empty.

  A loud sniff from outside reminded him that Julian was waiting. He covered Godric with a sheet and went to let her in.

  “I thought she might be here,” he said vaguely.

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. So, what did Rohese’s disappearance tell him? That the Earl had found her after all, and had stolen her away while Geoffrey was lying in his drugged stupor? That she had fled the castle after killing his father? Or that she had simply hidden somewhere else until she was certain it was safe to come out?

  “Rohese would not be in this room!” said Julian accusingly, her eyes brimming with tears. “They searched it at least twice when they were looking for her. You should know—you were here too, caring for your father!”

  She began to weep, first silently, and then her voice rose to heart-wrenching sobs.

  “Hush,” said Geoffrey, embarrassed. “Someone will hear you.”

  “I do not care!”

  At a loss to know how to comfort her, Geoffrey closed the door, and made her sit on the chest, handing her a piece of cloth in which to blow her nose. She took the cloth and wiped her eyes with it, and then ran her sleeve across her nose.

  “She is dead!” Julian wept. “No one has seen her since he came!”

  “Who? The Earl?”

  Julian nodded miserably. Geoffrey looked down at her and wished he could offer the child the assurances she needed, but who knew what had gone on in Godric’s chamber after Geoffrey had swallowed the poisoned broth? Or was it the wine that had done the damage?

  “She probably found somewhere else to hide,” he said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. “I know the Earl did not find her before I went to sleep, so perhaps he never found her at all.”

  Julian sniffed again, and looked at the bed. Her expression of grief turned to one of horror. “Is he still there?” she asked in a whisper. “I thought he would have been taken to the chapel by now.”

  “So did I,” said Geoffrey. “I will take him this morning, but first—”

  He was arrested in the a
ct of removing the cover, to begin the process of preparing his father’s body, by a sudden, terrified shriek from Julian.

  “Whatever is the matter?” said Geoffrey, half-angry and half-alarmed by Julian’s medley of unexpected noises.

  “Do not lift that blanket!” pleaded Julian. “There is a corpse underneath it.”

  “I know,” said Geoffrey dryly. “It is my father’s.”

  “But he is dead!”

  “Corpses usually are,” said Geoffrey. He looked at the girl more closely. “What is the matter with you? Have you never seen a dead man before?” He had seen so many that the notion that a child might find one unnerving had failed to cross his mind.

  Appalled, Julian shook her head. And then gave another scream, leaping from the chest and dashing to the opposite side of the room to stand cowering against the wall.

  “Now what?” cried Geoffrey, bewildered. “Pull yourself together, Julian, for God’s sake. My brothers will be here in a minute, thinking I am committing another murder!”

  “This room is haunted!” whispered Julian, beginning to shake uncontrollably. “Sir Godric’s ghost walks here!”

  “Are you sure there was nothing wrong with that milk?” asked Geoffrey doubtfully. “Because something seems to have addled your wits. It is not—”

  He broke off as a slight but unmistakable thump came from the chest. Taking his sword from a peg on the wall, where he had hung it two nights before, he stepped forward and flung open the lid.

  Two hostile eyes greeted him, glowering out from among Godric’s motley selection of mended shirts and well-patched cloaks.

  “Mabel!” exclaimed Julian, startled.

  “Of course it is me!” snapped Mabel, glaring at the girl. “Who else did you expect?”

  “I thought you might be Sir Godric,” said Julian in a small voice.

  “Sir Godric is dead!” snapped Mabel, standing, and putting her hands on her ample hips. She was a large woman, well past the bloom of youth, and her thick golden hair was dull and coarse. Her skin, which might once have been soft, was tough looking and leathery from an outdoor life.