A Head for Poisoning

by Simon Beaufort

  “Mabel, the dairymaid?” asked Geoffrey, searching distant memories for a youthful face that might have weathered into the one that glowered at him now.

  “Mabel, the buttery-steward, actually,” she replied tartly. “I have not been a dairymaid for many a year. And I will have you know that my butter and cheese is sought after as far away as Rosse.”

  “I trust you do not usually make them in the presence of corpses?” asked Geoffrey mildly, lowering his sword and regarding the angry woman steadily.

  She flushed. “I came to lay him out,” she said, waving a strong red arm at the bed.

  “Then why were you in the chest?” asked Geoffrey. “Looking for a shroud?”

  The woman held up her hand, and Geoffrey saw she held a sheet—grey from use and frayed in parts, but clean, nevertheless. “I brought one with me. I hid in the chest because I thought you were one of them—one of those others.”

  Geoffrey appreciated the sentiment, but her explanation still left many questions in his mind. He said nothing and waited.

  “I see you do not believe me,” she said, but not in a way that suggested she was particularly concerned. She pushed past him, and made for the bed. Julian leapt back with a cry.

  “Foolish child!” said Mabel, although not without kindness. “There is nothing to fear. Come here and look. See how peaceful his face appears? No one can poison him now. Dear Sir Godric is far from the reach of his evil kinsmen at last.”

  Julian declined to look, and instead fixed her gaze on Geoffrey. “Mabel was your father’s whore before Rohese became his chamber maid.”

  “I was not his whore!” objected Mabel loudly. “I was his companion. For years—ever since his wife died. I came to his chamber almost every night to …” She gestured expansively.

  “Discuss cheese and butter?” asked Geoffrey, beginning to see the humorous side of the situation.

  One of Enide’s letters had mentioned that his father had a penchant for one of the dairymaids years before, and it seemed as though his affection had been a long-term proposition—until Mabel had been displaced in favour of the younger, and distinctly more attractive, Rohese.

  Mabel glowered at him. “Sometimes we talked about dairy products,” she said, arching her eyebrows haughtily. “Sir Godric was fond of my cheeses.”

  And so here was another potential killer, thought Geoffrey, his amusement fading: Mabel, the rejected lover of many years, who fed her master the cheeses he so liked. Had Godric been mistaken, and it had been Mabel, not his offspring, who had been slowly poisoning him?

  Julian fled to the far side of the room when Mabel hauled away the sheet that Geoffrey had placed over Godric. On the floor, Geoffrey saw a bucket of clean water and some cloths.

  “Did you bring those?” he asked, pointing to them.

  “Of course I did,” Mabel snapped. “How else am I supposed to wash his poor murdered corpse?”

  “I still do not understand why you hid in the chest when we came,” said Geoffrey. “If your intentions here are honourable, why should you feel the need to flee?”

  “I told you,” sighed Mabel. “I thought you were one of the others. They never did approve of the fondness your father entertained for me, and they would have thrown me out.”

  “What makes you think that I will not?”

  “You at least covered him with a sheet, which is more in a few moments than that brood managed over an entire day. Anyway, they might have accused me of stealing his ring. And I do not have it. You can search me if you like,” she added with a sway of her hips.

  “Thank you, no,” said Geoffrey hastily. “And if you refer to the ring that he wore on his right hand, Henry has it.” He recalled vividly Henry wresting the ring from what he had believed to be Godric’s corpse some days before.

  “Has he, now?” said Mabel harshly. “I might have known! Sir Godric always said he wanted me to have that. But no matter. I want nothing from the Mappestones anyway. Come nightfall, I will be away, and I will never return to these parts again. There is nothing to keep me here now. One sister died in childbirth at the end of last summer, and the other died of an ague just a month ago. Her poor corpse was not left in peace, though. Walter said it was dogs, although around here, who knows?”

  “Your sister’s grave was desecrated?” said Geoffrey, bewildered by her wide-ranging monologue.

  “I do not know about that, but it was disturbed, and it looked as though someone had been poking around in it a few days ago—since you returned, in fact.”

  “Well, it was not me,” said Geoffrey firmly.

  “Did I say it was?” demanded Mabel, hurling Godric’s stained nightshirt on the floor at his feet. “But I have heard strange things about you—that you read books and make secret signs on scraps of parchment with inks. Master Helbye told me about it.”

  “It is called writing,” said Geoffrey. “And literacy does not automatically lead to grave-robbing.”

  “I said nothing of grave-robbing,” said Mabel belligerently. “I said that my sister’s grave had been disturbed, but I did not dig it up to make sure she was still in it. Walter said he thought some dogs had scratched up the surface.”

  It was not an uncommon occurrence, especially if a family was poor, and unable to pay a grave-digger for a sufficiently deep hole.

  “Or maybe it was that Earl of Shrewsbury,” said Mabel darkly. “I have heard even worse things about the likes of him than of you. It is said that he dabbles in the black arts, and he may have needed to rob a grave for some wicked spell he was casting.”

  “So, what will you do if you leave here?” asked Geoffrey, not wanting to pursue that topic of conversation when the castle was full of people who might inform the Earl that nasty things were being said about him. “Where will you go?”

  “I have been offered the position as cheese-maker at Monmouth Castle, and I intend to leave as soon as Godric is laid out. My roof leaks and that miserly Walter will not pay to have it mended.”

  Geoffrey sat on the chest and watched her, while Julian wrapped her arms over her head and crouched against the wall, out of hearing and out of sight.

  “You are fond of him still?” he asked, noting the gentle way in which her rough, red hands stripped the corpse of its bloodstained hose.

  She sighed softly, and would not look at Geoffrey. “I will always be fond of Sir Godric,” she said. “No one understood him like I did. And that Lady Enide was worst of all. She hated the arrangement I had with him.”

  “Enide did? Are you certain? I was led to believe she was the most understanding of them all when it came to his whores … I mean his companions.”

  He recalled Godric’s pleasure as he recounted Enide’s sympathy in his courting of Rohese, even giving up her own bedchamber so that Godric could seduce the girl in more conducive surroundings.

  “She encouraged that Rohese all right,” said Mabel, vigorously scrubbing at the blood that stained Godric’s stomach. “But she made life so difficult for me that Sir Godric was obliged to tell me about the door. Oh!” Her hands flew to her mouth, and she gazed at Geoffrey in horror.

  “What door?” asked Geoffrey, interested.

  “No. Nothing. I mean window.” Mabel was clearly no liar. Her belligerent manner dropped, and she became flustered.

  “What door?” asked Geoffrey again.

  “No!” said Mabel firmly. “I will not tell you. Sir Godric made me promise that I would never tell anyone about it. Especially one of you!”

  “But Sir Godric is dead, Mabel,” said Geoffrey. “And you might be able to help me catch the person who killed him if you tell me what you know.”

  “Do you think so?” asked Mabel, uncertain. She looked down at the still features of Godric. “No. You are only trying to make me give up my secret. You are not interested in his killer—you only care about his wealth, just like the rest of them.”

  “I am very interested in who killed him,” said Geoffrey softly. “He was my father. And I do
not care about his wealth.”

  Mabel regarded him long and hard. “That nice Sergeant Helbye says you only returned to pay your respects to Sir Godric. And young Barlow and Ingram have been telling everyone how you threw away so many chances to go looting because you have no taste for killing.” She paused, and continued her searching look at his face. “All right, I believe you.”

  “Good,” said Geoffrey, leaning back against the wall and folding his arms. “Then will you help me catch my father’s murderer?”

  “Oh, no,” said Mabel. “That would be far too dangerous. But I will tell you about me and Godric and Enide. That might help.”

  She cleared her throat importantly, and perched on the edge of the bed. On the other side of the room, Julian pulled her hands from her ears and listened.

  ‘I took up with your father the summer after your mother died,” Mabel began. “That was fifteen years ago now. All was well at first. I think your brothers and sisters were just glad that I was able to soothe his ill-temper from time to time. But about a year or so ago, Enide began to object. She made life very difficult for us, and waited for me on the stairs to prevent me from going to him, urging him to take Rohese instead. In the end, Sir Godric told me about the door, but he said I should never tell another Mappestone about it, no matter what happened.”

  She paused, and Geoffrey could see she was already having second thoughts about breaking her trust.

  “Why did Enide take against you after so many years?” he asked, to distract her from her dilemma.

  Mabel shrugged. “She said I was too indiscreet, and that Sir Godric should take up with a woman who lived in the castle and who could come to him when he needed her, rather than having to send a servant to the village to fetch me. And my husband did not always approve of that, anyway,” she added.

  Geoffrey could see his point. Was that why Enide had been so accommodating over the business with the chambers, then? he wondered. To encourage Godric to make use of Rohese in the chamber opposite, rather than send for Mabel in the village?

  “And the door?” he asked.

  Mabel pursed her lips. “It was the only way I could get to him, but Sir Godric charged me never to come to him if there was anyone who might see me using it. He said word might get out to his neighbours that the keep of Goodrich Castle contained a secret entrance.”

  “Where is it?” asked Geoffrey.

  Mabel hesitated yet again, gazing at Geoffrey’s face as though she might be able to read there what were his true intentions. Finally, just when Geoffrey was beginning think he might have to think of better reasons to persuade her, she spoke.

  “Come on, then. I will show you. Julian can wait outside while I do it, and make certain no one comes in and sees what we are doing.”

  When Julian hesitated, reluctant to miss out on something that sounded so intriguing, Mabel put her hands on her hips, and Geoffrey bundled the girl out of the chamber and closed the door. Mabel led the way into the garderobe passage, and poked around at a wood-pannelled wall behind some shelves at the far end, where Godric had kept a few gowns and some rusty pieces of armour. She gave a hard tug and, with a groan, the entire wall slid back to reveal a dark passageway. Geoffrey shuddered, and closed it.

  “Is that all you are going to do?” Mabel asked angrily, opening it again. “I betray a trust made to a man who lies foully murdered, and all you do is give it a quick glance and shut the door?”

  Geoffrey appreciated how it looked, but nothing, not even the most ferocious of battles, could evoke in him the blind terror that could a tunnel or a cave. He had once been supervising an undermining operation while besieging a castle in France, and the whole structure had collapsed while he was still inside. He recalled every moment of the hours spent trapped in the tunnel, with water slowly rising and the air growing thinner and thinner, not knowing whether he would ever be rescued. The black slit in the thickness of the wall in Godric’s garderobe held less appeal for him than an army of Mappestones.

  “Where does it lead?” he asked.

  “Go down it and see,” said Mabel. “If you are afraid of the dark, here is a torch.”

  Several torches and kindling on a shelf just inside the tunnel suggested that Godric’s secret door had been used relatively frequently.

  “Who else knew of this?” Geoffrey asked, taking the kindling from her and replacing it before she could light it. “Besides you and my father?”

  “Enide knew—long before I did. I suppose Sir Godric told her. But none of the others knew, as far as I am aware. Sir Godric tended to trust only her.”

  “But was there anyone outside the family who knew?” pressed Geoffrey. “One of the servants, maybe? Or Norbert the clerk?”

  Mabel let out an explosive bark of laughter. “Of course not poor old Norbert! Sir Godric trusted him even less than he trusted his sons. I believe no one at the castle knew, but he did have visitors sometimes. Once or twice, Sir Godric sent me off early, and I saw others entering after me. I do not know who they were. Sir Godric was always very careful that they were not seen.”

  Geoffrey looked at the sinister passageway and swallowed hard. Godric might well have told Rohese about it, especially if he had seen that Geoffrey had been drugged, and would no longer be able to protect her. It was very possible his father’s young whore was down there now, too frightened to leave, and he knew he should go to see. But the passageway would be too low for him to stand upright, and probably too narrow for him to walk without turning sideways. As he stood looking, he could feel the cold, damp breath of the tunnel oozing out around them, filling the garderobe passage with a rank, musty smell. He closed the door firmly.

  “I will explore it later,” he said vaguely. “It—”

  He was interrupted by loud voices outside the bedroom door. Mabel scurried from the passage, and began laying out Godric again just as Henry burst in, followed by Walter and Stephen. Julian slipped in behind them, her eyes darting everywhere for evidence of Mabel’s door. Geoffrey hoped the astute Stephen would not notice what the girl was doing.

  “What have you been up to, all alone in here with father’s corpse?” Henry demanded.

  He strode forward, as though he would lay hold of Geoffrey to shake the truth out of him, but made a hasty diversion when he saw the effects of the poison had worn off, and that Geoffrey would certainly no longer accept any manhandling from his smaller brother.

  “He is not alone,” said Stephen, eyeing Mabel with amusement.

  “Geoffrey! You should be ashamed of yourself!” cried Walter, aghast. “Seducing our father’s whore while his corpse is barely cold.”

  “Excuse me!” said Mabel angrily. “What do you take me for? I am not for any man to take!”

  “Well, Mabel,” said Stephen pleasantly. “To what do we owe this pleasure? You vowed never to set foot in Goodrich after our father’s preferences changed to younger women.”

  “I came to do for his poor corpse what you would not,” said Mabel, scrubbing furiously. “Sir Godric and I had our good times and our bad ones, but I wanted to see him properly prepared for his funeral, and I knew you lot would not bother.”

  “You came to search for the ring you claim he promised you, more likely,” said Joan, appearing suddenly in the doorway. “I looked for it myself, but someone had beaten me to it.”

  “Henry took it,” said Stephen. “Before Godric was even dead.”

  “Liar,” spat Henry. “I gave it back to him.”

  Geoffrey was sure he had not, and moved away from the bed and his bickering relatives. He sat by the ashes of the fire, and gave a sigh. His head began to ache, and he felt sick again, as always seemed to happen when he set foot in his father’s chamber. He started suddenly, astounded at his sluggishness in putting together the facts that had been staring him in the face almost from the moment he had arrived at Goodrich. Godric had hired two food-tasters to assure him that no one was poisoning his meals, and the physician had found no poisons in what Godric had
eaten. But the toxins were not in the food at all: they were in the room!

  Geoffrey had heard of poisons being put in clothes and materials, and Godric’s bed had always made Geoffrey cough and his eyes water. Had someone been placing some kind of poisonous powder in the bed, so that it would kill Godric as he lay in it, the poisons wafting into the air around him each time he moved—and the weaker Godric grew, the more he would be forced to stay in bed, and the longer the poison could work on him. That was it! Geoffrey grew more certain as he considered it. Geoffrey had been told that Godric had been confined to his bed around November, and had simultaneously taken a turn for the worse.

  So, Geoffrey now knew something that the physician had been unable to deduce. He knew how his father had been poisoned when all the food had been carefully checked. He decided that he would ask the physician to see whether he could find traces of the poison in Godric’s mattress. His elation subsided as quickly as it had arisen. He knew how Godric had been poisoned, but he still did not know who had done it. Julian came to sit next to him, sniffing and rubbing her nose against an already slimy sleeve.

  “You look sick again,” she said in a low voice. “Do not let on to Henry, or he will take advantage of it and kill you.” She reached for the bottle of wine Stephen had given Geoffrey two nights before, and offered it to him. “Drink some of this. It might make you feel better.”

  “God’s teeth, Julian!” muttered Geoffrey. “Do not give me that. It contains the poison that almost dispatched me the last time.”

  “It cannot,” protested Julian. “The seal is not broken. How can it be poisoned if the seal is intact?”

  Geoffrey stared down at the bottle. Julian was right. He looked around, but it was the only bottle in the room. It was, without doubt, one of the same kind that Stephen had brought him, and before Julian had picked it up, it had stood next to the bowl in which Hedwise had brought the broth. Geoffrey leaned over and picked up the bowl. It was clean: someone had washed it. Geoffrey frowned, and looked at the bowl and bottle thoughtfully. It seemed that the murderer was taking great care to cover his, or her, tracks.