A Head for Poisoning

by Simon Beaufort

  “For God’s sake!” cried Geoffrey in exasperation. “What is going on? You say you saw her body. Then you say you saw her head. Are you now saying that you saw neither?”

  “It was not her body outside the chapel,” said Adrian. He looked down at his sandalled feet. “I lied to protect Enide, and only I know that it was not her body in the grave that bears her name.”

  Geoffrey gazed at him, the full implications of Adrian’s claim striking home for the first time. “Enide is alive?” he asked in a whisper. “My favourite sister is alive?”

  Adrian nodded, more miserably than he should for a bearer of such glad tidings.

  “But I saw her grave,” Geoffrey persisted. “And others saw her dead—Henry and Walter.”

  Adrian still said nothing.

  “How could she do this?” asked Geoffrey, bewildered. “How could she let those who love her believe she was dead?”

  He recalled his grief when he had received the note bearing the news, and the emptiness he had felt when he knew the last and only pleasant tie with his family had been severed. He swallowed hard, and regarded Adrian doubtfully. No wonder Francis had noticed that Adrian’s grief for Enide had been brief and shallow. It was doubtless difficult to grieve for someone who was still alive.

  “You used that other woman!” he said, the sudden loudness of his voice making his horse start. “Walter and Henry did not see Enide at all: they saw the body of the poor woman who had died in childbirth the day before—who you told me was in the parish coffin waiting to be buried that day! You said you had left the church later than everyone else on the day that Enide was killed, because you had stayed to say a mass for this woman.”

  Adrian nodded miserably.

  “And you sliced the head from this woman’s shoulders so that no one would be able to identify her,” said Geoffrey. “Why? How could you do such a thing—you who claim to dislike violence? I am not surprised you felt obliged to pray for her after everyone else had gone!”

  “I did it for Enide!” protested Adrian. “She came to me in great fear and said that one of her brothers or her sister was going to kill her. The poor lady had already been poisoned—like Godric—and so I had no reason to disbelieve her. She was so frightened that I decided I would do anything to help her. We agreed that we would use the body of the woman who lay in my church to make everyone believe Enide was dead—so that she would be safe.”

  “But chopping the head from a corpse!” said Geoffrey in disgust. “The Crusaders could learn a good deal from you!”

  “Actually, the decapitation was not part of the arrangement,” said Adrian shakily. “The plan was that I should bury a shroud filled with earth in the other woman’s grave, and then say that I had found Enide’s body in the churchyard. I was immediately to seal ‘Enide’s’ corpse in a coffin—to stop your family from looking at it. My shock was as great as anyone’s when Henry—against my protestations—dragged the lid from the coffin to look inside. Enide told me later that she knew he, or one of the others, would not be prevented from looking, and so she had hacked off the head to hide the fact that the corpse was not hers.”

  “And what of Enide’s hand?” asked Geoffrey coldly. “The one that you told me was withered from her childhood accident? Did they not look at that for identification? Or was that a lie too?”

  “That was the truth,” said Adrian. “I suppose they were so shocked to see the body headless, that they did not think of such things. Anyway, the corpse was tightly wound in its shroud, and it would have been some effort to undo it.”

  “This is horrible!” said Geoffrey, gazing at the priest in distaste. “No wonder you were surprised when I showed you what I had found in the room at the end of the tunnel. It was the head of that poor woman whose body you so callously used for your own devices, was it not?”

  Adrian nodded miserably. “I searched the churchyard for that head so that I could bury it decently,” he said. “But Enide refused to tell me what she had done with it.

  Geoffrey took a deep breath. The priest seemed genuinely contrite, but how far could Geoffrey trust him? He had already admitted to weaving a fabric of lies around the events leading to Enide’s death, so how did Geoffrey know he had decided to be truthful at last? Francis had suggested that Adrian might have killed both Pernel and Enide at his masses, but now the priest was claiming that Enide still lived and Geoffrey no longer knew what to believe.

  He took a deep breath, oddly relieved that the grisly head he had bundled in the blanket had not been Enide’s after all. And the other skull? Geoffrey himself had already suggested that Ingram would not have been loath to dig up a grave to acquire himself a head that he could use to force Geoffrey to pay for information. And that, thought the knight with sudden realisation, was exactly what Ingram had done.

  “Mabel, the buttery-steward at the castle, told me that she was leaving Goodrich because her sister’s grave had been desecrated,” he said to Adrian. “She assumed that the Earl of Shrewsbury had done it, because he has such a dreadful reputation. Walter said it was dogs. But we know different, do we not, Father Adrian?”

  “The head Ingram brought does look as if it belongs to Mabel’s sister,” admitted Adrian sombrely. “The poor woman died of an ague about three weeks ago.”

  “And that is why you allowed Ingram to escape when I asked him where it had come from,” said Geoffrey. “You did not want me to press him to reveal where he unearthed this poor head—because you intended me to believe it was Enide’s. Or did you charge him to dig it up, unaware that I was bringing you a similar gift?”

  “No!” cried Adrian, horrified. “Ingram has been fascinated by this whole business from the start. He has been ferreting about and asking questions of just about everybody. He managed to drag out from your father’s food-taster that Enide had been seen leaving my house after she was supposed to have been dead. Ingram has been obsessed with Enide’s death—just like you.”

  So that was why the food-taster was so reluctant to speak to anyone, Geoffrey thought. He knew he had stumbled upon a plot that would have been very dangerous to investigate further—and that seemed to involve murdered corpses wandering through the village.

  “But Ingram’s unwholesome interest in my affairs still explains nothing,” said Geoffrey coldly.

  Adrian sighed. “Ingram presented me with his … find, and asked if it could be Enide. I told him it could, because I wanted him to cease his questioning before someone did it for him. He would not be the first around here to be silenced for his curiosity: I do not think that Godric’s first food-taster drowned in the castle moat by accident.”

  Geoffrey was sure he was right.

  “Then Ingram told me that he planned to make you pay dearly for the information he had gathered,” said Adrian. “He claims that you sometimes prevented him from looting in the Holy Land, and that he came back poorer than he should have done.”

  Geoffrey had forbidden his men to loot on certain occasions—especially when the victims were already on the brink of starvation or he felt that they had suffered enough at the grasping hands of the Crusader army. But he had not realised that his few attempts to instil a sense of compassion and decency in his troops would have such far-reaching consequences.

  “Did Ingram tell you what kind of information he had amassed from his enquiries?” he asked.

  “No, and I knew he did not have the real truth,” said Adrian. “I was afraid he would make things up that would mislead you, and that would put you in danger when you went to investigate them.”

  “So you prevented me from forcing him to admit that he had excavated Mabel’s sister’s grave to get a head,” said Geoffrey. “You did not want me to guess that Enide might still be alive—which I would have done had Ingram told the truth, because there were two severed heads in your kitchen, and yet neither was hers. You would have been exposed as the liar you are, and Enide’s secret would have been out.”

  “I was only thinking of you,” said Adrian
tiredly. “Believe what you will, but I have been scurrying around trying to make amends for others” evil deeds for weeks now. Of course I wanted to protect Enide, but I did not—do not—want to see you harmed in all this mess. I thought if I could keep the truth from you for a few more days, you would leave anyway.”

  “Francis told us that there were others who intended to kill King Henry,” said Geoffrey, thoughtfully. “If Enide is still alive, as you claim, then I think she may well be planning to visit King Henry to demonstrate first-hand her penchant for regicide.”

  “You are quite wrong,” said Adrian forcefully. “I spoke with her after you left my house last night. She set off several hours ago to become a nun at Glowecestre Abbey.”

  “Enide has already left?” cried Geoffrey aghast.

  Adrian nodded. “She often said she was considering taking the veil.”

  “The only veil Enide will be considering is the one that will cover King Henry’s corpse!” cried Geoffrey. “How could you believe her after all this lying?”

  “You are talking about your sister,” said Adrian coldly. “She cares deeply for you.”

  “So she might have done, once,” said Geoffrey. “But a long time has passed, and it seems we are both different people. I thought I knew her from her letters, but you yourself have told me she could not write. I have been living under a false impression of Enide for twenty years. The child I left behind would not have murdered kings, or chopped off the heads of corpses! I neither know nor understand the woman she has become.”

  “Then do what you will, but remember that she always said she liked you better than the others.”

  “That is probably because I was not here to argue with. But enough of this; here is Helbye. And Barlow with him,” he added in surprise, seeing the two soldiers picking their way along the path on sturdy mounts. “Go home, Adrian. You have done more than enough harm already.”

  “I must try to put an end to all this,” said Adrian, grasping the reins of Geoffrey’s horse. “I will come with you, and explain to the King what has been happening.”

  “You would be a fool to try,” said Geoffrey. “Do you think he will pat your head and allow you to leave after you admit that you knew of the plot to kill his brother?”

  “But I do not believe that Enide was trying to kill Rufus,” objected Adrian. “She went to Brockenhurst to warn him. And she has no intention of harming King Henry. You are wrong!”

  “I am not,” said Geoffrey wearily. “And you know it. Francis the physician must have told you what he told me—that his little gang planned to kill Rufus, and now want to kill King Henry.”

  “No!” cried Adrian desperately. “Enide would never harm anyone.”

  Geoffrey regarded him sombrely. “Really? I think she has already taken someone’s life.”

  He hesitated. It was not pleasant to see his cherished memories of his younger sister so brutally shattered, but Enide, it seemed, had been more treacherous and cunning than the rest of the Mappestones put together. Or was he misinterpreting what he had learned, to draw grotesquely inaccurate conclusions?

  Adrian was gazing at him. “Who do you think Enide has killed?”

  “She told you that she was in fear of her life from one of the family, so you helped her steal and desecrate the corpse of a woman who had considerately timed her death to coincide with Enide’s need for a body.”

  The blood drained from Adrian’s face. “I see what you are thinking, but you are wrong! That woman passed away in childbirth.”

  “And was Enide present when this woman died?” asked Geoffrey. “Did she help the midwife?”

  “Well, yes, she did, actually” said Adrian. “But Enide did do kind things from time to time.”

  “I am sure she did,” said Geoffrey bitterly.

  “It did not seem such a terrible crime to use the body of one already taken to God to save the life of another,” said Adrian weakly.

  “That does not sound like your own logic, Father,” said Geoffrey. “I imagine that is how Enide argued her case. But let us continue. Anyone who has had any dealings with my brother Henry will know that he would not stand by and accept the word of a priest that his sister was dead. He would want to see for himself. Enide knew this perfectly well, and deprived the corpse of its head, secreting it away in a niche in Godric’s secret tunnel—it would not do for it to be found, because then everyone would suspect that Enide was not dead at all. After all, how many decapitated corpses are there around here?”

  He and Adrian exchanged a glance that suggested there were rather more than most people imagined. Adrian opened his mouth to speak, but Geoffrey hurried on.

  “So Enide was then free to do whatever she pleased. Even her fellow conspirators—my father and Francis—did not know she was still alive, and she allowed her family to grieve without the slightest regret. Now she tells you she is going to Glowecestre to take the veil, and you believe her?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Adrian sincerely. “She said that she wants to atone for desecrating the corpse.”

  “And then there was Stephen’s wife, Pernel,” said Geoffrey. “Pernel was indiscreet about the plan to kill Rufus, and so she was killed. I wonder who arranged that.”

  “But Pernel died of a falling sickness,” said Adrian, startled. “It happened just after mass. Pernel was not a good woman—she was unfaithful to her husband and she was greedy and scheming—and everyone assumed she had died because God had punished her for setting foot in His church.”

  “Do you believe that?” asked Geoffrey sceptically. “If so, it does not offer much hope for the rest of us miserable sinners.”

  Adrian shook his head, then nodded, then made a gesture of exasperation. “I do not know! I do not understand anything about this business. But if Enide really did embark on all this subterfuge—and I say if—then her reasons would have been purely honourable.”

  “Reasons for murder are seldom honourable,” said Geoffrey.

  Without waiting for the priest’s reply, he steered his destrier around and headed for the path that led to Monmouth, some six miles distant, with his sergeant and man-at-arms close behind him. He glanced round briefly, jamming his conical helmet on his head. The priest stood dejectedly in the middle of the path, looking like a man who had been through a battle.

  ‘Barlow insisted on coming,” said Sergeant Helbye, once the track had widened sufficiently to allow him to draw abreast of Geoffrey. “He heard that Ingram has murdered the physician, and I think he wants to prove to you that it had nothing to do with him.”

  “I know that,” said Geoffrey. “It was Ingram who was asking all the questions about my family and complaining that I had prevented him from looting, not Barlow.”

  “Why were you shouting at the priest?” asked Helbye. “Father Adrian is a gentle man and is greatly loved by the villagers.”

  “He is a gentle man who has been party to murder, the desecration of corpses, treachery, and lies and deceit beyond your wildest imaginings,” said Geoffrey wearily, sorry that a man like Adrian should fall victim to Goodrich’s creeping evil. “I should take a torch and burn this whole place to the ground, and rid the world of it! That poor Earl of Shrewsbury does not know what he is letting himself in for!”

  “I am sure he will manage,” said Helbye. “But what ails you? Is it your family again?”

  “I should say,” said Geoffrey bitterly. “I have just learned from Father Adrian that Enide is alive and well. And I suspect that having failed to slay one king for the simple reason that someone got there before her, she has her murderous sights set on another.”

  “Enide?” asked Helbye, giving the matter some serious thought. “Yes, I suppose I could see her doing all that.”

  “What?” exclaimed Geoffrey, startled “You believe my accusations so readily?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Helbye, as if it were obvious. “You left here a long time ago, while Enide stayed to grow up with your older brothers and sister. So, is it really su
rprising that she lost the gentleness you remember? By the time she was twenty, she was just as bad as the rest of them for plotting and fighting. She was not downright evil or anything like that, but just like the others—greedy, bitter, and ill-humoured. I always wondered why you singled her out for such affection. Begging your pardon, sir.”

  “But she wrote such beautiful things,” said Geoffrey sadly. “She told me about the wildflowers at springtime, and about poetry she had read or ballads she had heard sung. And Father Adrian said she was kind and gentle.”

  “You cannot trust letters, lad,” said Helbye sagely. “If you believe her to be some kind of saint on the basis of some silly scrawls on parchment, then you need your wits seeing to. But there is a lot about this that I do not understand. The physician said Enide is going to kill King Henry, but Father Adrian, who is a good and honest man, believes you are wrong.”

  “The good and honest Father Adrian still knows more than he is saying,” said Geoffrey. “Either that, or he is one of the most gullible men in the kingdom.”

  “So what exactly is happening?” asked Helbye. “Are we off to save the King?”

  “I suppose so,” said Geoffrey. “Enide and some others apparently developed a plot to kill Rufus in the New Forest, but someone beat them to it—they intended Rufus to have died this coming summer, when the Duke of Normandy would be ready to take the throne. But Tirel’s shot caught them before they were fully ready, and King Henry seized the crown instead. Now Enide plans to rid England of King Henry, too, to provide the Duke with another chance.”

  “But Rufus’s death was an accident,” protested Helbye. “Tirel claims he did not mean to kill him.”

  “Actually, Tirel is now claiming that he did not fire the arrow at all,” said Geoffrey. “But whether he did or not is irrelevant, because it seems plans were afoot to kill Rufus anyway. The wrong successor took advantage of the empty throne, and now a second murder is required.”

  “Who, other than Enide, is involved in all this?” asked Helbye, accepting the twists and turns of the plot far more stoically than Geoffrey had done.