Simon Beaufort - Deadly Inheritance

Cautiously – for Joan had a terrible temper – Geoffrey broached the subject of their brother’s plans for the Constable’s daughter. She was unrepentant for neglecting to mention them, which annoyed him: if Henry had impregnated fitzNorman’s daughter, then it was possible that fitzNorman considered Henry – and his kin – an enemy, and Geoffrey did not like the notion that powerful men harboured grudges about which he was blithely unaware.

‘Henry may have been murdered by fitzNorman or his men,’ he said irritably. ‘I am sure the Constable had more ambitious plans for his daughter than the likes of Henry.’

‘You have done this ever since you arrived,’ said Joan, setting down her sewing to glare at him. ‘Underestimate the value of our estates. Besides this castle and its demesne, we have manors in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. Henry might not have warranted fitzNorman’s eldest daughter, but the youngest was not beyond his sights.’

‘Is it true that she carried his child?’ Geoffrey asked, unconvinced but loath to argue. ‘How did that happen?’

Olivier gave a giggle, which quickly turned into a cough when his wife scowled.

‘How do you think it happened?’ Joan demanded. ‘Surely you have not been away from female company that long?’

‘I meant was Isabel happy with Henry as a suitor?’ said Geoffrey, striving for patience.

‘Isabel detested Henry,’ volunteered Olivier. He shrugged when Joan turned furious eyes on him. ‘Geoffrey will find out from someone else if we do not tell him. Ergo, we should answer his questions lest he starts interrogating the wrong people.’

Geoffrey was immediately suspicious. ‘What do you mean? What wrong people ?’

Joan glared at her husband. ‘I thought we had agreed the less said, the better.’

‘If Geoffrey wants to look into Henry’s death, we cannot stop him,’ said Olivier. ‘Kings and princes have employed him to investigate far more dangerous matters. Tell him what he wants to know.’

Joan sighed loudly. ‘It is not him I am worried about. It is Goodrich. Several people had cause to want Henry dead, and I do not want him accusing them of murder. He could do a great deal of damage by interfering.’

‘He could,’ acknowledged Olivier. ‘We have Baderon poised on one side, fitzNorman on the other, and we are trapped in the middle.’

‘I have done my best to salve the wounds inflicted by our father and brother,’ Joan said, ‘but this is an uneasy region. Baderon is a decent man, but he is so determined to have peace with the Welsh that he infuriates the English.’

‘He always sides with them in disputes,’ agreed Olivier. ‘And this business of marrying his knights to Welsh ladies is causing resentment.’

‘Meanwhile, fitzNorman is a senseless oaf,’ Joan declared uncompromisingly. ‘He applies harsh laws to the royal forests ruthlessly – peasants forbidden to gather firewood, or catch game – it is impractical in hard times.’

‘And times are hard right now,’ nodded Olivier. ‘We had a poor harvest followed by a fierce winter. People are starving, and the King comes to the forest so rarely that he would not miss the odd duck or deer.’

‘What did fitzNorman say when he discovered what Henry had done to Isabel?’ asked Geoffrey, thinking that the seduction of a daughter was a good motive for murder.

‘That he was happy to secure an alliance with Goodrich,’ said Joan. ‘He said we provide a friendly buffer between him and Baderon. Unfortunately, he was angry at the way Henry went about it.’

‘Ralph de Bicanofre was none too pleased, either,’ said Olivier. He turned to Geoffrey. ‘Bicanofre is the little manor to the south of Goodrich, and its heir, Ralph, wanted to marry Isabel himself: he was incensed when Henry deflowered her.’

‘Baderon was offended by Henry, as well,’ added Joan. ‘He, too, wanted Goodrich as a buffer, and there was talk of Henry marrying his daughter. Henry would not have her, but I suspect Baderon had not given up hope.’

‘So,’ summarized Geoffrey. ‘Two of the richest men in the region – Baderon and fitzNorman – were angered by Henry’s relationship with Isabel, as was Ralph. Any of them – or their retainers – might have murdered Henry.’

‘They are not the only ones,’ said Joan gloomily. ‘Henry did a lot of damage by burning our Welsh neighbours’ grain stores, too.’

Geoffrey was appalled. ‘He fired their granaries?’

Joan nodded. ‘Caerdig of Llan Martin is the only Welsh lord friendly to us now. The rest say our corn should be used to compensate them – and they have a point. It is only a matter of time before hunger leads them to attack us.’

‘Welsh harvests were even worse than English ones,’ said Olivier. ‘But you already know that.’

Geoffrey nodded. ‘The Welsh Prince Iorwerth summoned his warriors to fight for Belleme against the King last summer, although he then changed sides. But the war kept men from their farms.’

‘And now they are paying the price,’ said Joan. ‘By the time the men returned home, rains had ruined the crops. Many Welsh villages only harvested a fraction of the grain they need. So, the situation is delicate. I know you want to bring Henry’s killer to justice, but we cannot afford a feud with Baderon or fitzNorman – and we certainly must not give the Welsh a reason for attacking us.’

‘I will be discreet,’ said Geoffrey, unwilling to let the matter drop. Henry was his brother, and if one Mappestone could be slain, then so could another.

Joan gave a disbelieving snort. ‘You will not! Your idea of discretion is to ask questions at the end of a sword. Henry is dead, Geoff, and no good can come of looking into his end.’

Geoffrey stared into the flames. Was she right? Was it best to maintain the tenuous truces between Goodrich and its neighbours at all costs? He had seen what happened to manors owned by warring lords, and knew that it was not only the owners who suffered: the peasantry were victims, too. Perhaps Joan was right to preserve stability at the expense of letting her brother’s killer go free. Or did she have another reason for wanting the murder forgotten? Everyone agreed that Henry had been a tyrant, and few tears had been shed when he died. Perhaps she already knew who killed him, and her motive to keep Geoffrey from investigating was not to avert a war, but to protect the killer.

Joan changed the subject when Geoffrey made no reply, unaware that he had reached a decision. He would not rest easy until he understood why his brother had been murdered, and Joan’s urging him to forget the matter only made him more determined to learn what had happened.

The following morning Geoffrey threw open the window shutters in the room that had been his father’s. In the foreground meadows stretched to the River Wye, divided into neat fields of wheat, oats and barley. In the distance hills were dotted white with sheep. The great brown-green mass of the forest lay to the south and east, a vast tangle of trees and scrub, broken by the occasional path.

A bowl of water had been left in the garderobe for his morning ablutions, but there was a layer of ice across the top and he did not feel like washing in it. He scraped a dagger across his cheeks a couple of times, then glanced at the shelves holding his few clothes. The shelves concealed an entrance to a passageway that wound through the castle’s foundations before emerging in the woods. Joan’s description of relations between Goodrich and its neighbours had been unsettling, and he realized that he might be obliged to defend the castle. He knew that he should make himself familiar with potential escape or foray routes, but the tunnel was cramped, pitch-black and airless, and his irrational but paralyzing horror of dark underground places meant that he had not yet plucked up the courage to open the hidden door. Unwilling to address his fears, he turned his attention to his clothes.