Simon Beaufort - Deadly Inheritance

A group of enemy soldiers recognized Geoffrey’s surcoat and launched a concerted attack to separate him from his troops. Slowly, they drove him into the kitchen. Geoffrey was tiring, but suddenly, Durand appeared. The clerk slipped a knife between one man’s ribs and, with better odds, Geoffrey dispatched two more. The remainder fled.

Durand watched dispassionately as the man he had stabbed choked on his own blood.

‘There,’ he said, glancing at Geoffrey. ‘I do not want you dead. Not yet, at least.’

Geoffrey dropped his hands to his knees and tried to catch his breath. Durand’s words slowly registered in his fatigued mind. ‘Not yet?’ he gasped. ‘What do you mean?’

Durand waved his arm outside the door. Recognizing the danger too late, Geoffrey moved forward, but Corwenna and half a dozen of her followers were already racing into the room. He could only gaze at Durand in horror.

‘What have you done?’

‘I have backed the side that will win,’ replied Durand calmly. ‘I always do. You said yourself you could not defeat Baderon, so do not blame me for changing my allegiance. I am simply being practical.’

Geoffrey was dumbfounded by the enormity of Durand’s betrayal. He saw his old squire regarding him with complete lack of emotion, and several facts came together in his mind as he watched Durand turn to Corwenna.

‘There is a tunnel that leads from the keep to the woods. Geoffrey wanted me to smuggle his civilians down it.’

Corwenna’s face curled into a gloating sneer. She beckoned to one of her men, ordering him to find the passage and kill anyone attempting to use it. Geoffrey felt sick.

‘Now we shall make an end of this,’ said Corwenna. ‘I will take your head and show it to Joan. It will be the last thing she will see; then we shall be free of the Mappestone curse. My Rhys will be avenged, and I will dance on your grave, just as I do Henry’s.’

Geoffrey thought about the fallen cross. ‘I might have known.’

‘Fight me, Geoffrey,’ she urged, eyes glittering madly. ‘Just you and me.’

He regarded her warily, wondering whether he had misheard. He was a trained knight, and there was no way Corwenna could defeat him, no matter how filled she was with hate. ‘Just you and me?’

‘Why?’ she snapped. ‘Are you afraid? I have waited a long time for this.’

She darted forward with her axe, but he immediately went on the offensive, attacking her with strong strokes that forced her back against the wall. He was on the brink of cutting her down when her men darted forward and forced him back. It was clearly not going to be a fair fight, and he could see by her alarmed expression that she knew she had underestimated him.

‘I will kill you,’ he warned. ‘I am not as easy as Henry.’

The mention of his brother re-lit her impetus, but blind fury was no replacement for skill, and he soon had her retreating again. He was obliged to keep a wary eye on her men, as they jabbed their blades at him if he went too close. He wondered what would happen when he killed her, certain that he did not have the strength to defeat them all, too.

‘Hurry up, Corwenna!’ snapped Durand. ‘I have done what you asked, and I want my reward.’

‘ You opened the gate!’ spat Geoffrey in disgust, thinking about the speed with which their defences had failed. ‘How could you?’

‘I did what was best for me ,’ replied Durand. ‘I was promised a sack of silver for opening the gate, and another if I delivered you alive.’

‘You should watch whom you trust,’ Geoffrey said to Corwenna, as she retreated to the far side of the room and the temporary safety of her men. ‘Durand killed Seguin.’

‘I did not,’ said Durand, a sudden tremor in his voice. ‘Do not accuse me-’

Corwenna lunged at Geoffrey, and for a few moments his attention was concentrated on parrying her blows. Although delivered with great venom and strength, they lacked the requisite skill to break him. He held her at arm’s length until the fury of her attack subsided, then kicked her legs from under her so she fell. Her men again stepped forward protectively, and all Geoffrey could do was step back and try to catch his breath. His sword felt slippery and heavy in his aching hands.

‘Like the King, you saw Baderon pay Jervil,’ said Geoffrey to Durand while Corwenna was recuperating. ‘You are greedy and you gave Jervil drugged wine to celebrate his sale, then strangled him. You have strangled men before – you killed a monk last year in the forest near Westminster – and I should have seen immediately that you were the culprit.’

‘You are speaking nonsense,’ said Durand, glancing nervously towards Corwenna.

Geoffrey continued, noticing he had Corwenna’s reluctant attention. ‘I assumed Jervil died first and Margaret second, but I was wrong. Isabel killed Margaret, then fled, appalled by what she had done. But you had watched her, and it gave you an idea.’

‘You cannot prove I killed anyone,’ hissed Durand.

‘Oh, the knife you planted on Jervil’s body does that. You were the one who drew attention to it, but you could not have seen it from where you were standing – it was covered with straw. I was kneeling right next to him, and I could not see it. The only way you could have known was if you put it there yourself. And the knife was in his wrong hand. Only someone like you, who knows nothing about fighting, would shove a dagger in a right-fisted fighter’s left hand.’

Durand glanced at Corwenna. ‘Hurry, woman.’

‘In my own time,’ said Corwenna. ‘I am interested in what he has to say about Seguin.’ She heaved her axe on to her shoulder and indicated that Geoffrey should continue.

‘Baderon thought the Black Knife was destroyed in the fire. But it had been stolen before that. I met Durand running from the guest house during the fire. But he should not have been there: he was supposed to have been with Abbot Serlo above the buttery – in the opposite direction.’

‘Everything was in chaos,’ said Durand dismissively. ‘You could not tell where I-’

‘He grabbed the Black Knife and was cut,’ Geoffrey went on. ‘He told me he had been burnt, but later claimed it was a gash. They are not similar injuries. That is why he gave me his gloves – the injury meant he could not wear them anyway.’

‘All this is fascinating,’ said Corwenna caustically. ‘But I want to know about Seguin.’

‘Durand killed Hugh before he murdered Seguin,’ Geoffrey continued, trying to keep the exhaustion from his voice. ‘He knocked him on the head to stun him, then strangled him. The Black Knife was thrust into his corpse to cause trouble between Goodrich and Baderon. It succeeded.’

‘Seguin!’ snapped Corwenna, growing impatient. ‘Lambert said you killed him, because you thought he killed Henry.’

‘Seguin did not kill Henry,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I have known for some time who did that, and it was not Seguin. Seguin was lured to his death, just as Lambert claimed. But not by me.’

‘Shut up!’ yelled Durand furiously. He turned to Corwenna again. ‘Kill him, for God’s sake.’

‘Who carried the message to Llan Martin, telling Seguin that Hugh’s body was at Goodrich and that Baderon wanted it collected?’ asked Geoffrey.

Corwenna’s eyes flicked towards Durand. ‘He did.’

‘I was told to give Seguin that message!’ shouted Durand. ‘And I was told Hugh was at Goodrich. You cannot blame me for passing on what I was ordered to say.’

‘Think,’ said Geoffrey to Corwenna. ‘Why would Baderon tell Seguin to collect Hugh, when he was here himself? And why would he send for Seguin and not a servant? And why would Durand – who owns estates in Suffolk – allow himself to be used as a messenger by a man he despised?’