Simon Beaufort - A Head for Poisoning

“So what do you want me to do?” asked Geoffrey, aware that the King was gazing at him expectantly.

“I want you to keep your father’s estates from Shrewsbury at any cost. It might seem to you that Goodrich is unimportant in the battle for a kingdom. But battles have been won and lost on details. I want Goodrich in your father’s name for as long as possible, and then I want his heir to be a man loyal to me. That is the essence of what I want you to do for me, and that is the reason why I brought you to this chamber-away from prying ears.”

Geoffrey turned as the constable hurried towards them, triumphantly bearing aloft a scrap of parchment. “Here, my liege,” he said, presenting it with a bow. “I found this stuffed down one of Aumary of Breteuil’s boots.”

“Ah!” said the King, scanning it quickly. “You were most astute, my lord constable, for this indeed must have been the important message Sir Aumary wished to conceal with his worthless household accounts.” He waved it in the air, and then secreted it in a pouch on his belt.

Geoffrey, who had been unable to prevent himself from glancing over the King’s shoulder to read what was written, wondered why the King should consider a common recipe for horse liniment so vital to his country’s well-being.

It was with some relief that Geoffrey was dismissed by the King. Caerdig followed him out of the hall and into the bailey, where he grabbed the knight’s arm and stopped him.

“Well?” he demanded. “What did he say? Are we free to leave?”

Geoffrey nodded, his thoughts still tumbling around in confusion.

“And?” persisted Caerdig. “What else did he say? What was he telling you away in that chamber? Did it concern Lann Martin?”

Geoffrey did not feel it was appropriate to tell Caerdig that the King had ordered him to prevent the powerful and rebellious Earl of Shrewsbury from laying hands on his father’s lands-nor that the King whole-heartedly believed the truth of the story that one of Geoffrey’s siblings was trying to murder their father.

“Lann Martin was not mentioned,” he said to placate the Welshman. “The King is merely concerned about some of the tales that have been circulating concerning Goodrich.”

“Like the fact that your father is being poisoned by one of your brothers?” asked Caerdig.

“There is Helbye,” Geoffrey said, ignoring Caerdig’s question, and walking across the bailey to where his sergeant and the two soldiers stood.

“Shall I saddle up?” asked Ingram without enthusiasm, as Geoffrey approached. “Of course, the horses are tired and I have only just finished rubbing them down.”

“The light is already failing and there is no more than an hour’s travelling time left today,” said Geoffrey, glancing at the sky. “We will spend the night here, and leave at first light in the morning.”

“We have already secured ourselves some lodgings,” said Helbye, clearly pleased not to be riding farther that day. “It is not grand accommodation, but it is better than a tree root in the small of the back.”

Geoffrey left the others to their preparations for an evening of dice with the soldiers in the King’s guard, while he went to see to his destrier. It was with some difficulty that he made the stable-boy understand that only Aumary’s war-horse-not Geoffrey’s-was to be transferred to the area reserved for the King’s personal mounts. Reasonably satisfied that his own horse would be there for him to reclaim in the morning, he found a place to sleep and then ate a large, rich meal with some knights in the King’s retinue, where he drank more than was wise.

But later, as he tried to sleep, his head swam with questions, despite his serious attempt to induce a state of drunken forgetfulness. Why had someone killed Aumary? The documents that the knight had bragged about so much had not been stolen, and neither had the scrap of parchment with the recipe for horse liniment. Had Geoffrey disturbed the killer before he had been given a chance to complete a search of the body? But in that case, why had Geoffrey not been shot, too?

Aumary was vainglorious and shallow, and Geoffrey had suspected from the start that he had deliberately lent his letters more importance than they deserved in order to enhance his standing with his fellow-travellers. It was true that the King had been pleased to learn that his castle of Domfront was turning a tidy profit, and might have rewarded Aumary well for bringing him such good news, but it was scarcely the crucial missive the knight had claimed to carry.

So, had the recipe for horse liniment been some coded message that the King alone could decipher? Geoffrey had seen that particular scrap of parchment on several occasions-Aumary had used it to wrap the cloves he constantly chewed to alleviate the stench of his rotten breath. Had this casual use of the parchment been a ploy to divert attention away from it until it could be handed to the King? Or was even Aumary unaware of the alleged importance of his clove wrapper?

Geoffrey frowned up at the wooden rafters of the bedchamber and considered. Aumary might well have thrown the parchment away or carelessly mislaid it if he had not appreciated its importance, and as a means of conveying an important message to the King, it was risky at best. The more Geoffrey thought about it, the more he came to believe that the parchment was nothing, and that the King had merely pretended to have discovered something crucial in it in order to make any onlookers think that Aumary had been killed because of a vital message.

And that suggested to Geoffrey that the King knew more about Aumary’s death than he intended to tell. He had not even questioned Caerdig about the attack, and had accepted Geoffrey’s concise account of the botched ambush without a single question. Did the King know, or suspect, that the attack might have been orchestrated by Geoffrey’s brothers, and that Geoffrey and not Aumary, had been the intended victim?

But, Geoffrey reasoned, the King doubtless had his fingers in a good many pies, and Aumary’s death was probably nothing to do with the affairs at Goodrich Castle. Since he was not going to deduce anything conclusive without more evidence, Geoffrey dismissed Aumary from his mind, and thought about his family.

Could there be any truth in the King’s conviction that Godric was being poisoned? Geoffrey was reluctant to think that one of his brothers would stoop to so despicable an act as to attempt the death of their father by slow poisoning. He could very well imagine that one of them-especially the fiery Henry-might lash out in anger and kill on a sudden impulse, but the cold, premeditated act of sentencing their father to a lingering death was another matter entirely.

He took a deep breath and watched the shifting smoke, which filled the room because the chimney needed sweeping. As to the other matter-keeping the Goodrich estates from the Earl of Shrewsbury’s grasping hands-Geoffrey did not imagine for an instant that any of his kinsmen would allow Shrewsbury or anyone else to take Goodrich while there was still breath in their bodies.

As his eyes closed and he finally drifted into a restless doze, he made the firm resolution that he would stay in England only long enough to ensure that one of his grasping siblings inherited Goodrich from the dying Godric-which one he did not care-and then ride for France as fast as his destrier would take him.

The copious amounts of wine he had imbibed meant that Geoffrey slept a good deal later the following day than he had intended, and the sun was already high in the sky before he emerged from his lodgings. He was not the only one-Barlow had also drunk far too much the previous night and was in no state to travel. Meanwhile, Helbye was nowhere to be found, and it was some time before Geoffrey tracked him down to a brothel near the river. And Ingram was involved in some complex negotiations to buy a donkey from one of the King’s grooms and insisted that such delicate transactions could not be hurried.