Simon Beaufort - A Head for Poisoning

“You would not do that,” whispered Ingram aghast. “You would not spread lies about me!”

“Lies, no,” said Geoffrey. “But who is lying?”

“You never said anything to me about this,” said Helbye with a frown. “He was supposed to be your arms-bearer both times.”

As it happened, Geoffrey had not mentioned Ingram’s timely absences to anyone. Both occasions had been brutal and terrifying, and Geoffrey had not blamed the young soldier for declining to follow him into the thick of it. Indeed, since the lad had been so clearly petrified, Geoffrey had much rather Ingram had run away and hidden, rather than force Geoffrey into a position where he would have been fighting to protect both of them.

“It seems that there are a number of things we have not told each other,” said Geoffrey, thinking about the gossip regarding Enide. Helbye looked away guilty.

“The track divides yet again,” said Barlow, keen to change the subject. His own role in the two battles had not been exactly glorious either-to keep his promise to the lad’s father, Helbye had given him duties guarding the baggage train. “Left or right?”

“Right,” said Helbye, after a moment of consideration.

“Left it is, then,” said Geoffrey, throwing him a grin of devilment, before making his way down the dark path. It was almost pitch-black, and the thick clouds allowed no light from the moon to penetrate. Geoffrey’s hand went to his sword when the wind blew in the trees, making the wood groan and creak, and Barlow and Ingram were growing nervous.

“The soldiers at Chepstow said that outlaws live around here,” said Barlow, casting a fearful glance behind him. “They come out at night and murder travellers.”

“Especially ones carrying treasure, like us,” said Ingram forcefully.

“Perhaps you might care to say that a little louder, Ingram,” said Geoffrey. “The robbers at the far end of the woods might not have caught everything you said.”

Barlow’s laughter turned into a shriek of horror as something brushed past his face with a screech of its own. Geoffrey spun round, his sword already drawn, but then relaxed when he saw an owl flit away through the darkness.

“We are nearly there,” he said, sheathing his weapon. “I recognise this path. Over to the left is the woodsman’s cottage, and that path there leads back to Penncreic. And there,” he announced with relief, seeing the familiar square shadow of the church looming in the darkness, “is Goodrich. Those lights seem to be coming from your house, Will.”

“So they are,” said Helbye apprehensively, peering through the gloom at the huddle of houses on the opposite hill. “It is late. I wonder what she can be thinking of.”

“She must be preparing you dinner,” said Barlow. “And speaking of food, I am starving! Come on, Ingram! I will race you! I wager I can get there faster on foot than you can ride.”

They were off, both weaving through the trees at a speed far from safe, leaving Geoffrey and Helbye behind them. Neither knight nor sergeant made a move.

“Nervous?” asked Geoffrey, smiling at the tense old warrior beside him.

“No,” said Helbye with a false laugh. “She will be pleased to see me. Are you?”

“A little,” admitted Geoffrey. “I have not even arrived, and I have already been told there are rumours that my favourite sister has been decapitated by Caerdig of Lann Martin; that my manor has been given away as part of Joan’s dowry; and that one of my siblings is trying to poison my father, who is so alarmed that he wrote to the King about it.”

“Then maybe it is a good thing that you did not leave it any longer,” said Helbye practically. “But take no notice of Ingram. He is bitter for one so young, and he has a spiteful nature.”

“You think there is no truth in his story, then?”

Helbye shook his head. “When Ingram told me about the gossip he had heard, I paid a visit to the source of it myself. Ingram only had half the story. Lady Enide, it seems, was indeed slain near the church on a Sunday after mass. Needless to say, a hunt for her killer was mounted. Your brother Henry came across two poachers in the forest, they confessed, and he hanged them there and then for her murder. The claim that poor Caerdig killed her was only speculation, based on a notion put about by your brother Stephen that the poachers may have been hired by Caerdig because your father declined to have him as a son-in-law.”

“Did anyone other than Henry hear the confessions of these poachers?” asked Geoffrey.

Helbye shrugged. “I do not know. But apparently there were some questions about the business for several weeks after. Caerdig was clearly a suspect, but there were stories that others might have played a role.”

“Others such as whom?” asked Geoffrey, when Helbye paused.

“Someone at Goodrich Castle,” said Helbye reluctantly. “A member of the family, perhaps. Or a servant. But no one really knows, and the trail must be long since cold.”

“So, I am about to enter a household, one member of which may have decapitated my sister? God’s teeth, Will, I would not have made this journey had I known all this!”

Thoughts tumbling, Geoffrey followed Helbye down the hill, across the small brook that bubbled along the valley bottom, and up the slope on the other side. The castle in which Geoffrey’s family lived stood on the crest of the hill overlooking a great sweep of the River Wye, while the church and the small houses of the village were clustered around the outer ward to the north and west-not so close that they could be set alight and present a danger to the wooden palisade surrounding the castle, but close enough so that villagers and their livestock could flee for safety inside it should they come under attack.

Ingram and Barlow waited for them outside Helbye’s house with a scruffy boy they had accosted when he had left to fetch more ale. Lights blazed from within, and the sounds of revelling could be heard from one end of the village to the other. Barlow shuffled his feet uncomfortably, and would not look at Helbye, while Ingram’s thin face wore a vindictive smile.

“It is your wife’s wedding day,” he said to Helbye with relish.

“She thought you were not going to return,” said the boy. He glanced fearfully at Geoffrey, an imposing figure in his chain-mail and Crusader’s surcoat, before fixing his attention on the astonished Helbye. “We knew Ingram, Barlow, and Sir Geoffrey were coming, but no one mentioned you.”

“But I sent word,” protested Helbye, appalled. “I did not trust a letter-who knows who might have read it on the way-but I sent word with Eudo of Rosse.”

“Eudo never returned either,” said the boy. “He died of a fever on his way home.”

“One up for literacy,” murmured Geoffrey.

“He died in France, at a place called Venice,” continued the boy, eager to please. “I learned about Venice from our priest.” He looked up at Geoffrey for approbation, proud to display his painstakingly acquired knowledge of foreign geography.

“But then again, perhaps not,” said Geoffrey dryly.

Their voices had been heard by the revellers within. A screech of delight from Barlow’s mother brought others running, and soon the entire village was out, clustering around the two young soldiers, and admiring their proudly displayed treasures. Barlow’s mother impatiently shoved aside a proffered chalice, and hugged her son hard and long as tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks. Ingram’s father, however, gave his son a perfunctory nod and immediately turned his attention to the contents of the travel bags.

Helbye’s wife regarded her husband with disbelief that turned slowly to joy. She turned the sergeant this way and that, and fussed over him like an old hen. Geoffrey watched the reunions from the shadows, wondering what was in store for him in the black mass of the castle that crouched on the hill. He was certain it would not be the unrestrained delight that his men’s kinsfolk expressed.