Simon Beaufort - A Head for Poisoning

“She says she will now need to dissolve the marriage she has just made,” called Helbye to Geoffrey, gesturing to where his wife spoke urgently with a forlorn figure standing apart from the celebrations, his face masked by shadow. “Will you help us?”

Geoffrey was startled. “I cannot dissolve marriages, Will,” he said. “I am neither a lawyer nor a priest.”

“But you can read,” said Helbye, as though this would solve everything. “You can help us, and make sure we are not cheated.”

“I cannot see that you will have a problem,” said Geoffrey. “Especially if her second marriage has not been consummated.”

Helbye blushed a deep red. “I cannot ask her that!” he whispered, aghast, loud enough to cause some amusement when several villagers overheard. “She is a woman! You do not ask such questions of women!”

“She is also your wife,” said Geoffrey, laughing despite himself. “But we can do nothing about it tonight. Come to the castle tomorrow, and we will see what needs to be done.”

With his horse ambling behind him, and the black-and-white dog at his heels, Geoffrey left them, and walked the last few steps to the gloomy portals of the castle. The squat gate and the black waters of the stinking moat reminded him of the day he had left. It had been early on a winter morning, so early that it was not yet light. Only Enide had ventured out to see him leave, although Joan had waved to him from a window in the hall.

Of course, his home-coming would have been very different had Enide been there to welcome him. He tried to imagine what she had looked like as a woman, although he always pictured her as the child of eleven waving him a tearful farewell from the very gate at which he now stood. He pulled himself together, impatient with his sudden, uncharacteristic flight into fancy and reminiscence. He strode over the drawbridge-someone had forgotten to raise it for the night-and knocked on the gate. There was no reply. He rapped again, using the pommel of his dagger, hearing the sound echo around the silent courtyard.

“Go away!” came a belligerent voice from within. “We have already sent a tun of ale for Mistress Helbye’s wedding, and you are not getting any more!”

“I am Geoffrey Mappestone,” Geoffrey called. “I have come to pay my respects to my father.”

“Who?” came the voice after a moment. “There is no Geoffrey Mappestone here.”

Geoffrey considered begging a bed with Helbye for the night, and returning the next day when his re-entry into his family home might not be so ignominious.

“Please inform Godric Mappestone that I wish to speak to him,” he said, leaning down to haul his dog away from where it was devouring something unspeakable discovered at the edge of the moat.

“He is asleep,” came the voice. “As are all honest men. Now go away, or you will find your chest decorated with the shaft of this arrow. And do not come back!”

Geoffrey was tired, wet, cold, and hungry as he stood pondering the great barred gate of Goodrich Castle. He had travelled hundreds of miles for several weeks to do his filial duty to a man he had neither liked nor respected, and over the past two days he had been ambushed, subjected to an uncomfortable conversation with the King, had his most prized possessions scattered through the bushes, and forced to walk because his saddle had been slashed. Suddenly, his temper snapped.

“Enough of this!” he yelled. “Either let me in to speak to my father, or I will force an entry myself. And if you choose to direct an arrow my way, I can promise you that you will be sorry!”

A grille in the wicket door slid open, and Geoffrey was assessed by a glistening eye. After a hurried exchange of whispers and a series of grunts and bumps, the bar was removed and the gate was opened. Geoffrey was far from impressed: he had expected to be questioned, and he accepted the fact that the guards would not know him and would seek some verification as to his identity. But, despite his blustering threat, he certainly had not imagined that they would be so easily browbeaten into opening the gates in the dark to what amounted to a complete stranger.

“Come in if you are coming,” mumbled the guard irritably, holding a torch aloft so that Geoffrey would not step in the deep puddle that lay under the gate. “I have sent young Julian to tell Sir Olivier d’Alencon that he has visitors.”

“Sir Olivier?” asked Geoffrey, watching the guard secure the door again. “Who is he?”

“But you said you wanted to speak to him!” said the guard in an accusatory voice, almost dropping the torch in his agitation.

“I said no such thing,” said Geoffrey. “I do not know this Sir Olivier.”

“I supposed you to be one of his cronies, come to leech off us again,” said the guard. He took a step towards Geoffrey, fingering the hilt of his sword with one hand, and thrusting the torch towards him in the other. Geoffrey was a tall, strong man, and looked larger still in his heavy chain-mail and surcoat. He also carried a broadsword and at least two daggers that the guard could see. Prudently, the man stepped backwards again.

“It is good to know that Goodrich Castle is in such safe hands,” remarked Geoffrey. “I am Geoffrey Mappestone, and I have come to see my father. Not Sir Olivier, whoever he might be.”

“He will be your brother-in-law, then,” said the guard, dropping his belligerent manner and becoming wary. “Assuming you are who you claim. Sir Olivier is Lady Joan’s husband. Joan is your sister,” he added for Geoffrey’s edification. He studied Geoffrey in the light of his flaring torch. “You have grown a lot bigger since you left.”

“I would hope so,” said Geoffrey. “I was twelve years old then.”

He grew restless under the guard’s brazen scrutiny, and looked around him. The gate at which he stood led to a barbican in the outer ward, a large area that was well defended by a stout palisade of sharpened tree trunks and a series of ditches and moats. A flight of shallow steps led to a wooden gatehouse and the inner bailey, also protected by a palisade. And inside the inner ward stood the great keep-a massive stone structure raised by Godric himself-and a jumble of other buildings that included stables, storerooms, and kitchens.

“Sir Olivier says you are to come in to him,” called a slender boy from the top of the steps.

“Oh, marvellous!” muttered Geoffrey, anticipating the scene that was about to ensue, where Sir Olivier would realise that he did not recognise Geoffrey and would accuse him of being an impostor. With a weary sigh, Geoffrey took his destrier’s bridle and led it towards the barbican. His dog darted ahead, no doubt sensing the presence of unsuspecting chickens nearby. Geoffrey hurried to catch up with it before it could do any harm, and thrust the reins into the hands of the waiting boy as he passed.

While the dog’s attention was on a discarded chicken wing embedded in the mud, Geoffrey slipped the tether over its neck, earning himself an evil look in the process. But that was too bad: Geoffrey did not want his initial meeting with his family to be a confrontation over slaughtered livestock.

“Your horse is enormous!” Julian exclaimed, looking up at it with obvious awe. “Much bigger than Sir Olivier’s mount. And finer, too.”

“He is also tired and dirty,” said Geoffrey. “Are there reliable grooms here?”

Julian spat. “There are grooms, but they will be drunk by now. I will look after him for you. I know horses. He needs to be rubbed down with dry straw, and then fed with oat mash.”

“That would be excellent,” said Geoffrey, pleased that there was at least one person at Goodrich who seemed to know his business-unlike the guard. He leaned down to run his hand across the horse’s leg. “And he has a scratch here that I am concerned about.”