Simon Beaufort - A Head for Poisoning

A beautiful woman with tresses of pale gold and a delicate, almost frail figure pinched Henry’s arm in a gesture of warning, and turned to Geoffrey with a warm smile.

“We are pleased to welcome you back after so long. How long do you plan to stay?”

“That miserable cur has just bitten me!”

Geoffrey did not need to look around to know which was the miserable cur in question. With alarm, he saw it had slipped its tether, and was on the loose. Fortunately, it appeared as bemused by the gaggle of people as was Geoffrey, and had not strayed too far from its master’s protection. Geoffrey leaned down and took a secure hold of the thick fur at the scruff of its neck, feeling a soft buzzing under his fingers as it growled at the back of its throat. Luckily, his relatives were making sufficient noise with their questions for the dog’s feelings about them to be drowned out.

At the top of the stairs, Geoffrey was ushered into the large hall, which had a hearth at the far end. He paused, noting that new tapestries had been hung, although the rushes on the floor did not appear to have been changed since he had left. A sleepy kitchenmaid was stoking up the fire, and it was beginning to blaze merrily. Those servants who usually slept in the hall had been roused from their repose and sent to the kitchens, while others scurried about setting up a table and throwing together a meal. Geoffrey was offered a large chair near the fire, and provided with another cup of scalding wine. Again, it had been overfilled, and the hot liquid spilled over his fingers and onto the dog, which leapt to its feet with a howl of outrage.

“Unfriendly animal, that,” remarked the man who had been bitten, twisting round to inspect his ankle. “Where did you get it? Is it from the Holy Land?”

“From Italy,” said Geoffrey, thinking back to when he had found the dog as an abandoned puppy some years before. There were times when he was grateful for its somewhat irascible company, although most of the time it was more menace than pleasure.

“Ah,” said the bitten man, as though Italian origins explained perfectly well why a dog might bite. “If you like dogs, I have a new litter of hunting hounds. You are welcome to take one.”

Geoffrey wondered how long a puppy would survive the jealous jaws of his black-and-white dog, but nodded politely, thinking he could find some excuse to decline later. The last thing he wanted was another dog.

“I would like to see our father,” he said, looking round at the assembled faces, and trying to assess which one was Walter. “I hear he is unwell.”

“I bet you have!” Henry sneered. “So, that is why you are here. You heard about his will and came running.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, during which Geoffrey regarded Henry with dislike. He turned to Bertrada.

“Perhaps I could see him now? And then I will be on my way.”

“You cannot leave us so soon!” cried the balding man. “You have only just arrived and you have told us nothing of your travels. Stay with us a while. Ignore Henry.” He gave the surly Henry a brief look of disapproval, which Henry treated with a contemptuous stare of his own.

“You cannot see Sir Godric tonight, Geoffrey,” said Bertrada. “He is already asleep, and he needs his rest these days. You can see him tomorrow, when you will both be fresh.”

“That is a fine destrier you have,” said Sir Olivier, his display of faint-heartedness at his first encounter with Geoffrey clearly forgotten-by Olivier at least. He flicked his elegant cloak behind him, and perched on the edge of the table, swinging a well-turned leg. “Was he very expensive?”

“I imagine so,” replied Geoffrey. “He was given to me by Tancred.”

“Tancred de Hauteville?” asked Bertrada, exchanging a look of confusion with the balding man. “Why would he do that? I was under the impression that you were in the service of the Duke of Normandy.”

“I was transferred to Tancred’s service nine years ago. It is by Tancred’s leave that I came here. Did Enide not mention it? I wrote to tell her.”

“I suppose she may have done,” said the balding man, scratching at the few hairs that lay across his greasy pate. “I really cannot remember.”

“She did mention it,” said Olivier. He turned to Geoffrey and smiled. “You were in Italy for a number of years with Tancred, and there you also fought on the side of Bohemond, Tancred’s uncle.”

Geoffrey was startled that Olivier d’Alencon, whom he had never met, should be better informed about his career than the rest of his family, and was about to say so when Henry spoke.

“And why have you come back?” he demanded. “What do you want from us after all this time? I can assure you that there is nothing for you here-despite what you may have heard.”

Geoffrey resented the hostility in his brother’s tone, and wondered how Henry had managed to survive all these years without a dagger slipped between his ribs if he were so habitually offensive.

“I had a curious hankering to see you all,” Geoffrey replied sweetly, smiling round at the assembled residents of Goodrich Castle. “And I thought perhaps I might challenge Henry to one of the fights that once gave us so much pleasure.”

That should shut him up, thought Geoffrey, resting his hand casually on the hilt of his sword to add an additional threat to his words. It did. Henry glowered at him, and then strode away to sit gnawing at his finger-nails on the opposite side of the room-away from the main group, but still close enough to hear what was being said.

Geoffrey watched him go. “And I thought I might visit my manor at Rwirdin,” he said, to test Caerdig’s notion that it formed part of Joan’s dowry. “I have never seen it, although it has been legally mine since our mother’s death fifteen years ago.”

There were several furtive glances, and Geoffrey had his answer.

“Yes, go,” called Henry nastily from across the room. “It has a nice church. You will be able to sit in it and read about womanly things, just like you used to do.”

“But you must stay here a while, first,” said Bertrada, glaring at Henry. “You cannot leave us so soon after you have arrived.”

There was a silence. The balding man was still regarding Geoffrey’s saddlebags with impolite interest; the bitten man’s attention was on Geoffrey’s dog; Henry made no secret of the fact that he could not have disagreed with Bertrada more; while the golden-haired woman regarded Geoffrey with an expression he found difficult to interpret. Meanwhile, Geoffrey had reconsidered his initial hope that his visit might pass without unpleasant incidents, and was heartily wishing he was elsewhere.

Geoffrey’s family stood around him as he sat in the fireside chair. He felt ill at ease as they hovered over him, and wondered whether any of them noticed how his hand rested lightly on the hilt of his dagger. Although he did not anticipate anyone-even Henry-being so rash as to attack an armed knight in as public a place as the hall, he did not feel entirely safe in their presence. He glanced down at the hot wine in his cup, noticing that no one else was drinking any. Perhaps, he realised, he should be expecting an attack from a less obvious source-especially given that his father claimed that he was being poisoned.

“What is the name of this animal?” asked the bitten man, his voice loud in the still room. He inspected Geoffrey’s dog with the eye of an expert. “Is it some little-known Italian breed?”

“He does not have a name,” said Geoffrey, feeling foolish. “And he is no special breed as far as I know.” He hoped not: he would not like to think that there were other creatures in the world with the same unappealing traits as those exhibited by the black-and-white dog.