Simon Beaufort - A Head for Poisoning

“He was stabbed with my dagger during the night,” said Geoffrey, wondering if they, like his brothers, would immediately assume his guilt. “I was asleep in the same room, but heard nothing until awakened by my family this morning, and by then, my father was dead.”

“I must attend his body,” said Adrian, standing and beginning to collect together the items he would need to give last rites. “He died unshriven.”

“The Earl of Shrewsbury’s priest attended him before he died,” said Geoffrey.

“How did the Earl know to send a priest?” Francis pounced. “Did the Earl slay Sir Godric, then? Those two have never seen eye to eye.”

“Not so loud!” exclaimed Adrian in alarm, going to the window to look out. “The Earl does not like you, either. Now that Godric is dead, you will need to guard your tongue.”

“No more than do you,” retorted Francis. “But you have not answered my question, Sir Geoffrey. Do you know who killed poor Godric as he lay dying? Was it the Earl? Or did one of Godric’s sons, or even that harpy, Joan, finally lose patience with their subtle poison and do away with him?”

Geoffrey shook his head, and then leaned his elbows on the table to hold it with both hands as his world buzzed and blackened at the sudden movement. “I have no idea,” he said weakly.

“Do your business, physician,” said Adrian, nodding towards Geoffrey. “Or you will lose another patient today.”

“There is no danger of that,” said Francis practically. “He has already survived the worst the poison can do, or he would not have woken at all this morning. I will make him a brew of pennyroyal, mint, and honey, and he must drink as much of it as he can, to wash the poison’s residues from his body.”

“Well, go on, then,” said Adrian as the physician made no move to prepare the potion.

Francis stood, rummaging around in his ample collection of pouches for the herbs he wanted. There were so many of them that Geoffrey wondered whether he might be made ill a second time through a case of simple misidentification. Eventually, the physician set a large bowl in front of him.

“Drink this-all of it-and then sleep. By the time you wake, you will feel better. Probably.”

He gathered up his pouches and strode from the room. Geoffrey looked doubtfully at the bowl in front of him, wondering whether Francis’s brew might inadvertently complete the task where someone else had failed.

“Drink it,” said Adrian, smiling at his hesitancy. “Francis would never harm Enide’s favourite brother, and he is a good physician, despite his eccentric appearance.”

“No, thank you,” said Geoffrey, pushing the bowl away from him. He stood to leave, disgusted that he had allowed Julian to lead him into yet more potentially hostile territory.

“Then at least sleep here for a while,” said Adrian. He raised his hands as Geoffrey began to object. “I will not force you to stay, but I imagine you will be very much safer in my house than at the castle. And your sergeant can watch over you, if that will make you feel more comfortable.”

“If you will not listen to the physician, then take the advice of the priest,” said Helbye, pushing Geoffrey towards a bed in an alcove at the back of the room. “And I will be here, Sir Geoffrey. I will not leave you to the mercy of that murderous brood up at the castle.”

Geoffrey wanted to examine his father’s body, to see if he might uncover some clues regarding the identity of his killer. And there was Rohese, too. Was she still buried in the dank depths of Godric’s mattresses? If so, Geoffrey needed to talk to her, for surely she must have seen or heard something during the night. But he knew that he would never be able to walk up the hill again, and even if he did, he was in no state to do battle with Henry or one of the others if they refused to let him in. He sank down on the bed, thinking that a short doze might restore his strength, and was asleep before Helbye had finished fussing over the covers.

When he woke, it was dark, and he was aware of low voices coming from the people who were huddled around the table. Cautiously he raised his head, and saw Adrian, Francis, and Helbye deep in conversation. Julian, who had been sitting near Geoffrey, stood when she heard the rustle of straw from the bed.

Julian’s movement attracted the attention of the others, and Helbye came towards him, his face anxious. Warily, Geoffrey sat up, relieved that the paralysing dizziness seemed to have gone and that the strength was back in his arms and legs. He stood.

“You deserve to feel atrocious for not taking the medicine that I so painstakingly prepared,” admonished Francis severely, referring, Geoffrey assumed, to the casual way he had flung a few powders into the bowl of warm water. “But it seems you have recovered without it anyway. And I have more good news for you. I believe I can prove you were not your father’s killer.”

“I am grateful someone can,” said Geoffrey, going to sit on the bench at the table next to Father Adrian. “How have you acquired this proof?”

“As a physician, I have access to a certain knowledge of the dead,” began Francis, a touch pompously. “After I left you, I went immediately to inspect poor Sir Godric’s corpse. None of your kinsmen had seen fit to lay it out in a decent manner, so I was able to inspect the scene of crime undisturbed, as it were. He was slain by a single wound to the stomach.”

“But he was stabbed in the chest,” objected Geoffrey. “I saw the knife there myself.”

“Did you, now,” said Francis thoughtfully. “Well, that clears something up, at least. As I was saying, the fatal wound was to his stomach. I imagine he would have died reasonably quickly from blood loss, but certainly not instantly. The knife, however, was embedded in his chest-as you yourself have attested.”

“I do not understand,” said Geoffrey.

He shook his head as Adrian offered him some ale. The priest took a deep draught from the beaker, and offered it a second time. Somewhat sheepishly, Geoffrey accepted, for his throat was dry and he was even more thirsty than he had been at times in the desert.

“How did the knife move from his stomach to his chest?”

“Well, it did not do it on its own,” replied Francis facetiously. “The wound in the chest had been inflicted after Godric had died. I can tell such things by the amount of bleeding-wounds bleed little or not at all after death, and there was virtually no bleeding from the injury to Godric’s chest, unlike the gash in his stomach.”

“So someone killed my father with a fatal, but not immediately effective, wound in the stomach, and then stabbed him in the chest after he was dead?” asked Geoffrey doubtfully. “That does not sound very likely.”

“Likely or not,” said Francis haughtily, “that is how it happened. Now, the blood was still sticky although the body was cool. I estimate that Godric died sometime around dawn, or, more probably, a little earlier.”

But that did not help Geoffrey very much at all, because it did not tell him whether his father had died before or after Walter had risen and left. If he had died after, then Walter was probably as innocent of the murder as was Geoffrey. But if he had died before, then there were three possibilities. First, Walter, like Geoffrey, was drugged in some way to make him sleep through it-although he had not seemed ill that morning; second, Walter had killed Godric while Geoffrey slept, and had left Bertrada to discover the corpse; or, third, Walter had not killed Godric, but was complicit in his murder at the hands of another. And, despite Francis’s claim, Geoffrey could not see how the physician’s evidence proved that Geoffrey was not responsible.