Simon Beaufort - A Head for Poisoning

Francis appeared to read his mind, for he smiled, and leaned across to dilute Geoffrey’s ale with water from a jug from which Julian had been drinking.

“Avoid wines and strong ales for a day or two-the body will need time to recover. But you are interested in proving your innocence in all this, I see. Very well, then. I am almost certain that the poison used on you was some kind of poppy powder mixed with a tiny amount of the juice of ergot. You were not given enough to kill you, although whether by design or chance, I cannot be certain.”

“Chance would be my wager,” said Helbye with conviction. “Someone does not want you at the castle, lad. Whoever poisoned you wanted you dead, not sick.”

Geoffrey was thoughtful. Someone had gone to some trouble to ensure that his dagger was used to kill Godric, and that he was still in the room when the body was found. Was it because-as the Earl had claimed-someone had wanted him accused of his father’s murder? Or was Helbye right, and the poisoner had actually wanted him dead? He sighed, not knowing what to think, or where to start looking for answers.

He turned to Francis. “Were the wound in Godric’s stomach and the wound in his chest caused by the same implement?”

Francis’s hitherto smug expression faded. “I did not think to look. How could I have forgotten to test for something so obvious?”

“No matter,” said Geoffrey. “I can look myself.” He drank more of the watered ale. “But you still have not explained your reasoning that the murderer was not me.”

“Next to the hearth was an opened bottle of wine and an empty bowl. Both contained the unmistakable aroma of poppy and ergot. You have already told me that you consumed something before you slept and, judging from your condition when you came to me, you could not possibly have been in a fit state to kill Sir Godric before dawn. The poppy would have had an effect almost immediately, and you were still under the ergot’s influence when you came here this morning.”

Geoffrey did not consider Francis’s logic to be without its flaws, especially since the bowl was empty because he had tipped Hedwise’s broth down the garderobe shaft, and he certainly would not wish to hang his defence in a court of law on such a fragile thread. But at least it served to gain him another ally-two, if he included the priest Adrian, and, in a place like Goodrich, allies might mean the difference between life and death.

He rubbed his eyes, and tried to make some sense out of the evidence Francis had provided him. “So both the wine and the broth were treated with ergot?”

“Not just ergot,” said Francis pedantically. “There was poppy powder, too.”

“Why bother with two poisons?” asked Geoffrey. “It seems that the poppy powder would have served its purpose alone.”

“There are a number of possibilities,” said Francis. “Ergot in large quantities is fatal, but the poisoner probably did not want you wandering about the castle waking everyone as you died publicly-hence he or she added the poppy so that you would slip away quietly. Or perhaps each was the preferred compound of a different poisoner.”

“You mean that two people at the castle tried independently to poison me last night?” queried Geoffrey incredulously. “I know I am not popular with my brothers and sisters, but I do not think anyone but Henry holds genuine murderous intentions.”

“I think you overestimate your claim on your family’s affections,” said Adrian sombrely. “I heard in the village this morning that Godric presented a copy of his latest will to you, naming you as his sole beneficiary. You have been away, so you cannot know the importance to which the inheritance of Goodrich has soared among your brethren. Walter, Bertrada, Stephen, Henry, Olivier, and even Joan and Hedwise would not hesitate to kill to get Goodrich.”

The priest’s words were far from comforting, and it was with some gratitude that Geoffrey accepted Helbye’s offer of a bed by his hearth that night. The knight huddled near the embers, twisted slightly to one side to avoid the drips that came through the roof from the rain outside, and thought about what he had learned. There was no question whatsoever in his mind now that Enide had been the victim of some foul plot, the prize of which was the inheritance of Goodrich. She had known about the documents that proved Walter’s illegitimacy and that claimed Sigurd, not Godric, was the father of Stephen. The poachers Henry hanged had been innocent.

Godric claimed that Enide had burned the documents. Had she? Or had she kept them for some reason of her own? If the latter were true Geoffrey knew exactly where she would have hidden them, and resolved to look the following day. Was that why Adrian noticed that she had been distracted the morning of her death, or was her lack of concentration because she had arranged to meet someone-Caerdig perhaps? And why did someone poison her, but not fatally, if the intention was to secure her silence?

He rubbed his head, and took another sip of the water Helbye had left him. He was horrified at the notion that two members of his family would try independently to poison him the same night. After all, he had been to some pains to convince them that he did not want Goodrich. Of course, they had not believed him, and had even concocted some distorted story about him bribing Ine to return from the Holy Land to poison Godric.

Geoffrey frowned in the darkness. The physician had said that he had detected ergot in both the wine and the broth. Geoffrey tried to remember what little he knew about ergot. It was a fungus that poisoned crops, and prolonged or large doses caused gangrene. Godric had no gangrene, so did that mean that the person who had poisoned Godric was different from the person or persons who had poisoned Geoffrey?

A dim memory also told him that ergot was supposed to have a fishy flavour. The fish broth had certainly tasted fishy, and the smell had made him feel sick. But then, he recalled, so had the sip of wine that he had taken afterwards. So, had someone wanted him to take the poison sufficiently desperately to tamper with both broth and wine? Was it Stephen, who brought the bottle? Was it Hedwise, who made the broth? Was it Walter, who had insisted Geoffrey finish the broth or risk offending Hedwise? Or was it someone else, knowing that wine and broth would be taken to Geoffrey, and using Stephen, Hedwise, and Walter as innocent participants?

Geoffrey remembered Rohese. Perhaps she might have seen or heard something, assuming that she had remained in her hiding place, and had not emerged to kill Godric in his sleep. But that would mean that she probably also poisoned Geoffrey, and he was only too aware that she had had other, far more immediate, matters on her mind than taking the time to indulge in poisoning and murder. And in any case, if Rohese were going to poison anyone, it was far more likely that it would have been the Earl.

And how did the Earl fit into all this? Geoffrey could not imagine that Godric had made a will citing the evil Shrewsbury as sole beneficiary, and he did not believe that Godric would accept an annulment of his marriage without mentioning it to his children-it would have been exactly the kind of revelation he would have relished making. And if that were true, then the will that the Earl had flaunted earlier that day was a forgery.

Geoffrey shivered, and moved nearer the fire. Was King Henry right, and the Earl had taken part in the killing of King William Rufus for some dark purpose of his own? The Earl openly professed to be a supporter of the Duke of Normandy-as long as it worked to his advantage. Perhaps King Henry was right, and Shrewsbury was indeed aiming to consolidate his holdings on the Welsh border so that he could aid the Duke to take England.