Simon Beaufort - A Head for Poisoning

Caerdig gazed down at the dead man in horror. “This has not gone quite the way I intended,” he breathed. “I saw a band of heavily armed men riding uninvited on my lands, put it with the rumour that you were soon expected to return from the Crusade, and thought no more than that-that a Mappestone was brazenly trespassing on Welsh soil, bringing other Holy Land louts with him. Now it seems that the King’s messenger lies slain on my manor.”

“Seems?” queried Geoffrey, putting a foot on Aumary’s back and hauling out the arrow with both hands. “It is more than just seems. What will you do?”

“What will you do?” countered Caerdig, watching Geoffrey inspect the bloody quarrel.

Geoffrey shrugged, rolling it between his fingers. “There is only one thing I can do, and that is to deliver Aumary and his dispatches to the King at Chepstow Castle. Sweet Jesus, man! How could you be so foolish! The death of a knight is unlikely to go unpunished, here or anywhere else. Even if it had been only me you had killed, do you think nothing would ever have been said, no reprisals?”

Caerdig shook his head slowly. “You are right: I was stupid. I did not stop to think of the consequences as I should have done. But looking at the situation with the benefit of hindsight does not help me now. I am about to be accused and punished for a murder in which I had no part.”

Geoffrey declined to answer.

“But it is the truth!” insisted Caerdig. “Look at the arrow! If you can find another like it anywhere on my land, I will give you everything I own! And you know the forest laws-villagers around here are forbidden to own bows, in case they are tempted to shoot the King’s deer.”

“But you told me earlier that you had archers hidden in the trees,” said Geoffrey. “What are they using, if not bows?”

Caerdig looked sheepish. “I was bluffing. What did you expect? You had a sword at my throat-I would have told you I had the Archangel Gabriel ready to shoot, if I had thought it would have intimidated you into not killing me. But, I repeat, none of my men own arrows like that one, or the good quality bows that would be needed to fire them.”

Not wanting to debate matters further, Geoffrey shoved the arrow in his belt and began to heave Aumary’s body upright to sling it across the horse. Caerdig helped, and together, after much struggling, they succeeded in securing the corpse to the saddle. Geoffrey removed the pouch of dispatches from where it dangled at the dead knight’s neck, and tucked it down the front of his own surcoat.

“I am coming with you,” said Caerdig abruptly, as Geoffrey led the horse back towards the path. “I will go to the King and put our case to him myself. He will listen to me, and I will persuade him to accept my reasoning as to why we cannot be held responsible for this knight’s death.” He glanced at Geoffrey with narrowed eyes, suddenly thoughtful. “But perhaps you put an arrow in him yourself before we ambushed you.”

“With what?” asked Geoffrey, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. “A mallet? None of my men carries a bow, and Aumary was very much alive before you attacked us.”

“But I cannot let a Mappestone go to the King with this tale,” said Caerdig angrily. “You would have us all hanged for certain.”

Geoffrey tugged the arrow from his belt and inspected it again. “This is well made,” he mused, turning the pale shaft this way and that. “It is finely balanced and strong. I imagine it would be expensive.”

“Quite,” said Caerdig, snatching it from him to see more clearly. “And my villagers are poor-none could afford to buy such good arrows. And, of course, fine arrows are of no use without a fine bow, and I can assure you that none of my people has a bow of any kind, fine or otherwise. We are innocent of this crime, I tell you!”

“Let us assume you are right,” said Geoffrey. “Then who loosed it? Why would anyone want to kill Sir Aumary of Breteuil? Despite his arrogance and self-importance, I doubt he was a man vital to the smooth running of the kingdom, or that the dispatches he carried are of great significance.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Caerdig doubtfully. He gestured to Aumary’s expensive chain-mail and handsome cloak. “He looks pretty eminent to me.”

“Because if the messages had been as important as Aumary claimed, I am certain that the King would not have left him to his own devices in securing travelling companions from Portsmouth. He would have supplied an escort to ensure their safe arrival in Chepstow.”

“And whoever killed Sir Aumary did not steal these dispatches anyway,” said Caerdig, indicating the bulge in Geoffrey’s surcoat. “Perhaps his death was a mistake, and the intended target was you.”

“Me?” asked Geoffrey in surprise. “Why? I have been away for twenty years, and I am sure the enemies I made from stealing apples and pulling faces at old ladies have long since been forgotten. No one can wish me any harm.”

“Your brothers do,” said Caerdig. “So, do not expect a warm welcome from them, Geoffrey Mappestone. None of them is beyond making an attempt on your life to ensure that you never make your appearance at the castle. Word is that they think you are returning because your father will die soon, and you have come to see what is in it for you.”

“I thought they might, given the way my sister has described them in her letters. But I want nothing from them. I wish only to pay my respects to my father, visit my sister’s grave, and leave.”

They had arrived at the clearing where Helbye chatted to the villagers of Lann Martin. The sergeant’s jaw dropped when he saw Aumary’s destrier and its grisly burden.

“What happened?” he cried.

“A mishap with an arrow,” said Geoffrey ambiguously, tying the reins of Aumary’s horse to his own saddle.

“An arrow?” echoed Helbye. He gestured to the black-capped man who stood next to him. “But I have just been listening to how the new King has been enforcing the law here in the Forest of Dene, and that no one carries a bow any more, even for shooting hares and foxes.”

Caerdig gave Geoffrey a triumphant look.

“Well, Aumary did not shoot himself,” said Geoffrey tiredly. “Someone killed him. And the King is going to want to know who.”

Sir Aumary was not the only victim of the mysterious archer. Geoffrey saw that it had been a slender, pale-shafted arrow that had killed Barlow’s horse. Like most Normans, Geoffrey had a healthy respect for horses, and he was disturbed to see one so summarily dispatched-perhaps even more than he was about Aumary. But Caerdig persisted in his claim that neither animal nor knight could have been slain by his men, and Geoffrey’s own observations of the impoverished, hollow-eyed people who clustered around them suggested that if the villagers of Lann Martin had money to spare, they would not have used it to buy arrows.

The black-capped man was sent to the village to fetch a replacement mount for Barlow, and to bring two fat ponies for him and Caerdig. Aware that the sun was already beginning to turn from the pale yellow of mid-afternoon to the amber of evening, Geoffrey immediately set a course for Chepstow, forcing a rapid pace with Aumary’s destrier and its sombre burden bouncing along behind.

Helbye was perfectly happy to have the company of Caerdig and the black-capped man, who was named Daffydd, and chatted cheerfully with them about mutual acquaintances from the days when Goodrich and Lann Martin had been on more friendly terms. Ingram and Barlow, who were young enough to be Helbye’s grandsons, could not recall a time when relations between the two manors were less tumultuous, and complained bitterly that the two Welshmen were to travel with them to Chepstow.