Simon Beaufort - A Head for Poisoning

“Well?” asked Walter. “What does it say?”

“Exactly what Shrewsbury said it did,” said Geoffrey. “It names him as the sole beneficiary of all Goodrich’s estates and bears Godric Mappestone’s mark. Surely you must have asked Norbert to read it to you?”

“Norbert has left us,” said Stephen. “Since he clearly knew of this will, yet did not see fit to warn any of us about it, it seems he has decided to flee. He has not been seen since the Earl departed.”

Geoffrey did not blame Norbert. It would not be pleasant to be faced with the scheming Shrewsbury on the one hand, and the thwarted greed of the Mappestones on the other. He wished he had joined the clerk and was even now riding through the countryside on his destrier, miles away from Goodrich and its murderers and squabblers.

“But is the will a forgery?” demanded Henry.

Geoffrey shrugged. “I could not possibly say. What do you think? You must have seen Father make his mark many times. Does it look genuine to you?”

Stephen snatched the parchment back and all three brothers pored over it before giving their considered opinions: Henry thought it was forged; Walter believed it to be genuine; and Stephen was not prepared to say.

“You should think about the timing of all this, though,” said Geoffrey, musing as he speared another piece of meat with his dagger.

He lifted his goblet to his lips, but then set it down again, untouched. While he could be reasonably certain that the meat was probably untainted-everyone without exception had taken a piece and eaten it before Geoffrey had touched his-he was not so sure about the wine.

He leaned back, thinking. “Our father sent a message to the Earl of Shrewsbury a few weeks ago to say that he was being poisoned, and that he thought the culprit was one of you.”

“Vicious, evil lies!” spat Bertrada.

“The Earl duly arrived,” Geoffrey went on, ignoring her, “and Father seems to have regaled him with information about the question of Walter’s legitimacy and Stephen’s paternity.”

Walter rose to his feet. “I will hear none of this at my table-”

Henry sneered. “It is not your table and it never will be. I have the better claim-”

“If we do not put aside our differences and listen to Geoffrey, none of us will have a claim,” snapped Stephen, his voice uncharacteristically loud. “Sit down, Walter, and pay attention. Geoffrey, forgive us. Please continue.”

“Father seems to have informed the Earl that neither Walter nor Stephen had a legitimate claim to Goodrich for various reasons. We know this because the Earl mentioned it himself. Father stated that he wanted to make a new will citing his heir as Godfrey in the service of the Duke of Normandy.”

“You will never have Goodrich!” yelled Henry, leaping up with his dagger in his hand. “How can you listen to this, Stephen? He is thinking that he can secure our help to get Goodrich for himself!”

He made a threatening move towards Geoffrey, but stopped uncertainly when Geoffrey also rose to his feet, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Stephen imposed himself between them.

“If you cannot listen without interrupting, then leave us,” he said sharply to Henry. “Time is running out. We have six days before the Earl comes to claim Goodrich, and I do not want to spend that time listening to you ranting and raving. You have nothing new to say!”

Henry’s face flushed a deep red and he looked murderous. Joan intervened.

“Do sit down, Henry.” She sighed, exasperated. “How can I eat with you glowering and squawking like a fiend from Hell? Carry on, Geoffrey. I am interested in what you have to say, even if Henry is not.”

“Father said he made a will citing Godfrey as his heir,” reiterated Geoffrey, sitting again and casting Henry a contemptuous look. “He said there were two copies. One he kept in the chest at the end of his bed-that was the one that Henry found and that Norbert read aloud to you all the day that Father pretended to be dead-and the other was placed in the safe-keeping of the Earl himself.”

“But we know all this,” said Stephen, when Geoffrey paused. “What is it that you have concluded from it?”

Geoffrey held up the parchment that proclaimed the Earl as heir. “Father could not read. Therefore, he would not know what he was signing, and only had it on trust that the will contained what he had dictated.”

“Are you saying that the Earl simply substituted his own name for Godfrey’s and Godric just signed it anyway?” asked Walter in disbelief.

“It is certainly a possibility,” said Geoffrey. “How would Father know he was being misled? He could not read the thing himself.”

“But Norbert was there,” said Stephen promptly. “Norbert would have told him if the will had said that the Earl was to inherit, and not one of us.”

“Would he?” asked Geoffrey. “Why?”

There was a silence as they tried to think of an answer. Geoffrey continued.

“Father did not trust Norbert, and has certainly not given him cause to be loyal. And you did not treat him kindly, either. I saw you push and yell at him when you called him to read the will Henry found. Norbert is a clerk, an educated man, and yet you deal with him like you would a scullion.”

“So?” demanded Henry, uncomprehending. “He earned no better from us. All he ever did was hang around Will Helbye’s wife and make a nuisance of himself.”

“But my point is why should he risk the wrath of a man like Shrewsbury to tell people who have despised his talents for years that they are about to be disinherited? Why should he?”

“Norbert!” shouted Henry, rising yet again. “I will kill him! He has betrayed us!”

“And,” Geoffrey went on, “you have just told me yourselves that Norbert has not been seen since the Earl left. Something of a coincidence, would you not agree? I did not read the will that Henry found in Godric’s chest the day he pretended to die, because you did not let me see it. Who knows what it really said-or whether Norbert even read what was really there?”

“He took a risk, then!” said Stephen. “Supposing we had given it to you-he would have been uncovered as a liar. You would have seen the name of the Earl and not Godfrey.”

“But who would you have believed had I contradicted him?” asked Geoffrey, shrugging. “Your father’s clerk of many years” standing, or me, who none of you trust?”

“You have a point,” said Bertrada. “We would not have believed you over Norbert. I would have assumed that you were lying to get possession of the will-to run off to a court to state your claim before we could contest it.”

“And if you recall, Norbert was very quick to come to Father’s chamber after you called him,” Geoffrey continued. “I thought it was because he was interested in eavesdropping on your quarrel for amusement, but I suspect it was because he was anxious about the will, and he wanted to hear what was happening regarding it. I assume none of you have the will? The last time I saw it, it was in Norbert’s hands in Father’s bedchamber.”

There were several shaken heads.

“So, the will the Earl handed us is legal and not forged after all?” said Stephen, disappointment writ large on his face as he gazed at the parchment on the table.

Geoffrey shrugged. “The situation I have just outlined is only one of several possibilities. Another is that Norbert is innocent in all this, and that Father really did make a will naming Godfrey as his heir. And Father told me that Norbert did not write the will, but that the Earl’s priest was the scribe. Watch.”

He drew a quill and ink from the pouch at his side, and began to draw on the wooden table. The others crowded in on him, jostling to see what he was doing. Carefully, he copied Godric’s mark, making it identical to the one on the will.