Simon Beaufort - A Head for Poisoning

“All right,” said Geoffrey, unnerved by the priest’s sudden display of emotion. He stood. “I must take Rohese to Helbye. Then I need to talk to the physician to ask what he discovered about the bed. And then we will bury Enide and whoever that other poor woman was.”

The priest nodded, fighting to bring himself under control. Geoffrey left him and collected Rohese from where she sat crying softly under a tree. Miserably, she trailed after him along the muddy lane to where Helbye’s house stood. Geoffrey knocked at the door and waited.

Suddenly, the door was wrenched open and Helbye shot out, wielding his sword. Geoffrey, not anticipating that he would be attacked by someone he considered a friend, was completely unprepared to parry the hacking sword as it swept toward him. He saw the glittering blade begin to descend, and knew that he would not be able to move quickly enough to avoid it.

Rohese’s shrill scream ripped through the air, making Helbye falter just long enough to allow Geoffrey to dodge out of the way of the wickedly slicing blade, although it passed so close that he felt the breeze of it on his cheek. He had hauled his own sword from his belt to meet the next blow before his brain had even started to question why his sergeant should be trying to chop him in half.

“Will!” he yelled. “What are you doing, man?”

“Sir Geoffrey!” gasped Helbye in startled horror. He gazed from the knight to the sword in his own hand. “My God! I almost killed you!”

“So I noticed,” said Geoffrey, putting his weapon away. “What has happened to lead you to give friendly visitors this sort of welcome?”

Helbye looked both ways along the lane, and then hauled Geoffrey and Rohese inside, slamming the door behind them.

“Something dreadful is going on in this place,” he said in a whisper.

Geoffrey did not need to be told that the village and its castle were not all a pleasantly prosperous settlement should be. He looked around the house’s single room. Helbye’s wife sat on the floor near the hearth, while in front of her lay the prostrate form of Francis the physician. Despite her most valiant efforts, Francis was bleeding to death from a wound in his side. Geoffrey looked from the dying man to Helbye in confusion.

“Ingram did it,” said Helbye tiredly. “God knows why. I heard a scuffle outside, and went to see what was going on. I found Master Francis clutching his side, and saw Ingram racing away up the lane as though the very hounds of hell were on his heels.”

“They may well be, soon,” said Geoffrey, doubting that the spiteful young soldier would be able to lie and bluff his way out of this mess: even the heroes of the Crusades could not be permitted to swagger around the countryside and kill whosoever they pleased.

Geoffrey knelt next to Francis and addressed Helbye. “Has he said anything?”

At the sound of his voice, Francis opened his eyes and gave a ghastly smile.

“You brought a devil home from the Holy Land, Geoffrey Mappestone. What changed the lad? He was never so vile when he was a boy.”

“Was he not?” asked Geoffrey, unconvinced. “He has been pretty unpleasant ever since I have known him. But why has he done this to you? What could you have said to lead him to murder?”

“Nothing,” breathed Francis, closing his eyes. “He came towards me smiling and then, without the slightest provocation, he plunged his dagger into me. And do not try to tell me that I will live. I am a physician-I know a fatal wound when I see one.”

“He just stabbed you? With no explanation?” Geoffrey was nonplussed. The physician’s shabby robe and dirty clothes clearly indicated that he was not wealthy, and therefore would not be worth robbing. And Geoffrey found it difficult to believe that someone would kill an old man for no reason at all, even the aggressive and cowardly Ingram.

“I was looking for you anyway,” whispered Francis. “I did as you asked-I went to the castle and inspected the mattress. But there was nothing amiss with it. You were wrong: there are no poisons hidden in any part of the bed that I could find.”

“Are you sure?” asked Geoffrey, disappointed. He had been convinced that his deduction had been correct.

“One can never be sure with poisons,” said Francis, a touch of his characteristic smugness back in his voice. “But I am reasonably certain that the mattress is innocent of Godric’s death. It must be something else. The rugs, perhaps.”

“Well, it does not matter,” said Geoffrey, “so you should not tax yourself about it now. Rest.”

“Rest for what?” asked Francis. “So that I can spend longer dying?”

“Will you fetch Father Adrian?” said Geoffrey to Helbye.

“Later,” said Francis as the sergeant rose. I have a while left to me yet.”

“You need to make your confession,” said Helbye. “You do not want to die unshriven.”

“Claptrap!” said the physician. “If I die sorry for my sins, then God will not care whether I have been absolved or not. You must have seen hundreds die unshriven on the field of battle, Will Helbye. Do you think God will not care for them because they did not confess?”

Helbye, very much a man who believed anything the Church told him, pursed his lips and did not deign to reply to such heresy.

“I will ride to Walecford for a physician,” he said stiffly.

“No! That man is a leech and a charlatan,” said Francis. “I want no physicians near me as I die.”

“Now you know how the rest of us feel,” muttered Helbye.

“Can we give you anything?” asked Geoffrey. “What about that potion you were making the day I first met you-the one that binds wounds? Can I fetch that?”

“Thank you, no,” said Francis with a shudder. “I have learned that the shock of having that applied tends to kill a patient in moments.”

His fingers fluttered over one of his pouches and Geoffrey helped him to open it.

“It is poppy powder for the pain,” the physician said weakly, drawing out a small packet. “Enide told me that you can read. Follow the instructions on the outside and make it up for me.”

Geoffrey unwrapped the package, and set about measuring the correct amount of liquid for the powder. He was on the verge of scattering it into a bowl of water when his attention was caught by the handwriting-a firm roundhand with a curiously archaic T . He had seen that writing before-on the parchments he had found hidden in Enide’s room. He stared at it, his thoughts whirling, until a sharp poke from Helbye’s wife brought him to his senses.

“Did you write these?” he asked Francis. “These instructions?”

“I did,” said Francis feebly. “Why? Can you not read them? That is a shame, because the pain has dimmed my eyes, and I cannot see them myself. But never mind, just add the whole packet. It matters not whether I die from the wound or from the medicine. Hurry up, boy! I suffer.”

“I can read it very well,” said Geoffrey, dumping the powder in the bowl and stirring it with his dagger. “Just as I have read other notes and messages written by you of late.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Helbye’s wife. “Give that to me. He will be dead by the time you finish messing around with it.”

She snatched the bowl from Geoffrey, and helped the physician sip it until it had all been consumed. The lines of agony on Francis’s face eased, and his breathing became less laboured.

“‘Midnight on the fifth day of June,’” said Geoffrey, when Francis opened his eyes again. “‘The first day of August at Brockenhurst.’”

Helbye gave him an odd look, but knew better than to ask questions. His wife, however, did not, and pushed Geoffrey away from the physician roughly.