A Head for Poisoning

CHAPTER FOUR

Geoffrey was tired, wet, cold, and hungry as he stood pondering the great barred gate of Goodrich Castle. He had travelled hundreds of miles for several weeks to do his filial duty to a man he had neither liked nor respected, and over the past two days he had been ambushed, subjected to an uncomfortable conversation with the King, had his most prized possessions scattered through the bushes, and forced to walk because his saddle had been slashed. Suddenly, his temper snapped.

“Enough of this!” he yelled. “Either let me in to speak to my father, or I will force an entry myself. And if you choose to direct an arrow my way, I can promise you that you will be sorry!”

A grille in the wicket door slid open, and Geoffrey was assessed by a glistening eye. After a hurried exchange of whispers and a series of grunts and bumps, the bar was removed and the gate was opened. Geoffrey was far from impressed: he had expected to be questioned, and he accepted the fact that the guards would not know him and would seek some verification as to his identity. But, despite his blustering threat, he certainly had not imagined that they would be so easily browbeaten into opening the gates in the dark to what amounted to a complete stranger.

“Come in if you are coming,” mumbled the guard irritably, holding a torch aloft so that Geoffrey would not step in the deep puddle that lay under the gate. “I have sent young Julian to tell Sir Olivier d’Alencon that he has visitors.”

“Sir Olivier?” asked Geoffrey, watching the guard secure the door again. “Who is he?”

“But you said you wanted to speak to him!” said the guard in an accusatory voice, almost dropping the torch in his agitation.

“I said no such thing,” said Geoffrey. “I do not know this Sir Olivier.”

“I supposed you to be one of his cronies, come to leech off us again,” said the guard. He took a step towards Geoffrey, fingering the hilt of his sword with one hand, and thrusting the torch towards him in the other. Geoffrey was a tall, strong man, and looked larger still in his heavy chain-mail and surcoat. He also carried a broadsword and at least two daggers that the guard could see. Prudently, the man stepped backwards again.

“It is good to know that Goodrich Castle is in such safe hands,” remarked Geoffrey. “I am Geoffrey Mappestone, and I have come to see my father. Not Sir Olivier, whoever he might be.”

“He will be your brother-in-law, then,” said the guard, dropping his belligerent manner and becoming wary. “Assuming you are who you claim. Sir Olivier is Lady Joan’s husband. Joan is your sister,” he added for Geoffrey’s edification. He studied Geoffrey in the light of his flaring torch. “You have grown a lot bigger since you left.”

“I would hope so,” said Geoffrey. “I was twelve years old then.”

He grew restless under the guard’s brazen scrutiny, and looked around him. The gate at which he stood led to a barbican in the outer ward, a large area that was well defended by a stout palisade of sharpened tree trunks and a series of ditches and moats. A flight of shallow steps led to a wooden gatehouse and the inner bailey, also protected by a palisade. And inside the inner ward stood the great keep-a massive stone structure raised by Godric himself-and a jumble of other buildings that included stables, storerooms, and kitchens.

“Sir Olivier says you are to come in to him,” called a slender boy from the top of the steps.

“Oh, marvellous!” muttered Geoffrey, anticipating the scene that was about to ensue, where Sir Olivier would realise that he did not recognise Geoffrey and would accuse him of being an impostor. With a weary sigh, Geoffrey took his destrier’s bridle and led it towards the barbican. His dog darted ahead, no doubt sensing the presence of unsuspecting chickens nearby. Geoffrey hurried to catch up with it before it could do any harm, and thrust the reins into the hands of the waiting boy as he passed.

While the dog’s attention was on a discarded chicken wing embedded in the mud, Geoffrey slipped the tether over its neck, earning himself an evil look in the process. But that was too bad: Geoffrey did not want his initial meeting with his family to be a confrontation over slaughtered livestock.

“Your horse is enormous!” Julian exclaimed, looking up at it with obvious awe. “Much bigger than Sir Olivier’s mount. And finer, too.”

“He is also tired and dirty,” said Geoffrey. “Are there reliable grooms here?”

Julian spat. “There are grooms, but they will be drunk by now. I will look after him for you. I know horses. He needs to be rubbed down with dry straw, and then fed with oat mash.”

“That would be excellent,” said Geoffrey, pleased that there was at least one person at Goodrich who seemed to know his business-unlike the guard. He leaned down to run his hand across the horse’s leg. “And he has a scratch here that I am concerned about.”

“I see it,” said Julian, bending to inspect the destrier’s damaged fetlock. “It needs to be washed with clean water. I will draw it from the well myself.”

There was something odd about Julian that Geoffrey could not place. He was perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old, and so they could never have met. But the peculiarity had nothing to do with recognition; it was something else. However, the lad clearly had a way with horses, and Geoffrey had no reason to dismiss him in favour of one of the allegedly drunken grooms. He smiled at the boy’s eager face.

“It seems you know your business, Julian.”

Julian grinned back at him. “And I see you know yours. Sir Olivier never trusts me with his pathetic nag, although I am by far the best carer of horses at the castle.”

“Who are you?” came a voice from behind them, hostile and angry. “What do you mean by demanding entry under false pretences? I do not know you!”

Geoffrey turned, and came face to face with a short man with jet black hair and a matching moustache. Noting the half-armour and handsome cloak of a knight at ease, Geoffrey assumed he was Sir Olivier. The small knight had drawn his sword, but let it fall quickly when the guard’s torch changed Geoffrey from an indistinguishable shadow to a fully armed warrior wearing a Crusader’s surcoat. Olivier looked him up and down, took stock of his size and array of weapons, and beat a hasty retreat by backing away across the courtyard. Geoffrey heard Julian giggling helplessly at the unedifying spectacle.

“Guards!” yelled Olivier, unable to control the tremor in his voice. “Seize this man! He is an impostor!”

It was not the welcome for which Geoffrey had been hoping, but it did not entirely surprise him. He strode towards Olivier, aiming to get close enough to state his name and business without having to bawl it for half the county to hear. Olivier, however, seemed to be in no mood for discussion-he promptly dropped his sword and fled up the stairs into the keep, slamming the door behind him. The guards regarded Geoffrey uncertainly, but made no attempt to do as Olivier had ordered. Clearly, neither of them wished to indulge in a sword fight with a Crusader knight whose skills would almost certainly be superior to their own.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Geoffrey in exasperation, gazing at the closed door. He turned to the boy. “Julian, please inform Sir Olivier that I am Geoffrey Mappestone, and that I have come simply to pay my respects to my father. I did not imagine it would prove to be so difficult.”

“I guessed who you were,” said Julian, carefully passing the reins of the destrier back to Geoffrey. “They have been expecting you since your letter arrived two weeks ago, although Henry lives in hope that you might have perished on the journey.”

“That is reassuring to hear,” said Geoffrey. “But you had better do as I ask, before Sir Olivier orders his archers to shoot us from the windows.”

“They would miss,” said Julian disdainfully, but dutifully sped towards the keep where Geoffrey heard him yelling through the closed door. While he waited, Geoffrey surveyed the inner ward. Some parts were familiar, like the keep with its three floors, and the ramshackle stables. Other parts were new, like the kitchen and the housing on the well.

He glanced to where Julian was still conversing through the door, and shivered. It was cold standing in the dark, and his clothes were still wet from his plunge in the river. After what seemed to be an age, the keep door opened and a woman whom Geoffrey did not know came down the stone steps towards him, bearing the traditional welcoming cup.

“Geoffrey! At last! We were beginning to think you would never come!”

As the woman approached him, bringing with her the goblet of warm wine that was usually offered to travellers as a symbol of welcome, Geoffrey wondered whether his misgivings about returning might have been unduly pessimistic. She was smiling and, in the dark, her friendly words of greeting seemed genuine enough.

She waited while he passed the reins of his destrier back to Julian, and then thrust the cup into his hand before he was really ready. It was full to the brim, and so hot that he almost dropped it. He bit back an oath that would have been bad manners to utter at such a point, and smiled at her, wondering whether she was his sister Joan or one of his brothers” wives. However, all the Mappestones, except Stephen, had brown hair, but this woman’s luxurious mane was paler, almost beige. He decided that she must be his eldest brother’s wife, Bertrada, performing her duty as the lady of the manor.

Others followed her out into the bailey, and within a few moments he was surrounded, all talking at once and asking him questions that they gave him no opportunity to answer. Bewildered, Geoffrey tried to fit the barely remembered faces of twenty years ago to the rabble of people who clustered around him.

Geoffrey’s eldest brother, Walter, had been married to a wealthy local merchant’s daughter called Bertrada, and the guard had already told him that Joan was wed to the cowardly Sir Olivier. After Walter and Joan came Stephen, whom Geoffrey recalled as taciturn and crafty. But none of the people who shouted questions at him in the bailey seemed in the slightest bit quiet, so perhaps Stephen had changed. After Stephen was Henry, two years older than Geoffrey, and whose overriding passions had been fighting his younger brother and killing the rats he trapped in the stables. Geoffrey wondered whether it was Stephen’s or Henry’s wife who had died the previous year. Perhaps she had been murdered too-like Enide.

He shook himself irritably. Such speculations would do him no good at all. He was tired and cold, and he needed time to work out who was who in his family, and how much they had changed. There was no point beginning to ask questions about Enide’s death, or about who was poisoning his father, until he had allowed himself some time to become at least superficially reacquainted with his relatives. After all, he was a stranger to them, and there was no reason why they should trust him either: if there were anything untoward about Enide’s death, interrogating them about it would serve only to put them on their guard.

A burly, balding man had picked up Geoffrey’s saddlebags, and was testing their weight with an acquisitiveness he made no effort to hide. Geoffrey shivered again, noticing that a frost was settling, turning the churned mud of the inner ward to a rock hard consistency. The woman who had brought him the welcoming cup-Bertrada, Geoffrey had assumed-took his hand solicitously.

“You are frozen. And wet, too. We should be ashamed of ourselves! You return to us after so long, and we keep you in the cold.” She led him up the steps to the keep. “How was your journey?”

“Relatively uneventful,” Geoffrey replied.

He felt unaccountably nervous at being the centre of attention among so many people he did not know, and was not inclined to mention Caerdig’s ambush or the death of Aumary until he was certain that one of his family was not responsible.

Bertrada laughed. “Oh, come now, Geoffrey! You travel from Jerusalem to England, and you describe the journey as ‘relatively uneventful”? You must have more to say than that. You have not spoken to us for twenty years.”

“Would that he had not for another twenty,” muttered one man, eyeing Geoffrey with rank dislike.

Henry, thought Geoffrey immediately, regarding his third brother with interest. Henry had changed little, although he now wore his brown hair long and tied at the back in the Saxon fashion. He had not grown much-Geoffrey still topped him by a head at least. He studied Henry closer and saw a curious mixture of health and debauchery. Henry was sturdy, and looked fit and strong, but the red veins in the whites of his eyes and the purple veins in his cheeks suggested that the wine fumes that Geoffrey detected on his breath were nothing unusual.

A beautiful woman with tresses of pale gold and a delicate, almost frail figure pinched Henry’s arm in a gesture of warning, and turned to Geoffrey with a warm smile.

“We are pleased to welcome you back after so long. How long do you plan to stay?”

“That miserable cur has just bitten me!”

Geoffrey did not need to look around to know which was the miserable cur in question. With alarm, he saw it had slipped its tether, and was on the loose. Fortunately, it appeared as bemused by the gaggle of people as was Geoffrey, and had not strayed too far from its master’s protection. Geoffrey leaned down and took a secure hold of the thick fur at the scruff of its neck, feeling a soft buzzing under his fingers as it growled at the back of its throat. Luckily, his relatives were making sufficient noise with their questions for the dog’s feelings about them to be drowned out.

At the top of the stairs, Geoffrey was ushered into the large hall, which had a hearth at the far end. He paused, noting that new tapestries had been hung, although the rushes on the floor did not appear to have been changed since he had left. A sleepy kitchenmaid was stoking up the fire, and it was beginning to blaze merrily. Those servants who usually slept in the hall had been roused from their repose and sent to the kitchens, while others scurried about setting up a table and throwing together a meal. Geoffrey was offered a large chair near the fire, and provided with another cup of scalding wine. Again, it had been overfilled, and the hot liquid spilled over his fingers and onto the dog, which leapt to its feet with a howl of outrage.

“Unfriendly animal, that,” remarked the man who had been bitten, twisting round to inspect his ankle. “Where did you get it? Is it from the Holy Land?”

“From Italy,” said Geoffrey, thinking back to when he had found the dog as an abandoned puppy some years before. There were times when he was grateful for its somewhat irascible company, although most of the time it was more menace than pleasure.

“Ah,” said the bitten man, as though Italian origins explained perfectly well why a dog might bite. “If you like dogs, I have a new litter of hunting hounds. You are welcome to take one.”

Geoffrey wondered how long a puppy would survive the jealous jaws of his black-and-white dog, but nodded politely, thinking he could find some excuse to decline later. The last thing he wanted was another dog.

“I would like to see our father,” he said, looking round at the assembled faces, and trying to assess which one was Walter. “I hear he is unwell.”

“I bet you have!” Henry sneered. “So, that is why you are here. You heard about his will and came running.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, during which Geoffrey regarded Henry with dislike. He turned to Bertrada.

“Perhaps I could see him now? And then I will be on my way.”

“You cannot leave us so soon!” cried the balding man. “You have only just arrived and you have told us nothing of your travels. Stay with us a while. Ignore Henry.” He gave the surly Henry a brief look of disapproval, which Henry treated with a contemptuous stare of his own.

“You cannot see Sir Godric tonight, Geoffrey,” said Bertrada. “He is already asleep, and he needs his rest these days. You can see him tomorrow, when you will both be fresh.”

“That is a fine destrier you have,” said Sir Olivier, his display of faint-heartedness at his first encounter with Geoffrey clearly forgotten-by Olivier at least. He flicked his elegant cloak behind him, and perched on the edge of the table, swinging a well-turned leg. “Was he very expensive?”

“I imagine so,” replied Geoffrey. “He was given to me by Tancred.”

“Tancred de Hauteville?” asked Bertrada, exchanging a look of confusion with the balding man. “Why would he do that? I was under the impression that you were in the service of the Duke of Normandy.”

“I was transferred to Tancred’s service nine years ago. It is by Tancred’s leave that I came here. Did Enide not mention it? I wrote to tell her.”

“I suppose she may have done,” said the balding man, scratching at the few hairs that lay across his greasy pate. “I really cannot remember.”

“She did mention it,” said Olivier. He turned to Geoffrey and smiled. “You were in Italy for a number of years with Tancred, and there you also fought on the side of Bohemond, Tancred’s uncle.”

Geoffrey was startled that Olivier d’Alencon, whom he had never met, should be better informed about his career than the rest of his family, and was about to say so when Henry spoke.

“And why have you come back?” he demanded. “What do you want from us after all this time? I can assure you that there is nothing for you here-despite what you may have heard.”

Geoffrey resented the hostility in his brother’s tone, and wondered how Henry had managed to survive all these years without a dagger slipped between his ribs if he were so habitually offensive.

“I had a curious hankering to see you all,” Geoffrey replied sweetly, smiling round at the assembled residents of Goodrich Castle. “And I thought perhaps I might challenge Henry to one of the fights that once gave us so much pleasure.”

That should shut him up, thought Geoffrey, resting his hand casually on the hilt of his sword to add an additional threat to his words. It did. Henry glowered at him, and then strode away to sit gnawing at his finger-nails on the opposite side of the room-away from the main group, but still close enough to hear what was being said.

Geoffrey watched him go. “And I thought I might visit my manor at Rwirdin,” he said, to test Caerdig’s notion that it formed part of Joan’s dowry. “I have never seen it, although it has been legally mine since our mother’s death fifteen years ago.”

There were several furtive glances, and Geoffrey had his answer.

“Yes, go,” called Henry nastily from across the room. “It has a nice church. You will be able to sit in it and read about womanly things, just like you used to do.”

“But you must stay here a while, first,” said Bertrada, glaring at Henry. “You cannot leave us so soon after you have arrived.”

There was a silence. The balding man was still regarding Geoffrey’s saddlebags with impolite interest; the bitten man’s attention was on Geoffrey’s dog; Henry made no secret of the fact that he could not have disagreed with Bertrada more; while the golden-haired woman regarded Geoffrey with an expression he found difficult to interpret. Meanwhile, Geoffrey had reconsidered his initial hope that his visit might pass without unpleasant incidents, and was heartily wishing he was elsewhere.

Geoffrey’s family stood around him as he sat in the fireside chair. He felt ill at ease as they hovered over him, and wondered whether any of them noticed how his hand rested lightly on the hilt of his dagger. Although he did not anticipate anyone-even Henry-being so rash as to attack an armed knight in as public a place as the hall, he did not feel entirely safe in their presence. He glanced down at the hot wine in his cup, noticing that no one else was drinking any. Perhaps, he realised, he should be expecting an attack from a less obvious source-especially given that his father claimed that he was being poisoned.

“What is the name of this animal?” asked the bitten man, his voice loud in the still room. He inspected Geoffrey’s dog with the eye of an expert. “Is it some little-known Italian breed?”

“He does not have a name,” said Geoffrey, feeling foolish. “And he is no special breed as far as I know.” He hoped not: he would not like to think that there were other creatures in the world with the same unappealing traits as those exhibited by the black-and-white dog.

The bitten man nodded slowly. “Perhaps I can mate him with one of my bitches. His kind of aggression would be good for the dogs we use to patrol our boundaries. I am willing to wager that your hound is an excellent guard.”

“Not really,” said Geoffrey, uneasy at the notion of his savage dog being let loose on potentially valuable animals. “He only bites people he does not fear, and he flees at the first sign of trouble. He even-”

He had been about to say it had even fled when Caerdig had ambushed them, but then remembered his resolve to say nothing until he had discovered more about who might have killed Sir Aumary.

“He even what?” asked the balding man, curious.

“What happened to Enide?” Geoffrey asked abruptly, ignoring the question. “No one told me the details. I only know that she died.”

There were some covert glances. “We will tell you what you want to know tomorrow,” said Bertrada, standing quickly. “You have journeyed from Jerusalem to England and that is a long way, Geoffrey. I am sure you are weary.”

“I have not travelled the entire distance today,” said Geoffrey, not needing to be told that the mileage he had covered was considerable. “And I would like to know about Enide now.”

“That is perfectly understandable,” said Olivier gently. “But it is a sad tale, and one that would better be told in the morning, when you are rested.”

Geoffrey made a sound of exasperation, and came to his feet fast. As one, his family took several steps backwards. He regarded them in puzzlement. Were they nervous because they were guilty of something, or because the presence of an armoured, potentially hostile Crusader knight in their hall was something that would make most people less than easy?

Henry released a malicious burst of laughter. “You are all afraid of him! Well, I am not too timid to tell him what he wants to know. Enide was murdered by two poachers, brother. I caught them in the forest. They confessed to her killing, and I hanged them. And that was that.”

“Are you certain these poachers were the culprits?” asked Geoffrey doubtfully. “What was their motive for killing Enide?”

“What do you think?” Henry sneered. “Enide was an attractive woman, and she was out alone early one morning to attend mass. When they had finished with her, they cleaved her head from her shoulders.”

“But if their intention was rape, why did they kill her?” pressed Geoffrey. “And why in that manner? It is not a common mode of murder.”

“I am not familiar with the way criminals think,” said Henry coldly. “So I could not say. What does it matter anyway? The poachers killed her and they died for it.”

“We suspected that Caerdig of Lann Martin might have been responsible at first,” said the bitten man casually, as though he were discussing the weather and not the callous murder of Geoffrey’s favourite sister. “We thought he might have hired the poachers to kill Enide. He had been asking to marry Enide in a feeble attempt to use her to protect his miserable estates, you see.”

“Those ‘miserable estates’ should have been mine,” snapped Henry, turning on him. “It galls me to see a snivelling coward like Caerdig trying to run them. Our mother left me Lann Martin, just as she left Geoffrey the manor of Rwirdin.”

“But Lann Martin was not hers to leave,” reasoned Olivier gently. “The arrangement that was signed by Ynys and Sir Godric all those years ago said that it would only revert to you if Ynys named no heir. And Ynys made it very clear that he wanted his nephew Caerdig to succeed him.”

“Did he now?” demanded Henry, taking a few menacing steps towards Sir Olivier, who immediately retreated behind Bertrada. “It is easy for you to dismiss my rights so glibly. You would not be so smug if it were Rwirdin that Caerdig stole. That is why you married Joan, is it not?”

Olivier opened his mouth to speak, but he hesitated and his chance to respond was gone.

“If Joan had married Caerdig when he asked, none of this would have happened,” said the woman with the golden hair who had tried to restrain Henry earlier. “It is Joan’s fault that Henry lost Lann Martin and that Geoffrey has lost Rwirdin.”

“Did Caerdig ask Joan to marry him, as well as Enide?” asked Geoffrey, bewildered by the mass of information that was coming to him in disconnected bursts.

The bitten man nodded. “Joan first, then Enide. He was determined to have peace at any cost. Personally, I would prefer a state of perpetual war to marriage with either of those two!”

“Was Caerdig Enide’s lover?” asked Geoffrey before he could stop himself. He realised too late that it was not a prudent question to ask out of the blue.

The bitten man did not seem surprised or offended by the enquiry, however. He mused for a moment. “It is possible, I suppose, although I would have thought it unlikely. Enide had better taste than to take Caerdig to her bed-he always smells of leeks!”

“Are you satisfied that Henry killed the right men for her murder?” asked Geoffrey of the bitten man, as the others started to argue among themselves about whether Enide was or was not sufficiently desperate to succumb to the rough attentions of the leek-scented Caerdig.

The bitten man shrugged. “They confessed to the crime.”

“Yes, they confessed!” shouted Henry, pushing Bertrada out of the way as he stormed over to where Geoffrey stood. “Do you think I would have extracted vengeance from innocent men?”

Geoffrey said nothing.

“Enough of this!” said Bertrada firmly, as she grabbed a table to regain her balance after Henry’s rough passage. “The events surrounding Enide’s death were dreadful, but they are all over. Let us talk of more pleasant things tonight.”

“Caerdig, of course, spread rumours that one of us was responsible,” said the bitten man, ignoring her. “But they fizzled out once Henry had hanged the poachers.”

“Enough!” shrieked Bertrada.

Her voice shrilled through the hall, and silenced even Henry, who had been about to add something else. She gave Geoffrey a hefty shove in the chest to make him sit again, and fought to bring her temper under control.

“There is something else I would like to know,” said Geoffrey. Bertrada glowered at him. “I am sorry, but it has been a long time, and I do not know who most of you are. Henry I recognise, but …” He stopped and shrugged.

The balding man smiled. “Of course. And you, too, are unfamiliar to us, although you look so much like Enide that no one could ever doubt who you are. However, you have changed from the boy we saw off to Normandy twenty years ago.”

He paused and studied Geoffrey carefully, so that it was obvious that he regretted his comment about family likeness, because he realised it had lost him the opportunity to disclaim Geoffrey as an impostor. Evidently, the others thought the same, for Geoffrey suddenly found himself the object of some intensive scrutiny.

“You have changed,” said the bitten man, eyeing him speculatively.

“Do not try to fool yourselves,” said Henry heavily. “It is obvious he is exactly who he claims. Look at his eyes-it is Enide staring at you! And on his chin is that small scar I made with Walter’s sword when we were young.”

There were reluctant murmurs of agreement, and then Bertrada began with the introductions.

“I am Bertrada, and this is Walter-my husband and your oldest brother.”

She indicated the balding man with a wave of her hand, and continued.

“Joan is away at the moment, but we are expecting her back in a few days. Her husband is Sir Olivier d’Alencon.”

Geoffrey rose to return the bow that served more to display Olivier’s courtly manners than civility to his visitor.

“Olivier is a kinsman of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and so we are deeply honoured to have him in our family.”

Bertrada’s tone of voice was odd, and Geoffrey looked at her sharply, detecting undercurrents that he did not yet understand. But he certainly understood her reference to the Earl of Shrewsbury. It seemed that he could go nowhere without encountering reference to the infamous baron.

“I trained under the Earl,” said Olivier, not quite nonchalantly enough to prevent him from sounding boastful. “I entered his service when I was fifteen, and was a knight by the time I was twenty-which you will know is very young. The Earl taught me everything I know.”

Geoffrey thought this was nothing to be proud of, given the fact that Shrewsbury was not noted for his chivalry or his attention to the other knightly arts. Uncharitably, Geoffrey wondered how much Olivier’s knighthood had cost him, for he was certain that the chicken-hearted man whom he had encountered outside could never have lasted long in any serious battle.

As if sensing his reservations, Olivier set out to prove him wrong, reciting a list of his military successes. Geoffrey listened with growing astonishment, until Olivier mentioned his leading role in the Battle of Civitate. Geoffrey was no military historian, but he knew about the battle in which Tancred’s ancestors had captured Pope Leo IX, and he also knew it had taken place almost fifty years before. If Olivier had even been born then, he would have been little more than a babe in arms.

“I see,” said Geoffrey, somewhat at a loss for words after Olivier had described in detail the way in which he had pitted his few loyal troops against the superior numbers of the enemy. Olivier’s eyes gleamed with fervour, and Geoffrey wondered whether he might have misheard. “The Battle of Civitate, you say?” he asked, to be certain.

“The very same,” said Olivier proudly. “It was I who captured that crafty old Pope and flung him into my deepest dungeon. I kept him there for years.”

“Really?” queried Geoffrey lightly. He wondered whether Olivier thought he was a half-wit to be mislead by impossible stories, or whether the small knight was trying to test his intelligence in some bizarre manner. “But I understood that Pope Leo was released as soon as he had renounced his holy war against the de Hautevilles.”

Olivier shot him an unpleasant look at this contradiction. “Quite so. But he was in my dungeon first. And of course, I was at the Battle of Elgin, when King Duncan was slain …”

Since that battle occurred sixty years before, Geoffrey began to doubt whether Olivier was in complete control of his faculties.

“I could teach you Crusaders a thing or two. And then there was the battle of-”

“You could talk about your victories all night, Sir Olivier,” said Bertrada smoothly. “But you should save something with which to entertain Geoffrey tomorrow.” She turned to Geoffrey. “Now, you say you remember Henry, but this is his wife Hedwise, whom you have never met.”

The golden-haired Hedwise stepped forward, smiling with the face of an angel, although her eyes held an unmistakable glint of something far from seraphic. “Henry has told me a lot about you.”

Geoffrey was sure he had. He bowed politely over her proffered hand, but was discomfited when she clutched his fingers and refused to let go. On the opposite side of the room, Henry rose to his feet at the ambiguous gesture, and Geoffrey was uncertain whether to snatch his hand away, or to leave it where it was. For once, the dog proved it could be of occasional value, and came to his rescue by sniffing around her gown and then beginning to raise its back leg. Hastily, Hedwise abandoned Geoffrey and moved away.

“That is an extraordinary animal,” observed the bitten man in some admiration. “Although you have all but ruined it. Have you not trained it at all?”

“And this is Stephen, your middle brother,” said Bertrada flatly, indicating him with a dismissive flap of her hand. “As you may have guessed, his main interest in life is dogs.”

It was clear to Geoffrey that Bertrada’s introduction was intended to be offensive to Stephen, although Stephen did not seem to resent it. He gave Geoffrey a conspiratorial grin, and slapped him on the shoulder in a friendly fashion. He did not look in the least bit like the gangling eighteen-year-old Geoffrey remembered. He was tall, although he lacked the bulk of Henry and Walter, and his reddish hair was cut very short under his cap, so that he looked like the soldiers who had been shorn after an outbreak of ringworm at the Citadel in Jerusalem. And, since Henry and Bertrada had wives, Geoffrey assumed it must have been Stephen’s spouse who had died the previous year, and whose name the Mappestone scribe had not bothered to mention in the letter he had sent to the Holy Land.

Stephen knelt, and earned the immediate affection of the dog by handing it something brown and nasty looking from his pocket. Seeing the dog’s attentions were occupied, Hedwise stepped forward again, oblivious or uncaring of Henry’s resentful stare.

“Henry and I were married five years ago,” she said. “We already have one heir, and we are hoping another is on the way.” She patted her stomach meaningfully.

Heir to what? thought Geoffrey. As a third son, Henry’s chances of inheriting anything of value from his father were virtually negligible-only slightly better than Geoffrey’s.

“Hedwise. Is that a Saxon name?” he asked, searching about for a subject that would not be contentious.

“Yes, it is!” spat Henry, striding forward and dragging Hedwise away from Geoffrey. “And we are proud of our Saxon heritage!”

“You are a Norman, Henry,” said Walter with a weariness that suggested this was not the first time the subject had been raised. “Being born in England rather than Normandy changes nothing.”

“That is not the opinion of our King!” said Henry, standing with his legs astride and his arms folded. “And if anyone claims different, I will reveal him as a traitor!”

Geoffrey looked from Henry to Walter in bewilderment. So much for his choice of a frictionless subject. Stephen shook his head and sighed, and continued the dangerous business of tickling the dog’s stomach.

“Let us not discuss Saxons and Normans tonight either,” said Bertrada grimly. “Perhaps Geoffrey will tell us about the Crusades …”

“Why should we not discuss my heritage now?” demanded Henry. “Is it just because he has deigned to grace us with his presence, just as Godric is about to die? Well, I for one do not care! None of us asked him here, and none of us want him, despite the way the rest of you are fawning around him.” He swung round to Geoffrey. “This manor is rightfully mine, and I mean to have it-whatever I need to do to get it!”

Geoffrey studied him thoughtfully. And did that include poisoning their father, he wondered.

Geoffrey yawned as he sat in the great wooden chair near the fireplace, and wished he were anywhere but at Goodrich Castle. Next to him, Walter and Stephen perched on stools and stretched their hands towards the flames in the hearth, while Bertrada and Hedwise affected attitudes of boredom.

“I will have Goodrich!” Henry declared as he paced back and forth, fuelling his anger by repeated swigs from the wine that he carried in a stained skin tied to his belt.

“How?” asked Geoffrey, genuinely curious to know why his brother thought he would stand even the remotest chance of inheriting Goodrich over his two older brothers and Joan.

“Walter was born in Normandy, as were Joan and Stephen. I was the first to be born here and, by rights, this English manor is mine! The King himself laid claim to the English throne on exactly the same …” He paused, struggling to find the correct word.

“Pretext?” supplied Geoffrey helpfully.

Henry glared at him. “King Henry is like me in more than name. And he supports my claim to the manor entirely.”

“He does not!” cried Bertrada, outraged. “You have never spoken to the King!”

“Oh, but I have, Bertrada,” said Henry smugly, “and he sees a similarity between his claim to the English throne, and mine to the manor of Goodrich. He says he will back me in any court of law.”

“How could you have met the King?” said Walter derisively. “You would never have been permitted into his presence.”

“Wrong, brother. I met the King at Chepstow around Christmastime, when I took him that letter from our father.”

“Rubbish!” snapped Walter. “The letter might have reached the King-although I sincerely doubt it-but you certainly would not have done.”

“What letter was this?” asked Stephen, looking up from where he was still rubbing the dog’s stomach. “I know of no letter our father sent to the King.”

“Some legal document or other about Lann Martin,” said Walter dismissively. “Nothing of any importance.”

Geoffrey suspected that the letter had contained something rather more than petty legal niceties regarding Lann Martin. The King had received a letter from Godric around Christmas, containing details of his alleged poisoning, and it seemed as though Henry, quite unwittingly, had delivered it for him.

“Sir Olivier arranged for me to be introduced,” said Henry, turning to the black-haired knight.

“Olivier?” queried Stephen, abandoning the dog and turning on the small knight. “Why should Olivier do such a thing?”

“Well, it was not me, exactly,” said Olivier quickly, shooting Henry a withering glance for his lack of tact. “It was more Joan’s idea.”

Geoffrey wondered what the chances were of slipping unnoticed from the hall, saddling up his horse, and riding as far as possible from Goodrich and its quarrelling inhabitants. He saw exactly what was happening: Walter, Joan, Stephen, and Henry had been arguing about how Godric’s estates should be divided for years, and unfortunately for Geoffrey, he had arrived at a time when these long-standing battles were intensified because of their father’s impending death.

Walter was the eldest, and by rights should inherit the bulk of the manor-and since Godric Mappestone had been adding to it ever since he had been granted his initial, quite sizeable tract of land by the Conqueror, it was an inheritance worth owning. Not only did it include Goodrich Castle but it boasted several profitable bridges and fords over the River Wye, as well as the little castle at Walecford.

Joan seemed to have secured herself a decent dowry-Geoffrey’s manor-in addition to a well-connected husband, but it seemed that Olivier was seeking further to improve his fortunes by adding Goodrich to it.

Geoffrey glanced at Stephen, who seemed uninterested in the conversation, although that was not to say that he was uninterested in Godric’s will. As the second son, Stephen was to inherit a manor and several villages in the Forest of Dene. But there were rigid laws that applied to settlements in forests, and it was not an especially appealing inheritance. It would certainly interfere with the breeding of hounds-apparently Stephen’s passion-because all dogs in the woods were required by law to have three claws removed to ensure they did not chase the King’s deer. Stephen would almost certainly prefer to inherit Goodrich, but his chances of doing so while Walter lived were non-existent.

And Henry-regardless of the trumped-up reasons he might have invented for him to inherit Goodrich-would never do so as long as Walter and Stephen were alive.

“You probably do not fully understand the validity of my Henry’s claim,” said Hedwise sweetly, forcing Geoffrey to pay attention to her. “You have been away for so long that you cannot know what has been happening in our country. Well, you see, King William Rufus was killed in a hunting accident in the New Forest last August, and our new King is Henry, his younger brother.”

“I have been in the Holy Land, not on the moon,” said Geoffrey, smiling at her notion that he could be so uninformed. “I am not so out of touch that I do not know who is the King of England.”

He could have mentioned that he had spoken with the King just two days previously, but the less she and the rest of his family knew about what the King had charged him to do, the better.

“But you do not know the basis on which King Henry holds the throne, rather than giving it to his oldest brother, the Duke of Normandy,” said Henry, with his customary acidity. He kicked at a stool until it was in a position he considered satisfactory, and slumped down on it, scowling into the fire. “You have no idea of what King Henry’s arguments are!”

Geoffrey most certainly did, for it had been a popular topic of conversation across most of Europe, and he had grown bored with being regaled with people’s opinions on the matter. A fourth son seizing a kingdom from under the nose of a first son was not a matter that had passed unnoticed in neighbouring countries.

“William the Conqueror had four sons,” began Hedwise. Geoffrey wondered if she thought he was simple, for who in Christendom did not know of the Conqueror’s rebellious sons? “The eldest was Robert, who was bequeathed the Dukedom of Normandy.”

“I know all this,” said Geoffrey in an attempt to suppress her somewhat patronising history lesson. “I was in the Duke’s service, if you recall.”

“The second son was killed when he fell from his horse in the New Forest many years ago,” she continued, as though he had not spoken. “The third was Rufus, to whom the Conqueror bequeathed the Kingdom of England, and the fourth was Henry, who was left no land, but plenty of silver.”

“Which he increased considerably by his shady business dealings,” added Walter hotly. “The man is a grasping thief as well as a usurper.”

“That is treason!” yelled Henry, stabbing an accusatory finger at his brother. “Henry is our rightful King! He was born in the purple-born when his father was King. Of course he is our rightful monarch!”

“You would think that!” drawled Stephen laconically, “since it fits your own claims so cosily.”

“If Henry was the rightful heir, then why did he make such an undignified dash to Westminster to have himself crowned?” demanded Walter. “Why did he not wait, and secure his older brother’s blessing?” He appealed to Geoffrey. “Henry was crowned King three days after Rufus’s death! Three days! You call such speed the act of a man with a clear conscience? Henry knew the throne rightfully belonged to the Duke of Normandy! Tell him, Geoffrey!”

Geoffrey did not want to be drawn into a debate fraught with such dangers. As a former squire of the Duke of Normandy, he felt a certain allegiance to him, strengthened by the fact that Rufus and the Duke had signed documents, each naming the other heir. The Duke’s claim to the English throne was legal and even moral. But Henry was the man who had been crowned King in the Abbey at Westminster, and he was the man who held the most power in England. Henry also had reliable ways of discovering who was loyal and who was not, apparently, since he already knew about Walter’s lack of allegiance to him. Geoffrey had no intention of taking sides in an issue that could be construed as treasonable.

“The Duke has enough to occupy him without attempting to rule England too,” he said carefully. “Normandy is not peaceful, and there are many rebellions and uprisings that need to be brought under control. It is better that King Henry holds England, and the Duke holds Normandy.”

“But the Duke does not hold Normandy,” pounced Henry immediately. “Luckily for Normandy! When he decided to go gallivanting off on Crusade, he sold Normandy to Rufus. It is now part of King Henry’s realms.”

“The Duke did not sell Normandy to Rufus!” protested Walter indignantly. “He merely pawned it to raise funds for his holy Crusade. And he pawned it only on the assurance that he could reclaim it on his return.”

“But unfortunately, Rufus is no longer here to sell it back to him,” observed Stephen, looking from Walter to Henry, as if he were amused by the dissension between them. “And anyway, the Duke cannot buy it back, because everyone knows he has no money.”

“Nonsense!” spat Walter. “The Duke made a profitable marriage, and has plenty of money to purchase Normandy.”

“He does not,” shouted Henry triumphantly. “He has squandered it all already. The Duke may be a fine warrior, but he is a worthless administrator, and he would make a worse king.”

Voices rose and fell, Henry’s loudest of all. Geoffrey shivered, and stretched his hands out to the fire. He was still damp, and no one had bothered to stoke up the fire since the servants had retired to bed. He was also hungry, but the food laid on the table looked greasy and stale, and anyway, he had not been offered any.

He flexed his aching shoulders, and cursed himself for ever considering something as foolish as returning to Goodrich after so many years. He looked up from the flames to the door at the end of the hall, thinking that if Caerdig had not ambushed him and Aumary had not died, Geoffrey would not have been charged by the King to investigate the mysterious happenings at Goodrich Castle, and he would have no reason at all not to stride down the room, fling open the door, and escape from his family once and for all. Even the dangers of travelling alone on the forest roads would be nothing compared to the battleground his family had created. He wished fervently that he had never set eyes on Aumary.

He tuned out the quarrelling voices, and thought about Enide, imagining how unhappy she must have been, trapped among their schismatic siblings. No wonder she had taken a lover! Had she seen Caerdig as a way to leave Goodrich, aware that her days there were numbered when someone had begun to poison her? Could Geoffrey believe Henry’s claim that the poachers had confessed to her murder, or was there truth in Walter’s belief that Caerdig may have hired them? Or had Henry hanged two innocent men for some sinister reason of his own?

Geoffrey stared into the embers of the dying fire, and let the sounds of dissent wash over him. He closed his eyes, and tried to imagine what Enide might have looked like. But he was tired, and almost immediately began to doze. He awoke with a start when he became aware that the hall was silent, and that everyone was looking at him. Since he had not been listening to them, he did not have the faintest idea what he was supposed to say. He smiled apologetically, and took a deep breath to try to make himself more alert.

“See?” said Henry, favouring his younger brother with a look of pure loathing. “He does not even do us the courtesy of paying attention to what we say!”

“No matter,” said Olivier, coming to sit on a stool near Geoffrey, and slapping the younger knight’s knee in a nervous attempt at camaraderie. “I merely asked whether you had managed to do much looting while you were in the Holy Land.”

“We heard there was looting aplenty to be had once Jerusalem fell,” said Walter eagerly, his argument with Henry forgotten. “And we heard that the knights had the pick of it.”

There was another expectant hush as Geoffrey looked from face to face. “I took very little,” he said eventually. “I do not particularly enjoy looting.”

There was yet another silence. A barely glowing log on the fire collapsed in a fine shower of sparks, and the dog snuffled noisily in the rushes, sniffing out an alarming array of unwholesome objects that it ate with a gluttonous relish.

“But there was not just Jerusalem,” said Bertrada eventually. “There was Nicaea, too, and Antioch. You must have looted some of them.”

Geoffrey shook his head. “Not really. These were not abandoned cities, you know-there were people living in them. In order to loot houses and shops, their owners first had to be slaughtered, and I did not feel especially comfortable with that notion.”

“But you are a knight,” said Olivier, clearly mystified. “You are supposed to slaughter people. What do you think knightly training is all about?”

“I have no problem with fighting armed men, but I do not like the idea of killing the defenseless.”

“How curious,” said Olivier, turning his puzzled gaze to Walter.

“You always were a little odd,” said Walter, folding his arms and looking down at Geoffrey with a mixture of curiosity and unease. “But you have something in your saddlebags, because I felt their weight. They certainly do not contain your spare shirts!”

“Unfortunately not,” said Geoffrey, thinking of the shirts” theft that afternoon. He suspected that the chances of begging a spare one from anyone at Goodrich were likely to be minimal.

“Well, what do they contain?” pressed Bertrada. “You must have some treasure, even if you were too squeamish to loot for yourself. Surely the knights shared such riches between them?”

“I have some books,” said Geoffrey, unable to suppress a look of disbelief at her bizarre suggestion that Holy Land knights would share anything at all, but especially loot. “And three Arabian daggers.”

“Books?” echoed Henry. He threw back his head and roared with laughter. “There go your hopes for funds to build a new hall!” he said, jabbing a finger at Walter. “And you, Stephen, will have to raise your own cash to buy that hunting dog you have been boring us with details of for the past six months! So little brother Geoffrey returns empty-handed from what was reputed to be some of the easiest looting in the history of warfare!”

“I have heard enough from you tonight, Henry,” said Stephen, rising from where he had been kneeling near the fire. “I am going to bed.” He turned to Geoffrey and smiled. “Despite what Henry says, it is good to have you with us again. I hope we can talk more in the morning.”

He walked towards the narrow, steep-stepped spiral staircase, and they heard his footsteps receding as he climbed.

“Did you bring nothing else?” asked Walter pleadingly, ignoring Henry’s renewed gales of spiteful laughter. “No jewels or golden coins?”

“I have enough to travel back to Jerusalem,” said Geoffrey, although that was only because Tancred had declined to let him leave without ensuring that he had sufficient funds to return again.

“And that is it?” insisted Bertrada. “Enough coins for your passage to the Holy Land and a sackful of worthless books?”

“They are not worthless!” protested Geoffrey indignantly. “At least one of them is almost beyond value-a tenth-century copy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Let me show you.”

He rummaged in his bags for the text, and brought it out. Walter took it warily, as though it might bite him, and inspected the soft covers.

“Interesting,” he said, despite himself. “This is not calfskin, as I would have expected. Perhaps it is goat, or some animal I have never heard of. I am told there are strange beasts in the Holy Land.”

Bertrada snatched it from him impatiently and opened it. “Very nice,” she said with disinterest. “How much will we be able to sell it for?”

“It is not for sale,” said Geoffrey, watching her turning the pages and holding the book upside down. He had forgotten that he and Enide alone had been the literate members of the family. “Such a book could never be sold.”

“Why not?” asked Olivier, looking over Bertrada’s shoulder. “It is a pretty enough thing. Some woman might like it for her boudoir, or perhaps a wealthy monk might buy it.”

“Well, I would not give good money for it,” said Walter, watching as Bertrada handed it to Hedwise to see. “I do not see the point of owning such a thing, even if the covers are nice.”

“Not just the covers,” said Geoffrey, although he knew he was fighting a battle that was already lost. “Look at the quality of the illustrations and the writing. It must have taken years for someone to produce such a masterpiece.”

“What a waste of a life,” muttered Walter. “He would have been better breeding sheep out in the fresh air, not cooped up in some dingy cell all his days.”

“It is beautiful, Geoffrey,” said Hedwise softly, touching one of the illustrations with the tip of a delicately tapering finger. “I can see why you cherish such a thing.”

Henry looked at her sharply and then tore the book from her hands when she returned Geoffrey’s smile. Geoffrey’s quick reactions snatched the precious book from the air as it sailed towards the fire. He replaced it in his saddlebag, and slowly rose to his feet. Henry took several steps backwards, and Geoffrey was gratified that even the simple act of standing could unsettle his belligerent brother.

However, once Geoffrey had demonstrated that he was going to make no one rich, his family lost interest in him, and he was abandoned to fend for himself when everyone else went to bed. He took some logs from a pile near the hearth, and set about building up the fire. He hauled his surcoat over his head and set it where it might dry, but when he came to unbuckle his chain-mail, he hesitated, recalling Henry’s glittering hatred.

Easing himself inside the hearth, as close to the fire as possible, Geoffrey settled down to sleep, resting his back against the wall with his dagger unsheathed by his hand. Perhaps Henry would not risk murdering his brother as he slept, but Geoffrey was not prepared to gamble on it. His chain-mail remained in place.

When a rustle of rushes brought him to his feet in a fighting stance with his knife at the ready, it was morning, and pale sunlight slanted in through the open shutters.

“And good morning to you, too, brother,” said Walter, jumping away from the weapon’s reach. “Tomorrow, you can fetch your own breakfast!”

He handed Geoffrey a beaker and a bowl of something grey. Geoffrey was about to thank him, when the sound of shouting came from one of the chambers above. Walter made a sound of impatience.

“That is Stephen,” he said. “He will wake Godric if he carries on so.”

The shouting was followed by a clatter of footsteps on the stairs, and Stephen emerged into the hall.

“Come quickly!” he yelled. “Godric is breathing his last!”