A Head for Poisoning (51 page)

Enide was a good deal taller now—almost as tall as Geoffrey, in fact—but her hair was the same, and when she turned, he saw that it fell in a thick, glossy plait down her back in the same peculiar style she had adopted when she had been young. Her face had maintained the slight pinkness of fine health, and her cheeks were as downy and soft as they ever were. Her eyes, too, were the same pleasant green as were Geoffrey's, and held the twinkle of mischief that he remembered so well.

“Will you not greet me, Geoff?” she cried, the smile dissolving to hurt.

Geoffrey's heart wrenched, recalling that same sudden fading of laughter from years before, when Stephen had said something cruel or Henry had used his superior strength to take something from her. He swallowed, but said nothing.

“Geoffrey!” she said. “Do you not know who I am? It is me! Enide! I had to feign my death so that one of our brothers would not kill me because they believed I was poisoning our dear father.”

“Any one of them would have been delighted if you had poisoned our dear father,” said Geoffrey harshly. “But first, no one poisoned him. And second, someone most certainly stabbed him. Was that you?”

“It most certainly was not,” she said indignantly. “What have people been saying? To what lies have you been listening?”

“Father Adrian has been saying nothing but good,” said Geoffrey evasively.

“Adrian!” she said with an indulgent smile. “Poor, dear Adrian. He always believes anything I tell him. But what is this about Godric? He
was
being poisoned, you know—the physician said so.”

“He was poisoning himself,” said Geoffrey. “With his paints.”

“The paint?” echoed Enide. She laughed suddenly. “Oh, Geoff! Trust you to work that out! You always were quick minded. So, Godric lay in his vile chamber, slowly being killed by the fumes from his revolting paintings? And that explains why, before he became too ill to move, I was sick when I slept in his room. Godric spent his last days wailing and whining that someone was killing him, and all the time it was suicide!”

“Enough of this,” said Malger, stepping forward and nocking an arrow in his bow. Geoffrey noted that the knight's chain-mail was carelessly maintained, revealing gaps and missing links that Geoffrey himself would have been ashamed of. His lack of attention to the details that might save his life indicated that he had been so sure of their success that he considered them unimportant. Geoffrey wondered whether he would be able to exploit such over-confidence to his own advantage. “Norbert missed the King, and I could not see well enough to get off a good shot. The King lives and so we should not tarry here and wait for him to accuse us of treason.”

“There will be another chance to kill him,” said Enide, unperturbed. “The King loves to hunt.”

“Fine. But I do not want him hunting us,” said Malger firmly. “The Earl will hardly be able to speak out for us if we are caught, and doubtless your brother here has spread the news all over the county that we would rather have the Duke of Normandy as King than the usurper Henry.”

“Geoff would not do that,” said Enide. “How could he? He has not had sufficient time to work all this out.”

“Maybe so, but I do not care to take the risk,” said Malger, raising the bow.

Geoffrey braced himself, but Enide strode over to Malger and put her hand on the arrow, forcing him to lower it. Her hand, Geoffrey noted, was rigid, like a claw.

“Malger! This is a brother I have not seen for twenty years.” She turned to Geoffrey, and her eyes were hard as flint. “I would have appreciated your help in keeping Goodrich from the likes of Walter, Stephen, and Henry, but I have achieved my objective perfectly well without you anyway.”

“You forged documents,” said Geoffrey, remembering the parchments he had found in her secret hiding place.

“Well, I did not do it myself,” she said bitterly, holding the claw-like hand close to his face. “Norbert's documents—despite his dreadful writing and worse spelling—served to rid us of Walter and Stephen. Godric loathed them both, and was only too happy to go along with what he knew were lies—Godric never went campaigning with the Conqueror in 1063; and our mother certainly would not have wasted her time in breeding before she was married.”

“So, both Walter and Stephen are Godric's legal heirs?” asked Geoffrey.

“Yes, but Norbert's forged documents will ‘prove' them otherwise. And the next in line to inherit Goodrich is Joan. Now, Joan is wed to Olivier, and Olivier is a relative of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who does not want Olivier to have Goodrich because he is a weakling. That leaves Henry, who is so hated by his neighbours that no one would have done more than heave a sigh of relief when he was found with a knife in his back. After all, it was Henry who murdered the popular Ynys of Lann Martin.”

“So that was you, was it?” asked Geoffrey heavily. “You killed poor Ynys, and made certain that the suspicion fell on Henry.”

“Quite. But, of course, nothing could ever be proven against Henry,” said Enide, “because Henry did not really do it. He did, however, have a very convenient argument with Ynys in front of the entire village—over sheep, would you believe? Words were exchanged, and that night Drogo ensured that Henry's threats were carried out. Ynys was wandering alone in the forest, no doubt pondering how to heal the ever-widening rift between Lann Martin and Goodrich, and Drogo dispatched him.”

“Ynys did not deserve to be used to further your vile plot,” said Geoffrey, sickened. Ynys had been a kind and gentle man whom Geoffrey had respected. “And neither does Henry.”

“Henry's innocence or guilt is irrelevant,” said Enide. “The point is that his neighbours have become more wary of him than ever, a feeling that is intensified, of course, by his own charming personality. His hot denials of Ynys's murder, and his refusal to answer any questions about it because he was so affronted by the charge, meant that he dug his own grave in that respect.”

“Goodrich is almost ours,” said Malger, looking at Enide with a leer that suggested their allegiance was more than a business relationship.

“Ours?” asked Geoffrey.

“Malger has been my lover for many years,” explained Enide to Geoffrey. “We will make Goodrich more powerful than ever, and then unite it with the Earl's lands to the north.”

“What about Father Adrian?” said Geoffrey, wondering just how many lovers his sister had stashed away. Was one of them the great Earl himself?

“Adrian was always on hand,” said Enide, oblivious or uncaring of Malger's jealous glower. “And he loves me so much that he will do anything for me—even provide me with a corpse, although he would not decapitate it for me. I had to do that myself.”

Geoffrey swallowed hard, not liking the image of his sister sawing the head from a body.

“And then we had news that you had survived the Crusade, and might even pay us a visit—twenty years too late for me to care, but a visit nevertheless. We tried to prevent you from arriving at all. But I thought my Crusader brother would be the more richly dressed knight of the pair who wandered into the ambush at Lann Martin. I told Malger as much, and he concentrated his efforts on the wrong man. I should not have been so easily misled—you always were scruffy and uninterested in appearances. I should have known that the taller, more practically attired knight was you.”

“So Aumary was killed because you thought he was me?” asked Geoffrey.

“Yes and no,” said Malger, eager to join in and show off his own cleverness. “It would have been an excellent opportunity to get rid of you—and Caerdig's pathetic little ambush provided a perfect cover. But whether we shot you, or Aumary, or both, it would have worked to our advantage.”

“How?” asked Geoffrey, puzzled.

“Because of these arrows,” said Malger, raising his bow again. “They were made by the same fletcher who made the arrow that killed King William Rufus. And King Henry would recognise them anywhere. You did what we could not: you took one of them right into Chepstow Castle and presented it to the King himself. And you can be assured he recognised it for what it was.”

Geoffrey recalled the King's reaction to the arrow. He had studied it long and hard, but had refused to touch it. Eventually, he had ordered Geoffrey to throw it in the fire.

“So it was a warning to the King that an attempt would be made on his life?” asked Geoffrey. “But why bother with that if you planned to kill him anyway?”

“It was part warning and part message,” said Enide. “It was a warning that the King's life could be taken as easily as had his brother's; and it was a message that Rufus's death was by no means the accident that everyone seems to have accepted.”

“You mean that Rufus really was murdered that day, even though your own plot failed?” asked Geoffrey. “That is no great revelation. Tirel is claiming that he did not fire the arrow.”

“Hmm,” said Enide, eyeing him critically. “Perhaps you are not so quick-witted after all. Of course Rufus was killed deliberately, but it was not by Tirel. Kings do not die in silly accidents like that! Do you think Tirel would have loosed his arrow had he thought that the King was anywhere near where it might have landed?”

Geoffrey was silent. So, Enide and Malger had used him to deliver their message to the King. It explained why the King had pretended that the recipe for horse liniment was so important, too. He did not want to tell Geoffrey that the real message lay in the corpse of Aumary, slain by a distinctive arrow; so he had snatched the scrap of parchment the constable had found and made a show that it was something vital. Since few men in Henry's court could read, Henry had assumed—erroneously—that Geoffrey was also illiterate. Geoffrey was fortunate that the King had realised that he was innocent of all this treachery, or he might well now be languishing in the dungeons of Chepstow Castle. Or not languishing anywhere at all.

“And you robbed me later,” he said. “You stole my scrolls.”

“And that lovely chalice, yes,” she replied. “Although I was not there, personally. Fortunately, you left Ingram with your horses while you went dashing off to jump in the river after that other lout. Malger was all for slaying the whole lot of you, but Ingram virtually unbuckled your saddle for him, so keen was he to save himself from Malger's sword. In the event, it was simpler to have Ingram hand us your ‘treasure' and leave peacefully.”

“Ingram told me he was attacked by thirty outlaws,” said Geoffrey. “And all along it was merely two of the Earl of Shrewsbury's hirelings?”

Drogo growled at the back of his throat, and Malger's arrow came up. Enide pushed it down irritably. Remarkably, Malger made no move to disobey her, despite the sounds of the King's party coming closer. Had Geoffrey been Malger, he would have ignored Enide, fired his arrow, and been away.

“I had expected your saddlebags to be loaded with plunder,” she said to Geoffrey, moving so that she stood in Malger's line of fire. “Malger was most disappointed when he found only books.”

“I will bear that in mind next time,” said Geoffrey. “But why did he take the scrolls?”

“We knew you had been to see the King, and Malger thought they might be important messages. He cannot read, so did not know what they were. But I could see that they were just some worthless decorated manuscripts, probably in Arabic or Hebrew. Am I correct?”

Geoffrey nodded. “I was going to translate them.”

“Too late for that,” said Malger, raising his bow and stepping round Enide for a clear shot.

“Really, Malger,” said Enide reproachfully. “At least grant me a few moments with my favourite brother before you kill him.”

“Why did you shoot Norbert?” asked Geoffrey quickly, hoping to prolong the discussion long enough to allow the King's men to find them. “I thought he was on your side.”

“He was,” said Enide. “But we will need to travel quickly now he has failed to kill the King, and Norbert, although an excellent shot, is not a good rider. He would be caught in no time at all—and then he would reveal our identities to the first person who asked, to save his own miserable neck. He has not been himself since his marriage to Helbye's wife was dissolved.”

Geoffrey knew from personal experience that Norbert was not a fast mover. He had almost caught the scribe once before—when Norbert had loosed an arrow at Geoffrey as he had looked for Rohese in the woods near the river. The glimpse of the scribe's face as he had glanced back after Geoffrey had collided with Adrian's cart had not been sufficient to identify him, but the archer had worn the same dark clothes and had run with the same distinctive gait as Norbert. Geoffrey was surprised that he had not associated Norbert's penchant for bows—which Geoffrey had discovered when he had followed him into his outhouse in the castle bailey one night—with the mysterious archer before.

“Who else was involved in this plot?” he asked. “I now know about Malger, Drogo, Norbert, Stephen's wife, the physician, Father, and Adrian.”

“Not Adrian,” said Enide. “I could never trust him with business like this. It was bad enough persuading him to help me feign my death. I had to cry all night to achieve that. But you are right about the others.”

“And you killed Pernel?”

“Malger did. He is good at that sort of thing. He should have gone on Crusade; he would have been a hero.”

Malger blushed modestly.

“Pernel was a silly, empty-headed woman,” said Enide. “She was so proud to be part of a plot to kill Rufus that she wanted to tell everyone about it. She was, quite simply, too dangerous for us. Malger had some concoction that he fed to her in a sweetmeat during mass—serve her right for eating in church—and it brought on the ‘falling sickness' that the whole village witnessed.”

“I do not understand why you are doing this,” said Geoffrey. “You can scarcely rule Goodrich if you are thought to be dead.”