“What has happened? Why are you all shouting?”
They stared at him. “Who would not shout after coming to find Godric most foully murdered?” demanded Walter, eyeing him angrily. “And I believed you the other day, when you told us that you did not approve of the slaughter of unarmed people!”
“What are you talking about?” asked Geoffrey, bewildered. “Who murdered Godric?”
“He is feigning innocence,” said Henry, striding over to Geoffrey, and hauling him to his feet. “Come and see your handiwork!”
Geoffrey reeled, and grabbed at the Earl to prevent himself from falling over.
“He does not smell of wine,” said the Earl, standing back as Stephen hurried forward to relieve him from Geoffrey’s embrace. “Are you certain he is drunk?”
“He downed the wine to rid his brain of the unpleasant memory of what he has done,” said Henry harshly. “Look there, Geoffrey. Now what have you got to say for yourself?”
Geoffrey gazed down at the sprawled corpse of Godric Mappestone with a confused jumble of feelings, the strongest of which was nausea. Godric had been stabbed in the chest, and whoever had killed him had done so with Geoffrey’s Arabian dagger-the one of the three that the Earl had declined to take the night before. Geoffrey closed his eyes in despair, but opened then again when the blackness threatened to overwhelm him.
“The chest was against the door,” he said weakly. “How could anyone enter?”
“What chest?” demanded the Earl. “You mean that one?”
He pointed to the chest that stood at the end of the bed, where it had been before Geoffrey had moved it. Had Geoffrey dreamed that he had dragged it across the floor to the door? But there were fresh scratches on the floor, where the heavy box had slightly damaged it. Was it Walter who had killed Godric in the night, and who had then moved the chest back to its original position so that he could leave? And had Rohese witnessed the murderer, and was she still hidden between the mattresses? Geoffrey felt he could hardly look with the Earl watching.
He tugged one arm free from Stephen and rubbed it across his face. He felt as though he were suffocating from the heat of the room, and yet he felt icy cold.
“Can we go outside?” he asked, thinking that if he did not, he might well be sick. “I cannot breathe in here.”
“He does not like to be in the same room as his victim,” said Walter. “What do you say, Stephen? Shall we leave Bertrada to lay Godric out and adjourn to the hall?”
“I am not laying him out!” declared Bertrada indignantly. “He has been murdered!”
“It is not contagious,” said the Earl dryly.
In Goodrich Castle, Geoffrey was not so sure. Taking advantage of their bickering, he shrugged off Stephen’s restraining hands, staggered towards the door, and lunged down the stairs. Once in the hall, he weaved his way unsteadily across it, making for the door.
“Do not let him escape!” yelled Henry, in hot pursuit, although the only person in the inner ward to hear was Julian, who saw Geoffrey and hurried forward to help him.
“I knew it!” she exclaimed, as Geoffrey slumped heavily on the bottom step, unable to walk any further. “I was certain you were not the kind of man to kill Sir Godric as he slept. You have been poisoned, just like he was!”
“I most certainly have,” said Geoffrey pulling his knees up in front of him and resting his swimming head on his arms. “But by whom? And was it the same person who killed my father?”
“Well, I should say so!” said Julian with conviction. “It is unlikely that there are two poisoners in the castle. Enide was also poisoned, of course, but she never did find out who did it.”
“Now you have had some fresh air, do you remember anything else?” asked the Earl, coming over to where Geoffrey sat.
He leaned against a wall, nonchalantly inspecting his fingernails, but lurking in the depths of his eyes was a black malice. Joan, Stephen, and Godric had been right when they had advised Geoffrey against making an enemy of the powerful Earl of Shrewsbury, and he wished he had given their advice a little more thought before dismissing it in such a cavalier manner.
“You are in quite a predicament, Geoffrey, so you had better hope you recall something useful,” put in Bertrada helpfully.
“I went to sleep after Walter did, and I remember nothing until you woke me this morning,” said Geoffrey. “Although Hedwise and Stephen brought me some broth and wine that Walter was most insistent that I finished.”
He looked from one to the other, trying to see whether any of them betrayed themselves by guilty glances, but they stood with the light behind them, and his vision was still too blurred to see any incriminating looks anyway.
“So, are you saying that you slept through the murder?” asked Bertrada with heavy sarcasm. “Is that what you are telling us?”
“Yes,” said Geoffrey. “But Walter was there, too. Did he see nothing?” Or did he commit murder was his unspoken thought, recalling the moved chest.
“When I woke, I tried to rouse you, but you were slumbering too deeply,” said Walter. “Quietly, so as not to wake Godric, I came downstairs for breakfast. It was Bertrada who raised the alarm, when she took Godric his morning ale.”
“Was our father dead when you left the room?” asked Geoffrey. “And did you move the chest?”
“Chest? What chest?” demanded Walter belligerently. “You keep talking about a chest, but the only box in Godric’s room is the one at the end of the bed, and there was no need for me to move that. And of course father was alive when I left this morning. It was not I who drank so much that I lay insensible through his murder!”
That was not strictly true, Geoffrey knew. Walter had drunk a good deal the night before, and was virtually unconscious by the time Stephen had helped him stagger into the room.
“But did you actually look at father in the bed?” pressed Geoffrey. “Was he sleeping?”
“I have already told you,” said Walter, becoming impatient. “I did not want to waken him early, so I left quietly. I did not go and poke at him-but since I would have heard anyone kill him in the night, of course he was still alive when I left.”
“But you did not actually see that he was still living,” insisted Geoffrey.
“What is this?” demanded Henry furiously. “Godric was found dead after Walter had left him alone with Geoffrey. He was slain with Geoffrey’s own knife, and we let him ask such questions of his innocent kin? Why, his guilt shines through every pore in his body! We should hang him now, and rid ourselves of a murderer!” He stepped towards Geoffrey, and drew a dagger from his belt.
As Geoffrey tried to pull free of Henry, alarmed at the extent to which the poison seemed to have sapped his strength, the Earl strode forward and pushed Henry away, sending him reeling with little more than a flick of his hand.
“You are quite wrong, Henry,” he said. “Geoffrey’s guilt is far from clear-yet. It is obvious that he drank himself insensible on the wine that was missing from your father’s chamber, as any fool can see from the state of him now. But that in itself speaks of his innocence of the murder. He can barely walk, and I do not think he could have slain Godric while he was so incapacitated.”
Geoffrey looked at Julian, wondering if she might announce that he was not drunk at all, but suffering from the effects of some insidious poison. But Julian had already decided whose side she would take in the battle between the brothers, and she said nothing.
“But who else could have done it?” Henry asked, still fingering his dagger. “And do you not think it a coincidence that Godric has been brutally murdered so soon after Geoffrey returned, and after Geoffrey spent the night alone with him?”
“But Geoffrey has spent other nights alone with Godric,” Hedwise pointed out. “And anyway, last night they were not alone. Walter was with them.”