Godric claimed that Enide had burned the documents. Had she? Or had she kept them for some reason of her own? If the latter were true Geoffrey knew exactly where she would have hidden them, and resolved to look the following day. Was that why Adrian noticed that she had been distracted the morning of her death, or was her lack of concentration because she had arranged to meet someone-Caerdig perhaps? And why did someone poison her, but not fatally, if the intention was to secure her silence?
He rubbed his head, and took another sip of the water Helbye had left him. He was horrified at the notion that two members of his family would try independently to poison him the same night. After all, he had been to some pains to convince them that he did not want Goodrich. Of course, they had not believed him, and had even concocted some distorted story about him bribing Ine to return from the Holy Land to poison Godric.
Geoffrey frowned in the darkness. The physician had said that he had detected ergot in both the wine and the broth. Geoffrey tried to remember what little he knew about ergot. It was a fungus that poisoned crops, and prolonged or large doses caused gangrene. Godric had no gangrene, so did that mean that the person who had poisoned Godric was different from the person or persons who had poisoned Geoffrey?
A dim memory also told him that ergot was supposed to have a fishy flavour. The fish broth had certainly tasted fishy, and the smell had made him feel sick. But then, he recalled, so had the sip of wine that he had taken afterwards. So, had someone wanted him to take the poison sufficiently desperately to tamper with both broth and wine? Was it Stephen, who brought the bottle? Was it Hedwise, who made the broth? Was it Walter, who had insisted Geoffrey finish the broth or risk offending Hedwise? Or was it someone else, knowing that wine and broth would be taken to Geoffrey, and using Stephen, Hedwise, and Walter as innocent participants?
Geoffrey remembered Rohese. Perhaps she might have seen or heard something, assuming that she had remained in her hiding place, and had not emerged to kill Godric in his sleep. But that would mean that she probably also poisoned Geoffrey, and he was only too aware that she had had other, far more immediate, matters on her mind than taking the time to indulge in poisoning and murder. And in any case, if Rohese were going to poison anyone, it was far more likely that it would have been the Earl.
And how did the Earl fit into all this? Geoffrey could not imagine that Godric had made a will citing the evil Shrewsbury as sole beneficiary, and he did not believe that Godric would accept an annulment of his marriage without mentioning it to his children-it would have been exactly the kind of revelation he would have relished making. And if that were true, then the will that the Earl had flaunted earlier that day was a forgery.
Geoffrey shivered, and moved nearer the fire. Was King Henry right, and the Earl had taken part in the killing of King William Rufus for some dark purpose of his own? The Earl openly professed to be a supporter of the Duke of Normandy-as long as it worked to his advantage. Perhaps King Henry was right, and Shrewsbury was indeed aiming to consolidate his holdings on the Welsh border so that he could aid the Duke to take England.
He yawned. It was very late, and he sensed he would make no further sense from his thoughts that night. He drew the rough blanket round his shoulders and lay down, still watching the flickering flames.
During the night, it had rained hard, and the ground outside Helbye’s house was thick with mud. Declining the sergeant’s offer of company, Geoffrey walked up the hill and hammered on the gate to the barbican. The guard let him in, and watched him walk towards the inner gatehouse. It was still early, and the guard in charge there was still asleep. Thinking that he would never tolerate such laxness in a castle surrounded by hostile neighbours, Geoffrey scrambled over the wooden gate and dropped lightly down the other side. Malger had been right to put his own soldiers around the castle walls the night the Earl slept in Goodrich.
Geoffrey’s dog appeared from nowhere, and came to snuffle round him, greedy for its breakfast. A little guiltily, for he had forgotten to feed it the day before, Geoffrey found a large soup bone in the kitchens. The dog wrapped slathering jaws around the stinking delicacy, narrowly missing Geoffrey’s fingers, and slunk away to gorge itself in peace. Geoffrey was in the act of taking a piece of cheese from the pantry when he remembered the ergot, and decided against it.
“It is all right,” said someone behind him, so close that it made him jump. “I had some of that last night, and I am still here.”
At first, Geoffrey could not see from where the voice came, and thought that someone was playing a game with him. Either that, or the ergot had hallucinatory qualities that the physician had failed to mention. He bent to peer under the table.
“Julian? What are you doing there?”
The girl emerged slowly, her eyes red and puffy from crying, and went to cut Geoffrey some cheese. She sniffed wetly, and rubbed her nose on her hand before using it to pass Geoffrey the cheese. Geoffrey hesitated a moment before taking it, but supposed he had eaten far worse during his years as a soldier, and anyway, he was hungry. Julian disappeared into a storeroom, and reappeared with some stale bread and a pitcher of milk.
“Milk?” asked Geoffrey dubiously. “That is what children drink. Is there no ale?”
“I expect so,” said Julian. “But it will be sour, and at least I know this cream cannot be poisoned, because I have just milked the cow myself.”
That was enough to satisfy Geoffrey. He swallowed his prejudices along with the milk, and even decided it was preferable to sour ale, and certainly not so hard on a stomach still sore from the abuses of the previous day. The bread was gritty and made from cheap, poorly ground flour, but the cheese was surprisingly good-smooth, and yet with a pleasant, tart flavour.
“So, what is wrong?” Geoffrey asked of Julian as he ate. “Has Sir Olivier declined your services with his splendid war-horse again?”
Julian shot him a nasty look. “I cannot find my sister,” she said. “I think they may have killed her and hidden away her body.”
Geoffrey looked up sharply, slopping the milk over his leg. Realisation came slowly to him. “Oh, Lord,” he said in horror, his breakfast forgotten. “Rohese?”
The girl nodded. “She was your father’s chambermaid.”
That was one way of putting it, thought Geoffrey. He abandoned the bread and cheese to the dog, which, having secreted the bone somewhere sufficiently foul for no other living thing to want it, was on the look out for something else. Geoffrey burst out of the kitchen and raced across the yard. Reaching the door to the keep, he slowed, opening it quietly. The servants still slept, or were beginning to wake, and were talking among themselves in sleepy voices. No one paid him any attention as he walked across the hall and ran up the stairs, Julian at his heels.
“Stay there,” he ordered as he reached Godric’s chamber, closing the door to keep her out. He did not want Julian to see what he was afraid he might find. He went to the bed and gazed in horror.
Godric still lay as he had done the previous day. Dry blood stained his nightshirt and the bedclothes, although Geoffrey’s Arabian dagger had been removed, and lay on the bed next to the body. Geoffrey raised a shaking hand to his head. Until now, the death of Godric had seemed unreal, for his brief glimpse of the corpse the day before was only a hazy memory in his drugged mind. He had credited Walter and Stephen, and even Joan, with some degree of decency, and had not imagined that they would leave their father unattended for an entire day.