“My God! What have you done to Hedwise?”
“She swallowed some of her ergot soup,” said Geoffrey. “But I do not think she has taken enough to kill her. But while we have been chattering here, Enide has escaped!”
He darted towards the garderobe passage, but Enide was long gone and the door was closed. He rushed towards it, hauling on the handle, but it had been locked from the inside. He thumped it in frustration with his balled fists.
“Kick it open,” instructed Joan, following him in. “The bolt on the other side is not very strong.”
Geoffrey had already surmised Joan knew about the secret tunnel, but he was impressed that she had observed the size of the bolt. He stood back and aimed a hefty kick at the door, which shuddered and groaned but showed no signs of opening.
“Again!” ordered Joan.
Geoffrey obliged, and saw it budge slightly. He kicked it a third time, and it went crashing back against the wall, the sound reverberating all over the castle.
“Henry?” said Joan imperiously. “Come with me. Not unarmed, man! Bring your bow! And arrows might help, too,” she added facetiously as Henry made to come without them. “Olivier, bind Hedwise and Drogo, and ensure they do not escape. Geoffrey, take your sword and follow me.”
“Down there?” asked Geoffrey in horror.
“Of course down there!” said Joan, looking at him askance. “That is where Enide went, after all. Look lively, Geoffrey! We have a murderer to catch.”
“I could go the other way,” temporised Geoffrey. “I could block the exit at the far end.”
He expected her to argue, but she gave him a soft and somewhat unexpected smile. “You will be too late by the time you run round the river path. She will have gone. Stay here if you would rather, and guard this pair of ruffians. Olivier! Come with me.”
Geoffrey could not, in all conscience, allow Enide to escape because he had entrusted her capture to the likes of Olivier and Henry. Joan, he imagined, would probably do better, but she possessed no real weapons. Filling his mind with images of Stephen, Godric, and Walter, all dead, directly or indirectly, because of Enide, he snatched the torch from Joan and marched into the black slit of the tunnel.
Geoffrey had not taken more than a few steps before the torch started to splutter, and he faltered. Was the air too old and stale in the passage to allow the thing to burn properly, or was it just a poorly made torch? The thought had barely formed in his mind, before whatever imperfection had been in the flare had righted itself, and it burned bright and steady again. Geoffrey forced himself to walk on.
It was not a long journey, he told himself, and the tunnel was dry for the most part. There was plenty of air, too. But he had not gone far before he felt his mouth go dry, and the familiar tightening around his chest began. He hesitated, despite his resolve to catch Enide.
“Geoffrey,” called Joan from behind him, giving him a firm but gentle push in the back to make him start moving again. “Did Hedwise kill our father with poisonous fish soup?”
“No,” called Geoffrey wearily, picking his way down the dark, slick steps. “He killed himself because Enide was preparing to murder another king. King Henry is cleverer than Rufus, and Father knew she was unlikely to succeed.”
“Rubbish!” came Henry’s voice from above him. “Enide would have succeeded very well if you had not intervened. Norbert had a good clear shot, and would most certainly have killed the King had you not distracted him.”
“Maybe,” said Geoffrey. “But Father did not want himself associated with it, and he knew he would be because the plotters were basically identical to the ones that hatched the first regicide-the one that never happened because someone else thought of it first.”
“And since I suspect that King Henry knows more than he is telling about his brother’s timely demise we had better not ask who,” said Joan. “So, all those accusations and counter-accusations about Godric’s murder were for nothing-no one killed him, no one poisoned him or Enide?”
“Right,” said Geoffrey.
“Well, at least the Earl of Shrewsbury did not get away with foisting his false will on us,” she said, after a moment. “Olivier managed to get his fat priest drunk and indiscreet, and he learned that the Earl really did forge the document that claims Godric left Goodrich to him. But it does not matter now-Goodrich is ours once more.”
“I cannot imagine that the Earl will accept defeat lightly,” said Geoffrey. “He will be back to try again.”
“I do not think so,” said Joan confidently. “He is no fool. He knows he has been beaten over Goodrich, and he will not risk the King’s anger to continue his war of attrition with the Mappestones. He might come for us if the Duke of Normandy ever claims the crown of England, but that will not be for many years yet-if ever.”
They had reached the large chamber at the bottom of the stairs. Geoffrey entered it cautiously, holding the torch above his head and his sword at the ready. The room was deserted, and appeared exactly as it had done the last time he had been there.
Joan shuddered. “What a foul place. And this is where Enide lived for four months?”
“Not all of the time,” said Geoffrey. “I imagine she stayed with Adrian on occasions, or Malger. She has not been here since Father’s murder or Rohese would have noticed.”
“I had no idea this room existed,” said Joan, running her fingers along the shelves curiously.
“But you knew of the tunnel,” said Geoffrey. It was not a question.
“Oh, yes. I was in my teens when the keep was being built, and since girls are not permitted the freedom of boys to go gallivanting around the countryside, I watched the castle’s progress with some interest. I guessed what the shaft was for, and I did my own exploring, and discovered the tunnel and where it went. Godric thought it was his secret, and I did not tell him that I knew about it.”
“He might have had you executed as a threat to his security,” said Geoffrey, smiling, but not entirely sure that it was too remote a possibility.
Joan grinned. “He might well have done. I explored the passage as far as the door to this room, looking for Rohese the night Godric died, but it was barred from the inside. I have never actually been in here.”
So that cleared up another loose end, thought Geoffrey. Joan had not been able to enter the room at the end of the tunnel because it had been barred at that point. Rohese, however, had found it open, and so Stephen must have unbarred it when he had gone from the woods up to Godric’s chamber. He had slipped through Godric’s room while Walter, Geoffrey, and Rohese had been sleeping, and returned later to argue with Godric after Walter had left.
Joan continued to explain. “When I got back to Godric’s room, you and Walter were preparing to go back to sleep. I hid in the garderobe passage until you dozed, so you would not know where I had come from. I had to move the chest from the door, back to the end of the bed. I wondered why you slept through the noise I made: Walter was drunk, but you were not. I did not know then that you had been drugged.”
“Why did you move the chest?” asked Geoffrey.
Joan regarded him with a sideways tilt of her head. “Because I wanted to leave, bird-brain! I could not get out with the chest blocking the door, could I? Anyway, I did not realise why you had put it there in the first place. I thought Walter had placed it there by mistake in his drunken stupor.”
“Hunting Rohese down to sleep with the Earl seems a little callous,” said Geoffrey. “She is only a child and surely too young to be thrust into the clutches of a man like him, even for only a night.”
“Nonsense,” said Joan. “She had been with the Earl every night since he forced his presence on us at Rwirdin-except for the last one, when he chose a girl from the village. Rohese was unreasonably jealous, and refused her favours to show him her displeasure.”