A Head for Poisoning by Simon Beaufort Page B

gazing at the bemused Geoffrey with malicious defiance.
    â€œWhile Enide was at mass,” he continued, “Caerdig waited for her until she came out of the church, and he chopped off her head!”

    Geoffrey could think of nothing to say in response to Ingram’s preposterous revelation, so he turned away without giving the young soldier the satisfaction of a reply. He heard Barlow berating his friend in low tones, while Helbye was silent. Pulling gently on the reins, Geoffrey led his destrier along the grassy path towards Goodrich Castle and the small village that clustered outside its stocky wooden palisades.
    Was there any truth in the story that Ingram had learned from the soldiers at Chepstow Castle? Geoffrey tried to recall what Enide had written of her lover in her letters to him, but he remembered thinking at the time that she had been remarkably miserly with the details, considering that she claimed the man was so important to her. When he had first learned of her affection, he had tried to imagine which of Godric Mappestone’s unsavoury neighbours could have attracted the interest of a woman of Enide’s intelligence. But his efforts at deduction had been unsuccessful then, as they were unsuccessful now.
    He sighed, and turned his thoughts from the informative and affectionate letters sent by his sister to the terse messages from his father—the object of Geoffrey’s long journey from the Holy Land. During the twenty years since Geoffrey had been away Godric had sent his youngest son only three letters, each one addressed to “Godfrey.”
    The first letter was sent a few weeks after Geoffrey had left, perhaps to ease a nagging conscience because Geoffrey had not wanted to become a warrior. His ambition had been to attend the University in Paris, and become versed in the philosophies and law. His father had regarded him in horror, and promptly booked him a passage to the Duke of Normandy on the next available ship. Geoffrey had gone happily, thinking that Paris would be easier to reach from Normandy than England, and had planned to desert his enforced duties as soon as he could. But even the best plans are fallible, and Geoffrey’s repeated, but unsuccessful, bids for freedom led the exasperated Duke to pass his rebellious squire to a kinsman in Italy, where Geoffrey came into the service of Tancred de Hauteville. It was Tancred who had taken Geoffrey on the Crusade.
    The second letter came the previous year, after rumours had filtered back to England that the Crusaders who had sacked Jerusalem were wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Geoffrey’s father had written a blunt demand for funds, and casually informed him that a sister-in-law had died, although he had failed to specify which one. But it was the third letter that Geoffrey remembered most clearly, even though he had read it only once before he had crumpled it into a ball and flung it into the fire.
    â€œTo Godfrey, son of Godric Mappestone of the County of Hereford. The new sheep at the manor of Rwirdin are doing well, and made four pounds and four shillings this year. These funds have been used to build a new palisade on the north edge of the outer ward of Goodrich Castle. Your sister Enide died on a Sunday at mass. Our bulls have sired sixteen calves this spring.”
    Given the brisk contents of the message, Geoffrey had been given no reason to assume that her death had been anything but natural—perhaps due to a fever.
    He glanced back at Ingram, and saw the young soldier’s eyes fixed on him defiantly. During the four years in which Geoffrey had been granted the doubtful pleasure of his acquaintance, Ingram had never been congenial company, but at least he was obedient—Geoffrey would not have countenanced taking the man into his service had he not been. He wondered what could have caused this sudden streak of rebelliousness and malice so near home. Then the truth struck him, so obvious that he