“I imagine so,” replied Geoffrey. “He was given to me by Tancred.”
“Tancred de Hauteville?” asked Bertrada, exchanging a look of confusion with the balding man. “Why would he do that? I was under the impression that you were in the service of the Duke of Normandy.”
“I was transferred to Tancred’s service nine years ago. It is by Tancred’s leave that I came here. Did Enide not mention it? I wrote to tell her.”
“I suppose she may have done,” said the balding man, scratching at the few hairs that lay across his greasy pate. “I really cannot remember.”
“She did mention it,” said Olivier. He turned to Geoffrey and smiled. “You were in Italy for a number of years with Tancred, and there you also fought on the side of Bohemond, Tancred’s uncle.”
Geoffrey was startled that Olivier d’Alencon, whom he had never met, should be better informed about his career than the rest of his family, and was about to say so when Henry spoke.
“And why have you come back?” he demanded. “What do you want from us after all this time? I can assure you that there is nothing for you here-despite what you may have heard.”
Geoffrey resented the hostility in his brother’s tone, and wondered how Henry had managed to survive all these years without a dagger slipped between his ribs if he were so habitually offensive.
“I had a curious hankering to see you all,” Geoffrey replied sweetly, smiling round at the assembled residents of Goodrich Castle. “And I thought perhaps I might challenge Henry to one of the fights that once gave us so much pleasure.”
That should shut him up, thought Geoffrey, resting his hand casually on the hilt of his sword to add an additional threat to his words. It did. Henry glowered at him, and then strode away to sit gnawing at his finger-nails on the opposite side of the room-away from the main group, but still close enough to hear what was being said.
Geoffrey watched him go. “And I thought I might visit my manor at Rwirdin,” he said, to test Caerdig’s notion that it formed part of Joan’s dowry. “I have never seen it, although it has been legally mine since our mother’s death fifteen years ago.”
There were several furtive glances, and Geoffrey had his answer.
“Yes, go,” called Henry nastily from across the room. “It has a nice church. You will be able to sit in it and read about womanly things, just like you used to do.”
“But you must stay here a while, first,” said Bertrada, glaring at Henry. “You cannot leave us so soon after you have arrived.”
There was a silence. The balding man was still regarding Geoffrey’s saddlebags with impolite interest; the bitten man’s attention was on Geoffrey’s dog; Henry made no secret of the fact that he could not have disagreed with Bertrada more; while the golden-haired woman regarded Geoffrey with an expression he found difficult to interpret. Meanwhile, Geoffrey had reconsidered his initial hope that his visit might pass without unpleasant incidents, and was heartily wishing he was elsewhere.
Geoffrey’s family stood around him as he sat in the fireside chair. He felt ill at ease as they hovered over him, and wondered whether any of them noticed how his hand rested lightly on the hilt of his dagger. Although he did not anticipate anyone-even Henry-being so rash as to attack an armed knight in as public a place as the hall, he did not feel entirely safe in their presence. He glanced down at the hot wine in his cup, noticing that no one else was drinking any. Perhaps, he realised, he should be expecting an attack from a less obvious source-especially given that his father claimed that he was being poisoned.
“What is the name of this animal?” asked the bitten man, his voice loud in the still room. He inspected Geoffrey’s dog with the eye of an expert. “Is it some little-known Italian breed?”
“He does not have a name,” said Geoffrey, feeling foolish. “And he is no special breed as far as I know.” He hoped not: he would not like to think that there were other creatures in the world with the same unappealing traits as those exhibited by the black-and-white dog.
The bitten man nodded slowly. “Perhaps I can mate him with one of my bitches. His kind of aggression would be good for the dogs we use to patrol our boundaries. I am willing to wager that your hound is an excellent guard.”
“Not really,” said Geoffrey, uneasy at the notion of his savage dog being let loose on potentially valuable animals. “He only bites people he does not fear, and he flees at the first sign of trouble. He even-”
He had been about to say it had even fled when Caerdig had ambushed them, but then remembered his resolve to say nothing until he had discovered more about who might have killed Sir Aumary.
“He even what?” asked the balding man, curious.
“What happened to Enide?” Geoffrey asked abruptly, ignoring the question. “No one told me the details. I only know that she died.”
There were some covert glances. “We will tell you what you want to know tomorrow,” said Bertrada, standing quickly. “You have journeyed from Jerusalem to England and that is a long way, Geoffrey. I am sure you are weary.”
“I have not travelled the entire distance today,” said Geoffrey, not needing to be told that the mileage he had covered was considerable. “And I would like to know about Enide now.”
“That is perfectly understandable,” said Olivier gently. “But it is a sad tale, and one that would better be told in the morning, when you are rested.”
Geoffrey made a sound of exasperation, and came to his feet fast. As one, his family took several steps backwards. He regarded them in puzzlement. Were they nervous because they were guilty of something, or because the presence of an armoured, potentially hostile Crusader knight in their hall was something that would make most people less than easy?
Henry released a malicious burst of laughter. “You are all afraid of him! Well, I am not too timid to tell him what he wants to know. Enide was murdered by two poachers, brother. I caught them in the forest. They confessed to her killing, and I hanged them. And that was that.”
“Are you certain these poachers were the culprits?” asked Geoffrey doubtfully. “What was their motive for killing Enide?”
“What do you think?” Henry sneered. “Enide was an attractive woman, and she was out alone early one morning to attend mass. When they had finished with her, they cleaved her head from her shoulders.”
“But if their intention was rape, why did they kill her?” pressed Geoffrey. “And why in that manner? It is not a common mode of murder.”
“I am not familiar with the way criminals think,” said Henry coldly. “So I could not say. What does it matter anyway? The poachers killed her and they died for it.”
“We suspected that Caerdig of Lann Martin might have been responsible at first,” said the bitten man casually, as though he were discussing the weather and not the callous murder of Geoffrey’s favourite sister. “We thought he might have hired the poachers to kill Enide. He had been asking to marry Enide in a feeble attempt to use her to protect his miserable estates, you see.”
“Those ‘miserable estates’ should have been mine,” snapped Henry, turning on him. “It galls me to see a snivelling coward like Caerdig trying to run them. Our mother left me Lann Martin, just as she left Geoffrey the manor of Rwirdin.”
“But Lann Martin was not hers to leave,” reasoned Olivier gently. “The arrangement that was signed by Ynys and Sir Godric all those years ago said that it would only revert to you if Ynys named no heir. And Ynys made it very clear that he wanted his nephew Caerdig to succeed him.”
“Did he now?” demanded Henry, taking a few menacing steps towards Sir Olivier, who immediately retreated behind Bertrada. “It is easy for you to dismiss my rights so glibly. You would not be so smug if it were Rwirdin that Caerdig stole. That is why you married Joan, is it not?”