He could have mentioned that he had spoken with the King just two days previously, but the less she and the rest of his family knew about what the King had charged him to do, the better.
“But you do not know the basis on which King Henry holds the throne, rather than giving it to his oldest brother, the Duke of Normandy,” said Henry, with his customary acidity. He kicked at a stool until it was in a position he considered satisfactory, and slumped down on it, scowling into the fire. “You have no idea of what King Henry’s arguments are!”
Geoffrey most certainly did, for it had been a popular topic of conversation across most of Europe, and he had grown bored with being regaled with people’s opinions on the matter. A fourth son seizing a kingdom from under the nose of a first son was not a matter that had passed unnoticed in neighbouring countries.
“William the Conqueror had four sons,” began Hedwise. Geoffrey wondered if she thought he was simple, for who in Christendom did not know of the Conqueror’s rebellious sons? “The eldest was Robert, who was bequeathed the Dukedom of Normandy.”
“I know all this,” said Geoffrey in an attempt to suppress her somewhat patronising history lesson. “I was in the Duke’s service, if you recall.”
“The second son was killed when he fell from his horse in the New Forest many years ago,” she continued, as though he had not spoken. “The third was Rufus, to whom the Conqueror bequeathed the Kingdom of England, and the fourth was Henry, who was left no land, but plenty of silver.”
“Which he increased considerably by his shady business dealings,” added Walter hotly. “The man is a grasping thief as well as a usurper.”
“That is treason!” yelled Henry, stabbing an accusatory finger at his brother. “Henry is our rightful King! He was born in the purple-born when his father was King. Of course he is our rightful monarch!”
“You would think that!” drawled Stephen laconically, “since it fits your own claims so cosily.”
“If Henry was the rightful heir, then why did he make such an undignified dash to Westminster to have himself crowned?” demanded Walter. “Why did he not wait, and secure his older brother’s blessing?” He appealed to Geoffrey. “Henry was crowned King three days after Rufus’s death! Three days! You call such speed the act of a man with a clear conscience? Henry knew the throne rightfully belonged to the Duke of Normandy! Tell him, Geoffrey!”
Geoffrey did not want to be drawn into a debate fraught with such dangers. As a former squire of the Duke of Normandy, he felt a certain allegiance to him, strengthened by the fact that Rufus and the Duke had signed documents, each naming the other heir. The Duke’s claim to the English throne was legal and even moral. But Henry was the man who had been crowned King in the Abbey at Westminster, and he was the man who held the most power in England. Henry also had reliable ways of discovering who was loyal and who was not, apparently, since he already knew about Walter’s lack of allegiance to him. Geoffrey had no intention of taking sides in an issue that could be construed as treasonable.
“The Duke has enough to occupy him without attempting to rule England too,” he said carefully. “Normandy is not peaceful, and there are many rebellions and uprisings that need to be brought under control. It is better that King Henry holds England, and the Duke holds Normandy.”
“But the Duke does not hold Normandy,” pounced Henry immediately. “Luckily for Normandy! When he decided to go gallivanting off on Crusade, he sold Normandy to Rufus. It is now part of King Henry’s realms.”
“The Duke did not sell Normandy to Rufus!” protested Walter indignantly. “He merely pawned it to raise funds for his holy Crusade. And he pawned it only on the assurance that he could reclaim it on his return.”
“But unfortunately, Rufus is no longer here to sell it back to him,” observed Stephen, looking from Walter to Henry, as if he were amused by the dissension between them. “And anyway, the Duke cannot buy it back, because everyone knows he has no money.”
“Nonsense!” spat Walter. “The Duke made a profitable marriage, and has plenty of money to purchase Normandy.”
“He does not,” shouted Henry triumphantly. “He has squandered it all already. The Duke may be a fine warrior, but he is a worthless administrator, and he would make a worse king.”
Voices rose and fell, Henry’s loudest of all. Geoffrey shivered, and stretched his hands out to the fire. He was still damp, and no one had bothered to stoke up the fire since the servants had retired to bed. He was also hungry, but the food laid on the table looked greasy and stale, and anyway, he had not been offered any.
He flexed his aching shoulders, and cursed himself for ever considering something as foolish as returning to Goodrich after so many years. He looked up from the flames to the door at the end of the hall, thinking that if Caerdig had not ambushed him and Aumary had not died, Geoffrey would not have been charged by the King to investigate the mysterious happenings at Goodrich Castle, and he would have no reason at all not to stride down the room, fling open the door, and escape from his family once and for all. Even the dangers of travelling alone on the forest roads would be nothing compared to the battleground his family had created. He wished fervently that he had never set eyes on Aumary.
He tuned out the quarrelling voices, and thought about Enide, imagining how unhappy she must have been, trapped among their schismatic siblings. No wonder she had taken a lover! Had she seen Caerdig as a way to leave Goodrich, aware that her days there were numbered when someone had begun to poison her? Could Geoffrey believe Henry’s claim that the poachers had confessed to her murder, or was there truth in Walter’s belief that Caerdig may have hired them? Or had Henry hanged two innocent men for some sinister reason of his own?
Geoffrey stared into the embers of the dying fire, and let the sounds of dissent wash over him. He closed his eyes, and tried to imagine what Enide might have looked like. But he was tired, and almost immediately began to doze. He awoke with a start when he became aware that the hall was silent, and that everyone was looking at him. Since he had not been listening to them, he did not have the faintest idea what he was supposed to say. He smiled apologetically, and took a deep breath to try to make himself more alert.
“See?” said Henry, favouring his younger brother with a look of pure loathing. “He does not even do us the courtesy of paying attention to what we say!”
“No matter,” said Olivier, coming to sit on a stool near Geoffrey, and slapping the younger knight’s knee in a nervous attempt at camaraderie. “I merely asked whether you had managed to do much looting while you were in the Holy Land.”
“We heard there was looting aplenty to be had once Jerusalem fell,” said Walter eagerly, his argument with Henry forgotten. “And we heard that the knights had the pick of it.”
There was another expectant hush as Geoffrey looked from face to face. “I took very little,” he said eventually. “I do not particularly enjoy looting.”
There was yet another silence. A barely glowing log on the fire collapsed in a fine shower of sparks, and the dog snuffled noisily in the rushes, sniffing out an alarming array of unwholesome objects that it ate with a gluttonous relish.
“But there was not just Jerusalem,” said Bertrada eventually. “There was Nicaea, too, and Antioch. You must have looted some of them.”
Geoffrey shook his head. “Not really. These were not abandoned cities, you know-there were people living in them. In order to loot houses and shops, their owners first had to be slaughtered, and I did not feel especially comfortable with that notion.”
“But you are a knight,” said Olivier, clearly mystified. “You are supposed to slaughter people. What do you think knightly training is all about?”
“I have no problem with fighting armed men, but I do not like the idea of killing the defenseless.”