“Easy now,” said Caerdig, looking nervously to where Geoffrey’s hand rested on the hilt of his dagger. “I am only repeating to you what is being said in the villages hereabouts. And any of my men here will tell you the same.”
A man who wore a strange black cap stepped forward earnestly. “It is true. Everyone knows that Godric Mappestone is being poisoned-including him, although none of his attempts to discover the culprit have come to anything. However, even Godric himself knows that the most likely suspects are his own children.”
“I see,” said Geoffrey, deciding to dismiss the villagers” claims as spiteful gossip.
Geoffrey’s vague memories of his three older brothers-Walter, Stephen, and Henry-and his sister Joan were not overwhelmingly positive, but he could not envisage one of them murdering their own father by as slow and insidious a method as poison. One of them might well dispatch the old man in the heat of the moment, but poison required premeditation and planning, and Geoffrey had his doubts. And, perhaps more to the point, Geoffrey could not imagine the aggressive Godric allowing such a thing to happen in the first place. He sensed that Caerdig and his men were simply trying to promote disharmony in the Mappestone household by attempting to drive a wedge between Geoffrey and his siblings.
“Do not believe them, Sir Geoffrey,” put in Helbye. “What can these folk know about what is happening at Goodrich Castle?”
Geoffrey pushed his helmet backwards on his head to rub his nose with his free hand, and wondered whether he was wise to return to the home he had not seen in so many years anyway. His younger sister, Enide-the one who had died the previous summer-had written to him regularly since he had left, and her news from home nearly always contained some tale of a petty, but vicious, quarrel within the family. He glanced up the forest track, and seriously considered forgoing the delights of a family reunion in order to ride back to the coast and take the first ship bound for France. He realised that he had not even set eyes on Goodrich, and he was already being assailed with stories about the unpleasant dealings of its occupants.
“Sir Godric’s health is important to everyone here,” said Caerdig, seeing that Geoffrey was sceptical about his claim. “He is a harsh and uncompromising man, but his rule was lax compared to the havoc your brothers are wreaking. They attack us in order to harm each other.”
“They still fight, do they?” asked Geoffrey distantly, still considering a quick getaway to the coast. “It seems that little has changed since I left.”
“There you are wrong,” said Caerdig vehemently. “Many things have changed-especially in the last few months. For example, travellers must now pay a shilling to your brother Walter to use the ferry over the River Wye.”
“A shilling?” echoed Geoffrey, astonished. “That seems excessive! How can farmers pay that when they take their produce to the market at Rosse?”
Caerdig stabbed a finger at Geoffrey’s chest. “Precisely! There are two courses of action open to them: they can slip across at night-at considerable risk, because the penalty for doing so, if caught, is either payment of a cow or loss of an eye. Walter prefers a cow, but he will happily accept either. Or, they can make a detour to Kernebrigges-the toll for which is only sixpence, payable to your brother Henry who has appropriated control of that bridge, along with the manor on which it stands.”
Enide’s letters had told Geoffrey enough of the greed of Walter and Henry to make him certain that Caerdig spoke the truth on that score. But he had no wish to take sides in a dispute over tolls, just or otherwise, so he changed the subject.
“I had better retrieve Sir Aumary before he breaks our truce.”
Entrusting his destrier to Helbye, he walked briskly back along the grassy path in search of the older knight, the dog trailing behind him. Caerdig went too, leaving the black-capped man in charge of the villagers, while Barlow and Ingram still fingered their weapons uneasily. Geoffrey and Caerdig walked in silence, Geoffrey considering what he had been told about his father’s poisoning, and Caerdig concentrating on keeping his ankles away from the dog’s bared fangs. They reached the place where Aumary had been when the ambush had begun.
“Where is he?” said Geoffrey in exasperation, seeing nothing but trees and undergrowth.
“Perhaps he ran away,” suggested Caerdig, amused at the notion of a fully armed Norman knight fleeing from his rag-tag village bandits.
Perhaps he had, thought Geoffrey, although even Aumary should have been able to defend himself against a badly organised attack by farmers armed with a miserable assortment of weapons.
“Aumary!” he yelled. The woods were silent, and not even a bird sang. “Damn the man! If he has gone off alone in the forest, he is an even greater fool than I thought.”
Caerdig tapped Geoffrey’s arm and pointed. “There is his war-horse. What a splendid animal!”
“Splendid, but skittish,” said Geoffrey, leaving the path and wading through the knee-high undergrowth to where it grazed some distance away. “A destrier is of little use if it bolts at the first sign of trouble.”
As he drew closer, it tried to run, but one of its stirrups had caught on a branch, and it found itself tethered. It bucked and pranced, rolling its eyes in terror as Geoffrey approached. He grabbed the reins and began to calm it, speaking softly and rubbing its velvet nose.
“Sir Geoffrey!” cried Caerdig suddenly, so loudly that the horse tore the reins from Geoffrey’s hands and began cavorting again. Geoffrey shot the Welshman an irritated glance. “Here is your Sir Aumary. Here, in the grass.”
Leaving the destrier to its own devices, Geoffrey went to where Caerdig knelt, and looked into the long wet nettles.
“God’s teeth!” Geoffrey swore as he saw the sprawled figure of Sir Aumary lying there, face down. From between the older knight’s shoulders protruded the slender shaft of an arrow. Geoffrey hauled him onto his back, but the sightless eyes and the tip of the arrow just visible through the front of his chain-mail showed that Aumary was long past any earthly help. Geoffrey swore again. Caerdig’s failed ambush was one thing, but the killing of one of the King’s messengers put a totally different complexion on matters.
“It was not us!” protested Caerdig, his face bloodless. “Look at that arrow. It is not ours!”
Geoffrey recalled the arrow hissing past his face at the beginning of the attack, and the one that his shield had deflected moments later.
“So someone else shot Aumary, just as you happened to be attacking us?” he said, raising his eyebrows at the Welshman. “I doubt the King will fall for that one.”
“The King?” asked Caerdig fearfully. He swallowed hard. “What has the King to do with this?”
“Aumary was the King’s agent, delivering dispatches from Normandy,” said Geoffrey. “He met us on the ship sailing from Harfleur to Portsmouth, and informed me that he would be travelling with us because the Court is currently in Chepstow-no great distance from Goodrich, as you know.”
Caerdig gazed down at the dead man in horror. “This has not gone quite the way I intended,” he breathed. “I saw a band of heavily armed men riding uninvited on my lands, put it with the rumour that you were soon expected to return from the Crusade, and thought no more than that-that a Mappestone was brazenly trespassing on Welsh soil, bringing other Holy Land louts with him. Now it seems that the King’s messenger lies slain on my manor.”
“Seems?” queried Geoffrey, putting a foot on Aumary’s back and hauling out the arrow with both hands. “It is more than just seems. What will you do?”
“What will you do?” countered Caerdig, watching Geoffrey inspect the bloody quarrel.
Geoffrey shrugged, rolling it between his fingers. “There is only one thing I can do, and that is to deliver Aumary and his dispatches to the King at Chepstow Castle. Sweet Jesus, man! How could you be so foolish! The death of a knight is unlikely to go unpunished, here or anywhere else. Even if it had been only me you had killed, do you think nothing would ever have been said, no reprisals?”