A Head for Poisoning Read Online Free PDF Page B

was disturbed to see one so summarily dispatched—perhaps even more than he was about Aumary. But Caerdig persisted in his claim that neither animal nor knight could have been slain by his men, and Geoffrey’s own observations of the impoverished, hollow-eyed people who clustered around them suggested that if the villagers of Lann Martin had money to spare, they would not have used it to buy arrows.
    The black-capped man was sent to the village to fetch a replacement mount for Barlow, and to bring two fat ponies for him and Caerdig. Aware that the sun was already beginning to turn from the pale yellow of mid-afternoon to the amber of evening, Geoffrey immediately set a course for Chepstow, forcing a rapid pace with Aumary’s destrier and its sombre burden bouncing along behind.
    Helbye was perfectly happy to have the company of Caerdig and the black-capped man, who was named Daffydd, and chatted cheerfully with them about mutual acquaintances from the days when Goodrich and Lann Martin had been on more friendly terms. Ingram and Barlow, who were young enough to be Helbye’s grandsons, could not recall a time when relations between the two manors were less tumultuous, and complained bitterly that the two Welshmen were to travel with them to Chepstow.
    â€œThey will slit our throats in the night,” grumbled Ingram.
    â€œWe will not be sleeping,” said Geoffrey. “At least one of us will be keeping watch.”
    â€œI saw no one else in the forest, other than them,” said Barlow doubtfully. “I do not think they are innocent of the murder of Sir Aumary. Do you, Sir Geoffrey?”
    Geoffrey shrugged. “It is not for me to say. We will deliver Sir Aumary’s dispatches to Chepstow, and that will be the end of it. What the King believes or does not believe about Caerdig and his men is no concern of ours.”
    â€œI have never been to Chepstow,” said Ingram. “How far is it? I was hoping we would be home in Goodrich tonight. I have been away for four years now, and I am tired of travelling.”
    â€œSir Geoffrey has been away for more than twenty,” said Barlow. “So stop your whining.”
    â€œChepstow lies perhaps eighteen miles from here,” said Geoffrey. “We should reach the Great Dyke around nightfall, and from there the road to Chepstow will be good.”
    â€œI think the King will hang Caerdig,” said Ingram, returning again to the subject of Sir Aumary’s murder. “I cannot see that he is innocent. And it will serve him right for stealing Lann Martin from Goodrich manor. Caerdig claims he won it legally in the courts, but I wager he bribed the judges to get the result he wanted.”
    â€œI always thought, from the information in Enide’s letters to me, that Goodrich’s claim on Lann Martin was dubious,” said Geoffrey, half to himself. “It seems just that Caerdig won his case.”
    Ingram and Barlow exchanged a glance of appalled disbelief at the notion that justice should enter the discussion, and Ingram tapped a finger to his temple, to indicate to Barlow that he considered his leader short of a few wits even to consider uttering such a ridiculous notion.
    â€œPerhaps the King will reward us for bringing him Sir Aumary’s killer,” said Ingram after a moment, his eyes brightening. “Perhaps he will give us Lann Martin in exchange for Caerdig, and we will be able to loot it.”
    Both young men looked at Geoffrey hopefully. The knight sighed, and wondered, not for the first time on their long journey, whether bringing them home with him had been a prudent decision. Since Pope Urban’s call for a Crusade four years before, Christian soldiers had cut a bloody swath from France to Jerusalem, killing and looting every inch of the way. Barlow and Ingram were no longer the simple Herefordshire farmers who had set out to reclaim the Holy City from the Infidel, but were ruthless,