Read Online The Poisoned Chalice by Bernard Knight - Free Book Online Page B

John’s pot. ‘Evening, Crowner! Staying the night?’ he cackled, his collapsed white eyeball, damaged by a spear point, rolling horribly.
    Nesta aimed a kick at his bad leg. ‘Get away, you nosy old fool!’ she said amiably. Edwin tottered away, chuckling, and she snuggled closer into John’s side. ‘Have you told your dear brother-in-law about the killings?’ she asked.
    â€˜Not yet – I’ll see him when I go up to Rougemont in the morning,’ he replied.
    But that was tempting fate, for the coroner and sheriff were to meet long before then, in a drama that was just about to unfold. The door to the street suddenly burst open and a figure appeared, the like of which the inn had never seen before. It was that of a senior cleric, a man of lean and ascetic mien, swathed in a great cloak. He threw back the hood as he stood on the threshold, revealing a white coif, a close-fitting cap tied under his long chin. His sharp grey eyes darted around the smoky room, seeking someone with obvious urgency.
    â€˜John de Wolfe! There you are!’ The relief in his deep voice was apparent and he strode across the bar, unclasping his cloak as he went to reveal a snowy chasuble with an embroidered edge flowing over the ankle-length alb.
    Nesta jerked from under the coroner’s arm and stood up quickly. In the years that she had been at the Bush, she had never seen a high-ranking priest in full regalia enter the place. She knew him for John de Alecon, Archdeacon of Exeter and one of the four lieutenants of Bishop Henry Marshall. She also knew that he was uncle to Thomas de Peyne and a firm friend of John: the Archdeacon was faithful to King Richard and, unlike the Bishop and several others of the cathedral hierarchy, had not supported Prince John’s abortive rebellion.
    â€˜What, in God’s name, brings you here, John?’ barked the coroner, jumping up to greet him. ‘Taverns are not one of your usual haunts!’
    The Archdeacon smiled wryly at the mild blasphemy. ‘Maybe not altogether in God’s name, though everything we do is under him. This is more a criminal matter and one of great urgency.’
    De Wolfe waved a hand at the bench he had just vacated. ‘Will you not sit down and have something to drink? You look shaken.’
    De Alecon looked about the room and at the patrons staring open-mouthed at this unique sight. ‘It would not be seemly, I fear. John, you must come with me at once. The daughter of Henry Rifford, the Portreeve, has been assaulted within the cathedral Close.’
    There was a deathly hush in the room, as all there heard him. John stared at him for a moment. ‘Almighty Christ! How are you involved in this?’
    The lean-faced cleric shook his head sadly. ‘I was the one who found the poor girl. On my way from Vespers to visit a sick canon at his house. I heard moaning behind a pile of new masonry on the north side of the cathedral. I found this poor young woman lying on the ground there, beaten and obviously ravished.’
    â€˜Where is she now?’
    â€˜I raised the hue and cry and turned out all the servants and vicars from the Bishop’s Palace and the canon’s houses, then had her carried to the small infirmary behind the cloisters, where she now lies.’
    John was already pulling on his cloak and moving towards the door, when Nesta caught his arm. ‘She needs a woman with her – Christina Rifford has no mother, only an old aunt.’
    John stopped to listen to the innkeeper: he had learned that she always made good sense. ‘So? Will you come?’
    â€˜It would be better if you took your wife.’
    â€˜She’s not at home.’
    â€˜Then I’ll come – but the girl will have to be examined. That should not be done by any man, not even a leech, especially in these circumstances.’
    â€˜So what can we do?’ Part of the coroner’s duties was the confirmation