Read Online The Sanctuary Seeker by Bernard Knight - Free Book Online

flames. Was that damned woman right, he wondered.
    Did he really want this coroner’s job hung like a millstone around his neck? Was it just a device he used to avoid his wife and and sit in taverns or visit his women? He had been coroner for only two months but, there in the firelight, John decided he enjoyed it.
    ‘What’s this deep thought about? Is my beer too strong for your brain?’ She had come back from the kitchen and stood behind him, a hand on his shoulder.
    John reached up to cover her fingers with his own.
    ‘I was thinking that maybe I’m too old to go racing off to the wars, Nesta, my love. My sword arm is getting too slow and I’d be run through at the first skirmish.’
    She squeezed his shoulder affectionately and came round the table to sit on the bench by his side. Twelve years his junior, the Welsh woman had dark red hair and, unusual in one of her age, a perfect set of teeth. A round face, a high smooth brow and a snub nose gave her prettiness rather than beauty. Small and shapely, she wore a high-necked plain gown that did nothing to hide her prominent bosom.
    ‘You’re a big handsome man in his prime, John.
    You’re as strong as a horse and I can personally vouch that you rut like one! So shake off this “poor old man” nonsense, will you? It’s just your usual gloom after fighting with that old bitch you call wife.’ Nesta reached across and drank from his pot, while he slipped an arm around her and hugged her. ‘I don’t know where I’d be without you, sweet woman.’
    Nesta smiled up at him, rather wistfully. ‘You’d be with one of your other sweet women, Sir Crowner. I’ve no illusions about your faithfulness, though I think you like me best - so I’ll settle for that, for it’s all I’m likely to get.’ She finished his ale and yelled at the one-eyed old soldier to bring a refill, then pointedly changed the subject. ‘Was that chicken to your liking, John?
    This new cook had some daft idea of stuffing its belly with bread and sage herbs.’ ‘It was good, very good.’ He ran a finger across the table top and licked at the grease appreciatively. The Bush had not taken up the new fad for platters, but served the food on thick bread trenchers, direct onto the scrubbed boards, walling in the gravy with crusts.
    Old Edwin limped across and banged a brimming quart pot in front of John. ‘Here ye are, Captain. Good health to you.’
    He used the Coroner’s old military name. Although he had never served under him, he had a respectful admiration for John’s record as a soldier.
    ‘There’s another who doesn’t think you’re past it as a warrior,’ Nesta observed slyly, as Edwin shuffled across to the fire to load on more logs. ‘Come on, John, cheer up. Tell Nesta what’s on your mind.’
    After six pints of ale he had to search for the root of his earlier despondency. He pulled Nesta closer to his side, so that his free hand could cup her breast, while he drank.
    ‘My wife suggests that I took this crowner’s appointment only as an excuse to escape her. But, damnation, it was she who encouraged it, to get a rung or two up the ladder of nobility.’
    Nesta wriggled as his fingers played with her nipple.
    ‘Forget her for a moment, John. Tell me what you’ve been doing today to make you look as if you could drop off to sleep, even in the company of the prettiest woman in Devon.’
    He bent his head down to the crown of her curls, his black locks mingling with the red. ‘We’ve been riding since dawn, out to Widecombe and back …’ He told her about the body in the brook and the probability that it was that of a Crusader.
    Nesta took a drink from his pot. ‘Not bad ale, though I say it myself … Well, what about this Crusader? Was he young and handsome?’
    John grinned, an uncommon lightening of his normally stern expression. ‘That’s all you flighty wenches think of, thank God!’ he chaffed her. ‘He might have been handsome once, but ten days or so dead