Crowner's Quest Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘Cover the fellow up, for God’s sake!’ he snapped imperiously at Gwyn, flicking a glove at the folded blanket at the foot of the bed. Then he turned to leave. ‘I’ll send up to the castle to get Ralph Morin to send men-at-arms to search the town.’
    Morin was the constable of Rougemont, the castle perched at the highest point of the city in the northeast corner of the walls. It took its name from the colour of the local sandstone from which it was built.
    De Wolfe was scornful of this useless gesture. ‘What are they going to do after midnight? Beat every passerby into a confession?’ Knowing de Revelle’s methods, he thought that this was not as fanciful as it might sound.
    The sheriff gave John another of his pitying looks, as if humouring a backward child. ‘And how would my new coroner handle it, then?’
    John angrily opened his mouth to shout that he was the King’s coroner, not de Revelle’s, but bit back the words: they had been through these arguments time and again. The sheriff resented the establishment of coroners in England four months previously, but he was in no position to defy the edicts of Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chief Justiciar to Richard the Lionheart. ‘We need to know
why
Robert de Hane was killed,’ he said tersely. ‘Then that should tell us
who
killed him. Rushing aimlessly around the streets will get us nowhere.’
    ‘Was it robbery? Some of these prebendaries are rich men,’ asked de Revelle, going off at a tangent.
    For answer, de Wolfe waved a hand around the bare room. ‘Not this one. He has a reputation for a modest, even Spartan way of life. There’s little worth killing for here.’
    The sheriff seemed to lose interest. ‘We’ll leave it until the morning, then. I must get back to my good wife.’
    John straightened his back until his head almost touched the ceiling beams. ‘I’ll walk back to my house with you, then.’
    De Revelle pulled on his gloves. ‘Lady Eleanor has gone back to Rougemont. I sent her with an escort when I came here. Your guests have dispersed, I’m afraid.’ He said it with a certain spiteful glee, knowing that his sister would blame her husband stridently for the collapse of her cherished social occasion.
    The sheriff was right, for when John arrived in Martin’s Lane ten minutes later, he found the hall deserted, the table scattered forlornly with empty cups, tankards and scraps of food. Brutus still lay before the dying fire and gave him a slow wag from his bushy tail, the only welcome he was to get that night.
    When he climbed the wooden stairs from the backyard to the solar chamber, he found a grim-faced Matilda sitting in the only chair. The rabbit-toothed Lucille was unpinning her hair and helping her off with her new kirtle of stiff brocade and laying out her bed-shift.
    There was an ominous silence until the ugly Frenchwoman left for her cubicle under the stairs. Then the storm broke. ‘You’ve done it again, husband,’ Matilda snarled. ‘You seem to delight in spoiling every effort I make to increase your standing with the better folk in this city.’
    ‘Increase my standing, be damned!’ he retorted. ‘I’m the King’s coroner, I don’t need to kiss the arses of any burgesses or bishops. If you want more social life, so be it – but don’t pretend it’s to advance my career for I’m quite content as I am.’
    Matilda had never been one to duck a fight and she counter-attacked with relish, her solid, fleshy face as pugnacious as that of a mastiff. ‘You’re content, are you? I should think so! You spend most of your time in taverns or in bed with some strumpet. You use this new job as an excuse to avoid me. You’re away from home for days and nights at a time – God knows what you get up to!’
    ‘A senior canon of this cathedral has been murdered, Matilda. You’re so thick with the clergy of this city, surely you know what a scandal this will be. Did you expect me to tell the Bishop when he