The Winter King Read Online Free PDF Page A

they approached.
    ‘We are summoned to attend Lord Benedict,’ Canon Mark called out. ‘This is Canon Stephen, and I am Canon Mark. With us is Mistress de Gifford, apothecary and healer of Tonbridge.’
    One of the guards leaned over to his companion, and Sabin caught the tail end of a muttered comment: ‘… late in the day to attempt to heal him.’
    A broad-shouldered man with a broken nose had stepped forward. He glared at the man who had spoken, then looked up at Canon Mark. ‘Aye, we were told you’d been summoned,’ he said. He stared at all three of them for several moments. ‘You’d better go on in,’ he finally acceded. He nodded to two of the guards, who heaved at the heavy gates, opening them just enough for Sabin and the two canons to ride through into the courtyard.
    A lad ran out to take their mounts, nodding in the direction of the lord’s dwelling house, a large, rambling building showing signs of recent expansion. A flight of stone steps led up to the main entrance. Coming down the steps was a tall, slim man with dark, hooded eyes who introduced himself as Lord Benedict’s steward. He seemed to know why they were there; undoubtedly, Sabin thought, because it had been he who had summoned them. Silently he led them across the great hall, along a passage, down a short flight of steps, along a further passage and, finally, down a wide spiral stair into a large, cold cellar. Wooden racks lined two of its walls, many of them loaded with barrels of wine. There were several huge wooden vats – of ale, perhaps – and big joints of smoked meat hung from hooks in the enormous beams which supported the stone slabs of the ceiling.
    ‘This must be part of the original house,’ Sabin whispered to Stephen. ‘It’s quite diff—’ She shut her mouth hard on the words that had almost come out.
    ‘Quite what?’ Stephen whispered back.
    ‘Quite dark and frightening!’ she hissed. ‘And so cold!’
    She thought he gave her a brief, quizzical look. She hoped very much that she was wrong.
    Her heartbeat gradually slowed down. Oh, but she must be more careful …
    Lord Benedict had been laid out on a trestle table and covered with a length of deep-red velvet. He lay on his back, his hands crossed over his breast. The great hump of his stomach rose up, round and hard as that of a pregnant woman. Torches flamed in sconces on the wall behind him, and eight lighted candles, set in tall iron holders, had been set in pairs at the four corners of the trestle.
    Whoever had undertaken the task of closing his eyes had not done it very well; there was a slit between the upper and lower lids, and the candlelight seemed to catch a glitter from the dark, dead eyes.
    Canon Mark addressed the steward. ‘Did anything unusual happen on the night Lord Benedict died?’ he asked. ‘Did he vomit, for example? Was there a flux of the bowels?’
    Sabin fought to suppress a gasp of horror.
He suspects poison …
    The steward’s mouth twisted, as if he found the question distasteful. ‘He did neither, as far as I know,’ he said coldly, smoothing back his long hair with a graceful hand. ‘He ate and drank as enthusiastically as he normally did, with every sign of enjoying all that he consumed.’
    Sabin let out the breath she’d been holding.
    ‘Thank you.’ Canon Mark turned to his brother in Christ and said, in a matter-of-fact tone that Sabin found immensely reassuring, ‘If you would begin, please, Stephen?’
    The steward retreated to a dark corner of the cellar as, with swift, deft hands, Stephen folded back the velvet cloth and unfastened the dead man’s tunic. He untied the hose, rolling them down the legs and off the feet, and then removed the undershirt. Lord Benedict de Vitré lay ready for their inspection.
    There really was not much to see. He was vastly overweight – even more so than it had appeared when he was clothed – and there was a definite blueish tinge to the flesh of his face and jowls. Beneath