The poisoned chalice

Dacourt threw him an angry glance but, slightly mollified by Benjamin's assertion that Vulcan did not bear the guilt for Waldegrave's death, nodded and stumped off.

We were sitting in the hall finishing off our meal of light ale, freshly baked bread and strips of salted pork, when the others drifted down to join us.

'What's this all about?' Peckle moaned. 'I have work to do. Waldegrave's possessions must be accounted and assessed.'

Millet yawned and slouched against the table. Throgmorton glared angrily at Benjamin as if he recognised a rival. Venner grinned amiably around whilst Clinton, as cool as ever, drummed his fingers soundlessly on the table top. At last Dacourt stormed in.

'You're right!' he bellowed at Benjamin. 'You're damned well right!'

'What's he so right about?' Peckle observed testily.

'One of the servants found a young piglet, throat slashed from ear to ear, on a heap of refuse at the back of the kitchen. The cook didn't order it to be killed and no one will take responsibility for it.'

'How long has it been dead?' Benjamin asked.

‘I don't bloody well know!' Dacourt coughed, slumping down in his chair in the centre of the table. 'Sometime yesterday, perhaps. The rats had been at it, the body is already half-gnawed.'

'What is this?' Millet yawned languidly. 'Surely, Sir John, we are not here to discuss the mysterious death of a piglet?'

He smiled appreciatively at the murmur of laughter he'd provoked. Benjamin rapped the top of the table.

'No, we are not here to discuss the death of a pig but the murder of a priest, Richard Waldegrave!'

'Murder!' Throgmorton was the first to react. 'Murder!' he repeated. 'The drunken idiot wandered into Vulcan's stable and got what he deserved. Everyone knows Vulcan is a horse trained for war.'

'But why should he come down in the dead of night?' Millet jibed. 'After all, this is not some lady's chamber, is it, Master Throgmorton?'

'Oh, shut up!' the physician snapped. 'It's obvious this sottish priest tried his luck once too often.'

'I agree,' my master replied. 'But, Sir John, has Vulcan ever attacked anyone else?'

Dacourt watched Benjamin attentively, his eyes now not so bulbous but cunning and shrewd. Sir John, I thought, was one of those men who like to play the role of the bluff, hale soldier. He was not Henry VIII's ambassador to France for nothing.

'No,' he replied carefully. 'Old Vulcan is fiery, he can rear, bite and lash out, but pound a man to death? No. Continue, Master Benjamin.'

Benjamin rose. 'Let's play out the little drama again,' he said and, without waiting for a reply, led the group out of the hall into the sunlit courtyard. Benjamin went across to the stable door.

'Look,' he said. 'There are bolts on the outside, top and bottom. Waldegrave opens the top.' Benjamin slid the bolt back. 'And then the bottom.' Again he repeated the action. 'Waldegrave, a short man, goes into the stable. What did he do next?'

'Apparently,' Millet answered, 'closed the bottom half of the door after him.'

'Like this.' Benjamin leaned over the door and pushed the bolt home. 'Now.' He spoke over the door to us. 'Waldegrave was drunk, he stank of wine fumes. He was also a man of short stature; he would have to climb on the beam at the front of the door to push the bolt home. Yes?'

A chorus of assent greeted his question.

'So,' Benjamin continued, 'I am stone sober, taller than Waldegrave, and I find it difficult. It must have been hard for a short, drunken man to do at the dead of night.'

'But he did!' Throgmorton taunted. 'The stable door was found bolted.'

Benjamin smiled, opened the stable door and joined us in the yard.

'My good doctor, I agree. But let us say you are correct and Waldegrave is standing in the stable. Vulcan rears, he is out of control. What should Waldegrave have done then?'

'Try to get out?'

'But he didn't. Strange,' Benjamin mused, 'this drunk who can so cleverly bolt the door after him, now finds it impossible to repeat the action to escape from an angry war horse.'

'Perhaps he tried to,' Clinton remarked, scratching the side of his face with a heavy, beringed hand, 'but was struck down by Vulcan.'

'I would like to believe that, Sir Robert. But examine the corpse. All of Waldegrave's injuries are to his face and the front of his body.'

Now the group were attentive. Benjamin spread his hands.

'You see, I don't think Waldegrave would have locked the door behind him. He was drunk. He was of short stature. Gentlemen, we have all drunk too much at times and seen others in their cups. They are careless, they knock over tables and chairs, they leave doors open. But Waldegrave was so precise. He could get into a stable but was unable to get out.'

I just stood admiring my master's sharp wit. Of course, I had reached the same conclusions but he was always better at presenting the facts. He had a way with words, my master. He should have met Shakespeare and Burbage. They would have cast him in many a role in one of their plays. Perhaps Lear, Brutus or Mark Antony. Benjamin was a great orator. In that courtyard of the dreadful castle of Maubisson, he had the rapt attention of those arrogant men.

'Now,' my master continued briskly, 'even if Waldegrave had bolted the door behind him and, let us say, he fell in a dead faint or drunken stupor, Sir John, can you explain why Vulcan would pound his body so mercilessly?'

The ambassador stroked his chin. 'No, I cannot,' he replied. 'Vulcan is trained only to lash out at someone who threatens him.'

'Not a fat, drunken cleric?'

'Come, come!' Peckle snarled. 'Master Benjamin, tell us your conclusion.'

'Sir John, would the smell of blood drive Vulcan to a fury?'

'Of course. It would remind him of battle, of danger.'

Benjamin pointed towards the infirmary. 'Last night I examined Waldegrave's clothing. It was covered in blood and gore which was fresh. However, his tunic was also stained with dried blood.' He paused. 'So, Master Peckle, I will tell you my conclusions. Last night, Waldegrave drank himself into a stupor. Someone had earlier gutted a young pig, and drained off the blood. They went to Waldegrave's chamber and smeared it all over the tunic of our comatose priest. Our murderer then dragged the body silently across the yard, opened the door to Vulcan's stable, placed the sleeping priest on the straw, locked the stable door behind him and slipped quietly away. Vulcan, agitated by dark shapes in the night and inflamed by the stench of blood, was driven to fury. He pounded this strange, blood-stained visitor to his stable, now lying on his back in the straw beneath him. The fury of the attack, at least for a few seconds, drew Waldegrave from his drunken stupor. He screamed, perhaps struggled, but Vulcan lashed out once more with a sharpened hoof, shattering poor Waldegrave's head.' Benjamin folded his arms. 'Sir John, Sir Robert, Waldegrave was barbarously murdered.'

A babble of protest broke out but no one could deny the logic of my master's conclusions. He stilled the clamour with a wave of his hands.

'I should demand that everyone should account for their movements but,' he smiled thinly, 'in the main we all sleep alone and I have no authority to ask.' He clapped me on the shoulder. 'Even my good friend Shallot could not swear that I did not slip out of my chamber to commit this dreadful act.'

The rest of the group just stared wordlessly back. Benjamin shrugged.

'Sir John, I would be grateful for the loan of a groom who will show us the way to Abbe Gerard's Church of St Pierre in Maubisson village.'

Dacourt, lost in his own reverie, nodded and within the hour our horses were saddled and we followed the groom out of the chateau. Benjamin stopped for a while, staring across at the forest edge.

'We are being watched,' he repeated. 'All the time, we are being watched.'

'The Luciferi, master?'

Benjamin pulled a wry mouth. 'Perhaps, but the danger we face from them is nothing compared to what we face in the chateau. There is a murderer loose. Waldegrave was killed because of what he knew, something about that pathetic joke.' My master patted his horse absent-mindedly. 'Or was it that?' he continued as if speaking to himself. 'Or because I was the first to show any interest? We shall see. We shall see, eh, Roger?'