Free The Poisoned Chalice by Bernard Knight Page A

almost purple with rage and he could hardly speak for anger. ‘Find me this bastard and I’ll kill him with my own hands!’ he snarled. Such words from an overweight, middle-aged leather merchant should have been ridiculous, but the heartrending sight of a father in anguish moved both men to genuine pity.
    De Alecon laid a hand on Rifford’s shoulder in silent sympathy. ‘May God support and comfort you at this time, brother.’
    John de Wolfe was more practical in his commiseration. ‘A litter has been sent for and we will take her home. The sheriff is being told, and already the castle constable has all his men scouring the streets, looking for this villain.’
    â€˜How could this happen in a consecrated place? And what
did
happen?’ whispered the father, his rage simmering down to a shaking iciness of spirit.
    The Archdeacon explained gently what little he knew, that he had heard sounds of distress, and had found Christina on the ground, almost hidden behind stacks of new stone being used in cathedral repairs. He had run to the nearest canon’s house for help and they had brought the girl on a mattress across to the cloister’s sick-room. She had not said a word, but from the torn and dishevelled state of her clothing and the bruises on her face and neck, he had assumed reluctantly that the worst had taken place.
    â€˜She should not have been out alone at night in the town. I blame myself for laxity in that,’ moaned Henry Rifford. ‘She should have been with her cousin. That stupid sister of mine should have kept a closer eye on her – and so should I.’
    John tried to lighten the load on his conscience a little. ‘She is almost a grown woman, Master Rifford. Girls that age are headstrong and unwilling to be cosseted by their elders. She is old enough to be married soon.’
    At this, the portreeve groaned and hit his face in his hands. ‘Oh, God, married! I had forgotten. What is her fiancé to make of this – and his father, Joseph? Abused and sullied, not two months before the wedding – if now there will be any wedding.’
    To do him justice, Rifford failed to think at that moment of the financial loss that might stem from an abandoned union with the rich ship-owning family.
    By the time that Dame Madge had been fetched from Polsloe, a mile north of the city, Christina had been returned to her home in the high street. Nesta and the Archdeacon had diplomatically left and the sheriff was with the coroner in the house near the East Gate.
    Aunt Bernice was distraught with horror and self-recrimination for not having prevented Christina from leaving the house. For a time the old lady was semi-hysterical, but then pulled herself together sufficiently to sit alongside Christina’s pallet and try to soothe her with what passed for motherly love.
    Henry Rifford had calmed to a cold determination to find whoever had attacked his daughter and have him hanged, preferably after the most hideous tortures. Richard de Revelle seemed to agree with him, but the problem was to establish exactly what had happened and who was the perpetrator.
    â€˜I’m not clear what part you have to play in this, John,’ said the sheriff aloofly. Matilda’s brother was an elegant man, fond of expensive clothes which he wore with a flourish that hinted at his ambitions to be a courtier, rather that the chief law officer and tax collector of a far western county. He had a triangular face, with long brown hair swept back from a smooth forehead, narrow eyebrows and a thin moustache above a small pointed beard.
    The current tragedy had temporarily swamped their mutual dislike, but John was determined not to let Richard get the better of him. ‘My part is to confirm rape, Richard. If it has occurred then it is serious enough to be a Plea of the Crown, not a matter for the local courts. I must record all the details for the King’s judges when they next