Ralph and Sir Peregrine stood and stared at the door.
‘With just your sword, I would be unhappy to attempt to launch an attack on the place,’ Ralph said.
‘With just you behind me, so would I,’ the Coroner grunted. He was chewing at his inner cheeks, his hand clenching and twisting at the hilt of his sword. ‘There could be any number of men in there.’
Ralph was about to respond when a young lad appeared round the corner of the house and set off towards them at a trot. ‘You! Boy! Where are you going at this time of night?’
‘That’s my business!’
Sir Peregrine chuckled unpleasantly. ‘I am the King’s Coroner, boy, and I’ll have you whipped if you like,’ he said, moving forward, his sword’s point ready.
Ralph was worried about the Coroner. He appeared to be losing control of his emotions. His eyes were wild and staring, his complexion strange and pale. He looked like a man who was ready to throw himself to his own doom. All that he valued and appreciated was torn apart already. He had nothing to live for.
To Ralph’s eye the lad looked rebellious, but Sir Peregrine and he were blocking the path. The boy clearly did not realize his danger, because he looked at Sir Peregrine and spat at his boots, shrugging with bad grace. ‘So thrash me.’
Sir Peregrine growled, a low, feral sound that made Ralph’s hackles rise. He moved forward slowly as though he was going to tear the lad apart with his bare hands, but before he could grab him, Ralph took the lad’s arm. He pinched the hair at his temple and twisted it, lifting it high so the boy had to stand on tiptoes, squealing with the pain.
‘Piss on us, laddie, and I’ll pull your hair out by the sodding roots,’ Ralph hissed malevolently, peering into his eyes. ‘One handful at a time. You understand me? I’ll give you anguish the like of which you’ve never dreamed! Tell us where you’re going and why!’
‘It’s Jordan. He told me to go to his daughter and bring her to him in the morning!’ the boy said hurriedly, eyes squeezed tight with the pain.
‘Where is he now?’
‘In Betsy’s room … out the back. The bathing room.’
‘Good. Go!’
Ralph discarded the lad and set his shoulders resolutely. ‘Let’s fetch him out.’
Sir Peregrine followed him round the side of the brothel, and in through a gate in the low wall. Ralph walked among the flower beds and vegetables, knowing the way perfectly, and then stepped silently along the path that led from the cross passage to the lean-to sheds. At one door, he stopped, and was about to motion Sir Peregrine forward when it suddenly opened. Betsy was there in the doorway, and seeing the man standing there she dropped her jug and screamed.
Ralph reached in and grabbed her arm, yanking her forward, out of the room, then tripped and fell over her. Sir Peregrine rushed at the door and entered, only to be struck by a heavy pot as he crossed the threshold. He fell to his knees, but kept his grip on his sword.
Seeing him fall, Ralph was taken with a maddened rage. He leaped up and sprang into the room. Jordan had his pot raised to hit Sir Peregrine again when Ralph darted in. He pushed Jordan in the face, unsettling him, so that he fell back on his rump, and then Ralph rushed away before he could be hit. The pot was hurled at him, and he ducked just in time; it clipped his shoulder and spun away to the wall where it smashed to pieces.
Jordan clambered to his feet and ran to the table where his knife lay. Ralph saw in a flash that Jordan must reach it before he could, and he saw that Sir Peregrine was befuddled. There was no time for anything else; Ralph reached behind him. He found something, another heavy pot, and hurled it just as Jordan took hold of the knife. The pot missed his head, but it smashed on the table, and the liquid inside burst out, drenching his breast and belly, and filling the room with the smell of lye.
Smiling, Jordan waved the knife at him. ‘You thought to brain me, little leech? I told you yesterday, didn’t I? Don’t piss with men who’re stronger and richer than you. I could break you in two right now, right here, with my bare hands. You’re lucky that I have a knife and little time! It means I’ll have to be faster than I’d have liked!’
He approached Ralph, baring his teeth with the sudden throbbing agony as the caustic lye solution burned at his belly wound. ‘Christ’s ballocks, that hurt, you bastard!’ he spat. ‘Jesus, that hurt! I’m going to cut out your heart for that!’
Ralph slipped on the damp floor, scrabbling for anything that could be hurled or used to stab, blind, maim, but all he could find were more jugs. He threw the first, and Jordan ducked away without pausing in his advance. Then Ralph had an idea. He threw the liquid from the second, seeing it soak into Jordan’s shirt, then hurled the jug with all his might. It missed again as Jordan moved away from it, and then Ralph threw the last, and succeeded.
The liquid went all over Jordan’s face and he blinked, then winced. Wiping at his eyes with a wetted hand, he rubbed the strong solution into them, and while he stood, screaming with the burning, Ralph rushed past him, snatched up Sir Peregrine’s sword, and ran it through Jordan’s back.
He shrieked with rage and agony, and while still spitted on the blade, tried to spin on his heel to face Ralph. His momentum forced the blade to carve his flesh, opening a massive gash. He screamed in maddened ferocity, and spun again, wrenching the sword from Ralph’s grasp, half falling against the table, his eyes fixed balefully on Ralph’s. Coughing, he brought up blood, black in the darkness, and Ralph saw how he looked at his hand when he had wiped it away. It looked like the devil’s vomit. Jordan’s eyes were emptying in that strange way that Ralph had seen before, as passion and anger and feeling all leached away with his blood, and then he seemed to pull himself together.
With a last roar of defiance, he launched himself at Ralph again, and Ralph could not move aside in time. The dying felon caught his sleeve and pulled Ralph towards him, his teeth bared insanely.
And then Betsy appeared. She had tears streaming down her face, and in her hand was Jordan’s own knife. As Jordan pulled Ralph to him, she slipped the knife round his throat, and suddenly Ralph had the impression that Jordan had a second mouth, and then the world went dark and red.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was late the next morning when Baldwin and Simon met the Coroner at the house of the Dean, who welcomed them with many expressions of delight.
‘My dear, ah, Sir Baldwin, I could not have dreamed of such a marvellous outcome to my request for your help. It has been magnificent to see how you have so speedily arranged, um, matters for us. It has …’
Baldwin tried to stem the flow, but it was some little while, and a large goblet of wine each, before he succeeded. All the while Baldwin was aware of the pale, fretful man beside him.
Coroner Peregrine had lost his woman again. This was the third woman he had desired, and the third he would see buried. The calmness of his expression was belied by the anguish displayed by his fingers. The nails picked at each other and at the hem of his tunic, and while he was himself quiet and restrained, his foot’s rapid tapping on the floor told of his torment.
‘Yes,’ the Dean continued delightedly. ‘The Prior has himself come to apologize for the — um — error and has offered a significant amount of money in compensation for the insult offered to our privileges.’ He shot a look at Baldwin. ‘It seems it was not only Gervase and Peter de la Fosse who were, ah, taken in by a plausible felon.’
‘Many people were taken in by him,’ Baldwin said. ‘I think that I was myself for some time.’
‘And I,’ Sir Peregrine said heavily. ‘I would not have believed he could have killed Daniel. He was entirely credible, and so were the men who vouched for him at the inquest. Would that they were not so convincing. I might have-’ His mouth snapped shut.