The poisoned chalice by Paul C. Doherty Read Free Book Online

rat-filled dungeon, watered by the sewers of the Fleet river and the slops of the prison bearing the same name.
    I must have been half-mad. I whimpered like a child, crouching in the cold, slimy darkness, until the grille above was pulled back and a bailiff with a face like a gargoyle's lashed me with a whip, before lowering a stoup of brackish water and a fly-infested dish of rancid meat. At last I calmed in the face of the sheer horror of the tragedy. Agnes was gone. The Ralembergs were dead and, judging from the dark blood stains on the front of my doublet, I was cast as the murderer. Those men in the Golden Turk had made me drunk deliberately. They had drugged my wine before moving me to that horror-filled garden.
    I was frightened. I crouched, shivering with cold, until I was dragged up and thrown into a huge cage on a gaudily painted cart and driven down through the Shambles and Westchepe to the magistrates at the Guildhall. There the bailiffs pushed and shoved me through a porticoed entrance, down a long, dark, musty passageway into the main well of the court, fastening me to the bar; beyond it sat the three magistrates before a square table ringed by clerks. I wanted to vomit or faint. Only the terror of what had happened, and what might yet occur, kept me conscious. A clerk read the charges out.
    'That he did foully murder and commit the most dreadful homicides…' Etc, etc.
    Shallot's wits resurfaced. I felt the shadow of the noose and the true danger of my situation emerged. All my goods at the Golden Turk would be gone by now. That villain of a landlord was not the one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I had no money, I had no surety. De Macon was at sea, it would take weeks to send a petition to Wolsey, and my master was immersed in his good works at Ipswich. So who would speak for old Shallot? No one but dear Shallot himself so I pleaded not guilty and made my defence: I was Ralemberg's colleague, I had no grievance against him. I admired his family and loved his daughter. There were others, I pointed out, who might wish Ralemberg's death and I was their pathetic dupe. The chief magistrate, with the face of an old fox and the hard eyes of a weasel, heard me out. His two companions, however, sniggered as I referred to the great cardinal, affairs of state, and finally to the Luciferi.
    Oh, yes, even then I dully understood that the Luciferi were the bastards who had perpetrated such a dreadful crime. They had decided to move just in case Ralemberg told me anything. They had executed him and his family, and made sure Shallot paid the price. Where, I wondered, were my bloody protectors?
    Nevertheless, I had a glimmer of hope. The chief magistrate watched me intently as the prosecutor, a blundering serjeant-at-law, failed to prove I had any grievance against the Ralembergs and could not proffer any motive for the crime. Under questioning, the prosecutor did confess that a search of the house had revealed Ralemberg's and de Macon's indentures with me, as well as my own pathetic love letters to Mistress Agnes. His case came to hinge on one point. Had I left the Golden Turk to commit murder, or was I telling the truth about being drugged and placed in Ralemberg's garden after the dreadful crimes had been committed? The chief magistrate kept referring to this point and my opponent could not answer it. Yet I, too, had no proof of my innocence.
    I was removed to the dungeon beneath the Guildhall whilst pursuivants were sent to the Golden Turk to investigate. Searches were also ordered throughout the port of London about de Macon's ship.
    I was hustled away to a cold, stone-flagged cell beneath the Guildhall which I shared with two of the biggest rats I have ever clapped eyes on. Long, black, fat-bellied and red-eyed, the bastards watched me hungrily as if I was their next meal. I screamed and rattled my chains; they turned sluggishly away as if to say that one way or another they would eventually dine on my flesh. Later in