The poisoned chalice

search and gather the rest of our colleagues in the great hall.'
    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