The Tainted Relic by Michael Jecks, The Medieval Murderers Page B

If they sank, they were innocent; if they floated, they were guilty and hanged. Men were forced to run barefoot over nine red-hot ploughshares or pick a stone from the bottom of a cask of boiling water–if burns developed, they were judged guilty.
    John leapt up from the supper table, his stool crashing over behind him.
    ‘She can’t be put in those foul cells under the keep!’ he yelled. ‘Not with that evil pervert Stigand as her gaoler.’ He glared across at his wife. ‘Your damned brother is doing this out of sheer malice, Matilda! No woman should be kept in Rougemont at the mercy of that fat swine!’
    Matilda looked back impassively at her husband for a long moment, and John wondered whether she was going to use this as a way of punishing him.
    Then she too rose from her chair and came around to him.
    ‘Call Lucille to bring my mantle. I’ll come with you to see Richard–but only to keep that woman from the cells. I’ll not interfere in anything else.’
     
     
    The next morning saw John de Wolfe at the castle at the crack of dawn, after an almost sleepless night worrying about Nesta and the implacable resolve of Richard de Revelle to blame her for the killing at the Bush.
    In the cold morning light of his gatehouse chamber, he told Gwyn and Thomas what had transpired the previous evening when he had confronted the sheriff.
    ‘Thank God my wife had enough compassion to persuade her brother to lock Nesta in an empty chamber on the upper floor of the keep, rather than in that hellhole in the undercroft. Gabriel’s wife will attend her and at least see that she is fed until I can get her released.’
    ‘What about the bloody sheriff?’ growled Gwyn. ‘Is there no chance of him coming to his senses over this?’
    John shook his head. ‘He has the bit between his teeth, aided by that damned precentor. This is a heaven-sent opportunity for them to get even with me for hounding them about their treacherous sympathy for Prince John.’
    Thomas looked even more miserable than usual, hunched on his stool, wringing his hands in anguish. ‘How can we save dear Nesta, Crowner? I fear for her very life, now that the sheriff is set upon making her a scapegoat.’
    ‘Find the real killer, this Simon Claver! I tried to persuade de Revelle last night that this was the obvious way, but his mind is as closed as his ears. He refused even to countenance a search for the man, saying that the word of an imbecile lad was no grounds for looking for anyone other than the landlady of the tavern!’
    ‘But where the hell would we start looking, Crowner?’ observed Gwyn glumly.
    ‘That stolen relic is of no value to the thief until he can sell it,’ pointed out Thomas. ‘He has to find a buyer, and the only people interested would be religious houses.’
    De Wolfe drummed his fingers on his table. ‘He may first have gone back to his outlaw gang in the forest. I couldn’t persuade the sheriff to lift a finger against them, he claimed it was a waste of effort.’
    Gwyn scratched a few fleas from his unruly red thatch as he thought.
    ‘Gabriel told me that de Revelle was leaving this morning for his manor at Tiverton, to spend a few nights with his wife, God help her. Maybe we can persuade Ralph Morin to take out a posse while the sheriff’s away?’
    The ‘posse comitatus’ was an invention of old King Henry, who authorized each county to mount bands of armed men to seek out wrongdoers when necessary. The idea appealed to the coroner, and he went off to the keep to seek his friend the constable, who commanded all the men-at-arms of the castle garrison. Though Ralph had no love for de Revelle, he was at first uneasy about going against his wishes, but John persuaded him that the sheriff had not actually prohibited a search, only shown a lack of enthusiasm.
    By the tenth hour, a score of soldiers, led by Morin and Sergeant Gabriel, were marching over the drawbridge of Rougemont and meeting up at the South Gate with the