Read Unholy Innocence for Free Online

relish of them and had watched with growing revulsion as he consumed plate after plate of the slippery worms. No doubt for those who have a taste for them they are a delicious delicacy but I can’t abide strong-smelling fish. But it was definitely the smell I detected in his urine just now. In addition there was a jakes bucket by the King’s bed which I had already noticed was empty and unused. Lampreys are notoriously rich and fat-filled which, if taken in sufficient quantity, can block even the most robust digestive system. Somewhere in the back of my mind I seemed to remember that one of John’s ancestors – was it his great-grandfather King Henry the First? – had died from eating a surfeit of the wriggling parasites. Not wishing to interrupt the contretemps between the Archbishop and the Justiciar, I leaned towards Abbot Samson and whispered my conclusion in his ear. Unfortunately Samson, being a little deaf, did not hear me the first time so I repeated my diagnosis louder just at the moment when my warring lords spiritual and temporal paused in their wrangling and the word CONSTIPATION rang out in the silence, as clearly as a rook’s caw on a crisp winter’s morning.
    Every eye in the room fell upon me. If the floor could have opened at that moment and swallowed me all the way down to Hades I would not have protested.
    The first to break the silence was Archbishop Hubert. ‘What nonsense is this?’ he scoffed glaring at me angrily. ‘What do you know of it?’
    ‘My lord Archbishop,’ droned Abbot Samson pedantically. ‘Master Walter is a trusted physician and academician, let me assure you -’.
    ‘And your prescription?’
    The voice cutting short the Abbot, deep and filled with gravitas, was that of William Marshal. It was the first time he had spoken and clearly he wanted a straight no-nonsense answer to his question. He looked at me with steady eyes. The stage, for good or ill, was mine.
    I quickly repeated my conclusion and my reasoning over the lampreys. De Saye snorted contemptuously while everyone else looked merely bemused. Only Earl Marshal, I saw with gratitude, was nodding and stroking that fearsome beard thoughtfully. But having talked myself into a diagnosis I had no suggestion for a remedy which was what the councillors now demanded. They looked at me expectantly and I could feel my worth plummeting fast as I fought to think while the French doctor pursed his lips and cocked that inquisitive eyebrow of his again.
    It was then that I remembered the opiate that Joseph had given me t hree days earlier. I had completely forgotten about it until then but fumbling now in the folds of my habit I found it was still in my belt pouch where I had put it. I drew it out and flourished it triumphantly aloft. The effect could not have been more dramatic than if I’d produced a rabbit from my undergarments.
    ‘This,’ I said with more confidence than I felt, ‘will alleviate the King’s discomfort and facilitate his recovery.’
    Behind me I heard de Saye lightly clap his hands together as though I had performed a magic trick for children. But another hand, this one exquisitely manicured and be-ringed, came up and delicately plucked the phial from my grasp.
    ‘What is in it?’ asked the French physician uncorking the phial and sniffing the contents.
    ‘Oh, various things,’ I bluffed trying to remember what the hell it was Joseph had told me was in it. ‘Hemlock, opium, that sort of thing - plus a few other ingredients of my own concoction. It will make the King drowsy and deaden his pain. But only a few drops at a time as too much and the effect could be …dangerous.’
    My words faded away because to my horror at that moment the King had opened his eyes and , seeing the phial dangling above his head, seized it from the French doctor’s grasp and poured the entire contents into his mouth swallowing the lot in one gulp.
    The King slumped on the bed, dropp ed the empty phial onto his chest and