The Elixir of Death

by Bernard Knight

  As the sergeant turned to hurry away, the coroner called after him.

  'And send whoever brought the message down with him.'

  As the farrier fussed with Odin, John went across to his house and sought out Mary to tell her that he would be missing his dinner once again. When he told her where he was going, she asked whether she should fetch Thomas.

  'No, leave the poor little fellow in peace today. No doubt he's praying in the cathedral, practising for next week. He'd be in no fit state to do any work, anyway.'

  He stalked to the vestibule and pulled on a pair of riding boots, buckled on his sword and slung his mottled wolfskin cloak over his shoulders, securing it over his left collar-bone with a large buckle and pin. Then he went back to the stable to wait impatiently for his officer to arrive.

  It was a short ride to Shillingford, as the village lay little more than two miles to the west of the Exe, on the high road that led to Ashburton, Buckfast Abbey and distant Plymouth. Going at a brisk trot, the three horsemen covered the distance in half an hour, long enough for de Wolfe to get the story from Alfred Clegland, the manorial servant who had brought the news. A short, red-faced man with bristly fair hair, he was the falconer, an unusual person to act as messenger, as he explained as he rode alongside the coroner.

  'The bailiff has got a terrible flux of his bowels, or he would be the one to come, sir. Our steward is in such a fevered state over his master's death that he could hardly sit a horse, so I was sent to fetch you.'

  His story was that Peter le Calve, the lord of Shillingford, had gone hunting in his park the day before, accompanied only by his houndmaster and one of his adult sons.

  'They had little sport, so the houndmaster said, until near to dusk, when the dogs raised a fallow deer in the woods. My lord and his son William split up, going off in different directions. And that's the last they saw of Sir Peter.'

  The falconer related this with morbid fervour, and John had the impression that their lord was not all that popular with his subjects.

  'So who found the corpse?' demanded Gwyn, riding on the other side of Alfred.

  'Nobody, not last night! When he didn't come back nor answer to the horn, William broke off the chase and with the houndmaster began searching the woods. But it soon got dark and they had to give up and go back to the village for more men.'

  'Couldn't the hounds have found him by scent?' asked John, who unusually among men of his class had little interest in hunting.

  Alfred was scornful. 'Them bloody dogs is useless! Comes of having a drunk for houndmaster. They couldn't find a turd in a privy. The only smell they know is that of a deer or a fox.'

  'So who discovered him - and when?' demanded de Wolfe, his patience wearing thin,

  'When the master failed to come back after a couple of hours, we tried going into the woods with pitch brands, but it was useless, especially as it started to piss with rain, which put out our torches. By dawn, when he was still missing, the whole village was turned out to search.'

  By now, the road was entering the dense woods that surrounded the village of Shillingford, and they had time only to learn from the falconer that it was the manor wheelwright who had made the ghastly discovery. On the bed of a stream that ran through the forest, Sir Peter le Calve was found lying on his back, in a state that was more graphically described by the wheelwright when they arrived at the village.

  Shillingford was a relatively small manor, a series of strip fields, pasture and waste surrounding a cluster of houses, the church and an alehouse. It was encircled by dense woods, which were slowly being cut back by assarting to provide more land for cultivation and beasts. The hall was in the centre of the hamlet, an old wooden structure like that at Ringmore, set inside a wide circular bailey fenced off with a ditch and stockade. John de Wolfe knew the lord slightly, though le Calve was an older man. They had been campaigning in the Holy Land at the same period, but the coroner had not fought alongside him, and since John had returned home from Palestine their paths had not crossed. Indeed, John had heard that Peter was now something of a recluse and rarely left his manor, except to travel to his other possessions in Dorset. He knew that le Calve was a widower for the second time and had two grown-up sons, but that was the extent of his knowledge of the man, apart from the fact that Peter's father had also taken the Cross, back at the time of the so-called Second Crusade, well over forty years earlier.

  As they rode into the village, dust and fallen leaves were blown up from the track by a cold easterly wind, as November had turned dry since they returned from Ringmore. The place looked miserable under a leaden sky and John shivered in spite of the weight of his riding cloak. The depressing atmosphere was not helped by the sight of sullen bondsmen standing by the gates of their crofts as the coroner rode past.

  The village seemed to have come to a standstill with the loss of its lord, and there was an air of apprehension hanging over the place, as if the inhabitants were waiting to be blamed for this latest tragedy. The harvest had been bad and it needed a strong hand at the top if hunger was to be avoided during the winter that lay ahead, so the sudden death of their lord was an added uncertainty.

  The falconer led them through the open gate of the manor-house bailey, where they found a score of people milling about uncertainly. Most were the servants belonging to the house and to the barton down the road, the farm that belonged directly to the lord to supply his needs. On the steps of the manor-house, a two-storeyed building with a shingled roof, a stooped old man waited for them, wringing his hands in nervous concern.

  'I am Adam le Bel, Lord Peter's steward,' he quavered in a high-pitched voice. 'His sons are in the hall and wish to speak with you, sir.'

  He led the way into a gloomy hall, made of ancient timbers that must have been felled when the first King Henry was on the throne. A large fire-pit lay in the centre, with a ring of logs like the spokes of a wheel smouldering on a heap of white ash. There were tables and benches set around it and at one of them a group of men sat with pots of ale. Two of them immediately got to their feet and advanced on the coroner. They were well dressed compared to the others in the hall, and John rightly took them to be the sons of the dead man.

  'I am Godfrey le Calve and this is William,' said one, a tall, spare man of about thirty-five, touching his brother on the shoulder. William was a slightly younger version of Godfrey, otherwise they could have been taken for twins. Both had long chins and Roman noses, with brown hair shaved up the back and sides to leave a thick mop on top.

  'This is a dreadful day, Sir John,' muttered William. 'Who could have done such a terrible thing?'

  To John, his words echoed those uttered about the murdered ship's crew.

  'My condolences, sirs. I knew your father only slightly, but there is always a bond between us old Crusaders. Where is his body now?'

  'Left where it was found, Coroner,' said Godfrey, somewhat to de Wolfe's surprise. Though the victims of all sudden deaths were supposed to be undisturbed until the law officers examined them, in practice many were hurriedly moved, especially those in the upper ranks of society.

  'In view of the grim circumstances, we thought it best to wait for your presence, Crowner,' added William. 'Being so close to Exeter avoids much delay.'

  They marched out of the hall ahead of John and his officer. A ragged procession of steward, reeve, falconer and a man who turned out to be the wheelwright trailed after them. In the bailey, Godfrey turned and explained to de Wolfe that it was not worth mounting horses, as the distance was short and the terrain easier to navigate on foot.

  More servants joined them as they took a path that passed the fields and then crossed the pasture and waste land to the edge of the trees. The ground was undulating, and a quarter of a mile into the wood there was a small valley with a sizeable stream running at the bottom. They scrambled down through a heavy fall of autumn leaves to a place where the brook ran over flat stones, some of the rocks projecting above the water.

  'This is
how I found the master, sir,' exclaimed the wheelwright, who had run ahead of them and was pointing upstream, where the rivulet made a sharp bend through the cut-away banks of red soil on either side. When John and his officer got down to the water's edge, they could see around the corner, and even their eyes, hardened by years of fatal injury and maiming in battle, were shocked by the sight.

  Across some flat rocks, his feet in the running water, was the body of a man, lying on his back. His arms were outstretched, as they were lashed at the wrists to a fallen branch laid crossways underneath him. His neck ended at a bloody stump and through a tear down the front of his long tunic his entrails protruded on to his ripped belly.

  'He's been castrated as well, sir!' volunteered the wheelwright, with a melancholy relish. Either the two sons had very strong characters or they had no great affection for their father, for they splashed up the stream ahead of John and stood over the mutilated corpse while John and Gwyn caught them up.

  'Our sire was not the most popular of manor-lords,' admitted Godfrey with surprising frankness. 'But surely no one would wish a death like this upon him!'

  The coroner clambered out of the water and stood on the table-like rock, his officer standing ankle deep in the stream on the other side of the body. They looked down at the bloody remains, taking in all that was to be seen. Peter le Calve - for they assumed it was he, in spite of the lack of his head - wore a long woollen tunic of a green colour, though much of the front and sides were now almost black with blood, except where splashes of water had diluted the gore to a pink hue. The garment was ripped from the neck-line down to well below his waist. A coil of his bowels lay amid clotted blood on his belly, and below this a ragged wound indicated where his genitals had been crudely removed.

  Gwyn reached down and took hold of his leg below the knee, attempting to lift it. 'Stiff as a board and as cold as ice,' he muttered. 'He's been dead a goodly time.'

  John slipped a hand into the dead man's armpit, but could feel no vestige of remaining warmth. He looked up at the elder son. 'Your father went missing at dusk last night and was found soon after dawn?'

  Godfrey nodded, his rather equine face now pale as he stood over the ravaged corpse. 'We were all out at first light and he was found within the hour.'

  'Then no doubt he was killed last night, so the miscreants could be well away by now,' growled de Wolfe. Even though hardened by past experience, the manner of this death was one of the worst he had seen, especially as it savoured of a crucifixion.

  'Can we not move him now, Sir John?' asked William, who was as pale as death himself. 'This is not a fitting way for any man to be left, especially a lord in his own manor.'

  John rose to his feet and nodded. 'I agree with you! A Crusader deserves better than this. We must get him back to the village.'

  Godfrey shouted over his shoulder at some of his servants who were clustered anxiously a few yards away. He ordered them to find a litter to carry the body, and some of them jogged away back towards the manor.

  'We'd best get him off these stones and on to the grass, Crowner, ' suggested Gwyn. He drew out his dagger and bent to the nearer wrist of the corpse, intending to slash through the bindings that held the victim to the willow bough, but De Wolfe stopped him.

  'Wait a moment! Let's look at the way he's tied, in case there's something useful to learn.' With Gwyn's hairy head close to his, he peered at the lashings and felt them with his fingers.

  'Tied with two simple half-hitches,' declared his officer, a former fisherman. 'Nothing special about the knots.'

  'No, but what about the cords themselves, Gwyn? How many local outlaws or robbers carry silken cords with them, eh?'

  Gwyn grunted his surprise and touched the bindings, rubbing his thick finger along them. 'God's knuckles, so they are! Soaking wet, they looked black, but I think they are red.'

  The coroner now told him to release the lashings and as the wet cords had pulled so tight that the knots were almost impossible to untie, the Cornishman cut them through and held them up for inspection. The two sons came nearer and agreed that their father had been tied down with cords of dark crimson plaited silk, somewhat thicker than a goose quill. They were wet and rather dirty, but were certainly not common hemp.

  'The ends are frayed - looks as if they've been cut from a longer length,' said the ever practical Gwyn, stowing them carefully in the pouch on his belt. When the corpse was lifted off, the thin branch revealed nothing of interest, being a fallen bough with a broken end.

  'Not specially cut down for this purpose,' said Godfrey, who seemed less affected by his father's bizarre death than his younger brother.

  'No, there's plenty of such wood within fifty paces,' agreed the coroner,

  The falconer and the wheelwright carried their lord's body reverently to the bank and laid it gently on the grass. John checked that there was nothing left on the rock 4 where the corpse had lain, then came across and had another look at it.

  'There can be no doubt that this is your father?' he demanded, looking up at Godfrey and William. Both men shook their heads.

  'Those are his garments, certainly,' replied William. 'But you're not suggesting that someone placed his clothing on someone else?'

  'Stranger things have happened,' grunted de Wolfe. 'Though I admit it's highly unlikely. But is there any other way you can identify him, without his head?'

  'He had a scar on the side of his chest,' offered Godfrey. 'It came from a spear wound at the battle of Arsuf, so he told us.'

  John well remembered Arsuf in the Holy Land, for he was there himself. In September three years previously, Richard the Lionheart had marched down from Acre towards Jerusalem and at Arsuf, Saladin tried to stop him with a massive army. Richard, the superb tactician, won the day, though the battlefield was strewn with the corpses of both sides and many more were wounded. John himself had a small scar on his arm from a Moorish arrow, and now he bent to look at a beheaded corpse to seek more severe evidence of that fateful conflict. When he pulled the torn tunic aside, sure enough there was a white puckered scar running for a hand's breadth horizontally across the left lower ribs, which both sons confirmed was identical to the one they had seen on their father. But John's attention was now elsewhere, for pulling the clothing aside had revealed something else. Just above the scar, smeared with blood, was a wide slit, the pouting edges exposing the muscle beneath the skin.

  'Mary, Mother of God, he's been stabbed as well, poor bastard!' Gwyn's irreverent voice boomed out as he bent for such a close inspection that his bulbous nose was almost touching the corpse. 'And haven't we seen wounds like that only a few days ago?'

  The stricken onlookers watched as the two law officers poked and prodded at the gash in the dead man's side. 'Very wide indeed, Gwyn, as well as deep,' said de Wolfe grimly. 'But surely this must be a coincidence?'

  Godfrey and William le Calve stared at each other, bemused at what was going on. 'What importance can this have, Sir John?' asked William. 'Surely in the presence of the other mutilations, this can have little significance? '

  De Wolfe explained that recently they had seen similar unusual knife marks on the crew of a wrecked ship.

  'But that was thirty miles from here and in very different circumstances, so I fail to see how it can have any connection,' objected Godfrey.

  'I would like to agree with you, sir,' said John thoughtfully. 'But I must keep an open mind on the matter for now.'

  Together with Gwyn, he explored the rest of le Calve's body, but found no other injuries, and by then several villeins had hurried up with a crude stretcher made of a pair of poles with ropes strung between them.

  A short time later, the corpse was laid on a table in one of the side rooms of the manor-house and decently covered with a blanket. The parish priest was called and stayed to mumble Latin prayers over it, though there was no suggestion yet that the body be moved to the church, as was the usual practice.

  'Thank God our mother is no longer with us, to h
ave to witness such a devilish act,' muttered Godfrey. 'She died seven years ago, Christ rest her soul.'

  John had noticed a handsome, well-dressed woman hovering in the background as they brought the lord back to his hall for the last time, but he was tactful enough not to enquire who she was.

  'What happens now, Crowner?' asked the bemused elder son, still grappling with the fact that he was suddenly the new lord of Shillingford.

  'I must start my enquiries,' replied de Wolfe. 'Though as it is a Sunday, I cannot open an inquest today, but I must question those people who may have any knowledge, while their memories are still fresh.'

  The two sons remembered their obligations to visitors and invited the coroner and his officer to have some meat and drink before they began their investigations. More logs were placed on the fire and when they were all seated at one of the tables, servants brought wine, ale and cold meats with fresh bread and slabs of hard yellow cheese. Godfrey and his brother took some wine, but ate nothing, which was hardly surprising, considering the ghastly sights they had seen that morning. Adam the steward and some of the senior servants, such as the bottler, the falconer and the hunt-master, hovered in the background, with lesser mortals behind them, all wanting to share in any dramatic revelations that might come along.

  'I'll need to speak to all those who had any part in both the hunt yesterday and the finding of the body this morning,' announced John, as he finished his impromptu meal and drained the last of his wine. Godfrey, gradually assuming his new role as the head of the household, gave orders to his old steward to round up everyone who was needed and soon a motley, shuffling group of men assembled in the hall.

  John sat at the table as soon as the remains of the food had been cleared, with a brother on either side of him, as this was not a formal inquisition. However, to save taxing his memory until he returned to Exeter, de Wolfe asked Godfrey whether Adam le Bel, the only literate man among them, could write a summary of the facts, and the wrinkled old steward sat at the end of the table with quill and parchment. Gwyn stood near by and acted as a master of ceremonies, motioning the wheelwright forward as the First Finder. He had little to say except that he happened to be the first man to come across his lord's body in the stream and had hollered out in panic to bring the rest of the searchers to him.