The Elixir of Death

by Bernard Knight

  Then the huntmaster reluctantly stepped forward, turning his pointed woollen cap restlessly in his hands as he stood before this grim-faced officer from Exeter. He was a lean, stringy fellow with a yellowish tinge to his face and a nose blushed with fine veins, suggesting too strong a liking for the ale-cask.

  'Tell me what happened last night,' demanded John abruptly.

  'Not a lot to tell, sir,' said the fellow hesitantly. 'We had little sport all afternoon, until the light was fading, when one of my beaters raised a deer. I think Sir Peter had been irked by the lack of excitement until then, for he dashed off to the left, waving to Sir William to circle round to the right. I went with the younger master and that was the last we saw of our lord.'

  In spite of further probing by the coroner, it seemed he had nothing else to tell, and several other retainers who had been following the chase gave the same story. Peter le Calve had rushed off on his horse through the woods and had not been seen alive again.

  'How far was the spot where you separated from that place on the stream?' John asked William, as Godfrey had not been at the hunt.

  'Not more than half a mile, Crowner. If darkness had not overtaken us, I suspect we would have found him within the hour.'

  As an aid to thought, de Wolfe rubbed his chin, which was relatively free of dark stubble, as it was only the previous day that he had had his weekly wash and shave. Even this mannerism failed to stimulate any profound ideas about advancing his investigation, but to fill the time he asked the steward a question.

  'Your bailiff, I was told he was absent due to an illness. Where was he last night?'

  Adam le Bel looked up from the parchment that he was laboriously completing. 'On his cot, no doubt, Crowner! He has been laid low these past three days with a bloody flux. I visited him yesterday morning in his toft along the road there and he seemed a little better. His wife said he had taken a little gruel, without it immediately passing through him.'

  John grunted and accepted that, even if improving, the sick man was hardly likely to have been in a fit state to be involved in his lord's murder. There seemed no one else to interrogate, and John was driven to ask general questions of the throng that now half filled the hall of the manor.

  'Has anyone any further light to shed on this tragic happening?' he shouted at them. 'Have there been any strangers here in the past few days?'

  There was a general murmuring and shaking of heads, but no one volunteered any information. The new manorlord came to their rescue.

  'Unfortunately in that respect, Sir John, we are on the high road to Plymouth, so strangers are passing through all the time. Few stop here, as we are so near Exeter, but some call at the alehouse for food and drink.'

  This seemed to trigger someone's memory, as an elderly man stepped forward, leaning heavily on a staff and deferentially tugging at a sparse lock of dirty grey hair that hung over his forehead. He was dressed in little better than rags and had a strip of filthy cloth wound around his right leg, from which yellow matter leaked down on to his bare foot.

  'Begging pardon, sirs, but I saw some strangers on the lane to Dunchideok yesterday afternoon, a couple of hours after dinner-time.' His quavering voice was weak, and Godfrey beckoned impatiently to him to come nearer.

  'What's all this, Simon? Who did you see?' He turned aside to the coroner to explain. 'He's an old cottar, a bit mad. He cleans out the privy pits in the village, which is why he's always getting these purulent sores.'

  'I was sitting on the bank, master, my leg being so foul. Three men passed me, jogging on palfreys towards Dunchideok. I couldn't see any faces, they had deep hoods over their features.'

  'Can you describe anything else about them?' barked de Wolfe. Hooded men in a village could be significant, he thought.

  'Yes, sir. They had black habits down to their feet, bound with cords around their waists.'

  Godfrey gave an impatient snort. 'For God's sake, Simon, they were just monks! Benedictines, no doubt. There are hundreds of them about the countryside. Buckfast is one of their great houses.'

  'What about this lane?' asked John, reluctant to give up even the most unpromising clue. 'Does it go anywhere near those woods?'

  This time William answered. 'Not really, it's just a track to the next village. There's a hermit's cell there. I suppose monks could be visiting that for some reason.'

  The crestfallen Simon stepped back among his sniggering fellows, and there now seemed little left to keep the coroner in Shillingford. With a promise to return the next day to formally hold an inquest, so that burial could be arranged, he and Gwyn went out to reclaim their horses and leave an uneasy and chastened manor behind them.

  On the short ride back to the city, de Wolfe chewed over the strange affair with his officer, partly to sort out the details in his own mind.

  'Who would want to kill Peter le Calve, anyway?' he mused. 'He's getting on in years, certainly older than me. And he takes no part in politics or county affairs - in fact, I'd almost forgotten he existed, as he never attends any tournaments or feasts in Exeter.'

  John pondered for another score of Odin's hairy hoofbeats on the track.

  'And look at the manner of his death! Lashed to a pole, beheaded, gutted and his twig and berries cut off!' he muttered.

  'That was no casual robbery,' said his companion. 'And anyway, his purse was still on his belt with some coins still inside.'

  'And where the hell is his head and his manhood?' persisted John. 'Have they been taken away as trophies?'

  'Could this be to do with witchcraft or the black arts?' queried Gwyn, almost nervously. As a Cornishman and a Celt, he had a healthy respect for pagan superstitions, as a recent outbreak of witch-hunting in Exeter had revealed. De Wolfe, though having similar Celtic blood in his own veins courtesy of his mother, had no time for magic. 'Those wounds were made with good sharp steel. And what are we to make of that stab wound, eh?'

  Gwyn took a hand from his reins to scratch his unruly red thatch.

  'It was a strange one, Crowner, just like those on poor Thorgils and his crew. But one swallow doesn't make a summer.'

  'True enough, but how many three-inch knife wounds have we seen since we came back from Palestine?'

  There was no answer to this, and in silence they walked their steeds down into the ford alongside the unfinished Exe Bridge, to reach the city's West Gate on the other side of the river.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In which Thomas rides off to Winchester

  Early the next morning, a cavalcade assembled in the inner ward of Rougemont, watched by a small group of on-lookers which included John de Wolfe, the constable, Ralph Morin, Gwyn and even Nesta. The occasion was no great novelty, as it was a regular event that took place twice a year - the transporting of the county 'farm' to the royal exchequer at Winchester, one of the twin capitals of England.

  But on this raw day in early November, the spectators had come to see off Thomas de Peyne on the journey for which he had been yearning for almost three years. He was near the tail-end of the little procession that was forming, waiting impatiently alongside Elphin, the sheriffs chief clerk. Behind them were two mounted men-at-arms and immediately in front were four sumpter horses. Each of these had a pair of large leather panniers slung across their backs, containing the coin extracted as taxes from the shire of Devon. Two more soldiers rode ahead of these, the head ropes of the packhorses attached to their saddles. Beyond these, Thomas could see the erect figure of his uncle, Archdeacon John de Alençon, sitting astride a grey mare alongside Henry de Furnellis's bay gelding, the whole retinue being led by Sergeant Gabriel and another two men-at-arms.

  The horses bobbed their heads and some neighed restlessly or scratched at the ground, making their harness clink and rattle. Gwyn looked with a critical soldier's eye at the convoy, but could find only one real fault.

  'That little sod puts us to shame, Crowner!' he grumbled, poking a finger in the direction of their clerk. 'Hanging over the side of his sad
dle like a bloody nun, even when he's got a decent horse!'

  John had decided that Thomas's broken-winded pony was not reliable enough for such a long journey and had hired a palfrey for him from Andrew's stable, but the clerk still insisted on having a side-saddle.

  'At least he'll be able to keep up with them, thanks to the heavy load on those sumpters,' replied the coroner. 'Though I don't know how he'll manage on the way back.'

  'Perhaps he won't come back,' said Gwyn. 'Maybe they'll make him bishop in Winchester to make up for the injustice he's suffered.'

  Nesta kicked him on the ankle in mock anger.

  'He'll be back, I know it! The faithful little fellow swore to me last week that he'd never leave you in the lurch, John, not after what you've done for him.'

  De Wolfe gave one of his grunts, as this was too emotive to suit him. He turned to watch as the powerful figure of Ralph Morin had a final word with the sheriff, then walked up to his sergeant to give him the order to start. With a thudding of hoofs and a jingle of harness, the cavalcade slowly moved off towards the arch of the gatehouse, accompanied by waves and shouts from the onlookers. Nesta flourished a white kerchief at Thomas and called' out 'God speed you!' as two tears of happiness for the excited clerk ran down her cheeks. John raised a hand in courteous salute to the sheriff and his friend the archdeacon and turned it into a wave for Thomas.

  'Try not to fall off that bloody nag!' yelled Gwyn, covering his affection for the little priest with mock ferocity, and as the clerk waved back in farewell, they saw that he too was weeping tears of joy.

  As the last soldier vanished over the drawbridge, John felt curiously lonely, as if someone close to him had died. Nesta seemed to sense this and slipped her arm through his. 'He'll be back in a week or so, John. Be glad for him he's waited so long for this redemption.'

  As usual, the pretty woman always overflowed with kindness and compassion, and de Wolfe squeezed her arm with his in a mute token of affection. But the feeling of loneliness persisted when de Wolfe and Gwyn went up to their dismal chamber in the gatehouse for a jar of ale and some bread and cheese. Though nothing was said, they both missed the little man sitting at the end of the table, his tongue protruding as he hunched over pen and ink, concentrating on forming the fine Latin script on his parchments.

  Their workload had declined again, with no outstanding cases other than the mystery of Thorgils' ship and the bizarre happenings of the previous day. It was just as well, as with Thomas absent for up to a fortnight, every time there was an incident John would have to borrow one of the sheriffs clerks to record his business.

  'We could have asked that Eustace if he'd stand in as clerk for a time,' muttered Gwyn, through a mouthful of bread.

  De Wolfe shook his head. 'Thomas will only sulk when he finds out, so better leave him to running these ships when the season comes.'

  He swallowed the last of his ale. 'Now what in hell's name are we to do about these deaths? We must go back to Shillingford after dinner today and at least hold the inquest - not that that will get us any nearer solving the problem.'

  The big Cornishman brushed breadcrumbs from his worn leather jerkin, then hoisted his backside on to the sill of one of the window slits before replying.

  'There's a feeling in my guts that we haven't heard the last of whoever killed Peter le Calve. And what about those stab wounds?'

  The coroner picked up a small knife that Thomas used to sharpen his quill pens and absently jabbed the point into the bare boards of the trestle table.

  'Once again, I got the impression when I put my finger in the wound that it curved back on itself slightly. It's strange, but not enough to get excited about. Both were two-edged blades and very wide indeed, compared with our usual daggers ... but you know as well as I do, any knife can be rocked back and forth to widen the slit it makes in the skin.'

  Gwyn nodded reluctantly. 'Or the victim can move on the knife, which does the same thing,' he conceded. 'A pity we can't see inside the body - maybe the track deep in the vitals would tell us more.'

  'The Church would have a fit if we suggested doing that,' grunted John. 'Yet I once heard from a Greek physician with us in the Holy Land that Egyptian physicians in Alexandria were dissecting both corpses and live criminals, centuries before Christ.'

  The practical Gwyn was not very impressed. 'Much use that is to us today! It's a wonder that the damned bishops and priests let us look at the outside of cadavers, let alone probe the insides!'

  For some reason that even John had never been able to discover, his henchman had a rooted antipathy to the organised Church and all its minions - their clerk being the only exception. Now, with Thomas gone on his way to be reinstated in his beloved Church after a belated acceptance in Winchester that the accusations were maliciously false, the coroner and his officer felt deflated, and they itched for something to divert them. Eventually, Gwyn went to find a game of dice in the guardroom and John took himself off to see Hugh de Relaga, to discuss their profits from the wool business and to talk some more about using Thorgils' ships when the spring sailing season came along.

  *

  As the sheriffs cavalcade wound its way eastward, a much more modest group was wending its way in the opposite direction, about thirty miles south-west of Exeter. As well as the difference in numbers, it was a much more bizarre sight than the orderly column led by Sergeant Gabriel. On the narrow track that wound through lonely heathland and woods near the upper reaches of the Avon estuary, three horses trudged along, one behind the other. The last was a packhorse, burdened by wicker panniers on each side and bedding rolls across its back. It was led by a huge man on a pony much too small for his bulk. He was dressed in a shapeless tunic of brown canvas over blue breeches, his calves bound by cross-gartering. The giant, even larger than Gwyn, was completely bald and had a red face with a large hooked nose, but what made his features most grotesque was the total collapse of his mouth, the lips being indented so much that his chin seemed to come up to almost meet his nostrils. When he opened his mouth, the cause was obvious, as he had not a tooth in his head - nor a tongue. Fifteen years previously, Jan the Fleming had had all these removed by the public executioner of Antwerp, after the irate burgomaster of that city took exception not only to his seducing one of his daughters but having had the gall to claim that she had invited him into her bed. Almost before the bleeding had stopped, he was bundled on to the first ship to leave the Rhine and ended up in Scotland, a country he had never even heard of before. This was how he came to be servant and bodyguard to the man on the leading horse, the contrast between them being as great as could be found anywhere in Christendom.

  Alexander of Leith was a tiny man, yet he rode a large palfrey which would have better suited his acolyte. He sported what seemed to be a long kilt, the fabric of green-and-red tartan falling down to his calves, pleated sufficiently to enable him to sit astride his horse. Alexander's upper half was enveloped in a loose tunic of dirty white linen, on which were embroidered many cabbalistic signs associated with alchemy. His puny shoulders were shrouded in a scalloped leather cape which sported a hood that came to a sharp point above his head. Like Jan the Fleming, he had a peculiar face, but in a quite different way. An abnormally high forehead, fringed by white hair, rose into his hood, but his dense, bushy eyebrows were jet black. Wizened features, which suggested that his age was well past three score years, were relieved by a pair of little gimlet-sharp black eyes. This visage was rounded off by a soft-lipped, purse-like mouth under which was a white beard confined to the tip of his chin but which nonetheless fell down his chest like a dog's tail.

  As they jogged along, he mumbled continuously to himself, perhaps to compensate for the permanent silence of his tongueless servant. They were strangers to this area, having jogged slowly for the past week from Bristol, which, in spite of his Scottish origins, had been the home of Alexander of Leith for the past ten years.

  Now, hopefully, they were on the last lap of their journey, if only
they could find their destination. The retainers of Prince John, Count of Mortain, who now spent much of his time at his restored possessions in Gloucester, had given Alexander a crude map drawn on parchment, which he studied every few miles and which provoked new bursts of muttering. Earlier that morning, they had awoken in a barn where they had spent the night, rode to a village where they bought bread and ale and received some more directions to Bigbury, alleged to be about ten miles distant. Now the little man turned in his saddle and yelled back at the Fleming in strangely accented English.

  'Another couple of hours should see us there, you great useless oaf!'

  Abuse was his normal form of address to his bodyguard, given and received without any apparent rancour. When he twisted to face Jan, however, the Scot fancied he could hear a clinking from the load carried by the sumpter horse, and he came to a stop.

  'Did you pack those flasks well enough this morning, you dumb animal?' he snapped. 'If any of that glassware gets broken, I'll whip you within an inch of your life!'

  The Fleming grinned amiably and made some finger signs that only Alexander could interpret. Then he got off his horse, an easy task as his stirrups were already almost touching the ground. Walking to the patient packhorse, he rummaged around in the panniers and rearranged something, which gave rise to a muted rattling of porcelain and glass. With more signs that must have meant satisfaction, he climbed aboard his nag again and they set off, hoping to come across some local who could confirm that they were on the right track for this Bigbury.

  After another half-hour, the monstrous Fleming spied a boy herding goats near a thicket away to their right, and he attracted his master's attention by clashing a small pair of brass cymbals that hung on a leather thong around his neck. When Alexander turned, Jan pointed, and the little alchemist turned his horse off the track and walked it the few hundred paces to within speaking distance of the lad. The Fleming watched the youngster staring slack-jawed at this apparition, but the Scotsman seemed to get a satisfactory response, for he came back to the track and waved at his servant to continue.