The Black Alchemist: A Terrifying True Story

by Andrew Collins

  At this, he reached down to the stone foundations and picked up a slim length of slate-grey stone bearing the appearance of a spearhead and inscribed with magical characters. As if to show some kind of allegiance with this apparently lifeless artefact, he stared at it with an unsure smile before gripping it hard and plunging it into the ground.

  ‘I seal the purpose. Now let him come. ’

  The ritual was over.

  The Black Alchemist had set his stage.1

  1 The Stave of Nizar

  Tuesday, 7th May, 1985. It was late afternoon when Bernard’s car pulled into the car park adjoining Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucestershire’s finest surviving example of Norman architecture. As he locked the vehicle and made his way through the grounds towards the entrance doorway, a sudden chill ran through his body. Perhaps it was the cold air, he told himself, or maybe there was another, more curious explanation.

  He had been called to the area that day on business, strange in itself, since his line of work did not usually take him beyond his home county of Essex. However, the coincidence lay, not in this, but in the very fact that he had wanted to visit the abbey for some months to inspect the tomb of its founder, Robert Fitzhamon (1045-1107). A cousin of William the Conquerer, Fitzhamon had been one of the most powerful Norman barons in Fitzhamon had been one of the most powerful Norman barons in 1100). Fitzhamon had also been a member of the notorious St Clere family, whose very name was synonymous with mystical intrigue and religious heresy both in France and Britain. Bernard was tracing the genealogy and history of Robert Fitzhamon and felt the need to inspect his tomb at close quarters.

  Yet with thoughts of Fitzhamon’s tomb put aside for one moment, Bernard stopped to gaze up at the radiant splendour of the twelfth-century building’s perfect state of preservation. Apparently, when King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries of England around the time of the Reformation, the people of Tewkesbury came together to purchase the abbey building so that it could be used as their parish church. In this way they guaranteed its future against the destructive might of the king’s men, and the local stonemasons. And so, to this day, it remains the most outstanding and complete example of a Norman abbey church in England.

  Inside, Bernard walked slowly down the central aisle towards the high altar at the eastern end. Snippets of the abbey’s long history of monastic and parochial devotion were caught by his psychic ears in the form of audible voices—clairaudience, as it is known to paranormal researchers.

  ‘ They come at the sun’s height,’ someone proclaimed from behind him. Yet, upon turning around, he saw that he was alone.

  ‘It is the sign of the Lord,’ another voice shouted from somewhere out of the stillness of a side aisle. He looked, just in case, but, once again, no one was there.

  He was on guard, but still quite settled in mind. The atmosphere was one of anticipation and expectancy, causing a shiver to run down his spine. This would be no ordinary visit. Something was going to happen. Something of importance.

  Robert Fitzhamon’s Gothic-styled box tomb, Bernard found, was situated in a small chantry on the left-hand side of the high altar. However, access to it was barred by a locked wrought iron gate and low altar rail, separating the chancel from the nave. He stood, frustrated, staring helplessly in the tomb’s direction. Had it been a wasted journey after all?

  ‘Is this your first visit to the abbey?’ an attentive voice asked from somewhere behind him.

  Bernard turned around to see a tall, bespectacled gentleman in a red robe, a verger he decided, waiting for a reply.

  He said it was, and then voiced his wish to examine the tomb of Robert Fitzhamon. Could this be done?

  The verger lowered his head with regret. ‘I’m sorry, no one is allowed beyond the altar rail or into the chantry chapel unless prior arrangements have been made.’

  Undeterred, Bernard said he had travelled a long way to see this tomb and had been studying Robert Fitzhamon’s family for some time. Couldn’t he just ‘nip in’, just for a minute or two?

  The robed man shook his head, but then relented. ‘Okay, I will see what the rector has to say on the matter,’ he said, turning to walk away.

  Minutes later the verger returned and, with a reserved smile, said: ‘Yes, the rector says you can view the tomb, but only for a few minutes. Come on, you’ll have to follow me.’

  Without further word, Bernard was taken into the chancel, where the wrought iron gate into the chantry was unlocked, leaving him alone to do as he wished.

  Inside the tiny stone room, Bernard studied the badly worn tomb. It was a disappointment, he decided. Robert Fitzhamon’s brass effigy and inscription had long since vanished, leaving only the outline of the body carved into the top of the huge stone matrix slab. Still, it did not matter. He had now seen it if nothing else.

  1. Tewkesbury Abbey where Bernard made contact with the spirit of St Clere baron Robert Fitzhamon. So what could the tomb tell him about the life and times of this powerful Norman baron? To answer this, Bernard decided to psychometrise—that is psychically attune—to the memorial by reaching out with his right hand until it made contact with the cold stone.

  Closing his eyes, he let his mind relax and waited patiently for some sort of response. Moments later a stern and authoritative male voice entered his mind and addressed him.

  ‘ Who are you, with knowledge of me, that stands so quiet at my resting?’ it indignantly enquired, as if the modern-day visitor was intruding on his eternal slumber.

  It was the discarnate voice of Robert Fitzhamon. It had to be. ‘I know of your family,’ Bernard responded, hoping to gain the baron’s confidence.

  ‘Do you know of the finding of the Stave of Nizar?’ Robert Fitzhamon asked. ‘It was mine.’

  ‘No, what is it?’ Bernard enquired, in complete puzzlement.

  ‘Handed to me by a companion in France—from a Crusade, and belonged to Nizar. Before my friend died on the battlefield he requested that I have it. My request was that it be laid with me (upon my death). But it was taken.’

  Intrigued, Bernard asked who took it, and to where.

  ‘The bastard sons of the half-wit Robert of Montaigne,’ came the seething reply. ‘Where, I know not.’

  With his curiosity now well and truly aroused, Bernard began to ask Fitzhamon further questions about the ‘Stave of Nizar’.

  Yet none were answered. No more came from the Norman baron who had been dead for almost 880 years. Yet the psychic communication was by no means over as images and impressions now filled his mind.

  Bernard could psychically, that is clairvoyantly, see a magnificent sight—a rod of gold, some three to four feet tall, fashioned to look like the branch of a tree. Spiralling its way around the shaft was a golden snake, its open-mouthed head resting on top of the rod, and two red rubies for eyes. This, it seemed, was the Stave of Nizar.

  Accompanying the vision were a series of rapid impressions concerning the rod’s long history. It was fashioned in ancient Egypt thousands of years ago and had passed through many hands since that age. What’s more, Bernard now felt its past had involved the spilling of blood, almost as if, in times of desperation, it had been used as a bludgeon to ward off would-be attackers and thieves.

  No more came to him inside the small chantry. So, with thoughts of this desirable artefact now firmly fixed in his mind, Bernard moved back into the nave and stood before the high altar. Did such a thing really exist? If so, where was it today? Was it hidden? More importantly, was he meant to locate it?

  The mere idea of a quest to find the Stave of Nizar appealed to his normally restrained sense of adventure. Bernard now asked where the ‘sons of Robert of Montaigne’, whoever they were, could have taken this rod. Contemplating an answer, his eyes glanced up and became transfixed by the majestic beauty of the stained glass that made up the east window.

  ‘Wilmington,’ a voice bellowed into his ears from over his shoulder.

  Startled, Bernard twisted around quite expecting to
find someone, the verger most probably, standing behind him. But no one was there. It had been a clairaudient voice.

  Wilmington. He repeated the name over and over as he moved to a convenient pew and sat down. What did it mean? More names began to pass through his mind in quick succession: ‘Samson … John … William de Jumieges.’

  ‘Who?’ he asked himself. Only further words came in response: ‘Priors … Wilmington … Honfleur … Gristaine … mother … France … Contaville.’

  ‘Explain,’ he requested. For a moment, there was no reply, but then additional words flowed through his mind: ‘William … Paganus … church … woods … mound.’

  ‘Explain,’ he insisted once more. ‘Who is speaking?’

  He waited, but no answers came. Yet then, as he was about to get up and walk away, another clairvoyant image stabbed at his mind. It was of a dark, damp stone room, without any feeling or presence of modern-day life. This place, he sensed, was a crypt, associated with a medieval priory. It was inside this room that an important clue concerning the eventual destiny of the Stave of Nizar would be found. But where was this crypt?

  ‘Wilmington,’ came the answer.

  When he sat down in the comfort of his dining room that evening, Bernard had been given enough time to fully digest the incredible events that had befallen him inside Tewkesbury Abbey. Along with a few further explanatory images and impressions he had received on the long journey back from Gloucestershire, he now felt able to put the whole story into some kind of perspective. So, picking up a pen, he began to scribble down his feelings on a notepad.

  It was a tale initiated in ancient Egypt during the age of the pharaohs, when a gold serpent rod of great magnificence was fashioned as a symbol of recognition to the gods themselves. It was passed down from one high priest to the next until the eventual collapse of this great kingdom. After this time, the ceremonial stave was lost, before being rediscovered and viewed only as an object of curiosity and greed, to be stolen or sold from one person to the next, and even used as a murder weapon on occasions. Eventually, it became known as the Stave of Nizar, after a person of this name, before falling into the hands of a French nobleman taking part in a religious crusade somewhere in the Holy Land.

  This crusader had, it seemed, brought the precious artefact back to his homeland where it had remained in his possession until he lay mortally wounded on a French battlefield. At this point he had entrusted the stave to his companion, the powerful Norman baron Robert Fitzhamon, whose home was in England. He carried it into this country where it was held as a financial asset, without Fitzhamon ever realising its immense religious value. Upon his death, he had requested that the rod be placed with him in his tomb. However, his last wish was never fulfilled, as this great treasure was stolen by the ‘bastard’ sons of a man named Robert of Montaigne and quickly entrusted into the safe keeping of monks at a place called Wilmington Priory, which Bernard sensed was in the southern county of Sussex.

  Why the Stave of Nizar should have been given to this particular priory he could only but guess. However, Bernard felt that the monks at the priory were French. What is more, they had practised a somewhat unorthodox form of monastic discipline. They attached great religious significance to the Stave of Nizar, yet kept its presence completely secret. On ceremonial occasions it would be brought out and paraded as a ritual object, and at such times the relatively small community would be joined by special visitors from France. However, despite the secrecy surrounding the monk’s guardianship of the stave, certain individuals in very high places had become aware of its existence—a situation that had afforded this French ‘alien house’ special immunity from outside interference by both ecclesiastical and secular authorities.

  In addition to this, Bernard’s psychic information implied that the monks’ influence had extended beyond the boundaries of the priory’s own lands to other sacred sites around Wilmington. These, he felt sure, included a grass-covered ‘castle mound’, known as ‘Burghlee’, as well as a tiny church or chapel on a hill enclosed by a small wood or copse. This chapel may or may not have been synonymous with another location he had been shown where, it appeared, a man named ‘Paganus’ had been instructed to build a small chapel by the monks of the priory. At each of these sites the monks had conducted ceremonies using the stave.

  This, it seemed, was the web of intrigue surrounding the Stave of Nizar’s colourful history. But what did it all mean? Why had he been given this information?

  Something inside was telling him there was more to this stave business than met the eye. There was some sort of far reaching implication that would only become apparent as time went on. What though, he could only but imagine. The next step was to tell his friend, Andy Collins. See what he might make of it all.

  2 Wilmington

  Thursday, 9th May, 1985. Leaving my duties as a sales representative and features writer on the Leigh Times newspaper, I decided to telephone Bernard. Not having spoken to him for a while, I needed to confirm our meeting arranged for the following week at our usual haunt, The Griffin pub, located in the midEssex village of Danbury.

  Driving through the streets of Leigh-on-Sea that afternoon, I glanced out across the Thames Estuary. On a fine day you could see the North Downs of Kent, but not today. The weather was far too misty, and it looked as if it was going to rain.

  From a call box outside the main post office, I rang the psychic, who was also an amateur historian and genealogist. We had met just over a year earlier, after our paths had crossed whilst investigating Danbury’s medieval mysteries, which featured the notorious St Clere family, the builders of Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland.

  I was eager to learn what weirdness Bernard had experienced in recent weeks, so asked him what had been happening.

  He revealed details of some new material he had picked up a few days earlier in Tewkesbury Abbey, and it sounded interesting.

  ‘Do you know of a Sussex village called Wilmington?’ he asked, concluding his story. ‘There’s a priory there, with a cold, damp crypt.’

  At first I failed to place the name. Wilmington? Wilmington Priory? Yet then I remembered. Of course, it was that Wilmington—the one that gave its name to the Long Man of Wilmington. This is a famous chalk-cut hill figure of a man approximately 230 feet in height, holding in each hand a long staff or spear, marked in outline upon the western slopes of Windover Hill in East Sussex. No one rightly knew its true age or significance, although some scholars believed it to be contemporary with the Bronze Age burial mounds that line the summit of the hill.

  I had visited the Long Man of Wilmington on a couple of occasions and knew there was a priory close to the base of the hill, which I seemed to recall possessed a small museum. I had no idea whether it contained a crypt, but that could easily be checked the following day in Southend Central Library.

  Friday, 10th May. By the time the caretaker came around to throw everyone out of the library, just before seven o’clock, I had been able to piece together much of the story Bernard had been given concerning the so-called Stave of Nizar and its eventual translation to Wilmington Priory.

  The ‘Nizar’, who had seemingly given his name to the gold ceremonial staff, turned out to be Abu Mansur al-Nizar, surnamed al-Mustapha al-Dinillah (meaning ‘the one chosen by

  2. Sketch of the Stave of Nizar from the author’s 1985 diary. God’). He was the eldest son of a Muslim leader, or caliph (from khalifa, meaning ‘successor’ of Muhammad) named Ma’ad al-Mustansir Billah, who ruled as head of the Egyptian Fatimid Dynasty in the years prior to 1095.

  Upon al-Mustansir’s death, a civil war had erupted between the supporters of Nizar and those of his younger brother Ahmad, who had been proclaimed caliph by the appointed regent Malik alAfdal. Nizar was finally caught and imprisoned in Cairo, where he died in 1097. This left Ahmad to rule under the royal name al-Musta’li. It was a reign that lasted just six years, from 1095 through until 1101, his demise coming shortly after the Fatimid Muslims lost Jerusalem to
the European crusading armies at the climax of the First Crusade in 1099.

  It seemed reasonable to conceive of Nizar coming across an ancient Egyptian rod of power, fashioned in the very same country in which he lived. Then, upon his death at the hands of his brother’s supporters in 1097, the rod had been stolen and kept by a Fatimid Muslim until the fall of Jerusalem just two years later.

  Records show that Muslims held captive by the crusaders often bargained for their lives by handing over Arab and Jewish treasures, which then found their way back to Europe, especially France. Perhaps the Stave of Nizar had been among them.

  Turning my attentions to the next piece of the jigsaw— Robert Fitzhamon—I found that in 1100, just one year after the completion of the First Crusade, he was in France participating in battles to quell the baronial uprisings which had been plaguing England’s Norman monarchs. It was during one of these skirmishes, in support of King Henry I, that Fitzhamon had received a head wound, leaving him with mental disorientation, a factor contributing to his eventual death in 1107.

  Once again, it was possible that one of Fitzhamon’s French companions may have brought back the Stave of Nizar to Europe after the First Crusade. Then, as this knight lay mortally wounded on a battlefield in France just one year later in 1100, he had bequeathed this precious item to a fighting companion.

  Next, I attempted to find reference to the ‘half-wit Robert of Montaigne’ and his apparent involvement with Wilmington Priory which, I easily confirmed, had indeed been a French ‘alien’ house. Its mother foundation was the Benedictine abbey of Grestain—Bernard’s ‘Gristaigne’—founded in 1050 by Herluin de Contaville, near a place named Honfleur, on the banks of the Seine.

  Following the Norman Conquest, the manor of Wilmington had been given, along with lands in nearby Pevensey, to Herluin de Contaville’s ‘dim-witted’ son, Robert of Mortain—as the name is more popularly spelt—the half-brother of William the Conqueror. Robert, I found, had fathered two sons—William, his heir, who eventually became the Count of Mortain, and another son named Nigel.