The Elixir of Death

by Bernard Knight

  'Does the way it was cut off tell you anything?' he asked, as the three men crouched over the decapitated head, which lay on its left ear on the earthen floor. Unlike the cathedral priests, the padre seemed to have no qualms about desecrating his place of worship with such an object.

  'It's just a ragged cut, which could have been done with anything-sharp,' opined Gwyn.

  De Wolfe agreed with him. 'The jagged edges are due to the skin wrinkling up as the blade is dragged across it. It was a keen knife, no doubt about it, for between the zigzags the cuts are very clean.'

  'What about the bony part?' persisted Rufus. 'Could a knife cut through that as well?'

  John, still crouched on his haunches, picked up the head, turning it up so that the stump of the neck was uppermost. They peered at the pinkish-white bone, surrounded by beefy muscle.

  'Again, a clean cut, no shattered bone. It's gone through the gristle between the joints of the spine.'

  'So not hacked off with an axe?' grunted the monk, sounding rather disappointed.

  'No, it could have been the same knife as cut through the soft flesh,' growled Gwyn. 'Looks as if the killer knew what he was doing - perhaps he had been a butcher!'

  'You say 'killer', but was this poor fellow dead or alive when his head was cut off?' demanded the bloodthirsty chaplain.

  John shrugged. 'No way of telling, Brother. If he had been still alive, there would have been a fountain of blood from the pipes in his neck - but he was found in a stream, which would have washed most of it away.'

  'And remember, he also had a stab wound to his vitals, which may well have been the cause of his death,' Gwyn reminded them. 'I'd wager his head came off afterwards.'

  John rose to his feet and motioned to his officer to put the remains back into the sack. 'Whichever way it was, he's dead - and he was murdered, so we have to discover who did it. At the moment, only God knows, begging your pardon, Chaplain.'

  They left Brother Rufus to his contemplation of the wicked ways of man and set off on the short journey to Shillingford. An early morning carter had already taken the news from Exeter to the village, and they found the sons and their steward and bailiff waiting anxiously for their arrival. Godfrey and William le Calve had the distressing task of formally confirming that the contents of the sack were indeed the head of their late father and, this done, the coroner suggested that, together with the genitalia, it be reunited with the rest of the body without delay. The surly parish priest was summoned and told to get the sexton and dig up the coffin. An hour later, John accompanied the brothers to the grave-side, where the manor servants joined them in silence as the sexton replaced the head in an approximately correct position, packing it with cloths to hold it in place.

  The priest muttered some dirge in Latin as the coffin lid was nailed back and the mortal remains of the manor-lord were once again lowered into the red soil of Devon. As they turned away from the grave, John again noticed the pale woman standing inconspicuously in the background and guessed that this had been Sir Peter's leman.

  A subdued pair of brothers offered them meat and ale in the hall and de Wolfe sat with them as he tried to squeeze out more information.

  'He had no connection with the cathedral or any of its canons that you know of?'

  Godfrey shook his head sorrowfully. 'None at all. He attended Masses here in our own church, as we all do. But he had no further interest in religion, beyond what is expected of everyone.'

  The old steward, perhaps wiser in the ways of the world than the others, broke his silence with a more profound thought.

  'Perhaps this sacrilege was aimed not at Sir Peter himself, but at the Holy Church in general - some gesture of hatred or contempt?'

  The others mulled this over for a moment.

  'Both he and his father Arnulf had been Crusaders,' said William. 'But that should raise his esteem in the eyes of the Church.'

  'But not in the eyes of Saracens,' observed the steward. John's face swivelled to look at the old greybeard. 'Strange that you should say that, for it hovers temptingly close to certain ideas that I have had myself.'

  Godfrey was scornful of this train of thought. 'Saracens! Crowner, this is Shillingford, about as unlikely a place to expect Turks and Mussulmen as anywhere in England.'

  John was not prepared to share his scraps of information gleaned from the Justiciar, or his theory about the shape of the knife blade, so he let it pass, but he felt that the venerable steward might not be too short of the mark.

  The denizens of the manor had no further information of any help, as no one had come forward to report any unusual happenings or the appearance of strangers in the village. Frustrated once again, the coroner set off for Exeter, arriving there in time to attend two Tuesday hangings, then go home for his dinner.

  On Wednesday, John was determined to make some progress in investigating all these deaths. He resolved to revisit Ringmore and the banks of the Avon.

  'We'll leave first thing in the morning,' he told Gwyn. 'Matilda will carp and gripe again at my absence for a few days, but to hell with her!'

  Even at the Bush that evening, his announcement that he was riding off to the southern coast was received with raised eyebrows on the part of his mistress. He guessed straight away that she suspected that the part of that coastline might embrace Dawlish, so he made a point of emphasising that their path would lie through Buckfast and end at Ringmore, which seemed to dampen Nesta's hovering jealousy.

  By midnight, he was sound asleep in his own bed, dreaming of shapely women, prancing horses and the sound of battles long past.

  The hut that Alexander of Leith entered at the old castle at Bigbury was even worse inside than it appeared from the exterior. There was a fire-pit in the centre which was producing the smoke that he had seen lazily wreathing from under the thatch, but very little else. A rough table and a shelf on the wall held cooking pots and some dishes, as well as a few jars of ale and cider. Some piles of dried bracken in the corners appeared to be all there was in the way of sleeping accommodation. A bench and two milking stools completed the furnishings. The little Scot glared around in indignation.

  'You don't expect us to live in this hovel?' he demanded, in his Gaelic-accented English. The target of his outrage was the man who had waved them into the bailey on their arrival. Raymond de Blois was a tough-looking Frenchman, with the appearance of a soldier but the manners of a gentleman. Of average height, he was lean and wiry, with a long clean-shaven face and short-cropped dark hair. He wore a calf-length tunic of good brown broadcloth, girdled with a heavy belt and diagonal baldric, from which hung a substantial sword and dagger. Alexander had met him before in France and at Prince John's court at Gloucester, and had been impressed by his courage and intelligence.

  Now Raymond grinned at the diminutive alchemist and shook his head.

  'Never fear, my friend, we've got better accommodation for you than this! A couple of loutish servants live in here - they are little better than outlaws. In fact, we encourage that notion, to keep off any curious peasants that may wander this way.'

  He led Alexander outside again. 'I was just sheltering in there, to await your coming,' he explained. 'In fact, I have been waiting for three days, to be sure that I would intercept you, though in the event you were punctual to the dates we discussed in Paris.'

  'What is this place?' asked Alexander, looking around at the overgrown courtyard and the moss-covered stones half hidden in long grass.

  'I am told that it was one of the many castles that were hastily built some fifty years ago, during what the Normans called the 'Anarchy', and later destroyed by their second Henry when he came to the throne.'

  The Scotsman nodded knowingly. Though also a foreigner in England, he had lived here for many years and his wide knowledge of many subjects included some history.

  'I was born during those times, after the first Henry expired and left no male heir after his son died in the White Ship tragedy,' he expounded. 'They say that for almost
twenty years the country was racked by civil war between his daughter Matilda and his nephew Stephen.'

  De Blois shrugged - as a Frenchman, both Normans and the English were his enemies, which was why he was here now, to aid his own King Philip in unseating the present ruler of these islands.

  'The lands hereabouts, including this ruin, belong to Prince John, Count of Mortain, which is why he is able to arrange for our activities to take place here.'

  Alexander looked about him, mystified. 'Am I to set up my crucibles among the weeds and distil my extracts beneath the trees?'

  Raymond grinned and pointed past where Jan the Fleming was patiently holding the bridles of their horses.

  'See beyond the farther palisade - or what remains of it? There is another ruin, but of a much older building.'

  They walked across the bailey and out to the edge of the clearing, past the base of the castle mound. The smaller man now saw an area of tumbled masonry among the trees, nowhere standing higher than himself and swathed in moss and creepers.

  'This is what is left of a Saxon abbey, ruined even before this castle was built. It is said that there was once a village here, abandoned after some pestilence ravaged its inhabitants.' De Blois strode towards the mouldering walls, beckoning Alexander to follow him. Almost entirely hidden beneath a straggling elder bush, a low doorway survived in a fragment of standing masonry that was covered behind by a pile of fallen stones and earth.

  'Come inside, but watch your step. There is a stairway down to the right.'

  Warily, holding the skirt of his long kilt clear of the rubble beneath his feet, the alchemist went through the opening and followed the French knight down a short flight of stone steps built into the thickness of the foundations. It was dark, but at the bottom, yellow light flickered through an arch. Alexander stopped in the doorway and looked with surprise at the sight before him. A wide undercroft, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling supported by thick pillars, stretched away for at least forty paces. He calculated that it must occupy the whole of the original building that once stood above them. The floor was flagged, unevenly in places, but it was better than the usual beaten earth, and though there was a dank smell, the dungeon seemed fairly dry. A fire burned in an open hearth to one side, but the smoke was conducted away up a chimney, which from the colour of its stones and mortar seemed to be a much later addition.

  'This was the crypt of the old abbey,' explained de Blois. 'I am told that there were no coffins found here - it was quite empty when Prince John's men cleaned it up a few months ago and built that fireplace.'

  The little Scotsman turned around slowly, surveying the long chamber, which, in addition to the fire, was lit by a dozen rush-lamps set on brackets around the walls. The wicks floating in their bowls of oil combined to give an acceptable light, once the eyes became accustomed to it. He saw half a dozen straw-filled palliasses along one wall and several tables and benches appeared to offer working surfaces for the paraphernalia of his profession. Alongside the hearth were two small furnaces, now cold, and some alchemical apparatus was set up on another table, with parchments and books on a nearby shelf. All that was missing were occupants.

  'Where are these men I am supposed to work with?' he demanded.

  Raymond shrugged in his Gallic fashion. 'I wish I knew! They are supposed to be labouring away here, in preparation for your coming, but they slipped away three days ago and haven't returned yet.'

  His tone suggested that, whoever he was talking about, they were far from being his favourite people.

  'We obviously sleep down here, by the look of those mattresses,' grumbled Alexander. 'But where do we get our food? There's no sign of any down here, nor in that miserable hut above.'

  'Never fear, those two villeins cook for us in one of the other sheds. We keep a good stock there and they are out hunting and foraging every day,' explained the Frenchman. 'As the Count of Mortain owns the land, there's no fear of them being taken as poachers, so we get plenty of coney, hare and venison. They buy bread in Aveton and we get ale and wine sent in regularly.'

  This allusion to external support sparked another question from the inquisitive Scot. 'This manor-lord I met in Gloucester a month ago - I understood that I was to meet him down here when I arrived?'

  Raymond nodded as they walked towards the fire and sat on one of the benches.

  'So you shall - as soon as you've had a night's rest after your long journey. As these other damned people have vanished, we may as well go tomorrow. It's but a few hours' ride from here to Revelstoke, where Sir Richard has his manor.'

  The coroner and his officer rode off on Thursday morning, feeling strange without their clerk tagging along behind them. They certainly made better time without him, and were at their night's lodging well before the early November dusk fell. This time, they avoided Totnes and went twenty miles down the main high road towards Plymouth, where the Benedictines of Buckfast Abbey offered bed and board to travellers. For a modest donation, they secured a mattress in the large guest hall on the north side of the abbey yard and ate a plain but substantial meal in the lay refectory. Afterwards, they sat in front of the fire with jugs of ale and talked to other travellers for a while, but, weary from the saddle, they soon climbed into the dormer to seek their bags of hay. As they settled down under their cloaks, Gwyn was still thinking of his little friend.

  'If that holy runt Thomas was here, he'd be on his knees in the bloody church half the night, praying that his backside would be less sore on tomorrow's journey!' he muttered to the shape next to him, dimly visible in the gloom.

  'Perhaps I should be doing the same,' grunted the coroner. 'There was a time when I could ride all day and every day for a week and think nothing of it. But we're getting soft in our old age, Gwyn. My arse is aching just coming from Exeter today. Now shut up and get some sleep!'

  The next morning they broke their fast with bread and hot oatmeal gruel, sweetened with the honey for which the monks of Buckfast were famous, then saddled up and rode off. The distance to be covered today was to be rather less, and they reached Ringmore by early afternoon. The bailiff, William Vado, was not overjoyed to see them, as law officers were never very welcome in any manor or hamlet - they usually meant trouble and often more fines. He was civil enough, however, and offered them food and a place near the manor-house fire for the coming night. He shook his head when John asked him whether there was any more news relating to the deaths after the wreck of Thorgils' ship.

  'Nothing at all, Crowner. We've had no more corpses washed up, thanks be to Jesus Christ.' He crossed himself, reminding them again of the absent Thomas. 'The vessel is safe and sound, though,' he added on a more cheerful note. 'She was hauled up the river and beached at the highest tide of the month in a small inlet up near Bigbury. Roped to a couple of trees, she'll be safe there until your shipwright comes to repair her.'

  John offered his gruff thanks to the bailiff for his diligence. 'We'll go and have a look at her tomorrow - I need to give my partner in Exeter some idea of what the repairs might cost.' The talk of ships sparked another thought in his mind.

  'That curragh that was found on the beach - I need to see that, too. Where is it now?'

  William Vado had a hurried conversation with Osbert the reeve, who was hovering behind them as they sat around the fire-pit.

  'It's on our main beach at Challaborough, where we went last time you were here. Some of the fishermen have been using it, for it would be a pity to let it go to waste,' he added defensively.

  'Then I must look at that too, to see if we can tell if it really came from the Mary and Child Jesus. If it did, then it should go back to her as part of her fittings.'

  They decided to go to Challaborough beach before the light faded and made the short journey down the wooded valley to the sea. Once again to their left they saw the rocky shape of Burgh Island, with the tide fully in now, cutting it off from the land. The curragh was pulled up on the beach, upside down alongside the rude huts of the fisherfolk,
and Gwyn, the self-styled marine expert, ambled over to inspect it. The black tarred fabric of the hull seemed sound enough, and when Gwyn and the bailiff turned the light craft over, the ribs and interlacing hazel withies that supported it were undamaged.

  'Anything to show where it came from?' asked John, though well aware that no one there could read, even if there had been a name carved into the flimsy woodwork. Gwyn peered around the inside of the elongated cockleshell and shrugged. 'Only a sort of picture cut into the for'rad thwart,' he announced.

  The coroner pushed forward and looked down at the first of the light planks that braced the curragh from side to side and provided seats for the rowers. In the centre was a crude carving, made with a knife. It was hard to make out at first, but when his eye became more attuned he saw a simple female figure with a wide ring around its head. Underneath was an angular squiggle that, thanks to the patient efforts of both Thomas and a vicar at the cathedral, John was able to recognise as a letter of the alphabet.

  'It's a picture of the Virgin!' he declared with a hint of pride at his literacy. 'With the letter 'M' for Mary under it. So it's definitely from Thorgils' vessel.'

  The bailiff and the reeve looked glum at this, for it meant that their village would lose the use of the curragh before long, but they said nothing and waited for the coroner's next demand.

  'The cargo from the boat - I trust it has been kept safe?'

  Vado nodded, but looked a little uneasy. 'All in the tithe barn, Crowner. '

  'And all intact, I trust?'

  'Two of the kegs were damaged, sir. Brandy-wine began to leak from one, so we did what we could to save some of it in jugs and pitchers. The top of another containing some sort of dried fruit was stove in and spoilt by sea water.'

  John covered up a grin with some face-rubbing and throat-clearing, as he guessed that all the French fruit and some of the wine had vanished into various tofts in the village. He did not begrudge this small loss, as it must have been a bitter disappointment to Ringmore when a law officer turned up to deprive them of the windfall that a wreck usually provided.