The Elixir of Death

by Bernard Knight

  'I'll inspect what's left in the morning. Make sure no more goes astray, bailiff,' he warned.

  Vado, happy that the matter was not being pursued further, led them back up the valley in the fading light. The steep track was deserted, and John asked whether there had been any sightings of strangers since the shipwreck.

  'You said that the curragh was pulled up on Aymer Cove, your other beach to the west,' he growled. 'Whoever came ashore in it must have passed damned near your village.'

  The bailiff shook his head, worried that he was being of little help to this powerful official. 'No one we don't know, sir. In these out-of-the-way parts, we get to know every move our neighbours make. Isn't that so, Osbert?'

  The reeve, who was walking alongside their horses, bobbed his head energetically. 'Haven't seen a stranger these past three-month - and that was only a chapman selling his buttons and needles to the womenfolk.'

  He paused to hawk and spit into the bushes. 'Richard the Saddler said he saw four monks on the road to Bigbury some time ago, but there's naught sinister about that. They were going to St Anne's Chapel, no doubt.'

  De Wolfe looked across at Gwyn, who was riding alongside him.

  'Haven't we heard that before somewhere?'

  His officer nodded his hairy head. 'That old man in Chillingford had the same story, only there were three, not four. But the damned county is awash with priests and monks.'

  The coroner turned back to the reeve. 'Did this saddler say what colour these brothers wore?'

  'They were black monks, he said. He didn't get a close look at them.'

  'Where is this St Anne's Chapel?'

  The bailiff answered. 'About a mile inland, Crowner. It guards a holy well. No proper village, just a few crofts. The road turns back to Bigbury from there.'

  De Wolfe pondered for a moment. 'So why would monks be going to this chapel from the direction of the sea? Surely they'd be coming from inland, if they journeyed from Buckfast or some other Benedictine house?'

  William looked blankly at him and shrugged. 'That I can't tell you, sir. It does seem odd, looking back on it. Maybe the parson has an answer - he's the only one who knows about priests and suchlike.'

  John doubted he would get much help from the surly parish priest, but he stored the information away in his head for further deliberation. They reached the manorhouse, and in spite of his earlier reticence the bailiff organised a good meal of fresh sea-fish fried in butter, with cabbage and turnips. A large jug of strong fortified wine was produced, presumably rescued from the allegedly fractured cask, and by a couple of hours after dark the coroner and his henchman were comfortably drunk and ready to lie down on their hay-bags around the smouldering fire in the hall.

  The rest of the Mary's cargo seemed intact when John surveyed it in the barn the next morning, so his next task was to speak to Richard Saddler, who they found sitting on a stool outside his dwelling next to the alehouse, boring holes in a sheet of thick leather with an awl. The coroner questioned him about the four monks he had seen, but learned little more except that it was about the time that the Dawlish vessel would have been lost. Time and date meant little to the inhabitants of rural villages; they were marked only by dawn and dusk, the Sabbath and saints' days. However, the finding of the curragh and the bodies on the beach provided a memorable marker in the humdrum life of Ring more and the saddler was definite that he had seen the robed and cowled figures two days before that.

  'We must enquire at this chapel place, in case other people have had sight of them,' he told Gwyn as they trotted out of the village an hour later. As expected, the surly Father Walter had been as unhelpful as usual when they called at the church, gruffly saying that he knew nothing of any monks passing through the neighbourhood. Now the reeve was guiding them up to St Anne's chapel and then across to the estuary of the Avon to look at the Mary and Child Jesus.

  They climbed gradually up on to an undulating plateau, the strip-fields around Ringmore giving way to heathland and scattered woods until the track joined another which came north from Bigbury, a village a mile to their right, on the edge of dense forest. At the junction was a small chapel, a square room ten paces long, made of wattle plastered with cob, under a thatched roof. Across the track and down a short lane between scrubby oaks was an enclosed well, which, according to Osbert, was reputed to have curative powers, especially for the eyes.

  'Is there anyone we can ask about these alleged travelling monks?' demanded John. The reeve slid from the horse he had borrowed from the bailiff and went into the chapel, returning with a bow-legged old man in a ragged tunic, his hair as wild as Gwyn's.

  'This is the fellow who looks after the well and the chapel,' said Osbert. 'He lives off the ha'pennies that pilgrims throw into the well as thank-offerings.'

  When the coroner asked whether he had seen four monks in the past couple of weeks, the man surprised John by nodding his head vigorously.

  'Can't recall when, but it was less than a couple of Sundays past,' he wheezed.

  'They came to pray in your chapel or visit the well?' asked John.

  'No, walked right past, sir, turned down Bigbury way.'

  When the coroner tried to get some better description, the old fellow pointed to his red-rimmed eyes, which John now saw were milky with cataracts. 'I can only just make out shapes with these poor things, sir. Dark robes and cowls, that's all I could see.'

  There was no more to be gleaned from the guardian of the well, and they rode off again, de Wolfe thoughtful as he weighed up what little information they had.

  'Is there anything to attract monks to this Bigbury place?' he asked.

  Osbert was scornful. 'If you think Ringmore is of little account, sir, wait until you see Bigbury! Nothing there except a church, an alehouse and a handful of crofts. They say it was once bigger, but was hit by a pestilence long ago. It doesn't belong to the same manor as Ringmore, it's on Prince John's land, though it's leased to Giffard at Aveton.'

  Here was another snippet of information that de Wolfe stored away in his head, but now Gwyn was interrogating the reeve. 'Where does this track go beyond Bigbury?'

  'Nowhere, really. It ends up back at the headland opposite Burgh Island, unless you want to turn off and go down to the river's edge. From there you can go right up to Aveton, when the tide is out.'

  The Cornishman looked across at his master. 'So why did four monks come down here, into the back of beyond?'

  John shared his puzzlement, but had no suggestions as to an answer. By now they were riding through more heavily wooded country and eventually came downhill into the hamlet of Bigbury, which as Osbert had said, was little more than a small cluster of dwellings around a small church and an alehouse. They stopped to slake their thirst with some surprisingly good cider and seek out more information. There was plenty of the former, but none of the latter. Though they questioned the garrulous ale-wife and half a dozen villagers, no one owned to having seen any monks at all, at any time.

  'Damned strange, that!' grunted Gwyn. 'The old fellow sees them coming down the road from that chapel, but they never arrive here. There's no way that four black monks could walk through here unseen!'

  De Wolfe asked whether there was anywhere they could have gone in between, given the heavily-wooded country thereabouts.

  'Nothing there, Crowner,' said the landlady emphatically. 'Only a ruin in the forest that used to be a priory in my great-grandfather's time. Just ghosts and outlaws there these days - not a place to go unless you have to!'

  'If it was a priory, maybe these men were on some kind of pilgrimage?' suggested Osbert.

  It was as good an answer as any other, and with a grunt the coroner upended his pot of cider and motioned to the other two for them to prepare to carry on with the journey. Half an hour later they were standing on the firm sand of the Avon estuary, well over a mile up from the sea, looking at the hull of Thorgils' boat. It was sitting upright in a shallow pool of water in a little bay at the side of the sinuous
upper reaches of the river, lashed firmly by ropes to the trunks of two trees growing right on the edge of the bank.

  John left Gwyn to study the vessel, and he soon reported that there was no damage to the stout wooden hull and all that seemed necessary was a new mast, rigging and sail, as well as a steering oar.

  'The men bailed her out with leather buckets and now when the tide's in, she floats as tidy as she ever did,' reported Osbert proudly. 'Come the spring, you'll be able to sail her out of here to wherever you wish.'

  With nothing more he could think of investigating, the coroner and his officer said farewell to the reeve, who turned for home, while they headed up the track that followed the river bank up to Aveton at the head of the estuary. From here they made for Totnes and a night's rest, before the last lap the next day home to Exeter, where John glumly expected the usual black looks from his wife for yet again being absent for several days.

  CHAPTER SIX

  In which Crowner John visits his brother-in-law

  Having arrived home on Sunday, the following week began quietly once again - especially in Martin's Lane, where there was almost dead silence in the de Wolfe household, as Matilda did her best to ignore her husband. Even Tuesday's hangings were a poorly attended occasion, and it was late that afternoon, an hour before curfew closed the city gates at dusk, that the returning sheriff's party trotted up to Rougemont Castle.

  Amid shouts of welcome, cries of relief from the soldiers' families and a general tumult in the inner bailey, the dusty cavalcade dismounted and went their various ways. John and his officer clattered down their stairway and emerged just in time to meet the archdeacon and his nephew as they came across to the gatehouse. Thomas looked much the same, though there was a smug expression on his pinched face as he punched Gwyn on his brawny arm and pointed back at his borrowed horse.

  'The fellow is almost as proud of that as he is of regaining his priesthood!' said John de Alençon, with a smile. Gwyn almost gaped as he looked across the courtyard and saw that Thomas now had a regular saddle instead of the female abomination that had so irked the Cornishman.

  'You're a man at last!' he boomed, picking the clerk up from the ground and whirling him around in affectionate clowning.

  De Wolfe saw the sheriff beckoning to him and suggested that they all adjourn to the keep for refreshment and to hear the news. In the crowded hall, Henry de Furnellis was welcomed back by his clerks, who began waving parchments at him. Ignoring them, the sheriff ambled to a table near the hearth and yelled for food and drink. As the travellers stretched and shrugged off their riding cloaks, the story of their week-long trip to Winchester unfolded. The archdeacon began by describing Thomas's restoration to his beloved Church, the little man almost wriggling with mixed delight and embarrassment.

  'I have to admit that the bishop was magnanimous in his sermon,' said John de Alençon. 'He virtually apologised on behalf of the cathedral, its Chapter and the Consistory Court and welcomed Thomas back into the fold without reservation.'

  Gwyn, standing behind the clerk as befitted his lower station in the presence of the sheriff and coroner, slapped his friend on the back, spilling the glass of wine he was clutching. 'It made a man of him, sirs! He even rides a horse like one now!'

  The merriment and gossip went on for an hour, as the travellers unwound after almost three days on the road. Then one by one, they drifted away, the archdeacon going back to Canon's Row with Thomas, after the radiant clerk promised to meet them at the Bush later to give them a more detailed account of his visit to Winchester. The sheriff motioned to de Wolfe to come with him to his chamber and, over a flask of good wine, they sat at his table and discussed more official matters.

  'I saw Hubert Waiter at the castle after I delivered the farm to those exchequer vultures,' said Henry. 'He offered his felicitations to you and a little more information for both of us.'

  'About this Prince John business?' queried the coroner. De Furnellis nodded his grey head. 'It seems that some more intelligence has come from the King's spies in France. Not much, but enough to confirm that dirty work is afoot to bolster the Count of Mortain's ambitions once again.'

  He stopped for a long draught of red wine. 'There's no doubt that some scheme is being hatched in England and the whisper is that it is both related to money and that it is at least in part centred in a western county.'

  'That could mean Gloucestershire,' said John. 'Since our king was unwise enough to restore some of the Prince's possessions, Gloucester has been his favoured abode when he is in England.'

  Henry shrugged his tired shoulders. 'It could be, but it could also be down this way. Gloucestershire is not what most men think of when 'the west' is mentioned.'

  'Did the Justiciar have anything else to tell us?'

  'An odd thing, John - very odd. He said that these agents on the Seine also had wind of some Levantine involvement in this plot.'

  'Levantine? Did he mean Turkish or Saracen or what?' demanded de Wolfe.

  'The word Saracen was not used, it seems. He said that Mussulmen were involved - but that could mean anyone east of Constantinople.'

  The two men debated these obscure warnings for a while, but no enlightenment came. John told the sheriff of the sacrilegious exhibition of Peter le Calve's head in the cathedral and his lack of any leads about the perpetrators. Henry shook his head sadly at this further news about le Calve's hideous death.

  'He deserved a more fitting end than that. He was a Crusader himself, and his father Arnulf fought with that bastard de Revelle's father in Outremer - a far better man than his son has turned out to be.'

  John sighed at the thought that now occurred to him. 'With this talk of the possible involvement of Moors - and the fact that Arnulf le Calve was out there with old de Revelle - it may be that I need to talk to Richard to see if he recollects any reason why the son of his father's friend might have been a target.'

  De Furnellis stared doubtfully at John over the rim of his cup.

  'That's a bit far fetched, John! It happened in Shillingford, for God's sake! A long way from Acre or Ascalon, both in distance and time.'

  'I have to chase every hare that I can think of, Henry, as I've nothing else to go on.'

  The sheriff acknowledged John's frustration. 'Rather you than me, for the less I see of Richard de Revelle, the better I'll be pleased. But if you think something may come of it, by all means pursue whatever lead you may have.'

  When de Wolfe went home for his supper, he followed his usual practice of trying to make conversation with his wife, if only to salve his own conscience. When he told her that he was thinking of travelling to Revelstoke to see her brother, and explained the reason, he expected her usual carping complaints about his being away from home yet again. To his considerable surprise, she responded by saying that she would accompany him to her brother's manor, as she had not seen him for a considerable time.

  'The western end of the county is a long ride for a lady,' he responded, with genuine concern for her comfort. It was the wrong thing to say, for she bridled and turned the comment against him.

  'I suppose I'm not wanted once again,' she snapped. 'Perhaps you intend travelling via Dawlish!'

  Holding his temper in check with an effort, John grunted that she was very welcome to go with him and suggested that they set out in two days' time, on Thursday. 'I hope the weather will be kind to us. It is now November, but we should miss the first snows, if we keep clear of Dartmoor.'

  Once the notion had seized her interest, Matilda became almost civil, deciding what kirtles and mantles she should command Lucille to get ready. 'The girl must accompany us, of course,' she said firmly. 'No lady can travel without her maid beside her.'

  John's heart sank. He could see this trip turning into a caravan of packhorses piled with feminine accoutrements.

  'My officer and clerk will have to ride with us, of course,' he countered, hoping that Matilda's aversion to both Gwyn and Thomas might dissuade her from coming. He was out of
luck, as the idea had now become so fixed in her mind that it seemed she would welcome even Satan himself on the journey.

  'I suppose we could do with that Cornish lout as a guard,' she said loftily. 'He might be of some use in keeping off outlaws and footpads.'

  Matilda retired early, announcing that she needed to sort out her gowns with Lucille and get extra rest in preparation for the rigours of the journey, so John was able to give Brutus his evening walk without waiting too long. As always, the dog took him to the Bush Inn, and John glumly related this latest complication to his friends in the tavern.

  'I'll be stuck with my dear wife for at least five days, unless I can persuade her to stay with her brother for a while and return without her,' he muttered.

  'Why does she want to go to see her brother?' asked Gwyn, who viewed with horror the prospect of being near Matilda for such a long time. 'I thought she had fallen out with him after his downfall.'

  'It'll be nice for you, John!' said Nesta, sarcastically. 'A second honeymoon, you might say.' Since John had reported the widowhood of Hilda and announced his intention of taking her into partnership with Hugh de Relaga, Nesta was finding it hard to hide her jealousy. He felt wounded by this, as only once or twice had his thoughts strayed to the possibility of reviving his liaison with the blonde Saxon, and he had done nothing to nudge such thoughts towards reality.

  Thomas, too, was unhappy about the thought of riding for days in close proximity to the master's wife, who made no effort to hide her contempt for him.

  'Do you really need me, Crowner?', he pleaded. 'It's not as if this was an inquest or an investigation of a death, where I would be required to take down a record.'

  John, mindful of his clerk's recent long ordeal on a horse, relented and said that he could stay in Exeter, at which Thomas's euphoria returned in full measure. He regaled his friends with a full account of his adventures in Hampshire and the glorious moments when the Bishop of Winchester brought him back into the bosom of his beloved Church. Nesta listened avidly, her eyes glistening with tears as Thomas told how even his parents, whom he had not seen for four years, came to the cathedral to witness his restoration. His father was a minor knight with a lease on a small manor five miles from the city and had severed all connection with his son when his alleged misdemeanour became known. Now they were reconciled and Thomas's contentment was complete.