The Elixir of Death

by Bernard Knight

  Gwyn was still comforting Hilda, but he gestured to the brawny blacksmith to drag the four corpses into one of the huts. The man pulled the three Saracens unceremoniously by their heels into the kitchen hut, still strewn with the hay that was to have started the conflagration that would burn their captives alive. Their turbans had come off in the grass, revealing lank black hair coiled into plaits. When Thomas had finished shriving the Frenchman, the smith was more circumspect in handling his corpse, fetching a horse blanket from the stable. He wrapped it around de Blois to smother the blood, then lifted it into his arms and staggered back to the stable with it.

  For the moment, de Wolfe's priority was the well-being of the two women, his wife and his former mistress. As the fire of conflict died down and his mind began to function more coolly, he wondered how to manage this matter of Matilda and Hilda. He was aware that his wife knew the identity of the blonde woman, and in view of her caustic sarcasm and constant hostility over the past few years, he thought it best to separate them as soon as possible. He laid a hand on his brother-in-law's shoulder.

  'Richard, there is much to be explained about this sad affair, but I feel that your sister needs rest and the solace of your home and wife until she is recovered.'

  He was not being deliberately sarcastic in his allusion to the Lady Eleanor, though he was well aware that the two wives did not enjoy very cordial relations. 'Your manor is not that far distant and I have already sent Matilda's maid Lucille back there. She also had a bad experience when those bastards dragged Matilda from the chapel, so the bailiff of Ringmore has taken her to Revelstoke, where she can care now for Matilda's needs.'

  He wondered what had happened to the rescue party he had ordered William Vado to rouse from Revelstoke - there had been no sign of them, though admittedly events had moved very fast that afternoon.

  Richard readily agreed, as he felt it would give him more time to think up some credible cover story. His self-confidence was returning quickly, and he solicitously led his sister across the bailey, to where several horses were tethered to a rail outside the third hut, used as a stable.

  John was wondering what to do about Hilda, when his wife stopped dead and spoke rationally for the first time. All traces of her recent well-justified hysteria seemed to have vanished.

  'Hilda must come to Revelstoke with us!' she announced firmly. 'She has been kind to me and I cannot leave her cast adrift here.'

  John was astonished at this change of heart by Matilda, but he was wise enough to conceal it. One problem was that none of the horses had side-saddles, but Hilda, rapidly recovering from shock herself, solved the problem by tearing the skirt of her kirtle up the front as far as her knees and accepting Gwyn's help to mount one of the smaller rounseys. De Wolfe experienced further astonishment when Matilda, after one look at the woman from Dawlish, bent down and did the same to her own gown, which John felt was akin to sacrilege, given the way his wife usually worshipped her garments. Almost too hastily, Richard de Revelle helped her into the saddle of another palfrey and, climbing on to his own horse, on which he had arrived, hurried the two women off along the path back to the distant road.

  'I shall follow you shortly!' de Wolfe called after him. 'I need to explore this den of murderers first.'

  He turned first to Alexander, who stood uncertainly in the midst of all this activity. 'Now, sir, what's been going on here?'

  'Nothing but my art and my science, Sir John!' replied the Scot, evasively. 'I was employed by this knight who now lies dead, to come from Bristol with my assistant, to join with another alchemist in attempting to complete my life's work, the preparation of the Elixir of Life.'

  'You expect me to believe that?' snapped John, sarcastically.

  'It is the truth, Crowner! I was deceived, for this Turk was an impostor!'

  'Who was this knight?' demanded de Wolfe.

  'His name was Raymond de Blois. I know almost nothing about him, he was very secretive. He sought me out in Bristol and offered me a sum I could hardly refuse to meet with an alchemist from the Orient - one he alleged was renowned for his expertise, as are many Arabic philosophers. He claimed to have met him in Outremer, when he was there as a Crusader. This Nizam turned out to be a brazen sham, but it took me a week or two to discover that.'

  'Why should this de Blois give you money for such an unlikely enterprise, eh?'

  Alexander shrugged. 'Various claims have been made for the discovery of the elixir - I have come very near it myself. Any man who succeeds would rapidly become rich beyond any imagining!'

  De Wolfe regarded the Scot with a stony stare, unconvinced by his tale.

  'God's guts, man, do you expect me to believe that some unknown knight hires a Scottish alchemist to work with three bloody Arabs in England, to discover a potion to give everlasting life? And why in a secret hideout like this? Do you take me for a fool?'

  The quick-wined Scot had a ready answer. 'There is a simple explanation, Crowner. As I have indicated, such an elixir would be worth a fortune, which is why Sir Raymond sought to acquire it. Rivals would kill for its secret - as they have done in the past - so absolute secrecy is essential to avoid the theft, of the formula!'

  He shook his bulbous head sadly. 'Unfortunately, these Mussulmen tricked de Blois into giving them a great deal of money, though they were charlatans!'

  John glared suspiciously at the little man. 'Are you trying to tell me that he brings them across the Channel, lets them slaughter a whole ship's crew to preserve their secret, just to conduct some half-magical rituals?'

  Alexander shrugged. 'I know nothing of how they came here, sir! I just jogged in on a horse with my manservant. They were already here long before I arrived.'

  Still unconvinced, John ordered Alexander to show him the underground laboratory in the crypt of the old priory. When they reached the bottom of the steps, he was at least reassured that some of the Scotsman's blather was true. With Gwyn and Thomas at his side, he looked in mystification at the flasks, crucibles, alembics and furnaces that cluttered the benches around the hearth.

  He turned to his clerk. 'You are the one with most learning, Thomas! What do you make of all this?

  The small priest had been peering with interest at the assortment of apparatus, especially several large parchment folios. 'It is certainly the paraphernalia of alchemy, master! The subject is foreign to me, but those books are full of the symbolism and cabbalistic texts of that art.'

  'Of course,' said Alexander, somewhat huffily. 'I am well known among the community of alchemists, especially in relation to the elixir - which is why this Sir Raymond sought me out in Bristol.'

  De Wolfe looked into the two storerooms where the prisoners had been kept. 'So how did all this apparatus appear here?' he demanded. 'Don't try to tell me that these Saracens brought it by sea, for they had to row ashore in a little curragh after the swine had slain the ship's crew! And where did your food and their horses come from? Did they make them by magic in their crucibles?'

  Alexander shrugged, still looking innocent. 'It was all here when I came, Crowner. I presumed that de Blois arranged it all secretly. It was none of my business, though if I had known how it was to turn out, I would never have left Bristol, not for all the gold in Christendom!'

  This expression was an unfortunate slip of the tongue if Alexander wished to keep the coroner well away from the truth. John seized upon it immediately.

  'Gold? Is that not also of prime interest to alchemists?' he snapped. 'My learned clerk here tells me that seeking this fabled elixir of yours is closely allied to the search for creating gold from base matter!'

  The Scot looked sheepish, but again did his best to wriggle out of a difficult situation.

  'Some say that, sir, but I do not believe it to be true,' he lied. He waved a hand around the gloomy crypt, where the rush-lights were beginning to gutter and fade away. 'Look around here. You'll not find any gold, unless those scheming Arabs had some of their own.'

  De Wolfe ignored
the invitation and prodded the alchemist towards the stairs, from where they emerged into the twilight of the fading day. The blacksmith had relit the fallen pitch brand and stuck it in the fork of a bush, so that there was some illumination of the area in front of the huts. As they left the priory ruins, John had more questions for the hapless alchemist.

  'You come from Bristol? You are sure that it is not Gloucester?'

  On moderately safe ground here, Alexander contrived to look surprised as he lied once again. 'Gloucester? I have never set foot in the place.'

  'So you have never had any dealing with the Count of Mortain or any of his retainers?'

  This was dangerous territory, and for once Alexander was glad that Jan the Fleming had no tongue, for otherwise he might already have told a different tale to this sharp, grim law officer. He shook his head vigorously.

  'Prince John? I am but a lowly philosopher, sir. I do not mix with people in such exalted circles. I know my place.'

  'In that case, how did you come to be here with Sir Richard de Revelle, a knight and former sheriff of this county?' demanded the coroner.

  Thinking quickly, the little Scotsman came up with an answer, and only hoped that de Revelle would tell the same story. 'I do not know him in any real sense, Crowner! , he answered gravely. 'He seems to have been a friend of this poor man who lies dead, Raymond de Blois.'

  He stopped and assumed an air of sudden inspiration. 'I suspect they were business partners in trying to obtain the priceless Elixir of Life. Maybe it was he who provided everything here. This was his second visit to see de Blois and to try to get those deceitful Turks to achieve some results.'

  De Wolfe rasped a hand over his stubble. The story was becoming more plausible as the idea of Richard becoming involved in any dubious scheme that would make him even richer was not difficult to believe.

  By now they had reached the kitchen shed, where the faithful blacksmith was standing guard, still grasping his great hammer. Gwyn stuck his head through the doorway and looked down at the three white-clad corpses.

  'What are we going to do about these devils?' he growled.

  The sight of the bodies reminded John of something that until now had been driven from his mind by the urgency and confusion of the past half-hour.

  'This bastard you called Nizam, the leader of this gang,' he rasped. 'Why did he suddenly keel over like that? I was looking forward to spitting him on my sword!' Gwyn decided not to remind him that Nizam had a knife at Richard's throat at that precise moment and Alexander, with a trace of pride, answered the coroner. 'That was my doing! Though it was a close thing, as I had no means of telling when and how completely they would finish that mess they called food.'

  John's black brows came together in puzzlement. 'What the hell are you talking about?'

  'When they went chasing my man Jan, I took the opportunity to dose their food with a lethal concoction that I prepared for such an eventuality. It would have killed them all eventually, but Abdul and Malik came to a more violent end before it could work upon their systems!'

  De Wolfe and Gwyn stared at the weird Scot with more respect.

  'What was the stuff you gave them, eh?' demanded Gwyn.

  Alexander grinned, his impish face creasing into a knowing smile.

  'Among the many experiments I have made seeking the elixir, I had many failures. Some of them dropped rats and cats dead on the spot, others had a delayed action. One batch of the liquid I accidentally proved to be effective on a human, though he was a condemned prisoner,' he added nonchalantly. 'I made up a small vial of that one' yesterday and kept it hidden in case I had use for it.'

  Gwyn roared with laughter and slapped the alchemist on the back.

  'Remind me never to eat or drink in your company, old man!' he boomed.

  De Wolfe seemed less amused and returned to the problem in hand.

  'The Christian knight deserves a proper burial, for he was a brave man, trying to attack those bastards with his hands tied behind his back.'

  Thomas crossed himself piously as he agreed and made a suggestion.

  'If he was a friend of Sir Richard, then perhaps he should attend to his last rites. He may know who his relatives are and could inform them of his death.'

  De Wolfe nodded. 'I will tax him with it when later we go across to Revelstoke. But what about these infidels?'

  'Are you going to hold an inquest?' asked Gwyn, his doubtful tone suggesting that it would be a waste of effort.

  John considered the matter for a long moment. His dogged adherence to orders which had always made him such a staunch follower of King Richard, inclined him to stick to the rules and hold an inquiry on the spot into the four deaths. But common sense was telling him that these were all foreigners and non-Christians, who seemed totally outside the jurisdiction of the Crown. What was the point of sticking to the established routines of First Finder and Presentment of Englishry - and what possible jury could he empanel that would be of the slightest use? Come to think of it, the First Finder was John himself, as much as any of the others present.

  The whole process seemed futile, and the ramifications regarding this little alchemist, his dumb servant - and even Richard, Matilda and Hilda - were likely to lead to complications that none of them would welcome. Hilda had stabbed a man to death, and though it seemed wholly justified in the heat of the moment, if the event was recorded on Thomas's rolls, the justices would have to haul her before the next session of the Eyre, with all the attendant publicity throughout the county. Furthermore, he had no desire to have his own wife embroiled in any legal proceedings and suffer the malicious gossip of her acquaintances in Exeter.

  He made up his mind, not without some misgivings. 'To hell with it. There's nothing to be gained by probing this open sore!' he growled. 'I must tell the sheriff and Justiciar something, if only to explain the deaths at Shillingford and of the crew of Thorgils' vessel. But I will trim the truth to sensible proportions.'

  'So what are we to do with these cadavers?' persisted Gwyn.

  'Have you searched them? Maybe they carry something that shows who they were and where they came from.'

  The blacksmith, who had stood guard while the others were in the crypt, pointed to some objects on the ground near his feet.

  'I went through their clothing, but apart from that gold chain and three wicked knives, there was nothing, apart from these little pouches.'

  He bent and handed over some small envelopes of soft leather, inside which were lumps of a dark, brittle substance and some grimy powder.

  Thomas sniffed warily at one. 'This is some kind of aromatic herb, no doubt an exotic drug,' he declared. They all had a sniff at it, but were none the wiser, although Gwyn said it reminded him of the souk in Jaffa.

  'Let's show it to that fat priest in Rougemont,' he suggested. 'Brother Rufus seems to know a lot about the seedier side of life in the Holy Land!'

  'But what are we to do with these corpses?' Thomas repeated Gwyn's question, anxious to get away from this dark and forbidding place.

  De Wolfe put his head inside the doorway again and looked at the still figures and the pile of hay.

  'The sods were going to burn my wife and my woman alive in here, God curse their evil souls!' he said harshly. 'Let them go the same way!' He strode to the stunted bush and pulled the guttering pitch brand free of its bare branches. With a contemptuous toss, he flung it through the door on to the pile of hay and shoved the rickety door shut. They waited until John was satisfied that the flames were taking hold, and as soon as smoke started to seep through the many gaps in the planking and the thatch, he picked up Nizam's golden chain and crescent moon and beckoned to the others to move away towards the stables and their horses.

  Alexander stood uncertainly by his mare. 'This is my steed and the pony belongs to the dumb fellow,' he said tentatively. 'I am fond of the big fool. I would like to see that he gets to Totnes very soon, to have an apothecary tend his wound.'

  De Wolfe, having already commi
tted himself to bending the rules, waved a dismissive hand at the little Scotsman.

  'You should find him at the alehouse in Bigbury. Now make yourself scarce and forget you ever had the greedy misfortune ever to set foot in Devon. Get yourself back to Bristol and keep out of everyone's sight, especially law officers!'

  Gratefully, Alexander took the hint and began to thank the coroner profusely. John ignored him, as he gave his own thanks to the blacksmith for his steadfast help. The smith offered to show the alchemist the way back to the village and, throwing a leg over the pony, led him off at a trot along the pathway.

  De Wolfe and his two companions turned back to watch the kitchen hut, which was now well ablaze. Thick grey smoke belched up from under the eaves into the evening sky and flames began issuing through the dilapidated thatch. There was a rank smell of burning vegetation, mixed with another odour - that of scorching flesh. Suddenly the roof fell in amid a great geyser of sparks that shot up into the air, and within moments the walls had caved in and the hut was converted into a blazing bonfire.

  'That's the end of those swine,' said Gwyn with satisfaction. 'Though nothing can repay them for such vicious cruelty.'

  Their own horses were still back in the village, so they took the spare ones left by the inhabitants of the camp to ride around to Bigbury. A moon had risen and, aided by the last streak of daylight in the western sky, they followed the path back to the road that joined St Anne's Chapel to the village. Just before the junction, they came across further evidence of the Turks' murderous activities. At the side of the path were two bodies, each with a cross-bow bolt in the back. They were lying face down alongside a dead campfire, and some pieces of bread near by suggested that they had been shot while eating their meal. Each wore a jerkin carrying the insignia of a blackbird on a green ground.

  'That's de Revelle's device,' said Gwyn, turning the bodies over to look at their faces, as Thomas dropped alongside them to murmur his compassionate absolutions. His return to the priesthood was getting plenty of practice, if only in shriving the dead.