The Elixir of Death (3 page)

'Not this far down-channel, now that we're well into the autumn,' agreed his henchman, a huge disheveled Cornishman astride a large brown mare. Gwyn of Polruan had ginger hair poking from under his shabby leather hood and a bushy moustache of the same colour hanging down on either side of his mouth. All were damp from the spray and fitful rain that half a gale was hurling at them from the west, under dark clouds that scudded across the afternoon sky.
 

'Are you sure that's Thorgils' vessel, Crowner?' asked the thin figure on the pony, as he pulled alongside them. Thomas de Peyne was the coroner's clerk, his sallow face looking as miserable as the Dartmoor pony on which he sat side-saddle like a woman.
 

'Of course I'm not sure!' snapped Sir John de Wolfe.
 

His meagre patience was worn even thinner by almost two days' riding from Devon's county town. 'But the bailiff claimed that it was - and I see no reason to doubt him.'
 

Gwyn, having been a fisherman farther down the coast before he became Sir John's bodyguard, considered himself an expert on things maritime. At least he knew more than the other two, and now he pointed with an air of authority down to the mouth of the river, where the low tide had exposed a broad expanse of sand. It lay about a quarter of a mile below them, beyond the steep slope of coarse grass that ran down to the rocks at the water's edge.
 

'That cog is just like Thorgils', though it's too far away to see any details,' he declared. 'But it could well be the
Mary and Child Jesus
. '
 

At these holy words, Thomas de Peyne crossed himself reverently, as he did many times a day. 'That bailiff said that some of the crew have perished, but we must hope that God decreed that our friend was not one of them,' he piped, his squeaky voice contrasting with the gruff tones of his companions.
 

They looked down through the rain to the beach at the foot of the bluff where they now sat on their weary horses. The hull of the boat lay on its side, its broken mast digging into the sand. The heavy surf had pushed it up to the high-water mark, only a few yards from the foot of the low cliffs.
 

Just as well there are no spring tides at this time of the month,' bellowed Gwyn above the wind. 'Otherwise she would have been battered to pieces on those rocks.'
 

The coroner grunted, his favourite form of reply, and continued to study the vista below. He always liked to get any new scene firmly fixed in his mind before speculating on what might have happened. In front of him, a stretch of sand a few hundred paces wide joined the mainland to an island, which was now accessible across the beach until the tide rose again. It was only a few acres in extent, the rocky base rising to a low hill covered with sparse turf. On top of it was a stone hut, hunkered down against the gales that so often threatened to tear it from the small islet.
 

To his right, the southern coastline of Devon stretched far away in the direction of Plymouth, the cliffs visible for miles between the squalls of driving rain. This whole coast, from Dartmouth sixteen miles behind them, right down to Cornwall, was indented by a series of fjord-like river valleys that cut into the coastal plain that lay below Dartmoor. Below him to his left was the mouth of one of these, the River Avon, whose narrow vale penetrated deeply into the lonely countryside. A few villages were dotted among the heathland that was all that could survive the frequent Atlantic gales - only in the sheltered dales were there woods and cultivation.
 

At high tide, the winding valley of the Avon was flooded for several miles inland, but now the estuary was almost all sand. The river made a final double bend before it flowed across the wide beach into the sea, between St Michael de la Burgh Island and a low headland on the southern side. They had approached on a track from the north and the wreck now lay below them, driven ashore by the westerly wind almost on to the rocks of the promontory opposite the island. De Wolfe wondered whether the bodies had been found on the same beach.
 

'Where do we find this bailiff fellow, Crowner?' Gwyn's voice broke into John's reverie and made him suddenly aware of being wet, cold and hungry. Though he and Gwyn had suffered far worse conditions over the years in campaigns stretching from Ireland to Palestine, there was something uniquely depressing about the bone chilling damp of a Devonshire autumn.
 

'A fire, some food and a warm place to sleep would be more than welcome,' Thomas piped longingly, as if reading his master's thoughts.
 

De Wolfe stared down once more at the derelict vessel, abandoned on its desolate beach. 'No point in going down there now - it'll be dark in an hour or so,' he grunted. 'We'll come back in the morning, after we've seen these corpses.'
 

Pulling his horse's head around, belatedly he answered Gwyn's question before moving off along the ridge. 'The bailiff said he lived in Ringmore. That's the manor about a mile west of here, inland from the sea.'
 

'We should have made the bastard come with us,' grumbled Gwyn. 'It was hard enough finding this damned place, not having someone local to guide us.'
 

'The poor fellow said he had to hurry back home, as his wife was in childbed!' objected Thomas. His compassion was mixed with his usual desire to contradict everything said by his burly colleague.
 

The bailiff of Ringmore, one William Vado, had arrived at the coroner's chamber in the gatehouse of Exeter's Rougemont Castle early the previous morning. He had ridden the thirty-five miles in a day and a half, forcing the pace to carry news that had the coroner and his two men saddled up within the hour. They stayed that night in Totnes Castle, the bailiff having parted from them earlier to hurry home to his wife. By late afternoon of the following short November day, they had reached the place overlooking the River Avon that Vado had described.
 

Now John de Wolfe led the way towards Ringmore across the undulating heath land behind the cliffs. It was deserted apart from some scraggy sheep and a few goats lurking among the bracken and stunted gorse bushes bent over by the prevailing winds. There were only sheep tracks to follow, and John saw that down to his left was another smaller beach at the end of a valley between the cliffs, with a few ramshackle fishermen's huts above the water's edge. The only guides they had to these parts were some instructions offered by the bailiff, together with a rough sketch map hastily drawn on a scrap of parchment by the steward at Totnes Castle.
 

They crossed this valley higher up and a few minutes later reached the head of yet another glen, where a small stream cut its way down to the sea. Here a lonely village nestled in the valley where, protected from the worst of the winds, trees softened the landscape and some strip fields backed on to the dwellings. Ringmore was little more than a collection of tofts and crofts around a tiny Saxon church. Below it on the slope was a large tithe barn and a fortified house within a rectangular wooden stockade. The cottages were all built either of lime-washed cob on wooden frames or of weathered timber, with roofs of thatch or turf.
 

'Not much of a place, is it!' grumbled Gwyn, who, though born in Polruan, an equally undistinguished fishing village at the mouth of the Fowey river, had adopted the airs of a city dweller after twenty years as a largely absentee citizen of Exeter.
 

'As long as they've got somewhere with a sound roof and a fire to dry ourselves by, I don't care what it looks like!' whined little Thomas, his thin shoulders shivering under the threadbare black cloak that enveloped him. He wore a shabby pilgrim's hat and his pallid, thin face peered out miserably from under the wide, floppy brim.
 

John let his old warhorse Odin pick his way carefully down the slippery rutted track that served as the village street, heading for the larger house that lay inside the palisade of old stakes.
 

'Does a manor-lord actually live in this God-forsaken place?' grunted Gwyn, looking around at the humble dwellings, most of which were wattle-and-daub huts.
 

The coroner shook his head, drops of water flicking off his dark, beetling eyebrows. 'The land belongs to Totnes, that's why the steward there could draw us a map. But someone must have ruled here years ago for there to be a manor-house, poor though it looks.'
 

It turned out that the bailiff now occupied the old place, using it as his base for looking after several villages hereabouts that belonged to the lord of Totnes. This was a legacy from the days of the Conqueror, who gave many parcels of land in this area to his supporter Judhael, who built the castle at Totnes to subdue the local Saxons and Celts.
 

They rode up to the gate in the stockade and found William Vado hurrying out to meet them in the gathering dusk. He was a stocky fellow of about thirty years, with a square face, a bulbous nose and lank yellow hair that was a legacy from his Saxon mother. He wore a thigh-length tunic of coarse brown serge, clinched with a wide leather belt. Cross-gartered breeches and wooden-soled boots clothed his lower half.
 

William waved to a couple of skinny lads who emerged from a barn inside the compound and they hurried forward to take the bridles of the visitors' horses.
 

'You found us, then, Crowner?' he asked in a thick local accent. 'Come inside and get some food and drink inside you. '
 

It was the more sympathetic Thomas who thought of asking after his wife, as they all dismounted and trudged through the mire of the bailey towards the old manor house.
 

'She's well, thank you,' answered William Vado. 'A girl again, I'm afraid. Another useless mouth to feed.' He sounded bitter, and they soon learned that his wife had had seven previous children, five of which had died in infancy, leaving two other girls alive.
 

John looked about him with interest as they crossed the yard and climbed a few steps to the house, for this was one of the original manors that dated back to the early years of the Norman invasion, now well over a century earlier. It was a square, single-storeyed block, built of massive oak timbers on top of a masonry undercroft, with a stone-slabbed roof as a safeguard against fire-arrows. The interior was almost all taken up by the hall, but two rooms had been partitioned off for the family, secure behind a pair of stout iron-banded doors. These remote coastal villages were occasionally ravaged by pirates who came ashore to rape, pillage and replenish their food and fresh water - not only French privateers, but men from as far afield as the Mediterranean.
 

The hall was lit by unglazed slit windows, through which the fading daylight dimly penetrated. A large firepit occupied the centre of the hall, ringed with whitewashed stones outside a circle of baked clay. The smoke from the heap of burning logs wafted upwards before spreading out to escape through the slits beneath the roof timbers, though some of it circulated back down again to irritate the eyes and throats of the dozen or so people scattered about the hall.
 

'We can only offer you a place to sleep on the rushes,' said the bailiff apologetically. 'My wife and her womenfolk and the children are swarming about the other chambers like bees in a hive. But there's food and ale aplenty and some wine if you're so inclined.'
 

'Drying off is our first need,' rumbled Gwyn, shrugging off the frayed leather cape with the pointed hood. He draped it over a stool facing the fire and stamped his cold feet on the floor rushes, disturbing a rat that was foraging for fallen food scraps.
 

Within a few minutes, they were seated on benches at a nearby trestle table, enjoying the warmth of the flaming beech logs. A pair of serving girls, little more than children, brought platters of spit-baked fish, cold pork and boiled beans and cabbage, with thick trenchers of coarse bread to lay on the table as plates. As usual, the kitchen was in a hut behind the house and the bare-footed maids had to run back and forth through the mud to bring the food to the new arrivals.
 

'Have some mulled ale to warm you up, sirs,' invited Vado, taking a thick poker from the fire and plunging the red-hot iron into a gallon jug of ale. With a hiss and a sizzle, the turbid liquid almost boiled, and before it could cool he splashed it into a row of crude earthenware pots standing on the table.
 

Thomas, who disliked ale even more than rough cider, sipped his with ill-concealed distaste, but John and Gwyn gulped the warm fluid gratefully and pushed their pots forward for a refill, while they wolfed down the food. Around them, rough-looking men sitting at other trestles or standing around gazed curiously at these outsiders from the big city.
 

'Tell us the whole story again, bailiff,' commanded de Wolfe, through a mouthful of gravy-soaked bread. 'Has there been any more news since you returned?'
 

William Vado, sitting at the end of the table, beckoned to a large, brawny fellow standing nearby, who came and sat with them.
 

'This is Osbert, the manor-reeve. He can tell you at first hand, as it was he who brought me the news.' The reeve was a villein who was in theory elected by his fellows to represent their interests before the manor court, but in effect was usually the appointee of the lord, who needed someone in every village to organise the day-to-day running of their agricultural labours. Obviously ill at ease in the presence of a knight who was a senior law officer, the village foreman haltingly told his story.