The Elixir of Death (43 page)

'I am well aware of who you are,' said Matilda suddenly, looking up at the blonde woman. 'But it doesn't seem to matter now. You have been kindness itself to me.'

Hilda was at a loss for words and merely squeezed Matilda's shoulder.

'I so wish my husband was here now,' murmured John's wife. 'With all his faults - and they are too many to speak of - he has a way of getting things done and never lets anything defeat him.'

She began sobbing quietly into her hands, but Hilda could think of nothing to comfort her. Suddenly, there was a clatter at the door, which had not been opened since Matilda had arrived the previous day. The bar was lifted from the outside and the door creaked open, yellow light from the crypt seeping in. The two Saxon outlaws were standing there, one with a heavy staff in his hands, the other with a bared dagger.

The younger one, Alfred, waved his knife at them. 'Come on, you two - out of there!' Again, Hilda tried her best, using her Saxon style of speech, to soften their hearts and persuade them to let them escape, but the two hulking peasants ignored her.

As they moved to the door, Ulf produced a length of thin rope and with a leer lashed it around their waists, so that they were joined together about four feet apart. He tugged on the long free end, pulling them like a carter with a pair of pack ponies.

'Move yourselves! We don't want you running off as well as that ugly Fleming bastard!'

As they stumbled fearfully towards the stairs, Hilda saw that the vaulted undercroft was empty - even the strange pair of men were absent. The fact that one of them seemed to have escaped, according to Ulf, raised a faint flicker of hope in Hilda's breast, but it soon faded. Outside, though it was getting dusk, the remaining light felt strange after the gloom of the chamber below. It was cold and both women shivered in spite of their mantles. Ulf tugged them across the weeds and nettles to the ruined bailey, and when they reached one of the huts he made them stand outside. The three Saracens appeared from within, and their leader stood in the doorway, rattling off a string of instructions to the other pair, their language mere gibberish in Hilda's ears. They loped off across the yard towards the crypt and vanished, leaving their chief to stare fixedly at Matilda. He ignored Hilda, but the older woman seemed to have a fascination for him.

'What do you want from us, man?' demanded Matilda, her voice quavering in spite of her best efforts to sound composed.

The black eyes of the Arab continued to bore into her. 'You will soon learn, woman. Now be silent!' he ordered, in heavily accented but easily understandable French.

'Where is my brother?' persisted Matilda, desperately frightened but stubbornly undeterred by this evil man. He ignored her, and she glared back at him, taking in his long white burnous with the dagger thrust through the belt and the green cloth wound around his head. The narrow black beard rimming his face helped to give him an even more evil, sinister appearance. He seemed to be swaying slightly, as if rhythmically dancing to some silent melody in his head.

Ulf, who still held the end of their rope, had taken up a position at one end of the hut and Alfred went to the other. They appeared to be waiting for something to happen. A few moments later, the taller of the two Turks emerged from the doorway to the crypt, pulling on another rope of red plaited silk. This was looped around the neck of a haggard but handsome man in early middle age, who Matilda had never seen before, but who Hilda recognised as someone she had seen briefly when she had first been captured. As with their own bonds, the long cord travelled from this man to the neck of another, slighter figure - Matilda's own brother!

'Richard! What's happening, for God's sake? Who are these terrible men?' she screamed at him. She had at least been forewarned by Hilda that her brother was a captive, but Richard was astounded to see his sister there, roped to a woman he did not recognise.

'Matilda! How did you come to be here? For Christ's sake, you should still be in that chapel!'

Any explanations were brutally cut short, as Nizam stepped forward and punched Richard in the belly, then spat in his face for good measure. As the wrists of the captives were bound together behind their backs, there was no chance of retaliation. Gasping from the blow, de Revelle became even more short of breath, as Malik yanked on his end of the cord, tightening the noose around Richard's neck. He dragged the pair along until they were standing in line with the two women.

Raymond de Blois was not lacking in courage and yelled at the Saracen at the top of his voice.

'Nizam, why are you doing this? Have I not led you here and looked after you these past weeks? What do you want from us?'

The Arab walked across to him and stared coldly into his face.

'What do I want? I want your lives! Though you are not part of my personal jihad, did you not go to Palestine as part of your Christian armies?'

The Frenchman scowled at him. 'I was there for a year, yes! I was with King Philip at the siege of Acre. What of it?'

Nizam stepped back a few paces and then began marching up and down the line of prisoners, in a jerky, agitated manner. Alexander, peering cautiously from the doorway of the eating hut, again wondered whether he was under the influence of some sort of stimulant drug. Then the Turk abruptly stopped his perambulations and turned to face the prisoners, almost like some general addressing his troops.

'I have sworn a great oath and nothing will stop me from fulfilling that!' His French, though spoken with a guttural accent, seemed to be improving by the minute, though emotion shook him.

'Hear me, you uncaring spawn of looters and murderers! My father, as he lay dying from wounds made by your kind, begged me to avenge him, my family and all those who died by the hand of your ancestors.'

His voice rose in a ranting tirade, and he began swaying again.

'Damascus! Hundreds of your brigands, both lords and knights and common killers, descended on our city. I was but a child but the cries, the smoke, the blood, the despair - they will remain with me for ever!'

Raymond de Blois, though the cord was cutting into his neck, croaked out a disclaimer.

'The siege of Damascus! It failed miserably - and it was over forty years ago, we were not even born then. What has that to do with us?'

Nizam continued as if the words had never been uttered.

'The siege failed, but your rabble turned against the villages near by in their frustration and burned them to the ground. But not before looting, raping, mutilating, killing! My mother was ravished, then her throat was cut, three of my small brothers and two of my sisters were burned alive when our dwelling was fired. My father had dragged me outside, bleeding from his belly and mouth, and I survived under his dying body.'

There was a silence, broken only by a low sobbing from Matilda, whether for the pathos of the Turk's story or her own mortal fear was not clear.

'We cannot be held responsible for these misdeeds of others!' shouted de Blois, but again Nizam ignored him. He seemed to be in a trance, his mind tracking back forty-seven years.

'Even as a boy, I swore to carry out my father's plea and seek vengeance, even if it took me the rest of my life. I have read that your own holy book says that the sins of the father may be visited unto the fourth generation. I cannot achieve that, so one or two generations must suffice!'

At last Richard de Revelle found his voice, even though the tight cord made his words even more hoarse than Raymond's.

'I have never set foot in Palestine! Why are you doing this to me?'

The Saracen seemed to notice him at last.

'De Revelle? Your father was a de Revelle, Gervaise de Revelle, who was at Damascus! Like this man le Calve, whose father was at Damascus! Like that Templar, Joel de Valle Torta, who was at Damascus!'

'How can you know this, after all this time?' croaked de Blois.

Nizam smiled, a twisted, sardonic smile.

'My father's dying demand to me, to avenge my family and my people, never left me. I have dedicated my life to it. It is my crusade, a far more worthy one than yours!'

He twitched his arms spasmodically and almost danced a couple of steps sideways, before continuing. 'When I was left an orphan in a burnt-out village, I wandered with a few other survivors until I was taken in by an imam of the Nizari sect of the Isma'ili. I grew up in their care and became a devoted servant of their master, Rashid el-din Sinan, in Syria. He learned of my unwavering desire for vengeance and fostered it. I became a fervent disciple of theirs and they put me to work, good practice for my vengeance. Many a Crusader has met his death at the end of my knife! Do you not recall Conrad de Montferrat, your so-called King of Jerusalem?'

'He was murdered in Tyre by two fanatics, dressed as Christian monks. Both of them were killed,' countered de Blois.

There were three, for I was waiting near by, in case the others failed. And in France this year, four more of your Frankish knights who were at Damascus - and two of their sons - died on our knives, like the rats they were!'

He gestured towards Abdul and Malik, but they stood impassively, unable to understand a word of what was going on.

'You cannot know that my father or le Calve or that Templar were involved in your tragedy in Damascus,' blustered Richard de Revelle, desperately.

'For years, our sect has sought information on who was present in that evil enterprise,' shouted Nizam. 'Gradually facts emerged, both in Palestine and in France. Those men were known to have been at the assault on Damascus and that is sufficient for us! They must die, and if death has already claimed them, then their sons and daughters must die, just as my father's sons and daughters died! After we have dealt with you, there are three more in your other counties who must be brought to account.'

Spittle appeared at the corners of his mouth and his eyes rolled wildly as a fanatical ecstasy possessed him. 'You can never return to your homeland - or even to France - without my help!' shouted Raymond. 'You are trapped here!'

The Arab gave an almost hysterical laugh. 'Escape! What care we about escape? We are dedicated to our task and will die joyfully at its end and pass into paradise! It is only because there were so many other rats to exterminate that we have not died with our victims, as is the usual way with our sect.'

His mood suddenly changed and he swung round to call out to his servants in his native tongue. Abdul dropped his end of the neck cord and vanished into the next hut, reappearing with a great armful of hay, which was stored there as fodder for the horses. He threw this into the dining shack, strewing it about as tinder. Then he came out again, holding a burning pitch brand which he had lit at the cooking fire. He held this high, the light of the yellow flame dancing over the desperate group, adding a macabre glow to the last remaining light of the dying day.

It was this light which finally guided de Wolfe to the old castle. After leaving the wounded Fleming to stumble with the villager back towards Bigbury, John, Gwyn and the smith, with Thomas trailing behind, tramped onward, trying to steer in the direction that Jan had indicated to the best of his ability. The light was fading fast, but there was enough to see the trail of crushed weeds and ferns, though where the trees were thicker there was more bare soil than undergrowth.

Every few minutes, John would raise a hand for them to stop and they would listen intently for any sound of voices, but all was silence, save for a few birds squabbling over a perch for the night.

After some twenty minutes, the coroner began to feel desperate. Both Matilda and Hilda were out there somewhere, but unless they could find this place that the dumb fellow had mimed, they might as well be back in Exeter.

'Shall we split up, Crowner?' suggested Gwyn in a low voice. 'Then we could cover a wider area than if we stick in a bunch like this.'

De Wolfe shook his head. 'If we get separated this near to dusk, we'll never find each other again, without a lot of shouting, which will give us away. Give it a few more minutes, walking straight ahead.'

The trail of bruised weeds had now petered out - or was invisible in the failing light - but the movement of clouds glimpsed dimly through the half-bare tree-tops gave them some idea of direction. At least they could prevent themselves from walking in circles.

A few minutes later, John was beginning to reconsider Gwyn's idea of splitting up when Thomas hissed a warning. His younger eyes had caught something away to the right.

'I saw a flicker, Crowner! A yellow light, very faint.' They all stopped to stare where his finger was pointing. 'There it is again!'

This time the others glimpsed a moving flare through the trees.

'Must be a pitch brand,' growled Gwyn. 'Someone is waving it around.'

With John in the lead, they carefully crept forward, agonising when a foot snapped a dried twig. Two hundred paces brought them to the remains of a tumbled stone wall, heavily overgrown with ivy and other weeds. Now the flicker of the torch was easily visible, reflected from trees on the other side of a large clearing. They peered cautiously over the wall and in the last light of the day, augmented by the dancing flame of the burning pitch brand, a macabre scene met their eyes.

Before some half-ruined huts, a pair of large, scruffy men stood, one with a staff, the other holding a mace. Near them, a Saracen in a voluminous belted robe held a flaming torch above his head, while another stood clutching a cross-bow, the string of which was cranked back ready to fire. But the centrepiece was the line of captives, two men lashed together by a rope joining their necks - and two women, tied at the waist.