The Elixir of Death (46 page)

'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 committed 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.

'He must have left them here on guard, by the looks of it,' agreed the coroner. 'Pretty poor guards they turned out to be - their idleness cost them their lives.'

Gwyn was not so harsh in his judgement. 'Not a lot you can do, taken unawares with a cross-bow fired from cover! Those bloody Saracens were highly skilled with their weapons in Palestine.'

There was nothing the trio could do about the bodies, so they remounted and rode on.

De Wolfe commented, 'De Revelle must have seen them, as he passed here when he left. It's up to him to collect them - he can do it when he sends a party to bring back this de Blois fellow.'

This reminded him that the posse he had sent the bailiff to fetch from Revelstoke had never shown up. 'Maybe de Revelle will encounter it on his way home and get them to return with him ... and to hell with us, now that the fighting's over!' said Gwyn cynically.

They rode down to Bigbury to collect their own mounts, discovering at the alehouse that Alexander of Leith had already collected his injured servant. The strange pair had vanished down towards the river to take the tidal path up to Aveton, keen to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the law officers. The villagers were relieved to hear that their ghostly neighbours in the forest had been eliminated, and even more grateful when the coroner left them the horses from the camp as a gift.

'If they were provided at de Revelle's expense, he's lost them for good now!' said John spitefully. He touched Odin's flanks with his heels and they set off westwards. 'Let's catch up with the lying bastard. But I feel that once again he'll scrape out of this affair with his skin intact.'

'But at least he's had a bloody good fright, coming within an ace of being burnt alive!' declared Gwyn.

'And he came nearer having his throat cut than any man I've known!' added de Wolfe cheerfully.

Gwyn joined him in a belly laugh, and even Thomas managed a weak grin.

Five evenings later, a group of people were huddled around John's favourite table in the Bush Inn at Exeter. The remains of a lavish meal provided by Nesta lay in the centre, surrounded by pots of ale and cider and a cup of the best wine for Thomas. The taproom, lit by flickering rush-lights hung around the walls, was warmed by a large fire and the fug generated by a score of patrons. Outside it was frosty and Idle Lane wore a patchy white mantle. It had snowed that day, but the light fall had almost melted away.

'They'll be able to travel in this,' said Gwyn confidently. 'By tomorrow, Hilda will be safely back in Dawlish and your wife will be home to make your life a misery once again!'

John de Wolfe caught Nesta's eye and looked away uncomfortably. She smiled and put a reassuring hand on his thigh under the table. That day, a servant from Revelstoke, on his way to the other manor at Tiverton, had called at Martin's Lane and left a message with Mary that Matilda and Hilda were on their way home, attended by a strong escort.

As well as Thomas de Peyne and Gwyn, the garrison chaplain, Brother Rufus, sat at the table. After several years as a military priest, the burly monk had no qualms about visiting alehouses and accepted with alacrity Gwyn's invitation to join them that evening. He was examining the substances in the small leather pouches that had been taken from the bodies of the slain Arabs. After sniffing at them and cautiously tasting a fingertip rubbed on the brown lumps and dipped in the dirty white powder, he delivered his verdict.

'The dark stuff is what they call hashish, made from a feathery kind of plant. I tried it once, though I admit a few cups of brandy-wine had more effect on me!' The jovial Benedictine gave a loud belly laugh and nudged the disapproving Thomas in the ribs.

'What about the powder?' asked John.

Rufus hunched his big shoulders. 'I don't know. It's not opium, as far as I can tell. But those fellows out there have all sorts of strange concoctions made from herbs and plants.'

'So why do they eat them?' demanded Gwyn. 'What's the effect?'

'It varies a lot - some just send the devils to sleep, to dream of Nirvana or wherever they fancy spending eternity. Other drugs are said to give them lurid dreams or else make them fighting mad. I'm not an expert, but I've seen some strange goings-on out in Palestine, as I expect Sir John and yourself have experienced.'

Thomas was proud of his own scholarship and unwilling to surrender all the explanations to the monk, especially after his recent hurried researches in the library over the Chapter House.

'This 'hasish' gives rise to the hashishin, the common name for this murderous branch of the Nizari sect of the Shi'ites,' he said importantly. 'They have been slaying both their Sunni rivals and Christians - especially Crusaders - for years. They even had three attempts at Saladin himself!'

This was something de Wolfe knew about. 'Count Conrad de Montferrat, who was to be King of Jerusalem, was murdered by them when we were out there, Gwyn. Remember all that scandal?'

The Cornishman nodded. 'Two Saracens, dressed as Christian monks, stabbed him in the street. Didn't that bastard Philip of France try to put the blame on our King Richard, because he favoured someone else for the throne of Jerusalem? ,

John nodded. 'He also claimed that the Lionheart had sent hashishin after him, even all the way to France. He had a permanent bodyguard to protect himself.'

'But there was a letter sent by the Old Man of the Mountains, the chief of these hashishin, exonerating King Richard,' declared the all-knowing Thomas.

'Yes, and it was declared a forgery by the French!' added Rufus, determined not to be outdone.

De Wolfe scraped at his stubble before he spoke. 'Hilda said that this mad leader, Nizam, claimed that he was also there at Conrad's murder, as a back-up in case they failed.'

Nesta shuddered, and not just at the mention of Hilda's name. 'These people sound completely crazy!' she said. 'Are they always under the influence of this horrible stuff?' She pointed at the leather pouches on the table.

This time, Thomas got in before Rufus.

'I have read that members of this sect are persuaded into complete obedience to their master by being drugged, then taken to his hideout in the Syrian mountains, where they are given the best of food and the company of seductive women. Then they are sent out to kill certain targets, whereupon they are always slain themselves, but die gladly because they have been promised entry into a paradise where these promiscuous delights will last for eternity!'

'Sounds good to me!' jibed Gwyn, receiving an outraged punch on the arm from Nesta.

'But this terrible man and his accomplices surely had no such political ends when they came to England?' she asked, with wide-eyed concern.

'According to Richard de Revelle, who seems to have the best recollection of those awful hours at Bigbury, this Nizam was on a personal crusade of his own,' growled de Wolfe. 'Just before he was going to kill them all, he claimed that all his family had been butchered by Frankish and English knights during their retreat from the siege of Damascus, back in 'forty-eight.'

'That was a total disaster, like all of the Second Crusade,' cut in the monk quickly, with a sideways look at Thomas. 'I remember my father talking about it - his cousin was a bowman there. The whole enterprise was ill founded, a political and military triumph of ineptitude!'

'But why would this Turk come all the way to Devon on account of that?' persisted Nesta, whose curiosity was as insatiable as the monk's.

'According to Richard, he had sworn an oath to carry out his father's dying demand for revenge,' explained John. 'This Nizari sect spent years seeking the names of those who were at Damascus. Eventually this madman Nizam got himself to France, where it seems he murdered a whole series of either those who were at the siege or their descendants.' He stopped and took a long draught from his ale-pot. 'Then he managed to cross to England posing as an alchemist, using some far-fetched deceit about discovering the Elixir of Life.'

There was a pause while Thomas gave them a short lecture on alchemy and the Elixir of Life, which provoked Gwyn into a gaping yawn.

'Never mind all that!' cut in de Wolfe, irritably. 'I have the gravest doubts about such a tall story, but as they are all dead, there is little I can do about it.'

John had debated long and hard about whether to denounce his brother-in-law once again for involvement in some highly dubious scheme. He had taxed him about it in private when he had gone back to Revelstoke on the night of the drama at the old castle, but got nowhere with the crafty and evasive de Revelle. Richard freely admitted to being in partnership with Raymond de Blois in a venture to achieve the making of the Elixir of Life. On the defensive, conscious that his liberty or even life might depend upon convincing this incorruptible law officer, the former sheriff shed his usual contempt for John and was at his most persuasive.

De Wolfe had discussed the whole affair with Henry de Furnellis as soon as he returned to Exeter, giving him a somewhat selective account of what had happened near Bigbury. The sheriff, always willing to take the easier way out, agreed with him that they should give Hubert Waiter, the Chief Justiciar, a suitably edited version of the truth.

John tried to keep Richard de Revelle out of the story as much as possible, as when he had gone to Revelstoke, Matilda had beseeched him to protect her brother from further trouble. She had done this several times before, and in view of the narrow escape from a terrible death that both she and her brother had experienced, he agreed to do what he could for Richard.

In any event, he had no proof that de Revelle had been involved with any new scheme of Prince John's. The Scottish alchemist's story of the mysterious Raymond de Blois joining with Richard to fund a search for the Elixir of Life was far fetched, but no more unbelievable than converting Devon tin into solid gold. The only gold that had been found was the ornament around Nizam's neck and John had quietly given this to Hilda, with instructions that it be sold to a goldsmith and the money shared between the families of the Dawlish shipmen who the owner had murdered.