The Elixir of Death

CHAPTER SIX

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.

The clerk, for whom one pint of cider was more than enough, left early to meet some friends among the secondaries and vicars in the Close, leaving Gwyn and Nesta to debate other matters with de Wolfe.

'Do you think confronting de Revelle will achieve anything, John?' she asked. 'You know how much he hates you these days.' Her previous spat of jealousy seemed to have been submerged by concern for his welfare.

'I can think of no other way for me to advance this obscure situation,' he replied. 'I just want some information about his father and his knowledge of Peter le Calve. I doubt I will get anything but a hostile reception from Richard, but at least the topic is not one that concerns himself or his misdeeds.'

Gwyn pulled at the bushy ends of his moustache, which hung down below his jaw. 'As long as the reception isn't a shower of arrows from the gatehouse of his manor! He'll be on his own ground there and not disposed to accept any liberties from you, Crowner. '

'I'll be the soul of discretion!' snapped John, which made Nesta smile, as, though her lover had many worthy qualities, tact was not one of them. Gwyn was still tugging away at his whiskers, usually a sign that he was worrying about something.

'This talk of Levantines or Turks or whatever you want to call them,' he growled. 'Why the hell should they be in the west of England to aid this bloody prince? There can't be an army of them, so what use can a few be, if the rumour is true?'

'And where are they, anyway?' added Nesta, typically getting to the heart of the matter. 'No one has seen so much as a turban or whatever they wear. How can it possibly be true?'

De Wolfe held up his hands in mock protection against their objections.

'It sounds unlikely, I know, but the King's spies are usually accurate. What Mussulmen have got to do with this money that's to be found, I don't know — perhaps they are going to make the stuff for Prince John!'

Alexander of Leith's foray to Revelstoke had been made a number of days before de Wolfe's journey there, and the alchemist was now back in the lonely ruin in the forest, still thinking about the visit they had made to the former sheriff.

When they had left Bigbury to meet Sir Richard de Revelle, Raymond de Blois had escorted the little Scot rapidly across ten miles of the western end of the Devon coast, with the grotesque Fleming hard put to keep up behind them. They had to go inland for half the distance to find a ford over the River Erme, another of the estuaries that cleaved the landscape, then aimed for the Yealm, the next fjord that cut deeply into the coast. De Blois had been here as an envoy — and a spy — several times before, covertly entering England by the western sea route on missions from Paris to the Count of Mortain. He spoke English, knew the terrain and had a mental map of the main tracks through the county, so was able to aim unerringly for Newton Ferrars, a fishing village on the Yealm. This vill was not his destination that day, but rather the manor of Revelstoke, a large honour occupying most of the peninsula south of the Yealm, which stretched down to the cliffs at the western end of the huge bay that arced from Bolt Head to Gara Point. He had visited Richard de Revelle before and knew his way to the manor-house, which stood on the high ground of the peninsula halfway between Newton Ferrars and Stoke Point. This was a headland behind which sheltered the little church of St Peter the Poor Fisherman, built by Richard de Revelle a few years earlier, in a moment of generosity augmented by the belief that it would aid his entry into heaven.

The trio reached Revelstoke early in the afternoon, as they had been delayed in fording the Erme because of the high tide. The manor-house was set behind a stone wall and a deep ditch as, being so near a lonely part of the coast, there was always the danger of sea raiders. Though a few crofts and tofts lay around it, the manor was more diffuse than the usual village, with some large bartons farming the extensive field systems that occupied much of the peninsula. There were more dwellings down at Noss, where crofts and fishing huts faced Newton across an arm of the branching Yealm river.

The bailey around the manor-house was guarded by a sturdy gatehouse, where a surly porter let them in as soon as he recognised Raymond de Blois. Inside, Alexander saw that the large bailey surrounded an imposing stone-built house of two storeys, with a number of timber outbuildings and barns at the rear. Jan the Fleming knew his place as a servant and took the horses off to the stables, leaving the Frenchman and the alchemist to be received by the steward. As they climbed the wooden stairs to the elevated door, this rather pompous head of the household staff bowed his head to the French knight, but gave only a cursory nod to the Scotsman, accompanied by a look of disapproval that suggested that such curiously garbed eccentrics were not welcome at Revelstoke. He led them inside the large hall, however, and indicated a table near the fire-pit where they could enjoy refreshments while they waited for the manor-lord, whom he said was presently with his wife in the solar. Servants rapidly appeared, bearing hot mutton pies, slices of ham and pork, together with fresh bread, butter and cheese. Washing these down with wine and ale, the ill-assorted pair ate in silence, their travel-chilled bodies warming up by the heat of the glowing logs. When they had finished, Raymond began to get impatient at being kept waiting for so long by a knight of equal rank to himself. Though he had met Richard de Revelle several times, both here and in Bristol, he did not like the man, thinking him a sly and supercilious fellow who could not be trusted.

Just as de Blois was working himself up to protest to the hovering steward that he did not like to be kept waiting, the former sheriff of Devonshire appeared in a doorway at the side of the hall. Richard was a slim man of average height, with a narrow face that appeared almost triangular, as he had a pointed beard of the same light brown as his hair, which was worn slightly longer than the severe crop favoured by most Norman gentlemen. He was an elegant dresser, favouring green in most of his tunics, such as the one he wore now, which had a crenellated pattern of gold embroidery around the neck and hem. A jewelled belt of soft leather ran around his waist, from which a purse dangled from plaited cords. His shoulders were covered with a surcoat of a darker green velvet and his shoes had long curled toe-points in the latest fashion.

The visitors rose to their feet as De Revelle walked across the hall, ignoring the bows of his steward and two other servants, to extend his hand to Sir Raymond, grasping his forearm in geeting.

'I regret my delay in attending upon you, de Blois, but my wife was indisposed,' he brayed, in his rather high-pitched voice. 'I am afraid that Lady Eleanor is of a somewhat delicate disposition.'

The Frenchman murmured some sympathetic platitudes, then turned to introduce Alexander of Leith. De Revelle regarded the apparition with obvious distaste, echoing the response of his steward.

'Does he speak our language?' he loftily asked Raymond in the Norman French that was his first tongue.

'Ay, and Latin and Gaelic as well — but I am more comfortable in English!' tartly retorted the little man, using the speech of the more lowly inhabitants of the islands.

Richard reddened, then regarded the strange tunic and long tartan kilt. He came to the conclusion that such eccenticity must betoken considerable academic and technical skill, and adjusted his manner accordingly.

'You are welcome, magister. I trust that you can help to achieve what is required?'

Alexander scowled, as he had also taken an instant dislike to this arrogant lord. But as they had a mutual purpose, for which he was to be well paid, he felt obliged to swallow his resentment.

'Much depends on these other people, sir. I have great experience of my art, yet have so far fallen slightly short of the desired goal. With the help that is promised by them, we shall suceed.'

The three men sat again at the table and Richard snapped his fingers at his steward for more wine.

'I have not yet set eyes upon these others who have come to assist you,' he said to Alexander. 'Have you all that you require at this den which has been provided?'

'What I saw in the short time I was there seems adequate,' replied the Scotsman, cautiously. 'I too have failed to meet these alleged geniuses of my art.'

De Revelle's eyebrows rose as he turned to Raymond de Blois. 'Where are they, then? I thought it was agreed that it would be unwise for them to be seen abroad more than is absolutely necessary.'

The Parisian knight gave a very Gallic shrug. 'They seem to do as they please, Sir Richard. Communication is difficult, as only one speaks a bastard kind of French and none of them has a word of the English tongue. They seem to come and go as they wish, like ghosts in the night.'

De Revelle scowled. 'This is not satisfactory. The Prince would be concerned if he knew, as would your king. Have they achieved anything yet in their task?'

'I doubt they have tried — they seem to be waiting for Alexander here to join them.'

The talk continued for some time, consisting mainly of the former sheriff haranguing the others to ensure some action and to keep their associates in line. He ended with a stern recommendation to them to have a good night's sleep after the evening meal and to set off home early the next day to get on with the job that they had come so far to complete. Rising from the table, he bade them a curt farewell and, throwing his cloak dramatically back over his right shoulder, stalked away to his private chambers, leaving a Frenchman and a Scot united in their dislike of their host.

John's journey westwards was long and arduous, mainly because he was deprived of the usual gossip from Gwyn and the banter between his officer and Thomas de Peyne. With Matilda alongside him, stiffly upright on a decent sized palfrey hired from Andrew's stable, conversation was as sterile as usual. The maid Lucille, muffled up to her thin nose in a dun-coloured cloak, trotted miserably on the other side of her mistress on another rounsey hired from Andrew's stable. Gwyn sullenly kept well out of the way, riding behind with the two men-at-arms that John had commandeered from the garrison to act as an additional escort. Normally, de Wolfe rode alone with Gwyn, but he felt that their efforts to repel any attack by highway thieves might be hampered by the presence of a lady, so he added this pair as a deterrent.

As with their last journey, they stopped at Buckfast for the night, rather than Totnes, for accommodation for female travellers was better in the large abbey hostel than in Totnes Castle. Though there were no nuns there, the hostel was run by lay servants, whose wives and daughters were employed in the segregated part reserved for women.

John was glad of the respite from the grim presence of his wife which he had endured during the many hours they had ridden from Exeter. He sat thankfully in the travellers' hall with Gwyn, their soldiers and a few other patrons, drinking ale and putting the world to rights with their gossip.

The next day, they were off again soon after dawn to cover the remaining twenty miles to Revelstoke, the last eight being through small lanes and tracks off the main Plymouth high road. As they went farther west, the already leaden sky darkened even more and a cold wind sprang up, with a few flakes of snow spinning in its icy breath. Around them, the countryside was hunkering down for the coming winter, the last of the leaves being whipped from the trees by the stiff breeze.

John had never been to his brother-in-law's manor before — he had never been invited. When they reached it, he was surprised by the extent of both the surrounding farmland and of the house itself. He wondered cynically how much of the money that Richard had embezzled in his various schemes had been invested in improving the property. As they reined up outside the gatehouse, he looked at the stone-tiled roof and castellated parapet that were visible above the boundary wall and wondered whether de Revelle was more concerned with defending himself against sea rovers or possible retribution from the king, if he was up to his old schemes again.

Once within sight of her old home, Matilda lost some of the icy impassiveness that she had shown throughout the journey. She became restless on her side-saddle, and John could see her biting her lip as they rode up to the gate. He wondered whether she was becoming anxious about their reception or whether a reunion with her disgraced brother was difficult for her to bear, since her former hero-worship had been so ignominiously undermined. As had often happened in the past, the sight of his wife in a state of obvious worry and unhappiness stirred both his conscience and his compassion. He leant across and touched her arm.

'He'll be glad to see you, never fear,' he growled, but Matilda made no response, other than to pull her arm away from his hand.

The porter, recognising the lord's sister, lugged open the gates and they walked their horses across the heavy timbers that spanned the deep ditch that ran around the walls. Inside the large compound, grooms came scurrying to take the horses and Gwyn and the two men-at-arms went with them to see that the beasts were fed and watered. John assisted Matilda to dismount and together they walked towards the steps to the hall, followed by Lucille, lugging a large parcel of her mistress's clothing. Warned by a blast from the porter's horn, the steward appeared, and his wrinkled face broke into an obsequious smile as he saw Matilda climbing up to the doorway into the hall.

'My wife is fatigued after the long journey,' rasped John, determined to take the initiative from the start and not appear at any disadvantage in this house of a man he despised. 'Please conduct her to Sir Richard and Lady Eleanor at once.' Several servants appeared from side doors and two women bobbed their knee to Matilda and ushered her away, followed by another man carrying her two large leather bags, which had been slung across the backs of the soldiers' mounts.

As she vanished up a staircase in the wall, John turned to the fire-pit and stood above the burning logs, rubbing his hands to warm his fingers, his riding cloak still hanging from his shoulders. A fat priest sat on a stool opposite, drinking ale and two other men occupied a bench to one side, dressed in rustic clothing that suggested that they were falconers or huntsmen. All acknowledged him with nods, but made no attempt at conversation.

The steward hurried back and with much head-bowing and gestures conducted the coroner to a side chamber, where a fire burned in a small hearth with a chimney, obviously a more modern addition to the structure of the house. It was much warmer than the gloomy hall outside and was well furnished, with several leather-backed folding chairs, a table, stools and a bench. John could see that an inner door led to a bedchamber and he assumed that this was to be the accommodation for Matilda and himself. The steward, who John later learned rejoiced in the name of Geoffrey de Cottemore de Totensis, stood by as an old woman and a young girl brought in food and wine to set on the table. 'Lady Matilda is being entertained by my lord and lady, sir,' Geoffrey announced loftily. 'She says she will join you later. Supper will be served in the hall soon after dusk.'

Having confirmed that Gwyn and the soldiers were being cared for in the servants' huts at the back of the manor, the steward strode out and John was left alone to enjoy a hot pottage made of lumps of meat and bone swimming in a mixture of herbs and vegetables. There was a wooden bowl containing a large apple and an orange, an ostentatious import from southern France. The bread and cheese were accompanied by a good Anjou wine, so John assumed that he was not going to be cast out of his brother-in-law's house that night. He ate heartily, keeping to the old soldier's dictum that one should eat, sleep and make love whenever the occasion presented, in case the opportunity never arose again.

When he had finished the food, he went to the window and pulled open the shutter that covered the narrow slit. The late afternoon was darkened by a heavily overcast sky, which had that pinkish-grey hue that suggested snow. A few flakes were still falling, but nothing was yet settling on the ground. John earnestly hoped that they would not get snowed in, as the shorter the time he had to spent under Richard's roof, the better he would be pleased. He wanted to be off again early in the morning.

He pulled one of the chairs nearer the fire and sat down with a pewter cup of wine. A few moments later he was snoring, dreaming that he was in an inn near Vienna, a sense of foreboding and recrimination clouding the scenes in his mind. It was a dream he had had many times during the past three years, but now it vanished as the creak of the door opening jerked him awake. In the failing light, he saw Richard de Revelle standing on the threshold, glaring at him. Rising to his feet, he faced his wife's brother and for a long moment the two men stared silently at each other.

'You are tolerated here for Matilda's sake, de Wolfe,' said Richard finally. 'I am told that, as far as you are concerned, your visit is upon official business. I doubt that you would have had the temerity to come for any other reason.'

His tone was flat, but there was an undercurrent of bitterness that was not lost on John.

'I need to ask you some questions, Richard. They concern your father.'

This was a surprise to de Revelle, who had expected some stern interrogation connected to his own recent misdeeds. He had been ejected as sheriff by the Chief Justiciar several months earlier for illegally appropriating treasure trove destined for the royal treasury, but there were older, more serious allegations relating to his support for Prince John which might be revived at any time. But now to be asked about his long-dead father was as unexpected as it was welcome, if his own transgressions were not at issue.

'My father? You have come all this way to enquire about Gervaise de Revelle? You well know that he died many years ago.'

He stood aside as a servant came into the chamber with two three-branched candlesticks and placed the lights on the table. As he left, Richard waved a hand towards the chairs, inviting John to be seated. He himself went to stand in front of the hearth, hands behind his back, deliberately posing as the lord of Revelstoke to emphasise his ascendancy over his unwelcome visitor. Reluctantly, de Wolfe lowered himself into the chair, which creaked as he leaned back against the thick hide of the back-rest.

'This concerns a particularly brutal murder of one of our own kind, Richard,' he said sombrely. 'If you have been down at this end of the county for the past week or two, you will not have heard of the death of Sir Peter le Calve of Shillingford.'

His brother-in-law seemed to lose some of his naked antipathy at this news, as he stared at John in obvious surprise. 'Le Calve? Was he set upon in a robbery?'

The coroner described what had happened, holding back no detail of the macabre killing. All he held back was his vague suspicion that there might be a tenuous connection with other deaths, such as that of Thorgils and his men.

'But what has this to do with my father? He died sixteen years ago.'

De Wolfe had cause to remember that, as it had been a year after Sir Gervaise de Revelle had agreed with his own father to the disastrous marriage between his daughter Matilda and the dashing young warrior John de Wolfe.

'I have been told that Peter le Calve's father was previously a close friend of your own father. I am trying to find any clue in Peter's past which might explain why he was murdered in such a bizarre manner. I have asked Matilda, but she says she was too young to have any useful recollection of the elder le Calve.'

Richard was so relieved that the visit of the coroner was unconnected with his own past that he abandoned the hostile antagonism with which he had come prepared to meet de Wolfe. His brow wrinkled in thought as he pirouetted on a foot before the fire.

'I remember Arnulf, Peter's father. He was of Gervaise's generation and they campaigned together a number of times.'

'Including in Outremer, I understand,' prompted John.

'Yes, as a child and a younger man, I heard endless boring tales of those battles. But what in God's name can any of that have to do with Peter le Calve?'

De Wolfe sighed. 'I will be frank, Richard, I am grasping at straws. A Norman knight has been murdered in a terrible fashion and a cathedral desecrated in a most sacrilegious way. I have not the slightest notion of who did this, nor why it was carried out in such a weird fashion, which seems to have some ritual significance.'

The appeal to his indignation at this assault upon Norman nobility struck a chord in Richard's aristocratic sensibilities, which were equally as snobbish as his sister's. 'It is certainly an outrage both to our class and to the Church!' he agreed. 'But I fail to see how his friendship with my father can enlighten you.'

John's fingers restlessly tapped the arm of his chair.

'Peter le Calve seems a highly unlikely candidate for some revenge killing. I fail to see how he could have engendered such hatred that he was sought out, crucified and beheaded. So I wonder whether he paid the price for some sin of his father?'

Richard looked uneasy at this. 'It is a theory with little substance, John. On that basis, given that my father and Arnulf le Calve shared so many campaigns together, then perhaps I am vulnerable as well!' He said this with an air of flippant bravado, but John detected an underlying concern in his voice. Richard de Revelle was not known for his personal bravery, and his ambitions had always been political, rather than military. He gave up his posing by the hearth and sat down opposite John, his elbow on the table and his fingers playing nervously with his small beard.

'The stories they told at the dining table and with wine cups around the fire were of many escapades in Ireland, France and especially the Holy Land,' he said.

'Any particular battles or sieges there?' demanded John.

'Damascus was the favourite, I seem to remember. They were both there in 'forty-eight.'

John grunted, contempt evident in his manner. 'The Second Crusade! The greatest fiasco this century. So they were at the siege, were they?'

Richard nodded, his anger at John's presence apparently submerged by this latest news, which, however faintly, might presage some danger for himself. 'And so were many others, both knights and men-at-arms. As far as I understand it, it was a military failure, but to hear those two older men talking, one would have thought it was a great victory. '

'But you heard nothing specific about the part your father or Gervaise played in it?' persisted John, worrying away at the problem like a terrier with a rat.

De Revelle shrugged his narrow shoulders under the elegant tunic of fine green wool. 'I can't recall all those tales spun on winters' nights. I was either a boy or a young man, more concerned with my own affairs. But no, there was nothing special over and above two old men boasting over a flagon of wine.'

The coroner could get nothing further from his brother-in-law after several more minutes of probing, and he sighed in acknowledgement of a wasted journey across more than half a county. Richard sensed this and, perhaps anxious to draw the meeting to an end before John could move on to more sensitive matters, he stood up and moved to the door.

'We will go to table in an hour, John. No doubt Matilda will then tell you herself, but she has decided to stay here for a few days. I will see that she is escorted back to Exeter in due course. Meanwhile, I trust that your business will not detain you and that you will be ready to leave first thing in the morning.'

With that abrupt dismissal, he went out and, in spite of the previous marked softening of his attitude towards John, slammed the door behind him with unnecessary force.

When Alexander of Leith and his dumb henchman Jan returned to the derelict castle with their French guide, they found that the missing men had returned. After they had taken their horses to the stable at the foot of the castle mound, they went to the next hut, which served as their kitchen and refectory. Raymond de Blois marched in and stopped just inside the rickety door.

'You're back, are you?' he exclaimed. 'Where the devil have you been for the past few days?

The Scotsman peered around the tall Frenchman's elbow and saw three men squatting cross-legged on the dried bracken in front of the fire-pit. Two were tall, wiry looking men of Moorish appearance with lean, dark faces and hooked noses over drooping black moustaches. They wore long shapeless habits of a thin white cloth unfamiliar to Alexander, belted with cords from which dangled the sheaths of vicious broad daggers. Around their heads were wound lengths of striped cloth, the loose ends hanging down their backs.

The other man was older, probably well over fifty, but powerfully built, with a thick neck and large hands. His features were also those of a Saracen, with leathery tanned skin, deep-set eyes and a rim of black beard around his chin. He wore a more elaborate green turban, but his dress was similar to the others', except that around his neck hung a gold crescent moon on a heavy gold chain. The three men stared up at the newcomers impassively, but made no reply.

Raymond walked over to them and beckoned the alchemist to follow him.

'This is Alexander, with whom you will work,' he said to the seated men in carefully precise French. 'I trust now that you have returned to the duties for which you are being so handsomely paid, you will start your work without more delay!'

He turned to the Scotsman and laid a hand on his shoulder. 'This man with the green headdress is Nizam alDin, a learned alchemist from the East, I'm not sure from where. He is the man that Prince John told you of when you were in Gloucester, being sent by the King of France. I hope you will work harmoniously together, for he speaks passable French.'

Nizam gave a perfunctory nod of greeting to his fellow wizard and curtly introduced the other two men.

'These are my servants, Abdul Latif and Malik Shah. They speak almost nothing of your language.' His own French was heavily accented and grammatically incorrect, but his meaning could be understood.

Alexander muttered some words of greeting, resolving never to trust these men and to be wary of ever turning his back on them. His main concern was to discover whether they had any new knowledge about the transmutation of metals, which had been his life's labour, along with the search for the related Elixir of Life.

Before he could take matters any further, the two peasants who acted as guards and labourers came in, followed by Jan the Fleming. Their names were Alfred and Ulf, two hulking Saxons of slow movement and even slower wits. Alfred had two large loaves of coarse bread under his arm and a pair of dead fowls swung from his other hand. His partner carried a small sack of grain and a gallon earthenware jar of cider.

'We stole these from a forester's dwelling,' muttered Ulf in English, his voice garbled to Alexander's ears by his thick local dialect.

'I hope that was far from here, as I ordered!' snapped de Blois. 'We don't want to be traced back to this place, especially if you robbed a forest officer.'

Alfred leered, showing two blackened teeth, the only ones in his mouth.

'Miles away, sir. We tramped near all the way to Modbury and back.'

'And right hungry we are from it,' whined Ulf, looking down at the fire-pit. Here a pair of hares had been roasted on spits, much of the meat having already gone down the Mussulmen's throats, accompanied by a mash of boiled wheat and vegetables which they ate with their fingers from small copper bowls set on the ground alongside each man.

Though he understood not a word of Ulf's speech, the meaning of the hungry glances was clear, and Nizam waved a hand at the remains. 'We shot these this morning on the way back. You are welcome to share it.' He did not elaborate on where they had been coming back from, and Raymond thought it pointless to pursue the matter. His main fear was that they would reveal themselves to the locals and ruin the efforts of Richard de Revelle and Prince John's officials in securing this remote place for their activities.

'These are awkward people to deal with,' he muttered to Alexander in his poor English. 'But we have no choice but to be civil to them if we want their assistance.'

A bench and stools were pulled up to the small trestle table and the knight and the alchemist sat to eat slabs of bread on which slices of hare were laid, cut by Jan, who took on the role of steward. Cheese was produced from an oaken chest, in which their victuals were stored away from rats, and ale was drawn from a small cask. Jan and the two Devon men sat on the other side of the hearth, and for a time everyone was occupied with their stomachs, the Mussulmen drinking only water from a nearby spring.

'Two chickens will not go very far between eight souls,' pointed out Alexander, between mouthfuls. 'How are we all going to eat while we stay here?'

Nizam's face cracked into a smile, which made him look more villainous than before. 'There is a dead sheep and a goat behind the hut,' he announced. 'Malik Shah is an expert with the bow.'

Again de Blois fervently hoped that this poaching had taken place at a considerable distance from Bigbury, as missing livestock would set any village buzzing like angry wasps. After they had eaten, Raymond beckoned Nizam and Alexander out into the approaching dusk and they walked over to the crypt of the old priory.

'It is time for you two to get together and discuss your work,' he said sternly, as they reached the bottom of the narrow stairway. 'The Count of Mortain and my king are very anxious for results. You came here because this county has abundant supplies of tin and some silver, so if you are successful in your endeavours, there will be no lack of the raw material.'

The few rush-lights that were lit hardly dispelled the gloom in the large underground chamber, and Nizam lit a taper from one and went around to generate a flame in each of the others.

'How long do you think this process will take?' de Blois asked the small Scot, who shrugged expressively.

'It has already been a thousand years since others began trying, so do not expect quick results. I feel that I am very near it myself, but I have to find out what this fellow knows — if anything!'

The Frenchman sighed, fearing himself marooned in this uncouth country for a long time. 'For God's sake do your best, man! These are difficult people to deal with and I would not trust any of them. If you have problems, let me know at once.'

He left the two wise men together, fervently hoping that their common interest in science would overcome the cultural gulf that existed between them. As soon as he had gone, Alexander bowed to Nizam and waved a hand at the apparatus already set up alongside the hearth.

'In the morning, I will unpack my equipment and arrange it alongside yours,' he said. 'Meanwhile, perhaps you will do me the honour of explaining your devices and how you intend to proceed.'

The impassive face of the Saracen again broke into a slight smile, and he led Alexander across to the bench and began explaining in a mixture of execrable French mixed with some Latin the function of his various flasks, retorts, crucibles and vessels set up there. Much of this was obvious and common knowledge to all alchemists, so that even with the language difficulty, Alexander could follow Nizam fairly easily. What was not obvious was the basic theory upon which the Mohammedan built his claim to successful transmutation of a baser metal into gold. But this was not surprising at a first meeting, as it was second nature for every practitioner of the art to jealously guard his secrets. However, the Scotsman was highly impressed when, after rather theatrical glances over both shoulders, Nizam fumbled into a hidden pocket inside his robe and pulled out a folded piece of soft leather. He unwrapped it carefully and held out something on the palm of his hand. It was an irregular lump of a blackish substance, about the size of a hazelnut. The Saracen prodded it with a forefinger and rolled it over. Embedded in the dark stone was a ragged area shining like silver — and at one edge of this was a tiny nodule that had the yellow gleam of gold.