The Elixir of Death

CHAPTER NINE

The old hound Brutus slunk to the door of the hall, his tail between his legs. As he nuzzled it ajar and slipped out to seek solace in Mary's kitchen shed, he left a blazing row behind him.

'Does shaming me come naturally to you, John — or do you practise it daily until you reach this perfection?' snarled Matilda, standing by the long table, which was cluttered with the debris of the meal he had missed.

'I have the King's duties to attend to, woman,' he yelled back, his short temper now well alight. 'Duties which, as I recall, you were desperate for me to undertake last year when you insisted that I become coroner.'

Arms akimbo, fists placed on her thick waist, his wife abandoned all pretence of being a sophisticated county lady and descended to the body language and vocabulary of a fishwife from the quayside.

'Duties! Duties! By Christ and his Virgin Mother, have you no duties to your wife and family? My brother, who you ruined by your cheap jealousy and spite, gave you unstinting hospitality at Revelstoke barely more than a sennight ago, yet you insult him by deliberately shunning your duty as host for a mere single dinner.'

'Did I deliberately arrange for William le Calve to be sorely injured by a cross-bow bolt — and have his steward killed on the spot?' raved John. 'What would you have me do — tell the lord of Shillingford that I cannot attend his crisis, as my brother-in-law is coming to dinner?'

Matilda crashed her substantial fist on to the table, making the platters and pots rattle. 'You always have some glib excuse, damn you!' she shrieked. 'No doubt you waited until it was near dinner-time before you set off — and took good care not to return until Richard and Eleanor had left!'

There was half a truth in this, but John was in no mood to make any admissions.

'I went as soon as the messenger arrived, damn you! This attack is plainly related to the atrocity against Peter le Calve and, for all I knew, there was a chance of catching the murderers red handed! You are so proud of your Norman lineage, but would you now recommend that I allow fellow knights and manor-lords to be slain, with only casual regard for seeking justice? Eh? Answer me, woman!'

And answer him she did. The battle of words went on in the same vein for many more minutes, each combatant convinced of the righteousness of their own cause. From Matilda came a flood of accusations that she had pent up for- months, blaming John entirely for her brother's downfall and dismissal from the post of sheriff. Since going to spend a week at Revelstoke, she seemed to have revived her adoration of her elder brother and, by inference, her husband's part in bringing him down became all the more dastardly.

This was a dispute that could have no solution, so entrenched was each one in their own attitude. Eventually, when both were red in the face and hoarse with shouting at each other, Matilda stalked towards the door, pushing him roughly aside as she went.

'I cannot bear to remain in the same chamber as you, husband!' she hissed. 'I am going to my solar and then to my cousin's dwelling in Fore Street. If I set eyes on you again today, it will be too soon.'

As she jerked open the door savagely enough to tear it from its leather hinges, he bawled at her retreating back. 'And if I set eyes upon you ever again, it will also be too soon!'

The slam of the door behind his wife actually shattered the wooden latch, but John was past caring whether the roof caved in on top of him.

'Bloody woman, this is too much to bear!' he muttered.

Five minutes later, he was striding across the cathedral Close, his feet taking him blindly towards Idle Lane.

Alexander of Leith became a little more easy in his mind as the week went by, as he seemed to be making some progress with Nizam el-Din. Although their communication was still halting and imperfect, he began to follow the Turk's mixture of French and Latin more easily, especially when they discussed their mystic science, as much of the arcane vocabulary of alchemy was common to many languages.

After his initial exasperation at Nizam's proficiency in the procedures needed to pursue their research, Alexander rather grudgingly came to accept that the Moor knew something of what he was about, as he watched him juggling with flasks, retorts, pestle and mortar. As he worked, Nizam kept up a mumbled commentary to himself in a language the Scot could not place, though he assumed it was Arabic or whatever the fellow had learned at his mother's knee.

With the clumsy help of Jan the Fleming, Alexander had set up his own apparatus on the opposite side of the hearth, assembling a series of crucibles, retorts, distillation flasks and various other receptacles on a second table that they had pulled from the far end of the vaulted chamber. A large jar stood heavy with quicksilver, and small ingots of tin, copper and lead were stacked on the table-top. He had a thick volume of loose parchment folios held between two hinged boards that served as book covers and constantly referred to this as he primed his equipment with a variety of powders and liquids taken from a wooden box. The lid of this was intricately carved with symbols similar to those embroidered on his blouselike garment, and though he did not mutter endlessly like the Moor, his lips framed the recipes and formulae from his book as he went about preparing his materials.

By the end of the second day's labour in the crypt, Alexander had reached the farthest point in his work which he had attained while in Bristol. He now wanted to push forward from there, hopefully inspired by the parallel discoveries of Nizam. But his initial optimism was soon to be confounded.

The next morning, soon after dawn and a frugal meal in the hut above, he came down to his bench. Instructing Jan to heat up the furnace with the leather bellows, Alexander melted the contents of a small crucible half filled with good Devon tin, which had previously been alloyed with mercury. With much murmuring of esoteric spells, he added a variety of powders from small bags of soft doe-skin, then weighed out some copper and silver filings on a small brass balance. The little alchemist sprinkled these into the crucible and added carefully counted drops of various coloured fluids from small flasks. Then he placed the crucible back in the furnace and listened to the sizzling until it subsided. Turning a sand-glass over to time the reheating, he waited for the final part of his process to be completed.

By now, the three Turks had arrived, the two sinister assistants carefully ignoring him. Nizam, bleary eyed and dishevelled, seemed only partly aware of his surroundings and bumped into several stools and the corner of the table before reaching his own workplace. Alexander thought he might be drunk, until he recalled that those of the Mohammedan faith eschewed all alcohol.

Nizam dropped heavily on to a stool and sat staring at his array of apparatus as if he had never seen it before, making no attempt to get started, in spite of Raymond le Blois's repeated exhortations the previous day to get some results. Alexander sighed with annoyance and frustration, but his sand-glass then ran out, so with iron tongs he removed his crucible from the furnace and plunged it into a wooden bucket filled with cloudy water taken from a nearby stream. With a sizzling hiss and a cloud of steam, the small clay dish cooled sufficiently for him to hold. Placing it on the bench before him, he took a flat iron rod and scraped off the layer of blackish encrustation that covered the walnut-sized lump in the bottom. As he expected, this revealed a shiny metallic surface whose colour varied from silvery white to reddish gold, especially when he took a wet rag and some fine white powder and polished the exposed surface. A final dip in the bucket rinsed the cleaning material away and he held out the dish towards the drowsy Saracen sitting near by.

'Ten years it has taken me to get thus far!' he said, with pride. 'I am almost there, so perhaps together we can achieve the final triumph.'

Nizam appeared to make an effort to pull himself together, and with Abdul and Malik squatting behind him, as impassive as usual, he managed to focus his eyes and stare into the crucible.

'Electrum!' he muttered. He spoke only the one word and that with a hint of contempt.

Alexander kept his temper with an effort. 'Yes, electrum! And electrum is an alloy of gold and silver.'

The other man shook his head and clumsily fumbled under his voluminous robe. Bringing out the package he had shown the Scot previously, he unwrapped it and held the small nugget out in his palm. Pointing to it with his other forefinger, he spat out the word 'Gold!', then indicated Alexander's offering and repeated 'Electrum' in dismissive tones.

Bristling with indignation, the Scotsman threw his crucible down on to the bench. 'At least I made mine here and now — and I can do it again under your very nose!' he snapped angrily. 'So let me see you make another of those knobs of gold, then perhaps I will be better impressed!'

Nizam stared at him for a long moment, then his eyelids slowly came down. 'Tomorrow. Not today. Today I must rest.'

He rose from the stool, moved in front of the hearth and lay down, curled up like a dog. His two henchmen crept forward until one was at his head, the other at his feet. Within a minute, he appeared to be sound asleep.

That evening, more than a mile away in the little village of Bigbury, a dozen freemen and villeins congregated as usual in the alehouse. It was a mean place, just a wattle-and-daub cottage of one room, with a lean-to shed built on to the back as a sleeping place for the ale-wife and a separate hut behind, where she brewed her indifferent ale. Only the ragged thorn bush, whose stem was jammed under the eaves of the thatch over the front door, indicated that it was a tavern.

Apart from the church, it was the sole focus of social life in Bigbury, and after dark, the men who had a spare halfpenny to pay their weekly toll for ale came to sit or stand about the fire-pit. Here they could gossip away an hour or two before going home to their straw palliasse or heap of ferns, to sleep the sleep of exhaustion until the daily grind began again at dawn.

As in most villages in feudal England, where the inhabitants were rarely able to stray more than a few miles from home, very little happened to enliven their conversation. Most of the talk was about murrain in the sheep or the probable father of the latest babe of the miller's daughter.

Tonight, however, there was something new to gossip about, a topic that gave rise to some apprehension and furtive looks over shoulders. The atmosphere of superstitious unease was heightened by a thunderstorm, which had threatened all day and now crashed and rolled in the clouds that covered the moon. Occasional flashes of lightning could be seen through the ill-fitting door and the gaps in the ragged thatch overhead.

'I saw them as plain as that big wart on your nose!' declared the sexton, who looked after the tithe barn, as well as the church and its burial yard.

The man with the wart glowered at the unkind remark. 'You'll poison your spleen and your guts if you drink so much — especially this ox-piss!' He held up his misshapen clay pot, slopping the turbid brown fluid over the edge.

The ale-wife, a blowsy widow who had scraped a living selling poor ale ever since her husband was hanged for poaching a hind, threw the core of a withered apple at him, catching him on the side of the head. 'Mind your words, Alfred Smith! Or go find your ale elsewhere, not that there's any as good as mine hereabouts.'

'No, Madge, nor none worse!' retorted the smith amiably. 'But our brave sexton must have been full of someone's ale when he saw three ghosts!'

Another villager, a stocky youngster, a conductor who led one of the eight ox-plough teams, chipped in with a knowing nod of his head.

'There's strange goings-on in that part of the forest. I keep well clear of it myself. It's all down to that old ruin that's in there somewhere. I went in as a child and saw such weird sights as made me shun it ever since.' He said this in a sepulchral voice that was accompanied by a loud peal of thunder.

'Last night, you say this was?' demanded Madge of the sexton. 'You didn't have much to drink then, as you said you had the runs from some rotten pork your wife served you for dinner.'

'That I did. I thought my very bowels were on fire! That's why I was squatting on the edge of the wood on the way back home.'

'We don't want to hear about your guts, Sexton,' grunted the ploughman. 'What about these spirits or whatever you saw?'

'I had my arse towards the track, so I was looking into the wood. I was there for God knows how long, as I was straining fit to burst. Then in the moonlight, I saw three figures gliding through the trees, dressed in long white robes. One behind the other, not a sound from any of them.'

Alfred the smith should have been christened Thomas, as he was always doubting. 'How could you see them in the dark of the forest?'

'Because the bloody moon was up, that's why!' snapped the sexton. 'It was clear last night, before this storm came. I was on the edge of the woods, so I had enough light to glimpse these ghouls that were haunting the trees.'

He held out his pot to the widow and she trudged to the back of the room to dip it in a cask of new ale and bring it back to him.

'Here you are, you old liar!'

'I tell you I saw them! Fair shook me up! I hoisted my breeches and ran home, careless of whether I soiled myself or not.'

'There's strange things in that bit of forest, right enough,' said a new voice, a thin old man who had been the thatcher until a fall from a roof had crippled one leg. 'I recall a time when I was a boy when that old castle in the middle was pulled down by old King Henry's men. They set fire to the donjon on top of that hillock and pulled down the palisade around the bailey.'

'What's strange about that?' demanded the smith. 'Soon after, there was talk of ungodly rites being performed at the old priory next to it. The parson then — that's long before the one we've got now — had to go in and throw holy water about and chant prayers to drive out the Devil.'

The sexton nodded his agreement. 'I heard that from my father. And who among us here is willing to go deep into the forest alone or at night? No bugger will, that's for sure!'

'That's because of the bloody outlaws and thieving vagabonds that are camped out in there,' snapped the smith. 'Look at what's happened these past few weeks! Chickens and sheep stolen, even a goat from up towards St Anne's. I even heard that winter turnips and cabbage had been taken from a garden of one of the agisters who lives on the north edge of the forest.'

The old man nodded sagely. 'The charcoal burners that used to go in there for coppiced wood say they're now too scared of the ruffians that threaten them. I don't know what the world's coming to!'

'Why couldn't these ghosts of yours be three of these outlaws, bent on a night's poaching?' asked the smith of the beleaguered sexton.

'Did you ever see outlaws in long white robes, like shrouds?' he retorted.

'What did they have on their heads, then?' asked Madge.

The sexton scratched his head through his sparse ginger hair, as he tried to remember. 'Not hats, that's for sure. Just trailing things, hanging down their backs. Never seen the like before — nor want to again!' Another peal of thunder and a brilliant flash gave emphasis to his words.

'Should we tell somebody about this?' asked the ploughman, with a concerned look on his round face. 'Maybe Roger Everard?'

Everard was the bailiff from Aveton Giffard, the larger village at the head of the Avon estuary, a few miles upstream from Bigbury.

The smith was contemptuous. 'Tell him what? That our drunken sexton, while having a shite in the forest, saw three ghosts dressed in white gowns! He'd have us up at the manor leet and get us fined for wasting his time.'

'Well, there's something odd going on in that forest,' mumbled the sexton obstinately. 'I know what I saw and it wasn't natural. We never used to have this trouble, things getting stolen and spectres wandering about the outskirts of our village. I reckon it's a sign!'

'Sign of what, you silly old fool?' sneered the smith. 'The end of the world?'

'Don't mock, Alfred!' snapped the ale-wife, who was also a pillar of the Church, as the priest was one of her best customers at the back door.

'The Apocalypse is not far off, according to what the parson said last Sunday.'

As if supporting her words, a shattering clap of thunder exploded overhead, with a simultaneous sheet of lightning that even in the gloomy taproom momentarily turned them all as white as the sexton's ghosts. Seconds later, torrential rain hammered down, bouncing under the ill-fitting door and spraying through the tattered thatch above. Thoughts of spectres in the forest were temporarily forgotten in their concern over getting to their homes along the waterlogged tracks in the cloudburst that would soak their thin garments — but when they all lay on their damp pallets later that night, images of unquiet spirits and terrifying ghouls in the nearby forest marched through their simple minds before sleep overtook them.

'But you can't stay here, John, it's not seemly!'

Nesta's eyes were round with concern, as she sat up straight on the wide mattress. Suddenly aware of her nakedness, she clutched the rumpled sheepskin coverlet to her rounded bosoms, heedless of the fact that her equally rounded bottom was exposed lower down the bed.

John de Wolfe, lying on one elbow alongside her, glowered defiantly at his mistress.

'Why not? I've stayed here many a night before. Almost all last week, in fact.'

'That's different, John!' she exclaimed with a certain lack of logic. 'You weren't staying permanently then. What will people think?'

'The same as they think now, that you are my mistress. What's new in that?'

The Welsh woman floundered for an answer. 'It just doesn't seem right,' she said weakly. 'You're a knight and a law officer and I'm just a tavern keeper.'

'As we both were yesterday — and last week and last year, dear woman! Everyone from Dorchester to Plymouth knows that we are lovers.'

She flopped down on to the feather mattress and buried her face against his shoulder.

'Have you really left her, John?' she said in muffled tones.

The coroner slipped an arm around her shoulders and stared at the inside of the roof, where twisted hazel withies across the rafters supported the new thatch outside.

'Yes, cariad, I've left her,' he said in the language they always used together. 'Matilda said she wished not to set eyes on me again and I replied in kind. This is but the inevitable outcome of what's been building up for months, if not years.'

'But you've both said such things — and far worse — many times before. It always blows over, John.'

'So you don't want me either, Nesta!' He made it a statement, not a question. In answer, she nipped the skin of his chest with her teeth, then kissed it softly. 'Don't be silly, John. But this is really serious. How can you possibly live here, the King's Coroner?'

'It's an inn, isn't it?' he growled with mock ferocity. 'I'm entitled to a bed in a tavern, just as the King's Justices sleep in the New Inn when they come to Exeter for the court sessions. I'll even pay you my penny a night, if it makes you feel easier.'

This time she pinched his thigh with her fingernails. 'Everyone is entitled to sleep in an inn, but not in the landlady's own bed!'

'Right, then, I'll just pay for a bag of straw in the loft outside.'

She sighed and rolled over on to her back to join him in staring at the roof. 'Be serious, John, for pity's sake! What about your house and Mary and your old hound!'

'They will carry on just the same. Matilda is so fond of her stomach that Mary will be needed to keep it filled. And Brutus can sleep in her cook shed, just as he does now. I can call to see them every day.'

'How will I ever get any work done, with you under my feet?' she objected, though her objections were being weakened by his endless stock of excuses.

'I'll be at my duties every day and I promise to sit quietly in the taproom every evening. I'll be no trouble, I promise you, except when I get you in here at night!'

He made a grab for her and they rolled together on the soft goose-down bed. Later, as he slept and snored, Nesta lay awake to wonder how long this fancy of his would last.

The following day, John called at his house and found that, as he had expected, Matilda was still with her cousin in Fore Street. She often did this when they had had a bigger quarrel than usual, battening herself on her unfortunate relative for a few days until she pined for Mary's better cooking and the obsequious attentions of Lucille. He collected his few spare clothes from the chest in the solar and got the old man who chopped firewood and cleaned the privy to take them down to the Bush.

Mary took his news in much the same manner as Nesta.

'You can't leave home and live in an alehouse!' she snapped scornfully. 'You're the county coroner, they don't do things like that.'

John felt hounded, now with three women telling him how he should behave. This was supposed to be a male-dominated society, he thought. Norman knights and barons should have ladies who obeyed their every wish, on pain of chastisement. They were the sex that should be decorative and pliable, playthings of the solar, locked up in chastity belts when their lord went off to battle. Some chance! he thought ruefully. If Hilda took the same line, it would be four to one voting against his inclinations.

'I tell you, Mary, I'm leaving!' he shouted in exasperation. 'She's gone too far this time. We can't stand the sight of each other, so why prolong this charade of living together?'

'Because you are married, Sir Coroner,' said the maid calmly, using the faintly sarcastic title she reserved for when she was annoyed with him. 'You stood with her in that cathedral around the corner and the Church joined you with a bond that no one except God can put asunder. And he's not likely to come to your aid, I'll warrant!'

De Wolfe marched up and down outside her kitchen door in a ferment of passion. Brutus looked up at him warily, conscious that something unusual was going on. 'Why must I continue to live here in misery, Mary, when I can live happily just a few streets away in Idle Lane? Answer me that.'

'Because you are married and you have to put up with it,' repeated Mary, equably. 'It's the way life is, I'm afraid. You have many other blessings, sir. Money, position and power over the likes of me.'

He stopped pacing and glared at her. 'Well, it doesn't have to be like that, girl. I'm not bloody well staying here to be treated like a mangy dog by the de Revelle family. Don't worry, I'll see that this household carries on as before. You are safe in your hut here and I'll see you and Brutus most days.'

He turned to leave, but she laid a hand on his arm. 'Have you told the mistress what you intend?'

John looked at her blankly. 'She must surely have guessed that from the way we parted last night!'

Mary shook her head emphatically. 'You have to speak to her face to face, if you really mean it. She deserves that, at least. Until you come to your senses when your temper cools, she will be expecting your step at the door every evening. You cannot just leave it like this.'

He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded abruptly. 'You are right, as always, good girl. Send word to me at the Bush when she returns from Fore Street and I will call on her.'

With that, he gave Brutus a farewell pat on the head and loped off towards the front door.

Commensurate with the severity of their falling-out, Matilda stayed much longer with her long-suffering cousin, and for the rest of that week John heard nothing to suggest that she had returned to Martin's Lane. Thankfully, the coroner's workload received a sudden boost after the previous slack period and he was too occupied each day to have much time to worry over his personal affairs. It also kept him out of the Bush until dusk, as even his somewhat insensitive nature was aware that it would not be wise to cling endlessly to his lover's skirts.

Monday was taken up by the county court, held in the bleak Shire Hall in the inner ward of Rougemont. He had cases to present to the sheriff, and Thomas was kept busy handing out his parchment rolls and whispering cues into his master's ear, as John's literary abilities had not yet extended beyond signing his name and recognising the date.

Tuesday and Thursday mornings saw more hangings, so again the coroner's team were busy at the gallows in Magdalen Street outside the city walls, recording the executions and the forfeited possessions of the miscreants. As with inquests, all this information had to be offered to the King's Justices when they eventually arrived to hold the Eyre.

Apart from these administrative tasks, there was the coroner's usual workload of cases to be dealt with. Fatal accidents in the city and the surrounding countryside called him out a number of times. Children falling into mill-streams and drowning under mill-wheels or being crushed by runaway horses or over-laden carts were the staple diet of his inquests. A shop that caught fire in North Street was another case, though thankfully no one was killed. There was a rape in a village ten miles east, which turned out to be by the woman's brother-in-law and a serious wounding occurred in a fight outside an alehouse in Chagford, one of the Stannary towns on the edge of Dartmoor. The last two cases involved some more travelling and John was thankful that Thomas was somewhat faster on a horse now that he sat astride it.

The little clerk appeared to be rejuvenated after his visit to Winchester. All the months of depression and feelings of worthlessness had been banished by the brief ceremony in the cathedral. It was true that he still had no pastoral duties, but Thomas's main interests in the Church lay in the more academic and theological fields rather than labouring as a parish priest. The employment he had been given in the archives was an earthly form of paradise to him, as not only could he indulge himself in sorting through ecclesiastical records, but he could covertly read his way through the substantial library of books and manuscripts that lined the walls of the scriptorium on the upper floor of the Chapter House. His daily Masses for his deceased patrons satisfied his liturgical needs and the weekly teaching sessions with the choristers allowed him to indulge his desire to impart his learning to others. All in all, life was now good for Thomas, but he never forgot his debt to the coroner, who had taken him in at the lowest ebb of his life and who had stood by him steadfastly during a number of crises, including an attempt at suicide.

The three men settled back into their routine and for a number of days John almost forgot his domestic troubles. He called at his house every evening to see Mary and to take Brutus for a walk. Each night that the cook-maid reported that there was no sign of Matilda, extended his contentment for another day. His hound was the only one who seemed to sense that all was not well, as he sometimes caught Brutus eyeing him reproachfully, as he cocked his leg against a grave mound in the Close or waited for his master to catch him up in Southgate Street. They no longer walked down to the Bush, as John would have had to bring the dog all the way back again each evening, so Brutus missed out on his titbits under the table in the taproom.

John restrained himself from going down to Dawlish again, though the temptation was always lurking at the back of his mind. Even when Hugh de Relaga urged him to visit their new partner, he made excuses and managed to delay the trip. The portreeve wanted him to let Hilda know the outcome of the shipwright's visit to the Mary and Child Jesus, as the man from Topsham had reported that the task would be easier and cheaper than expected.

'Together with the two ship-masters and a couple of crew, we can easily rig a jury mast,' he pronounced confidently. 'Pick a calm day and we can sail her round Bolt Head to Salcombe, before the winter gales set in. In that protected haven, the proper repairs can be carried out, ready for the spring sailing season.'

Hugh wanted John to reassure Hilda that all was going well, but John pointed out that she would have to come up to Exeter before long, to put her mark on the deed of partnership, which Robert Courteman, the only lawyer in Exeter, was drawing up in his office in Goldsmith Street.

De Wolfe did not want to risk making his love life any more precarious by stirring up the wrath of Nesta with any unnecessary dealings with the widow of Dawlish. One sword of Damocles hanging over his head in the shape of Matilda was more than sufficient.

Nothing further was heard that week from either Shillingford or Ringmore, but the mystery was never far from the coroner's thoughts. Only one aspect of the killings was followed up — that of the two cross-bow bolts brought from Shillingford. John closely scrutinised the worn marks hammered into the leather flights of the short arrows, but could make nothing of them. Even Thomas, usually a fount of arcane knowledge, had to confess that they meant nothing to him, but suggested someone who might have a better knowledge of Levantine calligraphy. The jovial and portly chaplain of Rougemont, Brother Rufus, had come to the castle earlier that year from a similar post at Bristol, but previously had been with the King's forces in France, and before that, at the Crusade.

Thomas wondered whether Rufus, a literate man with a great breadth of learning derived from his insatiable curiousity, could throw any light on the markings. The coroner's trio took the quarrels down to the little garrison chapel of St Mary, but found no sign of the amiable priest.

'He'll be supping ale and swapping yarns in the hall, I'll wager,' grunted Gwyn, who tolerated this particular monk because of his down-to-earth manner and his fondness for drink and gossip. Sure enough, they found the Benedictine in the keep and showed him the bolts that had caused so much damage. Enthusiastically, Rufus peered closely at the inscriptions on the flights, his large red nose almost touching them.

'It's Arabic, no doubt of that. Very blurred, as the tool that stamped them must have been blunt — and there's been no gold leaf impressed into them, to make them more prominent.'

'So what does it say?' barked de Wolfe, impatiently. Rufus fingered the leather, then broke off a splinter of wood from the edge of the rough table and used the tip to trace the shallow grooves.

'The same on both arrows. I'm no great scholar of Moorish writing, but one set of signs is for Allah. And I think another is 'just' or 'justice'.' He looked up at the coroner. 'Probably a quotation from the Al Qu'ran, meaning their god is just. That's about all I can get from it.'

De Wolfe nodded his thanks. 'But there's no doubt it's Arabic?'

The corpulent priest shook his head. 'No doubt about that — just the word 'Allah' proves that. The Saracens are very proficient with these cross-bows, though they use the short hand-bow as well, especially on horseback.'

John smiled sardonically. 'I'm living proof of that!' he said, feeling the still-tender spot on his chest, a reminder of the prowess of Saladin's troops with the bow. This was another piece of evidence that strengthened his conviction that there was a Moorish connection with these crimes, but it got them no farther in finding the perpetrators.

On Saturday afternoon, de Wolfe sought out Henry de Furnellis in his chamber, as since the arrival of a friendly sheriff in place of the haughty and sardonic Richard de Revelle he had fallen into the habit of talking over each week's events with the older man.

'Has there been any reaction from the Justiciar or the Curia to Peter le Calve's murder?' he asked Henry. 'Surely the news must have reached London and Winchester by now?'

De Furnellis shrugged and set his pint pot of cider down on the table.

'Nothing yet, but I'm sure that Hubert WaIter must know of it. I wonder if we should send him news of this Saracen involvement that you say is now all but definite?'

John nursed his own cider jar to his chest as he leaned over the small fire set against one wall. Kicking a log farther into the centre, he replied, 'It might be advisable, Henry. He was the one who sent us this idea about a Saracen connection, so maybe we should give him some confirmation from our end.'

'There's a messenger going up tomorrow. I'll get Elphin to write a note telling them of the attack on le Calve's son and the rest of the troubles.'

The sheriff, his drooping features looking more hound-like than ever, raised his eyes to the coroner. 'If this is all connected with Prince John, are we sure that my unlamented predecessor isn't mixed up in it? We all know that de Revelle has a strong inclination in that direction. God knows why the man hasn't been hanged for it twice over.'

De Wolfe gave another log a vicious kick that raised a shower of sparks. '

'I don't trust him anywhere out of my sight, Henry,' he rasped. 'But I can't see any evidence of him being involved.'

'This Burgh Island where the ship was wrecked, isn't that within sight of Revelstoke?' persisted de Furnellis.

'Yes, in the distance, far across the bay. But there's no way in which Richard or his men could be connected with the slaying of the crew. The vessel would not have touched land since it left France.'

The sheriff looked unconvinced, but had to bend to the facts.

'Is there nothing you can do about all these deaths, John?'

The coroner noticed that Henry said 'you', not 'I' — or even 'we' — in spite of the fact that he had been appointed the custodian of the King's peace in the county of Devon. It was again patently obvious that the sheriff was content to let de Wolfe take the lead in any investigation — though to be fair, John knew that he would not then claim any glory for success or avoid any responsibility for failure.

'Where can I start, Sheriff?' he growled. 'I'm sure now that there must be at least a couple of hostile Turks lurking somewhere in the county. They probably came from France on poor old Thorgils' vessel, but God knows where they're hiding now.'

Henry, whose somewhat bucolic appearance concealed a shrewd mind, pulled at the jowls under his chin. 'But why are they in Devon, John? What good can a couple of damned Saracens be to John Lackland?' This was the sarcastic nickname that the ambitious prince used to carry before his indulgent brother Richard bestowed lands upon him, a gesture that John threw back in his face when he tried to usurp his throne.

De Wolfe had no answer to this. 'I'll ask them when I catch up with them, in the few seconds before I ram my sword through the bastards' hearts!' he grunted ominously. 'But first we've got to find the swine.'

'I'd gladly give you a posse of Ralph Morin's troops, if it would do any good,' replied Henry morosely. 'But until we get some clue as to where they might be, what's the use?'

John picked up his wolf skin cloak and slung it around his shoulders as he moved towards the door. 'My gut tells me they're somewhere down in the west of the county. But that's a hell of a large area, and unless some of the locals get wind of them, we've no chance of finding them.'

'Unless they make another attack and get careless,' suggested de Furnellis, unaware of his prophetic powers.

That same day, the former sheriff had a visitor at his manor of Revelstoke, to which Richard had just returned. He seemed to favour this manor now, much to Lady Eleanor's displeasure. The envoy from the French king, Raymond de Blois, came alone from Bigbury, covering the miles at a quick trot and occasional canter, so that he was at Noss Mayo well before noon. He made an impressive figure on the bay gelding that had been supplied by de Revelle. Tall and erect, he was an excellent horseman and in fact was a successful competitor in many of the tournaments held around Paris and farther afield. Much of his appreciable wealth came from his winnings on the tourney grounds, both in forfeited arms and horses and in ransom money for those he defeated with lance and sword.

When he cantered up to the gatehouse of Revelstoke, the porter peered through his peephole and saw a commanding figure waiting for admittance. Raymond wore a yellow surcoat over a chain-mail hauberk, all covered with a dark green riding cloak. Though his head was bare, a round iron helmet hung from his saddle, alongside a wicked-looking ball-mace. A large sword was slung from his baldric, as, travelling alone, he took no chances on the lonely lanes of this remote part of England. Like his mount, these arms had been supplied at Bigbury by Prince John through de Revelle, as Raymond had been unable to bring much with him on the hazardous journey by ship and curragh. He carried no emblazoned shield, nor did his surcoat display any heraldic device. He was an enemy agent loose in the country, and though no one was likely to challenge him outside the towns, de Blois prudently avoided advertising his origins.

The porter knew him from several previous visits and hurried to swing open the gate, yelling for an ostler to come and take the horse. Minutes later, Raymond was ushered into de Revelle's chamber off the hall and made welcome with wine and the promise of food as soon as it could be brought from the kitchens. Richard hurried in, resplendent in a blue linen tunic almost to his ankles, loosely covered with a green silk surcoat trimmed with squirrel fur.

'I returned here only last night, de Blois,' he said. 'My wife has decided to stay at my manor near Tiverton — she says she finds the winds from the sea too chill here, now that winter is threatening to descend upon us.'

The French knight had arranged this visit when he was last at Revelstoke with Alexander of Leith, and had been hoping now to report that the alchemists had made good progress. Instead, he had to deliver his misgivings about the whole enterprise.

'These Moors are uncontrollable, I fear,' he said, warming his chilled body with mulled wine. 'Our little Scotchman does his best, but he can get no sense out of this Nizam creature. Last night, Alexander came to me complaining that he fears that the man has no real expertise in his craft. He is also beginning to suspect that the nodule of gold that the Arab claims to have made has been planted there to sustain the deceit!'

The lord of Revelstoke looked aghast at his visitor. 'Surely that cannot be true? This Saracen was sent at the express wish of your king! He must have had credentials to prove his prowess?'

Raymond gave a Gallic shrug. 'I knew of the man in Paris. Philip Augustus brought him back when he returned from the Crusade more than two years ago. He claimed then to have discovered the Elixir of Life and was confident that he could soon convert this substance into its other form, with the ability to transmute base metals into gold.'

De Revelle began pacing up and down in front of his table.

'Yes, yes, I know all that! But the Prince in Gloucester is impatiently awaiting results. He sends a herald here every week or two, demanding news. Why is this Godblasted Nizam proving so difficult, eh?'

'He keeps vanishing for days on end, together with these mute ruffians he has as bodyguards,' explained Raymond wearily.

'What are they up to? They are supposed to lie low all the time, to avoid being seen. What can bloody foreigners like them want with skulking around the countryside?' He ignored the fact that de Blois himself was a foreigner to Devon.

'I wish to heaven I knew — but then again, perhaps I prefer not to know!' answered Raymond fervently. 'They are dangerous men. I fear no one in fair combat, I welcome any adversary before me with sword or lance. But these strange beings are so untrustworthy, I am reluctant to turn my back on them, in case they slide a knife between my ribs.'

Richard de Revelle stared anxiously at his guest. He respected him as a brave and honourable knight, even though he was spying for another king. For him to admit to fears about these men was serious indeed.

'What were they like when you brought them across the sea?' he asked.

'They were quiet enough until we came in sight of this coast. I brought them from Paris to the Vexin, which is in King Philip's hands now, then we slipped into Normandy dressed as black monks, for those white nightshirts and headgear they wear are hard to disguise.'

'Which port did you use, then?' asked Richard, curious to hear about the ways of espionage.

'We embarked at Harfleur, where I paid this shipmaster well to drop us at Salcombe on his way home to some place near Exeter. He was a little suspicious of these hawk-faced 'Benedictines', but I spun him a story about them being hermits from Sinai wishing to go on a pilgrimage to Glastonbury, via Buckfast Abbey.'

'But you never got to Salcombe?'

Raymond de Blois shook his head sadly. 'I intended that to be the plan, but after I explained to this Nizam that we would need to go back a few miles from Salcombe to Bigbury, they went into a huddle. As soon as the ship came close inshore in this big bay, they suddenly rose up and callously slew all the crew, apart from one lad who had time to leap overboard — though he must have perished.'

'What reason did they give?' asked Richard, uneasy that he had to deal with such dangerous people.

'Oh, Nizam said that the shipmen might give us away to the authorities and it would be better if they were silenced. They wiped their bloody daggers on the clothing of the poor sailors and then calmly put the small boat into the water and we paddled ashore.'

'Perhaps you were lucky not to have had your throat cut as well!'

Raymond shook his head emphatically. 'No, they needed me to survive. I knew the way to the hideout in the forest and without me they would have had no prospect of food or shelter.'

'And how are they to return when their task is completed — if it ever is, from what you have told me today,' persisted de Revelle.

The Frenchman shook his head slowly in bewilderment. 'I can't make them out, they seem so unconcerned. My plan was to make the journey in reverse, take them in their disguises to one of the ports and seek passage across the Channel, then work our way back to Paris. But they are quite incurious about this — at least Nizam is, for it is impossible to communicate with the other two, who are clearly nothing but ruffians recruited to protect the alchemist. '

He paused to drain the last of his wine cup. 'There is something odd about them. Often they seem drugged and sleepy, at other times they seem wildly excited. They chew some scented brown gum and spit filthy curds upon the ground. It seems to be some sort of opiate that affects their minds.'

At this point, two servants arrived with food for the traveller, and Richard joined de Blois in taking more wine while the knight tucked in to a roast fowl, grilled sea-fish, sliced mutton and boiled beans. Fresh bread, cheese and some fruit filled the envoy's stomach as they resumed their anxious discussion.

'So what's to be done about this?' demanded de Revelle. 'The Count of Mortain will doubtless be sending another of his messengers down here very soon, wanting to hear of progress.'

De Blois dipped his fingers into a bowl of water scented with rose petals and wiped them fastidiously on a napkin. He approved of the civilised style that de Revelle affected in his house, but his worried mind was occupied with their problem.

'I think that you should talk personally to these two alchemists, de Revelle. I can do nothing with them to bring them together and the Scotchman is becoming increasingly angry and frustrated. He is already talking of returning to Bristol.'

Richard paled slightly at the prospect of being closeted with an unbalanced trio of Turks who seemed all too ready to commit multiple murder.

'Is that really necessary?' he bleated. 'What can I say that you have not already demanded?'

'You will be a fresh voice with much authority. You are the direct agent of the Count in this enterprise and you can threaten them with dire consequences if they do not submit.'

Richard had his doubts about this, but his friendship with the Prince and the great prizes of power and advancement for him that were hinted at when John seized the throne were too important to jeopardise.

'Very well. If there is no improvement in the situation within the coming week, I will ride briefly to your hideout to talk to this Nizam. But make sure they behave themselves when I am there!'