The Elixir of Death (12 page)

Hugh's cherubic face creased in a smile. 'All you need do, dear lady, is buy a larger treasure chest, as I have no doubt that John will be coming down quite often to add more silver to it!'

Even this jocular reference to frequent future visits to Dawlish caused a worm of unease to wriggle in the back of de Wolfe's brain. The other night, when he had gone up to Nesta's bed, their lazy conversation after making love had drifted to his proposition to include Hilda in the partnership. He immediately sensed a stiffening in her voice, and she enquired several times how often this would require him to travel to Dawlish. The mild tenseness passed off quickly, but left him with a wariness and a resolve to tread very softly with Nesta where any mention of Hilda was concerned.

Here in the blonde woman's solar, he sighed at the thought that now two women were looking on Hilda as a threat - his wife and his mistress.

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That week, there were fewer cases to deal with than usual and at home Matilda was no better and no worse, spending most of her time either praying or staying with her cousin in Fore Street. She ignored him at mealtimes and at night he contrived to stay out of her bed until she was asleep.

With Nesta, he was careful to avoid any mention of Hilda and the concern he harboured over her nascent jealousy thankfully subsided. When she asked him whether there had been any news of who might have killed the ship's crew, he kept the discussion strictly to the Ringmore end of the story - not that anything had been reported from there to give him the slightest clue as to what might have happened.

'I must go down there again soon and see if any local news has surfaced,' he said. 'To be honest, I have no idea where to start looking, unless someone in that locality comes up with some information.'

Towards the end of the week, another matter began to absorb their attention, though it was mainly Thomas de Peyne who was involved.

At last the time had come for him to go to Winchester to be received back into the bosom of his beloved Church, following his absolution from the alleged crime that had led to his ignominious ejection from the priesthood. When he was teaching in the cathedral school there, a malicious accusation of indecency had been made by one of the girl pupils and Thomas was lucky to escape with his neck intact. As an unfrocked priest, he almost starved for a year - until he walked to Exeter to throw himself on the mercy of his archdeacon uncle, who found him a clerk's job with the new coroner.

Now he was to attend the cathedral there on Thursday of the following week for the brief ceremony that would restore him to grace. Originally, John was going to send Gwyn with him as a companion and bodyguard on the long journey, but fortuitously the sheriffs trip to the exchequer to deliver the county taxes coincided with Thomas's appointment. Henry de Furnellis readily agreed to having the clerk tag along with his party, which would be escorted by Sergeant Gabriel and six men-at-arms, to make sure that the large sum of silver coinage would be safe from prowling outlaws.

In addition, after this had been arranged, Archdeacon John de Alençon, Thomas's uncle, decided to include himself in the party. He claimed to have ecclesiastical business in Winchester, but the coroner suspected that he was keen not only to see his much-maligned nephew vindicated, but to savour the chagrin of his fellow canons in Winchester, who had so readily accepted the downfall of his young relative.

They were to leave at dawn on Monday, spending two nights on the journey, which was almost a hundred miles. By Friday, Thomas was already in a fever of excitement, hardly able to credit that the nightmare of his long period in the wildnerness was now almost over. He persuaded Gwyn to shave his tonsure down to his scalp, scraping off every vestige of thin mousy hair from the top of his head. His uncle bought him a new black robe to replace the patched, threadbare garment that he had worn for more than two years. Nesta gave him a pair of strong leather boots and Gwyn's present was a new shoulder bag of doehide to carry his writing materials. John, bereft of any original ideas to celebrate this happy event, handed him a purse containing a hundred silver pennies, the equivalent of more than four weeks' wages. The little clerk was overcome by the kindness of his friends and babbled his thanks to each of them, tears of gratitude mingling with his joy.

Monday morning could not come soon enough for Thomas, but then on Sunday, at about the ninth hour of the Sabbath, just as the nearby cathedral bell was tolling for Terce, de Wolfe was in the stable across the lane from his house. He was waiting for Andrew the farrier to finish saddling Odin, as John felt that the big stallion needed some exercise down on Bull Mead and perhaps a canter down the Wonford road and back. Just as Andrew was tightening the saddle girth, a figure appeared in the doorway from the lane. So often in the past, it had been Gwyn arriving with some news of a fresh body, but this-time it was Sergeant Gabriel. John's first thought was that he had come with some news of a change of plan for the sheriff's departure for Winchester the next day, but the grizzled old soldier had news of a different kind.

'A fellow from Shillingford has just turned up at the gatehouse with some nasty news, Crowner!' he exclaimed, with an excited gleam in his eye. 'Their manor-lord has been found dead, on account of his head being lopped off and gone missing!'

John stared suspiciously at Gabriel, but he knew that the sergeant was not much given to humour or practical jokes.

'Shillingford? That's the honour of Sir Peter le Calve! Dead, you say?'

His tone carried incredulity, as in peacetime manorlords were not expected to be murdered.

'Dead as mutton, Sir John! Beheaded, he was - and no sign of his nut anywhere!'

'Is Gwyn up at Rougemont?'

'I'm sure he is, Crowner. Playing dice in the hall, last I saw of him.'

De Wolfe turned to the farrier, whose jaw had dropped at this bizarre news. 'Get Odin ready for the road, Andrew, while I go for my cloak and sword. Gabriel, get back to the castle and tell Gwyn to saddle up and meet me back here, as quick as he can.'

As the sergeant turned to hurry away, the coroner called after him.

'And send whoever brought the message down with him.'

As the farrier fussed with Odin, John went across to his house and sought out Mary to tell her that he would be missing his dinner once again. When he told her where he was going, she asked whether she should fetch Thomas.

'No, leave the poor little fellow in peace today. No doubt he's praying in the cathedral, practising for next week. He'd be in no fit state to do any work, anyway.'

He stalked to the vestibule and pulled on a pair of riding boots, buckled on his sword and slung his mottled wolfskin cloak over his shoulders, securing it over his left collar-bone with a large buckle and pin. Then he went back to the stable to wait impatiently for his officer to arrive.

It was a short ride to Shillingford, as the village lay little more than two miles to the west of the Exe, on the high road that led to Ashburton, Buckfast Abbey and distant Plymouth. Going at a brisk trot, the three horsemen covered the distance in half an hour, long enough for de Wolfe to get the story from Alfred Clegland, the manorial servant who had brought the news. A short, red-faced man with bristly fair hair, he was the falconer, an unusual person to act as messenger, as he explained as he rode alongside the coroner.

'The bailiff has got a terrible flux of his bowels, or he would be the one to come, sir. Our steward is in such a fevered state over his master's death that he could hardly sit a horse, so I was sent to fetch you.'

His story was that Peter le Calve, the lord of Shillingford, had gone hunting in his park the day before, accompanied only by his houndmaster and one of his adult sons.

'They had little sport, so the houndmaster said, until near to dusk, when the dogs raised a fallow deer in the woods. My lord and his son William split up, going off in different directions. And that's the last they saw of Sir Peter.'

The falconer related this with morbid fervour, and John had the impression that their lord was not all that popular with his subjects.

'So who found the corpse?' demanded Gwyn, riding on the other side of Alfred.

'Nobody, not last night! When he didn't come back nor answer to the horn, William broke off the chase and with the houndmaster began searching the woods. But it soon got dark and they had to give up and go back to the village for more men.'

'Couldn't the hounds have found him by scent?' asked John, who unusually among men of his class had little interest in hunting.

Alfred was scornful. 'Them bloody dogs is useless! Comes of having a drunk for houndmaster. They couldn't find a turd in a privy. The only smell they know is that of a deer or a fox.'

'So who discovered him - and when?' demanded de Wolfe, his patience wearing thin,

'When the master failed to come back after a couple of hours, we tried going into the woods with pitch brands, but it was useless, especially as it started to piss with rain, which put out our torches. By dawn, when he was still missing, the whole village was turned out to search.'

By now, the road was entering the dense woods that surrounded the village of Shillingford, and they had time only to learn from the falconer that it was the manor wheelwright who had made the ghastly discovery. On the bed of a stream that ran through the forest, Sir Peter le Calve was found lying on his back, in a state that was more graphically described by the wheelwright when they arrived at the village.

Shillingford was a relatively small manor, a series of strip fields, pasture and waste surrounding a cluster of houses, the church and an alehouse. It was encircled by dense woods, which were slowly being cut back by assarting to provide more land for cultivation and beasts. The hall was in the centre of the hamlet, an old wooden structure like that at Ringmore, set inside a wide circular bailey fenced off with a ditch and stockade. John de Wolfe knew the lord slightly, though le Calve was an older man. They had been campaigning in the Holy Land at the same period, but the coroner had not fought alongside him, and since John had returned home from Palestine their paths had not crossed. Indeed, John had heard that Peter was now something of a recluse and rarely left his manor, except to travel to his other possessions in Dorset. He knew that le Calve was a widower for the second time and had two grown-up sons, but that was the extent of his knowledge of the man, apart from the fact that Peter's father had also taken the Cross, back at the time of the so-called Second Crusade, well over forty years earlier.

As they rode into the village, dust and fallen leaves were blown up from the track by a cold easterly wind, as November had turned dry since they returned from Ringmore. The place looked miserable under a leaden sky and John shivered in spite of the weight of his riding cloak. The depressing atmosphere was not helped by the sight of sullen bondsmen standing by the gates of their crofts as the coroner rode past.
 

The village seemed to have come to a standstill with the loss of its lord, and there was an air of apprehension hanging over the place, as if the inhabitants were waiting to be blamed for this latest tragedy. The harvest had been bad and it needed a strong hand at the top if hunger was to be avoided during the winter that lay ahead, so the sudden death of their lord was an added uncertainty.

The falconer led them through the open gate of the manor-house bailey, where they found a score of people milling about uncertainly. Most were the servants belonging to the house and to the barton down the road, the farm that belonged directly to the lord to supply his needs. On the steps of the manor-house, a two-storeyed building with a shingled roof, a stooped old man waited for them, wringing his hands in nervous concern.

'I am Adam le Bel, Lord Peter's steward,' he quavered in a high-pitched voice. 'His sons are in the hall and wish to speak with you, sir.'

He led the way into a gloomy hall, made of ancient timbers that must have been felled when the first King Henry was on the throne. A large fire-pit lay in the centre, with a ring of logs like the spokes of a wheel smouldering on a heap of white ash. There were tables and benches set around it and at one of them a group of men sat with pots of ale. Two of them immediately got to their feet and advanced on the coroner. They were well dressed compared to the others in the hall, and John rightly took them to be the sons of the dead man.

'I am Godfrey le Calve and this is William,' said one, a tall, spare man of about thirty-five, touching his brother on the shoulder. William was a slightly younger version of Godfrey, otherwise they could have been taken for twins. Both had long chins and Roman noses, with brown hair shaved up the back and sides to leave a thick mop on top.

'This is a dreadful day, Sir John,' muttered William. 'Who could have done such a terrible thing?'

To John, his words echoed those uttered about the murdered ship's crew.

'My condolences, sirs. I knew your father only slightly, but there is always a bond between us old Crusaders. Where is his body now?'

'Left where it was found, Coroner,' said Godfrey, somewhat to de Wolfe's surprise. Though the victims of all sudden deaths were supposed to be undisturbed until the law officers examined them, in practice many were hurriedly moved, especially those in the upper ranks of society.

'In view of the grim circumstances, we thought it best to wait for your presence, Crowner,' added William. 'Being so close to Exeter avoids much delay.'