The Elixir of Death (27 page)

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.