The Elixir of Death (33 page)

They knew better than to dissuade Hilda, as they knew from experience that her gentle manner hid an iron will. Once her mind was made up, nothing could divert her.

On a dawn high-tide two days later, the cog St Radegund, a slightly smaller version of the
Mary and Child Jesus
, sailed out of Dawlish creek and headed briskly south-west in a wintry east wind. Hilda had many times accompanied her husband on voyages to Brittany, Normandy and the Rhine, so was impervious to the pitching and rolling of the unladen vessel, but her maid, who was chaperoning her, soon wished she was dead. However, so favourable was the wind that her agony was short-lived, for they rounded Start Point by early afternoon and before dusk were safely at anchor in the calm waters of the Salcombe estuary.

Rowed ashore in the curragh, they were settled in one of the quayside inns by Roger Watts, who suppressed his concern at leaving his mistress without a male escort for some unknown purpose of her own.

'You will wait for me until I wish to return, Roger,' she ordered, giving him a purse of silver pennies to keep him and his crew fed for a few days. 'I may go on a short pilgrimage, so I cannot say exactly how long I will be away.'

With that he had to be content, and he went back to his vessel, where the crew slept in the hold, coming ashore to eat.

The following morning, Hilda was taken by Watts and Angerus to a boatyard in a small side creek just outside the town, where the Mary was beached, so that the shipwrights could check every plank. They were also restoring some caulking, lost during the buffeting she had received when driven ashore at Burgh Island. The new mast and main spar lay on the shore, ready for stepping when the hull was finished. Hilda clambered up a plank to her deck and tactfully the two ship-masters called the shipwright and his mates aside, so that she could be left in peace for a while. There was nothing to see on the small area of deck aft of the open hold. There were no bloodstains or scars on the timber from swinging swords, but the blonde Saxon woman stood silently for a few minutes, turning to slowly view each part of the little ship. She was remembering her voyages with Thorgils, and his amiable face came back to her clearly as she stared at the patch of planking where he would have stood to grip the big steering oar that rested in its bracket on the right side of the stern. She shed no tears, but her resolve to try to bring his killers to justice was hardened by the experience. After a time, she left the cog and had a few polite and intelligent words with the men who were making her seaworthy again, before asking Roger Watts to accompany her back to the inn. He left her there, still with misgivings about leaving such an attractive woman alone in a strange town, but resigned to falling in with her inflexible wishes.

Hilda then took her maid shopping in the bustling little town, which was becoming an important harbour and fishing centre. Wooden houses straggled along the steep banks of the branching estuary, but around the fine new church some stone buildings indicated the growing prosperity of Salcombe. Hilda's purchases were simple enough, and a short walk along the narrow winding lane that was the main street provided them all. At one stall she bought a long hooded cloak of brown wool with a cross sewn on one shoulder to indicate that she was a pilgrim. At a shop whose shutter hinged down to display its goods she haggled a little over a pair of strong walking shoes, and at another stall she bought a black felt coif, a close-fitting helmet that had laces which tied under the chin. On the way back to the tavern, they stopped by an old man who was crouching at the side of the street, amid a collection of walking sticks, shepherd's crooks, crutches and the like. From him she bought a thumb-stick, a holly pole with a small Y-shaped top, which would do service as a pilgrim's staff. Taking her purchases back to their tiny chamber, she changed into the sombre clothes she had bought and gave her bemused maid instructions for the next few days.

'I will be going away alone for a short time, on a pilgrimage. You are to stay here all the time, understand? Roger Watts will come every day to make sure that there are no problems. You can go as far as the church and you may look at the stalls and shops, but nothing more. I have left money with the tavern-wife so that you may eat and sleep until I come back.'

The maid, a meek and dutiful girl, adored her mistress, who had taken her in when her widowed father had drowned at sea. She too was worried that Hilda was going off unaccompanied, but like the ship-masters she knew better than to try to dissuade her.

The next stop for the determined widow was the church of the Holy Trinity, a fine new building dominating the surrounding houses. She stood inside the empty nave and prayed with bowed head and clasped hands for the soul of Thorgils and his crew - and for the help of the Almighty in giving her strength to seek out the identity of his murderers. When she had finished, she went in search of the parish priest, tracking him down in the sacristy that opened off the chancel. He was an amiable and sympathetic man, a Saxon like herself. Tailoring her story a little, she explained that her husband had died at sea off the coast in Bigbury Bay and she wanted to make a pilgrimage in memory of him as near to the spot as possible. She enquired whether there were any pilgrims going in that direction whom she might join for safety and company.

'Indeed there are, my daughter,' he said earnestly. 'We get many folk landing here by ship from farther east, in order to make their way across country to Tavistock Abbey or farther down into Cornwall. Groups of them leave almost daily.'

She also learnt that there was a small chapel and a holy well of some repute, only some seven miles along that route, which was certainly inland from Bigbury Bay, where her husband had been lost.

'There will be a group leaving here at noon, no doubt aiming to reach Aveton Giffard before nightfall. Travel with them and in the morning you will be at St Anne's Chapel, as virtually all pilgrims stop there to pray and take advantage of the holy well.'

And so it turned out, as she was welcomed by a dozen cheerful pilgrims who had come from Rye by sea, on their way home to the West Country after their pilgrimage to Canterbury. Hilda was surprised by their merry manners - they seemed more like a party coming from a feast than devout pilgrims - but she was grateful for their ready acceptance of her company and their hospitality. Five of them were women, mostly of mature years, and at least two of them were widows, obviously hoping that their pilgrimage might land them a husband. Indeed, she suspected that a number of the band assumed that she was on the same mission, but for the short time she would be with them, she was content to let them think what they wanted.

Glad of her new strong shoes, Hilda walked with them gamely as they covered the league between Salcombe and Aveton before dusk fell. The men in their broad-brimmed pilgrim's hats, the women in their warm cloaks and hoods or snug coifs like her own, they marched along robustly, all with staffs and sticks to aid them. Accompanied by one man who played his bagpipes and another with a flute, they sang a mixture of psalms, hymns and popular ballads, some of them rather roguish. Hilda's education was broadened, as her former image of pilgrims being dour and sanctimonious was shattered by these gregarious, cheerful people.

Aveton was a large village, belonging to the manor of the Giffards. All she learned that night was that the land had been taken from her own Saxon people by the Normans and given to Walter Giffard, the standard bearer of William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings. They stayed in a cheap alehouse that night, where a penny bought a plain but substantial meal and a bag stuffed with straw to sleep on. Next morning they set off after a bowl of oat gruel and a hunk of bread, marching the few miles to St Anne's Chapel, where they went through the routine of drinking the water from the holy well and kneeling in prayer in the tiny chapel at the crossroads. It was little more than a wooden hut with a turf roof, but inside there was an air of sanctity that was almost palpable.

Here Hilda left her companions, not without some regrets on both sides. The pilgrim band were quite concerned at leaving this comely woman alone in the middle of what they considered a rural desert, but she assured them, with tongue in cheek, that she had relatives in a nearby village with whom she would stay.

As they plodded off into the distance, bagpipes wailing and singing their hymns, Hilda suddenly felt very much alone. She turned back into the little chapel and, after another prayer, sought out the elderly man who was its custodian, though he seemed not to be in holy orders, even of the lowest grade. Half blind and bow legged, the old man, whose name, she learned, was Ivo de Brun, was friendly enough, especially when Hilda pressed a whole penny into his arthritic fingers.

After some amiable platitudes, Hilda began asking him some questions.

'Apart from pilgrims passing through, do you get any strangers here?'

The old fellow's milky eyes fixed on her, to pick up the blurred outlines of her face.

'Lady, I think your presence here is not altogether as a pilgrim. You are the second person to ask that question,' he said with a knowing smile. 'The King's Coroner himself was here not long ago on the same mission.'

Although John had told her that he had been in Ringmore for the inquest on Thorgils, he had not specified all the other places where he had sought information, so she was surprised to hear that he had already ploughed this particular furrow.

'Would this also be connected with the deaths of those shipmen?' asked Ivo. 'That is the only matter which has disturbed the peace of this area for a long time.'

Hilda felt she should be frank with the custodian and told him that she was the widow of the ship-master who had been killed, come to visit the scene of his death. 'Then it is to Ringmore you should go, poor lady,' said the keeper of the chapel. 'They know most about the matter.'

'I will do that, good man. But what were you able to tell Sir John, the crowner, who is a good friend of mine?'

'Like you, he wanted to know if I had seen any strangers at around the time of the wrecking of your husband's vessel. All I could recall was that four cowled monks passed this way and strangely did not come into the chapel to offer a prayer, as is almost always their desire and indeed duty.'

Hilda's heart gave an extra thump. John de Wolfe had told her about such monks being seen at the time of Peter le Calve's horrid death, but had not mentioned any being seen down here.

'Where did they go? Do you recall?' she almost snapped.

'I told the coroner they marched straight off down the Bigbury lane there.' He waved a hand vaguely in the approximate direction. 'The gentleman and his officer went down that way to make enquiries, but I never heard any more of the matter until you came just now.'

Hilda felt a little deflated. The energetic John had already followed up every possible lead, so it seemed. She should have more sense than to think that a solitary woman like herself could achieve more than a highly experienced law officer like John de Wolfe. Still, she was here now, so she might as well make the most of the opportunity. But the day was wearing on and she felt that she must first go to Ringmore, which was her prime destination. Another penny made the custodian even more anxious to help, and he explained that the small village of Bigbury was about a mile along one of the arms of the crossroads, with Ringmore slightly farther down another.

With a final genuflexion, Hilda made the sign of the Cross towards the little altar and took her leave of the old fellow. With her thumb in the crook of her holly staff, she strode out towards Ringmore, apprehensive at being for the first time alone in a remote and deserted countryside, far from her familiar villages of Dawlish and Holcombe. However, after the first half-mile, in which she was neither robbed nor ravished by footpads or outlaws, her confidence returned, and she stepped out more confidently along the narrow track, rutted by cartwheels and fouled by ox-droppings, as were most of the country roads.

The lane began dropping, and she sensed the familiar smell and feel of the sea, though it was still more than a mile distant. Trees became lower and sparser, with gorse, broom and heather taking their place.

Then the track entered a shallow valley, where more trees were able to shelter from the gales, and soon some strip-fields heralded the edge of a village. She saw the tiny church at the top end of the hamlet and then the scattered dwellings, barn and manor-house that made up Ringmore.

A couple of bare-foot children appeared, guiltily clutching some scarred apples that they had obviously stolen from someone's trees, the last survivors of the autumn harvest. The sight of a strange woman in their village was enough to make them forget their crime for the moment and they stared open mouthed at this apparition from the outside world. Hilda asked them where she could find the bailiff, as William Vado was the only person that John had mentioned in Ringmore. Wordlessly, one pointed towards the stockade of the manor-house and she went towards it, soon meeting two men who came out of the gate, leading a pair of oxen. They stared at her curiously but said nothing, and she went inside the compound and peered in through the open main door. A couple of girls and an older woman were scattering new rushes on the floor, and stopped to stare open-mouthed at her as if she had just dropped down from the moon.

Within minutes, she had explained who she was to the woman, and as soon as the servant had assured herself that this was an earthbound woman and a Saxon as well, she was eager to help.

'I'll fetch the bailiffs wife directly,' she said in an accent so thick that even the village-born Hilda had difficulty in following it.