The Elixir of Death (35 page)

That was the last she saw for some time, as suddenly an oat-sack was thrown over her head from behind. Rough hands pinned her arms to her side, dragging her off her feet and carrying her bodily away, her cries of distress muffled by the smelly hessian of the dirty sack.

During the week that followed, life for John de Wolfe went on much the same as usual - at least, much the same as since he had moved out of Martin's Lane and taken up residence with his mistress Nesta. He was by turns happy and uneasy, then content and irritated. Life had changed radically, even though the people he was with were the same and the orbit of his life still revolved mostly within the same quarter of a mile.

He sat now at his table in the Bush, warmed by the same fire and drinking the same good ale brewed by the woman he loved, yet he could no longer slump by his own hearth, stroking the head of his old hound until it was time for a leisurely amble down to the Bush. He leaned now against the door-post of the inn's cook shed, watching Nesta and her girls preparing food for hungry customers, yet he could no longer perch on Mary's little stool in her kitchen, cadging hot pastries and gossiping about the day's events.

Passionate nights in Nesta's warm bed were a delight, and he certainly did not miss the barren mattress in Matilda's solar. But even up in the little room in the Bush's loft, he felt it was somehow unseemly for Gwyn or a castle man-at-arms to come tapping on Nesta's door when there was some midnight emergency, rather than being woken by Mary climbing the solar steps. In short, the familiar routines of the past couple of years had become so ingrained that this abrupt change to a different set of routines had unsettled him. He realised this well enough himself, but was powerless to shake off the mood of unease. John even daydreamed about giving up this split lifestyle and running off with Nesta to live in Wales or Cornwall, making a fresh start. But the practicalities were insuperable. There was his obligation to the King to continue as coroner, as well as Nesta's attachment to her beloved Bush, which gave her both an intense interest in life as well as a fair living.

The cold light of every morning saw him back in his chamber in the castle gatehouse, and the familiar round of duties drove any decisions about the future direction of his life into the background once again. John called briefly at his house in Martin's Lane every day, choosing early afternoon when he knew Matilda would either be snoring in her bed during an afternoon siesta or on her knees in St Olave's church. He went there to check that Mary had sufficient money to meet domestic expenses and to replenish the cash in his chest in the solar for Matilda's benefit, even though she had an income of her own from her father, dispensed by Richard de Revelle. John's earnings came from his venture with Hugh de Relaga, which was increasing in value as the months went by, thanks to the boom in Exeter's economy.

On calling at the house almost a week after he had moved out, he learned from Mary that on this particular day he need not have timed his visit to avoid his wife, as she had had just departed again with her brother to his manor at Revelstoke, taking Lucille with her.

'She didn't say when she was expecting to come back,' added Mary, severely. 'So you just carry on back to your hideout until you come to your senses!'

Any other cook-maid would have received a whipping from their master for such forthright criticism, but given their past history, John knew that Mary was trying to be helpful- and deep down, he suspected that she was right.

Hilda was a very intelligent woman and she rapidly decided that her best chance of survival was to play the part of a simple peasant who would be no danger to anyone. It soon became clear that she had not been captured by common outlaws who were intent on robbery and rape. After she was thrust inside the coarse sack, a rope was tied over it around her waist, effectively pinning her arms. Then she was half dragged, half carried a short distance before being thrown to the ground, a heavy foot planted on her back preventing her from getting up.

Two gruff voices began debating her fate, using English with a coarse local accent. At that moment, she determined to speak only in that language and pretend to be ignorant of the French that someone else now began using, this time in far more refined tones.

The upshot of the discussion was that the two Saxons, Alfred and Ulf, had found a woman wandering within a few hundred paces of the camp and had brought her back with them. The two guards spoke abysmal French, but their master now replied in passable English.

'Take that damned sack off and let's have a look at her.'

The rope was loosened and the hessian bag hoisted over her head. Hilda found herself lying in long grass inside some kind of ruin, with remnants of old masonry and a few dilapidated shacks. A tall and rather handsome man was standing over her, as the two burly ruffians displayed her much as though they had brought in a deer from the hunt.

'Who are you, woman? And why were you spying on this place?' demanded Raymond de Blois in French.

She looked blankly up at him, pretending not to understand. The younger oaf repeated the question in English, ogling the blonde as he realised for the first time that she was attractive, even though she was almost old enough to be his mother.

Hilda rapidly improvised her story. Haltingly and fearfully, she claimed to be a pilgrim who had come to St Anne's well to pray and collect holy water to treat her mother's advancing blindness. She was staying in the village while she waited for her fellow pilgrims to return the next day, but had got lost in the woods while out looking for mushrooms. Ulf called her a silly cow for expecting to find mushrooms this late in the year, but did not seem to find this a significant flaw in her story. Raymond de Blois studied her dishevelled appearance, and her plain rural clothing and accepted that she was some pathetic Saxon, of no danger to their mission.

'What shall we do with her, sir?' asked Ulf. 'Kill her, perhaps? Alfred and me could have some fun with her first. Pity to waste such a fair woman.'

The chivalrous knight was outraged at the suggestion and ordered the two outlaws to lock her in one of the small storerooms in the crypt.

'Put a mattress and a bucket in there, and find some food and drink for her. If either of you so much as lays a finger on her, you'll answer to me with your lives.' He slid his sword halfway out of its scabbard and slammed it back again, the hiss of metal on leather emphasising his determination to preserve the woman's life and honour.

Grumbling under their breath, they reluctantly led Hilda away. Seeing no hope of escape at that moment, she thought it best to stay passive and let herself be pushed down the steps and through the gloomy undercroft, where the strange sight of three Saracens and two other even odder fellows gave her plenty to think about after she was locked into a small, almost dark room. It was lit only by a narrow shaft in the side wall which was almost totally obscured at its upper end by profuse vegetation.

When her eyes became accustomed to the dimness, she saw some crates and jars stacked in the chamber, the rest being a floor of damp earth. After a straw-filled palliasse and a bucket were provided, Hilda sat on a crate and considered her position. A brave woman, she accepted that she might not survive this abduction, but felt sure that this sinister camp in the forest was in some way connected with her husband's death. She had not the faintest idea what was going on in this place, but the presence of Moors and the general air of concealment and mystery told her that it must surely be connected with the scraps of information that John de Wolfe had told her about. There was no chance of getting out of this secure prison, as the light shaft was almost vertical and wide enough only for a dog. All she could hope to achieve was to learn more about this mysterious place and trust that she could somehow survive long enough to tell it to the law officers.

Hilda pulled a box across to the door and squatted on it, so that her ear was near the crack on the side where the rusty hinges were attached. Though the door was thick and strong, it was a poor fit in the frame, and not only could she hear through the gap, but one eye placed against it gave her a very narrow view down the long crypt. As figures passed to and from the hearth, they were fleetingly visible in the dim light from the fire and the rush-lights. Most of them were the white-robed Saracens she had glimpsed when she was dragged in, but now and then she saw a large man in a dark tunic and a smaller one wearing what appeared to be a thin jerkin over a skirted robe.

The snatches of speech were disjointed and hard to make out, as the crypt was long and the acoustics poor. The Turks were farther away, and she could distinguish almost nothing of what they said to each other, but she did a little better with the little man in the tunic. He was asking questions in French, with a strange accent that she could not identify. It seemed that the Turks also had a problem understanding him, as he spoke slowly, loudly and with pedantic correctness. Only one voice ever answered him, in slurred French, and she decided that the large fellow and the other two Turks spoke none of that language at all.

The gist of the questioning was at first about her and her presence there. When the small man demanded to know what was going on, the Arab informed him shortly and with apparent ill temper that this was some local woman who had been caught spying on them.

'She should be killed, for safety's sake!' he snarled, which sparked a gust of protest from the questioner. Hilda failed to hear much of the rest of the argument, as the men seemed to have turned away from her. After this, all she heard were sporadic questions and even more grudging answers about some processes in which they were engaged.

In spite of her good intentions to eavesdrop indefinitely, within a couple of hours Hilda felt overcome by fatigue and worry and crept to the bag of straw, where she soon fell asleep.

De Wolfe had been living in the Bush for more than a week when one afternoon two worried men called at his chamber in Rougemont. They were Roger Watts and Angerus de Wile, the two ship-masters from Dawlish.

'We left it until now in the hope that Mistress Hilda would come back,' said Watts. 'But we waited at Salcombe until yesterday, then decided we had better catch a fine sou'wester and sail back home.'

John listened with mounting consternation as the two men related how their new employer had sailed with them to Salcombe, ostensibly to visit the
Mary and Child Jesus
and see the scene of her husband's death.

'But then she left her maid in the tavern and took off somewhere, dressed as a pilgrim,' declared Angerus. 'It took us a day to ask around and finally discover from the parish priest that she had left with a party for St Anne's Chapel.'

At this, de Wolfe guessed straight away that Hilda must have gone on to Ringmore to see where Thorgils had been washed ashore and laid in the church. Roger Watts soon confirmed this.

'We were worried out of our minds, Crowner,' he said bleakly. 'We felt responsible for taking her there and letting her go off on this wild-goose chase all alone.'

'Not that we knew what she was going to do,' added de Wile, defensively.

They described how they had followed her route to the chapel and discovered that she had walked from there to Ringmore. They sought out the bailiff and were told that she had left there to return to Salcombe, allegedly with a pilgrim band, but the old custodian of the chapel had already told them that she had come back and gone down to Bigbury village.

'We hastened there and were told that she had arranged to stay the night with the ale-wife in a tavern,' said Watts dolefully. 'But she went out that afternoon and vanished. No one knew what had become of her, but she seemed to have this marked interest in the forest.'

The trail had petered out at that point, and though the two sailors had made half-hearted attempts to search along the edge of the nearby woods, they decided it best to hurry back to Exeter and report to de Wolfe, whose interest in Mistress Hilda was well known to everyone in Dawlish.

'Did you learn anything more from any of the people in that miserable village?' snarled John, now angry and worried at the news.

'Only that she questioned everyone she could about what might be in the forest there,' said Angerus. 'There were unlikely tales about ghosts and demons trotted out by the local folk, but they are a pretty backward and superstitious lot in Bigbury. We reckon there are outlaws and chicken thieves aplenty there, and the worry is that our lady might have been attacked by some of those bastards.'

This seemed all the two shipmen could tell John, but as they were leaving, Watts fumbled in the scrip on his belt and pulled out a crumpled scrap of parchment.

'When we were searching for Mistress Hilda just inside the forest boundary, I came upon this on the faint track that led deeper into the trees. I doubt it has any bearing on the matter, but I thought I had best bring it.'

He held out the parchment, which was stained with dried muddy water and had some shreds of grass stuck to the surface. John looked at it and saw some unintelligible writing, interspersed with strange symbols, which meant absolutely nothing to him. He thrust it at his clerk, who, like Gwyn, had been listening with avid concern to the ship-masters' tale.

'Does this mean anything to you, Thomas?'

The clerk smoothed out the small page of sheepskin on his table and picked off a few shreds of vegetation as he studied it.

'These are alchemical symbols,' he pronounced. 'I am no expert, but I recognise the signs for mercury, sulphur, lead, tin, copper and gold.'