The Elixir of Death (39 page)

His self-pitying introspection was disturbed by a change in the noises coming from Raymond de Blois. His shallow breathing, almost as if he were asleep, became broken by grunts and then gargled sounds like attempted speech. From being as motionless as a tree trunk, he began to twitch. Again Richard almost indifferently wondered whether he was dying, but suddenly the Frenchman stirred and began moaning at the pain in his head, where dried blood had caked over a scalp wound in the centre of a patch of livid, bruised skin.

Soon, Raymond jerked himself up on to an elbow and began mumbling curses of which any quayside stevedore would have been proud. De Revelle decided that any live ally was worth cultivating and crawled to his side, to offer solicitous words.

'De Blois, are you recovered? What in Christ's name has happened to us?'

It took a few minutes for the other knight to gather his wits and push himself to a sitting position, still groaning at the pain in his head. He had no recollection of what had happened to him, and Richard explained that the three Arabs had suddenly turned on them and thrown them into this chamber.

Gradually Raymond's mind cleared, but the last thing he remembered was talking to the alchemists in the crypt outside. 'I thought this venture was doomed from the outset,' he muttered. 'I tried to dissuade the King's Chancellor from pursuing the idea, but he said that Philip had his mind set upon it.'

'What do these eastern devils want from us?' gabbled Richard desperately.

'Our lives, I suspect!' answered Raymond grimly. 'But there must be more to it than that. They have been up to no good ever since they arrived. Killing those poor bloody ship men should have warned me from the start that they verged on madness.'

'What about this crazy Scotsman and his dumb servant? Are they in this too?'

De Blois gave his Gallic shrug. 'I don't know. This Alexander seemed suspicious of the Turks all along. It seems that he was right!'

'What are we going to do? They've taken our swords and daggers, even my small eating knife.'

With more groans, de Blois dragged himself on his hands and bottom across to the wall and leaned his back against the damp stones.

'In the time that I have been with these evil bastards, I have several times seen how oddly they behave,' he said thickly. 'Often they chew some foul paste and I have also seen them sprinkling a dark powder on to that mess of crushed wheat that they call food. Afterwards, they appear either drunk or glassy eyed and sleepy. Sometimes, it makes them chatter madly among themselves and they become agitated and start some outlandish dancing.'

Time went by, and all they could do was sit on the floor, shivering from the cold - and in de Revelle's case, from bouts of terror. They discussed the possibility of jumping whoever opened the door, in spite of their tied hands, but as the hours went by and no one appeared, even this desperate plan seemed redundant.

'Perhaps they've gone and left us here to starve?' suggested Richard, fearfully.

Again de Blois shrugged. 'What would be the point of that? They could leave at any time, without attacking us first. In fact, they have been absent many times, that was one of the problems. When they should have been working at their flasks and furnace, they vanished for days at a time, God knows where.'

Before long, it would become quite clear to them what had taken Nizam and his men away from Bigbury.

Following the incarceration of the two knights, Nizam alDin led his pair of acolytes above ground, leaving a mystified and apprehensive Alexander down below with the stolid Fleming.

Striding to the kitchen hut, the leader marched in on the two Saxons, who were lounging on the floor, each with a hunk of bread and a piece of cheese in their hands.

'There has been trouble!' snapped Nizam. 'The lord with the pointed beard has attacked the Lord Blois. Both are locked next to that woman and now you will take orders from me!'

Even though his French was much better than theirs, it took several attempts and much waving of hands to get this through to Ulf and Alfred, but the display of a gold coin, a bezant from Constantinople, broke down all language barriers.

'Obey me and you will be given this,' he snapped. 'There are some of our enemies left on guard somewhere near. I want them found and then we will get rid of them, understand?'

The two Saxons nodded dumbly, their eyes still fascinated by the sight of the coin, the first gold they had ever seen, other than rings on the fingers of fat priests and noble lords. After more laborious explanation, they were sent off along the track and less than half an hour later returned to say with many gestures and a halting explanation that they had found two men-at-arms resting not far from where the forest track met the road to the village.

Nizam gave some rapid instructions to Abdul and Malik, who vanished into the sleeping shed and came out with a cross-bow. Beckoning to the Saxons to follow, they set off down the path. Nizam watched them go, then turned into the shed and began prostrating himself in an overdue prayer session, facing what he trusted was the general direction of Mecca. When he had finished, he went back to the entrance to the underground chamber and, with one hand on the hilt of the wicked dagger in his belt, went quietly down the stairs, where he saw that Alexander of Leith and his big, clumsy servant were standing near the hearth, looking extremely unhappy. The alchemist hurried across to him and demanded to know what was going on. Nizam regarded him calmly, holding up a hand to stem the flow of outraged recriminations.

'This is something that does not concern you,' he said harshly, in his thickly accented French. 'As a brother worker in the mysteries of our calling, I intend you no harm. What happens between myself and these other men is not your business.'

'Brother worker!' spluttered Alexander. 'You are no true alchemist, I should have known it all along! You are an impostor. God knows what you really are.'

The Mohammedan nodded gravely. 'Yes, my God does know who I am, but again that is none of your concern. You may leave here and do what you will in two days' time. I will not harm you, unless you dare to interefere in my mission.'

'Mission? What damned mission?'

'Again, that is not for you to know. You will stay here until I have completed my task. Tomorrow is my Sabbath, so I cannot act then until the fall of darkness. On Saturday, you may leave, as I will be gone.'

The little man glared at the Turk. 'And what if I decide to leave today?'

'My men and those two local peasants have orders to kill you if you try,' said Nizam in a flat, unemotional voice. 'What about those two men you have locked in there? One was injured, he may be dying. And what of the woman?'

'They must fend for themselves. The woman is of no account - she may leave when you go. The others will be dealt with when it pleases me.'

There was a sinister tone in the last few words which sent a shiver of dread up Alexander's spine, but the Saracen abruptly turned and strode away, leaving the Scot's clamour for answers unsatisfied.

As Nizam reached the bottom of the stairway, he pulled the heavy door behind him and the two men heard a bar being dropped into sockets on the other side. It was normally always left wide open and this final act of imprisonment impressed on them that their own lives dangled on the thin thread of Nizam's goodwill and perhaps sanity.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

In which Crowner John goes to chapel

Once again, the long-suffering Thomas had to ride across half a county behind the coroner and his officer. He began to think that maybe his objections to Eustace de Relaga becoming an apprentice clerk to John de Wolfe may have been misplaced. At least the youth was a more enthusiastic horseman, better fitted to these long journeys than himself, even though he had now mastered sitting astride his horse instead of perching sideways.

They had left Exeter at dawn, the coroner forcing the pace in his anxiety to search for Hilda of Dawlish. They made an uncomfortable overnight stop in a mean alehouse near Luscombe, some distance beyond Totnes, where they slept rolled in their cloaks alongside the firepit in the only room. After another early start, they rode off into the cold, grey morning with its constant threat of snow, reaching Salcombe soon after noon.

John went straight to the inn where the ship-masters had said that Hilda had stayed, but learned nothing other than the fact that she had never returned there. The parish priest at Holy Trinity confirmed that she had joined a band of pilgrims going west, but had not been seen since then.

Before dusk, they arrived at Ringmore as weary as their horses, and once again a surprised bailiff resignedly provided food and shelter in the manor-house. He had had no further news since the two shipmen had visited him, there being no sign of the missing lady.

'I've been up to St Anne's Chapel several times,' said William Vado. 'But old Ivo de Brun has had no sight of her there - not that his sight is much use, poor fellow, but at least he would be able to tell if she had returned.'

'What about Bigbury village? Any news of her there?' demanded John.

The bailiff shook his head. 'I've not been that far, Crowner. My wife has been unwell with white-leg after the birth and I've not spent much time outside this bailey. Thankfully she's improving today, so if you want me to ride with you in the morning, I'll willingly come.'

Tired out, they sought their mattresses on the hall floor soon after a meal and a few jugs of ale and cider. In spite of his worries about his former lover - and Gwyn's gargantuan snores - de Wolfe was soon sound asleep. It seemed only a few minutes later that the cold light of dawn and the stirring of the manor servants jerked him awake.

'What's to be done today, Crowner?' asked the patient Gwyn, as they sat over bowls of pottage, which seemed to consist mainly of turnips and cabbage, with hunks of coarse rye bread to soak up the fluid.

'Follow the route she took again, I suppose,' grunted John. 'First check again at this damned chapel, then go down to this poxy village where she was last heard of.'

There was a pause as they scraped up the last of the soup with their wooden spoons, then Gwyn let out a breath of frustration that blew up the hairs on his straggling moustache.

'What in hell is going on with all this, Crowner?', he asked, dolefully.

De Wolfe shook his long head slowly from side to side. 'Gwyn, I wish to Christ I knew! So many deaths, bloody Moors, shipwreck, alchemists, crucifixions - and now a missing woman.'

Thomas de Peyne, sipping his ale as if it were hemlock, ventured into the conversation.

'Before we left Exeter, I took that piece of parchment up to Brother Rufus to see if he could make out any more words. He could not read the Turkish script, but confirmed what I said about the Greek and the symbols. It seemed to be some part of an alchemist's formula or notes, about some process to make the Elixir of Life.'

When they had eaten and had a final warm at the fire, they went out into the bailey, where William Vado had brought round their horses, ready fed, watered and saddled up. Together with the bailiff, they rode the short distance up to the crossroads. The tiny chapel looked forlorn in the morning mist, as a freezing fog was hovering over the countryside, with no sign of a sun to disperse it. Clouds of vapour hung menacingly over the clumps of trees, and even the birds seemed too depressed to twitter. The coroner reined in level with the small porch.

'We'd best ask that old fellow if he's seen anyone about here lately,' he rasped, his breath steaming in the cold air. 'Thomas, you are nearest to the ground on that overgrown goat you ride! See if he's in there.'

The clerk slid inexpertly from his saddle and trudged across to the door, which was partly open. Crossing himself as he approached this very modest House of God, he called out to the custodian, who lived in a lean-to shack attached to the side of the chapel. Getting no reply, he went inside, and the waiting coroner idly watched the doorway for the appearance of Ivo de Brun. Instead, he heard a piercing shriek which he thought belonged to a woman until he realised it had been made by Thomas de Peyne, who reappeared as if on a spring, his face as white as chalk.

'What the hell's the matter with you?' roared Gwyn, leaping off his mare and advancing on Thomas, ferocity masking his concern for the little clerk. John de Wolfe was but a yard behind him, and together they pushed past the priest and rushed into the small building.

'God's teeth, what's happened here?' shouted de Wolfe, as Gwyn and William Vado crowded alongside him. On the floor in the middle of the nave lay the crumpled body of the custodian. He was face down, but was easily recognisable by the bandiness of his bare legs, exposed below his worn cassock, which was rumpled up almost to his waist. The old man's arms were outstretched, as if in a final agonised supplication towards the little altar. He was ominously still, and even more ominous was the spreading patch of dark blood which had soaked into the earthen floor on either side of his body.

Gwyn knelt at his head and lifted it with a gentleness that was at odds with his burly, rough appearance. 'He's dead, poor old fellow. But look at his eyes!'

With Thomas hovering with an ashen face near the door, John and Vado moved around to crouch with the Cornishman and stare in horror at the face of the chapel's guardian. The nose and one cheek were flattened and pale from contact with the ground, the rest having the purple hue of death staining. But what was most shocking was his eyes - rather than showing the former milkiness of his cataracts, they revealed bloody pits where they had been gouged out, the remains hanging down his face.