The Elixir of Death (47 page)

'He said he met this de Blois fellow in London,' John now related to the group in the Bush. 'De Revelle was very vague as to what he knew about the man or even where he came from. But I can't prove otherwise.'

'So where did these alchemists come from?' asked Nesta, pouring more ale for the men.

'Richard said that de Blois knew of an Arab who he had met in Syria, famed for his expertise in alchemy. This man claimed to be within sight of succeeding with the elixir, but needed more facilities, so de Blois paid for him to come to Normandy and then fetched him across on poor Thorgils' ship.'

'Sounds a bloody thin story to me,' grunted Gwyn. 'So how did the lord of Revelstoke come into this?' asked Rufus.

'He says he funded the supply of food, horses and apparatus for this place in the forest near Bigbury. That was his part of the deal, in exchange for splitting the proceeds of the elixir, when it was produced.'

'How did they get to be tucked away in this hideout?' asked the chaplain. 'Why all the secrecy?'

John shrugged. 'The explanation gets thinner and thinner! That land belongs to Henry de Vautortes, but he holds it as a sub-tenant from ... guess who?'

Nesta looked at him blankly. 'Tell us, then,' she commanded.

'The Count of Mortain ... Prince bloody John himself! But it's no crime to rent out a piece of useless land, so there's nothing I can do about it.'

Thomas, who had subsided after giving his sermon on alchemy, had another question. 'What about those two strange men, the Scotsman who poisoned the main villain - and that grotesque foreigner with no tongue?'

De Wolfe ran his hands through his dense black hair, smoothing it down to the back of his neck. He was getting weary and also anxious about what he had to do very soon.

'According to my dear wife's lying brother, they were recruited to help this Arab alchemist in his final search for the elixir. He says Raymond de Blois found this Alexander in Bristol, where he had a reputation as a noted philosopher. I suspect that this is about the only part of the story that could be proved to be true.'

'So what are you going to tell the Justiciar?' asked Rufus.

'Nothing but the truth,' snapped de Wolfe. 'But perhaps forgetting a few details that will help no one.'

'And letting de Revelle off the hook is one of them,' grumbled Gwyn into his ale-pot.

'I'll tell Hubert Walter that the plot he was warned of no longer exists. Three dangerous Moorish assassins burnt themselves to death rather than be captured after failing in their mission - that's readily believable, from what we know of the members of this sect, who seem to relish dying!'

'What about the deaths of the old Templar, the shipmen and the two at Shillingford?' asked the chaplain. 'To say nothing of the blasphemous desecration in the cathedral? '

'I'll be able to resume all the inquests on those now,' answered John, with genuine satisfaction. 'The blame will quite rightly be attributed to these foreign assassins, who got into the country by stealth in order to carry out their murderous schemes against old Crusaders and their families. This is the absolute truth - all this nonsense about the Elixir of Life was a smokescreen and I see no need even to mention it!'

'So what about this Raymond de Blois?' asked Brother Rufus.

John shrugged. 'I don't know who he was or what he was doing here. I have my own suspicions, but they would only open a bag of worms that's best left undisturbed. He was a brave man, trying to save the others at the cost of his own life, so I will let him lie in peace.'

'Where is he lying, by the way?' asked Nesta.

'We buried him three days ago in that little church of St Peter the Poor Fisherman, at the foot of the cliffs in de Revelle's manor. Matilda and Hilda came with us and we saw him put in the earth in a most decorous manner, thanks to the priest that conducted the Mass in such a fine manner.'

Thomas blushed and hung his head in embarrassment at the unexpected compliment. The conversation went on for a time, until John had run out of explanations and the others had exhausted their theories about this strange business. One by one, they drifted away, Thomas to get ready for midnight Matins in the cathedral and Gwyn back to the castle for a game of dice in the guardroom. Rufus decided to join him, and at last John and Nesta were left alone at the table. He felt very uneasy and stared into his quart pot, turning it around restlessly in his fingers.

Nesta placed a hand over his. 'Come on, Sir Crowner,' she murmured, in the half-mocking, half-affectionate way she had when he was out of sorts. 'Up the ladder and rest your weary head. It's been a hard few days, especially for old fellows like you, well past their prime!'

He pinched her bottom in reprisal, but wasted no time in following her up to the loft, watched by the envious eyes of some of the patrons, who came to the Bush as much for the sight of the fair Nesta as for her excellent ale.

In the little chamber in the corner of the large space beneath the thatch, John slumped down on the large feather mattress laid on a raised plinth, just above the floor. He still regretted the loss of their French bed, consumed in the recent fire, and resolved to remind the new ship-masters in Dawlish that the new one he had ordered must be brought over from St-Malo as soon as sailing started again in the spring. The thought of Dawlish brought the beautiful Hilda into his mind and added to the turmoil there, as Nesta sank down beside him, her head on his shoulder.

Mentally gritting his teeth, he plunged straight into the problem. 'Nesta, my love, tomorrow Matilda will be back in Martin's Lane.'

He steeled himself to continue, willing himself to remember the words that he had been rehearsing since the messenger had brought the news of his wife's return. But the remarkable woman who was his mistress raised her head to kiss his cheek and laid her forefinger across his lips.

'Hush,
cariad
, there's no need to explain!' she whispered in Welsh. 'Of course you must return home. You can't leave the poor woman there after all she's been through.'

John looked at Nesta almost fearfully, his long-held suspicions that she must have the power of second sight confirmed.

'How did you know what I was going to say?'

She smiled sadly and patted his big, rough hands as they lay across his lap. 'I've known for a few weeks that you would not stay with me, John. You miss your freedom, your dog, your cook-maid, even fighting with your wife!'

John's long face flushed slightly. 'I would have stayed with you for ever, but for this happening. I cannot leave her now.'

Nesta nodded gently. 'I believe that you truly love me, John. If there were no Matilda and you could take your dog, your chattels and even your maid with you, we could go away and be happy somewhere else. But as long as you are married and are the King's Coroner, it cannot happen.'

'I'll not give you up, Nesta!' He sounded like a petulant youth, she thought affectionately.

'I know that, John, but home you must go! Let your wife get over this awful thing in her own time. To have been within minutes of being burned alive will have scarred her mind and will disturb her nights for months to come. I should know, for it almost happened to me not long past!'

He turned to her and seized her almost desperately, pulling her back on to the bed, kissing her passionately.

'You are my elixir of life, Nesta! Without you, it would have no meaning. My body may have to return home, but my soul will stay here!'

As they fumbled at each other's garments, she vowed that his body would also return to the Bush as often as possible!

It was late the next day before de Revelle's retainers appeared in Martin's Lane, ending the leg of the journey from Buckfast Abbey. As the sound of hoofs brought John to his street door, the sight of the blackbird devices on their jerkins gave him a momentary vision of the two guards on the track near Bigbury, with cross-bow bolts sticking from their backs. Then he was hurrying out to help a grim-faced Matilda from her palfrey, Mary following close behind to chaperone Lucille as one of the escorts hauled her from her pony. Leaving the two younger women to organise the bags and packages from the horses, John led his wife inside and took her into the gloomy hall, where a huge fire was blazing in the chimneyed hearth. Mary had placed food and wine ready on the table, and with uncharacteristic gallantry John led Matilda to her favourite cowled chair before the fire and helped her off with her heavy riding cloak.

'You must be chilled through after that long ride,' he said solicitously. 'I'll pour you a cup of wine and soon Mary will bring hot stew.'

He fussed over her for a few minutes as she silently warmed herself before the fire. Then he brought his own goblet to sit on the other monk's chair, wondering desperately how to find something to say that would not spark controversy. But as had Nesta the evening before, Matilda saved him the trouble.

'Are you living back here now?' she demanded, her gimlet eyes boring into his.

'I am indeed, wife! You need not fear any further assault now - those men are all dead.'

She turned to stare at the flames in the hearth.

'I am glad you are back, John: she murmured tonelessly. 'The house was not the same without you here to cause me trouble.'

HISTORICAL POSTSCRIPT

The three assassins in this work of fiction are loosely based upon historical reality, which still has unfortunate relevance today. In the highly complex history of Islam, a major division occurred upon the death of the Prophet Muhammad in AD 632. The majority group, the Sunnis, declared that his successor was a caliph chosen by Muhammad's followers, but the remainder (the Shi'a or Shi'ites) claimed that shortly before his death he had appointed his nephew Ali, the husband of his daughter Fatima, as his spiritual and temporal heir. Later, other schisms about the succession occurred and the Shi'a split repeatedly, one sect being the Isma'ili, whose leader is still the present Aga Khan.

The Isma'ili had radical and esoteric views of their religion, and in the eleventh century the Nizari sub-sect under Hasan ibn Al Sabbah broke away, originally to kill leading Sunnis in Egypt, in order to restore the Fatimid Shi'a dynasty in Cairo. Hasan was viewed by the rest of Islam as a heretic, and around 1090 removed his sect to Alamut, a remote mountain stronghold in Persia, where he became known as 'The Old Man of the Mountains', though this is a mistranslation of Sheik al Jabal, meaning 'Chief of the Mountain'.

The Nizaris became known as the hashishin, because of the claim that they used hashish (cannabis) to excite themselves into a state of murderous ecstasy. The modern name 'assassin' is derived from this unlikely allegation. In fact cannabis does not have this effect, but they may well have used other psychedelic drugs.

Assassination became a potent political weapon, and for many years the hashishin imposed a reign of terror all over the Near East, where many leading Sunnis were knifed or poisoned by Nizari killers, who invariably died themselves during the attacks.

In the twelfth century, another Nizari, Rashid el-din Sinan, moved to a different mountain fastness in the Lebanon (then part of Syria) and became another 'Old Man of the Mountains'. From there he conducted a war of assassination against both Sunnis and the Christians of Outremer. A number of attempts were made on the life of Saladin (a Sunni Kurd), and he is said to have slept up a wooden tower for safety. They murdered numerous Crusaders and leading members of the Christian kingdoms, including, in 1152, Count Raymond II of Tripoli.

In 1192, two hashishin dressed as monks fatally knifed Count Conrad of Montferrat, the man who had been chosen as the next King of Jerusalem (an empty gesture, as the Holy City had already been taken by Saladin), in a street in Tyre. They were caught and killed, but before dying, one was alleged to have confessed that the assassination was ordered by King Richard the Lionheart, who preferred another candidate, Guy of Lusignan, to reign over Jerusalem.

The French king Philip, who had by now fallen out with Richard and had abandoned the Crusade and returned to France, took the opportunity to announce that he was also a target of the hashishin. He claimed that Richard had sent four of them to France to assassinate him, and henceforth he went about in armour and with a heavy bodyguard. However, King Leopold of Austria received a letter purportedly written by the Old Man of the Mountains, declaring that King Richard was not implicated, but this was declared a forgery by the Lionheart's enemies.

In 1194, Count Henry of Champagne visited Alamut and described how the assassins were trained - a story that was repeated by Marco Polo over a century later, though he visited the fortress several years after it was destroyed by the Mongols. These accounts told how young men were drugged with hashish and taken to a beautiful garden, with tinkling fountains, superb food and the seductive company of lovely maidens. They were later promised that if they carried out the murderous tasks set by the leader, they would inevitably be killed, but go straight to eternal life in a similar paradise. The Old Man was said to demonstrate their blind. obedience 'by making a sign to these young men, who would instantly leap off a high cliff with a glad cry, to be dashed on the rocks far below' .

There is a huge literature on the Assassins, with some remarkable claims, such as that in 1175 the Nizaris offered to become Christian, so that they could ally with the Frankish forces against the Sunnis. It has also been claimed that there was some clandestine connection between the Assassins and the Knights Templar. Though Alamut was destroyed by the Mongols in the thirteenth century and the Nizaris dispersed, they survived in various forms and some still exist in India as the Khoja sect.