The Elixir of Death (8 page)

It was the afternoon of the next day when they reached Dawlish, as John had stopped to visit his mother and the rest of the family at Stoke-in-Teignhead, a village just south of the River Teign, not far from where it emptied into the sea at Teignmouth. He had been born and brought up there and had a great affection for the place, where his sprightly mother Enyd, spinster sister Evelyn and elder brother William still held the manor. Their usual effusive hospitality extended not only to John, but to Gwyn and Thomas as well, who were always welcome there. They were plied with food and drink, which the ever hungry Cornishman attacked with gusto, while John brought the family up to date on recent events. In fact it was difficult to get away, and only John's pleading that he must call at Dawlish on the way home allowed them to get back on the road. His family had been saddened to hear that Hilda was now widowed, for she was the daughter of the reeve at their other manor at Holcombe, farther up the coast. They had all known her since she was a child, but the unbreachable gap between a Saxon villein and the son of a Norman manor-lord made it impossible for John's youthful romance with Hilda to flourish. Privately, Enyd would have preferred her as a daughter-in-law to Matilda de Revelle, but it was not to be.

As the three men rode out of the wooded valley of Stoke, John's mother gazed after them with a twinge of anxiety, as she was well aware of her son's partiality for women and the affection he felt for Hilda. Enyd was also very fond of his Welsh mistress Nesta, especially as she herself had a Welsh father and a Cornish mother. As John vanished beyond the trees, she hoped that Hilda's new availability would not put her son's life in greater emotional turmoil than usual.

The riders reached the ford at the mouth of the Teign, where thankfully the tide was low enough for them to cross, then went northwards up the coast for a few miles. Dawlish was a village that straggled above the beach, where a small river gave shelter for the vessels that were pulled up on to its sandy banks. Most were fishing boats, but there were two trading cogs lying there, smaller than the wrecked Mary.

'I'll leave you to it, Crowner,' said Gwyn tactfully, as they reined in in the centre of the hamlet. 'I'll be in the alehouse when you've finished.'
 

'And I'll be in the church, praying for the souls of those poor shipmen,' added Thomas rather haughtily, preferring God's house to a tavern.

John led Odin down to the river to drink, then tied the reins of the big grey stallion to the rail outside the inn, giving orders to a runny-nosed lad who acted as ostler to find hay for their three studs. Then he loped up a short side lane from the village street, making for the largest house in Dawlish, which lay behind the usual collection of ramshackle dwellings.

Thorgils had done well from his cross-Channel business, after many years of sailing back and forth with goods in either direction. Some five years before, he had used some of his accumulated wealth to build this fine house, modelled on some he had seen in Brittany. It was all in stone, the only one in this village of wooden dwellings, and had an upper storey, supported in front by two pillars, like a house he had admired in Dol.

John de Wolfe threw his mantle back over his shoulders as he approached the front door, made of heavy oak with metal banding. Suddenly, he felt apprehensive at being the bearer of such bad news. Though he knew that Hilda had never been in love with her husband, who was more than twenty years older, he was well aware that she had felt affection and respect for him and that Thorgils had always treated her courteously and generously. She had married him twelve years earlier, when John was away fighting in the Irish wars. Though a little piqued and slightly jealous, de Wolfe had been glad that she had found security and comfort, as although his brother William was a most benign lord in Holcombe, the life of an unfree peasant in a small village did not equal that of the wife of a wealthy ship-master. .

He straightened his habitually stooped shoulders and rapped on the door with the hilt of his dagger. A moment later it opened and Hilda's maid, a pleasant, round-faced girl called Alice, gazed out at him in surprise.

'Is your mistress at home?' he asked gently, for he knew the girl from previous clandestine visits when Thorgils had been on the high seas. The maid stood aside for him to enter, then led him down a short corridor between two rooms. The house did not have the usual cavernous hall with an upper solar attached - instead, an open wooden stairway rose at the end of the passageway. The girl clattered up the steps before him and went into a chamber at the back of the house, one of the pair that occupied the upper floor. He heard her excitedly announce that Sir John had arrived, then he followed her into the room. Hilda was seated on a padded bench next to an open window that looked over roofs towards the shore. The Saxon woman, now in her mid-thirties, was slim and supple and had long blonde hair falling to her waist, unconfined in braids or a cover-chief when she was at home. She rose quickly as he came in and gazed with pleased surprise at her former lover.

'John, what are you doing here? I had no idea that you would call on me today.' Then Hilda noticed his expression and her gaze faltered.

The next few minutes were very uncomfortable for John as he broke the news as gently as he could. Alice stood uncertainly near the door, as her mistress was held close against the breast of this fierce-looking knight. Hilda's eyes filled with tears, but much to John's relief she held back from sobbing, as he would rather face a thousand of Saladin's warriors than one weeping woman.

'He was a good man, always kind to me, like another father,' she murmured into his tunic. 'I'll miss him, though he was away at sea for much of the year.' Hilda turned her beautiful face up to John, causing him to think inconsequentially how different it was from Nesta's. Where the Welsh woman had rounder features with a snub nose, Hilda's face was longer, with higher cheek-bones and a slim, straight nose below her blue eyes.

He led her back to her chair and drew up a stool to be close to her side.

'There are many practical matters to be dealt with, Hilda. But I will do all I can to help you with them.'
 

She nodded, drying her moist cheeks with the hem of her sleeve, then ordered the maid to fetch some wine and pastries. When the girl had rather reluctantly left the room, Hilda laid her hand on his.

'There has been a very special bond between us for many years, John. I wish with all my heart that I could ,have become your wife, instead of Thorgils', but it was not possible.' She leant across and kissed his stubbly cheek. 'But we must not turn this tragedy to our own advantage - I am a new widow and you have your Nesta.'
 

De Wolfe knew that he was being gently warned off, and it reinforced his determination to be faithful to his Welsh mistress, if not his wife. Yet a trace of disappointment niggled in his mind, though even that was soothed by her next words. 'Time may alter matters, John, so let us have patience.'
 

The wine and a platter of meat pasties appeared and as Alice seemed determined to play the chaperone by crouching in a corner, John led the discussion on to the practical matters he had raised. He told Hilda of the arrangements to bring back the bodies of Thorgils and the other Dawlish men and promised to send Thomas de Peyne to see the parish priest this very afternoon, to organise the funeral.

When he enquired about money, she assured him that her husband, conscious of his years and his dangerous occupation on the high seas, had made ample provision for an unexpected death. A document had been drawn up by an Exeter lawyer leaving everything to her, as there were no children alive by his previous marriage and they had had none themselves.

'I have the key to his treasure chest, which he always told me to use as my own,' she said sadly. 'The house is valuable and he owned two other smaller ships and a warehouse in Topsham which brings in a rent, so I have no concerns about my survival.'
 

She asked about the
Mary and Child Jesus
, expecting to hear that it was a total loss, but John explained that it might well be saved and brought back into service.

'But I have no experience as a ship-owner, John. What am I to do with these three vessels? Shall I sell them?'
 

He had no wish to burden her with business matters so soon after learning that she was a widow, but he briefly explained that he would talk to Hugh de Relaga and see whether they could work out some new venture.

'But forget that for now, dear woman,' he said gruffly, as he rose and patted her shoulder awkwardly. 'I will attend to all these matters. Have you someone who can come and keep you company at this unhappy time?'
 

She smiled sadly. 'With Thorgils absent so much, I am so often alone, apart from Alice here. With the winter coming and the ships laid up, I was looking forward to his company. Now I will go home to Holcombe for a while to be with my family.'
 

John assured her that his brother William, manor-lord of Holcombe, already knew of the tragedy and would do anything necessary to help her.

As he was leaving, with a promise to return for the funeral, Hilda clutched his arm.

'Who can have done such a terrible thing, John?' she asked, in a voice that quavered with emotion. 'The wife of a ship man always accepts the perils of the sea. Every time he left, I wondered if it would be the last I would ever see of him, because of some tempest or shipwreck. But that he should be stabbed to death, along with his crew, is beyond my comprehension!'
 

John put a long arm around her shoulders and hugged her to him, ignoring the curious stares of the maid.

'I'll not rest until I find the answer to that question, Hilda. This is a very strange crime, but I'll get to the bottom of it, even if takes me years and a journey to Cathay and back!'
 

The coroner's next journey was not as far as Cathay, but was the ten miles into Exeter, which they reached just before dusk, when the walled city was closed at curfew. Gwyn did not enter through the West Gate with his master, but went around the south side to reach the village of St Sidwell, where he lived in a hut with his wife and two small sons. With his clerk lagging wearily behind, John de Wolfe walked his horse up Fore Street to the central crossing of Carfoix and straight on into High Street, the town plan having been set down a thousand years earlier by the Romans. A thriving, bustling city, Exeter was developing quickly, many of the old wooden houses being rebuilt in stone, so that a confused mixture of styles lined the crowded streets. Not yet paved, these lanes were of beaten earth, dusty in the dry and a morass in the rain. A central gutter sluggishly conveyed all the effluent down to the river, including most of the rubbish and filth that householders and shopkeepers flung out of their doors.

Just past the new Guildhall, a narrow alley opened on the right-hand side. This was Martin's Lane, one of the entrances into the cathedral Close, the large open area around the massive church of St Mary and St Peter, whose twin towers soared above the city. The coroner had his house in the lane, but this evening both he and his clerk carried on up High Street towards the East Gate, then turned up Castle Hill to Rougemont, the fortress perched on the northern tip of the sloping city. John wished to discover whether any more cases had been reported during his absence down in the country. Thankfully, the guardroom had no messages for him and with Thomas close behind, he climbed to his cheerless chamber high in the gatehouse, which stood astride the entrance to the inner ward. He had hardly sat down behind his table when a voice came from the doorway.

'The sheriff sends his compliments, Sir John, and asks if you could attend upon him.'
 

The voice was that of Sergeant Gabriel, the grizzled old soldier who headed the garrison's men-at-arms at Rougemont, so called on account of the colour of its local sandstone. He had stuck his head around the tattered hessian curtain that hung over the doorway to de Wolfe's chamber. It was a bleak, draughty garret, spitefully provided by the former sheriff, Richard de Revelle, when he was reluctantly obliged to find some accommodation for his brother-in-law, the new coroner. De Revelle had seen the introduction of these upstart coroners as a threat to his own interests, especially his opportunities to extort and embezzle from the inhabitants and taxes of the shire of Devon. The knowledge that one of the King's motives in setting up the coroner system was to keep a check on rapacious sheriffs made it an even more bitter pill to swallow.

De Wolfe received the sergeant's message with a lift of his black eyebrows, as he sat in the lengthening gloom at the rough trestle table that acted as his desk. This, together with a bench and a couple of milking stools, was the only furniture in the room. Thomas de Peyne was on one of the stools on the other side of the table, his tongue projecting from the corner of his thin lips as he began lighting a rush lamp with a flint and tinder to check the parchment roll carrying his account of the Ringmore inquest.

'Did he say what he wanted, Gabriel?' demanded de Wolfe.

The old soldier shook his head. 'Not a word, Crowner! But a herald came with messages from Winchester when you were away. The day 'afore yesterday, it was - so maybe it's to do with that.'
 

His head vanished, and with a groan at the stiffness in his back and legs after so much riding, John rose and went after him, with an unnecessary admonition to his clerk to get the inquisition finished before the day was out.