The Elixir of Death

Thomas, who, since he had taken to riding a horse like a man, was more able to keep up with them, spoke from John's other side. 'I also think, Crowner, that the mode of killing Sir Peter is significant.'

John turned his long face to his clerk and waited for him to elaborate. In spite of his often disparaging manner towards the little man, he was well aware of Thomas's intelligence and learning and had come to respect his opinions.

'I sense that his death was a deliberate insult to our Christian faith!' stated the clerk, emphatically.

Gwyn of Polruan groaned. 'To you, little turd, everything turns on your bloody religious fancies!'

'Let him speak, man!' snapped the coroner. 'What do you mean, Thomas?'

'The victim was subjected to a parody of the crucifixion, his outstretched arms lashed to that branch. Then his severed head was impaled not on some pole at a crossroads or on the Exe Bridge, but in the holiest of Christian sites in western England, our Lord's cathedral church of Exeter! Surely no Christian, however depraved, would go to such deliberate lengths to so contemptuously disparage our faith!'

De Wolfe nodded slowly, digesting the priest's earnest argument.

'And if not Christians, then they are likely to be Moors?'

Thomas eagerly agreed. 'Sir Peter had been a Crusader, like his father before him. Maybe this was a gesture of revenge for his taking the Cross against their own faith. There were many awful atrocities committed against them, which also affected innocent civilians.'

Gwyn was still dubious, though he never missed an opportunity to contradict the clerk. 'Both Sir John here and myself were at the Crusades, but no one has tried to cut off our heads! And what of the younger le Calve sons? They have never set foot in Palestine, but someone has loosed off cross-bow bolts at them.'

Thomas looked crestfallen at this logical demolition of his argument, but John came to his rescue.

'What you say has good sense behind it, Thomas. But we must wait and see what develops. God knows how we are to further this quest, as these attackers seem to melt away like the snow that is surely coming soon.'

He looked up at the grey sky and was glad to see the skyline of the city appear around the bend in the trackway. The return to Martin's Lane also meant, however, that he would soon have to meet the wrath of Matilda for absenting himself from lunch with his brother-in-law.

With a sigh, he touched Odin's flank with a spur, wishing he had to face Saladin and a thousand screaming Saracens rather than his wife.

CHAPTER NINE

In which Crowner John falls out with Matilda

The old hound Brutus slunk to the door of the hall, his tail between his legs. As he nuzzled it ajar and slipped out to seek solace in Mary's kitchen shed, he left a blazing row behind him.

'Does shaming me come naturally to you, John — or do you practise it daily until you reach this perfection?' snarled Matilda, standing by the long table, which was cluttered with the debris of the meal he had missed.

'I have the King's duties to attend to, woman,' he yelled back, his short temper now well alight. 'Duties which, as I recall, you were desperate for me to undertake last year when you insisted that I become coroner.'

Arms akimbo, fists placed on her thick waist, his wife abandoned all pretence of being a sophisticated county lady and descended to the body language and vocabulary of a fishwife from the quayside.

'Duties! Duties! By Christ and his Virgin Mother, have you no duties to your wife and family? My brother, who you ruined by your cheap jealousy and spite, gave you unstinting hospitality at Revelstoke barely more than a sennight ago, yet you insult him by deliberately shunning your duty as host for a mere single dinner.'

'Did I deliberately arrange for William le Calve to be sorely injured by a cross-bow bolt — and have his steward killed on the spot?' raved John. 'What would you have me do — tell the lord of Shillingford that I cannot attend his crisis, as my brother-in-law is coming to dinner?'

Matilda crashed her substantial fist on to the table, making the platters and pots rattle. 'You always have some glib excuse, damn you!' she shrieked. 'No doubt you waited until it was near dinner-time before you set off — and took good care not to return until Richard and Eleanor had left!'

There was half a truth in this, but John was in no mood to make any admissions.

'I went as soon as the messenger arrived, damn you! This attack is plainly related to the atrocity against Peter le Calve and, for all I knew, there was a chance of catching the murderers red handed! You are so proud of your Norman lineage, but would you now recommend that I allow fellow knights and manor-lords to be slain, with only casual regard for seeking justice? Eh? Answer me, woman!'

And answer him she did. The battle of words went on in the same vein for many more minutes, each combatant convinced of the righteousness of their own cause. From Matilda came a flood of accusations that she had pent up for- months, blaming John entirely for her brother's downfall and dismissal from the post of sheriff. Since going to spend a week at Revelstoke, she seemed to have revived her adoration of her elder brother and, by inference, her husband's part in bringing him down became all the more dastardly.

This was a dispute that could have no solution, so entrenched was each one in their own attitude. Eventually, when both were red in the face and hoarse with shouting at each other, Matilda stalked towards the door, pushing him roughly aside as she went.

'I cannot bear to remain in the same chamber as you, husband!' she hissed. 'I am going to my solar and then to my cousin's dwelling in Fore Street. If I set eyes on you again today, it will be too soon.'

As she jerked open the door savagely enough to tear it from its leather hinges, he bawled at her retreating back. 'And if I set eyes upon you ever again, it will also be too soon!'

The slam of the door behind his wife actually shattered the wooden latch, but John was past caring whether the roof caved in on top of him.

'Bloody woman, this is too much to bear!' he muttered.

Five minutes later, he was striding across the cathedral Close, his feet taking him blindly towards Idle Lane.

Alexander of Leith became a little more easy in his mind as the week went by, as he seemed to be making some progress with Nizam el-Din. Although their communication was still halting and imperfect, he began to follow the Turk's mixture of French and Latin more easily, especially when they discussed their mystic science, as much of the arcane vocabulary of alchemy was common to many languages.

After his initial exasperation at Nizam's proficiency in the procedures needed to pursue their research, Alexander rather grudgingly came to accept that the Moor knew something of what he was about, as he watched him juggling with flasks, retorts, pestle and mortar. As he worked, Nizam kept up a mumbled commentary to himself in a language the Scot could not place, though he assumed it was Arabic or whatever the fellow had learned at his mother's knee.

With the clumsy help of Jan the Fleming, Alexander had set up his own apparatus on the opposite side of the hearth, assembling a series of crucibles, retorts, distillation flasks and various other receptacles on a second table that they had pulled from the far end of the vaulted chamber. A large jar stood heavy with quicksilver, and small ingots of tin, copper and lead were stacked on the table-top. He had a thick volume of loose parchment folios held between two hinged boards that served as book covers and constantly referred to this as he primed his equipment with a variety of powders and liquids taken from a wooden box. The lid of this was intricately carved with symbols similar to those embroidered on his blouselike garment, and though he did not mutter endlessly like the Moor, his lips framed the recipes and formulae from his book as he went about preparing his materials.