Bernard Knight - The Elixir of Death

He drained the last of his ale and stood up. 'And maybe they will want to get her around to a proper port. That creek on the Avon is not the best place to carry out repairs.'

Gwyn went off to settle his big mare in the castle stables, as there was nowhere near his modest home in St Sidwell to keep the beast. John slowly walked Odin in the gathering dusk down to High Street and a well-earned rest with Andrew the farrier. Then he gratefully entered his own house and sat with Mary for a while in her kitchen shed, telling her of the journey to Revelstoke, which was farther away than the cook-maid had ever been in her life. Though he had already eaten in Rougemont, Mary pressed him to one of her mutton pastries and a cup of cider while she listened to his tale.

'So when is the mistress likely to come back? And that nosy bitch Lucille?' she asked. Like John, she was savouring the house without the mistress. It was as if a dark cloud had been lifted from Martin's Lane while she was away.

'I don't know, but I doubt it will be more than a few days,' he said glumly. 'Since he lost the shrievalty, her hero-worship for her brother has vanished. Sooner rather than later, she will say something to offend him — and Matilda can't stand his wife, the icy Lady Eleanor, who thinks that she's only slightly less exalted than the Queen herself.'

The mention of King Richard's wife diverted their talk to Berengaria, a topic of endless speculation among both the aristocracy and peasantry of England. A Spanish princess, she had never set foot in the country of which she was queen and could not speak a word of its language. Mary was all the more intrigued by the matter, as John had actually been present at the marriage in Cyprus, on his way to the Crusade, and many a time she had made him describe the day, the story getting better with every telling.

As he was overdue for his weekly wash, shave and change of tunic, Mary heated water over her fire and he stripped to the waist in the doorway of her hut. With the water in a leather bucket, he laved himself with soap made from goose grease and wood ash, then scratched at his black stubble with a specially sharpened knife.

The handsome dark-haired Saxon woman looked longingly at his muscular body, but firmly decided against any weakening of her resolve not to share his bed again, even if her mistress and her prying maid were almost forty miles away. She had a comfortable job in the household and she was not going to jeopardise it again, even if the thought of John's enthusiastic embrace was very tempting. From the looks that he threw at her in return, she suspected that similar thoughts were going through his mind. His resistance came from a different source — a guilty conscience regarding Nesta in Idle Lane. An hour later, he was down at the Bush, resisting not more feminine advances but the offer of yet more food, as the landlady was trying to get him to eat another meal.

'Later on, cariad , later on!' he protested in Welsh. 'Every woman I meet wants to push food down my throat!'

'Did you eat in Dawlish, then?' she asked in mock innocence, forcing him to hotly deny having come back that way from Totnes. A mere novice when it came to understanding women's minds, he wondered why Nesta was taking so doggedly against Hilda these days, as a year earlier, when he had broken his leg on the jousting field, they had seemed the best of friends.

The little spat passed and, in between dealing with her maids and her drinking patrons, Nesta came to sit with him at the table behind the wattle screen next to the fire. After a couple of hours of pleasant dalliance, he was persuaded to eat again, and she went off to chivvy her two servant girls to get food for her lover. As she vanished through the back door to reach the kitchen shed in the yard, a small figure slipped in through the front door, his new cloak slick with raindrops. It was Thomas de Peyne, his lank hair plastered across his forehead by the downpour outside. His narrow face was radiant with excited pleasure as he slunk self-consciously through the drinkers to stand at John's table.

'Thomas, what brings you to venture into a den of sin — and on a Sunday, too!' jibed the coroner, knowing that taverns were not favourite haunts of his clerk.

'I've not seen you nor Gwyn for four days, master,' chattered the puny priest. 'So I've not been able to tell you my news! I thought I might find you here tonight.' John motioned to him to sit down on the bench opposite. 'Calm yourself, Thomas. What great news is this?'

'The best, Crowner! I have been given a part-time post in the cathedral, so I will have both an ecclesiastical living and be able to continue as your clerk, as I vowed I would!'

De Wolfe's stern face broke into a smile of genuine pleasure at the young clerk's obvious delight. He leaned across and grasped a thin shoulder in a rare display of affection.

'I am greatly pleased for you, Thomas. I know it was your heart's desire. What is this new job — are you to be the next Bishop of Exeter?'

De Peyne smiled weakly at his master's attempt at wit. 'Not quite, sir! But I am to have a modest prebend as a chantry priest, with some duties teaching the choristers their letters — and I am to work in the archives above the Chapter House.'

'A prebend! Does that mean you will be a canon now?' demanded John, whose knowledge of the tortuous workings of cathedral administration was patchy.

Thomas giggled like a girl. 'Unfortunately not, I'm afraid. I will merely be a preabenda dodoralis, but that will give me a modest salary and the right to daily bread and candles.'

At this point, Nesta returned, and Thomas had to give his news all over again. Nesta was suitably ecstatic and hugged the little man, giving him kisses on his cheeks, to his great embarrassment and secret delight. She made him explain his new status more fully, slipping on to his bench with her arm still around him.

'My blessed uncle, the archdeacon, arranged this for me, as it seems he has a chantry post in his gift.'

'What does that mean?' asked the landlady.

'When certain rich people die, they leave a bequest to the cathedral for Masses and prayers to be said for their soul in perpetuity. The money goes to pay for a priest, so I'll have to do this daily to earn my place.'

'What about these other tasks you spoke of?' demanded John.

'My uncle prevailed upon Canon Jordan de Brent to let me work in the scriptorium. It seems the cathedral archives have been neglected and need sorting and revising — a labour of love to me, but it is an added excuse to employ me, as is a small amount of tuition to the choristers, to improve their reading and writing.'

'It seems a lot of work for a stipend of a few pence and a daily loaf from the cathedral bakehouse!' said Nesta, though she did not want to dampen his excitement too much.

'And when are you going to have time to be clerk to the coroner?' added John, in mock anger.

Thomas hastened to reassure them. 'My Masses will be said at the crack of dawn, Crowner — and the teaching is but a few hours once a week. The work in the Chapter House archives can be done at any odd time.'

His master calmed him with a good-natured grin. 'I'm glad for you, Thomas, it's time things went well for you. But why did my good friend John de Alençon find such a hotch-potch of jobs for you?'

The clerk shook his head sadly. 'He said there is still antagonism towards me from certain of the canons, mainly because I am your clerk. It is the old business of Prince John again, I fear. So the archdeacon had to circumvent their opposition by using means within his own personal power — and Canon Jordan is a genial man and a friend of my uncle.'

They chatted with Thomas for a while, then his reluctance to be seen for too long in a tavern on the Sabbath got the better of him and he vanished into the night, promising to be in the coroner's chamber in the castle early the next morning.