Bernard Knight - The Elixir of Death

With no one at his house in Martin's Lane to censure him, John took the opportunity to stay the night at the Bush, so later he followed the delectable Nesta up the wide ladder to her little room in the loft.

A whole week went by and there was no sign of Matilda returning to Exeter. John began to think that maybe she would never come home again, and he settled into a pleasant routine. He went home at noon every day for his dinner, partly to please Mary, who was an excellent cook and fiercely determined to see that he was properly fed. In the evening, he went to the Bush for his supper and languorous entertainment up the ladder, where he stayed until he strode back to Martin's Lane for his breakfast.

The coroner's duties continued as usual, with executions twice a week, the county court and inquests scattered through the days as the cases required. There was nothing unusual among these — a fatal fire in a cordwainer's shop, a child crushed by a runaway cart, a rape in a back lane in Bretayne and a lethal stabbing outside the Saracen Inn. There was news that the Commissioners of Gaol Delivery might reach Exeter within three weeks, but such forecasts had so often proved wrong that Henry de Furnellis was making no special preparations for the King's Commissioners until he had confirmation of their arrival. They were not so grand as the Royal Justices, who came to hold the Eyre of Assize at much more infrequent intervals. The commissioners were supposed to present themselves every few months, to clear the gaols of prisoners awaiting trial — those who had not either escaped, killed each other or died of gaol fever.

If the commissioners did arrive soon, then both the sheriff and the coroner would have a considerable amount of work to do, both in preparing the rolls which documented the cases and in attending the court to present a wide variety of legal matters. This week seemed free of any serious problems, however, and John took advantage of it, especially as Thomas was settling down to his new duties in the cathedral. Now that he had a little money promised from his prebend, he was able to move out of the canon's house in the Close where he had previously begged shelter, sleeping on a mattress in a passageway of the servants' quarters. Now he bought a share in a small chamber in a house in Priest Street, near Idle Lane. There he bedded down with a vicar and two secondaries, on low trestle beds in each corner of the room. Lack of privacy, which was an uncommon commodity for all but the most wealthy, was more than compensated for by the fact that he was once again in the company of fellow clerics — a state halfway to heaven for Thomas de Peyne.

Only one event that week needed some delicate manoeuvring on John's part. As he had told Gwyn, he needed to speak to his partner, Hugh de Relaga, about the disabled ship down on the River Avon. On Tuesday, he called at the merchant's house in High Street shortly after dinner and caught the rotund portreeve dozing over a cup of Loire wine. Hugh jerked himself fully awake and pressed hospitality upon the coroner. When his even more rotund wife had poured wine for him, she tactfully retired to her solar and left the men to their business. John explained the situation and, after some discussion, they decided to employ a shipwright from Topsham to go down to survey the Mary and give them a report and estimate the costs.

'Why not ask the ship-masters from the other vessels that belonged to Thorgils to accompany him?' suggested de Relaga. 'They need to be brought into our scheme if they are to serve us faithfully — and their experience must surely be an advantage?'

De Wolfe readily agreed, but there was a complication in the proposal. Hugh wanted him to ride down to Dawlish to explain matters to Hilda and to arrange for the two shipmen to go down to Bigbury with the man from Topsham. Considering Nesta's jealousy, going to Dawlish was a dangerous venture. Either he went surreptitiously in the hope that she would not find out — or he would have to declare his intentions and their innocence before he went.

Later that day, as he loped down towards the Bush, he became angry with himself over the matter. He was a grown man, a Norman knight, a Crusader and a king's law officer — and here he was, worrying himself over possibly offending a mere alehouse keeper! He worked up a righteous indignation, which lasted all the way to Idle Lane, but as he approached the door of the tavern, his bravado evaporated.

'You could come with me, Nesta,' he heard himself saying a few minutes later. 'We could ride there and back between dinner and dusk.'

The Welsh woman pulled off her coif and shook her russet locks down over her shoulders. 'No, John, I can't leave this place unattended for half a day,' she said curtly. 'If you must go, you must go! But I don't see why the portreeve couldn't stir himself, instead of getting you to run his errands.'

John patiently explained that he knew both of the shipmasters and where they lived, so it was easier for him to speak to them.

'No doubt you do know them,' she said tartly. 'You must know Dawlish well and all those who live there, for you've visited often enough.'

De Wolfe kept his quick temper under control with an effort.

'Gwyn will be with me, Nesta. Shall I take Thomas as well to act as another chaperone?' he added sarcastically.

'Do what you like, John. Who am I to tell the county coroner how to conduct himself?' She got up from their table and began to flounce away towards the back of the taproom. With a groan of frustration, he went after her and grabbed her around her slim waist and propelled her towards the wide steps to the upper floor. She wriggled like an eel for a moment and began to squeal until she saw the amused faces of some of her patrons drinking near by. Her protestations diminished as he pushed her up the lower steps and as the pair vanished into the loft there was some good-natured cheering and banging of ale-pots by the approving customers. The only dissidents were two strumpets, who screamed abuse at their prospective clients sitting next to them, as token support for their sister who was suffering the usual domination by these pigs of men. However, upstairs in her little chamber, Nesta soon felt anything but dominated as she straddled her lover, her fit of pique forgotten as they both cheerfully kissed and wrestled on the feather palliasse.

By the end of that same week, Alexander of Leith was becoming a worried man. The apparatus that he and Jan had brought so carefully from Bristol on the back of a packhorse had been set up in the crypt and he had started work, continuing the experiments that had occupied him for the past thirty years. He had studied in various parts of Europe, including Paris, Montpellier, Granada and Padua, and had become expert in the arts of distillation, extraction and alloying. Though like most alchemists, his main interest was the creation of the Elixir of Life, the great prize was the transmutation of baser metals into gold. Though there were many who claimed to have succeeded, no claim had survived rigorous testing to exclude fraud. He himself had laboured at the quest in Scotland and more recently in Paris and Bristol and felt that he was nearer success than at any time in his long life. The offer by Prince John's chancellor to join this Moorish sage was readily accepted by Alexander, as he felt that maybe the legacy of Arabic learning might be the last link in the chain he had been trying to forge for decades. For was it not Geber, an Islamic, who had first proposed the Philosopher's Stone, seven centuries after Christ? Even the name 'al-chemy' came from the Arabic language, as indeed did 'el-ixir'.

So it was with disappointment that he viewed his first discussions with Nizam, in spite of the initial excitement of seeing a nodule of what seemed to be gold in the Muslim's palm. In a halting mixture of French and Latin, the Scot tried to elicit a coherent account of Nizarn's theory and methods, but either because of the man's deliberate obfuscation or from genuine ignorance, he could make little sense of the Turk's vague ramblings.