Bernard Knight - The Elixir of Death

'I will be going away alone for a short time, on a pilgrimage. You are to stay here all the time, understand? Roger Watts will come every day to make sure that there are no problems. You can go as far as the church and you may look at the stalls and shops, but nothing more. I have left money with the tavern-wife so that you may eat and sleep until I come back.'

The maid, a meek and dutiful girl, adored her mistress, who had taken her in when her widowed father had drowned at sea. She too was worried that Hilda was going off unaccompanied, but like the ship-masters she knew better than to try to dissuade her.

The next stop for the determined widow was the church of the Holy Trinity, a fine new building dominating the surrounding houses. She stood inside the empty nave and prayed with bowed head and clasped hands for the soul of Thorgils and his crew — and for the help of the Almighty in giving her strength to seek out the identity of his murderers. When she had finished, she went in search of the parish priest, tracking him down in the sacristy that opened off the chancel. He was an amiable and sympathetic man, a Saxon like herself. Tailoring her story a little, she explained that her husband had died at sea off the coast in Bigbury Bay and she wanted to make a pilgrimage in memory of him as near to the spot as possible. She enquired whether there were any pilgrims going in that direction whom she might join for safety and company.

'Indeed there are, my daughter,' he said earnestly. 'We get many folk landing here by ship from farther east, in order to make their way across country to Tavistock Abbey or farther down into Cornwall. Groups of them leave almost daily.'

She also learnt that there was a small chapel and a holy well of some repute, only some seven miles along that route, which was certainly inland from Bigbury Bay, where her husband had been lost.

'There will be a group leaving here at noon, no doubt aiming to reach Aveton Giffard before nightfall. Travel with them and in the morning you will be at St Anne's Chapel, as virtually all pilgrims stop there to pray and take advantage of the holy well.'

And so it turned out, as she was welcomed by a dozen cheerful pilgrims who had come from Rye by sea, on their way home to the West Country after their pilgrimage to Canterbury. Hilda was surprised by their merry manners — they seemed more like a party coming from a feast than devout pilgrims — but she was grateful for their ready acceptance of her company and their hospitality. Five of them were women, mostly of mature years, and at least two of them were widows, obviously hoping that their pilgrimage might land them a husband. Indeed, she suspected that a number of the band assumed that she was on the same mission, but for the short time she would be with them, she was content to let them think what they wanted.

Glad of her new strong shoes, Hilda walked with them gamely as they covered the league between Salcombe and Aveton before dusk fell. The men in their broad-brimmed pilgrim's hats, the women in their warm cloaks and hoods or snug coifs like her own, they marched along robustly, all with staffs and sticks to aid them. Accompanied by one man who played his bagpipes and another with a flute, they sang a mixture of psalms, hymns and popular ballads, some of them rather roguish. Hilda's education was broadened, as her former image of pilgrims being dour and sanctimonious was shattered by these gregarious, cheerful people.

Aveton was a large village, belonging to the manor of the Giffards. All she learned that night was that the land had been taken from her own Saxon people by the Normans and given to Walter Giffard, the standard bearer of William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings. They stayed in a cheap alehouse that night, where a penny bought a plain but substantial meal and a bag stuffed with straw to sleep on. Next morning they set off after a bowl of oat gruel and a hunk of bread, marching the few miles to St Anne's Chapel, where they went through the routine of drinking the water from the holy well and kneeling in prayer in the tiny chapel at the crossroads. It was little more than a wooden hut with a turf roof, but inside there was an air of sanctity that was almost palpable.

Here Hilda left her companions, not without some regrets on both sides. The pilgrim band were quite concerned at leaving this comely woman alone in the middle of what they considered a rural desert, but she assured them, with tongue in cheek, that she had relatives in a nearby village with whom she would stay.

As they plodded off into the distance, bagpipes wailing and singing their hymns, Hilda suddenly felt very much alone. She turned back into the little chapel and, after another prayer, sought out the elderly man who was its custodian, though he seemed not to be in holy orders, even of the lowest grade. Half blind and bow legged, the old man, whose name, she learned, was Ivo de Brun, was friendly enough, especially when Hilda pressed a whole penny into his arthritic fingers.

After some amiable platitudes, Hilda began asking him some questions.

'Apart from pilgrims passing through, do you get any strangers here?'

The old fellow's milky eyes fixed on her, to pick up the blurred outlines of her face.

'Lady, I think your presence here is not altogether as a pilgrim. You are the second person to ask that question,' he said with a knowing smile. 'The King's Coroner himself was here not long ago on the same mission.'

Although John had told her that he had been in Ringmore for the inquest on Thorgils, he had not specified all the other places where he had sought information, so she was surprised to hear that he had already ploughed this particular furrow.

'Would this also be connected with the deaths of those shipmen?' asked Ivo. 'That is the only matter which has disturbed the peace of this area for a long time.'

Hilda felt she should be frank with the custodian and told him that she was the widow of the ship-master who had been killed, come to visit the scene of his death. 'Then it is to Ringmore you should go, poor lady,' said the keeper of the chapel. 'They know most about the matter.'

'I will do that, good man. But what were you able to tell Sir John, the crowner, who is a good friend of mine?'

'Like you, he wanted to know if I had seen any strangers at around the time of the wrecking of your husband's vessel. All I could recall was that four cowled monks passed this way and strangely did not come into the chapel to offer a prayer, as is almost always their desire and indeed duty.'

Hilda's heart gave an extra thump. John de Wolfe had told her about such monks being seen at the time of Peter le Calve's horrid death, but had not mentioned any being seen down here.

'Where did they go? Do you recall?' she almost snapped.

'I told the coroner they marched straight off down the Bigbury lane there.' He waved a hand vaguely in the approximate direction. 'The gentleman and his officer went down that way to make enquiries, but I never heard any more of the matter until you came just now.'

Hilda felt a little deflated. The energetic John had already followed up every possible lead, so it seemed. She should have more sense than to think that a solitary woman like herself could achieve more than a highly experienced law officer like John de Wolfe. Still, she was here now, so she might as well make the most of the opportunity. But the day was wearing on and she felt that she must first go to Ringmore, which was her prime destination. Another penny made the custodian even more anxious to help, and he explained that the small village of Bigbury was about a mile along one of the arms of the crossroads, with Ringmore slightly farther down another.

With a final genuflexion, Hilda made the sign of the Cross towards the little altar and took her leave of the old fellow. With her thumb in the crook of her holly staff, she strode out towards Ringmore, apprehensive at being for the first time alone in a remote and deserted countryside, far from her familiar villages of Dawlish and Holcombe. However, after the first half-mile, in which she was neither robbed nor ravished by footpads or outlaws, her confidence returned, and she stepped out more confidently along the narrow track, rutted by cartwheels and fouled by ox-droppings, as were most of the country roads.