Bernard Knight - The Elixir of Death

For such a thickset, inactive woman, Matilda was a surprisingly good horsewoman, a legacy of her youth, when she had been more addicted to exercise than eating and praying. She sat on her palfrey with a confident ease, unlike her maid, who clung to the pommel of her saddle as if it were the mast of a ship in a storm.

They set off along the lanes, passing through the empty fields, the strips now being ploughed ready for winter sowing or allowed to lay fallow, exposed to the frosts until spring. Soon heathland appeared, and beyond that the trees closed in, though this near the sea they were low and stunted, except where the track dipped into more sheltered valleys and where they passed other villages, such as Battisborough and Holbeton. Though there was no actual frost, the mud beneath their horses' hoofs had dried into a firm paste and the going was fairly easy. Crossing the River Erme upstream at a low-tide ford caused them no more than a few splashes on their legs, and once through Kingston they were nearly at St Anne's Chapel.

'I will leave you with your maid at the shrine,' said Richard firmly.

'You can come to no harm there in a House of God — though from its size, it's more like His privy!'

Matilda scowled at her brother for his frivolous sacrilege, but she had to admit that when the chapel came into sight, his remark was apt enough. The tiny building looked sad and neglected, but her devotion to anything that had been consecrated overcame her disappointment. Richard sent one of the guards inside and a moment later the bandy curator, Ivo de Brun, appeared, head outstretched like that of a goose as he peered at the blurred images of the visitors.

'I am leaving this good lady and her maid in your care for a few hours, fellow,' called out Richard imperiously. 'Lady Matilda wishes to see the sacred well and then meditate in your chapel for a while. There will be a couple of pennies for you at the end of it.'

Ivo kept his thoughts to himself as he leaned on his staff and watched while Lucille and a servant helped Matilda dismount. The two horses were tied to a fence rail outside the chapel, then the two women followed Ivo into the building as Richard and his men moved off towards Bigbury.

A few minutes later, he led them off the track and after another half-mile ordered them to wait. They were the same pair as before, and were quite content to squat near their horses and while away the time with the food and drink from their saddlebags, on the promise of a couple of silver pence when they returned to Revelstoke.

Richard trotted his gelding along the remainder of the track through the trees, savouring the thought of actually seeing some gold, as those foreign devils had promised. Though the whole object of the exercise was to provide funds for Prince John's forces, if gold was to be generated at will, then de Revelle was determined that part of the proceeds would drop into his own purse. He had no definite views on the veracity of alchemists' claims to be able to transmute baser metals into gold, but being a relatively well-read man, thanks to a good education at the cathedral school in Wells, he knew a little about the mystique of alchemy, with its emphasis on mercury, sulphur and antimony and the rumours of the famous 'Red Powder' that could work the miracle of transmutation.

Pondering this took him within sight of the ruins of the old castle and priory, and moments later he was tying up his horse outside one of the dilapidated huts used as a stable, as Raymond de Blois came out to greet him.

'Have they succeeded yet?' were Richard's first words. 'They promised to show me gold today. If not there'll be trouble.'

'There'll be trouble all right, for all of us,' grunted the French knight. 'Alexander has threatened to leave for Bristol tomorrow if there are no results — and he's going to tell the Count of Mortain that these men are frauds. That will do no good at all to relations between the Prince and my king — nor will it do much for my reputation in Paris!'

He led the way across to the concealed doorway in the wall of the derelict priory, behind which the trees formed a dense green barrier.

'There's another complication, too,' he continued morosely. 'We've got some damned woman held prisoner here. The two Saxon thugs we have as sentinels found her snooping around in the woods and dragged her back here. The Moors wanted to kill her, for they're a callous bunch, but I thought it best to hold her until we're ready to leave.'

Local drabs were of no interest to de Revelle, who had his mind firmly fixed on yellow metal. He stalked ahead of de Blois, down the narrow steps to the crypt below, and saw that both the Scotsman and the Turks were working assiduously at their benches. The red light from the fire and the furnace still made the scene look like one of the depictions of Hell that the more fiery priests were fond of declaiming from their chancel steps.

One of the Mohammedans was busy reviving the furnace with a large pair of bellows, the other was grinding something in a large pestle and mortar, while his master Nizam held a pottery crucible with a pair of metal tongs. On the other side of the fireplace, the weird-looking Scot was muttering to himself as he adjusted the long stem of an alembic that was dripping dark fluid into a glass vessel. His clumsy-looking Flemish assistant was holding a large book open, the pages facing Alexander, who glanced at it at intervals as he fiddled with his equipment.

De Revelle watched for a moment, Raymond at his elbow.

'At least they are all doing something!' said de Blois in a low voice.

At this, Nizam turned around and stared across the room. The man at the bellows stopped pumping and his fellow Turk ceased his grinding, both looking over their shoulders at the new arrivals.

'I hope you have something to show me, as you promised,' called Richard, with something approaching false heartiness. He moved across the floor of the arched undercroft towards the alchemists, and now Alexander of Leith and his man also turned to look at them.

'The wee fellow showed me another nodule of what seems to be gold this morning,' volunteered Alexander. 'Though I still can't fathom how he did it.'

Nizam's sallow face was without expression as he stared at the lord of Revelstoke. With the tongs he held out the crucible towards the former sheriff. 'In a very short while, you will learn something new, Richard Revelle,' he said, in an accent that was much clearer than Raymond was used to hearing.

'I am very glad to hear it,' replied Richard ponderously. He turned back to the alchemists, concerned only with their news of success. 'What about you, Alexander of Leith? Have you made any progress?'

The diminutive man shook his strangely shaped head. 'I began to research transmutation much later than these Arabs claim to have done, for my main concern has been the Elixir of Life. Though the two are closely connected, I have a number of distillations to complete before I can say if success has been achieved.'

De Revelle was disconcerted to find the three Mohammedans staring at him with intense interest, as if he had just grown an extra pair of ears.

'Did you ride here alone? 'demanded Nizam, abruptly. 'Did you bring escorts with you?'

Uneasily, Richard said that he had left them some way behind, along the track. 'There is no need for common men to be made aware of our business,' he added. 'The same goes even for my sister, who rode out with me. I left her at St Anne's Chapel.'

This apparently trivial intelligence appeared to greatly interest the Arabs, as Nizam rapidly spoke to Abdul Latif and Malik Shah. They stared at each other, then at the manor-lord, before breaking out into excited speech, incomprehensible to all the others.

'You have a sister, but no brothers?' demanded Nizam. Frowning with annoyance at the man's impertinence, Richard nodded. 'My father was blessed with but one son,' he snapped.