Bernard Knight - The Elixir of Death

'Thomas! Thomas, where are you?' came a deep bellow from near by. A moment later, a red-headed giant appeared, wielding a great sword. The sight of this apparition was almost enough to frighten the Fleming to death. With a roar, the new arrival dragged the priest out of harm's way and pointed the sword at Jan's throat.

'Who the bloody hell are you?' boomed the giant, as yet another figure appeared, this time a tall man dressed in black, also with a broadsword uplifted.

'He's no Turk, that's for sure,' snapped John, lowering his sword when he saw that the man was no threat. 'What an ugly bastard, though!'

The Fleming was used to such insults and was too glad to see someone other than his previous captors to take offence. He gargled his usual noises and pointed to his mouth.

'The poor fellow must be dumb,' said Thomas, always the most sympathetic to his fellow men. 'And he's wounded, too!'

The clerk dropped to his knees and gently lifted the end of the cross-bow bolt, which was hanging down behind Jan's shoulder, sticking out of the blood-stained fabric of his jerkin.

'He's been shot!' grunted Gwyn, now suddenly solicitous. He moved to bend over the man, but Jan held up a hand and, without help, climbed to his feet, grimacing now that the pain killing panic was wearing off.

'Hold on there, fellow,' said de Wolfe. 'We need to see how bad that wound is.'

They gently pulled down his jerkin and drew aside his tunic to expose the injury. Just caught under the skin, lucky chap,' announced Gwyn. 'This will hurt for a moment!'

With a quick snick with the point of his dagger, the coroner's officer cut through a small bridge of skin that was holding the head of the bolt and pulled it out. Even without a tongue, Jan gave a howl of agony, but the worst was over and Thomas slapped the bloody pad from the Fleming's tunic back over the wound to stem the fresh bleeding.

'Have we anything to hold this in place?' he demanded. Gwyn groped in the scrip on his belt and pulled out a length of red silk cord, which had been used to tie old Joel to the tree. As he gave it to Thomas to use to bind the pad around the shoulder and under the armpit, Jan became excited. Pointing to the cord, he motioned behind him, indicating distance, then pointed to the arrow that Gwyn was holding.

'The poor bugger is trying to tell us something! Thomas, you have the best brains here. Can you get some sense out of him?'

The clerk got the Fleming to sit on the tree trunk and perched alongside him.

'Can you understand what we say in French?' An eager nod led to the next question.

'You cannot speak?'

Jan pointed to his mouth and opened it to reveal the loss of his tongue. Then he performed a mime of running away and someone loosing a cross-bow at him.

'Ask him who did it,' snapped John impatiently, forgetting that Jan could understand him perfectly without Thomas's intervention. The man then went into a more complicated pantomime which left John and his officer bemused, but the sharp-wined clerk picked up the meaning.

'He's pointing to his head and winding it around, then at your sword and making a curving action. That could be a turban and a scimitar, eh?'

He looked at Jan, who nodded energetically, then did the turban mime again and held up three fingers. 'Three Saracens, is that it?' Again a nod, then he held up two more fingers, but shook his head while making the turban sign and pointed to them.

Three Turks and two English?' The query was met by another wag of the head.

De Wolfe looked almost triumphant at this unexpected news. 'Where are these people? How far away?'

This was a tougher proposition for Jan's miming powers. He pointed vaguely behind him, then shrugged when he found he had no means of conveying time or distance. He saw a patch of bare earth near his feet, however, and with a stick, he used his good arm to scratch a crude sketch in the dirt, of a castle with a battlement on a mound. Then he mimed it falling down.

'Some old ruin, I would guess, Crowner,' ventured Thomas, and the Fleming nodded.

By now, the smith and the other villager with the pitchfork had closed in on them and were staring in wonder at the apparition sitting on the log.

'Where the hell did you find him, sir?' grunted the smith. 'His face is enough to curdle milk!'

'Never mind that, the poor man is hurt,' snapped de Wolfe. 'Get him back to the alehouse and ask Madge to dress his wound and give him some sustenance.'

As the second villager led the Fleming away, the coroner threw one last question after him.

'Wherever this place is, did you see any women there?' Jan nodded and held up two fingers, then mimed the slamming of a door and the dropping of a bar. As a bonus, he also pantomimed by pointing at John and Gwyn, then at his bushy moustache to establish the sex, followed by the two fingers and the locking-up gestures.

'Two women and another two men, all imprisoned!' divined Thomas, unnecessarily.

'That's good enough for us!' shouted John. 'Come on, let's find this damned place. I don't know who that fellow was, but he was a godsend!'

The light was starting to fail in the women's prison chamber, as the short autumn day came to an end. The narrow shaft that was their only indication of the outside world was darkening, and Hilda roamed restlessly about, reluctant to sit while she could still see the dim shapes of the crates that littered the room. Matilda was slumped on the mattress, her head in her hands. She had been praying for several hours, but now seemed to have abandoned even that solace.

Hilda had already been through the contents of the boxes, looking for anything that might serve as a weapon. All she could find were bottles of strange-smelling powders, a crock of quicksilver and some scraps of metal, together with strange utensils that looked as if they belonged in an apothecary's shop. There were no knives or even heavy rods that could be used as bludgeons. In despair, she even tried to wield a glass vessel, a round flask with a long narrow spout, presumably used for distillation. It was far too light to be of any use as a club, especially as she then dropped it and it smashed on the floor. In the remaining light, however, she saw that one jagged fragment of the spout was at least as long as the span of her fingers and had a needle-sharp point at one end.

Tearing a strip of linen from the bottom of her kirtle, she wrapped this around the blunt end to form a crude hilt, so that she could grip it without cutting her fingers. Then she folded the whole thing in another piece of cloth and hid it in a pocket inside her cloak. Hilda was not sure what use this might be, beyond the half-formed thought that she might use it to kill herself and Matilda if they were threatened with rape or torture.

She went over to the older woman and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. 'Maybe they will let us go tomorrow,' she said, with a conviction that she did not feel in the slightest.

'I am well aware of who you are,' said Matilda suddenly, looking up at the blonde woman. 'But it doesn't seem to matter now. You have been kindness itself to me.'

Hilda was at a loss for words and merely squeezed Matilda's shoulder.

'I so wish my husband was here now,' murmured John's wife. 'With all his faults — and they are too many to speak of — he has a way of getting things done and never lets anything defeat him.'

She began sobbing quietly into her hands, but Hilda could think of nothing to comfort her. Suddenly, there was a clatter at the door, which had not been opened since Matilda had arrived the previous day. The bar was lifted from the outside and the door creaked open, yellow light from the crypt seeping in. The two Saxon outlaws were standing there, one with a heavy staff in his hands, the other with a bared dagger.