The Elixir of Death Read Online Free

skinny lads who emerged from a barn inside the compound and they hurried forward to take the bridles of the visitors' horses.  
    'You found us, then, Crowner?' he asked in a thick local accent. 'Come inside and get some food and drink inside you. '  
    It was the more sympathetic Thomas who thought of asking after his wife, as they all dismounted and trudged through the mire of the bailey towards the old manor house.  
    'She's well, thank you,' answered William Vado. 'A girl again, I'm afraid. Another useless mouth to feed.' He sounded bitter, and they soon learned that his wife had had seven previous children, five of which had died in infancy, leaving two other girls alive.  
    John looked about him with interest as they crossed the yard and climbed a few steps to the house, for this was one of the original manors that dated back to the early years of the Norman invasion, now well over a century earlier. It was a square, single-storeyed block, built of massive oak timbers on top of a masonry undercroft, with a stone-slabbed roof as a safeguard against fire-arrows. The interior was almost all taken up by the hall, but two rooms had been partitioned off for the family, secure behind a pair of stout iron-banded doors. These remote coastal villages were occasionally ravaged by pirates who came ashore to rape, pillage and replenish their food and fresh water - not only French privateers, but men from as far afield as the Mediterranean.  
    The hall was lit by unglazed slit windows, through which the fading daylight dimly penetrated. A large firepit occupied the centre of the hall, ringed with whitewashed stones outside a circle of baked clay. The smoke from the heap of burning logs wafted upwards before spreading out to escape through the slits beneath the roof timbers, though some of it circulated back down again to irritate the eyes and throats of the dozen or so people scattered about the hall.  
    'We can only offer you a place to sleep on the rushes,' said the bailiff apologetically. 'My wife and her womenfolk and the children are swarming about the other chambers like bees in a hive. But there's food and ale aplenty and some wine if you're so inclined.'  
    'Drying off is our first need,' rumbled Gwyn, shrugging off the frayed leather cape with the pointed hood. He draped it over a stool facing the fire and stamped his cold feet on the floor rushes, disturbing a rat that was foraging for fallen food scraps.  
    Within a few minutes, they were seated on benches at a nearby trestle table, enjoying the warmth of the flaming beech logs. A pair of serving girls, little more than children, brought platters of spit-baked fish, cold pork and boiled beans and cabbage, with thick trenchers of coarse bread to lay on the table as plates. As usual, the kitchen was in a hut behind the house and the bare-footed maids had to run back and forth through the mud to bring the food to the new arrivals.  
    'Have some mulled ale to warm you up, sirs,' invited Vado, taking a thick poker from the fire and plunging the red-hot iron into a gallon jug of ale. With a hiss and a sizzle, the turbid liquid almost boiled, and before it could cool he splashed it into a row of crude earthenware pots standing on the table.  
    Thomas, who disliked ale even more than rough cider, sipped his with ill-concealed distaste, but John and Gwyn gulped the warm fluid gratefully and pushed their pots forward for a refill, while they wolfed down the food. Around them, rough-looking men sitting at other trestles or standing around gazed curiously at these outsiders from the big city.  
    'Tell us the whole story again, bailiff,' commanded de Wolfe, through a mouthful of gravy-soaked bread. 'Has there been any more news since you returned?'  
    William Vado, sitting at the end of the table, beckoned to a large, brawny fellow standing nearby, who came and sat with them.  
    'This is Osbert, the manor-reeve. He can tell you at first hand, as it was he who brought me the