The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21) Read online

  Perhaps not entirely in vain. He had removed that foul bladder of piss Flok, and that could not be thought to be a bad thing. A man who would go to a widow’s hall and tell her to leave her home even in the midst of her misery and mourning, he deserved all that he received.

  ‘You lost, friend?’

  It was a heavy-set sailor who spoke, a man with a face the colour of walnut, clad in old hosen and a much-patched and stained linen shirt. He stood before Hamund, hands on hips, head set to one side as though assessing his value.

  ‘I seek a ship, master.’

  ‘Abjuring, eh?’ The man looked him up and down. ‘Perhaps I can aid you, then. My master needs more hands for the ship, and there are times a man can’t choose his shipmates. Why are you abjuring?’ His expression hardened suspiciously. ‘Did you rob a man?’

  ‘No! I killed a man who sought to defraud my master’s widow.’

  ‘Oh, a murderer, eh? I may be able to help you, then.’

  Baldwin met Simon as the jury moved from one body to go and hold inquest on the second, poor Danny’s. It had taken a short while to find a good stables and see that his horse was properly rubbed down and fed, before he felt he could leave it and seek his friend. The group of men a short distance from Simon’s front door was evidence that there had been something of interest happening, and when Baldwin heard the stentorian tones of the Coroner rising clearly over the normal hubbub of the town, he felt a brief anxiety that he might be too late to serve the bishop.

  ‘Old friend! How are you?’ Baldwin asked when he saw Simon. His sympathy was genuine. There were few times he had seen his companion so flushed and feeble-looking. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Death is attractive just now,’ Simon said thickly. ‘Don’t ask. That Coroner has a belly of steel, I swear. He arrived yesterday to view two bodies, and I feel as though someone has kicked me in the head and … you aren’t listening, are you?’

  ‘What bodies, Simon?’ Baldwin asked.

  Simon glanced back at the place where the body had lain. The two young fellows were about to place it on a board to carry it to the churchyard for burial. ‘Hey, you two, wait!’

  Baldwin and he strode to the board and stared down at the naked corpse lying there.

  ‘What do you think, Baldwin?’

  ‘It matches a description I was given, I fear,’ Baldwin said with a frown. He glanced at the two boys listening nearby. ‘We need to talk, old friend. Somewhere quiet.’

  ‘And in the meantime, I suppose we ought to speak to the Coroner,’ Simon said without enthusiasm. Filled with self-pity, he added, ‘He’s looking at another corpse. It’s a miracle he hasn’t a third to look at.’

  ‘A third?’

  Simon was in no mood to explain. His belly was a roiling torment, and all he wanted just now was his bed. He led the way to Lower Street in silence, too absorbed in self-pity to consider Baldwin’s words further.

  Pierre was standing in the shadows when the voice hissed urgently from the open doorway.

  ‘Master? Master Pierre?’

  He had drawn his sword before sleeping, and now he moved as quietly as possible across the hayloft, then crouched at the edge, peering down at the entrance. Seeing it was Moses, he waited a short while, carefully staring at the patch of bright sunlight to see if any shadows might betray the presence of other men, before sheathing his sword and climbing down the ladder.

  ‘Moses. You have news of a ship?’

  This foreigner was as selfish as any, Moses reckoned inwardly. He was incapable of thinking of anyone but himself, even when the man who had saved his life lay dying in the house nearby. ‘Not yet, no. But I am sure that there will be news before long. First, here’s some food. My master asked me to bring you food every day until you can make your way back over the water.’

  ‘He is a good man.’

  ‘Yes.’ Moses felt no need to add to the flat statement.

  ‘Have there been men asking for me?’

  Moses had no idea what this man might have done. There were enough fellows who had done little or nothing to deserve being chased like foxes for him to feel too worried by that. Still, it rankled with him that this Frenchman did not enquire after the health of Master Pyckard.

  ‘There has been nothing,’ he answered carelessly. ‘I doubt there’s anyone here looking for you.’

  ‘There is,’ Pierre said with certainty. ‘They do not give up, these men. Now, I should see your master and thank him.’

  At last, Moses said to himself. Aloud, though, he said, ‘He isn’t well enough to see anyone, and if you are right and men are hunting for you, it’d be a foolish thing to come out in the open and let them see you.’

  ‘You think so? Better to meet them face to face, is what I consider. I prefer to go about as a man, not hide all my life. No, I will come back with you and visit the old man who protects me. If the men are there, I will see them and know whether I am still in danger. If they are not there, then there is no need to hide any more!’

  ‘And what if the men you say are following you, see you entering his house? Perhaps they’ll go to Master Pyckard and torture him to learn all he knows about you. Have you thought of that, of the danger you will put him in? No. You should stay well away from my master’s house.’

  ‘Then I can enter secretly? By the garden, perhaps?’

  ‘No! I will not have you in the house. My master is dying! I won’t have you upsetting him any further.’ Moses’s voice broke.

  Pierre looked away, staring out through the open doorway. The Frenchman was a good half-head taller than Moses, and he could look down his nose at him with ease, but only a fool would antagonise the servant. He scarcely merited the effort, and even if he did, he was Pierre’s lifeline just now. Without him, he would have no food. And he was probably quite right. The best thing to do was to keep hidden, to wait until one of Master Pyckard’s ships came free, and then to quietly take his place on board and leave for France.

  ‘Very well. I will do as you suggest. But do you know how long it is likely to be before there is a ship I can join? I cannot stay here forever!’

  ‘There will be one soon. She is being loaded now, and I would hope that in two, maybe three days, she should be ready to sail.’

  ‘That long?’

  There was disappointment on his face at having to wait for so long, but Moses didn’t greatly care. He deposited the sack of bread, half a fowl and a pot of honey on the floor, and passed Pierre the heavy earthenware jug. ‘There are three quarts of ale there. I’ll try to bring more when I come here tonight. For now, keep quiet in here. We’ll have you back in France as soon as we can.’

  Moses glanced about him, then turned and left the place. He would go quickly back to the house and make sure Master Pyckard was comfortable before continuing with any other chores. At the gate which shut off the yard, he hesitated and looked back. In the doorway, so he thought, he could see Pierre standing with the jug still in his hands, watching him. As though he didn’t trust even Moses.

  The ingratitude of the man! He had turned up late at night, and seemed to expect Master Pyckard to aid him, even though Moses had never seen him nor even heard his name mentioned before. But as soon as the groom from the stable arrived and told Master Pyckard that there was a Frenchie in town hoping to see him, a man by name of Pierre, his master had drawn himself up on his cushions and told Moses to fetch his cloak and gloves. Before long, he had left, and Moses waited for him to return, banished from his master’s side.

  It would be the last time his master could tell him to leave him alone. Since that evening, Pyckard had sunk quickly. Soon he would be gone, and Moses would be all alone, but for his brother’s children.

  Moses only hoped that this unkempt stranger wasn’t taking advantage of his master, because if he were, Moses himself would see to it that Master Pyckard won justice, whether he was alive or dead.

  Chapter Twelve

  The inquest on the second body was much faster. Sir R
ichard de Welles already had poor Danny stripped and displayed before Simon and Baldwin had reached the quay near Hawley’s house. A woman shrieked and wailed with grief nearby, comforted by the man Simon recognised as Pyckard’s servant. An assortment of children moaned and wept at her feet. It was enough to make Simon feel a mortifying shame at his reluctance to view this man’s body. No matter what Simon felt, he had left a family behind, and men and women who loved him. He deserved to be investigated properly.

  ‘Clearly he has spent some time in the water,’ Sir Richard said. He had always disliked examining drowned men. The bodies with their flaccid flesh, white and loose like cheap leather gloves, made even his resilient stomach turn a little. Better to have a man spitted on a lance with his entrails dangling, than a whitened corpse like this.

  He prodded the chilled flesh with a reluctant finger. ‘Like a slab of fish, eh?’ he called unsympathetically to the clerk taking notes. Stephen winced at his lack of tact, but continued writing.

  Sir Richard stood upright and glanced about him. Seeing Hamo standing near the jury, and Alred Paviour nearby, he beckoned to them both. ‘HOI! Over here, you two. You can help with this fellow.’

  These two were older and had experience of corpses. Few who had survived the famine of nine years before were not used to the sight and smell of the dead. Taking the man’s arm, they heaved him over and over in front of the jury.

  ‘Right, did you all see those wounds? A clear stab in his breast, with a blade about an inch and a half wide at the hilt. Doesn’t go right through him, even though you can see the mark where the cross actually bruised him. Clearly it was thrust in as hard as possible. This man was found on board that ship the Saint John, so I’d think he was killed by the pirates and thrown down into the hold where he was partly concealed by the bale.’

  ‘I have a question for you, sir,’ a voice called.

  Sir Richard turned and surveyed the faces before him. The speaker stood with a youth who must surely be his son, their faces were so alike. ‘Who are you, sir?’

  ‘My name is known here, sir. I am the master of the ship which found and rescued the Saint John. My name is John Hawley.’ He gestured at the body. ‘It was my master shipwright who found Danny in the hold.’

  Sir Richard glanced over at Henry, who nodded. ‘Master Hawley asked me to go and see if there was damage to her under the waterline, and I stumbled over the poor soul in the hold.’

  ‘What of it then, Master Hawley?’ Sir Richard rumbled.

  ‘There were other good men aboard her, Sir Richard, some of them from this town, and I’d like to know what happened to them.’

  ‘Find the ship that fired your cog, and you’ll be part of the way there,’ Sir Richard said, but Hawley’s words had already started a rebellious murmuring among the jurors.

  ‘It was the men from Lyme did it,’ one asserted. ‘They’re thieving sods at the best of times. They even took a privateer on its way back to port with a good haul, didn’t they?’

  ‘They help other ports agin us, too.’

  ‘Not long since they had a battle with us on the high seas.’

  Sir Richard held up a hand for silence. ‘No more of that! No more, I say! There are no other bodies, and unless you can produce a written authority for me to investigate a suspicious death without a body, I can do nothing. All I can do is hold an inquest on the body that is here. Now, does anyone have anything further to say about this body here?’

  ‘There is one thing, Sir Richard,’ a smooth voice said from behind him.

  ‘Ah, Sir Baldwin! I trust you are still in God’s safe hands?’

  ‘I appear to be remarkably healthy, I thank you,’ Sir Baldwin smiled, bowing. ‘You know my friend Simon, of course?’

  ‘Yes. We met yesterday,’ Sir Richard said.

  ‘You asked whether there were any questions about this corpse. I think there is one thing I should like you to consider,’ Baldwin said. He had walked past Sir Richard, leaving Simon at the Coroner’s side. Baldwin stood a moment contemplating the corpse, then he motioned to Hamo and Alred to turn the body over.

  ‘I believe that this death was nothing to do with the rest of the ship. It doesn’t look like piracy to me.’

  The Coroner joined him. ‘Why?’

  In answer, Baldwin gestured to John Hawley. ‘Master Hawley, you are a seaman of experience. Most of you here will know what it is to fight on board a ship. When pirates attack, they will use enormous violence and force to subdue their victims, will they not?’

  ‘That was my question: whenever I have been at war on the sea, the wounds have been ferocious, the attacks bloody. Yet this man has only one accurate stab wound on his breast.’

  ‘Quite so,’ Baldwin said. ‘I think that this is no victim of the men of Lyme or any other pirates out at sea, Sir Richard. This man Danny was stabbed to death, and then set in the hold to make it appear that he had perished with the rest of the crew.’

  It was hard now to remember the happier times. There had been many of them, it was true, but Pierre knew that if he was captured, he would never know happiness of any sort again. His end would be slow and exquisitely painful.

  Casting his mind back, he tried to recall when it all started. Surely it was not really ten years ago when he had caught his first glimpse of her? Yes, it must have been: the Year of Our Lord 1314.

  In those days, all he had known of her was that she was a slim, tall, and utterly beautiful woman. He didn’t think further than that. He was a lowly page and she was a foreign visitor, but there was something about her that called to him, and he could remember now stopping and taking a second look at her as he left the hall to replenish the jug of wine he was carrying. He was a mere servant at her table, and yet when he saw her glance at him, he felt his heart must stop. The thrill of adoration stabbed him with a spark of lightning that was so intense, it hurt.

  She could only have been fifteen at the time, and he, still learning the craft of the warrior, was a scant year older – yet their positions were so very different. He knew that there could be no hope of his ever attaining her. She was as impossible to touch as the moon or the stars. Or, rather, the sun, because were he actually to touch her, he would burn in an instant. She was so lovely, so perfectly built and proportioned, no man could be near her and be unaffected.

  The second time was the next year, when she was again visiting France, and he had at last begun the great journey. He had risen from page to squire in that time, and now he was gaining a reputation for courage, so when he took his seat at the table, others wished to introduce him to the guests. And so he met her.

  That she was so well spoken was no surprise, of course, nor were her delicacy or intellect. Still, there was something else about her that finally sealed his love. It was the luminosity in her eyes. He couldn’t describe it any other way: she had a sparkle that made a man warm as soon as her gaze lighted upon him. He felt that look so often, he began to wonder if he had caused offence, and it was only when he saw how she blushed to receive his own adoring looks that he realised his feelings towards her were reciprocated.

  Ah! The joy, the splendid delight of knowing that she felt the same towards him … and the horror when he at last understood their plight. To remain in proximity, their love unrequited, their whole existences so close and yet never being permitted to share even a brief kiss, let alone a more passionate consummation. Even the memory of their first and last kiss was enough to make his blood course like a galloping stallion through his veins, and when he closed his eyes and imagined what she must appear like in her bed, naked, welcoming … it was a torture!

  But all torture will end. Sometimes there will be a period of release. Thus it was for them. They had met once by accident, and from that moment they both appreciated the danger they were in. They could not remain in the same household.

  Pierre could do nothing that might hurt her. He, who loved her most, could not expose her to the same dangers as those his own family had inflicted on the
women in the Tour de Nesle. Instead, he had gone to the mistress of the household, Queen Isabella, and pleaded with her to be released from her service for a while. With a pretty display of regret, she acquiesced, provided that he carry some little messages for her, and so here he was.

  At least by travelling to France he would provide the Queen with some sort of service. More importantly, it might save his lady from being discovered as an adulteress with him. That in itself was enough to justify his exile.

  Hamund insisted on walking into the sea before he did anything else. His acquaintance told him his name was Gilbert, or Gil, and he was the shipmaster of the cog Saint Denis.

  ‘That’s her out there.’

  ‘A fine-looking craft,’ Hamund said, although in truth he was wondering how such a lumbering great vessel could possibly sail across the vast expanse of water he had seen from Tunstal earlier that day.

  ‘Better than that. She’s fleet, she’s got a clean keel, and she’ll outsail even the worst of the Lyme privateers. Yes, she’s a lovely little thing. Are you sure you want to walk into the sea? It’s not too warm, you know.’

  ‘I will not fail in my oath,’ Hamund said stolidly.

  ‘Walk down here, then. It’s a slip for new ships to be launched,’ Gil said, indicating the stone roadway that led straight to the water and sank beneath.

  Hamund gripped his cross until his knuckles were white, then strode forward into the water. It was cold, Gil had not deceived him. He felt a chill tendril float over his ankle, then some flotsam drifted past, and he felt a sudden terror of the water. Quelling the urge to turn and fly from it, he stood a while with his eyes closed, up to his thighs in the sea. The Coroner had told him to do this, and he would do everything as ordered, because otherwise any man could execute him legally. A picture of Guy de Bouville’s face came into his mind and he shuddered. It was only when he heard Gil’s voice that he opened them again and with relief made his way out.