The Outlaws of Ennor: (Knights Templar 16) Page 16

‘Why should he wish to upset his reeve?’

  Hamadus gave him a curious gaze. ‘Perhaps the Prior disapproves of some of the reeve’s activities. Even so, he doesn’t want to cause conflict. With so few monks, it would be easy to overrun the priory.’

  Simon noted that he had not answered his question, but since Hamadus appeared unwilling to continue, the Bailiff nodded as though content.

  ‘Well,’ Hamadus continued, ‘it’s the same here. The man on top should be Ranulph de Blancminster, the Lord of the Manor and castellain. But all his business with the people here is dealt with by that lying, thieving bastard of a Sergeant. What Thomas wants, Thomas gets. He orders the men about the castle, he administers the collection of taxes, and no doubt pockets some, just as any good tax-gatherer will. He commanded the gather-reeve, poor devil, and he still commands the men-at-arms. Ranulph has little power in reality. He thinks he owns this place, but it’s his man who runs it all.’

  ‘Are there many villeins here?’

  ‘I suppose eighty or ninety families. Ennor is a good island,’ Hamadus responded.

  ‘And on St Nicholas the peasants are answerable to the priory, not to Ranulph?’

  ‘Aye. There’s little love lost between the two islands.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  Hamadus kicked at a pebble. ‘Perhaps islanders can feel hunger and disaster more than folk on the mainland. People over there reckon a bad harvest will mean a hard winter, but they don’t know the half of it. Here, if we have a bad harvest, we starve. In winter, there aren’t the boats to bring enough food. We can’t go to the next market to demand help, we can’t walk the roads begging alms like someone from the mainland. No, if there’s not the stock put by, we go hungry. So sometimes in the past, islanders have been forced to put to sea to try to win a prize.’

  ‘You mean that they have turned pirate?’

  ‘At times. And the harvest is poor this year.’

  ‘Why should that mean that the two islands resent each other?’

  ‘Here on Ennor, Thomas and his men control the people. It’s only the folk of St Nicholas who can slip the leash when they feel they must, and who go to take Breton ships.’

  Simon nodded. So that was why the Prior was annoyed with his reeve. The latter was little more than a pirate-leader, and took his friends out with him on his raids! No wonder, too, that the men of Ennor disliked their neighbours.

  ‘What of the death of the gather-reeve? Do you think he was corrupt?’

  ‘Do you know a man who pays his taxes and rents who doesn’t believe the gather-reeve is a thief?’ Hamadus chuckled with a wheeze. ‘Everyone thought he was bent.’

  ‘So anyone could have killed him.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ the old man said. ‘How much shall I help you? Put it like this, master: if a man was going to murder another with a knife in the chest, either he was trusted enough to get close to the gather-reeve, or he was an assassin, and Robert knew nothing of his approach.’

  ‘True enough.’ Simon wondered who was honourable here. Peasants weren’t honourable, nor apparently were Ranulph or his men. The islands seemed full of men who were happy to turn thief as soon as a battered ship appeared in sight. It was a depressing thought.

  ‘Cheer yourself!’ the old fisherman urged him. ‘Surely no island man would think of killing a fellow in that devious way. They’d all stand before their enemy and demand a fight; they wouldn’t slip a knife in a man’s breast as he was planning to meet his woman.’

  ‘His woman?’

  ‘A woman who lives on St Nicholas,’ Hamadus said, as though reluctantly.

  ‘How would he have got there?’

  ‘No doubt he had a boat to convey him.’

  ‘There was no sign of one. Perhaps his murderer took it?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Hamadus was looking at him oddly, as though wondering whether to tell him more. Simon pressed him, ‘What were you doing on the night he died?’

  ‘I was cleaning the church. William was up on the hill with his flock, so I stayed in the church to see that it was safe.’

  ‘You saw nothing of this Robert?’

  ‘Not since that morning. He visited me to ask for more rents – but my dog persuaded him to rethink his plans!’ Hamadus wheezed with amusement.

  ‘I can’t think why,’ Simon said drily with a glance at the great beast.

  ‘Oh, he’s all right, Bailiff. It’s the animals with two legs on this island you have to worry about!’

  ‘So you saw no one?’

  ‘While in the church? No.’ Hamadus peered at Simon. ‘But perhaps when I was walking home I saw Thomas, the Sergeant. He wasn’t in the castle when night fell. He got back late, so I heard, and very wet from the storm. I wonder where he was before that? Now, I have to return to my work. Godspeed!’ Hamadus walked away with a light whistle. The dog immediately rose, moving with a lissom smoothness that was more feline than canine, and slunk around Simon to trot down the track towards La Val at the bottom of the hill.

  Simon stood watching. He was not normally afraid of dogs, but that one, he confessed to himself, was enough to scare a man witless. He would hate to think of it attacking him in earnest.

  Chapter Twelve

  Baldwin was at last forced to confess defeat. They had walked all the way along the flats while the tide retreated, resolutely ignoring Mariota’s smutty innuendo, until at last Tedia pointed.

  ‘Look. Now you can see the sands all the way to Ennor.’

  ‘It appears as though a man could walk all the way,’ Baldwin observed.

  ‘Yes, it does. At the lowest tide, a man might think of it,’ she explained, ‘but not now, though. The sea can always be treacherous. Sometimes a wave will come in, and then anyone out there would be washed away in moments. Then again, although it may appear that there is a solid path from here to Penn Trathen, appearances are deceptive. The water is a great deal deeper than you might expect.’

  ‘I have little interest in the sea for now,’ Baldwin admitted with a slight shiver. His body felt very feeble still, and after his walk about this sandy bar, he felt ready to fall to his knees, not that he would let himself do so in front of this woman. That would be a source of shame to him. He was still a knight, as he told himself.

  Tedia walked on a short way while he watched her. She was still studying the ground, keenly seeking his blade. They had turned back and were wandering roughly southwards, and the sun, lower this late in the summer, reflected off the water. For a moment, as she passed before it, the light shone through her threadbare tunic, and Baldwin was captivated.

  She was a slim, dark-haired girl. Her dress hinted at the soft curves of her breasts, her legs were long and firm, while her belly was rounded enough to look like a pillow fit for a king to rest his head on. As he watched her, feeling the breath catch in his throat, she lifted a hand to ease a long tress of hair behind an ear, and he caught a glimpse of the woman as a whole: she was as unspoiled as the beaches, as beautiful as the islands, as calm as the seas. Her neck was long and elegant, her face in profile was as gentle as that of the Madonna herself.

  He saw her glance towards him. ‘Are you quite well?’

  ‘I …’

  ‘So this is the stranger, Tedia? How are you now, Sir Knight?’

  To his intense annoyance, aware of a furtive sense of guilt, Baldwin found himself confronted by a man some six to eight years younger than himself, a man with a thick shock of unruly black hair and eyes that were a clear blue like a sky glimpsed through clouds on a chilly winter’s day. His face was strong, with an angled jaw that dropped to a narrow chin. The nose was broken, and he had at some time won a great scar on his cheek that had sliced deep and almost reached his ear.

  There was something about him that appealed to Baldwin. This man, he felt instinctively, was no brute. The reflection somewhat abated his desire to hit him.

  Tedia was at Baldwin’s side in a moment. ‘Sir Baldwin, this is David, the reeve.’

  Ree
ve David studied the knight cheerfully. ‘I am glad to see you looking happier than you did, Sir Knight. Last time I saw you, you were snoring fit to wake folks on the mainland.’

  ‘I think even my snores would not reach so far,’ Baldwin said with some sharpness.

  ‘It’s not too far,’ David said, glancing southwards.

  Baldwin realised that he was referring not to England, but to the main island, Ennor, and the idea struck him as quaint. It was endearing how people who lived so far from the shores of England could look upon Ennor as the nearest place of any meaning. What, he wondered, did the people of Ennor look to? Was it the next wave-tossed island to the east? When he looked towards the south-west he could see some rocks projecting beyond the westernmost shore of Ennor, and he wondered whether they were the beginning of another island which was only visible from Ennor itself. He wondered, too, how many islands made up this little scattering of land in the vast sea. It was unsettling to think how far it might be to another place. There was nothing to the west, of course, but eastwards, how far would it be to the Cornish coast? Many miles, he guessed.

  ‘What are you doing here, Tedia? Helping your guest to recover?’

  ‘He has lost his belongings and wondered if they might be here.’

  ‘Have you found any of them?’ David asked.

  ‘No. But I have given him some air, which is good. And shown him Ennor in the daylight – the good knight had a desire to see for himself how close the island is.’

  ‘Did he?’ David said, looking at Baldwin, who managed to fit a suitable expression of bland disinterest on his face. ‘And what does he think of the place?’

  ‘It is a strangely attractive little land: rocky, but green. It looks fertile,’ Baldwin answered honestly. ‘It appears a pleasant enough place.’

  ‘Yes. That’s a fair summary,’ David said. ‘The islands all have their own atmosphere. Here on St Nicholas, we have more variety, with our western hills and the eastern rocks. North we have a wild sea, while here in the south, is this gentle landscape. Ennor has soft sandy beaches all around, apart from that odd spur there, west from La Val. There the sea can be violent.’

  ‘The seas all about here can be violent,’ Baldwin said. He touched his hip, and was about to mention his sword again, but decided not to. His face was still sore, as was his shoulder, where he had been pounded against a rock, or perhaps a piece of wood had been hurled at him while he lay in the water. Either way, it was a proof of the viciousness of the sea when roused, and yet there was a curious lack of any damage where his sword had hung. He’d had a good strong scabbard, with a belt that was more than up to the task of holding it in place, so it seemed most peculiar that the entire thing should have disappeared. As he recalled, there had been no weaknesses in the leather of his belt.

  He could have understood his sword falling from the scabbard and being lost in the sea, but to lose the scabbard and belt at the same time was quite impossible: of that he was sure. Yet he was equally certain that the thing dangled at his hip all the while he was on board the ship. In fact, even as he thought of pirates and the attack, he had a feeling, no more than that, of being washed over the side of the ship.

  While he was engaged in his thoughts, the other two were talking.

  ‘Yes, there’s a ship in the harbour,’ he heard David say. Tedia smiled and chuckled to herself, and Baldwin wondered why.

  ‘What sort of ship?’

  ‘A great cog. One of those which travels between Guyenne and London. Probably got blown this way by the same storm which blew you here.’

  ‘I hope that there are some survivors, then.’ Baldwin felt choked up at the memory of all those good men who had been aboard the Anne when they had set sail, in particular Simon: the honest, bluff Bailiff who had been Baldwin’s first friend when he arrived home at Furnshill after so many years of travelling. It seemed that his entire life had been composed of losses: first all his friends and comrades in the Knights Templar, and now Simon. With that thought, he wondered whether he would ever recover his ease of spirit. In large part he knew that it had been caused by his friendship with Simon. He was the counterbalance to Baldwin’s depression. At least he still had his wife and daughter. They must be his consolation – and yet a man who had been a member of a warrior band would always regret the loss of his comrades. There were bonds between men who had fought side by side in battles and survived which were stronger even than those which held a man to his woman.

  ‘There are some, I daresay,’ David said, more seriously. ‘If a whole ship is saved, there must usually be some folk who are kept hale and hearty.’

  ‘I shall pray so,’ Baldwin said fervently. The sea was a cruel mistress, he thought. A sudden hope sprang into his heart. ‘This ship … I do not suppose it could be mine?’

  David gave him a look of surprise. ‘But surely yours broke up? That was how you came to be in the water.’

  ‘I suppose so, but I cannot recall what happened, nor how I came to be thrown into the sea.’ Baldwin frowned. There was something that niggled at his memory: what, he wondered, if the ship had not been thrown upon the rocks? Could he have somehow been separated from it?

  ‘Anyway, there is something else to occupy minds on the mainland today, from what I’ve heard,’ David said. ‘Oliver from La Val rowed over earlier with some puffins for the Prior, and he told me: a man was murdered during the night of the storm.’

  ‘Who?’ Tedia asked, but she already knew the answer and a deathly chill flowed from the roots of her hair down to the tips of her toes.

  ‘The tax-gatherer. That pox-marked, bile-infested son of a heathen, Robert.’

  Baldwin was shocked to see how the woman was affected by this news, but assumed that it was another proof of her softness and femininity. Any decent woman would be upset to hear of a senseless killing, he reasoned. From a professional interest, he enquired, ‘How do they know it was murder?’

  ‘He was stabbed. It’s easy to guess he didn’t die at his own hand.’

  Hearing a sudden intake of breath, Baldwin glanced at the woman. ‘Tedia?’

  She could say nothing. She only stood and stared at David in incomprehension, her mouth open, her eyes filled with terror and remorse.

  At the same time that Baldwin heard of Robert’s death, Simon, too, heard some news. He had returned to the castle to speak to Thomas after his conversation with Hamadus, and when he entered Thomas’s chamber, was amazed to find himself confronted by the sight of Baldwin’s sword. It lay, unsheathed, on Thomas’s table. A tall, slightly stooped lad was standing beside it, an unpleasant smile on his face.

  ‘So, Bailiff – returning so soon?’ Thomas asked. ‘And I thought you would be with your companions in the gaol for a good long while.’

  That, Simon realised, was a veiled warning. As soon as he had bribed the gaoler, Thomas got to know. ‘I wished to think.’ He couldn’t keep his eyes from the bright blue blade on the table.

  ‘You recognise this sword?’ Thomas enquired gently. ‘It is a lovely piece of work, isn’t it? It was well covered in grease when we found it, as though it had been prepared for a voyage.’

  ‘Should I know it?’ Simon asked warily.

  ‘I don’t know. This was found in the dunes, not far from the body of Ranulph de Blancminster’s tax-gatherer.’

  ‘And who found it?’

  ‘Walerand here. He stumbled over it after the body was taken away.’

  ‘You seem to make a habit of finding things,’ Simon said, eyeing Walerand with distaste. ‘First a corpse, now a sword.’

  ‘I am lucky, maybe. Or maybe I’m just competent. I know how to find things and please my master.’

  ‘Perhaps you do!’ Simon agreed, struck with the comment. It made him think afresh about the man in front of him. He didn’t like his thoughts.

  ‘So, are you sure you haven’t seen this sword before?’

  Simon was about to answer when a caution sprang into his mind. This was Baldwin’s sword,
as he knew perfectly well, but it also bore the signs of the Templar Order. If he were to declare that it was Baldwin’s, his friend’s memory would be poisoned. Jeanne, Lady Baldwin, could become the target of vindictive comment, and that was not a position in which Simon would willingly put her.

  ‘Why should I have?’

  ‘It was found here as you arrived. No one on the island owns a weapon like this. I would know.’ Thomas shrugged, but he had already lost interest. ‘I am sorry. It seems ridiculous to ask you, but sometimes a man who is responsible for affairs of the law must ask foolish things. It’s all a matter of form, you understand. It is a curious weapon, though, don’t you think? And it appeared here, with what looked like blood on the grease used to protect it, as though it had stabbed a man recently. Surely that would prove its use in Robert’s death.’

  ‘He should have guarded himself,’ the man at the table said harshly.

  ‘Perhaps, Walerand,’ Thomas said with a hint of weariness in his voice. ‘And perhaps not. Maybe it was my fault for not insisting that he took a guard with him. We can’t afford to lose men like him. He was a good fellow.’

  Simon looked at Walerand. He was an unprepossessing sight, scruffy, with the pale skin and eyes of a man who needed more exercise, to Simon’s mind. Then he dismissed him from his mind.

  ‘Your tax-man would no doubt have had many enemies.’

  ‘Don’t all tax-collectors?’ Thomas said mildly. ‘Nobody particularly enjoys giving up his money to his lord, no matter who he is.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but not many take up a sword and murder the gatherer,’ Walerand said. He had noticed the Bailiff’s cursory look, and felt insulted by it. He knew he was better than this Bailiff, and he didn’t care to be snubbed. It was a calculated insult, that’s what it was. He’d show him.

  But Simon barely registered that he’d spoken – he scarcely noticed Walerand at all. ‘This man who was killed,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I can help you? I have investigated many murders in Dartmoor, where I deal with such matters for Abbot Champeaux.’

  ‘It is kind of you to offer,’ Thomas said, eyeing him thoughtfully. ‘Another man’s eye can sometimes see the obvious which is hidden to others.’