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

  Now he was here in this God-forgotten hole.

  It was one of the most curious missions which Sir Andrew had been asked to conduct. A man had left the Queen’s entourage and fled. Many suspected her and her household, but there were none more suspected than the men who had come to England to serve her from France. Not that it was a surprise that she sought her protectors from so far afield. Since her husband the King had slaughtered the most noble men of the country in the last few years in retribution for the Lords Marcher war, there were few whom she could trust in this country. And her brother, the King of France, was ever willing to foment trouble between her and her husband.

  The French were always gazing at Britain with greedy eyes. Their king wanted Britain as a vassal state, just as he wanted the British possessions on the continent for his own, and he would stop at nothing in his intrigues. That was why, when the traitor Mortimer escaped from the Tower, he was welcomed with open arms in Paris. The French could scarcely conceal their glee. And in retaliation, the Queen of England was beginning to have her wings clipped. Soon the King would have to act if he wanted to protect himself. That much was plain to all who knew the real state of affairs. There was no love lost between the couple anyway. Not any longer.

  A shame, really. She was a lovely thing, the Queen. If Sir Andrew had been brave enough, he could have been tempted to try his luck with her himself. Perhaps that was why he was here? Perhaps this impecunious French knight had attempted to storm the citadel of her heart. If he had done that, he would suffer the most painful death King Edward II could contrive. Ironic, too, since it was Isabella who had warned her own father of the adultery of her sisters-in-law, and who had thus seen to the destruction of the two men who had dared become their lovers. What a race the French were!

  There was no possibility that the man would escape Sir Andrew now, though. Not with all the men he had aboard his ship the Gudyer.

  Alred gazed at his apprentice with consternation. ‘On the bloody ship? How’re we going to catch him if he’s out there in the river?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s just visiting it,’ Law said.

  Bill looked at him. ‘He’s safe aboard a cog and you reckon he’s likely to come back to shore to take a last look around?’

  ‘It’s possible!’

  Alred and Bill exchanged a look. ‘If you say so, Law,’ Alred sighed. ‘Me, I’ll put my money on him staying there and waiting until it’s time for him to sail. And I’d bet the ship’s not there in the morning.’

  Law scowled at the ground. He’d been sure that the others would be as pleased as him to see the man getting onto the cog, and to be receiving their contempt was worse than annoying. ‘I did better than you, anyway. At least I found him.’

  ‘Never did find out where he was hiding. He must have some friend here in the town,’ Bill said. He frowned. ‘Maybe we could use that? Like setting a trap for birds, when you flush them from a tree into the nets. I wonder …’

  ‘What?’ Alred demanded.

  ‘Ach – nothing. We’ve lost him. And probably not a bad thing. If he escapes, we’re safe.’

  ‘So long as no one figures out it was us knocked his man down. If that fool from the inn says something about paviours, we’re right in the stuff,’ Alred said grimly.

  ‘He won’t know himself, will he? He was out as soon as you tapped him. So if anyone was going to say something, it’d be the innkeeper or his fellows, and we’re here, so none of them has,’ Bill pointed out.

  ‘Let’s hope it stays that way.’

  Stephen closed his rolls, stored them safely in the thick leather cylinders, and walked out from the main room.

  He was lucky here, he knew. He had a good master in the Bailiff, a warm room to sleep in, and a plentiful supply of ale and bread. No man could ask for more. And yet of an evening, sometimes he wished to have a little company. Not women – he took his vows too seriously for that – but just occasionally, it was good to have a drink with other men. And tonight, looking out at the fellows walking past, he decided that he needed to join them.

  Locking the door behind him carefully, he walked up the alley opposite until he reached the Porpoise. It was not the sort of tavern which his abbot would have appreciated his entering, but he felt justified today. He had been working hard on various reports and figures, and even a clerk needed relaxation occasionally. So he pushed the door open and cautiously stepped inside.

  There was a mass of faces within, all lighted by the candles that sat in the holders about the room. He smiled at some, nodded recognition at others, and walked over to the tavern-keeper to ask about an ale. It arrived in a cheap jug, and he drank it gratefully, eyes all but closed. At the rear of the room, he knew, was the gaming room, and as he stood there, he saw Peter Strete leave it, an expression of anguish on his face. Well, it was no more than he had heard rumoured about the town. Strete was regularly fleeced by the men in there. Stephen shrugged. It was none of his concern.

  But Strete saw him, and with an inward sigh, Stephen made space beside himself. Strete soon began to talk to him about a shipment of cargo he was overseeing for Master Hawley, but then he stopped. Following his gaze, Stephen saw a heavy-set, very drunk man leaving the gaming room.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘That man … I am sure he is familiar.’

  ‘So? It’s only a small town.’

  ‘Yes, but I thought he had left port … Ach, it’s just my memory playing tricks.’

  Stephen privately thought it was more likely to be something connected with his gambling, but that would have been discourteous. Tactfully, he changed the subject.

  Hamund lay on his back on the deck and stared up at the stars, a heavy cloak over his legs. Every time he moved, the nausea returned, but for all his feelings of sickness, there was a sense of relief that he must soon leave these shores and escape to France. There, perhaps, he could make a new life, and forget all about the past.

  He glanced at the Frenchman’s shape over near the mast. He was a strange one, too. Desperate to be out of the country, and the man at the inn had said it was because he had raped a woman. He didn’t seem the sort to do something like that, though, from the little Hamund had seen of him, and he wondered whether the accusation had been made maliciously. The fact that Pierre was here on the ship was proof that he believed his life to be in danger if he was caught.

  ‘There are too many of us in the same boat,’ Hamund reflected, and winced at the pun even as he closed his eyes once more.

  ‘That man will be the end of me,’ Simon growled as he rose slowly from his bench.

  ‘He was only trying to be friendly,’ Baldwin countered. ‘And you didn’t have to accept.’

  ‘I thought if I drank one cup with him, he would grow weary and seek his own bed,’ Simon protested, scowling at his friend from eyes narrowed in pain. ‘Instead the damned fellow kept refilling our cups.’

  ‘I did not witness him holding you down and forcing the drink down your throat,’ Baldwin pointed out.

  ‘It would have been churlish to refuse his generosity,’ Simon attempted loftily. ‘Christ’s ballocks, but some rat’s left shite and piss in my mouth.’

  ‘Stop your complaining and dress yourself,’ Baldwin said, eyeing his flabby naked body without enthusiasm. ‘Simon, you should rise earlier and exercise. For a man so young as you, your body is growing too rounded.’

  ‘It’s all this sitting around doing nothing except agreeing with Stephen’s adding,’ Simon admitted.

  ‘Hah! It’s too much knocking back ale and wine, I’d guess!’ boomed a new voice, that of Sir Richard, as he entered the room. ‘Morning, Bailiff, Keeper. Sleep well? I was out like a snuffed candle. Wonderful place this, and you have a good bed, Master Bailiff.’

  ‘I am so glad to hear it,’ Simon said, baring his teeth in a mockery of a smile.

  When Simon rose and had dressed, he leaned on the doorpost and gazed into his parlour in amazement. Rob had already been
in, he saw, and there was a fire already crackling brightly! His sour feelings towards the Coroner took on a more mellow aspect.

  ‘Today, then, we should go and see if there is anything to learn about this lad found dead on the ship.’ Baldwin was sitting at the table, studying his fingernails. He rubbed his index finger nail against his tooth, grimaced, and took out his little knife, using it to pare away a fragment. ‘After that, I suppose we should take the nephew of Stapledon and have his body sent to the bishop. Dear God! I hate to think of that. His brother will be so distressed to learn that his son has been murdered.’

  Sir Richard clumped into the room with his thumbs in his belt. ‘Good idea. Don’t need stiffs lying about the place if we can help it. I’d have had him buried here if you hadn’t told me who he was.’

  ‘I still cannot make sense of the man on the ship, though,’ Baldwin said. ‘It is curious that two murders should take place so near to each other, and the ship be so devastated, and yet none of the three incidents to have any connection.’

  ‘I have known such occurrences,’ Sir Richard said easily. He sat on a stool and bellowed suddenly for Rob, making Baldwin wince almost as much as Simon. ‘Boy, take these pennies and see what you can find for our breakfast. And fetch us a little ale, too. You can finish what we don’t, so make the most of the money. Understand?’

  Rob took the coins and stared at them as though he had never in his life held so many – which, Simon reflected, was probably no more than the truth. In an instant he had darted from the room, and the three men heard his feet slapping down the lane.

  ‘He’s not too bad, that lad. Needs a strong hand to guide him, though,’ Sir Richard said approvingly.

  When the three heard a light step, a little later on, they thought it must be the boy returning. There was a tentative knock, as though Rob was leaning a heavy basket against the door as he sought to lift the latch. Baldwin stood and crossed the room, pulling the door wide.

  Outside stood a hooded figure, and even as he opened his mouth to speak he saw the flash of steel.

  Sir Baldwin de Furnshill had been trained well. The blade was thrust at his heart, but he fell to his right, grabbed the wrist with his right hand and slammed it across his torso and into the open door. The wrist caught the edge of the door itself, and he felt the shudder as the hand released the knife. He swiftly kicked it aside, pulled the figure in bodily, and booted the door shut.

  ‘Now, Edith, that is the least gratitude I have ever experienced after attempting to aid someone. I assume you have some reason to want to harm me?’

  ‘You think you can forget your actions by buying his family?’ she spat.

  Simon had joined Baldwin, and stood behind his shoulder. ‘What is all this?’

  Edith saw the knife on the floor near the door. She made a move as though to dart to it, but Baldwin did not release her wrist. Instead he hauled her with him further into the room, leaving the knife where it had fallen. ‘Sit, child, and tell me why you tried that.’

  ‘What can we do if you have him killed? It’s bad enough paying for his keep while he’s out, but at least he can help mend nets and earn a few ha’pennies here and there. But now? You’ve condemned us all to death!’

  ‘I have not the faintest idea what you are talking about.’

  ‘My father! He’s in the gaol for stealing some silver from the dead man’s purse, and you made out you weren’t going to do anything about it! You deceived us, and now he’s—’

  ‘Wait!’ Baldwin snapped. ‘I know nothing of this. Coroner?’

  ‘What?’ Sir Richard growled.

  ‘Is this your doing?’

  ‘Why me?’ Sir Richard asked with a baffled lifting of his eyebrows.

  Baldwin nodded. ‘Edith, it is none of us here. Where is the gaol?’

  ‘At the market house.’

  ‘Come with us now, and we shall have him released if we may.’

  She stared at him warily. ‘Why should I believe you? You’ll have me arrested too!’

  ‘Edith,’ Baldwin said with some asperity, ‘it was I who gave you money to help the family. Would I then order your father to be arrested? You have drawn steel against me, but I have not killed you as I might. I have no intention of hurting you or your father. Now come and help us.’

  Her expression remained suspicious, but when he released her hand, she walked to the door. Standing by her knife, she looked back at Baldwin. He nodded, and she picked it up, concealing it in a sheath under her cloak, and led the way outside just as Rob appeared, whistling. His whistle became low and appreciative as he leered at her, and Baldwin was tempted to cuff him as he passed. Instead he heard Sir Richard take a pie.

  ‘Good choice, lad,’ he bellowed as he munched. ‘Keep them hot by the fire at the Custom House. We won’t be too long.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  When Rob arrived at the Bailiff’s place of work, Stephen was already sitting at his desk and eyeing a set of new figures with a dubious expression on his face. The numbers were very precise, and he distrusted any figures from sailors which were precise. To his mind, that spoke of dishonesty.

  ‘Bailiff’s off questioning. Says you’re to get on with things,’ Rob said as he placed the pies carefully about the hearth.

  ‘Good. I shall. And you should return to your home and clear it up. I have heard that you leave it in a terrible state. Do you never do any work?’

  ‘Me?’ Rob demanded indignantly. ‘I’m always working. Look at my hands, almost completely worn away, they are. And all this for next to nothing. I tell you, if I could get on a ship, I’d sail away tomorrow. Any berth would do. I’d be better than most in climbing aloft, you know. And I can—’

  ‘Clear off home, boy. Get on with your work and leave me to get on with mine!’

  ‘You? Don’t know what work is, you don’t,’ the boy called derisively as he slipped quickly from the door, leaving it open.

  A small gust blew in, lifting the corner of Stephen’s roll, and he irritably set a pebble on top before rushing to the door and staring down the road at the disappearing back of the servant. ‘Little monster!’ he muttered, and turned back to the chamber.

  As he did so, he caught sight of a face in the alley, and felt his heart quicken. It was the man from the gaming room who had made Strete stop. An unremarkable man, short, almost squat, with the complexion and the rolling gait of a sailor, but with a shaven jaw that looked odd.

  It was as he peered at the man that he was noticed. The sailor glared at him aggressively as though about to demand what the clerk was so interested in him for, but then he spun on his heel and hurried away.

  The clerk slowly closed the door, wondering what had been so odd about the man, and then he realised that the fellow must only recently have been shaved. The flesh of his jaw was pale and smooth.

  With that little conundrum settled, he returned to his desk.

  Cynegils had passed a miserable night. The floor was damp, unyielding rock, and he had huddled shivering in the corner, wondering what latest misfortune could visit itself upon him.

  When the trapdoor above him opened, the light flooding the cell all but blinded him, and he had to cover his face with a hand. There was a rattle and thump, and he saw that the gaoler had let the ladder down into the chamber.

  ‘Come on up. Apparently you’re free.’

  Cynegils remained where he was for some heartbeats. The idea that he could be sprung loose had been so far from his mind that he found it hard to accommodate it. ‘Me?’

  ‘GET UP HERE, MAN!’

  The raucous tones of the Coroner were not to be ignored. Cynegils groaned as he eased himself upright and hauled himself up the ladder to the chamber above.

  ‘Father!’ His daughter was there; she had been weeping.

  ‘I wouldn’t get too close, Edie,’ he said. The stench of the prison was on him, a foul miasma of decay, fear and excrement.

  ‘Who ordered you here?’ Simon demanded.

  ‘
A knight – Sir Andrew, he called himself, off that ship, the Gudyer, in the haven.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He was at the inn last night. They took me in the street at Hardness, and dragged me to the inn, and when he was done he had me brought here.’

  ‘By what right?’ Simon asked in a low voice.

  Cynegils shrugged. He had no idea. A man of his low status was fodder for any powerful man who chose to snare him. They needed no reason.

  Baldwin glanced at Simon. ‘This man needs to be away from here. He’s a sailor. If there were a ship with a master who swore to keep him from ale while he was at sea, he should be safer.’

  ‘You want me to find him a place on a ship?’ Simon asked with some disbelief, staring at the noisome figure before him.

  Edith was about to fall to her knees and beg, when she saw the Keeper shoot her a look.

  ‘I feel sure that he needs all the protection he can find,’ Baldwin said. ‘So do his children. Find him a berth on a ship and pay all the money to this excellent girl. Oh, come on, Simon! There must be a ship somewhere that needs another hand.’

  ‘Come with us, then,’ Simon said. ‘You can bathe and change your clothes, and then we will ask Stephen what he would recommend.’

  ‘And then,’ Baldwin said grimly, ‘I think we ought to go to this Sir Andrew and enquire by what right he seeks to arrest men here in Clifton and Hardness.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  The soft voice cut into Hamund’s thoughts as he sat with his back to the Saint Denis’s planks. He looked up at the Frenchman’s dark features and sighed. ‘I killed a man who has powerful friends.’

  ‘All men seem to have powerful enemies in this country now.’

  ‘I fear you are right.’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  Hamund looked away, and his gaze was attracted to the sky. Even there she haunted his thoughts: he could see her sweet face in the clouds. ‘My master died, serving his lord, and that same lord now covets his lands. So, he has ordered my master’s widow to go. He will have her evicted so that he can take possession. The man sent to tell us was a foul, cruel brute, and I was disgusted. So I went to the inn where he was staying, and I killed him.’