Tedia woke as soon as the door opened. ‘Isok? Is that you?’
The storm was raging now. The wind caught at the open door and slammed it back against the wall, the gusts scattering the bright sparks from the nearly dead fire in an orange cloud.
‘No. Not Isok, my dear.’
Tedia relaxed. ‘Mariota! Is Isok safe?’
‘Yes,’ her aunt laughed, pushing at the door with main force until she could reach through the hole and bind the thong which held it. ‘He’s fine.’
‘Oh, good.’ There was an odd tone in Mariota’s voice, as though she was angry or bitter about something. Still, Tedia was too tired to worry. She felt her eyelids closing. As she did so, she was aware of Mariota shaking her blanket from her shoulders. Her legs were sodden, as were her skirts. Tedia thought she looked like a woman who had been through a downpour.
At last Simon felt the sand scraping at his knees, then a rock snagged his shin, and he could set his feet on the sloping beach. In the thin morning light, he stumbled on through the shallows, the slash in his shoulder hurting abominably; his teeth were set into a snarl of determination as he forced himself on, dragging his burden.
The moorstone grey of the sky had faded gradually while Simon had clung to his timber, and now above him was a gleaming blue vision that was as clear, distinct and perfect as the inside of a polished bowl, except this had no flaws or scratches, only occasional soft clouds like finest lamb’s wool. Of the previous night’s storm there was no hint. Simon guessed that there would be a thin line of blackness at the far horizon to give a hint of the filthy weather heading onwards, but in his present state he didn’t care. All he knew was that it had gone, and that he had somehow survived.
He pulled the body with him up the beach with what little strength remained in him, and dropped it when they were far enough from the water, sinking to his knees. There was no sound, and Simon eyed the boy for a moment with a sense of alarm.
When the mast had gone and the ship had grounded, the graunching noises grew. Only when he realised that the sound came from the ship’s main timbers as they began to break up, did Simon understand that the ship was doomed. Then a man went below and reported that there was a huge hole in the ship’s bows. She must sink. Gervase said tiredly that it was every man for himself, but insisted on being left behind. He would die with his Anne, he said. Simon had been about to leap into the depths when he heard the keening.
It was Hamo, the cabin-boy. When Simon saw him kneeling and praying, he had been tempted to jump and forget the lad, just as he must leave behind the other sailors, but then he caught sight of the tear-streaked face and there was something about it, something oddly like his own son. His boy was miles away, was only a fraction of Hamo’s age, and yet Simon liked to think that had Peter been left on a ship like this, another man might have tried to save him.
The thoughts sped through his mind, and then he was racing over the leaning deck. He grabbed Hamo under the armpits, roared, ‘Hold hard, lad!’ and set off for the lower rail. As he sprang over and down into the water, he heard a short scream of complete horror, but then they hit the water.
Simon was no great swimmer, but Hamo, like so many sailors, had never learned. Sailors often preferred a quick death by drowning, rather than to suffer the prolonged death of swimming until exhaustion took them over or a sea monster found them and made play with them like a cat with a mouse.
There was something to be said for that view, Simon told himself as he struggled his way towards a massive timber, dragging Hamo behind him. By this stage, the cabin-boy was nothing more than a dead weight, and swimming here, with the waves slamming down onto them after every few strokes, was almost impossible. There was rubbish all about, ropes and spars intermingled, but Simon dared not grab at them in order to bind Hamo to the beam, because he was certain that the loose ropes would entangle them, and probably seal their doom. Instead Simon made his way to the timber with a set determination, while the saltwater threatened to flood his lungs at every stroke, the wind blew spray into his eyes, and his arms began to ache with the unaccustomed exercise. At one point he let go of Hamo when a large spar cracked over his back, but fortunately he caught hold of the lad again, and set off once more. The world was a roaring blackness, a place filled with pain, noise and fury; Simon must reach the beam to have even a remote possibility of survival.
And as if by a miracle, suddenly his nails scraped the slimy surface, and he could haul Hamo to his side, loop his arms over it, and then allow his own exhausted frame to cling to the other side, not knowing where they might end up, nor whether there was a hope of their survival, while the black storm raged.
Thus had Simon spent himself, his strength supporting both of them until the breaking dawn, when suddenly the wind’s rage died and the foul weather passed by. As it did so, Simon looked up and saw that they were drifting slowly towards a group of islands. Kicking with renewed energy he helped them on their journey until they came to the shore.
But now Simon gazed helplessly at the boy, and suddenly his eyes filled with tears. He was all alone here. The only companion he had was this cabin-boy, and if he should die, Simon had no one. It was a selfish wish, but he wanted the lad to live just so that he had some company. Especially since Baldwin …
A wracking sob burst from him, as though a giant had taken his chest in his hand and squeezed. It was entirely unexpected, but Simon could not prevent himself from falling to his knees, a hand going over his face as he began to give himself up to his loss. Baldwin, his friend, the man with whom he had gone on pilgrimage, was dead.
‘Christ! Brother Jan!’
Simon felt a hand on his back, but he remained as he was, his face covered, while the sobs choked his throat, ashamed of the tears that flowed. Gentle hands prised his head up until he found himself surveyed by a friendly face, through the haze of exhaustion, tears and his salt-filled eyes.
‘Christ’s wounds, master – you need warmth. What of your friend?’
Vaguely Simon was aware of the man grabbing Hamo, turning him over and muttering a swift prayer.
‘Save your tears, master. He’ll live.’
There was a damp scratching at his cheek when Baldwin moved. The world was filled with noise, when all he wanted was peace.
An idea was floating near his consciousness, but he couldn’t quite get hold of it. He didn’t mind. The most important thing was Jeanne. She was lovely; she had given him Richalda. They were all to him. There was nothing without them. His life depended upon them both, and it was somehow important that he concentrated on them.
There had been a fight, he recalled. On a ship. They had repelled the pirates, but then the storm struck them again, the rain beating down from all sides. The wind was vicious, sending them tearing along at a terrifying speed, the cog rolling fearsomely, bucketing down over the crests and diving into the next wave. It was terrible, a scene from hell.
He could remember a crack. A rippling series of explosions like detonating gunpowder that seemed to go off directly over his head, and then the sail was nothing more than a series of shreds. He vaguely recalled one sailor falling to his knees and weeping inconsolably; another climbed up to try to do something to the wreckage of the sail, but he was almost immediately flung from the yard. The helmsman’s body was there one moment, gone the next. Throughout it all the master remained sitting on his arse, trying to hold his belly together, his face grey with pain as his narrowed eyes darted hither and thither. Simon and Sir Charles were clinging to a rope near the stern, both silent and fearful, while Hamo cowered on the deck between them. Sir Charles’s man, Paul, sat impassively near the rail. He was resigned to whatever fate God had in store.
A cold wash flowed past Baldwin’s face, up into his mouth, and he choked on the chilly salt. It made him retch, and he felt warm water shoot out from his nostrils.
It was too difficult. Better to remember his wife and daughter. Easier, too. They were something to hold on to, to recall with pleasur
e and pride. Better that than worrying about the present. There was no point. He was probably asleep. This was all a dream.
The noise washed over him like water, constant but ever-changing. It was like a series of pebbles being rolled around a breastplate of armour, different all the time, but always there.
As was the water, he realised. It was odd. A part of his brain reminded him that this was all a peculiar dream, and he was instantly reassured. He could have imagined that the sensation at his brow and over his ear was water, but what if it was?
He felt safe and warm, with this gentle massage of water all about him. Yes. He would sleep at last.
Chapter Four
When he had recovered sufficiently to clear his eyes, Simon found himself meeting the gaze of a powerful-looking man. From his garb, he must be a priest, and although his eyes were serious, there was a kindness in his voice as he told Simon: ‘You did well, my friend. You saved his life.’
He had rolled the lad onto his belly, his head nearest the sea so his legs were uppermost, and then pushed repeatedly on the fellow’s back. Even as he spoke to Simon he was still pumping. ‘Yes, this boy will live. You were on a ship together?’
‘Where are we?’
‘On the isle of Ennor. Some miles from Cornwall. You’re Cornish?’
‘Devon,’ Simon responded shortly.
‘Hmm. You drew the short straw in life, I see. How many were there on your ship?’
Simon tried to calculate. ‘Myself and three other passengers, six I think in the crew, and this lad.’
‘So many!’ The priest stopped his pumping for a moment. ‘Aye, and I expect there will be more, foundered on other shores. The sea is a hard mistress.’
Simon nodded. ‘My friend … he was washed from the deck …’ His voice broke as he recalled the events of the previous night.
‘He may have lived. You can never tell with the sea,’ the other man said reassuringly: a lie of this sort was kinder than the truth. ‘Come with me. I am called William. At my home we can fill you with warm drink and good bread.’
‘What about the others? The ship is still out there,’ Simon said, pointing a shaking finger vaguely out towards the empty sea.
‘If it’s that way, it’ll be seen and no doubt many of my neighbours will want to go and see what the damage is,’ William said drily. As he well knew, when food was scarce, the islanders would themselves turn to piracy. Wrecks saved them the risks of such adventures. The people of the islands made good profits from wrecks. Any who helped rescue the vessel would be entitled to a share of half its value. The new law of salvage was understood and appreciated by all on the islands. Not that it mattered, William thought privately. He had been kept awake all night by the storm, sleeping with his flock in the little barn, and he was sure that these two were enormously lucky to have survived. Surely no one else could have, if the ship had foundered. In any case, if there were beams from the ship … ‘Aha!’
Simon followed his excited gaze. ‘What?’
‘There’s a damn great lump of wood out there. Wait here a minute!’ William declared gleefully, and waded into the cold waters. He soon reached Simon’s baulk of timber, and pushed it into shore, dragging it up the beach, a smile breaking across his face. ‘This will replace the broken lintel at my church! Perfect! Now for hot drink and food!’
So saying, William picked up the slight figure of the boy, who was now coughing weakly, and led the way up a sandy path. Simon was exhausted, and had to stop and rest at every opportunity, although it was only a matter of a few tens of yards, and William was patient, waiting for him whenever the coughing or sobbing took him over.
‘Come, master. We’ll soon have you before a fire. Life looks better with a warm fire in front of you.’
Simon knew that. Long before they reached William’s door his teeth had begun to chatter uncontrollably, and as soon as he saw the stool near the fire, he tried to sit on it. His enfeeblement made him miss the mark and he fell over, painfully striking his head against a hearthstone. Even when he had righted the stool and tried again, he slumped so heavily that he nearly overbalanced. In preference he seated himself on the packed clay of the floor.
‘I’ll have to send for the castle’s men,’ William said. ‘But I’d dearly like to know how you came to survive and make it here.’
‘We were lucky.’
‘You mentioned a friend?’
‘We were chased by pirates,’ Simon said shortly. ‘They came upon us on our route home from Compostela.’
‘They are the devil’s own whelps, these foreign pirates,’ William said with feeling. ‘They plunder where they may, murdering as they …’ Then he noticed Simon’s expression and waved. ‘My apologies. Please continue.’
Simon spoke as the man poured wine from a small barrel into a large pot, which he set on a trivet over his fire. There were three goodly-sized logs glowing, and William soon blew them into life.
‘We fought them. They came at us like wolves, and when they threw their grappling irons, it was all we could do to keep them away. They would have overcome us, but for my friend. He slew their leader, and they withdrew, but they had done the damage already. They’d killed the helmsman and three other sailors. There weren’t enough men to steer and man the thing. When the storm hit us, we were driven like lost souls in front of devils. It was a terrible sound, the way that the wind sang in the ropes.’
William nodded. He hoped Simon wouldn’t speak of such things in front of any of the fishermen in the vill. They would mercilessly rib a man who didn’t know his cable from a sheet or a sheet from a shroud.
‘Then,’ Simon continued, ‘the sail burst. It was like a clay plate being struck by a hammer! One moment it was there – the next: nothing! A man went up to do something, but the next gust took him away. All we could do was lie down and cling on to anything that came to hand.
‘We survived like that for a good long while, and then there was a scraping jerk, and the ship spun around on her centre. One of the sailors cried aloud in prayer, saying we’d struck a rock and must be destroyed. Another one told him to shut up, that while there was life in our bodies, we had a chance, and then a great wave came over the ship.
‘My friend Baldwin was holding on to a baulk of timber that ran along the side of the ship. It was held rigidly in place, but this mass of water crashed over him, and when I could see again, there was a hole in the side of the ship. All that rail had gone, and with it, Baldwin.
‘I think that I gave up then. I wanted to be dead myself. It was awful to think of drowning in that sea, consumed by the waters, but the weather began to abate almost immediately, as though God was satisfied with our sacrifice. He had taken enough.’
It made the tears spring back into Simon’s eyes to think of that moment. When he saw Baldwin was gone, he felt as though a great void had opened in his own chest. With a scream, he almost hurled himself into the water to try to find Baldwin, but Sir Charles had taken his arm and prevented him.
William nodded. ‘I know, friend. I come from a seafaring family myself. My own brother Jan went to sea – and I am inordinately glad that I found a vocation in the Church. Our father died in the sea, and so do so many who depend upon it.’
‘You thought I was Jan, didn’t you?’ Simon recalled. The priest had called him ‘Jan’.
‘There was a resemblance,’ William said quietly. ‘Please, continue.’
‘Not long afterwards, the cog spun around a few times, and then seemed to shudder, and with that, she began to move again. I think the water rose and lifted her off her rocky spike. But she was badly holed. A man went to look, and came back to say that she couldn’t survive. She was about to sink. We jumped and found the beam you have left at the waterside, and held fast to it. When dawn came, we saw – God! with how much relief! – this island. I made for it with all the strength I had. The others …’
‘Don’t worry about them. If they all followed your example, perhaps they will all be well enough
.’ William rose. ‘And now, master, if you will excuse me, I shall report my finding of you to the Lord of the Manor. He will want to know.’
Aye, he added sourly to himself. And Ranulph will want to be among the first of the thieving devils to get his hands on any free cargo!
He was the kindest man on St Nicholas. That was the trouble. Tedia sniffed as she went about her work that next morning. Mariota had sent Tedia with food to wake Isok, and Tedia had found him snoring on Mariota’s bench, the goat bleating angrily. Tedia released the animal and tethered her outside, then woke her husband and gave him a loaf and some cheese for the day. Isok had taken them, then disappeared quietly, walking along the shoreline to meet his brother and others, to mend nets and chat. Tedia waved to him once, and then realised that he wouldn’t turn to acknowledge her, and she bent her steps homewards, sobbing quietly.
She knew she was the subject of gossip all over the islands. The men and women of St Nicholas, St Elidius, Bechiek and Ennor all knew of her troubles – and Isok’s complaint. Who wouldn’t? Even the children pointed and giggled. They knew as well as any that a man and woman who couldn’t couple couldn’t perform their most important responsibility: have children of their own.
Tedia was no shrew. She didn’t want to see her husband hurt. Poor Isok. All he had wanted to do was keep her happy, and he had tried his best. He had tried to consummate their marriage, while Tedia had made herself as alluring as possible, lying naked before him, squirming and pleading with him to service her, touching him with the enthusiasm born of hope and simple lust, but it had all failed. There was nothing she could do with the touch of her hands, breasts or lips that would make the broken wand stand.
While Tedia felt her excitement wane, to be replaced with shame and frustration, Isok reddened, chewing at his lip. It was the beginning of his bitterness, and all because she wanted him to do his duty by her, as he himself wished. Now all was too late. Tedia had applied herself to the problem with her usual single-mindedness, and when all else appeared to have failed, she spoke to the new priest up at the chapel of St Elidius to ask for his advice.
The Outlaws of Ennor: (Knights Templar 16) Page 6
