‘Still alive, then? That’s good,’ William said pleasantly.
Simon grunted as he rose to an elbow. ‘Where’s the old man? He was here, telling me all about the place. I couldn’t understand what he was going on about, much of the time. He was explaining about the laws here.’
‘That was Hamadus, my sexton. He’s always rabbiting on about the customs here. Personally I find that they can be safely ignored. Just behave like a decent man and no one will give you trouble,’ William advised. He frowned at the food. ‘I hope you like pottage.’
‘I do.’
‘In that case, let’s hope this strikes you as similar to pottage, then.’
As William set about finding a bowl, peering into it with a suspicious glare and wiping it clean with his fingers, Simon asked about the youth he had rescued from the sea.
‘He’s at the castle. Hamadus has seen him and made him comfortable. The poor fellow was not well. I think he tried to drink half the ocean on his own. No doubt he was jealous that you were there to take the other half,’ William said drily. Seeing the expression on Simon’s face, he apologised. ‘When you live in a place like this, you forget how to behave towards other people. He is well enough, but I thought he could do with a little care. I can make some foods,’ he added, gesturing towards the pot, ‘but he needs some real nursing, and Hamadus is better than most healers I’ve known.’
‘He is a physician, then?’
‘Of a sort, yes. He will cure warts, treat cows with swollen udders, or help a dog with a bad sprain. Whatever needs curing, he can do it.’ Glancing at Simon, he added defensively, ‘I don’t know how he does it, but he is very successful.’
‘I wasn’t judging,’ Simon said. He gratefully took his bowl, a thick hunk of bread floating in the greenish soup. He tasted it and beamed. ‘This is wonderful!’
William smiled with satisfaction. The pottage was made by a woman in La Val who came to cook and clean for him each morning, but he saw no need to explain that to this marooned stranger. While Simon drank from the rim of the bowl, William poured himself a little more and ate it fastidiously with a spoon.
‘I suppose I shall have to take you to the castle to speak to the Lord of the Manor,’ he said. ‘But it is already getting late. That can wait until tomorrow.’
Simon had finished his bowl. His belly felt as stuffed as it did after a great feast and he realised that he had not kept any food down since leaving port four days ago. When William made to offer him more, Simon shook his head. In a moment, he told himself; once this meal had gone down a little. ‘This lord – Ranulph, I think Hamadus said?’
‘Yes,’ William said, and his face hardened. ‘Ranulph de Blancminster.’
Simon frowned. ‘I know my Abbot owns lands here. Does Ranulph owe Abbot Robert allegiance?’
‘I don’t think Ranulph agrees to owe honour to any man other than himself,’ William said. ‘He is the employer of thieves, wastrels, outlaws and murderers. No man is so evil that Blancminster won’t take him in. I know, because I have had to hear the confessions of a few when they have been at death’s door. Ranulph is scared of no man. He even takes the King’s fish. Fourteen odd years ago, he imprisoned the King’s Coroner and fined him a hundred shillings because the man did his duty and impounded a whale washed up on the beach. Ranulph wanted it himself, so he had the Coroner flung into his gaol.’
Simon felt the first twinge of anxiety. ‘But would he dare harm an Abbot’s man?’
William gave him a level look. ‘There is nothing he wouldn’t dare.’
‘Perhaps I should make my way straight to the priory then,’ Simon said, and explained about his position in the Abbey’s staff.
‘Well now, Bailiff. Since you are an official yourself, perhaps you can dare to feel a little safer.’ William sat musing for a moment, staring at the fire’s flames. ‘For now, sleep. You’re safe enough here with me, and not many are likely to wander abroad when darkness falls. But just in case, I shall send a message to Prior Cryspyn at St Nicholas so that your presence is noted. It can’t hurt to have the Prior on your side.’
Sir Charles woke with a feeling of dog-weariness. His neck was cricked, his shoulder hurt from lying on the hard wooden deck, and he had a sore hip for the same reason.
Still, he was alive, and that, right now, was a cause of gratitude. It was a miracle that the Anne hadn’t foundered. More miraculous still was the fact that she remained afloat even now. After the terrible storm, they had drifted for a day, wondering what might happen to them, and all had fallen asleep where they were.
Sir Charles offered up a prayer of thanks as he rubbed salt-sore eyes and stretched, feeling the torn and bruised muscles all along his back and flank. At his side, his squire snored loudly. Paul could sleep through a massed charge of chivalry, Sir Charles sometimes thought.
An entirely secular man, Sir Charles dealt with life as he found it, which meant that he tended to look upon all individuals as potential enemies or friends. He had been a loyal companion to his master, Earl Thomas of Lancaster, but Earl Thomas had died when he was captured at Boroughbridge, executed by a King jealous of his power. The Earl had dared to oppose King Edward II and subsequently paid the price, along with many of his companions.
Only good fortune had saved Sir Charles and Paul. They had not been at that fateful battle, and therefore had time to flee before the King arrived to exact vengeance on any he considered disloyal or treasonous. The two had taken ship to France, and then took up a life of adventure until their money had run out and they were forced to join the company of a fellow from Portugal. Travelling with him to Compostela and then on to Tomar in Portugal, they had met Sir Baldwin and threw in their lot with him.
A great shame that he was gone, Sir Charles thought to himself. Hearing a hoarse shout, he glanced about him.
The ship’s mast was a broken, splintered stump; ropes lay scattered about the decking, mingling with pieces of timber and strips of ripped sailcloth. On his left, where the hull had ended in a thick beam of oak and small rail, there was a ragged, gaping void. The mast top had fallen here, shearing through the wood like a razor through parchment. On the torn deck boards, there was a dark stain. That was where a sailor had been standing when the mast fell. Sir Charles eyed it with a certain surprise. He would have expected the waves and rain to have washed it away. Not far from the stain was Gervase. The master was breathing very shallowly, his features extremely pale and grey, lips blue, and all about him there was a thin smearing of blood. His hands were reddened claws that clung to his belly as though they clung to life itself. In a way, Sir Charles thought that they probably did. The poor devil clearly had little time left.
Used to warfare, and experienced in all the different forms of death, Sir Charles was nonetheless drained after last night. Fighting men was very different from battling the elements, withstanding wind and waves in their relentless efforts to smash and destroy all in their path. The realisation that God could have sent such a storm was fearful to a man. It made him realise his own puny frailty compared with His power.
‘They thought you’d sink, didn’t they?’ he muttered to the Anne, patting the mast’s stump. ‘Simon and the others, they reckoned you’d fail and go to pieces. Shit on a plate! I thought it myself! If I’d the brains to have learned to swim, I’d have done as the Bailiff did and jumped overboard. A man doesn’t sit on the field of battle waiting for the enemy to finish him off. If he’s got half a brain, he finds a horse and bolts. But if you can’t swim, you can’t escape a sinking ship.’
That was the reason why he was still here, but it was also why the master and two others were with him. None of them could swim, so they had chosen to remain, praying that they might be spared, and not long after Simon and the others had jumped, the storm had begun to abate somewhat.
A sailor, one of the two who had remained with Sir Charles, was pointing northwards and saying something. Standing, Sir Charles was astonished to see that only a few miles from them
there was a group of islands.
He gaped in wonder. Being no poet, he could find no words to express his feelings, but he was thrilled enough to offer up a short prayer of thanks. The islands gave the impression of security and beauty, set here in this sparkling ocean as though God had singled out this little area for his best and most detailed experiment. Spray was thrown up over a rock, and Sir Charles admired the spume like one befuddled by drugs. It was astonishingly lovely.
Then he saw the little armada which was heading towards them. The sailor saw it at the same time, and Sir Charles heard him swear. The sailor was staring with suspicion in his dark eyes, although Sir Charles could not understand why. He walked over to him. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘We’re sitting on top of tuns of wine and other merchandise.’ The man jerked his chin at the armada. ‘I just hope they won’t try to pretend that there were no survivors on this old tub so that they can take the lot.’
Sir Charles gave a smile. His friends knew that smile and recognised the danger in it: he had no living enemies who had ever witnessed that smile. Those who had seen it were dead. The sailor knew nothing of this: he saw only a knight who appeared to be laughing at him, and he walked away irritably. It was bad enough having to worry about the thieving devils approaching, without having a stuck-up, landlubber of a knight sneering at him.
Chapter Eight
Walerand strolled through the gates to the castle with the pair of boots he had found slung over his shoulder. He made straight for the little hall where Thomas worked.
The Sergeant’s room was small and uncluttered. Thomas had a trestle-table at one end, in front of a tapestry which showed a hunting scene. The picture was somewhat spoiled by a thick, dark stain all along the left-hand side, but Walerand didn’t care. It was just a piece of material to him, its only purpose to show a visitor that the man who worked here in this room was important and could afford expensive things. Not that he could, necessarily; the tapestry, as Walerand knew, was one item from a ship which had sunk offshore a while ago.
‘What do you want?’ Thomas snapped. ‘Haven’t you ever been told to knock before entering?’
He was dressed in his usual uniform of crimson tunic over a linen shirt, and greying hosen, much stained and worn. When he went out, he tended to throw on a clean tunic that hid the worst of his hosen, but in the hall, he wasn’t so bothered.
Walerand skirted the small brazier in the middle of the room. In front of Thomas, he let the boots slip down his arm until they fell on the table-top. ‘Thought you’d like to see these.’
‘A pair of boots?’ Thomas asked coldly. He was holding a reed in his hand, trying to add up a series of figures.
Walerand was clearly unworried by his hostility. There was something in his face that made Thomas look more closely at the boots. The leather was quite good. They could have belonged to any of the men-at-arms in the castle. Himself, even. ‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘His body lies not far from where I found these,’ Walerand said smugly.
‘Whose body?’
‘Robert’s. You need a new gather-reeve.’
Thomas’s eyes glittered angrily.
‘He’s out up at Penn Trathen.’
Thomas stared down at the boots. Then: ‘You murdering …’ he spluttered. ‘Do you mean to tell me …’
Walerand hastily held up a hand. ‘Not me! Someone else killed him. It was last night, maybe. He felt cold enough.’
Thomas hesitated. He himself had been out last night. Anyone who asked the gatekeeper would soon learn that Thomas did not get back to the castle until late.
‘Send a man for Ranulph, go to the nearest households and demand that they go to Penn Trathen immediately for an inquest, and then meet me back here,’ he rapped out.
He watched Walerand as he strolled from the room. No matter what, Thomas was resolved that none of the blame for this death would adhere to him.
Thomas had not needed to ask how Robert had died. No gather-reeve to a master like Ranulph de Blancminster would ever live to an old age. The man had surely been murdered.
When the boats arrived, Ranulph de Blancminster was the first man up the side of the Anne. He stood, hands on hips, while he took in the ruined deck. It was much as he had expected, as soon as he heard of this broken vessel lying off the southern coast of Annet.
The mast was shattered, with a hedgehog of splinters erupting. Ropes lay all about, where they had fallen when the remnants of the sail had been cut away. Two barrels had rolled around, one crushing a man at the side of the ship, and then both had broken asunder, their hoops lying amid a bundle of broken spars. Pieces of woollen sail lay snagged on any splinters, a great bundle hunched under the forecastle where the devoted sailors had tried to preserve whatever they could find.
Ranulph de Blancminster was a powerful, black-haired man with a large belly and double chin to show his wealth and status, but any impression of softness was belied by his eyes. They were grey, like the sea on a stormy winter’s day, and sat deep in his square face. Wearing his usual working clothes of a faded green tunic over particoloured woollen hosen, he hardly dressed like a lord, but here he had power of life and death over all the inhabitants of Ennor. Ranulph wore an aged sword that had been his father’s, and two daggers in his belt, set horizontally for easy accessibility.
He had lived here for many years, and his experience of wrecks was second to none. At the first moment of seeing the Anne, he knew she was badly hogged. She drooped fore and aft, showing that her back, if not already broken, would never withstand the seas between here and the mainland. This ship was not going to make another journey. It was not possible to save her, but it would certainly be possible to rescue any of the cargo that wasn’t already completely ruined. He glanced at the hatches and gave them an experimental kick. Blasted thing must have leaked terribly. She was as much use as a pot made of linen. All the tuns below decks must have been washed in saltwater. The sooner the lot could be rescued, the better.
‘Hello, Master. You didn’t see fit to ask permission to come aboard?’
Ranulph cast a look at the tall man dressed in a tatty tunic. ‘I did not expect to find any men still aboard,’ he said coolly.
‘Not all can swim, so we remained,’ Sir Charles told him. ‘There was little point in jumping into the water, when we might survive by staying here.’
‘I congratulate you on saving her.’
‘It wasn’t easy.’
‘But now she is salvage, so she is forfeit.’
Sir Charles’s smile broadened. ‘She feels stable enough under my feet.’
‘She wouldn’t make it to shore without my ships hauling her,’ Ranulph stated flatly. ‘That means she is salvage, and it also means she’s my responsibility now. Under the law, half of the cargo and half the vessel is mine as Lord of this Manor.’ He nodded sternly to the knight.
‘So, you are going to take her?’
Ranulph eyed him. ‘There’s no mast, no sailors … do you mean to paddle her all the way to shore? I can save the cargo, and all I’ll do is take half. If I leave you here, wreckers may come and take it all. They could kill you and lead the ship to rocks to founder, and claim that you wrecked far off out to sea. Which do you prefer?’
Without waiting for an answer, Blancminster turned his back and went to the side. ‘Send up a cable,’ he bellowed. ‘We’ll need to tow her to port. I’ll come down and—’
Suddenly he was aware of a pricking at his back and heard a voice saying pleasantly: ‘Now, Master, before you begin to order this vessel into dock, perhaps we should discuss what I’ll require for me and my companions aboard. We wouldn’t want any of us falling into the sea and drowning, would we?’
Blancminster turned slowly and faced the smiling man. He was an unprepossessing fellow, with a ragged day or two’s growth of beard, and a vaguely mad look in his blue eyes. It was the eyes which held Blancminster’s attention: they were the eyes of a man who had killed, who would kil
l again, and who felt no qualms about it. Blancminster recognised that look. It was the sort of look which his own men often wore.
‘Who are you?’ he asked softly.
‘Sir Charles of Lancaster.’
Ranulph sneered. Everyone knew about Earl Thomas of Lancaster and the destruction of his army. This man looked like one of his loyal adherents, now down on his luck and destitute.
‘And your name?’ Sir Charles enquired politely.
‘I am Lord of this Manor. They call me Ranulph de Blancminster.’
Sir Charles opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly there was a slamming blow at the back of his head which made his teeth rattle together. His legs lost all their strength, and he felt himself tumbling into a great blackness even before he struck the deck.
Baldwin came to with a sweet sense of comfort. There had been a delightful dream of Jeanne gently soothing his forehead, kissing his lips, easing his troubles and massaging away his bruises. It was so seductive that he fought waking for a long while, and even when his mind was fully alive once more, he resolutely kept his eyes closed, as if by doing so he could retain his dream. A ridiculous notion, he scolded himself. If he wanted to continue his dream, he need only open his eyes and look upon Jeanne his wife.
But then, while he lay back on the uncomfortable palliasse, he realised that it was not his bed. The smells were not those of his home, nor were the sounds. Where was the whistling from Edgar? The chickens in the yard, the neighing from the stable? With a frisson of anxiety – no more than that yet – he opened his eyes and peered about him.
He saw a gloomy little room. In a corner was a single small table and stool. A fire smoked in the middle of the floor, giving off a rank odour. In another corner he noticed a small pile of dung – probably left behind by a sheep or goat – and an all-pervading but unfamiliar scent. Only later would he learn that it was the smell of drying kelp. Baldwin was quite tall, and lying full length, he was almost as long as the room was broad, so it must be some twelve feet long and maybe eight broad. He became aware of voices outside and pricked up his ears, listening intently.
The Outlaws of Ennor: (Knights Templar 16) Page 11
