To his alarm he realised he could understand nothing. The language here sounded much like that of the Bretons, and with that thought, he suddenly recalled the attack of the pirate ship, the death of so many good men: the helmsman, the sailors. It made him shudder, and as soon as he did so, his shoulder hurt like the devil, and so did his face. When he tentatively lifted a hand to it, he found that his cheek was swollen and sore. For the life of him, he couldn’t think where that had come from.
With the failure of his memory, panic seized him. He could remember the fight, but everything from then on was a blank; he was convinced he had been captured by the Bretons and taken back to their lair. It could be anywhere, perhaps in Brittany, perhaps in a quiet inlet elsewhere. There were tales of raiders who had found landfalls in Ireland and other places. They would run their ships up the estuaries late at night, come upon the inhabitants in their sleep or at first light, and slaughter them all before taking their ease among the corpses and seeing what could be stolen and carried away. Baldwin felt his spirit chill at the thought. However, if this was an English territory, at least he might be able to escape and find his way to safety.
The voices appeared to be raised, and Baldwin saw shadows appear at the doorway. After a sharp altercation, a large man walked in, a big fellow with hunted eyes and a twitch at the corner of his mouth, like one who had been given a long sight of Hell and would never be able to forget it. When he saw Baldwin, his expression hardened like moorstone, and Baldwin feared that the stranger would launch himself upon him. He was quite unable to defend himself.
A woman followed after the man, a slender, attractive, dark-haired woman with an oval face. She had high cheekbones, and slightly slanted eyes that looked as though they would find it easier to laugh than scold. Her lips were very full and tilted up, albeit petulantly. She looked to be some two or three and twenty years, and Baldwin knew in an instant that this was the woman who had cared for him – she had saved his life.
The man stood over Baldwin. Instinctively Baldwin’s hand started to move to his sword, but then he realised he was naked. His sword was not at his side. Worse, he could see no sign of it.
‘Well, man! You’re lucky to be alive,’ the man rumbled in a deep voice. He could speak English, but with a strange dialect – stronger than a Cornishman’s. Baldwin could understand it, but only if he listened carefully. ‘You’re luckier still that the Prior has heard you are alive, because I wouldn’t offer much for your chances otherwise.’
Baldwin said nothing. He kept his attention fixed on the man, but all the while his ears were straining for other voices. The fact that the man spoke English was a relief. Where did that accent come from, though?
He shivered. The strains of the last days had caused a reaction, and he felt as though ice had entered the marrow in his bones. It would have been easier if he knew where he was, and how he had got here.
The man was still glaring at him, but no longer looked as though he was about to launch himself upon Baldwin in a murderous assault, so the knight felt safe enough to look up at the woman again.
She gave an exclamation of frustration, huffed loudly, and left the room. Returning shortly thereafter, she barged past the man with her arms full of Baldwin’s clothing, ready washed and almost white again. He received them thankfully, and slowly he rose from the palliasse, naked. She stood eyeing him with her head cocked a little to one side rather like a thrush studying a patch of soil for worms and under her gaze Baldwin felt himself flushing. He was not used to being given so intimate an inspection by any woman other than his wife, and when he looked up, he saw that the man did not like the affair any more than he. His expression was furious.
Dressing as quickly as he could, Baldwin glanced about the place for his sword.
‘What do you seek, man?’
‘My sword. Where is it?’
‘Perhaps it is in the sea, still,’ the man said with a nasty chuckle. ‘What would you need of a sword, anyway? It’s only a bar of metal. Who needs protection here on St Nicholas?’
‘St Nicholas?’ Baldwin asked. ‘I find the name familiar, but—’
‘This is St Nicholas’s Isle,’ the woman said quickly. ‘You are here, and the Prior would like to meet you.’
‘The Prior?’
‘The Prior of St Nicholas, man!’ the man said. ‘And he’s important: answers only to the Abbot of Tavistock, so you’d better be on your best behaviour!’
Baldwin felt his heart pounding in sudden gratitude. ‘The Prior? You mean that this isle belongs to Tavistock Abbey? That is a great relief!’
‘You think so?’ said the man, and leaned towards Baldwin, his lip curling into a sneer. ‘We’ll see what you say when you’re in front of him, and the Prior has an opportunity to question you!’
Southwards, on the isle of Ennor, Simon woke in the little bed near the fire, and stretched contentedly. This was all much better than he had hoped. Perhaps, he thought, he would soon be on a ship to the mainland, then at last he could walk home and see Meg. The idea was delicious, and he gave himself over to a daydream of his arrival home.
The scent of fresh bread was circulating, and his nostrils twitched happily. With it came the distinct odour of frying bacon, and Simon smacked his lips. William was whistling cheerfully outside while he pulled some leaves for a salad, and all in all, Simon felt at his ease.
Last night he had been exhausted, but his mind was working still, and he begged William to explain a little about the islands before he went to sleep. The other man was nothing loath, and squatted on his stool in front of his fire, talking quietly about all the islands and their master.
Simon learned that shipwrecked mariners must rest and wait for the Lord of the Manor to arrange for their journey back to the mainland. It was not always easy, William implied, but they should be able to find a berth for Simon on a ship before long.
The place was run by Ranulph de Blancminster, who had an evil man underneath him, his Sergeant, Thomas. The latter was nothing more than a bloodsucker, it appeared, who would sell his own grandmother if he was guaranteed a good price. Blancminster was a lazy man, but he saw to his duties with enthusiasm, building up the castle so that it could repel invaders, William said. ‘Although the way he’s gone about it, it’s more like a fortress to protect himself against the islanders here.’
‘They would hardly dare to lay siege to their own lord,’ Simon scoffed.
‘Would we not?’ William demanded. ‘We have seen that monster bringing over ever more foul felons to guard himself. Why should we not want to destroy him?’
‘Why? What does he do to you?’
‘He steals from all.’ William’s face was hard, but then he looked up with a sparkle in his eye. ‘Most of us, anyway: he leaves me alone. His men, too, take what they want, when and wherever they want. His gather-reeve, Robert, is the worst of them all. He steals from everyone with impunity. There are even rumours that he is involved in smuggling. I doubt whether Blancminster knows that, though.’
Last night, Simon was too tired to take in any more, but as he felt his chin start to sink towards his chest, he wondered what Blancminster’s story would be on this subject. He had a shrewd guess that it would sound starkly different. As Simon knew, peasants would often describe the local officials in less than complimentary terms. That was not to say that all officers were corrupt or criminal. In fact, it probably meant that they were simply zealous in their duties. Simon himself had been accused of accepting bribes in order to see to a man’s conviction, his accusers failing utterly to comprehend the idea that it was wrong to release a man who was guilty, just as it was wrong to see a man pursued when he was innocent.
Simon had been more than happy with William’s hospitality. A real bed was a great improvement compared with the rough boards of the old cog, and it was wonderful to smell the homely odours of this little place rather than the stench of vomit and death.
Baldwin was dead, of course. Simon had no doubt about that. He w
as close to tears as he remembered his old companion, the quiet smile, the acerbic tongue in interrogation, the intelligence and skill of his investigations. All gone for ever, washed away in a storm.
Others had died too. Before he did anything else, Simon decided to attend church. He dressed quickly, and then walked to the door. As he went, he met the lad from the ship coming in. He gave the youngster a grin and welcome. ‘How are you today?’
‘I’m well enough, sir,’ Hamo said, and he looked it. To Simon’s faint disgust, the boy looked almost fresh – a little tired, certainly, with bruises under his eyes, but apart from that, he had apparently suffered little from his near-drowning. His recovery was remarkable.
‘I wish I felt the same.’
‘Sir, come with me, please!’ Hamo said, eyeing William suspiciously.
‘I am going to the church to pray for the men who died on that ship.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ll come too.’
The boy was touchingly keen to remain with Simon. It was endearing in a way, but also rather pathetic, like a woman who was so jealous she wanted to follow her husband no matter where he went. Simon was about to respond sharply that he needed no company – he wanted no one there to witness his tears for his old friend – when he saw the lad’s eyes go past him towards a group of men-at-arms standing up at a rock, staring out to sea. A couple of donkeys with pack-saddles were tethered behind them.
‘Very well, boy,’ he agreed gruffly. ‘Come along, then.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
They walked on for some distance, avoiding teams of donkeys carrying goods back towards the castle. ‘What’s your name, boy?’
‘Hamo, sir,’ he said in a hurt tone of voice. ‘Don’t you remember me?’
‘I am sorry. Since the storm …’ Simon glanced down at him. Hamo was loping along at his side like a hound who distrusted the surroundings. His eyes were flitting here and there, his head was held low, and he kept a hand close to his sole means of defence, a knife in an old sheath at his belly. As they stood aside to let a larger cart go past he asked, ‘Why did you go to sea?’
‘My father was a seaman, but he died in a bad storm. My mother was able to make some pennies at needlework and spinning, but then she was struck down with a disease and died. I had no family left.’ Hamo shrugged. ‘What else could I do? Didn’t want to be a farmer, so I got out, walked all the way to Sutton Water, and Gervase took me on board his ship. Said he was saving me from the sodomites and fornicators who infested that place.’
There was sadness in the youngster’s voice, and Simon suddenly realised that where he had mourned for the loss of a friend, Hamo had lost in Gervase not only a friend, but a father as well.
There was no point in lying and pretending that Gervase could have survived. ‘Let’s go and pray for them all, lad,’ Simon said kindly.
‘You think they may be killed?’
Simon heard his words with disbelief. He turned to peer at Hamo. ‘What do you mean, killed?’
Hamo allowed a small frown to pass over his features at frustration with this bailiff who appeared to be so dull-witted.
‘They’re still on her, aren’t they? Gervase would never have left his ship. Couldn’t swim. Anyway, he adored the Anne. He wouldn’t desert her.’
Simon followed the direction of his pointing finger, and felt his jaw drop. ‘By all the whores of Paris!’
Out beyond the little harbour, he saw the drooping vessel. Men were scurrying all over her, and a pair of large boats was towing her towards the safety of the porth while a small flotilla of boats waited, ready to ferry all the goods from her hold to the beach where donkeys were gathering.
‘What are they doing?’ Simon demanded in shock. Believing that the ship had foundered along with all the sailors, he was dumbfounded to discover it here, just off the shore.
‘They call it salvage. They’ve saved the ship, so they say, so now all her goods can be taken,’ Hamo said bitterly. ‘That’s why I came to find you. They’ll leave nothing for us, you’ll see.’
Chapter Nine
Ranulph de Blancminster climbed down the rope-ladder from the Anne with an agility that belied his weight and age. Soon he was in the boat beneath, and he gazed back at the ship with a measuring eye as he was rowed ashore.
It was certainly a good prize. Fully laden, with only a few tuns damaged where the rocks had started to breach the hull, for the master had been a clever and skilful sailor. He had ordered his men to plug the hole with bales of woollen clothing, tugging them into the gap in the wood by means of a rope running from the bales to the capstan. Held there firmly, the ship was more or less plugged, although it could only last a short while without serious repairs. Well, she wouldn’t get them here. Ranulph had already seen the familiar faces on the hills about the Porth, and he knew that the scavengers would descend as soon as his men left the ship. They’d rip off any decent timbers for lintels in their cottages, or for new doors, or for rafters. On islands which had no trees to speak of, the people depended in large part on the charity of the sea.
In any case, there was no guarantee that even the best shipwrights in England could save this poor beast. She had suffered so terribly that there was little point in dreaming of rescue. No, the sensible thing to do was to remove all valuables from her, and then break her. Her constituent elements could then be sold to Ranulph’s peasants.
When they reached the shore, he jumped down into the sand, splashing a great mass of water. He cared not a whit, but lumbered heavily to dry land, and then scowled as he saw Walerand waiting for him.
Walerand was not one of his favourite servants. There were many whom he distrusted, but that was a sad fact of life in the modern era. Men-at-arms used to be faithful retainers in whom a man could place all his trust, but those days were long past. Now a man like Ranulph had to take the dregs of society. It had been noticeable when the King’s Coroner, William le Poer, had been most enraged by Ranulph, that the most serious allegation which could be brought against Ranulph was that he habitually recruited outlaws and felons. So he did; and he would continue so to do. These islands needed defending, God knew, and the best men to defend them were those who were utterly reliant on the islands for their lives and had nowhere else to run. Who better than men who could not return to their homes on pain of death?
Some, of course, were more enthusiastic about violence than others, which was a cause for concern when their heavy-handedness upset too many locals. Yes, a man had to keep the population cowed, else they might take it into their heads to seize power for themselves. Still, there were some who scared everyone, thank God. When the locals had grown restive recently, Thomas had carefully let slip the tale of how he met Robert. Most people said that the gather-reeve was the worst of all the men on the island, because for all his apparently mild manners, the story of a crazed murder in a tavern had spread like a wild fire over the moors. None of the local peasants dared so much as answer him back when Robert went to collect the rents. He was the best man Ranulph had employed as a gather-reeve.
Walerand was a different matter altogether. The fool seemed to think that he was intelligent – which in itself was a proof of his dull-wittedness. When Ranulph had been his age, he wasn’t nearly so gormless. He’d been bold enough to come here, for a start, and offer the old King his three hundred puffins or six shillings and eight pence each year for the use of the islands, and he’d made them work for him. This place had been falling apart when he arrived, in 1306, but since then he’d made the peasants realise that they had to work to live, and they must all work for him. If they didn’t, they suffered.
If he had wandered about the place idly like this Walerand, he’d no longer be here. The old King, Edward I, didn’t suffer fools gladly. Not that he was about for long. His son soon took over, and although Ranulph despised him as a weakling who was unable to control even the Welsh Marcher Lords, let alone the Scots, Ranulph was glad that Edward II was King. While a weak King ruled in England, swayed
by each gust of discontent in his realm, Ranulph could maintain his iron grip on his own little fiefdom.
‘My lord?’
Ranulph did not so much as look in Walerand’s direction. ‘What?’
‘I’m feared Robert has been murdered.’
Cryspyn remained in his seat as the man rescued from the shipwreck entered: with him were Isok and Tedia. The sight of the couple was enough to make the Prior feel the acid bubbling in his belly again. There was a pain there whenever he felt the pressure of his responsibilities, and Tedia, as he knew, had applied for a divorce on the basis of her husband’s impotence. Why it was, Cryspyn didn’t understand. He himself was not driven by lusts as once he had been, not since killing Sara’s lover; that had destroyed something in him. No, he was safe from the carnal desires, but that was different from being immune to the attractions of a young woman who was still in the flush of youth, and whose beauty had not faded from exhaustion, malnutrition and childbirth. Considering her objectively, he was sure that if Tedia had been his wife, he would have found it hard to keep his hands from her.
This reflection was unsettling, and the pain in his belly increased. It was always the same. Whenever he had a matter to decide, it would affect his digestion. To distract himself from the pain he studied the man before him.
‘I am Prior Cryspyn,’ he said. ‘I understand that you are a shipwreck. Is this true?’
‘I believe so,’ Baldwin said. ‘I cannot remember what happened. I know that my ship was attacked by pirates, but I thought we survived that.’
‘Your ship broke up?’
‘I assume so, Prior, but I can remember little about it,’ Baldwin said reluctantly. There was an edge of eagerness to the Prior’s voice which he found unsettling.
The Outlaws of Ennor: (Knights Templar 16) Page 12
