Uncovering the Merchant's Secret

by Elisabeth Hobbes

  * * *

  The journey was rough round the end of the peninsula and as they reached the open seas, but no worse than expected for the time of year. All the same, John was glad when they started keeping the long, sweeping curve of land in view.

  The cog was similar enough to John’s old ship, The King’s Rose, for him to feel at home. He spent the time drinking, laughing and gambling with the crew and found against all expectations that his spirits were high. It had been too long since he had been merry without the feelings of grief bearing down on him. He’d cut himself off from friends when he had left England in mourning, unable to bear the reminders of happier times. Maybe company was what he had needed after all, rather than isolating himself and brawling with strangers to jolt the numbness in his heart back to life.

  * * *

  Three days out of Concarneau, the weather grew worse. By mid-afternoon on the third day of the voyage, the clouds obscured all light and the small cog creaked ominously on waves that were increasingly violent. Now night had fallen and they were in no sight of the port Nevez had sworn they would make by dark.

  John made his way from the small cabin along the planks laid down over the hull to the prow. Nevez and his first mate were gesticulating wildly at each other and the coastline, which pitched and rolled in the distance.

  ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘A storm. Worse than I expected,’ Nevez growled.

  The wind tore at John’s cloak with violent fingers, trying to pull it from his body. He shivered and took a deep breath of the chilly salt air.

  ‘We could find shelter somewhere, along the coast,’ he suggested.

  A wave crashed over the prow, tilting the cog and causing the three men to lurch against each other.

  ‘Not here. There are hidden coves where a ship might hide safely,’ Nevez said, adding to John’s suspicions that his host was involved in smuggling, ‘but this stretch of water is the home of pirates.’

  ‘They sail under the banner of Bleiz Mor along this stretch,’ the first mate added.

  John narrowed his eyes. The name was unfamiliar to him.

  ‘Loup de Mer, Monsieur Langdon. The Wolf of the Sea,’ Nevez explained in a growl. ‘His ships are both known by a black sail adorned by a white pelt. He has preyed on the French ever since they attacked Quimper, but perhaps he will not be particular at this time of year.’

  If what Nevez said was true, the oddly named man was a mercenary, rather than a pirate, and one who shared the same sympathies as the English. John reminded himself to make a note in case his masters were unaware of the man’s activities. A grinding sound ripped through the cog and the hull juddered, and John dismissed the thought.

  ‘We’ve hit something,’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Impossible. We’re nowhere near rocks.’ Nevez laughed. He grabbed John’s shoulder and pointed. ‘See, the lights on the cliff are close. That is the harbour. We have made better speed than I had thought. We will not die tonight.’

  John looked. The light that glowed brightly on the distant shore should guide them to safety. He wished he were in command, rather than a passenger, because the sound was unsettling.

  Nevez shouted orders and the Sant Christophe pitched slightly as she turned towards shore. John scanned the blackness. Nevez’s tales of pirates had slightly alarmed him, but there was no sign of any other vessel. He didn’t doubt Nevez’s words.

  ‘Come below, Monsieur Langdon,’ Nevez suggested. ‘In my cabin I have a bottle of fine wine. Perhaps you could recommend it to your associates in England. I can give you a fair price.’

  ‘I will shortly,’ John said. ‘I must complete a letter first.’

  He went to his quarters in the small area at the bottom of the boat curtained off from the crew. By lantern light, he added a note to the report on his tablets he had been writing on the journey. He noted the mention of the oddly named ‘Sea Wolf’, but paused before committing anything to paper about Nevez. The Captain was most likely a smuggler, but to name him would be a poor way to repay the kindness. In the end, he added a single line about smugglers in general and locked the leather wallet in his document case. He put the key safely in his roll of clothing, nestled beside a thin plaited curl of Margaret’s hair. He rubbed the corn-blond braid between his fingers, sadness and remorse welling up inside him. He still found it unbelievable she was not back in England as she had been each time he had returned. How carelessly he had treated her devotion, never thinking one day she would not be there patiently waiting for him.

  A scraping noise made him jump in surprise, dragging him from his memories. It sounded as if something was ripping through the bottom of the boat and the floor vibrated. Cries of consternation came from the deck above and he realised that the scraping was true and the cog had collided with something. He ran up on deck and found Nevez leaning over the side, glaring.

  ‘That is no lighthouse. This is the work of wreckers. We have been tricked.’

  ‘What can we do?’ John asked.

  Nevez smacked the rail with his fist. ‘Nothing! The hull is breached. There is a small rowing boat, but, other than that, our lives are in the hand of fate.’

  Around them, men were throwing barrels and chests overboard and clinging to them in the hope of floating to shore safely.

  ‘Quick, to the boat,’ Nevez shouted.

  ‘One moment,’ John called. He was already running across the tilting deck to the galley. The letters to Masters Fortin and Rudhale could be rewritten, as could the report for King Edward’s Lieutenant, but the box also contained certain letters of importance to him from Margaret that he could not bear to lose. He took the steps two at a time and landed up to his ankles in water. He grabbed the document case, grateful it was small enough to stow in a satchel. He slung the satchel across his body so it hung beneath his arm and fastened his cloak over the top. There was no point being safe from drowning to freeze to death.

  The boat pitched and he had to scramble on to the deck on his hands and knees. The deck was deserted. Nevez’s rowing boat had moved away.

  ‘Wait for me,’ John shouted.

  ‘Swim to us,’ Nevez yelled.

  John took a running jump into the sea. The waves enveloped him, pulling him down into the black, crushing coldness that left him gasping for breath. He surfaced, his lungs begging for air. As he broke through the water he discovered that, contrary to what he had thought, he cared very much about living.

  He had no time to rejoice in this newfound appetite for survival or recover his breath because a large piece of wood struck his shoulder from behind. His arm went numb. He kicked his legs, propelling him towards the small boat. Something tore at his leg and he realised he was closer to the rocks than he realised. The rowing boat would risk being smashed if it came close. If he was near to the rocks, he could not be too far from the shore.

  ‘Go without me,’ he bellowed.

  He could scramble over them towards safety. He aimed for the rocks when something hit him from behind, forcing him head first on to an outcrop. The impact left him reeling. He flailed and was slammed once more on to the rocks. Something warm trickled down his face, but he had no time to examine the wound.

  John clambered up the rocks and crawled on his belly in the direction of the light that was burning on shore. Facing brutal wreckers would be safer than a certain death by drowning. After much slipping and sliding that left him grazed and bruised, he staggered on to a beach. He tripped over a body of one of the crewmen who had not survived the waters and gave a sob.

  His head was spinning. There seemed to be two moons shining down, but even so he was finding it hard to make out anything in the moonlight. He felt his head and his fingers came away wet and sticky with blood. The sensation made him nauseous.

  John staggered further up the beach, but when the hard sand changed, he slipped and lay on the damp shingle. He rolled on to his b
ack, tangled in his cloak, and lay there. Time lost meaning and it could have been a day or a minute before he first heard the voices that called to each other across the shore. The wreckers had come.

  Among the coarse sounds, John was convinced he heard soft female tones that did not belong in a place of such devastation and death. He caught a scent of something floral that was at odds with the odours of sea and blood. He decided he must be dreaming, or was at last to be reunited with his wife and a feeling of peace descended on him.

  ‘Margaret?’ he mumbled. ‘I am ready for you.’

  He could not keep his eyes open and had no strength left to do anything but surrender to whatever fate held in store for him.

  Chapter Two

  The fires had been lit in the church windows again.

  Blanche Tanet slammed down her comb as soon as the faint scent of smoke reached her. Her bedchamber on the top floor of the tower room had windows at each side and she could see both shores that the castle overlooked. She leaned out, looking towards the village of Plomarc’h and, sure enough, in the window of St Petroc’s Church, a light shone out to sea. The church was on the clifftop set a short distance from the village. It was visible from the sea, so sailors and fishermen would know they were being watched over, but the purpose of the beacon was far from holy.

  Blanche had been preparing for bed, but could not ignore this. She muttered an oath under her breath. She tore off her chemise and began to dress in breeches and a shirt. Over the top of her padded, sleeveless gambeson she threw a heavy cloak, then tugged on her knee-length leather boots. She did not have time to braid her hair, but simply gathered it, twisting and piling it under a wide-brimmed sailor’s hat, and strode down the stairs, gathering a flaming brand from the iron ring in the wall. When she reached the path that led to the beach she broke into a run, arriving on the beach slightly out of breath.

  The bodies of drowned men littered the shore. When the moon slid from behind heavy, black clouds, the rocky shore looked like a battlefield. Blanche felt her stomach heave. She swallowed down the bile that rose to her throat and tightened her grip on the torch. She strode to the shore and peered out across the black rocks that glistened wet and sharp, only slightly visible above the surface. The rocks stretched out well into the sea and had been guilty of causing more deaths than Blanche could imagine over the centuries.

  Barrels bobbed, surging in and out as the tide dragged at them. Wine. This had most likely been a merchant ship. All around her, the villagers hauled the debris from the sea to carry it away or load it on to the wheeled carts they had brought in preparation for such finds.

  Was she the only one who felt a twinge of guilt at the way they treated the dead? A little way along the shore, a short, wide man was standing up to his knees in the water, heaving a cask back to shore. Blanche recognised him. Andrey was her cousin by her second marriage and the Captain of Blanche’s ship White Wolf.

  Blanche intercepted him as he dropped his salvage on the shingle and stood upright, stretching his arms to relieve the cricks in his neck.

  ‘Who ordered the fires to be lit?’ she demanded.

  Andrey scowled and spat into the sea. ‘Who do you think? Ronec did.’

  Blanche’s fist tightened around the flaming brand she held. Jagu Ronec was the landowner whose property neighboured Blanche’s. He was also the Captain and part-financier of Blanche’s second ship, White Hawk. He was wealthy, powerful and—as Blanche had found out only after she had allied herself with him—cruel and unprincipled. She counted to ten in her head, breathing deeply before she answered, wishing she had never thought to involve him in her crusade against the French forces. Even with this attempt at controlling the repellent emotions Ronec’s name conjured, her voice was tight and full of fury.

  ‘And you obeyed him?’

  ‘Not I,’ Andrey said. ‘But the crews are growing tired of waiting for your command to sail and your insistence on only taking French ships. They look to Ronec, anticipating an alliance between you.’

  Blanche flushed. There was an implicit criticism in Andrey’s words and it was not without reason. Ronec had already had more of Blanche than she had wanted to give and marriage was an alliance she was determined to resist to the last. The villagers’ discontent was something she would have to address soon. Ronec was not present, of course. He would not venture out to wallow in salt water in the dark when others could do it on his behalf.

  ‘Take the bodies to the castle,’ she commanded Andrey. ‘They deserve a proper burial.’

  Andrey nodded and began relaying the order to the men who had gathered round to watch them speaking. Andrey’s loyalty to Blanche was unquestionable and she knew that the dead would be laid to rest with respect.

  Blanche began to roll the barrel up the sloping beach to add it to the pile of salvage. The methods were dishonourable, but she would not let the salvage be wasted when it could be used to improve the lives of the tenants on her land.

  The barrel was heavy. Blanche paused for breath beside a corpse that had been washed further up the beach than most. The man was lying on his back, one arm tangled inside a heavy cloak that must have hampered his efforts to swim and should by rights have dragged him to the bottom of the sea. Yet here he was, lying on the beach, his long limbs sprawled out carelessly. He could have been napping on a riverbank on a warm summer afternoon.

  He was not a youth, nor as old as Andrey. Blanche guessed he was somewhere around his thirtieth year, only a handful of years younger than she was. Unbidden, her mind went back to her first husband who had died before his time. This man looked nothing like Mael, but the thought of stolen years upset her more than she was expecting, sorrow creeping around her heart like a winding cloth.

  She knelt down next to him, barrel of wine temporarily forgotten, and held the brand close to his face. He would have been handsome when alive and it struck her as unfair that he had been snatched from life in such a brutal manner. A deep gash split his right eyebrow and ran across his temple into his sandy-brown hair. It was stark red against the paleness of his skin, though the cold and seawater had staunched the blood flow and now it was a livid, ragged-edged wound.

  The laces of his shirt were untied to the middle of his chest. He must have been caught by surprise and had no time to dress properly before the cog was dashed on the rocks. By the flickering light of the brand, Blanche noticed the glint of gold among the fine, light brown hairs. She, reached beneath his collar, hooking her finger under the chain and drew out a delicate cross.

  The wreckers would simply rip it from his neck, snapping the chain, but Blanche could not bear to do that with something so beautiful. She stuck the torch into the sand and cradled his head, easing it forward to slip the long chain free. Red stones glinted on the surface. Something this beautiful was too fine to leave for the wreckers to break and waste on drinking, gambling or whoring. Blanche had little care for the treasures she stole from the French beyond what good they could do to aid the cause of Brittany or her tenants, but she was gripped with the need to make sure the unknown man’s treasure survived as a memorial to his life. She would not share this with anyone else so she slipped it around her own neck, tucking it deep into the bodice of her dress where it nestled between her breasts. An odd frisson made her shiver at the feel of the object that had been intimately touching him.

  As she rested the man’s head back, his eyes flickered open and he uttered a weak, breathy moan. He was alive! The strength of relief and joy that flooded her heart took her by surprise. He gave a heaving cough and water bubbled to his lips. Blanche pushed her hands against his ribs, pushing upwards to force any remaining water out. He bared his teeth and hissed. Mortified at having added to his pain, Blanche slid her hands gently up to his cheeks and pulled his head into what she hoped was a more comfortable position. His eyes opened once more—a little wider this time—and he peered at her. His eyes were light blue and full of
confusion and pain. Though hazy, they were captivating in their intensity and Blanche could not tear her gaze away.

  Blanche’s hat had become dislodged when she had jerked in surprise. She pulled it off. As her thick, black locks fell freely about her, the man smiled and whispered something in a language she thought was English.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she replied in Breton, then repeated it in French.

  He reached a hand out towards her hair, fumbling and clumsy. Blanche instinctively recoiled, as she did at the advances of any man, but as his fingertips brushed against her cheek with the lightest of touches, her heart fluttered.

  His strength was almost spent and his arm was seized with a tremor that made it shake violently. He could not be long for this world and the awakening was only delaying the inevitable. Blood loss and shock would claim him before the night was out. Already his hand was so cold with the clammy texture of a corpse. Instinctively, Blanche wanted to pull away, but remorse and guilt flooded her once more. Her people bore the responsibility for his death, so the least she could do was bear the discomfort and act as witness to his passing. She owed him that much. She covered his hand, holding it to her cheek and feeling the quiver that raced along his arm.

  He tried to pull her down towards him, tilting his head back and parting his lips as if he intended to kiss her. His fingers scrabbled deep into the hair at the nape of her neck, causing her to shiver at the intimacy of his touch. Her heart drummed a march in her breast.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, stroking the matted hair back from his brow.

  His eyes focused again and locked on hers and he bestowed on her a smile of such overwhelming tenderness that she wanted to weep. Tenderness. So long since anyone had looked at her in such a way. Blanche closed her eyes wistfully. She bent her head and kissed his forehead with the lightest of touches. His head came up and his mouth found hers with a swiftness she would not have anticipated in one so close to death.