The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21)

by Michael Jecks

  ‘You must have made a killing last night to pay back all you owed. I’ve seen you gaming and I’ve heard how much you’ve had to pay out. You’re the laughing stock of the inn, you are. Everyone wants to play with you.’ He grinned. ‘Best not try it again, mind. Our master will have his eye on you from now on!’ Touching a finger to his cheek under his eye, he laughed aloud as he walked from the room.

  Strete fell back on his seat, and suddenly began to shiver uncontrollably. If he hadn’t received that money from Paul Pyckard just before the merchant died, he would have had a hole of seven marks in the accounts. As it was, he was five shillings short until he’d found the body in the pavers’ hole and took the purse. That had been a real stroke of luck! And that would have been enough for Hawley to have him dragged from his door all the way to the gaol under the market house. No man robbed Hawley with impunity, and if he had learned that his own clerk had fleeced him, his rage would have been uncontrollable.

  Thank God he had made good the money with his payment from Pyckard and what he found in the dead man’s purse.

  Hamo arrived back at his cooperage and grabbed for an axe. Already, when he looked back over the water, he could see that the crew of the cog had been overwhelmed; the cries of the attacked suddenly grew silent, as did the ringing clashes of iron and steel, and now all that could be heard was an occasional bellow to disturb the normal noise of slapping water at his feet.

  He set off at a fast pace to Hawley’s house in Upper Street, and beat on the door with his axe’s haft. ‘Master Hawley? Master Hawley!’

  ‘Who is that?’ An elderly sailor appeared in the doorway and glared at him. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘It’s me, the cooper, Hamo,’ he panted. ‘The cog in the haven – three boats have just overtaken her. Don’t know what’s happening, but tell your master urgently.’

  Without waiting for a reply, he turned and fled along the road and down to the mill’s dam. He hurtled along the path, past the silent wheel, over the sluice gates, and up into Hardness. Here he saw Ivo le Bel.

  ‘Ivo! You have to raise the men of the town!’ he gasped. ‘Someone’s just attacked Master Pyckard’s cog the Saint Denis. Three boats, full of armed men.’

  The sergeant sneered. ‘You been drinking? What boats?’ Then he looked past Hamo’s shoulder towards the haven, and suddenly his smile left his face. ‘Christ’s cods!’

  Baldwin stood watching the slow progress of the funeral party up the hill. ‘Who died?’ he asked.

  ‘One of the merchants here – a man called Pyckard.’ Then Simon reverted to their former conversation. ‘First, how did you guess Danny wasn’t supposed to be sailing?’

  ‘His wife said so. Sailors don’t normally just up and leave their wives without saying their goodbyes, in my experience. A man will rarely go to sea without taking a sentimental leave of his woman. That may mean that Danny was killed on shore and thrown onto the ship as we had thought. It’s a small detail, but important. Now, this merchant, Pyckard – he died naturally?’

  Simon nodded. ‘Aye. He was a good enough man, I think, and successful generally.’

  ‘Why “generally”?’

  ‘Well, Pyckard was the owner of that cog, the Saint John. He owns other ships too, but that was one of his best, and it’s partly lost in salvage now.’

  ‘You said it was this fellow Hawley who found the vessel?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Do you think that he could have …’

  ‘Taken it, slaughtered the crew, chucked ’em overboard, bar our Danny, and brought the ship back to port? It’s possible. The two of them were rivals in business, so perhaps there was enmity between them – although to be fair I never saw much sign of it. There are some I’d not put past business like that, but Hawley seems to be an honourable man.’

  Baldwin pulled a face. ‘Ah, well. It was worth a try!’

  The Coroner was standing a short distance from them, watching over the town with a proprietorial eye. ‘A good place that. I had fun there when I was a lad. So! What do you two think of all this?’

  ‘I think that there is a vessel out there which tried to burn the cog, but it wasn’t the work of pirates,’ Baldwin said. ‘Nor was it a foolish attack by a different town. The burning was to conceal the crime of killing all aboard. But the sailor, Danny, he was not killed in that attack. If I had to guess, I’d say he died here in the town while the ship was moored.’

  ‘And we can’t speak to the men who worked with him because they’ve all disappeared,’ Simon noted.

  ‘Their bodies will turn up eventually,’ Baldwin said with sad confidence.

  The Coroner scratched his head. ‘You don’t think that they have been taken as hostages, then, or as slaves?’

  ‘If this was all about making money, the attacker would have taken the whole ship, not a few crew members,’ Baldwin pronounced. ‘No, I believe that all the men were removed from the cog to be questioned as their ship burned, and now they’ll have been killed.’

  ‘Why, though?’

  ‘They sought something or someone,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘This Frenchman you mentioned?’ Simon prompted.

  ‘If I had to guess, yes. Someone thinks he is dangerous and must be stopped from reaching French shores, and that someone is prepared to kill many men in order to do so.’

  ‘Who could it be, though?’ Simon wondered aloud.

  Baldwin smiled. ‘Well, I do wonder about this Sir Andrew. He is seeking the Frenchman, and he has a ship in the haven.’

  Sir Richard harrumphed. ‘I know the man. He’s a toady of the worst sort. If you have money and power, he’ll clean your boots with his tongue. Or your arse. No sense and no breeding. Reminds me of an alaunt I had once. Had to kill the thing in the end. Mad as a baiting mastiff, he was, and just as vicious. Some alaunts can be loyal creatures, good at hunting, good at holding at bay. I’ve known many which have been ideal for boar … but this one, he was mad. He’d go for anything at all.’

  ‘It hardly sounds as if Sir Andrew is like that,’ Baldwin observed mildly.

  ‘You don’t think so? This alaunt, he’d stay with me, then when I wasn’t looking, he’d go and kill the neighbour’s cat or attack some churl’s hog. And when the crime was recognised, he’d come back to me, wagging his tail, and grinning like an innocent. He’d lick my hand as gentle as a lamb, and then go off and kill something else. It was when he tried to have a go at my steward’s little boy that I thought enough was enough, and had his head taken off. Shame, though. Damn good hunter, he was.’

  Simon looked over at Baldwin, shaking his head in disbelief.

  The knight was smiling faintly. ‘So you consider that this man Sir Andrew could have attacked the cog?’

  ‘You mentioned that this Frenchie wanted to get away and he was being watched. Someone wanted him stopped. Sir Andrew was sent down here to flush the man out, or kill him. He found the ship, fired it, killed the crew in the hope of finding the man, and when he didn’t, he came here to look again, with some cock-and-bull story about a rape. I think that about explains the whole matter,’ the Coroner stated with calm satisfaction.

  ‘Apart from Danny,’ Simon noted.

  Baldwin was about to respond when he saw a small dustcloud up at the top of the hill. ‘Aha! Who can this be?’

  A short while later, the three saw a man on horseback appear at the crest of the hill. He pointed the horse down the hillside and was soon scattering people on either side as he cantered down towards the mill’s dam. When he drew nearer, Baldwin called, ‘Whom do you seek?’

  ‘Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, sir. Is that you?’

  Baldwin nodded. He vaguely recognised the man from Bishop Walter’s household. ‘You have a message for me?’ he asked.

  It was always hard to be the bearer of sad or evil tidings, and Baldwin had no doubt that when his messenger had reached Bishop Walter, the poor man would have been appalled to learn that his rash decision to send his own nephew to spy on this Frenchman could have brough
t about his death.

  Baldwin was just putting his mind to the manner of transport of the coffin back to the bishop’s household when the messenger grinned at him.

  ‘Yes, sir. My lord Bishop sends his greetings, and offers you his best wishes for your journey, as well as his apologies for wasting your time. The man whom you sought? His nephew is back at home. Bishop Walter hopes and trusts that you have not been seriously inconvenienced by your journey down here, and wishes me to tell you that you may consider your mission at an end.’

  Baldwin felt a sense of shock, followed by several other emotions. Then he voiced the question uppermost in his mind. ‘In that case, who was the dead man?’ he muttered.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Cynegils had spent the morning in a state of bemusement. First he’d been rescued from the stinking gaol, then taken up to Stephen’s chamber, where he was given clean clothes and some food and water (to his disgust) and then he was led to Master Pyckard’s house. He was seated while the others discussed what to do with him, Stephen arguing that he should be taken aboard ship as soon as possible.

  ‘You can sail with Gil,’ the clerk said. ‘He can do with all the help he can get.’

  Cynegils shivered. ‘What, and be killed by the devil like the crew of the Saint John?’

  ‘You have to make up your own mind, it’s true. Still, the risk of a possible attack at sea is one thing; dying here at the hands of this Sir Andrew could be far worse, I’d have thought.’

  ‘What of money?’

  ‘You think I’m foolish enough to give you some? You’d spend it on ale in an instant, wouldn’t you?’ Stephen laughed. ‘No, friend, you’ll have to wait until you return for that. I’ve given orders that you’re not to have any drink on board, and when you land in France, if you go ashore to drink ale, the ship will leave you there. It would be a terrible shame if you were left behind on a foreign coast, but that’s what will happen if you fail to obey.’

  ‘What now?’ Cynegils said sulkily.

  ‘I should go and make your way to the Saint Denis. There’s nothing to keep you here. There’ll be a wake, I expect, and I don’t want you to be here for that. The Bailiff has done all he can for you. Whether you take advantage of his kindness is up to you.’

  Cynegils was determined just now to take advantage of anything and anyone who could save him from the cold-eyed blond man. ‘I will, I swear. I’ll go now and make my way to the ship.’

  ‘Good. You do that. In the meantime, I have work to be getting on with,’ the clerk said. He left Cynegils and trotted hurriedly towards the alley that would take him back down to Lower Street, where he worked.

  Cynegils hunched his shoulders, for it seemed to him that the sun was chilly today, and set off towards the lower town. He had made it down past the main thoroughfare, when he suddenly thought that his daughter would be wondering what had happened to him. In order to prevent her and the other children from worrying, it might be best to tell them he was going on board ship again. Edith would be pleased to learn that he was employed again.

  It was with a spring in his step that he moved on. On the way, he passed a tavern and looked longingly at it, thinking of the ales inside waiting to be bought. But he had no money and they would lend him none. No one would believe him if he said he was to be sailing again.

  Once back at the house, he found the door open, and he peered in, a little wary of his reception. He hoped that the wind was blowing from the right quarter in his daughter’s disposition. Women!

  ‘Edith? I’m home.’

  There was no answer, and he walked through the house to the little yard at the rear; no sign of the children. They were probably out helping mend nets, he told himself, and he walked back to the front of the house, standing in the roadway while he considered what to do. Perhaps one of the neighbours would help? He knocked at the house next door and spoke to the mistress. From her he learned that all the men locally had been called to repel a force attacking a cog, and he stared out to sea, wondering if this was yet another attempt by Sir Andrew on his life.

  He thanked his neighbour, left a message to explain that he had a job again, and wandered away.

  It would put Edith in her place, to hear that he had won a sailor’s work again. She’d said some hurtful things yesterday – for instance, that no one could trust him – but he’d soon show her. There wasn’t much he could be taught about sailing. He had a wealth of experience, unlike some of those little arseholes who were half his age and who refused to listen to a man like him who had been sailing these waters for many years. They thought they knew it all, the fools!

  Striding back across the dam again, he was almost at the far side when he caught sight of a young man, and nodded at him civilly. Continuing, he suddenly stopped, turned and stared after the man, and then he shivered with alarm.

  ‘No! He’s dead!’ he said. He set off again, and this time there was no desire to drop into the tavern. He walked straight past and didn’t stop until he had reached the jetty and could sit and wait for a rowing boat to take him out to the Saint Denis. His thirst had completely left him.

  Simon saw his friend gape and enjoyed the sight for a good few moments before bursting out in laughter.

  ‘What, may I ask, is so amusing?’ Baldwin demanded coldly.

  ‘Your face, old friend! There you were, fully anticipating a dreadful scene, when you learn that the dead man is nothing at all to do with Bishop Walter!’

  The Coroner too could see the funny side, and he slapped his thigh with delight at the thought that lumbered into his mind. ‘Ha! A good thing you didn’t jump into action and have the man’s body sent straight back to the bishop, eh? What then? He would have been alarmed to learn that you were collecting stiffs for him in case one suited him, eh?’

  ‘Most droll,’ Baldwin said coolly as he slipped a coin into the messenger’s hand and gave him directions to a stable. ‘Wait in the Bailiff’s hall until we return,’ he instructed him. ‘Rest and prepare to return, but I’ll have a message to take back, I expect.’ Then he turned to face Simon.

  ‘It’s good news that the nephew’s alive,’ Simon said.

  ‘Yes, but it does not help us. The man on the ship was killed here on shore, I am fairly certain of that. But he died before the fellow in the street. The ship sailed the day before our unknown died, surely. If only we knew who he was.’

  ‘No one recognised him at the inquest,’ Coroner de Welles shrugged. ‘I had thought that it was because the fellow was the bishop’s man, but of course if he wasn’t …’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Could there have been a second man watching this Frenchman?’ Simon asked. ‘Perhaps the Frenchman noticed him and killed him, just as we thought had happened with Stapledon’s nephew?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin muttered, unconvinced.

  Coroner Richard put in shrewdly, ‘There’s one man who is bound to have more news on this – that wily little sodomite, Sir Andrew de Limpsfield.’

  Baldwin nodded slowly. ‘Yes, that would make sense. He seems to have an unhealthy interest in the town.’

  ‘And he could well have had something to do with the capture of the cog,’ Simon mused. His eyes turned to the haven and the wreckage, and then he frowned. ‘What’s going on there?’

  Baldwin and the Coroner followed his finger and took in the sight of the boats clustering about the cog.

  ‘Isn’t that the Saint Denis ship which was about to sail?’ Baldwin asked.

  Simon’s face was darkening, and now he shifted his belt about his waist and glowered as he set off towards the shoreline. ‘Some bastard’s been trying to capture a ship at anchor in my harbour! I’ll have his balls for that!’

  Pierre de Caen watched surreptitiously as Hamund sidled away, trailing after Sir Andrew and his henchmen. The abjurer looked like any other bystander in the crowd, just a scruffy churl clad in salt-stained woollen tunic with holed and patched hosen that flapped rather loosely about his thin legs,
and Pierre was confident that he would be all but invisible in the throng. It would be interesting to know what Sir Andrew was doing here. How he knew that Pierre had come this way was a mystery to him. And it was a shock to learn that Sir Andrew had spread malicious rumours about him: to think that the man could accuse him of rape! It was an outrage!

  There was no time for righteous indignation just now, though. Pierre joined the tail-end of the procession, head down, and made his way up the hill to the chapel at the top. He must pay his last respects to Paul Pyckard, the man who had saved his life.

  ‘Lads! Lads! Someone’s tried to catch the Saint Denis!’

  Pierre heard the shouts, and was in time to see the last of the men scrambling up the ropes on board the great ship in the haven. He saw blades flash in the sun, and then the spray of blood from a man’s throat, and heard the angry growling from the men all about him.

  ‘It’s the men from Lyme again!’

  ‘Pirates!’

  ‘Murderers!

  ‘They’re taking Pyckard’s ship when he’s not even cold!’

  The procession was diminished as men began to leave, hurrying down the hill, some men darting off down alleyways, returning a few moments later with a heavy-bladed sword, or an axe, or a long-bladed knife. Sailors were hastening along the shore towards the larger rowing boats, while others made for smaller ones, and soon there was a whole naval force making its way over the water towards the cog.

  Up in front, Pierre saw Moses waver. The servant clearly wanted to go with the others, but he had a duty to see his master buried decently. Then Moses made a decision. He snapped an order to the pall-bearers and pushed the boy with the bell onwards, before running at full pelt down the hill to the shore. Pierre desperately wanted to join him. It would be so good to draw steel again, especially in the defence of the property of his brother-in-law, but he dared not. He couldn’t risk exposure, not now that everyone believed he was a rapist.

  Instead, he thought to take advantage of the departure of the others. It would give him time to light a candle and pray for Paul in peace.