The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21)

by Michael Jecks

  It was broad sunshine the next morning when he woke, and his first thought was to condemn the loudly shouting fool. ‘The great slubberdegullion cretin!’ he said, wondering who it was. Then he remembered the name – Sir Richard de Welles – and with that, the sickness and headache were both fully explained. Simon burped and winced with the taste of acrid gas. At least this time he had made it to his own bed. Sir Richard hadn’t taken it last night.

  But then he had a recollection of the flash of a sword, the point of a war-hammer, and his eyes snapped wide as he remembered the desperate fight. It was enough to make him start to roll over to climb up from his bed, but even as he did so, his arm gave a sharp twinge, and he hissed with the pain.

  ‘It’s not broken,’ Baldwin called quietly.

  Simon carefully turned. Behind him, at the wall, Baldwin was standing easily, an anxious smile on his face, while Rob knelt beside him, rinsing a cloth in a bowl of warmed water scented with fresh lavender. ‘I’m relieved to hear it, but it feels as though it may disagree with you.’

  ‘We had you looked at last night as soon as you collapsed,’ Baldwin explained, walking up and standing beside the bed, gazing down at him sympathetically. ‘I know what it’s like to wake with a head like yours. I would remain there and wait until the sickness passes. It is the best way to recuperate, old friend.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Simon said, pushing himself up to a sitting position, ‘but it wouldn’t do anything for my determination to see that druggle Sir Andrew pay for his actions! To murder that gaoler because the man got in his path – that was the action of a coward!’

  ‘I cannot disagree.’

  ‘Where is Pierre and his companion? Are they safe?’

  ‘They are here, in your hayloft. I thought it better that they should remain there than that they should be seen wandering the town.’

  ‘He saved my life. I would not wish to see him harmed by some political liar and bully,’ Simon mused.

  ‘We can protect him, I think.’

  ‘From the damned cur Andrew?’

  ‘He is in your hall even now, being questioned by the Coroner. I left him to it.’

  ‘Have you been here all night?’

  Baldwin tilted his head slightly. ‘Not all the night, no.’

  ‘No. He went to wake the Coroner at dawn,’ Rob said, stepping forward to wipe Simon’s face with the cloth.

  ‘Ouch! Be careful, fool!’

  ‘You’ve been beat about the head and the arm, and you call me the fool?’ Rob said insolently.

  ‘Why do I only ever find servants who consider it their duty to bait me?’ Simon grumbled, pushing Rob away and swinging round to set his feet on the ground. He took the cloth and placed it gently over his head, breathing in the fumes, and in a short while he did feel improved. He threw the bunched cloth at Rob and stood. ‘Come, old friend. Let’s go and see what this lying cretin has been telling the good Coroner.’

  Simon had been sleeping in his back parlour, for the men could not have carried him up the steep stairs to his bedchamber, so all he need do was walk the short distance to his hall, but even that felt like a great trial, and he slumped onto a stool as soon as he arrived, glowering ferociously at the fair-haired knight.

  ‘Ah, Bailiff. You appear to have slept late – but well, I trust?’

  ‘You are clever, Sir Andrew. A most witty guest,’ Simon said. ‘I hope you shall be as witty when they place the hemp about your throat. They have an interesting variation on killing people here – had you heard? Sometimes they’ll take a man out to the river, and hang him from a yard in sight of the town. They’ll release him to fall into the water, so that his first gasps will start his drowning, and then they’ll lift him up again. If they are careful, a murderer like you can be forced to struggle four or five times before he dies. It is good sport, I hear, for the watchers.’

  ‘This is brave talk, but you should know that the ship in the haven is the property of my lord Despenser, and I am his trusted vassal. Any harm you do to me, you do to him, and my lord Despenser does not suffer people to insult him in this manner. If you further embarrass him by treating me in such a manner, he will visit vengeance on you. Be in no doubt of that!’

  ‘He would protect even one such as you?’ Baldwin enquired. ‘A murderer, pirate, and ravisher of women?’

  ‘I am no ravisher,’ Sir Andrew spat.

  ‘But you are a pirate and murderer,’ Simon declared. ‘You killed all the men on the good ship Saint John.’

  ‘You have stated so before, and I have denied it before. This is an untrue statement. It is a vile calumny.’

  ‘You persist in this denial?’ Coroner Richard rumbled.

  ‘Of course I do! If I and my men had attacked the ship, as you say, would the crew not have defended themselves? Where are the damaged sails, the arrow-marks in the timbers? That ship of mine has been at sea only a short while, and it has no damage so far as I know.’

  ‘Damage can be mended,’ Simon said. ‘Sailors are most adept at making repairs.’

  ‘Sailors are also determined thieves. Didn’t I hear that the ship was not despoiled? The whole cargo remained? You have seen my crew at work. Can you believe that they would have allowed me to sail away without taking all they wanted? It is ridiculous to suggest that I could have persuaded such a gathering of doddi-poll joltheads into obeying such a command. They would have emptied her, then fired her, and they would have fired her properly, not leaving a partial wreck to float about – and if I tried to stop them, they would have thrown me on it as it burned!’

  That argument held force, Simon knew. He glanced up at the Coroner and Baldwin, and saw that they too were doubtful. ‘Then who could have committed such a crime?’

  Baldwin responded, ‘If this is true, and seamen would not leave such a profit to go to waste, then surely we have to assume that someone other than a sailor is responsible.’

  ‘How could that be?’ Sir Richard scoffed. ‘Only sailors go to sea.’

  ‘A sailor would have taken the profit, though,’ Simon said. ‘As Sir Andrew said, a sailor wouldn’t have let the cargo be wasted. He would have …’

  He stopped, his mouth fallen wide.

  ‘Simon?’ Baldwin asked apprehensively. ‘Is it your head again? Are you all right?’

  The Bailiff waved his hand in denial. ‘Coroner, let’s have this worthless jolt-head returned to the gaol where he belongs. We need time to consider this anew.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Rob had heated more water over his little fire, and the scent of lavender was filling the room with its delicious odour as the men sipped warm, spiced wine.

  ‘What occurred to you when we were talking?’ Baldwin demanded. ‘It must have been a good thought, for you looked like the man who’d married a crone, only to learn she was a young virgin under an evil spell!’

  Simon smiled at the idea. ‘We know that the ship was not burned severely, do we not?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And we agree that sailors would invariably have ransacked the ship – yet there was no need for them to have rushed away, because so far as we can tell, there was no threat to them. If they were near the ship when Hawley appeared, pirates would prefer to attack him as well, rather than flee after setting the ship on fire.’

  ‘We have been over this,’ Baldwin said. ‘If they were on board, why should they flee and not remain and protect their prize?’

  ‘Exactly!’ Simon smiled. ‘And the final point is, why on earth would they remove the bodies?’

  Coroner Richard looked from one to the other. ‘What are you two on about? Surely a pirate would happily throw all the victims overboard. Pirates are not fastidious about a soul’s protection – they wouldn’t bring a corpse back to land for burial, would they? Hey?’

  ‘What is your point, Simon?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘Just this: what if the whole reason for the ship’s destruction was in order to conceal something else?’

  Th
e Coroner looked at Baldwin and tapped at his head with consternation. He made to move towards Simon, but Baldwin held up his hand. ‘Explain!’

  ‘What if the crew were not all killed … Sweet Jesus! That is it!’

  ‘What?’ Sir Richard snapped.

  ‘Only a few of the crew were killed …’ His face suddenly beamed with understanding. ‘Baldwin! You were right! The young virgin! Pyckard’s wife!’

  ‘That’s it!’ Sir Richard said, and sprang on Simon. ‘Sir Baldwin, he’s babbling. Best get a physician and tie him down. Seen it before. Bad bash on the head, brain gets scrambled. Poor fellow, but can’t do anything for him.’

  ‘Get this scurvy lobcock off me!’

  ‘Sir Richard, Sir Richard, please,’ Baldwin said soothingly. ‘Let us just hear him out.’

  After continued persuasion, the Coroner removed himself from the Bailiff’s prostrate figure, although he stood nearby with a doubtful scowl on his face as Simon clambered grunting from the ground.

  Holding his damaged elbow carefully, Simon addressed both men. ‘What if the whole affair was made up? The attack on the ship, the death of the crew – all was invented. The cargo wasn’t stolen by pirates because there were none!’

  ‘Who attacked the ship, then?’

  ‘Pyckard.’

  Sir Richard moved imperceptibly towards Simon.

  ‘Listen to me, Sir Richard, before you try leaping on me again!’

  ‘Why should Pyckard invent this assault?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘His wife! You remember she died in a squall? I heard that some of the men who died on the Saint John were also on that ship, the Saint Rumon, with Mistress Pyckard when she was on her last sailing. What if Pyckard had learned that there was something wrong about that sailing? How can I have been so dim!’

  There was a loud knocking at the door, and the three men remained silent as Rob went to open it. He was soon back, a muddy, sweat-stained man behind him, clad in a tunic of red and green with a shield on the breast. It meant nothing to Simon, but Baldwin and Sir Richard recognised it at once.

  ‘Quarterly Argent and Gules, in the second and third a fret Or, overall a bend Sable,’ Sir Richard muttered. ‘Blast!’

  ‘Eh?’ said Simon.

  ‘Despenser,’ Baldwin explained quietly.

  Simon swallowed, but stood and beckoned the man. ‘I am the Bailiff, Representative of the Keeper of the Port. How can I serve you?’

  ‘I am sent by the lord Despenser, Bailiff. I have a communication which is being delivered to all towns throughout the realm.’ The man handed Simon a rolled parchment, and he took it warily. He unrolled it and glanced down the flowing script. Modern writing he found rather hard to read. It was so often like this: rounded, each letter much like the next. Still, first he looked at the huge seal as though he recognised it, and then he absorbed the message itself.

  ‘This is … astonishing.’

  ‘What does it say?’ Baldwin demanded.

  ‘It says that since the hostilities with the French king, and the loss of Gascony, the realm must take care with all threats to the nation’s security. I must immediately hold any French subjects who might pose such a threat and deliver them to the Lord Despenser’s representative, Sir Andrew de Limpsfield.’

  ‘Aha,’ Sir Richard said without humour.

  Simon re-rolled the parchment and tapped it against his palm. ‘You have travelled far. Can we offer you ale? Wine? Some food?’

  When the messenger had been seated, and Rob sent to fetch a good meat pie and some more spiced wine, Simon looked at him seriously. ‘You will have more news, I am sure. Come, I am the King’s man in the port here, this knight is the King’s Coroner from the King’s own estate, and this is the Keeper of the King’s Peace. We are all his loyal subjects. Can you tell us more news of what is happening in the country?’

  ‘Gladly. All the Queen’s estates have been sequestered by the King. I have messages for her stewards in Cornwall from Bishop Stapledon.’

  ‘The good bishop?’ Baldwin said sharply. ‘He is involved in this?’

  ‘I heard it was all on his own advice. The bishop is anxious about the nation’s security, and recommended to the King that he take actions to protect himself. After all, the Queen is sister to the French king.’

  As Simon spoke to the man, Coroner Richard adding some words of his own, Baldwin heard little of it all. He was too stunned at what he had learned.

  In all the years since his return to Devon, he had trusted the integrity and honour of the bishop. He had believed the man when he had said that he was interested in this Frenchman in case he was a spy, and had been reluctant to believe Pierre when he asserted that the bishop was hand-in-glove with Despenser. But now it seemed it was all true, and his friend, Bishop Walter, was on the side of the man who would despoil the nation.

  He was cold suddenly. In this room with the fire flickering merrily, he felt as though his soul had been encased in ice. It was a terrible sensation. To lose a friend like Stapledon was appalling, but he was sure now that he could not trust the bishop. Perhaps that was why Stapledon had asked him to pray with him, just to reinforce the bond that lay between them – to make it easier to pull the wool over his eyes.

  ‘It’s rumoured that all the Queen’s household will be reviewed. All the French subjects in it will have to be arrested and held away. We don’t want potential spies within the royal household, and it’d be too easy for her to write messages to her brother,’ the man was saying.

  Arrests without evidence, without trial. This was not the behaviour of a monarch who had respect for the law and the people: it was the action of a despot. Baldwin felt a sour nausea rising from his stomach. The Queen was being persecuted, unfairly and unreasonably, and he was revolted by it.

  What sort of country was this to live in, to raise children in, when a reckless and malevolent King could on a whim deprive his own wife of all her friends and protectors? Isabella’s closest companions were all French, so these were the people King Edward II was bound to arrest. But they were not spies, they were merely her circle of friends, those on whom she depended. If the rumours were true, she’d seen little enough of her own husband recently. He reflected on the relationship between Despenser and the King. Only a cruel and implacable enemy would put this idea into the King’s mind.

  ‘I need to walk to clear my head,’ he blurted out, and stood.

  The messenger looked bemused, not realising how his words might have affected the knight, but Simon saw his alarm and would have gone with him, only his feet stumbled even as he stood.

  Baldwin shook his head. ‘No, Simon. You remain here with our guest. I shall go for a short walk. I won’t be long.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Simon murmured.

  ‘I don’t know. Anywhere away from him and Sir Andrew,’ he said harshly.

  Leaving Simon’s house, Sir Baldwin walked out through the weed-infested garden to the small barn, which he entered; he then climbed the ladder. Up in the hayloft, he saw Pierre sitting in the far corner, a thick blanket over his shoulders, watching him with a smile. Hamund lay near his feet, curled up in a nest of hay like a dormouse.

  ‘You have some news, I think?’ Pierre asked, studying his expression.

  ‘Pierre, we have received orders to have you captured and give you to Sir Andrew. We can delay his release from prison for a short while, perhaps, but the orders are explicit. All Frenchmen are to be watched and arrested.’

  ‘This order comes from …?’

  ‘It was signed by the King – but the messenger comes from Despenser.’

  Pierre stood. ‘Then you have no choice. I would not expect you to hold me safe when that monster makes his demands. You have to give me up.’

  ‘No. At present no one knows where you are. Last night you saved the life of my friend Simon. We must help you as we may. I will not send you back to be tortured or murdered.’

  ‘This is a very different song from the one you sang only yeste
rday,’ Pierre said. ‘What has changed your mind?’

  ‘I have heard that Queen Isabella’s estates are to be sequestered, at the suggestion of Bishop Stapledon. If I was wrong about him, I was wrong about much. I cannot save you if you fall into Despenser’s clutches, but I can at least help you escape to France from here. The ship is still in the haven. Let us go to it now. Once you are aboard, it should be easy enough to set sail and you will be secure, I hope.’

  Pierre knelt and took Baldwin’s hand. ‘I am your servant, Sir Knight. You risk much to save me.’

  ‘In the Queen’s name, I believe it is only right,’ Baldwin said.

  As the messenger left the chamber Coroner Richard walked to Simon’s bench and sat heavily. ‘I am sorry about this. I would prefer to have Sir Andrew kept in gaol and tried for murder, but what can we do?’

  ‘There is nothing we can do when a fellow like him has such powerful friends,’ Simon said flatly. ‘He has escaped us, Coroner.’

  The idea that the arrogant prickle could escape all justice was sickening, and Simon felt a wave of revulsion. Sir Andrew would continue with his bullying and threatening. No one would be safe from him. No one at all. Anyone who dared to stand in his path would be removed. As would Pierre.

  ‘What can we do to protect the Frenchman?’ he asked.

  ‘He is naturally at risk all the while he remains here,’ the Coroner said slowly. ‘Once he is aboard a ship bound for a foreign port, he could be followed by another ship, but only if the ship is ready to let her sails fall and has provisions …’

  Simon shouted for Rob. ‘Get over to my place of work and tell Stephen to come here at once!’

  ‘You do that, and I’ll just go and make sure that the men in the gaol are all well enough,’ Sir Richard said. ‘We wouldn’t want any of them to be held up because of a minor scratch or two after the fighting last night. And I may drop into the Porpoise on the way, to order a barrel of ale for them all. Perhaps they would appreciate some refreshment before I tell them they are free to sail.’

  ‘An excellent idea. Don’t hurry yourself,’ Simon smiled.