His voice seemed to come from a long way away. Simon knew that the hand was gone, but he didn’t care. For the first time in weeks he felt secure. In Spain he had suffered from illness and wounds; while travelling he had been constantly on his guard, worried that a sailor might rob him, or a footpad cut his purse, and this felt a soothing, reassuring place in which to rest. ‘Sleep well,’ were the last words he heard.
Chapter Six
There had been no such calm voice speaking to Jean de Conket when he finally felt secure enough to drop exhausted on the thwart and cover himself with a blanket. He was asleep almost before the thick blanket had settled over him.
Waking in the warmth of the noonday sun, Jean stared about him with confusion. His men were still, for the most part, sitting at their rowing positions, backs bent over their oars, snoring, some of them, fit to raise the dead from the deeps. But they were alive. A stabbing pain made Jean wince and snap his eyes shut. It was awful, but he had once been told that the worse the pain, the better the wound. Worst of all was a cut that felt fine, but when you touched the skin, you could feel the fever burning beneath. No, the fact that it hurt like hell was good. It meant that something was going on. The flesh was living still.
It was good, so good, to feel the sun on his face when he had not honestly expected to live to see another morning. Jean stood and peered about him. To one side was a quiet, tiny island, which must surely be uninhabited, except by birds. Southwards the view changed dramatically. Here was a broad expanse of land, a low-lying, flat place with few trees, none of which was more than a few feet tall, and much long grass. The shoreline was all vicious rocks, black with water. They could not go there for provisions. At least the mast could be mended, Jean thought sombrely. Last night it had cracked some thirty feet up with a noise like a cannon, and the top had sagged. It had taken a great deal of effort to rescue it, preventing it falling into the sea and dragging much of their rigging with it. By hard effort and with great good fortune, his men had saved it.
The sooner they were away from here, the better. Jean began assessing the work to be done before he would be happy that his ship was ready for the open sea again. There was no point in a voyage when Jean was unhappy with the ship’s worthiness. He wouldn’t risk her and his men so lightly. First they had to make the mast usable, and Jean wasn’t sure how, yet; there must be some way of strengthening what was left. Arnarld was a competent carpenter. When the man woke, Jean would ask his advice.
Jean himself was a cheerful man. A quirk of nature made him smile at any adversity, and his apparently easygoing character had led some enemies or business competitors to misjudge him. Most of them had later had cause to regret their mistake as they realised that the smile could remain on a man’s face as he killed another.
His woman would wonder what had happened to him. She would know that the storm had been worse than they could have expected, of course, but that was the nature of the sea. Sometimes it threw up worse weather than a man had reason to fear, and that was when the real mariners earned their reputations. At least Jean’s woman had seen him return after similar storms. She would know that he could win over it and get home. If he didn’t, he wondered now what would happen to her and their four sons. She’d probably have to resort to prostitution again. He shrugged. No doubt if she had to, she’d make the best of it. At least it would bring in some money.
Meantime, to make the mast good again would mean at least a day’s work, he estimated, and a day here in the open sea was not sensible.
It had felt like a miracle. When the storm had blown itself out, they had drifted for some while, until at last the light cleared and they saw that there were these islands to the south. Jean ordered the men to row them near to the shore, so that they would be a little protected. There was the lumpish island north of them, and the main land mass at the south meant that they were shielded from most eyes. The only danger here would come from someone on the land itself, and as Jean looked, he felt sure he could spot a roof of thatch on the island. It was a proof that they were not yet safe, but he had a feeling that there must be a safe harbour not far away.
He was sure, as they reached this place this morning, he had seen two massive rocks between this island and the lump. Either was long enough to conceal the ship from the land, and he could anchor there, far from nosy inhabitants, and effect the works that the vessel needed before they could set sail again.
First, though, he would take a small rowboat and have a man row to the island to check that there was no raiding party forming up to take the ship. Jean had to go and seek out any witnesses.
Mariota heard the footsteps return, and when Tedia had seated herself chastely, her hands in her lap, eyeing the sleeping man, Mariota shrugged.
There was nothing for her to say. Tedia knew full well that Mariota and all the others here had heard of her visit to Luke. Some had already started their tongues wagging, saying that Tedia couldn’t get satisfied by her husband, so she’d been forced to go to a priest. Funny how so many men laughed at that, as though it was hilarious to see a buxom little wench cuckold her husband with a priest. There were enough men who didn’t realise what their wives got up to. Men thought that theirs was the only sex which sought adventures outside marriage, but it was only because their women knew how to conceal their affairs.
Mariota wasn’t sure about Tedia, though. The rumours were strong enough, but the old woman fancied herself more able to see the truth than many of her neighbours. They all believed that any woman in Tedia’s position would throw herself at the first man who showed interest in her, compared with living with a man like poor Isok. Mariota was not so certain. She had been in love herself once, and she wondered whether even if her man had failed in the way that Isok had, she would have been ready to dive into the bed of any other man at the slightest opportunity.
Before she could question the girl, she heard approaching footsteps, and then the doorway was darkened by the heavy-set figure of the vill’s reeve in the doorway.
‘David,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d be out with the fishermen.’
‘What, looking for wrecks when we already have a man here? No, I heard of this fellow and thought I should see him for myself.’
He entered, head bowed low under the lintel, and stood up, hands on hips, a broad man, with a belly that was rapidly running to paunch. His hair was black, other than where flecks of white marred the overall appearance, and framed a face that was formed by the weather and the sea. The deep-set grey-blue eyes were steady and calm, his face a deep brown from years spent on the sea in boats of all sizes. His hands were large and powerful, strong enough to smash a man’s head in anger, but Mariota had never heard of his losing his temper. He was too confident of his own position as reeve on St Nicholas for that. The reeve was the leader of the men of the vill, the representative of the Prior among his villeins – but he was also master of the men when they went seeking ships to raid. Few dared answer him back, other than their lord, the Prior.
‘Well, child?’ he asked of Tedia. ‘Who and what is he?’
‘I found him on the beach this morning,’ she said.
‘Which beach?’ He had walked to Baldwin’s side and now stood staring down at the gently snoring man.
‘At the point, the nearest beach to Ennor.’
‘I see. There is no wreckage there,’ he mused. ‘Perhaps he was brought in with the water at high tide, or washed in on the storm, while his ship foundered on the eastern rocks, or Bechiek. It would make sense.’
Mariota chuckled richly. ‘You think a man could have been blown all that way, in between the islands, that easily? Reeve, you’ve been drinking too much wine.’
‘Learn respect,’ the reeve said, but lightly. He liked Mariota, and always had. She was irreverent, certainly, but that was no great difficulty. Reeve David was not afraid of people making fun of him. He felt it was a proof of his leadership that he dared to permit people to joke at his expense – especially the women. Any
man who was disrespectful soon learned to regret his impertinence. ‘I have seen timbers land on our shores, and so have you. It’s possible that this man clutched a beam – or perhaps he was just blown in, through the gap between the isles and Ennor. I don’t care which. If Tedia says he was there, that is enough for me. Now, the question is, what do we do with him?’
‘Take him to the priory, of course,’ Tedia said.
‘Ah, but should we? He’d be safe enough there, it’s true, but if he’s worth a little money, and you have to admit that he looks as though he is, then we’d be better served, perhaps, to deliver him instead to La Val.’
‘No.’ Tedia was emphatic. ‘I found him on priory land and I am a villein to the Prior. It is nothing to do with La Val, and think what the Prior would say if he learned you’d delivered a poor man like this to Blancminster.’
‘Perhaps Blancminster will pay for him,’ David said, adding unkindly, ‘and you may have need of funds soon, good wife, in order to pay your procter to gain your freedom from Isok!’
‘I think,’ Mariota said, heaving herself to her feet, ‘that you should wait until he is fit, and then bring him to the priory, before taking him to La Val. That way, you make sure that he has the protection of the priory, and he couldn’t ask for more than that.’
David nodded thoughtfully, and then, as she sidled from the small room, turning at the doorway so that her massive hips wouldn’t snag on the timbers which made up the doorframe, David followed her, holding the door to one side as he went. ‘Mariota? May I speak with you?’
She nodded, but did not turn or acknowledge him. ‘Well?’
‘Luke – is it true about him and her?’
‘It’s true that he told her to get a divorce.’
‘I have seen how he stares at the women about here. Do you think he wants a priest’s mare for himself?’
‘How should I know? It wouldn’t be a surprise, would it? Look at Tedia. She’s attractive enough, isn’t she?’
David hissed, ‘That’s no excuse! Luke is a priest; he shouldn’t be tempting a woman from her husband!’
She threw him a look of annoyance. ‘You know how Isok and she have tried. They have done all in their power to try to consummate their marriage, but he can’t. That’s all there is to it. Tedia can’t wait for ever. She needs a man to fill her loins.’
David nodded abstractedly. His concerns did not lie with Tedia alone. He was worried about his own wife, Brosia. Although he dared not accuse her, because her tongue could be vicious, he was sure she was wagging her arse in the priest’s direction. ‘So she wants to leave him?’
‘Why – are you thinking of taking Tedia?’ Mariota said, and then laughed aloud at his expression. ‘Have no fear! I won’t gossip like some. No, she has her eyes elsewhere, David. Fear not that she’ll find someone.’
‘Like whom?’ he asked, his mind still fixed upon his own wife with a desperate unhappiness.
‘Why, surely that man in her home is as good as any!’ Mariota said, and with another bellow of laughter, she waddled away.
David essayed a weak smile, and then glanced back at the house. Brosia was a soft-looking, calm woman, but when angry, she was a vixen. She would bite his head off if he were to accuse her of trying to persuade Luke into her bed, but David was sure that she was already trying out the priest. Without the proof of his own eyes, she could reject his accusations, and make his life hell in the bargain, and the sad truth was, he daren’t risk such harmony as existed in their home by accusing her without proof. Most men were masters in their own homes; David was ruler of the men of St Nicholas and the ships that were born in St Nicholas, but a slave in his own home.
His eyes were anxious at first, but then they hardened, and when he finally made his way along the roadway towards the priory, his mind was made up. Whether Luke or another man, it mattered not a whit. No man would shame David’s community by taking someone else’s wife. Even if he was a priest.
In the priory, David’s master, Cryspyn of Morwelham, rubbed his eyes with the weariness of a man who had been awake all night.
It was not good enough that the storm should have hit the island so early in the evening, disrupting the sleep of monks who would have to rise in the middle of the night to pray and begin the devotions of the day, but as soon as their prayers were done, all the exhausted brothers had been forced to rush down to their oxen, their sheepfolds, and the poor gardens which contained all that they depended on for food. And then the roof had blown off the storehouse near the brewery, threatening all their barley. If they had not got to it immediately and carried the well-sewn and wrapped sacks away, their supplies would have been terribly diminished, and that could have spelled disaster for the convent. They needed the ale that the barley represented. Without it, they might be forced to leave St Nicholas Island until they could replenish the stores to a sufficient level. The Abbot, Robert Champeaux, would have been displeased with an evacuation, but the place was run on a tightly bound purse as it was, and there were simply not enough men to keep it going. The corollary to that was, that if there were more monks, there would be too many mouths to feed.
Cryspyn sighed. This was his constant worry. The place was perfect for them. Windswept, barren, it had been a wasteland when his brethren had arrived here two hundred years or more ago, during the Abbacy of Osbert. A monk called Turold had been sent here then with some brothers to see to the support of the churches.
In his own time, Cryspyn had seen why it was necessary to have men on the ground here. Raiders had come and stolen what they could, the weather had ruined many of the chapels on St Elidius, Bechiek, St Sampson and, of course, on St Nicholas itself, and all in all, coming here to the islands was not looked upon as a gift or honour, but more as a penance for some form of misdemeanour.
Cryspyn wouldn’t mind, except no one ever bothered to tell him why people were sent here. Obviously he knew why he was here, but he felt he would rather like to know if the priests and brothers were known to be rampant sodomites or womanisers. Either could have spelled at best embarrassment on islands like these. Damn it, if the good Abbot was going to send blasted fornicators here, the least he could do was warn his representative. Cryspyn had a good mind to write him a stiff letter. Except, as he acknowledged with a sigh, the Abbot was more capable than him at dictating terse and cutting letters. Not that he could exactly threaten much to Cryspyn. Once he’d arrived here, he had realised that this was about as bad as things could get. As he deserved.
He stood and went to the window, musing sadly.
It was many years ago now that he had committed that evil murder. He had not intended to kill. He had been waiting for her, but she brought the man into the chamber with her.
Their passion was so intense, it had scarred him for life. He had stepped from his hiding place as they flung away their clothing, and they were all but naked when he put his hand to his sword. Not that they noticed or cared. She was bending before the man, while he was looking down at her, a smile on his face … that smile! At the time Cryspyn thought it was the smile of a satyr, a foul, demonic thief of his woman’s heart, and it made his blood steam. In a furious passion, he lifted his sword and ran at them, the blade whirling and hissing, and when the man glanced up, his look of passion and adoration changing in an instant to one of terror, he lifted his forearm to protect himself. It served no purpose. As poor Sara shrieked in horror, pushed out of the way by her lover, the sword sank through the arm like an axe through lard, and carried on to sweep off the man’s head and half his shoulder. Then the body walked forward jerkily for three paces, until it collapsed against Cryspyn. He had toppled, appalled, gripping the corpse as the gore and blood fountained over him, filling his nose and mouth and eyes, marking him forever as a man who had killed unnecessarily. He had murdered a woman’s lover through jealousy.
Which was why he was here. In his nostrils he could still smell that foulness, the blood of an innocent victim.
Looking out, he cou
ld almost forget his past crime. The weather had improved miraculously over the morning, and the sun sparkled on a clear blue sea that looked as though it was incapable of rising in waves ten foot tall and overwhelming the whole of the northern side of his island. That was a thought which sent a shiver through his delicate frame.
Cryspyn was almost forty-five now and had lived here on this obscure rock in the middle of the sea for more than fifteen years. It had taken its toll on his frame. When he had met Sara, he had been a chunky young man, with a cheery smile for all who met him. That happy-go-lucky, healthy fellow had grown to be an embittered monk with a pronounced stoop, a frowning squint because of his poor eyesight, and hunched shoulders as though he permanently felt the cold.
Someone had once told him that the islands were so fruitful because of the weather. Well, clement it might be in a decent bloody year, but this last had shown the emptiness of the comment. The winds had scoured the place through the last winter, the rains had fallen throughout the summer two years ago, devastating the crops and making all the islanders have to depend on any fish they could catch or starve, and now this storm. It was almost more than he could take. He had a mind to beg of the Abbot that he be taken back to serve as an ordinary brother at Tavistock again. Tavistock! The mere name brought to mind a quiet chuckling river, the steady thump of the water-wheel groaning its way through the latest batch of grain, the odour of fresh bread each morning, the divine scent of ale brewing, the smell of a fresh wine, the flavour of the heady Guyennois exploding on the tongue. He could all but taste it if he closed his eyes.
At least there he would be warm. The fires in the calefactory! There, even the stones radiated heat. A man had to be dead already not to be warmed by them! Here, the monks relied on dried kelp for their heat. It did throw out some warmth, it was true, but in all these years living on the island, Cryspyn had not grown accustomed to the damned stuff. It stank. Even now he could smell it drying in the pits farther down the island. You couldn’t escape the ruddy smell.
The Outlaws of Ennor: (Knights Templar 16) Page 9