Yet he had sworn to do his best, in return for the release of Sir Charles and Paul, and right now Simon felt the need of a companion. If he could have remained with William, that cheery fellow might have proved enough to keep Simon’s equilibrium, but William had to leave to seek his fishes. That left Simon once more with the morose Walerand as company; the latter had a limited stock of stories and conversation, but the commonest theme was one of contempt for the world and disgust for the people of the islands, while attempting to persuade Simon of his own intelligence and shrewdness.
When Simon had heard his opinion of the farmers and fishermen of the islands, and how all their women were desperate for ‘it’ and how Walerand would go about all the houses now that Robert was gone, ‘seeing to’ the wives, Simon tried to stop his ears and think of something else, and yet the dirge-like voice droned on, spewing out expletives and incoherent bigotries.
The idea of being stuck with Walerand was so appalling, Simon glanced at the sea several times – with a view to pushing Walerand off a cliff, rather than jumping himself.
When they reached the church in which the body was kept, Walerand walked straight in and stood over the corpse, staring down at it. ‘Pathetic little sod, wasn’t he? Weak bastard. If it’d been me, I’d have got them myself. You won’t catch me napping. I’m on my guard, me. Some bastard tries to stab me, they’ll find themselves swallowing the end of my sword. Tossers. That’s the trouble with the people here. They don’t know how to respect their betters.’
Simon commanded him to silence.
Robert was lying on a large door before the altar, propped on trestles and covered with a linen cloth. Someone had at least had the goodness to wipe away much of the sand, excrement and blood, but there were still dark whorls and circles where the blood had congealed and dried hardest. His clothes were gone, probably kept by the First Finder, Simon guessed, glancing sideways at Walerand. There was no cut in the breast of his jacket, corresponding to the cut on Robert’s chest, but Simon was sure that Walerand would not have allowed anyone else to take what he would have viewed as his perk for discovering the body.
Robert was a well-formed lad, Simon thought, surveying the naked body. His arms and legs were quite well-muscled, his belly flat, and the face looked ruggedly attractive. He would have been tall, and his square chin must have made him appealing to women, he thought.
The wound was obvious enough. It was a broad slit in his flesh, just under his left nipple, maybe an inch across. About the wound were other marks, and Simon contemplated them for some while, trying desperately to ignore the odour of decomposition. It was only when he got very close that he could see that the marks looked like scratches, and he rocked back on his heels, thinking about them. After a few minutes, Simon had Walerand help him roll the corpse over. As he thought, the blade had not penetrated the back. Only a short dagger could have inflicted this wound – unless it was a blade which had been inserted only a short distance, but the scratches at the entry point seemed to indicate something different. Simon reckoned that they were made by the quillons of a knife. As the killer stabbed, he rocked the knife a little in the wound, and that led to the scratches in the flesh. It seemed to make sense. So this man had been stabbed by someone armed with a short-bladed knife. Surely this was a case of a planned ambush.
When he took a careful look at the man’s hands, Simon saw that they were clear of defensive wounds. Often, as he knew, a man who was attacked would grab at the sword or knife to try to deflect it, cutting the palms or fingers of both hands. The attack must have come as a complete surprise, he deduced – perhaps from a friend, or someone who was not viewed as a threat.
‘I think I’ve seen enough,’ he said at last, letting the cloth drop back over the corpse. ‘We should be getting back to the castle, I suppose.’
‘Yes,’ Walerand said.
There was something in his tone which made Simon prick up his ears, but then another matter struck him and he glanced back at the huddled form beneath the winding sheet. ‘That man – did he have a sword on him when he was killed?’
‘Oh, I expect so.’
‘Does that mean he did, and therefore you have it now? Or that you think he did and can’t quite remember finding it there?’
‘There was one on him. It’s back at the castle.’
‘In the armoury?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘I want to see it. You will fetch it to me,’ Simon said. He was certain that Walerand had stolen it for himself. He led the way out of the church.
The sun was almost over the hill behind them, lighting the castle with a pink glow as they set off towards it. Simon walked with little attention for the views or the landscape about him, but before long some instinct made him glance around at Walerand; the man was gripping his sword, his knuckles white with tension.
‘What is the matter with you, man? Are you fearful of ghosts?’
‘Not ghosts, no. But these islands are filled with pirates and murderers. If they dare kill a tax-gatherer, who wouldn’t they dare to murder?’
Simon shrugged. ‘The folk here seem pleasant enough when treated like humans.’
‘You don’t know the mad people on the off-islands.’
‘What of them?’ Simon asked, but then he saw the real anxiety in Walerand’s face.
As they walked back, the sun sinking lower in the sky and the twilight gloom taking over from the bright daylight, Simon found that the islands appeared cloaked in a more menacing aspect, and he too kept his hand close to his sword hilt.
Chapter Sixteen
Isok was finished, and with the tiredness of a man who had worked hard all afternoon, he rowed back to his island as the sun slipped down to the horizon.
He had taken a good haul of fish. All were gutted on the beach, the offal left behind for the gulls to eat, and now he had a much heavier boat with the weight of fish.
There was no comfort for a troubled mind like hard work, he reckoned, and he knew his task so well that he was able to squat and clean the fish with an empty mind. It was the first peace he had known for many days, and as he threw the last of the fish into the boat, he felt a fleeting regret that there was nothing more here to save him from his thoughts.
The boat needed a good shove to push it out to sea, and then he was wielding the oars, settling them between the pegs and beginning to row. He must travel around the islands and into the pass between Bechiek and the eastern islands, then on to the bay at St Nicholas, a journey which would take an age in a smaller vessel, but today he could count on the wind. His mast was stepped, and he pulled on the halyard to raise the little yard up the mast, then released the heavy linen. Pulling the sheets as the boat began to surge forward, he settled himself on the thwart at the upper part of the boat, from where he could see the way ahead.
There was a certain calm that came from hard work, and now, as he felt the wind on his cheeks and adapted his position to the gentle roll and sudden slap as the boat made its way around the first of the isles, he could sense a peace settling on him. There was no one here to laugh at him, give him difficulties or make snide comments behind his back.
Currents swirled about these islands, and many sailors would avoid the hazards of Great Guenhely and Inisvoul, but Isok was no novice. He had lived here all his life; there was probably no better seaman than him in all the islands. It was his skill as a master which regularly brought in the largest prizes. He knew the islands as only a native could. They had been his playground when he was a child, and now he was an adult, these were the waters he knew best of all. Since he was a youth he had been taking ships and boats about these islands in all weathers.
Years before, he had learned his craft from the old man they called Hamadus. He had taught Isok with a cynical eye and acerbic tongue. Hamadus had taken him on and for two months, Isok had been shouted at, cursed, and twice beaten with a rope’s end, but after those two months, Hamadus had called him into his little house and broached a barrel of wine illeg
ally purloined from a wreck, and held out a filled mazer to Isok with a wry grin. ‘Ye’ll do, lad.’ After that, Hamadus had treated Isok as an equal. Although they had not spoken in many weeks now, Isok knew that Hamadus would have a sympathetic ear for him.
He was rounding the farthest eastern rocks of Bechiek, preparing to sail forth into the channel between it and Little Guenhely, when this thought came to him, and he was tempted to go and speak to Hamadus.
Hamadus was on Ennor, of course, down there on the main island. If Isok was to go there, he might as well dodge about the back of the Guenhellies, between them and the mass of Great Arthur, and make his way down the southern coast of Ennor. He looked at the sail, checked the wind, and made up his mind. There was time to put about. Without further ado, he released one sheet, pulled on the other, and ducked under the heavy material of the sail itself. Soon, with the great steering oar gripped under one armpit, he could feel her starting her turn, and then the hull heeled over at a slightly more acute angle, and standing with his thighs straddling the edge of his haul, he felt her taking his new course.
It was a wonderful sensation, this. He felt like a king when he was able to harness the power of wind and waves and set them to do his bidding. Not that it was quite so entirely in his command. In truth, he knew that Hamadus had been right many years before, when he had told Isok that the real skill of a mariner lay not in trying to force the vessel or the seas to do his bidding, but in seeing how the sea and his ship wanted to behave, and persuading each to permit him to go as he wished.
There was no feeling better than this, though. He felt her rise and screw around at the bow, and watched the horizon ahead as it moved up and down and across his vision, in the narrow gap between the ship’s side and the sail. Perfect, clear sea, then a snatched glimpse of an island. That was Little Arthur. The ship was soon level with the island, and then it moved on past, and he could see the long sweep of sand that made up the enormous beach.
Hearing a faint odd noise, he looked about again. The shore was far enough away with the tide this high, that he need not fear rocks in this part, and yet he heard some curious knockings, and when he glanced down at the sea, he could see some bits and pieces of broken wood. Not large timbers from a large wreck, like the one which had brought that knight to his home, but small sections of flotsam, such as a small rowing boat might be built from. There were pieces with the caulking still attached, and spread over a wide area, he saw, as though a small vessel had come to grief on one of the jutting rocks that lay so thickly about here, and then the parts had been dispersed over a wide space by the tides.
Over the years the people who lived in the islands grew accustomed to seeing wreckage, and often they would offer thanks to God for destroying another ship near to their shores. To a poor man or woman, living a harsh existence with the danger of starvation ever-present, a sudden windfall of free timbers, wine, and food or clothing was a near miracle.
Every so often a ship would founder on the rocks to the west of the islands. Usually it was a vessel which struck at Agnas or Anete, or the rocks far west, and the currents and winds would bring them into the beaches, white, bloated bodies lying in among the mess. At such times the seamen would all share in the revolting task of preparing the bodies for burial. All saw the holes in the flesh where the small fishes and crabs had nibbled or cut away with sharp pincers; all saw the empty eye-sockets. And afterwards, Isok would forego his crabs or lobsters for weeks. The thought of the meat lying in their bellies made him feel sick.
This was not the same, though. The bigger ships foundered on the rocks after being blown far from their courses, but this was a small vessel, which meant it must be from one of the islands.
Isok remained gripping his steering oar, but he crouched low now, peering ahead with the eyes of a man used to searching for small signs on the water, a feeling of sickness rising in his belly. This, he was sure, was a place where a man must have died. Too often when a man’s body was taken by the sea, it would sink and disappear for some little while, until then reappear, swollen and repellent, the veins turned blue and obscene, the flesh pale like a ghost’s, sometimes coming away from the body like a spare item of clothing. Today, he felt sure, another had been taken by the sea. It could be anywhere.
Then he saw it. A lump of huddled grey lying on the beach, a moving mass of white over and around it: squabbling seabirds fighting over morsels. He altered his course, aiming for the sand, but knew as he did so that it was too late. There was no chance that a man could have lived after striking rocks with sufficient force to destroy his boat so completely.
He allowed his boat to beach, the sail already furled, and leaped into the water. As he pulled the vessel up the beach a short way, his muscular thighs creating a great wave before him, the birds rose into the sky, screeching like devils. He made his way up to the body, every footstep crunching on broken pieces of timber and shreds of material, until he was near enough to crouch and roll the man over onto his back.
‘My Christ! Brother Luke?’
Simon returned to the castle deep in thought. There was no obvious focus to his investigation. The only things he knew from his enquiries were that Oderic had seen Thomas and David out that evening before the storm. Other than that, he had learned that the dead man was unpopular, which was hardly earth-shattering news.
He had little desire to visit Thomas and report his findings, so he went into the buttery, demanding a quart of strong ale. It was a full-flavoured brew, thick and malty, and while Simon supped at it, he wondered how to confront and question Thomas. Finishing his ale he was no nearer a conclusion, so he went to ask the gaoler where his friends were now.
‘Thomas ordered them to a cell at the hall,’ the turnkey said.
Simon felt his face pale with rage. ‘The Sergeant told me he would have them freed,’ he said at last.
The man shrugged. ‘Nothing to do with me.’
It wasn’t, of course, but now as Simon left the gaol and stood in the yard, he was struck with the reflection that accusing Thomas of involvement in the murder could be dangerous, especially while Sir Charles and Paul were still held in his power. Thomas was not a man who could be trusted. He’d given his word to have Sir Charles taken from the cell, and he had done so … but only in order to move him to a new one.
Taking a deep breath, Simon walked to Thomas’s room and rapped on it before entering.
‘Ah, Bailiff. I hope you have had a rewarding time?’ Thomas asked.
‘Where are my friends?’
‘They are safe enough.’
‘You promised to release my companions.’
‘I have had them taken to more pleasant accommodation. Bearing in mind your friend threatened my lord with a sword, I have to say I think he’s being treated leniently! Now, what of your enquiries?’
Simon bit back the words that sprang to his lips. Coldly furious, he told Thomas all he had heard that morning, except that when he mentioned Oderic, he realised that a certain care would have to be exercised; he couldn’t trust Thomas. Instead, he mentioned no name, and only said that he had heard that a man called David had not been at his vill on the night of the murder. He did not mention that he knew Thomas himself had been abroad that night.
‘Reeve David was not at the vill?’ Thomas repeated.
‘No.’
Thomas appeared to listen to little more of what Simon had to say, and when the Bailiff had completed his report, telling him about his thoughts on the wounds and that he didn’t think his new peacock-blue sword could have been responsible, Thomas merely fluttered a hand in irritable dismissal.
Outside the room, Simon felt baffled at the man’s response. As soon as Simon had mentioned David, Thomas had become distracted. Perhaps he had seen David, and realised that if someone had seen him, they might also have seen Thomas himself? Perhaps he feared being uncovered as the murderer?
Baldwin and Tedia crossed the island and made their way to the eastern edge of St Nicholas, where t
hey could see St Elidius.
‘That’s where he lives, almost like a hermit.’
Baldwin nodded absently. ‘How do we get to the island?’
‘The usual way is a boat to cross anywhere along here,’ she said, pointing. ‘If you want to get to St Elidius, you must cross this narrow sea between St Nicholas and Arwothel, then cross Arwothel to St Elidius.’
‘I had thought we might simply step over to it,’ Baldwin said with a frown. ‘When I have heard talk about this place, I have always had the impression that there was one, maybe two islands at most. I had no idea there were so many. Where can we find a boat?’
‘I can find one – my husband has a small boat – but I don’t know where I can get one tonight,’ she said reluctantly.
‘Well, we can do nothing about it tonight, then,’ Baldwin said. ‘And, I for one am glad. My immersion has had an impact upon my ability to concentrate. I think that a walk to your home will be about as much as I can cope with.’
It was true. His feet were leaden, and his bones ached with exhaustion, as though he had aged at least ten years in the last few days. It was ironic, he thought to himself as they set off back along a little track that followed the line of the sand, then up and across a peninsula before heading southwards to Tedia’s house, that only three or four days ago he had felt so filled with energy. His journey to the south had given him a new lease of life, just because he had gone back to the lands where he had lived when he was much younger. It had made him remember things he had thought were buried for ever. Such as the women on the island of Cyprus, when he was learning his vocation. There had been such beautiful women there, slim, dark-haired girls who were keen to amuse or entertain the Templar novices. Baldwin had learned much of life while he had been there, in the unrestricted environment. Perhaps that was partly why he loved the feel of this island, too, he thought. Because he had such happy memories of that other island: Cyprus.
Then a burst of honesty made him stare at the ground. This was no affection for a lump of rock in the sea. It was the sense of pleasure which an older man felt on seeing a young, beautiful woman who was not only attainable, but deliberately available. He shot a look at Tedia, and was disconcerted to see that she was simultaneously glancing at him. Both looked away.
The Outlaws of Ennor: (Knights Templar 16) Page 21