‘It must have been those pirates. They were nestling there in among the islands, and they decided to kill the one man who might have seen them. Perhaps he was out seeking gulls’ eggs and spotted them, or maybe they came ashore to raid, and slew him then. Whichever was the true case, I suppose we shall never know.’
Cryspyn’s face lightened. ‘You think that this is possible? That is a marvellous relief.’
‘It would explain much.’ David nodded.
Baldwin shot him a look. ‘Such as what?’
‘I found it hard to believe that a local man would have killed him. We aren’t murderers,’ David said, nodding towards Ranulph in a gesture of comparison.
Ranulph reddened. ‘You call me murderer? My sword—’
‘Is in my hands,’ Simon reminded him harshly. ‘Shut up.’
‘What of the gather-reeve?’ Baldwin asked. ‘And the theft of my sword?’
‘Theft?’ This time Ranulph’s eyes looked like they would pop from his skull. Simon told himself that to be accused of homicide was one thing: Ranulph clearly had very definite views on suggestions that he was no better than a drawer-latch, though.
Baldwin looked at him without comment for a moment, then, ‘I was washed up on to the beach. If my sword had fallen from my body, it would have sunk. Also, it would have bruised me, were it torn from me. I am not bruised, nor is the belt damaged. See! It is being worn by my friend Simon, and there is no damage done to it. Someone must have found me and removed the sword. They carried it back to Ennor, and when they arrived there, they set it near the body of the dead man.’
‘That is mad. How can you reach that conclusion?’ Thomas had joined them, and now he stood a short way from them. ‘I could understand someone taking your sword and using it to kill, just so that his own dagger would be clean of blood, and then discarding the thing, but carrying it to another island? And that supposes that he knew to find you there in the first place.’
‘There were some people who were out that night. We know that Luke was, and we know that you were,’ Simon said. ‘You had gone out to speak to Luke, hadn’t you? Or was it to talk to Robert, to persuade him not to blackmail you?’
‘He wouldn’t have dared to blackmail me! The fool was too feeble to try it!’
‘Yet we all thought he was a murderer!’ Simon said. ‘You told everyone that he was!’
‘A murderer in my pay, though,’ said Thomas dismissively. ‘He wouldn’t threaten me. He knew I could order any of the other men at the castle to kill him.’
Ranulph cleared his throat. ‘In whose pay?’
‘He was your servant, my Lord. As I am,’ Thomas said silkily.
Ranulph nodded. ‘I see. What were you doing there, then, loyal servant? You were out until late that night. The gatekeeper told me you paid him to open the gate quietly after dark. Where had you been?’
‘I was talking to Luke. He wanted to pay me to take him away from the island.’
‘And how would you do that?’ Ranulph asked.
Simon thought that if Baldwin’s sword showed any signs of rust, that voice could be used to protect it. It was as smooth as the best oil, dripping with insincerity.
‘I was to try to win him a passage on a ship.’
‘Why should you do that for him?’ Ranulph asked.
‘He thought that I might,’ Thomas responded calmly. ‘Because he was a priest and I was known to be a religious man, he thought he might be able to persuade me for free, just as a favour to a priest. When I refused, in horror,’ he nodded to Cryspyn, ‘to think that I should be asked to carry away a man of God from his vocation, he offered me money.’
‘I didn’t realise he had any,’ Baldwin said. ‘There was none in his cell.’
‘His belongings were terribly stirred, though, were they not?’ William said. ‘Maybe the pirates broke up his belongings to find his cash, and took it with them.’
‘Or perhaps someone else paid him, and went back to steal the money away again, and killed the fellow at the same time,’ Baldwin said.
‘What are you suggesting?’ Thomas asked, but his voice was harder now.
‘I suggest that since you had a ship, and were dealing illegally, taking the customs to yourself and not reporting them, perhaps you paid Luke to hold his tongue. And then you went to his home to find the money, but managed to kill him as well,’ Baldwin said.
‘Or,’ Simon considered, ‘there was no money. He attempted to blackmail you, and you simply murdered him for his efforts.’
‘This is fascinating,’ Thomas said sarcastically, ‘but surely it was more likely that the pirates killed him.’
‘What of Robert, though? Did he learn of your venture and ask for money as well?’
‘My friend, I have no such ventures,’ Thomas said, but he was looking paler, grey about the mouth, Baldwin thought. It could have been righteous indignation at wrongful accusations, or it might have been fear at the correct accusation.
He nodded. ‘So you deny these allegations?’
‘Of course.’
‘I believe the accusations,’ Ranulph snorted. He hawked and spat. ‘Walerand? Come here.’
Simon cast a nervous look over his shoulder. The new gather-reeve stalked forward, still wiping his eyes, and giving Simon a look of concentrated hatred. If he was lucky and cautious, Walerand reckoned that he could slip a knife between the Bailiff’s shoulder-blades if only he could get a moment alone with him. Simon deserved it, the bastard.
Then he realised how Ranulph was talking. Ranulph obviously trusted him. That much was clear from the way that he had given him so many missions. Perhaps he could be the next Sergeant? ‘Sergeant Walerand’, he decided, had a distinct ring to it. ‘Sir?’
‘What did I tell you to do yesterday?’
‘You asked me to check the wines stored down by the harbour.’ Walerand had not noticed how Simon was gripping Ranulph’s sword. ‘And I saw the Bailiff there releasing Sir Charles and his man when I came back.’
‘And didn’t see fit to tell me?’ Ranulph took a deep breath. ‘We’ll talk about this later, Walerand. Meantime, you counted the wines?’
‘Yes, and there were three missing,’ Walerand said. There was a sinking feeling in his belly. Ranulph had looked happy until he reported the Bailiff’s actions last night, and suddenly Walerand felt considerably less comfortable. Perhaps he shouldn’t have mentioned that.
Ranulph said, ‘Three were missing. Yet there were three more on the Faucon Dieu this morning. I know because I had the ship checked. Someone had ordered them to be moved. I may not be able to read, but I can count. I have heard rumours that customs of many ships have not been registered. Including the Faucon Dieu.’
‘I was going to add it in,’ Thomas protested.
‘Really? But now I hear that you have a part in the ship yourself. Is this true?’
‘I …’
‘Perhaps we should merely ask the master of the ship who owns his cargoes. That would be easiest, would it not?’
‘It was mine,’ Thomas said quietly. Then he looked up. ‘But I did not kill Luke or Robert, I swear. Prior, I claim sanctuary, and I swear on the cross that I have not murdered either of those two.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
At the very back of the group of men from St Nicholas, Isok stood watching disinterestedly. The worst had happened. He had heard the sniggers from the islanders, seen two boys point and laugh out loud; a girl had eyed him with open amusement. This, then, was the future: He was a figure of utter contempt. A man who was no man.
When the men began to talk, Simon and Baldwin discussing the affairs with the Prior, Isok was aware only of overwhelming depression. His woman was lost to him, and he must face the rest of his life alone. Miserably, while Thomas and David joined the group, he began to walk away. He had no idea where he would go, only that the propinquity of his neighbours was repellent to him, and he wanted solitude.
His boat was out at the beach near his house. He could go to it, fill a skin
with water, and sail out to the west. Perhaps he could find a good source of fish, a place that would bring him some fame, make him renowned as a great fisherman. It was possible. That was always one way of getting credit with people. Not that it would work. They would always look on him as the ‘man without balls’, the ‘man whose ballocks were broken’, the ‘man whose tarse was blocked’ – or worse. There would be no end to the humiliation to which he would be subjected.
The boat was not far from where he stood now, and without bothering to fetch a skin, he made for it, his bare feet sinking into the warm sands. The sky darkened momentarily as a cloud passed over the sun, and it mirrored his feelings. The sea took on a grimmer aspect when the sun was hidden, he thought, and he felt a chill in his lower bowels. It was the mark of fear; when he was a child, he had been bullied by bigger boys, because even then he had known that he was different in some ways, and they seemed to sense it.
That was why he had learned to fight: so that he could protect himself. Not that it stopped them from hurting him, but it did mean that some of them realised that they should beware a lad who was prepared to fight with a ferocity that took no account of the risk to himself, only the urgent wish to hurt his tormentors. Then, that coldness between his buttocks and ballocks had heralded a bitter fight, one which he knew he must inevitably lose, but one during which he would make at least some of them regret attacking him. Now he had the same premonition.
It was only as he pushed his boat out to sea and threw a leg over the side that he wondered whether it was a sign from God. God had given him this affliction. Perhaps the kindest thing God could do was take him away from the islands completely, have him sail westwards until the seas and the weather conspired to destroy him. That would be a form of honourable ending. If he sailed away and died, Tedia would be free of him and could seek another man, and his own pain would be gone.
Feeling the boat come alive beneath him as the waves slowly lapped at the sides, he began to row away from the beach. Soon he could drop his sail and start his last journey.
This morning, there had been a crust of dried slime beneath his eyelids, and they felt gummed shut when Jean woke. At last, after rubbing at them hard, he managed to open them and gaze about him.
The strakes had been badly damaged. Two had broken, cracked vertically, and had to be repaired, a new plank laid over, and tar and caulking smoothing the joins and seams. Once that was done, the ship’s carpenter had made some oaken pegs and a baulk of timber, and made the damaged part even stronger with an internal vertical reinforcement. The work had taken them into the night, with most of the crew on alert, listening and watching as the carpenter and Jean stood under a pair of blazing candles, fixing the hull as best they could.
Now, in the open sea once more, the ship was taking on the feel that Jean knew so well. Her bow lifted and fell with that firm power that he had grown to love; the whistle and thrum of the wind in the rigging almost made him forget the agony that was his arm. He daren’t look at it. He knew how bad it was. Strange to think that at first he had thought the damned thing was going to be all right because it hurt. Now he couldn’t remember a time before the pain. It had spread like a liquid fire up the arm, and it had invaded his shoulder, even so far as his ear, which hurt like damnation – and he had a headache. The ship was no longer his own. He was a ghost, for all the good he was doing. His seamanship was no use to his crew; his thinking was too slow, too disorganised. He needed time to consider things.
But one thing he was aware of. The ship might have seen them rounding the island yesterday, but there was a possibility that she was still in the harbour. If he was lucky, he might get to it before anyone expected, win the ship, and take her and her cargo as a massive prize! That would be a feat for which people would remember him. And if he died, no matter. He would have died doing what he loved. Fighting and taking English property.
It wasn’t there. He could have thrown up his arms in impotent fury, seeing the empty harbour, but then he had the idea that it might have possibly gone on to another harbour in the islands. On that whim, he and his men set off to encircle the islands, and it was while they were rounding the western edge of Ennor, that the lookout at the masthead saw the buildings and called down to them.
‘Jean, there is a great house.’
‘What sort of house?’
The man was silent for a while. Jehanin was a cautious man, but he had the best eyes of any of them. ‘I would think it’s an abbey or a priory. Only small, but quite solid.’
Jean felt the blood pass through him in a rush. This was the prize: the sea was still on his side, and had taken away one prize only to reward his patience with another.
They would sack a priory.
Isok had intended that he would ride away in his boat as soon as he could get underway, but then he changed his mind. The little boat was facing north when he first unfurled the sail, but after a moment’s hesitation, he felt it would be good to see his home island just one last time. There was a part of his mind which told him that he would also, perhaps, have an opportunity to say farewell to his wife.
Isok set off and soon was skimming through the waves towards the sand bar, where he turned west and south, through the gap between the Trathen and the island, and along the coast with St Sampson ahead.
That was where he saw the long, low raider turning up into the broad waters from the other side of Ennor.
Isok felt his mouth drop open. This was a strange vessel for these parts. His first thought was that it was a swift ship for the Prior, but then he realised that it wasn’t heading for the priory’s harbour, up at the north-west of St Nicholas. This ship was racing into the beach which joined St Sampson and St Nicholas. Sure enough, soon the great ship was in the shallows, and as her keel grated on sand, the men dropped from her sides, swords, axes, daggers and clubs in their hands. One man, a great bearded fellow with blue-black hair in the sun, and a certain stiffness in his posture, had to be helped down a ladder, his arm in a sling, and then they started off up the roadway towards the priory.
Isok watched them as they went but his hands were already pulling on the ropes and pushing at the tiller. Before many minutes were passed, he was returning at speed the way he had come.
Baldwin was unimpressed by the new gather-reeve. ‘Walerand, I should like to ask you a couple of things, if your master does not object?’
Seeing Ranulph nod his assent, Baldwin continued, ‘On the night of Robert’s death, where were you?’
‘At the castle. There were many there who can swear to it.’
‘All the afternoon?’
‘Almost.’
‘You found Robert. Why was he there, do you think?’
‘Waiting for his slut. She was going to meet him, I suppose.’
‘Without his boots?’ Simon said. He remembered the inquest’s conclusion that Robert had removed his own boots before he was killed.
‘To get into the boat?’ Walerand guessed, and shrugged. ‘What else would he do?’
‘Perhaps walk? There are ways, hidden beneath the sea.’
William started and gave Baldwin an accusing stare.
Baldwin ignored him. William wanted to keep the pathway a secret, and so far as Baldwin was concerned, it was. He had not hinted at the actual direction, and it would take a man without a guide a long time to learn the location of it. Not that Baldwin cared – he wanted to learn the truth about the murder of Robert, and that overrode all other considerations. ‘Well?’
Walerand’s expression of horror and revulsion were too genuine for Baldwin to doubt him. ‘What? Walking through the sea? No one would do that! You’d have to be mad. And at night? Ugh! You’re off your head, you are!’
‘I did it myself last evening.’
Walerand shivered at the thought. The strands of icy weeds clutching at bare feet like the fingers of corpses, the nibbles from creatures he couldn’t imagine, and then, perhaps, the suck of a giant monster – the inevitable pull to a water
y death. The mere concept was stomach-churning.
‘It’s only the damn sea, man!’ Ranulph grated. ‘What is the matter with you?’
It was at this point that Simon, who happened to be facing the sea, saw Isok’s boat. It was heading towards the men on the beach, and Simon thought he was coming a little too close. The vessel was under what looked like full sail.
‘Oh my God. Is he …?’
Isok’s boat slammed into the sands. The sail shook like a tablecloth being beaten as the mast almost snapped, and the boat rocked about her keel, gradually tottering over on her side.
Before she had settled, Isok was bounding up the beach. David turned to see him running, and his hand went to his dagger, thinking that the poor fellow was deranged after the decision of the Prior; he thought Isok might be trying to kill Cryspyn, and he half-drew his knife.
‘Prior! I have seen them! Pirates, and they’ve gone to the priory to sack the place!’
‘Oh, my Christ in Heaven,’ Simon moaned. ‘I sent Hamo up there for his safety! What if he’s—’
‘How many were there, Isok?’ rasped Baldwin.
‘About twenty-five, I think.’
‘Their leader – was he a thick-set, black-bearded man?’
‘Yes, there was one like that. He looked as though he was in pain. Had an arm in a sling.’
‘I am thankful at least for that,’ Baldwin said, remembering how his sword had slipped into the man. ‘Ranulph, David, we must arrange our men – quickly, before the pirates can escape.’
‘Come on!’ Simon said. He was already drawing away.
‘Do whatever you can to protect my priory,’ Cryspyn said. He was pulling at his bottom lip as the pain in his belly grew once more. It was typical of these damned islands! All in one day he had had to listen to a divorce case, seen his neighbour attempt an invasion, and now his seat was attacked by sea-raiders. Could he never find a moment’s peace in this land?
‘We will! Wait, Simon,’ Baldwin said. ‘We need to ensure the best disposition of our men. Ranulph, please take your men back to your ship and get them on board. Isok, where exactly is the pirates’ ship?’
The Outlaws of Ennor: (Knights Templar 16) Page 37