The Edge of the Blade

by The Edge of the Blade (retail) (epub)

  ‘Your health, Lord Falkan.’

  ‘My Lord Grevel.’

  ‘Tell me, are you camped along there on the beach? Damned cesspit of a place. But what else can one expect, with half the nations of Europe represented? Someone should have taken charge of things.’

  ‘We’ll survive it till tomorrow,’ Falkan told him.

  ‘Then you’ve passage aboard ship to Marseilles? Glad to hear it, my lord. I too, on the Hawksbill. And your craft?’

  ‘The Gros Ventre. Comparing the names, Lord Grevel, I’d say you’ll outstrip us before we’re off Barcelona.’ Gazing at the man, he thought, indeed he does remind me of someone. But not from Suffolk. Nearer by.

  ‘I wonder,’ Grevel murmured. ‘It might not yet be too late to get you transferred. How many are you?’

  Falkan was about to reply, when a second indistinct worry cudgelled his brain. Something about Roger Grevel’s way of speaking? No, not really that. More his tone of voice, his – yes, of course! His accent.

  ‘I asked how many there are in your party, Lord Falkan. Surely you’re not so encumbered as to prevent us fitting you in aboard the Hawksbill?’

  Ignoring the question, Baynard said, ‘This seigneurie of yours, Lord Grevel. Is it a family holding, or an honour you were granted? I know little of Suffolk, though I’d have guessed you to be from my own part of the country.’

  Roger Grevel smiled, his hands raised to his shoulders in surrender. ‘I am so, Lord Falkan. A proud-born Cornishman, like you. Though more to the south, from the coast, from Mevagissey. Sent across to Suffolk when I was, what, twelve or thereabouts. But with an accent that sticks like a burr at the back of my throat.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Baynard said calmly, ‘the things that stay with us.’

  But far more interesting was that Roger Grevel should have agreed they were from the same part of England, pin-pointing the much-travelled Falkan – and Tremellion – as Cornish. As for his claim that he came from Mevagissey, he was citing a place far away from the castle. If the last was true, he would not have been aware of Tremellion’s existence. One small fortress among many? Lost amid the forests and moorlands of the west? Yet its name and position known to a twelve-year-old child?

  There were flaws in Grevel’s story. He’d been too accurate in his placing of the castle. Too eager to learn where Baynard’s companions were camped. Too willing to offer passage aboard the Hawksbill. Too pressing in his desire to know the extent of Falkan’s party, the name of Tremellion’s ship.

  But it’s more than that. More than just these inconclusive suspicions. Elusive though it is, he reminds me of someone, resembles a man with whom I’ve had dealings… But in God’s name when? And as a friend, or an enemy?

  Roger Grevel said, ‘Your scowl would melt armour, Lord Falkan. Can your burden be as onerous as that?’ Then he topped Baynard’s glass, rested his arms on the table and said cheerfully, ‘Tell me where you are on the beach and I’ll send a man to bring your companions into town. I’ve paid the rent on a building here. Noisy, but clear of the stink. So why don’t you lodge with us tonight, then we’ll sail tomorrow on the Hawksbill. A damn good vessel, the Hawksbill. Be there in no time.’

  Glancing beyond Grevel’s shoulder, Baynard said idly, ‘With your clear dislike of foreigners, my lord, I don’t suppose you’re cognizant of Spanish.’

  ‘Speak their language? I’d let the devil damn me first!’

  ‘A pity, because we’re about to be joined by a much respected member of my band.’ He reached to his left, dragged an empty chair to the table and signalled a brief greeting to Enrique, returning from family discourse.

  ‘The devil notwithstanding,’ Falkan said, ‘you will allow me to introduce you to Señor Enrique de Vaca, Knight of the Order of Santiago, otherwise known as the Order of St James of the Sword.’

  ‘A member of your band?’ Grevel muttered. ‘I thought we’d agreed there were three of you. No mention was made of a Spaniard.’

  Indeed not, Baynard thought. Though nor did I ever inform you we were three. So where did you learn that, I wonder, along with all the rest?

  Storing his suspicions, he introduced Roger Grevel, Knight of Suffolk. Enrique bowed in formal greeting, Grevel nodding from his chair.

  ‘You should know,’ Falkan said, ‘the Knights of Santiago have been our shield in difficult times. I count on their protection, here in Spain.’ Then he turned to Enrique, grinned as if to repeat what he’d said, and told his friend in Spanish, ‘This man is of my country, yet not, I think, to be trusted. I suspect him, though without foundation.’

  Enrique played the game perfectly, lifting his head and laughing at the unspoken pleasantry. ‘Tell him you’re protected by the brethren, here on the coast.’

  Baynard slapped the table, as if in appreciation of de Vaca’s rejoinder. ‘I have already told him. And your presence confirms it.’

  ‘You ignore me in this,’ Grevel snapped. ‘You leave me aside, my Lord Falkan.’

  ‘Not at all, my Lord Grevel. I apologize if it seems so. A family joke on de Vaca’s part. Really no more than that.’

  ‘Maybe so, but enough for my tastes. I’d supposed to invite just the three of you aboard the Hawksbill, not this one and God knows how many others you use as your shield. Your knowledge of their dog-growl excludes me, Tremellion, so I’ll wish you fair wind, and meet up with you again in Marseilles.’

  He came to his feet, ignored Enrique, dipped his head at Baynard. Then he barged his way the length of the posada, leaving the Spaniard to gaze at his friend, curious to learn why they’d played their deceitful game.

  But Baynard Falkan was unable to tell him. In truth, he was unable to explain to himself why this meeting with a fellow Crusader left him anxious, alert to a trap. If only he could piece it together… The man’s accent… His probing questions… His knowledge of the whereabouts of Tremellion…

  And his resemblance to someone who stalked the fringe of Falkan’s mind.

  * * *

  The supplies delivered to the camp among the dunes, Baynard arranged for the men to take turns on watch. He himself stayed on guard until their sheltered candle had burned to mark an hour beyond midnight. Quillon relieved him and he attempted to sleep, though failed to do so, twisting on the single oiled sheet that served as his mattress.

  Faces appeared to him, names that rapped to be heard. He saw his father alive, imagined the scene of his murder, ground his teeth as Ranulf came toward him, the child Baynard dodging to evade his brother’s brutality. Other faces, some of them shadowed; names that wailed in echo from the past; figures and figments, phantoms that taunted his memory.

  There was one brief moment when he knew it, knew for certain the link between Roger Grevel, claimant of a seigneurie in Suffolk and – and then fatigue suppressed him and he turned aside, recognition drifting beyond his grasp.

  Part Three

  The Width of the Water

  Chapter Sixteen

  They did not see the Englishman again in Tarragona. Trumpets were sounded an hour before dawn, smouldering braziers heaped with dry wood, torches lighted on the beach and along the length of the quay. One by one the Crusader vessels were towed into port, horses and men taken aboard, then their single square sails unfurled. By the time the Gros Ventre had been manoeuvred into place for the final loading, the other eight ships were already clear of the harbour. It seemed that Falkan’s remark to Grevel had been right; the Hawksbill, along with the rest of the fleet, would quickly outstrip the lumbering transport, Big Belly.

  The young knight presented the coloured spills to the captain, a worry-worn man named John Burywell. ‘Once we’re out there with the wind,’ Baynard asked, ‘what chance of our catching the fleet?’

  ‘We might,’ the captain told him, ‘if they anchored from now till noon. If their boards sprang apart below the water, then we might. If they ran on the rocks—’

  ‘You sound less than optimistic, Captain Burywell. What are you carrying to mak
e you so mournful? Tombs for the dead?’ He sensed none of Gregorius Bigorre’s forceful manner in John Burywell. A man denied advancement, Baynard supposed. Ambitions thwarted, he’d first become bitter, exhausted his feelings of injustice and was now resigned to his place near the foot of the column. An error of navigation in the past? A lack of initiative? Even, perhaps, a display of timidity in the face of the elements?

  Well, Falkan told himself, whatever the reasons, they’re none of my affair. So long as Burywell gets his ship to Marseilles—

  ‘Stuff for the blacksmiths and farriers, that’s our cargo. Anvils, a thousand or more horseshoes, nails and hammer heads, crates of saddlery, iron that’s been shaped, and bars of it that haven’t. We were overloaded even before I was told to take you aboard. Anvils! I ask you. They don’t have hammers and anvils in the East?’ He moved away, a man of maybe forty, yet his shoulders already slumped in defeat of his days.

  Falkan shrugged, praying the voyage to Marseilles would be uneventful. With the best will in the world, he could not say Captain Burywell of Romney inspired much confidence. Nor, indeed, did his ironmongery of a ship.

  * * *

  Clear of the port, an even wind bellying the sail, the Gros Ventre pitched and wallowed. Badly designed, or badly loaded – and very likely both – she treated the low-running sea as a half-blind bull might react to the taunts of children, butting the waves, plunging clumsily at the merest flecks of spray.

  Guthric and Quillon suffered as they’d suffered aboard the Gossamer, though Enrique de Vaca sought out his friend to tell him, ‘Never in my life have I been further from dry land than halfway between the banks of a shallow river. Not once in a rowboat. And as for a craft like this! But you see how well I feel? Eating bread. Drinking wine. I am clearly not like your companions, eh, Halcón? Not for de Vaca the sickness of the sea!’

  Pleased to find his friend so confident, Baynard told him he was one of the fortunate few. Then thoughtlessly he added, ‘Anyone who’s not seasick and can swim, widens the horizons of his world. And how much faster we can travel, in a direct line aboard ship to—’

  ‘Swim? You say it’s important to swim?’

  Too late to make light of it, Baynard faltered, ‘Well. You know. If the vessel should sink. Be wrecked in a storm. Or if, for example – it’s unlikely – but suppose you were washed from the deck. You would then be forced to, as I mentioned, swim.’

  Enrique thrust the half-eaten lump of bread, the half-empty flask of wine at his confrère, veered away, glanced apprehensively at the sea, then hurried to join the constable and safeguard at the rail.

  Falkan settled himself against a pile of net-covered kegs. The Gros Ventre continued to lift and lurch beneath him. He gazed at the coastline to the west, chewing and sipping Enrique’s unfinished meal.

  When they reached Marseilles, he decided, he’d deliver Sir Geoffrey’s money to King Richard. Then he’d see Guthric and Quillon enpursed for a few days of wine and women and whatever else they wished. And he’d take Enrique to a nearby part of the coast, encourage him to strip off his armour and venture out on the rocks. And there he’d teach him to swim. One way or another.

  * * *

  The storeship was some four hours north-east of Tarragona when the lookout on the foredeck struck the gong. Three resonant blows with the leather-wrapped stick, a pause, then three again. The general. The crew to their stations. Captain John Burywell summoned to the bows.

  Falkan went forward to join him, the men peering ahead at a plume of smoke, bent low by the wind, though clearly rising from the stern of a ship in distress. Her sail was furled, the smoke seeming to blanket the entire length of the craft.

  ‘One of ours,’ Burywell muttered. ‘A fire in the hold. Maybe cooking oil caught alight. We’ll go inshore of her. That way, if she sparks us too, we can steer unimpeded to the coast.’

  Baynard glanced at him, approving his decision. A shame the man was so mournful, so beaten down. Whatever it was that had damned his career, it was surely not timidity.

  Though they weren’t there yet.

  The Gros Ventre trudged closer to the stranded, smoke-strewn vessel. She was drifting with the current, though happily northward, parallel to the coast. With room enough for her rescuer to come alongside.

  Whey-faced, and clutching at the ratlines, Quillon and Guthric struggled to join their master in the bows. Burywell yelled at his crew to hold their stations, then hurried aft to tell the steersman to angle to port, guiding the ship between the beleaguered craft and the shore.

  Seen first from a long way off, the endangered vessel now loomed ahead of them, the transport seeming to accelerate as she bullied her way to help. A few moments more and they’d be up with their fellow Crusaders… Within hailing distance… Pitching and rolling alongside the stricken ship… Endeavouring to bring them together, fight the fire, or evacuate those aboard.

  And yet there was something about it all that left Baynard Falkan uneasy. Something about the smoke that poured from the afterdeck, to be tipped ahead by the wind.

  It did not increase in intensity, this smoke. Nor did it diminish.

  It was not flagged into gusts, into separate clouds.

  It was not interfered with at all, this billowing smoke, though surely, if the fire was being fought—

  The sturdy bow of the transport was within forty feet of the pluming vessel when the sharp-eyed Quillon said, ‘Small world, eh, m’lord?’

  * * *

  Preoccupied with the progress of the Gros Ventre, Baynard thought to ignore Quillon’s comment. All he allowed the safeguard was a grunt. Yet the wordless acknowledgement was enough to elicit, ‘Small world, I said. De Vallen bein’ ’ere.’

  The Knight of Tremellion spun around. He saw the long-haired young Cornishman stabbing a finger; saw a face beyond him, there on the stern-deck of the smoke-wreathed ship. The face of Roger Grevel.

  But no, not Grevel at all. Nor Justin de Vallen, the man Falkan had arrested in the mill-house of Tresset’s linn. But close enough for Quillon to think so, bringing the name to the surface, explaining the resemblance – and the trap!

  The so-called Roger Grevel was the image of de Vallen. His twin perhaps. At the very least his brother. And sent by Ranulf Falkan to waylay Baynard, snatch back the money, kill those who would see it safe to the coffers.

  But for the presence of Enrique de Vaca, the attack would have taken place among the dunes above the beach of Tarragona. Or in the rented house in the town. But denied his chance, de Vallen’s kin had sprung his trap out here, the Gros Ventre lured to the aid of the Hawksbill, the fire no more than a fiction, the ship’s crew crouched in hiding, ready to strike.

  * * *

  Yelling at Guthric and Quillon to lie flat, Falkan ran as if fleeing from the bows. He shouldered his way past the sailors, used the swing of his forearm to brush Burywell aside, then lifted the steersman bodily, tossing him into the scuppers of the ship.

  The craft were now less than twenty feet apart, the Gros Ventre slowing, her sturdy frame settling low in the water. There was little forward movement left in the ship, though maybe enough, God willing, enough for this…

  He urged the tiller-bar of the steerboard to port, heaved on it, braced himself against it, cursed and strained as the iron-strapped rudder nudged the weight of the sea.

  Ten feet now and the transport was turning, though with all the half-blind clumsiness of the bull.

  Falkan called urgently to the man he’d brushed aside. ‘It’s not what you think! They’re not in distress! They’re laid here to seize us, storm aboard and kill everyone they find! Get here and help me, damn you, else I swear to you we’re finished!’

  Burywell blinked, swung his head in the direction of the smoking vessel, sensed at last that something was odd about it, the flattened cloud too regular for a fire.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, help me! We’re on them! Help me now!’

  Burywell made his decision, stumbled forward, added his weight to
the knight’s. The men heard their muscles crack as they pressed against the tiller-bar, the steerboard a shuddering spade below the waves.

  Baynard gasped, ‘The crew – alert them – tell them we’re in danger of attack! Quick, or we’re lost, I promise you! They must know we’re hauling east!’

  Burywell shouted, the vessels close to touching, the rest of it lost in a grinding extension of sound.

  * * *

  Obedient to their master, the crew of the Gros Ventre roared defiance at those aboard the Hawksbill. Crouched in the bows, Guthric drew an axe from the pouch on his belt. Quillon a knife. Enrique, dropping beside them, slid a thin iron bar from a sack he’d wrenched from the stores. Surprised by Burywell’s shout, the men were uncertain what more they could do. But God help anyone who dared attack them. The first hand to grip the rail of the transport, and Guthric would cut it cleanly at the wrist. The first neck to appear and Quillon would skewer it. The first body, and Enrique de Vaca would transfix it with a raw-tipped iron bar.

  Men were now visible on the stern deck of the Hawksbill, snarling bloody murder at those they’d intended to deceive. And all the while the Gros Ventre was turning, the distance well measured, the strengthened bow-strake ripping away the steerboard of de Vallen’s ship, the transport then drifting to smash the tiller-bar to firewood with the weight of its overlapped hull.

  Quillon whooped in triumph, his victorious yell cut short as grappling hooks tumbled on deck, then were jerked back, catching at the rail. Guthric chopped at the ropes with his axe, the safeguard slicing with his knife. Braced upright behind them, the Knight of Santiago hurled the untrimmed bars like javelins, adding to the chaos of noise with his full-throated bellow, ‘Por Dios! Por Santiago! Por la Cruz!’