The Awful Secret

by Bernard Knight

  ‘To Hell with them! I’ll not waste my breath. But did they seriously think that a handful of men-at-arms could drive me from my rightful honour, granted to my kinsmen back in ’fifty four?’

  ‘The soldiers are not there to aid the Templar’s claim, de Marisco,’ replied John. ‘The sheriff is down there also and we are seeking pirates who have taken ships along this coast and murdered the crew of one recently. Your name has been mentioned more than once in such activities.’

  The lord of Lundy burst out laughing. ‘Pirates! The damned sea is swarming with them. Every third vessel in these waters pillages and kills when they think the pickings are good enough.’ He swept an arm expansively around the horizon. ‘From here I have seen two different pirates competing for the same victim, they are so thick in the water – Turks, Moors, Irish, Welsh and Bretons, to say nothing of our local villains!’

  ‘Which includes you, I take it?’ suggested de Wolfe, with reluctant admiration for Marisco’s openness.

  The island chief leered at him. ‘I’ll say nothing that one day might be used against me, Crowner. But tell me of this particular crime you are investigating. Why come to me as a suspect?’

  De Wolfe related the tale of the capture and wrecking of the Saint Isan, and the inquest on the corpse found on board. ‘The survivor says a galley with six oars a side was responsible, similar to those two drawn up on your beach down there.’

  ‘God’s teeth, de Wolfe, there are hundreds of boats like that, especially amongst folk with a fondness for piracy. They can be rowed against the wind to catch a sluggish merchantman. But we’ve not used those in many weeks – in fact, one is holed, having run against Mouse Rock, which stove in a few planks.’

  ‘You may say that, but how do I know it’s true?’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘You have two galleys on your beach, the whole of Devon alleges Lundy is a nest of pirates and you have not denied it.’

  De Marisco coloured with rising anger. ‘I don’t give a damn what you think, Crowner! Are you going to cart me off to Bideford in chains to await trial, eh? Have a care! You are here only on sufferance because of this priest.’

  De Wolfe stepped forward a pace and the two men each side of de Marisco put their hands on their sword hilts in a warning gesture. ‘If we are bandying questions, are you threatening the life of King Richard’s coroner in this county? I have already pointed out to your man Robert that Lundy is no sovereign state. It is part of England and you hold your bleak island from the Crown. Deny that or threaten the king’s representatives and you make yourself a traitor, de Marisco.’

  The two big men eyed each other aggressively but de Marisco was not one to back down. ‘Hold my island, you say! Yes, until old King Henry granted my estate to those self-righteous men who carry the red cross on their breasts. What have they to do with an English island? Let them stay in Palestine where they belong. They’ll not throw me from my birthright, just to add to their possessions – I’ll die first!’ he added.

  De Wolfe, who secretly had sympathy with his views, shrugged. ‘That’s none of my business, but the time will come when London or Winchester will send an army against you that can’t be repulsed by one trebuchet and a handful of ragged soldiers. In the meantime, are you denying that one of your galleys took the Saint Isan and slew most of its crew?’

  De Marisco looked at his thin henchman, Robert, who shook his head emphatically. ‘We made no such attack then, I swear to it.’

  De Wolfe noted the word ‘then’, but the man sounded sincere about not having taken that particular ship.

  ‘You have your answer, Crowner. That’s all I have to say to you, so look elsewhere for your culprits. Any port from Tunis to Dublin may harbour them, so I wish you joy of it!’

  With that de Marisco turned and marched back to his rocky stronghold on the cliff. There was nothing else to be gained, so John, Gwyn and the silent Cosimo, who seemed slightly amused by the whole episode, followed their guards back down to the beach. The ragged army of de Marisco watched them with curiosity as they refloated the curragh and Gwyn rowed them back to the knarr, still anchored outside the range of the trebuchet.

  On board, de Wolfe reported the futile visit to the sheriff and the other knights. De Grenville laughed cynically when the coroner described de Marisco’s attitude. ‘Typical of the arrogant bastard! He sits on this great rock and defies the world to do anything about him.’

  When the three Templars heard de Wolfe describe the lord of Lundy’s contemptuous dismissal of their claim to the island, their determination to do something about it was strengthened, especially in de Falaise, who seemed almost apoplectic with fury at the defiance to their great Order by an insignificant tenant on a remote island.

  Roland de Ver turned in exasperation to the shipmaster. ‘Is there no other landing place further along the coast where we can avoid this damned trebuchet?’ he demanded.

  ‘There are several poor beaches along this east side of the island, but they are more difficult and dangerous – and I don’t like the look of the weather.’

  However, after much discussion and persuasion, the two ship-masters hauled up their anchor stones and moved further out to sea, watched intently by the crowd on the shore who again began yelling and waving in triumph at the apparent retreat of authority. When the two knarrs turned north and began to sail up the coast, the defenders tracked them along the shore, but because of the cliffs they had to climb almost to the top to find a path. A mile further on, the ships again came in closer and another stretch of pebbles, just past a small waterfall, was visible under the cliffs. Already a few of de Marisco’s men had arrived, but most were still scrambling along the steep paths towards them.

  ‘Get in as close as you can, master,’ commanded the leader of the Templars and, reluctantly, the two knarrs came within a hundred paces of the beach before dropping anchor.

  The ship-master kept looking up, and though the cliffs obscured the western horizon, the long band of cloud that had been so distant earlier on was now visible across the sky, and the wind had dropped to an ominous calm. It was early afternoon: the tide had turned from its six-hour ebb and was rising again.

  ‘You could get the bows right against the beach now,’ suggested Gwyn. ‘A pair of sweeps would keep them nose-on to the shore whilst the troops jumped into the shallows.’

  Again, the masters of the two vessels protested, mainly because they feared damaging the hulls on the stones, but also because of a sudden change in the weather.

  Roland de Ver assuaged their fears with promises of more money, and the first knarr moved towards the shore, its bows crowded with men, the Templar knights crouching against the stem-post, shields up and swords in hand. In the other boat, Richard de Grenville led his own men, together with Ralph Morin and the rest of the Exeter soldiers. On the beach itself, a score of defenders were spread out thinly, looking rather hesitant as these formidable raiders in their impressive armour came towards them.

  As the keel of the first ship crunched on to the pebbles, the Templars slid over the bulwarks into thigh-deep water and stumbled up the beach, followed by their sergeants and a dozen men-at-arms. A few spears were thrown at them, but they were deflected harmlessly by the shields of the experienced warriors. De Wolfe and Gwyn were behind the press of men in the bow, waiting to get ashore. Alongside them was the sheriff, looking decidedly unhappy as he spoke to his brother-in-law. ‘Are we going to get ourselves killed for a few acres of barren Templar land?’ he asked.

  De Wolfe gave him a twisted grin. ‘Yes, why not? A pity not to use that nice new armour of yours, Richard. Come on!’

  He put his legs over the side and dropped into the cold water, a low wave gliding past to soak him up to the waist. Gwyn splashed beside him and, with a roar, waded happily through the surf, waving his sword in the air. Reluctantly, the sheriff followed them and they stumbled up the bank of stones.

  Immediately, the line of Lundy men congealed into several groups, as hand-to-hand fighting began. The defen
ders had the advantage, as they were higher up the bank and the wet attackers were not too steady on their feet until they got out of the water, the pebbles rolling and sliding under their feet.

  Yelling and clashing of steel began in earnest, and although the Templars and Gabriel were taking the brunt of the conflict, de Wolfe and Gwyn were soon parrying and thrusting at a couple of de Marisco’s men. The coroner received a heavy blow on his shoulder, which dented one of the steel plates on his cuirass, but he returned it with such violent force to the side of his assailant’s head that the man’s helmet flew off and he dropped, as if poleaxed, on to the beach.

  In the second’s respite that this allowed him, de Wolfe saw that many more men were clambering down the cliff paths and that before long the invaders would be well outnumbered. To his left, he saw Gwyn and the sheriff fighting side by side and, grudgingly, he had time to admit that de Revelle’s reluctance to expose himself to danger seemed to have worn off.

  Though the islanders were losing ground as the newcomers fought their way out of the surf, the situation suddenly took a turn for the worse. A wave bigger than usual caught the second knarr and washed it broadside to the beach, momentarily heeling it over. The soldiers who were clambering over the bow at that moment were pitched into the surf and several sank under the weight of their chain-mail. Their comrades rescued them and none was drowned, but the errant wave turned out to be the first of many and almost immediately the two ship-masters yelled and pointed up at the darkening sky. A sudden squall whistled across the sea and, even under bare masts, the ships began rocking with the gusts of wind. The previously placid sea was already chopping up, and further out, the waves were crested with white horses.

  Gwyn was the first to acknowledge the danger. ‘We must get off at once! Those vessels cannot stay there – they’ll be wrecked!’ he roared at his master. De Wolfe took a swing at a ruffian who was waving a mace at him and cut the fellow’s arm to the bone. Then he turned and knew instantly that they must retreat or be marooned.

  He ran to Roland de Ver, then to the sheriff, and with shouts and gesticulations made them realise the situation. The Templars bellowed orders at the men-at-arms and formed a rearguard while everyone retreated to the knarrs, clustering around the bows. Some clambered aboard, while others pushed them off the pebbles, as the succession of waves and the rising tide got them afloat. As de Wolfe backed down the slope behind the fighting Templars, he stumbled over the groaning body of the man he had felled earlier. On a sudden impulse, he motioned to Gwyn and they tipped the inert islander unceremoniously over the ships’ side, before clambering in themselves.

  The Templars, in a tight semi-circle around the bow, made a last slashing attack on their adversaries, felling two and driving the rest far enough back to allow them to get aboard. They were helped in by willing hands, as the knarr slid into deeper water, pulled by four men on the long sweep oars. De Wolfe glanced across at the other boat and saw the last of their men being hauled aboard.

  As the vessels were backed off the beach, the defenders hurled insults and a few stones, but within minutes the knarrs were well out, their sails hoisted. The wind was now gusting hard and the sky was dark grey, with spots of rain beginning to fall. As they looked back, they saw several bodies lying on the beach and a few men being carried or helped to their feet by comrades.

  ‘What a pitiful fiasco! We should all be ashamed of ourselves,’ snarled de Falaise, rubbing angrily a deep cut on his cheek where he had been hit with a ball-mace.

  ‘God obviously did not wish you to conquer this time,’ said Abbot Cosimo, who with his two had remained on board and watched the jousting with apparent amusement.

  ‘But for this sudden storm we could have won the day,’ snapped Roland de Ver, looking ruefully at a slash across his white surcoat that almost cut the red cross in half.

  ‘We were fortunate that we left when we did,’ said the sheriff. ‘There was a legion of men coming down that path, who would have eventually outnumbered us two to one.’

  ‘Templars are supposed to fight on even at three to one,’ snapped Godfrey Capra. ‘It is a disgrace to leave the field at less than those odds.’

  De Wolfe looked back at the shore as the knarrs began to roll and pitch as they left the shelter of the cliffs. ‘Have we lost any men, Ralph?’ he asked the castle constable.

  ‘Two dead and left behind, and three with wounds but none serious. We must have felled a few of theirs, but I didn’t have time to count them.’

  Gwyn walked back from the bow, rock-steady on the swaying deck. ‘What about this fellow we threw aboard? I can’t get any sense out of him yet. He’s got a bruise on his head the size of an onion where you hit him.’

  The coroner had forgotten him. ‘We’ll throw him into de Grenville’s cells when we get back to Bideford. Maybe he can tell us something useful, if he survives.’

  He held on tightly to the rough wooden rail, his stomach telling him that the sooner this trip was over the better.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  In which Crowner John rides to Exmoor

  However else fate had been against them that day, in the matter of wind it was kind. The southerly breeze of the morning turned into a westerly blow when the horizon-wide cloudbank rolled in. The wind, together with the flood tide, gave them a fast if uncomfortable passage back to Bideford Bay, the spray constantly whipping across the decks and the knarrs pitching like unbroken horses as they dug their blunt bows into the whitened waves.

  It was almost dark when they reached the entrance to the estuary and it took all the considerable skills of the ship-masters to get them safely into the channel, but the relief of entering calmer water caused a cheer to be raised amongst the cold and sodden warriors. They made passage around Appledore and up the Torridge in the dark, though the diffuse moonlight above the clouds and a few feeble lights from dwellings on either riverbank was enough to allow the shipmen to feel their way back to their berth against Bideford bridge.

  At de Grenville’s castle, his steward and servants raced around banking up fires to dry out their men-at-arms and to prepare hot food. Within a couple of hours, everyone had settled back to drink ale and spin ever-improving yarns about the day’s events.

  In the hall, afterwards, they all sat around a roaring fire set in a hearth in the middle of the floor, the smoke making eyes stream and lungs cough, but the blessed warmth was more than worth it, after the rigours of the ocean.

  De Wolfe sat on a bench next to Richard de Grenville. After a time his mind wandered from the tale-telling and boasting to wonder what he was doing there. He was no further towards spotting either the killer of Gilbert de Ridefort or the origin of the pirates that had killed all but one of the crew of the Saint Isan. He ran through the possible suspects for the Templar’s murder. Of the potential killers, he would have liked to make the abbot the prime suspect, perhaps using one of his acolytes for the deed – he doubted that Cosimo was capable of wielding the necessary weapons. Failing him, he favoured Brian de Falaise, as the most aggressive and short-tempered of the Templars, always looking for real or imagined insults. But then he wondered if the type of injuries inflicted on de Ridefort was not too subtle for the blunt de Falaise, and his musings turned to either the more enigmatic Godfrey Capra – or the leader, Roland de Ver. Perhaps the fatal head injury could have come from someone like de Falaise, but the biblical allusion of the wounds in the side and hands may have been added, perhaps even after death, by either of the other knights. Somehow, he did not consider any of the Templar sergeants as candidates, although logically there was no reason why they should not have taken part in the killing.

  He shrugged off the profitless grinding of the problem in his mind and drank the last of his quart of cider. Then he realised that de Grenville was asking him something.

  ‘That fellow you brought back with us, the one we threw into my gaol in the gatehouse. What are we to do with him? Do you want to take him back to Exeter?’

  ‘No. Ri
chard de Revelle would hang him the day he arrived there. I have no proof that he has done any wrong, save fight for his lord as he was ordered.’

  ‘That surely is enough to hang him! He resisted the forces of the law on the soil of Devon – even against the county sheriff and the coroner. He tried to kill you – your shoulder plate still bears the mark.’

  John held out his tankard to a passing servant for a refill. ‘I suppose so, though I bear him no ill-will for that. It was in fair fight and I certainly did him more damage when I clouted him across the head than he did me.’

  ‘So why did you bring him back?’

  ‘I suppose it was an impulse – I had some vague idea of getting information from him about Lundy.’

  The amiable lord of Bideford got up and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I must stay and entertain my guests here, but you are welcome to see if you can get anything from him.’

  A little later, the coroner sought out Gwyn, who was sitting around a similar fire in the bailey, drinking and telling tales with Gabriel and his men-at-arms. They went to the cells, two small, foul-smelling rooms opposite the guardroom. The night guard brought a tallow dip and unlocked a door in its flickering light. On the dirty straw inside, the man from Lundy was slumped against the wall, conscious but holding his head and groaning. A filthy bucket was the only furniture, but half a loaf and a jar of water stood untouched just inside the door. He lifted his head as they entered, screwing up his eyes at the poor light they carried. He was in about his thirtieth year, his weatherbeaten face suggesting he spent much of his time at sea. ‘Have you come to hang me?’ he muttered thickly, in a tone that suggested he cared little if they had. His bloodshot eyes focused on the coroner, and he recognised him as the man he had struck with his sword just before his memory failed.

  ‘You may surely hang, fellow,’ said de Wolfe, ‘but I have no great desire to see you on the gallows, so it depends on whether you have anything useful to tell us.’