The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21) (15 page)

He only hoped that he was not going to learn that the bishop’s nephew was dead. Bernard was a youngish man, Bishop Walter had said, with dark hair, narrow features, prominent upper front teeth, and grey eyes. It should be easy enough to find a man like that, Baldwin told himself, and settled back more comfortably. He would sleep in here
tonight, and let the morrow take care of itself.

Simon woke with a head that thumped painfully.

In his life he had woken to hangovers of such variety that he could almost class them. There were those of his youth when, as soon as he had lain in his bed, he had known, by the spinning of the ceiling, that he would feel very poorly unless he was sick before sleep. Then there were the scrumpy mornings, after a bout of cider-drinking, when his blood seemed to have turned to acid, and his head was all but immobilised. After an evening with strong red wines, he felt as though someone had slugged him at the back of the neck with a leather cosh and then there were the days when he had to protect his head from the painful explosions of noise caused by a spider hurtling across a wall.

To this connoisseur of suffering, none of these could stand even a moderate comparison with the state of his head this morning.

‘Thought you were never going to wake!’ Sir Richard boomed from the corner, and Simon winced: the bellow appeared to make his entire skull vibrate. Reluctantly he opened his eyes and looked about him. For some reason he evidently had not made it to his bed. He was spread out precariously over his long bench, an arm over his breast, the other dangling. It remained asleep as he tried to sit up, racking his brain for a memory of the previous evening.

They had started back at an inn called simply the Bush, drinking some heavy ales brewed by the innkeeper’s daughter. After that they had migrated to a powerful red Guyennois wine, and Simon would still have been fine, had
the innkeeper not mentioned to Sir Richard that he had some burned wine.

Simon could still taste the stuff. The first sip was foul, like trying to drink a thin, but acrid and oily wine; but the second sip was better, the third not unpleasant, and the fourth was really quite palatable. It was a most peculiar drink, and made Simon feel much bolder, as though he was suddenly capable of feats of courage and endurance.

They had drunk a deal of it.

‘Ah! Morning, Bailiff!’ Sir Richard stood in the middle of his parlour gazing down at the hearth. ‘Did I tell you the one about the man proposing marriage to a young bint? He spoke to her father, and, trying to check her credentials, as it were, said, had she been chaste? “Surely,” said her father. “So – she’s got no children?” the man said. The father smiled a little at that. “She has had none?” the man repeated, and the father shook his head. “No. Nowt but a very small one, sir!” Eh? Haha! Where’s your servant, Bailiff? I can’t see him anywhere, and we need to have our breakfast. We can’t be late for the two inquests, can we? Where does your fellow sleep? Is he at the back?’

‘Next door,’ Simon croaked. In the night all moisture from his mouth had fled and now his tongue clacked drily like a board of wood. The Coroner looked as fresh as a bluebell in spring. Simon assumed he had courteously offered the man his bed. Or more likely, Simon had been unable to climb the steep staircase.

‘Ah! I’ll find the lazy scoundrel. Probably asleep, if I know anything about such lads. He’ll be …’

Mercifully his voice faded and then disappeared as he
marched through the little building, and Simon felt only relief as he heard the door slam. He lay back again and closed his eyes, shivering gently, praying that the Coroner might die on his way and that Simon could sleep until the body was discovered.

‘O
PEN THIS DOOR
!’

Simon’s eyes snapped open, giving him the vague feeling that the top of his head was unscrewing. With appalled expectation, he waited. There was a squeaking, which he recognised as the door to his neighbour’s house, and then the bellow began again.

‘T
ELL HIM THAT THE BAILIFF AND I WILL BE IN THERE TO DRAG THE LAZY WRETCH FROM HIS BED
, M
ADAM, IF HE ISN’T OVER THERE AND COOKING OUR BREAKFAST IN THE TIME IT TAKES ME TO DRAW A QUART OF ALE AND DRINK IT
. A
ND HE WILL GET THE THRASHING HE RICHLY DESERVES IF I HAVE TO DO THAT
.’

Simon felt his belly begin to grind at the thought of his neighbour’s maid’s face. She could stew plums by looking at them, and the effect of the Coroner on her was something he preferred not to think about. Nor the effect of her cold stare on
him
the next time they met.

Baldwin was already on his mount. For once, he had slept well. Last night he had been tired enough after his riding and discussions with the bishop to fall asleep in no time at all, and he woke refreshed and ready for the completion of his journey.

It was a pleasant morning’s ride, following the River Dart down towards the sea. Once, on a journey over the moors
towards Huccaby, he had been told that the river he was crossing wandered all the way down to the sea at Dartmouth. He had never sought to verify that, but now, looking at the great estuary, he wondered whether it was true, and if so, how many other tributaries joined that little stream to make such an immense river.

The way was shaded, which was a relief, because even this early the weather was growing hot. He could feel the warmth rising from his horse, and although the land was flat here, he made many halts to let the animal slake his thirst in the river. Before he was more than a few bowshots from the town, though, the road took him up on top of the hills, away from the water itself. This land was ever hilly and criss-crossed with deep ravines that roads avoided. Up on the higher ground again, there was abundant pasture and farming land, although fewer trees.

Before anything else, Baldwin decided he would visit Simon and tell him about his mission on behalf of the bishop. If there was anything odd happening in the town, his old friend the Bailiff would be sure to know about it.

Simon dressed himself slowly and went out to the privy. After performing his morning’s routine in the little hut, he pulled his cloak about him and went to the wall at the bottom of his garden.

This was one of those perfect September mornings, the sort he had always loved on the moors. The weather had broken, and the fierce blast of the sun had abated somewhat. Now the air was fine and clear, the bushes filled with ripe berries. Simon’s little plot held some apple trees, brambles
and pears, and all were bent with the weight of fruit. He would have to get someone to come and collect it all, for there was no possibility of his idle, good-for-nothing servant managing any such thing.

Good gardeners were always a trial to find. Men liked to boast that they were good at gardening, but in truth it was mostly their women who knew about the plants. The men spent too much time at sea or in taverns to learn much about anything other than tying knots and throwing up, in Simon’s rather jaundiced view. He could do with someone out here, though. He looked casually over the wall into the garden beyond the back lane. That was tidier, and as he peered nosily, he could see a maid gathering the last of the year’s peas ready for drying.

The lane went nowhere. There was a gate at the southernmost end, but that was kept locked to bar access from draw-latches. However, the attempt at security failed because some while ago the northern gate had been broken. Simon considered it was some poor fellow last winter who was desperate for firewood. No one had mended it in the last year or so, and now all too many people used the lane as a toilet. There was a familiar stench about it now – the sour, musty smell of faeces. He scowled. In the end he’d probably pay someone to come and clear it.

For once the mists had not swept up the river to engulf the town, and the sun could shine down on the newly limewashed buildings, all painted to protect them during the winter weather to come. Standing up here, Simon could see along the line of the shore from Hardness to the north, down to the curve in the river that led to the open sea. Even up here
there was a constant thrumming on the wind, the sound of thousands of taut ropes vibrating and setting masts humming.

‘B
AILIFF
! W
HERE ARE YOU
?’

At the hoarse bellow, Simon winced, and then reluctantly turned back to his house. He only hoped that the Coroner would soon be finished here in Dartmouth.

Moses threw open the shutters to his master’s room and looked back. Master Pyckard was in a dreadful way now, with his parchment-like flesh and grey lips. His skin looked as though it had been covered in a thin layer of wax overnight, and his eyes were dulled, while his breath rattled.

‘Master?’ Moses asked gently. He edged nearer to the bed, very close to sobbing. When he first came here, it was because his father had been lost at sea. His mother was already dead, and Moses and his younger brother Danny had nowhere else to go. The only childhood memories he had were of this house, because as soon as the parish had announced that they were without parents, Pyckard had come and taken them in.

It had been the luckiest day of Moses’s life, and he would never cease praying to God for the soul of this kindly man. Paul Pyckard had rescued him and Danny from a life of poverty, misery and an early death. Both Moses and Pyckard knew it, and both knew the depth of the debt, although neither had ever referred to it. There was no need.

‘You have been a good servant, Moses. I am sorry to leave you.’

Moses felt as though his throat would burst under the
strain of unshed tears. ‘I am glad you’re happy, master.’

‘I will not live much longer. My affairs are in order.’ His face wrenched with a spasm of pain, and he collapsed. ‘Ach! God save you from such agony, Moses.’

‘Can I fetch you anything?’

‘Ale or wine, I don’t care which – but hurry!’

Moses scurried to the jug and brought it back. He held Pyckard’s favourite goblet to his mouth while the man slurped clumsily.

‘Moses, my friend, this is the worst. A man gets used to being able to pick up a drink, stab a slice of meat or wipe his own arse, but the nearer he comes to death, the more he behaves like a muling brat. I feel pathetic. I was once a man with power and authority, damn my eyes!’

‘You still are, master. You have many who love you, you have—’

‘When I have died, I want a tomb that shows what I am really like. Just a sack of bones, that’s all,’ Pyckard said without noticing his servant’s comment.

Moses bowed his head and wept, both for this man and for those other parents long lost to him and Dan.

‘Don’t cry on my account, lad,’ Pyckard said with some asperity. ‘I’ve not yet gone.’

His tone made Moses grin through his tears.

‘I wish I didn’t have to leave you alone, lad,’ Pyckard said more kindly. ‘I know you miss your brother.’

There was no one now. He had lost his mother, father, brother, and now his master. It felt as though the whole of his own life was close to ending. Moses sank his head into his hands.

‘Aye, well,’ Pyckard coughed. ‘I’m the last of my line, so perhaps I shouldn’t be sad to hear that one man grieves for me. At least you still have nephews and nieces, eh? Ach, this pain! More wine, please. Thank you!’ He rested his head a short while, staring up at the ceiling. ‘Moses, look after him. He reminds me of
her
. Will you do that for me?’

Moses said nothing, but he nodded emphatically as the tears coursed down both cheeks. Pyckard lifted his hand and patted the young man’s head absently. ‘And now, perhaps you should fetch me the priest, old friend. My son.’

‘A
LL THOSE WHO HAVE BUSINESS HERE, DRAW NEAR
!’ Sir Richard de Welles bellowed.

He stood at the front of the gathering men, arms crossed over his enormous chest, both arms partly covered by his beard, and eyed the crowd appreciatively. ‘My God, Bailiff, they may be seashore peasants, these, but they can dress well. D’you think any of ’em
aren’t
pirates?’

Simon burped, all too aware of the acid in his belly grumbling away, and tried to grin. ‘I don’t know about that, Sir Richard. They are generally law-abiding down here.’

‘That’s because they refuse to acknowledge any laws they don’t approve of,’ the Coroner muttered knowledgeably. ‘N
OW LISTEN TO ME
! C
AN YOU ALL HEAR ME AT THE BACK
?’

Simon closed his eyes and shivered as the roar died away. At that moment it would have taken little to persuade him to pull out his dagger and end the Coroner’s life.

The freemen of the town were all present, and Richard and Simon’s clerk soon made a selection from all there of the men who would be required for the jury.

‘That’s better!’ Richard said happily. ‘I wouldn’t want to have to shout all day. Now, do you all swear on the Gospels to answer my questions honestly? Yes? Good. Does any here know this man?’

There was a noticeable silence following the question. The jurors stood shuffling and avoiding each other’s looks.

‘Are you seriously telling me that a young fellow like this is completely unknown in the town where he’s died?’ Coroner de Welles demanded. ‘You two – come here!’

The lads he had pointed at were a pair of grinning teenagers who had come along to enjoy the spectacle.

‘Undress him.’

One of the boys, a slender, dark-haired fellow, looked down at the body, his grin frozen upon his face, while the other stared at the Coroner in shock. ‘Us?’

‘Get on with it!’ Richard de Welles had occasion to use one of his famed scowls. He was proud of them. They invariably succeeded in persuading the reluctant or recalcitrant to obey him, and it worked again now. While the darker of the two slowly climbed down into the hole with his lighter-haired companion, in order to heave the body out of it, the Coroner began talking again.

‘Hear me, now! This man was found lying as you see him now. Be careful with him, there, lad. He’s suffered enough! You can see his head was resting alongside that large cobble there, as though he had fallen and broken his head on it. Except that would mean he fell in backwards. It’s possible he did – that someone pushed him, and he struck his head, say. But I doubt whether he just toppled back into the hole and happened to kill himself. More likely he was attacked
and fell in. So that means it may be murder, and someone here in the town knows what happened.’