The Outlaws of Ennor: (Knights Templar 16) (17 page)

‘My father was a seaman, but he died in a bad storm. My mother was able to make some pennies at needlework and spinning, but then she was struck down with a disease and died. I had no family left.’ Hamo shrugged. ‘What else could I do? Didn’t want to be a farmer, so I got out, walked all the way to Sutton Water, and Gervase took me on board his ship. Said he was saving me from the sodomites and fornicators who infested that place.’

There was sadness in the youngster’s voice, and Simon suddenly realised that where he had mourned for the loss of a friend, Hamo had lost in Gervase not only a friend, but a father as well.

There was no point in lying and pretending that Gervase could have survived. ‘Let’s go and pray for them all, lad,’ Simon said kindly.

‘You think they may be killed?’

Simon heard his words with disbelief. He turned to peer at Hamo. ‘What do you mean,
killed
?’

Hamo allowed a small frown to pass over his features at frustration with this bailiff who appeared to be so dull-witted.

‘They’re
still on her, aren’t they? Gervase would never have left his ship. Couldn’t swim. Anyway, he adored the
Anne
. He wouldn’t desert her.’

Simon followed the direction of his pointing finger, and felt his jaw drop. ‘By all the whores of Paris!’

Out beyond the little harbour, he saw the drooping vessel. Men were scurrying all over her, and a pair of large boats was towing her towards the safety of the porth while a small flotilla of boats waited, ready to ferry all the goods from her hold to the beach where donkeys were gathering.

‘What are they doing?’ Simon demanded in shock. Believing that the ship had foundered along with all the sailors, he was dumbfounded to discover it here, just off the shore.

‘They call it salvage. They’ve saved the ship, so they say, so now all her goods can be taken,’ Hamo said bitterly. ‘That’s why I came to find you. They’ll leave nothing for us, you’ll see.’

Ranulph
de Blancminster climbed down the rope-ladder from the
Anne
with an agility that belied his weight and age. Soon he was in the boat beneath, and he gazed back at the ship with a measuring eye as he was rowed ashore.

It was certainly a good prize. Fully laden, with only a few tuns damaged where the rocks had started to breach the hull, for the master had been a clever and skilful sailor. He had ordered his men to plug the hole with bales of woollen clothing, tugging them into the gap in the wood by means of a rope running from the bales to the capstan. Held there firmly, the ship was more or less plugged, although it could only last a short while without serious repairs. Well, she wouldn’t get them here. Ranulph had already seen the familiar faces on the hills about the Porth, and he knew that the scavengers would descend as soon as his men left the ship. They’d rip off any decent timbers for lintels in their cottages, or for new doors, or for rafters. On islands which had no trees to speak of, the people depended in large part on the charity of the sea.

In any case, there was no guarantee that even the best shipwrights in England could save this poor beast. She had suffered so terribly that there was little point in dreaming of rescue. No, the sensible thing to do was to remove all valuables from her, and then break her. Her constituent elements could then be sold to Ranulph’s peasants.

When they reached the shore, he jumped down into the sand, splashing a great mass of water. He cared not a whit, but lumbered heavily to dry land, and then scowled as he saw Walerand waiting for him.

Walerand was not one of his favourite servants. There were many whom he distrusted, but that was a sad fact of life in the modern era. Men-at-arms used to be faithful retainers in whom a man could
place all his trust, but those days were long past. Now a man like Ranulph had to take the dregs of society. It had been noticeable when the King’s Coroner, William le Poer, had been most enraged by Ranulph, that the most serious allegation which could be brought against Ranulph was that he habitually recruited outlaws and felons. So he did; and he would continue so to do. These islands needed defending, God knew, and the best men to defend them were those who were utterly reliant on the islands for their lives and had nowhere else to run. Who better than men who could not return to their homes on pain of death?

Some, of course, were more enthusiastic about violence than others, which was a cause for concern when their heavy-handedness upset too many locals. Yes, a man had to keep the population cowed, else they might take it into their heads to seize power for themselves. Still, there were some who scared everyone, thank God. When the locals had grown restive recently, Thomas had carefully let slip the tale of how he met Robert. Most people said that the gather-reeve was the worst of all the men on the island, because for all his apparently mild manners, the story of a crazed murder in a tavern had spread like a wild fire over the moors. None of the local peasants dared so much as answer him back when Robert went to collect the rents. He was the best man Ranulph had employed as a gather-reeve.

Walerand was a different matter altogether. The fool seemed to think that he was intelligent – which in itself was a proof of his dull-wittedness. When Ranulph had been his age, he wasn’t nearly so gormless. He’d been bold enough to come here, for a start, and offer the old King his three hundred puffins or six shillings and eight pence each year for the use of the islands, and he’d made them work for him. This place had been falling apart when he arrived, in 1306, but since then he’d made the peasants realise that they had to work to live, and they must all work for him. If they didn’t, they suffered.

If he had wandered about the place idly like this Walerand, he’d no longer be here. The old King, Edward I, didn’t suffer fools gladly. Not that he was about for long. His son soon took over, and although Ranulph despised him as a weakling who was unable to control even the Welsh Marcher Lords, let alone the Scots, Ranulph was glad that
Edward II was King. While a weak King ruled in England, swayed by each gust of discontent in his realm, Ranulph could maintain his iron grip on his own little fiefdom.

‘My lord?’

Ranulph did not so much as look in Walerand’s direction. ‘What?’

‘I’m feared Robert has been murdered.’

Cryspyn remained in his seat as the man rescued from the shipwreck entered: with him were Isok and Tedia. The sight of the couple was enough to make the Prior feel the acid bubbling in his belly again. There was a pain there whenever he felt the pressure of his responsibilities, and Tedia, as he knew, had applied for a divorce on the basis of her husband’s impotence. Why it was, Cryspyn didn’t understand. He himself was not driven by lusts as once he had been, not since killing Sara’s lover; that had destroyed something in him. No, he was safe from the carnal desires, but that was different from being immune to the attractions of a young woman who was still in the flush of youth, and whose beauty had not faded from exhaustion, malnutrition and childbirth. Considering her objectively, he was sure that if Tedia had been his wife, he would have found it hard to keep his hands from her.

This reflection was unsettling, and the pain in his belly increased. It was always the same. Whenever he had a matter to decide, it would affect his digestion. To distract himself from the pain he studied the man before him.

‘I am Prior Cryspyn,’ he said. ‘I understand that you are a shipwreck. Is this true?’

‘I believe so,’ Baldwin said. ‘I cannot remember what happened. I know that my ship was attacked by pirates, but I thought we survived that.’

‘Your ship broke up?’

‘I assume so, Prior, but I can remember little about it,’ Baldwin said reluctantly. There was an edge of eagerness to the Prior’s voice which he found unsettling.

Cryspyn was wondering where the bulk of the vessel might have fallen. Although Ranulph disputed every claim, and now that he was also
the Coroner on the island, he made it more and more difficult for the priory, but Cryspyn knew that the rights to the wreck were his. All the parts of any ship which broke up at sea were to be collected and sold to the benefit of the priory. Usually it was too difficult to rescue bits and pieces before the peasants ‘liberated’ them all, but perhaps this time the priory could get there first. Sadly, if a ship didn’t break up, he had no rights; if someone saved a sinking ship, they were entitled to half its value under the new law of salvage, but surely this was a ship ruined by the storm. Any new injection of money would be welcome, of course, but Cryspyn hoped he didn’t sound too greedy, for that might make him appear ghoulish, grateful for the deaths of this man’s friends.

‘How do you come to be here?’ Cryspyn asked.

Baldwin shrugged apologetically. ‘I do not know,’ he said simply. ‘I hope I shall remember before long.’

‘Very well. Where were you travelling when you were blown upon our shore?’

‘I was returning from pilgrimage to Compostela,’ Baldwin said. There was a catch in his throat when he next spoke. ‘My friend Simon … I assume no others have been washed up on your shores?’

‘I do not know of any, no.’ Cryspyn shrugged.

‘Prior, I do not understand your tone. I do not wish to be an unwelcome guest, and I should be glad to know why you seem so unhappy to find me here on your island.’

Cryspyn glanced at Tedia and Isok. ‘It is simple. We know of pirates here. Raiders have attacked our priory many times before, and I have no doubt that they will do so again.’

‘You think me a pirate?’ Baldwin said disbelievingly. The man was a fool.

‘I think many people
could
be pirates,’ Cryspyn said, and was pleased to see Isok stiffen. ‘Some attack us here, others attack ships at sea. You say you were boarded by pirates, and I suppose that should be enough for me, but it is difficult to accept a man’s word on such a matter. Pirates are never far from these islands. A hundred years ago the Prior ordered the deaths of a hundred and twenty foul
sea-raiders. I should be surprised if some among my flock here were not guilty of the same crimes. And I should be glad to command the same penalty as my predecessor!’

Baldwin gave a dry smile. ‘Were our positions reversed, Prior, I suppose I could even find it in my heart to suspect you. Yet I swear that I am no pirate, and if there are any monks here who know of Abbot Robert of Tavistock, I may be able to give some credentials. I know the good Abbot quite well. My friend, Simon, who I fear has been drowned …’ Merely saying those words made a lump rise in his throat and his eyes watered. He had to swallow and wipe them before he could continue. ‘Simon was the Bailiff of Lydford, one of Abbot Robert’s men. I can give you assurances that I know your Abbot and convince you I am no pirate.’

‘That is good,’ Cryspyn said, and questioned Baldwin on a few matters which he knew only a man who had eaten at Abbot Robert’s table could know, such as the Abbot’s tastes in hunting and in his board.

Baldwin answered as fully as he could, then asked whether he could sit down. He still felt terribly weak. Isok and Tedia remained standing.

‘My apologies, Sir Baldwin. You will understand that here, in so remote a situation, we must be cautious,’ Cryspyn said.

Baldwin nodded. ‘I can readily understand it,’ he said. ‘I feel the need for caution myself.’ He slapped his left thigh where his sword should have hung. The sadness of losing Simon was still heavy upon his soul, but so was the feeling of danger at being unarmed in a strange country. It felt like being undressed. ‘I have the most curious sense that I have come here clad in the garb of a beggar, Prior,’ he told Cryspyn. ‘It is peculiar, but the mere fact that I have lost my sword makes me feel like a man without britches.’

Cryspyn smiled. ‘If you wish for another, I am sure that I could find you one somewhere on the island,’ he said, adding with a burst of honesty, ‘although whether you would want such a weapon is another matter. They tend to rust quickly here, and swords are used like any other tool, for most of the year, for hedging and chopping wood.’

‘I think
I can live without that, but perhaps if my …’ Baldwin had been about to say ‘beautiful rescuer’, but omitted the adjective when he caught sight of Isok at her side. ‘If my rescuer could guide me, I could return to the place where she discovered me, and seek it there. Surely it would not have strayed far from me?’

Cryspyn pulled a face. ‘There is no telling where the seas might deposit a man or his belongings. It is entirely in God’s hands. You may find that your sword fell from you at the same moment you lost your ship and comrades. It is likely to be at the bottom of the sea.’

‘I believe you could likely be correct,’ Baldwin said doubtfully. He was thinking of his sword-belt. It seemed odd to him that it should have untied itself in the water. It was perfectly understandable that the sword itself could have fallen from the scabbard, but it niggled at him, the fact that a perfectly good belt had become untied. It was a point to consider later. ‘Yet the thing has sentimental value to me. I would like to confirm for myself that it is not there. I do not suppose that it was removed from me when I was found?’

Tedia found that he had turned in his seat and was subjecting her to a steady scrutiny. She reddened, and shook her head with the stirrings of anger. ‘What would I want with a sword! You accuse me of stealing it?’

‘No, my saviour, I do not. I merely wondered … it was heavy, and so someone could have untied my belt and let it fall rather than carry it
and
me. The belt was strong, so I would be surprised if it could have been ripped from me without leaving me bruised about the hips. It’s easier by far to believe that someone removed it.’