The Outlaws of Ennor

Chapter Thirty

Baldwin saw him at the same time, and as soon as the black-haired man stepped forward, Baldwin ran to meet him.

Both knew that this was a personal challenge; whichever of the two was to fall, the other would be victor. If the pirate captain were to die, the pirates would lose; Baldwin preferred not to think of the consequences of his own death.

Not that he would have much to fear, he thought. The pirate was clearly badly wounded, and he panted as he lifted his sword to strike at Baldwin. It was easy to block it with a sharp flick of his wrist, and then Baldwin stepped back, waiting for the next blow. But it was terribly slow. Baldwin parried it easily, waiting for the hidden attack under the obvious, but there was nothing, and then he saw the edge of the flesh at the pirate’s neck. It was red, with veins showing darkly, as though the man had fallen into a fire and his flesh scorched.

Suddenly Baldwin felt sick. This man had been wounded by him days ago, and he had fought valiantly, trying to preserve his life, and now Baldwin had the duty of ending a life which must have been appallingly painful, from the way that the man favoured his arm in its sling. It was cruel to destroy someone who was all but incapable of defending himself, but Baldwin had responsibilities. If this fellow lived, he would return and he would try to rob and plunder again. It was in his nature. Baldwin could see it in his eyes, red-rimmed though they were: this man had no comprehension of the suffering of others, only of his own inordinate greed.

There was a slow, slashing sweep of the man’s sword, and Baldwin put out his sword to block it, but the blade had already moved with a flick of the pirate’s hand, and now Baldwin felt the snagging at his tunic.

He leaped back, seeing the cruel delight in his enemy’s face. The front of his tunic was soaked with blood. The blade had nearly eviscerated him, and if he had tried a thrust himself, which he would have done, had he not been distracted by the pitiable condition of the pirate, he would have been spitted like a hog over a fire.

The sting of the wound woke him to the realities of fighting. He held his sword out to stop another thrust, then blocked a sweeping blow to his head. When the pirate tried to kick, Baldwin was already out of reach, but he managed to swing a blow to the man’s thigh, and he felt the sword catch on the bone as he withdrew it.

That was enough to enrage the pirate. Without taking account of the agony in his arm, Jean jumped forward, dancing lightly on his feet, trying to ignore the dull throbbing in his thigh. It was nothing. No, he had to attack, press this shit-eating moron back, and wait for the chance to run him through, and then make his way to the ship.

He pushed forward, his arm stabbing with an extensive pain that seemed to swallow his entire soul. The knight fell back, and the pirate took a moment to glance back at his ship to see whether he could bolt for it if he needed. What he saw made him gape.

The ship had been pushed out to sea, and as he watched, he saw the sail drop and ripple in the wind. It was a moment before the ship started to move, helped by the ranks of oars on either side. There were enough men to propel the ship and manoeuvre her for a short distance, and as he watched her, Jean knew he had been betrayed. The men he had thought his companions had deserted him and his fellows; they were doomed.

With that thought, he realised how long he had been staring. He turned just in time to see the sword that swept off his head and his arm in one long blue shimmer of steel.

Baldwin watched the body collapse. Instantly he could smell the foulness in the rotten arm, and he retreated a step.

The men about him were almost all finished. David stood at his side panting, a scratch all down his cheek, from which a pale, watery blood ran steadily. Next to him was Simon, unscathed, while before him two pirates lay, one still twitching, Baldwin saw.

It was not these men who took Baldwin’s attention, though. It was the pirate ship, which was even now heading away from the island. Once it rounded the western tip of Ennor, that would be the end of the matter, he knew. The ship could take to the open sea.

Just then, he saw a great sail above the area of St Nicholas known as St Sampson, white and massive as a cloud, and then, a few moments later, the great hull of the cog herself hove into view.

The vessel moved steadily with the wind, which was almost behind her, and she had already built up speed after passing about the western edge of St Sampson. Now she was moving with great wings of froth at the prow, her bow rising and falling gently, all her motion taking her like an arrow towards her target.

Too late the pirate ship saw the danger. The men ran about the ship, the helmsman leaning on the rudder, the sailors running up the ratlines and out on the yards, hauling on ropes from below while those above untied the reefs, trying to get a few more yards from the wind. It was no good. With a loud cracking noise, the cog drove into the flank of the pirates’ hull, the oak smashed and wrecked, and all those on the beach could hear the terrible cries of the pirates who couldn’t swim as the cog’s bows rammed on, while sailors leaped aboard from the Faucon Dieu and began to finish the butchery.

It was enough. Baldwin couldn’t watch the last of the pirates being cut down and tossed overboard like lures to attract fishes. He supposed that was all they were now, but he did not like the fact, and he also thought to himself that the idea of eating fish on these islands had grown peculiarly abhorrent.

He was about to walk away from the place when there was a familiar roar, and he saw a strange figure striding towards him with a glowering demeanour and a ferocious appearance, largely due to the dagger gripped firmly in his fist. It said much for Baldwin’s impression of Sir Charles that the streamers of kelp which trailed from his arms and legs — and the air of seedy dampness given off by his filthy and now sodden clothing — did nothing to detract from the awesome power which emanated from him.

‘Where are the castle’s men? I want Ranulph de Blancminster now! Where is the coward? May heaven witness that I intend beating him with this dagger, if he won’t meet me in equal combat!’

‘My friend,’ Baldwin said with some tiredness, ‘I think you are a little too late.’

Simon was desperate to see Hamo and make sure that the boy was all right. As soon as the last of the pirates was captured, he left the men there on the beach and ran up the lane which he thought must lead to the priory.

And then he arrived and found the pathetic corpse, and all thoughts of the murders left him. He knelt, gently picking up the lad, while his eyes fogged and the breath threatened to throttle him. There was no need to check whether he was living. The dent in his skull where a mace had struck was all too obvious, and Hamo’s eyes were almost forced from their sockets from the violence of the blow.

‘Simon?’

Baldwin had been with him all the way back from the beach, concerned about his friend, and now he saw the body in Simon’s arms.

‘It’s ironic. I’d intended to save the boy, sending him away from the developing fight, and in so doing, I sent him into the midst of a more brutal battle. In such a way might a man fail his friends. All I wanted to do was save him from the castle and the bloodshed.’

‘I am sure he knew that,’ Baldwin said. ‘Let us take him into the church.’

Simon nodded. ‘I saved his life from the boat, I thought, when I needn’t have bothered — the thing didn’t sink. Now he’s dead, poor lad, because I wanted to protect him. I couldn’t have served him worse had I intended to.’

‘That is what happens sometimes, Simon. All we can do is treat people in the best way we can. No man can tell the consequences of his actions. We must simply behave as best we can.’

Simon bent his head, eyes closed, before walking on towards the church. They laid the small body by the others which were being brought in: the gatekeeper with his hideous wounds, a young monk found in the Prior’s own room, another fellow cut down by the church’s door. The two knelt in front of the altar in prayer for a few moments. It was only a short while later that the noise of wheezing heralded the arrival of the Prior. Cryspyn nodded to them, knelt, made a hasty obeisance, glanced at the dead, and then motioned to Baldwin and Simon to join him.

Baldwin was soon finished, and stood, a hand on Simon’s back. He left Simon there, walking slowly and contemplatively towards the back where Cryspyn waited.

‘I should like to offer you both wine and food when you are ready. I wanted to thank you for your warning this morning. And your friend for his attempt to warn me about the men from Ennor, of course.’

‘That is most kind. We shall be delighted to join you,’ Baldwin said, but his attention was absorbed by Simon’s distress.

Cryspyn saw his gaze. ‘Do you think we could do anything to help him?’

‘He was truly attached to that young fellow. I heard once that a man who saves another’s life can feel more responsibility than the one who has been saved. It is a great duty. And then to lose the life saved, can make a man feel doubly guilty.’

‘Perhaps. And yet it is a greater thing than killing. Killing can be too easy,’ Cryspyn said.

Baldwin surveyed the rows of dead men with Cryspyn. ‘Yes. And too many men learn that skill too young.’

The Prior bent his head sadly. ‘I fear so. Even I once committed that gravest of sins.’

‘You?’

‘What, you didn’t realise?’ Cryspyn said. ‘You think that only the happy, well-behaved monks would be sent here? I am afraid not. Luke was not the only …’

His voice trailed away, and he winced. Baldwin thought it was at a memory, but in reality, the Prior was merely aware of a fresh twinge of pain in his belly. The acid was stirring in his stomach, and swallowing achieved nothing. It had been the same ever since he had returned to his room and encountered the fresh, sweet odour of blood and something else: the taint of sex. He had been told what had happened to young Daniel in there, and it was as though the air that had supported the men who raped and murdered him had forever stained the room.

‘Not the only?’

‘Sorry?’ Cryspyn was brought back with a start. ‘Oh. I assumed you knew about me — I thought everybody knew why I was sent here. You know Abbot Robert, after all. I was sent here after a fight about a woman. I loved her … so did another man. I killed him. That is all. But it was much at the time.’

‘Homicide is always a terrible crime, I suppose,’ Baldwin said, but without censure. He had killed enough men in his time to know that the mere killing of another was not evil — it was the reason for killing that was foul. Sometimes homicide was necessary.

‘It can be,’ Cryspyn said, as though reading his mind. ‘But when it’s over a woman, the crime is doubly terrible. I killed him just because he had … won her.’

Baldwin studied him dispassionately. Cryspyn did indeed look guilty, as though this murder was weighing upon him. ‘A man who kills because another has stolen his wife … it is understandable.’

‘She was not my wife, Sir Baldwin. Only a woman whom I adored. I had thought she was perfection, and I even considered taking her and running. Consider! I was prepared to leave the Church, renounce my oaths, and live as a felon with her.’

‘What happened?’

‘I heard that she had already taken another man. At first I didn’t believe it, but then I laid a trap for her. I waited in her chamber, resolved to offer myself to her, and if she refused me, I thought I would run away. But when she entered the room, she wasn’t alone. While I watched, he and she … did as a man and woman will. So I took my sword, and I killed him.’

The simple restatement did not do the scene justice, he thought. That terrible headless body marching towards him like a devil’s plaything, then stumbling and falling against him, the penis still erect, he afterwards recalled, the arms reaching as though to clutch at his own life, the blood springing up and blinding him. And he knew that he had lost her for ever.

The long, long months of a penitent’s cell, the shame of the Bishop’s court, and finally the sailing boat which had brought him here. All were so clear in his mind. It still seemed strange and marvellous that any acquaintance of the Abbot’s should not have known of his crime.

‘What happened to the lady?’

‘Sara went on to become a nun until she died,’ Cryspyn said sadly. ‘I killed him with my sword, but I fear that I inflicted a worse wound on her. It turned her mind completely.’ He sighed. ‘So that is why I am here. Men like Luke and me are sent here because of our sins.’

Simon had risen now, and genuflected before the altar as Baldwin asked quietly, ‘What of William? Has he also committed a grave sin?’

‘Why no, I do not think so. I believe he adored these islands when he once came to visit, and chose to remain.’

‘Really?’ It was odd that all the other members of the community, from what Cryspyn implied, should have been sent here because of some crime they had committed, and William alone was innocent. He resolved to speak to the elderly priest again.

Isok was preparing his boat for departure when she found him.

‘Isok? I am sorry. Truly sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault, is it?’ he said as he loaded the water into the boat. ‘God didn’t want us to be together, and that’s all there is to it.’

‘I wanted you, you know that, don’t you? I’m so sorry all this has happened.’

‘But being sorry didn’t stop you cuckolding me, did it?’ he demanded harshly, stopping a moment and staring at her. The blush was all he needed as confirmation. ‘So, that’s all there is to say.’

‘It’s not all my fault!’ she asserted. ‘What of you? You never told me that you’d never managed to lie with a woman before.’

‘Some people aren’t fornicators,’ he said coldly.

She looked away. ‘What will you do now?’

‘I will go away,’ he said, staring out to sea. ‘I’ll find peace somewhere.’

‘But how? Do you have the Prior’s permission to leave his demesne?’

‘No. So you can go and tell him, if you want. Tell him to kill me to punish me and keep me here.’

‘I wouldn’t do that.’

‘No. You’d only betray me to men with ballocks, wouldn’t you?’ he said nastily.

She hung her head. Then looked up resolutely. ‘First …’

‘What?’ he demanded.

She was fearful, he saw, and licked her lips nervously. ‘Just this … Isok, tell me, truthfully, did you murder him?’

‘Who, Luke?’ he sneered. ‘The pretty fellow was killed by the pirates, wasn’t he? Wasn’t that what the good Prior said?’

‘Not him. You know who I mean.’

‘Oh, your tax-collector? You know, it’s a shame you sank that low. Not many women would have done so. Most would have been happy with a scavenger, or a shit-collector, but not someone who steals what we all earn.’

‘He wasn’t like that.’

‘No? What — so the stories about him murdering a man are untrue?’

‘He did it to save another. He told me. He said that the only people he had killed were those he had fought in order to protect others. He wasn’t evil.’

‘Really?’

‘So — did you kill him?’

‘No.’ He stopped his work and stared at her. ‘I’d feel better if I had, but no. You may like to think about that after I’ve gone. You’ve lost me, your lover’s dead, and the murderer’s still here somewhere. Think on that!’

She stood aghast with clenched fists while he pushed his boat out to sea, then sprang aboard, and she was still standing there when his boat disappeared around the northern rocks of the channel. When she looked down, she saw that her nails had stabbed deep marks in her palms.

Simon was unable to concentrate at the table. His stomach, for once, had betrayed him. The foods laid out so temptingly for them all were unappealing. All he could see as the others ate, was the slight, battered form lying so still in the church, the nervous smile forever dimmed. He reached for the jug of wine more regularly as the meal progressed, letting the wash of wine through his belly warm him in a way that the food could not.

In celebration of the victory over the pirates, the Prior had brought out the choicest titbits from his undercrofts. In reality these were few, but those about his table had not been in a position to enjoy good food for some days. Simon saw that Baldwin was eating sparingly as usual, but Sir Charles, on the Prior’s left hand, was grabbing at everything that passed within reach. Paul was sitting farther down the table with some monks, where they shared four to each mess bowl, but up on the top table, Sir Charles, Baldwin and Simon had one bowl per pair. Simon was supposed to share with William, but the priest had no more appetite than Simon. The Prior himself had a small plate of bread and plain meats to himself, and he dabbed at his face with a linen cloth, concealing his little burps and coughs.

Simon could feel Baldwin’s eye upon him occasionally, but he paid no heed to the conversation that flowed about the table. All he knew was an enveloping misery that felt like a premonition of some kind.

It was only when Sir Charles sat back with a contented belch that rumbled in his throat like water sinking down a pipe, that Baldwin asked, ‘How many knew of the sands which connect the islands?’

‘Almost everyone here, and most peasants elsewhere. It’s only the men at La Val who knew nothing of them,’ Cryspyn said.

‘Curious that they could be kept secret from the men at Ennor.’

‘Most of them would be pressed to find their arses with both hands,’ William grunted.

‘Perhaps, but some are intelligent enough,’ Baldwin said musingly. ‘I should like to speak to the Sergeant of Ennor, Thomas. And to David and Isok as well.’

‘Why?’ the Prior asked as he motioned to his steward to remove the emptied bowls.

‘Because surely one of them can help us to learn who was the murderer of Robert the gather-reeve. His death troubles me. I cannot see why he should have been killed. And to be stabbed in the back without defending himself … there is something peculiar about this.’

‘What is peculiar?’ William asked. ‘The man was a hated rent-collector. Anyone would have shoved a dagger in his back and thought it a good deed.’

‘I find it hard to believe that Luke was killed by pirates, either,’ Baldwin continued as though William had not spoken. ‘I did think that he had died because the pirates wanted to conceal their hiding-place, and knowing that there was a priest there might have given them a problem. They could have killed him just to hide their presence. Certainly they were more than capable of murdering him, but something about it strikes me as odd.’

‘They saw him, they killed him,’ William said off-handedly. ‘I see no problem with that.’

‘Do you not? Yet if I was trying to conceal my presence, the last thing I would do would be to proclaim it by removing a very significant person. The first man to be missed in any community would be the priest. And if the priest was gone, surely everyone would try to find the body? The death of Luke could have resulted in a widespread search of the islands. These pirates, after all, were experienced mariners. They must have raided plenty of islands and little hamlets before now. Usually they would install a spy on high ground to ensure that their ship was safe. It would be better than killing a man like Luke, no matter what we think of him.’

‘So you feel that he was murdered by an islander?’ the Prior asked heavily. ‘I know you have had a series of unfortunate experiences here, but surely you can trust me when I say that most of our people are decent, good men and women?’

‘You expect me to accept that? It seems certain that your people can turn to piracy, Prior,’ Baldwin pointed out.

‘What of the sand banks?’ William asked casually.

Baldwin looked at him with lowered brows. ‘Yes. That is a problem. You can see why?’

‘I have not the faintest idea, no.’

‘I was in the water, and I wore my sword. Yet when I was found, my sword had been taken from me and left not far from Robert’s body. That means that either someone took off my sword and dropped it there, perhaps intentionally to make me look like the murderer, and then carried my body to this island; or, more likely, someone found me on St Nicholas Island, took my sword, and carried that back to Ennor. Either way, it must have been someone who knew of the path beneath the sea. And they would have had to go all the way to Bechiek first,’ Baldwin added.

‘Perhaps they used a boat to cross over?’ William said.

‘Perhaps — but a boat was more likely to be seen, or missed from the beach,’ Baldwin said musingly.

‘It would be difficult to carry you all the way from Ennor to St Nicholas,’ Cryspyn joked, eyeing his solid frame.

Baldwin gave a dry grin of agreement. ‘I am no lightweight. Nor are the passes easy, as I learned myself in the company of William last evening. The ways are treacherous. That is why I am sure that the second is the more likely explanation. I had thought that the man who would most benefit from Robert’s death, the new gather-reeve, Walerand, must surely be the murderer, but he is too slight to carry me, and if he were to steal my sword, that must mean that he was already on the island of St Nicholas. Yet he apparently didn’t know about the sands. And I don’t think I mistook his disgust. He hated the very thought of walking in the sea. The idea of him walking to St Nicholas and back strikes me as unlikely.’

‘So he sailed?’

‘If he came by boat, he would have been seen, most likely,’ Baldwin argued. ‘And denounced since no one likes him.’

‘So you think it was someone who was able to make that walk, but who took your sword rather than carrying you?’ Cryspyn said.

‘Yes. Somebody killed Robert, I think, and then found me a little while later, and thought that the sword would be an ideal weapon to point to guilt. Perhaps the First Finder would think me guilty of murder, and then I should perish. Which means someone must have found me and left me to die, took my sword, placed it by the dead Robert, and then went home. The way between Ennor and here is only a half-mile. Unless …’

‘What?’

‘I just thought: suppose someone found me, and left me there, thinking I was near to death, and simply sought to steal my sword, and then was accosted by someone, so threw away my sword, and couldn’t find it again in the dark? That too is a possibility.’

‘Who would leave a man to drown like that?’ Cryspyn said. There was an edge to his voice, and Baldwin noticed that he was staring at his plate as though deep in unpleasant thoughts. When he glanced at William, he saw that the priest’s face had reddened, and he too avoided Baldwin’s eyes. Baldwin found all this very interesting.