The Death Ship of Dartmouth

Chapter Twenty-Four

Pierre was there just as the men walked from the inn, and he quickly darted into a doorway, shoving Hamund before him.

‘What d’you-’

‘Shut up!’ Pierre snarled, peeping around the wall and watching as the four men, followed by two of Sir Andrew’s men-at-arms, walked briskly up the road towards the paver’s road works. They strode on until they came to a smaller private house, where Simon opened the door for Sir Andrew, and waved his guests inside.

‘Why are they there?’ Hamund wondered.

‘They want to talk in secret, without interruptions and spies listening,’ Pierre said. He gnawed at his inner cheek. The strain was beginning to tell on him. In the past he had always been cool and comfortable even in battle, but now he was prey to doubts. He knew that he must be doing the right thing in setting off for France again, but he wondered now whether he was really helping her or not. The idea that his action could lead to more distress was appalling, but his only alternative was to kill Sir Andrew. Surely he must kill or be killed.

‘What can they talk about that’s so important?’ Hamund wanted to know.

Pierre could not answer that. He was too anxious already. If these men decided to pool their resources, it would be impossible to escape. They could stop the ship from sailing until all the crew had been questioned and tested, they could hold all vessels in the haven. Perhaps he could persuade Gil to collect him farther down the coast? Pierre could make his way to another town, or maybe just a small fishing village, and take a boat out to meet Gil from there? But no. What would Gil want with that? It would be a nuisance, and even if his old master had wanted him to help Pierre, now Paul Pyckard was dead, there was little incentive for him to ensure that Pierre was safe. Better for him if he never saw Pierre again.

‘Master, don’t be downhearted,’ Hamund said. ‘Look, we’ll soon be on the ship again, and then we can sail for France and start afresh like you said.’

‘I hope so, friend. I sincerely hope so,’ Pierre said.

‘What was it, Baldwin?’ Simon asked in an undertone as soon as he had closed the door. Sir Andrew was inside with his two men, and Simon warily observed them as he thrust the bar home to stop intrusion.

‘A written authority from Lord Despenser, giving him powers of arrest and judgment, in the name of the King,’ Baldwin said equally quietly. His voice was cool, betraying none of the rage he felt at his treatment by that arrogant puppy.

‘What’s he got that for?’ the Coroner mused less quietly. ‘It’s more than I have. It’s more than you have as Keeper.’

‘I was sent here to keep an eye on a man who was supposed to have offended some lady in the Queen’s entourage,’ Baldwin said. ‘I think that this Andrew is here for the same reason. He has been sent here to try to capture that man.’

‘But Bishop Walter said …’ Simon began.

‘Mistakes have been made before now,’ Baldwin reminded him.

‘The bishop’s nephew is home and safe.’

‘So who is the man who was killed?’ Coroner Richard wondered. ‘The man we thought was the victim has reappeared safely.’

‘We still have two dead men — Danny and this fellow we haven’t identified yet,’ Baldwin said. ‘Let alone the eleven others from the Saint John.’

‘You still seek to blame me for that?’ Sir Andrew asked.

Baldwin crossed the room to stand before him, his arms folded. ‘You have the ship, you have the men. Who else would have wanted to stop a ship that might have harboured a man whom you hate? You took the vessel, but the crew was determined to defend her to the last, perhaps, and you were forced to kill them all. It would be understandable when a man with a royal warrant like yours felt that he had an urgent mission to fulfil.’

‘You think I would forget all reason and attack without a qualm?’

‘You did today,’ Simon reminded him.

‘I had good information that the man was aboard her,’ Sir Andrew said with an unpleasant glint in his eye. ‘I paid good money for that information.’

‘Information can be sold in good faith and still be wrong,’ Simon suggested. ‘Much of the crew was ashore to witness the funeral of their master.’

‘It can also be sold knowing it is false,’ Sir Andrew said uncompromisingly.

‘What do you want from us?’ Baldwin asked.

‘The tale I had told of this man … it is not the entire truth.’

‘We had guessed that,’ Simon said.

‘He is French,’ Sir Andrew said. ‘And just now, perhaps you know that relations between the French king and our own sit upon a knife’s edge. The French demand that King Edward go to them to swear fealty for the lands he still possesses there; the King fears for his life, if he were to go. It is a terrible situation. And in the meantime there is a great household in the heart of the nation, which is full of scheming Frenchmen. One of them has disappeared, and he had hurried down this way, we believe.’

‘What of it?’ Baldwin demanded. ‘He is of the Queen’s household, you say? He should have safe passage, surely?’

‘The Queen is corresponding with her brother in France without the King’s permission. He has no idea what she is writing, just as we are slipping towards war in Gascony once more. No king could tolerate that! The dangers — well, they cannot be exaggerated. There is a lot of information that could be passed to the French that might be deleterious to our prospects in Gascony.’

‘It may also be that there are no letters,’ Baldwin said.

‘There are. We know that.’

‘Even if there are, you hurried here in your great ship in order to catch the Frenchman, not knowing whether he was here or no. And then you took the cog Saint John and slaughtered all the men aboard her, even though you had no proof that he was on her?’

‘I had good intelligence from some …’

‘Like your damned intelligence today?’ Baldwin snapped. ‘You murdered eleven men on board the Saint John because of a man who may have lied to you for money?’

‘If you had allowed me to finish my sentence, Sir Baldwin, I was about to say that I had good intelligence that he was here, so I hurried here to the town. I never said I had attacked that ship. I suggest you be careful about the allegations you level against me.’

There was a firmness in his tone and a set to his shoulders that showed the suggestion had annoyed him, and perhaps even worried him slightly. Baldwin considered him for a few moments, assessing the danger this fair-haired man posed.

Meanwhile, Simon was frowning. ‘What would bring him here, though? His path would have been safer were he to go to London or some other port, surely. What would make him come here?’

‘His brother-in-law,’ Sir Andrew said, and now his face grew black with disappointment and frustration. ‘I had hoped to catch them both together, but when I got here, I learned that his brother-in-law was dead.’

‘Pyckard?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Yes. He married Amandine de Caen, the sister to Pierre de Caen. It is him I seek. If we catch him, we may well stop a dangerous spy from communicating secrets to the French king.’

‘And you will be richly rewarded, no doubt,’ Baldwin said.

Coroner Richard shook his head. ‘Don’t you have enough money already?’

‘Can a man ever have enough?’ Sir Andrew asked with a cynical smile.

‘You have a rich craft there,’ Simon pointed out. ‘What is she, sixty? Eighty tuns?’

‘The Gudyer? She’s not mine,’ Sir Andrew shrugged. ‘She is owned by my lord Despenser. He told me to take her, in order to reach here all the faster.’

Baldwin’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is that the ship he used when he was in exile?’

There was a sudden silence in the room as all the men considered his words. The henchmen behind Sir Andrew caught the atmosphere belatedly, and one stepped forward, his hand on his sword-hilt. Sir Andrew blandly raised a hand without looking at him, and the man let his hand slowly fall away to rest on his belt buckle as though prepared to grab for steel at the earliest opportunity.

‘I wouldn’t know whether it was the same ship, Sir Baldwin. I had no part in that adventure.’

‘Lord Despenser lived as a sea-wolf, didn’t he, while he was exiled,’ Baldwin said quietly. ‘He turned pirate, and robbed English and French shipping at will.’

‘Do you say so? How interesting.’

Baldwin saw the sly grin return to the other’s face and knew that he should be silent if he wished to be safe. The Lord Despenser was a dangerous enemy, and now here was Baldwin, making allegations of a serious nature in front of one of the Despensers’ own household, and yet he could not help himself. The connection was too clear and apparent.

‘It is curious, is it not, that only a short while after the Saint John was attacked and her crew murdered, you should appear in your nice ship with a crew that has been trained in capturing other vessels.’

‘That is an extremely serious accusation — and naturally I deny it utterly,’ Sir Andrew said. ‘And I think that bearing in mind the importance of catching this mad Frenchman, you would be better served to help me discover where he is now.’

‘How do you know he was not on the ship?’ Coroner Richard grated.

‘Because, my dear Coroner, the man was here in the town after the Saint John sailed, was he not? The man I held in gaol, who stole from the body in the road, was watching him.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘And the man who was dead in the road — I suppose you are not missing a spy in the town, are you?’

Sir Andrew smiled and looked away. ‘I do not suppose a simple denial would suffice, would it? But no, I had no one here.’

‘You expect us to believe that?’ Simon snarled.

‘I do not care whether you do or not. I have no one here. Someone else may seek the same man, though, and may have been killed.’

‘You mean another man from Despenser?’ Coroner Richard rumbled.

‘It is possible.’

‘You will come with me now, then. I don’t like the idea of a man being buried unnamed when someone is perfectly capable of giving his details to the Coroner. If he is from your master, you may recognise him.’

‘When I have time,’ Sir Andrew said.

‘I think you have time right now. Come.’

Law was sitting at the far end of the hole, his face carefully averted, when Alred returned with a pie.

‘Oh, in God’s name, boy, will you not forgive him?’

‘Leave it, Al,’ Bill said.

‘Why should I leave it? The longer you two sit there sulking, the longer it’ll take to get the hole fixed, and that means the longer I’m losing money!’ Alred hissed sharply. ‘Christ’s blood, how can I get it into your thick skulls that this is important? We’re only being paid for the whole job, so the longer we take, the-’

‘The less we can earn elsewhere,’ said Bill. ‘I know.’

‘Then act like you do! Talk to him! I’ve done all I can,’ Alred said. ‘Look, Law, why won’t you just come here and shake his hand and make things good again? Eh? There’s no point sitting there like a …’

‘Leave me alone. If you want to keep in with a felon who likes to punch people, you do that. I don’t see I need to talk to him, though.’

‘Oh, in God’s name, I give up!’ Alred said, throwing his hands in the air with despair. ‘What is the point of trying to keep the peace when you two just want to bicker? Well, all I can say is, I don’t have to listen to you both. You get on with this hole while I go and speak to the town’s reeve to see about our pay. Not that he’ll give us anything if he’s any sense, looking at you both. Still, we’ve nothing left. You understand? We’ve no more money, and if we want to get some, we’ll need to get moving. Yes?’

‘All right, Al,’ Bill said. He took up the pick as Alred made his way down the road, still muttering bitterly to himself as he went.

Bill started scraping away at the surface in a desultory attempt to look busy, but as he worked, he could not help but glance at Law. That was fine, until he caught sight of Law shooting a look at him too, and the pair instantly turned away from each other and carried on as though nothing had happened.

The shadows were moving and growing longer by the time that Bill finally let his pick rest against the side of the hole. He stood with his head still bent. ‘Law, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you, all right?’

There was no response, but Bill could tell from the fact that there was no sound of shovelling sand that Law was listening.

‘When I was telling you about what happened to me, I lied, you see. That’s why I was so upset.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look, she was the fuller’s daughter in my home town. I was there one afternoon after harvest, and I saw her in the river. God, I can see her now … There are some women, Law, who glow, you know? They are so lovely that they’re just like a candle-flame to a moth — a man can’t help but go and be scorched. Well, I saw her that day, and the sight of her in her shirt at the river just … I had to have her. I suppose I’d had a bellyful of ale, and seeing her there was just the last … No, that’s not it. I’d always wanted her, I think.’

‘So you did rape her?’ Law said breathlessly.

‘Dear God, yes,’ Bill whispered. ‘I thought I loved her, and I thought that if she was taken by me, she’d agree to marry me. That was all I wanted, really. She had a boy she liked, one of the cottars from the vill, but that didn’t worry me. I thought she’d accept me rather than go to another man as damaged goods. So I went to her and had her there on the river bank. And she didn’t want me, Law. Didn’t want me at all. I had to silence her screams and pleading. Kept telling her I loved her, and not to worry. Christ’s bones! I told her that!

‘The rest of the day went by in a blur. It wasn’t until next morning I remembered what I’d done, and I had a qualm, thinking she might denounce me and accuse me of rape, but then I reckoned if she did, it wouldn’t matter. I’d say she’d asked for it. Say I’d wed her. Damn, if she refused me, I’d say she’d always flaunted herself before me, and she’d been experienced. No, I wouldn’t accept all the blame. You see, I was feeling guilty, and the guilt made me want to put the blame somewhere else. Anywhere else. If there was no one else I could blame, I’d blame her. It’s what men do, Law, when they’re weak and stupid. Christ knows, I was both.’

‘What did she do, then? Accuse you?’

‘I wish she had. You don’t know how often I’ve prayed that she had. But she didn’t, no,’ Bill sighed. He slumped down to sit on the road’s edge. ‘No, instead she stayed there by the river that evening. Some time that night she took her little knife and opened both her wrists. I’ve seen some women and men commit self-murder, you know, and always they try to kill themselves several times.’ He held up his wrists. ‘Both wrists will have parallel lines of cuts from slashes, as though they need to test their resolve before they can cut deep enough. Not her. She cut both wrists to the bone. She must have died quite quickly. God, I hope so.’

‘So you weren’t found?’

Bill swallowed. ‘Someone had seen her with her lover, Law. It wasn’t me, I swear, but the lad was accused of raping her. She loved him, and I think he loved her. If he’d taken her, she’d not have argued. Instead, I took her and she killed herself. I might as well have killed her with my own knife.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He was a poor cottar. What could he do? He ran to the church and claimed sanctuary, and when the Coroner arrived he abjured the realm. Me? I stayed there like an innocent, until sour self-loathing forced me to leave. I’ve never been back again.

‘So when you hear someone say that a man is plainly innocent or guilty, Law, you remember that. The man here — me — is guilty. The man who bolted and I hope who’s alive now in a better land, he was innocent. But he’s the one who could have been hanged, because of the way he had been seen with the girl. And I was safe.’

‘Bill, I’m sorry. I didn’t know, though, did I?’

‘No. You couldn’t have known,’ Bill agreed. And then he put his hands to his face and sat very still until the need to sob had subsided.

Law wanted to go to him and show him some compassion, but Law was only half Bill’s age, if that. He didn’t know how to help. Instead he took the next best alternative to a show of sympathy, and carefully looked everywhere but at his friend.

Then: ‘Sweet Jesus, Bill! Look over there!’ he hissed.