The Death Ship of Dartmouth

Chapter Thirty-One

Alice, Danny’s widow, was sitting on her stool at the table, trying to sew by the light of a flickering candle. She could barely see to thread her needle, but with the children having no father, and with her losing her husband, there was no money. She must pull herself together and set to, to mend all their clothing, and perhaps take in other people’s mending too.

There would be work when the ships came in. The fishermen always needed help in gutting and salting down the hauls, while sailors would always be glad of extra hands to repair torn sails or nets. Yes, there would be work — and the older children must look after the younger. In God’s name, it would be hard, though. The church would offer alms, and the food would be useful, but she would have to spread herself to survive.

Her eyes suddenly misted. God, how she missed her gentle Danny. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she then closed them in defeat. She could do no more tonight. Glancing at the children asleep on the floor, she forced the tears away. There was no time for sorrow. She must plan the next day’s work so that she might collect some money.

At the knock on the door, her heart pounded in fear. No one came visiting this late: whoever it was must have some evil purpose.

Taking hold of her knife from the table, she rose and went to the door, peering through the gap at the side to see who was there. As she did so, a shiver tore through her frame with the speed of a plummeting hawk.

She dropped to her knees and gasped with horror. One of the children snuffled in her sleep, and Alice went to her on all fours, even as the door rattled. If she could, the terrified woman would have recited the Paternoster, but she wasn’t educated enough to have learned such recitations. She simply called on God to save her, to protect her children, and meanwhile the door thudded as a fist struck it.

‘Go away!’ she cried. The children were all stirring now, and the youngest began to sob.

A whisper reached her, like the soughing of wind through the branches.

‘Adam! You’re dead,’ she sobbed, averting her face. ‘Go back to the hell you came from!’

Baldwin and Simon had a fair-sized force when they left to seek the sailors. It did not take long to guess where they might be. Screams and shouting were coming from over towards South Town, and the two of them waved to the others to join them as they hurried on.

The town of Clifton had grown to join South Town, but where the two had originally met there were some rough areas of land. Beyond these were the beginnings of the old town that had once been separate. Simon knew it moderately well, although he tended to keep to the Clifton end of town, for that was where the bulk of his work was. He was aware that there were brothels down here, and several taverns that catered for other tastes, with cock-fighting pits, dog-baiting, and gaming rooms where a man might sit and lose his month’s income in one game of chance.

The crew from Sir Andrew’s ship were involved in an altercation with the owner of a small alehouse, with the slatternly drab who tried to ply her trade there standing before the door screeching at the sailors who were trying to gain admittance.

‘Keep off, I say! Ow! You think you can barge in here and do what you want? I say you can …

Simon chose this moment to exercise his authority. ‘Good evening, Malkin! I think you have no more to fear. As for you lot, you were to be held in the gaol, I think?’

‘Piss on you! We’re trying to find the Frenchie,’ the leader of the sailors shouted.

From his complexion and speech, it was clear that Jan and the others had drunk a quantity of liquid bellicosity since leaving his house, and Simon smiled with relief that this was one opponent he need not fear. ‘Him? Oh, he’s here with us,’ he said glibly.

‘We’ll take him, then,’ the man declared loudly, stepping forward.

‘First we’ll escort you back to the gaol. Not only have you attempted to take a ship in the haven here, but you have also helped in the murder of a man who was guarding you on behalf of the King. You are all arrested. Drop your weapons!’

The ringleader stood in front of him, befuddled and bleary. He eyed Simon with a frown, then looked down at his sword, swaying slightly before spitting at Simon’s feet and rushing forward at Pierre with a yell. Three others lifted their weapons and followed him, and Simon was buffeted from the path of the first two, before coming to blows with the third, who gripped a long knife in one hand, an axe in the other.

He swung his axe at Simon’s head, and the two-headed weapon clashed from the Baliff’s sword, missing his shoulder by less than an inch. The long knife slipped towards his belly, and he had to reverse his blade’s movement to knock it aside, but as soon as he had recovered, the axe was moving again, first up at his neck, then round in a flashing arc and swooping down towards his knee. He leaped back, feeling foolish after his initial confidence about Jan.

The trouble was, sailors always started fighting when they were drunk: they were worse even than the miners on the moors for grabbing for a knife or dagger. The slightest insult to a man’s wife, sister, mother, ancestry or even his methods of choosing his plots for digging, were all fine incentives for a fellow to reach for the nearest piece of steel and try to spit his opponent, even if the opponent had yesterday been his best friend.

The axe returned with a punch towards his face, and he had to duck. Quickly, he slipped his sword across to his right, opening the man’s breast and slashing at his fist. A finger fell away, and the knife was dropped, and then Simon held his sword’s point at the man’s throat, and hissed, ‘Yield, fool!’

There was a loud clash as the axe fell to the cobbles, and Simon breathed a moment’s sigh of relief before looking about him. Baldwin had three men kneeling on the ground under his sword’s blade while he gazed around with genial interest as though measuring the competition. Beyond him, Simon saw Pierre with one of the sailors, and as he watched, the Frenchman snapped his sword back-handed and stepped away. There was a gout of blood and his opponent fell, his head rolling over the cobbles. Hamund was behind him with a dagger smeared with blood, looking dazed at the sudden eruption of violence, while other members of the posse stood about with their weapons dangling.

Simon heard a cry, and turned in time to see a man with a steel war-hammer in his fist running towards him.

A war-hammer was a fearsome weapon. On one side was the inch-square hammer head, while on the reverse was a vicious spike that projected four inches from the haft. A spear-tip at the top that could stab or slash shone wickedly in the occasional silvery moonbeams, and the whole was set atop a three-feet-long haft of wood strengthened with tangs of steel.

The man held it like a spear and he ran at Simon as if determined to gut him. Simon could only smash at the weapon with his sword and whirl from his path, but the fellow was quick on his feet and immediately tried to club Simon with the butt, which was weighted with a large ball of iron. It found its target, and Simon cried out as his elbow felt as though it was smashed to pieces. His hand was suddenly nerveless, and his sword dropped clattering to the ground.

‘Baldwin!’ he screamed.

Missing finger or no, the axeman was already grinning ferociously, and had gathered up his weapons again. He blocked the path of the others as the man with the hammer prodded it forward at Simon, forcing him away from his companions.

Holding his dead right arm with his left, desperate, Simon could only watch as the spear-tip waved before him, close to his face, at his throat, at his belly or groin. It moved, regular as a pebble on a string, and Simon was utterly engrossed at the sight as he moved back. Then something hit at the back of his knees, and he toppled into a carved moorstone horse-trough. The jarring sensation made him cry out with pain, but before he could attempt to regain his feet, the hammer was at his head, and it caught him a glancing blow over his eye. Simon felt sick with pain, and then he saw the hammer rise again, and begin to fall. He made a quick prayer …

And it stopped. There was a blade beneath it, blocking it — Pierre’s blade — and Simon couldn’t breathe as he watched the duel in fascination. The heavy blade swung around sharply, and the hammer was flicked away, only to stab out at Pierre, nearly nicking his thigh. Pierre leaped back, and the hammer was aimed at Simon again, but then Pierre returned and stopped it with a ringing crash that shook the hammer away, and now the hammer-fighter turned his full attention on to Pierre, leaving Simon to roll out of the trough, carefully protecting his arms as he landed on the ground again. He stayed there on all fours, panting, exhausted, as he watched his saviour.

Pierre handled his blade like a man who had been possessed by a fighting demon. He thrust, parried, blocked a great crashing blow that would have knocked Simon to his knees, and then began to move more swiftly, pressing his enemy with speed and determination, forcing him back farther and farther. The axeman was keeping the others away, but seeing his friend being pushed back, he lost concentration for a moment, and Simon saw Baldwin and Hamund attack together, Baldwin’s sword cleaving through his arm near the shoulder, and while the man screamed in rage and hatred, Hamund’s knife thrust in through his back, the point appearing in his breast. He shook Hamund away, and tried to reach the hilt of the knife with his remaining hand, but panic made him mad even as the blood pumped from his shoulder and he weakened. Soon he fell to his knees, and he flailed at his back ineffectually for a little longer, before keeling over and screaming once as the stump of his arm crashed into the cobbles. Then he was silent at last, and Hamund and Baldwin rushed to Pierre.

The hammer man knew that he was lost, but he wouldn’t give up. He snarled at the men, even as they surrounded him. It was only a matter of time now, and he gazed at them all, eyes running from one to another. Pierre and Baldwin exchanged a look, and both sprang forward at the same moment. The hammer man shifted his weight and flung his point out, trying to spit one of them, but too late. Pierre’s blade slapped into and through his thigh, while Baldwin’s stabbed upwards, piercing his throat and running on until Baldwin’s fist was below his chin, the knight’s other hand gripping the wrist of the hand that held the hammer.

The man went over backwards like a sack of flour, and thrashed desperately as he drowned in his own blood, the fluid jetting from his nostrils and erupting from his mouth. Baldwin withdrew as the man gradually eased, and wiped his blade on his tunic.

‘Simon? Are you all right?’

The expression of concern on his face was the last thing Simon saw as he felt himself sinking into the great emptiness that appeared to open in the street beneath him.

It was broad sunshine the next morning when he woke, and his first thought was to condemn the loudly shouting fool. ‘The great slubberdegullion cretin!’ he said, wondering who it was. Then he remembered the name — Sir Richard de Welles — and with that, the sickness and headache were both fully explained. Simon burped and winced with the taste of acrid gas. At least this time he had made it to his own bed. Sir Richard hadn’t taken it last night.

But then he had a recollection of the flash of a sword, the point of a war-hammer, and his eyes snapped wide as he remembered the desperate fight. It was enough to make him start to roll over to climb up from his bed, but even as he did so, his arm gave a sharp twinge, and he hissed with the pain.

‘It’s not broken,’ Baldwin called quietly.

Simon carefully turned. Behind him, at the wall, Baldwin was standing easily, an anxious smile on his face, while Rob knelt beside him, rinsing a cloth in a bowl of warmed water scented with fresh lavender. ‘I’m relieved to hear it, but it feels as though it may disagree with you.’

‘We had you looked at last night as soon as you collapsed,’ Baldwin explained, walking up and standing beside the bed, gazing down at him sympathetically. ‘I know what it’s like to wake with a head like yours. I would remain there and wait until the sickness passes. It is the best way to recuperate, old friend.’

‘Perhaps,’ Simon said, pushing himself up to a sitting position, ‘but it wouldn’t do anything for my determination to see that druggle Sir Andrew pay for his actions! To murder that gaoler because the man got in his path — that was the action of a coward!’

‘I cannot disagree.’

‘Where is Pierre and his companion? Are they safe?’

‘They are here, in your hayloft. I thought it better that they should remain there than that they should be seen wandering the town.’

‘He saved my life. I would not wish to see him harmed by some political liar and bully,’ Simon mused.

‘We can protect him, I think.’

‘From the damned cur Andrew?’

‘He is in your hall even now, being questioned by the Coroner. I left him to it.’

‘Have you been here all night?’

Baldwin tilted his head slightly. ‘Not all the night, no.’

‘No. He went to wake the Coroner at dawn,’ Rob said, stepping forward to wipe Simon’s face with the cloth.

‘Ouch! Be careful, fool!’

‘You’ve been beat about the head and the arm, and you call me the fool?’ Rob said insolently.

‘Why do I only ever find servants who consider it their duty to bait me?’ Simon grumbled, pushing Rob away and swinging round to set his feet on the ground. He took the cloth and placed it gently over his head, breathing in the fumes, and in a short while he did feel improved. He threw the bunched cloth at Rob and stood. ‘Come, old friend. Let’s go and see what this lying cretin has been telling the good Coroner.’

Simon had been sleeping in his back parlour, for the men could not have carried him up the steep stairs to his bedchamber, so all he need do was walk the short distance to his hall, but even that felt like a great trial, and he slumped onto a stool as soon as he arrived, glowering ferociously at the fair-haired knight.

‘Ah, Bailiff. You appear to have slept late — but well, I trust?’

‘You are clever, Sir Andrew. A most witty guest,’ Simon said. ‘I hope you shall be as witty when they place the hemp about your throat. They have an interesting variation on killing people here — had you heard? Sometimes they’ll take a man out to the river, and hang him from a yard in sight of the town. They’ll release him to fall into the water, so that his first gasps will start his drowning, and then they’ll lift him up again. If they are careful, a murderer like you can be forced to struggle four or five times before he dies. It is good sport, I hear, for the watchers.’

‘This is brave talk, but you should know that the ship in the haven is the property of my lord Despenser, and I am his trusted vassal. Any harm you do to me, you do to him, and my lord Despenser does not suffer people to insult him in this manner. If you further embarrass him by treating me in such a manner, he will visit vengeance on you. Be in no doubt of that!’

‘He would protect even one such as you?’ Baldwin enquired. ‘A murderer, pirate, and ravisher of women?’

‘I am no ravisher,’ Sir Andrew spat.

‘But you are a pirate and murderer,’ Simon declared. ‘You killed all the men on the good ship Saint John.’

‘You have stated so before, and I have denied it before. This is an untrue statement. It is a vile calumny.’

‘You persist in this denial?’ Coroner Richard rumbled.

‘Of course I do! If I and my men had attacked the ship, as you say, would the crew not have defended themselves? Where are the damaged sails, the arrow-marks in the timbers? That ship of mine has been at sea only a short while, and it has no damage so far as I know.’

‘Damage can be mended,’ Simon said. ‘Sailors are most adept at making repairs.’

‘Sailors are also determined thieves. Didn’t I hear that the ship was not despoiled? The whole cargo remained? You have seen my crew at work. Can you believe that they would have allowed me to sail away without taking all they wanted? It is ridiculous to suggest that I could have persuaded such a gathering of doddi-poll joltheads into obeying such a command. They would have emptied her, then fired her, and they would have fired her properly, not leaving a partial wreck to float about — and if I tried to stop them, they would have thrown me on it as it burned!’

That argument held force, Simon knew. He glanced up at the Coroner and Baldwin, and saw that they too were doubtful. ‘Then who could have committed such a crime?’

Baldwin responded, ‘If this is true, and seamen would not leave such a profit to go to waste, then surely we have to assume that someone other than a sailor is responsible.’

‘How could that be?’ Sir Richard scoffed. ‘Only sailors go to sea.’

‘A sailor would have taken the profit, though,’ Simon said. ‘As Sir Andrew said, a sailor wouldn’t have let the cargo be wasted. He would have …’

He stopped, his mouth fallen wide.

‘Simon?’ Baldwin asked apprehensively. ‘Is it your head again? Are you all right?’

The Bailiff waved his hand in denial. ‘Coroner, let’s have this worthless jolt-head returned to the gaol where he belongs. We need time to consider this anew.’