The Death Ship of Dartmouth

Chapter Five

It was late that night when Simon returned to his little chambers and sat before his fire with a bowl of hot soup and hunk of bread. He didn’t bother to go to his table, but sipped straight from his bowl as he contemplated all he had learned that day.

Originally he had taken a larger house in Dartmouth, but that was when he had hoped that his wife Meg might join him here. Since hearing of the death of Abbot Robert, it seemed clear enough to him that he would not be staying here for long. The good abbot had been his enthusiastic patron, and with him gone, it was likely that the new abbot would seek to install his own friend or loyal servant. Simon had quickly decided to take a smaller place.

It was comfortable enough, though. Situated in the upper of the two streets, a short distance from the Porpoise, a rowdy tavern, he had a fair-sized front room, a smaller kitchen and parlour behind, and a pleasant solar chamber above the front room for his bed. Outside there was a simple privy in his garden. For a man living alone, it was fine.

There was a squeak and rattle from a loose sign further up the road, and although the noise normally didn’t affect him, today it grated on his ear as though there was an invisible connection between his head and the rusty metal. When he heard a cat screech, he shot from his seat, spilling soup over his lap, making him curse loudly. He was not the only man in Clifton or Hardness who felt the same anxiety that night, he knew.

It was always hard when his friend Baldwin heard of some little precaution he took: Baldwin had a hard-nosed manner about all sensible safeguards, calling them ‘superstitious nonsense’ or somesuch, but Simon didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, it was proof of Baldwin’s foolishness. Simon wasn’t superstitious, anyway. He simply didn’t believe in taking risks.

There was something about that great ship lying in the haven, blackened and charred … as though it had been sent to hell, and only returned when the devil had taken her crew. Poor fellows. Stephen had said there were eleven of them, too. All with wives and children, no doubt. All who would now struggle to make a living.

There were some men who fully deserved such a fate, no doubt, but Simon could not help but wonder at the wholesale nature of this destruction. It was a proof of the danger that all men lived with at all times, and a warning to make sure that they shrived themselves when they could, so that their souls might leave them with full confidence. No man knew the moment of his death, and these poor sailors were a prime example of that fact. If only they had been to church before they sailed, and had given Confession full honestly. Perhaps one or two did. Maybe they were already up in heaven. Simon heard a fox call, and closed his eyes, only to open them wide at a scratching behind his wall. No, it was a rat or something. Nothing else.

Christ’s ballocks, but he must calm himself. The whole town was the same. Everyone was jumpy and fretful. No surprise, really, when a man considered how sailors depended so much on their instincts. To learn that some eleven men had been lost, one of them found dead in the hold, but the others gone as though they had never existed, that was terrifying. There would be many families tonight who would have no sleep.

One of them was Widecombe Will’s. Simon had seen Will later in the afternoon, when people began to realise whose ship it was. Will was with one of his daughters: Annie. She saw the ship and shrieked with horror. Her man Ed had been one of the crew. Simon recalled him — a game lad, brawny and powerful. Now Annie was on her knees, throwing dust from the road in all directions as she squealed and groaned.

‘You don’t know it’s the Saint John,’ Will was saying.

‘You think I don’t recognise my Ed’s ship? He was only going to be out for a couple of days, and now look at it! Everyone knows it’s his ship! My Ed! My Ed! He’s gone!’

The ship was one of Paul Pyckard’s. There was little doubt of that, as soon as they’d been able to take Pyckard’s clerk and servant, Moses, to the ship and had checked the cargo against the manifest which recorded all the goods loaded. She was clearly the Saint John, and if they needed further proof, the sight of Danny’s corpse was enough.

Although Simon felt squeamish at the sight of all dead bodies, it was those who had died from fire and water that most repelled him. Today, seeing that poor, whitened face, the flesh cold and soft as a fish’s, Simon could have turned and thrown up. It was bad enough to be on a ship, without the added churning in his belly caused by the dead sailor.

‘Who is he?’ he’d demanded as the nausea began to fade slightly.

‘I think his name was Danny. He came from Hardness,’ Hawley said dispassionately. He stood with his legs set firmly on the deck as though his boots were nailed to it, unconcerned by the rolling or the body. ‘Leaves a widow and three children, if I’m right.’

Henry Pyket had been brought back from the shore, and was sitting shivering on a coil of ropes. ‘I didn’t bring him up here until I was told to, Bailiff. I don’t want to be fined for moving him when it wasn’t my fault.’

‘Shut up!’ Hawley grated. ‘The Bailiff has better things to do than worry about your hurt feelings.’

‘It’s not a problem, Master Shipwright,’ Simon comforted him. ‘If the Coroner tries to be difficult, tell him to speak to me. You couldn’t have left the corpse down there in the hold. There was no point in that. Better that we took him out and brought him up here.’

‘Then it’s on your head,’ Hawley noted with satisfaction.

‘I’ll support your decision,’ Simon said sharply. He turned to the shipwright. ‘He was under the water, you said?’

‘I stepped on his arm, poor devil. He was there, under the surface, with a bale of wool on top of him.’

‘From the look of him, he was stabbed first,’ Simon said, looking reluctantly at the corpse.

‘Makes me wonder whether there’s any more down there,’ Hawley said speculatively. ‘Perhaps the rest of the crew are there as well?’

‘Yes, Master Hawley? You think there could be more, eh?’

This was from a heavy-set man with an enormous paunch, who staggered up the ladder to the deck and stood there, puffing a little as he gazed about him. Behind him came another man, taller, and more wiry.

Simon shrugged. ‘It’s possible, Master Kena. Good day, and good day to you, Master Beauley.’

The two were well known to the Bailiff. The portly Master Philip Kena, clad in a thick fur-trimmed cotte with a hood that had an extravagant liripipe and gorget in bright blue, was a close competitor to Master Hawley. He had twinkling eyes of grey-blue that were often wreathed in wrinkles as he laughed uproariously at some joke or other, but Simon disliked and mistrusted him. He was too sure of his own position and importance, and Simon sensed that he would be a dangerous enemy.

The slimmer man, Master Hilary Beauley, was a lesser merchant of the town, who lived still in Hardness, north of the mill, where more of the poorer people had their dwellings. His colouring was in stark contrast with Master Kena’s, for where the latter was pale with some colour, like an apple which has been left out in the sun over the autumn, Beauley was as dark as a moor, with skin the colour of an oak apple. His dark eyes were everywhere at once, as though he was always looking for a new customer or supplier.

‘Who could have done this?’ Beauley wondered now, gazing about him.

Hawley shrugged. ‘French privateers. Maybe the men of Lyme? They’ve always hated us. When they see our ships, they often try to board and fight.’

‘They’re a weird lot in Lyme,’ Kena said.

‘Cut your throat as soon as look at you, if they know you’re from Devon,’ Hawley nodded.

‘The men from Lyme? What’s the matter with them?’ Simon asked.

‘They reckon they own the oceans, that’s what,’ Kena explained.

‘It was fifty years ago they last had a pitched battle, wasn’t it?’ Hawley said.

‘Aye, before my time,’ Kena agreed. ‘They had a great fight that day. But we won it.’

Simon had never heard of a fight that the pugnacious Dartmouth, Clifton and Hardness men had lost — not from here in the towns, anyway. ‘And that’s all? Because of a fight before any of us were born, you say that they must have taken this ship?’

‘No. Last time they took a ship and plundered it, that was two years backalong,’ Hawley said.

‘You just said it was fifty-odd years ago.’

‘That was when there was a battle between us and the men from Lyme. If you’re talking about simple piracy against a Devon ship, that’s different. The bastards joined with some sailors from Weymouth or somewhere, took the ship, stole the cargo, killed the crew, and scuttled her. God rot them!’

Sitting in his little chamber later, Simon recalled the expression on Hawley’s face as he spoke those words. Here was a man who was more than happy to repay a debt. Especially a debt of blood, visiting vengeance on the men who had caused him grief.

It was an attitude much in evidence about the town. As he’d left the ship, returning with relief to terra firma after giving permission for the cargo to be brought ashore, Simon had noticed others muttering as they looked at the vessel moored close to the harbour. Their eyes were full of anger and resentment, and many was the time he heard the words ‘Lyme bastards’.

Many years ago, an arrogant squire at Oakhampton Castle had said to Simon that the locals here in Devon were as patient and calm as the cattle they herded. ‘They can’t be roused by anything,’ he had drawled.

Simon had replied, ‘If you want to rouse a Devon man, insult his woman, or his child, or his dog, or his cattle. But before you do, make sure you have some men with you.’

‘Ach, they aren’t capable of anger. They’re bovine, I tell you. It’s all the oats they eat. Ha ha! If you eat cattle feed all the time, it’s no surprise you end up that way.’

‘Before you say that to one, you’d best have your sword ready,’ Simon said with a cold rage. He was a Devon man himself, born here and raised here.

‘A sword? More likely a stick to prod them.’

Simon stood, and in a moment the man was lying sprawled flat on his back. ‘How did you …?’

‘If you want to insult those who spend their whole lives wrestling cattle to the ground so they can be branded, you should learn to take a fall,’ Simon had said coldly, and walked from the room followed by cheering and loud applause from all the Devon men in the room. All the same, he was glad that the squire didn’t leap up and draw a weapon. He had publicly shamed the man, after all. Perhaps it was the presence of Hugh, Simon’s ever-truculent servant, who stood gripping his thick staff ostentatiously, that was enough to put the squire off the experiment.

Yes, a Devon man roused was a fearful thing.

‘Definitely the men from Lyme, I’d say,’ Hawley had said again, and Kena murmured assent while Beauley nodded sagely.

It had struck Simon that these three men were the main competitors of the ship’s owner, Paul Pyckard. He looked about them again, and then asked, ‘Tell me, masters, where were all your ships when this happened? Master Hawley, yours was at sea, I believe. Master Kena?’

‘I hope you don’t mean to accuse me of trying to steal this ship, Bailiff,’ Kena said with wide-eyed shock.

‘Or me,’ Beauley said with an intimidating calmness. Like that sudden quiet before a thunderstorm. ‘I would be most unhappy to think you accused me of being a pirate.’

‘So all your ships were at sea, is that what you are saying?’ Simon asked. He knew that all had been away. It was Stephen who recorded the movements of shipping and told him each morning which ships were at anchor, which had sailed.

Kena spoke with an oleaginous smile. ‘It is the law, Bailiff. We are supposed to be using numbers to protect our craft. We have to sail in convoys.’

‘But not this vessel?’ Simon asked.

Beauley was sharp-toned. ‘The captain, whoever he was, sought to beat us to the French coast, rot his bowels! His ship was smaller, but he wanted to get there quickly and sell at the highest price, buy the best wines cheaply, and return. He would have done, too.’

Simon said no more, but as he left the ship and clambered down the rope ladder to the little boat that would row him back to shore, he was deep in thought.

He did not truly think that any of Pyckard’s competitors could have done this. The men of Lyme — yes, possibly — but this lot? No.

‘Who could have done that to her, then?’ he wondered aloud. And shivered as the devil intruded into his thoughts again. Only the devil would have taken the men and left ship and cargo.

Master Kena could not sleep. His wife was tired and he found it impossible to remain in his bed while he felt so wide awake. She was too young for him to spoil her sleep. Bless her, she would have been glad to sit with him and talk, had he asked her to, but that wasn’t fair. She was less than half his age, and she deserved a full night’s rest now that she had paid the marriage debt earlier in the evening.

Rather than disturb her, he rose from his bed, pulled on his gipon and a fur-lined cloak over the top, and wrapped himself in its thick folds before going to the door and cautiously stepping down the stairs to the room beneath. Here was the comfortable little chamber where he and his wife would sit of an evening, and although the fire was long dead, there was some residual heat about the hearth. He drew up a stool and sat before it, his face feeling the vague warmth.

There was no doubt that business would be affected by the disaster of Paul Pyckard’s ship. All eleven crew gone — it was a terrible shock to the town. Many people of Dartmouth had stated that they felt sure the devil had taken the men, but Kena himself believed that if the devil intended to take any man, he would have taken some of the others from the town. There was plenty of choice for his eternal fires, truth be told.

Still, if superstitious shipmen refused to sail, men like Kena would suffer. This could not be permitted to continue. It was a matter of urgency that those responsible for the crime should be discovered as soon as possible.

It was bad enough that business was already suffering because of the squabbling between the English and French kings. When rulers fell out, it was lesser beings who suffered, and just now, all merchants in England were watching the sword-rattling with growing alarm. The new policy of sailing in convoy meant that most ships were safe enough, but it also meant that a man had trouble finding crew. The sailors were all spoken for, and unless a master chose to offer bribes to tempt matelots away — as Kena himself had done — he might have to sail with a skeleton crew.

That was why Pyckard had been forced to take on strangers, which was always bad luck. Unknown crew members could well prove untrustworthy when attacked, after all. They had nothing to tie themselves to a ship or a master but his money, and where was the trust in that? Kena himself had bought off four or five of his men, so Pyckard’s ships were definitely undermanned. Kena’s poaching of the sailors was but one source of the enmity between him and Pyckard.

Pyckard had been unlucky with his ship, but soon all the local merchants would suffer similar losses if this war proceeded. Hawley seemed a bright lad, much like his father John Hawley before him. Both had a nose for a contract and a bargain, and both would happily spit in the eye of the devil himself if it meant more profit for them. They had the ships and men, too. They could easily afford to run greater risks than others. Then there was young Beauley. He had two ships he could call his own, and his attire and demeanour were looking richer every year. Like Hawley, he would draw a sword and yell defiance rather than give up his craft or his cargo. Beneath the skin, all ambitious merchants were but a breath away from felony. Certainly he himself would kill any man who got in his way.

As had Pyckard that once …

All merchants would dispute now and again. There were so many issues on which they were in competition: the best victualling spot; the best mooring; the best merchants in Britanny who would provide the most profit. The rewards went to the man who could demand and take what he wanted. When other merchants wanted the same resources, fights were inevitable.

The fight with Pyckard had been bitter and long-standing. Paul Pyckard and he had started in the trade early in the King’s reign, back in 1307. At the time, Pyckard had been a forceful young merchant — but so had Kena. Pyckard had shipped a great cargo of cloth from Totnes, beating Kena to the best of the merchandise at the local market, and Kena was convinced that it was because he had paid a bribe to someone there.

That was fair business. All the merchants did it, and the fines which were imposed when a man was found to have acted illegally were so negligible compared to the money to be made that all merchants looked on the fines as nothing more than minor business expenses to be taken into account during trading.

Yet it had infuriated Kena to be bested. The only remaining stock which he could purchase had been rough ‘dozens’ — a thicker, less desirable cloth, and therefore not so profitable. All the while as his men stored the stuff in the hold, he had wondered how he might win his own back on Pyckard, but to no avail. Then, some months later, he met with a King’s Purveyor, who was seeking transport of cargoes to King Edward’s French possessions; Kena saw the potential immediately. He kept the deal close to his chest, preventing any others from hearing of it, and made a good killing. And then, because that early trade still rankled, he mentioned his suspicions about Pyckard’s trading to the man.

As luck would have it, the Purveyor had only a short while before he tried to buy some cloth for the King’s household, only to discover that there was little to be had. Now he researched that market day and some others, and heard that much more cloth had been sent to market than had eventually been sold. It was a simple case of forestalling. Pyckard was meeting the dealers outside the town, offering a good sum for the whole lot, and then reselling it in the market when it opened for a better profit. However, he was keeping back a large proportion of the goods to sell in France, where the profit would be even greater.

The fine imposed after the Purveyor’s report had hurt Pyckard, although it had made Kena laugh. The next time Pyckard saw him in the market, he turned his back on Kena, and would have nothing more to do with him from that moment.

That was fine by Philip. He had no wish to be friendly with Pyckard, especially not after the way his men had behaved. One day he had let his wife out alone, and Pyckard’s men had … well, enough. Kena had one ambition: to be the most powerful merchant in Dartmouth. To achieve that, he would stop at nothing.

Especially if it could hurt Pyckard and his men.