The Manor of Death

PROLOGUE

April 1196

A brisk south-westerly wind sent the two ships scudding up the Channel, almost midway between the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy and the coast of Devon. Both landfalls were far out of sight, which was just as well, given the bloody acts that were soon to take place.

The smaller vessel was faster than the heavy-laden cog, which was hauling a cargo from Barfleur up towards King Richard's new harbour at Portsmouth. The shipmaster was desperately trying to coax every knot from his ungainly craft, and the single sail bellied out so tightly that he feared that some of the stitched repairs in the fabric would tear apart. Every few moments he would look fearfully over his shoulder as he leant on the single long oar pivoted over the steerboard quarter. His heart chilled as with every glance he saw the lighter craft remorselessly overhauling the Blackbird. The other cog, though almost as squat and cumbersome, had a larger sail and a slightly less bulbous hull.

His four crewmen, powerless to do anything further to speed their ship, stared helplessly astern at what they feared would be their nemesis, for the men they could see on the deck were more than twice their number. As they came nearer, the desperate men on the Blackbird saw that two of the pursuing crew had crossbows ready strung, and the others brandished long knives, maces or short spears. The only one unarmed was a youth, who watched with horror as they drew alongside and, with ferocious yells, all except the steersman leapt across the bulwarks and lashed the two vessels together with ropes.

Within a couple of minutes all the Blackbird's crew were either lying dead on the deck in pools of their own blood or had been thrown overboard to drown in the choppy waters. The steersman of the pirate vessel abandoned his oar to rush across to join his shipmates — on the way, he gave the youth a buffet across the head and yelled at him as he passed.

'Come on, you yellow-livered pansy, there's cargo to be shifted! Haven't you seen corpses before?'

Reluctantly, the lad followed him, but as soon as he had clambered over on to the other boat, he retched at the sight of two men lying with their throats cut and then vomited his breakfast on to the pitching deck. Another man grabbed him and threw him towards the single hatch, where the pirates were ripping off the loose planks that covered the hold. Gagging and keeping his eyes off the dead men nearby, he scrabbled at the boards and then toiled with the others in transferring the kegs of wine and dried fruit and the bales of Flemish cloth across to their own ship. As soon as everything had been pillaged, he heard the sound of axes smashing through the hull down below, and soon they all hurried back across the bulwarks to cast off the ropes before the doomed vessel could drag their own ship down with her.

Within a few moments the Blackbird rolled over and sank, taking the remaining corpses with her. Crossing himself, the young man sobbed out some prayers to himself and stayed hunched miserably in a corner against the forecastle, as the marauding cog turned north and clawed her way across the wind towards the distant shores of England.