The Outlaws of Ennor

Chapter Ten

Isok trudged home gloomily. His wife was a slut — no better than the drabs you met at the harbours and fishing ports up and down Cornwall, for all her pretended honourable ways.

He had loved Tedia from the first moment of seeing her, and perhaps that was the problem. Other men beat their wives, he knew. They thrashed the wenches to make them obedient. It was no different from training a dog, after all. All creatures needed to know their place in the world. A man had to know to whom he must answer: Isok to the reeve, David, David to the Prior, Cryspyn — just as the Prior himself answered to the Abbot and the Abbot to the Pope. The men of the island of Ennor were the same, they had their own masters. The taxman Robert, rot his soul, responded to Thomas, who was Ranulph de Blancminster’s man, and he reported to the Queen, because Isabella had been given the Earldom of Cornwall by her husband, Edward II. Everyone had a master.

But his wife chose to ignore him. She flouted his will, and would see to the dissolution of their marriage. That thought was like a bitter north-eastern wind that blew through his soul. It had been there for many a day now, ever since he had heard that she planned to leave him.

‘You can’t, you’re my wife!’

‘That’s not what Luke says,’ she’d replied defiantly, tossing her long hair back. ‘He says that if a man isn’t doing his duty to his wife, she can divorce him. And you aren’t, are you?’

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he said, but with a terrible dawning fear that she would. ‘Who would have you? A used …’

‘Who has used me?’ she instantly retorted. ‘You haven’t, have you? Why should you think that someone else wouldn’t?’

‘You want them to, don’t you?’ he had demanded, torn with the pain of his own failure. He knew that she had been willing to be his lover, Christ Jesus! He knew that from her behaviour with him. She was uncontrollable — a whore on heat; she couldn’t understand that it was impossible for him. He’d tried, Christ’s pains, he’d tried so hard.

He lived with his failure. Now, for him, just to have her at his side was enough. He was not consumed with desire like she was; although he adored her he couldn’t consummate his love. He’d always thought, if you loved your wife, that should be enough, provided she knew it. Except even a man who treated his wife well wanted to lie with her, and Isok couldn’t.

He sniffed sadly. He knew that there was something wrong with his tarse. Something prevented him hardening and being able to service her. It was his failing, not hers, which was breaking their marriage. But she should accept that he adored her and be content.

Except she couldn’t be satisfied with that; she wanted a lot more — she wanted the use of his body, and he couldn’t do anything to help her. He knew that unless he could give her a child, she would leave him. Sooner or later, it would happen: she would either decide to leave him for a man on the island, or she might go over to that damned nest of thieves and robbers, to Ennor.

From here he could see the sweep of Ennor. He stopped and surveyed the island, noted the group of men huddled at the shoreline near Penn Trathen. The Lord’s men, he thought. Damn them!

So they thought they could win his wife, did they? Never! He’d not let them have her. He’d rather kill her than have her live with those who taxed him and his friends so highly. She was his, his — and he wouldn’t let any man take her.

‘Isok, friend. Are you well?’ It was David, the leader of their vill.

‘David, I … my wife is with that stranger.’

The reeve studied him carefully, then peered up towards the shore where Isok pointed. ‘She’s a good woman, Isok. You know that.’

‘Of course I know that. But she still wants to shame me in front of all.’

David set his head to one side. ‘You can’t blame her, man! You won’t give her a decent stab with your pork sword.’

‘I can’t! I can’t do what a husband should,’ Isok mumbled. ‘I just can’t do it.’

‘But why, man?’ David asked with incredulity. This was a wonder to him. ‘I don’t know of any man who could stop himself from fondling and adoring her. She’s lovely, your wife. Why can’t you just-’

‘It doesn’t work,’ Isok told him. His shame was just that: his manhood failed him when he needed it. ‘I can’t.’

‘There are others who will want to try their luck, you know.’

‘I know. And she will want them to,’ Isok added bitterly.

‘But you can do nothing?’

‘No.’

‘The Prior has asked me whether there is any hope. You know that Tedia has requested that the Bishop’s court investigate you? She wants a man to hear her case and decide whether you should be divorced.’

‘I know that!’ Isok burst out. He wanted to grab David by his smart tunic and pound his face until his own mother wouldn’t recognise him. ‘But what,’ he asked, as his anger subsided and his self-pity rose to envelop him once more, ‘would you have me do? I can’t splint it! All I can do is to kill any man who attempts to get close to her, and that’s no good to me or to her.’

He felt as though his heart would break. There was no time during their marriage that he hadn’t loved her. His lack of stiffness was not from lack of love. He adored her. It was merely that he couldn’t do anything about it. It was a curse which had been laid upon him. Surely there was no other explanation.

‘You could try that,’ David said loftily. ‘But if I learned you had committed murder, I would have to catch you.’

‘Perhaps I have already,’ Isok said. ‘I know I have in my heart.’

‘What do you mean?’ David asked suspiciously. A terrible thought sprang into his mind. ‘Have you killed a man? Have you?’

‘If I had, it would be because he had tried to cuckold me.’

‘Isok, how could a man cuckold you? You have your woman to have and hold, but you refuse her. It’s no secret, man! She has let it be known, and so have you! If Tedia seeks the attention and companionship of another man, it’s not her fault.’

‘You mean it is mine?’

‘Can’t you … think lewd thoughts, or imagine another woman you’d prefer, or …’ David was at a loss. ‘Just think of whatever might work for you.’

‘I can’t,’ Isok said despairingly. ‘I’ve tried, God knows.’

‘Then you must grow used to being divorced and the butt of jokes,’ David said uncompromisingly.

The patch of beach to which Thomas brought Simon was broad and clean, curving gently from rocks on the right-hand side to a low sandy promontory on the left. There were maybe fifteen men waiting there when Simon and Thomas arrived. Fifteen peasant men and a few women, all inhabitants of Ennor, and all thus serfs to Ranulph, standing by a man’s body which had been dragged down from the grassy dune where it had lain.

Simon groaned. It was ever the way. As soon as a body was found, people would go and gawp at the damned thing, generally trampling any bits and pieces which might point to the killer. There could be marks in the sand which could identify the man responsible, little indications which only a man who had learned how to investigate could see. Baldwin had taught him that; Baldwin believed that even when a man was dead, there were often clues as to who might have killed him and why left about his corpse, if only one took the time to search for them.

Baldwin was gone, though, he thought dully. He must grow used to this emptiness where his friend had once been. Wrapped up in memories of the past, he turned from the corpse and audience, and stared out to sea.

‘Why have you brought me here?’ he asked.

Thomas sniffed with amusement. ‘You are a stranger. Maybe that means you can assist with the investigation into this man’s death.’

‘You mean, I may have seen him here and killed him, or know of someone else doing the same?’ Simon scoffed. ‘It’s ridiculous! I know nothing about this man.’

There was a beach on the next island, and he watched some people walking about it. Somehow the feeling of loss grew more acute as he stood there observing them, until he was brought back to the present by a hoarse bellow.

‘Set it here!’

Thomas was pointing imperiously at a patch of level sand, and as Simon watched, three bitter-looking men arrived, heavily laden. One was carrying a large chair, a second two trestles, and the third a table-top. Under Thomas’s instructions these three set about creating a desk area for the Sergeant. They put the table-top over the trestles, then placed the chair behind it. Ignoring their sulky mien, Thomas sat in the chair. It promptly sank into the sand, back legs deeper than the front, tilting madly.

‘Get me up!’ he shrieked, his arms waving, legs in the air.

Simon grinned, despite himself; it took an effort of will not to laugh aloud. Looking at the men watching, though, his smile soon faded and died. Not a man present saw any humour in Thomas’s predicament. The jurors stood grim and stolid as their Sergeant lost all dignity and screamed in rage. This showed Simon just how deeply Thomas was detested by the islanders among whom he lived.

Two men-at-arms from the castle eventually walked forward, one hauling Thomas up while the other shifted the chair. Soon Thomas was on his feet again, but this time he left the chair and stood at the table, red-faced, setting out parchment, reeds and ink. He had just finished when there was a sudden hush.

‘Where are the jurors, then?’

Simon glanced up to see a large, bluff man in a clean white tunic approach. He moved with a surprising speed for his bulk, while the skinnier figure of another man scurried in his wake like a small boat bobbing behind a cog under full sail. Although Simon didn’t know it, this last fellow was Walerand.

Interestingly, though, Simon sensed that the people present did not dislike this newcomer so much as Thomas. They were still, and there were signs that they deferred to him, but Simon gained the impression that there was respect for this man, rather than the hatred they felt for Thomas.

‘Sir, they are all here and ready,’ Thomas said obsequiously, and Simon correctly guessed that the man in white was the Lord of the Manor.

‘Good. Stand over there, Walerand. Got your inks ready, Sergeant?’

Thomas nodded as he prepared a roll of parchment and knelt not far from the body, his reed dipped in a little flask.

‘Right, then, as Coroner of this benighted isle, I call on you all to give us your names. Who was First Finder?’

‘I was.’

‘Record that, Thomas. The finder was Walerand. To whom did you speak?’

‘Hamadus and Oderic.’

‘Fine!’

Simon watched sombrely as Ranulph declared the amercements, the sums each must pay to guarantee their appearance in court when the case was discussed. Ranulph seemed very happy with the fact of the men called, and the amercements were quite high, to the bailiff’s mind.

‘Let’s look at the poor bugger’s body, then,’ Ranulph declared. ‘Come on, men, clear a way for me. Right — you and you. Strip him.’

Walerand and another man stepped forward and began removing the clothes from the corpse. Simon disliked the pulling about of bodies, but at least it was a distraction. He felt as though he might go mad if he were to dwell on Baldwin’s death any longer.

Before looking at the body, one thing struck him: the man was without his boots. He was dressed in an old-fashioned manner, probably because he relied on a local tailor with old habits, and his hosen were bound to his under-girdle with laces. Simon could see that, because his hosen were off too, as though he was preparing to wash his legs. It was curious enough for Simon to note it. Where, he wondered, were the boots?

The corpse was that of a youngish man, in his mid to late twenties. As the body was rolled over and undressed, Simon saw that he had been a good-looking fellow. Now, all trace of attraction was gone. The eyes were filled with sand, the hair matted and repulsive, the mouth a gritty mess of reddened mucus. As the men lifted his hosen tunic, some of the jurors hooted with mirth to see that his bowels had voided during or after death. It was a small but significant indignity; Simon was disgusted that this should be cause for amusement and delight among the men and it made him unaccountably sad. What, he wondered, would they make of Baldwin’s body, if that too turned up on this shore? But then he reminded himself that this man had been the gather-reeve — such men were always hated. The one thing Simon saw was that the blade hadn’t penetrated the man’s back. It was a short blade, then.

After a cursory viewing, they had finished. Under Ranulph’s stern gaze, the body was turned over and over by Walerand and the other man.

Ranulph looked up at the watching peasants. ‘I find that this man was murdered, that he was stabbed in the breast with a short blade by an assassin. And when I find that assassin, I shall see him executed as a felon, in the way we know here on our islands.’

Baldwin watched Isok leave with a lightening of his spirit.

All the while Isok was with them, it felt as though he might at any time launch himself upon Baldwin. The thought of that brawny character leaping, fists swinging, was unpleasant. Still, Baldwin knew that a knight was impervious to threats and attacks. As soon as he found his sword, he would be a great deal more confident.

‘Your husband appears out of sorts. I hope it is nothing that I may have said or done,’ he said to Tedia as they traipsed over the dunes. He kept his eyes fixed on the sand. From listening to her voice, he would be able to learn all he needed.

‘He is not pleased with me. Ever since I decided to divorce him,’ Tedia said, and then she gave a short sniff. ‘I wish I didn’t have to.’

‘Why must you?’ Baldwin enquired. ‘What are the grounds?’

It took her little time to explain. There was no need for her to go into much detail, thankfully. ‘I am no mean-spirited wench who would shame my husband,’ she said defensively. ‘But what can I do?’

Baldwin was silent for a moment. He had heard of men who were not tempted by their wives, but this was extreme. ‘Perhaps, um, you could-’

‘I have tried everything,’ she cut him off flatly. ‘He couldn’t get the beast to rise. Nothing works.’

‘It must be terrible,’ Baldwin said, thinking of the mental anguish which Isok must be suffering. For a man to be unable to raise his tarse and sleep with his own wife was a curiously appalling idea. It was no surprise that Isok looked so dour and miserable. The poor devil must be suffering the whole time, wondering what his neighbours were thinking of him, wondering who was laughing behind his back … wondering whether his wife would be faithful. Could any wife be faithful in those circumstances? Baldwin was relieved that he had never had a problem with that. His wife could never complain of a lack of attention — the opposite, perhaps …

‘I have to do something. I am failing in my duty to God,’ Tedia said, and there was a mournful tone to her voice. ‘I used to love my man, but now?’ She disconsolately kicked at a pebble. ‘I don’t know. I think I could be tempted by any fellow with meat between his legs. It’s been so long …’

Baldwin heard little, fortunately. His emotions were confused enough as it was. Instead he was studying the ground. This, he felt sure, must have been the place where he had been washed up. There were so many prints in the sand. And then his mind caught on to Tedia’s comment and he felt a surge of trepidation. He looked up and surveyed the area. There was no one in sight.

She continued sadly, ‘I could be sorely tempted by almost any man, and that’s no way to live, is it? I want to cleave to my husband, yet I dream of other men all the time.’

‘Is this where I was found?’ Baldwin asked hurriedly.

She turned to him as though she had forgotten he was there. ‘Hmm? Oh, yes. You were just here — see? There’s no sign of a sword.’

Baldwin had to agree with her. Nothing marred the pristine sand apart from some few baulks of timber and the occasional piece of seaweed. Everything else was flotsam.

It was a terrible fact to face, that his sword was gone for ever, and he felt the full weight of the loss, as though this was a final breaking with his past. He hoped that the ship had survived. Other ships lasted out the bad weather, and it was quite possible that Simon was still alive, and yet Simon was not here, and Baldwin was appallingly alone. He felt deserted, and to have lost that most important symbol of his power and position, his sword, redoubled his loneliness. It was as though he had not only lost his friend, but at the same time had lost his right to call himself knight. Had lost his own past. Without that sword, he felt as though his own Order had disowned him. Childish, yes; foolish, certainly — yet the feeling was there, a conviction that he could not shake.

‘Are you all right?’ Tedia asked.

‘Yes, but I …’ He felt emotional, close to tears.

‘What?’

‘I cannot believe that my sword fell from me. It could have fallen from the scabbard, but not the whole belt. I wondered, suppose someone found me, and left me there, thinking I was near enough to death already, and simply sought to steal my sword?’

‘That couldn’t happen,’ she said with certainty. ‘No one about here would leave a drowning man to die. We live by the sea: none of us could allow a shipwrecked person to die without help.’

Her conviction was reassuring, but Baldwin knew men could behave astonishingly badly when given the spur of temptation. However, the argument would only upset the woman. ‘I am a little thirsty. Could we find a place with ale or wine?’ he asked quietly.

‘What, here?’ Tedia asked. Then she gave a twisted grin. ‘There may be such a place, but only if you don’t tell.’