The Outlaws of Ennor

Chapter Eleven

Fortunately his purse was still fixed to his belt and when he had returned to the castle, Simon managed to bribe himself into the gaol without too much difficulty. Once there, he demanded to speak to Sir Charles and Paul, and they were brought to him, both in chains.

‘This is a fine welcome home to Britain,’ Charles said with a bright smile. ‘I would have preferred some other response to my arrival.’

The room in which they were allowed to meet was a small cell near the castle’s foundations. There was a black trickle at one corner that stank of urine, and all the walls were bare stone. It was lighted by a malodorous candle which sat in a pool of wax in the middle of the heavily boarded table, and the three men had to stand about it for lack of a stool or bench. Simon was comfortable enough in the cool room, but every time that Sir Charles moved, the links of his chains rattled annoyingly.

If Simon had been in any doubt as to the treatment which Sir Charles and Paul had received, the bruises on Sir Charles’s face, and the dried crust of blood over his temple, as well as Paul’s swollen jaw where he too had been knocked down, would have quelled it. Their clothing was filthy. Days at sea in a tarry, oily cog, sea-sickness and pirates, followed by the storm and then gaol, had all taken their toll on Sir Charles’s usually neat appearance. He had a rough growth of beard, which for some reason made him appear younger than usual, but the gaunt look of his face with its deep eye hollows, and the stains and tears in his tunic, made him seem like a beggar of particularly ill-repute.

Simon at once went to them. ‘I had thought you were both dead! How did you come to survive that last blow?’

‘It was all very well for you to flee,’ Sir Charles said with a certain hauteur, ‘but not everyone knows how to swim, Bailiff.’

‘You should have told me! I could have helped you!’

‘To find a lingering death clinging to a spar?’ Sir Charles said with a faint smile. ‘Far better, I thought, to tempt fate and hope that the ship might survive.’

‘I thought we all agreed it was going to sink.’

‘Yet, as you can see, it didn’t. We arrived here safe and sound.’

‘In most ways,’ Paul grumbled.

‘I am deeply sorry,’ Simon said. ‘Why have they treated you in this way?’

‘Aha! That, I think, I can answer easily enough. It was probably,’ Charles said with a judicial consideration, ‘the way I held my sword to the back of Ranulph Blancminster. Apparently he is the local lord. I thought from his behaviour and arrogance that he was a mere official, or maybe even another pirate. Sadly, I now learn that he is the Lord of the Manor and demands full payment from any vessel which suffers damage about his shores.’

‘Can he do so?’ Simon asked.

‘He can from my master,’ Paul interjected bluntly. ‘His men saw my master shoving his sword-point at the man’s back. That was when they knocked him even more bloody stupid than he normally is.’

‘It was,’ Sir Charles confessed, ‘a rather extraordinary sensation, to be so beaten about the head that I collapsed on the spot. Yet it was interesting in its own way.’

‘As interesting as having an adder bite your arse,’ Paul said scathingly as his master gingerly touched his scalp.

‘No … there was nothing of the serpent about de Blancminster,’ Charles said thoughtfully. ‘He was less of a fighter, more of a merchant. I think all he was doing when he first appeared on our ship was assessing its value. He had no idea how many men there were on board at the time.’

‘He soon learned, though,’ Paul added, and then he spat. ‘And now he knows, he doesn’t want anyone who could cause him trouble to survive.’

‘What do you mean?’ Simon asked.

‘He wants the full value of the ship for himself, doesn’t he? That means no survivors.’

‘I am sure he isn’t so cynical,’ Simon said, but with a hesitation in his voice as he recalled Blancminster’s features.

‘He wants what he can get, Simon,’ Sir Charles said. ‘I understand such men. I thought I had a pirate on the ship, which was why I pulled out my sword — and I was proved right. From the moment he arrived on board, he was looking at the value of the thing. Paul says that as soon as I was down, he went about the Anne from stem to stern, checking all the wines and goods in the hold, and he took the ship’s records with him when he left.’

Simon suddenly remembered the documents Thomas had been working on when he went into his room at the castle. The parchments spread over the trestle-table could well have been a ship’s manifest.

‘As soon as he realised how much the ship was worth,’ Paul confirmed, ‘he took the lot with him and ordered her to be taken into port.’

‘He could surely not leave her without mast or sail,’ Simon said reasonably.

‘He could have asked permission before taking her,’ Sir Charles said flatly. ‘And as soon as I am free of these chains, I shall ask the good Blancminster to meet me for a discussion of the rights and wrongs of his behaviour.’

‘It may be better not to,’ Simon said thoughtfully. ‘He is powerful enough here on his own territory. It would be easy for him to arrange for you to disappear.’

‘If he killed me, he would have to answer to the King’s Coroner soon enough. You and Paul would report his actions!’

Simon looked at him, but it was Paul who caught Simon’s expression and gave a low whistle. ‘You reckon he’d do that? He’d kill all of us to keep us silent?’

‘From his behaviour so far, I wouldn’t think him incapable of it,’ Simon said.

‘I don’t care!’ Sir Charles said. ‘He must be taught manners.’

‘He has many men here. He could easily kill you.’

‘The King’s Coroner …’

‘He is the Coroner.’

‘So much the better. He must be a man of honour, then,’ Sir Charles said.

He stood and Simon saw that he was smiling again. It was a look which Simon distrusted. When the pirates had attacked the ship, Simon had seen Sir Charles. Beforehand, waiting for something to happen, he had been grim, a shadowy, angry man pacing the deck; as soon as the pirates’ grapnels had caught the ship’s side, Simon had seen him wielding his sword. He had been smiling, as happy and innocent-looking as a child, but this child was a berserker in knightly clothing. Sir Charles used his blade to take off one man’s hand, then was back, a club in the other hand, to beat at a second. He smiled as he fought, as though the whole of his soul was thrilling to the power and authority of the steel in his hand.

Seeing that same smile again, Simon left the cell and returned to the fresh daylight, unhappily convinced that if he wished to see his home and his wife again, he would have to ensure that Sir Charles not only escaped from the cell in which he was incarcerated, but that he was kept away from Ranulph de Blancminster until they were safely off the islands.

Simon’s concerns were nothing compared with those of Thomas who, once he returned from the inquest, spent the next hour sitting in his room with his records, assessing the cost of his latest venture should his ship not arrive.

If all was well, the Faucon Dieu should have arrived back at Ennor at any time over the last four days. True, sometimes the French port officials could be difficult, requiring a larger bribe than usual, or there could be a dispute with a clumsy dockyard worker — like last year. Then the master of the ship had arrived in port with a consignment of pottery, and because the lazy drunk had been abed when the dockers arrived, no one had shown them the ropes. When one snapped and a number of pieces were shattered on the hard stone flags, the dockers had accused the ship of maintaining poor ropes, as well they might. They wouldn’t want to have to pay for their incompetence, would they? The master had suffered a large financial penalty for that gaffe. It was normal procedure for all ships always to display their ropes so that this sort of thing couldn’t happen.

To lose one load of pottery, that was one thing, but Thomas now feared that he could have lost much more. Of course, as he reminded himself every few minutes, it was more than likely that the ship was held up in port and couldn’t make the sailing he expected, so they were simply late, but somehow he didn’t feel reassured.

Pirates were always a problem, especially with shipping to and from the British ports in Guyenne, but things had been quiet for a while. Now, though, Thomas had heard that the Anne had been chased by what must have been a Breton ship, from the sound of things. Pirates didn’t tend to travel far: they preyed on ships close to their home ports. So, if the Bretons were up to their tricks again, no cargo was safe, and Thomas was unpleasantly aware that he had overextended himself on this voyage. It wasn’t insured, and if the vessel was caught, he would be in serious trouble.

It was curious the way that this affected him. After the first few anxious moments, he could almost study himself like an observer from a distance. The problem was one about which he could do nothing. Could he fly to the ship to see that she was all right? Of course not! The only thing he could do was sit and wait, and meanwhile ensure that his work was all done. Except he couldn’t. It was impossible to concentrate on anything while his mind was tormented with the fear that he had lost everything he’d built up over the last years.

Money was not important hereabouts, of course, but if he was ever to escape these islands and return to civilisation, he would need hard cash. No man without a lord could survive long in England without some money behind him. No, Thomas needed money, and lots of it … where was that ship? It should have arrived by now.

Then again, piracy was not the only threat to shipping. The Faucon Dieu may have been overwhelmed by the storm, just as the Anne had. Perhaps the master of the Anne had noticed it? Whether he had or not, the man called Gervase had died not long after the damaged vessel was boarded by Ranulph and the rest. Perhaps one of the other survivors had spotted Thomas’s ship? They could have passed her, or … No. It was better to leave the men from the Anne out of it. Ranulph would wonder why he was so keen to speak to them, and Thomas had no desire to let his master find out what he was up to. Filling in customs forms was frowned upon in England, certainly, but the customs due were supposed to be paid to Ranulph, and if he learned that his own trusted Sergeant was taking the money and shovelling it straight into his own purse … life on the island would grow infinitely less pleasant. No, he must keep all that quiet for now.

The Faucon Dieu must surely turn up soon. Where in God’s name was she?

A horrid thought jumped into the Sergeant’s mind. It wasn’t only Bretons who attacked ships. The men of St Nicholas were more than capable of taking to the seas when they were feeling the pinch. The spoil from a couple of merchants’ ships would compensate for a poor harvest, for instance. This summer, the weather had been indifferent and most of the crop had suffered; it would be no surprise if David got together a band of men to find a ship and steal the cargo, murdering all the men aboard. They could have been the fellows who sought to take the Anne, but were prevented … if they had met with the Faucon Dieu, they could have taken her easily.

Thomas sat very still, gazing intently at the door before him. Automatically, he took the dagger from the secret sheath under the table-top and gripped it hard. If the men of St Nicholas had taken his ship, he would wreak the most terrible revenge upon them, he promised himself. After all, people who raided ships deserved all they got. Their punishment was to be the sea’s prey.

The cottage was not far from Tedia’s, and she led him back up the beach towards it. Mariota’s home was a somewhat dilapidated building, with the thatch thin and weakened by the storms. A well stood in a yard, some boards laid over it to stop unwary chickens falling in, and beyond was a little garden with a few spindly beans and peas, long past their best.

‘Here we are,’ Tedia said, and settled Baldwin on a bench by the door. In a moment, Mariota had joined them.

She was a shortish woman, with wide hips and a compact, powerful body. Large breasts jutted above her belt, and her sharp eyes studied Baldwin, creating an impression of hostility, he thought, but only for a moment. Then her eyes crinkled and she smiled. ‘So, Sir Knight. You look drier and cleaner than when I last saw you.’

‘I am well, I thank you, if a little sore and tired,’ Baldwin said.

‘It was Mariota here who mended your clothing,’ Tedia explained as she brought out a large cup of wine.

‘I am grateful to you, then,’ Baldwin said and sipped. It was a delicious, sweet wine, and he smiled at the flavour for a moment, and then his mind turned to wondering how a woman like Mariota could have afforded it and his smile faded.

‘It was nothing. The least I could do,’ Mariota said warmly. ‘I should have found you myself. You were nearer to me than Tedia’s. Still, it was foul weather that night.’

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said. He was about to speak when he saw Mariota’s look go from him to Tedia, a small grin on her face.

She said, ‘So then, Tedia — have you tested the length of his sword?’

Baldwin was about to say that he had lost it, when he caught the true meaning of her words. As Tedia laughed aloud, Baldwin could only feel a rising embarrassment, and mumbling about returning to the beach, he drained his cup.

Back outside, Simon took deep breaths to rid his lungs of the foul air in the cell. He had to get away from the castle. Standing here beneath the walls of the keep, he was taken with a feeling of loathing for the place, and he turned through the gates, past the donkeys bringing in the smaller loads from the ship, narrowly escaping being squashed against a wall by a two-wheeled cart. Soon he had left the castle behind him, and he headed south.

The sun was high, and here, before the castle, he was given a clear view over the sweep of the great bay in which his ship sat. Rather than get stirred up at the sight of Ranulph Blancminster’s men raping the Anne, he stared beyond her to the south.

The sea was a marvellous expanse of blue with bright sparks where the sun was reflected. In the far, far distance, he saw a pair of ships with their sails billowing. Perhaps they were fishing — Simon couldn’t tell. It would be some time before he became used to the different vessels, just as it would be some little while before his guts grew accustomed to their motion over the waves. He was quite certain that he would grow used to such things, because other men did. Look at Baldwin: he never minded sailing …

Simon felt buffeted by a hammer of grief. It started in his ribcage, and the pain of it leaped up into his throat like a thick bolus; he could scarcely breathe, and then his eyes grew prickly. A tear formed as he remembered his friend’s stern but kindly expression. It was terrible to think that he was gone for ever. Simon would have to go to see Jeanne and tell her himself that her husband was dead. He couldn’t expect anyone else to do that. He wouldn’t want anyone else to do it. It was the last service he could do for his comrade.

Strange. They had been friends since 1316, yet it felt as though they had been companions for much longer. There was something about the knight which invited loyalty; maybe the way that he respected almost all men, and was reluctant to make assumptions about someone’s guilt based solely on their status in the world. Baldwin held firmly to the principle that the truth was the only issue of importance in an investigation.

Simon sniffed, about to walk into the open, when a low, malevolent snarl at his heel made him jump with fright. At the side of the road was a large hound, crouched low like a cat ready to pounce, his great shoulders rippling with power, head a scant inch from the ground, his tail still except for a little twitching at the tip. Large amber eyes held Simon’s fixedly.

‘It’s all right, boy,’ said a voice.

Simon looked up and saw the figure of Hamadus.

‘Christ Jesus, Sexton!’ he said.

‘Aha, you shouldn’t misuse the Lord’s name like that,’ Hamadus remonstrated. The dog gave a low rumble again. ‘Calm down!’ The old fisherman appeared to take his silence for an apology. He glanced down at the port. ‘I’m sorry. It must be distressing to see your ship pulled apart like that,’ he said, more kindly.

‘It’s hard,’ Simon agreed.

‘Better than not being alive to see it, though.’

‘I only hope that I can find my belongings.’

Hamadus squinted at him. ‘If it’s something worth holding, it’ll have already disappeared,’ he said reasonably. ‘Those men aren’t there for fun, you know.’

‘No,’ Simon agreed mournfully. He had not thought that his private belongings could have been taken. It was fortunate that he had already sold most of his goods on his journey. There was little to lose. ‘I suppose not.’

‘No suppose about it. The thieving bastards would take the skin off your back if they reckoned they could get away with it and make a profit.’

‘If they’re such thieves, why doesn’t Ranulph or Thomas go and keep an eye on them?’ Simon asked, unthinking.

Hamadus gave him a long and contemplative look. ‘They are the men who ordered the theft, man.’

Simon shot him a frown of disbelief.

‘Don’t believe me?’ Hamadus said without rancour. ‘Wait till you see more of the island and our master before you judge.’

‘Who actually has the power here?’ Simon asked shrewdly.

‘You are a wise man,’ Hamadus said with twinkling eyes. ‘Well now, up there,’ he pointed northwards, ‘on St Nicholas, the man who’s supposed to have the power is the Prior. After all, he’s the man put there by the Abbey in Tavistock. But there are only a few monks at the priory, and they could easily be overwhelmed by the men of the vill. St Nicholas has about fifty men at the vill and about the place, and if they refused to work and perform their labours for the priory, the priory would have to close. The man with the real power is the reeve, David, because the reeve is looked up to by all the men of the vill, and at the same time the Prior daren’t upset him, because the reeve is his ambassador in the vill. The reeve lets him know when there is a discontented feel in the air, and the Prior can put things right.’

‘Why should he wish to upset his reeve?’

Hamadus gave him a curious gaze. ‘Perhaps the Prior disapproves of some of the reeve’s activities. Even so, he doesn’t want to cause conflict. With so few monks, it would be easy to overrun the priory.’

Simon noted that he had not answered his question, but since Hamadus appeared unwilling to continue, the Bailiff nodded as though content.

‘Well,’ Hamadus continued, ‘it’s the same here. The man on top should be Ranulph de Blancminster, the Lord of the Manor and castellain. But all his business with the people here is dealt with by that lying, thieving bastard of a Sergeant. What Thomas wants, Thomas gets. He orders the men about the castle, he administers the collection of taxes, and no doubt pockets some, just as any good tax-gatherer will. He commanded the gather-reeve, poor devil, and he still commands the men-at-arms. Ranulph has little power in reality. He thinks he owns this place, but it’s his man who runs it all.’

‘Are there many villeins here?’

‘I suppose eighty or ninety families. Ennor is a good island,’ Hamadus responded.

‘And on St Nicholas the peasants are answerable to the priory, not to Ranulph?’

‘Aye. There’s little love lost between the two islands.’

‘Why is that?’

Hamadus kicked at a pebble. ‘Perhaps islanders can feel hunger and disaster more than folk on the mainland. People over there reckon a bad harvest will mean a hard winter, but they don’t know the half of it. Here, if we have a bad harvest, we starve. In winter, there aren’t the boats to bring enough food. We can’t go to the next market to demand help, we can’t walk the roads begging alms like someone from the mainland. No, if there’s not the stock put by, we go hungry. So sometimes in the past, islanders have been forced to put to sea to try to win a prize.’

‘You mean that they have turned pirate?’

‘At times. And the harvest is poor this year.’

‘Why should that mean that the two islands resent each other?’

‘Here on Ennor, Thomas and his men control the people. It’s only the folk of St Nicholas who can slip the leash when they feel they must, and who go to take Breton ships.’

Simon nodded. So that was why the Prior was annoyed with his reeve. The latter was little more than a pirate-leader, and took his friends out with him on his raids! No wonder, too, that the men of Ennor disliked their neighbours.

‘What of the death of the gather-reeve? Do you think he was corrupt?’

‘Do you know a man who pays his taxes and rents who doesn’t believe the gather-reeve is a thief?’ Hamadus chuckled with a wheeze. ‘Everyone thought he was bent.’

‘So anyone could have killed him.’

‘It’s possible,’ the old man said. ‘How much shall I help you? Put it like this, master: if a man was going to murder another with a knife in the chest, either he was trusted enough to get close to the gather-reeve, or he was an assassin, and Robert knew nothing of his approach.’

‘True enough.’ Simon wondered who was honourable here. Peasants weren’t honourable, nor apparently were Ranulph or his men. The islands seemed full of men who were happy to turn thief as soon as a battered ship appeared in sight. It was a depressing thought.

‘Cheer yourself!’ the old fisherman urged him. ‘Surely no island man would think of killing a fellow in that devious way. They’d all stand before their enemy and demand a fight; they wouldn’t slip a knife in a man’s breast as he was planning to meet his woman.’

‘His woman?’

‘A woman who lives on St Nicholas,’ Hamadus said, as though reluctantly.

‘How would he have got there?’

‘No doubt he had a boat to convey him.’

‘There was no sign of one. Perhaps his murderer took it?’

‘Perhaps.’ Hamadus was looking at him oddly, as though wondering whether to tell him more. Simon pressed him, ‘What were you doing on the night he died?’

‘I was cleaning the church. William was up on the hill with his flock, so I stayed in the church to see that it was safe.’

‘You saw nothing of this Robert?’

‘Not since that morning. He visited me to ask for more rents — but my dog persuaded him to rethink his plans!’ Hamadus wheezed with amusement.

‘I can’t think why,’ Simon said drily with a glance at the great beast.

‘Oh, he’s all right, Bailiff. It’s the animals with two legs on this island you have to worry about!’

‘So you saw no one?’

‘While in the church? No.’ Hamadus peered at Simon. ‘But perhaps when I was walking home I saw Thomas, the Sergeant. He wasn’t in the castle when night fell. He got back late, so I heard, and very wet from the storm. I wonder where he was before that? Now, I have to return to my work. Godspeed!’ Hamadus walked away with a light whistle. The dog immediately rose, moving with a lissom smoothness that was more feline than canine, and slunk around Simon to trot down the track towards La Val at the bottom of the hill.

Simon stood watching. He was not normally afraid of dogs, but that one, he confessed to himself, was enough to scare a man witless. He would hate to think of it attacking him in earnest.