The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21) (20 page)

‘You know Cynegils? I spotted him watching the fellow. Don’t know who he was, just some traveller. Like you say, he walked out to the back like he was going to find himself a space to sleep, and Cynegils shoved off smartish through the front door. He came back a little while later, and then sneaked out to the back, where our friend had gone.’

‘And then?’

Saul grinned. ‘The three pavers saw him, and they reckoned he was up to no good, so they went after him. A few minutes later, back they came, carrying him. Said that Cynegils had unfortunately tripped over and hurt his head. Good for them, I thought. Nasty piece of work, he is. I told them to put him back out in the yard. Anyway, the stranger had it away on his legs. There’s a break in my wall out back, and I suppose he bolted over that.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘French. Good quality clothes, dark blue and scarlet, all in the modern fashion, you know, tight-fitting? He had a weaselly face, all thin with a narrow little nose, and dark eyes with low eyebrows of dark hair. Looked like loads of the Norman sailors who come in here every so often.’

‘Have you seen him since?’ Simon asked.

‘Nope. No sign of him. I reckon he was scared and thought he’d bugger off quick. Why?’

‘Didn’t it occur to you that Cynegils was not acting on his own?’ Simon demanded. ‘He was ordered to follow this Frenchman by someone else, I assume, and that other person could have been anyone. And now this fellow’s been found dead. Was it the man in here that day?’

‘No. I’m sure of that.’

‘So perhaps the man who died was the one who ordered Cynegils to follow this Frenchman?’ Simon guessed.

Baldwin nodded pensively. ‘I should imagine so. I reckon the Frenchman escaped over the rear wall, ran to the front of the building, found this man hanging around for news from Cynegils and knocked him down. The victim would hardly
have expected to be attacked by the very man whose death he had planned.’

‘There is one other possibility, of course,’ Simon considered as the host of the inn brought them a jug of wine and two mazers, then moved off to serve other customers. He leaned closer to Baldwin to prevent eavesdroppers. ‘What if the dead man carried something on him that was valuable? Something that was worth more than money?’

‘Such as?’

‘A ring, say?’

‘No. If he had something like that, there would have been a mark on finger or thumb to show where it had lain. This man wore no jewellery.’

‘A parchment then – deeds for property? A writ of some sort?’

‘Simon, that could be a good guess,’ Baldwin said. He felt the need for caution. Here at the inn he felt too exposed with so many men trying to listen in. He lowered his voice. ‘There is a tale I should tell you. I was sent here by the bishop to see if I could find his nephew. A Frenchman has left the Queen’s household and flees to the sea. Bishop Walter was convinced that he saw the man in Exeter, and told his nephew Bernard to follow the man.’

Simon absorbed the news calmly. ‘The Frenchman escaped – and you think that this corpse could be Walter’s nephew?’

‘The man in your hole in the road? Yes. I fear it. He matches the description I was given.’

‘Then we have to seek this Frenchman. He must be the one who ran from Cynegils.’

‘I should imagine so,’ Baldwin said. ‘We must keep our eyes open and tell those who may be able to seek him for us.’

Simon peered at his friend speculatively. ‘You said I may have guessed right about letters?’

‘It seems odd that this Frenchman should suddenly leave the Queen’s household,’ Baldwin shrugged. ‘Could he not be carrying messages?’

Simon nodded, but his eyes were going about the room now. ‘I don’t like the look of
him
.’

‘Who?’

‘That short fellow in pilgrim dress. He looks like an abjurer. Could
he
be our murderer?’

Hamund was feeling remarkably easy until he saw the two men stare at him. Seeing them walk towards him, he shivered and said beseechingly to Gil, ‘Shall we leave now?’

‘You!’ said a stern voice. ‘I am the Representative of the Keeper of this Port. I don’t recognise you. Who are you, and why are you here?’

‘Sir, I am Hamund Chugge. A miserable, but penitent sinner. I have committed a great crime, but I have abjured the realm, and all I do is seek a ship to take me away.’

‘What was your crime?’ Baldwin pressed.

‘I killed a man.’

‘Who, and why?’

Hamund sighed, and told the story: how his master was killed in the war, and Flok arrived with his little cavalcade to demand the manor for himself. ‘I was very angry. I struck Flok down with my knife and killed him, and then struck Guy de Bouville down too. De Bouville was his guard and man-at-arms. Because of these offences I’m being sent away. I arrived here today, and this kind sailor has offered me a place with his crew.’

‘You found him here, Gil?’ Simon asked.

‘Yes. And he’s already walked into the sea in proof of his
ambition to leave.’

‘See to it that he does,’ Simon grunted. He had not seen the man about the town before, it was true, and he looked an unlikely murderer of a fellow so much taller than him.

There was a sudden stillness in the room. The door had opened, and now a tall, slim, fair man walked in, stooping under the lintel, and remaining just inside the doorway, eyeing the men in the room for a few minutes. He pulled off his fine gloves and slapped them on his forearm before crossing the floor to the innkeeper.

‘A jug of your best wine, landlord.’

‘Sir.’

The man turned from the bar and addressed the men in the room. ‘I have money for those who would aid the King.’

As he spoke, he rested his left hand on his purse and hefted it a couple of times. The leather bag rattled with the weight of coins, and Simon could almost hear every head in the room swivel to that magical sound.

‘There is gold and silver here for those who would help me find a traitor, a foul Frenchman who is guilty of raping an English lady. I will pay well for any information.’

Moses swept the floor to clear the old rushes. There were few things in life that would always make him feel more comfortable in himself, but one was the smell of fresh reeds on the floor, and he reasoned that what made him feel better might work for his master too; so he swept enthusiastically, while the dust rose in clouds and danced in the light streaming in through the great barred window.

He pushed the mess out through the door and into the
street, where he would pay a scavenger later to clear it up, and returned with a couple of bundles of new reeds. He cut the ties with his knife and began to strew them about the place.

‘Please, Moses, come and sit,’ Pyckard called faintly.

Moses hurried to his master’s couch.

He looked worse than ever, Moses thought. There were lines of anguish on his brow, but although his eyes were bright and feverish, when he looked at Moses he was clearly rational. The pain was surely all but unbearable, yet his mind still functioned as efficiently as it ever had.

‘Moses, you have been like a son to me. Of all that I have enjoyed in this world, it is you I shall find most grief in leaving.’

‘Perhaps …’

‘You know I’m almost dead, Moses. I could see it in your eyes, even if I didn’t feel it already myself. Ach! It burns me from within! I shall die happy to know I will meet my Amandine again. It will be a delight to find her in heaven.’

Moses nodded tearfully.

‘I would have you protect this Frenchman,’ Pyckard went on. ‘He is dear to me. He is so like her, in so many ways. The same face, the same accent … Serve him as you may.’

‘I will, master.’

‘That is good,’ Pyckard gasped, and his head fell back onto the pillow with a grunt of pain. ‘Oh, God. Take me to Your bosom soon!’

Baldwin and Simon left the tavern as soon as they had
finished their drinks, and made their way up the street to Simon’s house, only to find that Sir Richard de Welles was already awake and sitting in Simon’s favourite chair in the hall, drinking from a large cup of wine.

‘Where have you two been?’ he rumbled. ‘You look like conspirators.’

Baldwin explained what he was doing here in Dartmouth, ending his story with his suspicion about the identity of the corpse in the road.

‘So you understand,’ he finished, ‘that this Frenchman must escape so that we don’t give the French king a pretext for further action. Last time a French sergeant died, it cost us Gascony. If a French knight from the household of the sister of the French king was taken and punished for rape, it would have dire consequences.’

‘You think so, hey? Right. I’ll have a messenger sent to Exeter to have a full description of the man and see whether there are any distinguishing features. Let’s hope it’s not the Stapledon lad, though. It’s always a bad business to have a famous stiff. No, I’d be happier if he was an unknown cleric or something. So, sir, you have been concealing things from a Coroner who’s trying to do his best to uncover a murderer, is that it?’ He waved aside Baldwin’s protestations with an easy gesture. ‘A joke, Sir Baldwin. If you kept something from me, I’m sure you had good reason. Suggesting that there was a foreign rapist in town who was killing people would not be the best way to keep the peace, I daresay. The question is, what do we do about it now?’

‘For my part,’ Baldwin said, ‘I would like to investigate both dead bodies. First I think we need to speak to this
strange fellow Cynegils and see what he has to say. Then I’d like to go and meet John Hawley and ask him about the body found on the ship, and question the master of the ship too.’

‘The one that matters surely is the fellow in the roadway? The sailor’s death was at sea, so it’s hardly our affair,’ Sir Richard pointed out. A Coroner’s duties only extended to deaths on land or within sight of land.

‘I hope so, and yet my heart tells me otherwise. In your experience, Coroner, how many murders are actually concealed efficiently?’

‘Next to none! You know that yourself. Whether there’s an ancient feud between them, or one or other has given offence for some reason, or a man dislikes the look of another’s face. The fools tend to pull out a sword and whop anyone who takes their fancy. I never find that murder has been covered up.’

Baldwin reflected that this could simply mean that the Coroner had failed to notice efficiently concealed murders in the past. However, he replied politely, ‘In the main, I have found that too. A murder that seems planned and suspicious is a rarity. And yet here you appear to have two such murders. One planned and most efficiently put into force at night in the roadway; the second planned and executed, if you will pardon the word, on board a ship.’

‘You realise what you are suggesting,’ Simon said. ‘The man on the ship – if he was killed in port
before
the loading of the cargo, he would have been seen by the stevedores.’

Sir Richard shrugged. ‘So? He was killed at sea, then.’

‘If so, the killer knew that the body would be discovered at sea or when the ship docked. If he was on board the ship,
he would have been at risk of discovery.’

‘It was a risk, I suppose. But he could have run as soon as the ship arrived.’

‘No. The ship’s master would have all the crew remain on board until the cargo had been unloaded, and when the body was found, I daresay any master would want to see who was responsible. But if the murderer knew that there was going to be an attack on the ship, he wouldn’t have had to worry.’

‘You mean that there was a pirate spy on the ship?’ Baldwin demanded.

‘More likely that a man killed this sailor and dumped his body in the ship before it sailed,’ the Coroner grunted. ‘If he was killed
on
the ship, someone would have heard something.’

‘Perhaps. Yet if the rest of the crew thought his death justified …’ Simon began.

The Coroner shook his head with certainty. ‘They’d have thrown him overboard. Sailors who think one of their number is bad luck, or is putting them in danger some other way, generally give him short shrift. The fastest way to be rid of him would be over the side, not knifed and thrown in the hold.’

‘True. I had not considered the ways of sailors,’ Baldwin mused. ‘I wonder if that could help us?’

‘I doubt it. Sounds like a marvellous excuse for running about the town like headless chickens and missing the point entirely. No, Bailiff, I think that there is
one
murder that matters here, and that is the death of the nephew of the Bishop of Exeter. The other fellow was a mere sailor. He can be mourned by his wife, but he needn’t concern us. Now, are
you two going to come and see this disreputable and so-called “spy” Cynegils?’

Baldwin glanced at Simon and nodded. However, his mind was not on the ‘spy’, but on the fair-haired man in the tavern.

When Walter Stapledon had been so determined to keep all news of the rape secret, Baldwin was curious to know how it was that, within a few days, a man could be here in Dartmouth bruiting news of it abroad.

The best thing, he determined, was to find the man and make sure that he escaped as quickly as possible, no matter how repellent the concept.

Bill and Alred had been hard at work in their hole. The gravel was laid and tamped down as best they could, and now, as the two stood up on the road, Law was down in the hole spreading the damp and heavy sand about the place.

‘Looks like something’s going on over there,’ Alred said, watching the comings and goings from the inn.

‘There’re more folks there than I’ve seen this last week,’ Bill agreed. ‘Should we go and see what’s going on?’

Law looked up and peered between their legs. ‘I’ll go. You two’ll just get thirsty as soon as you get inside there.’

‘Meaning you wouldn’t?’ Alred scoffed. ‘You finish the work in there, Law.
I’ll
go and see what it’s about.’

Ignoring the comments hurled at his back by his disrespectful apprentice, the paver set off for the tavern, determined to have at least one pint of ale in peace.

Law would have to learn that he was still an apprentice. He wasn’t a full, equal partner in business, just as Bill
wasn’t. The pair of them were as much use as a chalk chisel. Hopeless. If only they had kept their traps shut, they would have avoided those two men questioning them. He had nothing against the Bailiff, he’d seen enough of Simon Puttock to know he was a decent fellow, but this Keeper was a stranger, and Alred didn’t know what to make of him. The paver had a healthy contempt for most men involved with the law, whether they were lawyers, bailiffs, Keepers or Coroners. All of them were in it for their own benefit, and that would rarely, if ever, accord with the common man’s interests.