The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21) (29 page)

‘Dicken! HOY, DICKEN! Look out! You’re going to be boarded!’ he roared at the top of his voice, thrusting with his oar at the steep clinker wall of oak and pushing himself off. He measured the distance: the boats would be here in a few moments. Making a swift decision, he set his oars ready and pulled himself away, back to his store on the Clifton side of the mill pool, watching as the men snagged anchor chains with grappling hooks and hurled grapnels before scrambling up into the ship herself.

Strete sat huddled in the corner of the room and stared as his master’s men went through his belongings.

‘You see, Peter, I think it’s a lot of responsibility looking after my money. It could tempt some men. Are you a strong man, Peter?’

Strete looked from him to the men at the doorway. ‘You can’t think any money’s gone missing, Master Hawley. I would have noticed if it had.’

‘Yes, you would, wouldn’t you?’ Hawley said with a cold tone. He waited while another sailor came in with a clerk. The two of them began to empty the chest, logging the items against Strete’s own rolls.

There was a relentlessness about the way that the two men lifted out the leathern sacks, one counting the coin inside aloud, and the clerk nodding and ticking off each against the notes. Neither of them looked at Strete. That was the prerogative of Hawley and the two guards at the door. All three watched him closely.

‘Master, surely you trust me? If you have any suspicions, you should tell me so that I can explain …’ Strete started, before he saw one man at the door pull a small cudgel from his belt and slap it into his hand rhythmically.

‘I dare say you could try,’ Hawley said with a short baring of his teeth. ‘But whether or not I’d choose to believe you is a different matter, isn’t it? All I can see right now is that you have robbed me, Peter. I don’t like that.’

‘I haven’t robbed you!’

And his voice carried his conviction. He hadn’t. How could he rob his master? No, he had made a foolish error and tried to make good that error by borrowing to replace the
money lost, but he would return it. As he had.

‘I have heard before now how you enjoy the gaming at the Blue Boar and Porpoise, but I was too trusting. I never thought you’d actually steal from me to finance your fun. You’ve been well looked after here, Peter. Very well. I pay my men well to keep their loyalty, and if I was seen to let a man like you escape after taking my treasure, what would others think? They’d think I was soft, wouldn’t they?’

Hawley stood and marched to the chest. The great box was almost emptied now, and the two men at its side were ticking off the last coins and making a total of the full sum. The clerk glanced at the sailor, who nodded, and then both looked up at their master, the clerk holding up the amended roll. Hawley took it, ran his eye down the columns, and scowled. ‘Sweet Jesus!’

Strete felt as though his bowels were about to open. Perhaps if he’d been standing, they would have done. As it was, all he could do was swallow and wipe his forehead with his sleeve. How his master had come to suspect him like this was beyond him – he’d been so careful.

‘It looks as though I owe you an apology,’ Hawley said gruffly. He passed the parchment back to Strete. ‘The accounts are wrong by exactly three pennies. I don’t know where they came from, but your accounting is out by that much.’

‘I am sorry, master, I—’

‘Shut up, Strete. I’m in
credit
three pennies, not debit. Take the money as an apology for the way I spoke about you just now,’ Hawley said. He shook his head. ‘It’s this matter of the
Saint John
. It’s making everyone nervous. Hmm. Yes.’

Strete watched as he turned abruptly on his heel and marched from the room, irritably beckoning the three sailors to follow him.

‘Who’s a lucky boy, then?’ the other clerk said quietly.

‘What do you mean?’ Strete demanded.

‘You must have made a killing last night to pay back all you owed. I’ve seen you gaming and I’ve heard how much you’ve had to pay out. You’re the laughing stock of the inn, you are. Everyone wants to play with you.’ He grinned. ‘Best not try it again, mind. Our master will have his eye on you from now on!’ Touching a finger to his cheek under his eye, he laughed aloud as he walked from the room.

Strete fell back on his seat, and suddenly began to shiver uncontrollably. If he hadn’t received that money from Paul Pyckard just before the merchant died, he would have had a hole of seven marks in the accounts. As it was, he was five shillings short until he’d found the body in the pavers’ hole and took the purse. That had been a real stroke of luck! And that would have been enough for Hawley to have him dragged from his door all the way to the gaol under the market house. No man robbed Hawley with impunity, and if he had learned that his own clerk had fleeced him, his rage would have been uncontrollable.

Thank God he had made good the money with his payment from Pyckard and what he found in the dead man’s purse.

Hamo arrived back at his cooperage and grabbed for an axe. Already, when he looked back over the water, he could see that the crew of the cog had been overwhelmed; the cries of
the attacked suddenly grew silent, as did the ringing clashes of iron and steel, and now all that could be heard was an occasional bellow to disturb the normal noise of slapping water at his feet.

He set off at a fast pace to Hawley’s house in Upper Street, and beat on the door with his axe’s haft. ‘Master Hawley? Master Hawley!’

‘Who is that?’ An elderly sailor appeared in the doorway and glared at him. ‘What do you want?’

‘It’s me, the cooper, Hamo,’ he panted. ‘The cog in the haven – three boats have just overtaken her. Don’t know what’s happening, but tell your master urgently.’

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and fled along the road and down to the mill’s dam. He hurtled along the path, past the silent wheel, over the sluice gates, and up into Hardness. Here he saw Ivo le Bel.

‘Ivo! You have to raise the men of the town!’ he gasped. ‘Someone’s just attacked Master Pyckard’s cog the
Saint Denis
. Three boats, full of armed men.’

The sergeant sneered. ‘You been drinking? What boats?’ Then he looked past Hamo’s shoulder towards the haven, and suddenly his smile left his face. ‘Christ’s cods!’

Baldwin stood watching the slow progress of the funeral party up the hill. ‘Who died?’ he asked.

‘One of the merchants here – a man called Pyckard.’ Then Simon reverted to their former conversation. ‘First, how did you guess Danny wasn’t supposed to be sailing?’

‘His wife said so. Sailors don’t normally just up and leave their wives without saying their goodbyes, in my
experience. A man will rarely go to sea without taking a sentimental leave of his woman. That may mean that Danny was killed on shore and thrown onto the ship as we had thought. It’s a small detail, but important. Now, this merchant, Pyckard – he died naturally?’

Simon nodded. ‘Aye. He was a good enough man, I think, and successful generally.’

‘Why “generally”?’

‘Well, Pyckard was the owner of that cog, the
Saint John
. He owns other ships too, but that was one of his best, and it’s partly lost in salvage now.’

‘You said it was this fellow Hawley who found the vessel?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Do you think that he could have …’

‘Taken it, slaughtered the crew, chucked ’em overboard, bar our Danny, and brought the ship back to port? It’s possible. The two of them were rivals in business, so perhaps there was enmity between them – although to be fair I never saw much sign of it. There are some I’d not put past business like that, but Hawley seems to be an honourable man.’

Baldwin pulled a face. ‘Ah, well. It was worth a try!’

The Coroner was standing a short distance from them, watching over the town with a proprietorial eye. ‘A good place that. I had fun there when I was a lad. So! What do you two think of all this?’

‘I think that there is a vessel out there which tried to burn the cog, but it wasn’t the work of pirates,’ Baldwin said. ‘Nor was it a foolish attack by a different town. The burning was to conceal the crime of killing all aboard. But the sailor,
Danny, he was not killed in that attack. If I had to guess, I’d say he died here in the town while the ship was moored.’

‘And we can’t speak to the men who worked with him because they’ve all disappeared,’ Simon noted.

‘Their bodies will turn up eventually,’ Baldwin said with sad confidence.

The Coroner scratched his head. ‘You don’t think that they have been taken as hostages, then, or as slaves?’

‘If this was all about making money, the attacker would have taken the whole ship, not a few crew members,’ Baldwin pronounced. ‘No, I believe that all the men were removed from the cog to be questioned as their ship burned, and now they’ll have been killed.’

‘Why, though?’

‘They sought something or someone,’ Baldwin said.

‘This Frenchman you mentioned?’ Simon prompted.

‘If I had to guess, yes. Someone thinks he is dangerous and must be stopped from reaching French shores, and that someone is prepared to kill many men in order to do so.’

‘Who could it be, though?’ Simon wondered aloud.

Baldwin smiled. ‘Well, I do wonder about this Sir Andrew. He is seeking the Frenchman, and he has a ship in the haven.’

Sir Richard harrumphed. ‘I know the man. He’s a toady of the worst sort. If you have money and power, he’ll clean your boots with his tongue. Or your arse. No sense and no breeding. Reminds me of an alaunt I had once. Had to kill the thing in the end. Mad as a baiting mastiff, he was, and just as vicious. Some alaunts can be loyal creatures, good at hunting, good at holding at bay. I’ve known many which
have been ideal for boar … but this one, he was mad. He’d go for anything at all.’

‘It hardly sounds as if Sir Andrew is like that,’ Baldwin observed mildly.

‘You don’t think so? This alaunt, he’d stay with me, then when I wasn’t looking, he’d go and kill the neighbour’s cat or attack some churl’s hog. And when the crime was recognised, he’d come back to me, wagging his tail, and grinning like an innocent. He’d lick my hand as gentle as a lamb, and then go off and kill something else. It was when he tried to have a go at my steward’s little boy that I thought enough was enough, and had his head taken off. Shame, though. Damn good hunter, he was.’

Simon looked over at Baldwin, shaking his head in disbelief.

The knight was smiling faintly. ‘So you consider that this man Sir Andrew could have attacked the cog?’

‘You mentioned that this Frenchie wanted to get away and he was being watched. Someone wanted him stopped. Sir Andrew was sent down here to flush the man out, or kill him. He found the ship, fired it, killed the crew in the hope of finding the man, and when he didn’t, he came here to look again, with some cock-and-bull story about a rape. I think that about explains the whole matter,’ the Coroner stated with calm satisfaction.

‘Apart from Danny,’ Simon noted.

Baldwin was about to respond when he saw a small dustcloud up at the top of the hill. ‘Aha! Who can this be?’

A short while later, the three saw a man on horseback appear at the crest of the hill. He pointed the horse down the
hillside and was soon scattering people on either side as he cantered down towards the mill’s dam. When he drew nearer, Baldwin called, ‘Whom do you seek?’

‘Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, sir. Is that you?’

Baldwin nodded. He vaguely recognised the man from Bishop Walter’s household. ‘You have a message for me?’ he asked.

It was always hard to be the bearer of sad or evil tidings, and Baldwin had no doubt that when his messenger had reached Bishop Walter, the poor man would have been appalled to learn that his rash decision to send his own nephew to spy on this Frenchman could have brought about his death.

Baldwin was just putting his mind to the manner of transport of the coffin back to the bishop’s household when the messenger grinned at him.

‘Yes, sir. My lord Bishop sends his greetings, and offers you his best wishes for your journey, as well as his apologies for wasting your time. The man whom you sought? His nephew is back at home. Bishop Walter hopes and trusts that you have not been seriously inconvenienced by your journey down here, and wishes me to tell you that you may consider your mission at an end.’

Baldwin felt a sense of shock, followed by several other emotions. Then he voiced the question uppermost in his mind. ‘In that case, who was the dead man?’ he muttered.

Cynegils had spent the morning in a state of bemusement. First he’d been rescued from the stinking gaol, then taken up to Stephen’s chamber, where he was given clean clothes and some food and water (to his disgust) and then he was led to Master Pyckard’s house. He was seated while the others discussed what to do with him, Stephen arguing that he should be taken aboard ship as soon as possible.

‘You can sail with Gil,’ the clerk said. ‘He can do with all the help he can get.’

Cynegils shivered. ‘What, and be killed by the devil like the crew of the
Saint John
?’

‘You have to make up your own mind, it’s true. Still, the risk of a possible attack at sea is one thing; dying here at the hands of this Sir Andrew could be far worse, I’d have thought.’

‘What of money?’

‘You think I’m foolish enough to give you some? You’d spend it on ale in an instant, wouldn’t you?’ Stephen laughed. ‘No, friend, you’ll have to wait until you return for that. I’ve given orders that you’re not to have any drink on board, and when you land in France, if you go ashore to drink ale, the ship will leave you there. It would be a terrible
shame if you were left behind on a foreign coast, but that’s what will happen if you fail to obey.’

‘What now?’ Cynegils said sulkily.

‘I should go and make your way to the
Saint Denis
. There’s nothing to keep you here. There’ll be a wake, I expect, and I don’t want you to be here for that. The Bailiff has done all he can for you. Whether you take advantage of his kindness is up to you.’

Cynegils was determined just now to take advantage of anything and anyone who could save him from the cold-eyed blond man. ‘I will, I swear. I’ll go now and make my way to the ship.’