The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21) (39 page)

‘Who are you, and what do you mean by this intrusion?’ Baldwin demanded loudly. As he spoke, he stepped forward, his peacock-blue blade flashing wickedly in the light. Now that he could see the men in the street, he realised they were the ones from the ship. ‘Who released you?’

‘Our master. You had no right to hold us. We want the traitor!’

‘And what is his name?’

‘Eh?’

‘I said, “What is his name?” If you expect a man to be thrown to you, you can at least dignify him by title and name.’

‘The Frenchman. That’s the one!’

‘A Frenchman?’ Baldwin enquired. ‘Which one would that be?’

‘Don’t play games with us! We want him now. Fetch him out or we’ll get him ourselves. We have the King’s warrant.’

‘GOOD! LET’S SEE IT, THEN!’

Baldwin felt as though the weight that had formed on his shoulders was suddenly fallen away. The man in front of
him was peering up the road with consternation on his face. ‘Who’re you?’

‘My name is Sir Richard de Welles, my fellow,’ the Coroner boomed as he approached, the sword in his hand a glistening, grey wraith in the darkness. ‘But “Sir” will do. What are you doing here? I believe that waking a poor Keeper of the King’s Peace is probably an offence. What say you, Sir Baldwin?’

‘I would say it is definitely an infringement of the law,’ Sir Baldwin said. ‘Any man who tried to break into a Keeper’s residence without permission should be publicly castrated, I’d have thought.’

As he spoke, his sword’s point dropped until it was aimed in a painful direction. The sailor opposite him swallowed noticeably, his Adam’s apple bobbing. ‘We’ve been told to fetch the traitor.’

‘Which traitor?’ the Coroner demanded. He was at the man’s side now, and the fellow’s companions retreated some little distance, away from the swords of Baldwin and Simon with their guard at the door, and the Coroner’s own blade at their flank.

‘The one who’s been searched for. The one from the ship. It’s on the order of Lord Hugh Despenser. He’s the King’s advisor now, and he’s given us written orders to fetch the Frenchman. He’s a spy and felon.’

Baldwin muttered something, and the Coroner glanced at him. ‘Eh?’

Happily, Simon was able to elucidate. ‘He said: “My arse”.’

Sir Richard nodded. ‘Quite right, too. Now, I think you
ought to come back in the morning for this French fellow. We may give him to you then. If we deem it right.’

‘We have orders. We have the right!’

Baldwin set his jaw. It was tempting to ignore the parchment Sir Andrew had shown him, but that would be to invite serious risks. ‘It’s no good, Sir Richard. I think we shall have to let the fellow go with these fine men.’

At his side, Simon nodded. ‘We have no choice.’

‘Very well,’ Sir Richard agreed. ‘In that case, before anything else, I want a full list of your names right now, and then I’ll personally deliver him to your hands.’

With much reluctance, the men waited while Rob was sent to knock up Stephen. The tousled cleric appeared some minutes later, and he set to immediately with a reed and ink, scrawling the names of the sailors onto a sheet. As soon as he was done, Simon took the parchment and passed it to the Coroner, who grunted agreement. ‘Fine. Master Jan? You may take him, I suppose.’

Disconsolately Simon walked back along his screens passage to the room where the Frenchman had been installed.

‘Baldwin! Get here, quickly!’ he bawled back along the screens as he took in the sight of the fallen figure by the door. He ran to the man’s side and felt for wounds, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the man’s breast rise and fall. Then he spotted the bloody lump on his head. ‘
Shit
!’

Hamo was no fool, and he could feel danger when it was sitting in front of him and drinking a cup of his warm spiced ale, but the mere fact of a man being a danger to
others was not reason necessarily to throw him out. In his time, Hamo had traded with men who had killed many others, especially at sea. He never found them a risk, although some had flexible concepts about paying on time for a contract.

This one was clearly no immediate threat to Hamo. If anything, he was an embarrassment, sitting there so skinny and white, with his clothes steaming near the brazier, while he shivered in a heavy rug. ‘So you can’t tell me what you’re doing here?’

‘I was on that ship, but a friend of mine was caught earlier, and I wanted to learn why.’

‘The Frenchman?’

‘You know of him?’

‘News doesn’t have far to travel, does it?’ Hamo said sarcastically. ‘He was arrested on that ship of yours, wasn’t he?’

‘Do you know where he is now?’

‘Surely he must be in the gaol.’

‘I just want to see if my friend is all right.’

‘I’d cool your ardour, friend. If he’s banged up in the gaol, he’ll stay there until the Bailiff reckons he can go.’

‘I can do nothing to save him?’

Hamo eyed him. Hamund sat with his head bowed in misery. ‘Why not tell me about this friend of yours. I may be able to help.’

‘You can’t help. No one can,’ Hamund declared miserably.

‘Not if you don’t try them, no,’ Hamo agreed affably. ‘However, I’m told I’ve a good ear for listening, and since
we’re both here, we may as well humour each other, eh?’

Hamund began to tell his story: how he had killed Flok, taken sanctuary, abjured at the church in front of the Coroner, and came directly here to Dartmouth as he had been commanded, and now hoped to flee with the man who alone had helped him.

‘You should return to your ship,’ Hamo said. ‘This is no refuge for you, is it? If you’re found, you could be executed on the spot for not remaining on the ship.’

‘But what of my friend?’

Hamo considered a fresh strake of oak. He weighed it in his hand, thinking. ‘If he’s been taken by the men from that ship
Gudyer
, you can kiss his arse goodbye. I could go and see whether he’s in the gaol, I suppose. If he’s not, he’s probably been taken by the pirate bastards to their flashy cog.’ Hamo had strong opinions about men who tried to storm and take a Dartmouth ship.

‘Let me come with you! I want to speak to him. Please!’

‘All right.’ Hamo looked at him. ‘But no silly attempts to spring him. I won’t have my old friend Will hurt just because you want to save some fool who deserves all he’s got. Word is, he’s a spy and traitor.’

‘I cannot believe that!’ Hamund said, shivering as he pulled his still-damp clothes back on.

‘Hmm. You’d best follow me,’ Hamo said. ‘It wouldn’t be good for you to be found wandering about the town, you being abjured and all.’

He walked away from the river, through his works, and to his small chamber behind. His simple palliasse lay on the floor, and Hamund stumbled over the blanket laid overtop.
Hamo gave him a cold stare, but took him out through the door to the tiny yard behind. From here he led Hamund through a small gate to an alleyway which opened on to Upper Street.

They hurried up here and turned to the marketplace and the gaol.

‘Will? Will – are you there?’

Hamund felt a thrill of fear as they took in the broken door and mess inside. The trapdoor was wide open, and Hamo set his jaw. ‘This isn’t right,’ he said.

It was Hamund who heard the rattling breath at the wall. ‘What …?’

‘Will, you poor old bugger,’ Hamo said chokingly as he rushed to the grandfather’s side. ‘Who did this?’

‘It was the bastards from that shiny new cog, Hamund,’ Will managed. There was a burning pain in his belly, and although he tried to keep his hands over the mess to hold his guts in, the fire was spreading. ‘They’ve killed me.’

‘Confess to me,’ Hamo said quickly. ‘Let me hear your confession, old friend.’

It took little time. Will knew of few crimes he had committed that merited serious confession. When he was done, and had breathed his last, Hamo stood and ran to the door. Hanging on a hook behind it was Will’s own horn, and now Hamo took it and blew three mighty blasts. ‘You, Hamund, wait here and tell people what’s happened. I’m going to fetch the Bailiff. This is simple murder, damn them. I won’t have them slay a friend of mine unavenged!’

The first man arrived in moments, a scruffy fellow with a leather jerkin pulled hurriedly over a linen shirt, and boots
without hosen. ‘What’s all this?’

Hamo explained briefly about the murder. ‘Don’t let anyone hurt my friend there,’ he added in an undertone. ‘He’s with me – right?’

Hamund felt deserted as Hamo punched his shoulder, before turning to fly up the roadway. ‘No! Let me come with you. This man can stay here and guard Will.’

Hamo nodded, but did not speak, and Hamund caught a glimpse of the thick trails of tears on the cooper’s sunburned cheeks.

‘He knocked the poor bastard out, then ran,’ Simon summed up to the others. The sailors had followed him, and Baldwin and Richard stood near the body while the sailors stood muttering to themselves in the corridor.

Jan sneered, ‘You’ll have to answer to Lord Despenser for this. You’ve let one of the country’s worst traitors escape. I doubt whether the lord will be pleased with you for that!’

‘Right now I don’t give a shit what he likes or dislikes,’ Simon snapped. ‘The main thing is, finding him again!’

‘I for one am not convinced that this man was not struck down by your confederates,’ Sir Richard rasped. ‘You may be entering dangerous territory, Jan, if you had anything to do with this. Breaking and entering at night to assault a guard doing his duty, and capturing a man who was already under the protection of the Keeper is a serious matter.’

‘I was out in the hall with you!’

‘If you were found to have instigated or incited this crime,’ Coroner Richard continued, shaking his head menacingly, ‘you would be as guilty as the man who committed the offence in law.’

Baldwin was at the rear door. There were marks on the floor, and he lit a candle to study them. Shielding it from the
wind, he stood at the doorway for some while, his eyes on the outer wall of the house. He then stopped and picked up a straw, Simon saw. Then he hurried outside as fast as the candle would permit, and traced the Frenchman’s steps all the way down the path, over some recently turned soil, past a puddle, and finally to the garden’s wall. It was there that his candle flickered and died, and he moved back to the doorway and the light.

‘He clearly left by the wall there. I can see where his feet went. See, Simon?’ he walked back with Simon and pointed. Simon and Sir Richard went to join him, and Jan and the other sailors trailed after them, glowering suspiciously at the dirt on the ground, as though Simon and Baldwin might conceal something from them. Turning back and seeing them, Baldwin rolled his eyes bitterly. ‘I congratulate you all! You have now effectively hidden any further signs he may have left! You poor examples of marine life! Do you have no understanding of hunting a man on the soil? His tracks were all over here, but you’ve hidden them all.’

Simon was surprised at his vehemence, but left him to it. While Baldwin berated them, he peered over the wall. From his own garden, the wall backed onto the small lane with another garden and house at the other side. The back lane here was narrow, and he remembered the locked gate at the southernmost end, the northern entrance which was open.

‘He must have gone that way, running out of the town,’ he said, pointing southwards.

The sailors needed no more urging. Their leader bit his thumb at Baldwin. ‘You say we’re foolish? We’ll catch this man now, without your help, Sir Knight. And we’ll do it
faster because
we
understand
real
people. Signs in the mud? Pah!’

Bellowing and roaring at his comrades as though vying with a powerful gale, he led them, their horny feet slapping on the hard ground, up through the garden and out along the screens. Soon the place was quiet again.

Baldwin and Simon exchanged a glance, and then Baldwin looked up at the house. ‘You can come down now,’ he called softly.

To Simon’s surprise, there came a rustling from his roof, and soon a dishevelled Pierre was at their side. He looked at Baldwin ruefully. ‘You have remarkable powers, Sir Knight. How did you know I was up there?’

‘You stepped in a puddle there, but there was no moisture on the wall, only back there near the house. Clearly you ran to the wall, thought better of it, and darted to the house and up. Besides, if you want to clamber up a roof and remain hidden, you’d be best served not to pull handfuls of straw out and leave them scattered for all to see. Not that you need fear if you leave it for a man like that sailor. He couldn’t find his arse with both hands.’

‘They’ve gone towards South Town,’ Simon said. ‘But they’ll realise soon enough that they can’t get you down there.’

‘You told them I had gone there,’ Pierre said.

‘Yes,’ Simon said, irritated by his own actions at trying to aid this man. He felt no need to explain that he had guessed Pierre wouldn’t be able to escape that way and must have headed in the opposite direction.

Hamund and Hamo reached the watchman’s house and banged heavily on the door, shouting for Ivo.

‘What is it?’ he said, appearing at the door. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Ivo, you have to come quickly! The sailors from the
Gudyer
in the haven have murdered Will. He’s dead in the gaol now!’

‘You don’t …
Shit!
’

Ivo disappeared and they heard shouting, a woman’s voice petulantly arguing, and then the rattle of a sword in a cheap scabbard and the thump of boots on stairs. Soon he was back, gripping a staff in his hand with the look of a man who wanted to use it.

‘You sure about who did this?’ he growled.

‘He was still alive when we found him, and he told us it was the fair-haired knight from that ship.’

Ivo stopped. ‘I thought you said it was a sailor, not a bleeding knight!’

‘What difference does it make?’ Hamo demanded. ‘He killed our Will.’

‘Aye, and he may kill us next, you fool,’ Ivo pointed out. ‘How many men do you think he has on that ship of his?’

‘Could be forty or fifty, I suppose.’