The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21) (8 page)

Hawley shrugged. ‘French privateers. Maybe the men of Lyme? They’ve always hated us. When they see our ships, they often try to board and fight.’

‘They’re a weird lot in Lyme,’ Kena said.

‘Cut your throat as soon as look at you, if they know you’re from Devon,’ Hawley nodded.

‘The men from Lyme? What’s the matter with them?’ Simon asked.

‘They reckon they own the oceans, that’s what,’ Kena explained.

‘It was fifty years ago they last had a pitched battle, wasn’t it?’ Hawley said.

‘Aye, before my time,’ Kena agreed. ‘They had a great fight that day. But we won it.’

Simon had never heard of a fight that the pugnacious Dartmouth, Clifton and Hardness men had lost – not from here in the towns, anyway. ‘And that’s all? Because of a fight before any of us were born, you say that they must have taken this ship?’

‘No. Last time they took a ship and plundered it, that was two years backalong,’ Hawley said.

‘You just said it was fifty-odd years ago.’

‘That was when there was a battle between us and the men from Lyme. If you’re talking about simple piracy against a Devon ship, that’s different. The bastards joined with some sailors from Weymouth or somewhere, took the ship, stole the cargo, killed the crew, and scuttled her. God rot them!’

Sitting in his little chamber later, Simon recalled the
expression on Hawley’s face as he spoke those words. Here was a man who was more than happy to repay a debt. Especially a debt of blood, visiting vengeance on the men who had caused him grief.

It was an attitude much in evidence about the town. As he’d left the ship, returning with relief to terra firma after giving permission for the cargo to be brought ashore, Simon had noticed others muttering as they looked at the vessel moored close to the harbour. Their eyes were full of anger and resentment, and many was the time he heard the words ‘Lyme bastards’.

Many years ago, an arrogant squire at Oakhampton Castle had said to Simon that the locals here in Devon were as patient and calm as the cattle they herded. ‘They can’t be roused by anything,’ he had drawled.

Simon had replied, ‘If you want to rouse a Devon man, insult his woman, or his child, or his dog, or his cattle. But before you do, make sure you have some men with you.’

‘Ach, they aren’t capable of anger. They’re bovine, I tell you. It’s all the oats they eat. Ha ha! If you eat cattle feed all the time, it’s no surprise you end up that way.’

‘Before you say that to one, you’d best have your sword ready,’ Simon said with a cold rage. He was a Devon man himself, born here and raised here.

‘A sword? More likely a stick to prod them.’

Simon stood, and in a moment the man was lying sprawled flat on his back. ‘How did you …?’

‘If you want to insult those who spend their whole lives wrestling cattle to the ground so they can be branded, you should learn to take a fall,’ Simon had said coldly, and
walked from the room followed by cheering and loud applause from all the Devon men in the room. All the same, he was glad that the squire didn’t leap up and draw a weapon. He had publicly shamed the man, after all. Perhaps it was the presence of Hugh, Simon’s ever-truculent servant, who stood gripping his thick staff ostentatiously, that was enough to put the squire off the experiment.

Yes, a Devon man roused was a fearful thing.

‘Definitely the men from Lyme, I’d say,’ Hawley had said again, and Kena murmured assent while Beauley nodded sagely.

It had struck Simon that these three men were the main competitors of the ship’s owner, Paul Pyckard. He looked about them again, and then asked, ‘Tell me, masters, where were all your ships when this happened? Master Hawley, yours was at sea, I believe. Master Kena?’

‘I hope you don’t mean to accuse me of trying to steal this ship, Bailiff,’ Kena said with wide-eyed shock.

‘Or me,’ Beauley said with an intimidating calmness. Like that sudden quiet before a thunderstorm. ‘I would be most unhappy to think you accused me of being a pirate.’

‘So all your ships were at sea, is that what you are saying?’ Simon asked. He knew that all had been away. It was Stephen who recorded the movements of shipping and told him each morning which ships were at anchor, which had sailed.

Kena spoke with an oleaginous smile. ‘It is the law, Bailiff. We are supposed to be using numbers to protect our craft. We have to sail in convoys.’

‘But not this vessel?’ Simon asked.

Beauley was sharp-toned. ‘The captain, whoever he was, sought to beat us to the French coast, rot his bowels! His ship was smaller, but he wanted to get there quickly and sell at the highest price, buy the best wines cheaply, and return. He would have done, too.’

Simon said no more, but as he left the ship and clambered down the rope ladder to the little boat that would row him back to shore, he was deep in thought.

He did not truly think that any of Pyckard’s competitors could have done this. The men of Lyme – yes, possibly – but this lot? No.

‘Who could have done that to her, then?’ he wondered aloud. And shivered as the devil intruded into his thoughts again. Only the devil would have taken the men and left ship and cargo.

Master Kena could not sleep. His wife was tired and he found it impossible to remain in his bed while he felt so wide awake. She was too young for him to spoil her sleep. Bless her, she would have been glad to sit with him and talk, had he asked her to, but that wasn’t fair. She was less than half his age, and she deserved a full night’s rest now that she had paid the marriage debt earlier in the evening.

Rather than disturb her, he rose from his bed, pulled on his gipon and a fur-lined cloak over the top, and wrapped himself in its thick folds before going to the door and cautiously stepping down the stairs to the room beneath. Here was the comfortable little chamber where he and his wife would sit of an evening, and although the fire was long dead, there was some residual heat about the hearth. He
drew up a stool and sat before it, his face feeling the vague warmth.

There was no doubt that business would be affected by the disaster of Paul Pyckard’s ship. All eleven crew gone – it was a terrible shock to the town. Many people of Dartmouth had stated that they felt sure the devil had taken the men, but Kena himself believed that if the devil intended to take any man, he would have taken some of the others from the town. There was plenty of choice for his eternal fires, truth be told.

Still, if superstitious shipmen refused to sail, men like Kena would suffer. This could not be permitted to continue. It was a matter of urgency that those responsible for the crime should be discovered as soon as possible.

It was bad enough that business was already suffering because of the squabbling between the English and French kings. When rulers fell out, it was lesser beings who suffered, and just now, all merchants in England were watching the sword-rattling with growing alarm. The new policy of sailing in convoy meant that most ships were safe enough, but it also meant that a man had trouble finding crew. The sailors were all spoken for, and unless a master chose to offer bribes to tempt matelots away – as Kena himself had done – he might have to sail with a skeleton crew.

That was why Pyckard had been forced to take on strangers, which was always bad luck. Unknown crew members could well prove untrustworthy when attacked, after all. They had nothing to tie themselves to a ship or a master but his money, and where was the trust in that? Kena
himself had bought off four or five of his men, so Pyckard’s ships were definitely undermanned. Kena’s poaching of the sailors was but one source of the enmity between him and Pyckard.

Pyckard had been unlucky with his ship, but soon all the local merchants would suffer similar losses if this war proceeded. Hawley seemed a bright lad, much like his father John Hawley before him. Both had a nose for a contract and a bargain, and both would happily spit in the eye of the devil himself if it meant more profit for them. They had the ships and men, too. They could easily afford to run greater risks than others. Then there was young Beauley. He had two ships he could call his own, and his attire and demeanour were looking richer every year. Like Hawley, he would draw a sword and yell defiance rather than give up his craft or his cargo. Beneath the skin, all ambitious merchants were but a breath away from felony. Certainly he himself would kill any man who got in his way.

As had Pyckard that once …

All merchants would dispute now and again. There were so many issues on which they were in competition: the best victualling spot; the best mooring; the best merchants in Britanny who would provide the most profit. The rewards went to the man who could demand and take what he wanted. When other merchants wanted the same resources, fights were inevitable.

The fight with Pyckard had been bitter and long-standing. Paul Pyckard and he had started in the trade early in the King’s reign, back in 1307. At the time, Pyckard had been a forceful young merchant – but so had Kena. Pyckard had
shipped a great cargo of cloth from Totnes, beating Kena to the best of the merchandise at the local market, and Kena was convinced that it was because he had paid a bribe to someone there.

That was fair business. All the merchants did it, and the fines which were imposed when a man was found to have acted illegally were so negligible compared to the money to be made that all merchants looked on the fines as nothing more than minor business expenses to be taken into account during trading.

Yet it had infuriated Kena to be bested. The only remaining stock which he could purchase had been rough ‘dozens’ – a thicker, less desirable cloth, and therefore not so profitable. All the while as his men stored the stuff in the hold, he had wondered how he might win his own back on Pyckard, but to no avail. Then, some months later, he met with a King’s Purveyor, who was seeking transport of cargoes to King Edward’s French possessions; Kena saw the potential immediately. He kept the deal close to his chest, preventing any others from hearing of it, and made a good killing. And then, because that early trade still rankled, he mentioned his suspicions about Pyckard’s trading to the man.

As luck would have it, the Purveyor had only a short while before he tried to buy some cloth for the King’s household, only to discover that there was little to be had. Now he researched that market day and some others, and heard that much more cloth had been sent to market than had eventually been sold. It was a simple case of forestalling. Pyckard was meeting the dealers outside the town, offering
a good sum for the whole lot, and then reselling it in the market when it opened for a better profit. However, he was keeping back a large proportion of the goods to sell in France, where the profit would be even greater.

The fine imposed after the Purveyor’s report had hurt Pyckard, although it had made Kena laugh. The next time Pyckard saw him in the market, he turned his back on Kena, and would have nothing more to do with him from that moment.

That was fine by Philip. He had no wish to be friendly with Pyckard, especially not after the way his men had behaved. One day he had let his wife out alone, and Pyckard’s men had … well, enough. Kena had one ambition: to be the most powerful merchant in Dartmouth. To achieve that, he would stop at nothing.

Especially if it could hurt Pyckard and his men.

Baldwin had slept in a guest room at the manor. Usually in an older house everyone would sleep together, but Stapledon had invested quite a sum already in ensuring that this little estate was as comfortable as possible, and there were several small chambers for guests up in the roof area. For once, while sleeping away from his home and his wife, Baldwin fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit his pillow.

The bishop had been born in Devon – in Holsworthy, if Baldwin recalled correctly – and it was a source of astonishment to the knight that this kindly, generous man could have sought to become embroiled in politics at so high a level. Bishop, Lord High Treasurer to the King, an expert in administration as well as consummate ambassador and negotiator, Stapledon had been at the heart of the nation’s political life for fifteen or sixteen years now, and the effect was all too plain on his features. The last months had been unkind to him.

Ever since Baldwin had first met the bishop, Walter had been involved in the government of the country. Stapledon was driven by a desire to do good: his creation of a school at Ashburton, his founding of Stapledon College in Oxford, his constant round of visitations in his diocese, all pointed to a
man who took his duty of care seriously, to help the people whose souls he must serve. It was that aspect of his nature that appealed to Baldwin.

Now Baldwin dressed slowly in the cool morning. From the open shutter he could see over trees, which sparkled and gleamed in the sun as the drops of dew caught the light. It was a scene of perfect beauty and it made him beam with contentment.

Then his face hardened. The previous evening, the discussion about the dreadful affair of the silk purses, followed by the memory of the destruction of his Order, had lent a deadly edge to his enjoyment. It felt almost as though the bishop was reminding him of the frailty of men, and the vague idea that he was warning Baldwin would not leave the knight as he pulled his shirt on over his head, tugged on his crimson tunic and cote-hardie, and buckled on his small riding sword.

Entering the hall, he found it full of the first servants. They were eating four to a mess, while the second servants waited on them. Soon the first would all leave, and then the second would break their fast. Up on the dais at the far end of the hall, the bishop sat in his great chair, a careworn cleric in black garb with no decoration but his ring and the crucifix about his neck, and did not touch the bread or meats that were spread before him. He looked up as Baldwin entered.

Baldwin had often felt that directness was the easiest approach when he was in doubt, so he marched to the top table and bowed. ‘Sir, last evening you started to tell me that you wanted me to go to Dartmouth for you, but you did not wish to discuss the matter in any great detail.’