Candace Robb - A Spy For The Redeemer

Father Paul seemed to understand the silence. ‘Forgive me. I did not meant to insult you. It has been a difficult morning.’

Owen nodded, but still said nothing.

At the edge of the shingle, they stepped into the wet sand. The wind buffeted them as the sand sucked at their boots. Gulls circled about the mast of the ship, shrieking mourners. Owen climbed into the little boat, grateful for Tom’s assistance. But there would be a rope ladder for boarding the ship. He wanted both hands for that. Owen took his dagger, pulled back his open tunic, cut the cloth that held his arm to his side.

‘What are you doing?’ Tom leaned towards him.

‘Freeing my arm.’ Fortunately, he had not accepted Iolo’s offer to lace up the front of his tunic this morning. Now he shrugged it off his right shoulder. He had not counted on the wind, which blew the tunic wide. Tom grabbed it, held it so Owen could slip his injured arm into the sleeve. It was a painful process.

Father Paul shook his head. ‘Does Archdeacon Rokelyn know the extent of your wounds?’

‘Aye.’

‘He was not thinking of your comfort when he asked you to come out to the ship.’

Owen could not help but laugh at that, despite his discomfort and his dislike of the coroner. ‘No, my welfare was not in his thoughts, to be sure.’ He leaned over to the boatman, a large, quiet man. ‘Did you note anything unusual last night?’ he asked in Welsh. ‘Lights? Sounds?’

‘I might have heard something. But I sleep sound. Always been blessed with that.’

‘When did you hear something? Evening? Middle of the night?’

‘Cannot tell you. Woke in the dark and heard a shout. But as I heard no more, I thought it a dream. Went back to sleep. God watches over an old mariner.’

‘Did you know the watchman on the ship?’

‘Old Eli? Everyone knows the sluggard.’

‘It would be like him to flee in the face of trouble?’

‘Oh, aye, there is no loyalty to the man. Like Rhiannon’s ladies, he is, protects himself and the hell with the rest, especially his master. As you see. Forgive me, Father, but it is true.’

‘I would cut down the bodies,’ said Father Paul, still choosing to speak in English.

‘Then you will come out with another crew,’ said Owen. ‘We have not the strength among us. I am here to observe, no more.’

The priest gave Owen a dark look, but did not argue.

‘I have never been at sea as crew,’ Owen said to the boatman. ‘Would you board with us and search below? For anything not common on such a ship?’

The boatman glanced up at the topcastle, did not speak at once. ‘Aye,’ he said as he drew the boat alongside the ship, ‘I will do that, Captain.’

The gulls were loud here and, as Owen climbed up the rope ladder, gritting his teeth for the pain in his shoulder, they grew louder, joined now by the creaks and groans of the vessel. Tom was right behind Owen, then the priest. The boatman came last. Without a word, he headed below.

Blood stained the deck near the mast. Here is where they must have slit the throats of the men hanging above. The stench of blood mingled with the ship’s tarry odour, the salt air and the sour smell of low tide. The eyes had already been plucked from the corpses. The gulls’ cries were more ominous to Owen after that. He looked away, walked around, searching for the weapon, more blood, anything that might have been left by the murderers. Bold men, they were, to bring their victims out here. Anyone might have witnessed the passage.

Father Paul stood beneath the mast, praying for the souls of the two men. Tom poked about in the coils of rope on deck. Owen found a bloody footprint in the forecastle, but it would be difficult to know whether that had been made by the murderers or Father Paul’s earlier companions.

‘Captain!’ Tom was running towards him with something dangling from one hand. A blood-encrusted knife. ‘I found it behind a coil of rope.’

‘Well done. Perhaps someone on shore will recognise it.’

Tom glanced at it, then his clothes. ‘What shall I do with it?’

‘Wrap it in something. Go below — surely there is a torn bit of sail, a cloth. Wait.’

The boatman was coming up the ladder from below, grunting as he balanced something in one hand. Tom handed Owen the knife, went over to help the boatman. Recoiled.

‘Come now, lad, take it, will you? I have one hand to climb with. Your captain was right not to try it.’

Owen had joined them. He took the bowl. At first he did not know what he beheld. Raw meat or poorly cooked. It had not been there long. It smelled of blood, not rot. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ he whispered, suddenly understanding. Two tongues. He was fairly certain they were human tongues.

Tom had run to the side of the ship to be sick.

‘They were in the captain’s quarters,’ said the boatman. ‘There is little to see down below, though someone has gone through it, strewn the bits about.’

‘Was there any paper? Parchment? How were these laid out?’

The boatman shrugged. ‘The bowl was there, by itself, on the bunk.’

Father Paul closed his eyes at the sight of the tongues, crossed himself. ‘We shall bury them with the men.’

Later, when they were back on the shingle, Father Paul thanked Owen for coming. ‘You saw things that I did not, Captain. I grow too old for this task. I cannot help but think we might know the truth of the mason’s hanging had you been here. God go with you, Captain.’

Owen began to walk down the shingle with Tom, thinking about the climb back to St David’s, when a thought struck him. He had not spoken to Father Paul about Cynog’s death, the condition of his body, the way he had been hanged. All he knew was secondhand. The coroner was one of the first people he should have consulted. What was happening to him? He retraced his steps, Tom belatedly noticing the change and hurrying to catch up. Father Paul was mounting the wagon to bless the corpses. Owen sat down on a piling.

‘What is it?’ Tom asked. ‘Why are we waiting?’

‘Return to the city, Tom. I must speak with Father Paul.’

The young man frowned. ‘You move as a man in pain. There are shadows — ’

‘Leave me!’ Owen ordered, too angry with himself to fuss with courtesy.

Tom gave a little bow and hurried away, almost tripping over himself in his haste.

Father Paul puzzled to see Owen beside the cart.

‘I would know all you remember about Cynog’s death,’ said Owen.

‘I did not mention it to give you more work — your injuries — you need rest.’

‘I can think while resting, Father.’

‘So you can.’ The vicar frowned, raised a finger, asking for patience. ‘You test my failing memory.’

Folk were moving off, now the bodies lay covered in the cart. The gulls were reclaiming the beach, busily hopping round the bits of debris, hoping for food.

‘Yes,’ the coroner said at last. ‘I remember now. He was hanging by the neck, one arm dangling by his side, the other tied to another tree limb. The noose and the loop round his arm were tied with sailor’s knots.’

‘His arm was tied?’

The vicar lifted his right arm, held it straight out to one side, the hand limp. ‘Thus. I thought to myself his murderer had set out to crucify him, then found it too difficult.’ The old man dropped his arm, closed his eyes, crossed himself. ‘He was a good man, Cynog.’

Owen wondered at this detail. ‘How could there have been any question whether Cynog took his own life? How could he have tied his arm while hanging?’

‘No one asked for details, save Archdeacon Rokelyn,’ said Father Paul. ‘And Father Simon.’

Him again. ‘Why Simon?’

For the first time on this grim morning, Father Paul smiled a little. ‘Simon wishes to know all our sins. I think of him as a dog, who sniffs at his fellow’s bottom. To know him.’