Michael Jecks - The Death Ship of Dartmouth

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.