Michael Jecks - The Death Ship of Dartmouth

They had started back at an inn called simply the Bush, drinking some heavy ales brewed by the innkeeper’s daughter. After that they had migrated to a powerful red Guyennois wine, and Simon would still have been fine, had the innkeeper not mentioned to Sir Richard that he had some burned wine.

Simon could still taste the stuff. The first sip was foul, like trying to drink a thin, but acrid and oily wine; but the second sip was better, the third not unpleasant, and the fourth was really quite palatable. It was a most peculiar drink, and made Simon feel much bolder, as though he was suddenly capable of feats of courage and endurance.

They had drunk a deal of it.

‘Ah! Morning, Bailiff!’ Sir Richard stood in the middle of his parlour gazing down at the hearth. ‘Did I tell you the one about the man proposing marriage to a young bint? He spoke to her father, and, trying to check her credentials, as it were, said, had she been chaste? “Surely,” said her father. “So — she’s got no children?” the man said. The father smiled a little at that. “She has had none?” the man repeated, and the father shook his head. “No. Nowt but a very small one, sir!” Eh? Haha! Where’s your servant, Bailiff? I can’t see him anywhere, and we need to have our breakfast. We can’t be late for the two inquests, can we? Where does your fellow sleep? Is he at the back?’

‘Next door,’ Simon croaked. In the night all moisture from his mouth had fled and now his tongue clacked drily like a board of wood. The Coroner looked as fresh as a bluebell in spring. Simon assumed he had courteously offered the man his bed. Or more likely, Simon had been unable to climb the steep staircase.

‘Ah! I’ll find the lazy scoundrel. Probably asleep, if I know anything about such lads. He’ll be …’

Mercifully his voice faded and then disappeared as he marched through the little building, and Simon felt only relief as he heard the door slam. He lay back again and closed his eyes, shivering gently, praying that the Coroner might die on his way and that Simon could sleep until the body was discovered.

‘OPEN THIS DOOR!’

Simon’s eyes snapped open, giving him the vague feeling that the top of his head was unscrewing. With appalled expectation, he waited. There was a squeaking, which he recognised as the door to his neighbour’s house, and then the bellow began again.

‘TELL HIM THAT THE BAILIFF AND I WILL BE IN THERE TO DRAG THE LAZY WRETCH FROM HIS BED, MADAM, IF HE ISN’T OVER THERE AND COOKING OUR BREAKFAST IN THE TIME IT TAKES ME TO DRAW A QUART OF ALE AND DRINK IT. AND HE WILL GET THE THRASHING HE RICHLY DESERVES IF I HAVE TO DO THAT.’

Simon felt his belly begin to grind at the thought of his neighbour’s maid’s face. She could stew plums by looking at them, and the effect of the Coroner on her was something he preferred not to think about. Nor the effect of her cold stare on him the next time they met.

Baldwin was already on his mount. For once, he had slept well. Last night he had been tired enough after his riding and discussions with the bishop to fall asleep in no time at all, and he woke refreshed and ready for the completion of his journey.

It was a pleasant morning’s ride, following the River Dart down towards the sea. Once, on a journey over the moors towards Huccaby, he had been told that the river he was crossing wandered all the way down to the sea at Dartmouth. He had never sought to verify that, but now, looking at the great estuary, he wondered whether it was true, and if so, how many other tributaries joined that little stream to make such an immense river.

The way was shaded, which was a relief, because even this early the weather was growing hot. He could feel the warmth rising from his horse, and although the land was flat here, he made many halts to let the animal slake his thirst in the river. Before he was more than a few bowshots from the town, though, the road took him up on top of the hills, away from the water itself. This land was ever hilly and criss-crossed with deep ravines that roads avoided. Up on the higher ground again, there was abundant pasture and farming land, although fewer trees.

Before anything else, Baldwin decided he would visit Simon and tell him about his mission on behalf of the bishop. If there was anything odd happening in the town, his old friend the Bailiff would be sure to know about it.

Simon dressed himself slowly and went out to the privy. After performing his morning’s routine in the little hut, he pulled his cloak about him and went to the wall at the bottom of his garden.

This was one of those perfect September mornings, the sort he had always loved on the moors. The weather had broken, and the fierce blast of the sun had abated somewhat. Now the air was fine and clear, the bushes filled with ripe berries. Simon’s little plot held some apple trees, brambles and pears, and all were bent with the weight of fruit. He would have to get someone to come and collect it all, for there was no possibility of his idle, good-for-nothing servant managing any such thing.

Good gardeners were always a trial to find. Men liked to boast that they were good at gardening, but in truth it was mostly their women who knew about the plants. The men spent too much time at sea or in taverns to learn much about anything other than tying knots and throwing up, in Simon’s rather jaundiced view. He could do with someone out here, though. He looked casually over the wall into the garden beyond the back lane. That was tidier, and as he peered nosily, he could see a maid gathering the last of the year’s peas ready for drying.

The lane went nowhere. There was a gate at the southernmost end, but that was kept locked to bar access from draw-latches. However, the attempt at security failed because some while ago the northern gate had been broken. Simon considered it was some poor fellow last winter who was desperate for firewood. No one had mended it in the last year or so, and now all too many people used the lane as a toilet. There was a familiar stench about it now — the sour, musty smell of faeces. He scowled. In the end he’d probably pay someone to come and clear it.

For once the mists had not swept up the river to engulf the town, and the sun could shine down on the newly limewashed buildings, all painted to protect them during the winter weather to come. Standing up here, Simon could see along the line of the shore from Hardness to the north, down to the curve in the river that led to the open sea. Even up here there was a constant thrumming on the wind, the sound of thousands of taut ropes vibrating and setting masts humming.

‘BAILIFF! WHERE ARE YOU?’

At the hoarse bellow, Simon winced, and then reluctantly turned back to his house. He only hoped that the Coroner would soon be finished here in Dartmouth.

Moses threw open the shutters to his master’s room and looked back. Master Pyckard was in a dreadful way now, with his parchment-like flesh and grey lips. His skin looked as though it had been covered in a thin layer of wax overnight, and his eyes were dulled, while his breath rattled.

‘Master?’ Moses asked gently. He edged nearer to the bed, very close to sobbing. When he first came here, it was because his father had been lost at sea. His mother was already dead, and Moses and his younger brother Danny had nowhere else to go. The only childhood memories he had were of this house, because as soon as the parish had announced that they were without parents, Pyckard had come and taken them in.

It had been the luckiest day of Moses’s life, and he would never cease praying to God for the soul of this kindly man. Paul Pyckard had rescued him and Danny from a life of poverty, misery and an early death. Both Moses and Pyckard knew it, and both knew the depth of the debt, although neither had ever referred to it. There was no need.