Michael Jecks - The Death Ship of Dartmouth

‘What do you know!’ she flared.

Sir Richard listened to none of this. He was shaking his head at the sight of the man on the ground before him. ‘You are Cynegils? I should ask you why you didn’t appear before me at the inquest, man, but looking at you I can only feel a sense of relief. Christ’s ballocks, you cretin, will you stop that moaning?’

‘Don’t hit him!’

Simon turned to the girl again. ‘What is your name?’

‘Edith,’ she replied after a moment’s hesitation.

‘That’s a good name,’ he said. ‘I named my own daughter Edith. Listen, now. Your father may be able to help us to learn more about a man who was murdered. We aren’t here to hurt him in any way, but we have to talk to him, so if you can persuade him to sit up and stop that infernal whining, the sooner we can leave you both. Is that clear enough?’

She stared at him. ‘Father, please, just listen to them and help them,’ she said.

Cynegils, who appeared to have persuaded himself that the three were angels or demons (his precise conviction was hard to establish), had tried to burrow himself under the boat with his bare hands, whimpering like a whipped cur all the while.

Sir Richard had been aiming his boot at Cynegils’s posterior, but on hearing Edith’s words, he pulled his foot away again innocently.

‘Father?’

‘Leave me alone! What are you doing here, Edie? Get back away home. What’ll the childers do with you here?’

‘Millie can look after them,’ Edith said, walking to her father and sitting beside him, taking his hand in hers. ‘I think you need me more than they do just now.’

He stopped his attempts at tunnelling and sat back, blinking warily. ‘Who’re all these?’ he slurred.

‘I am the Coroner, man!’ Sir Richard boomed. ‘And we want to learn all about the man you trailed inside the inn. Who told you to go there, why, and how much were you paid to find him?’

Cynegils’s face fell. ‘All I did was watch a fellow, like the man told me. He said he’d pay me three shillings if I’d go inside and keep an eye on him. That was all. The man stood up and went out to the back, and I went to make sure he was there …’

‘What did you do first?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Did you go straight out?’

‘Well, I had an ale, if that’s what you mean. And then I went out front to talk to the man who told me to go there, to tell him. He said to make sure where the fellow was, so I went out and listened at the door, and while I was there, someone clobbered me. I woke up in the yard behind the inn with a sick headache and a lump the size of a duck’s egg. Look, it’s still here. And it’s giving me grief.’

‘Shut up!’ Sir Richard said unsympathetically. ‘Who was this patron? Did he tell you why he was following the man?’

‘He said he was from the Bishop of Exeter and that the man he followed was a traitor to the King. That’s what he said. And he promised to pay me three shillings if I found a stranger arriving here. Told me to follow him and let him know. He was staying in the Dolphin, I could find him there. Three shillings, Edie. It would’ve been enough to keep you lot in food for a month or more.’

‘He didn’t pay you?’ Simon asked.

‘I was going to be paid when I was done. But I was knocked out cold. Don’t know what happened to him, but I never got a penny.’

‘Describe the man you followed,’ Baldwin said.

‘Tall, well made, with rich clothes, all crimson and blue, really expensive-looking. He had a French sort of face — dark and swarthy, you know? Eyes close together, too. I wouldn’t trust a man like him.’

‘What of the man who told you to trail him?’

‘He was younger, and a pleasant-sounding gentleman. Perhaps twenty-two or — three, with dark hair and a bit of a nervous manner. I think he was unused to this sort of work.’

‘Did he say what he intended to do?’ Baldwin asked.

‘No. I thought he’d be off to call the Hue and Cry, but he didn’t while I was there. He was just watching to see what the man did.’

‘I wonder why?’ Baldwin said.

‘What?’ Sir Richard demanded.

‘I should have expected him to call the Watch and have the man arrested if he thought that this was the French traitor whom he was seeking. Why leave him in a tavern and wait?’

‘Because he wanted to make sure it was the right man?’ Simon hazarded.

‘Or he wished to see who the fellow would meet with?’ Sir Richard said.

‘That is perhaps more likely,’ Baldwin agreed, wondering whether the bishop could have held back some detail which could be useful now. He gazed out at the river, his brow lined with thought. ‘But why should he care who the man was going to meet here, if all he intended was to leave the country and get to France?’ he added in a low voice to himself.

Yet he already knew the answer. If this Frenchman was meeting someone here, then that someone could well be a traitor to the King … and any spy watching the Frenchman would soon learn the identity of that man.

Baldwin felt a sinking sensation in his belly as he realised that he was being hurled into a quagmire of political intrigue against his will.

The sun began to sink behind the hills, throwing Clifton and Hardness into that early twilight that lasted so long each day. Pierre had been left up here in the hayloft for the whole day without any more food or drink, and the tedium was making him fretful. When he heard footsteps approach, and the gate squeaking open as Moses pulled it wide, he slipped quickly down the ladder.

‘My friend, you are most welcome,’ he said.

‘I have some more bread and meat, and a little wine. I hope it will be enough for you,’ Moses said.

‘It is better than I could have hoped.’

‘There is a ship which will be finishing victualling tomorrow. Perhaps tomorrow night, or the day after, I can get you to her. The ship’s one of my master’s, so you will be given a safe passage.’

‘That is marvellous! I am most grateful.’

‘There are men looking for you all over the town, though, you know?’ Moses continued. ‘The man you killed in the road was found, and now people are talking about you and the fact you killed him. They don’t know your name yet, but they soon will. If you are found you will be arrested and hanged, and so will I, probably.’

Pierre was quiet. ‘What man? I know of no dead man! I was being followed when I tried to find my way to Master Pyckard’s house, but I attacked no one.’

‘Let’s hope you don’t have to explain that to the Coroner. He’s looking for the murderer.’

‘You must tell your master that I had nothing to do with this. I am no murderer!’

Moses had been emptying his basket. Now he stopped for a moment, not meeting Pierre’s eyes. ‘I wish I could,’ he said quietly. ‘My master died this afternoon.’

‘What else do you know, I wonder?’ Baldwin said aloud.

‘I know nothing, lord. What can I know? I was told to watch a man, and I did, that’s all.’

‘You are a poor man, Cynegils,’ Baldwin said.

‘He’s a good man!’ his daughter exclaimed.

‘And you are a loyal child, but you are scarcely able to judge him,’ Baldwin said coldly. He approached Cynegils. ‘Churl, you reek. If we pricked you with a sword, you would bleed ale!’

‘What of it?’ Cynegils mumbled. ‘Can’t you leave me alone?’

‘I do not think so,’ Baldwin said. Then he snapped, ‘What did you do when you came to?’

‘I was cold for a long time.’

‘He was hit by that madman! His poor head was hurt!’ Edith spat, and threw her arms around her father. ‘He’s been taken for a fool, but that’s no reason to keep on at him.’