Michael Jecks - The Death Ship of Dartmouth

‘Oh, good. I’ve heard so much about you,’ said a voice.

At a bench there sat an amiable-looking man, perhaps ten years younger than him, who held a large horn of ale and slab of meat skewered on a long dagger, from which he alternately gulped or took a sharp bite.

‘Master?’

‘You may call me that,’ the man said affably. ‘And now I should like to know all you can tell me about the night when you tried to follow a man in here.’

Baldwin took more wine and listened as the Coroner questioned Hawley again about all he had seen on the day he found the cog, but there was little he could add to what they already knew.

‘The convoy never happened, really. Pyckard’s ship went off first, and then Beauley’s, and we were third.’ He sat and frowned as he relived that day. ‘There was a thin mist all over the sea when we set off, and I ordered the men to reef the sails to slow her. Didn’t want to run straight into another ship. I wasn’t too bothered, because my ship is much faster than either of the others’, and I thought that I’d catch them in one good day’s sailing.’

‘You set sail in the early morning?’ Simon asked.

‘Yes. The other two had left the day before — Pyckard’s ship in the early morning, Beauley’s late morning. We missed the wind and had to wait. When the fog cleared, we put up all the canvas and ran as fast as we could. Late in the afternoon we saw one ship, which must have been Beauley’s. Only a little later, close on evening, we saw the smoke on the horizon and ran Pyckard’s ship down.’

‘So Beauley could have been responsible for this?’ Baldwin mused.

‘Why would he do this? The ship was left with cargo and ship intact. It makes no sense! And if you’re worried, you can check his ship for the crew. I’d bet you’d find no sign of bodies or blood.’

‘He is a seamanlike fellow,’ Simon agreed. ‘Did you see no other ship at all?’

‘No, I saw no sign of another out there. All we saw was the smoke, then the cog came into view.’

‘If there was another ship in the area, wouldn’t you have missed it anyway?’ Baldwin asked reasonably. ‘I would imagine all eyes would be on the stricken cog.’

‘You imagine wrong, then,’ Hawley said sharply. ‘What, if you find a woman screaming, tied to a tree, do you go straight to her? No! You stand back and watch to see where is the man who bound her there. Otherwise you’d be walking into a trap. It’s the same at sea. If you find a ship like the Saint John which has been attacked, you look all about the horizon with care before approaching her. And my men are good. No, there was no ship in the area when we caught her.’

‘So the assumption that the attacking ship fled before they could steal the cargo …?’ Baldwin said.

‘Is so much garbage. They may have seen another ship, but not mine.’

‘Which means that the ship was boarded and attacked earlier.’

‘Maybe, but not much earlier. That part of the sea is quite busy. There are plenty of fishermen who ply their trade about there, and many ships make the crossing to Normandy or Guyenne. If she’d been there for more than a few hours, she’d have been seen. No, I think she was boarded and attacked late in the afternoon, and drifted a while until we found her.’

‘If these shipping lanes are so well used,’ the Coroner said slowly, ‘the men who left her must have known that there was a good chance she’d be found, and didn’t care whether she was or not.’

He shot a look at Baldwin as he spoke, and Baldwin found himself nodding. This Coroner was no fool. ‘Yes. Which means that they didn’t care whether the crime was discovered or not.’

‘No. Because they consider themselves safe from the law,’ Hawley said. ‘And that is not a happy conclusion.’

Sir Andrew de Limpsfield smiled affably down at Cynegils. He could afford to be affable, for he was sure that this little sailor-peasant was going to make him a moderate sum of money. ‘So you know nothing more from the moment that you were knocked down until you found yourself with a drenching to waken you?’

‘Yes, sir. Someone threw a bucket of water over me, and that brought me round.’

‘But by then, both men were gone,’ Sir Andrew said. ‘And one was dead that we know of. Where did the one go who owed you money?’

‘I haven’t seen him again.’

‘Did you see the body they found in the town? It is said he might be the man who you watched or who told you to watch.’

‘I didn’t see him.’

‘Even though he could be the man who hit you, or the man who caused you to be struck, and owed you money?’ Sir Andrew enquired silkily. ‘What restraint!’

‘It’s the truth, sir.’

‘No. It is utter ox-shit. You are incapable of telling the truth even when it is in your interests to do so. I think that I shall have you arrested and held until you confess the truth to me.’

Cynegils had already suffered enough from Sir Baldwin and the Coroner, and now he bent his head again. ‘Sir, I did see him, I think … but he owed me money.’

‘Tell me all, man, if you don’t want to feel the point of my sword at your throat.’

‘Have we learned anything from that man that we didn’t know already?’ Coroner Richard muttered as they left Hawley’s house and began to wander homewards to Simon’s lodgings.

‘I am comfortable that Hawley himself is probably innocent. I think he fears another attack.’

‘If he had piratically attacked Pyckard’s ship, he would declare himself innocent like that, wouldn’t he?’ the Coroner said.

‘Yes, but Hawley was talking of asking the King to become more involved in the protection of ships. A man who depends for his livelihood on the freedom to behave exactly as he wants at all times is the last who would express those views.’

‘But even if he is not guilty of attacking the ship at sea, he could be the man who killed Danny before the ship sailed — if you are right,’ Simon put in.

‘Why should he kill a sailor?’ Baldwin said.

‘Jealous of a woman? Or Danny was jealous of his money and attacked him?’ the Coroner suggested.

‘Possibly, but I should prefer to have a little evidence to suggest those motives,’ Baldwin said.

‘At least we’ve learned how the body was thrown into the pit,’ Simon said musingly.

Sir Richard gave a grunt. ‘Yes. There is not much I would trust from the mouth of that tatty drunkard Cynegils, but I believed his fear at confessing to finding a body and robbing it of four shillings.’ He sniggered. ‘Astonishing that he should bend to taking one extra shilling as payment.’

Baldwin grinned too. ‘In a way, it was only fair. If he hadn’t been following the Frenchman as instructed, he wouldn’t have received that blow. If he was less honest, he would have taken the whole purse.’

‘More fool him,’ Sir Richard scoffed. ‘I would have taken it, and without shame. It was insane to leave the purse there for any other man to take.’

‘But no one did,’ Baldwin pointed out. ‘Which proves that the man who killed him did not do so for personal gain.’

‘At least we know his identity now. Stapledon’s nephew,’ Sir Richard said. He looked up at the twilight. ‘And now, gentles, I think it is time that we considered the work of the day to be past. There are taverns in this little town which would grace a much larger place. Master Bailiff, have you ever been to the Crossed Keys up on the road to the gallows? It used to be an exciting little haunt, with some of the best ale in the area … not that the alewife would still be alive, I expect. Good women with a talent for brewing tend to die young, sadly.’

‘I think an ale would be an excellent idea, Sir Richard,’ Baldwin said cruelly, then, seeing the expression on his old friend’s face, he relented. ‘But I fear that I am very fatigued after my journey. If you do not mind, I would ask Simon to walk me back to his house.’