Michael Jecks - The Death Ship of Dartmouth

There was a firmness in his tone and a set to his shoulders that showed the suggestion had annoyed him, and perhaps even worried him slightly. Baldwin considered him for a few moments, assessing the danger this fair-haired man posed.

Meanwhile, Simon was frowning. ‘What would bring him here, though? His path would have been safer were he to go to London or some other port, surely. What would make him come here?’

‘His brother-in-law,’ Sir Andrew said, and now his face grew black with disappointment and frustration. ‘I had hoped to catch them both together, but when I got here, I learned that his brother-in-law was dead.’

‘Pyckard?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Yes. He married Amandine de Caen, the sister to Pierre de Caen. It is him I seek. If we catch him, we may well stop a dangerous spy from communicating secrets to the French king.’

‘And you will be richly rewarded, no doubt,’ Baldwin said.

Coroner Richard shook his head. ‘Don’t you have enough money already?’

‘Can a man ever have enough?’ Sir Andrew asked with a cynical smile.

‘You have a rich craft there,’ Simon pointed out. ‘What is she, sixty? Eighty tuns?’

‘The Gudyer ? She’s not mine,’ Sir Andrew shrugged. ‘She is owned by my lord Despenser. He told me to take her, in order to reach here all the faster.’

Baldwin’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is that the ship he used when he was in exile?’

There was a sudden silence in the room as all the men considered his words. The henchmen behind Sir Andrew caught the atmosphere belatedly, and one stepped forward, his hand on his sword-hilt. Sir Andrew blandly raised a hand without looking at him, and the man let his hand slowly fall away to rest on his belt buckle as though prepared to grab for steel at the earliest opportunity.

‘I wouldn’t know whether it was the same ship, Sir Baldwin. I had no part in that adventure.’

‘Lord Despenser lived as a sea-wolf, didn’t he, while he was exiled,’ Baldwin said quietly. ‘He turned pirate, and robbed English and French shipping at will.’

‘Do you say so? How interesting.’

Baldwin saw the sly grin return to the other’s face and knew that he should be silent if he wished to be safe. The Lord Despenser was a dangerous enemy, and now here was Baldwin, making allegations of a serious nature in front of one of the Despensers’ own household, and yet he could not help himself. The connection was too clear and apparent.

‘It is curious, is it not, that only a short while after the Saint John was attacked and her crew murdered, you should appear in your nice ship with a crew that has been trained in capturing other vessels.’

‘That is an extremely serious accusation — and naturally I deny it utterly,’ Sir Andrew said. ‘And I think that bearing in mind the importance of catching this mad Frenchman, you would be better served to help me discover where he is now.’

‘How do you know he was not on the ship?’ Coroner Richard grated.

‘Because, my dear Coroner, the man was here in the town after the Saint John sailed, was he not? The man I held in gaol, who stole from the body in the road, was watching him.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘And the man who was dead in the road — I suppose you are not missing a spy in the town, are you?’

Sir Andrew smiled and looked away. ‘I do not suppose a simple denial would suffice, would it? But no, I had no one here.’

‘You expect us to believe that?’ Simon snarled.

‘I do not care whether you do or not. I have no one here. Someone else may seek the same man, though, and may have been killed.’

‘You mean another man from Despenser?’ Coroner Richard rumbled.

‘It is possible.’

‘You will come with me now, then. I don’t like the idea of a man being buried unnamed when someone is perfectly capable of giving his details to the Coroner. If he is from your master, you may recognise him.’

‘When I have time,’ Sir Andrew said.

‘I think you have time right now. Come.’

Law was sitting at the far end of the hole, his face carefully averted, when Alred returned with a pie.

‘Oh, in God’s name, boy, will you not forgive him?’

‘Leave it, Al,’ Bill said.

‘Why should I leave it? The longer you two sit there sulking, the longer it’ll take to get the hole fixed, and that means the longer I’m losing money!’ Alred hissed sharply. ‘Christ’s blood, how can I get it into your thick skulls that this is important? We’re only being paid for the whole job, so the longer we take, the-’

‘The less we can earn elsewhere,’ said Bill. ‘I know.’

‘Then act like you do! Talk to him! I’ve done all I can,’ Alred said. ‘Look, Law, why won’t you just come here and shake his hand and make things good again? Eh? There’s no point sitting there like a …’

‘Leave me alone. If you want to keep in with a felon who likes to punch people, you do that. I don’t see I need to talk to him, though.’

‘Oh, in God’s name, I give up!’ Alred said, throwing his hands in the air with despair. ‘What is the point of trying to keep the peace when you two just want to bicker? Well, all I can say is, I don’t have to listen to you both. You get on with this hole while I go and speak to the town’s reeve to see about our pay. Not that he’ll give us anything if he’s any sense, looking at you both. Still, we’ve nothing left. You understand? We’ve no more money, and if we want to get some, we’ll need to get moving. Yes?’

‘All right, Al,’ Bill said. He took up the pick as Alred made his way down the road, still muttering bitterly to himself as he went.

Bill started scraping away at the surface in a desultory attempt to look busy, but as he worked, he could not help but glance at Law. That was fine, until he caught sight of Law shooting a look at him too, and the pair instantly turned away from each other and carried on as though nothing had happened.

The shadows were moving and growing longer by the time that Bill finally let his pick rest against the side of the hole. He stood with his head still bent. ‘Law, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you, all right?’

There was no response, but Bill could tell from the fact that there was no sound of shovelling sand that Law was listening.

‘When I was telling you about what happened to me, I lied, you see. That’s why I was so upset.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look, she was the fuller’s daughter in my home town. I was there one afternoon after harvest, and I saw her in the river. God, I can see her now … There are some women, Law, who glow, you know? They are so lovely that they’re just like a candle-flame to a moth — a man can’t help but go and be scorched. Well, I saw her that day, and the sight of her in her shirt at the river just … I had to have her . I suppose I’d had a bellyful of ale, and seeing her there was just the last … No, that’s not it. I’d always wanted her, I think.’

‘So you did rape her?’ Law said breathlessly.

‘Dear God, yes,’ Bill whispered. ‘I thought I loved her, and I thought that if she was taken by me, she’d agree to marry me. That was all I wanted, really. She had a boy she liked, one of the cottars from the vill, but that didn’t worry me. I thought she’d accept me rather than go to another man as damaged goods. So I went to her and had her there on the river bank. And she didn’t want me, Law. Didn’t want me at all. I had to silence her screams and pleading. Kept telling her I loved her, and not to worry. Christ’s bones! I told her that!

‘The rest of the day went by in a blur. It wasn’t until next morning I remembered what I’d done, and I had a qualm, thinking she might denounce me and accuse me of rape, but then I reckoned if she did, it wouldn’t matter. I’d say she’d asked for it. Say I’d wed her. Damn, if she refused me, I’d say she’d always flaunted herself before me, and she’d been experienced. No, I wouldn’t accept all the blame. You see, I was feeling guilty, and the guilt made me want to put the blame somewhere else. Anywhere else. If there was no one else I could blame, I’d blame her. It’s what men do, Law, when they’re weak and stupid. Christ knows, I was both.’