Michael Jecks - The Death Ship of Dartmouth

Pierre grabbed at the rope ladder, clambering up the side of the ship. At the top he risked a quick glance all about him in case of ambush, but there was nothing he could see that indicated danger. That in itself should have been warning enough.

He swung himself over the sheerstrake and landed inelegantly on the deck, his ankle twisting slightly, and his attention was distracted as Hamund pulled himself over and sprawled at his feet. The Frenchman reached down and took his wrist, helping him up.

‘Ah, ain’t that sweet?’

Pierre turned. Three sailors he didn’t recognise were standing at either side of the mast. Thoughts of springing to the ladder and escaping were quashed as he saw the rowing boat already returning to the shore. He spun back, reaching for his sword, determined to sell his life as hard as he may, but as he moved he heard Hamund shriek, and grew aware of more men rushing towards him from his left. He pulled his sword free, but as he did so, a rope whipped about his legs, weighted with lead that whirled and cracked into his shin. It was tugged, and even as he tried to maintain his balance, he felt himself topple, and must throw his arms out to break his fall.

A man stepped on his sword; he saw Hamund try to pull the leg away, but Hamund was knocked aside with contemptuous ease, his face running with blood. Then Pierre rolled to his back, reaching for the dagger at his belt, even as he was hauled along the deck by main force, and another fellow gripped his wrist firmly.

‘Evening, Frenchie!’ he heard, and then a cudgel slammed into his head and Pierre felt the decking open up and swallow him into a pitch blackness.

Strete was already at the tavern at the time when Hamund and Pierre were captured. The little chamber behind the main hall was small and noisome, but the fug of sweat, damp wool and sour ale was to him the very epitome of hope and possible fortune.

‘You want more?’ the dealer said. He held up the knuckles with a questioning eyebrow.

‘No, no. I’m only here to repay my debts,’ Strete said with a comfortable smile.

He could feel nothing but satisfaction as he took out his new brown purse and withdrew a handful of coins. The eyes of the sailors in the room were avariciously fixed on his hand. They knew how much strong ale that handful of coins represented, and he could almost hear their minds considering his good luck in possessing so much.

As they should. These men were really contemptible. They thought they were so clever because they could sail, and they thought that the fact that they could brawl and lift heavy weights made them better than a man like him. Well, they were mad if they believed that. They called him ‘only a pissy clerk’. He’d heard them! Yes, he’d heard them. When he was unlucky and lost a little money, they were all scathing about him, as though the fact that a man made a small loss once in a while made him inferior. But at least he knew that soon his luck must change, while they only gambled because they thought they must always win. More fool them!

‘It’s enough?’

‘Yes, that covers your debt,’ the man with the knuckles declared. ‘So, you want to play again?’

‘I have work to do,’ Strete said easily. He thrust the spare coin back into his purse and, smiling, set it back dangling from his belt. ‘You carry on.’

It was in this bar that he had learned what had happened on the ship all those years ago. Danny and he had been here, and Vincent and Odo were drinking hard, back from a sailing to Guyenne for wine, when a short fight broke out. Amongst others, Vincent and Odo were ejected from the tavern. It was a regular enough event, just an average afternoon’s squabbling.

It meant nothing to Strete, and he continued drinking, watching the gambling in the corner, thinking he ought to join in, when he saw Danny’s face. ‘What is it?’

‘That noise! It’s terrible!’ The lad was petrified — literally! He was fixed there as though nailed to the floor, his face appalled.

‘What is that?’

As Strete asked, there was laughter from the roadway outside, and Vincent’s voice came loud and clear. ‘Ripe like a French whore, eh?’ and then there was a scuffle, a resounding crash, a sudden sharp scream and the noise of bare feet running. Madam Kena had been attacked by the two in the street, and it was only when Adam saw Vincent and Odo trying to hustle her into an alley that he realised what was happening. He called to some of Kena’s men who were also in the tavern, and they ran after the two, who left her and pelted away.

‘That noise,’ Danny said, white-faced. ‘They had her mouth covered!’

‘Wouldn’t want her screaming in the road, I suppose,’ Strete agreed.

‘That moaning — it sounded like the ship …’ Danny’s voice halted. It had not taken long for Strete to understand his fear. And then he had been able to capitalise on Danny’s anxiety by asking him to remain quiet until he, Strete, could speak to his master. Calling her a ‘French whore’ indeed! They shouldn’t have said that.

The man shook the knuckle bones in his hand, setting them rattling, and then threw them across the floor, and all in the room peered forward to see the score. It was a game of raffle, in which three knuckles were thrown, and if they all landed the same, or if there was a pair, the next player must throw a higher pair or trio.

‘This is ridiculous!’ Strete said to himself. He shook his head and began to leave the room, but even as he did so, he was itching to know what the man had thrown. Common sense told him to leave and return to Hawley’s house, but it surely couldn’t hurt to drink one ale with these men. They were such fools, all staring down at the knuckles. And the score was useless. The man must lose, no matter who went against him. No, it would be silly, when he’d just covered the amount he’d borrowed from his master’s chest, to run the risk of losing more. He watched as another man threw. This time the knuckles were unlucky. They did not even equal the first throw.

‘Let me show you how it’s done!’ he shouted at last.

‘Bailiff, I am happy to present you with the man you’ve been hoping to meet,’ Hawley said. His men brought in the body and set it on the floor, not gently. ‘Why it took you and that fool Sir Andrew so long to find him, I don’t know. I laid a trap and caught him. Oh, and two of the paviours who’ve been in a fight on the shore, too. They may need help.’

Simon’s brows dropped as he heard this. ‘You attacked them?’

‘No. The owner of the boat they stole to deliver these two men to the ship attacked them,’ Hawley said easily. He cocked a leg over a stool and rested his backside on the table. ‘All we did was stop the fight when the two were already still on the ground.’

‘How did you get him?’ Baldwin asked, walking around the figure lying on his back on the floor.

‘I paid the master of the ship to let my men wait there. Cynric stayed on board with them, and when this disreputable-looking fellow appeared, Cynric knocked him down and brought him to me.’

‘That easy?’

‘If you know the man to bribe, life is always that easy,’ Hawley said comfortably. ‘Do you have a pail of water?’

Simon bellowed for Rob, who soon returned carrying a leather bucket. At a nod from Simon, he up-ended it over the snoring man’s face.

There was a spluttering, and then Pierre started to roll over. He lifted himself on all fours, shaking his head and moaning softly.

The room was dark, and he could scarcely hold his head level, but where he expected the planks to move with the ship’s rolling, these felt firm. Not that it helped his head. He felt as though he had been drinking ale all evening, and his belly was unsettled. He could be sick at any moment, and then his head ached abominably too, and his eyes felt swollen and gritty, as though he had been awake too long. ‘Who has done this to a poor traveller?’ he attempted at last.