Michael Jecks - The Outlaws of Ennor

Sir Charles offered up a prayer of thanks as he rubbed salt-sore eyes and stretched, feeling the torn and bruised muscles all along his back and flank. At his side, his squire snored loudly. Paul could sleep through a massed charge of chivalry, Sir Charles sometimes thought.

An entirely secular man, Sir Charles dealt with life as he found it, which meant that he tended to look upon all individuals as potential enemies or friends. He had been a loyal companion to his master, Earl Thomas of Lancaster, but Earl Thomas had died when he was captured at Boroughbridge, executed by a King jealous of his power. The Earl had dared to oppose King Edward II and subsequently paid the price, along with many of his companions.

Only good fortune had saved Sir Charles and Paul. They had not been at that fateful battle, and therefore had time to flee before the King arrived to exact vengeance on any he considered disloyal or treasonous. The two had taken ship to France, and then took up a life of adventure until their money had run out and they were forced to join the company of a fellow from Portugal. Travelling with him to Compostela and then on to Tomar in Portugal, they had met Sir Baldwin and threw in their lot with him.

A great shame that he was gone, Sir Charles thought to himself. Hearing a hoarse shout, he glanced about him.

The ship’s mast was a broken, splintered stump; ropes lay scattered about the decking, mingling with pieces of timber and strips of ripped sailcloth. On his left, where the hull had ended in a thick beam of oak and small rail, there was a ragged, gaping void. The mast top had fallen here, shearing through the wood like a razor through parchment. On the torn deck boards, there was a dark stain. That was where a sailor had been standing when the mast fell. Sir Charles eyed it with a certain surprise. He would have expected the waves and rain to have washed it away. Not far from the stain was Gervase. The master was breathing very shallowly, his features extremely pale and grey, lips blue, and all about him there was a thin smearing of blood. His hands were reddened claws that clung to his belly as though they clung to life itself. In a way, Sir Charles thought that they probably did. The poor devil clearly had little time left.

Used to warfare, and experienced in all the different forms of death, Sir Charles was nonetheless drained after last night. Fighting men was very different from battling the elements, withstanding wind and waves in their relentless efforts to smash and destroy all in their path. The realisation that God could have sent such a storm was fearful to a man. It made him realise his own puny frailty compared with His power.

‘They thought you’d sink, didn’t they?’ he muttered to the Anne , patting the mast’s stump. ‘Simon and the others, they reckoned you’d fail and go to pieces. Shit on a plate! I thought it myself! If I’d the brains to have learned to swim, I’d have done as the Bailiff did and jumped overboard. A man doesn’t sit on the field of battle waiting for the enemy to finish him off. If he’s got half a brain, he finds a horse and bolts. But if you can’t swim, you can’t escape a sinking ship.’

That was the reason why he was still here, but it was also why the master and two others were with him. None of them could swim, so they had chosen to remain, praying that they might be spared, and not long after Simon and the others had jumped, the storm had begun to abate somewhat.

A sailor, one of the two who had remained with Sir Charles, was pointing northwards and saying something. Standing, Sir Charles was astonished to see that only a few miles from them there was a group of islands.

He gaped in wonder. Being no poet, he could find no words to express his feelings, but he was thrilled enough to offer up a short prayer of thanks. The islands gave the impression of security and beauty, set here in this sparkling ocean as though God had singled out this little area for his best and most detailed experiment. Spray was thrown up over a rock, and Sir Charles admired the spume like one befuddled by drugs. It was astonishingly lovely.

Then he saw the little armada which was heading towards them. The sailor saw it at the same time, and Sir Charles heard him swear. The sailor was staring with suspicion in his dark eyes, although Sir Charles could not understand why. He walked over to him. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘We’re sitting on top of tuns of wine and other merchandise.’ The man jerked his chin at the armada. ‘I just hope they won’t try to pretend that there were no survivors on this old tub so that they can take the lot.’

Sir Charles gave a smile. His friends knew that smile and recognised the danger in it: he had no living enemies who had ever witnessed that smile. Those who had seen it were dead. The sailor knew nothing of this: he saw only a knight who appeared to be laughing at him, and he walked away irritably. It was bad enough having to worry about the thieving devils approaching, without having a stuck-up, landlubber of a knight sneering at him.

Walerand strolled through the gates to the castle with the pair of boots he had found slung over his shoulder. He made straight for the little hall where Thomas worked.

The Sergeant’s room was small and uncluttered. Thomas had a trestle-table at one end, in front of a tapestry which showed a hunting scene. The picture was somewhat spoiled by a thick, dark stain all along the left-hand side, but Walerand didn’t care. It was just a piece of material to him, its only purpose to show a visitor that the man who worked here in this room was important and could afford expensive things. Not that he could, necessarily; the tapestry, as Walerand knew, was one item from a ship which had sunk offshore a while ago.

‘What do you want?’ Thomas snapped. ‘Haven’t you ever been told to knock before entering?’

He was dressed in his usual uniform of crimson tunic over a linen shirt, and greying hosen, much stained and worn. When he went out, he tended to throw on a clean tunic that hid the worst of his hosen, but in the hall, he wasn’t so bothered.

Walerand skirted the small brazier in the middle of the room. In front of Thomas, he let the boots slip down his arm until they fell on the table-top. ‘Thought you’d like to see these.’

‘A pair of boots?’ Thomas asked coldly. He was holding a reed in his hand, trying to add up a series of figures.

Walerand was clearly unworried by his hostility. There was something in his face that made Thomas look more closely at the boots. The leather was quite good. They could have belonged to any of the men-at-arms in the castle. Himself, even. ‘Well?’ he demanded.

‘His body lies not far from where I found these,’ Walerand said smugly.

‘Whose body?’

‘Robert’s. You need a new gather-reeve.’

Thomas’s eyes glittered angrily.

‘He’s out up at Penn Trathen.’

Thomas stared down at the boots. Then: ‘You murdering …’ he spluttered. ‘Do you mean to tell me …’

Walerand hastily held up a hand. ‘Not me! Someone else killed him. It was last night, maybe. He felt cold enough.’

Thomas hesitated. He himself had been out last night. Anyone who asked the gatekeeper would soon learn that Thomas did not get back to the castle until late.

‘Send a man for Ranulph, go to the nearest households and demand that they go to Penn Trathen immediately for an inquest, and then meet me back here,’ he rapped out.

He watched Walerand as he strolled from the room. No matter what, Thomas was resolved that none of the blame for this death would adhere to him .

Thomas had not needed to ask how Robert had died. No gather-reeve to a master like Ranulph de Blancminster would ever live to an old age. The man had surely been murdered.