Michael Jecks - The Outlaws of Ennor

‘No suppose about it. The thieving bastards would take the skin off your back if they reckoned they could get away with it and make a profit.’

‘If they’re such thieves, why doesn’t Ranulph or Thomas go and keep an eye on them?’ Simon asked, unthinking.

Hamadus gave him a long and contemplative look. ‘They are the men who ordered the theft, man.’

Simon shot him a frown of disbelief.

‘Don’t believe me?’ Hamadus said without rancour. ‘Wait till you see more of the island and our master before you judge.’

‘Who actually has the power here?’ Simon asked shrewdly.

‘You are a wise man,’ Hamadus said with twinkling eyes. ‘Well now, up there,’ he pointed northwards, ‘on St Nicholas, the man who’s supposed to have the power is the Prior. After all, he’s the man put there by the Abbey in Tavistock. But there are only a few monks at the priory, and they could easily be overwhelmed by the men of the vill. St Nicholas has about fifty men at the vill and about the place, and if they refused to work and perform their labours for the priory, the priory would have to close. The man with the real power is the reeve, David, because the reeve is looked up to by all the men of the vill, and at the same time the Prior daren’t upset him, because the reeve is his ambassador in the vill. The reeve lets him know when there is a discontented feel in the air, and the Prior can put things right.’

‘Why should he wish to upset his reeve?’

Hamadus gave him a curious gaze. ‘Perhaps the Prior disapproves of some of the reeve’s activities. Even so, he doesn’t want to cause conflict. With so few monks, it would be easy to overrun the priory.’

Simon noted that he had not answered his question, but since Hamadus appeared unwilling to continue, the Bailiff nodded as though content.

‘Well,’ Hamadus continued, ‘it’s the same here. The man on top should be Ranulph de Blancminster, the Lord of the Manor and castellain. But all his business with the people here is dealt with by that lying, thieving bastard of a Sergeant. What Thomas wants, Thomas gets. He orders the men about the castle, he administers the collection of taxes, and no doubt pockets some, just as any good tax-gatherer will. He commanded the gather-reeve, poor devil, and he still commands the men-at-arms. Ranulph has little power in reality. He thinks he owns this place, but it’s his man who runs it all.’

‘Are there many villeins here?’

‘I suppose eighty or ninety families. Ennor is a good island,’ Hamadus responded.

‘And on St Nicholas the peasants are answerable to the priory, not to Ranulph?’

‘Aye. There’s little love lost between the two islands.’

‘Why is that?’

Hamadus kicked at a pebble. ‘Perhaps islanders can feel hunger and disaster more than folk on the mainland. People over there reckon a bad harvest will mean a hard winter, but they don’t know the half of it. Here, if we have a bad harvest, we starve. In winter, there aren’t the boats to bring enough food. We can’t go to the next market to demand help, we can’t walk the roads begging alms like someone from the mainland. No, if there’s not the stock put by, we go hungry. So sometimes in the past, islanders have been forced to put to sea to try to win a prize.’

‘You mean that they have turned pirate?’

‘At times. And the harvest is poor this year.’

‘Why should that mean that the two islands resent each other?’

‘Here on Ennor, Thomas and his men control the people. It’s only the folk of St Nicholas who can slip the leash when they feel they must, and who go to take Breton ships.’

Simon nodded. So that was why the Prior was annoyed with his reeve. The latter was little more than a pirate-leader, and took his friends out with him on his raids! No wonder, too, that the men of Ennor disliked their neighbours.

‘What of the death of the gather-reeve? Do you think he was corrupt?’

‘Do you know a man who pays his taxes and rents who doesn’t believe the gather-reeve is a thief?’ Hamadus chuckled with a wheeze. ‘Everyone thought he was bent.’

‘So anyone could have killed him.’

‘It’s possible,’ the old man said. ‘How much shall I help you? Put it like this, master: if a man was going to murder another with a knife in the chest, either he was trusted enough to get close to the gather-reeve, or he was an assassin, and Robert knew nothing of his approach.’

‘True enough.’ Simon wondered who was honourable here. Peasants weren’t honourable, nor apparently were Ranulph or his men. The islands seemed full of men who were happy to turn thief as soon as a battered ship appeared in sight. It was a depressing thought.

‘Cheer yourself!’ the old fisherman urged him. ‘Surely no island man would think of killing a fellow in that devious way. They’d all stand before their enemy and demand a fight; they wouldn’t slip a knife in a man’s breast as he was planning to meet his woman.’

‘His woman?’

‘A woman who lives on St Nicholas,’ Hamadus said, as though reluctantly.

‘How would he have got there?’

‘No doubt he had a boat to convey him.’

‘There was no sign of one. Perhaps his murderer took it?’

‘Perhaps.’ Hamadus was looking at him oddly, as though wondering whether to tell him more. Simon pressed him, ‘What were you doing on the night he died?’

‘I was cleaning the church. William was up on the hill with his flock, so I stayed in the church to see that it was safe.’

‘You saw nothing of this Robert?’

‘Not since that morning. He visited me to ask for more rents — but my dog persuaded him to rethink his plans!’ Hamadus wheezed with amusement.

‘I can’t think why,’ Simon said drily with a glance at the great beast.

‘Oh, he’s all right, Bailiff. It’s the animals with two legs on this island you have to worry about!’

‘So you saw no one?’

‘While in the church? No.’ Hamadus peered at Simon. ‘But perhaps when I was walking home I saw Thomas, the Sergeant. He wasn’t in the castle when night fell. He got back late, so I heard, and very wet from the storm. I wonder where he was before that? Now, I have to return to my work. Godspeed!’ Hamadus walked away with a light whistle. The dog immediately rose, moving with a lissom smoothness that was more feline than canine, and slunk around Simon to trot down the track towards La Val at the bottom of the hill.

Simon stood watching. He was not normally afraid of dogs, but that one, he confessed to himself, was enough to scare a man witless. He would hate to think of it attacking him in earnest.

Baldwin was at last forced to confess defeat. They had walked all the way along the flats while the tide retreated, resolutely ignoring Mariota’s smutty innuendo, until at last Tedia pointed.

‘Look. Now you can see the sands all the way to Ennor.’

‘It appears as though a man could walk all the way,’ Baldwin observed.

‘Yes, it does. At the lowest tide, a man might think of it,’ she explained, ‘but not now, though. The sea can always be treacherous. Sometimes a wave will come in, and then anyone out there would be washed away in moments. Then again, although it may appear that there is a solid path from here to Penn Trathen, appearances are deceptive. The water is a great deal deeper than you might expect.’

‘I have little interest in the sea for now,’ Baldwin admitted with a slight shiver. His body felt very feeble still, and after his walk about this sandy bar, he felt ready to fall to his knees, not that he would let himself do so in front of this woman. That would be a source of shame to him. He was still a knight, as he told himself.