Michael Jecks - The Outlaws of Ennor

No! That was surely wrong. The man was there with his boots off and his hosen too. Surely that showed that he knew there was a secret route …

There was another possibility, that Robert’s killer had chosen to attack him not because of his affair, but because he hated some other aspect of the man’s behaviour. His affair with a woman from St Nicholas was perhaps known to only a few, no matter what David had said. Yes, David had told Isok, but then, if David was the murderer, wouldn’t he have done just that, providing a perfect suspect to deflect all attention from himself?

Another thought came to him. If Robert was preparing to make his way over the bar, someone could have crept up on him when he was about to set off. Then the murderer could have been another man from Ennor. His motive? Taking over Robert’s job after his death?

They had covered more than half of the distance now, when Baldwin saw William turn eastwards and move off in a new direction. ‘Where are you going, Father?’ he asked.

‘This bar is not so certain as all that, Sir Knight! It doesn’t go in a straight line like an arrow. It goes this way now, to Bechiek, and when we arrive there, we have to take a new route from there to St Nicholas. It’s not so far.’

Baldwin slouched along behind him, loathing the feel of the water. It was all too much a reminder of his near death after the storm, and he was shocked, when he turned, to see how far from solid land he was already. The hills of Ennor were a large mass far behind him, and he could see the white lengths of the wave-tops rolling gently to the shores. He had to steel himself to continue, rather than running back to Ennor. Panic gripped him, and he walked more slowly and cautiously.

They were heading towards a small rock that jutted up ahead of them. When they got nearer, Baldwin saw that it was a sea-washed lump of some black rock, splashed with a white covering of birds’ excrement. It had an unnatural appearance, to Baldwin’s heightened alarm, like a rock that had been set here as a marker, and suddenly he stopped dead, seeing a head rise from the depths.

‘Jesus, Mary and all the saints!’ he blurted with shock and fear. ‘It’s the woman, the lady !’

William followed his pointing finger and chuckled. ‘That’s no lady, Sir Baldwin — it’s a seal. Good eating on them. Catch the pups when they’re young, and you have a pelt fit for a king, too. They’ll keep the coldest winter from you. Now, come along.’

Baldwin moved off after him, but he couldn’t help glancing back at the head in the water. It was so like the old tales of Arthur’s death, with the ghostly woman’s hand rising from the depths to take Excalibur back until Arthur should need it again, that he felt a shudder pass down his spine. That must be why the island on which Luke was found was called Arthur, he told himself. Because someone had seen this place, and knew the tale of Arthur. There was certainly an otherworldly atmosphere here. It had the feeling of death and old pains.

He was relieved to reach Bechiek as darkness began to fall. Then his relief turned to grim resolution when William smiled, and said, ‘Right! Only a short step to St Nicholas now.’

In the castle, Ranulph sat thinking long and hard, his daggers thudding into the door with monotonous regularity. He finally came to a decision. Shouting for his steward, he told him to bring Walerand to him.

‘You want to be the gather-reeve now Robert’s nailed, don’t you?’ he began.

‘If I can! I’ll be a better rent collector than him any day.’

‘If you’re serious, I have a job for you.’

‘Anything, master.’

Ranulph held up a key. ‘See this? It’s the key to the shed down at the harbour. I want you to go in there when all’s quiet and the castle’s asleep and count the tuns of wine — all of them, mind. Then come back to me tomorrow morning and tell me what’s in there.’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t look so surprised, lad. Do you know why I want to know?’

‘No.’

‘Good. See to it that you stay ignorant until I explain it all to you.’

‘Yes.’

‘And Walerand? Don’t screw up. If you are found down there and Thomas hears of it, I’ll accuse you of stealing my wine.’

Simon made his way through the hall to the bench he had started to look on as his own, but when he reached it, he saw that another had already taken it and was snoring like a peasant after a particularly good harvest. From a short look at him, Simon was quite sure that he would not be able to reason sweetly with the man, if he could wake him at all. Instead, he reached under the bench and rescued Robert’s sword.

Already up and down the hall there were men snoring fit to raise the dead at St Nicholas’s graveyard, and Simon, glancing about him, wondered where on earth Hamo had gone for his own sleep. The young fellow must be exhausted, being so young, he thought, then told himself not to be so foolish. Hamo was a sailor, as his language proved, and he was more than capable of staying awake through the night or collapsing at noon and snatching half an hour’s sleep.

Not yet ready to copy the man on his bench, Simon went to the cross passage and out into the yard. Here he saw that the moon was quite full, and he stood for a while staring up at it.

It was painfully beautiful. The stars shone with a particular clarity, and the breeze was cool but fresh with an odour of kelp from the pits not far from the shoreline. It may have been a long way away, but the smell was distinct even up here.

‘Bailiff?’ Hamo slipped around the corner of the hall, his eyes large and nervous in the flickering light of a torch over at the stables opposite. ‘I wanted to make sure you were all right.’

Simon had that guilty feeling again. The cabin-boy was plainly sad and anxious. He had no family to speak of; his only reliable relation had been his master on the Anne , but now Gervase was gone too. The lad had no one to rely on, apart from Simon. It made Simon feel bad to think of what he was going to ask him to do.

‘Did you get some …’ he began.

‘Yes,’ Hamo said, holding up a small flask. ‘Here’s the burned wine you asked for.’

‘Excellent. You go to your sleep now. I can make sure that they are saved.’

Before the castle was awake, Simon had gathered up Robert’s sword as well as his own.

The previous day Simon had bought a small cask of wine. After seeing Hamo, he went and left it outside the door to the gatekeeper’s hut, thumping on the door and beating a retreat. There was no doubt in his mind that a man who would demand a bribe to let a guest in through the gate would be more than happy to steal wine left by someone at his door — and so it proved. The kitchen, visited by Hamo, also had a useful supply of herbs and potions, as Simon had hoped. One such was Hamo’s burned wine, a potent alcoholic mixture refined from a strong wine. Simon added this into the cask. When he tried it, it tasted a little rough, but he doubted that the gatekeeper would notice.

He was right. When he returned to the hut a little after midnight, the man was snoring enough to lift the thatch from his roof. Simon entered quietly and took the keys from the man’s belt where he lay on the floor. The fellow didn’t so much as grunt. Simon was about to leave, but then he hesitated, and picked up the cup from the table. On occasion, a little vinous courage was a help.

One key, Simon knew, opened a small door near the castle’s stables, where tools were locked away to prevent peasants from stealing them. In there he soon found what he needed, a bar of steel. He took the bar with him to the castle.

The room where Sir Charles was being held was a small chamber to the north of the castle itself. There was no gaoler here. The two men were kept locked in their room with a shackle about an ankle holding each to a ring in the floor.