Michael Jecks - The Outlaws of Ennor

‘It can be,’ Cryspyn said, as though reading his mind. ‘But when it’s over a woman, the crime is doubly terrible. I killed him just because he had … won her.’

Baldwin studied him dispassionately. Cryspyn did indeed look guilty, as though this murder was weighing upon him. ‘A man who kills because another has stolen his wife … it is understandable.’

‘She was not my wife, Sir Baldwin. Only a woman whom I adored. I had thought she was perfection, and I even considered taking her and running. Consider! I was prepared to leave the Church, renounce my oaths, and live as a felon with her.’

‘What happened?’

‘I heard that she had already taken another man. At first I didn’t believe it, but then I laid a trap for her. I waited in her chamber, resolved to offer myself to her, and if she refused me, I thought I would run away. But when she entered the room, she wasn’t alone. While I watched, he and she … did as a man and woman will. So I took my sword, and I killed him.’

The simple restatement did not do the scene justice, he thought. That terrible headless body marching towards him like a devil’s plaything, then stumbling and falling against him, the penis still erect, he afterwards recalled, the arms reaching as though to clutch at his own life, the blood springing up and blinding him. And he knew that he had lost her for ever.

The long, long months of a penitent’s cell, the shame of the Bishop’s court, and finally the sailing boat which had brought him here. All were so clear in his mind. It still seemed strange and marvellous that any acquaintance of the Abbot’s should not have known of his crime.

‘What happened to the lady?’

‘Sara went on to become a nun until she died,’ Cryspyn said sadly. ‘I killed him with my sword, but I fear that I inflicted a worse wound on her. It turned her mind completely.’ He sighed. ‘So that is why I am here. Men like Luke and me are sent here because of our sins.’

Simon had risen now, and genuflected before the altar as Baldwin asked quietly, ‘What of William? Has he also committed a grave sin?’

‘Why no, I do not think so. I believe he adored these islands when he once came to visit, and chose to remain.’

‘Really?’ It was odd that all the other members of the community, from what Cryspyn implied, should have been sent here because of some crime they had committed, and William alone was innocent. He resolved to speak to the elderly priest again.

Isok was preparing his boat for departure when she found him.

‘Isok? I am sorry. Truly sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault, is it?’ he said as he loaded the water into the boat. ‘God didn’t want us to be together, and that’s all there is to it.’

‘I wanted you, you know that, don’t you? I’m so sorry all this has happened.’

‘But being sorry didn’t stop you cuckolding me, did it?’ he demanded harshly, stopping a moment and staring at her. The blush was all he needed as confirmation. ‘So, that’s all there is to say.’

‘It’s not all my fault!’ she asserted. ‘What of you? You never told me that you’d never managed to lie with a woman before.’

‘Some people aren’t fornicators,’ he said coldly.

She looked away. ‘What will you do now?’

‘I will go away,’ he said, staring out to sea. ‘I’ll find peace somewhere.’

‘But how? Do you have the Prior’s permission to leave his demesne?’

‘No. So you can go and tell him, if you want. Tell him to kill me to punish me and keep me here.’

‘I wouldn’t do that.’

‘No. You’d only betray me to men with ballocks, wouldn’t you?’ he said nastily.

She hung her head. Then looked up resolutely. ‘First …’

‘What?’ he demanded.

She was fearful, he saw, and licked her lips nervously. ‘Just this … Isok, tell me, truthfully, did you murder him?’

‘Who, Luke?’ he sneered. ‘The pretty fellow was killed by the pirates, wasn’t he? Wasn’t that what the good Prior said?’

‘Not him. You know who I mean.’

‘Oh, your tax-collector? You know, it’s a shame you sank that low. Not many women would have done so. Most would have been happy with a scavenger, or a shit-collector, but not someone who steals what we all earn.’

‘He wasn’t like that.’

‘No? What — so the stories about him murdering a man are untrue?’

‘He did it to save another. He told me. He said that the only people he had killed were those he had fought in order to protect others. He wasn’t evil.’

‘Really?’

‘So — did you kill him?’

‘No.’ He stopped his work and stared at her. ‘I’d feel better if I had, but no. You may like to think about that after I’ve gone. You’ve lost me, your lover’s dead, and the murderer’s still here somewhere. Think on that!’

She stood aghast with clenched fists while he pushed his boat out to sea, then sprang aboard, and she was still standing there when his boat disappeared around the northern rocks of the channel. When she looked down, she saw that her nails had stabbed deep marks in her palms.

Simon was unable to concentrate at the table. His stomach, for once, had betrayed him. The foods laid out so temptingly for them all were unappealing. All he could see as the others ate, was the slight, battered form lying so still in the church, the nervous smile forever dimmed. He reached for the jug of wine more regularly as the meal progressed, letting the wash of wine through his belly warm him in a way that the food could not.

In celebration of the victory over the pirates, the Prior had brought out the choicest titbits from his undercrofts. In reality these were few, but those about his table had not been in a position to enjoy good food for some days. Simon saw that Baldwin was eating sparingly as usual, but Sir Charles, on the Prior’s left hand, was grabbing at everything that passed within reach. Paul was sitting farther down the table with some monks, where they shared four to each mess bowl, but up on the top table, Sir Charles, Baldwin and Simon had one bowl per pair. Simon was supposed to share with William, but the priest had no more appetite than Simon. The Prior himself had a small plate of bread and plain meats to himself, and he dabbed at his face with a linen cloth, concealing his little burps and coughs.

Simon could feel Baldwin’s eye upon him occasionally, but he paid no heed to the conversation that flowed about the table. All he knew was an enveloping misery that felt like a premonition of some kind.

It was only when Sir Charles sat back with a contented belch that rumbled in his throat like water sinking down a pipe, that Baldwin asked, ‘How many knew of the sands which connect the islands?’

‘Almost everyone here, and most peasants elsewhere. It’s only the men at La Val who knew nothing of them,’ Cryspyn said.

‘Curious that they could be kept secret from the men at Ennor.’

‘Most of them would be pressed to find their arses with both hands,’ William grunted.

‘Perhaps, but some are intelligent enough,’ Baldwin said musingly. ‘I should like to speak to the Sergeant of Ennor, Thomas. And to David and Isok as well.’

‘Why?’ the Prior asked as he motioned to his steward to remove the emptied bowls.

‘Because surely one of them can help us to learn who was the murderer of Robert the gather-reeve. His death troubles me. I cannot see why he should have been killed. And to be stabbed in the back without defending himself … there is something peculiar about this.’

‘What is peculiar?’ William asked. ‘The man was a hated rent-collector. Anyone would have shoved a dagger in his back and thought it a good deed.’

‘I find it hard to believe that Luke was killed by pirates, either,’ Baldwin continued as though William had not spoken. ‘I did think that he had died because the pirates wanted to conceal their hiding-place, and knowing that there was a priest there might have given them a problem. They could have killed him just to hide their presence. Certainly they were more than capable of murdering him, but something about it strikes me as odd.’