Michael Jecks - The Outlaws of Ennor

They began their return to the priory.

‘One thing,’ Simon said, ‘which I still don’t understand, is why Thomas was so keen to accuse the men here of piracy.’

William shrugged, but then cast a sharp look at Baldwin. ‘Perhaps, if you could swear, both of you, to keep this secret, I can enlighten you.’ Having received their assurances, William chuckled to himself. ‘You ask why? It’s because it takes one to recognise another. Thomas was a pirate of a sort. He would rob any man to make his money — well, in that way he was a true islander. There is not enough land here for men to make their livelihoods. They can win fish from the sea, it’s true, and they can try to farm, but there isn’t enough land. We have to import food from elsewhere all the time. And when fishermen can’t earn enough to support their wives and children, what do you expect them to do? Roll over and accept death? No, they go out and take whatever they can on the seas.’

‘So Thomas truly believed that his ship had been attacked by islanders?’

‘I expect so. Why else should he want to attack them? And he had been under pressure. His own ship was late in, and he thought that he might be financially ruined. If the islanders had taken his vessel, he thought he should get his lost goods back. That meant robbing the robbers.’

‘And David was their leader,’ Baldwin stated.

‘Yes. It was why poor Cryspyn hated dealing with him. It gave him a pain in the belly to have to deal with the man whom he knew was every day planning the destruction of ships. Yet Cryspyn had no proof with which to accuse David.’

They had reached the priory’s walls, and they stood a while under the gateway. There seemed little to say.

‘So why do you think David killed them?’ Baldwin asked.

‘That is easy. I think he suspected that Luke was having an affair with his wife, Brosia. He hated that kind of behaviour, and he distrusted other men about her. Strangely, I don’t think he ever sought to blame her for their attentions. He never realised how she tempted them.’

‘And Robert was killed for the same reasons?’ Simon guessed.

‘I think so. He was trying to climb into Isok’s bed, and David could see that as well as any of us — including Isok himself. David was proud of the people here. He would have hated to think of some foreigner — still worse the thieving gather-reeve — taking advantage of Tedia. I think he went off to the other island with the hope of scaring the man off, but then events overcame him.’

‘Mariota was there and saw it all,’ Baldwin said.

‘Yes, I daresay. I only saw Robert’s body and the figure of Cryspyn striding off through the water. I did guess that he might have been the killer, but then commonsense came back to me.’

‘In what form?’ Baldwin asked.

‘I saw David’s boat putting out from the next beach,’ William smiled.

‘I don’t understand why David put Luke in a boat and let him drift like that,’ Simon said, eyes narrowed.

‘I expect he hoped that the boat would be taken by the sea.’

‘Isok was certain that no local man would believe that the sea would do such a thing,’ Baldwin reminded him.

‘That was what he said,’ William agreed comfortably.

‘You mean he lied to me?’

‘Sir Knight, the man had a choice of slipping a noose about the neck of a friend and companion over many years; probably the man who had stopped another from cuckolding him. Yes, I think Isok guessed, and I think he was so emotional that day when we saw Luke’s body, because he feared we might otherwise guess. So he put the blame on someone who knew nothing about the currents around here. It was a shrewd throw.’

Baldwin was silent a moment. So it was not only Mariota who had sought to protect his tribe: even Isok, who was ridiculed by his own tribe, still sought to defend his folk, trying to conceal the killer from Baldwin.

Simon belched. ‘There is …’

‘Speak!’ Baldwin said.

‘I don’t understand why David killed the Prior. If he killed Cryspyn to deflect attention from himself, as though to direct all blame upon the Prior, why then did he flee the islands? Why not leave Cryspyn alive and simply bolt?’

‘Because David and Cryspyn detested each other,’ said William. ‘Cryspyn knew what sort of man David was: a pirate. David had fought against the Prior’s interference for all his tenure as reeve. This was his last cast against the man who had meddled in his affairs for so long.’

‘Does anyone on these islands stoop to telling the truth?’ Baldwin asked bitterly.

‘Yes. But only to those whom they have known all their lives. Not strangers and foreigners,’ William said pointedly.

‘They trust you. ’

William gave a wolfish smile. ‘And how do you think I come by such good quality wines?’

The decking rolled gently as they made their slow way up the northern channel from St Nicholas, through the deep water, and then started to corkscrew in earnest as they passed the northernmost tip of the islands. The shipmaster set her prow southwards as soon as he could, and the ship began her journey.

As they passed the dismal rock to the west of the islands, two figures knelt and begged on the slippery green-coloured stone. Both were bedraggled and sodden, their hands red where manacles had rubbed their wrists raw overnight, and their pleading was the more poignant for the way that they tore at their hair and begged with reedy, thin voices.

‘Aye, they won’t last above another tide,’ the master said. He was a short, hook-nosed man called Henry with an entirely bald pate and a thin scatter of black hair above his ears.

‘Poor, miserable devils,’ Baldwin muttered. ‘Give me the noose any day rather than this protracted and cruel death.’

‘Think that’s cruel? You should see some of the foreign ways of killing, Sir Baldwin,’ Henry said.

‘I have. I never thought to see their like on English soil,’ Baldwin said shortly.

‘Perhaps. But I say, they are welcome to their death. They asked for it by the way they tried to steal cargo and ships. They cost men dear in effort and treasure.’

Baldwin nodded. Henry’s tone showed his malice towards the two. Any sailor must detest pirates, but perhaps those who preyed upon their own countrymen were hated most.

‘Bastards!’ Henry muttered.

Turning away, Baldwin went to seek Simon. The cries and desperation of the two surviving Breton pirates was too heart-wrenching.

Simon was at the prow. He heard Baldwin’s steps, but didn’t turn. ‘You know, if you stand up here and keep your eyes on the horizon there, it doesn’t make you feel so sick. I could almost feel all right up here.’

‘Certainly it is preferable to being down below,’ Baldwin agreed.

‘How long will it take to sail all that way?’

‘I don’t know,’ Baldwin said. ‘The master reckoned anything from a half-day to nightfall, depending on the winds.’

‘Winds I can bear,’ Simon said sourly. ‘It’s the storms I despise.’

‘Forget such things, old friend. Concentrate on seeing your wife again,’ Baldwin said.

‘I shall. Although I still cannot forget that poor cabin-boy’s body,’ Simon said.

‘Nor me,’ Baldwin said, but for different reasons.

They had attended the church service in memory of the dead only two days after the capture of the pirates’ ship and the recovery of the Prior’s treasure. First the monks had set Cryspyn in a vault beneath the altar, showing their very genuine grief at losing so close a friend. When the rough slab had been set over him, the other bodies were taken outside. The gatekeeper and novice were buried in the monks’ own cemetery within the priory’s precinct, while the others, including Hamo, were carried out to the vill’s graveyard just outside.