Leacon turned to him, red-faced. ‘These churls are drinking on duty. I’m taking them to Maleverer.’ And with that he grabbed the two men by the collars and marched them away. Radwinter watched him go, smiling at his rival’s discomfiture. I shut my door before he saw me.
A ROUGH HAND, shaking me hard. I opened my eyes, blinking. Someone holding a lamp. My cabin door was open. Outside, voices were murmuring excitedly. I sat up, and found myself looking into Maleverer’s grim face. In the shadows behind him I saw Barak in his shirt, his hair tousled.
‘Wake up!’ Maleverer snapped his fingers angrily in my face. ‘Come on! Get up!’
I rose to my feet. In the doorway I saw Giles, clutching blankets around his big form and looking bemused, and Tamasin with Barak’s coat draped round her. Maleverer turned and shouted at them and the other people who had wakened and come into the corridor.
‘Get back to bed!’ he bawled. ‘I’ll have the lot of you arrested!’
‘What is this commotion?’ Giles asked, a new querulousness in his voice.
‘Come back to bed, Master Wrenne,’ Tamasin said. She took his arm and led him away. Other doors closed. Barak alone stayed in the doorway. Maleverer turned back to me.
‘You spoke to Broderick yesterday,’ he rasped. ‘What did he say to you?’
My heart jumped as I remembered Broderick’s words: you could have been one of us. I think you may be yet. ‘I – nothing of note,’ I said. ‘I tried to question him about Jennet Marlin but he made no answer, as usual. What has happened?’
‘I’ll show you. Come with me.’
He shouldered his way out of the cabin. I got up; fortunately I had gone to bed in my shirt and hose. ‘What is it?’ I asked Barak.
‘I don’t know. I was woken up by voices and footsteps down there.’ He nodded down the corridor to Broderick’s cell. To my surprise the door was ajar. Radwinter sat slumped on the floor outside, his head in his hands, Sergeant Leacon standing over him.
‘Here!’ Maleverer called. I followed him reluctantly down the corridor. He threw open the door of Broderick’s cell and stood aside. Barak had followed me; I felt warmed by the fact he was still loyal.
The cell was one of the larger rooms, a bunk against each wall and some space between. In that space Broderick hung from the ceiling. He was bare to the waist; his shirt had been twisted into a thick length of material and one end slung over a large beam. The other end had gone round his neck. He was dead, his body swinging in the light swell, the chains that bound his arms and legs making a slight rattle. His feet hung two or three inches above the floor. If he had been any taller he could not have done it in the low cabin. His eyes were closed and his head was bent over at a sickening angle. I looked away from his emaciated, lacerated chest. ‘Dear God.’ I looked at Maleverer. ‘How -’
‘The soldiers got drunk. Leacon brought them to me and I sent them to sleep it off. They’ll suffer later. He and Radwinter were left alone to guard Broderick. Later Leacon came to me to discuss what was to be done with the soldiers. When he came back Radwinter was lying on the ground by the bench. Radwinter says someone knocked on the door. When he stepped out he saw no one there, then someone struck him from behind, knocked him out, stole his keys, then unlocked the chains and killed Broderick.’ He stepped over to Radwinter, who looked up at him. He seemed stunned, confused. Ironically, that made him look normal, human, for the first time since I had known him.
‘Couldn’t he have killed himself?’ I asked.
‘No.’ Maleverer almost snarled. He had lost his prisoner, this would go hard for him. ‘Look at his wrists, they’re manacled together behind him, there’s only six inches of chain between them. Broderick was manacled if ever he was left alone, precisely so he could not harm himself. Someone helped him to this. They tied the rope to the rafter, helped Broderick to stand on the bed, got the rope round his neck. Then he jumped.’
I nodded. ‘Yes.’ I made myself look at the body again. ‘And his helper pulled on his feet when he was dangling, to break his neck and stop him from strangling slowly. They were merciful. They helped him kill himself. He did it after all.’ I looked at Broderick’s face again. It was turned slightly away, his expression oddly peaceful. At last he had shut us all out, for ever.
‘Radwinter’s story doesn’t add up, to me,’ Maleverer said, glowering down at the gaoler. ‘He says he was hit on the head from behind but I see no mark of a blow.’ He addressed Radwinter. ‘I am placing you under arrest for the murder of your prisoner. And by God, when we get to London we will find out why, one way or another.’
Radwinter stared up at him, then let out a terrible sound, somewhere between a screech and a moan. Maleverer nodded to Leacon. ‘Lock him up, then take the body down. And by Jesu, you and your men will have to make answer too, for this mess.’ Maleverer turned to me. ‘So that’s it,’ he hissed. ‘The last chance of finding out more about the conspirators. Gone!’
But it had not been Radwinter, I was sure. Maleverer merely needed a culprit and he had found one. I realized something that set my heart hammering against my ribs. I had been right that it was not Jennet Marlin who had knocked me out at King’s Manor. It was someone else. They were on this ship, and now they had helped Broderick die.
Chapter Forty
BAD WEATHER HIT US next morning, rain and wind and heavy seas that had the passengers retching all over the ship. After lunch the rain stopped, and I came up and sat alone on the bench on deck, looking out at the heaving grey wastes of the German Ocean. Mountainous seas heaved and rolled, giant waves capped with white foam, the sky only slightly less dark than the sea. I watched a herring gull swoop above the water. How did they survive out here, I wondered.
I had felt a need to be alone, to get away from the shocked, anxious atmosphere that Broderick’s death and Radwinter’s arrest had created below decks. I could not rid myself of the memory of Broderick’s face, turned away as he swung gently. I wondered how God would judge him; suicide was a great sin but Broderick had only anticipated and eased his passage to death. And I had been, however reluctantly, an agent of those who had abused him so that killing himself with another’s help was the only way left. I had come to admire him, for all that his intensity had sometimes frightened me.
I looked down the deck, beyond the billowing sails, to where the captain was running between the sailors, shouting and looking over the side. I wondered if something was wrong. I turned as the hatch to the lower decks banged open and Barak, swathed like me in a heavy coat, emerged and came over, grasping at the rails as the ship bucked and heaved. He sat beside me.
‘How is Master Wrenne?’ he asked.
‘Still in bed. He says he’s all right, but he looks weak to me. I worry this voyage may be too much for him.’
Barak sighed. ‘He’ll make it or he won’t. There’s not much we can do. Poor old arsehole.’ We were silent a moment as he looked down the deck to where the captain was still pacing. ‘There’s a problem with the rudder. They think they’ve broken a pintail, it’s some sort of a bolt.’
I looked at him. ‘Serious?’
‘It needs attending to. We’re putting in at Ipswich now. We’ll be later than ever, just when we’ve got a favourable wind. The sailors are even more convinced this voyage is cursed.’
‘Sailors are a superstitious lot. What day is it? I lose track.’
‘October twenty-third. We’ve been out seven days already. The sailor said Rich is furious, he’s going to leave the ship at Ipswich and ride back to London.’
‘The King will be back before us at this rate. Though with Broderick dead I suppose that matters little now.’
He nodded, screwing up his eyes against the spray as a large wave crashed over the side of the boat. I looked at him. ‘Thank you for standing by last night,’ I said.